Khalid Latif – Imam Nawawis 40 Hadith for Modern Times #06
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AI: Transcript ©
Is there somebody behind this thing?
Is there someone sitting
behind?
You can leave that one. So
cool.
So, Bill, I just wanna take a quick
minute if you introduce yourselves to the people
sitting around you. I know everyone doesn't know
everyone else.
You can share your names, how your day
went. We'll get started just a minute.
Are you ready?
Are you ready?
Yeah.
Okay. Should we get started?
So if people wanna pull up the Hadith,
we're on Hadith number 3 now. We were
finishing up the second hadith, the hadith
last week.
And so this is the 3rd hadith.
You can just Google something like,
hadith number 3,
hadith number 3, so we could follow along.
The hadith is Islam has been built on
5.
Does anybody have it?
Yeah. Do you wanna read it?
I'm not sure.
From where?
Just from the 3rd hadith.
On the authority? Mhmm. On the authority of
Abu Abdur Rahman
Abdullah, son of Omar bin Al Khatab
Hussain, I heard the messenger of Allah
Allah and that Mohammed is the messenger of
Allah,
the establishment
of prayer,
giving zakah,
making pilgrimage to the house, and fasting in
Amazon.
Great.
Is anybody wanna read the Arabic first?
Yeah. Go ahead.
Smaller than the last hadith that we read.
The hadith Jibrael was a lot longer, but
it's got parts to it that kinda correspond
in terms of meaning. Right? The Hadid Jibrael
has a section
that
when the angel is asking these questions,
and the prophet
talks about these 5 pillars.
And so in a little bit, we're gonna
just kinda discuss
amongst ourselves, like, why do we think that
is. Right? Imam Nawi is the compiler of
the hadith,
and he's got a 3rd hadith
that is right after a hadith
that pretty much mentions the same thing.
Like, why would he do that?
Before we do that, we want to talk
a little bit about the narrator of the
Hadith,
Abdullah bin Umar,
who is the son of.
So the first two hadith
in this hadith collection
were both narrated by.
Right? Indeed actions are by their intentions was
the first hadith, and that was narrated by
in this text. And then the second hadith,
the Hadith Jibrael, Omar Ibn Al Khattab was
also narrating.
But now you have the son of Omar
whose name is Abdullah
ibn Omer,
who's a pretty young man.
But we wanna be able to understand
kind of the biographical
sketches of these individuals. So we can also
read into
their words a little bit of who they
are and where they're coming from on this.
There are a lot of different young companions
whose names are Abdullah,
and
they
are noted
for very different things,
but Abdullah bin Amr,
he was noted particularly
for narrating
a lot of hadith.
Some people would
attribute, you know, more than a1000. Some people
would say 1600.
Some people attribute 26100
hadith to him.
And he and some of these other young
men who were named Abdullah,
who were just teenagers when the prophet passed
away,
They had this very unique
opportunity
in that they were absorbing
Islam
at a very young age.
Right? They weren't seeing it through the prism
of somebody
who has experienced life for 20, 30, 40
years. They're experiencing it in different ways. And
as young people,
they also are able to engage in different
things
that societally,
as a young person, you could get away
with certain things that older people couldn't get
away with. Do you know? So my son,
Kareem, who's 8 years old,
like, you might not say, Kareem, why were
you in the women's self defense workshop? Right?
But if Kevin went into the women's self
defense workshop, who's sitting right here, be like,
why is this grown man standing in this
place? Do you know?
So in being able to understand
kinda contextually,
what does it mean when we're hearing these
hadiths from actually lived people?
Right? They all don't exist in this kinda
homogeneous
archetype,
but they have their own personalities. They have
their own demeanors. They're individuals that differed.
Islam doesn't fit into this rugged sense of
individualism
that people quite often
would attribute to it. And what's interesting about
Abdullah ibn Umar amongst many things, his father
is Umar ibn Khattab,
who within the Sunni tradition
is the 2nd caliph in Islam.
And he comes from a place where Umar
before he was Muslim was a great opponent
of Islam.
Under his caliphate, the Muslim community expands greatly.
Abdullah ibn Umar,
as he gets older, he doesn't want anything
to do with politics.
He is not known as somebody who is
engaged
in that kind of
societal
interaction. It's not that he doesn't bear impact
or speak out against societal injustices.
There's a narration, for example,
where he is somebody who takes really seriously
what the prophet of God teaches people,
to the extent that he stops talking to
his own son on one occasion, because his
son now when they're older is trying to
make an argument as to why women shouldn't
be allowed in the masjid.
And Abdullah bin Umar, he says to his
son that the prophet literally said
to not deny
the
female servants of Allah access to the masjid.
Like, who are you
to
be somebody
who
contradicts or argues against what the messenger of
god says.
To the extent that his son, Salem, he
just stops talking to him
because he's engaged in something that contradicts
what is just established
practice, but
it's also circumventing now
what is established right of individuals.
And there's other people who have to say
to him that, hey. You should go and
talk to your son. He just made a
mistake. But it's not that he was kind
of
quietest in his interaction
with the world. Do you get what I
mean? But he wasn't necessarily
aspiring to be a governor or to be
Khalifa
or to be these kinds of things.
He was somebody who was deeply known for
his knowledge.
He partook in
a lot of the Hazawat, the battles that
took place,
and he had, like, the energy that a
young person would have.
He was
exemplifying
what it meant to be somebody
who adopted, like, a very sound belief.
Because the Quran teaches us, you know, characteristics
of laziness, for example,
are attributes of the
the hypocrites. Right? May Allah protect us from
any type of hypocrisy.
And so people like this,
they wanted to be in the mix of
things. Right? They wanted
to actively participate
and kinda
engage
at a broader level,
in ways that weren't just kind of passive,
but, like, they bought into this. And Abdul
ibn Omar, he was known as somebody
who
he,
just
had this
extreme
kind of connection
to the prophetic example, like his sense of
character,
his ethics, his etiquette,
his practice.
He had a deep influence on the development
of
the Maliki school
of legal thought within Sunni Islam.
So the people of Medina,
they were impacted deeply
by this man.
And the
title amongst many titles that he had, he
was known as one of the 4.
Right? So there were 4 young
who were well known,
Abdullah ibn Abbas,
Abdullah ibn Amir ibn Al As, and Abdullah
ibn Az Zubair in addition to Abdullah ibn
Amer. Right? All young people. There's another Abdullah
that's well known from the companions whose name
is Abdullah ibn Masood,
but he was much older. He wasn't considered
to be a part of this kind of
young
contingent. Right? And literally, they're like teenagers. They're
not like elderly people.
And he's in a place where he spends
a lot of time in gatherings
with his father,
with older companions,
taking in all of this information.
And so you wanna think about this. Right?
Because
if you have ever experienced somebody
who's like a well known figure
who then has a child of some kind.
Right? Like, when I was growing up, I
wasn't typically, like, very religious.
Do you know? And I met many Muslims
as I got older,
and I would go to,
like, Muslim spaces sometimes,
and I just didn't really fundamentally understand certain
things. But somebody once tried to explain to
me something that they called, like, Sheikh's
son syndrome. And I said, what does that
mean? And they were like, well, if you
have a Sheikh and they have a son,
like, sometimes they adopt a certain personality or
attitude. Do you know? And I said, well,
that sounds like pretty judgmental.
Right?
But you wanna think about it. People who
have well known family members, people who have
well known parents,
people who kind of are in the limelight
so to speak.
This man is the son of
who the prophet said about him,
that if there was a messenger after me,
it would be this man, Omar. Right? There
was a lot of success
under
kind of caliphate.
You know, he was well known amongst people,
and this is his son.
And he's still in a place where he
chooses
a life that
is really rooted in Zuhad,
just kinda detachment from the world.
He's not trying to
ride on the coattails of anybody
or say my father was so and so,
so you gotta treat me in a certain
way or, you know, I should be entitled
to this position or this authority.
He just really loved Islam
and he wanted to do right by God
And this is a characteristic of many of
these people
that their actions
and what's called piety, but not like antiquated
language, wasn't about just the pursuit of heaven.
Right? But it was about the pursuit
of God's pleasure.
Right? These are 2 very different things. There's
a nuance that's
there. A byproduct
of the pursuit of god's pleasure
is the acquisition of heaven. Right? May Allah
make us all people of Jannah.
But you can live in a life that
says, I'm just trying to get into heaven
versus I'm trying to live a life that's
pleasing to god. Do you see what I
mean? Do you see the difference there? Right?
And that's what this is about. And he's
gotta make decisions that say, that's not really
my thing.
Like, I'm not going to be the person
that can do this in this way.
So when you're asking questions about, like, the
politics of the society.
Right? My father is my father, but that's
not me.
I'm not gonna pretend to be something that
I'm not.
And it's important because
you are entitled to your own individuality
within this religion.
You're not in a place that just because
your father is so and so or your
mother is so and so, that means by
extension, you are going to be such and
such and so and so. Right? I tell
my kids quite often that you are blessed,
that you are growing up in a community
like this, but I do not want to
cast a shadow over you in any which
way. Right? Your relationship to your religion
should not be because you have to bear
a burden
of being the son of somebody who serves
a community.
Like, you gotta figure out some of these
things for yourself and have connection and ownership
to it. You know? And
personalities can be different within families.
And here, we're seeing this. Abdullah ibn Umar,
who is the son of Umar ibn Al
Khattab,
who narrates the first two hadith that are
compiled in this text and his son is
narrating the third, they do very different things
with their life.
They're both still narrating hadith,
but he's just in a place where he's
not the caliph in Islam,
nor is he trying to be a part
of that as a process. Does this make
sense what I'm trying to say? Right?
So, like, if you have kids or you're
one day blessed to have
kids, it's okay if they don't do what
you do.
It's also okay
if you kinda go in a different route
than other people in your life or your
family. That's not what success
necessarily looks like. If anybody was going to
be in a place
where the acquisition
of what was deemed to be something good,
it would be this guy doing what his
father was doing.
Right? But he's able to tread his own
path. He's able to still make sense of
his relationship
to his faith
without having to be exactly what the generation
before him was. Do you see what I'm
saying? Right?
And he's still bringing benefit.
He's still contributing
to people
in meaningful ways. There's so many things that
you can look at of Abdullah bin Umar
who is
the son of Umar ibn Al Khattab in
terms of, like, roles he played in helping
people
both during the time of the prophet as
well as well after. He was one of
the last companions
to pass away, like, in Mecca. Right? He
lived
many, like, years. They said he performed 60
Hajj in his life,
well over a 100 Umrah's. Right? So you
gotta think about this. Hajj can only be
performed once
in a year. Right? You can't perform it,
like, twice in a year. You can only
perform it once in a year.
People would ask him, why did you perform
so many umras? And he would say that
some of the umras he would perform, he
performed on behalf of the prophet sallallahu alaihi
wasallam. Right? And some of those things became
the basis of some of these actions. Do
you know?
And there's a lot that we can delve
into deeply here,
but you wanna think, like, this is a
young man
who grows up
within,
like, these realities.
Do you know?
And they still live
in this time.
And his father is not a caliph
at a time when Islam is, like, on
a decline.
His father is on a upward slope. Right?
Like, Islam extends
a lot under him, and he's still choosing,
like, what he's choosing. Do you get what
I mean? And so now he
is the person that's narrating this hadith. Right?
Islam Alakams.
This man who understands religion in this way,
and he's telling you
this is
what this
religion
is built upon.
Right? Like, in Arabic, the word
is
building.
So it's literally giving us that kind of
indication.
We're gonna talk about it a little bit
more. But what I'd love for you to
do, whether you were here the last few
weeks or not, the hadith before this,
like, literally has this in it already.
You know? The angel Jibrael in the second
hadith in his collection, he asked the prophet,
Islam.
Like, give me the news. What is Islam?
And the prophet tells him these five things
in this hadith.
Why do you think imam
is putting this hadith
that has the same text
in it,
albeit,
like,
in a submitted way. It's not also with
the rest of the hadith that was prior.
What is iman? What is ihsan? Tell me
of the hour. This one is only about
the foundational
pillars of Islam.
But why do you think
he would include it?
And not only does he include it, and
it has, like, the same essential meaning to
it, but it's right after the hadith
that it already just said the same thing.
Do you get what I'm saying? Does that
make sense? So So you can turn to
the person next to you just so we
can get talking a little bit. Why do
you think he would do this? Like, what's
the point of it? And then we'll come
back and discuss and get into the a
little bit, but go ahead.
Just in pairs, ideally, no more than 3,
but just so everybody's kinda talking and discussing
with each other.
Okay. So what are some of the things?
Why do you think Imam Noe is bringing
this up a second time in the very
next page of this book.
What do we think? Yeah.
Yeah. Other thoughts?
Yeah.
Other thoughts? Yeah.
Because the practice of Islam, like, mentioning the
foundation of Islam, what it also does is
one thing it it it grounds the Hadith
before this into, like, actual practice and reality
because
it's
that's one aspect. The other one is also
that,
it's it emphasizes the communal
kind of
responsibility
of
of the practice of Islam, because that's something
that binds the community together. And as Islam
spread, from the 1st generation, the one thing
that
could Islam spread,
from the 1st generation,
the one thing that could at least, like,
you know, outwardly keep the community together was
the practice.
And, like, that was, like, the starting point.
So
this was, like, the the string that
holds
the community together.
Other thoughts? Yeah.
Yeah. I mean, we know in the Quran
and the Hadith is gonna repeat different things.
But thinking about it from the standpoint of
Imam Nawawi is the teacher.
Right?
Like, he's putting this on 2 pages next
to each other.
You know?
Why why do we think he's doing that?
Not like the prophet repeating himself, and we've
pulled, like, some of these different things. But
you wanna think about this in these ways.
Right? In the emphatic nature of this and
giving this in this kind of affirming
sense that
this is like what Islam is about.
Do you know?
When we're thinking about this also, you wanna
think the prophet is an amazing
communicator.
And just the way he describes things,
there's not anything that is without meaning
in, like, Allah's
plan.
There's not anything that's without meaning then consequently
within, like, the prophet's teachings of Allah's plan.
Do you know? So if I'm getting this
imagery now in my head,
I'm not thinking about it contextually
in relation to us sitting in Manhattan.
In a Meccan society,
in a Medanese society,
the buildings do not look like this. So
when you're in this place now where this
is something that is being shared
with people
kind of across the board.
They're conceptualizing
it based off of edifices that they experience
day to day,
And they're gonna be in a place where
the imagery of it is not that this
literal space exists
without any obstructions in front of us. All
we see is a open room. But
if you are living in
a Mecca in Arabia, you're living as a
Bedouin, you're living in
Medina,
You're in a place where the idea that
you have a structure
that has now 5
foundational
mechanisms
that it is built upon is just going
to look a little bit different in your
head when you're hearing it. Do you get
what I mean?
And,
he wants the reader to know and understand
that this is something
that is both entry point.
It's accessibility.
It's a link across communities,
but also
that arguably
there's not so much more that each one
of us is required to do.
There's certain things that some people will have
to do, and there's other things that other
people will have to do, but there's not
so much that all of us
have to do within the confines of this
faith. Does that make sense?
Like, it's really simple. There's a hadith. The
Bedouin comes to the prophet. What's this religion
about?
And the prophet tells him to do these
things.
And then he says, I'm not doing anything
else, and he walks away.
And the prophet says, if he sticks with
it, he's a man of Jannah. Right? May
Allah make us all people of Jannah.
The hard part when you have mechanics and
ritual
is gonna get to a place where it
can be just about the externals.
Right?
Here, for example, when we get to that
part in the hadith,
it doesn't talk about performance of prayer
as the mussalines.
Right? Like the people who do prayer.
You are Musalee
if you are, like, the one making salah.
Right? It says,
like to establish
prayer.
We'll talk about it when we get to
that part in the hadith.
But when you are establishing prayer, you're not
it's not the same as just praying. It
could've just said pray, but you can just
pray and you're praying with your body.
Establishing the prayer means, like, following the rules
and mechanics of it. Praying it in its
time. Praying not just with your body, but
praying with your heart, with focus, with presence.
Language is really important here. Do you see
what I mean?
And he's
breaking it down for us in a way
that says, hey. It's not just about, like,
standing up and down and kinda
pecking at the ground, but this is really,
like, what the base of it all ends
up being, these things. And you gotta constantly
be revisiting it. You gotta constantly be going
back to it at the end of the
day. The foundations
are what everything gets built upon. Do do
you see what I'm saying?
So if we start to break it down
in terms of the hadith,
what is the first thing that he says
that Islam is built upon?
Yeah. And what does that say?
It's not your question, man. Yeah. I'm pretty
sure most people in the room know what
the is. What does it say?
Okay. So let's think about this now. Right?
He's talking
to these people
in
this metaphor.
The imagery is rooted in this.
There are conditions
to the Shahada
being fulfilled in our tradition. It's not just
the saying of it, but to have knowledge
of what the shahada means, to have certitude
in the shahada,
to accept the shahada,
to submit to the shahada. And we're gonna
talk about these things in different ways. But
understanding that it's not just about rote memorization
or kind of articulating on a tongue, there's
gotta be a little bit more that's a
part of this.
So in this imagery
of this house
that
this Islam is built upon, your Islam,
You wanna think about it in this way.
I have tangibly
in my possession
something that exists within me metaphysically,
but if I could hold it in my
hand,
the thing that's going to keep it up
now are these things. And if you've ever
seen a tent in the desert, if you
ever seen a tent anywhere, right, if you've
ever been in a place where you've seen
these structures that people
exist in and go into in different parts
of the world, even contemporarily,
the main
focal point
of creating,
upright
edifice
is going to be
the pillar that is right in the middle,
the one that holds all of it up.
Doesn't make a difference if you got one
on the side that's doing well, if you
got one in the corner that's doing well,
if the one that everything is resting upon
in the middle
is not solid,
then nothing else is going to stand upright.
And even if the one that's in the
middle is the only one that's doing what
it's supposed to do, the thing still has
capacity to stay up.
But if it's gone, everything else falls down.
That's what Shahada is in our religion.
So the relationship with your Islam
goes back to this thing.
And one of the first parts of being
able to engage Shahada.
Right?
That I
bear witness that there is nothing worthy of
worship except Allah.
You have to, like, know what it actually
is talking about.
Do you know what I mean?
That
knowledge of the Shahada
is something
that
sometimes the nuance of it breaks down for
us
through translation.
What do we know
that the Shahadah is teaching?
Like, if somebody walked in here and you
told them,
say this phrase.
Right? We're not, like, tricking people into converting,
but they're trying to understand what this is
about.
What is this thing actually
saying? What does it mean?
Okay. Yeah. Oneness of God. What else?
Great. So thinking about this now in 2
frames. Right? It's a statement.
That the means no. Right? It's a negating
word.
Is not like just a god. Do you
know? But Ilaha is, like, a ilah is
anything that you could worship.
It's very different because
in contemporary
society, as well as, like,
pre modern society,
people worship a lot of different things. We
were talking about this while we were breaking
our fast after Maghrib.
There's a lot of people in the world
right now. They're showing you
that their god is money
and that their religion
is capitalism.
They're showing it to you every single day.
They don't care about black people.
They don't care about the black people of
the Middle East.
They're in a place where what they worship
is wealth,
and what their doctrine is is just rooted
in the acquisition of wealth.
Means that there's nothing
worthy of worship,
not just there's no god.
Because the conceptualization
of god is going to vary
from individual to individual.
You go on the street right now and
you talk to somebody based off of where
they're coming from,
their language of what a prophet is is
not what an Islamic understanding of a prophet
is because prophets are different in various traditions.
You're not knocking anybody's belief, but it's different.
You talk to somebody who comes from a
different religion,
whether it's monotheistic
or polytheistic,
the essential understanding of who God is is
different.
This
Shahada is telling you in its first part
what is taught to us as just
complete negation.
There is nothing
worthy of worship.
You gotta wipe it all off of the
slate.
Your physical beauty,
don't worship
it. The validation of people,
don't worship it.
Culturally hegemonic
attitudes that are abhorrent, that make you hate
yourself,
don't worship it.
None of it is worthy of worship.
There is
nothing
worthy of worship.
In particular, like your worship
is not worth it.
And then it gives the exception,
which is an absolute
affirmation.
Ilah except
Allah.
And the ilam of this is knowing that
this is what it says.
Who that god is,
what we understand about him to be also
on a subjective level as we get through
this a little bit more. Because you could
believe that god is halik. He created you.
That doesn't mean that you believe he is
Rahman,
that he is merciful and compassionate,
nor does it mean that you believe he
is razak, the provider.
Like, I'm not the provider of provision to
my children. I could be a means through
which they get it, but that's not coming
from me to them. Do you see?
There is nothing worthy of worship.
Except Allah,
except god.
A pure monotheism.
It's very different from other religions.
Nothing else is worth my worship.
I'm not
subservient
to any of God's creation.
My submission
is not to family.
My submission
is not to a spouse.
My submission is not even to myself. Right?
This is Quran.
Do you see the one who takes their
their desire
as being what they worship?
And that phrase is saying,
none of it's worth it, man.
All of it has flaw to it.
All of it
has just
limitations to it.
Nothing is worthy of your submission.
Nothing should be what it is
that you are chasing
after
except Allah.
So that complete negation
is followed by a complete affirmation.
All of it,
only this.
That's just what it is.
Right?
There was a star on the table.
None of it is there
except
the Nutella.
So when you hear it, it's like, oh,
the only thing that's left on the table
should be Nutella.
Right?
All of it is gone
but this.
Do you see?
That's what this first part is saying.
And then the second part, affirming the prophethood
of the prophet Muhammad
we're gonna get to in a little bit.
But condition number 1
of this Shahadah
is knowledge.
This is not an inherited religion.
You can think it is,
but it necessitates
embracing it as a discursive theology,
Right? What does this mean to me?
And we're gonna get into it in a
bit
as we build out some of the rest
of these points,
but in recognizing it now in this way.
Point number 2
within the frame of the shahada
is
you have, like, yakin in it, certitude.
Yakin
meaning
the way we come into this room
and you know when you hit the light
switch, the lights are gonna turn on.
You're gonna go down the hall and there's
a water fountain,
and you're gonna think water's gonna come out
of it.
Every human being has reasonable faith.
Anybody who tells you that they are without
faith, they're lying to you because they believe
in these things.
What reason do you have to believe that
the lights are gonna work in your apartment
when you go home?
Why do you believe that water is going
to come out of the faucet?
What is
is having a deep faith that you believe
in god the way you believe that the
lights are gonna turn on when you hit
the switch.
That you believe in god the way that
you believe water is going to come out
of the water fountain when you turn the
water fountain on.
So understanding
that certitude
can now get juxtaposed
by
elements or two elements that help us to
understand what it is by recognizing what it's
not.
So certainty
is not doubt.
And you'd wanna think for yourself,
how do I know
when do I have doubt in
the versus what demonstrates to me that I
have certitude in it?
This is different from struggle.
Right?
Struggle is something that is hard. All of
us
have it. It's not easy right now to
be Muslim
in the world. May Allah grant ease to
all of us.
It's difficult.
That doesn't denote
an absence of certitude,
but you want to have for yourself a
metric that recognizes
that the whole point of the shahada
is not to just spit it out when
you lift your finger or put your finger
down in the prayer or you, like, might
be shaking it up and down or however
you do it. Do you know what I
mean?
Right? My kids, when they were learning how
to pray, they thought, like, because we were
putting one finger up, that if you put
2 up, it's even better. Right? And then
sometimes my son, he'd be, like, shaking all
of his fingers. I'm like, hey, man. What
are you doing? And he's like, you put
one up, so I thought I'd put all
of them up, bubba. I was like, amazing.
Thanks. It's good. I'm doing well here.
What are you claiming
when you say this thing?
So you can know something.
It doesn't mean you believe it.
You can know that when somebody says this,
they're affirming
a pure monotheism,
and they are affirming a prophethood
in this man,
Muhammad
ibn Abdullah
sallallahu alaihi wa sallam.
That doesn't mean that you believe it.
I could take you down the street to
the department of Islamic studies here. There's a
lot of people who are professors there. May
Allah give them Hidayah who
know more about Islam than all of us
in this room combined.
It doesn't mean they believe in it.
So do you see the difference between, like,
knowing and believing in it?
Right? This is difference between
just codified
creed and faith.
So
part number 2 to this
is
you gotta actually believe in what you're saying.
For that
pillar to be upright that's holding it up,
the rest of this house,
It's not you pick and choose
at different times. This is what I'm giving
more certitude to. That dollar is more valuable
than anything else.
That that ring on my finger is more
valuable than anything else.
Imam Nawawi, who's the compiler of this hadith
collection,
he passes away at a young age because
he, amongst many other things, spoke out against
social inequities. He wouldn't eat certain foods
that came from his own homelands
because he felt that the land was unjustly
usurped
by the government, and he wasn't trying to
do that. And it impacts his health overall,
but he's in a place where he knows
what his belief is.
You can't believe in something if you don't
know what it is.
But after you know what it is and
you can explain it and you can give
a presentation on it and you can talk
it out deeply,
it doesn't still become enough to say, I
actually buy into this thing.
If you were to assess just from your
decisions, your choices in the last day, the
last week, the last month,
even just the last day,
does it demonstrate
that you think that there's nothing worthy of
your worship except Allah.
To be a worshiper in our tradition, an
abd
isn't like a servant or a slave the
way people translate it. It's lazy
like these translations.
You are an abd
because you
necessarily
rely on something to exist.
You cannot exist on your own accord.
That's what an abd is. That's why everything
in creation is abd.
Allah is.
He is free of need, self sufficient.
This is why he's.
So you are now in a place
where you are making a determination. Am I
Abdulah
or am I
Am I of the reflection
in the mirror that I look at?
Am I
of
capitalism?
Am I obbed
of anything else?
And where and how you can have an
assessment that says, like, hey, man. What's showing
to me that I actually believe in this
thing?
I have some kind of certitude,
some kind of faith in it.
Is there a sense of trepidation?
Is there not? Abdul ibn Umar,
who is the son of the Khalifa,
he doesn't have a lot of money.
He doesn't have so much wealth. He's not
known by his wealth.
It doesn't mean that wealth in of itself
is a problem in our religion. There are
companions
who had nothing in their possession, and there
are companions who were deeply affluent and rich.
The whole idea was to just understand
that you're gonna be not asked about how
much you have, but how did you acquire
it and what did you do with it?
And to understand it is also a blessing
by recognizing the giver of the blessing.
So how do I know
I have certitude
in this thing? All you gotta do is
just think about it, reflect upon it, not
in a self deprecating way, not in a
way that gives shaitan victory over you. And
part of it is going to be rooted
in an understanding
of being able to say
that I'm in a place where I'm willing
to reflect and contemplate.
I know I'm a work in progress.
The whole idea is to not chase after
perfection
as a foolish pursuit.
Right?
But to get to a place where I'm
willing to acknowledge where I stand now in
relation to where I'd like to be so
that I can actively work to getting to
that place.
So you know what it means? Just think
about it logically.
I know what this means. Now I gotta
think. Do I actually believe in this thing?
And is there something else that I am
in a place of
kinda contradiction on it just from how it
is that I'm living my life?
Okay. Let's take a pause for a second
because I know I'm talking a lot. You
turn the person next to you. What are
you taking away so far from the conversation?
What's coming up for you? And then we'll
come back and discuss,
but go ahead.
Okay. What are some of the things coming
up for people so far?
What are we talking about?
Who wants to start?
What are some of the things coming up
so far? Are we taking away so far?
Yep.
I liked your point about
how, like, you know, sometimes we can submit
to our family or with your spouse, but
remember that there are faults in those people.
To remember that ultimate submissions to Allah who's
a sustainer who gives us risk. So I
thought that was a good reminder.
Great.
Other thoughts? Other takeaways?
Yeah. Avi and I were talking about
the
the framing of there is no god
except god and how
that framing on its own is powerful.
It almost anticipates
other,
like, I notions of god that we might
entertain,
and it
it clarifies,
like,
the place that god holds or should hold
in our understanding.
And one story I was sharing is about
an agnostic friend of mine who
who pointed
out the fact that he liked the first
part of the statement, this idea that there
is no god. And when he said that,
it made me realize how close this statement
of absolute truth is to abject blasphemy.
So it's like there is no god
except god and how
that reality makes this statement so powerful.
Yeah.
Other thoughts?
Yep.
Yeah. And you wanna think. Right? Especially in
a community like ours,
there's, like, people coming here taking their
every day. And it's not like a atypical
situation, but in some spaces, it could be.
Like, what what is it that they're actually
affirming in that process?
At what point in time did I ever
affirm,
like, this
for myself? Do you know? How does it
inform certain things? Do you get what I
mean? And
at different phases in your life going back
to it to think out what's my relationship
to it. How is it present in my
decision making? Like, do I buy into it
in terms of what it's actually saying?
The 3rd kinda point that goes in so
after we talk about,
the first two, like, knowing what this thing
is and assertitude in it. The third is,
having an acceptance of this.
Right?
The acceptances
of what is the implications of the statement
in and of itself.
So if I'm saying
there's nothing worthy of worship except Allah. Right?
Muhammad,
then Muhammad is the messenger of Allah, then,
by extension saying
that I buy into everything then that they
are saying is the way to do things.
It's not like a pick and choose type
thing that I'm creating my own religion.
Right? The Quran says, like, don't eat pork.
So that's the way to go.
You know? I could struggle with it. I
could be sneaking, like, ham sandwiches,
you know, and whatever else. Right? I had
a friend who I'm not gonna say his
name,
but,
you know, when we were younger, he's from
another country. He wasn't from here. And we
went to a restaurant,
and he ordered a BLT.
And And I was like, hey, man. Like,
what what are you doing? He was like,
oh, it tastes so good. And I was
like, yeah. But so it's a BLT. Right?
And he was like, yeah. You know, beets,
lettuce, and tomatoes.
I was like, no, man. I was like,
that beet does not stand for beets, brother.
Right? He was like, what do you mean?
I was like, it's bacon, dude. He was
like, no. You're lying to me. It's not
bacon. Right? I was like, no. It is
a BLT.
Like, it's bacon. Right?
Understanding, though, for yourself. It's not one of
those things that's like, I think, I feel,
I want. You can struggle with something. You
can say, it's hard to wake up for
fudger.
Like, I have difficulty not smoking this thing
or not drinking this thing. Their companions of
the prophet of god who struggled with drinking
alcohol, who struggled with committing zina. There's literally
hadith where companions come to the prophet. You
gotta make
for me.
Like, they say it to him. Do you
know? Right?
They're dealing with reality.
But they're not saying, I think god got
it wrong.
Or I think we have to change what
this book says.
They can struggle with it
on different parts,
but the notion is still that
I am subservient
to the sender of this messenger.
That I'm not making
the creator subservient to me.
So by acceptance,
I am giving an understanding
that whether I love to do it or
it's hard for me to do.
Whether it's something I even understand, why it
is that we got I don't know why
we pray 4 to God, Isha, and not
3, and why we pray 2 at fajr,
and why why don't we pray 6? I
don't know. You don't know either. You might
think you know, but you don't know. How
would you know the answer to that?
But that's just Allah's wisdom.
That's what he gave to us.
And you buy into a god centric religion,
you buy into it in its entirety.
I was sitting with a couple
that
the guy is Catholic. The girl is Muslim.
And he's sitting, and he's saying, hey, man.
Like, why can't we just have a wedding
that's 50% Catholic and 50%
Muslim? And I said, well, like, a wedding
can't be Muslim. Right? It can be Islamic.
But in understanding, if it's 50% Catholic and
50% Islamic, then it's not either Catholic or
Islamic. You're just making your own religion at
that point. I'm like, you're a grown man.
You can do whatever you want to, but
you cannot just say
that I'm picking pieces,
and then that's what this religion is.
Acceptance in the Shahada
is saying that the Quran,
the parts I understand, the parts I don't,
the parts that are hard for me, the
the parts that are easy for me, the
sunnah, the parts that I love, the parts
that I struggle with, I buy into all
of it.
I'm accepting of it.
Are there things that fundamentally,
like, we have to reconcile certain times? Things
that might have been given to us that
we don't know, like, why they were taught
to us in these ways. Right? Abdullah bin
Umar, who is narrating this hadith, is telling
us about his son
saying to him that he doesn't think women
should go to masjid. And Abdullah bin Umar
is saying to his son, who are you
to say
that something shouldn't happen, that the messenger of
god said should happen.
Do you get what I mean?
So you might have a parent who's telling
you something about religion.
They don't know what they're talking about.
You might meet somebody who's Muslim who could
tell you something
that they don't know what they're talking about.
But you might also have an experience
that just because it's hard for you to
do,
doesn't mean that it's not part of Islam.
And you just have to relent to that.
It's an actual thing that we have to
go through. There's various scenarios that bring us
to certain places. I spend a good chunk
of time, not on a
daily basis, but I could say weekly, just
on the phone with people who their struggle
is necessitating them unlearning things that are just
not what Islam says.
But it's given to them in that way,
and then it throws everything off. Do you
know what I mean?
When you're saying this Shahada,
a part of it is also accepting what
its implications are. There's nothing worthy of worship
except Allah
means that whatever Allah has sent to me,
like, I accept
that. Mohammed is the messenger of Allah. Whatever
the prophet is teaching me, I have an
acceptance in this.
You then have
what we understand to be, like,
subservience or submission to the Shahada.
So you can accept it, you can believe
in it, and you can know what it's
talking about,
but it still might not inform your decision
making.
You know?
So the idea now is to have it
inform
your actions.
The submission to it is not just in
lip service.
It's something that you are subservient to in
your tongue and in your heart, but it
informs like actions. It does something that says
that I'm going to try to act in
accordance with what this religion is telling me
to do.
And you have to be kind to yourself
in this.
Right? It's not about indifference,
but to be able to understand that it's,
like, not a overnight kind of now I
believe this, and all of it's just gonna
come into. There's no button on you that
says, here now I'm super Muslim, and here
I'm not super Muslim. Do you know what
I mean?
And everybody has stuff that they can improve
upon and work upon. Do you know?
But you're in a place where you are
just trying your best. And that submission
is also
that you don't pretend like it's not there.
Do you know what I'm saying? Like, you
don't.
There's a difference between saying
I am in a place where I feel
like my safety is compromised.
The world is chaotic,
and it's showing me again and again
what it values and what it does not.
I don't know if I'm comfortable
praying in an openly public space
at the time that I'm in. I can't
tell you what I'm comfortable with because I'm
not you, and you're not me. My job
is to be Muslim. Right? My office is
down the hall from a prayer space. You
know? Like, I have certain privileges that all
of you do not have fundamentally.
But there's certain things
that are different from struggle
to just straight up, like, neglect
and ignoring.
Do you know?
Like, I know this thing is this thing.
I'm still just gonna go do whatever this
is. No struggle attached.
I just feel like it.
So then you're worshiping your feelings.
Right?
It's hard for me to pray because it
doesn't feel a certain way. You don't worship
the feeling. You worship the one who told
you to pray in this way. Do you
see what I mean?
The benefit isn't attached to what the emotional
experience is at the end of the day.
It's just you get it done because you're
supposed to get it done.
So that submission
is something
that is there.
Then another aspect to it is actually
having,
like, a certain, like, integrity and honesty in
the.
What does that mean? There was a lot
of people during the time of the prophet
of God, especially as Islam was, like, on
a upward trend
that they outwardly expressed it, but inwardly, their
heart just wasn't there.
Right? These category people, they're called the.
They have hypocrisy in their hearts. Protect us
from it. They're just dishonest. They're lying about
it. Do you know?
You don't want to have that kind of
engagement
where you're just saying it
for, like, the sake of saying it,
and it's just to gain from the benefits
of what
the
community is able to offer to you.
And so when you say something with honesty,
like, where does that come from?
Right? If we are understanding and distilling what
these things mean, a lot of this has
to do with letting the
be in your heart,
not just on your tongue,
but something that you're able to sit with
and say, like, conviction is in here.
It's not just something that's here.
Something that resounds deeply within me
that I
have a relationship with just like I have
a relationship with anything. And as I grow
and life throws different things at me and
I oscillate in different ways, and my faith
goes up and down. This is a hadith
that your iman is like a pendulum. It's
gonna swing. It's gonna go up, and it's
gonna go down. These are normal things. You
don't have to hate on yourself as a
result of it, but to be able to
understand within it that
there are people who just claim it, but
it's not necessarily
rooted in something here. You see?
Sincerity
that is a big part
of our
religion. Right? You don't wanna be disingenuous.
You want to have a genuine relationship with
this thing. Do you know? Like, I actually
have conviction in it,
and there is
in it. Right? There is a sense of
sincerity.
The prophet had this, and he demonstrated it.
You know, when the people of
his community
want to
make him stop, his uncle Abu Talib is
still his protector, so they can't do anything
to him. And they say, go tell your
nephew to stop doing this. And they're trying
to broker and barter and do whatever it
is. And
Abu Talib is, like, telling him, they want
me to get you to stop. And the
prophet says to him so powerfully
that if they were to put the sun
in my right hand and the moon in
my left, I still wouldn't stop.
And Abu Talib knows
from this just how deeply convicted
his nephew is in this.
And he says, I got you. Like, don't
worry.
You cannot feign sincerity.
So if somebody tells you,
like, be Muslim until you get to the
door of the office,
And then when you're here 9 to 5,
you're not Muslim anymore.
And what are they bartering with you?
I'm gonna give you this many dollars
in exchange for you muting your identity.
This is not, hey. Go nuts on the
Internet right now. If you are going to
act in a certain way, you have to
deal with the consequences of your actions. It's
not about a prism of equity,
whether it's fair or not. It is unfair.
It is not fair. Just deal with that,
and then work in the prism of reality.
That's not what we're talking about here.
When the prophet is being told, we will
give to you. What do you want? Like,
do you want money? We'll make you the
richest amongst us. Do you want land? We'll
give you power and authority. Do you want
women? We'll give you the most beautiful women.
And each and every time, he's like, it's
not about this.
It's not for him to compromise
on what is not in his jurisdiction to
compromise on,
but he also believes in it.
So when they present to him an option,
he's saying,
put like celestial objects in my hands.
The sun is in my right hand. The
moon is in my left. I still wouldn't
stop.
Because when you're really into it, like, it's
just not that easy to let go of.
You
see what I mean?
So
you think for yourself,
where does the akhlas come in? Where does
the conviction come in?
And then
a key part to this
is that there is an element
of love.
And you can read, like, people who are
across the board
from their perspectives
on Islam. Whatever kind of language you wanna
utilize,
liberal, conservative,
whatever.
Right? Harsh, whatever.
Anybody is gonna tell you,
like, love is an integral value in this
religion
and has to be a key part to
the relationship with the divine.
He says
that the relationship that one has with the
divine, he likens to a bird.
And he says that its wings are feeler
and hope, and its head is love.
You think by the analogy,
somebody loses a wing, You lose one of
your arms, God forbid. You can still live.
You lose both of your arms. You can
still live. You cannot live without your head.
If there's no love, it makes it that
much more difficult.
The challenge is in being able to recognize
that it comes from within
because Allah tells you he is.
So if anyone tells you, how do you
know god loves you? Well, because he tells
you he's the source of loves you not
just because of who you are. He loves
you because of who he is. What makes
it really hard to love fully
is not necessarily
because we're not loved by others, but it's
hard for me to love you when I
don't really love myself.
And in this conversation,
one of the things that makes it hard
for us to love ourselves
is when we worship things that are built
in ways to make us dislike ourselves.
So if you worship the structure that was
built to hold you down in the first
place, it wasn't built to make you like
you or the color of your skin.
It was built to make you detest
the way that you look.
That's what it was built to do.
It was built to make you think there's
something wrong with you because you want to
visit the sick or treat elders with respect
or take care of orphans and
literally the world is showing you what it
cares about children right now. May Allah
grant all of their loved ones ease who
have witnessed their deaths, and grant them the
best of reunions and the world beyond this
one, in the highest levels of Jannah. They're
telling you what they believe in, man.
They don't even care about babies.
Why are you taking your sense of validation
from them?
Why?
Why do you think success is based off
of how much money they've given you?
The system is so, so out of whack,
and it's hadith. There's a hadith about the
apocalyptic
narrations of hadith that talk about
civilizations that are just
destroying
civilizations.
Right? That there are civilizations.
Then what do they do? They literally just
break down things so that they could build
them up and break them down again. All
these people care about is making money. They
don't care about anything else. Don't kid yourself.
And if you worship that,
there's no way you love yourself.
There's no way.
There's no way you can love yourself
if you are
seeking validation from something that is not built
in love.
It's just not possible.
You get to a place at a minimum
where you can say, thank god
I'm not at least like that guy.
I could be doing so much messed up
stuff.
I'm, like, terrible at this.
I mean, BLTs thinking they got beats in
them. Right?
But at least I'm not like this mess.
And then it's an entry point to saying,
then who am I?
What is it that I know of me?
Everybody's got stuff they can improve upon.
Everybody's got stuff that they wish they never
did.
People got things. I could put you in
front of people, man. My friend who tell
BLT guy, he could tell you stuff about
me. Right?
But the whole idea
in our spiritual tradition
is that one who is in a place
of contentment,
if everything within them was revealed to the
world, they would be in a state of
ease
because love is the basis of all this.
You love god. You recognize god's love for
you. You make it a mechanism to love
yourself.
You don't have to fall into these boxes
that are hard. It's really hard to navigate,
but you are good. You are good
regardless of what it look at there's enough
examples of bad of bad people.
They're showing you what it means to be
an evil human being.
Treachery,
betrayal,
inequity,
injustice,
disregard
of human life.
Why? Why do you worship this?
Why?
Why do you spend so much of your
time chasing after what it is that these
people make you believe
is indicative of success?
How could they fundamentally
be your source of guidance and instruction?
And here,
there's nothing worthy of my attention,
of my worship, of my submission,
my subservience
other than Allah. What does Allah ask you
to do? To be compassionate,
to treat people well,
to be in a place where prayer is
not a metric of assessment
of just how many I got done,
but it's a tool for your spiritual
enhancement and ascension.
The world tells you to just numb and
numb and numb.
And this religion tells you to heal and
heal and heal,
and to see from these spiritual
exercises and practices
mechanisms to find that healing.
So love becomes an important part of this.
Rabi al Basri, who's
a spiritual master of this tradition,
she famously says, I will not serve god
like a laborer in expectation of my wages,
that her doing for Allah is not in
this transactional
mode of interaction.
She just does because she wants to do.
This is why I said in the beginning,
is
indicative
of what it means to be a Muslim
who lives for the pleasure of god
rather than the pursuit of heaven.
They're 2 different things.
And Jannah and Jahannam,
they can't do a thing to you or
for you
because they're still from the creation of Allah.
Does that make sense?
And so this Shahadah
is that main kind of pillar
in this house.
The rest of it doesn't do anything without
this pillar.
And we talk about this now from the
standpoint of Muhammad,
that Muhammad is the messenger of god. What
does this mean? The same ideas that we
can parallel to Allah in some capacity.
1, when you're saying, Mohammed is the messenger
of god, you're saying that he is, like,
chosen by Allah.
There's no mistakes in that.
Allah and his divine wisdom
chose the prophet to be
not just his prophet but a prophet to
all of humanity.
Which means when you say this Shahada,
you are affirming
1 god and the last messenger
that is for anybody from any race, any
culture, any ethnicity,
any class, any part of the world.
If you are racist, then you are not
demonstrating an understanding
of Muhammad
let alone
The 2 things don't go hand in hand.
Right?
Embedded within this also is the recognition
that he is the last messenger.
He is a final prophet. It's coming from
here, from an understanding
of what does Mohammed
Mohammed
mean.
We also have within it a recognition
that
you follow the teachings
of the prophet of God.
The sunnah is not just about the performance
of your sunnah prayers, which it is,
but it's also about understanding,
like, the inward and outward aspects of the
sunnah.
Ethics,
values,
a tradition
that is a living tradition,
14 centuries of a lived tradition.
When you're saying the Shahada, you're also saying
that the prophet of god,
not only was he chosen correctly by Allah,
but he got it right when he did
his job.
That that acceptance part is rooted in this
as well. That you're not sitting
and having to apologize to people on behalf
of your religion.
Maybe he didn't know what he was talking
about or maybe this was something he could've
done differently.
But the extension here is Muhammad.
He is the messenger of God. He did
his job well. Like, he conveyed it in
the ways that it needed to be conveyed.
He didn't
do anything
that should have been done in a different
capacity.
And then, also, a part of this
is that you similarly have
a love for the prophet Muhammad
You're taking in this Muhammad
and understanding that this man is an exemplar.
He has a connection now to the divine
and that he personifies the Quran
in a lived form, like his actions, his
teachings, his sayings, his tacit approval.
They are an embodiment
of what this book is.
So you read the Quran and you read
the hadith
and not in a reductive way, but you
see how all of them kinda connect to
each
other. You distill meaning from it, but it
becomes a philosophy on life. You're not just
Muslim as a sociological
identity variable, but you're saying like, hey. What
would somebody who believes in one god do
in this situation?
Where would I go to find that understanding?
Well, here is, like, the prophet of god.
What are some of the things that he
was doing in this situation?
Did the prophet
let his children get married to people who
are from a different culture?
Yeah. Like, it happened.
So why don't you?
Did the prophet have family members
who came from all different racial and cultural
backgrounds?
Did the prophet have relationships with people who
are Muslim and people who are not Muslim?
Did the prophet demonstrate
what compassion,
justice,
equitable treatment was? How do you take care
of your neighbors? How do you honor the
elderly in a community?
Where do you go to for advice and
counsel,
ethical dilemmas?
So in understanding in this Shahada
for it to be upright,
like, you are buying into that he taught
it well and that this is where you
also take a source of instruction and guidance
from.
And as you grow in capacity,
right, my 8 year old is not gonna
relate to the sunnah the way my 41
year old self should relate to the sunnah.
And if all you know of the sunnah
is what you learned when you were 8,
9, 10, or 11,
then you are doing a disservice to yourself.
You have to be able to revisit it
as you develop consciousness in your life. Your
mental faculties grow. Your emotional capacity grows. It
helps you to understand
different parts of what it is that this
tradition is teaching us.
Okay. I wanna be mindful of the time.
We're gonna go through the other ones really
quickly
because
we're not, like, teaching a thick class here.
The how to's of salah, your prayer, and
zakah,
like charity and Hajj,
pilgrimage,
and som, like fast in Ramadan,
but we'll talk about those. But this is
an important thing. Right? The Shahada
is
described as being the key to Jannah. Right?
May Allah make us all people of paradise.
And it's not the only part because for
a key to work, what's quite often given
in
sayings of people of the early generations of
Islam, they use this metaphor, and they say
keys need to have, like, ridges to them.
There's things that allow for it to actually
fit in for that gate to be open,
the door to be open. So, where these
other things come from. We'll talk about this
stuff but you want to just go home
and think about what does the Shahada mean
to me? How do I value the Shahada
in somebody else?
Do I discount or delegitimize
people's Islam
based off of stupid things. There's no other
way to say it. It's stupid
if you think somebody is a better Muslim
or a worse Muslim based off of their
country of origin or the color of their
skin, doesn't make any sense, like, makes no
sense whatsoever.
Do I recognize enough of a value in
my sisters and brothers who I share this
thing with so my relationship is not rooted
just in similar
and familiar
sociological
traits, country of origin, cultural heritage. If I'm
only comfortable with people who share those, it's
not that that's a problem. Right?
You sometimes need to be with people who
understand. I don't know what it's like to
be a black person living in the United
States.
And so you sometimes have to be with
people who just get it.
I don't know what it's like to be
a woman. I'm not a woman.
Case anyone's wondering. Right?
So there's values to having these spaces,
but that's different
from,
I need everyone to be just like me,
not because there's something wrong with you being
you, but I don't know how to be
me unless everyone around me is me.
That's why there's all these messages where when
you walk in and you're different from everybody,
everybody just stops and stares at you. That's
why Malcolm says that one of the most
segregated times in the country is on Sundays.
It's not that different on Friday afternoons.
People go to the clubs that they have
built,
boys clubs, cultural clubs. They're not masjids in
the ways that masjids are supposed to be.
A house of God
is meant to draw attentiveness to God, not
the house, and everybody is meant to be
able to access the house of God regardless
of their backgrounds.
So all I would suggest is spend some
time, like real time, and carve it out.
What does the shahada mean to me?
Do I understand what it's really seeking to
invoke? Is it the basis and foundation
of my philosophy on life That if I
was
to conceptualize
my existence as a home, is this what
it is that's holding that home up right
now? Or what else comes into it?
That sincerity,
these other things, what they also mean is
that you don't worship anything else.
You cannot fully embrace the shahada
if there's something else you worship. That's a
hard conversation
to have, but you have to have it
to be able to say, hey. What am
I actually a worshiper of?
And you don't have to do it alone.
Like, if we can do it together,
if we're in a place where we can
help iron out some of those things, and
you have to think about it, not just
as like, hey. There is
a actual physical idol that I worship.
Right? Because they're idols within ourselves too. There's
all kinds of things that people can complain,
compare to being iconic,
but in reality, they're just idolatrous.
You don't want to fall into that mix.
And so to be able to understand,
like, do I think
that I actually am in worship of something
else?
What is it really doing for me? The
way people
make duas around the Kaaba, what is it
that has me going around in circles in
my life? The way we have a
that's meant to give us direction.
Like, what is it that is giving me
direction in life?
Does that thing make sense for me?
Okay. So, Justin, last few minutes, we can
turn to the persons next to you. What
are you taking away from tonight's conversation?
And then we'll wrap up for today, but
go ahead.
Okay. What are some of the things we're
taking away from today's conversation?
We can hear from a few people, and
then we'll wrap up.
Anything comes to mind.
I think the what you mentioned about
not worshiping the system that was meant to,
put you down. It's like
that just hit the spot because I
see it every single day. You know? Like,
at work, you know, like, how people
how I I I see it in myself
sometimes, like, you know,
you know, this whole idea of, like,
you're not not ambitious enough. You're not good
enough. You know, you need to be doing
better. Like, you're always, like, chasing something.
And in reality, like, yeah, there are things
we can improve, but, like,
which is fine. You know? Like, why do
you have to, like, push yourself so much?
And the other thing you said was, like,
you know, you don't you wanna look at
someone and, you know, we all have done
messed up things, but you you look at
someone, you're like, at least I'm not like
that person. And today, actually, what happened was,
like, one of my coworkers, a supervisor, was
supposed to get back to her on a
raise
last week. He's been evading her, like, every
single day.
And then then she came to me. She's
like, I've lost all respect for him. Like,
I had a new I I I actually
had a new set of respect for him.
I've lost all respect for him as a
human being.
I was like, well, you can bring it
up with him. But
in the heart, I was like, well, at
least,
like, I'm not that person. You know? I'm
just I hope never to be like that
person. So
Yeah, man. You think right? There's literal hadith
to your first point where, you know, we're
taught that our prayer is the first thing
we're questioned about on the day of judgment,
and Allah grant us on that day.
And when the angels assess our prayer, there's
hadith where they go to Allah and says
that
this person has, like,
deficiencies in their prayer. They didn't pray their
prayers. And Allah tells the angels, like, go
back and see if they did anything extra,
anything sunnah. I need a waffle. Right? But
he's looking for a reason to make excuses
for you. You know, you didn't get done
what you're supposed to get done. Just go
see if there's anything
that we can say that, you know, they
they they tried to get it done. Right?
Versus,
like, the system that just seeks to beat
you up again and again and again, you
know, to make you feel like you just
have no value add to it. Do you
know?
And it's not judgmentalness.
Right? Like, you can still be in a
place where you have care and love for
people, but to be able to still think
like, man, like, I'm so grateful for Islam
right now because there's so many people who
are showing,
like, what it is that they are governed
by. And thank God, like, I'm not governed
by what they are governed by because I
could be in this place too where I'm
just making excuses for things that are unexcusable.
Do you know? What else are people taking
away from today?
Yeah.
And he was still nice to them. Right?
Like, that's the other thing. The only times
the prophet got angry when people were doing
haram is when they're abusing people, they're oppressive
to people, they're being racist to people, then
he let people know, like, this is not
okay.
People are struggling with stuff. They're he's walking
with them through their struggle. So on the
other end of it, that's why you gotta
be like the prophet. Be nice to people.
You don't know what kind of crap people
are going through.
You don't know, like, why they are and
what they're doing. And you have to ask
yourself, like, why do I see it this
way?
Why do I perceive inadequacy or deficiency?
This is not prophetic. The prophet would see
what was inherently good within people and empower
them based upon kick
in
before
we
meet
next
Monday.
It's gonna go back an hour. Kick in
before we meet next Monday.
It's gonna go back an hour, which means
is gonna be at, like, 4:40
something.
Right? So we'll still do ifthars.
How many of you can actually make that
a star? I don't know from the people
who are coming before.
Right?
On Mondays.
This today is Monday. Right? So
on Mondays,
like, if if Tara is gonna go earlier
to about 4:45
next week, 4 like, 5 o'clock, let's say.
Can people make it at 5 for Iftar?
Yeah.
4 of you?
Amazing.
5. Yeah. You can definitely fast that day.
Winter time. This is the time to make
up fast, my friends. Yeah. They're like 5
minute fast in the winter.
So definitely do them.
Wake up at whatever time you normally wake
up.
And then
this halukkah,
we've been starting the last few weeks
after 7.
Should we move it to 6:30?
Should we move it to 7? Should we
move it to 6?
Really? 6.
Who can come at 6 o'clock?
Okay. Better question. Who cannot come at 6
o'clock?
Okay. Who can come at 6:30?
And
Okay.
Yeah.
So we'll probably start, like, 6:30 ish, give
or take, and then we'll go for as
long as we go. So you can come
at 7, like, come at 7.
Clearly, it's not difficult for me to talk
for a long period
of time.
And we'll see where it goes, and then
we'll position Isha at some point there too,
as well.
But just look out for the email,
and all of our halukut times
other than
maybe on Thursdays, those might change also, but
everything else should stay the same.
Okay. If you're a student
in the room, undergrad or graduate student,
maybe even if you're a student in another
school,
on Wednesday
at 6, we're gonna do, like, a student
town hall.
We'll send out emails about that,
probably tonight, tomorrow.
It's gonna be in 475
at the other end of this floor.
Not a healing space necessarily,
but a space to think about strategy,
kinda where people can get involved, become more
active, as well as just for us to
hear, like, what is it that people are
experiencing?
What's it like being in the classroom? Discrimination
challenges, these kinds of things. So please let
your friends know,
undergrad and grad students.
There's a lot of Muslims that go to
this school. There's a lot of influence that
you can have that necessitates,
like, organize it kinda activism
and not operating in silos.
And I say it with love. I don't
think our students are doing collectively
as much as they could. I think there
are people who are doing things,
but if everyone was kind of on the
same page, you probably see a lot more
different impact in that.
And then not this week, but down the
line, sooner than later. If you remember the
I gave 2 weeks ago, people would come
to Jummah. If anybody pays attention, I don't
know if people pay attention to Jummah or
not. But 2 weeks ago, I talked about
us also as a community
thinking out certain things.
Right? When so many of you reach out
and say, I wanna help with this. I
wanna help with that.
We don't have a system that I can
plug you in
to. Pre COVID, we were kind of on
this
trajectory,
and that summer, I was gonna utilize a
chunk of it to host plenary sessions with
key stakeholders,
donors. Right? We're a self funded center. We
don't get money from the university.
Just community at large
to be able to hear,
I idea together,
and think out what's the next 10 years
gonna look like. Social services, civic engagement,
fellowships,
for profit ventures, incubator funds. We are considered
to be a major house of worship in
New York.
And so in the pandemic, we had to
pivot a lot to be able to support
a lot of different things. And then I
am just telling you, because transparency is just
a big part of how we run things
here, that in the last year,
as COVID protocols from NYU
kinda went down and we started to let
our non student community back in where it
was pre COVID
as that to see who was showing up
and how many people were showing up.
And clearly, there's a lot of people that
still show up.
And we're able to still do really amazing
things. Right?
Last month, month and a half,
we raised about $700,000
for Morocco.
We raised about $300,000
for for for Libya.
We raised $1,000,000
for Gaza. May Allah grant them ease. You
know, these are not like small numbers. Right?
But from the standpoint of kinda development,
nonprofit and otherwise,
like, it's indicative of certain things.
So when we do the community
kind of engagements,
I'm just trying to think out right now
what that's gonna look like, but be ready
to be a part of it. Right? I
turned 41 a few weeks ago,
on a Wednesday. Today is not Wednesday. So
it wasn't this halika, the other halika.
And I'm not old,
but I'm also not 22 anymore. And so
I need community help to think out succession
strategies.
Right? To think out how we continue to
build with an infinite mindset. So regardless of
whether any of us are here 10 years
from now, 30 years from now,
50 years from now, like, the space that
we've built
is built soundly, and there's community buy in
for us to be maximizing on impact and
potential
that doesn't need any one person to be
involved in order for it to do that.
Right? But it's not where it was when
I was 22.
That was a handful of people. I don't
think any of you were here at that
time. I could be wrong. Were any of
you here
19 years ago
at anything? New York. Yeah. Some of you
weren't even alive 19 years ago coming to
the IC.
No. Right? So it's a different place. Right?
And some of you have come, like, sporadically
here and there over however many of the
last 2 decades.
It takes a lot of effort, and I'm
saying that because it wasn't just me. There's
a lot of people who some of you
will never see that were here 19 years
ago
that were hustling
to ensure you would have this space. So
I'm saying it both as an invitation,
but also a recognition of responsibility.
You have to do what you need to
do
so that this exists as robustly as it
can
for another generation that'll be here 19 years
after some of you might not be here
anymore, but you helped us to build it
well. Right? And to me, success is not,
oh, man, 800 people came to Jummah or
people I and I appreciate I appreciate people
tell me things. Like, this is really great,
and I'm glad we do this and that,
and that's a part of it. But I
want to build as much as I can
while Allah has given me breaths.
And I want to build with people from
here because I think you're all nice people.
And I'm saying this to you not as
deflection.
I know what I'm good at. I do
not have the skills to build what we
have potential to build on my own,
And we need people to step up in
those ways
who are patient enough to build strategically
and to understand it not as a day
by day endeavor, like today sucks and tomorrow
is great, but to think about it for
the long term that there will be tough
days and light days, but we want to
still have a plan in what we're doing
so that it sustains itself. Right? You're all
sitting here for a reason. It's not because
you hate being here. Do you know what
I mean? Unless there's something wrong with you.
Right? You're here because you enjoy being here.
You come here for different reasons. Do you
know what I mean?
Thousands of people who consider this space in
that way. So a generation from now, 10
years, 20 years, 50 years, You wanna think
about how it will continue to be tens
of thousands of people, especially a place like
New York City, which is deeply influential
in terms of what just happens
both across this country and in different parts
of the world. Do you see what I
mean?
And
you can see when there's a gap in
strong institutional presence,
what it feels like.
Right?
So we didn't go through this nonsense
or continue to go through it yet again
so that we pretend like it didn't happen
6 months from now or a year from
now.
So when those things happen,
like, be ready to be present at it.
And if you're a student,
be there on Wednesday
so that you can see where you fit
into some of it. And then beyond that,
for our non student community,
when we start to do some of these
things, we need people who are thinkers,
who are also committed,
who adopt some of these characteristics that we
just talked about, love, sincerity,
like a sense of what you truly submit
to so that we're able to get done
collectively what we wanna get done. Does that
make sense? Yeah.
So make Dua
There's still
a lot of heaviness in the world. May
Allah
make
all those who are in a place of
duress,
feel ease,
and you can't you can't, like, lose momentum.
Do you know?
I know a lot of you are, like,
feeling it now,
and
that's, like, purposeful in the systems to exhaust
you, to drain you, to control you psychologically.
You look at the hadith, you look at
the Quran, you look at the sunnah.
These are people who are deeply persecuted,
harmed, went through all kinds of physical
pain and tribulation.
They didn't let people take control of their
hearts.
And so just let that be something that
you're still taking care of. It's okay to
take a break, to rest,
to take a pause, to replenish.
And then we continue to come together in
meaningful ways
to then see, like, okay. Like, today is
something that clearly might not be where we
want it to be, but we're gonna do
what we can so that tomorrow is in
a much better place.
Does that make sense?
Okay. So we're gonna take a pause here.
The rest of our halakas are happening during
the week. I'm a do my on Wednesday.
I'll sit around 7 something.
Doctor Murmur is tomorrow. Doctor Madwa will be
on Wednesday before mine,
and
is doing one on Thursday.
Friday
is fried chicken Friday.
I heard somebody's taking their shout out on
Friday too. I'm not gonna say who it
is, but you should come and celebrate
with us,
as well.
And we'll see everyone next week. Okay.
Hey, How are you?
What's up?