[Ep 02] BTM Podcast – The Un-Mosqued Muslim

Bismillah Alhamdulillah wa salatu salam ala Rasulillah Allah Allah, he was rbh marine welcome everybody back to behind the member blueprints for a better masjid, where we are just getting started trying to have honest and productive conversations about how to better our religious communities, how to work prophetically in a more efficient way, as institutions in a way that is more resembling of the SN the excellence that our religion teaches us and calls us to. And so the second episode in sha Allah will be revolving around the unmasked Muslim and welcoming back our first guest, who's now a repeat offender. Rather pilot does like a little later on. Well, yeah,

quick, severe Mohammed, appreciate your time and he taken a long drives and trekking through the rain for us today again, get to hang out with you hamdulillah Hamdulillah. So let me let me set the stage here.

We wanted to in this episode in the spirit of complementarity, just like the other side of the coin with Episode One episode one was when messages disappoint, and we were trying to, without speaking, top down high horse,

while also appreciating, you know, the efforts that have been exerted, saying that we need to level up on the institutional level. And I think what was left unsaid there, and some of the feedback we actually received that we should have spent more time on, is fleshing out the realities of the unmasking Muslim, and how we're not just being hyperbolic, or like alarmist here and exaggerating. And

because I think this can help even masajid if they can better justify, convince, communicate that sense of urgency

that can create almost like a virtuous cycle. They know they need to level up and the community now saying, oh, man, how can we get on board? This is more serious than we thought. So let me start there, the unmasked Muslim when you hear that, what does that mean to you?

It just means that Muslim was not in the masjid anymore, who's not in the mosque? Am I hitting the nail on the head? Or is that not what it is?

Effectively? Yes, I mean, the unmasked Muslim, I don't recall the years but essentially, it was a reproduction of the unchurched movement, which was an active campaign for allowed boycotting of church institutions, which we see everywhere, of course, okay, right. Okay. masajid, buy out churches all the time, churches that have been sort of vacant for sometimes decades.

And they said, Yeah, our masajid aren't up to par either. And so we are the unmasked movement, we're leaving the masajid. And

then a counter movement actually emerged

momentarily called the RE mosque movement, and said, You guys are comparing apples and oranges. Yes, there are some you know, unfortunate dimensions of our massage it in their infancy, it's been a rocky start, but you guys are overdoing it. And maybe there was some some truth to that.

But at the end of the day, I want it to say that the unmasked the Muslim is not the unmasked movement, for sure the unmask movement are people that are saying we will not attend masajid if they are not up to par, whereas the unmasked Muslim is the majority of the Muslims in our American context, and maybe the European context as well the majority that never set foot in masajid at all to begin with to assess whether we're doing a great job or a horrific one. And so

the unmasked Muslim is a far

greater phenomenon that we need to talk about right now than the unmasked movement. So let's let's jump into it Yanni. Look, I can understand the driving force behind why me people, white people, you know, might look at the masajid and be like, Look, you know, we love Islam, we're Muslims, but we don't like what the message that we're about. So we're gonna pull away from that, right. It's a it's a nice, idealistic thing, you know, but I think if you're out in the cold and you're alone, you kind of don't have that community around you supporting you.

It kind of gets to be difficult. And that's that's just one aspect, right? Then you have the other people who are angry at the masjid and who were kind of angry at the dean and who wind up walking away from the masjid. And that's, that's kind of the bucket that I fell in. And then you have the people who, like you said, a majority of Americans and Europeans who they're in their societies, and they kind of don't see how the mess give

fits in to their life. So it's kind of like, there's three things. There's three different things going on. But unfortunately, I think the bottom line is that there's three different roles that are all leading to a similar kind of failure. You know?

Yeah, on the institutional level,

we've discussed some of these. So on the personal level, maybe I'm rushing too much into the why. But

what do you see is the reason why many Muslims are not in the massager to begin with. So we said, for those who are just hearing this episode, skip the first episode. It's not a curriculum, we're not requiring prerequisites. But, you know, the ratio of Muslim to Masjid

is 1600 Muslims in the United States per masjid and most message don't hold, you know, a quarter capacity or 400 people? And then how often are these messages even filled? Right? And that's another aspect here. If I were to define the unmasked Muslim a lot of times the Muslim that is not

actively, frequently present in the masjid, they're effectively not there. I'm there. Not because I'm trying to get some enlightenment from my weekend Jomo, I'm there because this is the closest place and the only place my lunch break will allow for and that's it extracurricular. So even Muslims who attend

the masjid is majorly empty throughout the week, a lot of times where there are masajid and then those who do attend attend because of logistical convenience. Why do you think that is said that the whole checked out of I need to be here more often. So, okay, we're not even going to jump into the people that are angry at them as good. Just the people that are kind of checked out from being in them as good. I think it's a I think it's a byproduct of America. You know, I'm not so sure about how it is in your hands, very anti patriotic. No, I hear you out. I like America a lot. I love America. Look, this is a very young country, like when people get angry at America, it's like, slow

down. Yeah, and if you don't know how the story is gonna end yet. But I think people came here to make money. And I think whenever you speak to someone who lived in a different country, they tell you like, look back home in Egypt or in Dubai or something, people have time to relax and kind of enjoy their life and take time off from work. But here it's work, work, work, work, work. And so I grew up here and I went to school here. And now I'm working here. And from when you're very young, you're put on a track. So when you're in elementary school, it's like, you gotta be on the ball. So you get into so you can get into a good junior high school. And when you get to a good junior high

school, you got to be on the ball, like New York City. It's like the specialized high school exam, you want to get into Brooklyn Tech. And then once you're in high school, you know, you're building this crazy resume, because you're trying to get into that college. And then once you're in that college, maybe you're you're aiming at your masters, like, Where does where does the message fit into that for a lot of these people, and then, like, something's gotta give. I think that's one of the that's definitely a primary place where it gives a tickle point or a line item that I think this podcasts will do a great service to building masajid to remind the Imams, they need to gently

highlight this point to them that there's no way you can do it. All right.

100%. But look, I and that's not against having conscientious career successful Muslims. That's true as well. Of course, that disclaimer is important. Yeah, look, you know, what, keep going, I think the career and making money and finding worldly success is important. I'm not going to come on here and tell people for go that I went to college, I'm trying to make money. It's not about not making money. But I think it's it's part of

I think it's a it's a symptom of like the day that we live in where not just the Muslim community, but in mass, the whole world is kind of checked out of the spirituality. And so, not to say that people aren't hungry for it, you know, people are seeking the transcendent. But when When, when,

on, like that level that everyone is looking at, it's like, oh, it's not important, they dismiss it. And then they kind of get caught up in the competition of the day, people are going to begin to feel like okay, there's something to be lost. You know, like, if I started investing time, I think, unfortunately, people have this very financial way of thinking, it's like, okay, like, I'm going to invest something, and you know, in going to the masjid or taking up a hobby or taking up a sport, what am I going to derive from it? And I think, until, for most people, a calamity hits, people are kind of very fixated on the, the material, worldly, you know, gain and again, I don't think there's

anything wrong with that. But I'm, you know, obviously I've come to the point where I realized there's a lot more to it than just a worldly gain. So okay, you know, you're doing that cost benefit analysis of going to college, you I'm gonna get money, I'm gonna get a degree there's going to be status for me, okay, I'm going to learn to do a martial art. I'm going to learn to fight and I'm going to be healthy, but what about your soul? And I think

things are starting to kind of

Get weird all around the world and in America where people are kind of starting to think it's okay, you know, like maybe I need a community, maybe you know what happens after I die. And I think calling people's attention to this stuff as masajid as institutions as part of our duty, like a percent the Dean came to remedy, but also to tie it to diagnose that we have certain tendencies that are primordial, I mean, add them on to his set, his want to access what was a little bit out of reach, right, the tree, forbidden tree, that is something hardwired and built into us. And I think we need to point that out. I remember meeting one

scholar in the UK.

You mentioned in your visit to London before the episode reminded me it was very eye opening, because the only reason I accepted the invitation to go on this sort of like tour in the UK, was because I wanted to

project yeah, see a forecast of what third generation Muslims look like. Because we're much younger than that, as a community in the US, they've been there longer. I didn't know that slightly. And so on my last night, I was being dragged from message a message, I wasn't really able to do any of that. But on my last night, Allah blessed me with sitting with with Tamil and Gara. And he great Hanafi scholar. And he said, I was an imam in California for nine years. Don't try to compare us apples and oranges. I said, What do you mean? He said, Look,

the people that came to the UK from South Asia, were a very specific class of people. Those who went to America were those who could afford to go to America. And so they are a very small, self selected group of privilege that went for the opportunity. And Dean was an afterthought. And he just blew it away. I was like, Whoa, they said they got their, you know, they said, Okay, how are we going to pray? Jamaah nearest house is like, my nearest message is 910 hours, and you're just playing catch up, you're playing catch up, you're playing catch up. And that's the point of this episode, really, that there has to be a sense of urgency because it didn't come out of nowhere. The fact that just

within one generation, we've lost a quarter, right? Yeah, of the Muslim American first generation was Americans no longer self identify. And that what we didn't say, you know, in the last episode is that doesn't mean that 77% are doing great, they're not doing great. A lot of them are

partaking in certain anti Islamic risk behaviors, and dynamic are not slam prevents risk.

Risk behaviors, that effectively mean they don't consider themselves committed to Islam. It's just the name. It's a placeholder, a cultural identity. And so that means push come to southern probably gonna let it go in generation. If not, then my kids will. I mean, it's not just the Pew Research Center. 23% If you know,

you look at the FYI, the Family and Youth Institute. They had a study that year prior to 2015. And they surveyed Muslim college students whether like American or like travel abroad students, they found from those they surveyed at least stats or need a grain of salt, always that.

What was it 78% 78 and change right? percent of those they surveyed Muslims partook in one of the following. There's like a long list of risk behaviors, extramarital sex, tobacco, alcohol, gambling,

drugs, of course, the narcotics and all of this, they found that with alcohol, that highest number, unfortunately, was extramarital haram relations with alcohol. That's surprising, by the way, but we will touch on of course, 70% of the alcohol drinking Muslims had started before college, something like two thirds of that 58% said we do at least two of these. So the numbers are harrowing in terms of like actual living up to Islamic practices. And so the the non presence in masajid

it's just a plus b, it will lead to C. So

let me get a little literary on, you know, please be gentle. No, no, no, I think you're I think I think you're going to appreciate this.

And I think maybe someone who's tuning in who's not from our community is going to be like, Okay, I never thought of it like that. Are you familiar with the book Brave New World by Aldous Huxley? All right, I read it an audio version, man, that book. I read it six months ago or so. And it it just inverted me. I'm sorry, my bad. I have to admit this. Sorry. It was 90 days strange new world. Truman. That's right. Okay, so let's give a little bit of a synopsis to you, please, in our listeners. Brave New World is a dystopian novel, you know about a future so when people hear dystopia, what do they think they think? 1984 men with guns thoughtfully

You can't think this, you can't do that. I don't think that's what's going to happen. And I don't think that's kind of the direction that we're going in. Because that requires a lot of heavy force. And if you use force, people tend to push back, I think the direction that we're going in is the brave new world. So in Brave New World, is the society where in order to maintain control over the people that are in the world, they don't use force, they don't use intimidation, they use pacification. So they've made every word worldly pleasure available to everybody. They d stigmatized any kind of shame, or rules around sex. And you know, what it does to the people in the book is it

turns them into animals with the way that they approach sex, they can have sex with whoever they want, there's no shame around it. In fact, it goes so far in the book where they, they kind of shame you, if you have any sort of jealousy, or you want to have a committed partnership with an individual, the idea of family is looked down upon because like, nobody belongs to anyone, everybody belongs to everybody. It's kind of this freewheeling thing. If you have a bad emotion, they created this drug in the book called Soma, where, you know, the little thing they say is like, if you have like a bad thought, or a bad feeling, just take a little bit of Soma, and it checks you out of it.

And I think Huxley was kind of prescient in where he took his story because it's the perfect way for the the economy and the government to kinda pacify the people in their society just to kind of keep them within the lines, because like, look, it's that idea of like, give them bread and circus, and they're never going to revolt. So you know, every time I turn on the TV now, I can't escape the gambling ads,

the the TV the programs every year, you start seeing like the hyper sexualization increasing more and more. And so I can't in your face, what's so subtle at the same time, the inching boundary. So like, I look at that, and I'm like,

I'm angry at it. But I'm, I'm like flabbergasted because it's, it's almost like they understate look, I've tried to build an online company before. And when you try to advertise a product, pretty soon, you clock, the fact that if you have an ad, with a woman in the first three or four frames, the engagement rate is higher. So I'm, I'm a nobody, when it comes to this kind of thing. There are people in the marketing industry in the film industry, who understand this on a mass scale. If you give people these

indulgences, you know, you kind of soften them and they become more pliable in your hands. And I'm not anti capitalist, right? I just started a business. And my goal is to make money. But I think if you lose sight of God, which is kind of what happened here in America, money becomes God or something else becomes God, and I think, but yes, you know, and I think that's part of the reality that we have here in the United States. And if you're a company, and you're trying to make money, one of the best things that you can have is a consumer base that's addicted to your product. So that's kind of the reality that we're dealing with here now, because you're talking about, they

interview these college students, and it's like, oh, they're addicted to gambling, when they're engaging in premarital sex, or they're, they're, they're they're drinking, it's like, Well, look.

These are all products that are being constantly sold to people. So forget about the fact that they're creating demand, not just supplying them. Yeah, absolutely. Forget about the fact that there's people that are angry, right at the masajid. Everybody is constantly being sold these things. And it's kind of like, this was one of the things that we discussed in the last episode that kind of like drove me crazy is that there was an unwillingness to kind of look at these evils in the face and be like, this is a problem because they almost felt like they were endorsing it by talking about the fact that it's happening, but like, Let's call a spade a spade. You know, people want to

party people want to engage in Haram relationships, people enjoy the thrill of gambling. And if people don't have that kind of peace and contentment in their heart, that's where they're going to look. And forget about the people who don't have the peace and contentment of their heart. Now introduce into the mix, that people are traumatized people have pain. And if they're not getting that in the masajid, just open up your phone, there's there's going to be a dopamine rush right there. Look at your friends while you're in college. They seem to you know, go out every Friday night, they kind of release the tension that's in their brains, they get drunk, they get high,

there's pleasure and enjoyment in that. I kind of went off on a tangent. You know, I think it's an important one because your references dovetail perfectly with the fact that the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam said don't put your guard down to dunya. Right, the materialistic and dunya as a placeholder as materialism, but it's not it's much wider than that. Your ego is probably your biggest challenge in this world. And it's not tangible. It's not

You know, dollars and cents. And he even said, and when I think about our context and American,

you know, dynamic. He said, It's not poverty, I fear for you. But I fear for you affluence, and that this world's opportunities, literally he said that two of the highlight was dunya, this world's opportunities open up for you. And so you start competing in it. That's what I want to hear from you. It's exactly what I hear, right? Competing in it like the people before you competed in it, and then it breaks you it destroys you the way it destroyed them. And so you know, this this podcast, again, is about, you know, blueprints for a better Masjid. I think being honest with people is of the greatest ways to, to recruit help to even cultivate your membership in the message. Helen, by

the way, I'm admitting we got a lot of work to do. Yes, there are degrees of dysfunctionality. But you need to stay close, we need your help. We're not perfect. And with our dysfunctionality, we still need this message ID and we need you to realize its value. So it becomes this healthy cycle. You know, the,

the other thing that comes to mind is

like parenting.

Dr. Osman ammaji is a is a psychologist in UC Irvine. And he, he's particularly

specialized in longitudinal studies, tracking people, the same group sets across a set of 1020 30 years, and so on and so forth. And he, he's director of like our psych department and at the arcane Institute, and you know, one of the things he often mentions is, statistically speaking, the number one factor to

predict

safe transmission of faith across generations. Is parent parental influence, right? But parental influence, it takes a village now to raise the child, right? How can the parent do it all? Or imagine the parents could do it all? Isn't the parent attending the masjid part of doing it all? Like you're modeling a masjid presence? That's one. Number two, you can't do it all. And so where will the child find concurrence and corroboration and conditioning upon virtue, or even the virtue that their parents may lack? To be very honest 100% You know, one of the challenges I even find when there's like a disconnect, is that when Muslims drift from the masjid, the parent doesn't have

access to get the answers that they need not have some of these answers are like, you know, philosophically verbose. And there you need to be specialized in unpacking and deconstructing certain misconceptions about Islam. And so yes, parental influence is number one, but a parent outside the masjid means for sure, they won't have their resources, less likely. And that means the kid is going to model after them and not be in the masjid. Especially girls. That's a subject I, as a father of three daughters, I, I do want to point out the danger of

girls being left to drift from masajid.

But you're about to say something. I was gonna say I it's not even a topic I feel equipped. I have I have one boy.

It's tricky. But what I what I was gonna say is that

the the topic of kids I think, is a is a soft spot for a lot of people. Because a lot of times I speak to people, and they're kinda, they're doing something. And they're like, oh, yeah, this is fine. No problem. I'll do it for me. But then you ask them, it's like, alright, would you want them for your kid? And then, you know, they kind of pause. And this is kind of part of the reason why I started thinking about so much of this Yanni. I feel like at the point in time, where our conversations ramped up, is when I found out that I was going to have a kid. And now all of a sudden, it's not so much about, you know, the mascot for me, but it's about, okay, the mascot for my

son, my child, right. And as as much as the Messiah that I grew up and drove me crazy. I feel like I got a lot out of growing up and those messages, just look, you know, there's like the, the unspoken idea kind of, like, you know, schools kind of give people like this group think

quality and they kind of, like make them subservient and just good at like, you know, like, they send you to school sit for eight hours so that you're good at going to a company and sitting there for eight hours. You disagree? No, I agree. But I think that the reason that I'm not so much fitting in that mold was because I went to them as good where it was a little chaotic. And you know, like that's optimism on steroids mashallah, look I like No, no, no, look, there's there's things that I appreciated him as good domestic, it is one of the last places in the world where you can go and you're a guy just sitting around guys. Like I went to public school, there was free mixing. No one

like no one is gonna deny the fact that if you're a guy, you're 1314 1516 you start getting self conscious. You're never who you truly are. If there's girls sitting around, you know, like, you any any guy will tell you like yeah, like we got that one friend. Every time he's around girls. He gets on

Weird, you get to be yourself at the mosque. You know, that's profound because you mentioned money, like and sort of temptations. And also the issue of it's not happening overnight, like after a while you just start folding or like, Okay, I don't talk to girls for the first day, right? But then it's just natural. How can I be myself when there's something to be one here, right? And it's, it's like one of the strongest, primal forces. There is. And that's why it's one of the toughest tests at the same time we need it to Islam doesn't see it as sinful.

You know, how else do your producing keep the human race going, but at the same time, recognize that it could cycle as it spirals out of control, and so Yanni back to like wanting to be in the middle of it, it's like look like now when it's cold out, for instance, my wife kind of looked at each other, and were like, where are we going to go for a walk. And it's like, one time we went to the mall, and I hated it, I couldn't get it, because you go to the mall, and you're walking around. And it's like, they're just trying to sell you stuff at the mall. And it's like, I wish that there was a mascot that we can go to, because I want to bring my kid to them as good. And like you said, there's

things that I can't teach my son that he's not going to be able to get everything. For me. There's gaps in who I am. So I think that that's a huge reason why the masquerade is so important, because you have that community there. You grow up you you're in a place where there isn't kind of like this predefined goal, like there is at school, or there is at work, like you're just meeting people, you're forming these relationships. And then what happens once you start, like getting to that age where you're starting to look to get married, you know, like, you want people with shared values, right? You want people who are like you? What happens when there's a calamity? What happens if you

if you look, look, I live in Jersey City, and when we needed someone to come and help us with the baby, we were very happy to find that there was someone who went to the masjid even though I'm not going to the masjid the same way that I used to go when I was growing up because I know at least I leave my son with this lady, she goes to the masjid. She's not going to do nothing that I'm gonna look at as like reprehensible with my child. And I think these are all things that are in the back of our minds that we don't like to worry about, but their realities, you know, and I

Dr. Shatin Masuri is another mashallah religious leader in this country who is making a name for himself in many positive ways. May Allah reward him and bless him, even though he's not really trying to that's another beautiful element of his character, and may Allah make him better than we assume.

But one thing that I learned from him is, you know, he was saying, yes, everything is going wrong. Like to alarmist. That's the saying, but I'm telling you, if you're bringing your kids to my masjid, Stop panicking. Or he said, a masjid he said, Stop panicking. Do you think the, the musicians and the athletes and all that stuff that they will not be able to avoid outside can ever compete with the masjid community that's there for them in their happy times? And in their times of grieving? That is, you know, with them at a than a funeral? And subhanAllah I've seen this in my Dawa, you know, that Masjid orientation. It's not necessarily the lecturing per se, a lot of times when you're

there for people to answer their question to sort of consoled with them to congratulate them. And that will, in the long game, if you are in it for the long game, and you embed them in community that will keep them in more than anything, because people want to associate and want to identify, and where else you're gonna do that, as you said, and they want to also be flexible and be free, like, take off the pretentious, I'm just as much, you know, personable as you want me to be. I'm just as much aligned ideologically as you want me to be. Because sustaining the show that we all put on outside is impossible. I think that's important to highlight. And people just gonna choose

something's gonna have to give. I remember, like a sister who I've only known through email years back, she took her Shahada. And

she said to me, I'm in some remote region in Utah. And

she says, every once in a while, I'm the only Muslim in the city and every once in a while, someone slashes all four of my tires to my jeep. And every once in a while someone draws a swastika on my door, a Nazi swastika on my door because they find out I'm Muslim, okay? So I told her, of course, get to a community and so on and so forth. But at the same time, what I didn't tell her is, you're amazing. Like, this is incredible. You know, we're all on your own endurance and stuff, but get out of there because, like an acute assault or an isolated assault, or like sort of spaced out assaults, maybe you can handle them, but even on assault on how you see yourself. I am the believer that lives

by Allah's guidance that is less aggressive but sustained over time. Nobody wants to sit there and feel like they're a misfit forever and

It's something that we just need to like, be honest about that. Number one reason it's not the strongest reason doesn't give people the strongest faith, but the entry level, right? Let's be real. The number one reason people believe in things is Association. Right? Those I surround myself with

people that share my worldview, my values, where I don't have to pretend as much in front of and so if you don't get into that space, create that space was episode one, right? If we don't tell people you need this and identify for them, that we are group thinkers, we are subject to the herd effect, we're more impressionable than we realize, then we're going to be in trouble. Faith by association is number one. And that's why the power of community was so huge for for the faith itself.

You know,

Dr. Eman Ogden had there was another person I had in mind regarding this issue, that issue of the dangers of being unmasked. And

she did her thesis within the University of Chicago, and she has some presentations on YouTube about her thesis. It's called the impossible futures. And the subtitle is something along the lines of why American Muslim women leave community while men stay. And obviously, like the numbers

deserve, like she spent a lot of time on this. She's done personal interviews and studied other people that have been studying these demographics. And she saw that

she has them in like different categories, those who stayed in the masajid. Throughout, irrespective of anything else, kudos, you know, to them and to their parents, and Allah above and before all right, it's not random. And those who never worry never came back never came in never left just peripheries. But then she has two sets of demographics, those who departed she calls them and those who detoured, okay. And so when it came to departing the message community, and I know the message as institution, you know, needs to fix this, right. But also, they need to share this with their communities communicate the urgency as well, women are twice as likely in adolescence is all about

adolescence through college really, to depart, not detour to depart, gone never back.

From those who are in masajid, women are twice as likely to depart.

And in terms of the detour category, they were two to three times less likely to come back.

So they're leaving twice as fast. And they're coming back thrice as slow. So and so the environment is kind of antagonistic to women is what it sounds like.

Is that Is that like the proper conclusion that I should be drawing from that? That's, that's a part of it. But also, the, the necessity to fix this and be part of the solution. Even if we're not religious leadership, even if we're not managerial leadership and masajid to do your part to say, we're still going to the masjid, we're going to wait for the change to happen and all of this, because if we just say it's the message, its fault, we're out.

That's not a solution. That's sort of a partial justification and an incomplete one. So

yeah, look, I agree with you, I'll be honest with you, Yanni. In my, my crazy days, I was very tapped into that reality that you're talking about. And it kind of makes sense Yanni. It's kind of hard, I think for the misogyny in the community to commute to compete sorry, with the freedom of like feminism, and the the identity, that it kind of offers women when they're younger, at that age. And it's, I'm not even going to pretend to have figured it out. I don't even know. Like, I'm a guy, I have my issues with the massage, but I feel like they kind of don't, I feel like the massages are always on the backfoot. And I feel like they say that, you know, oh, we believe in Islam, but

they're they're always kind of like trying to bargain from a position of weakness where they're not actually kind of bringing people into the fold. I think that's the education factor. You know, and I'll own with you that the the masajid you know, can't do all of the education, but you know, those FYI stats, the family

know about like risk behaviors and all of this stuff. The silver lining in some of that report was that 4% 4% of the people surveyed that have these harrowing statistics got their Islamic education from the masajid. Right. And that's, again, the power of community to sort of solidify crystallize the worldview

Like, you know, subhanAllah I think of when you just standardize a narrative, I don't mean this sort of like

no, this sounds sort of like, what is the word?

This dogmatic your packaging my, you know, swallow this and keep repeating it just drink the Kool Aid No. But when the whole world here's a good example is talking about COVID, right? The whole world is talking about COVID Okay? Everyone develops an identical worldview about what COVID is what it looks like. And so if you say I just lost my sense of smell or taste everyone, everyone knows. And so when people are more often embedded within community, her actually Dr. Emmons studies were called studies on embeddedness

embedded in the community, they will adopt this, you know,

I will, I've dealt with multiple false began education, multiple who fall of the Quran who have left Islam, several throughout the years, right. But they were not really educated on anything related to the comprehension of the Quran. So but they were embedded, embedded in places that drifted them away from believing in the Quran. So, here's, let's let's touch on something else. You know, before it was brave new world, let's touch on the theory of mimetic desire, which was actually pioneered by a French philosopher who's a very devout Christian. And he kind of has this idea that at the end, you know, as we as we draw closer, there's going to be a big showdown between Christianity and Islam,

and he feels like all Muslims should become Christians. Peter Thiel is a big proponent of his theory. And Peter Thiel, for those who don't know, was one of the first investors in Facebook. And now one, he's the author of zero to one, that book I recommend to him and now he's one of the biggest donors for the Republican Party.

I disagree with Peter Thiel on a lot, but you could disagree with someone and kind of recognize when they're right about something. And so the theory of mimetic desire, which is a big proponent of basically says that one of the strongest forces that kind of channels, people as they go on through life is people don't know what they want. So how do they know what to want, they look at what other people have. And because they see that that thing is desirable by them. It you know, they begin to desire it. Perfect example of that is a little kid sees another little kid playing with a toy, that kid wants a toy, you know, clearly there's value in that toy. I want that toy.

The theory of mimetic desire is why I am convinced that the unmasked movement and anything like that, come on, like, it's a cute idea life, it's a cute idea. And it's like, look, I'm going to be a lone wolf, and it will be on my own. But it's like, nobody who ever did anything worthwhile was alone, and nobody who was ever on their own survived. And anything that is worthwhile is done within a group and a community of people. And it's not a cheap cliche when people say you become the average of the five people that you hang out with. And then if you want to take it kind of like a step further, you remember Beats headphones. I do. I used to work at Bose, in Soho, and Bose made

way better headphones than beats. But everybody would come to our store, and they'd ask if we had beats. And the reason that beats were so hot once upon a time, is because they were created by Dr. Dre, who's an artist, and he was connected with all the other artists and actors and athletes, and they gave a pair of beats to all the famous people. And so everybody saw the famous people with beats, and they wanted a pair of beats. And so that's kind of like the second order effect, or the second order value of being in a community, a community, even economically, we'll get to the economic impact, right. But a community when they're in a space, they start kind of impacting the

space, like if you're in a community and you start a masjid, and people are seeing the people go into the salah five times a day, and people are seeing people gathering up for Ramadan, and people are seeing people gathering afraid, I don't care if you're the most hateful, you know, Islamophobia or whatever you want to call it, you're gonna look at that and be like, damn, like, I kind of wish I had that. Like, I speak to so many people who grew up in churches and their families grew grew away from the churches. And now they're kind of looking at Muslims faster, Garmadon and praying five times a day, and the people are starting to get married and have children. And they're like, I hate

religion. But like, there's something to be said, like, I want that. That's not bad. And if you have a community that's doing that, the, you know, it's not just one person doing it. There's a functioning community that's living on these principles. It becomes an example for the world. It becomes an example and it's kind of like a

Whirlpool, you know, like, it starts off in the middle, and then it kind of starts that, you know, projecting out from that middle community. So like, that's, that's a huge reason why the community is important because it acts as an example. And then it kind of, like you said, right, economically is just one example. But one person can have as much of an impact as 100 people, 1000 people, 10,000 people take the human megaphone effect, you know, you can't, you can't get the message as far with just one person. And it's hard to do it on your own as well. So putting up with community, I'm not gonna get into my extended family rant, which I'm a big proponent of while recognizing the

inconveniences. But yeah, if you want to go faster, go alone. If you want to go farther, go as a team, they say, right. That's that's Let me catch something quickly capture something that's been on my mind, I was speaking to

Chef Maya Sharif just now about this, that I hate religion, but man, they got something going for them. I hear this all the time as well. And and I think this speaks to the fact that many Muslim scholars who even mentioned that no one really knows Islam. Yeah, insight from an insider outsider, except that they can't hate it. And a lot of the collective Western experience is that the Muslims, the minority there on the fringe, numerically speaking, don't know their Islam, and the majority which are Christian, or like post Christian Westerners, they conflate the word religion with Christianity. And so they think including Islam is also equally worthless. But the story I wanted to

capture which like, strikes at all of the points you were speaking about, like being a part of community, but also the importance of education, and also the, the vacuous nature of other traditions or other even lifestyles. I know of a brother, one of the one of the father left Islam actually, okay.

I have to sort of build this out carefully, for anonymity purposes, because he's, he's actually a public figure. He's, he's a media anchor, okay, for

one of the city's sports teams, okay.

For the sports of a particular city, so like, if we're gonna imagine he's in New York, he lives in the locker room of the Knicks, the nets, the Jets, the Giants, the Yankees, romancer, in Jersey, right? Something like that. So that's all he does, he sort of there's a rotation, including him, they get on the planes and travel with them and travel back there in the locker rooms, pre-games Post games have whatever it is, right.

Except that it's not in New York, it's on the Bible Belt somewhere, go on. Okay. And that's sort of consequential. And so after a while, you know, there's a big hype around Christianity, socially speaking around the Bible Belt, Southern culture. And so the way he explained it to me is that everyone has like a massive crucifix somewhere on their body, okay. And they're all extremely successful. Okay. They're all millionaires, right? And they're always this is sort of just the platitude. He realized that after he came back to Islam was just like, Jesus loves me. Prosperity doctrine, right? Loves Me. Jesus loves me, he sees like, you know, so I just started believing it.

So it happens very slowly, right? That numbing effect. And so he actually left Islam

and joined the Bible study group,

studied the Bible cover to cover on a weekly basis, completed the study the course. And upon learning about what is scripturally Christianity never looked back, walked right out, when he went back to his limb back to Islam, because of just one thing, what's that which was still hate, the purity and simplicity of just the first pillar, right? There has to be one God without perfections and all that. So what happened here was education saved him. But also let's look back, he had memorized the whole Quran without really me educated on what the whole Hula, hula grind even means. So that the education component, and then you look on the other side, which was the association

component. And so community and education, which is only really possible through osmosis on some level, at least, right? Like practicing Islam, I'm going to do it on my own, whether through business or through Islam, so we can just come back to your economic examples. The

this is like an aberration like the idea of I'm going to live this isolated way and watch Islamic videos and that has never happened before. And there's no track record of ever being suspect successful. You need to embed yourself kind of just makes you wonder for a moment about why one of the fundamental rights Americans have is the right to assembly.

Because okay, you're patriotic again. Of course I'm paying you got your passport back, dude. I love America. I think I think America is 100% the future that's a tangent. We're not going to get into it. But the the right to assembly is a is a is a fundamental right in the United States because people in power understand that

When people get together in a, you know, in a critical mass, then they're able to start effecting change. And so you would think that when they founded America, they wanted to prevent tyranny. And so, in the prevention, if they're, you know, to prevent tyranny, you have to allow people to gather up. So like, as a Muslim, if you want to have an impact on the world around you, you're not going to do it, just watching videos. And that's why people were so freaked out during COVID, because they felt that they were being prevented from gathering up.

That's right, that was coincided with the election run. So yeah, but I want to, I want to go back to the thing you said about the guy who memorized the Quran, and didn't understand anything. And that's kind of part of what I mean when

I say that the masajid have always operated on the backfoot.

If you truly believe that Islam is the truth, you know, and that the Quran is a revelation from God, not me, are you you're the person who created like, the creator of everything, then it's like, okay, there's, there's a fundamental truth in this, like, why aren't you also teaching people? The meaning in it? And I think because of the way that people, you know, at the moment, spread the message of Islam and operate the misogyny on the backfoot.

You can't get surprised when people look at Muslims, and they lump us in with Christianity or other

dysfunctional religions or religious communities.

You and we haven't even imparted this within our own community, like, sufficiently, you're right, you gotta, you gotta like, step back and take a look for a moment, right? Like,

there's a big fascination in the west with, you know, Zen Buddhism. And these are like stoicism, right? It seems like people are kind of trying to distill down

these basic truths, these basic truths, and then try to live their life by that. And I did that, right. That's kind of part of what led me back to Islam. I started reading about Zen Buddhism, I started reading stoicism. And the Stoics, they have this idea about like, There's nothing good, there's nothing bad. It just is. And I was like, okay, that kind of sounds like hamdulillah Are you you start reading like philosophy, you start reading Nietzsche. And he's like, a more fat T love of your fate. And it's like, okay, that kind of sounds like and Hamdulillah. Or you start hearing about Zen Buddhism, and they're like, there's nothing truly that's within your control. And it's like,

okay, that sounds like the work cool. So like, you know, have you ever heard of this idea? So Completer thought, I don't know if this is how you pronounce it. But it's Prisca theology. And it's like, late 20th, or 19th century idea that there is a

religion or a theology that's existed universally, since the beginning of time. And, you know, for anyone who's grown up a Muslim, it's like, yeah, we kind of believe that that's in the item was Muslim, right. But we present Islam in this way, where it's like, oh, Islam, or it's like an Arab thing. But like, when you really cut to the core of it, it's not an Arab thing. It's not a thing about the people in the mess good. It's like the most fundamental way for humans to live in a constructive, and like, it's like, wear with pride and say it louder type thing. But what I'm saying is, it's like, if you look at it, and you kind of approach it in an honest fashion, you begin to

realize that it's, it's the only kind of functional way for humans to live. And, like, I laugh, because five years ago, right, I would have told you like, well look, the way that it's relationships between men and women. It doesn't work. But I have

three or four friends, I'm turning 30 In two weeks, right. So all my friends are about that age. I have three or four friends within the last year, their relationships blew up. You know, they either got divorced, or they got broken up with. And now they're stepping back. And they're looking at the way that relationships are between men and women in the West. And guess who they're looking at? Not me, per se, but like, guess what model they're looking at as as a model that works to get married and have children scriptural morality within the Islamic framework. They're looking at the Islamic framework, right? So that's just one example. Like or look, did you know that the other day first

republic bank just blew up and now the FDIC is going to absorb it? This is one thing that we're kind of like squeaky on. It's like, well, yeah, it was bad. But like, look what's happening, like, and I think, community at a local level, this podcast is about massage, but can be like a bright spot of what feels right. Exactly. The we're not going to speak about like the the 59 was the majority countries or 57 and GDPs of them compared to the EU as I was hearing about recently today. No, just you know, the concept of a disproportionately impactful minority

has happened all the time, right? And it started locally. If you think of you know, the

Jews in America are worldwide. If you think of even on their metric successful, the LGBT movement, right? How are you five or 10% of the population, depending on where we're talking about, and you have 60 70% of the country, sympathizing? You know, the long game, there was patients, but there was mobilization. At the end of the day there was unity, right around the rallying call. But look, I push back on that, right. Like, I would say that the LGBTQ community is, you know, hitting on like, you know, sexuality, tolerance and free love. Whereas, as a Muslim, what you're hitting on is like, the universal basic laws to live a good life. Start a family be healthy. Oh, yeah. My economic

system. No, no, I'm not. I'm not I'm not taking anything away. I mean, I don't believe in that. But what I'm saying is, this is part of the reason why I believe like, Okay, if they're loud and proud about their ideology and their movement, why are we so that's all? Yeah, I was just highlighting the idea of inertia, regardless of how domestic or small right now. Yeah. So look at the snowball effect is all I'm highlighting here. I agree with you. Like they are not the majority of the US now near that neither of them are the Jews, but many of their goals are there or on schedule, for sure. For sure. So even so if we came to America for sort of the better life and the milk and milk and honey,

there's nothing wrong with continuing to pursue that 100 As a means not as an end. You know, that's actually something I got in trouble for recently, is that, you know, because, you know, as bearded guys with the topis, and, and the cool fees and stuff, or you guys are you know, anarchistic or sort of like aesthetics or hermits or weirdos or you're always disdaining worldly pleasures, and all that fun stuff, capitalistic, right? It just promotes a compassionate capitalism, what I got in trouble for is that I sort of pushed back against people that are blindly chasing. There's they're bought in on career ism, right? The ideology of career ism. And everyone that got upset, without exception is

someone who didn't differentiate between career and career ism, having a career being just in your career and being people excellence in whatever we do. That is very much aligned with or encouraged by Islam. So it's either acceptable or virtuous in Islam. Career ism is that you live for the desire to buy a piece of real estate or make a certain million, or whatever it is, are entitled, that's what creates doubt. And that is why we say be careful of the desire. And you need a community keep that desire in check, especially as a self selected group of privilege. So here's

kind of what I can say on that.

Bringing you back to the idea of an ideal won't be able to survive outside of a community starting from that point.

I think at the end of the day, if you are a person who subscribes to a religion, it's a way of looking at the world and getting your priorities in order.

And if your priorities are not an order,

everything kind of gets turned upside down. And so

this is not my idea. This is a very old idea. I think it was one of the ideas in the founding of the United States actually goes back to ancient Egypt.

I got this from Jordan Peterson, but the bottom line is former chef before a lot of Muslim favor, now he's going to come back. But that's going to be my goal. But the bottom line is, if you don't have the most important thing, in the highest place, you're gonna find yourself in chaos. And I think the career question that you're kind of bringing, bringing up or like the career story is, is a big example of that. Because like, look,

I look around at the world that we're in right now. And people are kind of just trying to distract themselves away. Because like, I, you know, I was in the corporate career world, and it's like, dude, almost nobody is happy. You know, the way that the all consuming career would not believe how many people in these careers engineers lawyers account are doing coke. And it's like, I didn't think that this was

you know, I thought this was a low life thing. But now it's kind of just a way of keeping up and it's been mechanisms. It's, it's,

it's, it's, I don't want to say it's funny, but it's sad to look at because

I was in it. I kind of

I want to kind of give you the ad Story View. But just to kind of get my thought out on this is it's like, you're running on this hedonic treadmill, you know, and you're kind of

There's no doubt about it in my mind that if you've disconnected from the highest ideal, you know, and you're kind of in chaos, now you're anxious. And now if you're anxious, you're looking for something to kind of soothe your heart and your soul. But there's nothing, because the pain that you're feeling is infinite. Yeah, and you have a soul. And the only thing that is going to soothe your soul is connection with the creator of your soul. But so you have this infinite hole in your heart, and you're not going to be able to fill it with the finite of this world. And

you look at these people in there, some of them are in their 40s, or in their 50s. And it's like, they're buying these cars, and they're going on these vacations, but you're like you're not happy are you and then sadly, sometimes you hear about some of them killing themselves, or some of them will have families and then their families will blow up. And it's like,

for me, personally, I almost feel like we're kind of starting to get to a point here in the United States, where the chaos is kind of starting to bubble up. And we're starting to see it in places where we didn't see it before. Like you want your banks to be kind of maintaining in a way, but when I start hearing about banks folding, it's like, Oh, my God, like, these people didn't have their priorities in order, they were kind of chasing the short term hits. And now we're all going to start paying for it. But

perhaps this is the opportunity, you know, for the Muslims in America who have been trying to get their act together, to come together, and kind of bring that example, to the world.

I don't think that there has to be necessarily a distinction between, you know, finding the favor of Allah and finding worldly success. The the, I believe, I believe it's all or none, I got my buddy, Arthur, I always give him this one example, where it's like, who is the greatest conqueror? And he's like, I don't know, Alexander, the great Julius Caesar. And it's like now the Prophet because people are still, you know, following him who's following Julius Caesar. And Napoleon had a sense of this with a quote that he said about Jesus, where he said, at A salaam, he said, The kingdom that I found will dissolve in 20 or 30 years. But you know, the kingdom that Jesus found, it is still going on.

We have that opportunity. And like, for people, like you speak to a lot of young people, and it's like, what are you looking for? I want purpose, I want a mission. It's like, here's a great mission, start going to the masjid, start kind of helping your friends who are looking for meaning, we're looking to start a relationship, or we're looking to start a family who are trying to break their addiction to pornography, or gambling or whatever it is like, bring them to the masjid bring them onto the pathway.

Things can get better. And before you know it, like your little community can be the critical mass that starts to have an impact on the United States.

Yeah, I think I want to just I know, there's a lot of echo chamber here.

And I hope it's of benefit. So just to close out.

Let me agree with you one last time.

There it goes. No, but really.

And for those who take your advice, right?

Because there are twofold, right, this podcast is probably going to be mostly heard by people interested in running, leading helping with masajid. And so I hope many of these discussion points were assets for you to incentivize for people inspire people to come in. And then the other prong

is those who may be sort of casually listening in, not necessarily in places of influence within these masajid I want to say create for yourself, barge in. Because you may find some resistance or two to tango on this one, right? You may find a little bit of challenge, you may not get the your number called right away, you might be the last person at the table can be the first person to get served. You may hear initially, there's no room at the table. You know, I there's this one sister. I'll end with her story, at least from my part.

She came up to me after hearing about our annual conference at the masjid.

And she said to me, Why aren't there any female speakers? She came strong. No, but we haven't hunted a very good relationship. And that's a part of it. Right? How are we going to work through these things? So I took like a different it's it just, you know, frame my response. And she said, Listen, I'm gonna tell you right now she'd even let me speak. I'm a feminist. Whether you like it or not, why aren't there female speakers there needs to be female speakers. So my approach that we can certainly differ on strategy is that I don't play Stickler games with people on terms because I know that it just takes too long to get on the same page. She may mean something totally innocent she's

not very familiar with you know, she didn't get the memo that feminism first wave is in second wave isn't third wave. So it's like why? So I said, Yeah, sure. I you can call yourself whatever you want. I didn't even use that. That would have been offensive, but the adrenaline was pumping. So

I was thinking faster and was better. But I said to her, ah, that's totally fine. So long as me and you and we already do agree that the rights of men and women are those given to them by Allah and His Messenger, then we're not going to disagree on much. How about you have a seat? She goes, okay. So she sat down, sort of like, she said to me, why aren't their female speakers? Our daughters need to see women in places of scholarship? Okay, so I said to her, you know, I don't openly say this on megaphones. But personally, and I hope there's room for my opinion at this table, I am bound in front of Allah, my hands are tied with my convictions. And my conviction on this issue is that Islam

places greater emphasis on men lowering their gaze from women than women lowering their gaze from men. And I believe there's texts to support this position, scholarly position. And so I respect the other view, and with those panelists, and those who host them in that way, but I personally just don't sign off on it here in this community. She said, Well, that's not good enough, you can certainly create a female audience, why can't you have pre conference just the woman session? I said, deal, right? So it took a little bit of a negotiation, right. And then, lo and behold, we have more sisters in our community. Nice. And so a little bit of policy, a little bit of culture, a

little bit of patience, we have to get back in the community, into our communities and sort of get on the bandwagon. Here's so here's, here's a tip that I would give. And it's a tip that I'm kind of trying still to apply. But I've applied it with with a modicum of success in various areas of my life. When you are the guy on the bottom of the totem pole, and you want to affect change,

you're not going to do it. bombastically, you're not going to be able to make a big splash Yanni. Look,

maybe I'm gonna get me canceled here. But I look at like the Muslims of like the last 25 or 30 years, we're trying to make a difference on the world stage, blowing things up and bombing things.

And I just feel like they didn't have any imagination.

It's like, what did you think that you were going to fly two planes into the World Trade Center. And people were going to like tune in, it's like, what you should have done is you should have kind of started small. And you know, you get like a core group of people around you who buy in on to what you're doing without any violence. I'm not saying we should be violent. What I'm saying is, here's the example that I'm talking about. I used to work at an engineering company pragmatism spot on, I used to work in an engineering company, and I was like, bottom of the totem pole project manager. And the way that I was able to kind of accrue a certain amount of No, no, no, no, I'm laughing

because I don't follow UFC at all. I don't believe it's permissible. But someone showed me the clip of Daniel. What's his name? Cormier called me a saying to Habib after he sort of attacked? what's that guy's name's T wreckers team. Yeah. And he told me what exactly was the desired outcome I wanted to eat? He's like, What did you think was gonna happen after he turned into Superman? So exactly, just what do you think was gonna happen by just by haphazard from. So, in fact, the solution instantaneously. And like what I like, the more I like, here, let me give my example. And then I'll type back. I was a project manager on the bottom rung of the totem pole, no one really

listened to me. But I realized that if I could start kind of being at the same place, at the same time, every day, giving the same thing, people are going to start kind of finding value in that consistency. And it's kind of like, forgive me to give a musical example, it's like the metronome to the symphony. When you become a very consistent component in the system. People begin hanging things off of you. And before you know it, so like, this was one thing that I did at my gym. I, you know, I go Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, no matter what, I'm a white belt in my class. And before you know it, like the other white belts are like, well look this and not for nothing. I was following another

white belt. But some of the other white belts saw two white belts coming on Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, and they're like, Well, look, we should come to the Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday classes. And before you knew it, there was a little mass of white belts that were coming in, like, when you're one white belt, it's like this guy is nothing but now all of a sudden you like six or seven of them. It's like they started kind of tailoring.

And, like, one of my dreams is to start a big company. When I read the Syrah of the Prophet sallallahu wasallam. I, my wife laughs when I say this, but I read it as like one of the greatest founders stories ever. You had one guy who had a vision and then the whole world followed him, and how did he do it? There was such a conviction and a consistence in his movements, that people felt like they can rely on his presence to where he is. And I look at our deen and I find that there's that same consistency to it there you stick to your five pray

Here's a day, people at the company that you're working at, they're like, That guy's consistent. You can rely on him. And so when I hear stories, for example, to bring it back to the guy was telling his wife to take off her hijab, it's like, it's like, Dude, you're like, your priorities are all out of order, and you're sipping for the wrong things. Because if you kind of were steadfast on your thing, and you showed people that you were playing a different game, they would start following you. And so to people who are kind of trying to affect change, it's like, my advice would be show up to grandma. And like, another two prayers consistently no matter what, don't miss it be there all the

time. And before, you know, people are gonna know your face, at least, and people are gonna be like, Okay, well, what's this guy about, and then maybe other people are going to start showing up because they know you show up and then before you know it, you kind of get to that critical mass. So it's like, I think consistence is the most important thing. And like, I think that's kind of like the example between the old let's let's blow something up approach. It's like, you didn't have that patience, and you were kind of trying to start you were trying to get it in like one shot. And it's like, I understand the value of being bold and like decisive and swift, but like, I think when you

build slowly and consistently and you kind of like, ease your way in, on beautiful,

hopefully our masajid and the Muslims that fill those masajid develop that tenacity to do the right things in sha Allah and propel their truths in a way that would allow us to see a lot of our journeys and we have to, we have to it's like it's life or death.

It is absolutely 100% religious suicide outside the communities spiritual suicide, may Allah protect us and all the Muslims from it. It's likely that we die close out watercolor coffee, gold, and we're looking forward to the feedback and the questions in the comments if you're still listening, because we got another 30 episodes to go within subjects out of topics Vartika low FICO must have a low set of water kind of VNM hamadryad early he was thought to be a drain hamdu Lillahi Rabbil Alameen