Ingrid Mattson – YTC 2013, Day 1 Muslim Canucks, What it Means to be Canadian Muslim
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Abdulrahman Murphy.
Now, I would like to present to you
doctor Ingrid Mattson for the next session,
which is called Muslim Canucks, what it means
to be a Canadian Muslim.
I don't really know what the Canucks are,
but I hear that they're a hockey team.
I don't really watch hockey, so I don't
know if I could technically be called the
true Canadian,
but I do like to pretend that I
am.
So I'm really excited for this next session.
Yes. Just checking where I am. Yay. Okay.
Doctor Ingrid Matson was born here in Canada
where she studied philosophy and fine arts at
the University of Waterloo.
After many years of teaching in the US
where she founded and directed a program for
Muslim chaplains,
she moved back to Canada last year to
be the inaugural chair of Islamic Studies at
Huron University College
at Western University in London, Ontario.
Doctor Matson has earned her PhD
from the University of Chicago and has written
many articles exploring
the relationship between Islamic law and society, as
well as gender and leadership issues in contemporary
Muslim communities.
Now, without any further delay, I would love
to present to you
doctor Ingrid Matson.
Assalamu
Alaikum.
Oh, you don't need it that dark.
We want people to stay awake. I'm not
I'm not, won't be projecting anything. So
and and I'd like to see your faces.
We could have a little bit of light
on the people.
My brothers and sisters, and
thank you for,
coming out tonight for this lecture
and for the,
program this weekend.
It's,
really a pleasure to come back to this
community. I visited
this community a few times, but I don't
think I've been here for about 10 years.
And,
I'm so pleased to see
the growth in the community,
the numbers of people,
the activities you have, the,
the success of the school. Masha'Allah.
May Allah
reward all of those people who worked so
many hard hours to build these institutions.
May Allah reward all of those who contributed
to their money and time and cooking and
baking and
decorating
for the fundraising dinners.
Nothing that we enjoy
as Muslims
in Canada,
should be taken for granted,
whether that has to do with our Islamic
institutions
or the institutions of civil society, the institutions
of of government,
the public libraries,
the hospitals,
everything that we enjoy that allow us to
live here
in peace
and safety
with good health,
if that is what Allah
has destined for us,
Relatively
safe roads, although I don't know about the
401.
It's pretty crazy out there. One of the
first things I noticed when I came back
to
Canada, 401 is very dangerous.
But all of these things that we that
we enjoy and that we know so many
people in the world
are not enjoying.
I mean, how many people are living in
fear,
are living in hunger, poverty,
illness,
afraid
afraid from their neighbors,
afraid from
what might fall from the sky.
I mean, Suparna law,
the benefits and the blessings that we have
are so extraordinary
and we always have to be grateful. We
always have to say, alhamdulillah.
Alhamdulillah.
We praise Allah and we thank Allah for
everything that Allah has given us.
Thank Allah for everything that Allah has given
us.
And we also know that the prophet Muhammad
sallallahu alaihi wasallam said, those who do not
thank people have not thanked Allah.
So we also have to thank the people
and be grateful to the people who created
these institutions, who built these institutions.
As someone who has been on the board
of directors of many different kinds of institutions,
both religious and secular,
I can tell you that it's often very
boring
to be in those long meetings,
and you'd rather be doing something else.
But it is the work
that we're required to do together
collectively
in order
to continue
to improve and to develop
and to take the amen of the trust
that has been passed on to us,
the trust of our religious tradition, our teachings,
and also
civic society,
and continue to improve it for those who
will come, come further.
But we really have to ask ourselves too,
why why
us? Why do we get to enjoy all
of these things?
Why
why do you get to be the person
who lives
in safety and security?
Why do you get to be the person
who
is able to send your children to a
school
that is
safe and secure?
Not only your boys, but your girls can
go to school without fear and can be
encouraged to develop all different
skills
and knowledge,
their own special gifts. Even in some countries
where
the society is fairly safe,
what's offered in education is very limited,
and children, for example, with special needs might
not have any opportunities.
Yet in this country, if you have a
child with special needs,
there are services and education for those children.
Why
do we get to enjoy these things?
Well, this is Maqaddur Allah. This is what
Allah
has destined for us,
but not
because we're better than other people.
There are some
theologies and theologies and explanation
of of religion. There are some Christian
because you have been favored by God,
that you are someone that shows
that God
saved, that you will be close to God
in the next life. There are some theologies
of that and it's a way for people
to really enjoy
everything that they have,
enjoy their car and their home
and all of their wealth because,
hey, this just shows that
God's pleased with me
and so I should enjoy this and be
happy that I have this sign or indication
that God is pleased with me.
That's called the prosperity gospel.
Imagine
the gospel of prosperity means having wealth or
affluence. The gospel of affluence,
which sounds a lot like consumerism.
Of course, there are many Christians, most Christians,
who would say that's very repugnant,
but
there are others who will buy it.
One of those preachers of the prosperity gospel,
is a man named Joel Osteen. You can
see him on TV sometimes and he came
to Toronto recently
and sold out, I think, the Air Canada
Centre or one of the big facilities in
Toronto.
Thousands of people
paid a lot of money to be told
that
that
they
have been chosen by God to enjoy these
blessings because they are superior to other people.
That's not
the message
of Islam.
The message of Islam is that everything we
have in life
is,
we could say, a test, but I like
to look at it more as an opportunity.
It's an opportunity
to become close to Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala
by understanding
our responsibility
for
engaging
with what we've been given in a positive
way. And what that means is that if
we are
in a situation that is difficult,
that we never expected,
some form of illness
or loss of job
or having to flee our homeland,
That in that situation, we look
for
what is
it that Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala wants us
to learn from this situation
and how do we need to respond?
Don't look at it as a test, like,
this is something hard for you. You have
to suffer under it. This is why I
don't particularly like the word test.
Really, it's an opportunity
for us to open our eyes and an
opportunity for us to demonstrate
and to really understand
and value
what
truly means, what patience means,
and perhaps
to also
deeply think about the beautiful teaching of the
prophet Muhammad sallallahu
alaihi wasallam where he said, when you see
someone who has more, look to someone who
has less.
If you go into one of those refugee
camps,
you will see some people
who could very easily talk all day about
what they'd lost.
They lost their country.
They lost their neighbors. They lost their home.
They lost their goods.
They lost security. Maybe they lost members of
their family. But some of those people, some
of those believers,
instead of looking at what they've lost,
are looking at those who have even less
than them, around them in that refugee camp
and are saying, what can I do to
help?
And I know that's the case because I've
seen that with my own eyes in refugee
camps.
People who have lost so much, but they're
saying,
what
what is this? This is what Allah Subhanahu
Wa Ta'ala has destined for me. What is
the opportunity
for me here
to show gratitude
and patience and generosity
in this situation?
In this situation that others would say it's
just about loss.
No. There's something to be gained here.
If that's the case, what about people like
us?
What about people like us?
I one time
recently looked up
a comparison of life expectancies.
Do you know the
life expectancy for a Canadian woman
now
is in the I can't remember the exact
number, but it's in the eighties. Does anyone
know the exact number?
82 or 83.
The life expectancy of a Canadian woman
is 82 or 83 years old.
Do you know what the life expectancy of
a woman in Afghanistan
is?
It's getting better
the last few years,
but a few years ago, it was 39
years old,
which is less than half
of the life expectancy
of a Canadian woman.
It's like having
2
lives.
This is just quantity.
I'm not even talking about quality.
Even if we don't compare
what
each woman
has to do during that day, for example,
a Canadian woman or a Canadian man, if
they want water, they open the tap and
get water.
Cold
and hot water.
Right?
For most of the women in Afghanistan,
if they want water,
maybe they can open a tap, maybe they
have to go to a well, but if
they want hot water, probably,
you're gonna put some water in a pot
and boil it.
Right? Heat it up.
So think about the amount of time during
the day
that that woman
and the men in those society are taking
care of just basic needs,
And then think about the fact that
we're living a life that's twice as long.
SubhanAllah.
This
is to me a terrifying
fact.
It frightens me
because I I look at it and I
think
all of those years,
I turned,
I turned 50 years old
this year. I've had,
you know, a dozen years longer already
than
many women
in other parts of the world.
SubhanAllah.
I'm gonna be accountable
for those years
and those opportunities
and that time.
It's terrifying.
And I think all of us
should do a little bit of calculation.
Now,
it's not to say I feel guilty that
I live here and that I have these
opportunities and others don't. It's not about that.
It's not about guilt.
It's about
gratitude
and then saying, why is it? Why here?
Because the reality is that if we're here
in this country
and because we're in this country, we have
these opportunities
and these benefits and this security,
with that, there also come certain challenges.
Right? There are things that are challenging.
We don't hear the Adhan. It's the thing
I miss most about not when I'm not
in a Muslim country is not hearing the
Adhan.
It's just it makes it so much easier
to pray on time and remember and
to just it's not the same if it's
on your phone. It isn't. You know, your
phone makes you then, at least for me.
There's a real loss there,
but there's other things as well. It's challenging
being a minority.
We're a minority,
a religious minority in this country
that prevent presents some real challenges.
It means,
for example, that
we are responsible for building our institutions.
No one else is gonna do it for
us.
The government's not gonna do it,
and certainly, it's not effective to go
you know, Muslim communities tried this before. You
go overseas and ask some very wealthy patron
to give you a lot of money
and build your institution, but what we learned
is that
to build an institution is not just about
money, it's about building a community.
Who cares about the building if you don't
have a community? You can have a beautiful
building that's empty. There's no people in it.
So the real work is building community, and
if you have a community, you'll be able
to
build the facilities you need,
at least that are functional
and that are enough for you. I absolutely
believe that.
It's the community that comes first and then
the resources,
but that's challenging.
It means that,
you know, we have to find a way
to get along with
a diverse community.
We have people who come from all different
parts of the world, different schools of thought,
different opinions about fit matters,
and we have find a mechanism for deciding
these things
that can't be the same as
how Muslims and some other cultures decide because
this isn't our culture and we have people
coming from all different countries. That's a challenge,
and that's a new challenge,
but it's something that needs to be done.
So we have challenges that come
with being in this country, and we we
have to take them together.
We take the difficulty
and look at them as opportunities for growth.
One of the most
one of beautiful things about having a diverse
Muslim community
sorry, brother. Can you not hand out things
when I'm speaking? Thank you.
One of the beautiful things about having a
diverse Muslim community is that we are challenged
to learn more about our religion.
We can't be just passive
consumers
of
what people say or what we hear, what
we've been taught. We really need to learn
something,
and
with
the
need to learn more,
we also can become closer to Allah Subhanahu
Wa Ta'ala, because knowledge
knowledge of our religion, a deeper knowledge of
our religion is a good thing.
We're forced into that,
and that
is a benefit as well, but it takes
effort.
It is a struggle,
but it can elevate us.
So we see that there are so many
opportunities
here,
but I think for many Muslims,
the the the the challenge that sometimes seems
overwhelming is to be
a minority, a religious minority
in a country that's overwhelmingly,
not just Christian,
but in many ways, secular.
Maybe if we lived in Canada
a 100 years ago,
there would be outright 1, there would be
outright discrimination, so that wouldn't be
good. We wouldn't have the legal protections that
we have as Canadians today,
so we have to say,
alhamdulillah, for that and understand them and support
them and work with those people who more
comfortable. Has anyone ever been to Upper Canada
Village?
Has anyone ever been to upper Canada village?
You know, like, one of those a few
people have been field trip or on your
school.
So it's like like one of those historical
villages where they have,
how people lived
in,
the old days.
Okay?
Like a farm and how they made the
cheese
and how they,
used to have the horses and buggies,
and they used to have the little schoolhouse
and how people were there.
So when you go to those places, and
you've probably been to other places like that.
There's Pioneer Village
in, Conestoga.
Right? Has anyone been to a place like
that in Canada? Any of those such right.
Many of you have.
So you know how they also have some
people who are working there who act the
roles,
who reenact the role
of, you know, the school teacher or the
baker or the cheese maker,
and they wear the costumes.
So I remember sitting
in the schoolhouse one time,
and there were a mixed group of people
who were visiting the Pioneer Village, and and
we sat
there and the woman who was the school
teacher pretending to be the school teacher from,
you know, a 100 years ago came in
and she acted as if we were students
and she was telling us the rules.
And she looked around the room and she
said, well, first of all,
all of you are completely
inappropriately
dressed except for you, and she pointed to
me
because I was the only one who was
wearing a long skirt,
long sleeves, and I had something on my
head.
So
the culture
of Canada at that time
is is more like
much of Muslim culture.
The way people dressed was very modest,
physically modest, both men and women. Men would
never you never saw men in shorts, you
know, in the 19th century.
If you've seen Mennonites around the Waterloo region,
that's they're they're continuing that kind of dress.
And they interacted with each other modestly,
the way they spoke to each other,
expectations about marriage, that people would be chased
before marriage.
There were also many Christian traditions
that,
that forbade the drinking of alcohol.
So,
the culture fit more, yet
there was intolerance
towards non Christians.
Even
Jews, who we think now are very integrated
into Canada, were discriminated against
by law in Canada.
So there were some things that were bad,
and there were some things that we would
say
would make us more comfortable.
And so
one of the keys of understanding
what it means to be a Canadian Muslim
and how we can be a Canadian Muslim
is to understand, Canadian Muslim is to understand
what it means
to be a Canadian generally.
Because I think for many Muslims, they have
an idea of what a Canadian is,
and that's based on a certain snapshot of
in time.
But that isn't how Canadians always have been
or always will be, and the picture of
who is a Canadian is constantly
is that there's nothing more Canadian than to
talk about identity.
Ever since I was a child and I
was born and in Canada,
on both lines of my grandmother, we're here
for 200 years,
since the early part of 19th century.
The conversation that you'll hear on CBC Radio
and among Canadian intellectuals
is what does it mean to be a
Canadian,
and that's without us in the picture whatsoever.
That conversation
has been necessary because Canada has always been
a country of diverse people.
If we just look at European Christians,
the French Catholics
and the English Protestants
fought with each other over this country.
You've studied it in history
and it wasn't that long ago. The war
of 18 12
came at a time,
during the when America and Canada were were
still fighting each other. Canada wasn't even Canada
then.
Before that, we had the French
and the British fighting each other.
The Battle of Abraham, the Plains of Abraham,
where the the British eventually defeated the French.
But in defeating the French,
they decided to have some kind of reconciliation,
some kind of compromise to form a country
together rather than keep fighting over who would
control the country,
and that's why
today, until today,
Catholic schools are financed by the government
as a result of that historical compromise
because the French insisted that,
that they had a right to Catholic education,
and the English wanted
public education to be Protestant,
so they compromised.
But since then until now, as we see,
there's still great tensions between the English and
French in this country.
And
the idea of whether the French really want
to still be a part of Canada is
something that is debated.
Okay. A quick emergency announcement.
I apologize for the interruption.
Please pay attention.
B h w t. If you have the
car with the license plate, b h w
t 153.
Your car is blocking the top deck of
the staircase.
Someone has been waiting for half an hour
to get out of the parking lot. So,
again, if your car
license plate is b h w t 153,
please remove your car as soon as possible.
So
let me tell you
remind you of something else.
Has anyone here ever been asked
by,
let's just say, a white person,
Where are you from?
Raise your hand. If you've ever been asked
by a white Canadian, where are you from?
Okay.
Keep your hand up if you were born
in Canada and you were asked that question.
Okay.
Alright.
How many of you who were asked that
question
by a
white Canadian
ever asked them
in return,
and where are you from?
Excellent.
Because the reality is
that and it's not to be argumentative.
It's not to be confrontational,
but
if you
are not a white person,
that doesn't mean that you're the only one
who comes from somewhere else. And in fact,
what's really interesting and what
is important to think about
is this.
There are people with brown skin in this
country
who are asked
by white Canadians,
where are you from?
And they are
people
whose ancestors came here 6000 years ago.
There are first nations people,
aboriginal people.
The Aboriginal people of this country are not
white.
And can you imagine, if you feel
a little bit put off, if you were
born in this country and someone's asking you,
where where are you from?
Could you imagine, if you're a a first
nation person,
aboriginal person whose ancestors have been here for
6000 years to be asked,
where are you from?
And what I wanna say is that, look,
there's a religious element to identity. There's also
a racial element.
There's also a racial element,
and Islam itself is often racialized.
I asked for directions
building b,
and I saw a woman walking across the
parking lot with files under her arm. She
looked like a professor or administrator.
I rolled down my window and I said
I said, excuse me.
Would you happen to know where building b
is?
And she said she looked at me and
she said,
oh, are you looking for the ESL lessons?
So her
her stereotype,
right,
her perception
was so
powerful
that it overrode her sense of hearing.
So there are challenges.
There there are challenges,
but we don't face them alone.
They're not just challenges as Muslims.
They're challenges based on ignorance.
They're challenges based on entitlement,
and
one of the things that I really want
Muslims to understand is that
we have allies
and we need to reach out to them.
And and
I bring up
the issue of First Nation people
because,
first of all, it can help us understand
that we're not alone.
It can also and it should also help
us understand responsibility.
So if I'm I began by saying,
why are we here?
Why are we here in this country?
What's our job?
As a Canadian Muslim, and it's different than
being an American Muslim. If you're an American
Muslim, one of the one of the most
important justice issues you should care about is
the situation of African Americans.
People who were who were enslaved and brought
to that country
and until now are victims of
systematic injustice.
But as a Canadian,
a country
that
belonged to people
who were then
oppressed,
who had their children stolen from them, their
children abused, malnourished,
abused in all sorts of ways,
and who
the government that we have sworn allegiance to,
if you took an oath of allegiance to
the crown
or if you're born here and so that's
implicit,
they made over 600
treaties with the people who owned this country,
and many of those treaties have been broken.
As a Muslim, it is haram. It is
forbidden for me
to enjoy
stolen goods.
If someone steals something, someone goes to the
store and they they steal a chicken, they,
you know, they put it in their bag
and they come and they say, here,
cook this and eat this.
Cook it for your family.
If you knew it was stolen,
are you supposed to eat that?
We live
on stolen land.
The government
that we swore allegiance to
has broken
its word and its treaties and its
contracts. Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala tells us over
and over and over again
that we have to uphold our word and
our contracts and our covenants.
So one of the things that we can
bring to this country,
if we take the time to study our
history,
to study it
and understand it and know who our neighbor
is and what is this whole
Why are these people
so upset?
Why are there first nation people who are
blocking the train tracks?
It's not We shouldn't just say it's so
inconvenient. I can't get to where I'm going.
We should know why.
Why
why have they gotten to the point where
they have to do that? Because they've been
ignored, because they've been they've asked nicely,
because they've tried to have their rights, and
they're still not getting them.
Then, we say, you know what? We can
empathize.
Muslims
had their land colonized by the same people,
French and British colonists. North
Africa by the French,
Libya by the Italians,
all of,
the Indian subcontinent,
by the British.
We could go on and on and on.
Correct?
How many of you have come from colonized
countries? Countries that were colonized.
You or your parents or your grandparents came
from countries that were colonized by Europeans.
Now, mostly they're gone,
right?
Thank God. After a lot of struggle, a
lot of work, mostly they're gone.
And where Muslims
were not able
to get rid of a colonizing power, like
for example, in Spain and Andalus,
they had some place to go.
So when Ferdinand and Isabella, the Catholic kings,
came
and took over the rest
of the Muslim lands in Spain,
and then when all of the people with
Muslim ancestry were expelled from Spain by Philip
the 6th, they had somewhere to go. They
had Muslim lands to go to. They went
to
North Africa. They went to Egypt. They went
to Turkey.
As Muslims, we have a global community.
Until today, there are Muslims who whose ancestors
were Spanish Muslims, who are living in Tunisia,
Morocco,
etcetera.
The aboriginal people here never got rid of
the English and the French.
They're still here.
They made this country.
The the name of the original people. That's
the name that the original people had for
this land.
Toronto.
Does it sound like an English word?
Ottawa,
Mississauga.
Look at the names of the places where
you live. You're gonna see those names belong
to the people who lived here before the
European colonists came.
They were not able to get rid of
the co the colonialists.
They had to find some way
to survive them
to survive them. And
then we came
and many other
immigrants. My ancestors came from
but they also came from Germany and from,
Scandinavia.
So we came and we my ancestors benefited
from this.
I grew up in a place.
My summers were spent digging
in the ground for
Indian arrowheads
and artifacts.
And one day I thought to myself, what
happened to the people
who use those arrows
and left those things here? I wonder where
they are.
Where'd they go? Where do they live now
if this is our land?
And so this is to say that to
be a Canadian Muslim
means that we have to know our history,
we have to know
the legal origin of this place,
and we have to take our story of
struggle
and be in solidarity with the people who
continue to struggle.
To not
simply enjoy
stolen goods, but to participate
in the development of a society that's fair
and just for everyone,
not just for us, not just to look
for our rights.
And that is what it means
to be
You know, I I know many people think,
well, to be a Canadian means you wave
the flag. You sing the song. You make
the These are all external symbols of nationalism.
These are these are superficial.
To be a citizen of a country means
that you care about the people in that
country.
You want them to be safe, secure,
healthy, and happy. It means that you love
for your brother what you love for yourself,
which is the teaching of the prophet Muhammad
sallallahu alaihi wa sallam.
But more than that, it means that you
care about your neighbor,
and you can do that anywhere. It doesn't
matter if you're a citizen of Canada.
It doesn't matter if you're a permanent resident.
It doesn't matter you've you're only here
for a 3 year,
student
visa.
When you live in a place
as a Muslim,
no matter what your legal status or citizenship
secure,
and fulfilled, and not oppressed. And it also
means you take care
of what we have in common.
The the goods that we hold in common,
and what is that? Water,
land, air,
the things that no one should own,
but we all have to take care of
together if we're going to enjoy them.
Right?
And so,
in one way,
we don't need to know that much.
It's good to learn a lot. It's you
will feel so much more a part of
this country if you understand the history, because
you'll understand that
to be a Canadian, it doesn't mean you
have to become
white Anglo Saxon Protestant.
Because you know what? There's another model. There's
French Catholic. There's another model. There's
100 of
first nation or aboriginal people in this country.
And you know what? There's other models as
well.
All sorts of other people. So you don't
have to fit into
one community.
We can be our own community and fit
in this picture.
Don't force yourself into one or another, but
also don't draw away.
The reason we can't draw away, and I'll
close with this
because I've been asked to, to finish,
is that
we have
obligations
to the people around us.
The prophet Muhammad
said none of you believes
who goes to bed while his neighbor is
hungry. You say, who's hungry in this country?
Who's hungry? This is the land of plenty.
People aren't hungry compared to people in India
or,
you know, other countries, but that's not true.
There are some people who are hungry.
There are some people who are malnourished.
Sometimes it's out of neglect.
There have been some terrible stories in the
news lately
about children who are neglected by their parents.
You say, well, that's their parents'
responsibility. No. It's our collective
obligation to make sure all children are cared
for.
So feeding someone
may not even mean directly giving food, although
that's important, and I know that's something that
your community does. May Allah
reward you. But it also means making
sure that we reach out and we know
our neighbors and we're aware
and participate in social services
that mean that the most vulnerable are protected.
But none of you
is a believer who goes to sleep
while your neighbor
is hungry.
Also, when we get the news that came
out recently that the Canadian government
conducted
experiments,
nutrition
experiments
on native Canadian children who were forced into
residential schools.
Some of them are living today.
Some of those people who were children are
in their sixties today,
and they were deliberately
withheld
food as children to experiment on them to
see what would be the result of malnutrition.
Those are some of the people who you
might find wandering the streets of downtown Toronto.
That that experience
traumatized them so much
that for the rest of their life, they
weren't able to function in society.
Maybe they turned to alcohol or drugs
to dull the pain.
So when we see those faces,
we have to remember that story and we
say, these are our neighbors
who are government
starved,
and that child is still in them, which
is why this person is still
in so much pain.
So we need to just be aware,
and
I know that this is a community that
has a great deal of
kindness and compassion,
And that is what it means really
to be a Canadian Muslim
is that you care about your neighbors.
You don't have to look a certain way.
You don't have to join this club or
that club, but that you care about the
people around you. You care for their welfare,
and you want something good for them, and
you want to contribute
to all of the things that will continue
to make the country better and better in
a place where more people
are
given their rights
and all of the things that they, their
basic needs.
With that, I'm going to conclude and we're
going to have some time, I think, for
question and answer discussion after this. Alhamdulillahrubalalamin.
Now is a chance for you to write
down some questions now that we're done. There
are gonna be some volunteers coming about. I
don't know if they've already announced this, but
they'll be having papers and pens. So if
you have any questions, please feel free to
write them down and pass them to a
volunteer.
We do have some more questions and yay,
they're right here. So they are back. I'm
gonna pass the stand over to Sanaa Samdani.
Assalamualaikum.
Just to reiterate again, if you have any
questions, our volunteers will be circulating
around with pen and paper. So please, raise
up your hand and we'll take your question.
Inshallah, doctor Ingrid Mattson will be answering all
of the questions.
I'll give people another
another minute just to
talk about what questions you want to send
up, and then we'll,
quiet down and I'll
begin discussing some of the,
points that have have been sent up here.
Okay. Bismillah.
The first,
question I'd like to address is is this,
the question is,
is seeking obligatory?
Islamic studies not dunya,
and what is the ruling on women who
wish who wish to seek Islamic knowledge?
Of course, every adult Muslim
needs
to,
know the basics of their religion, what we
believe
and how to perform acts of worship,
But this separation
between
so called Islamic knowledge and Dunya knowledge is
artificial,
because,
we need to know how to be a
Muslim
in the world,
not just in the Masjid.
And what I mean by that is,
how can you know
what is the Islamic position
on an issue if you don't know the
context that you live in? And let's give
a a basic example that everyone deals with,
what we eat.
Right?
So if we want to have Islamic knowledge
about
what food we should or should not eat,
we can't only know that it's haram to
eat pork, it's haram to eat blood,
and that
animals need to be slaughtered in a certain
way.
We need to know
how are animals
raised in Canada
and what is the practice of slaughtering here
and what other factors
contribute
to the health
or abuse of animals in this country.
So there needs to be
no information
so that we can apply the right Islamic
ruling to the right topic.
What I want to say is that, as
that, as a Muslim, you are required
to know
what is if there's a religious
teaching on on anything that you do.
How you get that information
will depend on what the issue is.
Some issues will be highly
technical and specialized,
And so for those issues, you will rely
on trusted experts.
So for example,
if you want to understand something
about,
finance
and what kind of investments
are lawful to you,
that's a very technical and specialized
field.
And every Muslim is not going to become
an expert on that. It would be impossible,
but you need to at least know
that Islam has a position on this, and
you need to seek
trusted experts
who can guide you to that information.
Now,
what that means
is that in a country like Canada,
you are going to have to do much
more study
than you would in a Muslim majority country,
because
the public policies of a country
are not being determined
by
Muslim scholars and experts and professionals.
So, for example,
say you are a medical doctor.
This is what you do
40, 50, 60, 70, 80 hours a week.
You are putting all of this time,
most of your life
into
treating people.
You are required as a Muslim medical doctor
to know
the Islamic teachings on medical ethics.
Now, an ordinary mus a Muslim who,
is
a, say,
elementary school teacher doesn't need to know all
of those rulings because it's not relevant to
him or her.
But you need to know the rulings
on your profession,
on your interactions,
on the money that you pay out, the
money that you take in.
So there is more study that's required.
For many of us, we think Islamic knowledges,
we go to a halakha,
and we sit and we listen to tafsir
of Quran and we listen to,
Hadith,
collection Hadith collections being recited
and maybe some book of.
Right?
And all of that is part of Islamic
knowledge, but it's not enough for a Muslim
in Canada.
If you're a Muslim in Canada, you need
to know what are the rulings
on your everyday life.
For example,
if you're a taxi driver,
and I use this example because we've had
a few situations where this has been problematic
for Muslims in the United States. I don't
know if the same thing has happened in
Canada.
If you're a Muslim taxi driver,
are you allowed
to transport
someone with a dog in your car?
We've had we had Muslims who lost their
licenses because they thought it was Haram
for them to transport a person who had
a dog in their taxi,
and they got no guidance
from the leadership in their community on this.
This is an Islamic issue
that needs to be discussed.
So as a Muslim,
we need to understand
those issues
that that we are confronted with.
That is Islamic knowledge.
Okay?
It is also Islamic knowledge. As I said,
if we are
part of this country, if we are voting
in elections, we're making an oath of allegiance,
we're benefiting from
the land, we're drinking the water,
we need to understand what our treaty obligations
are to the people
of the treaties, who we made treaties with,
who our government made treaties on our behalf,
which means that when the government
of,
the federal government, prime minister Steven Harper,
is having an argument
with,
Chief Teresa
Spence
from Northern Ontario when they're having a disagreement.
We need to know something about that. That
is actually part of our Islamic obligation is
to understand
that we're required to fulfill our treaties and
treaties that are made on our behalf.
Now, when it comes to women seeking Islamic
knowledge, I'm not quite sure what the question
here is. Of course,
women like men are are
equally,
as adults, responsible for our actions, for our
money,
for our activities,
for our obligations.
It can be challenging, however,
in many Muslim communities for women to have
access
to the information they need.
This is one of the reasons why the
community has to be very thoughtful about how
the teaching happens.
In some in some communities, in some masajid,
for example,
the imam or someone else
will
will start a holakah
after salah,
And
they might sit continue to sit at the
front of the mulsallah
and teach, which means that it is very
difficult,
sometimes impossible for women to to listen to
that
and to participate in it.
It's one of the reasons why traditionally
in,
in Islamic education,
the halakah or the study circle was not
given at the front of the masjid. It
was given at the side. So the Kursi,
the chair for the teacher who was who
was giving the the halaka
was along the side,
not at the front, where the mihrab and
the minbar
of the khatib is.
And you can go to historical Masajid and
still until today, find that
that high that the teacher would teach on.
And by the way,
there were also women who taught from those
courses.
The person who has documented this is,
Muhammad Akram Nadawi,
who's a great scholar, a scholar of Hadith.
And he, he, you could read some of
his information
about this
in his
excellent book, Masha'Allah, that's called,
and Muhad Dithat,
the women,
scholars
of Islam or of Hadith.
I highly recommend it. Nadwi, n a d
w I. There's many other,
as well.
Another question,
I'd like to address, the second one is
my opinion on what's going on in Quebec
regarding the ban on
religious
items.
Of course, this is very distressing and it's
very distressing not only to Muslims,
but to,
all sorts of religious people.
I think it's we don't have enough time
to really get into the history
of of why this has happened,
but what I wanna say to Muslims is
we shouldn't take it personally
because it's not just about Islam or about
Muslims or about women in hijab.
The
the the party who proposed this is a
French separatist
movement
who are who have been advocating that the
French people form their own country and break
away from the English.
Okay?
So part of this is political. It's to
create an atmosphere
of of antagonism
between Quebec and the rest of the country.
So there's a deliberate strategy there that we
have to understand is beneath
what just seems to be pure prejudice.
There's a lot of ignorance
and, of course, I don't know how many
of you know that the Ontario Parliament,
the Ontario legislature
this week
passed,
passed a statement saying that Ontario will never
ban
religious dress or symbols
as a kind of strong statement opposing what
Quebec has done.
And so
we we shouldn't only, of course, it's the
bad stories that we remember. Human beings are
made that way. Our mind works to remember
the scarier frightening things
because that's a survival mechanism. If you remember
the scarier frightening things, that that will make
you be aware of the threats,
but we have to make sure we balance
them with the reality.
The rest of Canada,
it completely rejects this.
Western Canada is putting out advertisements,
for people who wear religious dress saying, welcome.
We'd love you to come here.
And if you if you want to feel
very good about,
about Canada and also
about Canada and also about most,
you know, the, the, the, the educated and
ethical people
in Quebec,
please go online and look at the video
of,
Maria
Maroney.
Is that her name?
Who's What's her last name?
Maroney, right?
She is an,
a member of parliament
who resigned from the block or she was
kicked out of the block Quebecois
because she opposed this. There's a beautiful,
interview with her where she gave her statement
and then she she has,
is at a press conference.
And she talks about
why she rejects this,
the problem with it and she says, she
says things like, you know,
really I want you to listen to it
because you will feel so good about being
a Canadian when you hear. You will feel
so good and you'll feel good even about
about Quebecers
because many of them support this, especially those
who understand. She said
she said many people say to me and
she is someone who who immigrated,
who came to Canada with her family,
and she is Catholic and she wears a
cross around her neck.
She says,
many peep many Quebecers say to me, oh,
you're good because you're assimilated. Look at you.
You know, because of the way she dresses.
And she said, no. She said
she said, I've experienced prejudice too.
People have said ignorant things to me, and
yes, I'm good, but they're good too.
All those people who you say are bad,
they're good too,
and I work with them and we work
together every day. So please listen listen to
her. You will feel much better. This will
we'll get through this.
Don't take it personally. Don't take it on.
It's just about Muslims. Yes. There are some
people who are prejudiced against Muslims, but believe
me, they hate lots of other people
too. Believe me, they have a lot of
hate to give.
Like, you have a lot of love to
give, they have a lot of hate to
give.
And there are other people who they they
put it on
in addition to us. So don't don't feel
bad.
Here's a question.
What are the mental roadblocks
that prevent the Muslim community
from being
important?
No,
important,
I think,
in contemporary society.
Well, I think,
overall, Muslims in Canada are doing very well.
I mean, we have Muslims who are contributing
to all different aspects of Canadian society.
We have
Muslim doctors
and lawyers.
We have Muslims in politics.
We have Muslims who are artists and creative
people.
We have Muslims who are teachers and nurses,
social workers, counselors, and the police.
But clearly, there's an impression,
that there that there is an obstacle.
And I find it interesting that the person
who wrote this said a mental roadblock.
And sometimes
sometimes
we
it is our perception of ourself
that really is the obstacle,
that we
we feel
hurt.
We've had some negative experiences,
and it makes us feel alienated from society.
We don't want to keep getting
having dumb things said to us.
You know, if not racist,
explicitly
racist, but at least stupid, like, are you
looking for the ESL classes? Okay? It's annoying.
You know, do you speak English?
Said in a loud voice, you know, assuming
that you're
you must not speak English
even if your grandparents were born here.
It can be
annoying,
but
what can we do to stop that from
becoming,
inhibiting us,
making us
want to withdraw?
Well, there's a number of strategies.
One of them is, first, just to be
to sit back and think,
let's compare the number of negative experiences today
I've had with positive.
How many people,
you know,
treated me like a normal person,
neither better nor worse than anyone else?
You know, we have to put it in
perspective.
We need to put it in perspective.
And then second,
we need to help educate people,
and this is why it's so important for
communities
like ours
to open our doors to neighbors,
to have
opportunities
for the people
in our community who are not Muslim to
ask some questions about our faith, about our
practice, so they understand
better why we do things,
so they get to know us.
Study after study after study has shown that
prejudice
and fear of Muslims decreases
when,
non Muslims
know a Muslim, become a friend or have
a neighbor who's a Muslim, Muslim, a neighbor
who interacts with them, not a neighbor who
closes the blind and stays in their house
all the time and doesn't say anything to
the neighbor, someone who interacts.
So we need to get out there.
Now,
I would say that
we need to pay special attention, however, to
young people because
when you're an adult
and you've formed your identity, you have a
certain amount of you have history, you have
confidence, you have resilience, you have strength,
But our young people, as they're as they're
forming, as they're growing up, and as they're
experimenting with how they're gonna be in the
world,
negative experiences can impact them more
profoundly,
and they can they can hurt them,
and it can distort their growth.
And so
I believe that it is in our age
imperative
for every community
to have an experienced
youth worker.
Someone who's experienced
with,
who's been trained professionally
as a counselor or social worker
who works with the youth in our community.
Because even if we want to,
you know, if we've created a very nice
environment here, the reality is that the youth
are hearing a lot of things about Muslims
that are so problematic.
Do a Google search
or a Wikipedia
search or go to Amazon
dotca
and see what are the best selling books
about Islam and Muslims.
See what these,
Wikipedia
says about different Islamic topics,
see what happens with a Google search. You'll
see so much negative information.
Very disgusting,
horrible,
websites and attacks on Muslims.
And that's where our youth go first for
their information to the Internet.
Everyone Googles
things. That's the first thing they do, even
about their religion,
And then images that come on TV.
So this is extremely detrimental to young people,
and it needs an organized
professional effort
to deal with this situation.
It is not enough to do a little
program here and there to
little some friends,
but there needs to be there needs to
be direct effort
specifically focused on this.
Someone who who can help discuss with them
these challenges, these stresses, so they don't
so that mental blocks are not formed.
And I would say it's the most critical
need of our time.
I would say it's more critical than building
buildings.
It's more critical than, you know, look at
the budget of your Islamic Center. I have
no idea what's in your budget, where your
biggest expenditure are,
but I would give up just about everything
to be able to have,
a full time, 1 or more full time
people, professionally trained people working with the youth
of our community.
Because if
not, the time we live in today,
I'm afraid,
is is having such a negative impact, and
we've seen many studies of this, unfortunately,
on their mental health
and then their spiritual and emotion most emotional
health. So may Allah
give us the wisdom
and the insight and the courage and the
faith
to continue to support each other and make
a community that's loving and caring
and that that is attentive to where we
are and who's with us, so that we
can continue to grow, so that
all of the blessings that we have, our
children and their children enjoy,
enjoy these blessings,
the
the meaning that it gives us, the awareness
of our creator of Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.
May Allah bless you
for,
for inviting me here today. Salaam
alaikum.
Could we have a Takbeer?
Takbeer.
Takbeer.
Takbeer.
Doctor Ingrid, it was a pleasure having you.
Just a reminder, she came all the way
from London to share her time with us,
and much of what she has said has
struck a struck a chord with us, in
fact.
So,
and
thank you in true Canadian
Muslim style. I like to present some gifts,
1 from Penwalk and Bihari Kebab,
and the other is from IFT.
Just another announcement because, unfortunately, we don't we
didn't have much time to get through all
of the questions. We still are holding on
to the rest of the questions and doctor
Ingrid Monson
might be available to answer them at a
later time Insha'Allah.
You may also send these questions to
the IFT or the next speaker, Insha'Allah.
For now, we're going to wait until Isha
time, which will be soon.
After Isha, we have our brothers and sisters
exclusive sessions.
The brothers session will be running from after
Isha until midnight. There will be a nasiha
session
and basketball, and the sisters will have their
nasiha session and karate with sister Rihanna Dawood.
So stay tuned, please.