Abdul Nasir Jangda – Spiritual Fatigue Labeling Muslims And Absentee Fathers
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The host of a Qemini hangout discusses the importance of protecting oneself from one's own spiritual fatigue and burnout, setting budgets aside for events, and praying with family. The course in which students will learn about the social and community entrepreneurship of the future, designed for working professionals, is flexible and designed for one-on-one classes. The course is designed for working professionals and is self-paced online, with no recorded time commitment. The course is designed for working professionals and is designed for one-on-one classes.
AI: Summary ©
Salam aleikum wa rahmatullah habra to I want to welcome everyone to the LM hangout session in sha Allah Today we're going to be taking some questions that were submitted to us over the last week or so. And we're going to inshallah, try to answer those questions. I'm not going to have some long drawn out introduction here, just because this session is specifically meant to answer questions to get right to the issue. If you'd like to just watch a little video with some reflections and some thoughts, definitely go out and go on YouTube. And check out the alarm hangout video that was released last week. And this week in shallow will just be taking questions. So this is an hour long,
live q&a session where folks can Facebook and tweet in questions. And we'll just answer the questions in shallow or I'll answer them to the best of my ability rather, I should say. So the very first question that we got was submitted to us on Twitter, it was tweeted to the column Institute Twitter account, that's app column Institute. If you look right down below, where you're watching this video, on the column website, you'll find a place where you can click and you can click and it says, follow us on Twitter. So So this question was tweeted to us, how can we help volunteers slash Islamic workers understand spiritual fatigue and burnout. So the first thing that needs to be
understood is
we It is part of the responsibility of the leadership to make volunteers and Islamic work Islamic workers and students aware of the fact that there is such a thing as burnout, and that spiritual fatigue and burnout is a reality.
Some of the folks tuning in or watching this might already know this for a fact, they might have experiences themselves. A lot of folks watching this might be thinking, and, you know, every single time on Twitter or Facebook I've ever posted a comment, or talked about spiritual fatigue and burnout from working and volunteering and serving the community, I always get a lot of responses that are very interesting and very telling, I get a lot of responses where people are saying, you know, just do it for the sake of a law. And you know, if you're doing it for a law, then there's nothing that can ever go wrong. And well, it would only be a problem if you weren't doing it for a
law. And there are a lot of comments of this nature.
We have to understand. And again, that's understandable. That's some of the innocence. I'm not I'm not even call it naivete, I'll rather call it innocence. That's the innocence of the young, or the new Islamic worker or the beginner tolerable in that a lot of times they don't understand and realize that, you know, there are there is such a thing as spiritual fatigue, and just just complete burnout and flame out. And so it is the responsibility of the leadership to make, you know, it is the responsibility of the teacher to make the students aware for the Imam to make the followers aware, and for the leadership to make the volunteers aware of the fact that look, spiritual fatigue,
and burnout from volunteering in the Muslim community from working in Islamic cause is a reality. Because if they don't even know what they're trying to avoid, or what they're trying to protect themselves from, how can they effectively protect themselves from anything at all? So that's the very first thing. And again, you know, in this q&a session, you know, we, I travel around, I teach classes, go to conferences, and there's a lot of q&a sessions other places. What's the specific purpose of this q&a session right here? This q&a session is occurring on the Calum Institute website. What that basically means is I'm not in somebody else's Masjid, I'm not at somebody else's
conference, I'm not sitting on someone else's stage. I don't have to tread lightly here. I don't have to be careful that, you know, I don't cross any lines. Of course, I'm still not going to say anything inappropriate. But I can speak a little bit more openly here. So I'm going to be very honest and open with you. The reason why and this is minus see how to imams or the leadership of the Muslim community, or those who are driving and leading in Islamic cause. A lot of times the only reason why we would not make our volunteers or students or followers
we the only reason why we would not inform them and make them aware of the fact that spiritual fatigue and burnout is a reality
is to not ruin a good volunteer. We just landed this guy. This guy walked through the door says I am ready to help with anything and everything. And I'd be lying if I didn't tell you that as a teacher as a community leader.
at someone leading a project, I see that guy, I hear what he has to say. And I say, chain jackpot, right? In a good way, of course, we're doing Islamic work, I'm not going to be making any money off of him. But still, what that does is now, my cause my ambitions, my goals, my objectives have become more important than that person. And that's part of the problem. And so I have to, I It is my responsibility, my obligation, and I am accountable before Allah subhanaw taala. If I do not sit down, brother that sister down and say, listen, we are very excited to have you. And I really think you could help in a lot of ways. But here's something I need you to be careful about. You're gonna
want to help help help work, work, work, serve, serve, serve, you're going to want to do nothing but just help. But what I need you to do is I'm going to, I need you to come up with a very balanced, you know, regimen, a very balanced approach, where you will make sure that you don't sacrifice every single weekend with your family to come in and volunteer, because your family needs your time that you don't give up, you know, your own spiritual routines and exercises, make sure that you are still making time to pray, to make sure to do the cut all of those things, make sure that you're still making time for yourself to learn. Take notes, if every single time in Islamic class, or a seminar
or program or a convention or a conference or a retreat, every single time something is going on, you're running around back and forth, back and forth. Just you know, because you're the organizer, your volunteer, you're just running around back and forth. You've never actually sat down in a single session with a notebook and a pen, and actually taken some notes, there is a problem. There's something that you're not doing right, there's something that the people that under whose supervision and leadership you're working, there's something they're not doing correctly, either. So first and foremost, it's the job of the leadership to make those working and serving aware of the
fact that spiritual fatigue and burnout does happen, when we sit down with them and let them know that Listen, this is something you got to look out for something you got to be careful about. Now, what can we do about it? volunteers, Islamic workers, those helping a good cause, need to understand that helping this good cause is part of the process and not the end goal and objective. This kind of goes to the celebrity culture and the hype that sometimes gets created in our communities, where it's chef, so and so he mom, so and so brother, so and so,
sister, so and so that it's such a famous person, everybody watches their videos, on Facebook, everybody likes their page. And now I'm close, I'm assisting this person, I'm helping this person that in and of itself becomes the achievement and accomplishment. That's also a problem, or an organization or a cause become so famous that you know, the the second let me let me let me just put a disclaimer, let me be very clear.
before you've done any work, before you've done any work, once you email them and say, Hey, I'd like to volunteer with your organization, can I help send and you get a response back maybe a day or two days later? Yes, actually, we are working on this. And we would love your help with this sent. And you click that and you open that and you read that and you're like, Yes, I get to help with this organization. That is the end all be all of everything that is cool. islamically. before you've even done anything, after reading that email, if you went on Facebook, and changed your Facebook profile to working at and you put that organization's name, that's a problem. Because now you're more
obsessed with the name and the hype and the fame and the popularity of the organization, then you are concerned about serving the law. And that's part of the problem. So this and we have to understand that that's not sincere Islamic work, that is just feeding one's ego. So we have to be very clear about these things. So the leadership, who are recruiting the volunteers, they need to sit down with them and say, Look, you will get spiritually fatigued and burned out. That's no good for anybody. So we need you to be careful about this. Those who want to help and serve need to make sure they're doing it for the right reasons. They're doing it because this is something that is
beneficial to the community and they want to help out. But if they don't turn that into their end all be all, but it's part of the process of coming closer to a line helping the community, they will they they will be careful to maintain the other aspects of their spirituality. The third and the final thing and it's a very practical tip, or at least I like to think so.
And this is a recommendation tip that we implement ourselves and also that I make to whatever organization asks for any
advice or suggestions. And that is, if you work for an Islamic organization, all right, and there was a class or a retreat or a conference, whatever it was, and you didn't sit down and actually listen and benefit to what was being taught or explained for more than like 10 minutes at a time, you really didn't actually get to sit down and learn and benefit and, you know, absorb anything at all. You were just running around the whole weekend, you have to understand you did an awesome good deed. But you yourself didn't go home with any type of spiritual food to keep yourself going. Your organization has to understand my volunteers, my five people who ran around non stop this weekend
and made this class happen. They didn't learn anything, they have nothing to go back to. So what I recommend is every organization whether they're running a conference or retreat, a seminar, a class, whatever it may be, they need to set some funds aside, and what those funds are going to be used for. So let's say I had six volunteers, three brothers and three sisters that helped me run my conference. And they ran around the whole time.
So I live in Dallas, the six people, three brothers, three sisters helped me run this whole weekend long conference, but even benefit or learn anything themselves. They were just running around. What happens is a month later, two months later, I hear that there's another conference or a seminar or a class or a retreat going on in Houston. And for those who are watching who might not be aware, Houston from Dallas is about 250 miles at the most 300 miles away. It's a five hour drive four to five hour drive. I set a budget aside as a head of the organization. Six weeks later, when that retreat in Houston is coming up. I'm going to pay for the expenses for my six volunteers to be able
to go down to Houston, sign up, attend that retreat, not as official representatives of alum Institute, that they're here to sit in on meetings and help out and volunteer. No, no, no. They're showing up there as brothers and sisters ain't up. They're anonymous. They're going to sit down, they're going to attend it like any other attendee, they're going to take notes, they're going to learn they're going to benefit they're going to absorb. And when they come back a weekend later, I might you might be sitting if you run an Islamic organization, right now you're sitting there listening to this thinking, what he wants us to drop, like 1000 bucks on these six volunteers. You
know, Is he crazy or something? Well, guess what, when these six volunteers come back from that weekend long of just so that we can have spirituality and learning Italian and tuttavia. When they come back, those volunteers will last me a lot longer. Because unfortunately, right now, we fall into the bad habit of treating a lot of volunteers in some coworkers like toilet paper. We use them, we abuse them, and then we throw them away.
And that's not right. It's unacceptable that goes against the methodology of Muhammad Rasulullah sallallahu sallam. So I hope this was beneficial for everyone.
All right. Moving on to the second question, is it permissible? This was also a question that was tweeted into us. Remember when you do tweet a question at Calum Institute, Qa LAM Institute and remember to tag your questions with hashtag alum Hangout, one word, or you should know that if you know how to hashtag nevermind, is it permissible to make dua
in followed Salam in obligatory prayers,
especially the sujood prostration outside of them is known to us for such in Arabic. So there's a lot of Arabic terminology. Let me just read the Arabic question. Let me just, I mean, not the question. It's in English. There's a lot of terminology, Mashallah, it's appropriate terminology, and then I'll explain, is it permissible to meet in front of Salah, especially sujood, outside of the Muslim to ask for sajida in Arabic. So the question is that if you are praying and obligatory prayer, we're going to go ahead and use Salatin motive as an example. All right, that's relevant to the time right now. We're going to use Salatin motive as an example three rakaat, a fog obligatory
and then we pray you, you can pray to after that that are optional sooner. So they're asking that if you're praying the three of Mother, the Father, the obligatory
then in the sense that in the prostration, when your faces on the ground, outside of those two hours outside of those supplications and of kata, remembrances that were taught to us by the prophets a lot he sent him, is it permissible to still make dua Indians
Arabic language. So I'm going to kind of deconstruct the question explain this issue. So the question first and foremost, let's deal with it on steps. And then we'll finally get to this exact question. The first question is that when you are praying Salah, is it permissible to make dua in any other language outside of Arabic? Is that permissible or not? Let's answer that question. So there's a difference of opinion about that. But the majority says that in the font of the obligatory prayers, you should only keep your eyes
within the Arabic language. They have to be in the Arabic language, they should be in the Arabic language, in the Sunnah, the optional prayers, then there's a difference of opinion. Some say still no, it has to be in Arabic, some allow for your own language do is to be made, even in the suit in the prayer. As long as it's not the first obligatory prayer, we got that covered. So the majority is saying the safe bet is keep your dogs in Arabic, as long as you are in the photo, the obligatory prayer? Well, in the front obligatory prayer, I'm going to keep it in Arabic, but then do the do is that I read in my sujood and stuff, do they have to be prophetic supplications do eyes and
supplications taught to us by the prophets, a lot of them, or specifically allowed or mentioned by the prophets, a lot of them? Or can I start reading otherwise as well.
And or just be making out but within the Arabic language, again, that same difference of opinion, the majority, some of the scholars now, it's not a majority issue, some of the scholars say, No, as long as you were in the first obligatory prayers, keep your eyes specific to those dogs that were taught to us by the prophets, a lot of them for the purpose of the prayer. And then some of the scholars actually do allow for somebody to be able to make their own laws, as long as they're in the Arabic language, even within the further obligatory prayers, my own personal recommendation. And again, this is based off of what I personally do,
practice and something that I personally hold to, and that is, the further obligatory prayers are more standard, more uniformed, more structured, the further obligatory prayers should only be kept to those do I supplications of God remembrances that were specifically taught to us by the prophets a lot, he said them for the purpose of their prayer, if anyone wants to read or say or make, do I have things extra things, then that's why we always have the voluntary knuffle prayers. So that's my answer in regards to that question. And along those best.
Alright, here's the third question for this session, this question was also tweeted into us.
And this question says, Is it permissible to sign a friend into class? If they are not present? Is it permissible to sign a friend into class if they are not present? So again, the scenario is pretty simple. I'll go in and explain the scenario, of course, not from personal experience, because I have absolutely no idea. I didn't even know that that was possible.
But so let me go in and answer that question. So let me explain the scenario. So you're in class, your friend who sits next to you in class, is not there yet. You know, hopefully, it's not the case that they're not coming at all. Maybe they're just running a couple of minutes late, five minutes late, and they're passing the attendance sheet around the sign in sheet around. And so your friend texts you and says, Hey, I'm literally just a couple of minutes away, sign me into class. So is that permissible?
That would not be permissible, because signing that person into class, is you basically, it's, it's, it's a form of lying. It's a form of deception. Somebody could call it a white lie, and they're on their way, and what's the harm? They're gonna be there in a couple of minutes, and nobody really cares, or I understand all of those excuses. But the problem is, none of those excuses really changed the fact that it is still a form of lying and deception. And I'm going to take this opportunity, whoever asked this question, just to locate on Thank you very, very much, because what you just did was, you just threw the ball up, like a lob, like Chris Paul throwing up a lob, and I'm
gonna come like DeAndre Jordan now, and I'm gonna slam dunk this, or I'm gonna leave this I'm gonna grab this and I'm gonna throw it down on Brendan Knight's head. And
I'm gonna go on a little bit of a rant here. The rant is a specific point that I want to make here is
we understand the concept of lying. We know lying is about thing Allah, Allah, Allah. Allahu Allah. Al Khatib in the Quran says that the curse of Allah is
upon those who are liars upon the liars, and so we know that it is not permissible to lie, it is a sin to lie and lying is wrong, deception is wrong, cheating is wrong, we know all of that. And we usually keep that to specific to things like, you know, lying to your parents or lying about something religious or cheating somebody in money. All of those things we typically understand those things are wrong. But there is, a lot of it goes on a lot of times. And for whatever reason, we almost kind of treat it like an exception.
And we we just figured that it doesn't fall under that same category. For instance, if you put together your resume,
and if you put on there, you know, some experience, or some education or some reference or some accomplishment, that is not necessarily true.
And you're just hoping or you're expecting, or you know, that they're not really going to go and follow up on it. Or maybe you've got a buddy that works there at that company who said, Hey, listen, man, you want this job. Look, when the big boss, look, I'm going to be your boss, I'll hire you. But when the big boss looks at your resume, he just needs to be able to see that you got the certification, don't worry, he ain't got the time to follow up, he's not going to call and ask anyone or check to see the assets, either certificate, none of that. He just, he's going to want to see it on the piece of paper before he tells me. Yeah, go ahead and hire him if you like him. And
then man, I got your back, I'll hire you, it's all good. Don't worry about it.
When that scenario presents itself,
when that scenario presents itself, you cannot
do that you cannot put that on your resume, that would qualify as lying as cheating as deceiving. And it would be just as bad, just as detrimental just as harmful, as you know, lying about anything else. And so a lot of times when it comes to school, when it comes to work, there's a lot of little small, small, little lies, and I'll put these in quotes. These are small lies that we tell because we're like, Look, I'm not really harming anyone, I'm not really cheating anyone out of anything. Yeah, but it's still like, and it's not allowed, it's not permissible. At the same time, a lot of my students and friends who work, you know, in the corporate world, they're, they're working
professionals, they're consultants and things like this. They made me aware of another problem that exists out there, the problem that exists out there a lot of times is, you know, if you're working remote, or if you're consulting on a project, or you're doing some other type of professional work, what ends up happening a lot of times is, you know, hey, look, man, I get the job done. It doesn't take me as long and then I, I just move on to doing other things. You know, I'm checking Facebook, I'm taking an Islamic class online, I'm, you know, blogging, you know, about some Islamic blog or something like that.
If I'm checking Facebook, writing an Islamic blog, watching an Islamic video YouTubing, you know, some fantabulous Muslim speaker, I really don't care. You're on someone else's time, somebody else is paying you for your time. That's not permissible. It's not a it's not right. It's not permissible. It's a violation and a breach of trust. And it's not okay. And so being honest about how much you worked, how long you worked, how hard you worked, and what you were doing while you were at work, all of that is very relevant and very important. And that is a part of not lying, not cheating. So just in case the questioner got kind of lost in the middle of my rant there, it's like
a forest.
I want to go ahead and reiterate the question. Is it permissible to sign a friend into the club into class? If they are not present? themselves? No, it is not permissible in Illinois best.
Okay.
We got a long question. So you obviously know this question is not coming from Twitter anymore. Because you can tweet a question this long, unless you break it up into multiple tweets. So this is from Facebook, trusty old Facebook. I am studying the dean at a local Mother Teresa. In blank. I was able to see the city listed during the question, but I requested our admin before we went on, to blur out the name of the city because the purpose here is not to
try to, you know, give anybody an idea of where we're talking about or specifically, you know, call out a city or something like that. That defeats the purpose of the question, but I'm aware of what city it was. So I'll take that into consideration when answering the question. So I'm setting the dean our local mothers are in blank and we are learning from the Hanafi madhhab
I hear people being stuffy and tably.
I'm going to stop right here real quick. My students who know me, who've attended classes and programs with me before they know that I personally hate labels and titles.
But this person is asking questions, so don't worry, I'm not reprimanding you.
But I am advising you, it's not good to use these type of labels, but maybe, you know, it was necessary for you to ask your question. Either way, I want to clarify, you know, go for go for
there, there's, there's this hanging person that I forgot in the middle of this hang. So this is very embarrassing. But it basically says, to relate or to narrate somebody else's Kufa does not mean that you did cover it yourself. So I'm just simply reading a question. So it doesn't mean that I endorse or advocate or approve of using labels like this for people. So I hear people being Sanofi into V and that these people cannot be trusted. Fantastic. I've heard not to trust certain Islamic institutions, because they are misleading from my teachers. This makes me upset because as a lay person, I cannot judge where to get my information from, is there any way to know who is right and
who's wrong? And how do we as Muslims know if we are the right one, the wrong ones? Or right? Is there such a thing?
Is there such a thing, right? Or is this just a flexibility that Islam provides by having different sects? I know that we can look at where certain MFIs or shacks got their education, however, even then, how do we know that where they got their education from can be trusted? Basically, how does a lay person know which source to trust? And which not to?
That's an excellent question.
And a very real situation and something a lot of people deal with something a lot of people are struggling with. I'm gonna ask how to wait real quick. While I go ahead and grab a must have, I need to grab a Koran real quick to be able to reference a verse that I'd like to mention here in responding to this question.
Okay.
Sorry about that.
Next time, I should have my must have in hand when I sit down to answer the questions.
All right.
Susan, I have the power and is very relevant to this.
Because again, I'm going to kind of deconstruct the question if you will. All right.
Yes,
last panel, Magellan pseudo tissue raw, this is Surah number 42. Instead of tissue also number 42. In iron number 14, so those who are at home and have access to a computer, or almost half or whatever the case may be,
they can definitely look this up so they can read this along with us. So number 42. So the trishula verse number 14 is number 14. Allah subhana wa tada says, Why am I to funner up pu lm embody my job. At mu Bobby m Beynon. They did not split up into groups. Allah says they did not split up into groups Illa except mean by the magic of moolah after knowledge had already come to them. So these people knowledge had come to them knowledge was readily available to them. And some of them could even quote and claim quite a bit of knowledge. But they did not split up into groups and factions and sects and labels amongst themselves between themselves except out of Belgium baina home except
out of hatred, animosity, rivalry, personal grudges with one another. So they really had no real religious basis that they were fighting based off of. These were these were there it was theirs. It was simply their egos.
their desires, their own ambitions, their own personal grudges and dislikes for one another, that because of that they began to split up into different groups. And that was kind of what Allah says what oh, Lakhani, Mattoon Sabbath mirrabooka la oduya been home. Willow Lakhani Mattoon Saba cottony Rebecca de la la musalman La Paz de abena. Whom, then if it wasn't for a word that are already preceded from your Lord, about a fixed time, the decision would have been made amongst them. That's basically kind of a that sounds like a vague translation. Let me explain what that means. Those are Arabic expression that basically means if I had not already decreed the specific time, when
everybody's time would end and everybody would have to leave this world and go back and answer to Allah, Allah subhanaw taala would have made the decision and Allah Spano tala would have finished all of them, and everything would have been done. Everything would have been over. We're in a we're in a Latino Buddhism Kitab I'm embodying the fi shatkin Minho, marieb when Allah Xena Buddhism Kitab I mean, bother him lovey shakin ifis shocky Minho, marieb that Allah says, we're in the Latino resultaten embodiment those people who will inherit the book The Quran after them. So there'll be a generation of people who had fairly a good amount of knowledge, but they ended up fighting and
splitting and fractioning and splitting off amongst one another, just simply based off of their own ego and their own problems with each other. And Allah says that if a lion already decreased and decided what time, you know, at their fixed appointment, one day would leave this world, that alone would have finished them off there, because that's how bad this behavior is. But then Allah says, as far as those people who will inherit the book, the Koran from them, these people will receive the religion after this whole generation of people that was too busy fighting among fighting amongst themselves, trying to prove and justify their own positions, trying to prove that I'm right and
you're wrong.
Those people who will inherit the religion from some such people that fee shatkin, Minh, who the fee Chuck came in, who that they will most definitely be in doubt. And unless pinata uses a word fee, which means to be immersed, to be encased to be drowning in something, they will be drowning in doubt, because of that moody vibe. And they will be even more doubt. So they will be in doubt themselves. And they will cause doubt, within others. Not only will they be confused, but they will go on to confuse others. So the generation are the people that will receive the religion from a people who are knowledgeable about the religion, but we're too busy fighting with one another. Those
people will pass a religion on to a generation a group of people who will, number one,
be confused.
And number two go on to confuse other generations and other people as well. So I wanted to present this from the book of Allah from the Quran.
And the purpose of presenting this is to simply state the fact that, you know, whoever the questioner the question that they've asked that they've sent in, it's a very serious question. So my first advice before I address the question, or before I answered this person's this Muslim brother or sisters question I specifically addressed them, I want to dress the community as a whole, the community at large, especially again, the leadership, we cannot afford to play these games, we cannot afford to we cannot afford ideological warfare. If we engage in this, and we do this, and we fulfill and satisfy our own egos, our own desires, our own cravings for power and superiority and to
put others down or whatever the case may be, then, we will not only have to answer before our last panel without ever behaving in this manner in this fashion. But we will also be causing great harm to the next coming generations of Muslims. And our sin and our responsibility and accountability before Allah will become compounded by the long term ripple effect that our own behavior caused.
I'm going to tell you from experience and again, I don't want to get too specific because I don't want somebody to think I'm talking about, you know, any specific Masjid or community. But I myself have experience with communities where the leadership, the the generation that was in their prime, decided that the most productive or beneficial thing they could do was engage in this ideological warfare. You're this I'm a that she's a this he's a guy that labels, labels, labels, labels, labels, and everybody splitting up over these labels, putting everybody in a box, making them fit in the box, labeling everybody and then splitting everybody up into their little groups. I'm aware of
communities like this, I've very close experience with communities like this. And I'll tell you what the reality of the outcome of that was. Those people that engage in that behavior,
many of their children went on to apostate leave Islam that might sound drastic, somebody by abusing
They're listening to saying, whoa, I'm very serious, I'm not joking at all.
Many of their children went on to apostate many of their children went on to, you know, just completely abandon the practice of Islam inshallah, they're still Muslim. But they've abandoned the practice of Islam, never to look back again. Many of them
you know, they
might not have even abandoned the practice of Islam. But they definitely did divorce themselves, cut themselves off, isolate themselves, from their community, and even oftentimes, their families to be able to go somewhere else, and find some type of spiritual refuge and find a spiritual experience that was nourishing, enlightening and illuminating, not one that was so derisive and detrimental and divisive. And so that's a reality. We cannot afford this type of, you know, ideological and spiritual warfare in our communities, it goes against Iran, it goes against some of the seed all of the profits, a lot of them and it is harmful, it is harmful, go if you've ever been a part of those
communities, or you know, one of those communities, go back and survey and look what the situation there is 20 years later, I'm going to tell you, I can tell you one thing very confidently, you're not going to be impressed. You're not going to sit there and say, You know what, they did things correctly. They did things right. No, they did not. I can guarantee that. And so that's one thing that we need not to answer this person's question specifically. See, and this is what I'm talking about this person specifically in their question. They said they're confused. They don't know how to figure out right and wrong. Where does that confusion and that that that, that just not knowing what
to do? Where does that confusion come from? It comes from what the Quran with the ayah told us from this infighting of causes and breeds confusion. There's no there's no contentment, no confidence within Deen within Islam? Isn't that one of the things I told one of my students who leads a community, I told him that people's Deen people's Islam people's eemaan a lot of times is very, extremely fragile. A lot of times it can be very, very fragile. And we have to be very careful. It's our responsibility to take care of that fragility, and make sure that we don't break it. And so this is exactly what happens. Now, my advice to somebody who's been in this situation, or who is in this
situation, like the person who sent us the question, may have lost power, what's gonna help them?
Again, I'll be very honest with you, I've been in that situation. The way I made a made it out of that. I won't say unscathed. There were definitely things and moments and times where I was very confused. And I struggled with certain things. But generally, at the end of the day, the way that I was able to figure things out for myself, is that you got to step away from all of that bickering that nonsense that talk. Every single email that you get about he's a dad and she's a this delete that email, spam that person's email address. All right, every single text message you get from somebody about this and that and they're happy that they're fixed. delete it. There's nothing good
about it. If you're subscribed to a Facebook Like you've liked, or you're part of a Facebook group where this talk goes on, get out of there. you're subscribed to an email list. unsubscribe, you're following somebody on Twitter, unfollow them,
unfriend them on Facebook. I'm not joking. And I'm not like, I'm being very serious right now. And stop being part of these conversations. There's nothing good in it. And buckle down and learn and read and pray and make dua.
Now, as far as who to learn from who not learn from, don't play that game. Don't get into it. Yes, you want to check the qualifications? Yes, I know. I'm very well aware before somebody decides to put me on blast. And yes, the scholars have said look at who you get your knowledge from because the knowledge is the dean.
I'm aware of all of that. You know, the snow Lily Sadler column, insha. Allah, Masha I'm at least now Amina Dean, Nolan, this Nebula column, insha, Allah, Masha, I'm aware of all of that. But at the same time, generally check somebody who's qualified, they're reputable. they've graduated from a reputable, you know, Islamic institution. That community generally embraces this person, that person's knowledge and practice and a clock and character something that's very inspiring and impressive and motivating and, and just, you know, it inspires you
then that's, that's that's all the check that you need. You know, your family says yeah, Mashallah, that teacher that person is a good person. That's a good teacher, you should learn from them. I like I like that teacher. I'm glad you're learning from that teacher. There you go. That's all the endorsement that's all the reference checking credential check that you'll ever need. Those are all the credentials you need to check. But I will say one other thing to whoever this dear brother or sister
You specifically pointed out that you're studying from the Hanafi madhhab. You're learning how to fish. I specialize in Hanafi phip, I still consider my student myself a student of Fiq in general usool and specifically Hanafi Fiqh, I teach hunter Fifi, that's a primary form of fit that I teach to my students. But I'm also going to tell you at the same time, if you're learning a lot of fifth, whatever most of you may be, and you're not building a solid base and a foundation with the Koran, and the understanding of the Koran, and building a solid foundation with the Sierra, the life of the prophets, all of a sudden, you're gonna end up being more and more and more confused. Again, this
goes back to that balance, learn to book have a long know who Allah is through his calendar through his book, know who the prophets a lot ism is by studying his life, and then also learn the other sciences of the religion. And inshallah it'll be it'll prove to be beneficial. We're making to offer you out, we're making to offer you whoever you are, I really do hope, sincerely pray that, you know, you're able to kind of figure things out. But again, like I said, recommendations step away from the nonsense, there's no good, no hate in it. Number two, you know, just you got to teacher you got your family your community has confidence in, just ignore all the rest and just learn. Number three,
make sure that you also don't create an imbalance by studying some sciences too much. And while not building yourself a foundation that's building a balcony without having a ground floor, that'll make no sense. build yourself a foundation and a ground floor. That's the bulk of a line the seat off the profits a lot he set up, and then the balcony look beautiful on top.
Okay.
This is the fourth question that were
Is it the fourth? No, it is the fifth question that we're taking this week. So the fifth question is, I am very busy at home, taking care of my family Alhamdulillah two kids, a one year old and a four year old. Mashallah. May Allah subhanaw taala bless you and bless your children. And I could not I could not able, I wasn't able or I cannot always make it to the masjid to offer this law. In congregation. namazi Jamaat basically means Salaam congregation, I can't always make it to the masjid to offer my prayer with the congregation. I feel guilty about this. My wife gets a little scared when I go to the masjid for a short prayer. Since I live 20 minutes away from the masjid.
What advice would you give me in this? Would you give to me in this situation? Very good question. So I'm going to go ahead and assume that this is a brother, obviously, he says my wife. So brothers asking, I live 20 miles, 20 minutes, that could be you know, 1015 miles away from the masjid. And so I got two kids very busy working all day, come home, have dinner with the fam, you know, spend some time with my wife, tuck my kids into bed, boom, before you know it, it's a show time. And if I go to pray, it takes 20 minutes to get there. You know, you go in, you're praying Gemma on congregation, maybe you pray you know, or just make some mathcad or even see Salaam to a few brothers on the way
out. So you're gonna be there for at least 20 minutes, probably more like 30 minutes. And then you're going to drive another 20 minutes back home, that's over an hour. So you're going to be gone for an hour to an hour and a half. That's understandable, that's a pretty long time. Again, the machine is well worth the sacrifice, the machine is well worth the sacrifice machine is awesome. And for brothers, it's very important to emphasize that we do attend the machine as much as possible, as much as we can. But at the same time, this brother is asking about a specific question or a specific situation, I'm going to address two issues that the brother brings up here. Number one,
his wife is going to be alone at home during that time. It's possible they don't live in a very nice neighborhood, or there have been a couple of break ins in their neighborhood. And his brother is going to be gone for an hour and a half at 9pm at 10pm. And his wife is not comfortable at that time being alone in a house. That is completely understandable. completely understandable. And you should not put your wife in a situation where you guilt trip her or make her feel like she's some terrible Muslim. Because she's not okay with, you know, putting her life in danger so that you can go and offer the congregational prayer in the masjid that is 20 miles or 15 miles away from your house. So
that's completely understandable. It's us and in this situation just for this reason alone. I will tell you that, you know, it would be okay for you to not go every single day for so often. But sometimes go ahead and stay home and pray together with your wife, make Jamal with your wife, your wife can pray behind you and that you go ahead and pray at home to make sure that
Your wife understands that you're not, you know, you, you, you, you you're taking care of her, and you value her feelings and her emotions and you're sensitive to her situation. Secondly, the brother is also mentioning he has a four year old and a one year old. He's got little kids, I can relate to that. My kids right now are five and three. So they're a little bit bigger. But I can definitely relate to that. A lot of times if you've been working all day, you get home at eight o'clock. You just had dinner, he has a nine o'clock so basically happens you walk through the door at eight o'clock. You pray you're, you know, you're trying to you still didn't bring him over to be stuck in
traffic, you rush into the door, eight o'clock, pray your mother at age 15. You're done with your Russia dinner table, come on, where's dinner, where's dinner, you eat dinner in 20 minutes. And then you grab your shoes and you run out the door. Your kids into you they didn't say Salaam to you didn't talk to them. You didn't sit with them, you didn't tuck them in, you didn't spend any time with them nothing. And then by time you get back, you get back, it's almost 10 o'clock, 10 1015 Kids already passed out. Everything's over, everything's done. Tomorrow morning, you wake up at five, you get ready to leave for work at six. Again, you did not see your kids. So that's an understandable
situation. Because it is a problem that we run into a lot of times. And being an absent father is very harmful and detrimental in the long run. In this situation, again, I would advise I would recommend not giving up too much shit. You got to go to the machine. It's a house of Allah. It's important for your email has arrived that you go in you pray in the masjid. But maybe every single day going to the masjid and not seeing your kids basically for a whole week. Because you have to go to the masjid from Monday through Friday every day for Southeast Asia. So basically, you didn't see your kids from Saturday. You saw them on Sunday, and you won't see them actually physically again
till Saturday morning. Unacceptable. Unacceptable, it ain't right. So, I would advise that maybe once or twice a week, you go to the masjid. And the rest of days if you didn't go and spend time with your family, and then you talk, you know, I'll, I'll be very honest with you.
You know, earlier today, it was time for us to prayer. I was actually babysitting one of my kids. My wife had a doctor's appointment. And she was gone with one of the kids. I was babysitting one of my kids. And so I was not able to go for officer prayer in the mustard because I had one of them. And I didn't think you know, it was the right time to take her out and I didn't think she would handle it. Okay, so I had to pray officer pray at home. So what did I end up doing? I ended up taking, you know, my older daughter was with me, she's five years old.
And we made we'll do together. I showed her how to maybe we'll do she already knows what's really cute is when she makes will do
she best account so he knows you have to wash like your face three times, or rinse your mouth three times to wash your arm to everything you do three times. She does account in Arabic. She's a little bit of a show off. So she's like why this name for another. So so we made will do together. And after we made glue together we stood up and we prayed together. And after we prayed together then we made the could we made our Escada together was also prayers that we made our God together. So hon Allah hamdu, lillah, Allahu Akbar. And we may do our together. So we did all of that together. That was extremely beneficial. So what I would advise his brother to do is stand up, pray with your wife,
pray with your kids, teach them how to make will do talk to them, teach them some do is do some thinking with them. And that would prove to be a lot more beneficial. On a side note, of course, what question would be complete without me having a little bit of a side note, a rant on the side of the question. So my rant here at the side of this question to the community once again is
unless this brother just lives in an isolated area, which is fine, it's understandable then there is no reason for, you know, especially your group of Muslims to drive 20 minutes to make it to the masjid.
This goes back to a major flaw and a problem with how we even view community. How we build our massage, what we do is we take a 40 mile radius, and we say this is the community for this area. This is the congregation of this center, this Masjid and then we build a mega superduper machine. We build a Masjid that is 40,000 square feet. That costs $6 million.
And we build a mega Masjid. Why? So people from 20 miles all around in every direction are going to come here and pray because you know driving 20 miles in one direction to go pray fudger is completely natural and understandable and very, very practical. If you can't tell right now I'm being extremely sarcastic because no it's not. It's ridiculous. How can we expect somebody to drive 30 minutes what each direction to complete
Or even at the time of the prophet to lunch and listen very carefully, everybody who accuses a new masala, a new prayer center that opens up anywhere in the neighborhood, everybody who's part of a bigger machine that accuses them of dividing the Ummah of the Prophet sallallahu wasallam. You listened very carefully. At the time of the prophets a lot. He said there was so much in the number week, whatever your mega machine is mobile data Congratulations, good for you. All right. But your mega machine is not more sacred and does not is not more important than the magnitude of the prophets a lot he sent him. And at the time of the prophets, a lot of the sudden when the Imam was
the prophets, a lot of them and the mega machine, the main Center, the main Masjid, was the mustard of the prophets, a lot of Islam. Even at that time, the prophets Allah himself had other masajid and musala established around Medina, on the outskirts of Medina. If you've ever gone for HUD drama, when you go to Medina to visit Medina, you always visit the mercy that we call him letting the one where they turn change the direction into prayer kudla that's actually called the Messiah boo salema. Mosquito bunny salema.
And that was established by the prophets a lot of them at the time of the prophets lie Selim and the Imam to lead the prayer. They're more I've been jevelin was appointed by the prophets a lot he set up. The Masjid of Koba on the outside of Medina in the suburbs of Medina was established by the prophets a lot. He's from sanction by the prophets, a lot of them visited by the prophets a lot, etc.
So we have to keep that in mind. So just talking at a bigger level in terms of communities, we also need to think about the fact that people if they're going to pray father and mother a binary Cha, in Jamaica and congregation, we need smaller masalas or even massage it is a community as it were with all in, you know, every few miles where Muslims actually live, we can have a bigger center where more community related activities can go on during the weekends. That's why even traditionally classically in Muslim countries in parts of the Muslim world they have the concept of the Jamia Masjid, the JAMA, the Jamia Masjid, where there would be these small little mustards all around town
and neighborhoods where people would pray five times a day. And then Friday, they go to the gym, they go listen to the big chef give the big football in the big Masjid. And they congregate there together, and the big activities would happen there together. So it's just something to keep in mind some food for thought for the sake of the community. All right, we're just a couple of minutes over nine o'clock. So I'm going to go ahead and
hold on just a second are receiving a message from our admin.
So
Alright, so I'm going to go ahead and inshallah call them up for today's broadcast. We're gonna go ahead and stop here for today. And inshallah, what I want everyone to do here at the end is, if you are watching the broadcast, which I'm about to go Inception style on, y'all. So here's the broadcast, you see this right here. What I want you to do is if you look at the broadcast, you will see that it says CD ROM life of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam
that is talking about the CLL podcast, we actually broadcast this either class live on the website here every Tuesday at 8pm Central Time, the same exact time that you tuned in here for this, it lasts about this long as well. It's about an hour long. So I want to request everyone to try to log in, log on rather and watch the CW cedar broadcast. It is free, open and live every Tuesday in sha Allah, Nikita Allah. So I want to request everyone to log on and check out the cedar class. Secondly,
the all the previous recordings are uploaded online for free
and made readily available. Again, if you look at the same page, if you scroll a little bit down it, you'll see it'll say, subscribe to the podcast for previous episodes. You can log in via email, you can subscribe via email, or you can click that for the the feeds. Or you can also find the podcast within iTunes as well. So definitely check out the podcast. So far, I think we've uploaded maybe about 35 or 36
sessions of this hero class. Each one is about an hour long and very in depth very detailed. If I remember correctly, the first 36 or so sessions basically gets us to just the beginning of the message of prophethood. It puts us right there a couple of sessions
And we're still talking about the first, you know, few people who accepted Islam. As soon as the prophets Allah, some received divine revelation. So the first 4041 years of his life are covered in 36 hours of lecture. It's a very valuable resource in sha Allah, to learn the life of the prophets lovelies, and check it out, download it, listen to it. And most importantly, if you're already listening to it, share it with others, post it on Facebook, post a link on your on Facebook, tweet it out, email it, text message, it just spread the word with others, it's free, and it's open. We just want as many people as possible to know that know
about the prophets a lot easier to know who Muhammad is and what he means to us. sallallahu alayhi wa send them.
The next thing is Follow us on Twitter or like us on Facebook. If you found out find out about this broadcast, and you probably already know about, you know, our Facebook and Twitter accounts. But nevertheless,
you know, in case you haven't, go ahead and do check it out. Another link that you'll see on there is you'll see a little thumbnail for a video, that's a full time Islamic Studies program that we're starting.
It's a very,
what we hope is a very beneficial thing. inshallah, I'm pretty sure you will find it pretty fascinating.
Just click the link, it's the videos, maybe five minutes long, check out the video. And there's actually a full area of the website, you can click it and read the whole page about full time Islamic Studies program, definitely check it out. Because even if you are not able to take the program, you might be able to think of somebody who is able to take the program. And you might end up realizing that your community could really use somebody who's taking the program. So definitely do check that out, and shall spread the word about that and do whatever good that you can with that. Lastly, and finally, if you are watching this live session, this is the column Hangout. And this is
going to be a weekly feature. Well, the way we're going to do it is one week, we're going to post a video, you can check it out on the column Facebook and Twitter, you can go to alum hangout.com to find the video as well. And one week, I'm going to just post a little video where I'll be discussing a few points, I'll just be sharing some thoughts that I feel are relevant and important for the community. Don't worry, it's not going to be a typical lecture. It'll just be a couple of minutes. But it'll just to kind of get us thinking about issues and things that really need to be addressed in the community. And then the following week, we're gonna have a live open q&a session like this.
And again, from now you can submit your questions to be answered. If you submit if you have already submitted some questions over the previous week that we didn't get to Don't worry within throw your questions away. We still have them. And we're going to continue answering them in the next live q&a session. But if you'd like to have your questions entered, you can start submitting them now through a couple of different ways. You can go to the Calum Institute Facebook page. Again, you can click there to find link. Go to the elements to do Facebook page. And you can submit your question there. Just make sure to hash tag the question with hashtag below hangout or you can tweet your questions
to AP Calum Institute economists do Twitter account. Again, just tag your questions with hashtag alum Hangout. Again just located on everyone for watching. Really appreciate your time and your patience. And may Allah subhanaw taala accept this from all of us. Until next time, smile on a camera to Lucha burka