Maryam Amir – Strengthening Black Muslim Youth Identity thru Community Islah LA Imam Jihad Saafir
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AI: Transcript ©
Subhanallah Alhamdulillah, wa la ilaha, illallah, Allahu Akbar,
subhanAllah Alhamdulillah, wa la ilaha, illallah, Allahu. Akbar,
subhanAllah Alhamdulillah, wa la ilaha, illallah, Allahu, Akbar,
Subah, Sala Alaikum, Sumayya, Alam, Masha, Allah, welcome all of
you. It's such a gift to have you. Subhanallah, Wale rigadu,
subhanAllah, alhamdulillahi Alhamdulillah wali Ketu,
SubhanAllah. Ketu, subhanAllah, it's such a gift to have all of
you. Come on. Thank you, Allah, you know jihad is here. Mashallah,
what an honor. Heavenship. Can
you hear me? Yes, I can have to that's a blessing to hear you. How
are you? Alhamdulillah, everything is going good, you know, just
trying to stay focused. Alhamdulillah, yes, yes.
Alhamdulillah, it's such a, such a seriously, such a blessing. I'm
like star struck talking to you. You know,
much hotline our community.
I'm star struck. I'm the nervous one, because you ever seen
yourself,
it is such an honor to have Imam jihad with us here today,
mashaAllah. Anyone from the California state knows about Imam
Jihad work and throughout the country, masha Allah as an Imam
and as someone who has founded an organization and actively works to
uplift and invest in communities. Imam Masha Allah Isla la does work
that has consistently been used as an example of what Muslims need to
be doing. So thank you so much for the work you've done and the time
that you're speaking with us today. I would love if you could
share with us a little bit about why you are focused on the type of
work that you do with usla Haley. Can you share what Isla Haley is
for us, for the people who maybe are joining from other parts of
the world and haven't heard of it before? Can you share with us what
what Isla is
most definitely Abu lahima, shayta, Rahim, bismala, Rama,
Rahima, Alhamdulillah, Rabbi lami wa salatu, Asmaa, Allah
Rasulillah, want to say that it's a pleasure. You know, being on
your platform, and you know, I've seen some of the work that you do,
I want to compliment the work that you do is is definitely necessary.
You know, our sisters have so much to contribute that, you know, you
can't let the brothers put you in the background. You gotta make
sure that you stay in the forefront. So I want to, I want to
begin with that in my shop, basically with in regards to Isla
lay
I for myself. I can't, I can take very little credit for that. You
know, Alhamdulillah placed me around some very beautiful pillars
in the community, and I'm simply following their footsteps. I'm
standing on their shoulders, you know, you know, for example, my
father, Imam Sadiq Safir, who I grew up watching him. So what I
did, I unknowingly built a future by watching the examples around
me. And that, that is, you know, a part of our fifth row is that, you
know, our environment, you know, really helps to us formulate
these, these selves, these future selves. Yes, so my father, I mean,
they was in the trenches, you know, they were, you know, some of
the pioneers of the community. My My father and mother's generation,
they put their lives on the line for us to be here today, and
today, Alhamdulillah Islay, we're in South LA. You know, we still in
the trenches. We didn't leave the inner city. So we're doing the
work. Crenshaw slawson, anybody know about Crenshaw slawson, when
you get there, come and visit us. So we still, we doing the work. We
continue in the work that our our people came and they they really
initiated.
Thank you so much for sharing the fact that you have these examples.
I think that one of the things that we and we talk about youth
and you know, the next generation, sometimes we hear people say
things like, Oh, the youth, they're so misguided, or they're
so obsessed with social media, but it's like, well, what kind of
examples are we giving them to be able to connect with mentors that
see their potential and can invest in them? What you do with usla LA
is not only focused on the greater community, but you also emphasize
children and youth. What kind of work do you specifically do for
inculcating Muslim identity, and also, specifically Black Muslim
identity. There's so much pain and oppression in our greater society
when it comes to being and obviously I'm not black, so I
can't speak to that in any way, but as a as a white.
Or as a non Black Muslim, looking from the outside and hearing from
Black Muslims that sometimes being in immigrant created massage it
from maybe a Desir Arab background can be very isolating. You've
given a very
you're giving mentorship to youth in a way that it impacts an
identity very personally. Can you speak to that and why, and like,
why you've created this space specifically for children?
Yeah, you know, so just growing up in the Muslim community in South
Los Angeles, being very, you know, up close to the inner city
culture, what I've seen over the years, I got to a certain point
growing up, and, you know, being in the masjid and looking around,
and my peers were not present. And what I saw over the years is that,
you know, they were really taken down by gang culture and some of
the surrounding elements in the inner city. So it's important
that, you know, the religious space in the inner city is tailor
made for the inner city. It's not going to look like it's not going
to resemble the religious spaces in the suburban areas, you know.
So this was very important, and with me growing up with the Father
as an Imam, I'll never forget, at the e1 year, I was around 13 or 14
years old, and there was a group of us. We were friends. We didn't
go to the same high schools, or we didn't go to the same junior high
schools, but I recall that we were sitting around and all the young
brothers, it's about 1516, young African American Muslims.
They went around and began talking about the gang that they were
from. All of them represented a gang. Every one of them
represented a gang. Many of them are not here with us today.
Many of them, they're doing life in prison, life sentences in
prison, some taken down by the drugs in the inner city. I was
very fortunate. I had a father who was not going to allow me to join
any gang, right? I had a mother. As a matter of fact, I, I'll never
forget, there was a gang member who, you know, one of the the
known sayings is, you know, where you from? If you don't know that
language, you would, you know, perceive that this person was
asking, what where did I you know? Were you raised? You know, so you
may, you may say your city, but they're asking, what gang are you
from right? And I remember I have strong parents that protected me
from that. My mother said, Next time someone asks you that, tell
them you're Muslim.
I said, No, no, this is not going to work.
And I would, because I remember distinctly the individual ask me,
I'm imagine I'm 1112, just I'm walking on Jefferson Boulevard
right next to the master. He pulls and shows me the top of his gun
right and asks, Where are you from?
Nervous? Shaking it, man, I mean, super nervous the police happened
to hit the corner. So, you know, Alhamdulillah, for the purpose on
that day, you know, wow.
But my mother, I went back and told my mother, this is one of my
first encounters with that type of the gang culture. And my mother
said, telling me, Muslim, the Muslims have put it down so much
in the inner city, you tell them, you muslim, they they leave you
alone. The Muslims was putting it down. You talk about father's
generation. I mean, they, they within themselves. They defended
the community. Yes, when people thought about Muslims in the inner
city, they think about people who are servicing the inner city,
protecting the inner city, solving the conflicts of the inner city.
So the next time I saw the individual, I took my mother's
advice, and I said, I'm Muslim. I'm Muslim, right? And
unfortunately he left me alone.
Unfortunately some of that was lost, yes. So when we talk about
Isla, we're trying to revive something that once also was, you
know, that influence in the inner city, you know, Alhamdulillah,
when Islam, when we first moved to the neighborhood that we are right
now,
we told one of the neighbors that were Muslim. She said,
Alhamdulillah. She said, you know, thank God the Muslims are here.
This is a non Muslim. She said, the Muslims are here. And she was,
she was elated. She was happy. So we're bringing that element back.
You know, we're talking about Muslims known and the prison
system for solving conflicts between some of the gangs, right?
So.
Um, it very beautiful. Growing up in that type of community where
you saw Islam as a trans formational tradition, a tradition
that transforms lives, transforms individuals. So we're bringing
that back. We some of that was lost because people coming in and
transitioning, or making a full transition into mainstream Islam,
seem to lose a sense of self, right? And the mindset became more
universal the Ummah, of course, right? Beautiful to be more
universal and be more attuned with the ummah. However, some lost
sight of the people that was right in front of them, right and begin
to neglect the relationships of the people right in front of them.
One of the things that we learn is that people follow, usually, the
identities of the people who show them the most love, the most
compassion, most care, yes, yes. So my, my father's generation,
they was in the trenches. They were right there next to the drug
dealer while he was selling drugs, inviting him into the masjid,
right? What they would, they call it temples, you know? But as they
made that transition, they begin to lose some of that, becoming
more preoccupied with, you know, some of the studies Alhamdulillah,
and I'm grateful for that, but it's now time to fuse horizons,
bring our studies of traditional Islam, but also understand
understanding the language of the people.
So this is what we're trying to offer at Isla, that the youth can
come into a place where they can,
you know, the leadership is relatable, and we can talk to them
about some of the issues that they're facing. Do you ever find
that when kids come in and they are talking about the things that
they facing, because they have mentors who've been through that
process, or who at least know how to identify with their reality
that it actually has made a significant change in their lives.
Can you share with us how that's actually impacted the youth?
Yeah, you know that's that's very important. You know one thing that
I've had younger brothers who you know, because sometime when you
see me, I'm around some of my younger brothers, and what I bring
to them is a relationship. You know, it's important beyond I
don't, I don't want them to, you know, follow me without
understanding that this is a relationship that we are building.
I'm asking your advice. The Prophet sallallahu, sallam. He
asked the advice of Ali ibn Abi Talib, USA may have been Zaid,
right, Bilal muraba, he's asking the advice also. So that's the
type of we're trying to, you know, make sure that that people know
what we're building at building at Isla is we prioritize community.
We prioritize relationships between people. The Muslim
community is far from that. A lot of times the amount Imams I want
to teach all day, you know, truthfully, I want to teach some
Quran. I love the Arabic language, you know, I have some students. I
teach the ajru Mia, and I want to teach everybody, the adju Mia and
the whatever I want to teach, right? The reality of it is that
you have to prioritize community and relationships with between
people and people. They're going to want to sit in classes when
they figure out that they have true love within that community,
right? So this is, like, we have the people right now, we have the
people doing one to ones with each other. Like, that's like, a
policy. You come to the community, you're going to have to spend an
hour with with your brothers, you know, like, of course, sisters
with sisters and brothers with brothers, but you're going to have
to spend an hour and you gotta do one a week to one a week.
Hanala,
yeah, so, so we try we prioritize relationships between people.
Isla, baina, Nas, that's beautiful
when you have a program specifically cater to teaching in
Arabic for children. How have you the videos that I've seen from
these classes are so fun. They look like the kids smiling. They
feel confident. It looks like a place I want to learn. How do you
teach Quran and Arabic to young people?
So you know, was, was interesting. So we've done plays like we have.
We have something where somebody, I don't know if it was NPR, one of
these radio said they have our play. We had to play the children
do it all. Arabic play, really, Pamela lead. The lead was.
Is Donald Trump.
Wow, one of our students wore the Donald Trump wig. And, you know, I
didn't see two yard, you know, is speaking Arabic, you know.
So, I mean, it was, it was we do stuff like that creative thing
our, for example, in our teaching right now, a lot of stuff has been
disrupted because of the covid situation. We're on Zoom, so we're
trying to make those adjustments. But, you know, just teaching the
Arabic language, you know? So we're, for example, we'll put a
little rhythm on
example of the pronouns, right? Hua, Huma, whom, yeah, Huma Hun,
an exact
that's
just
an example of some of the stuff that we've done. Those were so
hard for me to remember in the beginning, but if I had a song
like that, that makes it so much easier. Easy. Yeah, most
definitely. But you definitely mentioned Donald Trump as part of
this play in Arabic. So you're not only looking at, you know,
classical Arabic texts when you're teaching, you're actually bringing
in people's lived realities, youth, children's lived realities,
and how they can engage the language with that.
That is essential. So one of my you know, I've been fortunate to
study
from social psychology, educational psychology,
it's important that you contextualize the lesson like
for myself. Alhamdulillah,
you know, study some traditional text. I never forget. I studied
this traditional text, right?
And I brought it to the people. I said, Now you all have to memorize
that. They say, man, get that out. They didn't say that, but they,
they just stop showing up, you know, they wouldn't show up with
their, you know, with whatever they had memorized, right? You
know, so, you know, you, you have to contextualize what what we are
doing. We do a lot of blind importation into our communities,
right? And we try to make our communities many versions of
ourselves, but you know you have to figure out how to because it's
like, for example, you're between the clouds, the informations in
the clouds, and you have to get this information in the clouds to
the people on the ground, right? And that takes strategy, that
takes planning, that takes training, right? That you're not
going to necessarily learn with, you know, with the shield, you
know.
So I think that's, that's something that's very important,
that you know, knowing the learning the language of the
people, right? Being able to contextualize the information
you have youth. Who are
actively hearing conversations about what it looks like to be
them in a greater societal context, beyond being Muslim and
they're where I'm sure that they come into the classroom, and they
all not only have their own, you know, personal struggles, like we
all have our own personal struggles, but then they also have
this weight of what it means to be coming from a particular identity.
How do you have those types of conversations with young people in
these types of spaces and help them feel connected, or the
strength in their religion through that process? Yeah? Yeah.
Well, you know, one of the things we talk about a lot of times, I
give you example, okay, now we are a couple of blocks away from where
Nipsey Hussle was murdered, right?
Yeah, so it's a couple of blocks right across the street, wow.
And, you know, we had, we had a couple of children bring weapons
to school. They were young. I mean, you know, you're talking
about junior high school, elementary, you know it bring in
weapons because they didn't know what was going to take place. Wow.
You know, this is what they have to deal with in their neighborhood
in the inner cities, right? So we, Alhamdulillah, we were able to
bring some counselors in the,
you know, in the school,
to talk to the children.
But this is the reality of, you know, when you decide, you know,
Islam is needed in the inner city, yes, the inner city comes with, I
mean, the injury itself, the psychological injuries from having
a relative incarcerated, right?
You know, some of the strain on families. You know.
Some coming from broken families, right? I give you an example.
One of the students one time, she's acting up, right? You know,
she's acting up.
And this isn't just for the African American community. I
mean, this is this. This lesson can be, you know, apply to all of
our communities when you when you have some dissension in the in the
family, right, conflict within the family. So she's acting up. And
then she finally said, you know, my father hasn't called me, and a
couple of months, you know, and I see the interaction between you
and your daughter Imam jihad, and it makes me upset. You know, so
things, things like that, when you're talking about being African
American in a racialized world where you have this color
hierarchy, you have a racial race, you know, race hierarchy, right?
And you're considered at the bottom, you know, it reminds me,
you know, in the Quran, you know, lost behind the whole he mentions
the scenario when Musa alaihi salam,
he was about to, you know, perform, you know, disability that
Allah SWT behind what Allah gave him with his staff, right in front
of the magicians, and then there's a certain feeling
for our just feed enough See he right, that he sits within himself
some fear, some apprehension, right? So Musa, so imagine we have
to deal with stereotypes, right? When I go give the I have to, I
have to deal within myself some anxiety, because I feel that other
people may be racist towards me, right, or people may look at me as
being inferior. When I go into spaces I take also my race with
me. Okay, the young brother who's driving and sees the police deals
with khife within him, right? He has to deal with the fear within
him. And this is what happened when you have been exposed to you
know, when we talk about the violence of slavery, the violence
of segregation, Jim Crow, mass incarceration, right? The the
institutional racism, right, structural racism. When you have
to deal with that, people have no idea that the impact, the
psychological impact, right, that will continue to impact, you know,
generations to come, you know, so, so it's important I focus a lot on
the the young youth, because what they're carrying the psychological
baggage of hearing a brother who looks like them was murdered by
the police. What does that do? Right? What did my daughter how
how my daughter felt hearing consecutive men women being killed
by the police, right? How did my daughter feel internally within
her right? So these are the things that we have to address in that
type of environment, and it's never easy. I can't just come with
a regular cookbook for my community.
I have to, I have to make sure that it speaks to their situation.
Yes,
yes. And these are the things that I think is important to really
look at.
You know, contextualizing things is not easy. Thank you, imam for
sharing all of that. There are so many times where in more immigrant
founded communities, there's a celebration of black figures like
Malcolm X or Muhammad Ali rahimala. Like, there's this
celebration of like, look at what we as Muslims have contributed to
America. But then when you as a black Imam, are coming in, and you
have all of these,
you have to prepare yourself mentally for what people might be
processing as they're listening to you. That speaks to how really
belittling and disgusting. The type of racism that we see in so
many greater Muslim spaces is, do you have advice for those who are
not black and who want to educate themselves, even though the
responsibility of non Black Muslims is on ourselves, that we
are the ones who need to study. But what kind of advice do you
feel like communities who need to change so much of the structural
policies? What do you what would you like them? Or what would you
like us to hear?
Yeah, so I think, first of all, it's important, you know, I look
at always, the power.
Of storytelling. You know, one of like, for example, if we read the
story of Salman al farisi, you know he's coming to the Prophet
sallallahu, sallam, he's telling him his story, right? So this
power of of storytelling and listening, you know, it's, it's
important, some of the experience that I've heard
when you know
African Americans and others, when they go into some of the, you
know, massage, it immediately people want to teach them instead
of getting to know them. You know, you know, I have a I'll never
forget. You know, my relative
fell off the dean for for a minute.
He he told me the story. He said I went into a masjid, and
I crossed in front of somebody's sutra, you know, while they were
praying,
and that person struck him in his chest,
put a, you know, put a, a mean elbow across his chest,
and not literally knocked him out of Islam for a while.
So I think it's important. That's why I say, hey, our religious
bases have to prioritize relationships with people, right?
We prioritize right from, you know, our theological
understanding,
you know a person can be praying, and then here you come. Don't know
the person's name, having spent time with them, you come to move
their hands in the prayer line.
Don't know the sister. Don't know her background. And if you knew
her background, you would just, you would rejoice at her just
being in that space. And you want to tell her about her neck is
showing, yeah, you know.
So, so these are the things is really prioritizing our
relationships, if we really down with, you know, you know, building
community, right? I think it's, it's important for us to to be
able to make some room in our hearts for one another and listen
to each other's story. That that's the number one thing, listening,
listen to each other's story. That's, that's, that's the one
thing that I would say that that at the massage it people need to
be assigned to other people. Like, hey, you and Brother so and so
have to go and have lunch this week and listen to each other, one
person talk at a time, you know, like,
yeah, so I didn't realize that you were the video paused, and I
didn't realize you were still talking. Please keep going. No,
no, no, no, no, no, let's Yeah, cuz it's part of this internet,
you know, this
problems on my internet. So I'm so sorry that comes from me. People
stop me and like, there's problems with with the live but Inshallah,
Imam, you just talked about this concept of like, you know,
assigning people like a brother or a sister, like the Prophet solo.
Are they always created those steps
in your community?
Have you found that people feel like they can see generationally,
a change? Like, let's say your Father, may Allah, bless him, he
established a community where maybe there are children from that
community. Now I don't know. Are they potentially in the community
that you're in? And have you seen the way that having uslah There
has shifted or changed or addressed some of the generational
issues that that through generations are being faced.
No what I would say, honestly, I'm going to be straight up
transparent with you, please.
You know, it's taken me being in a leadership position, you know,
over 10 years to really discover some of the information that I
even know today. You know, see, the problem is, is that my father,
they knew all of this. My father was excellent at building
relationships. He brought people together. I My emphasis became on
the Arabic language. If you're pronouncing something wrong, I'm
jumping on you my emphasis. If I hear you mispronounce something in
the Salat and you don't do no Islam, beguna or and all that
stuff, I'm checking you after the the prayer right. If I if you
misquote something right, and I know I'm checking you right? If
you say something is from the Dean, and I feel you
misrepresented, right, or something that's, you know, you
may make a mistake in akido, or somebody that, or if you're not
representing a certain Madhab, that's where I found myself going
in that direction.
Action right?
And I had to pull back from that right and realize, hey, that
approach is a psychological it's misplaced. It's not for this day
and time right now that may have been effective at another time,
but we have people struggling in this very complex society, and
what they need right now is a lot of love, mercy, compassion,
forgiveness, and they need to see examples of that of people who
really care for them, right,
and not a person who, you know, supplies this conditional type of
love, conditional affection. If you're pronouncing this right, I
love you. If you are wearing this type of outfit, I love you
exactly. And I had to learn. I had to go back and and remember the
lessons my father gave me. I had to go back after being, you know,
I had to go through the clouds. I had to go through my you know, you
know, traditional time sitting with the, you know, the Shu not
being able to place what they were saying with me really. You know,
not, not knowing where to place it. You know.
You know, sometimes our teachers are what they they're
teachers, teacher, you know, a teacher for the teacher, but, but
not for the community all the time, right, right? Didn't know
how to disseminate the two. You know, I'll get information that is
for me, and I have to filter it, bring it back to a certain
context, right? Instead, I'm bringing it raw, uncut, from
straight from this shield, into the community. And you have to be
careful. Allah gave us intellect for us to really and the
experiences in the community, the relationships with the people, to
know how to, you know, filter some of the information and give it to
the people. I think a lot of that comes from the way that Islam is
often taught, when we just go to
go to learn, and we're not always necessarily brought in the concept
of the psychology, the background, the reality of people, versus the
textbook. And
I feel like sometimes when people give Islamic
lessons, it's very much based in a privileged perspective where it's
coming from one background, with the assumption that everyone else
is going to come from that background, and then, oh so far
from the son of the Prophet sallallahu, alayhi wa sallam, who
address people from all different different backgrounds when you're
working in the inner city, and then you are giving a in another
area that's Maybe in the suburbs, in their background is completely
different. How do you feel like the message that you've heard from
people, like the reaction that you've heard, or the messages that
you've heard have differed in terms of like, obviously, there
are going to be different things people experience on a personal
level, but then also, there's a societal level, there's the
privilege aspect, there's the socioeconomic status aspect.
There's so many different areas. Like, how have you personally felt
like you've been able to go from one space to the next and still
kind of give those core founding lessons that what you're saying we
need everywhere. It's not just for the inner city. You need this to
build our community. So, like, have you, how have you navigated
those spaces, from from yourself, because of the work that you've
done? Yeah, yeah, you know, I think it's important. I mean, and
it's right there in Quran and Sunnah, you know, the Prophet SAW,
what's the mammon, maulu, then ILA, you ledro, you know, he
reminds no child is is born, but that they are on this natural
goodwill, right? So, you know, we look at that like when a person,
for example, is is displaying certain type of behaviors that you
know, this is a reflection of their society, right? This is a
reflection of their environment, their neighborhood. We have, we
have a house right now, right? It's two houses
for men, two houses for women. So these, the house that I visit more
frequently is the men's house. Right in the men's house, between
them, I'm talking about brothers who did 20 something years
straight. One brother falsely accused, did 2024 years in prison.
Another brother did 15 years in prison. Another brother did 11
years in prison over.
100 years between them in that one and in the between those two
homes, right? So it's first of all, humanizing them, realizing
that something disrupted their fitro, right? And also having
really a growth mindset on seeing that they can overcome this. They
can overcome this eventually, you know, and not being fixed on the
idea that they born criminals, they're going to stay a criminal.
No, this individual is traumatized.
They went through major trauma, and I'm grateful that I didn't go
through what they went through, because I'll probably be in the
same position, you know. So when we come to with that approach, I
see them differently. You know, individuals who you know been to
prison. Hey, we just didn't get caught. How many crimes we commit
in a day, just in our behavior towards each other, we just
haven't been caught, right?
So we have these individuals. We have no idea they've been very
resilient, and they're still saying La ELA that that is that,
right? There is Tawfiq from Allah, subhanaw wa taala. So Right? There
just that approach, our mindset, when approaching sitting down with
these, with these type of individuals, you'll find that
they'll help you more than you can help them.
Yes. Pamela, thank you. I used to teach in Watts, which is in South
LA, yeah. I went to high school in the inner city, and I noticed it's
very different
in different areas like the the level of security and police
presence in Watts was very different my school in San Jose,
and the decisions that sometimes the young people made in high
school wasn't because they are problematic, it's because they're
literally put on a, on a they are tracked. They are tracked into a
path. There literally is a school to prison pipeline. Yeah, and for
you, for Isla, because you work in this area where youth who don't
have, who are not given other choices, sometimes make decisions
or don't make decisions at all, but they're forced into these
situations. LA is like a haven for youth who might not have that
otherwise. What? What? When you have these young people come in
through your program, what do you see? Are there? What do you see?
What? What do you see in terms of between them, not necessarily like
with you as a mentor, but between them as peer groups, like the
types of
the types of discussions, or the types of
you know, support the we all, we all know about peer pressure as
like young people, the types of peer pressures that I saw it young
people go through in Watts was very different from what I saw
elsewhere. Like, what, how do you see Isla has impacted types of
decisions that young people are making there.
Yeah. Okay, so, well, one thing I want to bring this up, it's like,
you know, it's very important to understand this is that the self
reflects society, you know? So society is right now, what we
dealing with a society is complex, complex, multifaceted.
Yeah, so it's very is, can you hear me? Yeah, okay, yeah, okay,
so society is complex, organized into different parts, right?
Groups, so many groups,
so many classes of people, so many institutions, right and society
experiences both dissension and harmony. Right now, if a self, the
self that is being brought up or produced in that society, is also
going to be complex, going to be multifaceted, organized into
different parts, different identities, right? And it's going
to experience dissension and harmony, right? The product of
those environments. And the Prophet saw something. He said it,
Khalili, falando, ahadu, kumanyu, Khalid, he said it, he humanity is
on the religion of his friend, right? Of her friend. So let one
of you, you know, be careful of whom you choose as a friend,
right? So you take on the dean. Imagine how complex this is right
now in my neighborhood, or in one of these young people's
neighborhood.
And you put on what's on YouTube, right? You have all of these
different ways of life. So what is being produced are very complex
individuals for this day and time. I mean, they are watching gangs.
They have a little gang lifestyle in them. They have some Muslims in
them. They have, you know, you think this, the homosexual stuff
and all of this other stuff that we are seeing is not impacting us,
right? They have that culture in them. They have the liberalism and
they have the Donald Trumpism in them. They have everything within
that person, and because we are being exposed, you can't undo what
you just saw on TV five minutes ago. You can't undo any of that,
right? So what we have have to realize we're dealing with very
complex individuals in this day and time, and it's going to take
the brightest thinkers from amongst the Muslim community to
really sit down and figure out a doable approach, right? And it, it
has to take us back to Quran and Sunnah, the Prophet sallallahu,
what is right there? He gives us all of the tools right there,
that, and it's, it's right there for us to you, for us to utilize.
So for the individuals that come to Isla, they need an orientation
that's Religious Right, but that's also an approach
that is appropriate for their culture, right? So we have to
culturally relevant approach, right? So when you're talking
about, we're talking about Malcolm, right? We're talking
about, in,
in the next lesson, we're talking about Mansa, Musa, right? But
we're also introducing them to W, E, B, Dubois, right. We're talking
about, what does it mean, in his theory of double consciousness,
right? Uh, Booker T Washington, we're bringing in that figure,
right? Because we have to realize this. You have to have it's not no
people always come with this one little simple thing. And you know
here, Imam, do this? Have you led even 10 people before? Have you
been able to influence even 10 people before, perhaps not so this
right here, what I've seen is that, you know, it's for us, even
developing as a school, it's a lot of trial and error right now we,
you know, we have a lot of studies under our belt right now. We have
our young people. What we're talking about is healing, right?
We don't ignore when we went through some trauma, right?
Somebody died in our family. We don't ignore it. We need to sit
down and talk about it. If your parents have went through divorce,
don't ignore it. You don't just allow that child to just keep
going and, you know, go to school like it's a normal thing. No, that
person has experienced loss, divorce, no, you can't ignore it.
Don't use Islam, what we're teaching our our brothers and
sisters in the community. Stop using Islam as a band aid, and you
have all of these cuts underneath, right? That the Quran is a shifa.
It's for healing. Figure out how you going to heal. Don't no more
excuses in regards to, you're not willing to reconcile that
relationship with your loved one, right? And you're going to use
Islam as an excuse, hey, right.
So what we're calling on people is, is, is, this is a tradition
that transforms and heals your beard. Can't hide your pain. Mm,
hmm, your King. Yakima can't hide your pain, right? This daishiki
Can't hide my pain. I'm in pain. My, Alhamdulillah, my good Arabic
I stole from what Subhanallah, jazakallahu, hayan, right? Or my
ghetto Arabic, it it can't hide the pain. I don't care how much
Arabic we know it cannot hide the pain. So what we're aiming towards
is using with our youth and adults, using Islam, utilizing it
as a tradition that heals. The Quran is for healing,
not for hiding.
I know love that is so powerful, the Quran is for healing, not for
hiding the fronts. Don't hide what's really happening on the
inside and that we we can't make us laugh until we actually address
them. Yeah, we have about 15 minutes left. Can you share with
us the school itself, the teachers in your school? What kind of
program you actually have? Because for those just joining,
Hamdulillah, we have a launch good campaign to support and invest the
incredible work as La Academy is doing with young people in South
LA. Can you share with us more about the program itself, and the
link, by the way that you can invest in right now is in my.
Out Shala
Islay is doing amazing things. And you know, one of the things that
has always been difficult like this is the a private school for
low income families, right? Like our students, all of them are on
scholarship. Straight up, all of them are receiving a scholarship
like my my daughter was going to a private school, Muslim private
school. I'm not going to say the name, very good school, right? I
mean, Blue Ribbon. I mean, you know, this is awesome school, but,
man, you talking about over $1,000 a month.
Like families can't afford that. But what we've seen in the inner
city, I mean, some of these schools, I mean, they do not
consider the internal state of the child. They do not consider the
internal state of the child. So the young brothers that I was
around, I mean, like you said, they went straight. They were
funneled right into the juvenile, juvenile justice system, the, you
know, school to prison pipeline, you know, and we said we're not.
We had nearly three generations. I'm talking about some of our
superstars in the community, who we were very we saw as having a
promising future. We saw them get caught up in prison, one of our
superstars right now is doing life in in prison, right? We have a few
of them in the in the community, doing life in prison, right? And I
saw this, you know, growing up this, these things slowly happen.
I said we as a group, we came together. We said, We cannot have
this anymore. We want to make sure these children are learning Quran.
They going to be on Christian slawson learning Quran.
You know, they do plays. We have a winter show where they're
displaying their Quran in front of the people. They're
doing plays in in the Arabic language. I mean, it's so
impressive. So we want to build that program. We want to make sure
that people are able to a generation can inherit the school
of Isla Academy.
Not easy. We need everyone's help the community who do not, they
will not be coming to Crenshaw slawson.
We can't leave, right, right? You all can support. We can say we in
here, in this together, doing you're doing the work that is an
obligation on all of us to do so at the very least do is invest in
the work that you're doing, you're doing, you're doing it on the
ground work. How much does it for one month's tuition for one child?
So ours is, it's so right now, I think it's like 555
Yeah, 550 you know. Okay, and how?
Sorry, go ahead. No, go ahead. How many kids do you have in your in
your like in the elementary like the K through eighth program
right now? I think
it's at least, because it's a smaller school, so it's a right
now, it's about 50. We've gotten closer to 70, but people graduated
last year. So we had our, you know, like right now we have,
Alhamdulillah, we have students graduating from high school who
went to our school.
Oh, yeah, so, so they, they're graduate. We, we have a we had a
high school component before covid. I mean, we was rocking and
rolling. We had our high school component. We had a seminary
program before covid.
Yeah, so we were so the covid situation came in and kind of
disrupted a lot of stuff, but we still, we have about five
teachers,
so they're on online, on the Zoom. Everybody's doing the Zoom now.
So, you know, we have our Quran and Arabic teacher. He's very
creative. I mean, me and him work together.
And, you know, I'm, I'm coaching right now, making sure, because
it's not easy. I mean, you coming in, like we said, you know, people
are coming in. You come into that, that classroom with baggage, you
know, right, right, right. And we don't believe in like we we
weren't doing suspensions. We don't suspend our children.
Excellent. It has to be something very terrible. We don't believe in
suspensions,
expelling the children, all of that stuff that leads to that the
school to prison pipeline, right? So our DIS, our discipline, we've
we've changed it up, you know, we, we began implementing, we came up
with our own version of restorative justice
in the in the classroom. So, Alhamdulillah, we were experienced
educators. A.
Um, you know, my research
has been around, you know, education and, you know, so we
bought that into the environment. So give us an example of what
restorative justice looks like in the classroom setting. Okay, so,
well, I'm gonna go back to this so I'll never forget, right? I'm
talking about in my in my 20s, early 20s, I go and would you say,
like yesterday?
I wish that's beautiful, but
in my early 20s, which is, I'm not going to reveal how long ago that
was, but
early 20s. I go and I go study at this, this little school quarter,
Anna school in Texas, right? Oh, in Texas, yeah. So I'm memorizing
every day next to children, right? And the teacher is, like, he has a
stick. He's slapping him upside the head. Wow, he has another
student slapping him upside the head. I mean, I, you know, I don't
hold nothing against him. He's a product of how he was taught, you
know. And that's, you know, all around the world they're teaching
Quran in that way, right?
Um, so, I, I'm
not going to say I told I didn't borrow everything, but I thought
that's what you bring in the classroom when you talk about
teaching Quran, not here, remember, you can't. You have to,
critically, borrow from a lot of you know, your teaching
experiences, right? And so restorative justice. What we
learn? I mean, we were straight up the first two weeks
honeymoon.
We like Mashallah. This is beautiful. Is are you still there?
Now you're I don't know what's happening. I don't know if your
voice is catching up. Can you hear me? Okay, let me make sure I can
hear you. Can you hear me? I can now hear you. You're
up. Okay, okay. Can you hear me now? Yeah, okay, okay, so,
so where was i Okay. So,
when we first started to school, we were like, man, mashallah
tibeticalah. Man, these, these children are man, they beautiful
children.
So that's a two week honeymoon period, right?
And after that honeymoon period, oh, man, they started to show
themselves. So we were like, we have to figure out what is a good
model. So, Alhamdulillah, we were able to do some research, you
know, in studies with some people in regards to restorative justice.
And it's been effective. And now the only thing about restorative
justice, when you bring in, which we call restorative practice, we
utilize a circle, right?
You have to give up some power. Yes, you know. So
instead of one of the students, you know, you telling them, just
be quiet. Don't say anything. You want to know what's going on with
them internally, you ask them questions. Mm, hmm. And maybe you
need to stop the lesson suspended, which is hard for me. I want to
teach, and I want you to get this lesson that was hard for me. You
suspend it, and you deal with the issue right there, right you
circle up, and you allow the peers to also have, you know, say so in
it,
you know, we witnessed this the students now that has, that has
been the culture
the students now,
what we have is like,
if they beefing with another student, like they have an issue
with another student, they like, we want to circle, you know? So
they grab their peers, they circle up and they discuss it.
If the student does something that's just terrible, right now,
the one who they victimize right
has say so gets to talk to them, one on one, with their peers
circled around
and they also they have, they, they, along with their peers,
contribute and figure out, what is
reparations? What is redemption? They're having those conversations
together. They're having those conversations together. What is
redemption look like, you know? So and So may have said a bad word,
okay, what is what is His redemption? What is his punishment
going to be? And he gets to decide, he said, Oh, that that
might be too much. That's kind of too harsh, you know. But sometimes
the students will say, hey, you know you, you did it. And the.
Unity has decided you have to do this and and guess what we did? We
said, This is so effective amongst the children the community. We
behave like children too, you know? And I'm putting myself in
that we started doing it amongst our community. That's so powerful.
Yeah, you know, people haven't beef for like, 810, years, mm,
begin to solve them and reconcile it right in that circle,
subhanAllah, so you've created a safe space for people to feel like
even when they're harmed or when they're the ones who are creating
harm that they're they can be accountable for it, and they can
redeem themselves after it. That's a very
tool to give young people to learn how to process these relationships
as they grow older and themselves how to manage themselves.
Mashallah, that's so beautiful. Masha Allah, Imam, we just a few
few minutes left. Is there anything else you'd like to share
about the work that you do, about Isla Hala, about the the the
academy, anything at all,
Alhamdulillah, we want to definitely. We want you all to
support Isla le and Isla Academy. So these are our two entities that
we have go to, Isla alay.org
and also Isla academy.org
and, you know, support us. What we do. We have a weekly food pantry
where we feed over 200 families every, every week, right? And then
we,
yeah, every, every week, we have a, you know, it's a all around
service, you know. So, so we do that every week. And then also we
have a mobile shower. So the mobile shower is right there. And
then, you know, our food pantry, you know, every week we've been
doing that, it's numbers have gone going up since covid, right?
Not only that, we have four
homes. We call it supportive housing, two for women who are
formerly incarcerated and also presently homeless. So we have two
homes for women and then two homes for men formerly incarcerated,
presently homeless. So we have these two homes and we have
fellowships. One of our fellowships that we have is next
steps fellowship, where we take those who are formerly
incarcerated, we go up to the rural part in the mountains, and
we began to help them formalize their next steps in life, you
know. So we have a retreat, that's a four day retreat,
and then we have the school. The school, we call it the community
school. This is a community school. For example, one of the
children you know, got in trouble, and he was being disrespectful to
the to the women in the community. And he came before, after salatul
Jumar, he came before the whole community and apologized to the
community. When you harm one person, you harm one person, you
harm the community, you know. So we call it a community school, the
we look at the children. These are our children. We build, we try to
build relationships with them, build love with them. And you
know, that's essentially what we need to offer in our communities
around America, is build and prioritize community, right? And
then the other, the chips are going to fall, you know, in the
proper place when you prioritize those relationships between each
other, for our the Imams, what we're learning is that people
don't care about any of this that we teach in, you know, I'm saying
until they realize that we love them, right? And one of the
lessons is Black History Month. Imma bring up a lesson, right? Is
that Malcolm, right? Um,
while he was in prison, there was an individual that was riding him
right and paying attention to him and not ignoring him. And this was
Elijah Muhammad, right? So what did Malcolm do when he came out of
prison? The one who greeted him, paid attention to him, showed him
affection at his lowest moment in life, he went and followed that
person.
We need to be there for people at their lowest moment in life, and
we'll watch individuals flee into Islam like we've never seen
before.
It could be at Allahu, akwala That is so powerful and so real, and
the work that we need to be doing as doing something for our whole
ummah. And the least we can do is invest in the work that you do. So
everyone who has joined us today, please go to my bio, please
support today. Inshallah, you can go right now and Imam jihad. You
can just spell out your Instagram handle so that people can follow
you and message you if they have ways that they would like to
contribute and see how they can work with isla. Inshallah, you.
Okay, so this is good. So, oh, you know, I'm new to this social media
stuff, so it's you said, J i h, a D underscore, right? Yes, S A, A,
F I R. So, j i h, a D underscore, S A, A, F I R. And is the best way
for people to get a hold of you, to just message you and ask you
how they can get involved with a slaw, LA, or what's is that?
What's the best way to get a hold of of working with a slaw? Yeah,
so we have, we have a website. We have, as a matter of fact, hope
it's up right now. So our new website is up. We just launched it
maybe a couple of days ago. So we going to have a volunteer page.
We're going to put that volunteer page in a couple of days,
hopefully by tomorrow, but it's, you know, due to be up in a couple
of days. But in between time, you know, you can always, you know,
reach us through both websites and through our our social media. You
know the from Facebook, Facebook I'm on. She had set here on
Facebook, and she had underscore safier on the social media. So I
need a lot, I need some advice on this social media. I'm scared of
it. But if I, if I don't learn it, it's like, you know, I'm be left
behind. So
it's not even about you being left behind. I think it's about the
huge hole that you could fill by being present more. I mean, I mean
like Masha Allah, may Allah, bless you. You are
someone who, anyone who I've ever heard say your name, they follow
it up with Masha Allah, that Imam is doing so much work. May Allah,
bless you and bless the community that you work with. And increase
them. Bless your community. Increase them. Community, increase
them. Thank you so much for your time. Share with us your
experiences have been so powerful. Baraka lofiki Mavin, thank you so
much
the I see the websites. Thank you so much for writing them. Baraka
lofikom and Inshallah, hope to see Isla la in person. Inshallah,
after covid is done, and be a part of physically inshallah. May Allah
bless you. Thank you so much for your time, and thank you all for
we. Did we?
Yes, I was, I was going to say, I think we was that the we did a
program, maybe, I think the Imam, Abdullah malanta,
I don't know if it was mass or
it was in the mountains, you know, I think you came up on the last
day of the program, like a retreat. It was a retreat, yeah?
So I think, yeah, okay, oh, okay, yeah, because I was, I was like,
Okay, I know her from somewhere, so I think it was, that was a
while back, yeah, it was a long time ago. Yeah, that's definitely
the time. I was honored to meet you, Alhamdulillah. But of course,
like following your work for a very long time so I know who you
are, Allah. May Allah bless you. No, no. Alhamdulillah.
Alhamdulillah, thank you. Thank you, Allah. Come salamatu.