Mohammad Elshinawy – S2E02 Essentials for a Competent Masjid w- Sh. Amin Kholwadia
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Welcome back everyone to Behind the Mimbar.
Blueprints for a Better Masjid. I'm smiling because
this is the Istanbul edition.
Alhamdulillah.
I had the pleasure of spending a few
weeks out here and, I was honored to
find myself swarming,
the place swarming,
surrounded by,
many great scholars, North American scholars, European scholars,
and the likes.
Alhamdulillah,
I'm indebted to, Sheikh Hamin.
Shaykh Amin Khulwadiya is one of the leading
scholars in North America and in the English
speaking world,
and he is
a man of many accolades. We ask Allah
to increase you
and to raise your rank and your profile
in this world in the next, Shaykh Amin.
Ameen.
Shaykh Amin, for those who may not know,
hails from a,
an ancestry of distinct scholarship
stemming from the, the the subcontinent
of South Asia, and you came to the
States, I believe, in the eighties. Am I
not Age. Correct? Masha'Allah. 1984,
you founded Darul Qasim Seminary where you've been
mentoring leaders,
which is one of the primary target audiences
of our, of our podcast here,
building communities through,
adequate leadership. And, you know, Sheikh Amin, there's
so much that, I'm excited about discussing and
I have to sort of keep myself disciplined
for this. I mean, alhamdulillah, you're you're a
person that has been able to,
bring together the scholarship of the the traditional,
sacred path,
and its sciences and also the Western Academy.
And alhamdulillah, one of the things I deeply
appreciate the most
about your project, your work is you insisting
that we have no choice but to engage
our realities.
And I do want to discuss in this
episode how can we better our masajid as
incubators. That may be a controversial term in
the post COVID era,
but, you know,
a hub for understanding how we are to
engage our non Muslim majority. But I I
do want to start, if you will permit
me, on
how
you see the good and the bad and
the ugly of the of the masjid communities,
of sort of the religious communities and Americans
since you've arrived here. What sometimes we're a
little bit, I think, too critical because we
zoom in a little bit too much about
where we can improve. Or sometimes we're a
little bit too casual,
about, oh, things are going fine. We're on
the up and up. It will organically fix
itself.
So, Bismillah, let's maybe start there. Your journey,
your perspective, the past 30 years now. 24?
Exactly 30 years.
40 now? 40 years. 40.
My math is, stuck in another time zone.
So the floor is yours, Sheikh. How do
you assess situation on the ground in our
message?
Thank you very much for having me. It's
a pleasure and honor to be with you
here today.
The
institutionalization
of,
Masajid
obviously
has to do
in the macro with the
the legal reality of the institution. Institution.
How
do we set our bylaws?
What is the
organizational
structure?
And,
who owns,
technically,
the building, the Masjid, and
all of that, and who who who who
has a stake in the Masjid legally. Mhmm.
So I think we must clarify
the legalities,
before we get into
any other community
concerns that we have. And I think it's
very important that,
you know, in your
constitution,
what you have written.
If in your constitution, you say this is
a Muslim
place of worship,
Then, invariably,
people who are seen Muslim, seen as Muslim,
or claim to be Muslim, can you invite
them in?
Can the Shias come?
Can the Khadyanis who claim they're Muslim, can
they come?
And then can they be part of the
the board and the decision making process?
What steps have you taken to ensure that
the
Masjid is insinuated
from rebellion
and even a mutiny and takeover. Mhmm. There
was a case in Illinois where they wanted
to overthrow,
you know, the board of the Masjid,
But
then to their shock, they found out they
couldn't do it legally,
because the constitution was just so robust and
strong
that they weren't able to do anything. Even
they couldn't take the Masjid to court, because
the court said
their constitution says you cannot interfere.
So I think we must value to their
theological persuasions?
Was that sort of the the the
the safeguard in the paperwork? Or was it
the paperwork or was that the constitution or
the bylaws
dictated that
the the members of the Masjid, they were
trustees for life. Okay. That was a legal
structure. Okay.
Which to me is okay. One of many
viable. Yeah.
It's okay. But I think that's where you
need to start when you want to start
talking about
what can we do to improve the affairs
of the Masjid. What is the
legal structure of the Masjid first? Who's running
it,
and who has the ability to change the
Bibles, if they have the ability to change
the Bibles, and,
who who has ownership
and all of that. So I think
we we we we remove ourselves very quickly
from
the mainstream
American
kind of society, legal society, and I think
that's a mistake,
very critical mistake, because then you want to
create a change in the Masjid, then all
of a sudden,
you know, the judge You have no leverage.
The judge will say, sit down and be
quiet
or or just go away. There was a
case in Illinois where
the Masjid people were fighting in bickering, and
they were almost, you know, hitting, punching each
other in the Masjid.
So he went to court. Mhmm.
And in the court, the judge who knew
Muslims very well,
and, he said, I'm gonna teach you guys
a lesson.
This is the lesson he taught them. I
know how much you people hate women.
So
what I'm gonna do, I'm gonna mandate a
Muslim woman attorney
to run
the affairs of the Masjid for the next
6 months.
And she will announce every Friday
from the podium what you need to do
for the next week. Now until you can
see that she is going to be the
one,
the effective CEO of your affairs, I will
not reopen the merchant. I'll just
lock it up, and I'll throw away the
keys.
So
the people who were there fighting with each
other, they're from Tawbek Jamat,
some of you conservative
minded people,
they had to bite the bullet,
and they had to swallow the bitter pill
that the judge gave them. So this is
where, you know, the the the the legal,
structure and the affairs of the Masjid, they
they they have to be in sync. And
if we don't know the legal structure and
we want to make a difference, then it's
not gonna happen because you're wasting your time.
And I just echo that.
I you know,
in the previous discussions with prior guests on
this podcast,
we we've touched,
many different,
like, overlaps.
And one of the most difficult,
conversations
continuing conversations that we need to be having
is, so where does the where does the
masjid match,
the corporate structure for a management, and where
does that sort of shoot you in the
foot? And I think, you've touched something that
we haven't touched before, which is,
there are
civil constants. There are sort of legal designations
that,
you will either respect them Yeah.
Or you will become a victim of them.
There's you know, to to your point as
well, the there's a masjid in North Jersey
that had way too much ambiguity
in the process and the transition of leadership
and otherwise
that,
the government sort of commandeered control. And, from
what I heard, 6, 7, $800,000
of the masjid funds that, you know, people's
blood, sweat, and tears, you know,
the the, you know, the sincere labor who's
putting, you know, $15 at a time into
the box year over year to finally have
our dream center, sort of multipurpose
utilitarian,
community life center. It was all frozen for
years on end until the dispute they got
to the bottom of dispute.
The legal component and I think that we
don't we don't live in a bubble. And,
again, I'm gonna circle back to the fact
that there's this assumption that you can live
in the bubble Yes. Whether socially, legally, or
otherwise.
Yeah.
Where else have you seen,
you know, success stories in that in the
first case you mentioned or even sort of,
tragic stories of the community being compromised or
its trajectory being hijacked because
there isn't enough engagement with the realities on
the ground. Well, the second point would be
after you've established what the legal structure is,
now you have to come in and understand
how you're going to, you know, design your
bylaws
and, who's going to be then then you
have to form committees
within the organization. And are you going to
have a religious committee?
And in the religious committee, are you going
to have someone who's qualified to be in
the religious committee? We have several examples
in Illinois where the Muslim has a religious
committee,
but the people in the religious committee, they
know the disregard of Islam.
And they're they're making decisions, Muslim decisions for
the community
based on, you know, their their very submediocre
knowledge, obviously. I mean, that that is just
pathetic. Mhmm. It's a sign of the day
of judgment too that
that you Uninformed leadership. You're gonna have yeah.
So I think that that's where we we
need to really sit down and be honest
with, each other and say that if this
is a religious committee, then what does it
entail?
Mhmm. And, what are the, you know, the
prerequisites,
professional
prerequisites and standards that we need to
maintain? Because
most of the people who run the masajid,
I'm sorry to say that they're usually doctors.
If they're not doctors, they're engineers. If they're
not engineers, they're lawyers.
The lawyers who can give some
clout to it because they know some legal
structure,
but the doctors, engineers, they know nothing
about how structures work. I feel like this
is a passive aggressive against the Egyptians here.
I'm not sectarian. I don't know.
I don't know. I don't deal too much
with the Egyptians. Messing, of course. Yeah. But,
yeah. What I'm saying is is that the
the the you know, if you're going to,
you know, you you don't
allow a nonmedical
person to come in your hospital
and do surgery
or make some medical decisions. You
never do that. So why do you bring
that why do you bring that scientific
approach into the Masjid?
Some people may say, Sheikh, that the reality
is there are roughly 3,000 Masajid in America,
and
a
half of them, approximately 15, maybe more, a
100 Masajid,
don't have religious leadership. And even that religious
leadership may not necessarily be formally trained,
structurally trained trained.
And even if they were, they're not pastorally
trained. Like there is so much scholarship and
sort of,
religious insight that is needed that we have
no choice. And so I I do believe
there is some validity there. But what would
you advise Masajid
who are seeking this but not have not
yet secured this, what could be a good
interim fix to make sure it's not just
a free for all arbitrage? Yeah. I think
I I disagree with that approach. I think
that's a very defeatist approach, personally.
I I think we need to understand how
to develop build a community. Mhmm. And in
that process, you're gonna have to invest
in developing people who can be professional leaders.
If you don't invest and if if if
if there's a student
in the Masjid community who wants to become
a very good alum and learn,
then
invest in him.
Tell him that we'll pay for your fees
for the next 7 years. You On the
condition that you come back and serve you.
Back and the fellowships work. You you you
serve us for the next 5 years and
come that's how you do it, and and
I think that that's not far fetched.
Wonderful. I mean, in the interim until that
comes to fruition. Right? I mean
It doesn't have to be idea if there's
no Khalifa,
sultan, then it rests upon the sort of
the ulema to get together and do it.
And then if the ulema,
sort of are not available, then it becomes
the duty of,
of who. Right? Yeah. What I'm saying is
that
we we we we,
value ourselves as being
very
American.
Right?
Everybody who's not, you know, the the the
on the mic
after Juma'a, you know, he values himself to
be a very professional,
you know, American who knows how presumably how
America works.
Now if then follow the American model. Be
American.
And in the American model, they will train
people.
They will not let you go. Even if
you're a doctor, you still have to take
your board, you know, 10 10, 12 years
later. There's continued education,
but you don't have that vision
for developing the personnel in the community.
And you should invest and you you should,
you know, forecast some money and, as you
say, fellowships or whatever training that's needed.
Develop the individuals from your local community.
Let them have a say. Give them some
ownership.
If you don't give your imams ownership
of decision making in the Masjid, then they're
they're redundant. They're useless.
They can't do their job. And that could
be a good example of where,
even understanding American model,
is not there.
What I refer to is the fact that,
Sheikh Hasid Fahmi, actually.
He he one of his pet peeves he
often talks about is the over democratization
of
Masajid. The over democratization of Masajid.
He says that, you know, we want absolutely
everyone's opinion
on
a certain given issue when this is not
their domain. And he goes, even in America,
the sort of democracy that sort of flexes
in front of the world as being the
representation of the finest iteration of democracy. They
don't even do that. That. It's just like
not we we don't wait till every last
farmer comes out and every last person votes.
We don't require actually voting of every last
citizen like certain countries.
So this notion that everyone needs to have
a stay a say, even everyone in the
management has to have a say on
non management, non administrative issues,
is a bit bizarre. It's a bit bizarre
of an expectation. You know, with youth directors,
Sheikh, what I was trying to also get
to with the question is that,
sharing of the resource. Like, youth directors and
other personnel gap in our institutions.
And some message that I've seen in Florida
and elsewhere, what they said is we can't
afford right now,
to hire a full time youth director. And
even if we could, they just don't exist,
those that we have in mind. And so
they would almost hire and I've seen this
in in Dallas as well. A sort of
a a consultant that straddles 4, 5, 6
masajid, creates programming for them all, and each
of those 4, 5, 6 masajid carries a
share of,
his build
that is proportionate to the size of their
programming or the size of their membership. I'm
wondering if we can do something like that.
It's almost like,
the
the lower tiers of the mujtahid. If we
wanna create an analogy with scholarship. Right? If
you we believe there's 7 tiers of mujtahid.
Maybe the lower tier mujtahids could sort of
carry some of the local loads. And for
the truly complex stuff, they'll be the conduit
up to the senior scholarship. Yeah. Right? I
think that would be amazing because I don't
think that the other 1500 Masajid and more
Masajid in the pipeline
will get covered in even one generation.
Yeah. There has to be a cooperation with,
each other and cooperation amongst, you know,
institutions that claim they're building youth directors
and community leaders. That that is what that's
what they claim. So there there has to
be, I think, a uniform understanding of what
needs to be done in the US as
as,
you know, developing
curriculum, developing guidelines, or what what kind of
nasiha and, you know, advice you're gonna give
to people, what kind of programs you're gonna
have.
Choosing the khatid, for instance, is very important,
issue because, you know, the the Muslims
of the America, they are
exposed to some kind of Islam,
albeit
usually mediocre, once a week.
15 minutes, half an hour a week, they're
exposed to something that's, oh, let me go
and listen to something
that might be inspirational. And they they they
come out very disappointed.
So I think that that kind of leadership
for people
who can give a genuine good Khutba,
expose Muslim civilizational values,
expose the peace of Islam,
stay away from unnecessary politics, and don't be,
you know, a repeat CNN interview
on the member. Right. Yeah. So I think
that's very important because that you you'll that's
an.
If you're the Khatib, then the 15, 20
minutes you have, that's an
for the community. With the community, you have
to make sure they take home one message
that is Islamic, at least.
Not some kind of, you know,
secondhand,
as I said,
journalistic
rant of
SubhanAllah.
Muslim affairs of the world. You know? They
don't need to hear that. They already know
that. They're watching CNN, you know, 24 hours
a day. Yeah. They don't need to listen
to you. Alright? So when they come to
listen to you, they're looking for some guidance,
some inspiration,
a little bit of knowledge.
So this is what I learned from the
khatib today that he he's made an impact
in my life. Just one message.
And if you now that is how maybe
the masalists should focus on themselves.
That how how do we capture the audience
who's coming to the Masjid
instead of saying that as opposed to for
a
form of a I I do understand. I
mean, the the the focus of the people
who run the Masjid is fundraising.
That how much money can we raise this
week,
not how much information can we give the
audience.
How can we inspire the audience to be
better Muslims, to to learn and to seek
Allah's, follow them, follow the Rasul. We're not
interested in that. Okay? So everybody who announces
after Jammu,
announcing after Jummah, money, money, money. Give me
money, money, money.
What the heck is that? You know? The
mosque is not built to fundraise.
Prophet Assam, he would say, we need money
for this. So how about the gift?
That's how it's done. Right? Very kind of
seamless
seamless process
where So is the is what you see
as problematic
is what you see as problematic in this
regard,
the the recurrence of it and sort of
the standardization of it? Yeah. Or is it
soliciting actively? Just so I understand and whoever
else is wondering.
It's both.
That you're formalizing
fundraising as if it's normal,
and you waste people's time.
I went to a Jumah
in the south, so I won't mention the
name,
in case you know what it is, who
is who they are. And
the,
he wasted half an hour before the,
and the judge Sadat was delayed.
Now,
you know, in US, they come with a
fixed time for lunch.
And if they're late for work, then, you
know,
something will happen to them. Oh, you mean
Juma in particular? Juma. Yeah. Got it. Well,
you don't need to delay Juma because you
want to fundraise. Okay. You can't do that
because then you don't you're not managing the
community. They're obviously everybody's gonna be angry, and
they'll be frustrated. They're not gonna give you
money when they're angry.
This is a little bit, shameless of me,
but,
I've had countless people,
love forgive me if my intentions are self
promotion here, but
praise my chutba.
And then before,
I'm done thanking them for sort of the
compliment, they say no. No. No. Let me
tell you why.
It's because I know exactly when you're gonna
start and exactly when you're gonna end. Yeah.
And you sort of recognize that whatever people
say in 40 minutes can be said in
20. One brother actually said to me that,
the,
he said to me, you always say in
your khutbah,
I only have a minute left or I
only have 2 minutes left. He goes, I
trust you so much I don't even look
at the clock when you say that.
He said, if you wanted to lie to
me, it would work. So I started laughing
with the brother. But the idea of a
1 hour lunch break, if people have 1
hour, there's commute to the jumuah, commute from
the jumuah. You may want to grab a
bite on the way. Right? Mhmm.
So you're not really listening to a khutbah.
You're not engaged. I mean, if the theme
of today's discussion is engagement on very engaging
illegal realities, engaging our congregants' realities,
you're not gonna be engaged in a khutbah
if you're worried about getting blasted by your
boss in t minus 22 minutes. Right?
For alhamdulillah for that. So engaging here
and having an engaging khutba, it being an
art,
and that's another term I stole from you
that it is not just the science, the
fiqhabit, but an art, the the sort of
crafting the narrative of it. But also being
sensitive to people's,
constraints. Someone's stuck going to the bathroom in
our fiqh. Right? Needing to go to the
bathroom shouldn't be,
volunteering to come to prayer like that. Likewise,
someone's stuck in a workday. We tried to
accommodate within bounds.
You know, you reminded me of 1 of
the masha'ikh actually in the States before my
next question on engagement. He said he shared
with me a beautiful anecdote, and maybe the
khalibs can try to keep it in mind
as well as they try to engage their
communities.
It said that,
Allah,
oh imam, Allah puts you ahead of the
first row which is the best spot in
the masjid.
And he put you on top of a
mimbar while everyone else sits.
And he allowed you to speak during jumu'ah
when everyone else is obligated to be silent,
so don't you dare play with this amana.
Please give the people something Yeah. To hold
on to until the next 15 minutes they
see you, like, 7 days later. If that.
Right?
Sheikh, can I pivot
to engaging
the
the
the wider community? I mean the khutba needs
to be more inspiration than education and then
of course there's gonna be sort of a
space for educating our communities on a deeper
level, insha'Allah.
Engaging with non Muslim society. Many people, they
always have this debate. Right? Like isolation,
assimilation,
integration, and these are almost like buzzwords sometimes
in Muslim,
discussions or Muslim discourse.
But it's really about getting beyond the semantics.
Right? Is isolation even a thing? Like some
people who may say no we have to
sort of like,
bunker down for a microcosm of our civilizational
values. That's what the Masjid represents to them.
It's our retreat. Which I understand and I
agree with on many levels.
But that's still not isolation, and I think
there's a little bit of a,
a discord there.
But engaging with the broader,
you know, American society
as,
you know, ambassadors
of
Islam representatives
of the prophet
that has to do with your
understanding of what I call al Mafoom al
Islami,
the Islamic concept. Who are you as a
Muslim, and why
are you coming to the mosque in the
first place other than to pray or to
do jumal or something?
So I think that there there's a, a
huge
disconnect
between
the Islamic value and how Muslims perceive themselves
in the US.
I think it's it's about not understanding,
you know, that the US community actually is
quite open.
They're not gonna slam you if you talk
to them, and they're they're not going to,
you know, do anything rude or nasty. They
they do have some values that they observe,
and we should take advantage of that. But
at the same time, I think one of
the roles of the massages is to
engage the broader
local community
around their Masjid in, you know, maybe open
houses,
Muslim day,
bring them into the Masjid and have people
who can
have booths in the Masjid,
and then give them information, maybe
a video about Islam, maybe some lectures about
Islam, some, you know, literature about Islam. Make
it a full Muslim day
that you
engage the local community, welcome them, and say
that we are here, we exist.
Islam
is about representation,
but it's also about,
confession.
Islam is a confessional
deed.
You're supposed to take the Shahada.
Why you take the Shahada? Because you have
to confess in public
that I am now a Muslim.
Islam doesn't allow you to be in the
closet.
So even if you want to be a
closet Muslim, you can't be a closet because
because you have to go to the mosque,
there are people who can see you.
Right?
So the idea, you want to hide your
Islam, or after 9/11, people changed their names
and people said that, you know, we don't
wanna look like Muslims.
I would say, have you looked in the
mirror?
You talk like a Muslim. You walk like
a Muslim. You must be a Muslim, so
don't hide the fact that you've been hypocritical.
Just embrace it. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm saying
is that we we we need to let
go of the insecurity
and the 2nd class mentality.
And inferiority
complex.
Maybe Islam is not good enough for us
to promote.
I mean, that's just utterly ridiculous that Islam
is the best that Allah has given to
all of humanity.
Why are you saying that Islam is not
good enough? You're not good enough.
That's, you know, that that's done. You're not
good enough. We we've established that. To say
that Islam is not good enough,
that's pure ignorance. And I think the Masjid
is now responsible
to show the participants in the Masjid, the
owners of the Masjid,
the board members of the Masjid, the imams
of the Masjid, that we
have a duty to expose,
human beings to the beauty of Islam.
And if we have that approach, that we
we we don't want to get into, you
know, the the the legal,
theories of Islamic law. We're not we're not
saying that. Don't discuss
the jusiat. We just discuss the kuliyat. And
so because the jusiat are for Muslims to
practice.
They're doing Until someone is Muslim, the secondary
issues are irrelevant.
Exactly. So you don't need to go there.
But what you do need to do is
understand the ihsan,
and there are 2 ways to do that.
1
is to humanize Islam
by promoting the prophet, sallallahu alaihi wasallam.
If you detach Islam from the prophet, sallallahu
alaihi wasallam, you have dehumanized
it.
And you must humanize Islam. But you need
that the Islam needs a face, a human
face. Oh, man. And the only human face
we have is the prophet, and he is
the most beautiful faces that we have. Yes,
salam alayhi. So then you have to bring
out the beauty, Hassan, of the prophet,
as a role model, as a figure for
human beings,
as uswa for all human beings. So that
is one idea. The other idea is that
if you detach Islam from the akhirah,
you secularized it.
And both of these things, unfortunately, happen with
all our communities.
We've secularized Islam as if Islam is there
for the glory of the world. If you
have more doctors, more lawyers, more engineers, and
more people working for NASA, than we'll be
on top of the world. No, you won't.
Because Islam is about the akhba.
Islam is about your salvation. It's about how
you get into jannah. Islam is not about
how much you have within dunya.
Otherwise, there's no meaning for the deen. Deen
is when you have salvation with you. Deen
is not when you have a dunya with
you. You can have deen without a dunya,
but you can't have
akhira without a deen. And that is simply
the way that we we must promote. And,
the the the board members need training.
We need about 10 workshops for every board
member in every Masjid,
every year, mandatory that unless you go through
this training, you're not fit to be a
board member. You should not even be in
the boardroom,
and you shouldn't be there in leadership position.
And I think that has to be mandated,
I think. Maybe by the the olemaq community
of the USA,
go to every Muslim and say, all you
board members, you're committing sin because you're Jahil,
and it's an obligation for you to learn
something.
And until you learn how to run a
masjid I gave a talk once,
in a masjid in Illinois about
to the board members.
How to run a masjid
is a 90 minute presentation. They are just
flabbergasted
So, oh, we didn't know him. And because
I in in that workshop,
I I showed them that most of the
methods they were using for fundraising were actually
haram.
You're using haram methods to fundraise. Such as?
And depositing money where it's not supposed to
be deposited and then using money to pay
the speaker from the fundraising. You can't do
that.
You can't pay the speaker from the fundraiser
because that money is supposed to go to
the Masjid Fund, not to the speaker.
So I I I show So you're advising
them to get an outside sponsor for There
you go. It's about managing. Right? It's about
and, that's number number 2 is is that
we we we must have the himna, the
determination. We must have a pioneering spirit, which
is the Sahaba. The Sahaba, when they went
to non Muslim countries, they were the only
Muslims there.
They didn't back off, and they didn't say,
okay. We are now second class here.
They said, no. Islam is for everybody. We're
gonna teach people Islam.
So that level of, determination
and and what I call swagger,
Muslims need to recapture
their swagger which they had. We we don't
know that. May I,
respectfully, of course, just to to complete the
image, not to disagree.
Sometimes
the indirect messaging even from the religious leadership,
Right?
Like
the the working model of Islam in the
consciousness, the collective consciousness of a community
is many times the product of the narrative
they hear. Right?
From the mimbar even, right? And so at
times this notion of otherization
comes even in their in their religious discourse,
right? Like
don't be American, for instance. Right? That's sort
of like,
you know, false dichotomy of, like, either or
or this
this notion of how much we mention our
ethnic sort of,
specific or geographical specific roots
and
their
grievances. They're very valid grievances. You know?
I hear you, for example, mention,
and this is a refreshing for us,
talk about the fact that why do you
feel like you don't have a responsibility to
purge drugs from your neighborhood? Right? Why do
you feel like
an atrocity against,
sort of any group that is,
demonized and targeted is not a Muslim duty.
And you you often, you know,
explain Ma'ruf as a what is known and
you translate it. I like I like your
translation as universal truth of sorts. Right?
Does that not when you're repeating
certain
texts from the Quran, from the Sunnah against
the backdrop of a skewed understanding, a localized
understanding? To be honest, a foreign understanding as
we transition from 1st generation to 2nd to
3rd to 4th,
reinforce this notion that Islam is is not
for America or not for me as a
sort of a recipient of this messaging.
And so
I think we have to own also a
share of this duty, you know,
that we belong and we are an asset
and that Islam is not just fine,
like accept us because we're fine, but even
that Islam is exceptional,
right, has something to offer and here's a
very
concrete tangible way, to make that unfold on
the ground. Yeah.
That is that, I mean, we're fighting against
a community,
a civilization,
a superpower.
When you live in a superpower, all the
superpower
pollutants
are going to come upon you. The dictates
of the dominant culture. Yeah. Meaning that
every American believes in American exceptionalism,
whether he's working at a grocery store, a
car salesman, or whether he's working for, you
know, Goldman Sachs.
Every American believes in American
exceptionalism,
that America is the best thing that has
happened to the world, okay, since the inception
of the world. Okay? That's their mindset.
And, that's what I mean that you need
a little bit of swagger. You you need
to bring back that self esteem and self
respect as a Muslim
that what I have to offer to America
is much better than what America has to
offer to me.
So we need to bring that
Muslim exceptionalism
into the picture and be confident about it.
I think we're we're we're we're just so
weak and frail and, you know, insecure
about our own Islam that we we don't
want to speak about it. We want to
hide it. And so as I think reinventing
the
spirit of the Muslim, I think, is very
key. And that will come when you start
talking about universal
values.
The universalization
of Islamic values is very necessary, and that
should be done from the mimbar.
That let let's talk about the Hassan of
Islam, the Hassan of the prophet.
Let's talk about the all the points in
the seerah that's mind boggling,
almost miraculous,
ability to overcome,
you know,
pain and trouble and test.
Everybody's tested in life, but, you know, the
one who's tested the most are the prophets
and see how they engage with tests. So,
you know, finding a a a human
understanding
of where people are in the community society
because the when when you look at the
American community society, the suicide
rate is astronomical.
The amount of rapes that happened in in
the community is is just mind boggling.
Drugs,
then, you know, epidemic.
Okay?
Violence and crime in Chicago, you know,
there's crime every 5, 10 seconds
of the day. Someone's being killed and so
Fraud at the corporate level. Right?
Greed at the corporate level. Then, obviously,
corruption at the political level.
So these are vices that everybody can relate
to because they see it in the news
every day.
So we should portray
maybe that that, you know,
appeal,
to Nain Musa that Islam has a solution
to get rid of these vices
that exist in your community. And that's through
akhira and so that we don't fall into
the the secularization
that is destructive Yes. And through,
the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam's model. Just
reiterating. So it was wonderful. You said without
the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam, we are,
dehumanizing
ourselves and the world or contributing to it
and without the akhirah we are secularizing ourselves
in the world. Yes. And so
we we want to continue to to validate
the khair that is here without seeing it
as superior to the khair that is in
his Arawahi. Yeah. So mastering this world
while prioritizing the next world is is the
equilibrium, is the sweet spot that we need
to bring people to through the Masajid. Definitely.
We can. We should. I I don't think
it's far fetched.
But it could be done very easily.
You don't have to reinvent the wheel. Everything's
there in the Quran.
Just read the Quran. You'll be guided.
It's quite amazing.
Yeah. Instead of reading Einstein, just read the
process.
You'll be guided.
What gives you hope, Sheikh, regarding institutions?
What do we need what are we doing
well? What do we need to do more
of,
whether engagement related or otherwise in your careers?
I think there there there's a lot of
hope.
I'm the perennial,
what do you call it, optimist.
I don't allow negativity to impact me. And
that's prophetic. Yeah. That's why we need you.
We need more of that.
The prophets were never,
pessimistic.
They were not allowed to give up hope
even though they they felt as if they
were given hope sometimes, but that's human. Mhmm.
And, again, bring that point out, you know,
at a time when the prophets were at
their lowest ebb, Allah came to their rescue
by consolidating the iman and giving them hope,
through sabr and taqwa and du'a.
But, yeah, hope there there's a lot of
hope, I think, in in in the Muslim
world.
Today, someone asked me the question, is the
Mahdi here?
That's the end of time. So I said
the Mahdi is not here, and he ain't
coming
in the near future. We
should not
put all the onus on the Mahdi to
reform the Ummah. We should do it ourselves
before he comes.
So I I think we just pass on
the back with this hallucination that the Mahdi
is here,
this fantasy
romanticism
of the perfect It's tempting, Sheikh. It's tempting.
It's tempting? It's tempting. It it Yeah. You
always wish you can just rush to the
last chapter of the book because you can't
bear the suspense of reading it through and
through. Hard work. So if we do hard
work, people who are
owners of the Islamic narrative, they they should
work hard,
to do more than what they're doing, inshallah.
And the barakah will come. I think people
are coming into Islam,
which is a good sign. Unprecedented numbers since
last October? Exactly. That means the Mahdi is
not coming.
So that that that time hasn't come yet.
I think there's a lot of hope where
Muslims are forming
a sense of revival, especially from the nineties
onward,
albeit through other, you know, political means and
whatever.
Muslims are praying, and then Muslims do fast.
Against the backdrop of atheism in the USA,
we still we still hold our own.
Right? Muslims are still Muslim, and they they
they're not shy, especially now after
the Gaza,
what do you call it, catastrophe. Yeah. Muslims
are no longer shy to say they're Muslim.
And I think that movement has helped galvanize
Muslims throughout the world.
That's give them a sense of confidence about
being Muslim.
I'm still in a state of disbelief about
the Sheikh. It's I believe it, but I
can't believe it's happening, finally happening, rapidly happening.
It's
And then there's not a hope. It's miraculous
of sorts. Yes. In the There's always a
silver lining
in what Allah does. SubhanAllah, Sheikh. You know,
it also catches me,
off guard to see, you know, many a
times we're trying to bridge bridge the divide
between the,
the activists and the scholars
or the the young and the old.
And even since October,
appreciation for the youth.
And I deeply appreciate,
the fact that despite your seniority and scholarship,
you are so accessible to the youth and,
known to the youth and, alhamdulillah, we need
more and more of that.
But since October,
I was
clocking the fact that
people were saying
we all owe these gen z's an apology.
Like, we wrote them off as a lost
cause, a sort of a frail generation, and
I have a theory as to why, you
know, they rose to the helm. I think
the meaninglessness
of the postmodern world created such a vacuum
that
Muslim or non Muslim even, the Gen z's
were were of course, the youth were always
the most daring
and the least risk averse,
but the fact that they rose to the
occasion and embrace the responsibility and put themselves,
their career paths, their their safety, their freedom,
their criminal record. They put everything on the
line,
to to this moment,
I think breathes new life,
into hope in in a tangible way. Of
course, those close enough to the wahi will
never
be depleted of their serenity, their resilience, their
determination. But seeing
it, Right? Seeing it is not like hearing
about it.
So,
the youth the youth and the masajid, perhaps
we can close out with an al Asliyahat
to the Masajid about
engaging the youth and giving them room to
grow, overlooking maybe Yeah. And trusting them. The
idealism. Yeah. The idealism
that creates distrust. Yeah. Yeah.
It's okay to make a mistake.
You're a human being, and the only way
you gain experience is if you make a
mistake.
So I think giving ownership to people who
are actually genuinely concerned and interested
in Muslim projects, I think that that's the
best way forward for
every Masjid. And I think the the the
the board has to
let go of their possessiveness,
that they don't want anything to happen. Nothing's
gonna happen. Okay? Who's gonna come and tear
down the Masjid brick by brick? No one's
gonna do that. Break a light bulb. Nothing
nothing,
irreversible.
Right? Vandalize a Masjid if they're Muslim, hopefully.
In fact, no one's gonna take over
a coup of the mala'ar. And and who
wants to, you know, invest their life in
a in a building
where only a few people come? I don't
think there are too many people who have
the aspiration in Shaba. I think there there's
a a lot to be said about,
you know, sharing
the, responsibility
of, providing guidance with everybody.
And I think the youth has has although
they are inexperienced, they do have the zeal.
They have the energy, and they need to
be engaged. It shows that they want to
be engaged. That's what it shows. They they
they they they've been waiting for something to
do.
And then the Gaza movement and the the
war obviously gave them that, you know,
purpose, I think. You know, often in parenting,
coaching,
parental coaching world,
they say when you cannot understand sort of
the outwardly rebellious behavior of youth,
just peer a little deeper.
If you knew the actual story,
you would be heartbroken not angry.
Like, wait, did I not give them a
place to come to being? Did I not
give them the right of passage? Was I
blaming them for something that I contributed towards
which is Yes. Stifling their their healthy evolutions?
Yes. Yes. No. That there's a lot of
hope to your point.
I see a lot of hope that Allah's
father,
is still with us, in
the form of keeping us Muslim, in the
form of,
promoting Islam, in the form of more dua,
more they can more people go for Hajjumrana
than ever before.
Haram is packed every day, SubhanAllah.
May Allah
never deprive us of his Fadul and you're
so right like so much of this is
uncoordinated
just coming together purely by,
SubhanAllah that the bounty of Allah that is
undeserved.
May Allah make us grateful and never deprive
us. Sheikh, is there any concluding words, something
we haven't touched?
There are many things that we can say,
but, you know, due to lack of time
respecting your
approach to Jumak Khutbah.
I want somebody to come and tell me
I like your podcast because you finish on
time. No. This is YouTube. They can 2
exit shit.
I'm just kidding.
But there there's a don't give up hope.
Trust in Allah. Allah is.
Believe in your aqidah. Your aqidah is prime.
If you don't believe in the precepts of
your aqidah, you're not a Muslim.
So why why are you denying people from
Allah's father than denying people Allah's hope and
rahma?
Just because you feel that
things aren't going the way you want them
to go. You're not God.
If Allah did what you want to do,
If the hab followed your desire then, you
know, the whole heavens and earth will be
corrupted.
So I think that maybe
Allah shouldn't do what you want, Allah should
do what he wants. So let him be
God and you be the servant.
That inspires me to conclude,
after thanking you Sheikh and asking Allah to
to bless everything your hand touches
and to bless you and your loved ones
in ways that only he can to propel
you and your project forward in healthy ways
for this Ummah. I
will conclude with the, you just inspired me
you spark the dua of the Prophet Alaihi
Wasallam
wherein he would say,
You waliyeh al Islam, you a hilahi masikna
al Islam al qa'aleh. Oh guardian of Islam