Talking about the 2016 Election of Donald Trump, how did we get here, and where do we go from here.
A New Podcast series where Shaykh Abdul Nasir Jangda and Ustadh Abdul Rahman Murphy hangout and talk about issues relevant to the community as well as some insights into who they are and their own personal journeys in Islam.
10/11/16
everybody welcome to a special
not so special election, post election episode of the Hangout here with Matt Murphy and our forever guest, Cheryl Manasa. Jane Doe. So I want to lay out to everybody.
Hopefully everybody's doing good. Having a fantastic week. Superb, tremendous, huge, huge, fantastically, unbelievably, mentally Bigley. Amazingly, fantastically. So. Yeah. So, we're recording this right now. It's Wednesday
afternoon, we were actually had a completely different topic in mind. Because just like the rest of the free world, we were under the assumption that Hillary Clinton was gonna win. Yeah. And probably still would have spoken about for at least a bit. Yeah. But I think now, you know, the, there's a lot more to talk about given Yes, given the results from last night's, you know, escapade. We have a lot more to discuss. And I think that,
you know, everyone's got questions. Everyone's got thoughts in their mind, if you look at social media. I mean, even the weather here in Dallas is gloomy. It's dark, just feels like everybody's sort of reflecting on everyone's taking a day. We all need a mental health day today. Everybody took a day today. We just did the students at the seminary talk about it. Yeah, I had a really awesome conversation with them. Would you just talk about the year one or year two year one and the year two folks just a little bit, but I think stick on Monday kind of had a conversation with them. So I spoke to the year one folks, I kind of just broke it down into a few points, actually, you know,
ever since the thing started unfolding last night, and it all started coming together
or coming apart. However you want to look at
your political affiliation.
I just started doing I think only that Sajid tarar guy thinks it was coming together. Yep. The guy was like Donald Trump. This is so strange. By the way, every week. I'm always kind of consuming something on the air because today's today's food is being sponsored by crispy m&ms. Shelby Nasir, I like to eat well on the air because it's good manners. Do you do this for breakfast, use pour a bowl, these are some milk m&ms, this cereal, put a bunch of m&ms in a bowl, pour some soda on top.
So chocolate milk? No, you Nesquik straight up. Dr. Pepper. But mango juice. Okay. So once the picture started becoming a little bit more clear, we kind of started to realize what we were looking at. I just started reading
anything I could find anything I could my hands on. There were a lot of there's a lot of interesting folks, you know, a lot of very smart people as well, activists who are online kind of posting and they practically just started having kind of like a conversation of their own, just reflecting talking about what exactly happened, what exactly transpired, why it happened, how it happened, and what we can learn from it, and what not to do again, etc, etc.
So I read that I was probably reading to like three in the morning.
Just because one of those moments, you know, it just really captured kind of my attention.
And then woke up Wednesday for a little bit, woke up from fudger went back to sleep probably woke up again around like seven and then was reading till pretty much class time. And then even during the breaks between classes, reading reading, so I kind of I was able to kind of mentally construct like a little flow of thoughts. So I just had these like five or six bullet points I kind of went through them went through with with them. And
I think the students felt pretty, they felt pretty comfortable at the end of the conversation. What were some of those bullet points? Well, I mean, you don't have to go in detail, but just like maybe list them off. Yeah.
First of all, just a personal thought.
These are all personal thoughts, actually. Yeah, exactly. But no, the first one is not even like a technical thing. It's not a like an analytical point. It's just communicating just internally what's kind of going on with me and in my head more so.
I understand. I don't mean to minimize the racism, the sexism, xenophobia, the biased fascism, like everything that, you know, the sexual
predatory behavior, I don't mean to minimize any of that and to cast that aside at all. But the part but you know, one of the things and again, we can kind of talk a little bit more openly here, you're just hanging out.
Listen, let's not pretend like we haven't
Seen terrible people come into office before? Hmm, what do you mean?
I'm old enough to remember ronald reagan as President, the United States and I know that Reagan is kind of like, he's glorified. He's Captain America for all these modern day Republicans. Yeah. It's like they talk about the reagan party of Reagan. Exactly. Yeah. Ron Reagan was pretty racist. Really? I mean, come on. Now. I didn't know I was born at it. Yeah. trickle down economics, preyed on black communities.
As PR e why, by the way, not he didn't spiritually prey on them. Right there. janazah is
not a joke anymore.
But yeah, talk about exploitation. Yeah, financially, so heavily heavy. So and this was like, you know, well before, kind of, like in between the civil rights period and kind of before the post civil rights, kind of like Black Lives Matter movement was even in its, you know, preconception stages. Exactly. There's like a time of a very strong vulnerability for minority people color. It was really scary. And so and then you had senior Bush, and their whole war on drugs. What do you think that was? That was a war on black people. It was a war on black neighborhoods. So we've seen racist people in office before. So what you're saying is basically, this didn't necessarily shock
you. No, it didn't. No, it didn't. We've seen sexist people before. I mean, Bill Clinton, is a predator. Yeah. Ironically, his wife called Black young men super predators. Yeah, he's the real predator.
Thanks, Jake. Shake your lid today. I just as the young folks say, keep it at 100 for all of our listeners. So, but pretty woke right now.
such stupid terminology.
like not even vocabulary, but yeah. So yeah, so we've seen sexist, and racist and all these terrible human beings being office before. The thing that I just could not that would not penetrate my skull, just would not, I cannot wrap my noggin around. And that's why I was up till 3am. just staring at the television. And actually, I like I was telling you before we got started recording, I didn't, I didn't get to see his whole acceptance speech. Except I like to do quotation marks acceptance speech.
I didn't get to see the whole thing because I just turned it off and just being like, I can't watch this anymore. And then I saw my phone, like an update somebody saying, Oh, I'm watching the acceptance speech. And I was like, Oh, God, let me just go ahead and see what the ad to saying now button.
And I found myself with my jaw, kind of like, my jaw just dropped. Why, like, I just kind of found my mouth, like just just open, like, just sitting there with my jaw on the floor. And,
and I realized the thing that really befuddled me, confounded me was the fact that we, and I say we, because we're Americans. We had just elected a reality TV star, huh. The Office of President of the United States. That's the part that bothers me the most Why? out of everything. I mean, like you said, the preface was, you know, you didn't want to didn't want to minimize
any of those things. But I understand the institution in the establishment of politics is a dirty business. They're all crooks are all thieves are all liars.
Except for Bernie. But yeah, Bernie man. So
you know, I understand the institution, the nature of kind of like the, I guess, the field, the work the industry, whatever you want to call it. But it just shows a profound level of stupidity on the part of the people
to elect somebody, because they see them on TV. Now, there's some people actually saying that that was his one of his major advantages. It's almost as as if he's been campaigning, for whatever, since he started the sentence. What is it like 10 years? I don't know like that. Yeah, you know, and he's owned that pageant, the Miss Universe or Miss World or Miss USA, whatever it's called. So people have been people actually said last night, like, he basically had a head start on the campaign because he's just been in the public eye. In a in a, I wouldn't say favorable way. But in a way that was a little more lighthearted. You know, he wasn't he's not appalling in a way that wasn't very
intrusive or wasn't very
well, we all saw him as a joke. Right? Exactly. That's what I'm saying. And he was us some rich guy on a TV show just kind of doing this thing. So you're fired. Exactly. And so his it's, it's like we, I don't know. I'm trying to find the right word for you. But it wasn't very. I just keep coming to the word kind of intrusive, there's another word I'm looking for. But it just didn't seem to bother us. It was kind of innocuous. Yeah, exactly. And we weren't you know it when it comes to politics when it comes to somebody vying in an election or whatever the case may be
We kind of take it seriously. But if somebody's just on TV trying to entertain us, you're kind of like watching half watching checking your phone. The person doesn't bother you that much, but without realizing that person is basically taking up space is moving into your subconscious. Yeah. And I think that there Oh, that's actually pretty deep. I think that there is this, this misunderstanding that like watching something is neutral. Yeah. When in fact, when you're watching your country, you are voting, you're contributing to that person's ratings. Yeah. And in a way, no one could have predicted that Donald Trump was gonna run for president totally, you know, I remember
when Keith Ellison our boy Yeah, may Allah preserve him and Jolla when he mentioned it on I think it was Meet the Press or one of those shows, we just talked about that george stephanopoulos our Greek homie, he, he laughed, and all the commentators are laughing and they were like, oh, there's no way that's gonna happen. And Keith Ellison, I think this was like two years ago, three years ago, he said, Be very careful. Like, he has a shot. He has a legitimate shot. But none of us really knew. I mean, it's almost as if today's if I told you, you know, Kim Kardashian is gonna run for president, you know, you would just be like, No, she's not. She's a reality TV star. What, what business does
she have in politics? You know, no experience nothing anymore. Not anymore. Right? He's, you know, and so, I would say to students, I thought about it yesterday, Election Day, in the morning, when I head out of home and I was coming for the class.
While I was getting to my car, I actually thought to myself, I said, the closest parallel that I can think of obviously, this is a bigger deal as President. But the closest parallel I can think of like this is I was thinking to call up maybe some of the moms or even just some I have some other friends who also are in kind of like, policy type work in California, and I was gonna ask them, what did you feel like? Like, what was the first thing that went through your mind when you found out? Arnold Schwarzenegger? The Terminator? Was your governor? What did that feel like? Do you just feel immediately Did you instantly feel stupid?
Did you just feel like you were living in a cartoon or just jesse ventura? The Wrestler member? Yeah, Minnesota, right. Absolutely. Yeah. Like, what? What does that feel like? Yeah. Like this guy used to be on the WWE. And he's now my governor. I mean, Donald Trump used to be on some stupid reality TV show.
And now he's our president. So what he says what do you think Obama's thinking right now?
Seriously, I would just think about how awkward is gonna be that if Trump visited the White House like tomorrow or whatever, literally Monday morning, Monday evening. Obama was like actually quoted I think there were clips of him and stuff talking about him being like, trumping like mentally unstable and stuff. And he's gonna have to like welcome him in. Well, now they're all now all the democrats because it wasn't just the presidency, but it was the entire basically a wider branches of government. Right. So you have the executive branch was one obviously by Republican. You have legislative, the legislative Senate, their Republican majority now and then the eventuality for the
Supreme Court, the judicial is going to be I think I read somewhere that obviously there's one seat open, and I think I read somewhere like two of the justices are like in their 80s. Yeah, they're getting to that point where it's their only fit to serve God like could Donald Trump appoint three supreme court justices? Well, that's what that's the rhetoric the republicans were using against Hillary. You know, they were saying, Yeah, Donald Trump's a crazy person. But do you want Hillary to have the power to appoint three bankers? So this
is important, since she straight up appoints like three bankers to the Supreme Court. Goldman Sachs take two of the seats. Yeah, that that's incredible. I mean, and I think that to be honest with you, Donald Trump himself as much as his rhetoric was inflammatory. Yep. I never really felt, you know, scared of him as a person. Because I know that he's a business person. I know that he's a salesperson. What I felt scared of were two things. Number one was the voter base that he activated. Yeah. The people that are walking in front of Irving mustard with rifles. Yeah, those people right. And the ones that when I am driving on a road trip, and I'm wearing my Koofi and I have my my beard,
which, you know, this lady on the plane next to me one time was like, that's not a fashionable beard. That's it That's a religious beard. And I was like, Yeah, you got that right. And then we started talking about you know, Islam then she asked you how how, how come an Amish person can be on a plane? Yeah, she's
so I didn't know you guys could use electricity on the plane.
So number one is like my own you know, self obviously I have a lighter skin tone. I'm white. And so at that point, I do have to fall into certain levels of privilege where my my my worry, my anxiety is not going to overtake me but my wife is Bengali she wears the headscarf the hijab.
Are we going to stop in Weatherford Texas for gas? Yeah, you know, it's it's, you know, 11pm or and we're on a road trip or we're going to start like what is my thought process so you know, you can still stop buches oh buches will always have buches buches is like a safe haven for everybody. Everyone. For those of you who don't know buches is like this. If it came
It's a great place. If a Kmart and the Mobil, Exxon had a child, it would be Bucky. And it was lived, it would live in the middle of nowhere in Texas. No, it really is. It's one of those really unique retail outlets to have obviously, gas and everything, but you go inside and they got like candy corn and Texas paraphernalia and like eight to 880 different flavors of tea, iced tea, and beef jerky, beef jerky, which you should not even know about stuff for a lot of soba.
But so that was number one. Number one is I was really afraid of the voter base number two is what we just talked about, which is the entire government being turned red. Yeah. And that was a very scary thing. Because when you look at it, you know, the the checks and balances that are sort of built in. Those things kind of become a little bit weaker when there's so much when there's no parody right when it's just one side dominating. So that's an incredibly interesting thing. So yeah, my first thing was just, I just, I don't know, it's just dismay at the fact that we just elected.
a celebrity. Yeah, essentially, with no political or military experience. Nothing is unprecedented. Probably, yeah. What's your next thing, and the next thing was
the next thing I kind of mentioned was, I was a really powerful reminder of the fact that this was, you know, and again, to give credit where credit's due what Van Jones talked about on on CNN last night, he called the the white lash, but this is basically saying goes off. Yeah, this is so he was rattles open his heart like yeah, and this is kind of the this is this is white supremacy kind of pushing back. I read an interesting thing last night, where it talks about how Jim Crow came after the reconstruction of the South. And so what's very interesting is that the history of kind of white supremacy here in this country has been that every single time there is progress that is made. Step,
you know, a couple of steps are taken forward. A couple of steps are pushed back very harshly. Yeah, like the white lash. Exactly. But he called the white lash very appropriately, very beautifully. And so, um, this was the white lash. And when a couple of things that kind of like solidified that for me was that we obviously know that there's a gender issue as well, in the world and in America. But 73% of white women voting for Donald Trump tells you that their whiteness is more important to them than their being women. And women here is relevant because Donald Trump was such a horrible person. Oh my god, what did he not say? Or do? Like what? Like, even when he was given opportunities, like,
Oh, you said this about this woman, you called her Miss Piggy, or you called her fat, or you called her gross and disgusting. Instead of being like, that was very wrong of me. That was very inappropriate. I apologize. He was like, yeah, it had you. Have you seen her? Yeah, that was it, he would double down every single time. So interesting. It's like he was playing the part of average Joe. Yeah. And they love it. Like, you know, the, and I used to live amongst, I mean, even in Texas like this, you know, we're in Dallas, the bigger city, but when I was in Knoxville, Tennessee, you know, serving the community there. I mean, a lot of these people were like, in the city limits in
the suburban areas, and you would meet them. And it's, um, and, you know, the, the crazy thing was the women who were defending him, when he was saying this stuff, and they would say, oh, boys will be boys or Yeah, locker room talk, or whatever the line was. And they, like you said, they looked past Hillary Clinton. And, you know, obviously, she has her own set of problems with the fact that she's a woman, the fact that she could represent so much progress for women. They looked right past her to his rhetoric about making America great again, making which was basically making America white again, yeah, because Hillary represents is campaigning with Barack and Michelle, you know, to
black pop, very powerful black people. Right, that really unsettled a lot of people. Exactly. And that, I think, is the one of the scariest things and I wanted to bring up a question. I mean, I know we got to get through your little your list that you went, No, no, that's fine. But I wanted to bring up a question kind of in the midst of this, which is like, how does a group of people like, if we're gonna talk philosophically here spiritually?
You know, you're trained in the Islamic sciences? How does a group of people get to a point where this can happen? Mm hmm. As a society or as a community? How did we get here? You know, I think people are part of the reason why today feels like Voldemort has returned. Yeah, is because people are just like, didn't we just have eight years of progress? like yeah, did you know we had a black man in the White House? We had so many things. Obviously. He was also had his faults, you know, the droning and everything. No one's endorsing? No, you can't endorse anyone except for the property.
It's also them. Well, yeah. Can't endorse anyone in there. Not having a fifth key conversation here. I mean, this is just kind of like as American Muslims. Yeah. Just kind of sitting here the day afterwards what what goes through your head? And so there's another there's another actually question I'm gonna get to you about that. What? How did we get here we had somebody that represented so much progress. And now we're, like you said that white lash we took, you know, five steps back. But what's actually going on inside of us as people like what are some of the things that we have to think about deeply? Muslim, non Muslim, whatever? What are some thoughts that you had about that? So
that was one of the other points that I had, that I can just kind of answer with this with. And that was, I think that the prophetic model, Salafi system of reform, and rehabilitation of a community is the ultimate model, and nothing will ever be better. And I know that that's stating the obvious,
not stating anything earth shattering there. But a reminder is very helpful.
And when the prophets a lot of the time was given the message, it ought to be able to change the entire world. And he came home to Khadija, his wife about the Lackawanna.
And he told her, he shared it with her. And then he also mentioned the fact that Khadija who's going to accept this, who's going to believe in this.
And at that time, she mentioned a few reasons why she thought, why she believed rather, that people were going to believe in people were going to accept it. And she said, and nikitos Hello, Ron,
you're good to your family, take care of your family. What took on a life you're hospitable, honorable to your guests. You are he she went on to say what flexible ma Do you take care of those who can take care of themselves. Without mukil you lift those who have been who are down Falling downtrodden. And we're talking while and Bill Huck, and you are always willing to help in a good cause. And that type of you know, I was visited by a brother Muslim brother recently, who actually does a lot of work has been formally trained, mentored, you know, and does like a lot of community work and organizing and moving and all this kind of stuff. Like, he was kind of talking about it
that there's activism and there's organizing, and activism is kind of become just a buzzword.
But he said real thing is organizing. That's real, real work.
And, you know, what's the difference? The difference is more like activism is just like a general word. That just means I'm just trying to contribute to this cause organizing is I'm actually in the trenches. I have a methodology I have a manage. Okay, I have a with the term community organizer. Exactly. Okay, exactly. And so
he was basically, you know, kind of mentioned this to me, as well, but he was in community organizing is extremely hands on work. It doesn't involve Twitter, it doesn't involve Facebook, it doesn't use Instagram, you literally are knocking people's doors, you're sitting with them in front of their homes, you're talking to them in their living rooms, you're walking around on the streets, you're at playgrounds, you're at elementary schools, you're at hospitals, you're at clinics, like that's what real real organizing looks like. And that's how results are produced. That's how the profits, a lot of these have earned his credibility in his community. So that when he had an actual
message and a vision to share, there were people who were willing to buy in and listen to that message in that vision. And that is just what I just described that type of work, knocking doors and walking, you know, walking the streets and visiting people and sitting with them. And that is pardon the term that is not sexy at all. That is not cool. That is not exciting, that is not technologically advanced. That is not any of these other fancy terms that we use. And so we got bored with it. And we neglected it. And then we forgot about it. And what ended up happening was that those who had maybe possibly some values or principles or ideas to share,
nobody cared what they had to offer. And one of the biggest things that this election to me at least what I'm learning just from reading, and this is me, just sharing my notes I'm learning right now, one of the biggest things that I felt like I've learned through this election, just reading in the aftermath from really smart people who know what they're talking about, is without realizing it, there is a huge dichotomy and polarization within the American citizenry within the population. So let me demonstrate for you. As an example, if I asked you what's between just just say what the first thing how we would talk about it, what's between Chicago and Detroit?
It'd be like, nothing. You drive through there. Oh, you mean distance wise? Yeah. Yeah. Like it's just two hours, three hours. Yeah. But like if I was asked you what
What's in there in that two, three hours? Like middle of nowhere? It's nothing. Yeah. You know, if you ask me what's between Dallas and Houston and be like, Oh, nothing is just a bunch of like nothingness bookies. Yeah. buches it's actually not nothingness. Yeah, it's actually millions of human beings. Yeah. So this happened where there were these big city people
living their own lives, talking their own rhetoric, kind of being in their own bubbles.
And you had people in urban areas kind of living in their own little isolated bubbles in their own little realities. And that came to a clash. And there's just more of them than there are of us. And you also had the suburban folk, which is another conversation that I want to have a little bit later, okay. The intoxication of materialism. As long as I have my car, my house and my super meat, I don't need to get involved in this stuff is the operative word comfort. So Paula, don't be comfortable. It's it comfort, comfort is the comfort is the is the nest of like, apathy of apathy. Right? comfort actually. atrophy? Absolutely. Yeah. It's it's the enemy of growth. It's interesting
when you look at all the scholars of purification of the heart, when when they highlight different diseases, one of the first things they say is a cure is a juror. Yeah, hunger. Why? Because it causes you to be uncomfortable. Yes. And even in learning Vygotsky. Piaget, they say learning always takes place were in an uncomfortable place. Awesome. You know, when I'm sitting in class, and I'm reading to you, I'm uncomfortable because the information is new. I don't know it yet. So as I'm reading it, I'm still trying to process it and synthesize it, you already know it, because you're the teacher. So you're in a place of comfort, you may not learn anything. But for me as the student,
I'm uncomfortable, because I don't already know this. So I look up to you every sentence and I say is that is that right? Is that what he's saying? You say? Yeah, so there's a lot of discomfort there. But we'll talk about suburbia and a little bit, but the concept of sort of overlooking people forgetting especially the downtrodden, you know, these are prophetic qualities that we find Are you know, flagrantly absent in society but also we are a reflection of our society of course, you know, Muslims in the greater society Don't we have a greater responsibility because we know who the profits are lobbyism is isolated. So let me let me play devil's advocate All right, not that I'm
sure Tom's friend or anything but let me
let me play I love all your shape on excellent always has like a southern play. Why does shutdown sound like this?
Sounds like george bush. Okay. So
let me play devil's advocate here. I was having a discussion earlier today with someone that I really love and respect a good friend of mine, someone actually that you know, part of the reason why I'm still involved in the in the faith as a Muslim is because of his hope was in college, very good guy, Mashallah. Shout out the sitar. And we were kind of getting into this discussion about, you know, the the voter population for Donald Trump and the voter population for the right for the red. And he was basically making the point that, you know, as American Muslims, we feel comfortable living in, in America, but we don't, we don't necessarily fit in yet. And he was saying that people
will, you know, hate us and half the country maybe has shown through their voting that they are against, you know, Muslims, or at least I guess you could say, like practicing Muslims, devout Muslims, traditional, whatever you want, whatever label you want to put on that. And he was essentially saying that, you know, this is a little This is a reality that we're gonna have to deal with. And the point that I was trying to make, and I want to get your perspective on this, because I've been thinking more and more about his point. And the point that I was trying to make is that I think we're just really bad neighbors. Yeah. And when I say neighbors, I'm speaking figuratively. I
don't mean literally the three people that you live around, but I'm saying like classmates, co workers. Yeah, we're not very talented at that. You know, I talked, you know, up until, what is it the last decade in our Sunday schools? We've been teaching kids that being friends with non Muslims is not permissible. Haram. Yeah, you know, haram bei rip, right? No, we've been teaching kids that it's Haram. And I'm almost I wonder if that's like an indication of something greater? Like, do we have this condescension complex with non Muslims? Does that prevent and I'm not I'm not speaking to the exception. You know, you have your Betty Auntie story which we can talk about. I have Mrs.
Mueller, who, when my mom had to go take an exam when she was doing her degree, she would drop us off at Mrs. Mueller's house. complete trust you know, we had across the street his first name was Bernard I forget his last name, but every week thing he needs a last name after Bernard Bernard right. It's like burn art. That's his whole name. He used to bring over cinnamon rolls every week. You know, my mom used to make them cushy, which is Egyptian basically kiddie.
like rice and lentils. There was a very communal aspect, Mr. Richardson down the street. I used to I used to mow his lawn for $10 a week. Like, I remember these people and they remember us and guess who becomes the reference point for Islam for them? You know, our family? Yeah. So my point that I was trying to make which I felt very passionate about and I still kind of do, as you can probably tell, is that I think that we're on on the whole, not exceptionally on the whole
We're pretty bad neighbors. I mean, we don't really do neighborly things. And and some of that might be cultural difference. But what are your thoughts on that? How? How are we great us? Maybe you can give us some stories? And how can we get better at that? Because clearly that's impacted? how people perceive us. Yeah. And is it our responsibility? Even? I think it is. That's what I'm basically talking about is that we want to enact this philosophical, maybe even theological, social change in society. But before the prophets, a lot of him did that he qualified himself to the people through the attributes are the Java the Allahu taala has mentioning, and that involves being that that that
requires being involved in people's lives having a positive impact in your surroundings. And that's missing from for most of them, you know, for their very few, well, kalila. Canada, the Arabs would say that very, very few. When when you basically don't say all because there's very few examples, they said, those very few don't really even add up to a percentage. So you can't really claim anything at that point. Pretty much how many votes Gary Johnson got
Gary Johnson, but he was probably climbing a mountain right now. Smoking weed.
While he's somebody who's crazy Uncle, what is Aleppo?
Aleppo is the negative of Aleppo. Aleppo, it's like you're a weirdo. So but in all seriousness, my wife comes on to help them and give them aid over their oppressors. I mean, but um, so the, so it's so rare that it you can't really take any credit for it. At that point, I think it's pretty fair to say that most of us are have haven't really followed that prophetic model at all. I do. I am open to one thing in this conversation. And I kind of saw something and even though I didn't engage in this rhetoric, because I don't think it's necessarily helpful.
But I saw a lot of people kind of like talking about like, Oh, you know, I don't know how to explain this to my kids that Donald Trump one.
And I saw conversation between two African American moms to black mom's mom doubled from Michigan and my mark from Cali. And they said something interesting. You know, my mom basically said that
I don't need to explain anything to my kids. I've been explained to my kids, you know, their whole life what America is. And I thought that was kind of like, wow, hmm. You know, so maybe there is, you know, that maybe it's a little bit of an element. So I I've always thought he told me a wake up call for some of us exactly, for some of us, because I do think that there's a very unique perspective that comes out of the African American, the black Muslim community that is truly has a greater sense of being American and not having to prove that they're American not having to earn their Americanness. I saw um, you know, Mark's wife, Marjorie, yeah, who we both met you know, she's
she's the one of the leaders of the Muslim anti racism coalition, run by sister and Amira as well from Michigan, Mashallah Muslim, aaRC. They do education, advocacy, training for different organizations, but I think they particularly focus in the Muslim community about understanding, you know, the philosophically what is race, what is racism, and how that impacts us on a very deep level, white supremacy, things like that. And she actually said something really profound. she tweeted,
you know, that a lot of people are talking about taking off their headscarves out of fear for their lives. And she said, you know, she's also she also wears the headscarf, by the way. But she said being black. Yeah. I've always had to fear for my life. Like, I've always had a target. I've always been a target, I think is what she said. So it's kind of like, yeah, there is a community that has that this doesn't really change much for them in terms of, you know, talking to their kids or feeling less safe. Yeah. And that's something that we can definitely learn. Yeah, I mean, the other candidate, who we wouldn't like we've talked about, we weren't creating, that's going to be one of
the next points we weren't crazy about. And we didn't like either, but that, but we definitely let's not deny this. Let's not light ourselves. We would have been breathing a sigh of relief this morning if she would have won last night. Yeah, it wasn't Trump. Yeah. And that same woman called young black children super predators and actually said that we need to bring them to heel. Can you say he'll What are you talking to usually a dog dog. So panela dehumanizing it again, people can change. Sure. But it's clear that these are things that are patterns of behavior, even the way that she addressed, you know, the Black Lives Matter. Protesters that would show up and ask her to explain
herself and there was really no
no direct apology for those things. I think until the second debate with Bernie or the last debate with Bernie, I think she made some sort of, yeah, you know, it's something I shouldn't have said there was no clear. I'm sorry. I've learned I made a mistake. There was none of that, you know, Glenn Beck recently. Yeah, that was wild. That was Glenn Beck, a commentator for the for the right. Usually, he said that he's learned a lot from the Obama presidency, and he supports Black Lives Matter. So we believe in obviously, people redeeming themselves, but Hillary didn't really go that route. No. So
So yeah, so just to answer your question, I do think that we we've been extremely neglectful of those responsibilities. And that reflects in our inability to be able to converse with people and exchange ideas with people. Why don't you tell us a little bit about buddy Andy.
So there's always very difficult because it's really, really emotional. But
so when I was about five years old, my sister was about a year old 1942. Yeah. So the last time the Republicans had the entire Congress, but a
Harry Truman was printed out so I, you know, was about five, my sister was one, my mom got into a really, really bad accident shattered her arm, like broken in like five different places or something like that to completely like, reconstruct her arm.
So it was really tough. It was really stressful, you know, typical immigrant situation. My dad was working two jobs, live in an apartment trying to get by. And we were in the hospital for quite some time. My mom was brought home her arm was in one of those contraptions because they had pins going into her arm to set the bones. It was really terrible. And this is, you know, again, before a lot of the more, you know, modern kind of really primitive, probably. Exactly, exactly. That's why like she's got these scars that run they have to bait they basically cut her whole arm open and just kind of unfolded, opened it up and put it together. There's no laser to her laparoscopic, none of that
type of stuff. So
But anyways, we come home. And we have this neighbor right across the door across from us in apartments. It's pretty close. Elderly white couple
guys name was Larry kind of drove us home. I kind of on and off. And then there was Betty. She was a retired teacher. And they have one daughter who is away at college. And so they were just kind of doing their own thing. And we came home and she comes on she's like what happened? Oh my god, I didn't see off for a few days. And
so cantos had this accident, desert desert situation. And so she said, y'all, and my little sister was a year old. So she said, y'all look like you could use some help. Let me help you. Just want to pause here for a second. Notice how she said no, she made mention that she hadn't seen y'all for a few days. Yeah, that's neighborly, that is super neighborly. Right? Like when you when you notice, for example, that maybe someone's lights aren't on, or they left their lights on. It's like middle of the night. These are the qualities that I was talking about. Yeah. And that's those are the things that really go a long way. So her saying that obviously. let you guys know that she was she
was worried about you. Exactly. Yeah. And then she says, I think you guys need some help. Y'all need some help. And, and I'm just really transparent every time I told this story, because there's a lot to learn. I learned a lot from it. Typical immigrant mentality was absolute paralyzing fear of the non Muslim. Yeah. And also it's shameful to take help. Exactly. There's like, there's like multiple things at play here a lot. And keep in mind that my parents were Pakistani. The reason why that's relevant is that it's not like being Indian. And the difference here is that if you're from India, you interact with non Muslims. Yeah, if you're from Pakistan, you don't interact with very well. I
mean, it's Pakistan. Exactly. It's pure. It's the land of purity, right. So dumb. But uh, so shout out to God the awesome. Muhammad Ali Jinnah. Why are you giving him a shout out? But a boy? So
you know, but at the same time, beggars can't be choosers. Yeah, my dad had to go back to work and bills and a hospital bills and all that good stuff. So
we were like, Sure. So she started coming over in the morning, and she would you know, get us ready, get me get me ready for school, take care of my sister make some food, all that good stuff. And that just kept going on for weeks and weeks. And then being little kids, you know, when she would kind of go across her own apartment. You know, being kids, we just try to follow her over there. And she was like, oh, kids, I don't know. So then she came over to, you know, my parents and basically said, your kids want to follow into my house. And what is it that you'd be uncomfortable for your kids to be around? And they just mentioned that, you know, not eating pork and then just, you know, alcohol,
we're kind of sensitive about the whole alcohol issue. Don't wander around the kids. So she said okay.
And so I think she had mentioned that they didn't eat pork to begin with. And then secondly,
About the alcohol issue, um, her husband used to she didn't used to drink. But her husband would drink like beers and stuff. So she kind of told Larry no more beers in the house. And you guys just because of us, and I had it Larry take, but I remember he just kind of looked at it was like what one? And, and then Betty had like this Look, she just looked at him.
And he was like, God dammit is miles. And he just
just stormed out. Like, hey, from King of the Hill, he pretty much yeah. And then he would sit in his truck and drink beer there. And, and I remember he says, stare at me like, God, I hate this brown kid so much. I can't drink beer my apartment anymore because of him. Larry is now in Donald Trump's cabinet.
Secretary of State, but a secretary of beer. So um, but yeah, we she just took care of us and even made even made concessions for you guys. Yeah, absolutely. Like, imagine if someone came over to help you. And then their kids followed you back home? Yeah. And you're like, Oh, God, and then you just sort of like, you just volunteers to come in. Then you ask their parents like, What? What is it that, you know, maybe you guys are sensitive about and they said like biryani? Or like, like, you know, something that's just, I'm trying to think of it. It's like, very, like Jai Ark. We don't want our kids are on T Yeah, we're Mormon. We don't drink caffeine, right? Like what would like what
would like a Muslim family do? They'd be like, they'd be freaking like, okay, they can come over for maybe 30 seconds a day, because I need to have my coffee or my like, you know what I'm saying? I do. I mean, I don't think people understand beer. Muslims, oftentimes frame beer and like, Oh, it's the evil evil is put it is poisonous. I believe that it's toxic. But beer oftentimes for the average, you know, person who is not Muslim, and they are in some cultures in the south. It's a very, it's almost to us, like Chai, yeah, not that is their tribe, because very, and I knew I know, a brother who became Muslim. And he basically said that after he became Muslim, he stopped drinking. He said,
it was just nearly impossible for him to have a conversation with his dad anymore. Because he said that just the way he grew up the way their culture was, that was the only time they talked with they put on football, they drank beer, and that's the only time they could talk cracked open a cold one. Yeah. So that when your coworker just little heads up when your coworker, you know, offers to take you out for drinks, or it says Come drink with those who come to the bar. They're not trying to be offensive, in fact that that's actually like, that's a really really big, big deal, you know, five into the inner circle invite into their, into their life. And so Larry did this, right, got rid of
the beer, everything and we just a close from there on out.
extremely close, she basically was like a holla to me, because my mom's sister, because my mom actually has a couple of passed away now to her mama, but my mom had eight sisters. And, and I, you know, whenever we would visit overseas once every few years, I meet them. And I was like, Oh, my God, you have eight sisters.
I had one. And I was like, that must suck for you. And
so being a kid, but she was actually more like a highlight because I just saw her every single day. And she was like family. And we remained close over the next, you know, 2025 years.
Until, you know, she passed away, she had gotten cancer. She was really sick there towards the end. My mom basically spent the last couple of weeks just at her bedside, to sitting with her being with her. And the day before she passed away, she accepted a song.
You know, that's really powerful. Yeah. But she taught. So a lot of times this lesson is kind of like, Oh, look, we know we didn't I believe the last panel I told I just gave her the new TV man. Because Because the last panel that I decided to decree to and she was amazing. But she taught us way more she taught me and us way more than we ever taught her one of those Muslims about the Shahada kind of deal. Yeah, I just I learned what it what it would look like if I actually, you know, lived my Islam with my neighbors. And I wonder sometimes how long you hear stories like this?
If my neighbor came home with a cast, would I be able to do you know what, and as a Muslim, I'm supposed to have this sort of generosity. I'm supposed to whether or not there I don't know. Right? But so that story always really shook me and sort of rattled me and still continues to this day. Every time I hear it. It kind of makes me feel this reality check what kind of neighbor Am I
you know, do I do I ignore my neighbors? Do I even know when they're hungry? Yeah, you know, some of the interesting Hadeeth about being a neighbor. It focuses a lot on sort of reading between the lines. Yeah, and not not necessarily not sleeping full when your neighbors are hungry. Exactly. But you can't expect your neighbor to come ask for food.
Sometimes you just have to be perceptive Yes, not a spy but perceptive, right? Maybe you notice that there's not the trash bags aren't very full, you notice that you don't you know, back in the old days, you wouldn't see the smoke coming from the chimney, meaning they weren't cooking. So there are ways to get to know people in a in a non intrusive way, where you can sort of be helpful and be of service. Absolutely. And, you know, not and still not sacrifice their dignity while helping them.
Absolutely. So I think one of the things and this seems like a very micro point to a macro problem, we started off talking about Donald Trump and the republicans and this and that, but I really do believe in my heart of hearts that if Muslims, if our community can just focus on being better neighbors, yeah, then we will see less Islamophobic sentiment. Yeah. And I'm not necessarily saying that
there isn't such thing as colonialism, yes, or racism, or Islamophobia, absent that's outside of our control, like you could give someone a brick of gold every day. And they would still curse you and your beliefs, right? There are some people that are like that there are the Ebola hubs. Right, right, they exist. But I think personally, and I agree with all those that are my friend, in that regard, I think he was saying that there are some that you try and try and try, but they still are just going to do what they do. I still think, however, that we do have a big responsibility that we're missing out on. And my point to the students was, particularly for younger folks, I just think
that it's not very exciting. It's not very flashy. It's not big and grand and amazing and groundbreaking and earth shattering enough. Because you're just basically telling individuals to get out there and connect with other individuals. And that just doesn't seem like it's like making moves. And but change is a very incremental gradual process. Yeah, you know, so, I was just last night, it's cumulative. Yeah, Tuesday night, you know, with the C class. And we went through a story of I'm gonna be another us, * Lakota and who and then of course, next week, we'll be talking about Khalid bin walidah. The Allahu taala knew how they accepted Islam. And Holly the number who
are two of the most influential figures before Islam in Mecca, and after Islam, in Medina, in the Muslim community.
And how they accepted Islam 20 years after the Prophet Salafi, some sort of preaching the message. I love the story about how it converted, some believable. It was like a compliment, right, though? Absolutely. And I'm gonna be the last two, he goes through. He's like, Look, Mohammed salatu salam is eventually going to win this and he's gonna take over mcca I'm not gonna hang around to see that happen. So I'm gonna Peace out, he goes to East Africa and the joshy goes there, and basically tries to take up residence with an gushy, he makes a little mistake kind of ends up offending the Jesse in the joshy, because of something he says about the Muslims. And the joshy actually hits him and Ahmed
is bleeding. And Naja, she kind of feels bad and then adjust she, you know, kind of starts talking to him. And I'm gonna start asking him about the faith about Islam about the religion, and he realizes that he is covertly a Muslim, the king of Kenya. And I'm not sure he actually says himself, yada hodel haka, Allah azza wa jal will enter to Hollywood. So basically, you know, that both the the Arab and the non Arab understand that this is the truth, but you differ from it. Yeah, you still oppose it? Why? What's wrong with you? Why are you being so stubborn, right? And he just comes to this realization, but it's 20 years later, listen, anybody who thinks that they're so awesome, that
they got all these strategies and cool ideas and innovative solutions? No, you are not smarter and better than the prophets, a lot of them and to come 20 years to convert some people to just chip away at some people. So but we got to get out there and we got to start doing it. And the more of us that get out there and start doing it, we will start to see the impact. Maybe in four years, maybe in eight years, maybe in 12 years, maybe in 20 years. Or maybe we won't, or maybe we'll we'll would like that famous old expression. We'll plant the seed. And we'll plant the seed of the tree that somebody else sits under the shade. Yeah, exactly. I remember one of you know, our friends from
Knoxville, Nadeem, he used to say sincerity is when you you know plant the seeds of the tree that you never get to enjoy the fruit No, or sit under the shade of that tree. But it's but you know that you're doing it for obviously greater reasons than yourself.
One of the one of the points that sometimes often is brought up, sometimes often that kind of climb there a little bit. But is the idea that it's why is it my job like I'm Muslim? But why is it my job to respond to bigotry, like
these people are just bad people. Like, it's not my responsibility. I didn't sign up for this. And interestingly, I've actually had, you know, people come to me and they said, You know, I asked them about do you dialogue with people who have racist statements like you
You talk to them? Do you try to educate them? Because a lot of times it just misses vacation or lack of education? And they say no, it's not my job to educate. And I oftentimes wonder, you know, what if the prophet SAW some of them said that about Omar? Yeah, it's not my job to teach him. You know, he's this, he's that, you know, he's a womanizer, he's an alcoholic. It's not my job to teach him up, you know, but now, because the Prophet didn't sell us on him have that methodology. He did think of it as it was his purse. It was his responsibility to teach even those that everyone else gave up on. Sure. You know, the famous Have you heard the narration about Omar that the man said his donkey
will convert before he ever does, right? So everyone gave up on Omar right. But the prophet SAW sent him still spent time with him when he showed up at his door. He said, Isn't it about time, Omar? Isn't it about time? Right? Yeah. So I think one of the issues that we need to get over is that being Muslim, you have been given this immense privilege and gift of understanding the world as it should be. And as it is, and that perspective, yeah, that perspective is not a privilege that you just hold on to for yourself, and then you look down shamefully on everybody else. It's something that you yearn not just through preaching, but through experience to give to other people.
Absolutely.
The thing I mentioned about that is a little bit harsh. Does a little harsh, just do it. But do for the vine, rip, if
if we do take this blessing, and not do anything with it, not fulfill the responsibilities, the obligations that come with it,
it can get taken away.
It belongs to Allah. That's arrogance. To think that we own something. I think a lot of times people replace that understanding. They get so caught up in the social justice element, which is important. Yes. But they'll make statements like Islam is at its core social justice. That's actually not true. Right. Islam at its core, is a relationship with Allah. Yes. And a byproduct of a relationship with God is placed, right justice being fair equality. Those are things that are a byproduct. But Islam at its core is in fact, just having a really bad relationship with God. And that's where the humility comes from. Absolutely. That's where the humility comes from. So that you don't, you know,
it's interesting, you know, how many people started off their work? being exactly,
maybe good hearted, hardworking, sacrificing selfless people and individuals, and ended up becoming self obsessed? ego driven, egotistical, maniacal monsters? Yeah, like we were criticizing Hillary a little bit in her foundation and things like that. But she did a lot of good, especially early on, you know, she talked about health care for children and education for children. And she's a pioneer for women's rights. And I'm not again, I'm not analyzing her soul. No, but a lot of her actions as of recent, you know, who she speaks to who she politics with, who she campaigns with, and takes money from. There's a lot of problems there a lot. So just because someone started the right way,
doesn't mean they'll end the right way. Absolutely.
Quick question here. A lot of people have this question I got asked it today, probably, you know, 10 times actually, people are sort of remorseful, regretful, they're grieving. They're grieving this morning. Like I said earlier, it feels like Voldemort has returned.
Muslims in the political process. So we talked a little bit about this whole apathy, this material comfort, but what about like from a religious perspective? voting is it haraam? Am I getting involved? Is it Cofer Escobar? Is it the great, you know, is it a great disbelief? Like what is the deal with voting as a Muslim person? Should I feel guilty? Do I have blood on my hands? Am I accountable for the mistakes that a politician make? Like? These are all questions that I've been asked literally, in the last, you know, 12 to 24 hours.
So there.
So the modern system of voting
is something that there is not a precedent for from the time of the Prophet sallallahu sallam. So what that means is that we won't necessarily have any explicit and authentic evidence directly speaking to this issue, nor do we have a precedent, prophetic precedent. So therefore, issues like this, basically are oftentimes referred to as things that are Messiah issues that are Hd haddie that they basically need to be figured out they need to be solved. They need to be solved in light of bigger principles, overarching kind of ideas,
and texts. So when it comes to this particular issue, there's a couple there's a few thoughts that basically
intersect with one another here.
The first idea is that
When you
facilitate and enable and support someone into a position of influence or power or ability,
you do you do then bear some responsibility, at least some at least partial for the wrong that they might commit in that position.
That there's an idea. And it's not completely wrong, it's not completely false. However, I do think that it gets extended way too far. And it does get taken way out of context. So if I voted for Barack Obama, Barack Obama, you know,
droned people, whether it's in Yemen or Pakistan or Afghanistan, I'm, I'm now accountable for the things that he did. I'll be I'll be asked by Allah. So that's what I'm talking about, right? Because the idea here is
that when Allah Allah, Allah, he does somebody who points or leads to good than this, it says if they done good, so somebody who maybe points or directs to evil is like the person committing evil.
So the idea there kind of is like me, trying to
convince someone to commit like something that is immoral or hot or impermissible.
But in this instance, the reason why I say
there may be gets taken out of context is that if somebody has a particular policy, and I'm voting for that policy, I'm voting for those politics, politics, I'm voting for that issue. Specifically, then yes, there can be some culpability, some liability, some responsibility. But if I'm voting for someone, you know, based on a particular platform, and they go on to do something that I find to be reprehensible, there is a limit to how far responsibility extends Yeah, because there's the AI obviously, exactly what that does.
Exactly. And in fact, in fact, we do not embrace the concept of like a third party liability. So meaning that if I sell cars,
and you come to buy a car, then I'm not responsible. It's not my problem, where you get that money to buy that car from, like, meaning in the sense of Obviously, I'm not gonna like sit there and just ignore, you know, you open up a trunk, and there's like a dead person and duffel bag full of cash. And I'm just kind of like, Dude to do anything.
But I'm saying like, if you end up go take you go, where examples make me wonder so much about like, what experiences you've had this? Listen, Arlington, Texas, baby, listen, I do what I do. So you don't necessarily have to snoop or spy about where someone earns the future. But the check now, are you going to be paying interest on that money that you borrow? Like, that's not my problem at this point? I can't worry about that. If I'm selling you a laptop, are you going to go and God forbid, or someone I sell someone a laptop? Are they going to God forbid, go in and watch * on that laptop? Thank you for switching you to somebody to listen to me. I just told you I do what I do.
Mashallah. May Allah preserve you? Yes. Yeah. So, but that's my point. You know, you're not accountable for me what I do on this laptop? No, I'm not accountable for what you do on any of your Apple products. No, because you because you got them all as gifts, basically. Right? So we're not all responsible for your Apple products? Not at all right? That's on you. Yes, correct. Okay. And so, that being said, right, so there is a limit to this. So we don't even accept the idea of that third party liability. Because that's a very slippery slope. If we start embracing the idea of third party liability, we'd end up in a position where none of us could basically do anything, we'd have
to just go and live and never interact with another human being at all ever, ever. Because there is this very famous notion that if somebody sees something, for example, like if, you know, if a sister is dressed a certain way, and the brother can't stop looking or for brothers dresses, or my sisters can't stop looking,
and it causes them to have these desires, thoughts and behaviors, then some scholars have actually put the onus on the person who's being stared at or looked down. And this is in a way it kind of resembles victim blaming, right because this person is sort of that person might have a sin so let's just say there is a person who is not covering minimally what is required in the shed God to cover so dudes is walking around shirtless completely robbed mama Jenga. Exactly me just with his diaper on straight up. All right, adult diaper at this point. Exactly. So he's just walking around, completely not not even covering the minimum from the naval to me that men have to cover
and somebody's looking somebody sees it and whatever the case may be whatever feelings or sentiments that arises within the person who sees it. Yeah.
He is that person who's not covered appropriately is committing a sin. But their sin is not covering properly. Yeah. But they are not sharing in the sin of the person who continues to sit there and ogle and stare at them, which that itself is a problem. Correct. But that person is not taking the burden of that. No, that person is isolated from that. Exactly. There's two completely different things. Yeah. And that makes it because I think that in some way, shape or form that web becomes really too complex. It's It's ridiculous. It's not practical, and Islam is not. Islam is not designed that way as a dean. Yeah. So that's number one for the voting is like, should I feel
guilty? Should I feel accomplished? And a lot of times, too, I think it's fair to say that in politics, there really is, you know, it might be interesting to dive into this, there really is a lack of certainty on a platform. Yeah. When it when a politician says something, it's common knowledge now to know that that is just a statement, actually. Yeah. And there's no actual there's no concrete evidence that that's going to be delivered, not at all. So if I vote for somebody, and while they were campaigning on their platform, they said, I'm going to do this thing. If that thing is sinful, actually, that thing is not necessarily concrete. So I don't even know. Yeah, you know,
my vote necessarily, as long as it wasn't for that the fulfillment of it. I don't even know if that person is truly going to do that. Yeah. So how can I be accountable for a fake promise? And because I think more politicians know and people know that in politics, most promises are pie in the sky fake, you know, even Donald Trump 90% of the things he said he's gonna do, he can't do. Yeah, right. So people are all excited about this or scared over it. But in reality, he can't deliver even Lindsey Graham, the republican senator think South Carolina. He's like, he can't do all this. It's not gonna work. It's not it's not feasible. It's not plausible. So that's number one. Is that I as a
Muslim, not accountable for Yeah, for Obama's drone strikes? Unless I voted for him for that reason? Yeah, correct. Then I have that. Okay. And then the other thing is another, what about what about assigning a judge besides a law or living under a law? That's not a laws law? Yeah. Well, I live in the Allahu taala. And who responded to that, he said, telling me to hocane readable, he hated
that basically hated who he said that you are using true words, the words of the truth, but you're using them to prove a point that is not right and wrong, kind of twisting? Exactly. Yeah. So no, I mean, we've, from the very beginning, we've had systems of governance, we've had, you know, human beings, be responsible in certain areas and make rules and draw up lines and, you know, create systems of, you know, organization so that we can live our lives within them. And that's never been an indictment for us to embrace those ideas. Otherwise, what would there be? I mean, theoretically, if there was seriously an issue with appointing a leader, and that leader was coming up with
protocol, or rules or laws, let's say, that didn't necessarily weren't derived exactly from the Quran or some of their Sharia. Then how, like voting for an HOA president? Yeah. Like, what's the different like the president of a country versus the president of your organization? Exactly. You know, if you say, as Jacob the Nasir, as the director, and the lead instructor of Cullen Institute, if you walk into class one day and say, no one can eat snacks in here. Can I say, where's that in the crowd? Brother? Yeah. I mean, it'd be preposterous. If I listened to your rule, Then am I abiding by a lawmaker other than a law? It's just silly. The example doesn't go to its logical
conclusion. It doesn't. It doesn't to its to
just illogical of an idea and a concept it's missing. It's only been embraced by extremely fanatically, like, extremist people. And the problem is people use this rhetoric to combat and it's almost like they're trying to just shave their apathy towards the process. Correct. So instead of becoming involved, they're like, No, I think it's her arm. Right? You know, a lot of people actually told me that they didn't get involved at all because they were told voting as her arm. Wow, did you vote? I did. You did? I did vote for Hillary. I voted straight down the Democratic ticket. They had a button actually. Exactly here in Texas, all Democrat. And I did that mainly for congressional
seats, Senate seats, local seats, things like that. Particularly. I know now, it seems like obviously, it was a pipe dream. I just dreamed about having a majority in you know, the Senate and
then
the Ernie potentially being Senate Majority Leader, head of the Finance Committee.
And then even if Hillary won he was probably gonna tormentor. Yeah, he actually said he actually said that his goal is gonna be to push her as far left as he could. Yeah, he was probably gonna make her life miserable, which I would just love watching. Don't
Which Bernie Sanders was your uncle? I do I think he is or your
dad. You call uncle Bernie. So he's just he's just so lovable. Yeah, man. Okay, so those are some Those are some really, really honestly.
Present issues in our Muslim community. Yeah, as much as we're sort of just kind of like, Oh, that was so 10 years ago. I thought so at least until yesterday when I got bombarded with these questions. So that's actually very interesting. Yeah. Where do you think this these notions came from? these notions of being involved in American voting or politics is, is wrong? Okay. Well, I mean, to go back to an earlier point, a lot of that is extremely, very, it's very closely related to
a lot of the after effects of colonialism. Interesting, a little bit. Well, I mean, you had European, our European powers are moved into so many different Africa, Asia, Middle East, like all these Muslim countries, or end otherwise, but they've just moved into these countries and kind of superimposed their laws and their systems upon them. When they left there was almost like this resentment, this rejection of their ways, their concept, their government, their laws. But what we didn't realize, what a lot of people didn't understand
was that we weren't abstaining and boycotting and rebelling and bucking against kind of the system altogether, while being occupied by them anymore. You know, we are now immigrants, minorities
living within these parts of the world. And the same logic just does not apply to how my grandparents reacted to the British in India. Then how I should react to the American, you know,
system and legal mechanism, you know, here today, it's just a completely different set of circumstances and the same logic will not apply at all. Yeah, okay. Did you feel Do you feel a lot of tension you're gonna you have three kids. Two of them are in elementary school now. Yeah. Were there any questions about that this morning? A lot of parents were really scared. They were actually got phone calls until about three in the morning from people all over texts and phone calls and stuff like that about just advice because people know that I work with, you know, younger folks and stuff like that. So they were like, how would you break the news? You know, my kids are sleeping
right now. But when they wake up? Yeah, um, I didn't go to school. She had strep throat, so she just chillin but Maryam, it was really funny. She kind of wanted to stay up and watch as long as she could. And then when she woke up in the morning,
she was like, hold on, I was like Donald Trump. And she's like, Oh, no, I was like, yeah.
So kids reaction to this is actually very interesting. Very, it shows a lot about like what they hear exactly. Because you probably didn't talk a lot about it. No, I didn't go to school kids probably. Exactly. And I just, yeah, she's mentioned a bunch of stuff that, oh, that girl was saying. And this kid was saying that we're gonna have to leave down from the conference. And I was like, That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard baby. Don't listen to those stupid kids. She's like, hey, she's my friend. Like, no, pack your bags, we have to leave. She's like this, my friend. I was like, well, your friend is done. So.
So he's joking, by the way, yes.
But, uh, so no, I just I just kind of laughed at her. She's like, Oh, no, I just laughed it off in the morning. I was like, Look, he's gonna be fine. Listen, did you pray fudger? Did you make dua? Yeah. Okay, then that's it. You just say Bismillah. And you say, Alhamdulillah. When you leave the home and you just do your thing, and you don't worry about any of that. All right, because Allah subhanaw taala is in control of everything. And which is, which is the the other side of the whole idea of being involved? Yeah, is that you have to anchor yourself to your relationship with a lot, of course, right? It's actually I think part of the reason we just talked about this and you know,
before we started recording
about how, like, we're not really like losing sleep over this. It's definitely weird. Yeah, it feels weird thing is, like I said in the very beginning, it just feels weird to me, because this guy is supposed to be on a TV show. Yeah. It feels strange seeing President Trump Exactly. I feel I feel like I have to make will do every time I say what's, you know, what's, what's next? You know? I mean, I just, I don't know. I don't even watch enough TV, but it's like, how many of us do 2020 See, that's what I'm talking about.
Gary, Aaron, get off my lawn mode right now.
And watch Gary Johnson mess. Mess up Kanye West and select.
Gary Johnson strikes again. Gary Johnson's my boy dude. I think Donald Trump paid Gary Johnson to just anyways, attract attract all the marijuana smokers be Gary Johnson. Yeah. So your kids, did you. You kind of sort of gave them the sort of Imani reminder, a reminder and I
Again, I mean, I talked to them very openly, plainly, I don't really, you know, I have no problems just talking to them about anything. But at the same time, I also wanted to kind of, you know, because they, they, they they feed off your kind of emotion. And so I just wanted to really give them the vibe, the feel of just calm confidence. And just, yeah, just clarity.
You know, that kind of leads to my final question for this podcast? Sure. Where do we go from here?
It feels weird. It's November 9. Yeah. You know, tomorrow be the 10th when this when this podcast drops? Correct. Keeping it 100. Yep. lit. Absolutely. lit up, lit AF woke.
snooze. Where do we go from here, dude, like, what's the like? I go home now. Gonna see my wife. We need dinner. Yeah, it just feels like you know, this morning when I met with by the way I met with Rabbi Charlie. He says his shalom. All right to you. Rabbi Charlie is the old he's the Rabbi of the colleyville Synagogue. The chairman Asha used to be the man with the mustard now I'm the Imam of the masjid. So it's kind of like, the heir apparent. But um, he sends his shalom to you. Rabbi Charlie this morning when we met Yeah, I met with him and a priest of a local Good Shepherd. Nice. Yes. Father, James. We met we talked about how to make you know, colleyville more diverse and inclusive
and faiths not feel scared and try to build those bridges. Rabbi Charlie hugged me. Yeah. As though we were attending a funeral. Yeah, that's the feeling that it gave me like, he was like, are you okay? Is everything okay? Are you you know, do you need team and
I can't help but think that this is gonna be the emotion that a lot of people are going to feel for the next couple of days. Sure. You know, Ali Baluch, I was just texting him. And he was saying there's like a really tangible tension. in the air. A lot of my friends are sitting at work everyone's quiet. People have on the on the one hand, they've told people, you know, they've broken down in tears, they don't know what's going to happen. On the other hand, you have the Trump supporters who have told people, you know, you need to be quiet and respect him. He's our president.
Where do we go from here? What advice do you want to give to the Muslim community,
on how to move from this, how to process this. So three things.
Number one, I will say kind of going back to an earlier point. But I want to highlight this here, because such a great example, that whole thing about, you know, folks in the cities and fancy the young, the educated the Metropolitan folks who talk a lot and talk all the time.
They, you know, they they kind of neglected, ignored and overlooked. The people in between big cities, the via the wide massive expanse of rural America. The people of rural America talk once every four years. And it's louder than the noise we make every day. They're committed. I actually, I posted this last night. And it was ironic, because you're talking about not posting but I said,
What I learned tonight was that millennials suck. Yeah. And I'm a millennial, by the way. Yeah. And I actually will fully admit right now on air that I am I am accomplished to this, that we only become interested in elections for 120 to 90 days. Yeah. Every four years. And that's pretty much it. Yeah. Everything else. We think that Instagram holds the key to justice. Yes. We think that the internet holds the key to liberation. Absolutely. And in reality, we lose focus of who eat what does the council person do? What does a school board member do? Yeah. And we don't know how to fight those battles. The only time we get angry is when they're removing, you know, when they're removing
climate change from science textbooks, or when they're, you know, doing things and then we get upset, we try to look up who quickly who's the school board, you know, Commissioner, whatever. And we don't even actually state so one thing that I learned, you know, going off of your first point, is that if you're not committed, like the people of rural America are, they will beat you every time everything every single time. You know, Nadeem used to say this in Knoxville is so funny, we'd be watching a football game and he's like, this game is already won. The game hadn't started yet. We're waiting for the team to take the field. He goes, it's already won. So what do you mean, he goes, it
was won in practice, whoever practice better, smarter, harder, that team is gonna end up winning. And I think that that stands true for elections. Yeah, is that millennials and young people in general just don't practice, right. We don't think of this stuff. We don't discuss the stuff we're not actually engaged in involved on a real level. Whereas rural America is Yeah. So I think that that's just something that we need to realize and pay a lot more attention to and that goes back to your earlier point of talking, learning from them and then also talking to them and building bridges and kind of working.
A second thing about kind of where to go from here. And I'm just going to kind of spout off like some of these things. The second thing is this, that
The thought leadership of a movement that's actually going to bring about change, that's going to
make a difference have an impact. It has to have a vision. It has to be concrete, it has to be solid, it has to be committed. It has to have clarity and confidence and power. It has there's got to be a vision. And this centrist garbage that we were sold by these establishment democrats was the most uninspiring and totally lacking in vision.
Just garbage that, you know, nobody was inspired by nobody cared for nobody believed in. And we just can't have any more of this. And they actually sabotaged, you know, the, the most inspiring candidate they had for an establishment career politician, a centrist who just didn't didn't stand for anything constantly compromising republican foreign policy, Republican in economic policy. And we Trump had Trump that was against Trump and Bernie aligned on the trade. You don't know. And I read, I told you I just been reading, I'm just learning. Last night, I read that two things, and actually sound like he's got like an excited first grader. Yeah.
And since 1980, I can actually recall and remember, in every single election, Republicans have two particular mantras. Number one is small government. Number two is free trade, and Trump, or his advisors or whoever, because I'm still not convinced he actually knows what's going on half the time. But whoever's was responsible for Trump
himself, otherwise, they realized that the people that they were trying to get votes from, were actually wanting the government to be a lot more involved in their lives, rule America and etc. That's why and so he kept talking about law and order. He dropped a line about small government. And he went totally no free trade and just talked about just sealing everything and everyone off. And just look into it looking after ourselves and take care of taking care of ourselves. He completely departed from the republican mantra. It's fascinating. So that so what I'm trying to say is as ugly as a vision or as scary as a vision might have been, there was a vision he had one. Exactly. And if
you if you looked at the advertisements leading up to the election day, yeah. A Hillary's literally was constantly focused on one thing, and that was the deployability of Donald Trump. Yes, you know, kept focusing on his negative characteristics. Trump focused on hillary for sure. But then he also I noticed this in his ads, actually, cuz I pay attention to these things. He actually started talking about like, what was his game plan? Yeah. You know, he so he would say, Do you want a career politician? 30 years? What is she done? Donald Trump will increase jobs he'll make, you know, he'll lower taxes, yada, yada, yada. Hillary's was literally all about his negativity.
That's a lack of vision. Yeah. If you're, if all you're doing is talking about somebody else, you're not talking about where you're going to take us. Right. You know, and I'm not convinced, Honestly speaking, the only reason I wanted Hillary was because of more democratic balance. I'm not convinced she even had a real vision, no, nothing. And and, and so that's, that's part of it, that we just have to, you know, get involved, have a clear vision know what we're doing know what we're voting for, what we're fighting for what we're going to be working towards, and, and, you know, just rattling off a few things. Another big thing for me and I mentioned this shoe before we got on the
podcast was if there is a silver lining to that comes from this. The silver lining that comes from this is we have finally been able to Donald Trump for us, you know, has banished the Clintons. We no longer have to deal with these people anymore. elitist, establishment dynasty, empire building, self absorbed self obsessed egomaniacs. And this is someone who voted for Hillary, by the way. Yeah, absolutely. But it's important to not have, it's important to not be so committed to something that you lose sight of what someone might actually represent. Right. I know a lot of people who were so committed to beating Donald Trump that Hillary almost became a savior for them. Not that Hillary
necessarily is like, again, I'm not saying that we know where her afterlife is going to be. What I'm saying is that what she represents is unfortunately, political lead ism. That is exploitative, it is endangering towards the middle class and she has not proven in her time and it's really warmongering. You know, you look at the amount of times that people were killed via drone during her time as Secretary of State. It was even more than george bush. And what does the Clintons did for their ego to just be back in the White House and build their political dynasty.
They sabotaged the entire thing.
The progress of eight years, and the future of the Democratic Party, they sabotaged and bought and ruined all of it. And about any any good work that President Obama did. It's all gone.
You know, all the progress that Bernie was making was all wiped away, washed away by all this back channeling and backdoor backroom dealing, and just for the fulfillment of their own ego, and they're building their political dynasty. And, you know, macabre, Allah Allah debases them and I mean, couldn't even pull up the courage to actually come out and give a concession speech last night, yeah, we're just done with them. I'm just glad to be able to wash our hands of them. And, and I hope and pray that, you know, the Democratic Party is able to learn their lesson,
you know, bring some of these really visionary people like Bernie Sanders and others, into the party, just hand them the reins, because the Clintons are going to be completely, you know, they've been the ones who've been boxing out people like Bernie and Elizabeth Warren, and our brother, Keith Ellison, and all these other people, they've been maxing them out.
But now they have nothing to gain anymore. And I don't think they're going to be even interested in hanging around. And hopefully, they can come up and come in and just shake things up. And give us a much, much better alternative and a clear vision vision that we can work on together going forward into the future, hopefully. And
yeah, those are just those are just a few of the, you know, kind of thoughts and ideas that I basically had. Oh, yeah, the last thing I was gonna say, oh, it will. Second last thing. Last thing, we'll kind of end on just, you know, just a note for spirituality for the community. Both Yeah, she just mentioned something. But one other thing, one other profound point for me that that I came across that I'm learning.
You know, being a Muslim, I've always been very weary of sounding to conspiracy theorists, like, you know, media as against us and all that. I don't want to sound like, you know, crazy old uncle that I used to hear talking at, you know, parties and doubts growing up. So I'm always wary of sounding like that guy. But we absolutely realized how we can trust in media and not so much because maybe if it's nefariousness, we can trust media because of its absolute pure incompetence. They suck. Listen,
in any other field of work, if you sucked that bad at your job, you'd never get to do it again. If I drove a bus and I like, just straight up, just drove it into a ditch. for no apparent reason. It wasn't raining. There wasn't an accident. I just went straight off road right on then you're examples of just so I'm just so curious.
To go but 60 miles per hour into a big old ditch, just like what's your agenda gonna be like? So far, you have just wants her dead body in a trunk with a bunch of cash. This is just gonna be monster trucks. Okay. But um, and if I drove this bus route on I should not be allowed to drive a bus anymore. Yeah, epic fail. Okay. can't recover from that. No, that's the way it works. Nobody who was involved in punditry and then political like commentary leading up to like they should all be fired, and never be allowed to do that job ever again. Hmm. 36 hours before Donald Trump, you know, won the election. He won it. handily, by the way. Yeah, absolutely. Bigley.
He was right. I think he's gonna end up with like, 300 and like some 10, or something like that electoral votes. And Obama won in two in 2012. With 330. Wow, think about that. And we thought that was a slam dunk. Yeah, we were like, oh, game over. Yeah. There's no way you know, that Obama's gonna look at this guy. And he almost got 300. Wow. So people were all basically like Michigan and Arizona aren't completely done yet. But they're, they're trending for Trump. Yeah. And what's the name? what I was gonna say was 36 hours before he was he won the actual election. The New York Times said Hillary had like a 70% chance of winning the election. Yeah.
36 hours later, like maybe an hour and a half, two hours before Donald Trump was declared the winner. Now they were saying that he had a 95% chance of winning the election. You were that far off? your only job. That's all you do.
And so, the reason why I bring this point up is just get educate yourself. Read, talk to people, sit with people, educate your mind. Drop all the meat stop consuming media non stop a constant stream, because they are stupid people who have no idea what they're doing.
And what idea they have no idea what they're talking about to stop polluting your mind with that, because that nonsense here, you're clearly talking about like the major networks. Yes. Yeah. You got the exceptions like Glenn Greenwald, of course, you know, these. That's what I'm saying, educate, educate, look for those people. Yeah. You know, but you just sit there watching CNN mindlessly, MSNBC stupidly, right? Or let alone fox news or anything else like that. They're just they're just, they have no idea what they're talking if you actually watch the first couple episodes of the show newsroom.
It actually really gives you a deep insight into how these these news channels work and how there's, I mean, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure it out. But basically, there's a lot of agenda. Yes, but the idea of a 24 hour news channel is inherently detrimental to the news. Yeah, it's just watering down the quality. And they always have to, they always have to try to make a big deal out of something otherwise radio space, right. And so following that, and taking what they what they say as gospel, you're only going to make poor decisions. Absolutely. So don't base your decisions off of that stuff. Educate yourself, man read. That's why I just turned off the TV at a certain point last
night, as went online. I found Twitter to be more reliable. Exactly. And I just started following like, specifically people who are professors, their academics, their community organizers, I was just reading what they were saying and they were putting out, you know, and so how many people like that because they're about educating. They were they were posting they were tweeting like articles and things like that. I was just reading article after article after article after article. And it was a lot more enlightening. Yeah, that's why I actually am like a Satan person today actually have thoughts. Yeah. You know, that as opposed to just like being long rambling and just being like, Oh,
my God, donor Trump. I'm gonna move to Canada. It's like, no, nobody's moving to Canada. Okay. Yeah. Trump say mean things about Canada right now. I love it. Yeah, go ahead. No, I'm not going to say mean things about Americans hat, America's largest Forest Preserve.
So that's a great transition to the concluding spiritual point. And, and And just to be clear, yeah, politics is not religion. No. And I actually said this today to somebody and they were like, shocked. Yeah, it's not sin. It wasn't sinful. Someone voted for Donald Trump. Correct. So you can't say that this person has acquired sin because this is an issue. You know, that there's a hadith about voting for Donald Trump. Yes, it goes back to their intention ality exactly back to their reality. I think that but as dumb as it as it would have been for them to vote for him, I cannot say that this person has pushed themselves outside of the favor of a lot because of this. So politics
and religion. Those are things that even classically, they stay far away. Yes, they stay far apart. But spirituality now is what we're talking about. In the last podcast episode, we kind of drew the line here. legal definitions in religion are there are one thing but spirituality or eemaan? Let's say faith, is how our relationship with Allah interacts with every aspect of our life. And there's no problem with that. There's no problem with that, you know, if I have a lifestyle, spirituality is basically your faith lifestyle, basically. So let's end this with a little bit of spiritual point.
Spiritually speaking,
you know, a lot of times it feels like an oversimplification. But that's what I mean. That's what he man that that's what he man is. That's what belief does. Keeps it simple. Yeah, it clarifies everything. It simplifies everything. It's like turning the light on in a big old like warehouse, makes it simple. You can see where you're going where you're walking. And
so, Allah subhana wa tada is the one in control. Allah subhana wa, tada is the one that we all depend on, and the one that everyone will answer to. And las panatela has a plan. And we just need to make sure that we are, you know, good with God, so to speak, borrowed expression from the south, we had to just make sure that we're good with God, that we keep things good with Allah subhanaw taala never waver in our faith, our trust, our dependence, our reliance upon him. You know, I can post it online. Just the example that always inspires me. It's one of my favorite kind of uronic like moments, where musala salaam takes Vanessa L and they're standing there in front of the sea.
And they're kind of looking at the sea being like, where do we go from here Moosa. And then for Alan and his ginormous army, they approach from behind and they turn around, they see the army, they look at the ocean, they see the army, and they tell ya musala moroccon Moosa, we're done. We're finished. We're doomed. And musala Sam says Kela Absolutely not. In my era beside him, my Lord, my master, my Allah is with me and He will make a way for a night Lamaze, and there'll be a soccer fan falaka Kanaka Lutheran cataloging, then Allah says that he commanded metallus him to go and strike this. See with his staff.
He walks out into the water, and takes his staff and he strikes it in the name of our last panel wattana.
And the sea is split. And the people are saved, created one of the greatest miracles humanity's probably ever witnessed.
See a split. And the believers walk clean, straight, dry, right through.
And fit on in this army is all handled
easily by Allah subhanaw taala. But the real important part of it is, is that as hopeless, as desperate, as scary as a moment seemed,
Allah subhanaw taala can make a way where there was no way. We got to make sure that we never waver, we never lose faith. And then the element of work is kind of mentioned there. Because Allah told him was Holly Sam walk out into the water and strike the sea with your staff. We got to roll up our sleeves, we got to do our work, never waver in our faith and trust in Allah. And Allah will make a seed and just split on its own. That's it, there was some sort of cause precisely, even though the cause sometimes doesn't make sense to us know, like, if I go stick a stick and hit a pond, yeah, nothing's gonna happen. Nope. But Allah tada did that. And I think one of the things that sort of
dawned upon me last night, a couple things. Number one is that I need to become, I need to understand the pulse of my community better, not just politically, but also just socially, I need to become a better neighbor. Absolutely. To become a better human, I need to treat people well hold the door open, I need to recognize when there are minority communities, marginalized communities, and not overlook them. There's a lot of things personally, you know, being someone who finds a specific or a particular interest in teskey. I think because of my mental health background and studies.
I think a lot of the problems that we deal with as a society deal basically boil down to individual people's diseases. And when you have enough people together in a room with all with their own deficiencies, you're going to have a couple big issues. So I think when you have this societal issue of racism, bigotry, sexism, etc, it really just points to the fact that there's a lot of people with this in their heart. So I don't want to be one of those people. I think individually, we have to get started, you know, individual families that we always talk about is the family dynamic. teaching your kids, that the things that people say even if they're popular or famous, they're not to be
laughed at, they're not to be, you know, perpetuated, right? I know a lot of people who retweet things or make, you know, laugh at things that are really seriously hurtful. And I think that what ends up happening is we end up losing this the sensitivity to how painful that thing is. So Donald Trump says something and people can say, Oh, it's just locker room talk. Why do you think that a person can justify Donald Trump saying that is because when they were younger, or during their life, they were told it wasn't a big deal. So teaching kids at home, that it's not okay to say those kind of things, or to be around people who say those kind of things. But spiritually speaking, what I
what sort of allowed me to fall asleep last night, was that there have been many times in my life where I did not understand what was going on. There have been many times in my life where I was confused, actually, it's something that occurred. And I constantly remember the story of the creation and the placement of add tomatoes to them on the earth, when the angels had asked a lot, you know, out of curiosity, not challenging, are you going to put up a creation on the earth? That's going to do two things that's going to spread corruption, and going to spill blood? And if you look at that description of humanity, they pretty much nailed it. Yes, you know, and they actually nailed
politics pretty well, you know, corruption and murder. And Allah tala did not repel that claim. He didn't, he didn't correct them even. He said, you know, in neon, Mo, meloetta. Allah moon, I know that what you don't know. So there is something deeper in the capability of human beings that is stronger than Donald Trump, we possess the ability to do more good than evil, we have to understand that there's an ultimate plan here. There's something much deeper that we can understand. And there will come a time where we will all look back and say, Oh, I understand now I get it completely. So having that faith, understandably, it's very difficult at the moment, but sometimes as time goes on,
as the shock wears off, as the sun starts to peak out over the clouds, it becomes a lot easier to understand that so I just sort of have to force myself to get there. And I think we can all do that inshallah. So with that, I want to thank you guys for joining us again today on the Hangout. Thank you for coming and hanging out with us on this special post election edition of our podcast. As always, if you really enjoyed it, and you can tweet at us, hashtag Calum hangout or hashtag alum podcast, obviously at Calum Institute is the Twitter handle also on Instagram, and feel free to check out the other podcasts that we offer? Whether it's check out the Nasser's life of the Prophet
Muhammad SAW some series or Mufti Sainz, beginning of guidance or to the profits and many other things that we hope to offer inshallah, we hope to see you next time on the Hangout. Remember, every Thursday morning, come hang out with us so that like when it's not when they come