Jeffrey Lang – Not Without My Children 275
AI: Summary ©
The speakers emphasize the importance of finding their place in the Muslim community to bring their children and their family with them, struggling with violence and fear, including the belief that all human beings are after money, power, greed, selfishness, lust, and material benefits. They also discuss their experiences with violence and fear, including the desire to save people and the respect they had for people from different cultures. The speakers emphasize the importance of learning and finding a way to live a healthy life, education for children, finding a culture of the mother-about-the-wife, and bringing out issues to separate women and being a silent majority. They also mention a book and a social event happening at the conference.
AI: Summary ©
Cultural problems.
My
endeavor has been to
find my place
in the Muslim community
to bring my children and my family with
me.
So I told them a good title would
be
for that, not without my children.
Reminded me somehow of the same.
When, brother Hannah asked me to give my
state of the convert address, he asked me
to give one of these just about every
year.
I told him, Hamlet,
I'm tired of giving speeches.
I don't wanna give any more speeches. Just
let me crawl into my corner. Let me
just be a regular everyday Muslim. I'm I'm
through giving speeches.
He said, well, you know, people are interested
in what you have to say, etcetera etcetera.
I said, why?
I mean I am
Compared to all the rest of the Muslims
in our community, I am definitely a square
peg.
I mean my point of view has to
be the probably the most peculiar,
most singular point of view of every any
muslim in the community.
Just to explain to you why I say
that. Almost everybody reacts that way anyway. Once
I was interviewing for a job in Saudi
Arabia.
I just wanted to go there for a
year, take a year's leave, leave the University
of Kansas, teach in Bahrain and UPM for
a year.
And I was discussing this with the Dean
of, UPM, University of Petroleum and Minerals,
down in not too far from here, down
in
Texas, Houston Texas.
And I walked in, I showed him my
resume, you have to put down your family
background, your wife's background, etcetera, etcetera, how many
children you have, your religion, etcetera,
Your education. He's looking at my application, and
I'm sitting there in front of him.
He's looking at it again. He starts looking
at it kind of funny. He looks at
me, he looks at that.
Now I'm looking at him wondering what's going
on
here? He said what's the matter?
And I said I should be asking you.
You you look very surprised.
He said, well what do you think?
How many times do you think I interview
people like you?
He said, blonde hair blue eyes,
American,
professor,
a Muslim,
married to a lady from Saudi Arabia.
He said, I don't think there's another person
that fits that description anywhere in the world.
And that sort
of, presents my dilemma. I mean my circumstances
are so vastly different than my perspective than
from almost any member of our community.
That
I feel that, you know, the problems that
I face,
the issues that concern me,
the dilemmas that I try to tackle, my
personal struggle is so very different from most
of the other muslims.
That what difference does it make whether,
you know, we know of that or not.
Because it really doesn't fit into the general
pattern.
But nonetheless, brother Hamid told me that,
it would not be a bad idea and
hopefully in the effort to serve our community
and to serve God, here I stand today.
Hopefully, I keep telling Hamid for the last
time.
I just wanna go back and write.
I don't like talking so much.
Especially since I ramble so much. I'm a
rambling sort of speaker.
Well,
so let me begin.
I guess if I had to characterize my
childhood, and I'll try to sum this up
fairly quickly,
in 2 words, if I was only allowed
2 words to recall my childhood,
the 2 words I would use would be
number 1, fear,
and number 2,
violence.
Because
when I think back on those days when
I was growing up,
those were the most powerful
feelings
that I was experiencing.
For one thing those were just turbulent times
in America. The late sixties and early seventies.
We had race riots.
We had a president killed.
We had presidential candidates killed.
We had presidential
president kicked from office, a vice president kicked
from office, Martin Luther King got assassinated.
This country seemed like it was going bananas.
We had underground
terrorist
groups, I can't remember their names now, but
the one that captured Patty Hearst, the SLA,
I think it was called or something like
that. Symbiote
Symbiote Symbiote Liberation
Army. We had the Black Panthers. I remember
that. I remember we had the weatherman. They
were planning bombs. They were capturing buildings. People
are being killed.
In city streets like mine, we had burnings
and lootings and race riots and gang fights.
The name of my gang, the gang I
was associated with is called the TC gang,
stands for Telephone Company.
We used to fight, we used to hang
around down by the telephone company, and we
would fight other gangs and people would get
hurt. A couple of people got killed, some
got in prison,
but they were just extremely
violent times. And of course, we always had
the specter of the Vietnam War before us
every night on television.
The endless body kind counts night after night,
100 on each side getting killed, body bags
taking our young men home.
And I was getting ever closer to that
age when I would have to be drafted
into the Vietnam
conflict.
So, I mean, life was just extremely violent,
and it was extremely chaotic time in America.
But the worst violence and the worst fear
I knew
by far, and I won't go into detail,
was the violence and the fear I knew
at home.
In some ways that violence and that fear
was so much worse because it penetrated so
much more deeply and it left scars
that seems so much more permanent than the
type of violence and fear that we were
facing in our society.
In any case, I guess I obtained a
very jaded and pessimistic and cynical view of
life.
I thought life was nothing but suffering and
torment and struggle.
I came to
hate
so many things.
I came to even hate the virtues when
people talked about love,
compassion,
mercy, forgiveness
and all the rest of the virtues. Generosity,
I thought those are just the fictitious fabrications
of our minds.
Something that we just invent
to give
ourselves some legitimacy,
when actually all human beings are after is
money,
power,
greed, selfishness,
lust,
their own material benefits. We're all struggling to
survive
and we're all beating each other to the
to the
whatever we're searching for, whatever we're after.
And I thought all those things, love, compassion,
they just don't really exist. We just make
them up in our mind.
Got to the stage when I couldn't even
say love.
Oh, I would say it to a girlfriend
or 2 over the years or, you know,
to someone else if I felt a relative,
if I I had to, but I certainly
didn't feel it. I just felt that it
was the thing to do at that time,
the expected thing.
I came not to trust anyone
and not to care about anyone.
I just wanted to get through this life
and get it over with, and if it
got too difficult along the way, I thought
I'd pull the plug.
I didn't trust anybody
except well, there was one exception.
And of course, that was my my mother.
Because of all the people I ever knew,
that was the only person that I knew
that I could count on.
That would stick by me through thick or
thin that was always there.
My mother was a very special woman.
She was a strong woman. She was a
loving woman. She was a gentle woman.
And she was a religious woman.
I didn't believe in her religion. I came
to became an atheist,
but I felt a little bit envious of
her because I felt she was one of
those few
deluded people that actually believed
in these religions that we fabricated.
Believed in it so strongly that it actually
affected the type of person she was and
how it she related to other people. And
I wish,
I used to wish that I could brainwash
myself into accepting
those teachings,
but I couldn't.
I saw too much violence in the world
around me. I saw too much suffering in
my life and in so many other lives.
And I thought how can all merciful, all
loving,
all powerful God, who had the ability to
pop us into heaven,
who had the ability to create angels, but
yet who created us.
How can he create such a flawed
creature,
such a corrupted creature and then put him
in an environment where he could wreak such
destruction and suffering like he does here on
earth?
Why didn't he just pop us into heaven
in the first place?
They used to tell me, he wants to
save you. He wants to save you. Just
do this, he will save you. I used
to say, well let him save me now
for God's sakes.
Here I am.
I didn't put myself in this predicament.
Why am I here?
So I became a very strong
and committed atheist.
But nonetheless, my the religiosity of my mother
I think did affect me. And I was
always impressed
by religious people, the few I really met
in life, the few I ever really felt
were religious.
But I was always also quite interested in
the religions of others. I don't know. It
was a fascination, and when I think about
why I was always fascinated about that, I
think it goes back to just
And whenever I study another religion, I'd always
think of my mother and mine and how
that its universal teachings were reflected in the
way she lived.
I looked at Eastern religions, Buddhism,
Hinduism,
Taoism,
Confucianism.
Hare Krishnas I thought about for a while,
but that seemed too too weird, strange for
me.
But I looked at them.
And the one and one thing I did
was also converse quite a bit. Studied those
religions and converse quite a bit with people
from those religions. And I found that when
I conversed with various Muslim students, not Muslim
students, students from all over the world and
met students from various backgrounds, I felt that
the students from the Far Eastern religions, the
ones I just mentioned, although they didn't have
many answers and and although they often confessed
that they didn't couldn't deal much with the
type of questions I had,
the ambiguity, the uncertainty of their responses,
their own self doubts, made me at least
appreciate and respect their point of view.
Sometimes not having an answer is better than
giving a foolish answer.
And so rather than try to answer my
questions,
they would simply express their point of view,
what they believe, without trying to really approach
the type of questions that I had. And
I sort of appreciated it and respected it.
It didn't compel me to believe in their
systems because they didn't answer my needs and
my questions. But nonetheless, I developed a healthy
respect for them and appreciated their systems of
thought.
The one exception of course were the Muslims.
Unlike all those people I've just mentioned, the
Muslims seem to have many many answers. Anytime
you ask them a question, they always seem
to shoot out an answer. And although they
had many many answers, I could never relate
to them.
I found that of all the people that
I discussed religion with, they by far, at
least from my Western standpoint, made the least
sense.
I'm not saying they do make the least
sense, but from somebody from my type of
background, and my upbringing, and my past,
it's extremely difficult to relate to. Often times
I found their answers strange and absurd.
I found that we would get into
roadblocks time and time again, get caught into
corners that we couldn't get out.
After so many conversations with Muslims, that was
the only religion I never explored
beyond
the level of conversation, because it just seemed
to me to be so
filled with so many contradictions,
filled with so many problems
that I just
couldn't take it seriously. So I pretty
much
ignored
it.
I graduated, got my PhD, went to California
to teach at the University of San Francisco.
Fell in with some very nice Muslim friends.
And to tell you the truth, the one
thing I have to say for Muslims,
and I'm not I didn't say what I
just said to put down. I'm not saying
they don't make sense, they just didn't make
sense to me.
The one thing I really appreciated about them
was their kindness.
Of all the people in the world, I
really found that the Muslims were, at least
the ones I met, truly kind,
generous,
hospitable people.
There was something about them that attracted to
me to
them. Some sense I think it was almost
like their innocence, their
naivety.
Now other people, when I spoke to them,
seemed to understand the questions I was asking
and the difficulties involved. The Muslims didn't.
There was sort of a naive, almost childlike
quality about them. Like they were unaware of
any difficulties with life. They just lived it
and went along and got by and enjoyed
it. They had a very positive attitude towards
life. Not this brooding pessimism that we have
so much in the west.
It was attractive to me.
I found it quite
quite attractive, quite interesting
and I enjoyed their company.
I tried to avoid asking too many questions.
I didn't want it to ruin our friendships,
but finally with 1 Muslim family one night,
we got into a real
deep discussion.
And I told them about my problems with
life, told them the problems with human suffering,
told them about my problems with the idea
of God. They asked me why I was
an atheist, so I explained it. We'd get
into discussions, they would go nowhere, go down
this alley, it'd get trapped, go down this
one, get it run into another trap.
Finally, the next day, one of them brought
me a copy of the Quran
to my office at the University of San
Francisco, put it on my desk.
I looked at it,
and then I got this.
I was told this,
you know, I can't ask answer your questions.
Personally, I've never even thought about them.
As a matter of fact, I don't think
any of us ever really thought about.
But I do know this, if there is
at all an answer somewhere to the type
of questions you have, I know and you
have any chance at all of finding it.
I know you will find it here.
And I looked and I I just sort
of shook my head,
and,
he told me, please please
read it.
I said, okay. Okay. I'll look at it.
No. No. Make sure you read it.
Because if I know one thing, us,
you're suffering.
And you're confused
and you're torment.
And if you had any hope at all,
I think you have it here.
And I didn't know whether to be grateful
or to be angry.
I didn't know whether to be moved
or to punch
this person.
I don't know if I was insulted or
somebody was reaching out to me.
But in any case,
I thought to myself, if the time comes,
I'll look at it someday.
I don't know what spurred me on, but
a few weeks later I did look at
the Quran. As I was picking it up,
I was thought, what a strange idea.
To hand somebody a copy of your scripture
and say this is the way you're gonna
learn about my religion.
I mean, think about it.
I mean, would a Hindu or a Buddhist
hand you a copy of one of their
scriptures just give you the scripture
and say here,
this will answer all your questions.
I I doubt it because when you think
about the scriptures of other cultures,
they're so culturally
fixed.
They so much reflect the culture from which
they came.
The language, the logic, which it might not
be Aristotle's logic, which we sort of inherit
in the west.
The logic, the terminology,
the language, the experience behind it, is so
foreign to you, if you come from the
west, that the worst thing you could do
is hand somebody a scripture
from that culture.
I mean, could you imagine if you pulled
somebody from China?
This is a true story. Somebody from China
was given a copy of the new testament.
The Christians said, Read this please, and you'll
understand the truth.
The guy did, go ahead and read it.
He read about 50, 60 pages into it.
Then one night at a dinner in, at
the university when the different foreign students were
together, all these Chinese students were laughing over
at another table. What were they laughing about?
The scripture, the new testament they just read.
They thought it was laughable.
Because they couldn't relate to it. It was
so strange to them. A whole different perspective.
I thought, what a strange idea to hand
somebody a copy of the Quran and expect
him from the west to relate to this
document, I thought. From the middle east. 1400
years ago.
And yet, when I picked up the Quran,
I felt like somebody had written this
for me,
to me.
You know, every generation of Muslims
has felt that
Quran was particularly suited to the mentality of
its time.
And if you read the main scholars, they
could always tell you how this Quran is
particularly suited to the situation and the mentality
of
the people of their time. We will find
that Western converts to Islam are no different.
How many of us
read the Quran
and didn't have any trouble relating to it
at all? Thought that it was particularly suited
to our mentality.
You know when you read the Quran for
the first time, it's a strange experience.
It's like a it's not like you're just
reading, it's like you're
communicating
with the divine word. It's like you're having
a veritable dialogue with the Quran.
It seems to anticipate your moods, your situation,
your anxieties, your fears, your problems, and start
addressing those right away. And then you start
reacting to the verses, and then the next
verses seem to pick up your train of
thought, and then you start reacting to those,
and the next verses seem to anticipate your
reaction, and keep taking you along, as if
the author somehow knew the direction you would
go.
Page by page, line by line, the Quran
seems to be anticipating the direction you're going
and responding to that and taking you in
a certain direction.
It's almost impossible for me to describe how
others have felt that communication from outside my
culture. But for those of us who have
become Muslim, through the reading through our reading
of the Quran,
That was a dialogue,
that was a communication
that takes place at the deepest level of
being. Deepest truest level of being.
It's a communication from what from the very
essence of what we are. A communication of
attributes,
of love, mercy, compassion,
forgiveness,
kindness, wisdom.
Meeting together,
perfect and imperfect.
Human and divine.
Creating and
created, giving and receiving
of God and man coming together
in a terrific and tremendous and powerful encounter
when one reads the Quran.
How many of us
who read it for the first time when
we were adults as Americans,
recall that experience?
What's the first question you have when you
pick up a scripture?
Well,
what's it gonna guide me towards? The Quran
promises you in the first Surah that'll guide
you. Whatever is your need, it will guide
you. How will it guide you? You open
up the 2nd Surah. Alif Lam Meem. This
is the book we're in, no doubt. It's
the guidance for those who just made that
prayer.
Alright?
Who made Al Fatihah, a prayer for guidance.
And then as you read on, what's the
first question that every westerner has in his
mind? What's the purpose of life? Why are
we here? Why is there suffering? How many
of your friends that are agnostics or atheists
have put that question to you?
And the Quran very quickly takes it up.
Quran,
in the most dramatic way takes it up.
It has the angels, the angels in heaven,
ask their creator,
why create this corrupt
being
who will spread violence and shed blood?
Why?
When you could create us.
It's the western dilemma put before
the reader in the most dramatic way,
in the most beautiful and concise way. Out
of the mouth of the angels comes the
atheist objection.
And then the Quran begins to give you
an answer.
Piece by piece, verse by verse, an answer
begins to unfold
and the Quran will guide it to you.
Guide you to it, if that's what you
seek. In the first sore second sura, sura
al bakara, it doesn't complete the answer. Doesn't
take you to the end of that journey,
but it begins it. It gives you enough
to get to capture your attention.
To excite your intrigue.
But the Quran never gives you a complete
and full discourse just, you know, I think
it's as if I was writing a thesis.
It interweaves its themes
because all these things the Quran is telling
us are connected.
You can't you don't separate them out and
dissect them and to put them up with
this one over here and this theme over
here. They're all interconnected and interrelated. So throughout
it, it's interrelating its theme.
Okay. So you get something of an idea.
The Quran has sort of captured your attention
on those ultimate questions that so many of
us have.
And then you read on, and some ideas
naturally pop into your head. Okay. I've just
heard about the story of Adam.
What's the natural question?
It's
Starts talking about the children of Israel,
their history.
And then the people of the book, the
communities that evolved from all that, the 2
major communities that evolved from that. Then it
talks about prophet Ibrahim
and his son Ishmael, and the establishment of
the Kaaba, and how that's the pure faith,
the true faith that all prophets preached, and
that Islam is the restoration
of that
true pure faith.
Puts it all in perspective.
The very question you an an one of
us,
Americans would naturally have.
And then we would naturally ask, once we
get that general idea, well, let me see
now. What about all those things I hear
in the news? The treatment of women is
Islam. Muslim practices practices, the pilgrimage, etcetera etcetera
etcetera. What about Muslim practices in general?
And the rest of Surah Al Baqarah starts
talking about that.
Men's and women's roles, family's roles, rules and
regulations, fighting in a just cause,
not committing aggression, etcetera etcetera etcetera. There's no
compulsion in religion and on and on.
Alright?
The very
type of things that would naturally come to
a person's mind
when he first approaches this religion are immediately
put forth for him in the second Surah.
By the end of the second Surah, he's
already obtained
a fairly good knowledge of
the direction that Islam takes towards life.
He's obtained a summary knowledge of the faith.
Of course, many questions have arisen. He'd like
to know more, he or she. More details
perhaps.
He'd like to see things elaborated on. The
rest of the Quran will elaborate on those
details.
On those themes.
The second Sura.
The third Sura will talk primarily about the
history of religions.
I don't know, can't remember now. What was
the 3rd section? Al Imran
will talk again about the subject of Islam's
place in the religious history, and also about
fighting an unjust cause. The 4th Surah will
talk largely about women's issues and family's issues.
The 5th Surah will come back to the
question of the people in the book. How
they corrupted the religion and how Islam came
to purify and perfect religion and restore it
to its proper place.
These themes will be interwoven throughout the Quran
as you go deeper and deeper, it'll give
more and more details.
The stories will get lengthened. The stories of
the prophets
will become lengthened.
The parables will grow.
Quran provides more and more parables as you
get to the middle of the Quran.
The style of the Quran, the meter, the
rhythm, the poetic not the poetic, but the
literal beauty of it grows and grows
and and reaps,
starts to obtain a sort of a rhapsodic
quality as you merge to the middle of
the Quran.
It's growing in intensity.
Not just intensity of expression, not just that
it's focusing on many different themes that you
had that it introduced you to in the
first Surah.
Not just because it's starting to concentrate more
and more and more as you go to
it on you and your relationship to god,
and other individuals and their relationship to god.
The human individual and his relationship to God.
The many signs
that manifest God's
creative activity in the universe and nature. The
beautiful and powerful parallels that are coming at
you. But even the music of the Quran,
if you'll allow me, is growing in intensity
and beauty as you move to the middle
of the Quran.
By the time you come to the end
of the Quran,
what do you have there? Now as you
come to the end of the Quran, it
is you, the reader and God
facing each other in the end of the
Quran. It's the reader and his relationship to
God, which is the subject. The rules and
regulations are put back.
We no longer have given any more rules
and regulations.
That's not the concern here.
Now the concern is the choice that ultimately
faces you as you reach the end of
the Quran.
Heaven and * are brought together towards as
you move towards the end of the Quran.
This life and the next life, and their
organic relationship,
Well, this is stressed. The last day and
the last hour.
This this creation and its end. The many
signs of God and how this will all
come to an end. All this, this great
apocalyptic
cataclysm,
all of this is merging together, coming together
and focusing on one supreme single ultimate choice
that the reader must face and the Quran
demands of him. As he moves closer and
closer to the end of the Quran. To
finally, the Quran tells him the word that
his tortured soul longs to say. The Quran
will put in his very heart and try
to connect him and shock him to the
to the deep inner soul of his that's
crying out for what it needs. It'll tell
him, say, he is God, the one and
only, the eternally sought by all. Few verses
later say, I seek protection and believe me,
you feel like you need protection. I seek
protection in the Lord of every new day's
dawn. Say, I seek protection in the Lord
of mankind. As if God is reaching out
from you, from heaven and revealing it to
you in these words that are right before
you. Just say it. It's as if God
is calling out to you. Just say it
and I will come to you. Just say
it and I will comfort you and I
will protect you. Just turn to me and
say it and I will shower you with
my love, mercy, and protection, and you will
experience it to ever greater degrees. Just turn
to me. Just say it.
What time is it? 12/21.
Many
of us
have reached that
point
and I've faced that decision
and stood on that
bridge of indecision.
Have stood on that bridge of indecision between
acceptance and rejection. Between
our worldly needs,
deliberating between our worldly needs and our ultimate
needs.
Many of us have been frozen there.
Not a believer, not a disbeliever anymore, just
suspended
at a point where we just couldn't
make a choice.
Many of us have known the agony of
that indecision.
I've tossed and turned at night looking at
the ceiling, I've thought about our sanity, I've
wondered about our
future,
have been haunted by those verses,
and some of us have stayed with that
agony and then finally walked away and others
who faced those verses,
had faced that Quran,
knew the ecstasy of surrender.
And knew the joy and the peace that
comes with throwing themselves into that ocean of
mercy that could only come from God, of
reaching out with open arms and running to
their creator.
I decided
after I was
struggling with that choice, that I needed to
talk to somebody. So I went to the
Masjid at the University of San Francisco.
I had to prove I told myself I
wasn't going in there to do anything rash,
I was just
going to talk.
And 30 minutes later, I emerged
from the masjid.
And
if I came to realize something very quickly,
Middle Eastern way of thinking and the Western
way of thinking, the Muslim way of thinking,
and the Western way of thinking are
2 different worlds. You often hear an expression
in the West that,
just here's a simple example, that a picture
is worth a 1,000 words.
Well, the ancient Muslim scholars used to say
and Arab
writers used to say that a single word
has tremendous power and is capable of producing
a 1,000 images in men's minds.
So in the west, you see the religious
art, for example, expressed in beautiful,
bold visual imagery.
Well, for the Muslim,
their their most religious art is expressed in
what else?
But words.
Beautiful
letters of Arabic alphabet
and interweaving and beautiful patterns reaching up to
infinity towards the heaven. And if you look
be between be at the beauty very carefully,
if you penetrate through and search for the
inner meaning, for the truth hidden behind the
beauty, there you'll find verses from the Quran
and prayers to God and eternal truths.
Because for the Muslim, this is what life
is all about. It's beautiful and it's dazzling,
but if you penetrate it and look carefully
enough into it,
you will find an inner truth behind
it. This tremendous power of words,
I learned that day I went to the
masjid.
I walked out a half hour later.
I suddenly discovered
just how great a single
word could have
on people.
You see that day I accepted a word
into my life
that
got a tremendous
unexpected reaction from myself.
Somehow, somebody heard about the designation I accepted
and it spread throughout this Catholic University I
was teaching like wildfire.
Everybody knew about it.
The friends I had were suddenly distancing themselves
from me and becoming acquaintances. Acquaintances were now
somewhat like enemies. People were scowling at me
at the halls. People I would say, good
morning to would now just walk straight by.
Students, I mean, they walked down the hall
and hear students saying, he's the one. That's
the one who did it. Yeah. Yeah. Did
you hear about that?
Other students from the Middle East, from Muslim
countries are coming up to me congratulating me
for what? I couldn't figure out why they
were congratulating me left and right. It was
a personal choice, I thought. What does it
have to do with them? But nonetheless, some
in the eyes of some, I was some
sort of hero. In the eyes of others,
I was some sort of traitor to my
country.
My parents, when they heard about the news,
I had to call them. I was a
nervous wreck. I had to tell them what
I did. Just get it over with, I
thought. I called them. My mom exploded. My
dad, of course, he really exploded.
And I'll just,
took me 4 or 5 weeks to tell
them about that my choice was an intelligent
one, an irrational one, as well as spiritual
one, and I think I did a good
job at convincing on that. Of course, you
know that single word that changed me so
dramatically in the eyes of others
was a simple word Muslim.
I took on the word Muslim into my
life. I became a Muslim.
And the strange thing was,
I thought everyone else was going crazy.
I mean, I didn't feel like I changed,
I was the same old person I always
was, Jeff Lang. I'm teaching my classes, I
don't feel any different. I didn't suddenly
still had so Still had so many weaknesses,
so many insecurities, so many scars from my
past. I wasn't any different.
And for now, everybody was reacting as if
in a single half hour, I had suddenly
become something I never was.
They all thought I was going berserk. I
thought all they all of them were.
But over the months I thought back on
it and I tried to think, well,
I mean can 60,000,000 Frenchmen be wrong? I
mean, if everyone sees you as somehow dramatically
different, maybe you did change in some way,
just you weren't conscious of it.
So I tried to review. What happened? What
did I do? In what way did I
change? Did I change? Did anything really change
in my life?
And the only thing I could think of
was for the first time in my life,
through the reading of the Quran and my
initial experience of Islam.
For the very first time in my life,
and I know this might seem strange to
you,
but for the first time in my life,
I experienced
or felt and came to believe in
but I can only describe as
as love.
Because when I read that Quran,
I felt
a love,
a mercy,
a forgiveness,
a compassion.
All the things that I
no longer wanted to believe in. I felt
it in a way that was more real
and more powerful
and more true to me than the very
ground I'm standing on right now.
And somehow
through feeling that it opened the door
of mine towards those feelings
that I had shut long long ago.
I
I just felt such a
power, such a beauty,
such a
caring through my first experiences of Islam and
through my study of the Quran
that's impossible to describe.
Believe
it.
When I read that Quran, it was a
war inside me. I didn't wanna trust again.
I didn't wanna love again. I didn't wanna
depend again. I didn't wanna know mercy. I
didn't wanna know compassion. I just wanted to
be left alone, to be buried in this
earth someday and to become long forgotten dust.
But the Quran
and God's calling just wouldn't let me.
With all my imperfections,
with all my
humanity,
he just wouldn't let me.
And a Muslim,
this isn't the end of my speech but
I will say this,
that every convert knows that from the day
he makes that choice, he is going
to face it that question again and again
and again for the rest of his life.
Why did you become a Muslim?
Believe it, I was asked it 15 times
yesterday.
Why did you become a Muslim?
And I just wanna say this, that the
simplest, truest answer that any convert could give,
And every convert knows it, because there's so
many ingredients that went into that that even
he or she can't really figure it out.
Probably the best answer you could all forgive,
and I think it was the truest and
sincerest,
is that in one moment in our lives,
a moment that we could have never foreseen
in the past,
a very special moment.
God, is infinite.
Mercy.
And
kindness.
And goodness.
Simply had mercy on us.
Maybe he saw a need so great. A
hurt so terrible.
An emptiness so vast.
Maybe he just saw a readiness.
But in his mercy,
he made it happen.
As a new Muslim, I decided I needed
to learn to pray, I wanted to learn
to pray. The Quran mentions prayers, the Quran
motivates
you. I was desperate to know how so
immediately the day I became a Muslim went
to the Asura Maghrib and I show prayer,
the next day I went to the 5
prayers.
The day after that, 5 prayers. I moved
my apartment I moved to an apartment very
close to the Masjid so I could make
all 5 prayers. You have to remember I
was working on campus so 3 of them
were automatic anyway.
Noon, Asar Maghrib, but now the Fadro prayer
was easy because it was only a few
blocks from my house. The Eshrib prayer was
also pretty easy to make. So day after
day after day I would be going to
the prayer and I found that
if
discovering the Quran was like discovering
love and compassion and mercy all over again.
If it's like the intellectual emotional
experience of
love, then the prayer for me was like
the total expression of it.
The prayer for me was like a divine
embrace. It was intoxicating.
It was beautiful. It was like nothing I
ever experienced before. There are moments
when I cried and sobbed so deeply when
I prayed,
just was so
moving. It took me heart and soul.
One brother who saw that I was used
to come to the Fajr and Maghrib B'nehesha
prayer day after day after day. It said
to me, Brother take it easy. I mean
why do you come to these prayers? The
recitation isn't in Arabic, they're a little bit
longer than the others,
so you have to stand there longer.
It's in a language foreign to you. And
especially since it's in a language foreign to
you, why do you possibly come
when you don't even really quite cannot even
translate what you're hearing right away?
And I told him, I don't know brother,
but I just responded
just instinctively.
I told him why does a
how come as a baby comforted by his
mother's voice?
He doesn't understand the words,
but somehow it's a voice he's always known
in a distant past and that's always known
him. When he hears
it, even though he doesn't
understand it word by word, he gets the
feeling, and he gets the emotion, and he
gets the comfort.
There are other features of going to the
Masjid
that were also extremely important to me.
For one thing,
in the Masjid I could see Islam worked
out and implemented on a community level. This
was extremely important.
We would fight and argue about issues and
try to work out an Islamic lifestyle in
America. It was like
going through the hijra all over again When
the Muslims had to face this challenge and
that challenge, and we would get out our
books and we would read and research and
deal with this problem and that problem, and
I could see it on a community level
and then listen to the Quran. This was
a powerful experience
and a great learning experience.
Ground was a place of learning for me.
I mean the
the message.
I would listen to discussions we've had and
go back into the libraries and dig up
volumes and volumes and volumes in Tabari's history,
and Sahih Bukhari Sahih Muslim go through, look
up the works of, the great 4 scholars
of these, 4 4 great scholars, most of
whose works have been translated translated into English
legal scholars and dig through those,
and we would discuss and discuss and discuss
and in that supercharged intellectual environment,
I was able to learn
a lot. It was a real growing experience.
And the Masjid was even more than that.
It was a place of refuge for me.
A place where I could go and get
away and get my spiritual balance
For me the Masjid was my life.
Well,
a couple years later I got married
to a lady from Saudi Arabia. And as
the Dean said, I think I'm the only
person, male
American Muslim, blonde haired, blue eyed professor that's
ever accomplished that.
I didn't realize I was such a big
thing then, but
now I do.
It was a beautiful experience. My wife and
I have a drag her to the Masjid
quite often,
and it was just a wonderful experience to
have my wife there
and the 2 of us
committed to God and to each other
in the Masjid night after night,
listening to the
beauty and the power of God's call to
mankind.
It was like something I always
wanted but never thought I could have.
Never even thought existed.
And then we began having children, one right
after another. A year later we had our
first child, Jamila.
Telephone.
And it wasn't long before, there we were.
Jamila, I was holding her in my arms,
and my wife was in the masjid, and
we were all praying together with the brothers.
My wife was the only female there, and
Jamila.
Then a year later Sarah came, and then
it was Jamila and Sarah, Jamila crawling around
by my legs and Sarah in my arms.
Arms. And then about a year and a
half later, 2 years, fat and came.
Then it was fat and in my arms
and Sarah and Jamila clinging to my legs.
And that was just
I couldn't have asked for more.
That was the greatest moment in my life.
But little by little we ran into trouble.
When my wife and my children began coming
to the Masjid, my daughters, a lot of
the other ladies in our community became anxious
to come, especially the American converts.
And a lot of women started coming to
the Masjid.
Not a real lot, but 4, 5, 6
and it became an issue in our community.
A lot of brothers really for one reason
or another, just didn't like it.
One time and it mushroomed in all sorts
of ways. One time, 2 ladies, my daughter
well she was a student actually at the
university I was teaching, and her mother came
to the Masjid to ask about Islam. They're
actually interested, maybe possibly in converting.
They came to our Masjid, knocked on the
door, the brother opened it, saw 2 women
there and slammed it in their face.
They walked away and they never considered Islam
again.
One of the brothers just got really infuriated
by the fact that my wife and my
daughters and the all these other ladies were
coming to the Masjid, even though they were
praying in the back line.
You know, in the usual sort of the
universal style.
He threatened one time in a loud voice
in the Masjid that if he saw another
woman in the mosque ever, he would personally
throw them out bodily.
Well my wife ignored it, but a new
American convert did it.
She had only been a Muslim for about
4 or 5 weeks.
She took the brother seriously and she left
the religion.
And,
today she's a Buddhist.
Can these sort of problems would continue to
arise over the as time went on.
My wife just became more and more reluctant.
She got tired of going.
She preferred to pray at home. She didn't
wanna have to deal with that.
My children kept coming with me for a
while, but strangely enough, little by little, they
got the impression that the mosque was not
friendly to women.
I'm not saying it's true brothers and sisters.
I'm not saying it's a fact. But I'm
saying it's the way a natural abnormal American
person is gonna perceive it.
I remember once my oldest daughter when she
was 5 or 6 years old said to
me, daddy why aren't women allowed in the
masjid?
I told her they are. I mean, if
you go back to the earliest days of
Islam, if you read through Sahih Bukhari, I
mean, you have constantly are having hadith reports
where women where the reports are coming from
the courtyard in Medina and women are present.
I said they were there. They were an
active and integral part of the Muslim community.
You could go almost every other page or
I'd say at least every 3rd page.
There's a report involving a woman in the
Masjid in one capacity or another, or
during a Friday prayer speech where the prophet
and his companion and Bilal go and collect
charity donations from the women in the in
their section and, just on and on. I
don't wanna go through the details, but I
I told her, frankly, I don't know how
it got that way, Jamila, but it did.
But
to me when I read the sources of
Islam I just don't see it that way.
Maybe I'm blinded by my American point of
view, maybe I'm reading my culture into the
facts that I'm reading, but
I just don't see the mosque as an
unfriendly place to women in the early days
of Islam.
I've
tried to look up the earliest scholarly books
I could find.
To see what the scholars thought in those
days. I mean, did Abu Hanifa, did he
have an attitude that discouraged women from the
mosque or Imam Malik from participating in the
community?
And I And of course the oldest legal
text I could find was Imam Malik's text.
The Muwatha. That's the Really the oldest one
that we have that actually comes from the
author himself.
You know, all the ones that are from
Abu Hanifa, this is developed by his students
later on and stuff, and his students recollections
of things come to us. But we actually
have Imam Malik's actual production,
and in it he never
seems to indicate that women shouldn't be in
our masjids or play a part in our
community. As a matter of fact, I remember
once he was in one section on the
etiquette of eating, towards the latter part of
the Muwatha, it's been translated in English.
How he mentioned that there's no problem with
Muslim families sitting together.
He said, for example he said, there's no
problem with a woman
dining in the company of men as long
as her
male guardian is present.
And I thought, well my God, I mean
how did it get this way?
Imam Malik says, this is the Sunnah of
the people in Medina.
In those days,
that early stage of law they didn't
Imam Sha'fi developed the idea of the Prophet
Sunnah exclusively,
the Imam Malik's time, the second early later
part of the second century of after the
hijra, he was talking about, you know, this
is the way that our community has always
done things.
They used to refer to the standard,
established practice.
So I wonder what's going on here? What
I know that my Muslim brothers and sisters
are not wrong, so to speak.
I know that there's good reason for things
the way they are, but somehow
I saw a tremendous
incongruent not tremendous incongruity, but definitely something
something I just to this day I have
never I've always had difficulty understanding.
But it penetrated and it hurt me most
deeply.
One day when I was driving my daughter
and my other 2 children along with
the neighbor's daughter
to school.
And the neighbor's daughter said to
mine,
Jamila,
what church do you go to?
Jamila didn't answer her immediately, I don't know
why. And then the little girl began, well
I go
to my church,
and my church is a very nice church
and it's over here. And my mommy and
daddy and I, we go every Sunday and
we sit there and we,
worship together
and, I love my church and I love
and my church is the one of the
most best things in my life. And she
kept on talking about my church, my church,
my church, my church.
And how what a central part that was
in her life.
And then she asked Jamila,
and Jamila,
what's your church?
And Jamila responded,
my daddy goes to the mosque.
See by that time my children,
because of their perception of things, they no
longer wanted to go to the Masjid,
and I was now going alone.
But in my daughter's mind that masjid wasn't
her masjid.
It was daddy's masjid.
This little girl had her church.
And my daughter,
her experience of Islam was through her parents,
period.
And I felt deeply hurt. I felt deeply
hurt because the experience I had,
the integral part that that Masjid played in
my life,
the beauty I had known,
the music of the Quran that I had
heard, That call from heaven that had touched
me so deeply when I heard it so
many times.
Like a mother's voice.
My daughter will never really know.
Or at least that's a possibility.
And it hurt.
When I went to Saudi Arabia
to teach,
I took my daughters to Mecca and Medina.
And they loved it.
Because we went as a family,
and they saw my wife and I,
their uncles and their grandma, they're all sitting
together and we would go there and drink
zem water from zemzem, the well, and we
would eat some tamis,
which is my favorite. That baked bread, that
Afghani bread, and some ful and hummus or
whatever, and we would sit there and then
when we were done, the call,
we would clean things up and we'd sit
and talk together and laugh and joke, and
the call to prayer would be made, and
we like every other family there, men would
go into their sections, the women would go
into their sections. We'd hear the most beautiful
recitation of the Quran, which echoes up to
the heavens
in Mecca.
Seems to reach clear on up to the
sky
and we would listen to that and my
children just used to love that experience.
Daddy, when are we going back to the
Kaaba? When are we going back to Mecca?
When are we going? And we went many
many times and they made a Umrah with
me. Well, they just followed me along and
they thought that was such a cool experience.
And
that was the saddest part about leaving Saudi
Arabia because
when I left Saudi Arabia behind there were
a lot of things I was happy to
leave behind.
But I knew I was leaving behind an
experience for them that they so desperately needed.
And for some reason or another couldn't have
in America.
I don't know why it is, but that's
the way it is.
I think
that it's had harmful effects on our community.
And I don't think it just has harmful
effects on the Muslim converts.
When I was in Arabia, I noticed some
very disturbing things and I don't know, I'm
not complaining, I'm not criticizing anybody but I
just hope this doesn't infect our community anymore.
When I was there, for example, we'd all
be at the beach, all the faculty, there'd
be 400 Muslims
along the beach with their families.
The call to prayer would sound. The Asar
prayer, Margaret prayer.
99% of those Muslim men, I would even
say a 100%,
got up when that sound of prayer was
called, and they would go to the Masjid
and go attend the prayer.
And I'm sad to say that maybe
5, 6 women got up and went.
Now I don't think women are less religious
than men because I grew up in a
Christian
background and
to women by far the most intensely religious
in the Christian community.
And in many other religious communities as well,
I don't think women are less inclined towards
spirituality
than men.
But for some reason,
I don't know what it is,
women felt less
less inclined to go to the masjid.
Almost as if they didn't feel like it
was really theirs, like my daughter said.
Why aren't women allowed in the masjid?
Who knows?
These are just reflections. I'm not making an
argument. I'm just presenting perspective.
I don't wanna get into a long argument
about Fiqh. You could have doctor Jamal Bedawi
do that. I'm just Brother Hammitt just asked
me to explain my
ups and downs, the positives and the negatives.
These days,
my biggest worry is about the future of
my children, their religiosity.
This is my biggest worry and biggest concern.
And I've had to take some drastic
measures to do something about it.
I mean the Quran says to us
as
parents, as believers,
save yourselves and your families
from a fire whose fuel is men and
stones.
Save yourselves.
I have to save my children.
As I say, I I want to go
to paradise but I want to bring my
children with
me. And I InshaAllah I hope we make
it. But in any case, so what I'm
doing
is I decided to do 2 things.
Through 3 of the prayers I have to
pray at school.
I got to pray at school, because I'm
at work then.
But for the Fadron Nashe prayer, I could
be at home.
So I try to be home during those
prayers to lead my family in the prayers,
night after night after night. So my children,
if they can't experience or don't feel comfortable
in the institutions of our community,
the least will feel comfortable in the institution
of our family and feel affected by the
religion there. If that's the only
closest thing they could have to the type
of experience I had, I have to do
my best to grant them that. It does
mean that I might have to miss
going to the Masjid as much as I
would like,
as much as I would long to,
but my children also have needs and I
have to take into consideration my daughters.
Another thing, since they don't have the learning
experiences I had, they don't have the same
opportunities I had for learning,
I sit with them right now 2 nights
a week and we just read through the
Quran.
We begin at the beginning, we've already begun.
We're moving through it,
one passage at a time. That's my daughter
Jamila says, daddy at this rate, we're gonna
not finish it for 2 years.
That's okay. I said, Just ask whatever questions
you have, let's go along the way, and
invariably
I'll read a passage and they'll talk for
an hour, asking me questions. What is this?
What does worship mean? What is sealing the
hearts mean? How does that happen? Why does
God do this? Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. Sometimes, I
don't have an answer, but other, but I
at least want to get them thinking and
discussing and living up here in their mind,
the religion. Not just in the form of
prayer when I pray. I want them to
have those dual
channels of faith that I was so lucky
to experience
as a Muslim convert, male convert.
I'll end by just simply saying this,
my brothers and sisters. I know I sort
of ended this on a pessimistic note. I
am truly worried about the future of my
my children.
I know that many of the Muslim brothers
and sisters are confident that they will do
just fine with theirs.
Growing up here in America,
I could be exaggerating in my own mind,
it could because of my background,
could be because of my Americanness, but I
perceive to perceive dangers that they don't seem
to
think even exist.
The other day I was reading a book
by a famous western scholar who's very sympathetic
to Islam,
And he quoted Muslim Studies in America.
Objective Muslim Studies, Thesis Studies and what not.
And one study said that,
of 2nd generation Muslims
born in America or the next generation,
not the immigrant generation, but the generation that
comes after that or the generation that comes
after the convert.
That generation, according to
studies by Muslim scholars and Western scholars,
at least 50%
have no connection with the religious community whatsoever.
Within 1 generation after the immigrant generation.
I don't know, seems like,
at least from what I could see, our
brothers and sisters are doing fine.
But maybe I'm always around the most religious
and committed brothers and sisters.
They said by this next generation,
by the next generation,
these studies were also done in Europe where
there's a longer
many more generations of study aid, but by
the next generation, 90%.
No connection with the community whatsoever.
What was the word they used? Completely
ostracized themselves from the mosque.
And
not only that, but their lifestyle shows no
signs of any religion whatsoever. It shows no
commitment to any particular religion. They may acknowledge
that there's a supreme being, but not much
more than that.
I've heard similar concerns raised by
I've heard similar concerns raised by
muslim youth
at the maya conference.
Constantly hear them talk about the great numbers
of the their fellow muslim youth that are
astray from the religion.
Great
tremendous number that seem to be away from.
I hear about this all the time.
But yet, when I see speeches by our
older members of our community, they seem to
either be unaware of it or
seem to feel that they can have found
a solution to the problem. I wish they
would share it with me because I am
deathly worried.
Deathly worried.
When I hear our Children,
at the Maya conference
calling out to us
with such statistics and alarm, I feel it's
a call for help.
And I don't see where we're doing much
to help.
I don't think we're taking seriously their hurts,
their desires, their needs, the conflicts that they
face, the obstacles that they face, obstacles that
they
face, the burdens that they have to live
with.
I don't think we're listening.
But in any case, like I said I
don't wanna end on a completely pessimistic note,
we'll do what we can.
If I can't appeal to the community for
help then I'll do the best I can
alone.
I love my children,
they mean everything to me
and we could never give up on.
And I And I'm not bitter.
Sometimes I think to myself that I wish
that I could have become a Muslim 30
years from now when Islam is well established
in the States and the majority of Muslims
are also American Muslims.
Might make things a little easier.
But then I think again and I'm glad
that Allah has chosen to make me a
Muslim during this very difficult time because with
the greater the hardship,
I hope and I think the greater the
reward if we respond to it correctly.
And yes, it's been difficult at times. There
have been tears of joy and tears of
frustration and tears of spiritual cleansing.
But all in all, I am grateful to
God
for having made me a Muslim.
And secondarily,
I am grateful
to all my Muslim brothers and sisters
who have tolerated and been patient with my
peculiar and sometimes strange point of view.
Who gave me the opportunity to share with
you my perceptions even though I know that
sometimes they are different very much with yours.
Who gave me the chance to learn
and to experience this faith on a community
level
in a very intimate
and involved way.
And I suppose my only
regret if I had one
is that my daughters might not share that
same experience that I had.
But you know,
ultimately all of us muslims
have to never lose faith and trust in
Allah
And we have to always be confident
that he's doing that the way Allah does
things, it's always for the best even though
it may not seem that obvious to us.
And with that,
my fellow and
much loved fellow believers,
may Allah's peace and mercy be upon you
all.
Wasn't that a wonderful lecture?
What we'd like to do now is to
go into our second session,
which would
entertain questions and answers. And the format which,
we would like to do is
to have people come to the mic
and you have a question,
please identify who you are,
and if you're affiliated with any organization,
comment to make, please make your comments extremely
brief, a couple minutes and so we can
move along and give,
those of you who have
questions that we can get everybody an opportunity
to ask them. So, with that,
I see a gentleman over here. Please go
ahead.
Yeah. You can ask go ahead and ask
a question if you'd like. I just would
like each of you to just state, your
name and if you're affiliated with a particular
organization.
My name is
strong
feeling
to what brother Jesse
said.
In fact, I couldn't believe that somebody
could
explain
my feeling,
the way
brother Jesse did.
Maybe
I took few steps further than what you
did.
First of all, I have to say, the
experience you faced with your children,
the comfort is not,
unique or alone.
We all face
similar.
I know so many family
because,
we know that family
to do something
toward
the
future generation.
I have to say,
exaggerated.
My I'm living right now. I left my
profession
to do exactly
what some of
some of your concern right now, and I'm
concern right now. And I'm letting, like,
3 nomads
without without the camera, by the way.
And the statistic,
by no means,
is more than interesting.
Those who have
good,
affiliation with the most.
And
I don't want to I have to,
just,
comply with the format that I have to
agree.
I'd like to sit with brother Jeffreys. And,
in fact,
help
us to do a
giving our children education.
Basically,
what we are doing, we are torturing our
children.
And,
the statistic,
the task,
being
collected. And,
may Allah help us to wake up and
do something.
Thank you very much,
While he's fixing the mic,
I just.
Oh,
I just appreciate the the comment.
Yeah. That statistic is just one of many
I've heard. They all seem to end up
being around that.
Some ways, you might be right. That might
might that could be based more on the
European experience than the American experience or they
might be combining their studies.
I think that,
from my own experience
just by
eye, I've noticed for example when I was
in California, when I was in San Francisco,
they told us that we have a Muslim
community there of 13,000.
But the actual number of Muslims that attended
the Friday prayer or were active in the
community was just a couple of
100.
So, you know, in Kansas City, we have
several 1,000 Muslims living there, residents,
American Muslims.
And,
participation in the mastid community is extremely small.
So and by the next generation,
seems that the children almost have no real,
inclination towards going to the masjid or being
involved in their religion. But, you know,
maybe here in Tulsa you have a very
strong community.
It also depends on the activity of activities
of the community. I think the commitment of
the community, even the educational background of the
community and economic background.
San Francisco, we had a huge hugely
vast number of poor Muslim immigrants and I
mean almost dirt poor.
And in Kansas City, well the population is
somewhat different.
But in any case, I think a lot
of that depends on that. I've seen in
the European studies for example, the majority of
European Muslim immigrants are laborers.
I think that their situation is quite a
bit more difficult than
say the
the position of immigrants who are professionals.
And really, I think America has gained tremendously
from the brain drain from the Middle Eastern
Muslim countries.
But Europe has gotten mostly a laborer,
population. But I did notice in the big
cities where our Muslim communities seem to be
have the greatest populations, Chicago,
Detroit,
San Francisco,
Los Angeles,
Kansas City,
Indianapolis
where there's a
large number of muslims who are struggling financially
and maybe don't have the same educational background
as some of our professionals.
Does seem that this problem might wait a
little greater there. But that that's again, I'm
I'm not sure. That would be an interest.
I'm would like to see what sort of
studies you're doing and how's it going along.
I I would love to be proven different
different, and then we could analyze and figure
out what we could do to even improve
that. But I appreciate your comments. They're really
good.
Yes. Go ahead.
I think it's, one way. Alaykum Salam. Hey,
Chris. What's the east? Friday 11 month.
Can you, speak up just a little bit,
please? Okay.
I'm a
Also, you know, I'm appalled. The idea that
there was men
who were still outraged at
And it's, you know,
obviously,
almost an
turned
Buddhist as a result of what he said.
We have
problems.
Staying clear
and to not
our
our children, or ourselves.
And one of the first things we have
to do from our home are the islands
that we give our undivided attention to our
number
version. And other than that, we have to
be serious about the student. And the student
does not tell us that the women are
not supposed
to I'm sorry, sir.
Have to allow we have the bridges to
come to us. And we have to take
down the ball to back us. And we
have to return
to the sunnah, not only worldwide, but particularly
here in the United States where we are.
This is where our responsibility is, to instruct
all of the world to return to the
Thank you for your comment.
And I'd like to once again remind that
because of lack of time, if if you
don't have a question, just please,
make your comments brief. Thank you very much.
I have a question here by I guess
it came from the sister section, and I
don't see any,
I noticed that there's no sisters behind this
podium, but I would encourage you to ask
your questions or otherwise give them to me
on a card if you can.
The question is,
what advice would you give to the young
3rd generation
parents?
Meaning,
parents who've been,
who've been raised here in America, who have
immigrant parents and,
who are now, after they see how their
parents struggled through Islam and how
they see their experiences with men on so
forth. What advice do you give to them
as opposed to different advice you would give
to their parents?
Oh,
3rd generation Muslims. I think that it would
be really 2nd generation Muslims. 2nd generation that
are parents of children?
Are there people like that in this audience?
Oh, that's interesting.
I think they've I well,
like I said, it's sort of an individual
struggle of mine. I would advise sort of
the same
thing that I'm sort of the same type
of thing I'm doing at home. I think
it's it's proved to be very good.
This,
2 Quran or Islamic studies programs we have
every week. Originally, I told them just it
would be 15 minutes. But they liked it
so much, they they won't let me let
me go. They keep me there an hour
each program.
And, those discussions are very important.
I want my children to learn what's in
the Quran.
And, and I'd like to get them involved
in
the prayers. I think if we could get
them that, that's how every convert starts. Right?
The Quran and the prayers. This once you
get those going,
then you get motivated to do so much
else.
And that's exactly how I got this idea
with my wife. We were sitting and talking
one day and I'm thinking
I said to her, you know, I'm worried
about our children. I mean, what?
What is gonna make them be real Muslims?
What's even gonna motivate them?
What's gonna happen to them?
You know, they
they just think prayers is some sort of
exercise that mommy and daddy go, you know.
And that they sometimes participate long. Up and
down, up and down, you know. I remember
my daughter was explaining it to a friend
of hers. Yes. Her friend got nervous when
they saw myself and my wife praying.
Her friend
and she said, no. No. It's okay. Watch.
They're gonna go up and they're gonna go
down and up.
But to them, you know, it's sort of
like a physical thing and, you know, it's
not it doesn't have the same meaning to
them.
I really was worried so I told my
wife, now wait a minute. Let me try
to think.
I'm I wasn't born a Muslim.
I was born in a non Muslim culture.
I was
confronted with all these influences. What worked for
me to motivate me to get involved
I
I was desperate to do whatever was necessary
to get to get more
of
the feeling and the beauty and the power
that Islam has to give to us.
So I started praying and etcetera etcetera. And
then I did this and I did that
and I got more books and I learned.
But the it began with the Quran. So
I said, let's begin with the Quran.
And that's what we do. We take them
through it very carefully, very patiently, very slowly.
And we encourage them to pray with us.
And this seems to be really having it's
amazing. I know it sounds trite and simple,
simple, but it's beautiful effect it seems to
be having. I'm really encouraged. I'll let you
know the next time I come down here
how it's working out. If it fails, I
think it's only gonna be because I get
lazy.
You know? Because the children, they seem to
have unquenchable thirst.
You know? And they're still at that age
when
they're anxious to plea you know, to know
what daddy thinks.
You know, 10 years from now, they'll think
daddy doesn't know anything. If they're you know,
or at least typically typical American children don't.
But right now, they're very anxious to know
what I think. What are my ideas? What
do I write about? What do I think
about? And we get in very lengthy
and in-depth discussions and they exhaust me sometimes.
So
I would encourage that. I would encourage that
regardless of what generation we are. I mean,
I'm even worse off than you guys. Are.
I'm of no generation. I mean, I'm just
a convert.
Yes. Yeah. Revert as they like to say,
but I prefer convert because most Americans
can relate to that concept quick quickly.
Go ahead, sir. Yes, sir.
Is a social purifier,
how come there is so much impurity in
Middle East and there is a chaotic world
out there?
Oh, thank you. If,
Islam is such a social purifier, then why
is there such impurity in the Middle East?
Well,
I don't know. There's impurity everywhere, you know.
I mean, in the west and in the
Middle East. I mean,
God could reveal his guidance to man mankind,
but he's not gonna force you to follow
it.
You know?
I think you're probably preferring maybe to the
political corruption that exist there. The corruption that
I found, for example, when I try to
do business in the Middle East. You have
to,
I mean, if you don't
or if you're not ready to give bribes
and to
use
connections and take advantage of certain situations,
you know, you're gonna really get frustrated trying
to do business there. At least I did.
But,
I think that corruption exists.
The the human being himself is potentially corruptible.
We all are.
And societies are no different from than people.
To the degree they follow God's guidance,
that will determine
how pure that society is.
Just I'd see no difference between people or
society.
I think that,
I mean, honestly, I mean, I've talked to
many many brothers from the Middle East about
Islam, and
you'll be surprised at this, all of you
sitting here, because you seem like deeply committed
Muslims. But I find that most of them
have never even read the Quran.
I mean most.
And this is not 55%.
I mean, I've had brothers come up to
me after I've given a lecture and said,
you know, I think I'm gonna read that
Quran.
I've never read it before. I don't even
know what's in
it. Or I talk to people from the
Middle East and they'll tell me something from
their culture and tell me it's in the
Quran. You know, in the Quran, we believe
this or that or the Quran teaches
I'm thinking, I read the Quran many, many
times. I never said that. I don't think
that's there.
Oh, well so, you know, I think that
the people are quite ignorant of what their
religion
teaches. Honestly, I think that's much true. I
don't think Middle Easterners are much different than
Americans in that regard. Most Americans have very
little knowledge of what Christianity
represents.
I think most I found this even to
be more true of Buddhist and Hindus, etcetera.
And I think Muslims are similar. You know?
Most of them really are not
have not made much an effort to learn.
I think if you I think when they
do, you could see a transformation take place
in their life. So
let's just hope our communities,
work harder at At obtaining that knowledge. Thank
you for the question.
I've got a question here.
Question is, I'm a high school student. I
meet teachers and students every day that seem
like potential Muslims.
What is your advice on how to approach
these people
without seeming without seeing,
without seeming pushy so that they're drawn away
instead of coming toward Islam? Yeah. Just try
not to be too pushy.
I don't know. And in,
you know what we do in our family
and this seems to help. This is just
personal advice. I certainly wouldn't wanna hold myself
up as a model.
But this is just as one Muslim to
another.
I would,
what we do,
our family does is when they eat comes,
we bring cookies to school.
Children dress up. They bring gifts to the
teachers,
etcetera.
When Christmas comes,
we always have to explain to them that
we don't celebrate Christmas. That we this is
not one of our religious holidays. Our children
do not want to draw Santa Clauses.
Our children do not want to stuff stockings.
Could you please give them another activity? And
we do it very politely and very patiently.
When Ramadan comes, we explain to them that,
you know, on the weekends at least because
our children are 6 years old, 5 years
old.
They we let them fast part of the
day.
That and we hope in the future our
children are gonna they're gonna make room for
our children to pray,
etcetera, etcetera. We're in constant dialogue with the
teachers. We don't tell them, I want you
to believe in Islam.
We tell them that what we believe, what's
important to us and would you please try
to accommodate our needs as Muslims.
And we'd like to celebrate. We'd like to
share with you some of the humanitarian
social
positives of our faith. Like sharing with people
our celebration of, you know, giving them cookies
if they would so choose,
when Ramadan comes, etcetera. Right? And,
and and things like this. I found that
through that continuous communication, they became
extremely interested in Islam.
You know, once you show that you're
you know, you're willing and ready to
represent your faith and talk about it without
asking them to be embrace it.
And you
use such opportunities like the ones I just
mentioned and we need to do that anyway
to express your religious point of view. They're
very anxious. Not all of them. But many
of them are very anxious to know more.
And so I know now that, you know,
every member of my daughter's school has asked
me or my wife for a copy of
a book I wrote.
You
know, and they many of them have asked
for a preprints of my second
book. And some of the teachers have come
to me and asked for a reading list
about Islam. One teacher told me that, she
loves the religion very much, but she has
hasn't reconciled the idea with her parents, and
etcetera. But the point of it is is
is that, you know, just try to be
a Muslim,
you know. Stick up for what you believe
in. Don't be shy about expressing what your
needs and what your desires are as a
Muslim. And I think people will naturally want
to communicate with you. If you make it
look like you're trying to sell them something,
no.
But if you just make it, this is
part of my life, an important part of
my life, so extremely important that I want
you to be aware of this and that
so that you will not
violate things that are important to me, then
people are quite anxious to find out what
you believe. Because they don't feel threatened in
that context.
They feel that you're coming to them. You're
being upfront with them. You you want you're
trying to get a certain type of response
from them
as far as your needs go. So they're
quite willing to discuss.
I found this as a very effective,
way to, open the subject of Islam with
people.
K. And we'll take, 2 more questions from
that side.
Assalamu alaikum. Doctor Lang, the question I have
is, related with your last night's, lecture, and
you briefly mentioned about the
eastern philosophies of Taoism and,
Buddhism.
And
as I understand, you can draw a parallel
between these 2,
philosoph between the philosophy of Islam and the
philosophy
of of between these eastern philosophies. Now you
said that the the only thing that was
missing from these philosophies were the concept of
God.
I was wondering what exactly is the, is
the is the factor that, necessitates
what
that
what that what matters for all people as
far as that goes. I can only speak
about me personally, why that was such an
important concept.
Like I was just saying today, I grew
up in a with a very pessimistic cynical
view of life.
And I thought that there was no God.
And that,
because of that,
there was no such thing as virtue or
justice or anything like this. Okay? So this
was my my feeling. So,
you know, when I study those eastern philosophies,
I thought these are nice programs of living.
These are nice balanced philosophies. When I studied
them from a philosophical standpoint,
I felt that they preach any of the
universal golden rule that all religion seem to
advocate.
But without
if they couldn't convince me
that the idea of God was not in
itself a contradiction
or if they just
obscured that issue entirely,
then there was no need for me to
change my perception.
You see what I mean? I understand.
If if there's no God,
and they have a nice idea or way
of thinking about living, or a nice sort
of formula for living, that's great.
So First of all, I know most people
aren't their following.
2nd, there's tremendous suffering in the world. It's
not gonna relieve it because most people won't
do it.
The only thing that's gonna make people,
most people,
change their way of living is because they
believe they have.
The only concept in religion that's gonna force
people to reform themselves
and to kill themselves to live a better
life and to strive to do that is
because they have something
at stake.
You see what I mean?
And for me, that would be the idea
of God. Without that,
these would be just nice systems,
but frankly, there's no reason why I should
go to it. I already had I I
didn't think I was a terrible person. I
didn't think that but I frankly, for me,
if there was no God,
this is just a nice invention by human
beings.
Could work for some, couldn't work for others.
No reason really to get very into it.
Not only that, but from a foreign culture,
I couldn't adopt that foreign culture's perspective. Why
should I bother? They're not American,
You know, it's like asking me to adopt
the the I'm not arguing with you. Would
be like asking me to adopt Nietzsche's perspective.
Well, I mean, that was his idea. It
has some compelling features. It has some flaws,
but why really waste the time? You know,
you can't base your life on somebody else's
opinion, you know. So without God, it's just
another man's opinion
or not or people's opinion.
Something they formulated.
And, you know,
fine. There's no
major reason why I should be compelled to
embrace it. You see? So
if a religion really couldn't come to terms
squarely with the idea of a God.
Right?
A creator.
A source for the existence of this universe
and our being here.
I wasn't really I I just wasn't moved.
I felt it was nice, but there was
no major reason to embrace.
Does that make sense? Definitely. Thank you. Okay.
Thank you.
Assalamu alaikum.
My name is Mohammed Bad. I am from
Houston,
Texas, and I'm a and
I'm associated with Darul Arcam full time school.
I'm the superintendent.
Thanks for doctor Lang for his presentation.
I really was listening to him
with 2 thinking in the same times.
In the same time, one of them is,
from the point of adult education,
how he himself
developed the
attitude of learning and
exploring. Maybe without the half or without the
share,
or taking himself
an attitude of
the way an adult should teach himself or
should learn. This is the way I was
listening to him. This is my personal,
perception.
The second one as a person involved in
child education,
who really will be listening, be very attentive
to the needs of the child.
To make my point, clear,
we went through a long process in Houston
to materialize
the full time school.
Everybody blame us why we don't have a
full time school, but once we develop full
time school, I found the response is not
as it was expected.
And we met a lot of problems from
the adults,
from the mothers,
and from the rich.
The rich
said that we cannot give you our children
because your school is not that fancy,
as good as
the public school system.
And that was one solution, even though we
have beautiful mosques.
The mothers
and the fathers were unable to convince their
children
because they're already out of their hand.
The kids no longer listen to their children
to their parents, I'm sorry,
because that's where they've been brought up. They
left them for some time that the point
that
even the parents started to fight with each
other because one wants to take the kids
to the school, the other doesn't want because
the school has yet to be tested.
I think the point I'm driving to is
the problem we are facing is
not in children education,
it is in adult education.
I feel strongly
after going through this experience in Houston,
that the way
we teach adult
is no different the way we teach children.
All of us as other became very
dependable on the share and on the harvest.
We canceled our minds.
We became sorry to say puppets in many
ways.
The very the veryst negligence
that we will be accountable for
is education of our daughters, the education of
our wives, and our sisters.
This is one of the most neglected.
I come every time to the lecture and
learn,
and my wife will go to the babysitting
and take care of the children.
Or since the kids will die all the
time,
I have
to they have to go outside.
In another way, there is a major negligence.
We have to put points some place.
I will I see the time is over.
Thank you. I just wanna bring the attention
of adult education,
and I will use Malcolm Nolan expression, the
neglected species.
It's very important.
Thank you very much.
I I do see a sister standing up
here, so I'm gonna allow her just, either
one question or a very brief comment under
a minute.
I just have a very short comment.
Adding on to what the brother Glenn gave
about suggestions for high schoolers.
Oh, yeah. Yeah. Just teachers.
A lot of schools
are starting to add
studies of the Arab nations
or study of Islam into their social studies
or history classes
and or geography even. And teachers love to
have speakers. Right. So
as a parent
or even as a student,
offer to teachers,
when you get to that subject to
speak on it, you know, for a day
and they would love it. Yeah. You're right.
My wife gave a speech at my child's,
my children's school already. And my daughters,
Jamil and Sarah, each have given a speech
on the meaning and purpose of Ramadan
and Muslim's life. I mean, little 6 year
old kid up there in front of the
auditorium reading a speech. But, you know, I
wrote it for her.
But in any case, she did a great
job. The teachers were really impressed. After that
speech, speech, as a matter of fact, that's
when they all asked for the book.
So,
you know,
you're right. That's a great advice. I missed
it.
Well, with that comment, I'd like to thank
doctor Jeffrey Lang
for coming to our,
conference and particularly to the session.
And I just wanna make a brief comment
about what I believe some of his special
qualities and contributions are to Could I just
here.
Sorry.
I just think that it's very, very important
to have,
doctor Lang's,
his own impression of what a Muslim goes
through in terms of conversion. Because many of
us are take the I think, take our
own religion, culture for granted simply because we
developed it developed it from our own parents.
And to see somebody go through a spiritual
transformation
like he did just makes me feel like,
wow.
I wish I went through some of that
because I was just kinda born with it
and I just kinda took it for granted.
So I think that's very special.
And also,
the point that he made about how family
as a whole should study their religion
and,
different aspects of Islam is so crucial. Because
oftentimes, you send the kids to one place,
the brothers and the parents go or the
the adults go to this person and the
women sit at home. And I just think
that it's very important that you pointed out
that if you learn together as a family,
it's very special
not only in terms of knowledge, but psychological
and mental because you feel as a family
that you're developing. I just want I wanna
thank him for pointing that out. So important
and crucial.
Couple of comments. You've all received these comment
forms here. Please fill them out.
And what's more important is write the comments
in which you think the the conference or
the session that you attended or saw could
be improved or the things that you didn't
like and so forth, we would really appreciate
them. So the next time we can, learn
from you. One final thing,
doctor Lang has written this book. It's out
there on the tables.
I'm not sure of the price, but,
if you'd like, please purchase it and come
over here and he can sign them for
you. This is your opportunity
this is your opportunity to get a photograph,
autograph.
And, we're gonna have Zohar prayer at 1:45,
and then we'll we'll break for lunch
from 2 to 3:45, and the next session
will be at 345 with, doctor Jamal Badawi.
Thank you for attending, and brother here has
one more announcement.
Assalamu alaikum. Many of our brothers and sisters
asked about the food, and
that
First one was I was a undergrad, a
junior undergrad,
and every time I hear you I have
to give this book back. I didn't buy
it. But every time I hear you speak,
I always get some inspiration on you as
opposed to say, step up or something. Oh.
And I appreciate that. Oh, no. I think
it's very important for you to bring out
your issues to separate women and be able
to articulate because I think it's social. Well,
thanks. Especially
the family aspect. I always feel like I'm
standing up here isolated and alone. I think
that you know, you ever hear the idea
of being a silent majority? I think you
have a silent I don't know. They're not
communicating to me. Continue to feel and speak
out like
that.