Talking about Aleppo.
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.
12/20/16
To blame in shaytani r rajim
Bismillah R Rahman r Rahim
dedicatee
Pease
and let's let's see.
Yes,
everybody. Welcome to the Hangout here myself and Murphy with shareholder Nasir Jenga here at the bottom campus in Arlington, Texas. Welcome back slowly. Yes, I'm only gonna have to labor the cut to everybody. Hopefully everybody's been doing well. Sorry about that. We had a little bit of a hiatus a little bit of a break.
You know, we
had the holidays, and then just kind of getting back into the flow of things. So weren't able to make it happen last week, but did definitely want to sit down this week and talk about what's been going on. Yeah. hamdulillah. So over the holidays, I went to Spain. Yeah, you went to Aruba. I did go to Aruba was
unbelievable. Yeah, it's ridiculous. Did you notice any of my hitting you or no?
Yeah, I was. I was just walking down the beach. And I randomly like, fell on my face. And I was like, Greg just knocked a tooth. Yeah, I was like, Wait, is Murphy here?
That's amazing. I'll get some family time. Yeah, it was it was unbelievable. And it's, it's really nice. I mean, obviously, we got something to talk about today. But actually didn't want to take a couple of minutes to talk about the idea of, I mean, to each his own. I'm not I'm not one to sit here and criticize anybody for their own. You know, just personal choices, as long as you know, that are not detrimental or harmful.
And understanding that different people enjoy different types of things. But I really, really value and kind of notice the benefit as well. of doing things with my kids that kind of involved the outdoors. You know, there's always have ever been Knoxville, you took him to the mountains. Yeah, I mean, first thing you do when you go out there, exactly. We, you know, swimming in the ocean, they just wouldn't come out the water. They've been there for hours and then you know, building sandcastles and running up and down the beach. And it just, it was a really awesome natural experience. Mohammed's out of control. The guy's a year old, and he doesn't know how to swim. But he
insists that I take him as deep as I'm willing to go. I remember that. He just he just hangs out there. Yeah, just Yeah, I do like how your snapchat has become Mohamad Snapchat is Mohammed's person now featuring suevey Welcome. Yeah, just healthy eating, trying to find different ways and excuses to do so trying to cook my food and water. Man. That's I'm telling you it is legit. It's actually nice too, because of the, you know, the narrations about you can't you shouldn't leave fire on while you're not home. So like sometimes cooking, you get scared? Yeah, but this stuff makes it easy. It is pretty cool. So yeah, we went to Spain. So that was a that was, that was unbelievable. Meanwhile,
and y'all also left a couple of days before I left. So just also seeing, you know, the pictures and snaps and
you know, just hearing the feedback from people. It seemed so unbelievable. It was amazing. Mashallah was really, really amazing. Spain is we can probably do a show later, or an episode later with like, reflections from maybe bring.
You know, le Baluch down. Oh, yeah, that comes down and talk about, you know, the reflections that we have, it was just awesome. I mean, like, I think in general, one of the things that we lack growing up in America is just this like, exposure to travel. I mean, getting out of the country, because America is so big, you know, like in Europe, like, you could basically drive for a few hours and you're in a different country. In Texas, you drive for a few hours, and you're still in Dallas. Yeah, pretty. So it's, it's one of the things that we don't really have access to.
So much, and you know, Canada, I mean, who really wants to go to Canada, like what's nice. Now is asking, like, does anyone want to go with me?
No, but no, but honestly, I mean, we have Canada and Mexico. Yeah. Which I have heard. Mexico's amazing. Unbelievable. Oh, you want to jump out? Right. I went in Jamaat and I've also been with my wife just to go to nice places in Mexico. Different kind of drama, better foods and drama.
Okay, much better food much better company. It's not nice. That wasn't a blue show up and get mad.
They're gonna ask you, Brother, please don't make this remind you the six points. So we took a trip to Spain from that was really remarkable.
The interesting thing about Spain obviously, is that it's pretty much Muslim built in the architecture and in the buildings and you
Go and all these buildings that were once masjids and you know my dad is in different kinds of places like schools and all that kind of stuff. They're all Christian run now they're all Catholic. So Catholicism is like on the up and up there that one particular shot which one just took me aback I think I'd maybe seen it before but I saw it when when when our group was there when y'all were there, that
I believe it's in the masjid of kotoba yeah and then there's like this like makeshift kind of chapel like in the middle of it as well. makeshift it is a chapel it is the mustard is no longer a Masjid. Imagine like mustard Nebu, without all the carpets basically it's just a marble Hall. And the middle of that Hall is a
is a is a is a church and what's interesting is that the looks kind of weird because it's like it's like it was just dropped in there. Yeah, so interestingly enough, so this is the story behind it. Apparently the leader of the time. He had like approved it without actually like seeing chords about before. So they conquer Cordova. They take control this massive Masjid. And they just tell him like, we're gonna convert it to a church. He's like, Okay, cool. And he's not like thinking like, let me see it first. He just said do it. He goes there and he witnesses like the beauty of this Masjid. And the grander and just like this incredible feeling of walking in. It really is remarkable. And he
actually gets mad at the engineers and architects who built it, and he says, Why did you ruin such an incredible place? Or he got mad at his Christian architects for ruining msgid? The Makarov is still there. They left them at Rob actually. So there were a lot of Muslims, but they're very like one of the guys bent down to tie his shoe and almost got in trouble. We have all those guards hounding you. Yeah, yeah. Wild AC hear these stories when I was young,
about how like you can get in trouble and busted and they're watching you to make sure you don't try to pray or drop a touchdown or something like that, as always kind of thing, you know, like Muslim rhetoric sometimes. Yeah, it's kind of like this paranoid Muslim rhetoric. But it's really real. There's guards everywhere. And our friend Ellie Bellucci was there with us. My roommate, ultimate roommate.
We actually got to our room and there's two twin beds, right one for each person, but they push ours together. Like every room we were in, it was together. So I felt like we were married. But he had his camera. And he was you know, they said he could film they allowed him to film but I saw a snap. Where y'all were talking about like him getting in trouble. Yeah, so the guards for some reason, they said he could film but they were still watching him. It was very weird. He also had the big rig. So he looked funny, but so I played this game with the guards. So they're trying to be really like incognito and like unnoticed. So I said, watch every time you know me, like, law has blessed me
with a certain amount of shamelessness. And so like, I'm okay with like making direct eye contact with somebody and just staring them down. And so I was like, watch the guards are trying to be all slick and they're trying to walk behind you and walk through pillars. I was like, it's almost like a movie where like when you make contact, they'll disappear. So I like look directly in their eyes. No, like, turn around, walk away. So I was basically following Ollie Baluchis. He was filming just looking at all these guards and making them run away cuz I was just staring. It was very odd. It was very strange, very, very strange, very strange environment there. But it was. It was awesome man.
And Grenada was not It was great. I mean, again, like when we sit down to really talk about it kind of step by step, but just from an outsider's perspective, kind of like watching and observing from a distance. I saw that there were like a couple of different layers to the trip. And that's, I think, become something really cool about these particular trips. There was of course, a sightseeing. Yes, that's one layer, which happens no matter where you go. That was in Aruba going to the 37 different beaches in Aruba because that's just one island. Yeah, 90 miles by six miles. That's crazy. So there's just that the sightseeing itself, experiencing the the uniqueness of the place. The second
thing was the Islamic history cuz that's such a unique place of such powerful Islamic history. Yeah.
And then the third layer, which I think has become something of a really unique dynamic of a lot of our groups that go is it just seemed like everybody just became BFFs we're all bit BFFs hamdulillah. We started our whatsapp group a couple of weeks before Yeah. And so everyone was sort of introducing and there was a whatsapp group lit. It was lit. It was actually lit AF. So
lit. lit. Also fun, right? That's a bit Yes. Correct. Absolutely. Very fun. We're back. It was incredibly fun as balloons and streamers. Okay, so it's funny because those who know what that means they'll laugh but those who know and don't know so we're safe either way.
Stuck for a while, okay. So so the people on the
Or like, you know, you basically get to introduce yourself and stuff and then you meet and like it's like you're hitting the ground running so you don't have you don't have that awkward you know icebreaker because your icebreaker was already done in the whatsapp group. That's pretty cool. So yeah, we landed and everyone was really friendly and Mashallah was really good. And we had obviously, we taught the, you know, the email Khazali text at night, we did the rights of companionship and communities. We talked a lot about that. One crazy thing that happened was that the first the first write that he meant, because it talks about a responsibility is a heck of a few
men. Right? The right that that people have the right that your brothers and sisters have over your money. And these aren't like, these aren't Sharia rights. These are more like good character, right? So he's not like saying that it's like halala her arm or it's more, I think somewhere. Yeah, he's just like, this is what brotherhood should feel like or sisterhood should feel like. And so he's using hok here, not literally, right.
But he's very, very, his language is very strong. And he says things like, you know, if you're with somebody, and they use the word mine, he said that the Sahaba and the setup, if somebody said my food, he said, don't be friends with that person. Because if you're sitting with them, it should be our food. Right? Like it should be so communal. So we talked about the right of money, and how important it is to give gifts, you know, to how to do too high. But the problem is also one of the famous How do you give gifts you love each other? So after that night, no one
paid for their meals anymore. Someone always covered a meal. Wow. And this is like 400 $500 a meal because you're talking about 45 people. Wow. And we never knew who it was. So like some of the times I knew who it was sometimes it didn't know who it was. And it was just incredible to see people who had never met one another. You know, come together, learn some of their Deen spend some time together. And all of a sudden now like be willing to pay money like money, it's hard to part with money. It is. So that was a remarkable experience from that.
One experience that'll kind of lead us to our topic today. That was really, really incredible. Was that when we were in Granada, actually. So Granada is the most Muslim populous city. Till today till today. It's because it was the last one to fall. So it feels Muslim. Like there's like, Hello, restaurants everywhere. And really, yeah, it's very different than there and they're like Spaniard Muslim. Yeah, there's indigenous Spanish Muslims. Oh, I have to tell you that story that was wild, the one about further months, who are my love mercy on him and his wife and family. The indigenous Spanish Muslim community. It was amazing. It was amazing. Oh, man, I got it. Well, we'll talk about
that another time. But in Grenada, one of the things that really happened and it really was a sobering moment. So amongst all the fun and good times,
you know, Europe, even though there's a lot of rhetoric and formal policy against refugees, you still meet a lot of refugees, because they sort of slipped through the cracks, and they made it. So one of the moments that sort of, really struck us as a group
was along with being charitable with one another. We met a couple of refugee families, and they would basically come to us and and it's hard to imagine what this feels like it looks like but I want you to imagine basically, that you've been kicked out of your home, and you have nothing but the clothes on your back and your passport. And you get to a new country. Let's say for America's example, you get to Canada, and you don't speak the language of the people in Canada or LSE you talk Montreal, they're all speaking French, right? And you're walking around, and in your broken French, English, whatever you have, you're like just basically showing your passport to people. And it was
truly heartbreaking. Because, you know, obviously, us being there as a group. We did what we could we gathered money, we took care of the family that we saw, they were basically showing us their Syrian passports. And there's like no Syria for them to return to in terms of those people. I mean, they've been kicked out, they go back there and get killed. So they're showing us their passports and they had like, you know, young children and stuff like that. And I also mentioned this, I think about a turkey trip last year that we met a lot of Syrian refugees, they're obviously much more given the fact that they share a border. But um,
you know, today's Wednesday, yeah, it's December 14. And yesterday, it probably the most difficult and strong offensive on Aleppo that has been happening in Syria up until this point. And you know, Facebook, you know, yesterday when I was driving home, from Tafseer at South Lake Masjid, when I pulled into my driveway, or my parking my garage, I parked and I just kind of like looked through my Facebook because I saw the notifications were like going insane, like 1718 like the red, the red number. So I opened it and I see like all my friends are donating to this Syrian American Medical fund Sam's and I'm just curious like what's because it for me, I was again all day, Tuesdays from
here my busiest day. So I'm like running around. So I look and I just see everyone's tweeting and hash tagging about Aleppo. And I go and I look at the pictures and the videos and that journalist below the cream and I'm just like,
I think
I don't know how you felt, but I felt completely lost. Yeah. You know, like, when we were in Spain, we were able to gather money and give and hug and smile. But here I'm sitting 1000s of miles away, and I'm literally open my hands to allow me to draw and then I, I didn't feel right eating dinner, like I go inside my green made dinner is one of my favorite dishes and like, honestly, like, it was good, but it felt wrong. And I almost lost my appetite.
What? What were your thoughts? Like, how did you react? I think a lot of people listening have had exposure and engagement with this story now. Yeah, what are some things that you were thinking there was that feeling initially of just getting like punched in the gut, kind of like losing your breath, losing your bearings,
not knowing you know what to think or what to do.
There was that kind of followed with a little bit of shock and dismay and eventual even anger, that how
just brutal and merciless human beings can become towards other human beings.
There was a little bit of like going, like just shock and dismay, I kind of being stunned that people can really do that to other people.
And that just kind of led to a little bit of just kind of quietude. Just trying to, you know, trying to make sense of everything and gather my, my thoughts and myself together. And,
and then there was eventually just kind of, you know, again, not to say that to be okay with the situation. But there was a little bit of a realization that
we do in this situation, what we do in every situation and all such situations, and that is to turn to Allah Spano. Tada.
So
how, you know, history is not
history, unfortunately, is not, you know, foreign to this idea, or stranger to this idea of massacres, and genocides and things that are happening, you know, mass murders, things that are happening today. How is it? You know, one of the things that I saw on Facebook and Twitter was never again, equals again, and again, this notion that people were saying that, you know, when these things happen, to the Jews in the Holocaust, in Rwanda, and Srebrenica when, when these things happened,
you know, in Kosovo,
we keep saying these things like, oh, we'll never let it happen again. But like, what do we actually mean by that? And like, what, what kind of how should we feel when we see these things? You know, people were like, writing apologies. And half of me was like, Yes, I, I do want to apologize, but I almost feel like I'm, am I am I? Am I part of the oppression if I simply just share or write something online, and think that that has absolved me of my responsibility as a human being? Yeah, you know, writing I'm sorry, to the Syrian people, like they're not gonna see your apology, like, Who are you really writing it? For? Now? You could argue awareness? Absolutely. But it seems like
awareness at this point is too little too late. And so how do we sort of like understand number one, from a historical perspective? How does this keep happening?
Like, how does this keep happening on number two, from a spiritual perspective? Like, what do we do? Like, what does a Muslim sing in America or Canada or the UK or anywhere besides Syria? Basically, what do we do when these things are happening? And it breaks our heart?
To see these things happening? What's our response to things that after a lot of kind of thought and deliberation, and that just kind of occurred to me and I, these two ideas were kind of reinforced for me. Number one was, am I going to draw a little bit of a parallel? Not to make light of this situation. But I remember, during the 90s, when there was initially some awareness about you know, the environment and
making sure that we started
trying to solve the problem about just ruining, you know, the environment and being a little bit more green. There was always kind of that notion idea that what difference can one person make? I remember this rhetoric a lot. What difference can one person make? What difference can I make? And we were always taught that it starts with everybody just thinking I'm just one person. But then everybody starts doing the same thing and it becomes a lot of people doing good. I kind of see the same thing here.
Like you kind of said, you know, when we start taking care of refugees that might be in our own communities, when we start looking after, and standing up for the rights of people in our own communities. Maybe it's the homeless, it's a very cold winter, this year, so maybe it's looking after the homeless in our communities.
Where they continue to shut down shelter after shelter, where it'd be, you know,
you know, African Americans who are
continuously persecuted by law enforcement, where it'd be undocumented folks in this country who are being, you know, chase down and being treated as if they're not even human beings as if they're just some cancer, or they're weeds growing on the ground. And trying to dirt people try talking about ripping them out and throwing them out. If we just start practicing more goodness, at our own individual level, challenging ourselves, and everybody can kind of take that on, that one person becomes 10 people, which becomes 100, which becomes 1000 100,000, a million, and hopefully a billion and even beyond that, and that's how real change starts to happen. And I was a little bit, you know,
I mentioned this, again, not as a personal attachment, I didn't do anything, but just as an inspiration. And it just so happens that that inspiration, somebody very close to me.
It was unbelievable.
This refugee couple,
they are Palestinian refugees. Both husband and wife are both deaf, and mute.
And they were brought here brought into the country. And what's really amazing is that they have two beautiful little children
who can speak in here.
And
they kind of got here and they were looked after or whatever, some church and some organization or something. And
the brother just kind of communicating with some folks tried to find his way to finding some Muslims.
And
he basically showed up at MIT at our mustard Mansfield Masonic center, my dad was there, because my dad's there all the time. And my dad spent the last week just kind of driving around with him,
you know, enrolled his kids in school, took them grocery shopping, he taken them to get a car for him tomorrow.
You know, and just that type of goodness.
Being able to do that for people, I think that's the first thing that we have to turn to. And we have to realize that that does make a difference. It seems like a really like, insignificant if you if you zoom out, congratulations, you help to refugees. Yeah, right. But like, the interesting thing is when you look at it from above, like the ripple effect that you've caused in that person's life.
And this is the interesting thing about the Hadeeth. Right? It's it's, you know, to guide or bring one person to Allah is better than one. You know, the prophet Mohammed Wilson basically said better than read Sheikh Hamel, but that's essentially like better than anything. And he never he didn't say a whole communities that one person. Yeah, I think oftentimes, like in this hyper capitalist society, we get so obsessed with like, number, how many? How many people as opposed to the qualitative impact? So like, for example, like one of the tricks of shaitan might be that this is happening in Aleppo, like what's $5 gonna do? But in reality, first of all, like, don't put a limit
on Allah's power to change things like $5 could be that bet that medicine pill that's gonna save that child's life, like your $5 could have contributed to that. And the second thing is that if everybody, like you said, if there's like a macro wave of $5, even imagine the sustenance has been provided for these people, if every one of us started looking after one family that's distressed in a war zone, or as homeless or as a refugee family, then I mean, think about the impact of that. Yeah. So I think that's a thing we we have to kind of stop just kind of sitting there and
just kind of almost paralyzed by just, you know, kind of that paralysis by analysis type of thing, but just kind of paralyzed by just the thought of it. And just thinking about it and and talking about it, and then on the spiritual side.
You know, when you read in the Quran, where Allah subhanaw taala saying, what color bukem your Lord, your master said, You're only a
call out to me, pray to me, ask me and I will answer you.
In the profits a lot is him saying, Do I have a bad day? That is the ultimate worship
essence in the core of worship? You know, dude, it's such a powerful thing. And really think about it. People talk about like, oh, helplessness. God forbid, God forbid, never a law protect everyone. But if someone found out that their loved one, maybe a parent, maybe a spouse, maybe a sibling, and you know
God forbid, maybe a child had such an aggressive, far gone
case of cancer, that they basically said there's no treatment now. And so there's nothing that you can do.
Tell me if you wouldn't still give up sleeping at night. And just commit yourself to that agenda, that prayer rug and say, oh, Allah, I'm not moving from here.
would we? Or wouldn't we do that if it was a loved one? So why are we so skeptical of the idea? Why do we scoff at the idea when we're told that really get together and make do I wake up in the night and pray and, you know, Fall on your knees and spread your hands before aligned? You know, if all, you know, 1.68, whatever billion Muslims in the world, all came to their knees at the same time and spread their hands before Allah. At the same time? You know, why do we underestimate the power and the magnitude that that could have? I mean, truly, I think one of the problems that we have as a community is that we do have a sense of agnosticism that runs through us. And that spiritual
dissonance what's most of agnosticism? Right? So like, like, it's easy to be Muslim, when it's easy to be Muslim. Does that make sense? Yes, but when things are when things are hitting the fan, then like, all of a sudden now like, well, is he hearing my prayers? Right, but when things go, Well, yeah, he's hearing my prayers for sure. Right? But when I when things are tough, and I'm struggling, I'm being put, you know, my feet are being held to the fire either me or somebody that I love, or that I look at, and there's just tragedy after tragedy, like, there's that question like, well, what good is it going to do anyways? You know, we don't really have that element of certainty, which is
so necessary for like, certainty basically is what do eyes is built upon? Right? That you're supposed to have that understanding that Allah will answer Yeah, you know, one of the one of the etiquettes of praying to Allah is walking away from that session believing fully it's done absolutely. Almost as much as you would when you click the Confirm button on your on booking your ticket you show up at the airport, because you you I did it like it should be there. It's almost like if we had that expectation
you know, that certainty and the Hadeeth right mentioning that, you know, like that like the bird that goes out for its day so much trust in a law that it doesn't it doesn't know where it's going to get it from but it knows how to provide Yeah, I think really trying to focus on that being like a core relationship element with a law is is going to remedy but we have a sort of helplessness Yeah. Right. Like, like people say things like what else besides do we do? And I'm not trying to sound too like overly spiritual hippie guy but like we're Since when did do I become like, I last resort. I'm reminded of that I think there's a whole ignoble Hadith I think was a name about that straight from
the life of the Prophet sallallahu Sallam where when the prophets a lot of him was asleep under a tree and the sword was hanging and the man came and grabbed the sword and basically said that mangum now Kamini, who's going to protect you now from me, I got you. And the profits are lovely, some said. Without like,
he became muscle this person said there was not a wrinkle on his face, not a bead of sweat. There was no worry in the world had these clear open eyes and just looked at me almost pleasantly, and said, Allah.
Like that's that level of Yeah, clean and conviction is absolute. You know, who has this by the way? Like elders? Yeah. Like, old people have this. And they have an old people and people who struggle like elders who have struggled, you know, like you. You've mentioned a couple times a story about your dad and like, the family business that y'all run and like, her ran and my my mom and dad, obviously, I'm dilla we were blessed a lot. But then obviously, my dad got, you know, laid off like a lot of people did in the early 2000s. And so there was obviously that struggle that was there. And for some reason, you know, there is something about the spirituality of elder people. Yeah, that
didn't grow up in this like postmodern secular society of like social media and hyper capitalism and self entitlement and all that stuff that we talked about that where they really do like, they lean on a law. Yeah, their generation about having the man of like an elderly person really interested in military. Yeah. And I was like, Why? Why do we lock that? Why do you think like, because now our audience primarily are younger people, right?
Why, where's where's that? Aside from that one brother in Pittsburgh, though, yeah, I had to just eventually he pulled me aside and I was really kind of embarrassed. I was like, don't please don't sit there. Listen to music in the beginning.
I was just like, Don't waste your time. But no, he was saying he really enjoys it. But, you know, I don't know. I think it's a combination of different things. Maybe it's the experience that they've been through. They've been through the ups and downs. They've seen you know, the highs and lows. They've seen that things
go bad and then things get right again. Um, you know, it is interesting because one of the one of the, in a memo loads book about the purification of the heart, you know that he addresses one of the diseases, which is
lack of lack of trust and a law and too much dependence on this life basically. And he says one of the one of the it's, it's pretty psychologically common sense. But he says, like, why don't you just think for a moment about all the times where you thought that you were going to fail, or life was going to end and Allah pulled you through it? Like, somehow, you know, you're running late. And somehow Allah made you get through it, you're running late for a flight, you're running late for a job interview. And basically, he says, Okay, now after you thought about a few of those, just ask yourself what's so different about the situation? Like, doesn't it feel like there's nothing? You
know, that's going to happen? And it's interesting, actually, because there was a ceasefire in Aleppo? briefly. I think it's, I don't know, like, all the reports are obviously very filtered. And the internet is trying, you know, people on the internet are trying to be as
raw as possible, but we don't know. Right? What's going on? Exactly.
And I saw some people say something really remarkable, which was Subhanallah, the ceasefire, I saw this person actually said the ceasefire, maybe that was a result of all of us praying, right? Everyone in the world praying, you know, maybe maybe these things and so I, I personally, when these moments happen to me, the first thing that comes to my mind, is my own negligence when it comes to these things like me, what have I been doing, you know, and then that I think that's why when I got home, you know, dinner didn't taste as good as it did, because I was sort of disappointed myself, for having forgotten, you know, these people. until it became to this stage one day, one of the
really good habits that my dad kind of instilled in us is having a soda box at home that we put something in every single day. So it's kind of like this constant reminder, kind of like how salaah we pray five times a day. So the so called box, you put something in it every single day. And then when something like this actually happens, that grabs your attention even more, so then we kind of like get this other call box, everybody packed into the car, drive over to the machine or wherever we're going to be dropping off that that soda, and then basically go in, contribute it. Mm hmm. That's genius, and did that with the kids. And it was an opportunity for me to do something, instead
of just kind of sit around and, you know, just just kind of twiddle my thumbs. And it also became an opportunity to kind of explain to the kids that, look, something bad's happening right now. And that's whenever something bad happens, we have to do something about the question a lot of people ask is like, should they expose their kids? these things?
Should should when, you know, how old are your kids?
999? No, yeah. I'd love to see six. I feel so old. I don't okay. Yeah. No, I mean, you are old, but I just feel
I feel so nine and seven. So that's pretty healthy of an age to show them some pain in the world, I think, you know, and given especially the fact that they're living in a very, very macro, macro, economically privileged society. Absolutely. Micro levels, of course, they're still struggled but macro like, you, there's Wi Fi everywhere. There's electricity, you know, this and that is running water.
What do you what do you tell parents who are sort of struggling, maybe, maybe they're noticeably irritated or agitated at the situation, and their four year old? is noticing picking up on these things? Do you recommend Do you think it's wise to
talk to your children about how there's tragedy and struggle in the world? I think so. And I think just kind of why I think it's this giving them the full spectrum of everything that exists in the world. A lot, you know, the way that we kind of live and the way a lot of our communities and societies are structured, the way our neighborhoods are, essentially, you know, I mean, I know there's been a lot of talk about this recently, but they are segregated without being you know, officially, quote unquote segregated, but wink wink segregated.
There's gentrification of neighborhoods and things like that. So growing up in a bubble is a very, very real thing. And I think more so for our kids in a lot of other kids. Because again, I'm not saying one place is better than another. I'm just talking about what I've experienced.
You know, this Ramadan, I took my kids to Ramadan. And they saw little kids, you know, begging and asking for money or food after salaah when we're coming out. And, you know, they say, they were just kind of like, mommy does kids don't have food. Where's their mommy? Yeah, like, the assumption. Yeah. And we have to explain why they just go to their fridge. Exactly. And we have to explain to them the baby. Maybe they do have their mind but their mommy doesn't have food either. Well, that's that's not good.
Gonna give them food? And then that's like, well, we are supposed to. Yeah. turning into something. Yeah, we're getting a question right now actually an Instagram Live, which is, you know?
Do you think basically someone said, Sorry, I'm doing this live?
Should we expose all facets of society children, but how do we explain the lack of a response? So when kids are saying like, why are people letting this happen? It's a very innocent question. But in some ways, it's very poignant. Yeah, it is. Why are so Dad Mom, why, but why aren't people coming to save them? Yeah. Right. if everyone's so it's so clear that and then I my approach, and again, I can't say this is right or wrong, or this is the way to do it. I don't want to give anyone that experiences. Yeah, my own approach has kind of were right. But ya know, my approach has just been to kind of tell them that
you know, how
a boo had to explain this to you. Sometimes we need people to remind us and explain this. Certain things. explain things to us, remind us. You know, I was like, You know how sometimes when you come home and you start playing a game, or coloring or reading or in the backyard running around and you forget to, you know, do your chores, or you forget that it's time for prayer, and mommy and oblast to come and get you and kind of tell you, it's time to pray? Well, sometimes people need to be reminded of what's the right thing to do. Yeah. But I think the biggest thing is that you're teaching them or empowering them, that they can be helpful. Yeah, in this situation. So it since
they recognize that maybe there aren't people who are helping, or the lack of response, you said, well, that's that's your job. Exactly. Right. And you put the onus, even from a young age, I think that it's really important for parents to not teach their children to be helpless. Yeah. And to just be and honestly, from a from a, from a young age, I think entitlement and privilege and wealth, it lends itself to the helplessness it does, like well, what can I do, but at the end of the day, because there is so much comfort, you know, there's no sense of resourcefulness. Not at all. I mean, the Celica box idea is great. You know, there's even opportunities for parents to organize things
like my wife just did at her sama school hot chocolate week, where they sold hot chocolate in the morning, and all the kids came in and bought hot chocolate. And like, I think that money ended up becoming going to charity or something that's awesome. These are things that they seem, again, very micro. Okay, that's cute. But in reality, first of all, you know, it's not what I'll be showing you 10 minutes in, like, even half a date will go to helping people. Correct. And the second thing is that, more so than that amount of money. You're building a culture. Yeah, you're raising a culture. Absolutely. So now you're the question of Well, where is humanity? Yeah, you're answering it by
saying, well, maybe I can't fix it right this moment, maybe I can't wake up everybody, right this moment. But I can make sure that these 100 kids that I'm in charge of in my Sunday school, or in my classroom, or in my home, my children, they are raised with a social consciousness to know that this isn't right. Every every great person that we've seen that's done amazing things that really has had an impact, like Dr. King, or, you know, Malcolm X, or harmala, or anybody else, they always end up talking about their parents, and, you know, kind of what they grew up with and what they saw and how their parents were trying to make a difference and do good. And they kind of grew up in that
culture, that environment of No, we serve. Yeah. modeling. Yeah, you just pick up on it? Absolutely. One of the one of the scholars contemporary scholar that was, you know, he gave a lecture and he said that, you know, your kids will learn more with their eyes than they will from your tongue. Absolutely. Like their eyes will teach them more. Absolutely. Um, another question that comes to mind with situations like this, whether it's Aleppo, or whether it's Central Africa, or whether it's Burma, yeah. Or whether it is wherever,
or whether it's African American people being gunned down in America, right, and just down the street, or just in the next state over whatever.
What is the spiritually healthy response of a person when they are hearing about this? And perhaps they're on their way to something recreational? So for example, I'm going to just to be very real. You and I, are you coming tomorrow night? No, you're out of town. Okay. Normally, you would be there. Yeah. So Bella, got all these tickets to go see.
Star Wars. Right. So we're all going tomorrow night? That was actually one of the I think it was like the second or third thing that popped in my head was, should I even still go? Yeah. And I was sort of having that internal debate of well, you know, should I still go? What is it appropriate to go? Is this one that we should cancel? What where's the line? And is making everyone feel? doom and gloom? Is that productive? Right? You know, are we hyper happy? Are we hyper social and recreational in society? Do we need kind of a night off? Do we need to maybe cancel it or is there another way that you think is spiritually beneficial or healthy for people to respond to things like this, so
there's
Three things that come to mind when it when when this is said, number one is that I don't think that matters and issues like this aren't necessarily binary that there is a right and there's a wrong.
I think that different folks have maybe different ways of kind of channeling that consciousness that awareness that that Sting, like medicine and dosage right exact not everyone needs the same dose or even same pill, exactly, somebody might still end up going because they're, you know, maybe taking their younger brother or they're going with a couple of friends or something like that. And it's just their way to kind of bond with some friends. But just as long as they're going to realize that I'm going to go, but then as a consequence, or result of that, I'm going to donate the same amount of money to something charitable, I'm going to contribute the same amount of time, to some type of
good cause, which was actually one of the things in I was talking with Dr. Lim by emojis above any photo him Allah had a habit, his packet, his practice of finances was, he wouldn't buy things for himself or his family unless he had donated the same amount. That's amazing. So if I buy a phone that $300, before I buy the phone, I walk over the charity org, donate that amount, the same amount.
And he's almost like he's saying, I'm not going to enjoy more than I give people or help people. And I think that's, that's also one basically, number one. Number two is that if somebody does feel, and is at the level or even just feels for themselves, that the only way to really kind of wake themselves up, and you know, kind of motivate themselves and mobilize themselves is to actually say, Nope, I'm not going to go, then I think that's very admirable even on their part, okay, I don't criticize that person. So some people like this is also a lesson for a lot of people who are Muslim that
spirituality has different forms completely. So for some people, actually, it might be better for them to take their siblings right to the movie, because that bond might allow for a conversation later over dessert, and just kind of be like, or let's say you're going like your Four Star Wars nerd friends, right. daanish dressed in your all of them. They've done rockin folks. Yeah, so you're going with your Four Star Wars nerd friends. And
afterwards, you know, you kind of standing outside talking about or someone's like, hey, let's go sit down somewhere and grab some coffee or something. Yeah. And then you kind of take that opportunity to kind of be like, Listen, guys, I'm gonna kind of, you know, put the hat on for a second Tinder real mode. I'm going to be that guy.
We had a great time. We were very privileged that we have this time to safety, the security, discomfort, and even the the finances to be able to enjoy this.
Tomorrow morning. All of us this condition, nobody can opt out of this. It's not optional. We're all praying fudger at the masjid. And then we're driving over to the soup kitchen. And we're all gonna spend a couple hours there feeding people. Yeah. You know, or something like that, or put together some effort. Yeah, or right now, right now, while we're sitting here, everybody take out your phone, go to Islamic relief.org. And everybody drop a $20 donation? Yeah. Before we leave here right now. Yeah, there's something and that, that now mobilize a lot more people. So that I think is really remarkable and profound. Yeah. And a person should not and cannot be criticized for that. And
meanwhile, one of those buddies just kind of said,
you know, didn't really shame anybody didn't project their superiority over anyone. Because the crime here we are reading and deceit and cathedra at the seminary, that the candidate will be el kebir, that the first sin was arrogance, shaytani beliefs. So everything evil, that is that human beings do kind of stems from that same arrogance. And so if you're spiritual, if your quote unquote, spirituality, your you know, your notion of apparently being more spiritual or conscious leads to arrogance, then you've actually become a part of the problem without realizing. And so, but quietly, silently, they're kind of like, Hey, dude, what are you waiting for? You be like, Oh, you guys, go
ahead. I wasn't able to make it today. Yeah, but it's kind of like, I'm not going to go. And instead, I'm going to sit here and read some Koran. I'm going to make some dough, I'm going to pray some rock God, and I'm just going to, you know, just kind of contribute this time. And that person should not criticize the others, nor should that person be criticized. Yeah. And then the third thing that it just kind of comes to mind, which I think is fairly obvious to sensible folks, and you kind of alluded to it.
And that is the whole culture of, well, one of our friends almost man called the shame grenade.
That's just got no hate in it. That's just got no good and then rarely, rarely, I think like on a mass level like mass meeting MSS, not the organization.
It doesn't really yield benefit. It does not like going out and tweeting. I've seen this with so many different levels. Like, I tweeted yesterday, because I didn't know what else to do. Yeah. And sometimes, you know, people use Twitter as their diary. So I wrote, I said, you know, this is killing me like this, seeing these pictures and scrolling. And as much as I don't know, I'm always on the I'm always kind of, you know, teetering back and forth on this issue of like, whether or not we should be sharing these photos and images. Some people say no, because it's just just too harsh. And it's not healthy to see this. But that part of me is like, this is this is the real world. Like,
I'm almost like, I'm almost like, how much shelter? Can we claim? You know, like, even the fact that I have the ability to put my phone down is is enough of a shelter for me like versus having a dead body, like, exactly if I'm getting mad, because someone's, but I'm always, you know, as a mental health professional, I can try to hopefully see both sides of the coin. But the the one thing that that I tweeted, I was like, This is killing me, this is breaking my heart seeing this, and I don't feel right. And I feel wrong, and I feel very out of sorts. And someone responded the internet, you ready?
Is it well, don't you feel bad about what's happening to the Muslims in Central Africa?
As if as if like that, as if number one, they think that I like they're saying it as if I don't?
As if I don't feel bad? And I don't mean draw for Yeah.
That article that says Africa, in that article that Omar had written he had kind of talked about that idea that there's almost like this notion that empathy and do eyes and concern is like zero sum. Yeah, it's like one or zero right to choose. Like, if I say that I like, you know, brown, does that mean that I don't like green? Right. So like, human beings are very nuanced. moistures we love green. We love green.
is the real deal. lol It is it is no jokes.
Don't do that. I won't. I'm not. I wasn't a joke. You're supposed to join me. But anyways, moving forward. So the idea is like people basically shame grenading other people. It's terrible. It doesn't actually motivate you know, but but I will say this, I will call I will qualify this. If you know somebody, and if you already have an existing relationship with them. And if you love one another, you've been through things. You're close, you can get real, you can get real with them. Yes. And that's not ashamed. grenading, shame grenade, you know, explodes and we hit everybody. If I'm sitting with you, just like you said, if you're sitting after a movie with your friends, you've
been friends for a while you know each other. You can say, hey, all like we just spent a total of like, $300 on tickets and food? Like, can we put together at least 150 or 200 bucks for charity? Yeah. And, and you're not shamed? grenading. At that point, what you're doing is you're doing what's called a little bit out of your ear and urging people to do good. And you're offering this Yeah, this is really where it comes down to. I think one of the things that I'll say is that a lot of us feel very, very disheartened at the events. But that feeling is actually already a good sign. If I don't even think about it, if I don't even feel anything, you know, like if someone if someone cuts
me in the leg, and I don't feel it, is that a good or bad sign for my nerves? The nerves aren't working. So if I look at these pictures, and these images, and I feel heartbroken, the first thing you can say is that, well, at least I feel something right. At least I don't just look over it and say, Oh, that's tough. I know the world's
gonna come. Yeah, exactly. And I will increase that sensitivity and that empathy, and allow us to emulate the profits a lot. He said, um, where everyone suffering was just so hard on him. Yeah. As he's an RD him on it. It was hard on him.
But he took it personally. Absolutely. So that's number one. The second thing I'll say is, a lot of times when you read these texts of like, email was Ali and others, like, they actually highlight something really interesting. They say that basically, the quickness with which you respond, like for example, the event, right? So you know, it's time to pray, the quickness. The the urgency, let's say, with what you get up to pray is a huge indication for you as far as how you're doing, right. So how am I doing with a lot? Well, did I pray officer at the beginning or the end of us or today? Like that's, that's like one of the things he talks about, like, if you love a law you'd like urgently do
it? Right? So how long do we wait to donate? Or organized? Do we wait until the next tragedy or the next one or the next one? Or you know, like imagine like when you miss a flight, and you see the gate closing, you still run to the gate and beg the person to let you in? Absolutely. So when we see tragedies like this, there is no such thing as too late, right? We go we run to the tragedy, and we gather charity, and we beg a lot to accept it. And we try to basically like push it like okay, how can I support and we're lucky that we're born in a generation where it's so easy to donate. So it's incredibly easy. Like my wife was on Facebook yesterday, and she was like, should we donate? And I
said, Yeah, absolutely. Go ahead.
Whatever you whatever amount you want to do, and it literally came from her Apple Pay account, it was super easy, super simple. So don't ever lose hope, like don't underestimate and undervalue. You're doing this because also on top of you contributing to it, it's also a big sign for you, and how you feel.
One of the other things that we were sort of talking about before the show before the episode, was the sort of, where do we go from here? Yeah, like, the next day and the day after and the day after? Do we develop a sense of narcissism?
How do we think about Allah? Why do these things happen? Yeah, you know, like, the one of the famous questions, existential questions people have, why do bad things happen to good people? Right? Or we can say, Why do tragic things happen to innocent people, right? Um, I was recently recently reading a text by as a dean, you've not just set them about the benefits of tribulation because you translated it. And I wanted to also read the Arabic and kind of get a feel for it. And he said, the one thing that's profound that I thought of when I was thinking about the situation, and that is that, as tragic as things seem to be, you don't really know what is good or what is bad things just
are what they are, right? And a law has, in his own wisdom and estimation, what is good or what is bad. Yeah. But we can say this is horrible, right? But the ultimate reality of that thing, right? The ultimate reality of that thing actually may be different, right? For example,
all these people are martyrs. Correct. All these people are dying in martyred, absolutely. And we know the generations about passing away for the sake of a loss, whether it's in childbirth, or drowning or like this being killed,
that those people will basically be in the proximity of a lunge, before their bodies hit the ground.
And so when you think about the afterlife, you're like, man, I would love that. You know, like, I'm working so hard to get there. Like I'm waiting. I'm like, struggling to pray Federer every morning, I'm like, fasting, I'm trying to give charity. And this person earns it in like a second. Yeah. So for us, it's horrible. And for them at that moment, it's horrific. It's frightening. It's tragic. It's there's PTSD happening. But the minute that they reach the afterlife, and so everything about this animal is basically saying, like, put everything in the context of the afterlife. Correct. And you can still feel sorry for them. It's painful. The Prophet says McBride when his son died, right?
But at the same time, you don't lose complete hope in God now is that I think what I was gonna say, St. Thomas Aquinas in basically his, you know, his masterpiece, where he talked about theology. He, interestingly, he said that all the different objections to religion and God, were just frivolous, were very easily dismissed. He said, there are only really two questions that I felt like thoroughly had to be answered. And really two things that are to be wrestled with. And one of them and he said, this was the bigger one of the two, which was the problem of evil, human suffering, exactly. human suffering. He just kind of summarized it as a problem of evil. But the biggest part of that was
human suffering. And he talks about it extensively. And he talks about how it's, there's almost like this This to me. And he even talks about how even that crisis of faith that comes from actually comes from a very, kind of almost like a very good and beautiful place where there's any said, because there's almost he said, it's not like an intellectual objection, because the other problem we talked about was basically scientific explanations for everything in existence. And he said, then that's kind of like the intellectual arrogance. But he said, this is almost like this feeling of abandonment. And so it's almost like a spiritual crying out. Hmm. Interesting. Like, somebody's just
hurting that why like, why why, yeah, I just want it to stop. Because they love other creation. Mm hmm. so much, that it hurts them.
And what you're saying is actually that initial thought is actually good. It just again, like you said before, it just means you are a human being. So this is interesting for two things, because number one is that whenever we have these doubts, these doubts, yeah, crisis thoughts, right, like crisis feelings of like, would God let this happen?
First of all this from what you're saying to me, and this is I've never heard this before.
This is a little bit reassuring. Yeah. Because at the same time, we're having that doubt we also don't want to lose, lose faith in Allah. The second thing and this is a little bit more profound is that if someone ever expresses this doubt to somebody else,
this completely changes the processing of it. Yeah. So instead of being like, oh, how could you say that? You know, like, how could you doubt Allah's mercy? Bah, bah, bah. Imagine leading off that conversation. We
With your son or daughter, or your friend or your spouse or your whoever, your youth group kid or your Sunday school by saying, you know what, that's a beautiful feeling that you're like, That question is so remarkable, right? And he says, changes the whole conversation it does. And he says that this already tells you that this is someone whose heart leads their mind, Oh, hello, which is a prerequisite of faith. Exactly. So he said, what the first response when you interact with someone, like that's going through that is that your first job is to just kind of listen and just, you know, comfort them. And then then he kind of gets into the whole, very, you can say, philosophical
conversation, where he says, you know, evil or bad is not really, you know, a thing and an entity itself. And it's more of the bad choices of people and consequences of our actions and things like that. He goes through all of that. But, you know, one of the things that I kind of felt that his analysis and granted, I mean, he was a theist as well, so he, of course, did have some concept of the afterlife, but I didn't feel like he placed enough emphasis on it as much as maybe our tradition does. But basically, what solves that entire problem, at least in my viewpoint, and you know, is like you just said, is an overly mindset which basically is, when you frame it in terms of life, the
Hereafter, you know, and you brought up that, like when the son of the prophets a lot of Abraham passed away, I don't the Lakota on who and he was still a baby in the process and was crying and his tears were falling on Abraham's body as he was holding him. And you know, he said those beautiful words in the intellect tomorrow in the albula zone, when only for Africa lamassu una Ibrahim Alana kulula ud robina that the I sheds tears in the heart aches, and we miss you away Brahim. But we shall not say except that Well, the only thing we'll say is what pleases our Lord and Master.
The prophets a lot he summed and smiled. And, you know, they asked him, Why did you smile a messenger of Allah and he said that, because Allah subhanaw taala informed me that Ibrahim is in paradise. And, you know, looked after by the Ibrahim alayhis salam, and Allah subhanaw taala, because he was still nursing. And he said, as a father, I couldn't help but think but he needs to be fed the baby. And the prophets, a lot of them said that Allah pointed not only one but two wet nurses of Paradise to take care of and feed abroad. Well, never be hungry. So the extra changes equation. And this this, by the way, is like a very common coping mechanism for us.
You know, even psychologically, when I'm struggling in a semester academically, what do I think of winter break? Yeah, so I got my eyes on the prize, right? Like when I'm going through, and this isn't weakness, this is actually called perspective. Yeah, when I'm struggling through a class, I'm like, man, I can't wait for summer vacation. I can't wait until Thanksgiving or whatever, just to kind of give myself some relief. If we view paradise as the ultimate relief, and this life is being challenging, right and difficult and there is challenges, there will be challenges, then it's not, you know, it's not it's not like a cop out No, to talk about gender or the afterlife. In fact, it is
the spiritually wise thing to do, because it's really the only thing you can bank on, right? You know, like, I can't tell you if you go through, if you go through a bad day today, I can't say well, you know, tomorrow will be better, I can hope that tomorrow will be better, but tomorrow might be worse. The only thing I can say is that you know what? inshallah after going through this if you're patient, it would be good you know, yesterday for activists well
we went over the Hadith where the prophet SAW sudden them came across the woman who was crying in what I was taught to hate and she was crying over the the it's said in one narration It was her son Yeah, she was crying over the grave of her son and the Prophet Muhammad SAW them said You know, it tequila and we talked about you know, it tequila if you grew up as like an Egyptian like me, that was a very scary phrase. Yes. Usually like a slap came afterwards. Sure. But what I what I was talking about with the students on the activists well was if you think about if you frame Tacoma as being something that's actually makes you feel comfortable, and reliever relieving, like, I feel
protected, because I'm aware of a law as opposed to something that's always making you feel frightened all the time. Then that statement now actually, along with making you kind of keeping you on your, on your on yours on the straight path, it actually gives you a sense of comfort. Yeah, I don't know why, you know, I've always I always talk about what the students to the frustration with translation and the obsession with translation, yes. And the commitment to translation, but not the text itself and the concepts themselves.
It's realize Yes, you know, remember love be conscious of Allah, remember your commitment to Allah. But remember your commitment to Allah because Allah has never, you know, stop taking care of you. Yeah, and the word duck wa shares the same color right?
So having like the shield Yeah, that's
not scary actually having a shield is quite, is actually quite relieved. It's almost like a reminder that, you know, walking walk out in the rain, it's kind of like, Hey, you have an umbrella in your hand. Exactly. And that sense of relief that you can open it up, or you know, when I'm driving in Dallas, and it's sunny, and I see my sunglasses. I'm like, thank God. Yeah, that's what it feels like. So when this woman is crying, and she's mourning, and he says it, tequila, he's not telling her like, What the heck's wrong with you? Obviously, he's a human being and he's lost people. He knows children, right? six children, Father, before birth mother, grandfather, Uncle wife, I mean,
you're talking about a person who has experienced a loss to the nth degree. And it's interesting, because her claim actually before she noticed it was him was that you don't know what I'm going through. It was so strange. And and so but his response to her his reminder to her was, take some solace in knowing Allah is with you.
And so the at the very least, you know, the response that we have, and I've seen this, by the way from both sides,
the response that we have in this whole tragedy or any tragedy, as difficult as it might be to swallow, and it should be, by the way, I'm not saying that anyone should be like, Oh, you know what? Well, it's another tragedy. Allah said this would happen. No, because the prophet SAW something like we said exactly what we think should not happen. Well, he cried. He said that the you know, the, the I shed tears, the heart urines.
But then he says, I'll never say anything that displeases Allah. So at the end of it all, he's almost actually teaching us how to process through tragedy, which is that grief, right, feel your feel your pain, right to express your pain, process, your pain, but make sure at the end of all of it, you don't let that pain consume you to the point where you toss your relationship with Allah. Right. And that's not that's not to marginalize, or to diminish or to mute the suffering. But it's almost like, this is going to be the source of the relief that we're looking for. So don't toss it out. No, don't toss your relationship out. Because that emotion is what's actually going to help
solve this problem that's causing you so much pain and distress, right.
There was
something I wanted to mention here, kind of, at this particular point, I'm just trying to gather my thoughts. I was paying attention so I kind of lost my own train of thought. But um,
anyways, this makes for very entertaining. Listen, well, we caught we did cover a lot. We did. We did kind of bully through that. Yeah. Now and you know, may Allah subhanaw taala. Oh, yes. Now I remember. One of the very interesting things and I don't mean for this to be a plug because it's not selling anything. It's not like advertising anything. It's it's a very awesome effort. It's a sincere effort. There tragedy, you know, like this massacre occurred during the lifetime of the prophets a lot SLM.
very famously known as BMR. Owner, where there were 70, who were like, dedicated full time students of the profits a lot. He said them, and somebody had kind of come and, you know, lied and said, Oh, I need teachers to take them and convert a bunch of people and teach them on and this and that. So he sent the Sahaba and they were led into an ambush, and then they were massacred. And when the prophets a lot of them found out about it, he was devastated. He was really just heartbroken by it. And the narration is Bukhari and Muslim take another shot on the prophets Allah bless him den established a practice and tada, practice for a whole month, he performed something called kulu Tina
Zilla, Kanata Nawaz in Auckland with naskila, which is a special dwad that's made in the prayer itself, the congregational obligatory prayer, that is a response to tragedy, Nazism. And there are some really good folks, you know, globally who kind of get together, there's a particular sister in Chicago, I know, she coordinates a lot of the effort. And we did this a few years back when I believe there was the situation that was going on during the summer. Exactly. So she reached out I recorded a little message as encouraging people to sign up for it. And, you know, obviously, I don't even know that URL completely off the top of my head. But what I'll do is,
you know, we'll, we'll tweet it out, we'll we'll post it on Facebook and things like that as right now in sha Allah. So when you're listening to this, you can go and find it there. But they're basically organizing these global campaigns of Muslims all piling into masajid for fudger. And then in the federal prayer that are being offered collectively, millions of Muslims worldwide, you know, so, so go keep an eye on your Twitter. Absolutely. So absolutely. So Jay, I'm gonna tweet this out of Nazi J.
On Twitter, so add up the Nazi j and then I'll put it on the Facebook page as well. Okay. And also call them Institute
Over on the Columbia Institute at Columbia Institute, both the Facebook page and the Twitter and yours and I'll have mostly Kimani and others shared as well.
And so join in you can take it you can kind of take it to your local machine or take it to your local the mom kind of sign up your Masjid publicize it in your community. I remember last time we did it at fudger Salah where we usually have like 3040 people, we had like 400 people look like Juma prayer. It was like a Saturday fudger prayer was like 400 people. And it was just it was it was powerful. Yeah, it was powerful, and it was productive. It was good. So inshallah, that's definitely in that same vein that we talked about spirituality. I think it's a good, very positive effort. May Allah reward them for putting it together? And I think that's a good first kind of organized step in
the right direction. Okay. All right. So we'll definitely share that as well. And I think that, you know, hopefully, through this conversation, people have been able to, we don't claim to have the solutions to problems. I think that's a big thing that and if anyone does, like maybe you should just not hang around them because like, a lot of these problems like the solution, throw doula. Yeah, the full solution actually, is basically within, you know, the sacred sources. And if anything new and reconnecting to align Yes, channeling the the prophetic practice. That's, that's the real solution from this world. And we believe that, you know, wholeheartedly, but I think one of our
goals for the Hangout.
You know, typically, it's more a little bit more light than this. But given the situation, one of our, with this, and also previous, you know, the election was another episode that is a little bit heavier. Our
our goal in these kind of episodes is simply just to talk it out. Yeah, cuz we also need I mean, this is like therapy for me. Like it's cathartic. It's therapeutic. And hopefully, by listening to it, maybe maybe you've had some questions, or you had some thoughts that we've shared, and hopefully, through just just tossing around some ideas from abroad in the life of Pocahontas, Nelson, and we've been able to help each other. And that's really the goal. So one, one thing I wanted to kind of request everyone to do, because, you know, as I've been traveling around talking to people, a lot of folks are listening, and they're enjoying the conversation. And, you know, I
would love for them to become a part of the conversation, especially on a topic like this. So reflections and thoughts, beneficial ions are honor experiences from the life of the prophets, a lot of them that you can think of that you'd like to share, and kind of make a part of the conversation. So one place that is where everybody can kind of go to is that if you go to,
you know, Pelham Institute where the podcast is on iTunes, and there, you can basically leave a comment. So go there and kind of write a little reflection or a thought, I'm not saying Facebook or Twitter, not that anything's wrong with it, but it just kind of gets lost in the shuffle. It's very busy, busy places.
And it just, you know, disappears into the abyss that is timeline.
So if you kind of go there and leave it in the comments there, I know that I go there. And I'll read the comments and
other folks as well, while you're leaving comments, read the other comments as well. They're on the iTunes page. And hopefully, it's a place that we can kind of be conversing with each other in jail. Or if you do, if you do happen to tweet into the storm, just make sure you tag it out and hang out. Yeah. And also you can tag it with hashtag Aleppo, as well. And that way we'll be able to keep track of it and share it as well.
As always Colossi comm sharing your thoughts and your wisdom with us and hopefully, the things you share with us and shall we can act on them and really try to make some, make some movement and travel on, everybody. Thanks for joining us again. Shahla. Looking forward to seeing y'all and y'all every Thursday morning. Make sure you come hang out with us sound like them. I think so.