Strengthening Ones Memory

for coming to our ninth annual youth conference, may Allah reward you all for coming to this blessing gathering today Mella increases in demand and grant us a place in general. For those I mean, the main focus of our youth group is to bring our youth back to the mission and to unite our community with one thing that we commonly all share, which is Islam.

Also, our objective is to reduce and stop violence amongst our youth, and to promote brotherhood and sisterhood amongst Muslims in our community.

The theme of this year's conference is recurring challenges. We have chosen this topic so that we can help our Muslim community combat different challenges that we face on a daily basis on a world tour on the road towards worshipping Allah to Allah. Today we have four speakers beginning with shamala McKee will be beginning right now. Shut up to Berea here.

Ibrahim downy And last but not least seadragon will be coming later on tonight. I hope we all benefit from our speakers and the knowledge they will share with us. Without further ado, and now I will ask the shift to begin intellectual shell.

Shall

Salaam Allah, Allah barakato

Santa

smilla rahmanir rahim al hamdu Lillahi Rabbil alameen wa salatu salam ala rasulillah in I mean, I'm about

the topic of the lecture that I have to give is,

it's

the topic of the lecture I have to give is

strengthening one's memory.

Strengthening one's memory. Okay.

You know what the only thing about this setup is I can't interact with you. Now I just see blackness and two lights on my face. But I wanted to really find out from you, if you really care about your memory. Maybe I can see some hands. Who cares about not beyond this now don't just say, oh, come below? who really cares about them? You know, strengthening their memory? Could you put your hands up?

Okay, so let's see a few people. Okay, that's good. So people care about strengthening their memory, because I'm just thinking, you know, do you really care about things like that? More? All right. All right. So it's good to see that some of you do care about that. That's good. What is memory?

You know, if you are closer, I would ask you to tell me what it is. But since you're so far, I'll just answer my own question. So let's just say it's just your ability to retain information, how about that just to make it easier, your ability to keep information here, so you can pull it out later on. There are really two types of memory really further, you know, in the brain, the two types of memory that you store, there's long term memory, and there's short term memory, obviously, the one we want to talk about today's long term memory, this is the kind of memory where you sit down and you purposely memorize something, either from the Quran or Hadith or something from your science

book for a test or an exam that you have, you're making effort to store it in a place where you can get it again in the future, in the near future, maybe beyond that.

Now,

is also the same type of memory that you use to remember your address and phone numbers and things of that sort. But now, of course, there's also short term memory. This is a place where the things that you see that you don't really need to keep for long, it goes there temporarily. For example, when, let's say you have a phone book over there, and you need to make a phone call. So you go look at the phone book, you get the number, what do you do? You repeat it to yourself a few times. By the time you come here, you still remember it. This is it's part of your short term memory, you still remember it. But then at night or three days later, you don't remember it anymore. Why? Because you

stored it in your short term memory.

someone's having a good time over there.

I wish I was there.

All right. I just so this is short term memory, long term memory. And have you ever experienced experienced what they call deja vu? Anyone experienced that? Yeah. And it's kind of basically when you see a scene or something, and you've seen it before, and you keep telling yourself

What was this? You know, was it like a burden, then another lifetime? I don't believe in that stuff. Right. So what what how do you explain that and the best, one of the best explanations we found is they tell you that you know, usually the things that you see you have your driving the color of the car in front of you, it goes into your short term memory, but two days later, you don't remember what the color of the car in front of you was what the license plate was, because it's erased immediately. So the they say that when you see something, instead of going to the short term memory by mistake

Take it goes to the long term memory. And so you feel that you've seen this before. Yeah, because you have a memory of this before, but it's just like an electrical mistake in the brain, where you just see something instead of going to short term memory goes to long term memory. So that's kind of the phenomenon behind that.

I'm just beginning louder still. Okay.

A little bit more. I'm gonna be having this for breakfast.

So,

okay, so now the other thing is,

what's like, what's the golden age of memorization?

Anyone know what, who can tell me when it ends?

Now?

Somebody, somebody yelled something out. 6040? No, no, no, the Golden Age. You can memorize the Quran until 60. I know for sure he memorized the Quran in his 60s 12.

No,

no, no, no. All right, stop guessing, stop guessing. I thought somebody maybe has read something. They tell you the Golden Age is basically from whatever you

tell us, we're done with that segment.

So until 23, that's the Golden Age from whatever, like, you know, three, four or five years old. Until 23. That's the Golden Age, you can still keep memorizing your brain still works beyond that. But this is the Golden Age. So those of you who haven't reached that age yet, take this opportunity. But let me ask you this. What are you here in the audience? What are you trying to memorize?

are on? anyone trying to memorize anything else?

No, anyone just tried to generally improve their memory. You know, when you get directions, you stop and ask someone for directions. He goes at the next slide. It's called this street maker, right? Then you see another road called this make a left? You say thank you, by the time you roll up your window.

You forgot everything. Right? Okay. So generally, let's say we, you know, the main point is to, to memorize the Koran. And then from there on maybe to memorize the memorize a hadith or memorize knowledge in general. And until I see some more people today with papers and taking notes, that's good.

Why memorize anything. And the scholars say that the thing about true knowledge is, is it's in the head, true knowledge is in the head. So if I would have lost my notes for this lecture today, I'll just have to come here and sing you a song, maybe dance or something.

Because true knowledge is up here.

There was a story of a man who went to, to copy this book. So he went in, travelled a long way through the desert, and he sat down for months, he was copying this book. And then on the way back, he's got his copy. Now, this is way back then didn't have printing presses and copy machines. So he copied it by hand, the whole book, on the way back there, their caravan was stopped by a bunch of like highway robbers. So the guy asked him, What do you have with you, he said, Look, take everything I have take clothes, take my money and everything. But I spent the last year writing this book copying it. And that's all that I came for. So just leave me the book. So the gang leader, he

said, you spent your whole year writing this book? What if I just take it from you right now. And he took it from him. So I knew the guy was a bully, basically. But he learned the lesson, that the knowledge should be up here. And not just in notes. I'll tell you about a really weird man that we met

in Virginia in the United States. This guy, friend of mine was talking to him. And he noticed like the the man thinks of himself as a scholar, and he is below average and his knowledge. But you know, he was talking like he's the scholar of the oma. So my friend just wanted to test him because he was speaking bit strange. He said, so are you telling me you have more knowledge than the scholars of Islam before even Tamia? and so on and so forth? He said, Yes, of course. I have more knowledge than that. He said, How is that? He said, because you can ask me any question. I can go look it up.

Marcia love it. That's what a scholar is. So I can say ask me any question in the world. I'm the world's most knowledgeable man in any topic. Even if it's medicine, you asked me a question. Just wait here. And then I go home, I look it up and I read books I come back. Well,

so

Okay, I don't even know what time it is.

But it's

so so real knowledge really is in the head. It's not what you can go and look up. That means librarians, you know, some of the smartest people now you have, you know, Google search engines. That means we're all scholars, so it has to be up here. And therefore, there has to be something about memorization and the importance of memorization.

Okay, you know something

You always find it difficult in the beginning to memorize whatever it is you're memorizing, if you're memorizing Quran if you're studying, but then after a while you get the hang of it and you get used to memorizing.

So some of the early Muslims used to say we found memorizing really difficult at first, but we pushed ourselves and then it started to come naturally you didn't wasn't that difficult. And one of the early Muslims, he, he was trying to gain knowledge. He was trying to like sink it all in at one time, absorb everything. He's trying to learn how to get over here, trying to learn to sit over there, after you go over there. So he's trying so much, and sometimes all these things that just get jammed and nothing comes through. So he found it difficult. He was about to give up seeking knowledge. So as he was walking, he saw this big rock this Boulder, and from the cliff, there was

water that would drip onto this Boulder. And he noticed that where the water was dripping on the Boulder, it made a hole in the Boulder. So he thought to himself Subhanallah my heart, it can't be harder than this rock in this Boulder. That means if I take knowledge drop by drop, it will come. If I take it bit by bit, it will come. So don't try to overwhelm yourself by taking in so much or too much at one time.

Okay.

How about examples of and who do you know the scholars that had superb, superb memory?

Anyone yell out a name?

Buhari. Somebody said no Buhari. No doubt is phenomenal memory Anybody else? Chef very, very good. All the elder Foreman's right, in a Malik. And he was a young boy when he started to seek knowledge. So he, he went to the house of this chair, just for the first time, he wanted to shift to give him a hug. He had it from the chain of narrators and everything. So he sat down and the chef gave him 13 Hadith with full chain of narration, and he wrote them down. So he tells the chef give me more. So the chef said, Wait till you go home, memorize them and then come back. So I said, I memorized them already.

So I said, he took the page from him. And he said, Go ahead recite, and he gave him all 13 howdy as is. And so Okay, so these now the rarities or these people have this ability that typically not everybody is born with, and I love it when in our day and age, like brothers don't take notes to them take notes and until I'm like, Buhari, I memorize Mashallah. Maybe you memorize Britney Spears songs or something?

Okay, so

the point is, I mean, even among Buhari himself, he used to write things down, he would memorize it in the class, but then when he would go, he would start to write things down. Alright, so what are the things that improve your life, your memorization,

and I would have liked to ask you for some of your ideas, but since you're too far away, one of the things definitely just like anything else seeking knowledge, acts of worship, is to have a plus is to have to do something sincerely for Allah subhanaw taala. And that makes it so pure, and it will make into facilitated for you. So when you have this lust, you're memorizing the Quran for the sake of Allah, you're memorizing this hadith for the sake of Allah, you're memorizing this small book of, for the sake of Allah Subhana Allah, so you can benefit from it. And perhaps in the future, teach it to others, not so other people can look at you. Because when that's the only motive people have when

you stop praising them, so let's say somebody is doing something, just so people can look at him and say, my show love this person. Look how much he memorized. You know, when that type of person when they're not praised, they stop because they're doing it so people praise them. So when nobody praises them, they're sluggish, they become slow, because nobody's saying anything good about them anymore. So have a philosophy, one of the facilitators of memorizing of learning,

and MC.

know we spoke about di yesterday and did never overlook or underestimate the power of da so you make the law and it's one of the best ways of attaining good. You know, when when your parents make it tough for you, to give you an understanding of the religion and you make dua to Allah also, to help you memorize the Quran to help you understand his religion. It's one of the best ways of getting good for yourself is by making da and let's now combine that with the water of Islam, because you know, the Hadi and he the Prophet sallallahu Sallam said that drinking the water of Zamzam it's for whatever you drink it for. So a lot of the scholars used to drink it and they used to

intend or want it to

For a certain thing, for example, a mom of Niger, one of the great moms, he drank the water of Islam and he asked a lot to give him the power of memorization of the heavy, you know that he had incredible memory. So he asked Allah while he was drinking the water of Zamzam that he would get the memorization of it that so and we have a class, very popular thing that that helps you keep your memory and keep what you've memorized, is to stay away from sins. This is very popular, and a lot of people are aware of this. And

the like the early Muslims and the scholars, they used to warn their students and the students would warn their students to stay away from sins, because it's something that will damage your memorization, your ability to memorize, or also it will damage what you've memorized already.

And

there's the famous, like poetry and famous sayings, for example, enamel Shafi that you mentioned, who has good memory. And he used to he went to a Caribbean Jarrah, another scholar, and he told him, yeah, and he complained to him of his weakness of memory. But of course, this is by his standards, his memory was absolutely superb. But he complained to a kid, he said that my memory is not very strong. So how, what can I do to improve it. And so what I told him to stay away from sinning, because the knowledge is like light given to By Allah, and Allah will not give this light to a sinner. So, so staying away from sins, having lost making da, and putting some kind of effort, and

this is the thing that a lot of people want things easy Nowadays, people don't have patience to wait through memorizing people want things to come very easy. You know, they want the quick fix. They want the shortcut, when it comes to worship, when it comes to knowledge when it comes to everything. I know that, for example, in a lot of people, they'll say there's a lecture, okay? I'll hear it when it comes out on CD, or DVD. And I know a lot of people are not taking notes now. Because they say, I'll get the DVD when it comes out to Chava. And how many people really, really, have you seen just at home, they put in a DVD, and they take their notes, and then they write down everything that's

being said on how many times have you seen that? Who has seen that? Put your hands up?

Nobody? Okay, one hand is up to three, four of the full room like four people have seen maybe there are more, but I'll pretend that's all that's for people who have seen that happen. Like somebody will play in a tape of a lecture or DVD and just sit down and take notes. Most of most of the time if you don't take notes during the lecture, that's it. Because this is the way we are these days, we feel that as long as the knowledge is there somewhere I have it. So I you know, I don't know what the shift said, but I've got the DVD at home. Or Mashallah good for you? Well, I don't know what what this is about. But I've got a you know, an entire book about it, you know, so yeah, I shall Ah,

that's nice. But what about the knowledge being up here to some degree? You know, how many people make any effort to memorize like, the names of Sahaba? How many times have you heard this? Just tell me how many times have you heard this?

I can't remember the name of this hobby. But there was a Sahabi that was working with the prophets of Lahore. And he said, How many times have you heard that? A million times? I've heard it. I can't remember the name, but it was the Sahaba that when he was working?

Why don't you know the name of the Sahaba? Why?

Very few people know the name of this hub with the 10 given glad tidings of paradise.

He's on how many albums as so and so put out a 1993 product. And then the 60 put another one out. So, but effort, effort people we know one brother in our area, not only does he he's so not aware of which the hobbies which he just calls it, he calls us the hobbies brothers, in which the head is with the brother who has the professor said lemma said okay,

that's, that's the best respect we could come up with. All right. But so putting some kind of good effort into memorization,

and, and generally into learning as well. Choosing the good times and this is different for certain people. For some people, it's better for them to start memorizing after fidget. Some people at night before they go to bed, some people like during midday, that's when their their brain is at full function. So and there isn't a formula here, whatever works best for you. So those of you who are memorizing the Quran, you've probably recognize that there are better the times that work best for you. And there are ways that work best for you. So whatever time is most effective for you. You make an effort to keep that time free. No one distracts you at that time, no phones, nothing to distract

you because this is the

A time, that's best for your memorization.

And some people also the physical position they're in helps them with memorization. And of course, as you know, there's a huge relationship between the position of your body and the mental condition or even the spiritual condition that you're supposed to be in. Right? If somebody hangs you upside down and says, you know, memorize, well, you can still read, no, your eyes are still following the words, but it doesn't help you memorize because it's an awkward position. Some people it's better for them, they prefer to paced back and forth while they're memorizing while they recite out loud if it's a book of Hadith, or, or at the or even you're studying for your exams. So they keep walking

back and forth saying things out loud, some people prefer to sit down, whatever works best for you, there isn't a specific formula here.

If you're memorizing the Quran, the scholars recommend that you keep like one print or one copy. Everyone familiar with this, how like sometimes you you want you know that the verse number 10 is at the bottom of the sutra, and you can see it while you're reciting. But if you use a different one every time and every time it's in a different place, you don't have one clear image of where it is. And so it assists you to memorize by keeping just one copy that you that you use or one manuscript that you use.

Another thing is to not stop because when you stop, you lose momentum. You always find that some you know this young man was memorizing Quran progressively. He memorized three four or five ajah and then he stopped going to the school or he stopped memorizing. Now when you start memorizing the Quran, not only do you not move forward, but what happens really you

you move backwards, right? The prophets Allah

Allahu alayhi wa sallam, everybody awake or what's too dark in here? I think I'm

talking to myself.

Okay, so the prophets of Allah who he said was describing that the Quran will escape from you, but he compared it to which animal?

Yeah, a camel. Yeah, raise your voice a little bit. He compared it to the camel. Why did he compared to the camel and not to a horse? what's what's in which is faster the horse with the camel horses faster. So why don't you describe that it's like a horse, you know that it will run away. Because the camel by its nature, it's a very, it's an unruly animal. And, like it doesn't like to take orders or sometimes it doesn't recognize its owner, or, or at least Dennis admitted on. So he discovered to an animal that by its nature wouldn't mind running away and escaping from you. So you start memorizing not only do you lose momentum, not only do you not move forward, but you actually

find that you have moved backwards and you forget some of the stuff that you've memorized.

So don't stop. And when you memorize something, you repeat it or you review it, you repeat or you review because if it just sits there, it might start to disappear. Even if it's not caught on, it might start to disappear. That's why you have some of the scholars like for example in Missouri Rahim Allah, He used to repeat his Hadith so he would learn and memorize Howdy, then he would come home and he would tell the servant girl that Howdy. So the servant girl, you know, she's sitting there young girls, she wants to play or she wants to work. And he's telling her had fallen and fallen and then she's just listening to him. And once when he would finish you would tell him, but

you know, why are you telling me this hadith? What should I benefit from this, and he would tell I just wanted to repeat it to somebody, some of the students of knowledge before they will just stop kids in the street and stop them and tell them to Heidi just to repeat it so it stays in their mind.

So you repeat it and something very important is that you you act upon it and this is very important. We're gonna look at that later on in more detail inshallah you act upon for example, you memorize the Book of da right so da for travel the DA for, you know, entering the house, leaving the house entering the masjid, if you memorize the DA, and you don't use it, then you put yourself again at risk of losing what you have memorized. So one of the ways to keep it in your mind is to keep repeating it or to keep using it as well.

If you've heard of some of our contemporary scholars who have memorized like books or volumes upon volumes of books, they review these books to keep it in their memory to keep it fresh. They review these books, and some of them have a phenomenal memory.

And like I said part of that some of it may be is obtainable from through through practice, but some people are just Mashallah beyond any normal. There was one scholar and there's a teacher at a university and he was looking first

cific word in Arabic And he couldn't find it in some of the largest lexicons. He couldn't find this word. So there was an older chef, he went to him. And he asked him this word, he said, you will find it in the book of such and such, and the volume number, this page number that, he tells him by volume, by book, and by page number. He said, I went and got the book from the library. And then I came back to the ship. This is a true story. And he said, Okay, so what about this word, he said, the chef said, he repeated from his memory, everything that was in that page, and I had the page open in front of me. And the chef was saying, from his head, everything that as we were following

along, so I said to the chef,

I think you might you probably reviewed this book today this morning. So the chef said to him, this is stuff that we memorize when you were 17 years old.

Memory stayed with him all that time. Okay.

What else helps memorize somebody so yell something out. Not an insult, but something that helps memorize

nom.

De good, something that I've been mentioning in here and here, but I didn't say that this is something that helps your memory.

This is something that you Okay, this is a very clear hint. Now. It's something that you memorize and it helps memory.

Somebody said it.

Yeah, I mean, part of training herself to memorize you through you know, memorizing the ayat of the Quran. That's the training in memory. And then once you memorize the Quran, does it make you make it easier for you to memorize other things? Yes, you've probably seen that you've probably seen a lot of young folk, they memorize the Quran and after that they memorize the Book of Buhari for example, or they memorize the the fortification of the Muslim the whole thing every day in it. So why is it that you always find this once they memorize the Quran? They have this excellent ability to memorize other books. Why do you think

probably the Quran does something right? To your noodles up here, helps you memorize. And actually there is a study that was done

in in 2000, the year 2000, in the University College of London. And they did this experiment with the taxicab drivers, they did the brain scan on them. And I don't know if you know this, but in Britain or like in London, they have two kinds of cabs, there's that that black ugly car you've probably seen in the movies, extremely ugly car. That's that's the taxicab, then they have other taxi cabs or regular cars. The black one is the more expensive one, you find that downtown. And it's extremely, extremely difficult to pass the test. Last time I was in London, you know, a taxi driver, not the black one. He was telling me that, you know, you know, the you know, they make much more

money than we do. I said, Well, why don't you get one of those ugly black cars. He said the test is unbelievably difficult. It's so difficult. I mean, they'll ask you, they could ask you any two questions from about 400 possible roads that you can take, but you have to know exactly how to get there, and how far it is and how long it would take an estimate the the fair as well. And they could ask you for the smallest little street that you're not aware of. But you have to know it like the back of your hand. It's very difficult test. So rightfully so that they would do the brain scan on these people. They did this brain scan on 16 different cab drivers. And they discovered that

the hippocampus, okay, I'm not talking about large mammal at your university.

The hippocampus is the part of the brain that stores long term memory. They notice that the hippocampus in these cab drivers was more developed and larger, or the back end of it was larger than in controlled way meaning regular other people non cab drivers. So the the study was like an indication that perhaps be the act of memorization. You know, it changes the brain structure and improves your brain and your general ability to memorize. So if we can you know based off of this study say that those who memorize the Quran the practice of memorizing the Quran, improves the structure of their brain or improves the ability to memorize and that's why you find so many

Horford, they're able to go on and memorize other things and things of that sort.

There was one of the one of the famous ways or it's considered the best way to memorize anything is through.

Rep.

Titian repetition

One of the best ways to memorize until today is just to keep repeating something until you memorize it. And

you probably had maybe a study partner, where you know, you keep it takes you a while to memorize, and they've already memorized it. But you know what, usually what happens? The the shorter, it takes you to memorize something more, more or less, the quicker you forget it. I used to study with with my friend

A long time ago in the 1940s.

And

I used to like it when I would look at it in two minutes. I've memorized it and he's still going through and he looks at me like you memorize it. So yeah, memorized it. But then two days later, I forgot it. And he still memorized it took more time. There is a story famous story of okay. And he was he had these, like lines, and he was memorizing them. So he's walking around the house and just repeating the verse over and over and over. And there was an old lady in the house, maybe like, you know, his mother in law, or somebody's grandmother or his mother, who's sitting and she just keeps hearing them repeat it, repeat it. She's like, What is it with you? You still haven't memorized

this, I memorized? It's sitting here. So he's like, Oh, yeah. And he tests her. He tested her. And she did it. She memorized everything. Second, and then of course, now, she got attitude and stuff. She's like, you know, so I memorized it. And he's still sitting here repeating this all day, give me a headache. So he came to her two days later. He said, Okay, tell me the line, there were like 70 lines. He said, Tell me the lines. Again, she couldn't remember them. And he told her I was repeating and constantly. So what happened to you would not happen to me, you see. And so repetition is so until now considered to be the best way of memorizing. And some, some scholars say if you

repeat something from 25 to 30 times that, that you will memorize it, some have even said 50 or 55 times until you, you memorize it to the point where you can't forget it easily. Or you can forget it anytime soon. And even just so you can benefit. If you have a presentation in your school, or you have to, you have a reading. See, a lot of times when you're about to read something, you think, Well, I know how to read, so you don't practice it. And then you come on in front of the mic and you're like, and, and that Sati was repeating the old women who were women, because the flow is not there. You notice the newscaster when they read, you know they well now they don't do that anymore.

But in the good old days when they used to read, they could look up for a while and they could keep saying what they're reading from their head. Why? Because they've semi memorized it. So they tell you to present something, well, you have to read it at least 25 times 25 times you have almost memorized it and it comes So naturally, even if you lose your spot in the page, it's still in your head. So that's just as a beneficial point for you. But you memorize, it's one of the best ways. So you don't forget. And it's one of the best ways to remember in a way that it doesn't just evaporate A few days later. Because now especially in our day and age, there's so many things that are

competing for your attention. And to sit down and memorize this is something that's kind of difficult now, why we're used to everything being fast paced, you know, everything has flashing lights, and sounds and music with it. And so you have to sit down and keep repeating something. It's very difficult. That's why so many kids have you know, add these days.

It's not funny, I don't know why you're laughing.

Really, so many kids have made it because they can't they can't sit still for a minute. They want to see images they want to see commercials and you know,

tricks the rabbit and they want to see stuff they can't sit down and be quiet. So

so the only things are competing for you for your attention now and there's TV and there's an internet and constantly and now we're training kids so that you know their brain does there's video games I forgot to mention that. And you see in in one part of the world. You think that nobody plays video games, but then I was surprised to discover so many brothers Mashallah. And they play video games. Brother had this beard down to here, level 100 brother these days I'm playing a video game I have made good progress on the law. Mashallah, this other brother.

He was playing this game where you conquer the world, right? So he was with the army of abubaker. And and this is the sad part that in his game in his mind, I think the game became a reality. He came to me boasting about I brought all of Europe under Islam.

I said well, I Mashallah, this is a great news.

playing a video game like that. Another brother. I met him in Ramadan in Ramadan. And he was like, yeah, these days I'm playing. That's that game that where you get off your car you can kill people and steal things and what?

A what? GTA. So in Ramadan he's playing that got his beard up to here. He's playing Grand Theft Auto after Torah, where he's like, okay, where was I? Oh yeah, I was killing and robbing the store. Okay, let me finish.

See the sisters are laughing with their brothers or not?

What could that say?

brothers have the game on pause right now at home,

and then go home and say, Okay, stop.

don't rob the store. So I'm just gonna get back in the car and drive around.

Alright, so enough with the corny jokes. You know, you teach knowledge to others, it helps it stay in your mind. You know, one of the best things for you to learn is to teach others no doubt. One of the best ways for you to learn is to teach others because you sit and you gather so much information, and then you write it, there's so much happens when you write something down. I had a teacher in sixth grade, he used to make us write the entire science experiment out and then give the results. We just wanted to copy it or copy and paste it. No, you'd have to handwrite it. And he used to always say so much happens when you go through this process of writing something down. And he's

so much happens up here.

So I know the law and who he used to say he used to compare knowledge and money. He used to say knowledge is better than money. Because knowledge protects you. Yeah, knowledge guards you while you have to guard money, true or false?

True. And then he says, knowledge increases with dispersement? While knowledge decreases True or false?

True.

False.

True. But I'm just I'm just wondering.

The energy What's happening? I don't know. Too much. And breakfast was too heavy. stay up late last night.

All right. So you when you teach others, so I won't believe that, that your knowledge increases when you teach it to others? Does that make sense? Why Why would that make sense?

Now? Why would it make sense?

You repeat Yes. Why would it increase you just in case or the same knowledge, but now it's more solid? But why does it increase? The more you teach something, the more you contemplate about it, if you teach them to see. And for the third, fourth time you start to realize something about this meaning of this ayah and why this word was before that word why this IO is before that? And what's the link between this segment of this of the chapter and the next segment? So the more you teach, the more you contemplate the more you think and the more you learn about what you're teaching. Okay. And

you know, I'll do you know, two more things I'll add to, to helping improve your memory. One of them I don't know if you'll ever do, it's basically hijama the Prophet sallallahu Sallam said in a hadith that copying it, it helps your memory as well. How many people have been kept over here, ends up

copying hijama it's like, you know, which bloodletting they call it also, if all these terms don't make sense, the basically they put a cup on your back with suck on your skin and then cut you up. And all right, who has experienced that? to people? See, that's why I didn't mention it. It's not like if I tell you, a gentleman improves your memory, everybody's gonna go and start getting stuff, right. So okay, but that's just for for your knowledge that hijama improves memory. And honey also improves memory. Some of us early scholars in Amazon and others used to say that honey is good for the memory. So is there any scientific evidence to this?

No, you're so sure. Yes, there is actually one of the things is that first of all, any honey, it has

three sugar molecules, and your brain is like one of the largest consumers of sugar. And honey also has the ability to get into your blood very quickly. If you consume some honey and you drink some water, it get into your blood within seven minutes. So it's actually good for the brain and it's actually

it's known to help improve memory. Okay, okay, I'm just gonna stop anyways.

I agreed with Chef man that I was going to stop here. And just make a quick mention of some other points. That fine with you.

Exactly.

So well, and

Great, so there's no q&a. So let me just end on this note in the last 10 minutes or so that I have.

You probably heard that some brothers got shot or shot at last night. Did you hear that? Some people who are with us, you heard? Nice. Okay. So the news spread quickly, right? So, like, I'm not really familiar with the, you know, what were the consequences was this and some kind of retaliation or a gang thing. And I understand a few weeks ago, something similar happened as well. So there's, of course, there is this problem with violence and a lot of times we assume that it's the other kids who are violent, another good young, some kids who are into the violence, but you know, something as being a part of the society, these things will naturally creep in to the minds of the youth. So I

want some of the youth to tell me and and tell me what you think. Don't tell me something that you think will make me happy. What do you think is like, what are they the characteristics of being a man? Somebody put your hand up?

What are the characteristics are sisters? We don't need your input here. We don't need to hear all the bad stuff.

What are the characteristics of being a man nobody wants to put their hand up?

marriage.

Okay.

All right. So those of you who are not married then what so what category Do you fall in? What what's the characteristic? Like what? Okay, so what are the Okay, let me just rephrase it. What are the descriptions of a man What is a man like? Or what makes someone a man? Yes, sir. masculine? Okay. I'll accept that. If you want to define masculine, that's fine. You want to define it? strength?

strength. Yes, sir.

Respond responsible for your actions. Okay. Somebody else?

Yes, sir. No.

Okay. Nobody wants to.

Nobody wants to cooperate today. All right, fine. So a lot of times when you ask you if and there are studies where young men growing up in the West in America, and Canada has been asked what makes a man a man. And usually you hear things about being strong, they usually do use that word they say strong, they say power, they say aggressive, they say all these things that are generally violent or aggressive things. And this is how they define themselves that to be a man, you need to be like this. And that's why they you know, in school, they look at the the sports guy, the jock, the guy with the broad shoulders that he's no more of a man than the guy that usually end up stuffed in a

locker somewhere, or the, you know, the nerd or the geek, you know.

So, so this, this is the definition, where do you think people get this from? Of course, you know, the answer.

From non, from the media, from television, and from

stereotypes from

from music, right? This is what you're told. And of course, one of the one of the most popular forms of music would be what they call hip hop, or rap. And basically, what what is the general message there? You know, give your neighbor a flower be sweet today, what do they sing? What do they sing about? they'll sing about how bad they are, how unbelievably violent and cool they are. And so the youth are affected by that. Some of them listen to that type of music, and they watch TV. The cool guy in the movie is the guy who just broke the other guy's nose. And then you know, the camera angle gets the wind blowing through his hair, and he's like, says something really cool.

Don't ever do that again. Oh, I'm so courageous. This is the problem though. And so you find Muslim youth You know, they're bad. What I mean by that they're bad. You know? So they you know, like

no, no smile. The bad the good guys. You know, the cool guys, they don't smile. So when should he smiled in the message that American brother No.

Mashallah, you're so cool.

So this is a problem that we have, and we have this thing, where now need the thug mentality comes natural with growing up. And sometimes people even have to fake it just so they can survive through school, they're walking around with their shoulder out and everything is out and when they're alone.

Because they've been like this the whole time.

So, the truth is really, I mean, you may find yourself being forced into those situations where you're a tough guy and you have to speak in a certain way. But the truth is, that's not

That's not who you're supposed to be. Okay? And I don't mean that you're just you're Muslim only. But what I mean by that is that you have another kind of job. And I know, you'll think that well, I'm still young. And you know, that's not my job yet, that's for sure. And speakers and those people, but you're not here. Or you're not,

aren't you?

I mean, how many of your friends have you invited and brought to Islam? Who would like to share a number with us?

sisters maybe.

Are you telling me this room? How many people are in this room? 500 505 100. A lot of them are Somalis. So you know what? I consider that good quality inshallah, that's how I feel. You know? So if a bunch of Arabs and stuff I'll be like, whatever, you know.

I'm just saying that if you were Arabs, I'd be like Arabs. Yeah.

But seriously, are you telling me 500 people and no one here invited anyone to Islam?

Maybe you were taught that this is the job for those dots. The imam of the masjid can do that. Or one sister? Where's this? Where's this? Mashallah. And another one, too? How can these hands start coming up now after I reprimand everybody?

Five from the sisters? Brothers. Six. We got one, brother Two, three.

What's happening over here? I know you guys are honest, but just suddenly, Oh, I remember those five I give you how to do yesterday.

Okay, fine. Oh, I know. I'm not gonna lie. I know. You're being humble. But But in this position, you know, put your hand up so we can see what what the situation is. But in the last five minutes, really, you're not. I mean, I know some 15 year olds and 14 year olds who bring their friends into Islam, their friends from high school. And instead of middle school, instead of just hanging out and just playing games all day, they call them to Islam. So the problem is, when you think you're a thug, you're a pro, you're approached by another gang in the school. So what do you do? So this is this is instead of Islam saying, Well, you know, we're dot, you know, we can call them to Islam, you

think you will, you know, we're Muslim, you have to stand together. So we're gonna call our own gang, and you will have a mirror of the gang. This is now your Islamic response to gang violence is we started our own gang. We're gonna call it demo kabillion, or whatever you want to call it. And we have a mirror over here. And you know, our gang colors. We all wear the Koofi.

And so what happens you have now a plenty of beef between you and the other group. And that's all it becomes. And you don't think that I'm trying to put blame on someone who got injured, Danny, but

there's different ways to deal with things. And even in your school, I know you think it is a jungle, but there's still you still have that obligation of calling these people to Islam. How would you love if on the Day of Judgment, you know, and everyone has enough problems on that day. And then all these people from your class and the best friends who's to sleep over at your place and hang out with you and they come and say, you know, he's the reason we were not Muslim. We used to be with him for hours and for weeks, and for years. In second grade. We were together. We only party to go to separate universities or something. He never invited me to Islam. Not once and I used to tell him

that I was confused. I told him that I how'd you like that?

So your job is really to add Okay, that's that's your other job. Allahumma barik ala Muhammad wa

salam aleikum wa barakato

Sonic Mashallah we'll be we'll be breaking four slots of door and lunch break for the sisters salon is going to be a GMC, which is like the hall down here so sisters are doing security guidance sisters towards there and for the brothers will be on the hallway the cafeteria hallway, so should be over here on that side of the cafeteria the hallway there. So people do security for the brothers do that also. Lunch will be from 145 until three so three sharp we will be beginning with the rest of the conference. And also please remember to take care of the school.

We have been

with the charity of the principal and TSB. They allowed us to use this venue. So please take care of the school, shall also so now we're only gonna talk at