Mohammad Elshinawy – The Land of Opportunity

			In an Hamdulillahi tal and Madonna Starting over here on a stock photo when I was a bit late I mean
surely unforeseen I will say it I'm Molina de la la mejor de la HuFa la mala one minute live further
ahead, yella where Chateau La ilaha illallah Hua who luxury color who eyeshadow Anna Mohammed
Abdullah who whenever you Hora Soto yeah you have Latina I'm an otaku Allahu Akbar to hottie he you
Allah temotu Illa one two Muslim Moon from Ahmedabad. After praising Allah azza wa jal
		

			and testifying that none is worthy of worship but him and testifying the Prophet Muhammad sallallahu
alayhi wa sallam was our model and our servant and our messenger and the best to ever worship him
Allah Zilla Jin and after reminding myself and even with the tough call of Allah subhanho wa Taala
		

			and welcoming you all to the house of Allah, Allah Baraka with Allah for another Juma?
		

			My brothers and sisters, there are two verses in the book of Allah azza wa jal that I've never
understood the connection between this pair of verses until recently,
		

			and they are at the beginning of SoTL Bacara. Allah Subhana Allah Allah says K fetac for Runa villa.
Welcome to Anwar turn here calm Sama, you need to confirm my Yohei come through maybe he told
Geralyn how is it that you can disbelieve in Allah, meaning Allah's ability in this verse, his
ability to resurrect you for the Day of Judgment? How can you disbelieve in Allah, when you were
once dead already you are non existent, and he gave you life. And so then he will put you to death
and bring you back to life again, this is very straightforward logic. Anyone can understand this.
Nothing hard to understand about it. How can you disbelieve in Allah when you were dead and he gave
		

			you life and then he will put you to death and return you to life, the Day of Judgment. So my
eternal Gerawan and then you will be returned recalled back to him indefinitely.
		

			The next verse says, what, who are lazy Allah, Allah Kumar fill out of the Jamia, He is the One who
created for you, everything on earth.
		

			So it is as if the verse is saying, How can you disbelieve in Allah's power when it has already been
demonstrated on you, bring you to life in this world? And how can you disbelieve in Allah and
worship these idols, when everything on Earth was created by him for you. And this is so profound,
people fall into selling themselves short dishonouring themselves disbelieving in Allah, and on a
lesser level, even the Muslim disobeying Allah, when they get confused, regarding the prestige that
Allah gave the human being.
		

			When he doesn't realize that this entire world was created for him, and therefore he is above, he is
above, living for anything on this world. No, it was created to serve me, I don't serve it. This is
profound. And this is not just to offset the inferiority of worshipping a rock, you know, an idol, a
statue, to offset anything, how can I settle for living for money, when all of the treasures of the
planet were created to serve me, they I am their master, they are not my master. And so Allah gave
us this whole planet and honored us with being allowed to enjoy it, and being given through this
whole planet, a world of opportunities to use to make use of towards our greater purpose, bigger
		

			than this world bigger than this life.
		

			And I say that, and I reflect on that in these past few days as I'm preparing the hotbar. And I
realized that they actually call the United States of America the land of opportunity, that is the
common framing of the country. This is the land of opportunity. When the Quran is saying this whole
world is an opportunity for you, on the condition that you don't settle for it. You don't get
confused, that you were distinguished by Allah. In that case, use it. That's the default. It's all
halal for you, unless I say otherwise, that would be the exception. So long as you have things
structured, right? You will not dishonor yourself, enjoy the world.
		

			And so again, it is not about idol worship, and it's not just about you know, living for money. It's
even family you are created not to serve family relationships, family relationships were created you
were given families by God, so that you may find peace and comfort and completeness and satisfaction
through them. But they should never come at the expense of your true purpose. The expense of your
greatest purpose the expense of
		

			In your world, and I keep repeating the world, the word expense, because when you speak about
opportunity, how do you properly value opportunity? You know, even in the business sector, they say,
don't look at the return on your investment, look at the cost of your investment, you know, applying
that to what is called the land of opportunity, the United States, you can say, is there anything
better than Harvard? Put getting my kids into Harvard? Right? Is there anything better than, you
know, $400,000 500, or a million dollars income, it's a great deal. I'm going to work hard for it,
even if it takes me 2030 years to build out my opportunity for myself and for my family. The true
		

			way to assess this is to see what was the cost of this?
		

			And what will be the cost of this? You know, I have long wanted to visit England, the United
Kingdom. Why? Because I want to see what Muslims generations will look like in America because
they've been there for about you know, the mass migration has been there about three generations, us
Muslims here, the most of you in the masjid are first immigrant or first generation, one to two
generations have been here only. So I wanted to see what how well will we do? What what you know,
pointers, hints, projections, forecasts they have for us, and they gave me such a difficult
schedule, I was not able to discover any of this. But on the last night there, Allah blessed me to
		

			sit down with a great Hanafi scholar over dinner, and I explained to him my interest, I want to
understand I want to be able to compare and contrast. He said to me, brother, apples and oranges,
don't try. So do you mean, he said I was an imam in United States for nine years. Islam in the
United States is different. I said, Well, How's it different? He said, the people that came to the
UK, were people that migrated villages at a time because it is closer. And also they were able to
like, pull themselves together, pull each other together and get there and they were mostly village
people and they want to remain together living as villages. And they were more conservative anyway,
		

			because the villages naturally are less open to you know, change than like the cities and he has a
completely different demographic, completely different experience than the United States. The people
that came to the US, first of all, were a self selected group of privilege. They could afford to
come so they came. That's number one. He said number two, they came for the opportunity. The word
got me right game for the opportunity. So where's the hospital I'm going to work in or where's the
University I'm going to study at or where, and they let that's where they settled on. That was their
priority. That's what was in their crosshairs. He said, Then Islam after that, for some of them was
		

			an afterthought, like, Okay, I'm here. Wait a minute, what am I going to do so after Juma?
		

			The nearest Masjid is six hours away, 14 hours away. 15 hours away.
		

			Gotta build the masjid. And so they began trying to find families to get together to mobilize and
get a little house get a little bigger, expand, build a masjid.
		

			Wait a minute, my kids are changing. These are not our values. Look, everything is an afterthought,
right? We got to start building some Islamic schools. And so they start investing, it takes a
generation or two and we're starting to see the rise of you know, Islamic schools in mass relatively
speaking.
		

			The cost of this was humongous. And you just need to understand where you're standing.
		

			Because if you don't, you may not be able to calculate the cost of slipping if you don't know where
what lens you're standing on. You see, number one, because the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam
said to us Melfa production Aliko I don't fear poverty for you. We're lacking Akshaya and tough to
Harlequin with dunya. What I really afraid of is that the opportunities of this world get opened for
you. And then you start competing in them, the way the people before you competed in them, and then
they destroy you the way they destroyed them.
		

			And so the American Muslim experience, especially in the last 3040 years, because Muslims have been
around for 400 years, but the Muslims that were around for 400 years, our brothers and sisters from
the African American community, the Muslims from Africa, they were not brought here for opportunity.
They were brought here for someone else's opportunity to be the the labor to be the underclass for
someone else's privilege. So that is not the way to measure that community. And they showed
resilience, but to show resilience in the face of opportunity. Your is very hard. That's what I want
you to measure the cost what it costed you to act on it.
		

			I've told you before, and you will need to think about this and just be frank with it.
		

			If you say there are 2500 messages in America
		

			Okay, and the average messages being extra generous. This is not true to be extra generous, we're
going to say the average Masjid holds 400 people. That means there's a masjid. There are masajid for
a million Muslims.
		

			Means if you stuffed the masjid to the back on their end, that's a million Muslims every single
message door to door.
		

			What happens to the other 3 million Muslims? What happens? Other 75% of the Muslims, they don't
enter the message not even on eight, right? So just understand it right in front of us. The Prophet
alayhi salam Salam warned us right of opportunity. If we don't have our structure built right that
this world is for me, I don't live for it. And then people that were blindsided by this opportunity,
three quarters of them have never returned to the masjid. They might return to the masjid. If they
decide to pray Janessa on their parents might this is the reality that you stand on. So understand,
be honest with yourself. So how do we work around this? How do we make sure we are of the fortunate
		

			25% Or rather the best of the fortune of the 25% Because even Masjid goers are not safe. After the
break in sha Allah Allah Allah Allah has our stuff for Allah Hollywood.
		

			Alhamdulillah wa salatu salam ala Milena vivad Chateau La ilaha illallah wa the hula Che Guevara who
are shadow and Mohammed Abdullah who interview who rasuluh.
		

			There is ample and ongoing research by European Institute for Islamic research that speaks about
faith transmission, and they study doubt and the pathways to doubt and you know, the what predicts
doubt the predictors of doubt the first thing we can take from their studies and you should go back
to them that should be important for all of us. Is that auto piloting the parenting project, you
know, just let things go. It's all right things are going to work out this wishful thinking mindset
is of the most dangerous things you can do
		

			to feed and clothe and pay tuition for your children and by them what they need to be equal to their
friends. And that is of the most difficult burdens you can put on your child's shoulders and weigh
them down with. They said parental involvement when parents educate their kids on Islam formally and
informally.
		

			And when parents emphasize religion at home, they see you pray, they see you wearing hijab, they see
you saying no, we don't mention people's names. Allah does not like this, right? That by itself
offsets doubts by 30 to 50%.
		

			Already, the child growing up, we'll have a 30 or 50% greater chance to not have what the team calls
hard doubts.
		

			So that's the first part parenting, no school, no message it will be able to do with parenting does,
then we want to say that we have to invest in institutions and Wallahi there is no fundraiser after
this. This is a mentality we need to refine in all of us a culture we need to create in our
community. We have to invest in institutions. Because there's so much you know, the parents cannot
do. Where do you put yourself in a place where you can ensure your values are reinforced by other
Muslim friends for your children? Where else are you going to have systematic religious education?
Where else are you going to find the modeling for this? Where will they develop the feel good
		

			memories with people of religion? Right.
		

			You know, there are children By Allah's grace who come to this Masjid. May Allah increase their
numbers and increase them these children that come because the Imam of our messages Amazeen holds a
stash of candy for them ready? Every once in a while tries to be unpredictable. He gives them these
things connect you consciously subconsciously. And so being really committed to the masjid. This is
extremely important. Being in in a Muslim environment and Islamic environment to be serious about
it. You know, I just want you to think and I have to close the whole book because there's not enough
time to get through the content.
		

			Allah azza wa jal says, you know mineralogy Leta Jelena houfy Hi mana shadow human read whoever
wants this immediate life whoever wants to sell themselves short for the opportunity of the
immediate life, we will give them of it what we wish to whom we wish you will not get it all. And
even if you do, it will not do for you what you thought it would do for you of satisfaction. The
next ISS woman Aradhana, Fira and whomever seeks the hereafter was Salah has a yeha and strives for
it with its do striving means strives properly, there's a proper level of commitment that is
required to get the Hereafter.
		

			And so I just want you to think about the hereafter prioritize that you are not created for this
world. Allah honored you above serving this world you serve
		

			far greater and better purpose this world is to serve you on route to the greater world. Think about
that. And imagine you know, when you think about donations when you think about attendance, think
about Allah telling you, I selected you
		

			to be of the people that have a beautiful Masjid
		

			in the middle of a non Muslim world, where you can pray and see others pray, and socialize with
those of your values and those of your belief systems. What did you do with that? Did you feel
privileged that I selected you from the 25%? Will you fight to hold on to that for yourself and your
loved ones? May Allah azza wa jal help us to feel the privilege of our Islam? Help us hold on to it
and keep it. Keep it in our families until the Day of Judgment? May Allah guide us and forgive us?
May Allah subhanho wa Taala raise our rank and protect us? May Allah here heal us and cure us. May
Allah provide for us from where we don't expect Allah McQuillan Alhambra. Allahumma fildena ohana,
		

			love mouflon Ohana and Felina dooba dooba Kula de casa de la salle Raha Cyril Hawala, Anita. Wala
Howard, Raha or Salalah Hussain Al Baraka, Nabina Muhammad while earning he was IVIG marine