Talking about Protest & Spirituality.
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.
02/23/17
Buddy and welcome to another episode of hang up here in Arlington, Texas. It's right on with the Dallas Cowboys. In Atlanta, he was kneeling.
A Chevron officer, welcome. Well, going, doing good. When do I stop saying welcome? I just, I don't know. It's, let me let me go ahead and explain something to you. Okay, here we go. Something really bad happened to me what happened? What happened was one though something good happened but something bad. There was one bad consequence of it. I had children. The bad consequence of having children was, every time I walk into the house, at home, or even if I just walk from one room to another, and I walk into the room, they're like, they're like, Abu, it's like a party. These days, Muhammad is like to so every single time I get home, he's like, bah, and he just like come running towards the
door. So that's how I get welcomed into a room. So then what happened to me is when I walk around throughout the course of just a normal day, I'm very disappointed when I go into rooms and nobody's like, excited students don't celebrate. Yeah, exactly. Understand. My children ruin me. They spoiled me Makes sense. So when we say welcome, I'm like, Yes, thank you. You're You're welcome. for being here. We just click we just clicked like that. Okay. So welcome. Thank you. I'm very happy to be here. Yeah, it's great to have you.
Yeah. Big fan of the show for some longtime listener. First time. Caller. Gosh, I wouldn't hang up on everybody who said we should do a phone call and show one day. Actually just hang up on people.
Okay, we'll do that in shall. That's a good idea. We'll write that down. Let's have our producer write that. Oh, there's no one else here. Okay, so I'll write that down.
long week, man. It's already Thursday. Yes, it is. So Donald Trump. Nobody cares as the Super Bowl is this weekend? Yeah, I know. It's so sad. outside of Boston and Atlanta. Nobody cares. Nobody cares. Do you got plans by the way? I do. I know. I think I was invited but I couldn't go
Thank you. Assuming you were invited. I definitely have invited okay if that makes you feel bad lizard No, I was invited. Sure. You're absolutely everyone who's listening go to Donna's shakes house
cuz that's where I was invited.
But roots is having a Super Bowl party. And we're making Hello brisket. That sounds awesome. Yeah, restaurant depot apparently hooks it up Mashallah, we had an affair as a Bo warrior. Just don't contact me cuz I'm not gonna care. It is to be high, but I don't want you to tell me about like diagonal cut or something. So shout out to him a few think allottee
So anyways, yeah, we're doing a lot of brisket. Big Mac and cheese. brownie. alamode. None of which I can eat. I can eat the brisket. But I can't have Yeah, I'm on. I'm on no carbs, no sugar. So I'm just gonna sit there and cry. Very nice. And enjoy the saltiness of my own tears as people are eating. Nice. But yeah, no one really cares, dude. Like the game. Like, I'm just gonna cheering for the Falcons because Tom Brady is a Donald Trump supporter. So I'm kind of Oh, you know, yeah. Go Matt Ryan. Dang, I totally forgot about that. Yeah, that was wild. We'll talk about that a little bit. But this week went by so quickly. Um, just because there's normally like, the, you know, not
again, not to sound, you know, to first world but there's, you know, there's a weekend and obviously, you know, the week is very, very hectic all day, every day.
And then with kids as well. inshallah yeller. Can we find it out pretty soon any day? No. Yeah, man.
But, uh, with kids as well than your week is like, just three times as hectic.
That when the weekend comes around, there is like a legitimate amount of kind of like decompressing that occurs on the weekend. Yeah. But then Subhanallah this past weekend, you're just at the airport for hours and hours. Where were you at the airport was yelling and screaming, yelling and screaming like a bunch of crazy people. No, it was great actually, is amazing. DFW is one of the cities where they detained a lot of people they detained the first numbers coming out this kind of extra to me. Oh, 450. Wow. And then they were like, yeah, we released all but 10. And I was like, oh, wow, 40 people. That's great. And then they were like, actually, no, I think there was only 12. You know,
there was a lot of conflicting reports. But there's a reason for that. And that is that as we got into the protest, we learned and we'll come back to this. The government wasn't telling anybody. Yeah. Who was being detained. It was all based on family reports. Yeah. And so what they what they were doing was because,
you know, you I think spoke to some of the lawyers. Yeah. And then I met with my cousin yesterday. Who's
An attorney in Dallas, and he's been volunteering over there for like, two, three hours a day. And he's volunteering with the legal team over there. So he was actually telling me the same thing that I think you had mentioned that some of the lawyers told you that what they would do is so basically to explain to people and a lot of people have probably flown internationally, but some maybe didn't realize and some haven't. But when you get off the airplane up until you get to the counters, where they ask you the questions, and they stamp your airport, and you'll always see a flag there. So this is obviously after Donald Trump signs an executive order. Yeah, banning bamboo. But what I'm saying
is, in general, in a recent International Airport, the area between where you step off the plane Oh, yes, yes. To where you reach that American passport counter is not America, that whole area is not considered America, America. It's like international waters. Like it's, it's like being in the middle of the ocean. You're no man's land. Yeah. And no person's land, please assume my gender. So they apparently they were telling us that after he executed the order, they were just keeping people in that
open territory, cheese. And that's why they were telling lawyers, they're like, No, you actually can't talk to them because they're not even on American soil. Yeah, like they have no rights. And you think like, Oh, that must be so bad. And I want you to think like 30 hours is dehumanizing the Dallas people it was like it's a cattle. It's like keeping animals and like, you know, at what point Molly family that children they didn't give them any food for 20 hours. It was like one it was like one I think and there's no restaurants there. We can't even like go get food. There's there's nothing there's I was I was surprised to find that there's a bathroom. There is a bathroom. I know.
Because my wife and I traveled while she was pregnant. That's the only reason I know. Because the end she found it right, because they just have bathroom sensors once they're expecting Mashallah. But
that was one of the things that was just like absolutely mind blowing was that they don't get rights, not even identification rights. So the lawyers were saying to us that the reason why the numbers were fluctuating was because there was actually no authentic report. It's not like DHS was showing up to the lawyer saying, This is who we got. In fact, the lawyers were asking them, can you at least tell us who you have? And they're like, no, they're like, nope, nope, they were playing hardball. So that was wild. I mean, this weekend's Apollo's. It was intense. It was a I mean, and this is not one of those like, you know, they say fake news. And then every community kind of has
its own like element of hyperbolized News. Yeah, so Muslim news. But, so, but this was reported by mainstream media, that this a lot of a lot of legal experts were calling this unprecedented. Yeah, that the first time you had a federal agency that deliberately was disobeying an entire agency, was deliberately disobeying a an order from a federal court, yes, to go over the sequence of events. Number one, Donald Trump signs an executive order, which presidents can do, and typically the other branches of government can check those. The problem is that everyone's aligned on the same page now. So you have like Conservative government. And now with the new assignment of this new guy, this new
Supreme Court Justice now you literally have the completion of the republican trifecta. So he signed this executive order, it's really, really unconstitutional. bans people, even if they already have visas, or green cards or whatever, it's really, really unclear, actually, as far as who's allowed and who's not. Because people now are just being detained. Once he signs this executive order saying from these seven countries, people cannot come in. I think it was what Iraq, Iran, Yemen, Somalia, Sudan.
Syria, Syria. That was it. Oh, seven, Libya, Libya. Okay. So these countries,
and anyway, so somehow less every country that the US has ever bombed Yeah, exactly. Right. So we're gonna like destabilize you, and then close our doors. So you know, you got refugees coming in, you have people who are visiting family, you have all kinds I was I was stunned. When I saw the people that were coming out and they were like, 70 years old. There was that 111 month old baby meaningful shame. So he signs this order. And then what ends up happening is, you know, once he signs it, people are sort of speculating what Wow, this is gonna cause a lot of problems at airports because you got a lot of people that are coming in on planes. And lo and behold, it did. And so Pinilla you
know, I live really close to the airport. So a lot of people were texting me. And I wasn't aware of what exactly was going on. And then I got, I go on Twitter, and I see that there's crowds forming at different airports. So everyone's like, are you there? Are you there? So hum de la, like my wife and my sister in law, like, we all went, and we were there and it was like really, really amazing. To see just the support, you know, I mean, there was a scientific atheists for Muslims. Nice. It was so cool. It was like really, really a unique experience. I saw a guy with a sweatshirt that said punch more Nazis. That's amazing. Shout out to Richard Spencer. I hope your faces Okay, bro. He got
punched twice, twice. Yes, correct. This is gonna become a thing. This is the internet. I'm hoping that every single time we do a Hangout we are able to update about Richard Spencer getting punched what's the richest punch of face punch count so far, we're at too many podcasts.
We're at Yeah, we're hoping inshallah that more of you will go out there and
I would gladly do it. I would take one you bail me out of jail, right? Absolutely. Yeah. You know, my back dog, I know it. So I would definitely do it and he wouldn't get back up you know, I'm saying
so. So uh, so anyway, so you have you know, all these people coming through is really, really remarkable. I think that it was it really on the election and the inauguration let a lot of Muslims, minorities, LGBTQ, Mexican people, everybody let us all to feel like what on earth like no one likes us. Everyone hates us. There was one girl who told me that you know, every church I drive by I just feel like they're watching me. She was like, it's irrational. No, they're not. But she's like every church I drive by I just feel like they hate me.
Which is actually pretty amazing. So
Exactly. I was that was like, the first thing I think you and I said, when we saw each other there was like, American Sierra, dude. makansutra. Like, this is like, you know, you're in that you're in that you're you're being your press, you're in pressure right now everyone's feeling the pressure. And it's causing everybody to really reevaluate. I know, people who canceled dinner parties. I know people who are like, no, we're not having to deal with we're all going to the airport. Yeah, we're all going to go and ensure support and protest. That's that. I mean, that's cool. That is, monologue. You know, like, I was listening recently to Sheikh Hamza use of
translation of benefits of trials. And one of the things he says, like trials uncover who you are, you know, like, you think you're just kind of like going to socialize on Friday. think that this happens that kind of social veneer. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Right.
So pretty amazing. makansutra comes alive. Um, the law? I mean, obviously, to a lot lesser degree, of course, we're not being sanctioned. And, and yes, industry, yes. But, you know, as Muslims, it's pretty remarkable to be able that some folks are being killed industry. That's true. That's absolutely true. And refugees being turned away, but if so, hon. Right. So, um, de la, were able to really see this come to life. And I've always wondered growing up, like, it was actually crazy. My wife was telling me this. She was like, you know, growing up, he learned about the Civil War. Obviously, a lot of it was, you know, a little bit revisionist history, right, a little bit, meaning
a lot. But I've always wondered if I would be an abolitionist. Not not whether or not I would think that it was wrong, because I, I hope and pray that I would believe it's wrong. Be there. Yeah, exactly. But what would I have the courage to stand up and do things like,
or like, during, you know, the Holocaust, like Nazi Germany, like what I, if I knew there was like Jewish families being pushed, would I be holding them in my home? I always thought and like somehow, like chanting and protesting an airport for for a few hours, a lot of hours, isn't necessarily opening your home and you know, hiding, quote, unquote, fugitive. But man, it's, it's it's half of 1% of there. And I think step in the right direction. For a lot of people. It's getting there. And people never thought that they would be acted in this way. It's become a huge positive. Yeah, I met a couple of young people who came to me and they asked me the very, you know, the conundrum, the
million dollar Islamic question, where it's still, it's obviously age wise, it's somebody who's come of age, but it's still, you know, living living under their parents roof and still taken care of by their parents financially. So they asked me, they said that when the airport protests were going on, I wanted to just jump in my car and drive out and join in. And my parents were like, no, don't they were scared. You actually heard that from a lot of people. So they were like, What do I do? Am I allowed to disobey my parents during that moment? And I'm not going to answer that question here. But well, because it's a case by case. It is case by case. It's a case by case. So let's say it's my
case.
If you know if one's parents, you take a detour on the way to the store on the way to the grocery store. Yeah, exactly. Or if one's parents kind of very honestly speaking, if they do have a legitimate history of being unreasonable.
Then I'd say that, you know, you do what you got to do is amazing. It's so good, the uncomfortable you are? Well, because I know somebody's gonna take it and run with it and transcribe it and put it on Twitter. It's done. And then it's gonna be I'm gonna be the next hashtag, but it's done. It's done. Richard Spencer's gonna punch you in the face. And then I'm gonna duck and I'm gonna knock him out. There we go.
Have you ever seen the more punchable face?
Even even does? Like he does cause actually people who attacked me online this isn't he he actually shaved the side of his head. You have so much punching real estate there.
It's amazing. It's amazing. But uh, well, this is all figuratively by we're not speaking literally. No, of course, it's from the police show. But the parents thing you know, but if somebody's parents have generally been very reasonable, they're good. They're not right.
In this instance, for not allowing you to go however, give them time, give them an opportunity to grow. Think about all the times where you were wrong about something. And then eventually, eventually you learned what was right. Yes. So they're wrong about this, but give them an opportunity to grow into it, try to introduce them, maybe try to put on some videos by some teachers, some activists and scholars, where they can learn about how important this is. You know, maybe have one of your friends come by the house and talk to them and who went to the airport and explained to them I was totally safe. Show them yeah, the cops really high fiving us No, I we were
we were feeding them. I was there with through all three of my children. Yeah, I were there with the kids. I would not take a nine seven and a two year old if it was a dangerous place. Mohammed can handle it. Probably mama can handle it. handle it. Mama Mama would have headbutted somebody in the groin.
You know, he's in that age where he just runs into people. Yeah, he doesn't realize it doesn't align properly. Yes. So but it's a horrific, horrible Tetris. So, but my point is that, if you show them that, you might, you might want them over. Yeah, because they're reasonable people. Yeah. But if they have a history of being unreasonable, then you know, you just gotta do and for our beloved parents who have a history of being unreasonable, please stop being unreasonable. Yeah, there was actually. Or you could just like, show him a meme or slam on his Facebook feed. Yeah. And be like, he's there. He's there to show all the live videos that he does from his Facebook page and just kind
of be like, Look, he's there. All these people are there. Yeah. Okay. We were. My wife actually had the awesome idea of like, getting pizza for everybody is actually a funny story. So I tried to order from the halau place nearby. It's a funny story, because she was really hungry. And then, yeah, we ordered 10 we got there with three pieces left. No, no, no, she wasn't hungry. Actually. She's like pregnant, so she's hungry, but there's no space, so she can't eat. It's like, it's so frustrating. So sad. Yeah, I feel bad for every time. Smile. But anyways, so she had the idea is like, you know, we should take some food over and stuff. And I was like, that's a great idea, actually. And we
stopped at Papa John's on the way and it didn't hit me until after I was like, almost there that Papa john probably voted for Donald Trump. Really? Oh, for sure. He's like a super Republican. Well, he was against minimum wage increase. Really? He didn't want he would literally I'm glad I'd never eat this pizza. I don't need it. Because I think it saw Yeah, I mean, I don't I don't eat pizza anymore anyways, because of the whole like, diet thing. But like, I was just feeding people, right? Like how I was, but it was just so funny. Like, man, as an idiot. I should have gotten like some hipster like, socialist pizza. Go to some Muslim Brothers pizza shop. I tried. I did try. They were
closed. Because I think they had like night hours. They were out to protest to woo Exactly. Absolutely. So hamdulillah we got there. We felt some people and again, just the unity. You're from Dallas. Yes. So it's, maybe it's a little bit difficult for for you to see the perspective of like a transplant and that way. But it was the first time that I felt like Dallas was like my city. Wow. like living here. Everyone kind of and I By the way, a lot of people articulated this. Dallas is a very transplant heavy city very, very, it's well, I think it's one of the top three cities in the country that people are moving. This is not just the Muslim population. No, no, across the board
general like Houston, Dallas, the unity that was felt, wow. And everyone, you know, Muslim, non Muslim, we were talking about and they were saying that, you know, these are the kind of events that bring people together. Obviously, look, it's no one's celebrating this event. No, but it's something that that comes out of situations where sometimes in our short side business, we wonder if there's anything yeah, in the middle of studios, right? Like, this is the this is the user that's coming with you're all sort of like this is like the the facilitation of the ease is coming from realizing that throughout all this bullcrap, you have people uniting I just had breakfast this morning with
Rabbi Charlie who you know, Pastor Ashley hood from First Presbyterian grapevine and pastor Nick from abiding grace, which is like right behind sounds like mustard. And actually, this is crazy, dude. Like, listen to this. So the night of the protests, I got a text message from Rabbi Charlie. Are you guys okay? Can we do anything for you? What do you need? Know? What do you need from us? Not even can we like what do you need from us?
Then Ashley sent the same email. Then I met a dean at the protest. Yes, she was there. So Rabbi Charlie's wife Edina, they brought their little 11 year old daughter Yeah, I met them. And she wrote she wrote an amazing sign Rabbi Charlie was saying her sign said life is not fair. We need to make it better though. Huh? Pretty crazy, huh? An 11 year old apparently she came up with it on her own little little philosopher Mashallah. So then we have pastor Nick messaged me same thing everyone's concerned. And I had so I had breakfast to them this morning. I was kind of they were asking me like okay, on your opinion.
They were like, Mom, like what can we do to really truly like, combat this not make it just lip service? And I said honestly, the first thing is us for
need to spend more time together? We need to have breakfast once a month where we just get to know each other second thing is yeah I felt kind of bad saying this is like y'all need to invite me to your to your places of worship. Because I said your congregation is not you this the problem you're sitting having breakfast with me. It's your congregation and your people. Yeah, that might dehumanize my community. Well, yeah, you need to invite me and you need to let me sit with you in front of everybody and just tell stories about growing up. The other idea I have is kind of pastor Bob Roberts, a famous one yeah, who's really Mashallah empathetic and friendly with the Muslim
communities very close with urban legend mom Zia. Oh, yeah, a few years back when he invited just had an open day invited all the Muslim community over to his gigantic place. He's got an auditorium that seats like 4000 people or something that's incredible. And so he invited everybody over and we went over there and buses and hordes. Everybody went over there. And
about half of his congregation boycotted the event. Geez, for inviting Muslims.
There evangelicals.
That's why, yes, actually, one of the pastors, I think it was Nikkor, actually, this morning said that she gave a sermon about basically referencing the refugee ban. And she said that basically like Jesus wouldn't have voted for this. Like he was he was a refugee, and he would have taken them in. Wow. And she said that one of her congregants like submitted his letter of resignation. Like I'm changing churches. Wow. We're not used to that. Muslims aren't used to that, because we go to like every machine. Yeah. But imagine if like it was almost like a school. Wow. Like, you know, how you take your kid out of school in different school? Yeah. That's what they do. Like they they're very,
they have like a codified, formalized, almost like membership. Yeah, that's where they get excommunicated. Yeah. And they get it. And he actually resignate resigned from the church and went to a different church just because of that just because of that. So we had some great ideas. Again, there's some clear coming from this.
That's more from the interfaith side.
I know you and I want to talk a little bit today on the podcast about the interfaith Yeah, so there's so one thing the protest it was it brought a lot of people together. And most a lot of Muslims together. beautiful sight. Beautiful, always happy to see like Muslims coming together. Absolutely. Especially when you see people who maybe are a little bit critical of imams who's standing next to moms with a similar goal. Yeah, where do I like, Oh, yeah, a lot of times you have the crowd that just for whatever their reason, and a lot of times whatever they've experienced in the past, sometimes they've experienced some really, really, oh, it's valid sometimes. Yeah, it does
really difficult things. But the crowd that is a little bit weary of the very conservative traditional practice of Islam.
When they're standing next to people who are very traditionally practicing Yeah, guy with a beard and Goofy standing next to a brother who complains about guys with beards and Goofy. Yeah, like Oh, these guys molano is this. Yes. So you were there? Yes. Sam was there? Yes. See? Sajid was there? Yeah. And multisite was there like, the whole day, by the way, all day long. He was there for like, 12 hours. Go home. Are you catching a flight go? And then
mama more obviously was there. And I know there are a lot of other moms like shake house or bridges who would have loved to be there. He was traveling. He was his son, his sons. Were there. Okay. And no man, I think was out of town. So you had a few different people that I know would have showed up? Sure. But standing next to people who are again, very critical of religion. Yeah. Muslims were very critical of the religious establishment. same goal. Yeah. However, I know that there was definitely sometimes we have this sort of like binary understanding or dichotomous understanding of activism. Yes. There's the one side that says like, Oh, yeah, activism is the only thing a way to get things
done. And there's the other side that says, No, no, you know, you're just you're just basically yelling hot air at things you need to pray pray, pray, pray, pray. Yeah. It's all in the hands of Allah Spano. It's all so in the law, like live in the microwave, which is true, but incorrectly applied. I guess my question to you is like,
I'm just an everyday Muslim man. Like, I'm not a scholar. I'm not an activist. I'm just someone trying to study the religion of things. I don't even study I would say become closer to Allah through studying it. Just trying to figure things out live like a Muslim. Like, what advice do you have for me? Someone who is active now like, I'm meeting with people, I'm, you know, meeting with clergy, I'm going to vigils, I'm chanting at protests. What do I got to watch out for? As a person? I had everything I had a conversation with, you know, in the class with the seminary students as well, the next morning, because Saturday night I had flown in and I just came straight over there.
from Terminal to Terminal D. And so Sunday morning, we had class and then we ended class early, and then took all the students over there.
So I had to talk with them that morning and I kind of mentioned something that this goes back to the same point that I talked about quite often.
You know, a couple of different points. One is that, you know, a lot of times we operate in false dualities, there's a or b, when in reality there C and D like what do you mean by that, like false duality that there are only two options available? Yeah, exactly. We actually like limit ourselves. That's it, we limit ourselves to two options. And that's why they say most of the geniuses usually found not even in C, it's found between C and D.
You asked me.
So are we talking about terminals?
Somewhere between C and D, there's a pot of gold. That's
so So what you're saying is like, the more nuanced you get, yeah, that's where genius the more the more you can zero in on some. Absolutely, yeah. And so the false duality here is that it's, it's all you know, activism or, you know, and another thing I always tell the students is one extreme breeds the other. So when you have people in the community, who are the opposite extreme, where they're just basically like, we're just gonna pray our way out of this situation. Completely. Absolutely. And not do anything else. But pray that extreme I think that's the extreme that came first, by the way, because it's a present in because the prophets a lobbyism talked about that extreme. He talked
about that extreme. That's the first extreme so let's not get this wrong. Let's not say that the people who kind of like are you know, who again, see, when I talk about these things, you're gonna say, well, what's wrong with praying to alleviate the problem? No, those who say that only pray and don't protest and let's let's call it what it is like they're condescending, exactly. Being condescending towards the protesters. Exactly. Literally, literally in a whatsapp group, which I hate WhatsApp groups. But in a whatsapp group, someone was saying to me that they heard
that you're just wasting your time. So like, you're just wasting your time. And then my friend kind of challenged back like, Well, what do you think? Like, you know, didn't you read Sierra? And like, you know, don't you know, that, like, protesting is part of it. And, you know, they're praying at the airport, you know, they're not just like, skipping prayers like, exactly doing both. And he was like, No, like, Elvis people, like where they show up for fudger. Like, literally just like the most like I like, he almost became Richard Spencer to me at that moment.
That's, that's in so interesting. Like, that's the culture stupid. How do you respond to that? It's stupidity. I don't I don't know if you can.
But yeah, that that extreme came first. And that extreme bred the other extreme of where it's like, you know, what, let these people have their prayer and just sit there and we're gonna go out there and do some work. But then they have this, you know, very unfortunate negative view of spirituality and prayer. Yeah. And I was basically telling the students that this is why some super activist is not a role model. Some super quote unquote, I'm doing air quotes right now. Super, ultra rich, he actually is doing air quotes everybody. Yeah, super extra awesome, ultra pious person, a praying person is not our role model. Our role model was Muhammad Rasul Allah, he's the Prophet Mohammed
Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him. He is our role model, because he was a beautiful balanced synthesis of those two.
He synthesized both of them where he would protest before and after praying, dude, yeah, I mean, if you look at the the Quranic the sequence of Revelation, I know there's a difference of opinion. But there's, you know, confirm there and common Lila Lila. kalila. Exactly right. So that he would he would feel he was translated to stand in Warren, which is obviously activism Sure, understand and pray. And then I except for a little bit, meaning Get some rest. Absolutely. Which is spirituality. And these are, you know, I think in some books of sequence of chronic revelation, these are right next to each other. Absolutely. Right.
So that I mean, that's there. And that's what I'm saying. It's like you would pray, but then he, he'd be feeding somebody before and after he was praying. So that's why he's our role model. And we can synthesize these two and we will synthesize both of them, we will connect the two of them together and we will simultaneously implement them. And we will do that. That's the way we're going to go about this. So I think that's a really, really important lesson and I'm not talking about this because I'm saying that I didn't I felt like I didn't see that happening. I'm mentioning it. We're talking about it. Because it was really awesome that we did see that happening we did yeah that's
the cool thing hummed a lot we're not talking about it in like being upset critical way we're just like we're celebrating but that's what it looks like we're appreciating it like I'm the one of the chance that the non Muslims would say use you pray will stay Wow. Whenever elven Muslim started like it was the time to pray. You pray will stay wow like me like go do your thing will still be here. That's really cool.
Amazing. I loved it. Amazing. It's beautiful. Yeah, then there's that one goes like no you can pray with us.
Like No uncle Now's not the time.
We need to give him
appetisers
throat that's not the time to force Barry. Yeah.
Wait, brock obama.
Sorry. Not that Barry. Have you seen those Conan O'Brien phone calls? I have. They're so good. They're really funny. So it's like a phone call between Donald Trump and brock obama. It's fictitious Of course. Yeah. Is Uh, hey, Brock, what do you do with the Tigers that Vladimir Putin gives you? And he's like, you shouldn't be accepting gifts from Vladimir Putin. He's like, I already did. What room do I put them in? So good. So good. But I mean, every every comedian has a job now at least for four more years. Yeah, I know. Because of the the circus that's happening. And I read some stuff about that, even online that I know it's really funny to and it's really immediately
gratifying to kind of engage in jokes and laugh at them and stuff. But I was reading something somewhere weird. That's a part of normalization, of course, like, the big picture that circulating is Jimmy Fallon. Wow. Because Jimmy Fallon asked like, Donald Trump, is your hair real? Again, it's real. It's real. Everyone's like, haha, and then like, he's like, Can I grab it? There's a picture of Jimmy Fallon smiling Donald Trump smiling. He's like tussling his hair. This is how you normalize a crazy person. Yeah, like Donald Trump is not to be normalized like that. Which is different than imagine reciting Quran right at the, at the inaugural prayer. Imagine trying to impart something.
Yeah, to potentially to Donald Trump, but also everyone else who's there. Jimmy Fallon is making a joke out of it. Yeah, that means ratings and his dollars for him at the end of the day. Exactly. I gotta tell you something crazy. I didn't even tell you this off the air. This is wild. So um, my aunt on my dad's side. He didn't mention this. I mentioned to you. But there's something crazy that happened. There's a new development. Okay. You told me that Paul Ryan like so my ads are hot. Yes. So my ad basically is is how Ryan is like the worst kind of person in the world and the definition of MONTH love. He just put it put his face in the ooredoo definition books month lobby. He He grew
up on welfare, food stamps, went to college on the Pell Grant. And those are all the things he wants to cut. Did you see a G Reza Islam's video? I did. That was really powerful. And it was really emotional, really powerful.
So my aunt, big, big, big like establishment Republican. And you know, she's my aunt's. I'm not you know, I'm not gonna take any shots at her. But she is my dad's eldest sister. And she basically Yes, you know, big donor, big donor. I remember when we go to there. I should. That's interesting. I should have pieced everything together, when we used to go to their lake house for vacation in the summer should have already understood by just the fact that they own a lake house. GOP. There's pictures of them with like, Reagan, and like Bush Senior and like all the notable republicans and Bush Jr. and all these guys, although I kind of miss Bush Jr. Right now. So she, she's on Facebook,
okay, just like every other adult who shouldn't be on Facebook. So she's on Facebook. And she and I are friends and all of her nephews and nieces, my cousins. They are all pretty liberal. And we were all generally Bernie supporters. Yeah. So they're like, they're they're like the kids have like the wealthy Republicans who kind of like, don't like it. Nice. So there's a lot of like back and forth and things like that. One thing that's interesting, my dad called me when the executive order came out. So Saturday, no, this was a Monday, I apologize. This was Monday, on the way to the vigil. My dad calls me and we're talking He's like, Can you explain to me what the * is going on at the
airport? And I'm like, Dad, it's crazy. Like they're like, you know, my dad's a little bit on the conservative side politically, but he's like, this is ridiculous. Why would they sign such a thing? bla bla bla bla bla my dad's more of like a true publican, right? Not that he wants to cut things. But he's like, he's like, dude, he was actually a true Bernie supporter. Actually. He was devastated when Bernie last. But he hates Hillary Clinton. So long story short, he's like, what's going on what's happening? And he was like, I'm really proud of you for being at the protest. Like, you need to do this, you know? No, no, it's not right. And he goes, Yeah, your aunt, your aunt Kathy. She
called me and she was like asking about you and what you thought of this whole thing. So my aunt is watching this thing. She's paying attention. Interesting, very interesting. She was actually at some sort of GOP function in California because she's like, I don't know if she's part of like a team or something. But she's there. point being is that people were taking notice men and a lot of people are taking notice. But at the same time, the other side of the coin, we kind of we kind of like put the religious crew in check. The one thing I was just gonna say was we talked about this was spiritually speaking, there's well because we talked about synthesizing activism and spirituality.
There's one other element of that. Look, senior scholars and pi, you know, senior, scholarly men and women pious, righteous, older, wise men and women.
We'll talk about this a lot of times where they'll say that it's very easy to become fixated on the enemy without while ignoring the enemy within.
I mean, of course, so many countries have always done something like this but look at the look at the news that came out of Kuwait.
Can I just kind of say something? Don't do it? Can I just say no no, please It's not good. It's like a teacher no thing or is that like you're it's it's just not good. It's gonna offend somebody. It's not good.
But it's just no there's we'll put it we'll rephrase it. You have a lot of disappointment and a lot of countries in the middle.
Truly, though, truly, yeah. I hope i think that i have i don't i don't think like I'm I don't think I'm gonna put my foot in my mouth by saying this. I don't you went to Dubai. Oh my god, it was the worst experience of my life so so like I
the second part of what I wanted to say which is okay, you're not gonna yell at me is I just don't think Muslim should go to Dubai. Never. Saudi we can make the argument that we're just going to the domain Yeah, getting literally we have disdain for the other like, political realities of that country. But man, I just cannot imagine myself being able to sleep in Dubai. Like, I'm sorry, I'm not I'm not I'm not judging anybody. No, I understand. Like, it's tough to find a Hello vacation. Finding Hello. Food is tough. And I understand. But can man it's not that tough to find the Hello vacation.
Come to Arlington visit. There's nothing to do there. No, but it's not you know, it only becomes hard to find. It only becomes hard to find a lot of vacation because we have to go to stupid like we feel we box ourselves into Universal Studios or Disney World. That's true. Yeah. If you go out to the Smoky Mountains getting cabin in the mountains. How is that done on Hello? pack a bunch of food with you and just take it out there dude, literally, you will never regret it. Like No, you will never regret the Smoky Mountains. And that was my family. I've done South Padre Island with my family. Yeah. Gosh, I did Rome this summer with marine on miles. Everyone. I'm not rich. Everyone's
like republican republican family. Roman, or
no, I did on miles.
And yeah, we just ate pizza, which doesn't have meat on it. Right. And we just had gelato and walked around a lot. Yeah. Saw the Pope.
I don't understand. It's great time. So point being is I understand why people want to go to Dubai, because a lot of people have like this weird Muslim inferiority complex. Like we don't have anything nice. Billy has a Mercedes like Exactly. So they're like Dubai is like exciting for them. But really like, Look, I'm not trying to be that guy. But it's just frickin like dunya dude, like, he's just literally like, oh, Diamond encrusted Lexus. Like my life is no complete. Don't go to Dubai. Yeah, I'm sorry. Even I try my best even not to like fly there airlines. I mean, sometimes, like, obviously glades Benning, like all these Muslims from all these other countries. I wonder who's
gonna build their buildings and work in their hotels and wait their tables now?
I mean, it's the truth. It is the truth. And the reason why I have a problem with Dubai, by the way is because of the tacit approval of slavery that's happening there. Yeah. Which is, you know, and Qatar and a lot of these other countries. And I think that we just need to be able to, myself included, like, think critically about where we put our dollar. Um, you know, things very quick. No country in the world is free from oppression. No, but we can definitely separate things that are more necessary than things that are more natural when it comes down to Yeah, double react hajiyev versus Garcinia. Exactly. Things that are more like decorative and like, recreational. Exactly. So
the advice for the spiritual side, we kind of covered like, Okay, look, man, you can't just sit in your ivory tower all day and read books about protesting and like all this, like, the prophet SAW some of the prophetic method, get out there, do some work, do some work. But what's interesting is that now on the other side, you know, there has to be I feel when I got home from that night, the night of protesting, I was looking at Twitter, and people were like, Yeah, we did it. We did it. We did it. And I'm not putting him on blast, because that sounds a lot like what I would have said, when I was a younger person. And these people were younger, right? I think as you get older, you
truly start to realize that like you don't do anything,
because you try to do things sometimes. Yeah, and all the answers are there and you still fail. And sometimes you stumble your way through something and had to fix a cabinet in my house this week. I failed miserably. Well, I'll talk more about like other things, but yeah, sure. cabinets. That's good. I'm saying that's an example. Still better than Donald Trump's cabinet. Hey, oh, so
it was perfect. That was so perfectly executed. We even plan that one.
So okay, so sometimes you like have all the right everything and you still fail. Sometimes you have nothing and Allah gives you success. It's just a
Lessons where it teaches you like, your activism is super important. Yes, but it's just the it's just the means it's not the source, right? So it's not the soul. It's It's so like an Arabic there's like the sub, or the S Bob. Right? The means or something, then there's Muslim people as bad, right? Like the one who like, even allows you to have the things to mean. Yeah, like the activator, the catalyst. And I think that for activists like, what's your advice for the activist, someone who really truly believes that they are a part of it, because sometimes they might be told by their religion or their religious crowd, quote, unquote, religious crowd, I hate the word religious, but
they might be told by the more self identifying religious crowd, oh, your activism, like, Oh Allah, you know, doing everything like how does an activist reconcile that I'm working, but also still remember that Allah is the source? Like, how does a person like balance between those teeth, it's easy to think that you're doing everything right. You know, even what either moto tufa who is fine, right, this concept of like, when I'm sick, he cures me, right? My mother actually smile. When I was sick. When I was younger. I remember she used to be like, not sick. This is gonna sound like torture. But when I have like a headache, I'd be like, Mom, I really want Advil or Tylenol. She's
like, she's like holding it. She's like, first reached out to her. Now do this. Now do this. Now blow on this now drink this. Like she would make me do all this sudden, like cures before giving me the medicine because she's like, I want you to remember that. Yeah. Yeah. And now when I'm older, I'm like, wow, that was genius. Yeah, actually, that's kind of you. So how do you balance that? Like, how does an activist I'm an activist now, so I'm going to protest and go individuals? How do I keep myself in check, remember, that allows and control? You know, there's two things number one is that one's personal spiritual regimen. must be really, really solid. Okay, we'll talk we'll finish
we're gonna finish with that. But the one thing I'll just bring up here is that consistency, you got to have consistency with whatever your spiritual regimen is. Consistency is the secret sauce. Mm hmm. That's one thing. And then the second thing is that from a knowledge perspective, you know, continue to open your mind in your heart and learn and that is you got to constantly be reading the seat of the prophets a lot all the time. All the time. It's just a continuous thing you start but it doesn't change. Oh, it doesn't it though. That was me by the way. That was Yeah, I don't ever want to be like well, this guy's an idiot. No, I that was me setting it up so it doesn't change but what
changes you change some reflections
Come on, you just walked into the room dude in Egypt, they say alpha beta mela, destroy your house. I don't know why that articulates like being impressed. It's amazing. But for the basic Yeah, I mean, but yeah, it's uh, if you grow your perspective changes, you learn more you see more you experience more through that lens. But just as an example, when you're reading this, you know, constantly then you're coming across examples of like bud, and hunt, duck, and all these moments where they quite literally had nothing but yet they still got victory. And then you come across where they had the upper hand and somehow the tides turned and who they be or where they could have
pretty much just finished them off then but went ahead and took a really really lopsided deal and had to wait another two years before they could take my car. You know, the story that really blew my mind. I think I listened to it on your share podcast, shameless plug. Yes, was when the Prophet Muhammad SAW Sonam was
tackled as he was resting. And the guy said you know who's gonna save you now right and he just without even skipping a beat just said Allah. That's and the dude was blown off his feet and the prophet SAW them you know, countered him like just that conviction that's it like I don't even know if I like Wish I hope that if anything like that ever happens to me not obviously sword but anything allows the first thing I think that that's just next level dude. Amazing next level so that the activist really like I think the activists first of all has to realize that like they, you and I they everybody who act who does you know, activities is super important. Yes, like you're super
necessary. One of the reasons why By the way, the chorus were so powerful and Sierra you taught me this I remember this was because the the the Jewish community at the time had fallen out with social engagements they just completely they became almost like just like a spiritual elite. They were very isolated. And so the masses still sought advice from them. Yes, like when they wanted to disprove the prophet SAW Selim they then he said, they said ask him about Yusuf and that's where so use of came from etc. But they didn't like them members of the Jewish community who in the Constitution of Medina were given the right to be able to, you know, kind of settle their own affairs and issues
amongst themselves. Members of many members of the Jewish communities document
In the cedaw, would actually prefer to come to the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam to address a lot of their own situations, just because they felt like a lot of their, quote unquote leadership was just very elitist was very isolated, and was very irrelevant and disconnected from reality. Yeah, and that's actually, you know, interestingly enough, that was like the description that a lot of people had Mashallah, this weekend. Mmm Omar was like, dude, that's amazing. You know, this guy's like a resident scholar, Russia, he's a Imam. He's a well known person. Internationally, still, they're just hustling standing in the crowd chanting, working with lawyers trying to flip even you
You brought your kids move to st brought his kids. Yeah, I brought my pregnant wife. You know, like, I'm not anything but like,
it shows people that like, true mastered leadership, there was that one girl that tweeted, the sister tweeted, she said, You know, I kind of lost hope and a lot of mesh of leadership. And then this weekend, I saw Omar Suleiman. And it kind of rekindled my hope that, you know, one day our imams will be so the activists and the and the scholars and the Imams and teachers together united, unstoppable. But the problem comes when number one we already addressed when the when the act or the scholarly class looks down upon the activist, the activist also cannot. Number one, you have to understand that your role is super important. But you also can't look down on the scholars.
Scholars. Yeah, right. Like, you know, the woke Olympics. We talked about that last time. Like, just because a scholar may not be up to date with the latest Twitter trends, or whatever. Like, that doesn't mean that that person's entire body of work is gone. Right? We didn't get a chance to talk about this, but like shake hands up. Yeah, at Rs. You know, he made some statements that were very problematic, you know, especially on the face value. Now you can argue, okay, well, what was his interpretation, then you could counter argue and say, Well, he's a public figure. But the reality was, you know, what was most depressing to me? Number One was that I was very, very upset that he
said those things, you know, feeling, seeing the pain that was being expressed by people, especially black people, that shake his head those things is very, very painful to see that they were experiencing pain. And by the way, knowing Shaykh Hamza, because you had a chance to talk to him. Yeah, knowing him. He was definitely in pain, knowing that he caused people pain. Yeah. Like that was actually I think he wrote on on Facebook, I'm very sorry, I'm very empathetic person. Very, like, he loves this. Oh, my dude, every person He loves us oma. If someone comes up to him and says, You hurt me, I can't imagine shake comes at me. Like, I don't care. No, he would cry. So you spent
time with him? Oh, the second thing I was gonna say was, I was really disappointed. After the fact that I was disappointed that our community's hurting was that people were so quick to just like, destroy him in his life. Like we were just talking about he was he was receiving physical threats. Yeah. You know, so what was your conversation with him like, after that? It was just very,
it was it was just a very intense conversation. We talked about some other in obviously, the kind of intersection between myself and him coming from two very different just backgrounds
is obviously nerdy at me stuff. So we were talking about just some, you know, different books and different things like that. And then that just kind of led down to the conversation. And
it was just a matter of how, you know, he was just very, he was very apologetic and very distraught and very sad. And this is in private, this isn't so you're not recording this. This is not stage where he's like, Oh, I'm sorry. No, he's just one person is really sad, very upset with himself. Just very sad that, you know, it just devolved into what it developed into. Yeah. And I think that the lesson, there's a lot of lessons from that. But the lesson that I think that I took from that whole situation is like people are people, people are humans. Number one, yeah, we can't assign divinity to anybody now. Sheikh Hamza made some bad mistakes on the stage, right? verbally said some
things that people are really bothered by. But the second thing I learned is that you have to have you have to let people make mistakes. Right. And you have to make them into learning learning opportunities. Absolutely. You know, shake homes have definitely learned. We all learned shamans definitely learned we all learned
the activist community needs to exemplify they love to talk about the justice of the prophet SAW them.
But they don't really often exemplify the mercy of the prophets or something. Right. And that's a big issue.
Imagine if the prophet SAW sent him said to Omar, you're not woken up to be Muslim. Like, I'm gonna push you away because you're just so far gone. Right? Like I've literally heard people who identify as activists that, oh, it's not my job to educate people. They should know.
Like, I'm just so thankful that profitsystem didn't have that personality that mentality because none of us would be Muslim at this point.
Be. So justice has to be coupled with compassion absolutely has to be. Absolutely.
And that that's what I was gonna kind of piggyback off of. Another thing that's really been I've been thinking about it for about two days now really been processing the thoughts, I put something online where I kind of talked about it. And that was
there was some polls that were done routers and others did some polls where they basically talked about how 49% of Americans approve of the Muslim ban. And 31% say, it's already made America safer.
It just made me kind of realize and really deep think, deeply think about the fact that yes, we're kind of tackling this moment right now. And we need to, we should and we are 100 Latham Alhamdulillah. However, we can't forget at the same time, we need to carry on the work, we need to continue the work of reforming, rectifying educating society at large, because ignorance and bigotry is not just three people in the White House by the way, it's 49% of America.
That's a lot. We have our work cut out for us to do. So again, this goes back to that same point of having a more holistic slum, and a more holistic approach to solving this problem. It's kind of like if there's a doctor who only wants to dis do surgery in the moment right then and it's a doctor who will never talk about any type of medication, we'll never talk about getting healthier will never give you a rehabilitation plan whatever basically just wants you to come in every six months we can cut you open
like that's a tear that's not a doctor that's a butcher it's not effective Not at all. Not at all. But we value that holistic approach in everything we do. And we need that holistic approach in fighting this good fight as well. It is I was saying this morning to the clergy the the battle that the Muslim community and and the minority community in general appearance is the Battle of the hearts. The heart You have to have to win people's hearts. Absolutely the process on one people's hearts. That's it. That's right. And so yes, we are gonna fight we're gonna fight these demons right now.
The shell team, we're gonna do that Steve Bannon shout out oh my god upon shape on total shape beer.
like Whoa, dude. No.
So she sounds like she's got no chill.
So, but no, we're gonna follow Steve on Twitter.
Sorry, okay, we're done. We're done. So we're gonna we're gonna fight these demons in the shouting. Who can do that? These devils. However, at the same time, we're going to carry on our work of educating, reforming, rectifying fixing society at large we have to that's who we are. And the mission of the prophets I was home was let's do them in home yet to Allah him Aya Tikka Ali Mohammad kita boleh HEC Mata y yuzaki m, that he will grab your, you know, kind of enlighten you, he will recite upon you the verses of God, He will teach you the Quran and wisdom, the implementation of the Quran. And number three, he will purify you. And we gotta we gotta we gotta have that three pronged
approach. We have to do it. Absolutely. Absolutely. So the the last thing we'll close off for today, we're closing up on the hour and try to keep this to an hour from now on. We can go on forever. inshallah. Brother,
amen, Majid. It's been circulating for a few years now he had this thing. And it literally was just like a note. It's like a handwritten note, or someone wrote, an activist must. And there was a list of four things.
And the beauty of this list is that each of those things is like super, super deep and powerful, but totally doable. Awesome. So like, it's almost like super efficient thing. Like it does not going to take a ton of your time. But it's going to have a great impact. And I just kind of wanted to give you like a lightning round. wish it was a diet like that. I know, right? Geez.
The only diet that works for me just don't eat.
So, I'm going to give each of the four things Yes. And I want you to tell me how that benefits the activist got it. Okay, so the first thing that he says is have a
very good what's a word? First of all?
A weird is basically where you have I kind of alluded to earlier, you have a daily spiritual regimen. Okay, have a daily spiritual routine. What does that look like in practice? What things would give us like a template? Very good. A good template, a solid template would be he's referring to something more than this, but I'm just gonna mention it because just for everyone's benefit for a reminder for me, first of all, your five times daily prayer, Okay, number one. Number two is, whatever your capacity is two different people have different levels of fluency. If you're still kind of like you take your time with reading with the Koran. It can be, you know, half a page
If you Mashallah have built up your speed, it can be a couple of pages a day, but you're gonna read some Quran every day. Okay, just five to 10 minutes worth, okay? More than enough, that's a good starting point. Number three is, you're going to have a little bit of daily remembrance of God Vicar. And that can be a combination of a few different things you can do 33 times the phrase Subhanallah 33 times the phrase hamdulillah 33 times the phrase, or 34 times the phrase Allahu Akbar. So hon Allah Alhamdulillah la harbor 3333 and then 34 times,
just do that morning and evening. It's a good place to start.
And that's, that's a pretty solid daily regimen. I remember one time you told me
100 try to do 100 a day of solid was on the profits. Oh, yeah. I mean, then,
ya know, and, and for students of knowledge. Okay. When you listen to my activist, yeah. You need your nourishment. That's right. Um, you know, the thing is that when you start studying, you're in when you studied like knowledge of the deen More formally, you have to minimum be reading 100 salutations upon the profits a lovely summer day, again, that hundreds not coming from a narration or something. It's just saying you got to have a good daily dosage of it because it'll move into Laurel, Mrs. Olympia, because knowledge is the inheritance of the profits. So to be an inheritor of the profit, you got to be connected to the profit. And the way you do that is since it teaches upon
him daily. Okay, so that's a big one. That's a big tip. fod is a big one. Just asking a lot to forgive you. The Prophet said he used to ask a lot to forgive him 100 times a day. Yeah. And every other sort of handles that beautiful, heavy human holiday can Maharajah woman.
tested that? Allah will, every restriction, he'll give you an exit everywhere you have, he'll give you relief. And he'll provide it for you and pull it from places you never thought possible. So, so that that's the benefit of is too far on top of actually getting forgiven. Beautiful. So that's number one. So having a will so basically like, just like you just you get up, brush your teeth, hopefully, shower, maybe go to the gym, listen to a podcast to hang out. Do something that you do every day, like go through your routine tags on your checklist hack somewhere in there. You know, the the remembrance of a law absolute citation of the prophet SAW them absolutely. And you can do
little things as well just I'm just speaking from the realm of practicality here. If you're going to have a time of the day where you sit down and you kind of go through your emails, or you go through, you know, your Instagram feed or you go through, you know, your snaps or whatever it is. If you have a particular time of the day, when you get back from work and you sit down on the content, you're like, Ah, now, yeah, just kind of like, keep that as a moment where you kind of say, Nope, I'm not allowed to look at my Instagram feed until I first you know, do 10 minutes of my Vicodin micron. Okay. I like it. Yeah, that sounds good. It's just practical in the car driving in the car drive. It
just fits within our, our lifestyle. Okay. And a lot of times, like, we think that some of these things just kind of like feel strange. But that that that doesn't dictate whether or not it's good for you. Like, it's like, oh, I'm kind of talking to myself, or I'm making think about myself with like, Yeah, good. Yeah, do something. Yeah, it's kind of like what the Sahaba used to say, the first time when somebody would go out there, they feel kind of strange. Or when somebody be in the battlefield, they'd be like, Oh, this is that or that? Is this or this doesn't feel right. The first thing Sahaba used to say was la la caja de de la de Ville, Islam, you must be new to this.
Interesting, because the first time you do something the second time you do something, sometimes you went the third time you do something, it does feel kind of awkward and strange. The fourth time, it's it's right 100 operating up. Yeah. And it's really, you know, like, they talk about a lot about meditation and mindfulness. These are, these are spiritual activities taught us by Allah and His Messenger, that are meant to increase us in that. So they're not like two separate realms, not at all. The second thing he said, was that every activist must pray to HUD. Very nice. So this is going to be a tough one. For a lot of us. Yeah. Sleep is at a premium already. Life is busier than it ever
was before, especially if you're in Boston, because for some reason you work 80 hours a week up there. But how do you get to it? And I was once told when I was younger, that if you can't wake up before fudger, which is obviously the ideal to hedge it is the prayer that is done before Federer. So between Russia and Federer in the last part of the night, that you can as a training mechanism put before you go to sleep, yes. Particularly if you're one of those people that for work or personal reasons or whatever it is, you end up sleeping a little bit later on sooner. Personal Netflix reasons. Yes, correct. So Stranger Things reasons. So if you know if you're the kind of
person who is in bed by nine o'clock, but then is up at like 5am because you got a long commute in the morning or something like that, then that person's better off looking at what's the start time for fudger and if it's 510 then just wait
up at like 455 and just get to record and get to a cause of 200 in for a cause of damage and then boom fudger time happens you take care of your fudger now you can go and get ready for work and head out to work okay, but if you're on the flip side of it where you know you live in the burbs and you work in the burbs.
And so you have to go in at work at like 9am. And you live 15 minutes away from work. So you can easily wake up at eight o'clock and then kind of head out. And so you know that you can wake up for fudger, pray fudger and then go back to sleep for a couple of more hours. So because of that, you end up sleeping at around like 11pm midnight. That's when you usually go to sleep, then yeah, pray before you go to sleep. Okay, good. Okay, and is your well, to the point of it being half the night at that time? Yeah, it's true. I what I love about these two in particular, is that they're like, the emphasis is that you're alone? Yeah. Because activism is such a public thing. That's right. And
the other thing that Allah mentioned, this aloha mentioned, is that because of activism, activism is a very loud thing. These are very quiet. Oh, interesting. Yeah. Quiet. That's what you know, confirmed there were a book of a cabinet. Right. Right. And so like, giving a response out of that greatness and proclaiming his greatness. That's right. So it's like, stand up and warn. But then, you know,
dodges is the activists, Fortress of Solitude.
It's where you get your strength. That's right. That's where you can stand for hours and hours, because you got used to it right at night. And I think that the biggest spiritual disease that activists are, you know, sort of, I guess, prone to is the showing off, right ostentation, especially with social media? It's so easy, you know, taking pictures and posting it? Are you doing it for that person? Are you doing it for the like, right, got to make sure you keep that intention in check. The best way to keep your intentions in check, is to stockpile private deeds, yes, and no one else knows about. Third thing he says is you have to visit the sick Suhana. What does that have
to do with activism? How does it build empathy? Okay, wow, it builds empathy, because the nature of activism, particularly in the protest dynamic is just such that sometimes you're yelling outside of a building, or you're yelling at the law enforcement, but you're, you know, sometimes you don't, you're not there with the victims personally. So this is where you get to be with somebody who is going through some suffering, and you just sit with them there, and there's nobody to yell at. So again, it's a quiet moment of just comforting a human being. And protesting. And activism can actually, if a person let's get out of control can like harden the heart. Oh, of course, it can make
a person like really rough. Yeah, make them make them really super jaded with the world and things like that. Right. But like, individual time is what breaks that and also a person when they're sick, a lot of times when they would use that verbiage in classical Arabic, who would refer more so more so to somebody who was terminally ill? Oh, it's about visiting the second gen. Yeah, it would more specifically speak about somebody who was terminally ill. So speaking to somebody who's that close to death is also very sobering. It's a wake up call. Because when you sit with them, they talk about death as if it's like taking a sip of water.
And that's actually the last one he said was go to the burials. So pray janazah, go the burial See, see where ultimately where you're going to reside.
And I'm going to say something that's going to come off a little harsh, and I don't want anyone to interpret this as a lack of empathy. For those who suffer. It's not. But it's basically just talking about it, we can become so obsessed with making this world what we feel it should be like, but it's a reminder, ultimately, of the fact that this world is temporary. And this world actually designed to test. Yeah, that's actually one of the purposes of this world. So we do our best, right, because us not doing anything is us failing that test. Right. But when others are tested, or when we're tested. It is true. You know, it's a little bit it, I guess, you can categorize it as a little bit
fatalistic. But it is true that the end of the day, and the sad thing is that thing we talked about before where is the ultimate equalizer the aka because, like you just talked about becoming jaded. If you keep on fighting for these causes, and you're not making any gains, you can start to lose your faith. But that reminds you that there is a hereafter there is the ultimate equalizer. Yeah, like what what justice in this world is there for a little girl and the Sharla said, right? For the eight year old girl who got shot in Yemen and killed like what justice is there for her in this world? There won't be there won't be right here. But the hereafter Well, he didn't know that too. So
he let be them and they're gonna be asked, Why were you killed and little girls gonna be like,
I don't know, I can literally do anything didn't do nothing. Very powerful. Before we conclude, I wanted to say just one thing I'm very I don't know that I feel this all the time where I don't want to give off the impression like as if you know where we're lecturing the activists and we're kind of talking down to them.
This is just just a just some reflection of some thoughts. I'm not the best at most. But I want everyone to understand that. I'm also uncomfortable when sometimes the scholarly
speaks down to the activists. So inshallah we will set and in one day sessions inshallah we'll do specifically advice to the students of knowledge to those who because the Quran says there needs to be both when jihad is going on well my candle momentarily And Pharaoh Kapha that a group needs to stay back and continue to learn and read and study so that there are spiritual caretakers of the community as well. So we'll specifically talk about advices to those who might be involved in the learning and teaching tradition. And maybe we can have a guest on for that one. Absolutely. If we can get sister Linda to come out or Alia Salim or somebody she's local but she's awesome. Great work
great work.
I know sister sent us a might come visit. Yeah, ask her to
get us woke. Please, inshallah. Awesome. Awesome. Chef. Thank you so much. My pleasure. really productive. A lot of content today. Too much. Wow. I'm tired. And you gotta drive. I gotta drive to San Antonio. Go into Tim duck. Oh.
Greg Popovich most wokers guy no huddle off. So woke. So okay, so now if Americans don't even own a mattress
so if if America has just gone this route of word, they're just gonna elect like famous people instead of like, whatever.
Man 2020 Gregg Popovich.
Steve Kurt. I love
it, man. He's had some really really an interesting things this week. He did. Yeah. I think it's tough. It's gonna get tougher. It's gonna get tougher before he's here but in the model, so your straw man said that Batman thing it's darkest before the dawn? I think so. I think yeah, I think two phase drops at Lyman Batman. So that's more like a Mr. Weiss is this is the indication that Pikachu ended three when it is done. Yeah. I'm gonna watch Batman now. Okay. All right. Sure. So I like because some men aren't looking for anything logical, like money. can't be bought, bullied, reasoned or negotiated with some men just want to watch the world.