Maryam Amir – Does God Really Care
AI: Summary ©
The speakers emphasize the importance of finding ways to be agents of change and finding ways to hold people accountable for their actions. They also emphasize the need for groups to address mental health issues and promote small groups to build communities. The speakers emphasize the importance of women in the Islam community and the negative impact of Greek philosophy on society. The speakers emphasize the need for small groups to discuss issues and offer support, finding a solution to the problem of under acknowledging certain communities and mistaking them for " welcoming" in their generation.
AI: Summary ©
Um, it's my honor and pleasure to welcome you all and introduce you
to this event and program that we're doing
this afternoon. So my name is Imam Sohei Sultan. I serve here as the
full time Muslim chaplain, and I direct the Muslim Life program,
which has been around for about seven years now on this campus,
and we host all sorts of conversations, programs, events.
You know that really just engage a whole host of issues, from
theology to spirituality, from politics to society. And I know a
lot of you are regular. Some of you are news or Welcome to
everyone. And if you are new to the community, I would welcome you
to please sign up for our email list so we can keep in touch with
you and you know the weekly happenings that we have through
the Muslim Life program.
So today, we're very honored and pleased to have with us. Ustada
Maryam Amir Ibrahimi, and I'm just going to read a little bit of her
biography.
Maryam Amir Ibrahimi received her Master's in Social Justice
Education from UCLA, where her research focused on the effects of
mentorship, rooted in critical race theory for urban high school
students of color. She holds a bachelor's in child and adolescent
development from San Jose State University, where
she served as the president of the Muslim Student Association for two
consecutive years. Currently, she is pursuing a second bachelor's
degree in Islamic studies throughout Azhar University's
distance learning program. Maryam spent a year studying the Arabic
language and Quran in Cairo, Egypt, and has memorized the
entire Quran. She has been presented the Student of the Year
Award by former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger,
and holds a second degree black belt in Taekwondo.
She writes about topics related to social realities, women's studies
and spiritual connections on the popular online blog sohaveweb.com
otherwise known as the virtual mosque online. Maryam is a dynamic
and outspoken proponent for social justice and women's rights on a
more personal level, you know, we had, I had the honor of inviting
Maria mamir Brahimi to this year's ISNA Convention, which happened in
Detroit when I was chairing the program committee, and she spoke
on a panel called generations rise, which highlighted some of
the people from this next generation who are, you know,
taking leadership roles in the community, and mashallah
afterward. So many people are coming up to me and being like,
who was that? Saying? That? Go introduce yourself and go,
No, not at all. And she's just an incredible voice. I encourage you
to get to know her while she's here, and also to follow her
articles on virtual mosque online, there's some fantastic articles. I
read them quite regularly to figure out my relationships.
So without any further ado, I just want to give it over to meridian
of
God, the Most Gracious and Most Merciful. May the peace and
blessings of God be upon all of you and upon our beloved father
and Prophet, Adam, our beloved mother, Eve, all of their progeny
of Prophets, Muhammad, peace be upon him. Everyone who we loved
and everyone that you love. We're going to talk about something very
personal today, and that are some of the struggles that we go
through, and a lot of times in our community, because we feel like
we're not able to express the difficulties that we go through in
a public space. Sometimes we have to keep those things in a very,
very low key, private way. And because we do that, we don't
necessarily find the support that we sometimes need. Sometimes, when
we go through hardships, it's difficult for us to understand
what this means in relationship, not just to ourselves and our
families in the community, but also what that means with regards
to our relationship with God himself. So today, what we're
going to talk about is whether or not God actually cares how that
actually looks, and how by discussing issues within our
community, we can ourselves be agents of change that can help
create a new discussion of how much God is indeed involved in our
own lives, through his knowledge and his love and also through his
closeness to us, that God, willing, will be able to feel what
we're going to do in the beginning, though, is I'm going to
ask for all of you to anonymously write one struggle that You
personally go through, or someone that you know, I'd like you to be
really honest about it. A lot of times people say, Oh, I struggle
with being able to balance family and school, or they'll say, I
struggle with time management. And those are struggles that are
legitimate struggles, and if that is the the most difficult struggle
in your life, I pray that it will stay that way, and you're welcome
to write that on the card.
Right? But what this space is supposed to be is to kind of
discuss some of the things that we don't usually get to talk about in
public spaces. This is anonymous. No one's going to know who wrote
what on the card, and you don't have to write your struggle. It
can be something that you know from someone else, but many people
have spoken to me about issues that range from mental health,
incredible depression that sometimes is because of family
situations or school situations. It could come from abuse. It could
come from just feeling overwhelmed and identity crisis. All of us go
through difficult times. It's not something that's unique to you,
but the reality is that if we're able to heal through discussion,
we can also understand how God plays a role in that discussion.
So please take a moment to just go ahead and write on the index cards
that are going to be passed out one thing that you struggle with,
or someone that you know. I'm going to read them all out loud. I
don't know what any of your handwriting looks like, so I'm not
going to know it's you. And Inshallah, after that, we're going
to talk about how that relates to whether or not God cares, and how
we can understand that in our lives,
someone else in this room is going through
this room of very, very few people, imagine that multiplied by
how many of the people within the United States of just the Muslim
American community. So the first thing is, know that whatever we're
about to read this is, I think at least the 17th time that I read
this. So this may laugh, and the reason I want to say that is just
because it's very common, it's normal and it's okay, money, not
enough, no immediate source of income. Yes, thank you for
sharing.
How do you reconcile God's love with the way he deals with those
who disobey.
My friend, sexuality
challenges, no travel, Hamdulillah. So danger of falling
into state of khalafla or non God consciousness, I
struggle with reconciling my religion with the realities and
values of this modern, modern world,
Black would be man or faith.
How do I maintain the fear of God, a fear of Allah? I trust in His
plan when it comes to interactions with the opposite, and trust in
His plan when it comes to the interactions with opposite, with
the opposite gender, particularly in college,
performing my prayers on time and with more humility,
time management,
anger. Why me living with in laws?
I think when, when there are those murmurs, it's because people
understand
difficulty figuring out if it's better to just forget my past or
to always be praying for forgiveness for it, or is it
easier for me to just forget it, but not righteous? I just want to
move on, move forward and constantly become better.
Ignorance,
ignorance amongst Muslims,
homeless and because of it, not with kids separated,
yes,
with my second marriage, divorce came suddenly and ended with only
six months of living in the same household, I struggle with my
husband having never paid my dowry, he refuses to reply. We've
been divorced for nearly 19 years.
How is it that modern mentalities and Quranic injunctions can be so
out of stock? Many modern Muslims consider the Purdue inherently
unethical and feel this with great conviction. How does one reconcile
one's feelings with the poor addict who dude
who do it, by the way, means like punishments or consequences.
On Thanksgiving Day, we lost my stepmother. He died of a drug
overdose at age 22 I am so sorry for your loss. I don't know who
this is, but May God make it easy for your family. He has been clean
for six months the day before I
Oh, the day before I mourn for Him, every Thanksgiving, every
birthday. Of course, anyone of us who's lost someone understands
this, and we're going to talk about loss, especially today. May
God be with your family and make it easy for you, how to control
anxiety and not get overwhelmed when making decisions, how not to
fuss about little things.
Dealing with remorse
on past events that cause pain,
I feel alone
anxiety over judgment,
anxiety mental health.
My daughter questions about Islam, dealing with my co workers.
Sometimes
I struggle with going about my day around prayer rather than going
about my day around.
Distractions of this world.
I'd like to take a second to thank all of you for actually sharing
things are very personal. It's very difficult to do something
like that even when it's anonymous, and the fact that you
did share something about the space, the fact that you can feel
that safe to share something anonymously. The second thing is,
it takes incredible courage to own your words even if it's anonymous.
So in this moment, I'd like to take a moment and just put your
hands together, if you're next to someone you're comfortable with,
put your hand on them and do do me a favor, and just like, send a
vibe of love, really quickly. Love vibe, feeling it. You can hold
your own hands.
Okay? Thank you so much. A lot of the things that were mentioned are
very, very personal, and some of them were general things that many
of us deal with when we're dealing with this type of pain, it's going
to affect the way that we feel about ourselves, the way we feel
about people that love us, our families. It's very easy for us to
feel alone, especially because these types of circles don't
happen very often in our community. One of the messages
that that sends to us as believers or as congregants in a community
is when you can't openly discuss things, when you don't know who to
seek help from or mentorship from, and in a sense, it's also saying
that God is not available for you to have conversations with him
when we're not providing those spaces in our own centers. It's
very easy for us to feel like the one we're supposed to be
worshiping in these centers is not accessible to us. So some of the
things were reflected like not being able to forgive myself, not
knowing how to cope with the way that I feel and the way that I
think my religion says I'm supposed to believe, with how I
actually see life act going around you and how I'm supposed to live.
These are common, common questions. What we're going to do
right now, God willing, is we're going to talk about somebody in
history who dealt with an identity crisis, which many of us have
dealt with before, someone who dealt with depression, someone who
dealt with loss. We're going to talk about somebody who dealt with
financial issues, somebody who dealt with not just not just
abuse, but complete rejection, complete slander. These are a lot
of things that if one person dealt with, it would be very hard for
many of us, as some of these actually mentioned, but I want you
to think about if you have to deal with every single one of those
through a lifetime, and many of us will. How do we feel like God
cares about us when we have to keep going through all that pain?
The person that I'm talking about? Does anyone have any guess of who
it could possibly be? Yeah,
yes, the problem kind of peacey upon him when he was given the
revelation and he came to Khadija, his wife, what he said to her, and
he was afraid and he was nervous, and he thought he went crazy. What
he told her was, what is wrong with me, what is wrong with me.
And many of you have had that same exact response to something, what
is wrong with me, what's wrong with my life. Why can't I get
things together? Why do these things keep happening to me? Very
similar sentiment to what the Prophet peace upon him said, and
her response is something we're going to reflect on tonight,
because it's a response that's going to be effective for every
single one of us when we're going through the same things. She told
us that God would not abandon you, God would not abandon you. And
then what? Because of what? Who knows what she told him because
of,
yes, she can't. She continued to tell him things that he did for
other people, and many of you have heard this story, the way that he
took care of people, the way he hosted people, how he stood up for
injustice. She reminded him that God would be with him, and
connected that to the fact that he was somebody who cared about other
people. So we're going to look at what those two things mean tonight
and in connection to the things that we just expressed about our
own lives. The first one is knowing that God is with you, that
God would never abandon you. So someone mentioned the loss of a
brother, a step brother, which is a brother. And many of us have
lost loved ones. How many of you raise your hand? Have lost
somebody who you are close to? Please raise it. May God have
mercy. May God make it easy. It's not it's it is so hard, and that
pain might change over time. It might get a little less, but it
never goes away. And when you sit and you reflect on it, it's still
there, even after many years, my grandparents, both of them, God
have mercy on both of them. They were both in my grandpa passed
away two years ago, two months apart from each other all of a
sudden, and it was so hard for me, and these were my grandpas, who I
was very close to. But imagine if it was your parent or your spouse
or a child your stepbrother. God. Have mercy on them. Now the
Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him. We know that he went through
a lifetime of rejection, of abuse and loss. He lost Khadija right
now. She was the one who supported him, loved her, financially,
helped him, the mother of their children, and she lost him, not
because she was too old or because she had some type of, you know,
some type of physical illness. She became sick because of what they
went through.
Her. So, yes, it was sickness, but it was something that was caused
to her, inflicted upon her. He lost his rock, and then after
losing his rock, he lost his supporter, who's his uncle, right?
So he loses both of them in such a short time period, and then after
losing both of them, he's hopeful that maybe he could go to another
city away from the people who persecuted him and protect himself
from such persecution through the support of others who might
believe in his message, or at least would be able to provide him
that same type of security he had he goes to live. What happened on
time where people like, yes, we want you. Nah. They were so upset,
they rejected him. They had kids throw stones at him until his feet
were bleeding. So in reflection of this time period, in reflection of
that day, the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him. Upon him calls
it the worst day of his life. Many of us have had a worst day of our
lives, and we're still pretty young. Everyone in this room is
still young. We've we've had a worst day. Imagine going through
that point, and that's the worst day of his life at that point,
considering he's a prophet, you could say that he could feel like,
why? What? What's wrong? Like, why is God upset with me? Did I do
something wrong? Am I spreading this message the wrong way? All of
us have gone to that point where we're like, Is God punishing me?
Is he angry with me? Why is this happening to my kids? Why didn't I
get into where I wanted to go? Why isn't the guy or the girl who I
thought I was going to marry going to marry me anymore? There's so
many issues we go through. But what happened at that point?
Instead of blaming God, God gave him a gift, and the reason I
wanted to begin with this is because it's a sign of his care
for us, after going through losing Khadija and Abu Talib and going to
Taif and being rejected. What happened right after that, God
sent a miraculous animal to take him up to the seven heavens, and
he was given a gift. Now we can have different discussions on what
that means, but I want you to focus on the gift part the
Prophet. Peace be upon him. Was given the gift of Salah, or of
prayer right after he's going through this type of hardship. Now
we consider prayer to sometimes be a burden. Sometimes we don't do
it. Sometimes it's something hard that we don't feel like we want to
do. But God timed his giving of prayer right after immense pain.
He timed it to be after loss of his best friend, loss of his best
supporter, being rejected and abused by everyone publicly, he
had nowhere to go, and when you have nowhere to go, the only safe
space that's left, the one safe space that will always be for you,
the one will never judge you, even though there are consequences to
our actions, but he will never judge you the way that people
judge you. God Almighty gave us prayer. He gave it to the Prophet,
peace be upon him, out of his care for him after the pain that he
went through, and the reason he mandated it for us is so that we
could constantly be reminded of the care that he has for us. It's
very similar to someone who you might love they feel like. Take a
second think of the person you love the most in your whole life.
Got that person in your head, if you don't have anyone, imagine who
you hope that person would be
alright now you have someone or some figure in your head. Imagine
if that person gave you a prepaid cell phone plan and they were
like, Call me anytime. I'm always awake. Just hit me up.
That's exactly what God did with prayer. But if you call that
person and you're like, Oh, my God, the worst thing just happens
to me. That's the worst thing of my life, and you call that person
up just because you talk to them, does that situation get better?
Not necessarily like that situation is still there. If you
call them every single day, five times a day, 20 times a day, 15
million times a day, if you were to call that person over and over
and over, does that necessarily mean you're less sad, or that
situation is gone, or everything is fixed, maybe a little bit, but
the point is, you still have that connection regardless. Many of us
sometimes feel like I've prayed and I've been praying and nothing
is working, or why am I being punished when I'm doing everything
I think I'm supposed to do? We have those types of thoughts, but
that's part of the part of the process of that is because we look
at prayer, or we look at this closeness to God as a means of
checks and balances. I'm doing what I'm supposed to do. Why
aren't you giving me what I want? Why don't you giving me what I
think I want? But in reality, it's really more like that cell phone
call, that he's there as a guy. He's there to give you support.
He's there as someone who will never judge you for what you're
going through. But of course, he also has control over every
situation. Of course he can also answer all of your prayers. Of
course he has wisdom in everything that he plans. But don't look at
that relationship as one where, if I do this, he's going to make
things happen for me, look at it as.
Yes, he understands regardless of what I'm going through, and he
will always be there to listen to me and what he knows out of his
wisdom that it's appropriate, he will also hook me up with things
that I need at the right time. But that part takes patience, and it's
very hard. The reason that sometimes we question whether or
not God cares is because we ourselves don't necessarily
understand who God is, and when we get to a point where we understand
who he is and what he means in our lives, it makes it a little bit
easier for us to understand that the mechanisms He's given us to
connect with him through hardship are actually those that will help
us sustain through difficulty, even when we feel like we can't
continue. We're gonna look at one example of that, and someone named
Malik Ibn dinar. Has anyone heard of him before Malik Ibn dinar? No
Malik. He was a scholar from our past. So you've heard like huge
scholar names, like Ibn Taymiyyah, for example. You've heard that
name before Abu Hanifa, Imam Malik, huge names that many
Muslims know. Maliki Medina was one of these huge scholars of his
time, but like many scholars of our past, he wasn't born as a
scholar who was like, I'm going to be this extremely pious person my
entire life. I mean, that doesn't just happen. That's a process. And
it was a process for him too, just like it's a process for every
single one of us. Maliki men, dinar, he was known as somebody
who was kind of like, I'm just he was a policeman in his time, and
he used to drink. He had a serious drinking problem. And of course,
with drinking, there's a lot of, like, negative character issues
that come with that, if it's something that's chronic. So he
was someone who went through a lot of not having the greatest rep,
necessarily, because of that. And one day he saw a little girl, and
he just he was so overtaken by emotions for seeing this little
girl that he decided he wanted to get married, and he wanted to have
a child too. So he got married. At some point, he was blessed to have
a daughter, and she was his best friend. She was his best friend
we'd love to be with now, how many of you know little kids like in
your family, maybe like under the age of five? Five, around that
age, raise your hand. That's quite a few people. Super cute,
innocent, sometimes annoying, but overall, really adorable, right?
But you would never want to lose them from your life, especially if
they are a child. And when she was about two or three years old, she
passed away. So medic, he was so affected, of course, by her death,
that he began to drink again. And when she had been born, she had
stopped drinking as much as he had, but he just went back to it.
And this is an example of what many of us go through. Some of us,
when we were in high school, or when we were in certain parts of
our lives, we might have known who we were. We were very aware of
what our identity was. In high school, for example, if you're a
Princeton, you were very likely the overachiever of your class,
who was a perfectionist, who was involved with every single club on
campus, or the president of them. That's a stereotype of what a
Princeton student is. But you can kind of see that there are some
categories that people would recognize you as worthy of getting
into a place like Princeton. That's very, very common to have
the type of identity to be known as somebody who gets the highest
grades, and that's where you can derive your identity from. But
then all of a sudden, you're in a different environment. You're not
necessarily in that place that you were before. You might also be
dealing with issues with your family. Your parents could be
going through divorce. Your parents could be dealing with
money issues that affects you. How are you going to relate to that
when you're already dealing with the pressures of trying to find
out who you are in an environment where everyone is a high achiever
and you have to figure out who you're going to be through this,
it's an experience that's very difficult to find your identity in
dealing with issues of self esteem, sometimes ones that have
to do with eating disorders, and those are all very common that
people talk to me about, and sexuality very common. So we're
dealing with all of these issues, and those things are ones that
cause us to feel a little bit confused about who we are, just
like the loss of somebody in our lives who meant the world to us,
who shaped our identity. Malik was shaped by the identity of his
daughter, by having her he changed once she was gone, just like when
we're in similar situations when we're not comfortable, what's
going to be our reaction? Where do we turn? What Malik did in that
moment is he just started drinking again until he passed out. And
when he passed out, he had a dream, and he dreamt that he was
on the day of judgment. And any of you who had dreams who are like
regular dreamers, you know how intense dreams are, you feel like
you're in the moment you you do wake up screaming sometimes. I
know I can very frequently, not very frequently, but I will say
this sometimes, and I wake up my husband, look, I just had a
nightmare. And then he's like, it's okay, it's fine. But that
that was a very, very real, painful experience for him to be
there on the day of judgment. And as he's there, no one is around
him,
all of a sudden, to the right, he sees this enormous snake. The
snake is huge, and it begins to chase him.
So it's chasing him, and he's running. And as he's running, he
suddenly sees a very, very old man. So he stops in front of the
old man and he says, Please help me. Don't you see the snake is
about to eat me. And then the very old man says, Look at me. I'm so
old and I'm so weak, I can't help you. Go in that direction. So
Malik runs. He's running in that direction, and all of a sudden he
gets to a cliff. And when he gets to that cliff, what does he see?
*? The fire of * is intense. And he hears a voice that says, go
in the other direction. You are not as a people of the Hellfire.
So he begins to run in the other direction. And he sees the old man
again as he's passing him, and he steps and he says, Help me. Can't
you see the snake is going to eat me. And the old man says, can't
you see me? I'm weep. I can't help you. Run that way. So he begins to
run again. The snake is still after him. All of a sudden, he
sees children,
and in that moment, he suddenly sees his daughter.
He sees his daughter, and as he sees his daughter, his daughter
stops the snake and leaves. And now here's the part in the dream
that many of you guys have experienced. It's a nightmare. And
then all of a sudden, subhanAllah relief, he's suddenly with the
same daughter, who he has been drinking over because he misses
her so much. They sit down. She sits on his lap, like they used to
do when she was alive. And he's like my daughter, what was that
snake? And she says, a beloved Dad. Don't you know that on the
Day of Judgment, everything is going to come in a form? Those
were your bad deeds. That was everything messed up, that you
did. They were so much that they wanted to overtake you. They
wanted to eat you. That old man, those were your good deeds. You
had made them so weak because of all the messed up stuff that you
did, but they weren't able to help you. And if it wasn't for having
lost me, having dealt with that type of difficulty, then there
wouldn't have been a solution for you.
Oh, my father, isn't it time? Then she recited a verse from from the
Quran
that says it come time for the believers, for their hearts to be
affected by the remembrance of God. Isn't it time that we
recognize that God Himself is with us, that he has not revelation for
guidance for us? Isn't it time that our hearts wake up? Malik
started saying, it's time, it's time. And he woke up screaming,
shouting, I make Toba all I come back to you. He gets up. It's
better time. When he gets up, he gets ready, he goes into the
masjid. And who knows when the last time he had gone to the
masjid was he walks into the salah. They're already praying
salatul, Fajr.
As he walks into the masjid, the Imam is reciting Alam Yani, Lavina
Amanu and
the exact same verse that his daughter had told him in his
dream.
From that day on, Malik became somebody who used to stand in the
night and used to say, dear Lord, You know the ones who are going to
go to Paradise, and you know the ones that are going to go to *,
make me of the people of paradise. He was somebody who had
experiences that he could relate to other people with. Not every
person goes through having a drinking issue, not every person
goes through having lost a child or going through not having the
best quality of character, right? Not every person has those
experiences, but what he did was then use those experiences to help
other people reconnect with God, and that is exactly the point.
Khadija Allahu Akbar told him, God will never abandon you because you
help other people. Now for us, all of the things that we've
experienced cause pain in our lives. It's a rock that weighs us
down sometimes, but it's also that exact same rock that can ground us
and make our roots firmer. That's exactly the concept that we can
use to help other people in their relationship with God. The
struggles that we've gone through are unique to us, but sometimes
we've been chosen, and sometimes we just have to deal with the
reality of moving forward through that so that we can be means of
helping other people go through it too. Khadija reminded him of that
and studies today, if you read studies that talk about
generativity, which is giving back, it's unselfish love. That's
the love of you helping a sibling with homework or driving a friend
to see a movie when they're having a really bad day, listening to
someone who just needs to talk things out. That's unselfish love.
Every one of you has done something like that, held the door
open for someone behind you. Generativity studies have shown
today that individuals who do.
Acts of generativity regularly have two things going for them.
Number one, they're successful. So that's material success. Either
they're making more money or they're able to get into more
intellectual areas because they're they like works on certain types
of the brain. There are physical, like tangible aspects that benefit
you. When you're somebody who practices generativity, it's
called success. It's a successful part of lifestyle, and it's long.
It increases your longevity. That's one part. This is success
part, but the second part of the spirituality part, individuals
who've been involved in regularly practicing unselfish love or
generativity, those people have been found to be more spiritual as
time goes on, that they are more inclined to be someone who's
spiritual and religiously identifiable. So what that means
is that when we are people who recognize that God is there for
us, and we pair that up with taking the hardships that we're
going through to use them, not as only something that we're going
through, it's going to weigh us down, but something that we can
use to help other people through that ourselves clear circle that
way will bring us closer to God Himself, again by helping others,
it's a means of helping ourselves become close to God. Now, in
Malik's story, he's somebody who then used his pain to help others
come back to God, the Prophet Muhammad. Peace be upon him. One
of the reasons that I think he had to go through such a variety of
pain is so that we can relate to him. The pain that he went through
wasn't just one or two types of things. It was basically
everything that we very courageously mentioned. Thank you.
It was basically everything we really courageously mentioned. And
even more than that, why did he have to go through all of that so
that we ourselves will be able to connect to him? God bless you.
Thank you.
So when we look at ourselves and feel like, why can't I move
forward? I want us to reconsider the way that we're looking at
this. Sometimes, when we're going through hardship, it isn't because
God is upset with us. It's not because we're being punished. It's
not because he's not there. Sometimes the reasons that we're
going through it is simply for us to reconnect and to just get
through it and eventually, hopefully be able to help others
through it as well. It's not easy. It's not something that goes away.
And if you've dealt with something, with some some of the
very, very difficult life struggles, it will continue to
come back. Muhammad SAW a sudden Allah sadija 10 years later. He
was so kind over her. I mean, the pain that some of the companions
physically wore those scars continued. But the point isn't
that having this relationship with God is all of a sudden going to
make everything rosy. It's just the nature of life is that
everything isn't always perfect, but through those experiences, we
can become more deeply rooted people. He is there for us, just
like he was there in the belly of the whale when Jonah went and he
was went away from his people. The the whale ate him. He was stuck,
and he had the ability to call upon God. He didn't need cell
phone reception, right? I mean, come on, there's no reception in
the belly of a whale. But what he had was that connection that God
gave us, like the likes of prayer, he was able to call out, there is
no one worthy of worship. No one worthy of worship but you. There's
there's no one but you and I've made a mistake. God help me. Now,
sometimes we are the ones who make mistakes. What do we do with that?
How can we forgive ourselves? A number of you alluded to that.
This is how sometimes we feel like we're being punished for something
that we did five years ago, and we can't let it go. There was a man
who walked into the masjid of the Prophet Muhammad. Peace be upon
him when he walked into the midst. He walked in saying, my sins, my
sins have done so much wrong. He was overwhelmed with grief. The
Prophet Muhammad didn't ask him, alright, what did you do? What's
going on? Get out of here. A lot of times we feel like we can't
walk into our communities because of a way that we're dressed or
what will be done. We're made to feel like we're going to be
judged. But what did he say? He didn't even ask him questions. It
was a complete welcome space for all, regardless of what you're
going through. The Prophet Muhammad gives you an ton of words
to say. Words to say that, Oh God, I'm asking for your forgiveness,
that your forgiveness is much greater than what I've done, and I
have more mercy in you, more and more hope in your mercy than I
have in my own self. He told him to repeat that three times, and
then he told him, stand up, you've been forgiven. Now, why do we want
to look at this? Because when we make a mistake, we sometimes feel
like we have to punish ourselves in order for God to forgive us. We
messed up in a relationship, we did something, messed up to
someone else, we cheated on an exam. I mean, we've done so many
things, and in that moment, we feel like for the next 15 years of
my life, or at least the next five months, I'm going to feel guilty
over this. I'm going to feel so bad over this, I'll never be able
to let go of this, because if I'm able to feel bad and punish
myself, hopefully that means I'm doing something right. God isn't
asking us to punish ourselves, just like the Prophet Muhammad.
And peace upon him. Didn't ask this man to sit there for the next
six minutes or six hours or six years and continue to beg for
forgiveness until he feels better. He told him, stand up, you've been
forgiven. The act of asking for forgiveness, in and of itself, is
a means of being forgiven. And then what we need to do is just
move forward with our lives and try our best to improve. So when
we're looking at where God is in our lives, reflect on what things
are happening. Is it something that I feel like I've done wrong?
Just come back to his forgiveness, and then shall I help forgive you?
And then try to make things up. Try to just move forward. If I
mess up again, do the process all over again. If I'm questioning
where he is, when I think about loss, when I think about the pain
that I'm going through, remember the pain of the Prophet Muhammad.
Peace be upon him. And remember how, through his pain, God gave
him the gift of prayer, and that's the same gift that He's given
every single one of us. And when we're worried about whether or not
we're ever going to be able to go through this and why this is
happening to us, remember Maliki of Indian art that even though he
went through one of the most difficult straps, most difficult
struggles of life, even through that because of the difficulty and
the things he'd messed up on in life, he was then able to connect
with people on a deeper level to help them then have a closer
relationship with God. There are so many reasons why things happen.
Bad things happen to good people, or bad things happen to people who
don't necessarily feel like they're even good. But God never,
ever, ever will forsake you, just like he didn't forsake the Prophet
Muhammad. Peace be upon us. Remember that he's always with
you. He's closer to you than you are, even to your own self. All it
takes is calling out to him, and he's already ready to hear you.
Just remember that he's always there, even when you feel like he
isn't. Prayer is your safe space. He will always listen to you. And
he says that in the Quran, I am here to answer the the one who's
calling upon me, he's going to answer our call as soon as we call
to him. The question is just whether or not we're going to
call. That's all he's waiting for, and we can't. Inshallah
now, inshallah. That is the end of our short
disclaimer discussion, I guess. But we're going to continue on
inshallah into an actual QandA. Do you want to say anything before we
start for that? Yeah, absolutely.
Just that. You know, this is some food for thought, and there's so
much more that musta that Miriam can draw upon, you know, from from
the Quran, from the Sunnah, and from the tradition. But this is
just a little bit food for thought. And what we want to do at
this point is open it up for some discussion. You know, some
questions. And you know, feel free to open, you know, open yourselves
up and ask, ask whatever's on your mind. You know, I know that
Princeton students in particular often have to have to run to other
programs and events, so find that. But I'm going to start off by
asking if you're a student here, and if you want to start off the
discussion, if you have a question, and then, Inshallah,
we'll open it up to everyone else,
so I
can, so I don't know if you address this, but um, so I was
just checking in these earlier. And so so far, you've been talking
about, like, suffering in our
own life, but I was watching these
earlier, and there's like, so much happening around Palestinian
children. And so I guess, like, where do we stand on, like, your
awareness for that? Yeah, so we see, like, you see a child
suffering, and you're like, why does that child have to go through
that? They're like, two months old. What have they done to
deserve it? Right? That's very, it's, it's a, it's a very
beautiful because it's a sign that a person's heart is alive, that
they care so much about other people. And that's a concept of
generativity that we were just talking about. But for in order to
understand this, I think the most on a most basic level, is to look
at two things. Number one is that a lot of times we blame God for
the actions of individuals, because we feel like you could
control things. You have the ability to just make things
better. So why don't you? Why don't we just do that? But when we
do that, we absolve human beings from the responsibility of their
own actions. So for example, when we look at children in Syria,
they're suffering and that they're dying and they're losing their
family members, we're looking at generations of individuals who are
going to have PTSD and who are going to have abnormalities, who
are not going to have family members. May God make it easy for
them. And everyone in the world who suffering, we see all of that,
right? But then
we have to look at where that's coming from. They don't deserve
that. Obviously, we're not saying that's going to happen. That's
that's in any way. And at the same time, I can't tell you, there's a
formula to understand why this particular child has to go through
that. I don't know if any person is going to be able to give an
answer for why this person has to go through that when they're they
were just born and they haven't done anything to deserve it. God
has wisdom and certain things that we can't explain, but there are
two things we can explain. Number one is holding people accountable
for their consequences, so the individuals who are responsible
for what's happening, the leaders who could stop that from
happening, people who.
Could, don't not just be asking, why is it happening, but what can
I do to stop it, the collective responsibility that is the concept
of having free will. So God gave us free will for a reason, and if
we were to be individuals who decided that, okay, I have free
will and I like that, versus I'd rather just be an obedient angel.
I mean, like we already have angels. God already had them. We
were created as humans with free will, and if we didn't have free
will, we'd complain that. Why can't I do things I want to do
here? He's already given us that option, right? So now it's about
how we're going to use it, and if it's being used to abuse other
people, then we should be looking at holding the perpetrators into
account, versus holding the One who created them into account. And
that's the second part of the answer, which is he created them,
right? And we believe that he's going to have them come back to
him. So in order for us as Muslims to understand that concept, or as
anyone who believes in it hereafter, this is where the
actual justice happens because especially when somebody who is,
for example, a high level politician, somebody who has a lot
of wealth, somebody who's doing things and justifying it and
hurting a lot of people through it, we're not always going to see
them held to account in this life. And it angers us sometimes,
because we're like, that's not right, you know, like, if it was a
rant another person, they would be held accountable most of the time,
unless it's a racist system. But the point is that that that is
going that's something that we would expect on in that same way,
part of our understanding of the Hereafter is that there is going
to be a day of judgment, and on that day we're going to be held
accountable. And those who've been been suffering that those with
that's the day that one dip into paradise and they feel like
they've never suffered before. One dip into hellfire, and they've
never had anything good god protect everyone. So the point is
looking at it in two ways. Number one, holding the person account
versus holding God account. And the second way is that recognizing
that there's a reason for a hereafter, and part of that is
providing that type of justice. And finally, to just remember that
a lot of this has to go back to our understanding of who God is
and getting to that. So what that means is for me to study who he is
and how I'm going to be able to feel comfortable believing in him.
If I, if I, if I can trust like myself, I'll tell you like I came
to Islam a little bit later, like most of my family members are
conference. I was blessed to be born into a Muslim family after my
parents kind of found Islam on their own. But still, for me, I
didn't go through the process of wanting to identify as Muslim
until later, and when I went through that process, I had to
realize whether or not God exists. Who? How am I going to prove that
when I went through that though, and once I did the research for
myself, and I was able to feel strong enough in that belief. When
I got to that point, it was easy for me in times like this, what
especially nowadays, we go through, because everything seems
horrible when you go through that and you're like, look, I don't
understand why, but that's why I entrusted to you, because I've
done the research and believing that you're real. So I entrust you
to all affairs. I just try to do my part in whatever I can locally,
try to donate to help people overseas, but at the end of the
day, people are going to be held responsible for their actions.
That's who we should hold responsible, and God Himself is
going to hold everyone to account in a day of judgment. I'm sure
that isn't like a there's no equation to answer that question.
So if anyone else has anything else they want to add, please feel
free. Thank
you for talking. I did come in a little bit later, see a camera
there, so hopefully I'll watch what I write this later on. So I
think one thing that you
said
right now,
which is, I think, pretty important, and
this is something that, I
guess it's something that is commonly,
something a lot of people do,
is this idea of, like, trusting the lost contact versus holding
people responsible. I think, I guess my question is, or I don't
know if we expand on this a little bit, where do you, I guess, strike
that balance. A lot of people like, if they're being treated
unjustly, and say, You know what a low take care, but if you keep
doing that, I mean, look at our American
streets on that. There was also this concept of justice. There was
also a concept of actually taking that material and then trying, you
know,
to, I guess, seek
like, or fix the situation.
So I guess I was wondering like, where do you draw that
distinction? So that's exactly where the circle of influence and
the circle of concern comes in. So there are certain things that we
here in Princeton can't necessarily do physically, for
example, help people in Syria. Now that's a general thing. Some of us
can go and help refugees. Some of us can provide hate. There are
different ways that some people can help, right and understanding,
leaving things to God, that's an answer for that type of thing, or
you don't.
Necessarily have the ability to just fix it on your own. That's
one thing, something that's removed from you, but there's
another aspect of that, and that's when something happens to you,
personally or someone you love, that's when you can actually have
influence over a situation, and that's when we must act I'll give
you a particular example. A number of individuals in our community
have dealt with * or have dealt with sexual violence, and our
community tends to say things like, forgive and forget, make
amends, move forward. These are individuals, sometimes within
their own families. Now, for something like this, this is an
extreme injustice. This is something that needs to be taken
account of. What can a person do in that situation? It's not just
about I'm going to leave it to God, and then hopefully everything
will get better, of course, as an aspect of coming back to God
through that. But there needs to be action that's taken. So when it
has to do with someone that you can actually impact physically,
there's something like within your bounds. That's when we actually
need to take that step. It could be forms of oppression like abuse.
It could be forms of oppression and money. It could be just
someone making messed up statements about someone else. It
could be something as small as posting an ugly picture of someone
else on Instagram that didn't want it to be on there. But you can
have influence over those situations, and that's when we
actually need to act. That's when we do change it with our hands or
with our tongue, or at least hate it in our heart in wise ways, but
it's important for us to actually seek action in that time. The
times that we leave it to God, are times that we actually can't do
anything about it, and that's then we still try to do things. But
that doesn't mean that we can, like, make war, just go away. I'm
not sure if I answered your question specifically, so please
feel free to expand on it so we can continue. Inshallah,
yeah, Does anyone else want to add to it?
One more student question, and then we'll open it up to
you. Right, we can open it
up. No. Thank you. Very interesting conversation.
The
problem with how we all look at
where we can overcome or not work on all this conversation we're
having
a lot of that has to deal with the concepts of predestinate,
because if somebody has a thought and faith that this is what was
supposed to happen
or not happen, whatever the case might be, part of the predestined.
That's where all the depression or the or whatever you're doing comes
in. This was not supposed to happen to me. This was supposed to
happen to me. This was, you know, this is, this is a payment of my
sin. So this is a blessing of what I did, right? I mean, all the
people make up these, I like you to address the predestiny. What's
your view of predestination, how it all plays out in what you've
been talking about? I think the best way to look at this is if we
were just give me any historical figure,
Malcolm X, okay, my God, have mercy on all right. So take
Malcolm X, he passed away already, right? God, have mercy on him.
Many of us know his biography now, the way that his life happened,
all the different things that happened in his life. God knew
those things were going to happen, right? But similarly, now us, many
years later, we know a lot of what happened. And if you were to ask
one of us to come back in history and tell him these things are
going to happen, we would be able to, because we've already been
able to see that play out, right? So in the same way, God already
knows what's going to happen or what may happen,
what we what is written, isn't necessarily what's going to
happen. Things can change. It like
there are things that that there. There are things that can change
in ways. But that point of the discussion, let's focus on the
point of the discussion, let's focus on right now, is what that
actually means in our lives. So just like as people who've already
seen the lives of other people go through. We've already seen
Malcolm X's history play out. We already know what happened to him,
just like that. God already knows all of those things about us. But
that doesn't necessarily mean that those things are going to control
the actions that we do. There are certain things that are going to
happen that are tests, that are things that we can't control, like
somebody,
like a natural disaster, for example, like there, there are
things that are beyond our control, that that are just
destined for us to be in, like in that moment when that happens. But
that doesn't necessarily mean that those things are going to have to
influence the rest of our lives. It's just an.
And so. But he wrote lot of books, he did lot of lectures, but
that was beautiful. Thank you so much for sharing that. Just
looking at not,
not being someone who's going to say, I have no control over this
like I mean, that whole concept is what you very eloquently stated.
Thank you so much for that.
I just wanted to elaborate on when you mentioned father, like, the
pre destination, pre determination. I've been, like,
starting to study and how I understand this kind of, like,
if you were to take, like a mentor, like, say, a person, you
know, their lifespan can kind of be like a tree. Obviously, he's
gonna have his roots in, like, certain key events you have to be
born to be alive, things like that. And if you want to take
different paths that you'll take in life is kind of the branches,
and the branches are gonna have points where smaller branches will
come out of those will be those, like, set points out that you
cannot avoid. This moment in time. Allah has destiny. This moment
happened, but then from there, where you can go, where these are
all these, like potential, action, potential, reaction potential
events that you can then go off of. So it's kind of like Allah
gave you within the sphere of, like the tree itself. You know,
you have a lifespan, you know, circumstance, yeah, those will all
limit that. But within that there are so many different paths, and
which path your particular life will take is just based on your
actions. So Allah gave you this sphere, this, like, you know,
I guess, sphere of options, and then your actions will then decide
what you take. So it's not like this, is it one straight line?
That's all you're gonna do. You have no choice. You have so many
choices. Allah just gave you points at which you want to start
making those choices. That's how I understand beautiful. Thank you
for the analogy. Very beautiful.
You mentioned in the beginning, and I think you sort of alluded to
this many times, that our community is not very open to
talking about these issues, and like, personal issues, and
especially mental health. How do you see that changing? And like, I
don't want to confine our like, the Muslim community in America is
very diverse, but like predominates in immigrant
community, and it comes with that diversity of issues like and like,
with cultural like components too. So like, how do you envision sort
of, like,
like, these discussions about mental health, or, like, public
inequality which is very present, like poverty, which is very
present
in our community, envision the discussions happening. So I think
the first thing is that as a as a general community, we need to
start taking examples from especially the African American
community in the United States, the African American Muslim
community is the largest community of our groups. They're individuals
who have dealt with the most oppression in the history of the
United States that have continued until now there. I mean, it's just
beyond, beyond
a person's ability to comprehend not just the things that their
community has gone through, the black community has gone through,
but that continues through systemic oppression today and the
way that, of course, it's going to affect individuals of that
community now. Of course, they are part of the Muslim community. What
I've noticed is that we have a divide where we don't use modules
that our beloved black brothers and sisters already have in place
in the dominant immigrant community. There seems to be like,
some type of divide in that, and not just when we're looking at
individuals who historically known it's like to go through these
experiences, but also even within immigrants, there's so many
different so many different divisions of race and myself, like
in the community I grew up In, many of the many of the people in
who who attend your Arab or many of the people are South Asian, and
myself, I'm not either one of those, and my family is very
diverse, so like, I didn't feel like I could relate to people in
my community either. And I think that itself is just kind of like a
lens into how divided we are because we keep so strongly into
the like cultural ties we have. I think if we're able to start
looking at the benefits that each culture or each race brings into
our general Muslim community, take from the things that those
communities have used, whether in their home countries or here
natively in the United States, and look at what has worked for people
in that community, we can start making modules that would be
effective throughout the United States for the Muslim community.
Now, that is a very long term process. That's like, I don't
know. Maybe I don't know if we're going to be able to see that
anytime in our lifetimes, or maybe towards the end of them, if God
blesses the long ones. But I think just at a very basic level, having
conversations like this is the start of it. And being open Asmaa
did a great job. Michelle Obamacare, I think he mentioned,
hey, he put together an incredible program that actually addressed a
lot of these issues. And growing up like, we didn't talk about the
seven conferences, it was always like, even if you did have
conversations, guys and girls were separate, and it was always very
segregated. And.
It was what I deal with now are the outcome of that generation who
are always segregated and don't know how to deal in their own
marriages because it was always so foreign, or it was the exact
extreme so like as a community, we've unfortunately, I think
failed is a strong word, but
mishandled greatly the consequences of a lot of the
cultural barriers we've put into community centers, and if we can
slowly start healing from the pain that we've caused our own
community members as a general community, I think through
conversations is one, one great step forward, but then also it's
going to retry, require organization work. And this is
what I'm seeing, that people who have studied Mental Health Social
Work, are now putting putting together third spaces where people
can come in and just be open about what's going here, provide
support, and have that type of support. I'm seeing a lot more in
people who are in their like 30s, who are starting to create
organizations because they're tired of not being able to have a
space. So I think that Inshallah, will long term, lead to having
lots of institutes where people can feel comfortable regardless of
what their racial or ethnic background is or culture. But in
the short term, I think it just requires a perspective shift, and
part of it is recognizing who we need to take benefit from, and
then realizing that we need to own to the mistakes that we've made as
a general community, part of that being in racial division, and then
see how we can help people feel included. Someone said that
they're lonely, and I don't know if that person is still in this
room, but I mean, like a lot of us, are lonely. It's so lonely in
the Muslim community sometimes, and I think being able to provide
those spaces where conversations can happen is one of the one of
the most important steps to making it an actual institution or
organization. Does
anyone else want to share on that? And if I can just add one thing to
that, what I would say is, you know, we also need more people in
our community going into, you know, social work, into
counseling, provide something so that my children, my
grandchildren, won't have to say, you know, 50 or 100 years from
now, like, why is it that the Muslim community doesn't address
mental health issues? You know, I definitely don't want to see that
question being repeated through the generations. I want to see
that in future generations people are able to say, yeah, there were
people who made sacrifices and went into these fields to help the
community, and so that's just one thing, and I think that's really
important. And part of it is just like allowing, providing, helping
parents understand that's so important to encourage that I know
a lot of people who do want to study, going going into the social
sciences or into mental health, and it's just very hard for them
because their parents are very specific on what they want, or the
community has defined success in a certain way. So I think like that
is the right approach, and Inshallah, people like you
will help change the course of what it looks like towards the
Gen, through the generations. But I think we're still so stuck on
what, on what, what the expectation is. But that is
definitely a great idea. Mashallah, I think part of the
problem might be that you still have,
because of immigration, obviously,
people
who are coming from their homelands with that kind of
baggage that reinforces or makes people who are already Here, who
are trying to move away into the mainstream, but they are kind of
pulled back because of peer pressure or whatever, and
therefore you stay in that vicious cycle of behaving or doing things
like, I know the example, like we live in Westminster, and there was
a big program, actually, NPR on Wayne Road, which is the next town
over that they have 35 police men in that locality. That's down. The
population is about 60% Asian, and they have one policeman who is not
white,
meaning that people don't want to get into, into the field of
policing community. I know the mayor. Residents are. He was
telling me many years ago that I wish anything, and he's a
from Chinese
community. So he was telling me that, you know, I want people from
Asia, local people to join it. Nobody wants to go because, in
their eyes, being a policeman is just a third grade thing
to be doing. Everybody wants to go into this preconceived occupation,
which their fathers and grandfathers.
I mean, I bet you had read it for this child. I definitely can see
that that may be a problem for some families, whether it's the
Asian community or many other social communities or racial
communities, but I do think there is a level that we need to
recognize that has to do with the way that the system is set up for
certain communities as well. So it's just important for us to look
at some of the ways that people are tracked into.
In fields that are not necessarily where their family wants them to
be, or even the community, but kind of the way that the system is
set up as well. Just important to recognize that both may exist. But
thank you for mentioning that point. Yes, having dealt
with these issues for so long, perhaps alongside other than
my
consent, because conversation first, just to add the
conversation, I don't think being represented in every profession
makes us any better or worse than anybody else. There are a lot of
communities who have nobody in police, and they're doing quite
well. So that I don't think is the issue. I think the issue is, in
our case, my generation, that you know, the first and the second
wave of immigrants. We brought with us, unfortunately, lot of
ignorance. We brought with us a lot of these mullahs who had
memorized Quran and who were at basic level from speaking English,
but they're royally messed up with with with us, with lot of papers,
slowly, I think we're getting fast at stage, but I think that
Achilles heel still remains how we continue to treat our women,
especially in The mosque.
We, regardless of whatever we will say, our book always is, oh, we
women are equal. Oh women, it's just a degree of difference. I
mean, we'll cite Quran and are these nine different ways, but
when it will come time for prayer, we will throw them right next to
the refrigerator,
and we mistreat our women. We don't treat our women. You know, I
went to one of the to the
west ones, or East Windsor masjid, and I said, look around here, this
room. This is such a blessed room, because when you look at it, the
education level of this room is bachelors, minimum of the adults.
And when you look at that, and I'm only talking about the women, you
know, we have bad we have bank managers, we have chemists, we
have doctors and we mistreat them,
and and I think that's the process we have to snap out of until we
accomplish that, and hopefully your generation will deal with it,
the younger generation will deal with it and fix this problem. But
I will say this, you know, this is, if you're going to discuss a
community,
it's the women issue is our Achilles heel, and we got to
address it, and got to expand
on I'm very glad you mentioned that. I mean, women's, women's
women's issues are one of the strongest passions for myself. And
I know, I mean, I could talk about this for very long time. So I
mean, I think at the end of the day, part of the problem, and this
is part of our issue when we look at mental health, and this is part
of our issue when we look at part of a lot of the reasons that
people are feeling lonely and confused is because we we the way
we've shaped Islam over time is not the same way it was practiced
during the time of Prophet Muhammad. Peace be upon him,
especially when it comes to gender, and when we look at his
time, men and women were in an open society. They worked
together. There was no separation in terms of physical barrier. In
the masjid, women asked questions of the Prophet, peace upon him and
other people. And other people women that were appointed in
political positions. I mean, we look at all of this during the
time of the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, and those who
followed after him very shortly. But there are a lot of historical
reasons for those shifts. Some of them have to do with colonialism.
Some of them have to do with Greek philosophy. And as simple as that
is, Greek philosophy influenced the Muslim world to an enormous
extent, because with the translation of Greek work into
Arabic and the influence of Greek philosophy into the understanding
of religion, also came the negative aspects of Greek
philosophy, which, at that time at least, believed that women were
not as superior to men, and also believed that women should not be
educated the way that men are. So if you look at for example, and
I'm talking about this time period, if you look at for
example, women scholars throughout, throughout the
centuries of Islam, excuse me, Islamic history, you have Muslim
women who are scholars, as Dr Akram nadumi mentions. And he
mentioned this in Albu Hadith that and I spoke to him personally, and
he was telling me that in every single sect that you look at at
Islam, like in Sunni and Shia and mujiri, you look at all these
different sects of Islam, or people who had, or like studied
and influenced in those areas. Women were scholars, who were
known scholars who people would travel to. It wasn't the way that
we see like Ibn taymi, a student, Fatima beldadia. She was a female
who would give sermons on the pulpit of the Damascus masjid, not
for Jamal, not, not, not the Friday sermon, but she would teach
on the pulpit of the Damascus masjid. And men and women.
Would go and attend and listen to our lecture, and that was common
during that time. But if you look specifically at the people whose
families focus, or who are scholars from from from the Greek
influence, their own children, their own daughters, didn't
continue because they weren't encouraged to get an education the
same way that others were. I'm not blaming Islamic downfall on on
Greek, Greek philosophy in any way. I'm just saying that in
certain aspects of our history, certain political or certain
cultural influences affected the way that our communities then
treated women. And that wasn't the way that the Prophet Muhammad,
peace be upon him, gave us the platform of doing so. And I think
if we can actually get back to that part of that. Thank you so
much for hosting me as a female and not freaking out when I
recited for Addison communities. Do part of that is recognizing
that that's just normal, that's part of our history, and being
able to revive that. I think, Inshallah, long term, if we can do
that systemically in our community, we'll get back to a
good place. But I mean, if women are still praying in closets, and
when they're professionals, they're treated with respect. Why
would they continue to come? I, I have so much trouble going to the
masjid. It is so hard for me. And I'm somebody who is studying
Islam, somebody hamdules memorized for and somebody who works a
little Muslim thing all the time. The Masjid hurts my heart, and it
makes i It's very painful to go to the masjid and and I'm somebody
who's very committed, and I have struggled,
so it's very it's a common it's a common reality in our in our
community. But the question isn't, okay, am I just going to stop it's
what am I going to do to change it? And that's that's a process,
that's a process to get to that point. Yeah, at this point, with
mugger coming in, I want to conclude our formal event, but I
want us to have a space where we can do the evening mugwort prayer,
and also we have some food so people can stick around and engage
in small discussions. And please do get to know Maryam and ask any
questions that you may have. You know, privately, you can come up
to her when we can form small circles and, you know, continue
just to keep in touch. Maryam is a very special one of the things
that I love about
Maryam and a lot of people like her, is that she's just so open
and accessible. And, you know, anytime I've emailed her, you
know, within 24 hours, I get a response that's because you email
me like, what's your bio?
You're not like I have this life crisis, but I always respond,
please feel free. I mean, I thank you so much for hosting me. Was an
honor. It was an honor to be with you guys. Please forgive me if I
said anything they didn't jive with you. I mean, this is a
process. These conversations are a process. These are not like linear
discussions that we can have about certain, certain topics that are
very, very personal. But thank you for having me. If you do have
further questions, I'm, I'm very responsive on Facebook or you can
email me. My email is contact Mariam with a Y, [email protected]
but if you, if you email me, Inshallah, get back to you always
respond. It was a, really a pleasure to talk to you guys
formally and it shall help to get to know you a little more
privately. But let's end with a job. Inshallah, yeah. Inshallah,
was going to say the same subhanigulahoma will be having the
conditional and that ILAHA, I just ask God to be pleased with us, to
forgive us, to be of the ones who to help us, be of the ones who can
be close to him in this life and in the next life. Allah, we ask
You, ya Rameen,
oh, Allah, every single one of us, Ya Allah, has issues in our lives.
So many of our family members are hurting. Allah, please, Allah,
please be with us and make it easy for us. Let the difficulties we go
through be a means of helping us. Come closer to you. Help us.
Allah, humma, regardless of what we go through, come back to you.
Make us of the people who love you and who are close to you. Ya,
Rabbana, Allah, please. Ya Allah, answer our prayers, answer the
needs of our hearts. Ya, Rabbi Allah, Salam Alaina, Wahabi wala
Ali was happy. Ijnari, Oh Allah, have mercy on the people suffering
everywhere, and make a sense of the people who are grateful to you
and who can help others.
Thank
you so much. I'm gonna add some.