Talking about The Inauguration and Linda Sarsour.
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.
01/27/17
Please raise your right hand and repeat after me. I, Donald john Trump do solemnly swear, Donald john Trump, do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute, that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, the Office of President of the United States and will to the best of my ability and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. The Constitution of the United States. So helping
sound like everybody welcome to a long awaited episode of the Hangout here. Autumn Institute. Yours truly, Murphy here with none other than check out the Nasir Jenga shake What's going on? It's not too late, but it's
good to be back.
So yeah.
Took a little hiatus. It's been an interesting ride. So recovering. There was a last time we talked about Aruba. We did your trip. And then I went for Amara to come over on the winter. Which was that that was amazing. Yeah. And then I had the seat I intensive for two. Yeah, sure. That was that was a lot of fun from the last time going back and forth. Yeah. So we had a busy winter break. And then after the winter break, just kind of getting back and getting settled back into the daily routine.
You know, with just a different responsibilities here at seminary you in the community, and just getting settled back in. So we just needed to kind of find the groove again, find a spot where we could start doing the Hangout. But humbler also obviously, everybody was kind of
distracted consumed.
upset by the inauguration and everything that was going on, so things leading up to it. So I think, you know, by now that we're back Obama's 8000 farewell lectures that he gave, I know seriously, like, okay, we get it. You're leaving? Kobe's tour? Yeah, I'm not trying to be mean. But just Yes. You gave like, he gave like some big gigantic farewell lecture in Ohio. in Chicago. Yeah. In grand Parker's Yeah. That where he gave his inauguration speech, the first time around.
Or acceptance speech. And then after that, I'm pretty sure I saw him give like eight other lectures. So anyways, yeah, he was he was just on the tour. I think also people were, there was actually something that was very interesting that our good friend, Owen was up for chaplain professor, cool guy at Loyola. He talks about like Obama, and then the mythology of Obama. So he was saying that, like, if you look at Obama, and especially with the internet, there's like what we know of President Obama, meaning or former President Obama tier, which is like, you know, he had his policies that we appreciate it, and then some that people, not just Muslims, but everybody really didn't like, for
example, you know, not not only this foreign policy, but domestic policies on certain issues and stuff like that. Granted, politics is a hairy business. But he was saying that there's this mythology of Obama, yeah, these memes are these memes are these representations of him. And particularly with Michelle, you know, they're just like, incredible, like, couple like, they they basically made like saints out of Yeah. And he's saying that, like, if you look at the way that they're represented in terms of like, marriage, people will share and be like, goals, and they'll write different things. And he's like, you know, he was just kind of he wasn't trying to be like a
negative Nancy. But he was saying, like, they probably fight to Yeah, meaning like, you know, they're a normal couple, they probably have their issues. They are just really good at presenting themselves in a way that is amazingly looking part of the internet. And so it's important. Yeah. And so it's important for us to be able to separate the mythology of Obama from Obama. Yeah, there are parts that definitely are appreciated. He was a classy dude. Yeah, he really really was dignified even though you know, the the way. Maybe he did things in office, things like Guantanamo, etc, etc. But you can't argue the deal was he held he held himself together sandwiched in between George Bush,
who, and now Donald Trump, he was obviously a very educated, very eloquent person. Yeah. So when you're sandwiched in between two idiots, you're just gonna look good. Yeah. It's it's kind of like,
it's kind of like being a high scoring guy on a bad team. Yeah, exactly. You just, I mean, Damian Lillard is a beast, but he also plays for the Portland Trail. Exactly. Or Russell Westbrook now, right. Yeah. Yeah. So that was kind of an interesting point. But given you know, and I think, you know, the leading into our conversation about
the presidential election, the inauguration and the different things that led up to that. One of the reasons why I think people are struggling so much with sort of transitioning to Donald Trump is because of the mythology of Obama. And so people were
So, you know, overtaken and obsessed by what he was like and how amazing it was and how incredible he looked and oh my god look at him and Joe Biden best friends forever and like we love him and it was cute but the the contrast the relativity is also causing big issues because now we're like, man, Donald Trump doesn't have a best friend like I don't think anyone likes him. Nobody know you saw the video of him with milania and her kind of looking like she's being held hostage so scary marital hostage goes legit worried about like her just well being genuinely genuinely convinced me that she's a spy by Putin. And she's just like, How much longer do I have to do this? Was this really
worth it? Yeah.
So let's talk about that the inauguration happened on Friday. Yes, today is Tuesday. So it happened a few days ago.
Where were you? What were your thoughts?
Dina figuration when it happened. Where was I? It was Friday. So it was a Friday? Yes, I was at home. I was at home. It was definitely Yeah, it was before Juma. I was at home.
But yeah, I was just getting ready for drum on Friday mornings when I'm not traveling or kind of a nice time. I get to just hang out with Mr. Muhammad in the morning and just kind of hang out. And But yeah, I was just at home just kind of minding my own business. I did kind of realize a little bit later. Friday morning later than I would have liked that. Oh, yeah. I'm actually going to have to address his garbage. Yeah, because I was just so much so set in my mind that look, we just we just got a we just got a huge fight and the task ahead of us right now. We're gonna take a we're basically gonna follow coach Bernie Sanders into the fight, while COVID nofo
Gregg Popovich of the political world.
Gregg Popovich is pretty woke. He's amazing. He's woken, he's lit. Yeah, he's keeping a real, but um, so yeah, I was just like, you know, we just gotta, we just got a huge task and a fight ahead of us. You know, we're and But anyways, and so I was just kind of like blocking that whole inauguration situation in my head. But then I realized, while I am negotiating it for myself, but I also have the benefit and the privilege of, you know, kind of like talking to different people and being part of certain conversations that kind of gives me some clarity and gives me confidence about the task ahead. But the common, everyday average, almudaina Muslim, does not have that same privilege is not
in my position. So then I realized they're going to show up to Friday, hoping to get that clarity, and that confidence in the Friday club bustle, then I kind of went into overdrive. And I'm like, Okay, let me let me formulate some thoughts here. And you gave you recorded that, and I think it's up on the podcast. On the podcast, I just, I just basically talked about how, what was the call Just so you know, faith in action, faith and action? Okay. Yeah. I think you know, enough for also I was talking on the phone with him the day before, because he's the chaplain of the university. And so I work with a lot of like, university students. And so I'm always kind of pinging ideas off of him.
And he was saying that, like, students were in his office crying. Yeah, you know, they were really emotionally distraught about, you know, it's almost like, we know, it's gonna happen, but then the day before, you're like, oh, gosh, and so they were really. So I had a very similar realization that morning, I was going to go on a completely different topic. And then I was sort of just driving there. And I was, like, you know, I need to really rethink this just because I'm not being necessarily affected by it.
You know, in the same way doesn't mean that our community is not and this is a sort of a mini lesson for all the students of knowledge out there, that it's important not to project yourself onto your community. Like just because you like reading, you know, the poetry of you know, so and so scholar, or you're reading issues on this, and this doesn't mean that that's what the class should be about. If I've been doing a deep dive recently about like, financial contracts and acceptable conditions within financial contracts. From a fit perspective, I can just show up, forget about the hood bike, anyone show up on Tuesday for the weekly community halaqa and just launch into it No, my weekly
community halaqa no matter what goes on here at the seminary, or what I'm reading in my own free time, bi weekly community halaqaat is on the seat of the Prophet Hassan. And I am and I only cover one thing per week and I I tell him more as a story than an academic analysis of all the narrations. I just told the story of hot they've been a be belta I like this What happened that's what happened. He felt like this and then the processor handled it like that. Like you have to understand your people have needs Yeah. And it's it's like my children, right? My kids, it think about how irresponsible I'd be as a parent. If let's just say I'm on a particular diet or whatever it is, but
then I'm forcing my kids to eat the same thing that I have to eat due to my health restrictions. When they're just growing nurturing, you know, young children. Yeah, they
You need like a really holistic, healthy, you know, diet, they need to be eating proper food food. I'm an old man who's out of shape. So I need to get in shape. I'm on a diet. But I gotta feed my two year old properly. Yeah, I think this is one of the big things we see, especially at conferences, like conference organizers. they'll choose topics based off of kind of what they think I think one of the cool tactics I've seen recently is just like, using Facebook to crowdsource your topics. And then the other cool thing, just a little pro tip here is that that increases your registration, because people who see what they suggested, without even realizing it, they're like, Oh, great,
they're gonna answer a question I've had for a long time. And now your conference is going to be both relevant and well attended, which is great. Another thing I mean, again, this is kind of niche advice. But just as a conversation that's come up.
Whenever you have q&a sessions at a lecture, or a conference, or a seminar, all the note cards that have the questions on them, save them. And next time you are putting a conference together, and you're looking for lecture topics, just designed them around the questions that were asked. That's a good Yeah, big. And that's what happened. When I when I developed a firm ground class, I was teaching with the mothership. That's where I basically did was because no matter what I was teaching, the seminar about, it could have been Tafseer was cedaw. It was meaningful prayer, whatever it was, no matter what the topic was, it was que ir Si, Arabic or Sita, these were the
questions that people are always asking. And eventually I just had to realize that, well, what's wrong with just answering their questions? if everyone's asking you the same exact question, no matter what you end up talking about.
And I'm not saying you should only talk about the questions people have, there are some needs this, the community has, like I, I sit down, my my son maybe just wants to drink, you know, soda all day long. But I realized at some point, I gotta say no, and * the soda away, and I got to feed him proper food. And so I got to understand they just wants to drink juice all day long. I'm like, No, you got to eat your food. But, um, similarly, we got to impart some knowledge and some education to the community. But there's nothing wrong with answering their questions. Absolutely. Absolutely. And we're going to answer a couple of those questions later in today's show talking about maybe, you
know, values and religion and does everything affect theology, etc. So, we'll get to that a little bit. But on the way to Juma, I had that realization that we just talked about, and I was like, I need to talk about this. Yes. And so I put together just like five points, five things to think about, based on the inauguration, and generally, they were all centered around this concept of, you know, just trusting that Allah has a plan, yeah, putting your you know, rolling your sleeves up, you know, getting to work. And then at the end of it all, just realizing that, you know, a lot with Budyko when you work hard and sincerely and things and one of the examples I gave was that like in
Michigan, for example, during the primaries, the Michigan Muslims mobilized to vote for Bernie. However, the law and,
and and when they did it, you know, you almost saw the numbers, switching from Hillary to Bernie during that period. So a lot puts a buck on the work when we put our minds to it and really work hard, and put, you know, feet on the ground and kind of get going. So and a couple of people, it wasn't, it wasn't a, you know, good Club by any means. None of mine really are. But Kofi will afterwards, we're just really grateful that we even addressed the topic, because I think sometimes this can become kind of like a nap time for a lot of people. So that was the that was my engagement with the inauguration. Besides that, I think there's a balance here, by the way, because I do think
that some people get distressed and worried. A lot of people are frustrated majority of the community frustrated that, you know, on Inauguration Day, they'll show for hood bend, the hood bow will be about
the football will be about, you know, the story of proper use of Yeah, the Yeah, or like, or just the virtues of making the law, which is a beautiful football, but everybody just collectively was just traumatized. Yeah, they witness like a very scary event, a very traumatic event collectively as a community and you can't just show up and just like give a random, but then there's another side. So I think the majority of the community frustrated that the hood but doesn't address what's going on. There is there are some people who are also more and more community leaders that also get distressed by the idea that the hood but just can't be like TMZ it can't be, you know, your Facebook
timeline. Yeah. You know, it's there's a spiritual cord to the hookah. And what we've always talked about like a hottie workshop and other places is the balance in the middle is that you address what's going on right now. But you connect it to the text in a meaningful way. Where it's a hybrid of the two thing. Yes. And there's the beauty of the text is that it's so adaptable. Yeah, you should be able to find something. Absolutely. I mean, I just got a Latina woman, Juan Mendoza in Ireland, Sam Murphy, who's when you're losing in the Latina mama saga, it's time to have faith and time to work. That's amazing. That's it. Good summary. That's pretty much all on Thursday. I can
miss a lot.
And, you know, before eatclub, I don't know if any
Have you noticed by checking my text each other that morning, and we basically are like, Alright time your whole book cuz we have a competition who can keep it shorter because eat is about IED party tears sounds a lot close sounds a lot closer to eat than it does to listen. So we basically try to have a coffee everybody realizes is particularly Let me tell you when you do have kids, and when your kids are getting older, like my nine and my seven year old, they cannot wait for, you know party time and hang out with your friends and eat cupcakes and exchange gifts that whole point forward to so shake my Ulta and Matthew saying jumps into and we always like had this like, you
know, eight minutes. 37 seconds. So one time an uncle came to me after my article been he was like, that was a great hook. But thank you so much. And I was kind of like, Oh, interesting. I was like, yeah, you know, mellow, except what was your? What did you like about it? What was your favorite part? And I was thinking more content? He goes, I don't know. I didn't listen, but it was so short. And I was like, Hey, man, I'll take a when wherever I can get one. Mashallah. So the inauguration, but people appreciated it. And I think that as I got home, I kind of also started to fall into this like reflection.
And this is a little sort of side point, I started watching Fox News almost exclusively. Because Let me explain my logic here. When we watch media that we generally find it's it's it's, it's fantastic. And first of all, it's great entertainment. Yeah, I believe I heard some pretty inappropriate jokes on the air. Like, they're just like, they're just a bunch of frat boys. It's crazy. It's nuts. Like I'm watching. And they're just like, sis races. Yeah, just straight up just a little like, you know, sort of like innuendo. And you're like, do you really just say it on the air? And I was like, I anyways, it's just, it's shocking. But the reason why I watched it is because I noticed I was
getting very frustrated. I was watching, you know, stuff on Twitter and Facebook. And the reason I was frustrated was because when you hear stuff that you agree with, your immediate question is, yes. Why doesn't everyone agree with this? Yeah. So I'm like, oh, Kimber. Yes. And I'm like, I don't want to be in this echo chamber. I don't want to just be listening to things that I already agree with. Why don't I instead, listen to things that I absolutely disagree with, and didn't deconstruct them so that way, number one, I can deconstruct number two, I can mock them while I'm watching it. So at least I'm getting some benefit because I'm a troll at heart. So I started watching Fox News and it
is crazy. They're talking about Donald Trump, like how we used to talk about Bernie, they're saying things like, Oh, he's a fighter, he's anti establishment he beat all the odds people were mocking him and look who's Look who's Look who won now. And there is so interesting to me how they're speaking about him and I think that's when the inauguration really set in is that we're gonna have to deal with his rhetoric for four years and that these kind of people and they're literally saying things like oh, cry babies, y'all lost go home. There's I mean, the same people are talking about the disunity of this country are like wagging their fingers in the faces of the liberal protesters
instead of trying to rebuild You know, they're trying to almost salt the wound Can we just say what
I know it's not gonna sound very becoming and if you have children in the room please of me saying this and enjoying this Some are going to undoubtedly be disappointed but
one of the one of the very serious contenders for the name of this podcast was the nobody cares podcast true. contender who's number two? We're close number two, so we're just afraid no one will listen if we said that. So even though I know some people are gonna be disappointed with me saying this, but it isn't nobody cares podcasts, at least in my mind in my heart in my heart.
I enjoyed watching Richard Spencer get punched in the face. Yeah, I was gonna ask you about that like islamically like is it wrong for me to be happy at that like shouldn't a Muslim be I didn't do it
shouldn't be happy when they see like, when they see like, bad things. Bad things happen to bad people. Yeah. boffin Botha things happening the bubble people like a shakedown trips up the stairs. Can I laugh? Like Is that okay? Yeah, there's actually an urgent again, not to call a human being Shakedown but there's a narration where the processing was kind of like sad and upset. And then he, he smiled, and they said, What happened? He said, I saw shavon like lamenting, and he was putting dirt on his head and it made me smile. Amazing. Yeah, I love it. So there we go. There's your There's your There's your source, and then we're good and so kept getting better because they were
creating gifts. The internet is incredible. I just hope that I'm always at the mercy of the internet. Nothing ever happens to me on video, and the internet just decide to spare me because this play the ruthless man. 14 year old kids are ruthless. They go home to their suburban basements, and they just they go they go on their iMac. They just do. Yeah, they go on their IMAX that mom and dad bought them and right before meatloaf is ready for dinner. They just put together these incredible pieces of art. Like there was a gift where they put it to the they put it to like the beat of music, so and they start cutting it. Oh man, it was so good.
Anyways, so Richard Spencer getting punched in the face, obviously big
big highlight. But going back to the inauguration, I think that's when it said in that this is the real deal. And then he started signing papers right away. I think he wanted like freeze Obamacare right away. Yeah, there's all this stuff that he hated tax on like homeowners. So what? I know we had the whole like election podcast, we talked about how to deal with it. But now that this is like becoming real, right, like what have your thoughts changed at all how to approach this? Can you give us kind of like, yeah, the Nasr James School of how to deal with President Trump? Yeah, I think that that the, what I kind of said last Friday, I think kind of holds true. I think I mentioned this
before, but I think post election, there was a lot of emphasis on just making sure like taking spiritual care of ourselves and making sure we're okay, making sure that we're not demoralized, keep making your dog Don't lose your hope. Don't lose your faith. But I think now that we're passing inauguration, I feel like it's time to put a much greater emphasis on getting out there and just doing work. So taking care of yourself. You gotta also kind of like, start taking care of everybody else. Yeah, it's time to just like you've you've had two months to kind of lick your wounds and to kind of, you know, take some time off and get some bed, rest spiritual bed, rest, and spiritually,
heal yourself. Now it's time to get out there and roll up your sleeves and do some work. Basically, the Bernie Sanders like school of just doing work. Just so amazing. He hasn't gone home, Hillary Clinton, like, cleanse on a yacht somewhere. Yeah. And does he even live anywhere anymore? He claims on a yacht somewhere watching her husband look at other women.
video, it's so bad in dude, so bad, man. So you know, and as long as the sun rises, I have a friend who constantly kind of like, you know, gives us reminder about don't fetishize politicians and things like that. But I think he's very legitimate to say at this point that he's more activist and less politician. No, Bernie Sanders is just like, he, he The reason it's not fetishization, if a person is actually doing something. Yeah. I think the fantasy of politicians is when they speak more, and they don't do anything. Yeah, Bernie, not only has he been doing something his entire life, but like he's doing more than us. Like he's like, out there protesting, you know, tweeted
about Linda sarsour. Yesterday, who will get to
it was just like speaking everywhere. He's, there was a committee meeting where he was basically roasting, one of Donald Trump's appointees, and he said, I'm sorry for being late. I was too busy roasting another appointee. So he basically sped up the roast for the first meeting. Then he went and quickly went to the NEC because he wanted to make sure that he could get in and yeah, throw a couple punches for both rooms. I've seen some video clips of him just tearing these nominees just no mercy. No Mercy like I was clipped that really resonated with me was when he was interviewing I think Tom Price to Health and Human Services guy. And he was like, you know, we're a compassionate
society and the price of that right? Yeah, it goes. No, sir. We are not a compassionate it's, it's amazing. We do not we let people die. We let people die. We like kids starve to death. And that people would sicknesses die without healthcare. We are far from being a compassionate society. There was an interesting article that I saw some I think my brother shared it sitting on Facebook, like three or four Harvard
doctors who their primary field of study is mortality rates. So they basically came to a conclusion based off of initial research that the repealing of Obamacare in the way that it's being repealed, I think that there is legitimate concern about how some aspects of it, having been someone who had to go through it, definitely think there's some, but they're appealing in the way that it's happening, where it's more of a tribal symbol, a tribal sort of like, they're dancing in the end zone right now, on somebody else's flag and putting on my flag, it has nothing to do with actually helping us it's more about Okay, party lines. They said that I think like 45,000 plus people a year just gonna
die simply from the way they're appealing it like it's not they're not doing it with concern for humans. It's more about again, party, party lines and symbols and stuff. Very strange. But Bernie's out there doing work. And I think that a lot of us can take heed in that. And again, what is work like, are you going to go to every protest? You can if you want, but I will always maintain that real work is done in neighborhoods. Yeah. And an example of that you were the you were the mom of colleyville Masjid, you know, five years ago now, six years ago, I'm just sort of stepping into this role following in your footsteps at this point. You know, Rabbi Charlie, yeah. And Rabbi Charlie is
the local Rabbi of the local synagogue in I think it's called cago. Beth Israel and his wife Edina. Yes. And they're both really big interfaith people. He's so they're always setting up things. Charlie and I did an event together and and what's interesting I think a lot of Muslims aren't aware is that the Jewish community is very much in a similar position as we are with this administration. We had the ban in the alt right, Breitbart people their anti semitic very, this is a very interesting time for Muslims in Jewish communities.
In America to sort of unite and unify based on, you know, and we'll talk about what this means to ally but to ally based on this collective sort of concern about with with proper deference given to the issue of Palestine. Absolutely. No one's gonna say that we're gonna, you know, whitewash. Yeah, we're not we're not talking about going in my life. No, in fact, in fact, Rabbi Charlie have had conversations. I just got what you said. I agree, a shout out to Jonathan Brown, but we just had a couple conversations about, you know, BDS and things like that. And, you know, I tried to explain to him that, you know, boycotting and sanctioning and divesting we're always means of expressing
discontent with the situation. And they're not violent, right. In fact, they are anti violent, right? Like, they're actually trying to get people to not be by and they're organized. So we had some disagreements. But we both agree that this administration domestically, shows a lot of fear. It's causing a lot of fear in our communities. So I went to this event that his wife organizes called Daughters of Abraham, don't ask why I was there. Long story, but I'm not a daughter of Abraham. But the whole concept is Jews, Muslims and Christians. Yeah, I remember. And my wife went home to LA and I went with her and restaurants, mother, local Auntie's in the Colorado area. And one
of the questions that came up, was about Sharia law. And this lady was asking me this question. And I had this moment, where I just looked at her and she's like, what about Sharia law, and she had so much fear in her voice. She was so scared. And so I kind of like just answered her question talked about how Sharia is the personal faith code of every Muslim has things to do with. And I talked about the difference between how the majority of law and actually the only law that is going to be truly applicable to a Muslim in America is the personal law. The state law is only for countries that do follow organized state policy or religious politics. Housing, America is not that so we
follow individual religious laws.
You know, as long as our state laws don't violate, which none of them in America, technically do. So I sort of gave her a clarification on Sharia law. And then I hit me at the end of the answer, I said, this is literally a person who voted for Donald Trump. And I was like, This is the work that we need to be doing. We need to be going out there meeting these people, and not all of them are insufferable. Steve Bannon, not all of them are Richard Spencer's, right where they need to get in there, john needs to meet my fist, right. Some of them are just, you know, Julie, who lives down the street who's just concerned, dude, she just heard a bunch of crazy stories about ISIS. And she just
wants to make sure that you're, you know, you're normal. And by normal, like, meaning, like a nice person. So do work, man, meet people go do things. And don't ever underestimate the power of bringing food. Yeah, you know, taking Krispy kremes to work bringing, you know, brownies, mimosas to your class. That kind of stuff goes a long way it opens up doors. And one of the things that I was telling.
I was telling this to I was talking about this with Yes, I was I to give the MSA talk yesterday evening at UTA. And I mentioned this to them, that your heart, like the fate the heart that holds your faith and your emaan. It's a muscle and as we exercised
to find our own capacity for goodness. And to be able to navigate these treacherous waters. You have to also exercise your heart like when we were driving right now. And we saw a bunch of people sleeping under a bridge, like taking out an extra 30 minutes and like grabbing a bunch of food and going there and just dropping some food off to them. See, that's you exercising your EMA and exercising your heart so that when the moment comes for action, you will have the capacity to take that action. Absolutely. It's like people who practice so that they're ready for the game. Yes. So you're not paralyzed in that moment. Yeah. Like either mentally, spiritually or literally
physically. Because your heart Your body follows your heart. Yeah, your body won't go buy food for someone if your heart hasn't empathized. Yeah. So when that moment comes up, we got to actually march in the street and stand up for people's rights. Absolutely. We're all going to be like scared and paralyzed within our homes. But if we're exercising our mind and our heart on a daily basis, with our Salah with our, with our put on, but also with feeding somebody hungry down the street, and with showing somebody kindness in our neighborhoods, that's going to exercise our capacity to do good. And I actually want it I'm so glad you brought this up man because I think that in the Muslim
community, especially in America, we have conflated the word success with like material success, and we oftentimes forget that the prophet SAW sedums, first and strongest followers even till Medina, I mean, look at your IRA. The majority of them were really really struggling. They were financially Yeah, they were fine. I mean, look at
look at the individuals whose Adi Bambi thought it you know, his father, his father will thought it couldn't take care of and that's why the Prophet says I'm came in and swooped in and helped. I mean, from day one the prophet SAW said, I'm one of the reasons you just said that you'll know
ever be in God's punishment is because you always take care of people, you know. So the concept of don't ever think that taking care of those who are really financially in need is like extracurricular. It's actually very much at the foundation of what it means to be close to a lot. And the other thing is that this is one thing that one of our mutual friends at DMC DK, Knoxville told me and it really resonated with me, he said that the community that forgets the poor will always be struggling, meaning that the ones who leave the poor and they leave or not just the poor, but the marginalized by society, that community will never succeed, they'll always fail, because
they become obsessed with just being living in big houses, getting new cars, all that kind of stuff, which is all permissible according to Islam. But there are conditions, of course, and if I'm going to be honest, I don't know if I or any of the community really is fulfilling the conditions of taking care of those in need enough to be enjoying the luxuries that we have. So that's a big deal. And that's a big checklist to add to this. And I think honestly, you see what happens when people start to protect the rights of others. The next day after the inauguration, what happens you have the largest march in the history of this country, unbelievable. And really what it is, is people got
together and they decided to take a stand. I know there's a lot of discussion about the legitimacy. And some of the concerns, especially about white privilege, and especially about how some concerns were propped up while others weren't. But it's really important for Muslims to be to be people of partial credit, and not binary all or nothing, right. We should be happy that people were even able to organize, and voiced their concerns. And I did hear some rhetoric about well, they didn't include the issue of Palestine, or they didn't include this issue. So they shouldn't be doing anything at all. Well, I'm happy faith isn't that way. Yeah. Because God knows I'm not doing literally every
single there's a principle we have in our school that basically says, If you can do all of something, you should not abandon a part of something. Yeah. Look, if a person misses Federer, they're like, Oh, I got a free day today. Ya know, so probably, you're still praying for her and your answer. And in fact, you should make up your future. Yeah, if somebody didn't pass the first week of Ramadan, just due to heedlessness, just not caring. And then all of a sudden, they snap awake. They should start fasting that second week of Ramadan. So this is this is an important principle. Sorry, hit the mic there. This is an important principle, especially with regards to
activism, which is no one's really going to be the perfect activist are they? Like, are you gonna have one person that's going to truly and this is, by the way, the woke Olympics, you've seen a lot on the internet.
where it's like, who can be the most woke and then like the minute you miss the most woke the Asian baby. So I love naps. But I'm woke.
Another baby was just holding up his eye with a bunch of like, scribbles all over it.
Like,
that's awesome. It's so good. But the woke Olympics on the internet on Twitter, like you see this actually. And I was actually talking to one of our mutual friends le Baluch, aka Abou 711 hot dog.
And he and I were talking in Spain, and he was talking about how the the internet is ruthless. Yeah, if you wake up and you missed, like something that went on, and you're not, you didn't add it to your Twitter profile, that, Oh, I'm anti this, or I'm pro this.
Then all of a sudden, you're just you're as good as garbage. And that's not an Islamic concept, dude. Yeah, that's just not how we work. I mean, the profits are seldom accepted and took people partially partial credit. Right. So can we talk a little bit about the Women's March? What were your thoughts? What did you think about it, I just thought it was amazing. I was really happy. I was very happy for the folks who participated. I was happy for the folks who supported I was happy for just this country, that
people were able to get together and express themselves and particularly, not just a group of people, not just might not a minority, the majority, which are women in this country, and in the world, for that matter. But I was just happy that people were able to who felt disrespected, were able to get together and basically assert themselves and just say that we're not going to tolerate your disrespect. And I thought that it was it was it was something it was a bright spot in a very dark time. Yeah. And and I understand what critiques and criticisms are there, but again, it said if you can do all of something good, you don't stop doing a part of something good. Yeah. And there was
definitely good that was done. And I'm okay with that. So
another question. I know that you had class that morning, so it was not you know, you had work.
Would you have gone yourself? Yeah. Have you been free? Would you have taken your kids? Yeah. Okay, so how do you how do we because now we're now we're going into the Muslim internet, Muslim territory, nice, where? You know, Linda sarsour for example, great sister, Mashallah.
She was one of the CO organizers. Yes, she was like at the top of this and you know, it's really nice.
She's someone Yeah, she's someone that's been doing work. You know, the whole iceberg kind of thing she'd been doing work for 80% of her work life has been behind the scenes in the shadows, literally decades. Yeah, doing amazing work, organizing and years. But over the last two years, there's been some notoriety. Yeah. And now she's kind of getting the notoriety and respect. Partially that, you know, partially part of that, that she deserves, meaning that she's she still isn't getting full respect. She should. But you know, what other people are trying to recognize with the work that she does. And with that recognition came a lot of cynicism, you know, from the Muslim community? Because
that's what we do. Yes, we we try to, you know, we, we try to add a little bit of lemon to people's lemonade and make a little bit more bitter, instead of adding some sugar, but the some of the concerns, I can see where they're coming from sure. But knowing you and having studied with you for, you know, a few years now, I think my mind is just so attuned to being able to see, maybe not exactly what you'll say, but kind of how you approach things. And I still call you and check with you. But I think that I'm getting to that point now where I can see that, well, this is kind of what shape would say or this is what he has said about certain things. People were talking about, for
example, aligning with the homosexual movement,
or modern day feminism, which has so many different iterations, right? It's not just like a monolith. No, you know, not every feminist is like, saying the things that maybe Islam doesn't completely agree with, right? And not every feminist and there's, there's a lot of also disagreement within feminism, you know, even like European feminism. I know, a lot of activists and academics and people that are respect their opinion, a lot women in this country who are basically fighting the cause for, you know, different issues in women's rights, that there are some celebrity feminist types, whether it be the lady from Hunger Games, Jennifer Lawrence, or a be that lady, Lena Dunham.
Oh, yes, yeah. While she's rising, and I know that they're very, very critical, and just kind of they say that they're just there. They don't represent what we're actually the work we're trying to do. Yeah. And then you have folks like, what's the sister's name? Nina, who was the Bernie Sanders supporter?
really remarkable, African American woman, black woman.
But Nina something. And so, you know, and she would maybe basically disagree with a lot of other feminists, or a lot of the other work or movements that are going on saying that it's very, very whitewashed, and it's basically white feminism that's being represented or portrayed. So yeah, there's there's always going to be these different, I guess you can say schools of thought. Yeah. And there's a lot of sort of it. I think that goes to say that there's nuance and everything. Yeah. Do you see it in faith, you see an ideology, you see politics, you see it in social activism. And the minute you are going to be like, well, it should be one way or no way. That's just not reality.
Right? For some of our more nerdy kind of listeners, you have Egyptian hanafy, Syrian honeybees, Turkish canopies, and Indian honeybees. And all four of them could not be more different than each other and Egyptian honeybees are the best.
Shout out to my mama, how is the man he is the man? Uh, so tying back into that I had someone approached me last night, I had a few people messaging me, I think you also had a couple on Snapchat messaged you about the permissibility or the even if you don't want to get to legal, the impact of allying with a movement or a protest or attending a protest because you just said you would have gone right. And you know, you you knew that going there were people there who may be supported things that your faith has critical opinions about correct. Your faith teaches you, for example, that marriage is between men and a woman a man and a woman. Okay. And the institution is is sacred.
The institution of marriage is not flexible. It's not something that where you can say, Oh, we can adjust. We're not there's no reformed marriage institution, it is what it is. This is the way that a lot, you know, defined it for us in the Prophet system exemplified for us. Yet we know that we could be marching next to somebody who believes that it is perfectly okay. And in fact, it is good. It's progressive. It's I mean, it's healthy for society, for two men or two women to get married. Right.
The first question I have for you is how do you internally negotiate that?
Is Do you think it's something that do you think that situation that I just described is something worth just completely avoiding these kind of environments for? And the second question I'll ask you is, from a Muslim perspective, what is important for us to know about ourselves and others that we may disagree with, for us to be able to see them as human beings? Because I think that really is what the core of the issue is, is the humanization or lack thereof, of people that we disagree with? So the first question is, how do you negotiate
That situation. So I think there's a spiritual issue here. And then the more academic issue, if you will, a technical issue, the spiritual issue is simply this that
if somebody feels that you, you and I are
addressing a real concern that we both agree upon. So let's just say that there's an activist in my community, who agrees that the public school system, the public education system needs some very serious reform. And I agree in regards to that as well. Okay, now that that activist who I'm talking about in my community is also somebody is either somebody who is gay, or somebody who also equally participates in activism for gay rights, or we can we can, we can like, you know, widen this example, the legalization of marijuana. Yeah. Which in a Muslim legal circles, we understand marijuana to be the default is impermissible. Obviously, there's medical exceptions. Sure. The
default is that marijuana is impermissible. we maybe have an episode about that later. Sure. So someone who is a big time advocate, advocate for the right use of recreational marijuana, right. So how do we align? So so what happens is that, okay, he's got those causes as well. But we agree in regards to this cause about public educational reform, or about criminal justice reform, or we're both protesting, you know, the wage inequality, wage inequality, the killing of black people, by police officers. So there's causes that we agree in regards to now each situation, right, this is an issue of fic each massala Yes, they all tied together There is also that tie everything together,
but each case each must each situation is assessed individually. masala, by the way, for those is like a questionable error question or situation or scenario. That's right. And also means principles, principles. Yeah. So there's
that tie everything together. But each scenario is assessed and analyzed, and thereby addressed individually. I mean, that's, that's the only like, a doctor or physician isn't going to, if you go in to see him, and you kind of say, My stomach's hurting, he's not gonna say, Oh, I had somebody else come in this morning, whose stomach was hurting as well. And just what I gave him, so just take this and go, yeah, it's kind of like how you use fire to cook everything, but the different ingredients? Absolutely. And even the size or the temperature of the fire would be different. Absolutely. Right. So. So therefore, you handle each case individually. So in this case, in this
instance, that person, okay.
whoever that person may be that person is, right now, an advocate of public education reform. I'm an advocate of public education reform, and therefore, we're working on this one issue together. Tomorrow, that person is going to be, you know, protesting for the legalization of gay marriage. If I don't agree with that, then I'm just not gonna participate there, the day after he's going to be participating in a protest for the legalization of recreational marijuana. I don't agree with that. So I'm just not going to go and participate. And there's just that maturity that's going to be there. Now, I said, right now, it's the spiritual issue. This is where the spiritual issue is. The
spiritual issue right now occurs where people say, Well, if you go and you protest, public education reform with him, or criminal justice reform with him, then somebody who knows that he also is an advocate of gay marriage or legalization of recreational marijuana, that they're going to get confused about Islam allows that in there, it's going to cause them a crisis of faith and quote, unquote, like approval by association. Yeah, that points to a few things that tells you that there's a weakness, there's a deficiency in knowledge of what our religion is aka. There's a deficiency in a lack of identity,
spirituality and confidence within one's religion. So there's a lack of knowledge, a lack of identity, and a lack of spirituality.
Now, the real remedy to this situation is educate, teach, build the spirituality, educate them about what their religion is, teach them, what their identity is, who they are, this era. And then it will just occur honest era and number three is build their spirituality through community and fellowship. So you need to do some Koran, you need to teach them Sierra, and you need to involve them into a fellowship a community, that's a solution to that problem. And then people will have the ability and the nuance to be able to say, hey, Brian, or Hey, Jason, or Hey, Jessica, or whoever you are. We're gonna get together.
and address the prison system, we're gonna get together and address the school system.
But understand that I'm not going to be able to participate in those other protests with you, because of my faith related issues. And I'm completely okay with that. And it's not causing me a crisis of faith. I think that having that nuance is actually very much appreciated. I was doing this panel in the University of Tennessee when I was the chaplain there and the Muslim chaplain there, and it was on sexuality and religion. And one of the questions I was asked was, you know, how would you handle this scenario, and basically, it was to
two people of the same gender either men, men or women would walk in and ask for you to conduct their, so they're part of your congregation, and they would ask for you to conduct their marriage. Sure. And so basically, my answer was some, you know, some of the more Orthodox people on the panel said, Absolutely not. And they were like, kind of more hardline. Some of the more reformed people said, yeah, we have no issue with that kind of thing. And what you noticed was the Orthodox people were very much falling into the pit hole of dehumanizing the people. So they would talk about the sin more than they talked about the individuals. Yeah. And then the reformed would talk about the
individual, and then completely ignore the fact that they believe that it are they that some people view this as immoral, right. So there was like this extremes. And the way I answered it was I said that I would, if two people, two men or two and walked and asked me to come after marriage, I would first I would welcome them and ask them, you know, what are you guys drinking, we got lemonade, we got water, we got tea, we got coffee, I would maybe call you know someone, an assistant with a machine and place an order for food and have you know, some food brought in, feed them lunch, ask them how they're going, what do you guys read in who watching the movies, like, really just get to
know them. And then as the conversation sort of turned towards, you know, conducting their marriage, I would just very politely let them know that, you know, I know, we just had this time together, and I got to know you guys better. But it is my belief. And it is the belief of this institution that marriage is exclusively between men and women. And as such, I will not be able to religiously conduct your marriage, however, I'm still your brother, I'm still you know, at your service as your mom, if you ever need anything from me, I will do whatever the religion allows me to do for you. And and that answer actually got a standing ovation. And the crowd was mostly from the LGBT community.
And there was actually one guy in the audience whose mother converted to Islam. And ever since she converted, her husband told her that she cannot talk to her son anymore, because her son's gay,
cannot talk. And this is literally dehumanization. So because your son is gay, he's no longer your son, which is going to lend itself to a point I'm gonna make in a second, he came to me with tears in his eyes. And he said, I've never been comfortable with my mom's conversion until today, when you basically articulated that she's still my mom, she just doesn't necessarily agree with what I'm doing in this way, or how I feel. I have to live my life, this is who I am. And we can disagree on that. Just like a person might disagree, for example, about certain tastes and something else or a certain reality of something else.
And he actually said that he was most comfortable with with with the answer that I've given. Again, this is just from stuff that I've learned from talking with you and you know, all members offer and other people that we all have mutual friends about. But I think one of the things that we struggle with Jake, is that we have a very strong threat of homophobia in our community, not in our religion, but our community. Meaning that even Christian Arabs are homophobic, right? Even Hindus are very, very uncomfortable homosexuality, like a Hindu kid going to his mom's house, I'm gay. I don't know how they would take that, right. The Eastern world is very traditional, and a lot of ways and so
there is a lot of what we would call an America homophobia. And that lends itself to now this whole like taking away of someone's humanity. What you've described in your answer is still up, still giving that person, their humanity while disagreeing with them, which I think is a sign of an intelligent human being, that you're able to disagree with parts of people's life, their choices, how they view their life as being without throwing them completely away, when somebody just kind of says that, oh, it's gonna jeopardize or it's gonna confuse people or, you know, it's gonna jeopardize people's faith. And I'm like, the one kind of faith that you have that the wind can just
come and just blow it all down. Yeah, you know, email was Ellie talks about this and his rights of companionship. He says that, if being around people impacts your faith so much, he said, there's something wrong with you. Then he actually said that because you said that you can't excommunicate somebody. It's not allowed in our religion, the faith, the analogy, the faith, the scholars described is supposed to be the ark of new Holly, his alarm of Noah, you know, amidst the flood. Your faith is supposed to help you withstand the greatest natural disaster punishment from God that this world has ever witnessed. So let me ask you then. I don't know if I want to go to this one. Let
me go to here first. Okay. We were talking earlier about Is there any precedent in the life
For the Prophet Muhammad, so some of them were
allying with people that we have different values. That's the second thing I was gonna say as a technical answer. So that's just a spirituality concern. I think there's just a weakness of knowledge and spirituality, which makes us like so afraid of our own shadow. Yeah, that all of a sudden, the whole community is gonna just go to a pasta sighs you know, sister, Linda's being attacked by islamophobes. And if we come out, and we support sister, Linda and be like, Don't attack our sister, the fact that sister Linda has advocated and fought for LGBT rights as well, that because I'm going to stand up for my sister who has stood up, you know, and fought, you know, for
the rights of a community that I might not completely agree with their practices in regards to that somehow, all of our teenagers are just going to apostatize overnight. Like it's just so bizarre. And it's that will actually happen. The problem wasn't the fact that we supported sister Linda, the problem is the fact that maybe we we haven't been doing the work in our communities that we should have been. And what about like every other sin that exists? Yeah, like, are we afraid that like when we drive by an establishment that serves alcohol that like the entire community is going to run in there and take body shots like
it's so interest, that's why I brought up the homophobic point, because I think that there's a nerve here that's being hit. And when we compare it objectively to other things, other sins, in our religion, like drinking, like smoking, like stealing, like not only not, it's so interesting, not only are we so much advocating and dehumanizing gay people, but at the same time, like we as a community own a lot of the establishments, especially in black neighborhoods that sell liquor, and that sell tobacco. And we I don't see very much community community advocacy about that. I don't see very many Facebook posts talking about Yeah, we should, we should stop boycotting. Like we should
not fly anymore, because whenever you fly, they're serving alcohol on the plane. Exactly. Oh, and so if I take my kids on a plane and somebody's sitting in the seat next to them drinking, you know, you know, some alcohol, some wine, there's going to confuse my kid about this must be permissible because my dad sitting right next to the guy, and it's not saying anything about it. Yeah, I mean for forget even people who are like, Oh, it's on the plane, you go to you go to countries that are majority Muslim. Yeah, in Turkey. We went to Shake Shack and called them Turkey. And we had to walk through what it seemed like I landed, it was like crossing the sea. A lot of bars, dude, like we
were like walking on this path. And it was just like nightclub nightclub. I landed at the Abu Dhabi airport. And as soon as you came into
the as soon as you come into the whole, like the transit lounge, yeah, the shops and I don't know why but the world's biggest mall is inside the airport. And it's actually a mall that they just have airplanes land. So the first store we're greeted by is just the biggest liquor shop I've ever seen in my entire life. And you live in Texas, I do end up below my brother was with me. And he started laughing because it said that if you buy this much liquor, they would give you a free suitcase so that you can pack your liquor is ridiculous. I remember when my wife and I landed in Amen, and Jordan.
And we were on our way for ombre, there was a normal bond, there was a Ramadan special on alcohol. That's just so it's wild. And again, I'm not criminalizing the entire country. But what I'm saying is, we have a very intense double standards when it comes to Sensi mom sohaib said one time was really powerful, he said, Don't dehumanize or hate somebody just because they said differently than you. But we all got something we're working on. So the the the homosexuality bit I think we've covered it, but the technical side, which is the side I was gonna say, was there a precedent in the life of the messenger? I should do so. So I, somebody asked me this question. I was telling them
that. Okay, so this is going to get a little technical, but I'm going to try to talk it out and keep it as simple and English as possible. The Treaty of who they be, which basically was in the sixth year of the prophets residence in the city of Medina, the sixth year of hijra, so that is six plus 13. About 19 years after he received the message 19 years into Prophethood.
They were going for Amara the prophecy was humming the Muslims were going for Amara to go do the minor pilgrimage in Mecca. The mccanns came out of MCI and basically said because they were still in a in basically involved in a battle of war with each other. They had had multiple battles. So they were still seen as enemies. They came out and they said no, and eventually they had some negotiations and a treaty was signed. It was called the Treaty of who they behead happened at the place of who they be. So part of the treaty was that Muslims will not attack Medina will not attack maka, maka will not attack Medina for 10 years they will not attack each other. Okay, truce. What
else was included? The second term of the treaty was the Muslims had an ally, by the name of who's out. It was a tribe by the name of who's on this. They were the allies of the Muslims and the mccanns, the Quraysh they had allies, a tribe by the name of bundle
Becker, they were the they were the allies of the McKinsey's of the kurush. They were also included within the treaty. What that means is Muslims will not attack mucca mucca will not attack the Muslims operation attack the Muslims, but the mccanns will also not attack the allies of the Muslims whose are nor vice versa. And the Muslims will not also not attack the allies of the mccanns. But who Bukhara and vice versa. So basically two opposing sides are saying you can't attack us or our friends or our friends, and the friends will not attack each other as well. So our friends are gonna stay cool as well. Exactly. So because I will not attack the new bucha either. So that was the
second term of the treaty for 10 years, this was part of the treaty, and whose honor was not Muslim. They were mushnik they were idol worshipers. Okay, they were idle, pagan, idol worshipping stone and wood worshipping Arab bedwin. And let's let's pause here and think for a moment like every,
every verse in the Quran that talks about the worshipping of idols, talks about the oneness of God. These are the this is literally the oneness of God. And God alone. It's the deal, but Well, it's the it's like the primary function of profits. Yeah, their function is to come and teach.
Ilan, who he like he and the hula, hula, and literally like a lot of saying that we only send the profits except that they would come down and basically say that there is nothing worthy of worship except for Allah. And so if we're thinking about on the scale of everything,
and you Shakopee, where
God won't forgive idol worship, like idolatry, polytheism, worshiping something other than God, but he'll forgive everything else. It's just so mind blowing to me. And this is why I think this has become like a big construct is that we've made sins theological in nature, meaning like, we've made the Makita and we've made aqeedah. Like almost legal, it's very strange. We flag them. I had a, I was having a conversation with another group of scholars and one scholar particular made this point that we're more sensitive to political issues, or political disagreements, we draw more deeper lines along political issues today than we do even along theological lines. Yeah. And that's not to say
that if someone does worship other than Allah, we should also throw them out. Yeah, like, we want to murder them. Like I just talked about Rabbi Charlie. But what I'm saying is look at how we respond to people with their different lifestyle, maybe sinful lifestyles, versus how friendly we are with people. So continue, you continue the story. Yeah. So So what happened was bernbach had an brasier attacked the allies of the Muslim who's Ah, we violated the treaty, they violated the treaty. closeout they massacred them, actually, and whose are they? Some of their people who escaped they came to Medina covered in blood. And they came to the PA system, and they said, look what happened
to us, you gave us your word. And the province of some at that time was not interested in a fight with the mccanns. He said, he wanted to enjoy this time of peace. But he said I must keep my word and defend their rights. And he launched an attack against Mecca, which became the conquest of Mecca, to protect the rights, the humanity and the rights of husar, who are idol worshipers. And this is, again, if you if you can just appreciate that this time period in the life of the prophet SAW someone was like the first time where they could live without threat from kadesh. Right. So going, like this attack, it would have been very comfortable and convenient for the Prophet. So
something to say like, Look, man, I'm sorry to happen to you. And Abu Abu sufian came to Medina and tried to try to treaty kind of be like, Hey, why don't we just establish our peace again, I know that thing happened was I, it was kind of nasty, but why don't we're cool with each other. Right? We're cool with each other. And the process, um, could have said that. Yeah, totally. We're totally cool with each other. He could have been like, yeah, you know what, we had that but each man for themselves kind of thing. But didn't. And again, allowing and protecting the agreement, you know, you can go I mean, there's constitution of Medina, protecting everyone who lives here. There's the
Jewish farmers who were attacked, and there's, you know, all these different examples, and the profitsystem still stood up for them, even though they disagreed with his function. Like his, his, you know, we're talking about one of the questions people ask is, how can you disagree with what makes a person who they are, especially with homosexuality, like that makes them who they are. Sexuality is so important for a human being? Well, this is what made the prophet who he was this message is who he is, this is his whole purpose in life is to come. And these are people who are telling him we think you are lying. Yes. And he is saying I will protect you. Yes. So they're
basically saying we disagree with your very essence. We disagree with you. And he's still protecting them. Yes. Which shows you like that is what Yeah, he's not. He's not endorsing their ship. He's not making it compromising. He's not compromising at all, but he's basically saying you have a right to have
dignity and protection of your life and property in your families. And you deserve to not be massacred and violated within your home, which sounds like human rights. Yes. And for those of you who maybe are listening, who maybe have extra time and want to go a little bit deeper, if you go to Episode 139 of the Sierra podcast that covers the Treaty of the of who they BIA, it was recorded on June 2 of 2016. So just pop on over there. And you can listen to that. And Sharla if you want to get like the full story, I believe it's actually even in two parts. Yeah. And then recently, you guys covered in January, the breaking of the Treaty, which is what we just talked about this summer was
really good. But whoever is, you know, putting on their, their nerd caps a little bit wants to learn a bit more. It's for everybody, but you can go over and listen. So that's that's a really, really strong argument because to conclude the argument, shirk and kufr which is worshiping other than Allah denying Allah, much worse than sins. Yeah, yes. Okay. So homosexuality as much as Islam is
reflecting over one time instead of Monday, I'm the goddess I'm about to get a
chuckle out of
that serious like the earth and the sky wants to tear themselves apart whenever anyone says our human being whenever anyone says that God has a son.
Meaning that this this notion or this belief, of attributing such an such a human characteristic to God, which what it leads to
the creation, the other you know, parts of creation, earth and sky, they want to kind of just destroy themselves, they just want to die, basically, you know, when you hear something, you're just like, I'm dead, I just want to die. That's what the earth in the sky feel. But Allah didn't give a similar, you know, Allah did not give a similar description to when people exist who are homosexual. Granted, we understand call me lute, we understand. But is it can we also clarify something about Colombia? This is always a question that I get. And I always have to clarify to people and they tend to also be surprised when I say this, that people were not destroyed only because of their sin. But
because of the Cofer that their sin led to No, no, it's clearly documented like the the people of Medina who were unethical in their business dealings were also mushy. Yes, and that people have called me loot who also mushy Yeah, and also this sin. Sin has a habit of reinforcing this. Yes, sin has a habit of because what sin does is it poisons the heart and the poison heart cannot cannot cannot reflect upon Ronna Allah
covers it in this rust and then it appears the person is unable to appreciate a Latina. And so that's why Allah tada says, you know, the movie casino afdb casino like the same Koran, guides people misguides people. Why? Because the hearts are different. The ones who are guided, their hearts are clean, the ones who are misguided, their hearts are poisoned. So the sin of homosexuality and engaging in that act of loot, that is what reinforced this share can this Cofer and that's why God destroyed these people. Otherwise God would just destroy everybody because we're all sending all the time. All right, so sin alone is not enough for God to destroy people. He's not a prophet says
that man, Fatah to Salatin for kanima woody Ramallah who Alou that somebody who misses a prayer, it's like they all their family, and family, that means like, Maria myesha Muhammad, and for me, it means migraine and Sherlock.
Shall I shall assume baby gela inshallah, that their family and all their property, all their wealth was all destroyed, annihilated wiped out.
But still, you don't see a lot flipping over nations. No. And again, we don't ever question or understand completely the wisdom of Allah tala. But this is used as a proof as to why these people are just, you know, oh, well, if God flipped over, if he destroyed familiar with them, then they're just the scum of the earth. And we should never come to do there was a much more to that these people were unethical, immoral people, it wasn't just that they had problems with their sexual orientation, right. But it was more of and not just problems, right. But sexual orientation, it might be that someone has it, but the action of it is what the issue was. Okay. And the other thing
is that they were also just bad people, right? I mean, they were also just really bad people. And so there's this concept of that doesn't, that doesn't mean that homosexuality is okay at all as an action, but what it means is that it was a compound issue, it wasn't just a singular issue, hence, why it's not okay for someone to take that story and make a vast legal ruling on not standing next to or working with someone who perhaps is gay or lesbian, or bisexual.
But at the same time holding the identity that I don't think that that's I don't think that that's what God wants. Right. Exactly. And I think that again, like I said, that nuance is so important, very comfortably and confidently saying that same * marriage is not permissible in Islam, homosexual, like the lifestyle like the activity itself,
that that sexual activity is haram and impermissible in Islam, very comfortably, very confidently being able to say that, but at the same time, equally, comfortably and confidently
Being able to say that when a human being is disrespected or violated or persecuted, I will not tolerate that. Yeah. That's it. Because everyone has rights despite whatever disagreements we have. Can I ask you a question though, it's bound to come up in people's minds. So Islam has a variety of protocol, God gives us a variety of things to do things not to do. A lot of those things make a lot of sense, you know, not drinking makes a lot of sense, you know, makes you lose your senses. not smoking makes a lot of sense connected to almost like every cancer does the horrible things to your body.
What is so wrong about two people who love each other? Maybe being from the same gender? What is the I mean, obviously, we'll never know the clear and all reasons as to why Allah did that, because that would assume that we are as smart as God. But what are some of the wisdoms behind that like, for everyone here? Because I don't want everyone to feel like we're walking away from this just being like it's wrong. And that's it? What are some, like practical understanding reasons? I have a couple in mind. But I wanted to kind of get your way if someone came up to you at MSA and asked that question, like, what's the big deal? Why can't we just be okay with it? So, technically speaking, we
have different components of, you know, legality in Islam. So there's a hokum, which is a ruling. Now, every now for ruling, there is many, many, there are multifold, what we call hichem, wisdoms, hikmah. There are many wisdoms and benefits to a ruling, then there isn't a lot, there's an underlying reason and cause of that ruling. Now, the Illa sometimes is Mansu salejaw, which means it is stated in the text. This is why you do this, or this is why you don't do this. And sometimes that ala is hiramatsu salejaw, it is not clearly laid out, stated and stipulated. This is why you do this, or this is why you don't do this.
When it is laid out, we know it when it's not laid out, we try to figure it out. But we can never ultimately 110% know whether or not that is the actual underlying reason or not. When it comes to this particular ruling about the permissibility of safe *, you know, sexual activity, let alone marriage.
The underlying reason is not absolutely explicitly stated within the text. So now we can try to figure it out. Sometimes we'll be on the mark, sometimes we'll be off the mark, sometimes it might be critiqued afterwards. And so what we do know is that we will be able to ascertain many benefits of it. Such as you know, understanding the vast overwhelming majority of human history, looking at the biology of people looking at procreation and reproductive reproduction,
that those are all going to be benefits. As far as seeing it as the absolute underlying reason, then we won't be able to say that certainty. I think that, even within that is humility is is part of the test of faith. And but yes, so just doing what you're told, that's what I was gonna come to is that, you know, I always approach things like you're obviously like Hades oriented, filthy, like superstars, that's like your, that's where you love. Now you work
on that a little bit trying to figure out what I'm gonna have for life.
So, um, but for me, like, I obviously we studied with you, but I obviously have always, because of the psychology background, I've always been much more like, kind of
Time flies, and I'm reading like things on like, test, kiya and like, just like Iman, and like those kind of things, I guess. So for me, what I always think about whenever anyone asked is, well, we can talk about the legality of it. But I've the majority of people that I talk to the legality isn't like the big convincing thing. What it is for them is exactly the last point you said, which is that
if someone trusts somebody and loves somebody, then they're not going to pry and peel at every single thing that they're doing. If I come to your house, and you say, Hey, man, you want some tie? And I say, yeah, sure, I'm not gonna go and look over your shoulder and tell you what to do. I'm just gonna sit down and relax and trust that you're going to make a good cup of tea. So if Allah and His Messenger, hi, subtle son, I'm telling me to do something. My love and trust of them a lot, and His Messenger is gonna be it should and hopefully, that's the struggle of the heart, it should be enough for me to say, I'm good. Like, that's good enough for me. And it's that trust component. So,
again, Why is it such a big deal? I may not know all the right reasons. I could give you a bunch of conversational points about the institution of family and the moral ontology, like where do we draw the line? If we open it up here, like where does the line get drawn? If the definition of marriage equality is two consenting adults who love one another, then why do some states banned cousin marriage? What about sibling marriage? Well, okay, well then there's issues
Issues Well, what if * is not the goal? What if it's just companionship? And two siblings want to get married? They want to be companions? Why is it so? So the question for me is, I would say, where do we draw the line? If we start to open up the borders of sexuality? Again, I understand that that's gonna be that's gonna be a never ending conversation. So what I go back to is my job and my mind to be I sort of said, I'm told me that this is not the way that humans were meant to live designed to live purpose that they are to live by. And I trust them. Yeah. And I may not know why. Yeah, but part of trust is that when you don't know you trust that they know, and you're gonna roll,
you're gonna roll with that. So that's actually very interesting. conversation. So moving, you mentioned kind of, you know, cuz I know, we're kind of bordering on the, towards the conclusion of the show the episode. You mentioned her name, Linda sarsour. I wanted to say one particular thing. Okay, I was having a really fascinating conversation.
You know, with with a visit one of the scholars who's visiting us teaching at the seminary, she ecowaste from the UK,
also known as Belinda tabrizi.
Allegedly, allegedly, I'm not sure this artist formerly known as please to refrain.
So he, we were having a really interesting conversation, he brought up this little historical kind of example.
And I'm gonna just, again, the handouts, a place where we just kind of talk so whatever.
Giamatti saw me, Milan or Modi, or I'm Allahu taala and Juventus. I'm a kind of the effort that he started reformist movement in the subcontinent that became very politically active and involved during the 80s. There was like all this legal action taken against them, and they were being really vilified and demonized. And they were they were all these bands were being placed on them kind of take a look at the one in Egypt. Yeah. And so it was a group that was trying to make religion more political. Yes. Are policies more religious, you should say. And then there were a group who, you know, secularism, they believe that religion and politics should be separate. Right? So they were
kind of like reacting to that. Exactly. Yeah, no, not at not, we're not advocating either one, neither one. We're just a
surgical fact. So this, this happened. So this this one religious reform kind of movement that was becoming more politically active, they were all these sanctions and restrictions being placed on them from the government. So and, and what that leads to, and some people might not be fully understanding the scope of that, even though we should start to understand the scope of that even here, but basically, in the east,
that gets really, really dicey. And all types of lines of decency, and rights and humanity become blurred instantaneously. Like, they will murder these people in the streets, and they'll persecute them and jail them without trial, without conviction without evidence, just pure suspicion. So it gets really nasty.
People are destroyed, the families are destroyed, etc. So that was happening. And at that time,
some traditional scholars like a small group, some traditional scholars, released and published a critique of the leader of the movement. molana Modi, schermo doody Rahim Allah,
they, there was a critique of some of his philosophies and his methodology that was written 20 years ago. So you'd call it like an academic critique. It was an academic critique written 20 years ago, before they were being politically persecuted. And decided to release it and publish it at that time.
And there were other senior scholars who basically spoke up and said that this was the most cowardly,
most unethical, cowardly thing that anyone could have done. And this color, when the senior scholars who said that there was this was the most cowardly thing I've ever seen anyone ever do.
He himself, philosophically also disagreed with the movement. That's amazing. But he said, This is not the time when we do this, there will be a time and a place where we will go inside of a library will sit in an academic setting, and we'll have a very academic professional discussion about our, you know, differences of viewpoints and opinion, just as a methodologist, like the companions of the Prophet did something that there's a there is a room, not just there is room there by design, you know, the amount of tissue hood in the mesh of the profits, I'll send them the amount of difference Absolutely. There is by design, you know, it's one of the mercies actually in this religion is that
not everyone has the uniformity and identity. It's all been approved and the religion has space for this. So there is time for you and I sitting in a library sure and discuss why we disagree. Right. But right now, when your brother and sisters, their their doors are being kicked in, and they're being dragged off to prison, and they're being persecuted. Now's not the time when you talk about Oh, how Yeah, we
disagree with them as well. That's cowardly of you to do that. So you're you're really feeling this. Oh, yeah, you're lit right now. Absolutely woke. But So who are we talking about? Anybody? But But who's a catalyst for this right now sister, Linda, the islamophobes are coming after her full, you know, all baring their teeth. They're coming after her. She was one of the organizers for the Women's March that we're talking about. Yeah. So they came after her calling her everything from a terrorist to an ISIS sympathizer to etc, etc. They're coming after her nasty, they made memes out of her. They were articles against her did news pieces on her, their, their their polluting her
mentions on Twitter with nasty type of slander and stuff. And we're just gonna defend her right now. Yeah, there's no room for saying we're gonna conditionally defend her. No, and all this stuff like, but I disagreed with his one stance that she took this one time through you. Nobody cares. You be quiet. You're a coward. Stop, stop it right now. Nobody cares. Nobody wants to hear your critique. And that's not to stunt like academic discussions, have your academic discussions, you know, six months later, inside of a library, you know, so interesting is the academics a lot of times academics.
You know, they they proffer this idea that that wisdom is so important that knowledge and wisdom and we can't just act rationally we have to think, but the definition of wisdom, according to what you and I have studied is putting things in the right place at the right time. Yes. Well, there are a few mahali Exactly. Everything is right place, and it's right time. And
it's interesting, because right now, is not the right place more time to tear into Linda sarsour. And for a for a valid difference of opinion. It Yeah, look, she's allowed to have her differences. Yeah. And we are allowed to doesn't remove her from any fold of faith or anything like that. And that what that means by definition is that when it comes time to defend, it is time to defend when it comes time to discuss. We fly sister Linda in, we give her a platform to give a lecture to our community about the importance of being active and being certain of humanity. We take her out for dinner for breakfast, and we start asking her Can you can you explain to us your perspective on
these things? Because we my perspective is a little bit different. I just want to know what you think and why you think that way so that I can maybe learn and here's what I'm thinking maybe we can come to, you know, come to some point where we understand maybe a difference or we disagree or we agree, right? But right now on Twitter is not the time to do though. And see I even contend the idea of saying like oh, but this is just like my academic viewpoint. There's nothing more academic than the Quran. There's nothing more intelligent than the Quran you might see yourself as some philosopher, but you're you're you're just a you're just a to bid commentator. If the Quran does not
dictate your philosophy. Yes, he's talking to you.
Mm
hmm. And I don't want to we don't we try not to get too nerdy and in these discussions, but in the middle what we know what the word is the word used for actual biological siblings, where the one is used more figuratively for if one is shouting like the brothers of Satan.
But if we're actually used by biological siblings, not all believers are my biological siblings otherwise nobody could ever get married. But
but it's you borrowing the word for biological sibling thing. Your allegiance and your your loyalty to your Muslim brothers and sisters need to be like that of your allegiance and your loyalty to your own blood siblings are even more even more faith faith brings us together where blood doesn't where it doesn't the son of new Holly said oh yeah, in the whole a seminar like yeah, sorry. No family no more. Yeah. All right. And we were giving that silly example we were talking about it how me and Abdullah might be finding my my younger brother, my sibling. Right fighting I do it in quotation marks just I would destroy him. But I mean, those really mature by the way that you had to throw
that in.
Me and him might be like fighting like physically, like wrestling over the recliner in the living room. Okay, I'm like, No, I'm sitting on recliners. And often, we might be going at each other and then all of a sudden, somebody comes in from outside. And if somebody attacked the love from outside, I would tear that person to shreds. Yeah, absolutely. Because like, No, no, no, you don't you don't lay a hand on my brother. Right and and right now people are attacking our sister and that's all I care about. I think it also goes to be said that like, if someone was truly academic and truly, you know, like a student of knowledge, let's say, when you read when you and I read,
okay, that the Hoja both times actually, you mentioned this, I remember is that you said that look at how minimal the requirements of being a brother or sister are, like, mm hmm how he again, Egyptian hanafy shout out. He basically says that the person has to believe in God as messenger and pray towards the Qibla
meaning pray towards Mecca. If a person does that, it doesn't matter what they believe.
Meaning that that doesn't push them outside that fold. It's not heavy enough to push them on those three things are heavier than anything they could do. Now I owe that person unless and exactly and now that person has rights on me. And one of those rights is to be there for them, you know, one of those rights is to support them. We can figure out all of our differences later. Absolutely. Yeah, it is, it is very hurtful to see, you know, even in private discussions, it's hurtful to see people bring it up right now. It's just not the time. It's just not the time it's not the place. And I think that people need to, if you have a disagreement with like, a movement or an idea, that's fine.
But you can also articulate that without using Linda as an example. Absolutely. If Linda, you know, if she if she claims to be part of a movement, I again, this is all hypothetical. I don't know if she actually did or didn't, but if she claims to be part of a movement that you disagree with, go ahead and write a post about how you disagree with the movement that you know, your 47 Twitter followers are gonna read about but you don't ever bring up someone's name. And this is actually from the the the manners and etiquette of difference of opinion, is that you never personalize it, you never make it a personal issue. We read Doublelift he laughed. And if you can't read Arabic, Sheikh
Mohammed Allah wrote this book called WTF Doublelift he laughs Excuse me. And if you if you can't read Arabic, which is okay, we're all students, we're all learning, then find a scholar and say you'd like for them to go through this book, who love the etiquette of disagreement with you. Yeah. And one of the beautiful things about the Muslim Ummah is that everyone's doing something that's so necessary. Like I'm doing something shifts doing something, neither one of what we're doing is quote, unquote, more important, Linda's doing something, she is doing something, you're doing something, all of the things we're doing, as long as we're doing something are important. Don't fall
into the trap of trying to undercut what someone else is doing as long as they're doing something. The only criticism we have is, are you doing something, right? You know, if you're feeding the poor, and I'm teaching Islamic Studies, or in your teaching Islamic Studies, someone else's feeding the poor, I'm working with college kids, all of that work is very important. What Linda's doing is essential. What hasn't shibley at Kerry's doing is essential, what all these people are what no man is doing at baina is essential. What you're doing here is essential. Let's just all Pat each other on the back and motivate one another Yes, instead of trying to tear into each other and and make
everyone just like me, right? Because that's not gonna happen. So we may as well just go ahead, take the L on that one or 2% of difference and push each other 98% of the way you know, I'm good eight, eight is good for me and mine is a you know 95% of agreement is good for me as long as we agree on those three things.
Yeah, and I think and I hope that inshallah people who are listening to this who did voice disagreements with sister Linda, you do the right thing and you you delete those comments, you delete those tweets, if you're in groups on WhatsApp, if you're in group, anything that you said, just go back and try to
try to go ahead and clarify and take it back and even mentioned what she said, which is, this is not the time for this, you know, right now is the time to defend and once I get a chance to meet sister Linda, also a little pro tip, It's never good to voice disagreements over the internet. Twitter's perhaps the worst place to discuss disagreements. So go ahead and pick up the phone, call the person talk to them, be as human as possible, inshallah. And hopefully, we can stand together in these times. Because that's really, really what this whole episode is about is being able to stand together even with people that we disagree with, whether it's someone we disagree with, outside of
our faith or someone inside of our community, our faith community, being able to stand with them, and support what ultimately, Allah Allah and His Messenger want, as they've instructed for us. So Sheva Nasir, with that we're at, we're sitting at just over an hour now. So I wanted to go ahead and conclude, because I don't want people to fall asleep too quickly. But thank you so much. Zack McLaren, for your thoughts as always, and for those of you who are listening, in Sharla, stay tuned, stay, stay connected to us, subscribe to the podcast, follow us on Twitter, follow him Institute on Instagram, and inshallah you'll be kept up to date with all the things that we're doing not just the
Hangout, but everything else that's going on here in sha Allah that could hopefully serve you and help you and your family. And then you need to talk head on everybody. Make sure to hang out with us every Thursday morning. Maybe Friday morning, we'll see the column hang up. So I like them.