Ella Collins – The Woman who Led Malcolm X – Being Me Legacy Tour

Now hemudu solly Allah Rasool Allah Al Karim Ahmedabad Bismillahi Rahmani Raheem. I began in the Name of Allah the creations the merciful rubbish roughly surgery while you're certainly Omri, Agata melissani of tahu. Kali assalamu aleikum wa warahmatullahi wabarakatuhu. May the peace, mercy and choices blessings of Allah be upon you all. Welcome to our first legacy tour of 2021. We will begin our tour with our esteemed speaker she her Fatima barkatullah from the United Kingdom, as she relates to us the story of Ella little Collins, the sister of Malcolm X. Before we began, I would like to tell you, especially if you're new and you've never been to the legacy to our before we

explore the lives of Muslim women who lived throughout the ages. And the grace to great heights overcame incredible odds and left a lasting legacy for all of us to fall for all of us to emulate. So, and these are related to us by our foremost female female scholars of today. And this program is brought to you by being me a Muslim empowerment organization. It helps us focus on faith, confidence, action and community. We're so happy that you that you are spending time in a beneficial manner May Allah reward you bless you and put Baraka in your time and in your learning. So before we begin today, and before I tell you a little bit more about our speaker on our topic today, we would

like to begin with a Henri citation. We have sister Salma Hashmi. She's going to recite Serato episode for us but let me tell you about sister Salma. She's a mother of three she was an elementary school teacher in a private school and currently she's teaching adult English as a second second language with the Toronto District School Board and she teaches children Quran online she had she does homeopathy and nutrition and she dreams of building an education center for less privileged children and women in Africa and she also helps build wells in Africa so sister so much Jackie aloka and for joining us today and please recite Sir suratul other sufferers

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Jackie I love my muted yes Jackie allow Karen sister Salma for that beautiful we citation. We are now ready to invite a starter Fatima barkatullah to speak to us to let me to share with you some information about our starter Fatima. She's a British alima author and presenter of the LM fi podcast. I'm sure many of you are familiar with the movie pass cat podcast. She's currently a postgraduate student of Islamic law at the School of Oriental and African Studies at University of London. She has had a rich Islamic education from an early age thanks to her parents, her father being a senior Mufti in the UK Sharia Council. In her teens. She studied Arabic and the Islamic

sciences in Egypt at prominent institutions, such as Al fudgier Center, kotoba Institute and the College of Al Azhar University. She has graduated with two alumier degrees. The first form al Salaam Institute, where she was awarded a distinction by Shaykh Muhammad Akram nadwi. She also graduated from the Ibrahim college seminary with a specialization in physics. She's married with four children. She's the author of her deja Mother of history's greatest nation, and currently authoring a book about Aisha radiallahu anha. She has been a key contributor to the discourse surrounding Muslim women in the West, contributing to the Westminister fate debates, documentaries and live

shows for the BBC, and times timespace section Channel Four and Islam channel, she presents the popular lm fi podcast, she was director of seeds of change the biggest Muslim women's conference in Europe and a dog trainer for IRA in 2014. She was awarded the iKON international award for young women in Dawa and community service at a ceremony in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. So we are extremely delighted to have Shia Fatma join us today to tell us about Ella little columns. You know we go all over the centuries and we have done we've we're going fast forward into contemporary times. And Ella little Collins she was Malcolm X's headstrong matriarch who embraced Islam before her brother. And

you know, so we're going to learn about her her impressive foresight decision making and her pivotal interventions which change the trajectory of Malcolm X's life. So as salaam aleikum wa rahmatullah and thank you so much for joining us.

While they come a salon where I had to lie who about a ghetto Bismillah Alhamdulillah wa Salatu was Salam ala rasulillah their sisters and jacquela Hara and sister for that introduction. A salaam aleikum wa rahmatullah wa barakato. I'm really pleased that you've joined me today.

You might be wondering why I would be interested in

Ella Collins little. And, yeah, actually, I wrote an article about her recently, which you can find on the Islam 21 c.com website. And the reason why I was very intrigued by her is that one of the books that had the biggest impact on my

I would say, fully embracing Islam and really being motivated as a Muslim. Growing up in the West, was The Autobiography of Malcolm X, I'm sure many of you have have read that book, or at least, you know, many Muslims in the West have read that book.

And

one of the people in the book that really stood out, but there wasn't that much information about I mean, there was a clear indication that she was a very important figure. But, you know, it left me intrigued to know more about her. And that was the figure of Malcolm X, his elder sister, she was his half sister, Ella Collins little. And

so I just set about getting as many books as I could, and doing some research, her son has actually written a book about her. So I found that on the internet, and I, it's quite a rare book now. So I bought that. And it really opened my eyes to

what an amazing woman she was, and what the impact that she actually had on Islam in the West. Because a lot of people don't realize that it was people like Malcolm X, and Ella Collins, and there were others who, although they at first had joined this organization called the Nation of Islam, which was which has certain beliefs that are an Islamic and that is not considered part of Islam. Okay.

It was their kind of leaving that organization and becoming proper Muslims becoming Sunni Muslims, that actually in in encouraged 1000s of others later on, to do the same. Right, so so Pamela, they had a real big impact. So who is Ella Collins? I'm Ella Collins. She was born in 1914, I believe. And this is what you have to understand is the backdrop to this time, right? Against the backdrop of the Great Depression and Jim Crow laws, okay. And the Jim Crow laws, they were a collection of state and local statutes in the US laws in the US that existed for about 100 years until about 1968. And these laws, legalized racial segregation, and really marginalized black Americans by denying them

the right to vote, denying them certain jobs, or access to education and certain opportunities. It was basically designed to suppress their progress, you know, so panela, and it's against that backdrop that we tell the story of Ella little Collins and her brother, Malcolm. So

you have to understand that Malcolm's father, Reverend little was actually murdered by white supremacists. And so he was orphaned at a young age and anyone who's read his autobiography will know that, you know, there were times when he would go hungry, you know, his, his mother was taken to a mental institution, right? Because she really was under a lot of pressure and, you know, all sorts of things happened to her. And so all the children were split up. Okay. And, you know, they were ended up in different foster homes and with relatives, etc. Now, Malcolm had a lot of academic potential, right? But you know, he's, he's teacher, it's that school had said something to him that

discouraged him from, from really, you know, pursuing that potential. And he started turning to crime because of, you know, the poverty and hunger that he was experiencing.

And it looked like you know, he was really going to go downhill.

That is until Allah Collins entered his life.

And Ella was his eldest sister from his father's first wife. Okay. She traveled all the way from Boston, where she was living to Lansing and Michigan, which is where Malcolm and his siblings were. And she just came to check how her half siblings were right, because her father had instructed her before he died. He had instructed her to really look after Malcolm. He'd said something to her about Malcolm's potential that he could really see that, you know, Malcolm was, was a special child. So Ella was really keen to cook, go and see how he was doing and to take him under her wing.

And in later interviews, she would say that, because Malcolm was the seventh child in the family, they had this superstitious belief that he would be gifted, right, there was some kind of superstitious belief they had about the seventh child. So she, she kind of made it her business to take care of him. When Malka met Allah, He said it had a huge impact on his psychology. You know, he actually described her as the first really proud black woman I had ever seen, he said, and that he had never been so impressed with anybody. Right. She and this is a direct quote from his book, he says, Ella wasn't just black. But like her father, she was jet black, the way she sat, moved, talk

to did everything bespoke someone, somebody who did and got exactly what she wanted. This was the woman my father had busted off so often, for having brought so many of their family out of Georgia to Boston, she owns some property, he would say, and she was in society. She had come North with nothing, and she had worked and saved and invested in property that she had built up in value. And then she started sending money to Georgia, for

for another sister, brother, cousin, niece, or nephew to come north to Boston, all that I had heard was reflected in Ella's appearance, and bearing.

So as I mentioned, she was born in 1914. I grew up in Georgia, later moved to New York, and she was Secretary to the black Congressman, Adam Clayton Powell. Then she moved to Boston, she used to manage her mother's grocery shop. And she started saving up and investing in property. So you can see she had a really, you know, sharp mind, she was thinking about the future.

And then she would let out that property.

She was really against welfare. You know, personally, she was against welfare and poverty programs, because she really wanted black Americans to work towards their own independence, and, you know, to recognize their own agency. But what she did, which was a very important thing, was she, she actually invited the teenage Malcolm to come and live with her. And she made the moves that were necessary to make herself his legal guardian. And later Malcolm would describe this saying, no physical move in my life has been more pivotal or profound in its repercussions. All praise is due to Allah that I went to Boston when I did if I hadn't, I'd probably be a brainwashed black

Christian. That's what he said.

And he said that, you know, when he got off the bus, he describes how excited he was to be going to this big city now, right?

And he kept reassuring Ella, this is something that is in Allison's book, you know, he kept reassuring her that, you know, I'll do anything for you Allah, you know, and there are also interviews on YouTube, which you can find of Ella Collins, and she says, you know, he said, you know, if I ever do anything to hurt you, Allah, you can, you can beat me with a stick if you want, you know, he's like, really like, eager to prove himself to her. And she nurtured him with his with her home cooking, and her advice and Subhanallah and also, she would give him money and whatever he needed, until he could get a job right.

I'm going to share with you a photo

just so you can visualize

Malcolm's relationship

with Ella. I hope you can all see that.

So this middle picture is

Malcolm when he came to Boston and this is and this is Ella. This is outside Ella's house and Ella's house has actually become a landmark now in Boston which has been preserved, which I'm not sure if people can visit it.

But you can, you can look it up online. It's been preserved by the authorities there.

And you can see a young male conveyor standing next to his sister, he looks very proud of him. And this is another picture of Ella. And this is actually when she was running an Islamic school. Right. panela. And she was, you know, I think she was in charge of the Islamic school, an Arabic school. And this is another picture of Ella on the right, which is her in her old age.

And I believe this was an on camera, or it was after ombre. And she's there with with some of her relatives first just for you to be able to visualize their relationship. Um,

so Pamela, you know, one of the things that Ella said is that she would, she nurtured Malcolm's personality. And she, even though she could see was quite aggressive, she, as she described him, she said, she used to, like, try to mold his aggressiveness in the right direction. And she saw it as a healthy, you know, that a healthy personality trait of his hand. But she disapproved of course of the gangster lifestyle that he got into. And she would always let him know that she was really against that.

And even when he went to prison, she continued to visit him in prison. And she would bring him books, she would write letters to him.

But then, you know, and she would say to him, you know, you really need to face up to the facts, and you need to change your lifestyle need to change the way you're living, right.

But I think at that time, Malcolm was a little bit disenchanted. And he, you know, he didn't really choose his she was his mother figure. So, just as young people sometimes rebel against him, others, right, he seemed to have, you know, got a bit tired of of that. But the thing to notice is that Ella just kept persevering, you know, she kept persevering.

Now, they both became members of the Nation of Islam. And of course, the Nation of Islam believes in a prophet after the Prophet Muhammad SAW salam, etc. So they're not considered Muslims. But,

you know, it was Ella actually in 1959, who decided to leave the Nation of Islam, and embrace Islam, Sunni Islam, she began studying with Muslim teachers in the Orthodox Masjid in Quincy, Massachusetts. And she took her Shahada there, the Nation of Islam suspended her write, obviously, they were like very against that. And

obviously, Malcolm got to know about this. And, you know, she would say later, Allah would say later, I was glad that there was an Islamic alternative to the Nation of Islam. And she also said, I also knew that it was only a matter of time, before Malcolm would make a similar move.

She founded a school in Boston, where children were taught the Quran, Arabic, Swahili and other subjects, and she started to slowly slowly try to influence Malcolm an open his heart to Islam. Malcolm said about her. I've said before, this is a strong, big, black Georgian born woman. Her domineering ways had gotten her put out of the Nation of Islam as Boston mosque 11 they took her back then she left on her own. Ella had started studying on the Boston orthodox Muslims. Then she founded a school where Arabic was taught, she couldn't speak it. She hired teachers who did. That's Ella, she deals in real estate and she was saving up to make the pilgrimage nearly all night we

talked in her living room. So you can see that he was really talking to her. He was really being influenced by her. Look, she wanted to go on HUD she was saving up to go on Hajj. But Subhana Allah What happened?

When she realized, okay, that Malcolm was coming closer to Assam. You know, she would, she would talk to him. And she showed him really, and I think he discovered this himself as well, through other means that Islam was much wider, you know, it gave him much greater vision for all human beings, then the vision that was being given to them by the Nation of Islam, which in some ways was quite racist as well. You know, it was anti white.

And Malcolm had become frustrated with the Nation of Islam teachings because he could see that the nation of Islam's teachings were not, we're not the teachings of the Quran, right? They were not what the Quran was teaching. And so, one of the things Ella did to really encourage him

Was she offered him to go on Hodge, she offered to pay for his trip on hedge when he asked her and showed interest in it. She actually offered to pay for his trip on hedge. He describes this, you know that when he mentioned it to her that she said, How much do you need. And she actually

preferred him to go and Hutch over herself. So Pamela right. And that was such a pivotal trip, as many of you who have read his autobiography will know.

They agreed that it would be an opportunity to build key relationships, his trip abroad would be an opportunity to build killer key relationships with African and Muslim leaders across the Middle East and, and West Africa, and to help to build support for the civil rights movement in the US. Right.

And so, when Malcolm came back, okay, from his hedge, he came back as a hedge Malika Chavez in 1964. And he had embraced Islam at the Islamic foundation in New York, on the ninth of April 1964.

But upon returning, one of the things he did was he proudly gave to Ella,

his Shahada certificate from us her which I'm going to show you

just a minute, sorry, I should have had this slide next this

if you have a look at this, this is actually a copy like, obviously, a transcribed copy of

Malcolm X's Shahada certificate given to him by

the rector of Allah as her right. So Pamela, this is, this was a this is in the book written by Allah Collins, son, what now. And you can see that, you know, he says as a sign of his deeper appreciation of mas support. So LS support, Malcolm gave her this certificate he received from the rector of us her University, it was another first for him, and is one of the reasons he is honored by the American Muslim Council in Washington under his Muslim name, I've heard Malika Shabbos

and, you know, the kind of, like, I love the funny spelling of Malcolm X, right? It's like a typical Egyptian pronunciation Malcolm X. And, you know, it's all there. Mashallah. So, another thing that Malcolm came home with actually,

was 35 scholarships, right, for allows her and other universities in, I think, in Ghana, for African Americans. So, you know, that's a really powerful trip for him a trip in which he did a lot of networking, a lot of building bridges, and also brought back resources for his community. And she, Allah said that, you know, when he came back, he was a lot more mature. Okay.

And she actually mentioned that he returned home with two clear causes in his mind. The first was to spread orthodox Islam in America. This is in the words of Allah Collins, right. And the second,

he said was his fight for human rights for all black Americans, for which he set up the organization for Afro American unity, right as a vehicle. So he set up the Muslim mosque Inc, to spread Islam and the other organization for his civil civil rights

efforts.

And she said, You know, he came home a man, he lost his frustrations and his desire for material gains. And she was really proud of him when he went and gave a speech at Harvard University. And she said, You know, I said to him tonight, Malcolm, you are a man. And Malcolm said to him, and this said to her, this kind of shows you how she was his mother figure, you know, she was his matriarch. He said, I traveled hard, didn't I? And she said, Yes, you did. But you made it, you know, because he'd been through so much, if you just recall his life, right? prison, gangster lifestyle, you know, going to that from the lowest to the low to the highest, you know, of the highest panela some of the

lessons

that I think we can learn from Allah. And by the way, I must have mentioned that at the end of his life, when,

you know, when Malcolm was killed, before he was killed, Allah had been trying her best to protect him. You know, she even got to the point where she got her son to phone the FBI, to alert them that she was afraid that he was going to be harmed right.

And on the day when he died yellow drove

from Boston to New York, to identify the body of her brother.

It was Ella who paid his funeral and business expenses, and ensured that he had an Islamic janazah. It was Ella who took over his organization of Afro American unity, and his project of giving 35 scholarships from Allah to University and the University of Ghana, to students seeking to study abroad.

And she was also she also prevented revenge attacks, people were offering to do revenge attacks. And, you know, she, she really calm the situation down. And she was quite critical of like the films and even The Autobiography of Malcolm X, she said that five chapters of the original manuscript had been removed, and she felt like his Islamic commitment was being kind of under underplayed after his death.

But so Pamela, she really helped to protect his legacy. So now I'm going to just mention some of the lessons I think we can learn from the life of Ella, I'm going to go back to this one.

First of all, I think one of the lessons that we can learn is that,

from the fact that she was a secret soldier of Allah. You know, sometimes there are people who are not the most famous, they're not the ones who so everyone knows Malcolm X, not everyone knows a lot, right. But she was working diligently in the background, and she was working diligently to like, she supported certain Islamic programs in universities in America as well. So she was really promoting the deen.

And she was doing the work that was needed. And she didn't have to be the one who became the most famous right in order to get the reward for that. So just as the Prophet sallallahu wasallam said, Whoever guide someone, to goodness will have a reward like the one who did it, we can see that all the effort that Allah put into nurturing and raising Malcolm and keeping, you know, that relationship with him, right? And influencing him in sha Allah, she has a share of what she is responsible for. And she is she has a share in his reward, right, in the reward of all the good that came through his work afterwards.

Also, we learned from her that you know, how much she was rooted and unapologetic about her heritage, and she was very confident in her skin.

And that was very impressive to Malcolm, because it was at a time when he was he himself was trying to change his look, you know, he was trying to look as acceptable to the white population as possible, right, he was used to conch his hair, which is basically to put this chemical in his hair to make it look flat, and, or make it look, you know, more like white people's hair, right? Even though it used to burn his skull, right, he's to use this stuff. And she was the person who made him think about that, and think about why he was doing stuff like that, you know, and because she was proud, and, and it teaches us as Muslims, you know, that we should be proud and unapologetic, about

who we are about our heritage,

and discard any notions of an inferiority complex that society or the media might have, you know, made us internalize.

She was a role model, you know, and it teaches us that we should be role models. Ella had the personality and convictions that Malcolm wished came more naturally to him, right. She was proud of her appearance. She also she was very disdainful of the criminal lifestyle that he found himself in, and she was the opposite. She was earning money, and then building property and becoming independent and funding other people, right. She was literally funding different members of the family and funding projects and things like that. So she was this role model. And sometimes we, when we're in our families, we think we have to advise people, we have to, you know, tell them what's right. But

actually, it's it can be a lot more powerful when we just become the role model right? When we model the behavior that we want them to internalize, they might not learn it straight away, but sooner or later, you know, they will reflect on it or reflect on how we were a role model and you know, the good characteristics that we we have

so be a role model.

Also, she stayed connected and invested in the lives of her family and community. You know, we're living in a time when Pete when we're being encouraged to be very individualistic,

and I didn't have to go all the way till

unsynched to see her half brothers and sisters, she didn't have to invite a Malcolm over. Right? But literally she, she facilitated his journey to Islam, right by inviting him. And by caring about his welfare, caring about the welfare of other members of her family, and it really teaches us, you know, that we also have to stay connected with members of our family, with our extended family, with people in our community, it's not good enough just to be concerned about yourself and your household. You know, and also, she gave him the space to make mistakes, and to learn from those mistakes. Again, a great example for us, you know, when it comes to young people in our lives,

sometimes we can be very,

we can be very harsh, we can be very unforgiving. But actually, you know, maybe it's just a phase they're going through, and they need your constant presence there, just like ello was, you know, to allow to allow them to make those mistakes, and then come out on the other side, only for you to then continue holding their hand and, you know, guiding them right in the right direction. So I think we really learned from that, you know, to really care about others.

Also, she used her wealth, to nurture and invest in the potential of others. So panela, right, she used her wealth to kind of lift others up. And she recognized that, you know, when Malcolm was going on Hajj, she recognized that it was more important for him to go on Hajj than herself, she preferred him over herself, because she had the foresight to realize that the work that he was doing, and the profile that he had, he was gonna make a huge impact for him to be committed to Islam and to travel and to see the Muslim world to widen his horizons was gonna have a huge, a bigger impact, right.

And, you know, she refused to be a statistic, despite the tragic circumstances of their family history, right? You can see that it was possible with the aid of Allah, through conviction, vision, resourcefulness, to lift herself up out of the confines of the conditions, the laws, the unfairness of the world around her, you know, she, she just refused to be a statistic. She became resourceful. She used every means that she could to lift herself and her family out of that

many, the negative aspect of

the situation that they found themselves in, I think that's hugely inspiring, right?

For us, as well as Muslims.

I'm gonna leave you with,

you know, some words of Ella.

You know, she said,

you know, she once said in an interview that

Malcolm needed 10 more years to complete the work he had started, you know, you can just imagine, like, you know, his life was cut short. And yeah, he he died when he was about 40. Right. And there had been so much more that they had wanted to do, and he had wanted to do. And she said, you know, Malcolm needed 10 more years to complete the work he'd started. But I was thinking about that. And I was thinking, so Pamela, you know,

actually, even half a century after his assassination. The impact of both Ella and her and his legacy can still be felt today. Right? Because, you know, we see, we see the fruit of their efforts, we see the fruit of their message. People like me, someone, you know, little Indian girl in London, growing up in London was inspired by Malcolm X to feel strong as a Muslim, right? So, and that's just one little example. I know. I've met many American Muslims who've told me, either their parents or their grandparents embraced Islam and left the Nation of Islam, especially after Malcolm X did so. And his sister so so Pamela, their legacy can still tangibly be felt today.

I pray that Allah Subhana Allah forgives our sister Ella, and grants her manifold reward for the Hajj that she gifted to her brother for the

effort that she put into basically doing our to him and, you know and building projects and good things in the community to help Islam in the community. I pray that Allah accepts her downward to her brother and investment into her community as Southern Nigeria that enlightens her grave and continues to bring her reward. Amin from the army in sha Allah. With that I'm going to end our session for questions in sha Allah Subhana Allah whom I will be handing a shadow Allah ilaha illa Anta esta Furukawa to like,

just zakia la Heron, sister Fatima, I know I've, I've read your work, I continuing to read your work. You've done extensive research on Ella Collins little, and you've brought some really really insightful information about her and her character. And to our audiences, I'd like to let you know if you have any questions for Shana Phasma, about LL. Collins, then please do write in the comment section, and I will share them with the speaker. In the meantime, you know, I'd like to ask you about a little bit about Ella, you know, you shared why it was important, why she was important. And you know, me, I grew up in the Far East. And I was inspired by Malcolm X to but I didn't know that

there was another figure like Allah, Allah little, who was instrumental in Malcolm X's,

you know, some of the things that he did, and he achieved right. So I would like to ask you,

people like Ella Collins and other historical figures, what type of impact? What can we learn from them? And what type of impact can it have on teaching future generations?

Well, I think the points that I mentioned the end, no, the six, I think there were about six points. I think really, those are the very, very key things that we can learn, you know, all those messages, things like being a role model, refusing to be a statistic, we, as Muslims in the West, you know, sometimes we make excuses for, why we haven't progressed, why we haven't done this, why we might not be successful in that. And those are just negative voices that can pull a person down. But if a person was to become resourceful, like Ella was, you know, and just think about what they can do, and what opportunities they do have, and how they could leverage and maximize on those

opportunities, then, you know, with vision with foresight, a person can achieve so much, our community could be lifted up, and you know, a lot of the problems that we all excuses that we make,

would turn into action, right? I think so, I think all of those things.

But I think especially, you know, being really involved in caring about the lives of the young people around us,

I think that's very, a very key message from my life, right? Because, like I said, we live in a society that's very individualistic, we're encouraged to just take care of ourselves and our even just our little family unit. But we should be caring about the wider family, we should be caring about the wider community. And that's literally what what Ella was doing. She was allowing people to come and live in her house

in order to move away from the poor areas of the US into the richer and wealthier, you know, Boston and then find their feet.

And all of that, right. So I think there was a lot of charity involved a lot of soccer, a lot of, you know, getting involved in her life, which, which we can really learn from.

Now I do like, um, from what you've shared about her, she seems like a personality who's bigger, like somebody who we really can aspire to emulate? Just the fact that you know, when you say we're so individualistic, if you have money, you would want to go on hydrate, everybody wants to go on. Yeah. But she you're you're saying that she gave her money to her brother to go on hikes, you know? And that it that's huge. I mean, it takes people a lifetime to save up and obviously she couldn't go for heart surgery. I'll accept that from her. And,

and all the things that you're saying about her, right? It shows what a strong character she had and what she had foresight, and she looked at the bigger picture. And she really was unapologetic about her heritage. Right. And, you know, in times when people are facing

you know, I guess

discrimination, right? for different reasons. What would you say, you know, what, how? How can we emulate those characteristics and her about being strong, you know, being strong and believing in our own heritage and not being being unapologetic about it?

Yeah, I think, you know, a lot of us, those of us even who are from, like, from the Indian subcontinent, for example,

or from other countries, or the backgrounds, we sometimes we internalize a certain type of inferiority complex, you know, maybe because we've grown up in a society where all the images of beauty, all the images of success, and, you know, everything that is to be aspired to, are always images of basically Western white people, right? Or at least Westerners and Western culture, Western lifestyle, etc. And because Muslims have often been demonized, even subliminally, right, sometimes, you know, just reflect on, for example, growing up watching even cartoons, like Aladdin or something, right? Like, there were so many embedded messages in Aladdin, that were kind of negative

towards

Arab or Islamic culture, you know, that we might have internalized as children.

And, and what that does is it kind of it, it makes it more likely for you to

subliminally Think of yourself as inferior and wanting to aspire to be like, the dominant culture, you know. And we see that even now, in you know, some of the Indian subcontinent people, there are certain type of people who see the West as the ultimate, you know, thing that we they want to emulate, right, and they see religion, they see a job, they see all these things as backward, they see them as you know, something that they want to leave behind. But actually, what that does is it shows you that they actually have a lack of self confidence, they have a lack of confidence in their own heritage and their own culture. They've been brainwashed to think of the Hollywood Western

lifestyle as being success, right? The definition of success. And so when we become cognizant of the fact that we might have internalized some of that, you know, negativity or that negative talk, self talk,

it makes us more able to resist it, and be proud of our heritage, be proud of the fact that we are Muslims, be proud of the teachings of Islam, that no modernity and Western sand, you know,

being on trend when it comes to fashion, and whatever the latest thing is, is not the definition of success. The definition of success is the definition that the Creator, Allah Subhana Allah gave to success, right. So I think all of those things, you know, they're very Islamic ideals. The prophets, Allah, Selim himself was persecuted, you know.

So communities that have been persecuted over time, I think can learn a lot from

both the example of the prophet SAW Selim and then off to him in the examples of people like, like Ella,

sister as I share her thoughts. I have a question from one of our attendees. They're asking, the name is my Gemma Resnick, she's she or he, I don't know, is asking what was her official profession? And what higher education did she have?

Um, I am not sure about that. Actually.

I'm not sure about that. I know that she ran a grocery store. He said, right, her mom's grocery store. And then she would save up money and she would use it to buy property. So you could say she was an entrepreneur. You know,

I know that Malcolm said she had so many projects that even he didn't know. Right. So she basically used to set up projects, she set up a school. So I would say she was a social entrepreneur. She was somebody who is set up projects, set up programs and had property. She was a wealthy woman. And you know, she used that for good.

I think it seems like she was a person who found that something needed to be done and she took action. Right? She Yeah, she provided to the community what was needed. And can you tell us a little bit about the end of her life because I believe she did live quite long, right? She

was eight years old when she passed away like she struggled right till the end?

Yeah, um, from what I understand, she,

throughout her life, she got married about three times. And she had a son called rod milk. Um,

I think, yeah. And she also suffered the amputation of both her legs due to infection. So she was wheelchair bound towards the end of her life.

Yeah, and that's, that's basically the information that I have on that part of her life. But um, yeah, you can find some really interesting interviews of hers on YouTube that are still there. If you just Google Ella Collins interview, Malcolm X assistant interview, and you you've done quite a lot of research and you've written about her. So hopefully in the comment section, we'll post a link to your work and inshallah people can read more about her. Now, I'd like to ask you a personal question. If you could meet Ella Collins today, what would you ask her? What would you say to her?

I think

I think I would ask her, I would be really curious to know about the exact details of how she decided to become a Muslim, you know, because I think when people were part of an organization like the nation of Assam, or any organization that's a little bit cultish, right, there is a kind of cult element to it, you know, where you're literally pressured to stay within the confines of that organization. Anyone who steps out of line, you know, they're treated, they know that they've stepped out of line, right?

So how come she had the kind of boldness to be like, I don't care what they think, right? Because they literally suspended her right from the organization. So I'd love to like, ask her like, what was like the point when she decided now I'm not I'm not doing this nation of islam thing. You know, what was the point when she realized that and, like, Who were the individuals and what was it that she was reading in the Quran? That made her realize that actually the nature of Islam is not Islam? You know? Yeah, I think I would just get her to reminisce about what was it like to bring up Malcolm? Yeah, that that, you know, what, I think that would probably be my question too. That's a

you know, wonderful conversation to have Sister sciacca, Fatma chisaki alacran for taking the time number one to do this monumental research work, and to share it with all of us so that we can learn from her and you will be coming back and sharing more stories with us and inshallah with our viewers, we will, you know, if you go to attend BM calm, you can find out the other events for legacy tour that will be taking place we are scheduled them in for the year 2021. And I will, I'd like to thank you on behalf of being me, Canada, and, you know, and our whole legacy team for preparing this for us. And before we end, we would like to share some upcoming events for the month

of February. So if our IT team could put up the posters for the upcoming events, inshallah, then I will let people know. So we have, okay, yeah, this was this was our event that you attended today, Ella little Collins. And so coming up, in the month of February, we have the drop point sessions. That's on February 14 at Omnia hellobar. She's the founder of M WPC, and it's geared towards professionals and students serving the community. And then after that, we have the virtual Hangout. That's on February the 17th. And it's the sisters only hangout for all ages, and you chat. You play some games and you win prizes. So that's exciting. You can enter some reminders on your on your

citations as well. And you can bring your favorite cup of anything that you drink, bubble tea, tea, coffee, whatever. And then we also have Girl Talk. Oh, we have let's get moving. And this is a mother daughter event. It's a five month fitness program. You can join this a WhatsApp support group as well and it's with sister Carly.

And then the month of February in Canada, we're celebrating Black History Month of being me celebrating that Black History Month by having this art competition. It's being hosted by our girl talk program, and it's honoring black Muslim black history.

And inshallah we do have for the legacy tour. We have some exciting events coming up

With Dr. hypha Yunus sisters are here upon his smile from Johannesburg and obviously she have asthma. Some heart events are coming up too so I hope that you can join us to learn about Muslim women who have achieved great greatness you know in and resourcefulness in whatever capacity that they had, and hopefully inshallah we can implement them in our lives as well. So, just like your locker before we end we would like sister Salma to come back and recites rattle answer for a closing sister son mom.

Oh Billahi min ash Shea Aparna Raji Bismillah Hill rough man a rocky

one loss in Valley in Santa Luffy host

in New Jersey man Why me loose soil

Why me loose soil he had the weather was so been hot water Wow So Bill how free What? Well, so this song Sadako ma who lolly now

Jackie

Jackie allow Ferran sister Salma May Allah accept from you and share her Phasma all that you have.

Okay, and May Allah accept from sister Salma and her family and share her Fatima and from her family all the efforts and May Allah bless all of you for spending time with us today inshallah, we will see you again soon on another legacy tour, please check out attend b m.com. For more events, and inshallah until then we'll see you soon. panaca lahoma will be handy got a Chicago en la ilaha illa Anta astok Federica Juba like Assalamu alaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh