The Hangout – Part 1

wagon set up

on a corner after Labor cut to everyone. Welcome to the Hangout. So this is a new podcast that we're going to be hosting on here at column. It's been a long time coming, basically myself, and we started Murphy who's on here. You'll be hearing from him in a bit. We have a lot of regular conversations, obviously, day in day out.

Just personal conversations, I guess what you can call professional conversations, religious, spiritual, social discussions all the time. And one of the things that we've thought about for quite some time is to have a podcast where we share some of those conversations with you all. So since this is the very first episode, I thought I would just kind of give you an explanation as to what exactly you're listening to because particularly if you are a listener of the podcasts a subscriber to our alum podcast, and if you're not, then you need to be

you know, you're used to hearing basically what are essentially lectures to see at all podcasts with myself lives of the prophets with Mufti Kimani and a lot of other stuff and hamdulillah. But this probably is kind of strange, kind of out of the blue where I'm just talking to y'all. So I thought I'd give you a little explanation. That's basically what's going to be happening, just different conversations that relate to our lives, our communities, our Deen our world that we live in. So since this is the very first episode, I thought I'd kind of fill you all in on what's going on. And let's get started. Yeah, and just to give you an idea, we were gonna call it the nobody cares

podcast, because like, we don't take ourselves too seriously. And because I'm eating pineapple while we're talking, and nobody cares. I always thought the Arabic word for pineapple is kind of weird. And on us, I am people.

Putting the emphasis on the wrong side. Yeah. Oh my god, I think I'm choking on pineapple. That's like the most like ignorant Arabic thing.

It's just one of those dumb puns. But yeah, so the nobody cares podcast. The reason why, you know, we were going to call it that in the first place was because we don't take ourselves too seriously. And also, um, you know, a lot of times people sort of get caught up in discussions and sort of like these really esoteric debates online and things like that. And yeah, and we just, basically, and we just wanted to, and we just

just ruining it. And we just wanted to sort of like kind of shed light. A lot of people actually asked me, you know, what's it like hanging out with Jehovah Nasir? And it's such a weird, Yeah, I know. Those you can see cuz you're listening to a podcast. He just like did a double take. It is weird. But you know, a lot of people ask. And so we thought the Hangout would be an appropriate term, because we're not anybody special. We just want everyone to come hang out with us and listen in on some conversations that we have. So we were going to do like, initially, we were going to do some like introduction type episode, but we thought that'd be kind of strange. You'll probably just

get to know us through the podcast. So at some point, we'll just part of the conversation might be might involve elements of our personal journeys, our personal stories. Yeah, yeah. Like your pineapple. And your struggle with eating pineapple. While being on a microphone. Yeah. But the so one of the things that we wanted to talk about, you know, Today is October 20, something 26 I think, yeah. 26. So, one of the things I thought that would be relevant, you know, because this is something that we deal with a lot. You know, I serve as a sort of associated mom, not sort of I do services associated mom and a couple of communities here, you obviously, we're a formal mom. And now

you're kind of just like this Dallas II Mom, where you do stuff all over the place, all over Dallas, as well as run the seminary here on M and X amount of things. But we got a lot of questions regarding like family culture, living in America, and we're just a few days away from the Shay. greatest day of the year Shaykh Abdul Hakim quicks video where he talks about the pagan origins of Halloween, right, and the accompanying tech fear being made on anybody who hands out candy, and I'll be honest with you shake, just a few years ago, I myself was somebody who was very vehement in my sort of opposition of Halloween and sort of things like that. And that's not to say that now I've

seen the light and I'm somehow you know, different or more enlightened, but I I was making fun at sort of like the way people interpret it or establish a ruling on it, but I myself was of that group.

But again, as you get older, sort of things change. And I think that that's something that a lot of people are embarrassed to admit. But as you get older, you sort of

Maybe become more mature or you ripe in your understanding your your wisdom increases. And that's not to say that I'm like, you know gonna be trick or treating myself this year just wearing a giant white sheet. Ghost. The Ghost of Halloween passed, but some thoughts on Halloween. I know you were talking to the students yesterday about it. First of all, I'm gonna go as a pain Do

you mean a panda? A Panda Panda Panda? Exactly. This is a guy who just walks around burping dressed up in a panda of it.

So you grew up in Arlington, Texas, yes, very strong, let's say conservative Arab community. And what I mean by that is, you know, obviously maybe a little bit more selfie leaning. Yeah. And it was a suburban community. The the Quran and Sunnah society started here. Yeah, but on kiss crunchiness society started here. Isn't that just Islam Carlson?

Isn't that Muslim society?

But yeah, it's an interesting place. Even, you know, socioeconomically, it started off as a college town, University of Texas at Arlington, where the UT System kind of they really placed a lot of their engineering schools out here. So it was really known for its engineering department.

So obviously, because it was known for its engineering department, there were tons of brown people here, everybody,

all market, all of India and Pakistan basically migrated here.

Engineers and airlifted hydro, any books on Indians that couldn't become doctors became engineers. So, and also my dad, my dad is nice. But um, yeah, so they, so that that's kind of the makeup of the community. And then, at some point in time, there was kind of like this interesting infusion of Islamic, a particular type of ideology in Islamic thought it was very socially conservative, very kind of rigid. Do you mean by socially conservative, socially conservative that

it's always better to call it hot and then call it holla? So here's a question like, isn't that in some, like, you know, and like, what are like these, these terms that we learn to translate for the listeners, like if the author's like caution, right, they translate it because what is like piety? Right, you know, cautious piety. Yeah, isn't that praiseworthy? I mean, when it comes to, you know, when it comes to personal life? Oh, okay. Good. It's great in your personal life. It's fantastic. It's like It's like dieting like I you know, I just started I just kind of got back on the train and you've been on it for a while. Yeah, exactly. It's like this very hungry angry train.

Eating lettuce all day. That just eats like, like goat food.

Does eating grass all day but you know when you have two movies wanting

but yeah, when you're you know dieting. So for right now. piety or precaution I guess better word precaution. on my part, having put on some extra pounds is not eating rice and bread and cutting out sugar. Okay, but I can't call it harm. I can't like walk around slapping rice out of people's hands. I can't, I can't like see my son eating like a piece of bread and go and just start beating him up for eating bread. Right. I mean, he's, he's not eating a battery. He's eating bread. Yeah, you know, so that's the deal. And so that's Yeah, precautions fantastic. You said eating battery to comfortably hasn't happened.

It just popped into my head. I had this mental image, childhood memories.

So socially conservative. And now we just established I guess what we would call like personal personal concern. My own personal piety. You know the difference? I've also heard use the word taqwa and fatwa, right, the idea of like, what's legal threats? What, what's what's community communally obligated in terms of federal law? And what is personally, uh, you know, sort of being held to a standard personal standard. So you you are in a community where we're, let's say, socially conservative with me when a person takes what should be personal. Yeah. And projects it Yeah, basically. So I don't want to television my home because it's just a lot of garbage on TV. It's just

a waste of their there is Oh, yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. I know, I know, some very smart people who aren't religious at all, a lot Muslim, not Christian, not Jewish, not nothing. very secular. They're not very religious at all. But they're, like super intellectual. They're professors and PhDs. And they're really into education and things like that. And they don't have television in their home. And the reason why they don't have a television in their home is because they just feel like it's a waste of time. It makes you dumb, all this kind of stuff. So I have a friend who has a PhD in education, and was a principal of a school and runs a school now, and

you know, she doesn't have a television and she's got Mashallah beautiful family, great kids, does have a TV in our home. So

So yeah, but that's, that's a personal thing. But the second I started going up to the member and start going to the community and start kind of pulling up to people's homes and putting out like, yeah, putting out putting a baseball bat. Yeah, putting putting emails out into the community about how TVs hot. Um, there's a big difference between those two things. Okay. humongous. And like, so obviously, the obvious question is, like, do we have an example of this? Because Because I think a lot of times what ends up happening with religious scholarship is they give like, out of good, out of good intention, concern they give what they think to be, like really beneficial for the

community. And what you're seeing right now may actually shock a lot of people, right. Um, but obviously, we have to make sure we tie it to something like we can't just have these religious proclamations and not from, you know, the religion of us who are brought into the society. Right. So what like, did the Prophet Sultan have an example where he did more than he told people to do? Absolutely. And what's really, really fascinating about that is that there's a couple of different variations, where he uses very clear verbiage that communicates that he says Lola and Shaka Allah amati, Amar, Tomasi, wackier in the coalition. Yeah, that if I didn't want to make my own, because

if it was not for making their lives extremely difficult, I would have commanded them made it mandatory upon them that they had to do so walk out every single prayer time. He said the same thing about the night prayers as well. So he clearly had an eye prayers. Like, he showed up the Allahu taala. And he talks about how the promises have never left, never abandoned. The night prayers, like he never missed a single night. But he never mandated it on every single person. And then also, there's the, like, the concept of him saying, I was at the salon, that I would have commanded it. That's showing us that he does it. Yeah, exactly. Cuz he's not gonna command something he doesn't

do. Right. And I mean, she she says that I couldn't count how many times in a day I saw him doing miswak Wow. But he never commanded it to me even on his deathbed. exactly when he couldn't do it him. So like you pointed at when Abdurrahman the son of Abu Bakr radiallahu came to check because I was taking care of the prophet SAW some and he pointed out his shirt, because you couldn't even talk at that point. He was the last few moments of his life. And he had a brand new miswak kind of tucked into his shirt. And he pointed at it and she asked for it. And she kind of peeled it. And, you know, before us a miswak kind of the stick. Yeah, you got to kind of chew it up and loosen up the

bristles. Yeah. So his mouth was so dry. She basically did it. And then she was able to kind of like, pass it over his teeth, because she knew that that's something that he preferred to do.

And it's actually kind of on a side note, it's a really beautiful thing because he used to do it before he prayed. Which was him talking to a lot. So him wanting to do it at that moment was because he was leaving just like we take breath mints now. Yeah, or something like that. Yeah. Okay. So there is something tying us down to this idea or concept that you can do things for yourself, right? You can hold yourself to a higher standard, right? That's not legally mandated on the rest of the Muslim ummah. Not at all. Okay, so now let's go back to Arlington, Texas, right. So socially conservative. It's a place that unfortunately had a little bit of this going on, we have a lot of

projection, not what did that do, by the way to the community? Like what did that do? Oh, no. What did it do to the community?

So this is where we insert crying face. Yeah, exactly. The crying emoji. Do you want tissue? No, it's just

so the community wasn't really huge. So my generation obviously was a lot smaller in number.

But the majority of them if you understand percentages, because if I gave you a number like eight guys, you'd be like, okay, that's only a dudes out of like, 100 right, but that's eight out of 10 for us. Oh, wow.

So laughing stops Yeah, that's serious. The vast overwhelming majority ended up

really, really jaded, disenfranchised, disenchanted with just Islam altogether. And this isn't like a saying like, Oh, these are non love. Like that's not that's not anyone's goal. I think there's this huge misconception that even like people have this idea that like our goal or the goal of every mom is to make every person like a half of this like honorable without like this like incredibly aesthetic person who like curses, decorations in the masjid and things like we're I think our goal as a community is just to have one level on his messenger Absolutely. And live life sort of reflecting that because we all struggle. Yeah. So what you're saying now is these guys won't even

like forget, you know, Mashallah yourself took the course of scholarship. They weren't even like coming to the masjid for Juma. No, I mean, any not even Ramadan. No, and I'm talking about even further out. Oh, okay. where many of them just decided to deliberately live a very counter what I would call a counter Islamic

Make anti spiritual lifestyle just resentful just yeah angry resentful.

And when I kind of took the path that I did, which was nothing special was just me wanting to study for myself

but a lot of them just kind of like even resented me. Oh just because what you represent it what I represent because I represented that Well, I mean, let's let's take a break here and you memorize the Quran at 10 right? Mashallah or eight inshallah, inshallah it's already it already happened

Mashallah eight or 10 it was eight, right 1010 Okay. 10 I just want to let the listeners know just just the environment, you listen, you're coming to hang out with us, right? Let me let me open up a little bit. Sure. I have an author martial art memorized at age 10. And I think he I asked him one time how long it took him to memorize the Quran because like, obviously, finishing memorizing the crown is a goal for a lot of us. Even just memorizing regularly in general. So that's a shame. That's awesome. 10 years old. Wow. When did you start like seven, eight, you know, because I think the shortest I've ever heard was under a year and he said, Oh, when did I start? I said, Yeah, he

said 10 I said, but you said you finished when you were 10 he goes hamdulillah

and so you know what? I don't know if I find it that difficult. There is no just yet. Right? So So you were you were on that path early? Yeah. And you were known you were leading thought all we had like 13 Yeah. Okay, so I colleyville mustard. Yeah, hollywood mustard. Mashallah.

So you were involved? Your dad got you involved really early. So these guys start to resent you a little bit. Yeah. I mean, we eventually connected and reconciled and it took it actually took me being very, like really, really going out of my way to just kind of reach out to people to talk to them be like, hey, just want to catch up. So he said I'm, and some of them would kind of test kind of like almost kind of like test me a little bit. So I remember one of the guys asked me to meet him at this.

It was kind of like

yeah, it wasn't, it wasn't totally a bar. But it was like a very college kind of where there's big TVs. So sports are on there's pool tables. There was a bar in the corner, but he told me to kind of like meet him there. Okay. And I kind of like walked in. And I, I didn't hang out for a long time. But I just just me just showing up just to kind of say hi Salaam to him, and just kind of being like, Hey, listen, I'm kind of busy. I gotta run. So because I didn't want to hang out in a bar. So. But just the fact that I was willing to go there to say, what's up to him? Yeah, was his way of kind of testing that. You're not calling me just to tell me how terrible of a human being is no agenda?

Exactly. Yeah. So it had a really, really detrimental effect. Man, people left the masjid. we've counted in years.

There being about 50 people who converted to Islam, who then and again, we don't know, to what extent we hope not completely, but through their own public proclamations and now Facebook and things like that. 50 people who had embraced Islam who then left Islam, and a lot, hopefully just in one suburb, hopefully what the goal is, I mean, that's obviously like the with the damage control goal is that they just left the community. Yeah, that's it. And they still have beliefs, you know. But

so one of the things I think that's, you know, very, very interesting is that there's this sort of sense of community, and then one or two people, literally, it could be like any mom, it could be a board member can ruin it for everybody. Everybody know, there's like hundreds of people, potentials that are there willing to help support because people, we're communal beings, we want to be around each other. We want to hang out, but simply with a culture that can be offset by one or two people, it could really ruin it. And you know, it can be the rogue preacher. It can be the rogue volunteer. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And I mean, I came across that term, one of our buddies and friends of mine, he

shared with me because he kind of like, keeps an eye on a lot of this interesting type of stuff. And he sent me one time an article from a Christian blog about churches and some of the dynamics in churches. And he's like, read this. This sounds like you're talking about the uncle from the masjid. Like just a general title, the uncle from the masjid or everyone's got that uncle. Exactly. And it was out of town because by the way,

it was it was called rogue volunteer. Oh, I and it was basically about the the guy the board member, the volunteer the committee, brother.

And equally I'm kind of throwing in there can be rogue preachers as well. Yeah, absolutely. That they just go rogue. And then you basically end up in this predicament.

My big what, what I feel like was a huge personal victory for me was my dad is an older, you know, immigrant.

Kind of very traditionally oriented like the way he learned really

And kind of the people he learned it from us later in life when I was a kid, but still he learned it from a very traditional perspective.

And so he always had kind of this apprehension about, we can't tell we can't kind of like tell somebody not to come to the masjid. We can't kind of push somebody away from the machine. Nobody. How old was your dad when he when he really became engaged? Yeah, it was in his well into his 30s. Like self motivated, looks very self motivated. So it was just kind of like, even when a volunteer kind of goes rogue and, you know, we kind of say you got to move in. You got to shut that guy down. Yeah, got to tell him Hey, listen, you gotta chill. All right, you got to take it easy. Or else we might just have to ask you to just take your act elsewhere. Yeah, I'm not so rather sacrifice one

then three. Exactly. And you're you had a really funny story once you told about your dad, that he became a little bit frustrated with you guys like in his first year or so practicing? Yeah, like the rest of the family wasn't following suit or something. There was a there was a huge scholar in Pakistan. Named Mufti Xena lobby Dean Ramallah hotel, I had an opportunity to meet him while I was still pretty young. So my dad just was very, you know, everyone's kind of got like an, like an island or a chef that they feel very connected to. Yeah, that was a person my father felt extremely connected to. And so he went to go visit him. And he kind of told him, he's like, in almost the sob.

Here's the situation. I'm kind of a year or so ago, I got kind of got practicing and trying to get my family into it. And they're not really keeping up with me. They're not keeping pace with me, you know, wanting to go to the machine three times a day and wanting to do this wanting to do that. And he kind of looked at my dad, and he's like, okay, so you started practicing about a year or so ago? How old are you? And my dad was probably in his, like, whatever, mid 30s or something. And he said that, um, so it took you 33 years to figure out to figure it all out, and you want them to figure it out? Like in eight months. 33 minutes? Yeah, exactly. And he's like, that's not how it works. And

just between us, I mean, you can obviously conclude, but just between us how many how many marriages have we seen fall apart because of this? A ton. A ton. So what'd he tell you? That was so so he just said he said you just kind of slow your roll? Yeah. And then another senior island that both my father and I we both benefited from a lot more than a lot shakaama lot in India. He was a student of Alina Ramallah. He told my father, and I was there as well. He was just kind of talking to us. And he said, because my dad was kind of telling him the story much, much later on what and I were having this conversation with him once I had done, I had graduated from my studies. And I was just

extensively traveling with him and learning from him and being mentored by him. And he my dad kind of told him a story like I had this conversation like 30 years ago or 25 years ago with machetes and lobby Dean and today we're sitting here having a totally different conversation with you.

And shoutmeloud he actually said at that time, he said that somebody who kind of somebody who takes undertakes the journey, a spiritual journey with their family and their loved ones goes further.

Wow. Because he gave a famous statement you know, if you want to go go What is it go for you go together something if you want to go fast, you go alone. Exactly. Right. So it's like it's gonna it's gonna obviously slow you down. Sure to have people go further. I mean, think of taking a road trip. Yeah. Think of taking a road trip. maybe eight maybe 10 maybe 12 maybe 16 hours. Come down there, guys.

We need to take another road trip. I need I need a really good nap. We need another road trip. But that's actually a compliment because you don't really sleep in cars with other people do not do trust issues. I do. What happened to the child. Good luck.

Brother. Oh, man. It's the worst driver. I won't artistic with his driving. He's an artist. Oh, man. I remember one of our buddies movies. He had the worst story.

I flew in Chicago and there was like this retreat youth retreat in somewhere in.

I'm worse than Wisconsin. Yeah. kind of far out. Not like Milwaukee super close. Chicago is kind of far out and Wisconsin somewhere in the wilderness with Mulana. Aaron Rodgers. Yeah, exactly. And it was like a four hour drive. He was really looking forward to He's like, we can catch up we can talk.

I sat down in that car and I knocked out Yeah, shout out to him. Always texts me when he's texting me to see if you're actually alive. Cuz he's like, this guy's my friends. He hasn't spoken for six hours. Like I may he may be dead. I don't know what to do. Like, do I call the police at this point? I'm like, No, he's just sleeping. I remember when we got to the youth camp because it was like four hours away and I didn't I woke up I'm like, oh, man, and then he wouldn't talk to me for like a day.

Like, every time I walked up, Hey, what's going on? He's like, nope, get away from me.

So but um, yeah, if you take a road trip, you drive however many hours you can drive, and then you got to stop. But, you know, you got like three, four drivers in the car, you take turns driving, and you just, it's just the journey is further. Yeah. And that's kind of the idea. So you told your dad that basically so yeah. And that that helped tremendously but yeah, what I was talking about like the personal victory was because of that whole traditional viewpoint that we can never say no to anybody in the machine.

But meaning you can't say no to maybe the people who aren't, who are kind of still learning their thing. But you also can say no to the overzealous rogue volunteer guy, the guy who basically appointed himself as the gatekeeper of the masjid. You can't even say no to him. And me and my father used to kind of go back and forth on this a lot, because I was like, No, you gotta shut that dude down. Shut that do down ASAP. Okay, and, and I remember it was a few years ago, when my dad kind of told me he was like, not that thing. We used to always kind of just just like, have a conversation, have a discussion, kind of a debate, like a friendly debate about over dinner and

stuff, like, yes or no, about whether you can kind of shut somebody down. You can tell somebody No. And he's like, I 100% agree with you now. Oh, because he's like, it just, I just saw the wreckage, the debris, just the waste. You know, kind of like a tornado highway just lays waste and leaves like, like just a complete, it just wreaks havoc and leaves all this, like havoc in its wake. Mm hmm. He said, I've seen some of these people on their tears in a community in a Masjid for 510 1520 years. And I've just seen, I've seen the carnage, that's the word, the carnage that they've left behind. And he said, I realized that if I would have just gotten his face, not, we're not talking

about you necessarily have to ban somebody from the machine. But just get in somebody's face and say, Look, you got two options here. You can either just just calm down, just let let people live. Or you're just gonna have to take it elsewhere. So I'll play devil's advocate. Like, now what if somebody is coming to the masjid? And, and this person from their perspective, they see it as like protecting the house of Allah, or making it sacred. Like I know, like, for example, when we do community events, we might, for example, have like the aunties and uncles and the men and the women sitting in the same Hall. Obviously, you know, everyone's comfortable in the sense that there's

adequate spacing for everybody, you know,

no one's like sitting on each other's back or lap or anything like that. There's comfortable spacing, but I know that there's some people uncomfortable with that. You when I do when we do our team events, we have like, for example, like FIFA, you know, we're playing Madden. And I remember one uncle actually walked in and because the kids were playing Madden from McGraw Hill. So he didn't come from ogre, but he came from Russia. And as he came in from Russia, he kind of made like this, like, you know, and they try to act like they're talking to themselves. They're actually talking to everybody in the room, right? It's like passive aggressiveness to the tee. Right? Mashallah shot to

Pakistan, India, passive aggressive. So, so he said out loud, he's like, Oh, this is not what the must Oh, is this what the machine is for now? It's for games, you know, for the youth. And I was like, I actually turned to him. And I said, actually, they prayed milgard ninja mode, and I didn't see you here. Hmm. Almost like to show him that. Like, there is some sort of I understand your concern for the sanctity of this space. I am too. We're not playing Gears of War. We're not we're not we're not watching, you know, Netflix channels that might be problematic. Yeah, exactly. We're, how do you know But anyways, we're playing Madden, right? And even then, like, obviously, when

there's like cheerleader, we turn the music all the way down in the settings, we did all the proper precautions. So how do you now like, how do you balance that? So there's the sanctity of the masjid, which this person is clearly excited to defend? And then there's obviously the whole purpose of trying to bring people to the machine in the first place. How far can you go? So this goes, this goes back to a more fundamental question. What's the basis of being the guardian of the sanctity of the masjid? Where's the reference for that? Where's the precedence for that?

in the jar?

So I mean, you see at the time of the prophets a lot he said, um, you know, the common examples between you know, the veteran coming in urinating in the machine Yes, the process of instructed him that's not the right thing to do. But at the same time, they didn't take you know, some drastic action.

The profits young people would lie down and stretch out in the masjid take naps there. Eat food there. The professor some had, you know,

you know, the profits a lot. He said he had, you know, he would do when he would do it, I took off there. There's a narration talking about his wife, brushing and combing his hair in the masjid. Things that things that weren't explicit worship. Exactly. Yeah, I mean, all types of things when my husband had been wife was in

And he was bleeding and they were kind of nursing him to process them said put his tent in the masjid. So you had a man if the machine was like an infirmary so you kind of had a multitude open question answers, open discussions, conversations.

All of that was going on in the masjid. So okay, and then what I was gonna actually ask was, is the machine now different than it was then? I feel like a little bit of it in the sense that living as a minority community in this country, it's become more of a communal space it has whereas mesh it is, you know, obviously, I can I can I can even reconcile all of that. Why? Because inside of an Islamic Center, you should have a mustard area masala area, but the actual masala that's it the place where Salas done, that's it. Gotcha. And then, so, think about how ridiculous it is. Once you kind of frame the conversation that way. We're reprimanding somebody for talking in a lobby. Yeah, that's

very true. It's not a machine when they're like, Don't talk loudly in the machine. It's not a message. It's a lobby. Dude, you you're really good at that.

You heard it sounds like you I do it you do. I drive. I drive around to like massages where people don't know me and just go yell at the young whippersnappers. Just go yell at kids. How y'all

behave yourselves. But uh, it's so ridiculous. You're reprimanding people for having a conversation in a classroom? Yeah, it's not a machine. Stop calling every single spot in your 40,000 square foot. gaadi facility. Okay, stop calling every single spot the machine. It's not. It's an it's a center. It's a community center. There is a mustard masala sacred portion. Yeah. And I think like, that helps everybody feel happy. Oh, yeah. No, that helps everybody. Everybody's happy now. So the little, the nice little, you know, green carpeted with the stripes on the carpet, that little area. That's where you can go and sit down and read your Koran. That's where the elder uncle can kind of

sit who just wants some peace and quiet and some meditation and digging into how he can go sit down there, then that Hall in the back, or the lobby area or the classrooms on the side or the gym that's attached. You know, that's where people can be walking around eating and drinking and laughing and joking and playing and running. They can do whatever they want. And everybody's happy. Everybody Mind your own business. Yeah. And even if some kid strays and wanders into the muscle area, then remember the narration about a veteran urinating in the machine and the process of them not allowing the Sahaba to basically execute him. So you heard it here, all kids, go ahead. And

that's last month that actually that is. Okay. So now going back to Arlington, so that was sort of the state people didn't quite understand the goal and function of the space. And as a result people left Yeah, I'm actually till today. I mean, 2016 young people are coming to mind our programs at colleyville, which for those of you who aren't in Dallas, it's north of Arlington. It's actually probably just bollington. And people from Arlington. You know that when I asked them on Sunday at the teen Holika or Friday like you and I did the family night the other night.

Hey, where are you from? I haven't seen you around here very much. Or what's your name? You know, what, what community do you live in? And they'll say, Arlington, Texas. Yeah. Because I think they kind of feel

you know, like, they don't feel safe. They don't feel home anymore. And I think this is a lesson to all messages everywhere is that you're not invincible? No, you know, the house of Allah as an entity as a philosophy is invincible. But you running it, and even it being run in this specific building or space is not invincible. It can change. If someone's arrogant, Allah can downgrade that facility real quick. Yeah, right. A lot. Watada can do that. And so big lesson to people that your community is not always going to stick with you through and through. I mean, if you abused them, they will leave. Yes. And so you had this culture now? October 30 rolls around. Back in your childhood days.

Yeah. in Arlington, Texas, where people are leaving the masjid FYI. Okay.

FYI, Joe obviously means like in droves. Yeah. A little bit of a little bit of a sort of Arabic joke. Um, what is Halloween? Like? Is there Halloween yet? No. Harada? We know that's just a Romulan. Yeah, exactly. So it's interesting with a lot of things I didn't get to kind of experience the other side of things. Halloween, interestingly enough, was something that as a very, very young child, I remembered participating in because my parents weren't really so this was like back in 1940.

Roosevelt was president. I

mean, Donald Trump would seem elementary school.

So I actually remember this was in the 70s. Yeah. 80s, early 80s. Okay, early on.

I was born. Yeah, just remember that. So I remember participating in Halloween and stuff. But then once my parents got kind of practicing and religious, then there was kind of a, the brakes were pumped on that the brakes were put on that which was fine. I adjusted pretty easily. And a lot of parents just to pause you a lot of parents like they pump the brakes, you know, good quote there, they pump the brakes on it, not because they themselves understand Islamic law. No, but because they're being told exactly right. So like they hear the heartbeat of the masjid. Don't let your kids celebrate Halloween, otherwise, they'll become gaffer. Right? And they're like, Oh, god, look at

that kid crying for too long to let them become copper. Andy Yeah. And so they sort of it is kind of the hyperbole, you know, the hyperbolic sort of extreme. And a lot of parents are sort of like you I don't want any part of this exactly. Like they'll they'll keep their kids home from school that day. They won't answer their door when people are coming in knocking the door ringing the doorbell we put out an empty bowl and say please take one

more so because more so because and now that I think about it actually is probably horrible. Dow although now I live in Lincoln, almost a neighborhood here in Dallas, unfortunately, living in almost a neighborhood. But um, it is it is you know, it is probably one of the few chances that Muslim neighbors have to you know, maybe buy some like Hello, Rice Krispie treats. And just that word again, I'm not trying to like, you know, seven, or I shouldn't be walking but I now sort of, in a way regret doing them. Right. So your parents would turn the lights off lock the door, all that kind of stuff. And so that's kind of what it was. And there was almost like this not even doing

anything alternative on that night. So what it really really was like so again, from the machine, it was kind of like this heavy preaching a month in advance about like, Look out, don't do anything. Yeah, don't let your kids do anything. Look out. And

yeah, the you know, the the end is near and go look at your kids closets for costumes they might be hiding. Exactly. And

but what it really really was like on the back end was those families that just were not we're kind of like checked out who had kind of strayed from the masjid who weren't really down with it who maybe just hadn't gotten very involved or practicing yet.

They were still basically doing it.

And but here's the problem though, in doing it. They were here's a real issue. There's no issue with somebody kind of doing whatever it is that they want to do. We can't police everybody, but in doing it they were basically made to feel like there's no point to you doing anything Islamic or religious anymore. Wait so you're saying that

you guys hear that siren sarcasm alert coming? So you're saying that there's there's no all or nothing in Islam? Yeah, but brother didn't Allah say enter the deen Kapha right and he's enter it completely absolute min holy Submit. Holy. So no, see, now you're doing this liberal twisting? Yeah, I'm actually explaining the words.

So this Oh, so knowledge is inconvenient sometimes. Yeah, exactly. So people were made to feel and you've heard this, by the way with his job. Yeah, of course this with all kinds of things. everything you're doing x don't bother doing anything else. Yeah. Even though x is just one percentage or one portion of Islam as a whole, not precisely finishing it, you know, selling liquor. You know, wearing hijab is a big deal. Right? staying away from selling Haram is a big deal. You know, people should be you know, pat on the back a lot a lot is going to reward them inshallah, big sacrifice, you know, big sacrifice. But at the same time, if somebody doesn't have the conviction,

or strength or belief yet that they can do it, then that doesn't mean they're not Muslim. Yeah. Why are you discouraging somebody from praying five times a day? Where are you discouraging somebody from fasting in Ramadan? This reminds me of the Hadees that we that we just covered and tafsir sort of Herat, where, you know, the the man who was uh, who was doing some lewd acts, you know, he was a thief. And this is actually an even crazier, I believe, and I think Mufti Shafi also mentioned that to him a lot. The the he was caught in the profit. So someone didn't answer by punishing, but he answered by asking the question, so when the man was bought the property said, Does he pray? Yeah.

And you know, they said, Yeah, and it was almost like the way they answer was sort of like, almost like they were confused. When the prophet SAW Some ask that question, and they said, you know, the prophet Simpson said, let him be, because either one of them will leave, you know, right either the thievery the lewd Act, or whatever he's doing. Either one will leave, you know. And so let him continue praying, let her continue praying, and just motivate towards good. Yeah, there's no reason Yeah, let the mean when it's dark in Rome, john Locke was a hocl battle, when when his darkened room Do you just sit there and keep on talking about how it's dark in the room or do you try to turn on

the light and when you turn on the light, the darkness is gone.

So bring some light to people's lives. Absolutely. Like, I mean, everyone gets so bent out of shape. But it's maybe try to use the opportunity to have like an alternative type event. Bring the kids together.

You know, show them a good time, have some good food for them. And in between there, they're going to end up praying Salah, maybe have a couple of insightful conversation, you don't even have to preach to them. Like, like, like, talk down to them preach to them, right. Just have a couple of like, intriguing, insightful conversations, and get them kind of thinking, get them kind of feeling a little bit, get that stir that emotion in the heart just a little bit. And let it do it. let it do its job. Hmm. Trust. Yeah, trust the process. trust the process works. It's worked for 1400 years.

But we got to get over this paranoia. And, you know, again, I don't mean to say that we shouldn't have any type of respect for rules and regulations. And fifth, and we'll school in our Dean, of course we do. And we should, and we that's why teach it nine hours a day. Yeah. I mean, that's why we have to respect the tradition and respect the scholars and have that system in our in our oma. But at the same time, just a little bit of

a little bit of a thought. There's something to kind of share, and that is.

Islam has been here for 1400 years.

And he'll be here for a while longer.

You're not the Savior. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Don't worry, almost like I think one thing one way to sort of phrase it in a nice little tweetable. Quote, oh, no intent that Islam is here for you. You're not here for Islam. Exactly. And that's and when you think of yourself in that way, your leverage all of a sudden is gone. You need it. It doesn't need you. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. So let's put you on the spot now. Okay. Maryam and Ayesha, Mohamad. They come to you. Nice, they're all dressed up. It's October 30 31st. And they're ready to go trick or treating?

Are you going to? Are you gonna mock or imitate the disbelievers brother?

I'm using Arlington quotes, because I want to just Yeah, exactly. You know what I mean? Why not? These are these, these are exactly the conversations that people have had with their kids.

What I, so what do you so what do you what's your thought process? Like, walk me through that as a father, as a new mom, as a scholar, as somebody who teaches? What do you do when somebody comes to you or your kids come to you? So let me so let me kind of split this up into two things. Number one, as

as a student, somebody who studied a little bit

I have this knowledge is a burden. All right, they talk about the burden of knowledge.

And it is a burden, right? Yes, it's a gift. And it's a privilege and all that, but it's most definitely a burden. And somebody who doesn't acknowledge that probably either doesn't have it or should not have it by burden. Just want to do a little bit of English Tafseer here. Yeah. burden not meaning one. That's something someone hates. Oh, yeah. So I'm not something that saw that. It's, it's something that someone's carrying? Oh, yeah. It's a responsibility of, you know, it's,

it's, it's a responsibility. And it most definitely is. I mean, think about the burden of knowledge that like maybe a physician has, when their kid coughs or gets a fever or something. They know of the 87 different possibilities that this could result in. That's gotta be terrifying. Absolutely. Yeah. That's got to be terrifying, right? So whereas my kid coughs and I'm like, hey, drink some water. Stop making noise.

I was a microbiologist. And I asked her I was like, how do you live? How do you eat? You know what's on that door handle? Yeah, you know what's on that plastic for our buddy? don't hear from Calum travel. He shot up calm travel. Yeah, he he's same thing microbiology and all this basic stuff.

And he's like this crazy intense germaphobe Yeah, I've actually I did have with him though this year is it was comical. I mean, it kept me going like this scene, because hedges like hedges, a lot of tests. It's a test of your will test of your strength test of your emaan it's also the gathering of the believers and diseases. Yeah.

All the germs.

No, but it was also a test honestly, of his, you know, his ability to sort of deal with the fact that there might be some like different germs, bacteria who wasn't used to. So that was that was a riot, um, de la. And so. So as you're saying it's a burden having this knowledge, humongous burden, right. So, so, on one side, I kind of know and i'll tell you what I mean by burden is I can just pull it dad move and just kind of just make a judgment call. purely based off of, you know, what I want to do or what I think

thing should happen here. Because I'm also burdened by the realization of this conversation. What is the outcome of this conversation from a legal perspective? Is this thing that my children are asking me to do? Is it haram? Or is it not preferable? makrooh is it impermissible? Or is it discouraged? Or is it permissible? Or is it encouraged? Or is it mandatory? Like I know that scale so I'm aware of the fact and that's a whole nother kind of rabbit hole I guess, but I don't see it to be impermissible haraam. I see to be discouraged at best explain your logic on this because I think a lot you're gonna a lot people's minds are being blown right now. So you just used you know, legal

Islamic legal terminology. Yes. impermissible hot on some of that. We're all very used to that word. And you're saying that Halloween, the thing that we've been told our entire lives? Yeah, that it is absolutely hot. Um, and there are other scholars, by the way, who do who do, you know, sort of come to the conclusion that they believe it's impermissible for their different reasons? Yeah, you're saying that according to your studies and your understanding, you don't think it's hot on

it don't whine, and I'll explain exactly why. I don't think that it's completely haraam and impermissible for the following reason. So first of all, little disclaimer, little note, there's a difference between legal terminology and just kind of general verbiage and language. So when I say impermissible, I mean, from a technical perspective, I don't want anyone to confuse impermissible with inappropriate

that when I say I don't think that it's impermissible its harm. I'm not saying that. I don't think it's inappropriate. An example of that is like, for example, divorce is hot out, right? So it's not necessarily a very happy thing. Exactly. You know, that he tells us, it's the thing that a lot dislikes, right? And so that's, that's the kind of thing so something can be permissible, it still be inappropriate. So that's not what I'm so that's the first disclaimer. Secondly, in order for something to be impermissible haraam, particularly from this, kind of like the school that I school of thought, I guess you can kind of say the school that I particularly am inclined towards, that's

not to say is the only right one, they have very,

they have their they have very serious requirements in order for something to be declared impermissible. That's interesting. You're a hanafy. Yeah. Have you trained? Yeah. And if you train Muslim lawyer,

as I tell people most these are I'm like, they're Muslim lawyers. He's like, okay, they make as much I'm like, not quite a close. So you're gonna see a lot of people associate Hanafi madhhab with strictness, conservativeness. So the age doesn't stand for mediations For how long? How long? Yeah. Whereas now you're saying it's actually the fun of female? Yeah, yeah. Yes, Mary, forgive me for that one. Well, so both for the joke and also the desecration of the method. Yeah. So the absolutely it takes a lot in order to be able to declare something haram it's got to be out there a youthful boot and utter you Delilah witch, definitive in its, you know, in its transmission and also in its

meaning, perfect. It's got to be definitive, absolute, in its confirmation. In its transmission, its confirmation and in how clearly it speaks to the issue. There can't be any figurative speech zero, you know, and there's a lot of things we talked about this at faith intensive series, a lot of things that people take at the Prophet Muhammad SAW said him said in Arabic, and he used beautiful eloquent is figurative language. And people would say, Oh, this is clear that it's hot on when, in fact, he might be talking about just making something, you know, mcru more, he might just be talking about something that he himself, you know, there's the famous example the the date palm tree

planters. Yeah, he made a comment about the way that they fertilized. Right, they they interpreted it as a ruling. So they didn't do it, and they didn't get their crops, you know, for that season. And when they asked him, he said, You know, you're the farmers. I'm the Prophet. don't misinterpret, right. Yeah. So that's not to say that the Prophet can't comment. I know that I'm on mundane issues, but he's just saying like, I don't really care rulings are serious. Yeah, basically, that's what I'm here to address is what's what's right and wrong. Yeah. Well, you should and should not do. So. It takes a lot to establish something as hot off. And what the ruling of that was based off of was the

fact that there were pagan, and, you know, hedonistic and satanic, satanic and sadistic,

you know, origins to this particular holiday and celebration, which again, history is history as one of the things that you don't deny that you don't get to deny. So

absolutely. That would be

Making impermissible

or excuse me, I'm sorry. If something does have wrong origins, then that has to be acknowledged. That has to be understood. Yeah. And we're not denying that here. However, does that in and of itself does a historical account of you know what something is and where it originated from? Is that enough? to definitively call it haraam? That's question number one. I don't think it is. Number two, number two, is that at the same time, we do have to kind of deal in reality, that what if something is no longer represented? Something no longer represents? what it used to represent that a particular time? And this this is a question on, you know, what would then be called the, you know,

the law? Or the law? Sorry, right. Yeah. So that sort of the proofs of the evidences that we use in Islamic law, right. And I think what you're addressing now is custom. Exactly, no, so what's customary and that's like, weighed on the list, like weighed eight or nine, but it still is something that takes into play, you know, an item hukam that right? The idea that culture can can impact a ruling, right, based on how people and I'm even just talking about

determining the reality of something before you pass a ruling on it. So I'll take it kind of, how do you do that? So so here's your opinion, like, Is it me, like, do I sit here and say, you know, what Halloween to me still is plugin satanic, you know, like, going and doing satanic rituals. So therefore, it's hot on like, how do I, as an Imam, how do I process this? So And that's precisely why this is actually making my point not taking away from my point. Do you see how much subjectivity there is in this discussion?

Exactly. Anything that has dismissed subjectivity, anything that can have this much discussion and this much difference of opinion, it's telling you one thing right away, it's not conclusive. So what makes what makes legitimate difference of opinion? In this case, for example, Halloween, like, when would we know? what's an example where Halloween would be her arm? Like is if the kid comes up to you and has like a dead animal in their hand? And they're like, I'm going to the woods for three hours, like I'm gonna go sacrifices animal to Satan. Yeah, I'd tell him if, if that's their interpretation of Halloween. And that's their celebration of Halloween. And I tell them, Halloween

is hot for them, okay. Or if a kid for isn't, you know, Halloween is very is now very sexual above a certain age, you know, and so if a kid maybe he's going to a party, in high school, let's say or like in college, and that young person, that young man or woman is going to be in an environment where people are wearing costumes that don't have the purpose of trick or treating them that way, or a different kind of stuff for lotto. But now you have a person who is going for the sexual reason that could that could lend itself to the impermissibility. I think so. But if a kid comes up to you, Miriam, Ayesha, and Mohammed, and they say, dad, all our friends are getting candy tonight. They're

walking around the city, getting candy, can we go?

So that's what I was talking about. I have that burden of knowledge where, or at least my personal opinion,

where I don't think it's impermissible.

And knowing that and saying that and admitting that

I would still try my best to not let my kids go, Why?

I would do it more so not because of the immediate detriment that it could have right now or that it poses. But I would do it not to set the precedent not to kind of open the door to the slippery slope. Because I am aware of what Halloween becomes. As soon as people become teenagers, would you could someone then use something that I have for this, which is in Arabic, it's the cutting off of the just like the OB turns out, like nipping in the bud basically like exactly not allowing something to even get close

to some degree. But again, see that language becomes relevant when I'm making a legal ruling. This is more data via 10 so this goes back to our earlier conversation. This is a personal judgment and a personal call I'm making I'm not imposing it on the community. So you're you're pretty you're pretty firm in your in your legal opinion. That is not wrong. Yeah. But it's more of your own personal caution. Yeah, but you're not gonna project that no, like I we were talking about it even before we got started the podcast.

I there's like been a rule. I have a television, my home even growing up my dad, who again, my parents kind of had eventually became somewhat more traditional, and I guess you can kind of say conservative, we always have a television in the home. But the one kind of rule was we didn't have cable or satellite. And I can't and I mentioned again, I have a television in the home. The Apple TV's hooked up to it the wheeze hooked up to it.

Where we can play games and stuff. But we don't have cable or satellite. And I am not by any stretch by any definition saying kavaler cable or satellite. I'm not giving a ruling that it's haram or it's not allowed or it's impermissible. What I'm essentially saying is, it's a personal choice. I don't think it's good for me. And I don't think it's good for my kids. And so I don't do it. It's my bread. Nice. So what so if parents come to you, and they say, you know, my kids, they're really, really fixed on this. And it's really it's caught, it's an issue in the home. And we feel really, really bad that we have to, like, bully them into not doing this.

You think it would be I might, I might tell them to make a concession. Listen, just kind of tell them listen, it's also a crazy world out there. There's a lot of creepers and a lot of weirdos out there. So what we're gonna do is we're just going to go to these three for like immediate neighbors. And we're just going to kind of call it during the like, the daylight hours, like five o'clock, when you get back from school, we hit up a couple of our immediate neighbors, people we can trust, and they will call it come back from over. Yeah, okay. And maybe you can explain to them then even like, as a parent like that this is one that we do now. It's cool. And I would also look at, you know,

before I kind of even gave that I would look at the parents and who they are. A lot of times you got that situation where the parents, number one, maybe haven't done a fantastic job kind of raising the kids up to this particular point. And then they've had that religious awakening moment. They sort of watching YouTube videos and following religious Facebook pages, and they got like, really intense all of a sudden. I mean, again, it's that whole thing that I told the story about my dad. Now they're asking the kids go to go from zero to 60 in three seconds. Yeah. Or number two, this is a big one. This one's a doozy. How much time and work and energy and effort are they willing to put

in? How much do those parents inconvenience and I'm not passing any judgment. But how much inconvenience do they put themselves through in order to make sure that their kids have a good life and have a lot of fun and get to do a lot of cool things like good life, like socially fulfilling? Yeah, not just like us, a lot of parents, a lot of parents and rightfully so it's tough earning a living very a lot of parents that will I provide I do this, but you're talking about now like taking them to swim practice. Yeah, signing them up for soccer teams, right? Taking them on vacation, you know, doesn't even have to be Disney World and any of that stuff, that stuff can get expensive. But

it's more about are you willing to hop into a car and drive to a local city? You know, spend the night in a hotel and try their restaurants and go see their their landmarks? You know, like Austin for us? Yeah, I'll make it even simpler. Okay, I understand all that. And I'm right there with you. I need a parent to basically explained to me how many days and I'm being sarcastic here does it take? And how many hundreds of dollars does it taken? Again, I'm being sarcastic here. To get a ball. And to walk over to the nearest park to your house and toss a ball around with your kid for 20 minutes every day

is not too difficult. It's funny, actually, you mentioned that because some of my most fond memories, my dad, you're gonna laugh because I'm white, but

was on the golf course.

And my dad, ironically, and my dad would take me to like basketball practice and all these things. But we would go play golf. And it's kind of a funny thing. But golf course is when it gets close to my group time, basically between us and McRib. They'll charge half. Yeah, so you can play as many holes as you can get in before the nightfalls. Yeah, so my dad and I would make like a tradition out of it, we'd go like during the week, and then during the weekend, my brother and I and my dad would go together, all three of us. And we get all that done. And those are some of the most I mean, those memories are so strong, I can like still remember the smell of the grass. I can remember the

temperature of the air. Like I remember everything. Why? Because it was such an important memory. And so you think that you have to spend a bunch of money, but really, it's about spending time, right.

And it goes even further than that, right? So

I won't take too much credit because I still got a lot of stuff to figure out. That's what you say before you take a lot of credit. But I remember my my parents,

they, you know, folks who work really hard, they work five, six days a week that one day a week they got off, they want to just be in the house, they just want to be they just want to relax, they want to decompress, all that kind of stuff.

But they would drive us all the way across town if needed to you know, a friend's house or to a little get together with a couple of families where a couple of my buddies would be or whatever some event was going on.

Or I was participating in some type of baseball league or, you know, basketball tournament or something like that. And they would drive all the way out and take us there.

Just so that again, we felt like this sense of fulfillment. We get to do cool stuff like yesterday, my, my my daughters, they had tennis practice, hmm, you know, and I took them for tennis class and the tennis practice and they really had a blast. They had a great time. So now when I'm having if I have a conversation with them where I kind of

Like, listen, guys,

I know you guys want to do this, but I don't think it's good. This is why boo doesn't like it. And I want you guys to really think about and I want you to understand, but don't worry, we're gonna do something fun.

I think I'll have a little bit more credibility and capital with my kids. Hmm. That's what it boils down to. But if I but if I see a situation where that's just not happening, you know, the parents might just have to kind of bite the bullet in the short term and just kind of like make a compromise. Yeah. And then there's, I think what you're saying in summary is that there's 364 days. Yes, other than Halloween, yes, make an impact to make an impact. At the same time, I think a lot of times we grew up in a generation. I'm sorry, you grew up in a generation. And I also grew up in another generation. Careful, were being different was a little bit, I think, easier. Yeah. And I

work with a lot of teens now, still, and I work with college kids, and I'm working with adults as well. So I kind of like I'm right now I'm working with the whole spectrum of the community. Whereas before I was a little bit more just with teens. And I'm noticing that there's just this really intense pressure. Yeah, the ins and outs cannot be different. But also be different. Yeah, but at the same time, don't be too different. Because two different kind of weird, but be a little bit weird. Whereas with us, there's just this overexposure and just over just saturation of just commentary from everyone on everything. And it's just, yeah, it gets this, but this is difficult for

young people. I mean, I can imagine it's very difficult. I have absolute disdain for it. But I can imagine that it's extremely, extremely difficult. You're angry, sympathetic? Anger, Elisa, get off my lawn. Yeah, please. But I understand that you don't have a lawn?

Yeah, so kids are going through this right now. And it writes it seriously might bother them. Right. At the same time, like praying, Federer might bother them. Yeah. So we obviously don't exclude excuse everything. But at the same time, like, I think what what, what I would say, as a youth director, and as somebody who has been youth director in the past, and, you know, sort of like, has seen a lot over the past six years I've seen a lot is that there are battles that you choose. And there are battles that you will purposefully concede, and there are battles that you will remain firm on. Yeah, because raising children is a marathon. Yeah. Right. And, and the goal for our

children is that they pass away as Muslims. Mm hmm. I mean, if we if we allow one to Muslim exactly, if we frame, you know, for our listeners, that was a personal problem, or a loss, I don't pass away or don't, don't die, don't let death come to accept that you are Muslim. So that's kind of like our thesis, right? That's our mission statement for children is, I want to prepare you so that when your time comes to leave this world you believe in the love is messenger, if you frame all of your interactions with your children, and your decisions, and your battles, quote, unquote, with your children, where you're trying to, you know, see if it's okay, or if it's not okay, with that, then

you'll learn where to strategically concede. Where to have your hood abs. Yeah. And where to be very firm. Mm. Right. Where to have your moments where you don't concede and and for the sake of discipline or moral development cetera, Halloween, for some people may be a point of discipline. And it may be a point of concession, right? You know, for some families who do a lot, you know, they just got back from a vacation, they just did this, just this and your kids are cago triggers you my friend, you might say, Well, you know, we just did a whole bunch of stuff, like, let's spend the night you know, together as a family wants you to be home for dinner, etc, etc. But there might be

some kids where it truly does bother them. You know, you're gonna have some kids who don't care. Yeah, you shouldn't force them to go trick or treating. No, right just to fit in. Yeah, but you may have some kids that it might really bother them and they might be really struggling with being Muslim at school. Yeah, and this might be the one thing you know, you never know what straw breaks the camel's back. Yeah, this might be the one thing that might stick with them that you know, I don't even want to be Muslim anymore. And there's one old factor that kind of works into this that's really interesting. don't discount the element of

kind of goes back to where we started with all this kind of the communal social pressure and image of it where the parent even kind of understands look I just have not earned enough credibility and capital with my kid I haven't done things right to the point where I can really kind of put my foot down about the situation I technically if I want to keep my child if I don't want to lose my child if I don't want my child to in this moment and make up their mind that the moment I can deuces I'm out of here. Yeah, right call I basically Yeah, I will have to concede over here. But then what's everybody gonna say? Yeah,

I'm gonna go to the my * and take them be like, oh, his kids go trick or treating or don't go the machine your sponge off.

I mean, take that off first. Yeah, but he's worried about the fact that his kids

Gonna tell the other kids Oh, you didn't get to go trick or treating as well, I got to go trick or treating, you're doing just

one trick or treating with him, and you're not going trick or treating with me. Exactly. And, and then he's gonna go and then that kid's gonna tell their parents. Oh, yeah, well, Khalid uncle's kid Khalid uncle lets you know his son go trick or treating, why don't you let me and next time he goes to the machine, then brother Ahmed is gonna get in college kind of face her or just talk about him to the other people like oh, that Brother, you know, his kids go trick or treating and stuff in the law and this and that. It's like, you know what, just just raise your kids man because that those other people in the community who enjoy talking about you aren't ever going to help you raise your

kids and just admit the hollow uncle's cooler than you? Yeah, once you admit that Carl was the coolest uncle. So but this has been I mean, honestly, conversations like this for me personally, you know, as somebody who is a student, still someone who's still studying still really trying to get a lot more, but also at the same time, I'm doing what I can to patch together the community. I mean, the standard of the moms is very low. And that's why people like me, are working as the mom. I mean, quite honestly, right? And I'm still I keep I keep my head down. I try to study try to stay focused, but these conversations just open up this world to me of Islamic knowledge and Islamic law. Yeah,

that I think has been unfortunately misrepresented. And I think that's kind of what at the heart of Putnam is that there has been a flagrant misrepresentation of Islam. And truly the solution is not found outside of Islam, but it's found within it. And I think today in this conversation, we have a very relevant issue Halloween,

you know, and other things like that. Maybe another time, we'll talk about Christmas, or Easter, these other ones. And, you know, we talked about Halloween and how the community sort of like dealt with that for two decades, three decades. Yeah. And now we're sort of exploring a little bit more of the school the principles of Islam, and we're saying, well, this might not be what we thought it was, you know, this might not be what we thought it was. Or perhaps for some people, it shouldn't be allowed, right. Yeah. I think that's when you find that balance and that sort of duality in your Islamic practice. Because you're sincerely trying to do the right thing. Yeah. It's when Islam

becomes beautiful. Yeah. Now you always said this, to me, as a student. And I always say this now to people when I'm teaching is that, you know, Islam works if you give it a chance. It all works. You know, if you only have one foot in one foot out, it's not gonna work. Yeah. But when you sort of go all in and you say, No, I'm going to do this thing. I'm going to submit and I'm going to try my best I'm going to stumble along the way but I'm going to try it works. Yeah. And and along with that is sort of understanding Islamic principles and trying to apply them properly. So it has been awesome. It's great. I hope that everyone enjoyed hanging out with us. Yeah, here on the column Hangout, and

Charla, we look forward to seeing you guys. Yeah, spread the word. let other folks know inshallah, so that they can also start kind of tuning in and if y'all got any type of suggestions, discussions that you think that we should have. If you go to you probably a lot of folks are probably getting this on iTunes. So if you go to iTunes, in the comments where you can kind of rate the podcast, you can kind of leave some topic suggestions there. That's the easiest place where we where we can find it very easily all in one place, or tweet column, hang out, tweet, go and hang out with a hashtag alum Hangout, you know, leave, go to the Facebook page.

inshallah especially once we put up this particular episode, in the comments of the posts about the episode, you can leave some suggestions or comments there as well. And we just look forward to hearing from y'all inshallah, see you guys. inshallah. Next week, every Thursday morning, call them hang up, come hang out. This sounds like thanks.