Morad Awad – Welcoming EPIC’s New Youth Director
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AI: Transcript ©
If I could ask, doctor Frasovatti and start
by
You know, back in a few months ago,
we had the vacuum,
for not having a youth director at the
Islamic Center.
So, in September 2019, we posted the open
rep for that position,
for the youth director.
Alhamdulillah, we received 8 applications, and masha'Allah, they
were all good resumes
with very heavy experiences.
We followed our process of screening all candidates
and conducted phone phone interviews
before narrowing to some home we requested to
deliver Khutba
and spend time with our epic youth boys
and girls here.
As part of the process, we came up
with a list of requirements, such as verification
of references,
both Islamic and secular education
educational credentials,
degrees, experiences,
background checks, and feedback from our scholars.
And also interviewed the candidates,
these, our shiks have interviewed,
those candidates as well whom we have brought
here after we did the phone,
phone screening.
So alhamdulillah and zakalakhair.
And obviously, in the decision making process, board
was unanimously
of the decision that we have made. So
last but not the least, feedbacks from our
youth,
both boys and girls,
who were given opportunities to spend time with
candidates.
Masha Allah, our youth have participated
overwhelmingly
in this process and provided us
with very valuable feedbacks.
Without going into the details,
due to the legal constraints,
only one candidate fulfilled all the requirements
with flying colors.
At this point,
we tied our camels. Obviously, it's it's a
it's a very heavy burden and responsibility
to the board, to oversee you, and of
course, you
know, for the community as well.
So we did our best and Allah knows
that we did.
We did everything that's possible, all the means,
all the tools that were available to us
to go through this process.
So we tied our camel,
and then we did our stikhara, we asked
Allah subha'ala to help.
One thing I just wanted to let you
know that,
on a personal level, when we were in
the Umrah with doctor Yasir Gadi,
will I this would this is a heavy
burden and I ask Allah to help me
with this one and help this board. So
I ask Allah to whatever decision that we
are making, we're going it is it brings
hair to this ummah, to this community, for
our youth and the community at large. So
only Allah knows how things will play out,
but at this point, we did our due
diligence.
And I'm very content with this,
and may Allah help.
So it's my pleasure to introduce the youth
director of
EPIC,
who's a young fellow from East Coast,
sitting here somewhere. I don't know if you
know them.
He was born and raised in New Jersey,
completed his bachelor's from NJIT,
New Jersey Institute of Technology and Civil Engineering,
completed memorization of Quran,
received
ijazad in Islamic sciences, hadith, and fiqh, or
sullafiqh
in inheritance.
He has conducted programs,
for youth wherever that,
he comes from and his experiences,
he will speak for himself,
And with the Allah's help, he was able
to bring Muslims youth to Masjid
who were involved in drugged and
illegitimate relationships.
So, alhamdulillahi, he have some experiences,
with the work that he have done. He
have also worked with various MSAs in the
state of New Jersey where he have lived.
His hobbies
are teaching martial art, youth counseling,
and spending quality family time.
At this point, I could say that, inshallah,
this brother will bring care and benefit and
a great deal to our community.
Before
we ask, him to come over here,
maybe you can ask him to come here
right now. So brother Murad
Awad.
Tabir. Tabir.
Tabir.
So before I would I would let brother
Murad to say a few words to us
and his plans and and whatnot, I'm gonna
have a few words
from Ustad
and Imam and Doctor Yasser
because they were also,
help us with this process.
Doctor.
Yasser. Doctor. Yasser?
Alhamdulillah,
we're adding more and more people to our
team. And as I said, this is as
I said when I first came to Epic,
the community here is unique
and the amount of people that are working
together is also unique. Most masaajid are barely
struggling in North America with 1 person. Alhamdulillah,
we have so many different people doing so
many different things, and each one has a
niche and an area and a specialty. We
really, really are working together as a team,
and I'm appreciating all of this diversity and
talent. And I'm very happy that brother Murad
has joined, and I'm
optimistic that he will bring so much to
the table.
He is somebody that has, solid credentials and
resume, and
we expect the best from him, and we
expect from him,
to raise EPIC even higher. We want EPIC
to be
living up to its name and be an
EPIC masjid in all of North America. So
I ask Allah, azza wa j, to grant
all of us a and to
guide us and to guide others through us.
And I pray that Allah
makes brother Murad's move a blessed one, and
Welcome to the team.
Once again, I, actually so for brother Murad,
may Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala make this move
and this transition an easy one,
one that's full of barakah for you and
your family.
And,
you know, it is great to have you,
inshallah,
on this team. And I believe that with
the addition of brother Murad and, Alhamdulillah, with
so many other playing parts, so many people
in this organization,
contributing to the community more than anyone else.
The community is benefiting, alhamdulillah. And I pray
to Allah
that while, alhamdulillah, this team is growing, the
most important thing is that I ask Allah
to keep our hearts united. It is very
easy to grow a team. It's very difficult
to keep it together. So I ask Allah
Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala more than anything else that
he keeps us united. May Allah Subhanahu Wa
Ta'ala make us productive in the work that
we do. May Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala make
us efficient in the work that we do.
And insha'Allah, tuma insha'Allah, we are very looking
forward to working with brother Murad. And insha'Allah,
this is insha'Allah gonna be a great This
will this is inshaAllah a great move for
the entire community. And welcome aboard to East
Plano Islamic Center.
I guess you brought some cold weather with
you from the East Coast.
Another brother from the East Coast.
Alhamdulillah. Welcome to Texas
and welcome to Plano.
I ask Allah, Azza wa Jal, to make
it a move full of barakah
for EPIC and, for you and your family,
inshaAllah ta'ala. InshaAllah ta'ala, with your experience
and, all the support and help you need,
We are always here for you.
And as long as you have,
Allah first
in your mind and you do your ama
sincerely for the sake of Allah, will be
behind you till the grave, Insha'Allah.
To be honest, I'm I'm really humbled
to be sitting with these mountains next to
me. I am, like, of no place. I
feel like I'm misplaced, to be honest.
And I'm really humbled
and honored to serve a community like this.
This community, Ejuan,
for those of you that came from outside
heard of it, and those of you that
didn't,
probably
probably didn't hear what we heard outside.
Jamal, you're doing something very great.
I ask Allah
first, before I continue with my speech,
to bless this community,
and to continue to bless it, and
to make it a minaret of Islam
that spreads light of iman to the rest
of the world, and not only America. Ameen
Aruba Alami.
About
about 1 year ago, like this time, I
was living in Al Madinah Al Munawara. You
No, for the brothers that just came back
from Medina,
I was living the time of my life,
to be honest.
The best years of my life were in
Al Madinah.
And
it was exactly a year ago from now
that I decided
to leave Al Medina due to circumstances,
and because I wanted to continue my mission
of the Awa here in the West.
And I juggled between going back to do
business,
as I had many business ideas. I've been
a businessman since I was a child.
You know, our Palestinian backgrounds,
they help us a lot in this. So
the only thing I opened my first business
when I was 23, and I had that
business mindset from the beginning.
So
I had
about 4 different businesses,
I planned it out,
I wrote it up, and my wife is
here, she could witness, testify to this.
I had it already. And I said, I'm
going back to New Jersey,
and I'm going to implement this.
I pray the when
my family reminded me to pray Istikhara, I
said, Oh, you know I have to pray
Istikhara.
When I prayed Istikhara,
Allah is the witness.
Right after that,
the hard drive of
my laptop
went out, and I didn't back up any
of my business plan. What took me months
I'm like, You Rabbi, what's happening?
I came to book my flights,
I prayed Istikharah, I want to go back
to New Jersey,
I made a stikhara to go back to
New Jersey, which is my hometown by the
way,
and where I always planned to give dawah,
since I was a child.
This is where I wanted to plant my
seed.
The flights didn't go through and nothing happened.
I'm like, You Rabbi, Then I prayed istikhara,
You Allah.
My last one was to take me out
of Madinah and go to a place that
is good for me, my wife, my children,
and for the Muslimeel.
And I left it there.
And that is when I came here,
and Allah
decreed
for epic to reach out to me.
And I was also
offered 6 other opportunities where I prayed istikhara,
none of them worked out except for this.
Allah
works in the greatest way is Ikhwan.
Sometimes
we look at our
we look
at our lives,
and
when you sell yourself to Allah,
Allah
purchased
our souls, our nafs, and our wealth.
For what in return for jannah? When Allah
wants to use us,
He uses us wherever He pleases, not where
we please.
So when Allah
decreed for me to come here, I knew
it is for a wisdom that
Allah knows,
and I don't. But I ask Allah
to aid me, help me, assist me
in
fulfilling this role to the most complete sense.
And I ask Allah
to bless this masjid through me, and to
bless me through this masjid.
Khwan, I grew up in Paterson, New Jersey,
and then Clifton,
New Jersey after that.
Born and raised here, I went through the
struggles every single one of our youth go
through.
Every single problem they come to me with,
I think I faced in my life at
one point.
And this is what pushed me to leave
my civil engineering background.
I'm a civil engineer with experience, and I
have a strong background
in it, and I applied for it, and
received job offers, but I had no
intention to do anything
except for what I'm doing here.
Jamah, when you're doing something for Allah
you sell your nafs, and you go wherever
Allah
takes you.
These youth
that the masjid board is serving,
Yani wal Jawad was interviewing me, and the
3 imams, and everyone in the board,
I sensed
a lot of care
for the youth like I didn't sense in
any other masjid around America.
I've been to so many Masajidiah Qur'an.
But this masjid, there was something unique. Maybe
some of our youth here, you know, might
think otherwise because they didn't go to 16
states in the past 6 months,
and meet and go to tens of masajid
like myself.
There's something different about this masjid,
and there's something inshaAllah different about the youth.
I still didn't get to do a program
with them, but I ask Allah
that the vibe that I feel here continues.
Say, Ameen.
When I started to practice when I was
a child,
the first Masjid I practiced in was in
Paterson, New Jersey.
I walked in with my cap, dressed a
certain way with a certain haircut, didn't know
much about Allah
didn't know much about the deen. My background,
I'm a Barghouthi.
For Palestinians here, they know that Al Barghouthi
family is a very secular
family.
So amongst the Palestinians,
we're not very religious. So I wasn't raised
very religious.
But at a young age, I started to
practice,
And subhanallah, Ikhwan. When I walked in the
masjid,
you would think
they met me the way the masjid here
meets the youth. Faddalu, you have courts, you
have a gym, stay, we're gonna hire you
a youth director, just stay No, no, no.
That's not what I got at all. No.
What's wrong with you kid? You come dressed
like that. Look at your haircut. Look, you
don't even know fatiyah. Get out of here,
go back to the street.
And from
that day,
I said, Wallahi Akwad, I'm going to learn
the deen.
I'm going to study, and I'm going to
dedicate my life, and devote my life to
serving these youth, so that they don't have
the same experience I had.
And this is exactly what I'm doing here
Ikhwan.
What I'm doing is I'm giving you
everything I have.
I'm not offering you to be a director,
to be a manager,
to be anything of that sort. I came
here to be your big brother, and this
is to the youth.
I came here to be the guy you
can call at 1 AM,
tell him anything, spill your heart out, come
to my house, drink a cup of tea,
chill out, have a barbecue, swim if inshaAllah
have a swimming pool, I'm still looking for
a house, and have some fun.
That's the type of guy
you're bringing.
I'm not some type of dude that just
came out of a desert,
and actually I did come out of a
desert. I was just in Saudi,
like around camels and what not. But alhamdulillah,
blahalameen.
Before that I wasn't in the desert my
whole life.
I went to the desert to learn this
deen, alhamdulillahirabilamin,
bi tawfiqalai,
I did what I can. For the time
that I was given,
I came back, and I just need somebody
to
implement all these ideas that I have.
If the youth are up for it,
inshaAllah, I hope, I ask Allah
and I make du'a that they're up for
it. Because I'm gonna take them on a
roller coaster.
I'm very hyped up guys,
and I'm very spontaneous,
and you might not keep up.
Ask Allah
to let you keep up with me, insha
Allah.
Duakumullah khayri surahat jama'ah.
They say everything is bigger in Texas.
InshaAllah,
the hearts of the epic community are bigger
to accept me as well. Jazakumullah khair. Wassalaamu
Alaikum Warahmatullahi Barakatuh.