Haifaa Younis – Interview with Sh Omar Suleiman at Jannah Institute – Women Education Center
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AI: Transcript ©
As-salamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh.
We are in Jannah Institute, Women Education Center
that we opened recently and Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala blessed us with the presence of
Sheikh Omar Suleiman.
Jazakumullah khayr for coming.
A pleasure to be here.
Absolutely.
I know it's a tight schedule so we're
going to do this.
The most important thing we want to talk
about is the importance of Islamic education in
the United States and having Islamic institutes for
that.
Alhamdulillah, As-salamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh.
SubhanAllah, we often think about how to build
bricks, how to build places, how to put
the next chandelier on or carpet the next
space or accommodate the cars, but we don't
think enough about generational faith and how we're
going to pass that down from generation to
generation.
Alhamdulillah, we're starting to see the birth of
many institutions and many educational institutes that are
focused on nurturing faith in people's hearts.
We've been focused, Alhamdulillah, quite a bit on
how to integrate efforts, how to make sure
that we're complementing efforts, inshaAllah ta'ala, that
we're working together to bring people closer to
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, embody the messenger
of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, Sunnah, in
the best way possible and to make faith
a lived experience bi-idhnillahi ta'ala.
Why the youth should and parents should focus
as they focus on secular education.
I think that the happiest moment for me
in seeing this place was not seeing the
place itself, but was seeing the age of
the kids that are here.
A lot of times we wait to teach
people the seriousness of faith after they have
already reached a critical point in their lives
and they're already off to college and that's
when we're trying to reach them.
Alhamdulillah, I mean by teaching the serious concepts
of faith in a way that's compelling and
in a way that's palatable from now, you
ensure inshaAllah ta'ala that they have those
concepts in place to protect themselves and also
to practice and preach the religion in the
best of ways, no matter what environment they
go into.
So the first question I got asked by
a young man, mashaAllah, in your class was
Umar, another Umar, mashaAllah.
I don't know his age, I don't want
to guess, he's 12, mashaAllah, and he asked
about evolutions.
So alhamdulillah, these questions are being asked, but
they're also being answered from an Islamic paradigm,
from an Islamic perspective.
So I think that we have to change
the mindset of trying to fix and correct
and recalibrate later on to trying to nurture
faith as early on, bismillah ta'ala, in
these kids' hearts inshaAllah, and teach them the
beauty of Islam in a structured way.
May Allah bless Jannah Institute for working hard
to teach people of all faiths and all
backgrounds about the beauty of Islam and all
ages, alhamdulillah, I mean about the beauty of
Islam.
May Allah azza wa jalla allow this institute
to flourish and to be a means by
which you enter Jannah and all of us
enter Jannah as well, allahumma ameen.