Abdullah Oduro – Is Gender A Social Construct – Iman Cave
AI: Summary ©
The speakers discuss the concept of gender and how society has organized itself to make men and women aware of their natural tendencies. They touch on the physical and mental experiences of loss and mental stress, as well as the importance of physicality in bringing life to physicality and making it harder to be in front of computers. They also discuss acceptance and guidance in regards to death and the natural world, including the importance of acceptance and guidance in regards to it. They end with a mention of a Masterman program and a website for personal information.
AI: Summary ©
Remember death Death is hadim al-addat, it's
the destroyer of pleasures Death puts everything into
perspective All these discussions, all these online, the
red pill, the blue pill, the green pill,
this person saying this, this person flashing their
Bugatti, this person showing their women off, the
people chattering and whatnot.
None of that's going to your grave.
None of it You remember death?
You remember your purpose?
I want you to journey with me real
quick.
I know you know my name I know
you know who I am, but I want
you to just think that my name is
Maher Walsh Maher Walsh.
Maher Walsh, got it.
Maher Walsh, all right.
Now, I have a question for you and
this question, you know This question may, you
know, it's known by someone else that shares
my last name Okay When you think of
the question, what is a man?
Even though it's been asked what is a
woman?
You know, I commonly think to myself You
know You're looking at one We certainly are.
We certainly are.
What is the motive behind the question, right?
And then I think to myself of the
hadith of the Prophet Sallallahu alayhi wa sallam
That many of us know that the Prophet
sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said كل مولود يولد
على الفترة أو ما من مولود إلا يولد
على الفترة That everything is born with the
natural instinct The motherboard if you will, the
fitra And he said إلا أبواه يهويدانه أو
ينصرانه أو يمجسانه Except that his mother and
father say that he's a Jew, Christian or
a Zoroastrian Is it fair to say that
there's the, you know, they have nature and
nurture Is the first part of the hadith
the nature and then the second part of
the hadith is the nurture?
It seems to be the case, that's what's
being described.
These are both Parts of the way that
we understand the world spiritually, intellectually, morally Our
own habits towards ourselves and based on our
own gender identities as well.
Okay, I see you opening the door.
Okay, so you said gender identities, right?
Would that be in the case Are we
saying that the fact that they were born
naturally with these characteristics That there's, are there
natural characteristics within the gender?
First, how many genders are there?
I want to make sure Let's just get
this out, let's make sure that we're going
on the same مصير Look, when it comes
to obviously genders There's obviously two genders, there's
the male and the female gender, right?
And that's something that's very clear in the
Quran And that's clear from within our tradition
Now what the West has constructed as the
concept of gender They've redefined it to mean
something else completely And that's where a lot
of the confusion comes from their side They've
made gender to mean something, some sort of
a term that they want to That will
inform them of their sexuality Inform them of
their, the way that they want to dress
The way that they want to speak The
tone of their voice, like a whole bunch
of things And they want to create and
invent various different personas So what would you
say in that regard when we're talking about
Firstly the difference, is there a difference between
* and gender?
So I mean again, it's how you use
these terms Obviously there's not a difference for
the bulk of human history Up until literally
just maybe a few decades ago We're talking
however many thousands and thousands and thousands of
years There's no difference between these two concepts
That a person, male gender is a man
Female * is a woman That's just the
way it is It's been this kind of
binary understanding of gender And then that feeds
into the concept of roles, marriage institutions Roles
in society, etc, etc That's the way that
societies have been organized For thousands and thousands
of years Okay, let's break that down So
societies have been organized for thousands and thousands
of years Was there a fitri element in
the motivation behind that organization?
What do I mean by that?
So before the industrial revolution for example It
was known that the men were outside in
the fields And that the women were inside
Or the women would come outside But it
was predominantly known that the men would be
outside Even before the bringing home the bacon
concept It was known, quote unquote, that men
did this and women did this Is the
fact that it was known, is that more
of the first part of the hadith?
A fitri biological understanding that men would do
so and so And women would do so
and so That when it came from like,
you know, some would say Be rough for
verily niceties aren't consistent, right?
So is that rough nature, for lack of
better words I don't want to say only
present in men I will say predominant in
men Because I think this is important to
understand that When we talk about male and
female Firstly establishing that there's two That it
starts from the biological conversation And not falling
into the sociological Exactly, I agree And I
think that's where we need to start Because
there's certainly something See, the thing is that
the West doesn't believe in a creator So
they see nature as an accident They see
it as the result of millions of random
mutations That had adaptive advantages for survival To
be passed on to the next generation They
don't see any moral value In the way
things are biologically, for example For us as
well, we recognize that there are certain things
That are also naturally biological That we must
resist against as well And that's where your
morality comes in But just in general, they
look to everything With a high suspicion and
not necessarily something sacred So for a Muslim,
when we look at biology And the way
people are naturally born, for example Then certainly
there's something there that we see as This
is something Allah has created in this particular
way So there's a principle in Fiqh About
the idea of تغيّر خلق الله Are you
changing the creation of Allah?
And it forms a lot of modern Fiqh
When it comes to many issues like cosmetic
surgery And that sort of thing One of
the principles is Are you changing the creation
of Allah?
It comes from the ayah in the Quran
That's one of the goals of Shaytan To
change the creation of Allah The verse of
the Fitrah in the Quran لا تبديل لخلق
الله No change in the creation of Allah
So there is something about the creation of
Allah itself There is something for us to
learn about this being There's value in it
There's sacredness in it There's a reason and
a purpose behind it So certainly the way
men are born The way women are born
Generally speaking Or the way an individual And
that's the other thing We're talking about these
groups As if they're the same thing That's
not necessarily the case And I don't want
us to think that Men are this way
Women are this way Because every individual is
born differently as well Now What do you
mean by that?
Every individual is born with their own genetics
Their own levels of testosterone, estrogen Their own
behavioral temperaments Their own personalities But are there
static?
Is there room for something being immaleable?
Like Okay We say testosterone, right?
Can we safely say that testosterone Predominantly more
in males Of course Than females Of course
That's one of the clear physiological objective differences
Right So there is something that is static
within males and females Therefore Having some leeway
to say Men are like this Because of
their chromosomal makeup Because of the XY Aggression
is more Doesn't say that aggression is not
in women Exactly Right Aggression is present in
women And also One thing that I've noticed
Subhanallah You know we say men Protect and
provide Yeah Women protect in a way that
men don't protect as well Like if a
newborn baby The way she protects her son
or her daughter We think just breastfeeding is
just like Okay She's giving But she's protecting
and providing in a certain way And that's
why I think it's beautiful When we talk
about From a chromosomal element And I think
This Is where a conversation Even with an
atheist Yeah What are your thoughts on that?
Like even with an atheist If they talk
about Gender fluidity for example If we start
from this element XXXY The conversation starts from
a binary concept Yeah it certainly does From
that point of view So there's But there's
many different So look when it comes to
things like Arguing with someone who doesn't believe
in God It's just not as simple as
saying Testosterone versus estrogen There's so many other
factors That will determine a person's aggressiveness Culture
is a big part of it That's why
I said Fitra and your hormones And even
your physiological makeup Does not exist in a
vacuum It exists within a culture Your parents
as well And that's why the prophet Specifically
mentions the parents The most base fundamental aspect
of a person Which is their religious identity
Or their spiritual identity That is strongly influenced
by the parents And so therefore Their manifestation
of their gender Their aggression Of their emotions
Is also going to be There's a lot
of factors here From that Now I think
The way to understand it About the idea
of The differences between men and women And
there clearly are differences Physiological differences When you
look at the personality data There clearly are
also Personality differences That persist across cultures There's
certainly the لَوَلَيْسَ ذَكْرُكَ الْأُنثَىٰ This is in
the Quran Though man is not like the
woman There's obviously clear differences Now as you
said Just because something exists more in a
man Doesn't mean it doesn't exist the same
thing In a woman as well The traits
that people identify As masculine or feminine They
exist within a bag In each gender Within
each Sorry I should say Within each individual
Within each individual They have things that people
Describe as masculine Things that people Describe as
feminine And vice versa I think the way
to understand it Is about as you said
Allah has created And given certain فضل Of
the man Over the woman And also some
فضل for the woman Over the man In
terms of advantage When it comes to Their
spiritual Moral responsibilities In this world The woman
It's a lot For a person Who's higher
in agreeableness For example Who's generally More compassion
oriented Who wants harmony Who has a lot
Of love to give It's a lot easier
for them To obviously love And raise children
And a person Who's a bit more Disagreeable
Who's a bit more Maybe conscientious Whatever it
may be Then certain roles And responsibilities Will
be made easier For that person as well
Now As individuals We're all given Various different
Attributes Of all these Different concepts You could
have a man That's very Compassionate And very
easily Able to love other people And we
all know people like this And they're absolutely
Lovely men To be around Doesn't make them
Less of a man Or anything like this
Because the point is I think we need
to move Beyond this concept of Necessarily the
masculine And feminine And look more towards The
responsibilities For the man And for the woman
Because masculinity Femininity This area You know There's
genes There's hormones There's biology There's all these
things That will create this variance Which is
the reason The hikmah Why Allah has created
Duality in this world And why there's Different
roles That people fulfill And for a man
Who's classically More masculine Their roles Will be
easier For them to fulfill Because they're Naturally
like that Whereas a man Who may have
More feminine characteristics Then those responsibilities Might be
a bit more difficult But doesn't make him
Less of a man In fact perhaps even
more Because they have to go Against their
nature To be more courageous To be more
assertive For example I just want to give
One example To understand this idea I think
hijab Is a good example of this Bismillah
So when it comes to Modesty Modesty is
something That is expected From both genders Right?
It's not a Quote unquote Feminine only Right
Men are also meant To be modest But
for hijab In particular It's very clear Based
on the ahkam Of the sharia Which gender
Has a higher standard For modesty And because
Allah Has generally blessed The women with more
beauty Then therefore The responsibility For modesty Is
higher Than for the men And same thing
With the shahwa As well That generally speaking
Men will have more shahwa And so These
are the You see some variance In terms
of the ahkam sharia When it comes to
gender In this regard So the same thing
Can be understood When you're speaking About things
like You talked about Protect and provide For
example It's not to say That women are
not protecting And in some cases Providing as
well I mean we all know Of many
scenarios In this regard Historically And also contemporaneously
Which is obviously Increasing as well Double income
families So it's that Both are doing it
Both are providing In some sense You know
The prophet s.a.w. said You are
all shepherds Yes And it was including Both
the men and the women But the prophet
s.a.w. explains For the man So
if you look at leadership For example So
for the woman She has her own responsibility
In her flock The man does as well
But just like hijab It's now flipped Who
has the greater responsibility When it comes to
Protecting and providing It's the man And this
is some of the wisdom By when Allah
says And for them For the men Upon
them And the them here is the feminine
Upon women Is one level And that level
Is a level of responsibility It's not like
You know A lot of times It's misunderstood
This verse is like Okay The men get
more And the women get less No More
responsibility Which means more accountability Exactly You know
So I think that's Very very important So
the biological element We realize that There are
some things that You know Allah has created
us Different Yeah But I mean We're universally
Generally the same But there are some Specifications
That he has given us More than others
The fadl Yeah And that doesn't make one
Less than the other And what's beautiful as
well Is like Allah You know What I've
noticed Is that The sharia Or the deen
of Islam Gives those responsibilities Based on Those
fitri Natural characteristics Like you mentioned hijab And
you mentioned modesty And you mentioned beauty You
know You're gonna hear more times Guys say
Man she's beautiful You're not gonna hear Women
say Man he's beautiful You know If a
girl says You're beautiful I'll be like What?
You know Like what?
Or if a guy says Man you're beautiful
I'm like yo It's interesting that that's What's
good man But it's so interesting As we're
going into society Not to derail But it's
an important tangent here We're seeing A bit
of a switch now I've been speaking to
A lot of teachers In high school And
they're saying now Because that From the biological
point Is being All flipped All upside down
And confused And marbled We're seeing the output
of this They're saying At least this is
in Canada And Australia as well They're saying
that Women are more bold The women are
more sexualized The girls I should say You
know Teenage girls The boys are more shy
There's this And so you said that about
The idea of commenting And what not But
I mean It's something Growing up I obviously
went to An almost high school Growing up
That's something All you hear That type of
Really kind of As your former president Liked
to say Locker room talk Right Yeah But
now You find that the boys Are actually
more modest About that Yeah Which is not
a good thing It's not a bad thing
per se But then the women Are the
ones who are making Not the cat calls
Whatever you want to say Cat calls Yeah
yeah The dog calls I don't know what
You want to call them But this is
deep Okay I'm gonna There was a situation
I remember I was at a I was
at a sandwich shop And I was leaving
The sandwich shop And I'm a Muslim Right
So I'm leaving The sandwich shop And I
opened the door And some women walked in
Some ladies were walking So I held the
door Open for them And she was like
Ooh Thank you I said you're welcome She
said What's your name I said My name's
Abdul I got to run She said no
no no Come here come here I said
no I'm good Right But it was I'm
gonna admit It was weird Because I'm a
man I pursue She pursued me And it
seemed like I was Because you think And
now we move To the social element It's
like Yo You don't like girls She puts
you On the other end That's the thing
right And someone like yourself even And that's
the whole point If someone acts in that
way Naturally human beings Will respond in the
reciprocal way If someone's being bold And assertive
You're gonna be a bit more Passive and
closed then So they completely flip the script
Which is the It's a very interesting thing
No and that's deep And that's for Like
I mean Listen I mean We're in college
You know nowadays I mean The guy's 18
19 He's in college He is muftoon There's
a lot of fitness for him So when
the girl sends him a note Muslim or
non-Muslim And she expresses interest in him
And he's not pursuing that You know It
kinda goes back to When we look at
this hadith I mean the real question is
Does the biological Submit to the social Or
does the social Submit to the biological You
know what I mean That's the question That's
the deep question Right That you've just articulated
The crux of it Right because I remember
When I was looking to get married And
then when I When you know The Yomanother
That should be like another Say Yomanother Like
when my wife Who wasn't my wife at
that time Walked in the room I was
nervous man And in my mind I'm like
Why are you nervous?
You know what You know what was in
my mind What I was saying You're a
man Look at her bro And in my
mind I'm thinking I'm literally in the heart
of Medina Saudi Arabia And the hood And
my wife's from the hood In Saudi Arabia
right And I'm like Look at her In
my mind I'm thinking Nah man that's too
That's not pure That's not Nah I don't
look at her Nah I don't look at
her And I talked to one of my
mentors I was like Yeah I didn't look
at her I told my father a lot
of times I didn't look at her He
was like Allah is not shy from the
truth Just as Allah made her wear hijab
He ordered you to look at her It's
okay Look at her Her father told me
that SubhanAllah And I was like And it
shows that the sharia Has that avenue For
the masculine outlet right Exactly That people are
calling Whatever toxic All these other words Exactly
There's a halal And wholesome morally You know
Consistent outlet For a person's masculinity And one
of those is there Right there In the
khutbah Arrangement and whatnot Right And that's so
deep Because you know That's why I spoke
about college Because I find a lot of
Young men They're in a conundrum man Because
their parents are saying Until you get the
letters After your name But he's like Yo
I'm a freshman And it is rough In
chemistry class Yeah Because Katie Or Khadija Is
giving me some play Yeah Like it is
And it's rough Because he knows Three years
is left And I have a computer at
home Right Yeah And I can easily go
online Yeah You know what I mean Yeah
It's really Yeah It's a dangerous slippery slope
It's a slippery slope So when we look
at Just like what you mentioned Because when
we talk about The biological You're a man
We accept that But that biological Is being
the fact That your fitrah You have natural
Masculine characteristics To tie that into The theological
Of like okay Allah is watching me You
know what I'm saying Yeah Now moving to
the social You mentioned locker room talk Yeah
My man I don't know if you have
If you The stories you have man I
remember I always Like my son My sons
I tell them you are not Staying after
school Like till practice That's not happening Yeah
Why Baba I said look If you stay
after school There's no parents around There's no
teachers around You're gonna go walk over Your
friends will be like Bro let's go over
To the volleyball section And you know They
were just dressing I was like You're not
staying after school Right So I remember When
I used to stay after school We used
to hang out In the locker rooms You
used to walk over To the volleyball section
You used to walk over Right And you
know Guys would be made fun of Because
they were virgin There was one particular Brother
Rashid May Allah bless him He was the
only Muslim And we'd rank on each other
You know I wouldn't call it Roasting each
other And it would always end With Yeah
whatever You're a virgin bro Yeah yeah And
that would like Nail in the coffin They'd
be like so what Yeah yeah You're a
virgin And then everyone would know Whoever was
roasting with them They knew they had In
their harness You're a virgin As soon as
that was said Khalas Done And this is
very damaging For a young Muslim Very emasculating
For a young Muslim as well Yeah You
put them into a scenario And there's like
Physiological differences That occur to people When they're
made To feel this way Your testosterone goes
down They've done studies When you win at
something Your testosterone goes up When you lose
Your testosterone goes down Right When you're made
to be Fun of Particularly in this way
Your testosterone Is going to go down So
not only are they Muftoon from that angle
Then they're also Muftoon at home Because they
A lot of times Especially with the Migrant
parents They become emasculated At home Removed any
responsibility Made to feel like a child still
When they're 23 years old And then at
school They're emasculated further Because oh you know
You don't drink You don't have a girlfriend
You don't have this or this On every
level It's shrinking Our young Muslim men Hold
on doctor Give me a second I want
to hold your hand You mentioned a lot
Right there bro We're going to have to
Unpack that Ok Ok hold on Habba habba
You said With immigrant parents He feels emasculated
Unpack that please Generally speaking I mean I
have Immigrant parents Bless my father No my
parents are Immigrant parents So I'm the first
American in my lineage But what about that
In general The trend obviously is Particularly immigrants
as well But I'm sure It refers to
many others There's this Concern with security And
there's this Control sense And I think a
lot of it Comes from trauma From the
immigrants themselves That they want to be in
control Of everything And so they're afraid Of
their children Kind of On where they're going
So they have to control the child In
a particular path That they have in mind
Now when the child Expresses their individuality They're
taught To repress it And to know That
their individuality And what they're interested in Means
nothing And it's stupid And it's not something
They should consider And that their Once thoughts
Opinions Are completely Valueless Because if they want
A different career path For example Or if
they want to Kind of You know Explore
some Particular talent They're told to Note doctor
Engineer Lawyer Whatever it may be And that's
the only path Okay let me Put a
semicolon there Because I want to Even that
So Okay Immigrant parents And they feel That
they should be I guess confined Because they
want to Keep them safe I think it's
part of The motivation Now what's Interesting here
Is that it's not only The western phenomena
But the religious Phenomena as well Because non
-Muslim parents May still have Those apprehensions For
their first American child That's going to have
Many more opportunities Than we had And we
don't want That to be jeopardized By the
Uncivilized Western You know Yoga pants Yeah Short
shorts Or you know You're not a virgin
You know Culture Yeah That can affect Their
way of thinking And how they act But
then on top Of that You're Muslim You
come here If I catch you Talking to
a girl Yeah So it's A lot of
pressure Yeah You know what I mean It's
a lot And as I said It's shrinking
The person Rather than Expanding them At every
angle But the Masajid And the Muslims And
our families Should be working To expand The
confidence Of the Of the Muslim Young Muslim
men We're wanting to Expand their confidence Because
One of the aspects And this is going
back To our concept Of the biology Submitting
to the Society Submitting to the biology In
some At some level I mean replace society
As well With like culture Or even religion
Right There's certain elements With biology Submits to
Our religion Obviously So unconditionally Our biology Submits
to Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala So there's
certain things That maybe our nature Our personality
But we regulate And modulate You know Our
desires Our lust Our anger Whatever it may
be But then there's certain things Within society
That we cannot Submit to But we have
to Overcome If society Is working To make
Our lives Less productive Make us Less than
Reaching our full potential If there's Mafsada If
there's clear Mafsada That's coming out of it
That's when the biology Has to overcome The
society And we need to Create spaces Because
as I said Fitra never exists In a
vacuum Right What it means is that If
the culture Is turning the biology And warping
it Into something else What it means is
We need to transfer That incubator Of that
culture That the fitra is going into And
place that fitra Into a different culture Okay
And this is the idea Of creating spaces
For young men To develop Within the masaji
Within our religious You know Groups So that
it allows them To develop Traits that are
Consistent With their Islamic responsibilities As a man
And their biological Make up to become Closer
to it Exactly That's the idea Is putting
those together Now with the important Caveat Because
I don't like I'm very much I never
like to give Very sweeping statements In generalization
Right Every individual is different Right And there
are some people And there's going to be
Exceptions to the general norm They're going to
be men Who generally Do not have As
many innate Part of their biology even As
innate kind of Quote unquote Masculine features They
can be more introverted More to themselves Maybe
shy Etc But that's not a problem Right
Those need to be enhanced As well Right
And we have to look at The Muslim
man Is not just one Little circle But
there's a whole Image There's a whole forest
There's a beautiful Landscape of men That are
coming Based on the confidence Assertiveness Courageousness And
boldness Of what Allah Has given them Of
their personality traits Uthman ibn Affan R.A.
Was known as One of the shyest people
In Medina He was the third Khalifa of
Islam And he held On to harmony In
a time where Like the strength That it
would take For those six years He was
12 years Khalifa They say first six years
Things were good The last six years When
the fitnah started For six years To keep
the Muslims From fighting each other His shyness
was there Yes And it led to his
Sadaqah and his charity And his sponsoring of
so much It led to so much khair
And this is the point I don't want
Because this is a mistake That many of
us make Which is that We turn the
Muslim man Into a particular Archetype Of You
know Based on societal Understanding of Masculine and
feminine The more rugged Rough You know Maybe
a bit aggressive Maybe a bit scary Type
of person Which is Alhamdulillah Good You got
your Khalid bin Waleed You got your Omar
bin Khattab But don't forget The Uthman bin
Affan Don't forget The you know Abu Hurair
Not using this term In a negative way
Like the nerds Like the person That mashallah
Was just a machine Two years Two years
Being able to collect How many hadith He
was able to collect Zaid bin Thabit There's
all these The spectrum Or I should say
This image This force This landscape Of the
Muslim men That cannot be lost There's all
these Spiritual personalities That's exactly what it is
All these spiritual personalities That's exactly what it
is That's one of your research papers Yeah
exactly One of the best papers I love
May Allah bless you But that's the point
That these companions They're all men And they're
all expressing This masculine energy Whatever you want
to call it That pushes a person To
be assertive To pursue Etc.
etc.
But they're all doing it In their ways
In their ways Yes In their ways And
it doesn't make Anyone more or less Of
a Muslim man Certainly some may be More
quote on quote Masculine But that's just A
personality temperament That's the way a person is
That's the inbuilt kind of Level of testosterone
They may have Now I understand That there's
variations And it can It's malleable It can
go up and down But generally speaking You
have people Who mashallah Have naturally a deep
voice Naturally have You know The features of
high testosterone With the cheeks And the square
face And if they go to the gym
Mashallah They bulk up very easy Versus the
person who Go to the gym And they
train In the scheme for like However long
Doesn't matter You know They just don't have
That same level Of the hormone Hormonal kind
of landscape Or the physiological genetics To be
able to Build as much So there is
the spectrum There within there But the idea
is How do you grow The confidence The
assertiveness Etc.
etc.
Within the Muslim man The young Muslim man
So that they're able to Achieve their full
potential You know what's beautiful I mean even
the one That's strong Right He may have
the jawline And may have the deep voice
And people look at him And they say
Whoa I'm going to be If anything goes
down I'm running right with him Right But
it's It's not masculine If he was to
Be a domestic abuser If he uses that
aggression In the wrong way I would say
that It's not He's not being a man
Yeah exactly Because the thing with Masculine is
That's the different The thing with Masculine femininity
Sheikh Everyone means different Things when you talk
about It's a very difficult Concept to discuss
Masculinity Manhood Is a lot easier to discuss
Because that's the Moral aspect of things Masculinity
I mean Unless we're using In that term
And everyone Understands it in that way Then
I agree with you 100% Masculinity is
The idea of Manhood And the ideal Then
yes This is Misplaced energy Of their traits
They're not being a man They're abusing And
I'm using A different way They're abusing Their
masculinity For their own ego So they're Becoming
the tyrant So it was interesting How you
made a distinction Between masculinity And manhood Is
there a distinction There can be a distinction
In the sense that It all depends On
how you define These terms Some people Equate
them And that's Where sometimes The difference Within
our community Comes There's certainly Conceptually a difference
Between a person's Temperament Their personality And an
idealized form Of those personality Temperaments Or skills
Or talents So give an example Strength We
can say It's a masculine trait But that
strength Is neutral What are you using That
strength for Are you using it As you
described Are you using it To hit somebody
Abuse someone To intimidate people For your own
self-interest Or are you using it To
protect the weak And the vulnerable Manhood Is
using your strength For a cause Greater than
yourself And this is actually One of the
definitions Of fatwa And murwa Ibn Qayyim mentions
About fatwa That idea of Putting up with
The annoyances Of others And extending Ihsan to
everybody You know That's manhood The idea of
masculine And the way I'm using it In
distinguishing the term Masculinity here And you can
use Any other term Like There's no problem
In using What the terms are You can
use Whatever term you like If you don't
like Masculinity to be negative And I understand
The reason behind that Because people think Oh
everything is Toxically masculine Toxic masculinity And so
we can use A different term But then
the idea Is that There are certain traits
That you've been given By virtue of your
gender The testosterone That you have The way
Allah Has created you And your makeup And
your genetics If you utilize that Because it's
neutral At the moment It doesn't mean anything
If you're strong If you're confident It means
nothing It's about how you use it Now
if you're using it For your ego Then
that becomes That becomes Not That's not manhood
That's not manly It's you're less of a
man Why?
Because you do not Have the control Over
your ego And you look into The concepts
of maru'a And chivalry That's the main
Key quality Can you control your nafs If
you can't That's not true strength And that's
the hadith Of the Prophet ﷺ And so
That's the idea Of manhood True strength True
assertiveness Etc etc You could have the talents
But that doesn't make you A true man
It makes you a weak man It's an
incredible Fertile You can look at it Like
a fertile soil Your masculinity There are seeds
That are there That if you water With
revelation And you have the Sun of the
Quran And of iman Then it grows Into
this incredible You know Forest Of your Of
your character And your akhlaq That's what It
should be seen as You can't see That
landscape As toxic And throw it out No
that's not it at all But if you
neglect it And you don't have The light
And you don't have The water Then it's
gonna shrivel And die And it's gonna be
death And that's where You get weakness As
a man So masculinity itself Is neutral It's
not A problem And it has not yet
Become good Until you've chosen To channel your
masculinity Into what is good Okay so now
That what is good So Alhamdulillah I think
we talked about biology Pretty sufficiently Now if
we move on to And we've kind of
Delved into And we're actually Within the realm
of The whole rites of passage You know
What it means To be a man What
are the signs Of manhood You know one
thing That I've been trying To investigate Is
does Islam In and of itself Have a
rites of passage Within the fabric Of the
sharia So one thing That I noticed Within
certain nationalities I think it's Certain cultures That
if a man Wants to get married One
of the things That they look at And
they ask Is has he Made hajj Which
is interesting So is hajj A right Dare
I say A spiritual Or Islamic Or just
a rites of passage For the man Interesting
Because there are Certain characteristics Within The rites
of passage Which are universal Amongst different cultures
There's a really good book Called Manhood in
the Making I think it's Gilmore Yeah David
Gilmore And he talks about The fact that
There are universal concepts That are present Within
every culture Whether it's Going in a forest
At the age of 13 And chopping the
head Off of an antelope And having to
Bring the head back Or whether it's Putting
your hand In a bed of fire ants
And if you scream You go back to
mama Allahu akbar So in Yeah in each
one of these In each one Because what
That shows is In both situations You put
yourself In risk Fear of your life And
Having to come back And protect Your habitat
Your environment Because when we look At animals
And we look at Even men In a
particular area Men and women And families In
a particular area If there's going to be
Another group of men That come It's about
resources So we don't have resources Y'all
have resources Something's got to give And most
likely We're not going to get along Because
I don't know you Right?
So it becomes Territorial And that is What
is even happening Today in the realm Of
competition Even sports You know It can be
healthy It can be unhealthy So when looking
at this In Rites of Passage And understanding
The social quote unquote Construct of this You
mentioned You know Is there a right way
You know To allow the biology And the
theology To go hand in hand When dealing
with sociology When dealing with Those particular environments
So when we look at that kid In
the locker room Or we look at that
guy That's at work Right?
And everyone's going On happy hour You know
I remember one time This doctor came back
They had pictures Of what they did At
happy hour And I was like Yeah I
don't do that Right?
You don't do that How?
These women are interested in you What is
holding you back?
I know you like her But what is
holding you back bro?
You know The Rites of Passage Is such
an interesting concept I think that What you
said Is very profound In culture I mean
Islam always exists also Within different cultures as
well And there's a room for And understanding
of that Now obviously Within the Sharia Things
that would be akin To a Rite of
Passage Is coming into Balagha Coming into You
know Maturity And what are the things There
are spiritually There are spiritual Rites of Passages
There's the Tahara That a person has to
learn Yes Purification And ghusl That needs to
be made When a person reaches The age
of puberty They need to learn How to
clean and Purify themselves 40 days right?
Yeah They have to learn How to pray
And they need to pray And there's ages
That are given in the Hadith of the
Prophet 7 is when you start And 10
is actually When you really Severely reprimand them
If they haven't started Praying yet And so
And then It's interesting Because in marriage The
Prophet said You know If a man comes
To your daughter And his Deen and khuluq
Is good And you reject him Then there's
going to be Fasad on this earth But
what that tells me Is that there's A
Rite of Passage And how do you Identify
the Huzn khuluq It's the Salah And it's
the Purification aspect So as you said The
other cultural Forms of Rites of Passage Are
about indicating A person's ability To Protect And
to bring in resources It's material It's financial
It's dunyawi Not in a negative way But
it's dunyawi But it's missing The Deen aspect
And so It's almost as if For a
man That the Huzn khuluq In the Deen
This is The Rite of Passage That a
woman Or someone Is meant to see And
say This person Can become a man Because
of their Spirituality Because with the Other aspects
With their physical prowess Or whatever Doesn't mean
that They're going to be A true man
Or a good man They could still be
A weak man With insecurities And abuse them
What is it That would regulate From that?
It's their spirituality It's the idea That they're
praying And that's why The Khutbatul Nikah Ya
ayyuhal lazeena Aamanut taqullah That's the first Advice
that's given And heard Is taqwa A person
who's not God-fearing A person who doesn't
Have the discipline To pray To purify themselves
That idea of Self-accountability There's the physical
tahara But the spiritual tahara As well That
a man has to Engage in this That's
what murua is And that's what Futuwa is
That you have to have This ability to
be Self-accountable To be responsible To yourself
To take account To yourself Not feel so
insecure That you think There could be Nothing
wrong with you And if anyone Criticizes or
gives you Feedback Instead of engaging In tahara
You engage in this Kind of ego protection
Then that turns you Into a weak man
Exactly And so this aspect Of what Islam
Adds to the table In terms of the
Rites of passage The spiritual dimension Of And
perhaps this is Something that's really Important for
our children Because the Prophet S.A.W.
even mentioned this About how do you Introduce
salah to your children That itself Is the
rite of passage as well When are you
going to Start praying five times a day
That's going to Indicate to everybody Else around
That this person Has a control over their
nafs Right And that's what True masculinity Or
true manhood I should say Is really about
Now the other aspects The resources And the
protectedness And that sort of thing That's really
important Why Because we know from our Fiqh
as well Whose responsibility is that It's for
the man And then of course There's space
now Within the sharia Each culture How do
you develop A person that's able to Take
on those responsibilities That's ibadah And that's religiously
A space And that's something That we should
be doing To ensure that They're able to
engage To be qawam To be a To
be qawam To have this qawam They need
certain Strengths Talents Skills Maybe even adjustments To
their personalities Or what's there So that they're
able To do this So that element there
There's room for this Even within the American
Muslim culture Or something like this Right Something
of You know Whatever it may be That
can You know In North America They're the
scouts Right These sorts of things Teaches them
certain skills Right There's certainly Lots of room
In various cultures Throughout human history As you've
identified Right To give them that other element
But the Islamic aspect Is the spiritual No
and it's definitely That should be the guiding
light Throughout all of these Social interactions And
manifestations of Manhood if you will And that's
why I'm a really big proponent Of sports
And particularly Combat Yes Particularly Individual combat Because
that Individual combat Allows you to speak With
yourself After you lose And then to get
back up And keep going And Fear Loss
And then losing again And then getting back
up And then losing again And getting back
up That's a beautiful concept And particularly Combat
because There's a physical All of this physical
But there's nothing like Getting slammed on the
ground In front of your mom Right I
went to a boxing gym And then you
know I was leaving the boxing gym Because
there was a whole bunch Of 15, 16,
17 year olds That walked in And I
loved it man And then you see the
mom There was one mom She was looking
so distressed And I looked at her And
I said You're in the right place Don't
worry about it He's got a release You
know what I'm saying Alhamdulillah So that physical
element Is something that Yeah we do that
in Brisbane actually We have this program Called
Wrestling With Your Nafs Allahu Akbar And so
it's for young men To come through And
we have like A wrestling coach That comes
Mashallah Coach Abed He goes through And he
teaches these guys You know Principles of grappling
And wrestling And that sort of thing And
subhanallah You see the confidence Start to build
You see people That will come up to
you And express insecurities Fears Even suicidal ideation
They go through that They feel that physicality
There's something there There's a reason why You
know Even the companions engage It's an ancient
sport Right You look at children How do
they play They wrestle with each other Mashallah
I mean it's something You see it in
the animal kingdom as well What do they
do Chase It's very fitri And it's definitely
something Mashallah It's a good thing You're starting
to see this trend Amongst many Muslim cities
And societies And communities Across the western world
English speaking world at least I'm sure in
Europe as well And even in the Muslim
world You're starting to see this return To
a lot of combat sports Which is so
important Because it teaches you So much about
What we spoke about And that's why I
love Talking to those That are in combat
sports In particular And in general sports When
you talk to them about Islam It's so
easy It is Because that physical exertion There's
a connection Psychologically In your brain And also
dare I even say In your soul Yeah
Because when you face a loss In front
of people You have to go through A
mental process And there has to be A
level of You know Motivating yourself To get
back up And do it again Because you
can easily quit But if you have someone
Particularly someone that's Muslim Yeah And then speaks
to you About the qadr After that loss
You train nine months I think it's Usain
Bolt Train nine months For nine seconds Oh
my goodness Yeah that's true You train so
long And you lose Yeah And then everybody's
like Looking at you like You're a loser
anyway Or you know After the game is
over You know Everybody's given that You know
That this person doesn't want to Walks away
He has to know what it means To
be a bad sport And tie that to
the qadr Yeah The thing is with sports
as well It's different In the intellectual landscape
They always say The stereotype in academia Everyone's
arrogant and stuck up Right?
In sports I mean you do have those
But generally speaking People are humble Right People
are a lot more respectful Because people have
been humbled It's a lot more objective Exactly
In the academy Everyone's trying to say I'm
smarter than that person How do you tell
Which paper's better than the other Who's smarter
Who's et cetera et cetera You can't tell
Right But in sport Particularly combat sport It's
as clear as day I mean someone submits
you Someone slams you on the ground Submit
Exactly And then learning to deal With that
loss Is something that a lot of people
Don't learn And that's what makes people Weak
as well Exactly Because they're not able To
live with that aspect of I lose sometimes
I win sometimes Like a lot of people
They have this fragile ego And they're not
able to Actually take a loss Take failure
Not just for combat sports Team sports as
well Team sports I think it's very very
I mean for me I mean talk about
combat sports I was humbled yesterday With Dr.
Julio Mashallah That guy's a beast Mashallah Yes
I was like my goodness Mashallah Came all
the way from down under For that My
God But it was something That is humbling
But in team sports as well I used
to play a lot of basketball Yeah It's
the same thing You're training the whole season
It's that moment In the You know I
still feel Bitter about the semifinals Yes I
still have dreams That I'm still Like this
like 18 years ago I still have dreams
That I'm there And like it could have
been different It sticks with you But you
have to learn To be able to get
over it It teaches you To care about
something Especially amongst teenage apathy That's one of
the biggest threats To the development Of a
confident young Muslim man Is apathy Teenagers love
to be apathetic Because they're afraid of caring
Caring yeah They're so insecure To show that
they care about something And so they say
Yeah whatever It's so easy It's so easy
to do that It's hard to put yourself
out there And say no I'm so passionate
about this People say man what you on
man Who you think you are Malcolm X
Like calm down You know what I'm saying
So But sports teaches you To care about
something And then lose that thing Working with
other people You see the difference In you
know Later on in life People who have
That sports background Just dealing with them in
general Muslim Non-Muslim You know you see
the humility You see the ability To be
able to The emotional stability Right And the
security You see that there There's that development
There within sports That sadly In a lot
of Muslim families They see no value in
that Exactly And this is what I'm trying
To bring life to I mean especially Amongst
the Muslim families But you'll find that The
moms The divorced moms That have been divorced
And they have young boys They see that
reality Immediately How many of them Come to
me and say He needs to get involved
In some physical activity Because he needs to
learn What it's like to lose He needs
to learn What it's like to just Go
all out on something And then lose Instead
of just being In front of the computer
All the time Not say being in front
of the computer Is bad or video game
Here and there But to not have Any
kind of discipline To train And lose There's
something So That is a huge Opportunity for
you To come closer to Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala In a Dare I say You
know That is a huge part Of your
manhood Because as I say You learn your
reality Through physicality Right When you go through
That exertion Now Within the culture Of sports
Within the culture Of physical exertion You know
It's important For the young man To have
that Spiritual element To know how to Navigate
Through that Yeah Exactly Because you know You
may want your son To play basketball Or
soccer But the culture Around it For instance
If you're athletic I'm going to keep it
100% A young black kid And he's
in an environment Where there's a lot Of
black people Or not Especially in basketball He's
getting picked First He's getting picked First man
And if they win And he dunks How
many girls Are going to come to him
And they don't want To be his wife
man You understand me Yeah So He has
to know How to navigate Through that The
wins as well It's not just the failure
It's the success And being in that You're
right 100% So and that's where It's
like That's a huge A huge rites of
passage For him Because him Rejecting that For
something greater Than what's in front of him
Subhanallah And then on top of that Due
to the fact That he rejects That woman
Or those women His teammates May indirectly reject
him And he has to be ready For
that Yeah And to be totally honest If
he's not the star player They're going to
look Down upon him Yeah If he's a
star player We're going to let him ride
Yeah Yeah He's good But if he's not
He doesn't like girls But we win with
this dude You know what I'm saying Yeah
But if he's not He has to deal
with the fact That they're probably Making fun
of me And saying that I'm homosexual Yeah
And my team Doesn't pass me the ball
anymore Because I don't go out On social
hour With them like that Yeah Because I'm
going to Just be the party pooper I'm
not going to get along So for the
Muslim That's what I was saying When you
mentioned The immigrant parents It's going to be
okay They're afraid of the immoral Non-cultural
practices Of America or the West Yeah And
then on top of that He's Muslim All
of these are Kufar And by default The
standard is that They're upon misguidance Yeah So
we don't want you To get mixed up
in that Mm-hmm In the end of
the day Dr. Zuhair What would you tell
That 18 to 25 year old kid That's
suffering On understanding what a man is When
you or I tell him Red pill is
not the way to go Like does Islam
have the answer For that in regards to
Who I am as a man I like
girls I like making money I want to
make a lot of money What's wrong with
that?
What is wrong with that?
And is it Islamic For me to like
girls And to persist them As they do
in college?
What do we tell that guy?
What I'd say to the 18 year old
If I was looking in front of him
Do we need to give you Another name
now?
Maher Walsh Yeah Maher Walsh Young Maher Yeah
Remember death Mm Death is Hadhim-ul-Adhat
It's the destroyer of pleasures Death puts everything
into perspective All these discussions All these online
The red pill The blue pill The green
pill This person saying This person flashing their
Bugatti This person showing their women off The
people chattering and what not None of that's
going to your grave None of it You
remember death You remember your purpose That will
be your north star To finding who you
are as a Muslim As a Muslim man
And you can never lose sight of that
The reality of death has to be there
So close to you That's why the Muslim
men of the past That's how they acted
That's why they were able to act That's
why they had the courage To be able
to act That's why they did such incredible
things Because their mortality was so close to
them And they understood that They're going to
meet Allah SWT And Allah is not going
to ask about All those little things that
you care about It's going to be about
Are you really a man To Allah SWT
Doesn't matter what X person thinks about you
Or whatever person thinks about you Society thinks
about you You were given this gender by
Allah SWT And you were meant to fulfill
your role here As a Muslim man Allah
is going to ask you So the real
question is Are you a man in the
sight of Allah SWT That is the most
important thing To focus on in terms of
Trying to understand All these different things And
death is that thing Umar bin Khattab radiallahu
anhu You know He would keep a candle
by sometimes And he'd put his hand by
that candle And say Ya bin Khattab If
you're not able to handle The heat of
this candle Then what about Jahannam There's so
many stories of the Salaf Who used to
literally bury their own graves And they'd lie
down in the graves In their backyards And
just reflect And just spend time in there
It will put everything into perspective Take some
out If there's someone there That's listening Like
at this point in time It might be
2, 3 in the morning Or whatever Midnight
And they're thinking about Whatever it is There's
a reason why Allah SWT had you click
This particular video And you listen to this
particular Point in time Just 10 minutes And
just think about death That day that you
are going to die And when the soul
is extracted The angels are going to be
calling you By different names What names do
you want You want them to be calling
you by That's what you should be concerned
with Yeah And ending on that note man
I mean death is something That we will
all face And it's fitri to be afraid
of it And to always be curious About
when it's going to happen But then ultimately
To ask what am I doing In preparation
for it ماذا عدت لها Allah SWT Allah
SWT To the man when he asked When
is the hour Yeah Dr. Zuhair man It's
an honor man It's a pleasure And Inshallah
I hope we have more of these Inshallah
Really talking about This particular subject matter Amongst
many other subject matters That I want to
talk to you about But Alhamdulillah Understanding the
merger The connection between The biological and social
Of what really is a man And I
think we sufficiently Alhamdulillah Alhamdulillah We are able
to answer those questions And we ask Allah
SWT To bless our Shabab And to guide
them And to make them a means Of
guidance in regards to What manhood is Because
we should own it Inshallah I mean It's
been an absolute pleasure And honor as well
To be able to Discuss with you These
ideas Inshallah We've always been going Back and
forth And Alhamdulillah Being able to do this
In this format Has been incredible Alhamdulillah May
Allah bless you And increase you And preserve
you For the Ummah And I do want
to let The audience know as well About
your Masterman Program Yeah Program Because that's What
we've been talking about Really What's the website
For that one If you go to school
S-K-O-O-L I mean Masterman
I look up Masterman It's like an online
community Alhamdulillah For brotherhood And community And to
learn what it means And to share each
other's experiences To increase each other Alhamdulillah May
Allah bless you Jazakumullahu khairan And also yourself
man You have one of the best papers
In my humble opinion In spiritual personalities MashaAllah
Many, many, many Beautiful papers That you have
in your team Inshallah May Allah SWT Increase
you And bless you In that effort Inshallah
Barakallahu feekum As Salaamu Alaikum Wa Barakallahu Feekum
As Salaamu Alaikum As Salaamu Alaikum Wa Barakallahu
Feekum Wa Barakallahu Feekum