Mustafa Umar – Mosques vs Third Spaces Do We Need Alternative Spaces
AI: Summary ©
AI: Transcript ©
Good.
Allah is
very beautiful to be here this evening. This
is a very very very interesting debate that
we have ahead of us. We're really excited
to to to sit here and to learn
and
to hear different perspectives
about some of the different realities that are
taking place
in the larger Muslim community.
And so today we're going to have a
debate
on
the issue of our 3rd spaces necessary.
I'm not going to define 3rd spaces, I'm
going to leave it to our 3rd spaces
team to define what that is,
and and and we'll start with that in
a couple of moments.
Before we before we get into that, I
do wanna mention, what was mentioned earlier. There's,
you know, there's a lot of challenges that
we face as a Muslim community today
in terms of,
young people being feeling disconnected from the mosque,
being unmasked,
young professionals
having a difficult time finding their space and
their place in the masjid,
there's,
issues around women and their space and their
place in the masjid
to the point as you all know or
as most of you have perhaps heard,
there there is for the first time in
America, it appears
an all women's mosque that has been
started,
in the LA area
and partly in response to some of these
realities
and,
issues surrounding arts and,
where does that, how does that fit in
with mass culture and all of these different
things
that, are going to be related to our
subject matter today. So we're going to let
the,
our esteemed guests,
debate this out, Insha Allah.
Some ground rules,
No no physical interaction between these 2 peep
between these two sides that's why I'm sitting
here. So I'm playing the bouncer today.
And, you know, we're gonna keep it civil.
I think that's why we chose the masjid.
That way we can't act act act act
a fool, you know, act crazy.
And,
anyways, we're gonna get into it. We're gonna
start by
first introducing
our our pro third spaces,
team
and they consist of brother Ahmed Piersdorf and
Piersdorf.
Correct? Peerstorf. Peerstorf
and Jose
Mujedddi.
Brother Ahmed
is a registered nurse, first of all before
all of that he's a wonderful friend of
mine before anything else, registered nurse specializing in
end of life care. In his work with,
Dust in Tribe, he coordinates an annual invite
only adventure challenge for men, which is an
amazing
amazing,
gathering,
and he records drum and voice compositions as
Sans Fife. His hope is to inspire himself
and others to meet life's challenges with creativity,
imagination, and humor.
So first of all, we welcome brother Ahmed.
Secondly,
on our pro third spaces team, Usteda Jose,
she is the cofounder of
mh4m,
mental health for muslims.com.
Mentalhealthforthenumber
muslims.com.
It was established in 2010 and cofounded by
doctor Nafisa Secunderi.
For nearly 20 years, sister Jose has been
actively involved in the Muslim community in the
San Francisco Bay Area and Southern California as
well working with the
Francisco Bay area
and Southern California as well working with numerous
organizations, too many to name.
And over the years,
she's been a Quran teacher and she's, lectured
throughout many different places
and has been blessed to interact with thousands
and thousands of Muslims in many different,
arenas. And she's also a freelance editor, writer,
and blogger
and several of her articles have been republished
by other publications
many of the large,
popular Muslim websites today. So with that,
I'm gonna
leave you I'm going to explain to you
the format for today. This is the first
time we're doing this at ISOC.
We are we are following in the footsteps
of our our
and I did consult with Sheikh Mustafa before
we, set this up today to get some
understanding of, you know, what's the ideal way
of doing this. So we're going to do
it this way.
We're going to have 3,
rounds, so to speak,
where the first team will give their presentation,
and then the second team will respond,
and then we'll go back to the first
team. They'll have their rebuttal, back to the
second team, and then back to the first
team,
for the last closing arguments and comments and
so forth, and then back to the other
team. We have 3 judges with us today
that are actually going to judge the debate.
So we wanted to do it, you know,
fully professional,
style. We have with us sister,
Amira Yousaf. She's one of the wonderful,
sisters on our program and services committee. One
of the people one of the main people
that's responsible for this event taking place today
and all of all of the other events,
that we have here at ISOC.
So welcome, sister Amira. And then we have
Yasir Abdul Khalek. It's hard for me not
to smile looking at his smiling face.
Yasir is an o c s graduate and
he's currently a 9th grade student at Fountain
Valley High School, and he is a certified
debate judge.
So we have an expert with us today.
All the rest of us are just observing.
We're gonna get me and you are gonna
get taken by
Ahmed's emotions and sister Jose's raising her voice
and and Amina's, you know, like,
her her her style and but they're gonna
judge it
the way a debate should be judged,
by the
by the process. And actually, and I do
want to say this,
it's very interesting when you look at the
debate process,
it's very close to how our olema,
they dealt with the text,
when they
when
they deriving rulings and so on and so
forth. They'll look
to
a point will be made
and then they'll follow it up with their
dalil, with their evidences.
And as the ulema they say,
if you make a claim, you have to
follow it up with evidence.
And if
you put forth a,
an evidence, it has to be an authentic,
you know, evidence. So anyways, that's kind of
the format we're using. And then we have
of course last but not least, our dear
young brother, Haritha Tahaaf,
who is,
an 8th grade soon to be o c
s, graduate
and he is currently serving on the debate
year for his 2nd year. And so we
welcome them. And in the end, we're gonna
hear from them a little bit, about some
observations about today's date. So we're gonna get
started with no further ado,
we're gonna turn it over to our,
first team.
Are 3rd spaces
necessary?
Can I can I ask the guy with
the certification, am I supposed to stand up?
More points?
Okay.
My name is Ahmed
Peerstorff.
I'm on the
facing you. We're on the left which we've
been conditioned to understand as the wrong side
of things.
However, I believe we're on your right. So
I just want you to keep that into
consideration.
Alhamdulillah. So I'm looking I'm looking at some
brothers over here and I I I don't
know you, gentlemen
with the glasses.
And I think I've seen I've definitely seen
the man with the beard and
the gray coop, but I don't know your
name.
I do know you
and I don't know you.
So
I could go on. The majority of folks
here I don't know and and that might
be a problem.
And one of the reasons that I don't
know you is I don't know where to
find you.
And even if I did know where to
find you,
my guess
is that that place would be so structured
that I would only get to know you
in that particular way
that the structure obligates.
There was a man I bought the book,
just to let you know I actually took
this seriously enough to spend some money.
Ray Oldenburg, he wrote a book, a sociologist,
1989. I think the book came out. It's
called The Great Good Place.
I haven't done a lot of reading on
sociology.
It's and and this has been a great
opportunity to bone up on some really really
interesting things. It gives us language, I think,
to articulate
some of the things that we're struggling with.
So I highly recommend,
at least a course in sociology. But anyway,
he happened to notice
that there were amazing things, important things, perhaps
even essential things happening
in those places
that fostered
informal
regular
congregation.
I want you to think about that for
a minute because this is this is a
really key point, informal
regular
congregation.
He called such a place a 3rd place,
and that's really in deference to
the essential places in our lives. The first
place,
right, which is home,
that place of rootedness.
And the second place
is that place where we finance
our endeavors, the workplace. These are essential.
The third place, he postulates, is not essential,
but without it,
highly detrimental. So what is a 3rd place?
A 3rd place, again, is that place
wherein people gather
not because they have to.
Informal,
regular
congregation. Not because they have to.
There is a particular
energy there
that draws them,
and that energy is actually rooted in the
fact that it is an unstructured environment.
There are no obligations.
There is no status attached to being there.
There is no shame attached to not being
there.
You come and you go
as you please.
And if enough people go,
they become what are known as regulars.
And the tone is set by the regulars.
And to be a regular doesn't mean you're
going to be there all the time, but
it means that chances are you might be.
And if you were a regular in the
3rd place
that I happen to be
passing through, I might get to know you
without the structure that forced us to end
a conversation that none of us are really
interested in.
So a third place
is that lovely,
unstructured,
open ended
set of possibilities.
And the Muslims knew about this possibility and
they encouraged that possibility and that is why
the courtyards of Andalusia
are as grand as they are. And the
courtyards
at Istanbul,
and Damascus, and Cairo,
it's just a big,
open place.
There's no agenda.
And people would show up and things would
happen.
Amazing things. Things that aren't happening today.
As a sociologist,
he watched people as they went to work,
as they went home,
and as they would travel to these third
places, you know what he saw? He saw
that that man who was tired from work,
walking to his car exhausted,
would pull up to that 3rd place,
open the door to his car. There was
a spring in his step.
And he would move into that 3rd place,
and he would gauge in light hearted conversation,
completely unstructured, completely unscripted.
Who was there?
Let's see.
Let's yuck it up for a few minutes.
And he would walk out of there there
excited,
refreshed,
eagerly anticipating,
what, his ride home?
The next time he could go back to
the 3rd place.
Right? There was a refresh there,
spiritual rejuvenation.
But there's a few things you have to
leave at the door when you walk into
a third place. Your status.
You have to be open to meeting people
who are outside of your cultural,
racial,
socioeconomic
class.
Different people gather there.
And the magic of the third place is
that it allows you to meet people and
engage with people that you would not otherwise.
From a personal standpoint, where third places are
accessible, people are happier.
Where 3rd places are acceptable
and where they are proliferated and where they're
encouraged,
there's less depression.
There's more security.
On a societal level,
you get civics. You remember civics? You remember
what it was like to be politically active
at a level that actually mattered? Not going
to the ballot box once every 4 years
to cast a vote that didn't really matter
which way you sent it.
Right? But to actually get something going in
your neighborhood.
So powerful is the third space,
so threatening is the third space to the
status quo, to the power structure, that it
has been effectively
engineered
out of our cities.
The suburbs, they're no mistake.
The suburbs are no mistake. There was a
time, there still are, you can stroll through
Vienna,
Vienna rather, the cafes of Vienna, right, the
tea houses
of of,
of the Middle East,
the coffee shops that you might go to,
the beer gardens in Germany,
where you'll never find anybody here.
Right?
What happens is you walk out of your
house regularly.
These third places are accessible. You don't get
in the car. You don't put it on
calendar.
You don't say, let's get together in such
and such a place.
It's there. It's on the corner.
People meet there regularly.
It's very dangerous.
It's very dangerous, which is why we had
to get rid of them.
Believe it.
Believe it.
That's what the suburbs are all about. You
don't need community.
You need a quarter acre lot
that you can spend the rest of your
life remodeling.
You can bring all the plants you want.
You can invite people. You can entertain.
Right?
But you want to get out there and
mix it up with people? No.
So we are imprisoned in our suburban homes,
completely isolated from our communities.
That's locking us up. Throwing away the key
is piping in
media that is laced with fear, all kinds
of false messages, that does what? Keeps you
from getting to know your neighbor. This is
engineered, folks. The third place
is dangerous
in the best possible way.
Because if we actually get to know each
other in that unstructured way that allows us
to meet one another at that human level,
we start to recognize, Hey, wait a minute.
Things aren't the way they ought to be.
And we might collectively think of ways to
change that.
And one voice becomes 5, and 5 becomes
10, and 10 becomes a hundred, and now
you have a movement, and it's because of
the coffee shop on the corner.
So I don't talk about a third place
as a reaction
to bias in the masjid. That's too small,
man.
I talk about it as a civic responsibility
that our forefathers knew about. Our Islamic forefathers
incorporated it into their city planning and their
architecture, and our American forefathers knew it when
they put it into the Constitution. What?
They protected the freedom of assembly
because they knew what despots were all about.
They knew that.
And if you didn't protect people's rights to
gather,
too much power would be concentrated,
and we would all suffer.
So there's precedent, my friends.
Oldenburg didn't find anything new.
He said, 'Man, don't forget what you had.
Don't forget what you had.'
So I am addressing you
not
from a religious standpoint
of finding an alternative space where we can
reinterpret the religion to suit particular sensibilities.
That's a co opting of an amazing
social phenomena, and I don't want anything to
do
with that. But I am approaching you from
the religious perspective of reminding you that you
are the Khalifa.
You are the leaders of society. You are
not the leaders of Muslims.
You are the leaders of humanity.
And it is a crime that we do
not have
these regular
places
where we can gather informally, where we can
talk, where we can share views, where we
can lay our biases at the door,
where we check our status and our politics
and everything else, and we just get to
know one another.
We need to be in our communities establishing
these places. It's easy. We are an upwardly
mobile bunch of people. You know what crushes
a third space? Capitalism. You don't want people
to stay. You want people to buy and
go.
I work. You work. You work. We got
good jobs.
4 or 5 of us. What are we
talking? $2.50, $500 a month? We rent a
place. We're at work all day. Our women,
our families, they run the shop, sell coffee,
have books. It doesn't matter if anybody buys
a thing. You've created a space in the
community for people to gather.
And it's run by Muslims.
And they don't rush you.
They say, come and stay. Sit a while.
Put up your feet.
Have a drink or don't. Read a book
or don't.
But I'm so happy to have you here.
Our pro 3rd space team.
So like I said in the beginning, we're
going to go back and forth between both
sides. So now we're going to give an
opportunity
to
our anti 3rd space team. That sounds so
rough.
Masjid. Pro masjid side. Okay.
Anti masjid. So we have 2,
wonderful members with us today representing
on my right. First of all is Sheikh
Mustafa Umar. Sheikh Mustafa is born and raised
here in OC, California.
He completed his BS in information and computer
science from UC Irvine
while studying Arabic and
getting a little bit of a taste of
studying some Sharia,
and that
basically set him off on a long life
journey of study. He studied at Nadwatul Ullama
in Lucknow, India,
then in Cairo, Egypt, and then he went
to France and he completed his degree in
Sharia and Theology and Islamic law,
in the Arabic medium from the European Institute
of Islamic Sciences.
He went on to serve the Muslim community
after he returned from his studies and he
was an imam at King Fahd,
Masjid and also the Islamic Society of Corona
Norco.
Now Sheikh Mustafa
is the
education
Sorry, then
he went to complete his masters
in the in the UK, in Britain, in
Islamic studies at the University of I can't
say this man. Gloucestershire.
Gloucestershire.
And then So Sheikh Mustafa he got his
masters there and now he is of course
as you all know the director of education
and outreach at the Islamic Institute of Orange
County and the founder and director of the
college of Islamic studies. It's a mouthful.
Sister
Amina
Amina, sorry. My mom's name is Amina but
we call her Amina and I get this
name and my daughter's name is Amina.
Amina
Galal obtained her BA in history from the
University of California, Irvine,
UC Irvine and then she did her masters
in social and cultural analysis
of education
for
Excuse me. Cal State Long Beach. In 2007,
she founded Muslima Entertainment, a non profit organization
which aims to provide a comfortable space for
females to discover and pursue the arts,
and,
she,
has a love for storytelling
and the performing arts. And now she is
back in school pursuing a degree in cinema
and TV production
at Saddleback College. So we will hand it
over to our,
pro Masjid side.
Assalamu alaikum. Bismillahirrahmanirrahim.
So what
team A
just described,
this is exactly what a masjid is supposed
to do.
And I don't think I need to clarify
that anymore but let's talk about the importance
of a mosque within a Muslim community. When
the prophet, peace be upon him, migrated to
the city of Madinah, and the Muslims were
actually liberated from the persecution in Makkah, one
of the first things he did was to
actually build a mosque.
Prior to building his own home,
prior to building any other types of institutions,
one of the first and most important things
before he even made it into the city
of Medina in Khuba, the main part of
Medina, he established a masjid there. Not a
third space, not some other way of people
to getting together, he established a masjid. And
the question is, why did he do that?
He did that because the masjid, the mosque
is considered an essential part of a Muslim
community and it serves many functions. So let's
ask, what is a mosque? What is a
masjid and what is it supposed to be?
Now, we can address these 2 ways. The
first way is we can say that, you
know what? A mosque is what Muslims are
doing. The mosque in my community does this,
the mosque in that community does that.
That's one way we can talk about it,
but that's not the way we're supposed to
look at it. The way we're supposed to
look at it is when people talk about
Islam, we always remind them, hey, whatever Muslims
do, that doesn't necessarily equate with what Islam
is. You wanna know what Islam is, you
go back to the sources, you go back
to what Allah said, you go back to
what the messenger of Allah salallahu alaihi wa
sallam said. So if we do that, we
should look at what the masjid is supposed
to be, Not necessarily what it may be
in my community or in your community or
in some random, you know, village out in
Alabama. Look at what it was supposed to
be. So what is the function of a
masjid?
There's a number of functions that you find
spread throughout the teachings of the prophet, peace
be upon him. The masjid served number 1
as a place of prayer,
a place of worship, a place of spirituality.
People can go there to reconnect with their
creator, reconnect with Allah. So that was number
1. And yes, there are some mosques perhaps
which try to reduce the function of a
mosque to be only that, but that is
something that people may do, not necessarily what
Islam has defined. So let's take a look
at other functions of the mosque, even during
the lifetime of the prophet peace be upon
him, and afterwards.
It was a place for education. People would
go and give lectures. The prophet would give
lectures. 1 of the first universities in the
world, the oldest oldest university
in the world, Al Azhar University, has still
survived today, began inside a mosque. So it's
a place of education.
It's a place for relaxation.
The companions, according to hadith and Ahmed Nasay
and Abu Dawood, they used to sleep in
the masjid.
Just whenever they feel like it, they would
just chill out. So what were they doing?
They weren't praying. They'd just go to the
masjid just to chill out. This is exactly
what builds a community and gets people to
get to one another. They used to have
celebrations,
walimas, aqiqas,
and when a child is born, all of
that. There was socializing taking place in masjid.
And even in masjid today, you find chai
nights and coffee nights and all of these
things. There was exercise taking place in the
masjid. They used to wrestle with one another,
not in
the NPR,
Inside the Musallah prayer area of the masjid.
There was a homeless shelter in the masjid
where the people known as al sufa, the
people of the platform used to live.
You'll find that even these
humanitarian
were being offered. The masjids served as a
hospital.
When Sa'd ibn Wa'al was hit by an
arrow in the battle of the trench,
the prophet himself set up a tent inside
the mosque to treat his wounds. And there
was another tent of another tribe being treated
of all their wounds. Where? Not outside. Not
in some other space. Not in some other
location. This isn't Sahil Bukhari. It was inside
the mosque, and he was bleeding. And the
blood was dripping down onto the floor of
the mosque, but the prophet, peace be upon
him, still chose to do it at that
point in time. Political decisions used to be
made inside the mosque. It served like the
white house.
Right? That's where the decisions would take place.
Entertainment
was happening inside the mosque. There was poetry.
You have in the Muslim, imam Ahmad, that
the the messenger
of Allah sallallahu alaihi wa sallam, he sat
with the companions
while they were narrating poetry.
Not Islamic poetry.
Pre Islamic Arabian poetry, and it says that
you used to even share a smile with
them,
congregating,
having a little laugh, having a little entertainment
among themselves,
and
the further last point of entertainment is there
was a spear throwing competition taking place inside
the mosque.
And Umar radhiallahu an, Umar came along and
he had a little bit, you know, he
thought this might be something bad. So he
said, this needs to be put to a
stop. You can't have a spear throwing competition
inside the prayer area of a mosque.
The prophet, peace be upon him, came along,
and this is in Bukhari and Muslim, it's
highly authentic. He came along and he said,
no, Umar. Let them be. Leave them alone
and they can continue doing what they're doing.
So we have to understand
that yes, there gonna be some people who
come along and say, hey, you shouldn't do
this, you shouldn't do that. Are you gonna
allow them to redefine what a mosque is
for you? Or do you wanna define what
a mosque is for yourself? So ask yourself
a few questions. Why did the prophet, peace
be upon him, do all of these functions
inside the mosque when he could have done
it in any other space?
Because it's an essential space for the community
which is above and beyond just the 5
daily prayers.
And ask yourself,
what kind of mosque do you want to
have in your community? Do you wanna have
a mosque which is just a prayer space,
or would you like a mosque with a
gym, with a swimming pool? Would you like
a mosque with a cafe? Would you like
a mosque with actual activities, with poetry competitions,
with nasheeds, with debates like this taking place
right here?
I
don't want a mosque that's just simply limited.
I want a mosque that has all of
these functions exactly the same way that the
prophet, peace be upon him, had done it
at
that
time.
And just to add on to what Sheikh
Khalifa was saying, salaikum, everyone.
I think it's important to realize that exactly
what brother Ahmed was actually describing,
the the openness of of what our forefathers
in in, in Turkey and in in the
Ottoman Empire and and then and and the
Lucia had in the open courtyards. If we
go even further back from the with the
forefathers during the time of the prophet sallallahu
alaihi wa sallam, just like Sheikh Musafo was
describing,
the beauty of the masjid was that that
was the one place where the minute you
enter the door, all social boundaries, all boundaries
based on social class,
gender, political affiliation, whatever it may be, race,
ethnicity, and everything, it was broken down completely.
And
Islam was the one model, and was the
one
sociological model that came, that actually
created that in a in a place that
was highly highly tribalistic.
So if we go back to what Islam
was saying, we have to realize that
as a community, and like what everyone was
saying, we have a lot of problems, and
there are problems stemming from within our community,
and there are problems stemming from America as
a society in general. We We have racism,
we have classism, we have ageism, we have
inequality between the genders. There's nobody denying all
of that. However,
the thing is is that
the a third space is a response to
that, but it's a very single focus response
to it. It's that the problem is a
lot more complex.
The core of the issue is a lot
more complex, and it actually goes back to
all of us as individuals.
Paul Willis, who is a very famous, British
sociologist and one of the leading theorists in
cultural theory and also in cultural studies and
also,
critical studies,
he talks about something called cultural production. And
cultural production is ideas that we're the space
that we live that we are in, in
an environment, it's shaped by the behaviors and
the attitudes of the people who are in
that environment. So if our environment is unwelcoming,
that's a direct reflection of what we are
as individuals and what we are at least
even maybe subconsciously bringing out. So the idea
is that,
as we sort of have to look at
both ourselves and we have to look at
the institution. Right? It's not just a problem
with the space, it's not a problem with
the physical space, it's not a problem that
if we change the physical space, it's gonna
go away.
The idea is we have to look at
both the masjid, and we have to look
at the institution, and we have to hold
the people who are facilitating this institution accountable,
and we also have to look at ourselves
as individuals.
And the idea that there's space and to
bring and we have to realize that our
diversity,
our differences,
our the the ability to be able to
talk to each other like brother Ahmed was
saying, that is what is gonna make us
successful as a community. And the only way
that we can break these barriers and do
that is if we get to know one
each one another. And if we continue to
fragment ourselves
by whatever group we feel most comfortable with
into different third spaces and into different, you
know, places instead of being centralized
in the masjid, that's actually not gonna allow
us to be able to break these stereotypes.
One of the major ways that stereotypes are
broken in the United States or in in
the world is when people are physically
present in the environment. And if we're not
physically present in the masjid, if we are
not putting our 2¢, if we are not
bringing our ideas in, if we're not bringing
our talents in, if we are not knocking
on the door of the masjid board and
telling them, here's what we want our masjid
to be, then we can't say that, you
you know, we can't say that the problem
is the masjid because at the end of
the day, the problem is us. It's not
the physical space, it's the people who are
in it. And like Sheikh Mustafa was saying,
the importance of the masjid is for us
to facilitate that beautiful,
you know, ability to be able to walk
in and just be ourselves, to be able
to walk in and meet people, and spark
ideas, and build and build ourselves as a
community, and in turn, build the society that's
around us because we are supposed to be
leaders of humanity.
I'm gonna take that. So I'm gonna take
that time. So what
what we can do here is a few
argument points. Alright?
First of all, I would like this opposite
side, I would like
this side to explain to me why can't
a masjid
do exactly what you just described? What's wrong
with the masjid? What's wrong with the fact
that you put a prayer place in an
area, why can't the masjid do exactly what
you just described? It's number 1. Number 2
is I'm arguing that we need to fix
the problems in the mosque just like sister
Amina was saying. So that's what we need
to be doing. Number 3, the 3rd space,
if you make a 3rd space, it's gonna
be prone to the exact same problems that
a mosque has because there are human beings
inside of that institution, and there're gonna be
people
coming from the exact same masjid, or from
the same background, or from are you gonna
I mean, what is the ideal? Are you
gonna limit people and say, you know what?
Because desi is our problem, no desi is
allowed in the 3rd space. Or Arabs are
a problem, so I know Arabs allowed in
the 3rd space. How are you actually gonna
regulate that? Alright? And lastly,
pushing for a third space
actually will sidetrack
us from the responsibility
that every single Muslim has to either fix
our own masjids
or to build new ideal masjids by because
the third space will just divert that energy
and divert those talents away from actually solving
the real problem that we have. So what
are some of the solutions they may ask?
Well, what are your solutions to the problems
of the massage? There are several but I'll
just throw a few out there. Number 1,
mosques are under financed. They're understaffed. So instead
of opening up another place and putting more
money into that, just put some more money
into the masjid and get better staff. Number
2, the majority of decision makers and board
members on most masajid have little to no
formal or even informal Islamic education, and this
is a major problem. Number 3, mosques are
constantly lacking motivated volunteers to actually, you know,
make some positive change in the masjid. And
number 4, we need to just make the
masjid what Islam wanted a masjid to be.
And that's what we need to focus on,
serve the needs of the community.
Thank
you.
Let's let's keep our takbir and and so
forth till the end, inshallah,
and just listen to the arguments
as starting to get heated,
which is good.
Like I said, that's why I'm here.
So we're gonna go back now to our
first team. By the way,
we do have time for questions at the
end for everybody at the end. So,
Abdulhaman, do we have a phone number? Okay.
There's a phone number here posted right in
front of me. You can text your your
questions,
to to that number and, inshallah, we'll be
ready for you at the end. But like
I said, we're gonna go through the rounds
first. So we're gonna turn it over to,
pro
3rdspace.
Assalamu
alaikum.
Raise your hand for me if you've heard
of the Whitestone
Foundation.
Did anybody take that survey?
Raise your hand if you took the survey.
No? No?
So, a few months back, this survey was
going around by this organization called the Whitestone
Foundation.
And it's basically
an organization that's really
the intent of it is to try to
help Muslim organizations
build their resources and just really strengthen
themselves. And so the survey that went out,
I remember going through it, it was very
lengthy.
And as I read through each question,
it sort of dawned on me that they
were asking me questions
that I had never really considered before,
questions about what I would want
ideally in my, you know, local Islamic center
or masjid, you know, what things were missing,
what kind of classes did I want, What
type of structures
would I want? A gym, someone mentioned, you
know, having
sort of a center, a youth center, these
types of things. But as I went through
the survey, I kind of realized, like, subhanAllah,
there's so many things missing
from
our masajids,
from our Islamic centers.
On Sunday, my my son, he plays basketball,
and I went to
this Jewish center in Irvine.
And I walked into this place absolutely in
awe. It is beautiful.
They have everything you can imagine,
a cafe. How many have you been there?
Right? A cafe,
a basketball court, that's where he plays basketball,
and I
just walked in there, and the entire time,
I swear to God, I felt I mean,
happy for them,
hamdulillah, they've been able to establish this, but
so sad and empty for our community because
we have nothing. I can't even think of
one place in this area, with all the
amount of wealth
and the amount of organizations and brilliant people
who are in these positions, I can't think
of one, and maybe because I'm relatively new
to this area, maybe
I can't think of one, and maybe because
I'm relatively new to this area, maybe there
is one, but I don't know of any
place where a sister can go and swim.
Sisters, raise your hand if you want to
swim. Tell me that you write, We want
to swim, brothers.
We want to swim.
But we don't have a place.
There's nowhere for us to go.
And if you see a sister put out
a notice for a for a pool party,
watch out. It's like there's 50 girls there
and there's like a little inch that you
can swim in, because everybody hovers to that,
you know, but we are desperate for places
where we can go and just be ourselves
and relax
and not worry about rules and this and
that, and I think that's the problem.
Musafa asked, why can't the must should be
that place is because
we haven't done the forward thinking and that's
really the purpose of a third space is
what we call intentional
community building. You don't wait to create a
structure and then realize there's a lot of
problems in the community and then go, uh-oh,
what can we do? And that's exactly, unfortunately,
for how many
decades now that we've had an established Muslim
community in this country, what we've been doing.
We have been catching up. We have been
looking at our community and every time there's
a problem that arises, we try to address
it but, uh-oh, there's not enough resources, there's
not enough staff as was mentioned, there's not
enough experts in this area. It gets shelved,
it gets shelved, it gets shelved to the
point where what are we doing now?
As was mentioned, we're barely making rent. I
have been in I've worked in masajids where
there's not enough funds to pay the staff,
there's not enough funds to clean, bathrooms are
filthy after every jama'at. Raise your hand if
you've had that experience. You go into a
masjid, the bathrooms are filthy.
Why? Because the resources aren't there.
So that's why we can't turn to the
masjid because we haven't done that forward thinking.
So when we talk about 3rd space, it's
not a response, it's not an anti masjid
move. It's about looking at the community
holistically.
What are the holistic needs of our community?
And it's 2015,
things have changed. We are looking at American,
second generation,
third generation youth who have been raised in
this culture, who identify first as American, they
don't speak
their parents' native languages, they identify very much
with the culture
around them. So things have changed, and we
haven't yet caught up to that. Did you
know, and I just learned this today,
across
the country,
the majority of the leaders in our masajids
are age 52 and above.
Age 52
and above.
How do we expect our young American teens
to be able to connect with someone with
such a huge generation gap?
How can we expect that?
The stories that I've heard personally from people
who have been, which we'll share, we'll get
to, these are the types of thoughts we
have to think about, that we haven't yet
done that forward thinking, and that's what the
third space is about. It's about trying to
resolve the issues that we have right now
in the interim until our masajids get to
where they need to be, until we can
look to our leadership to think about these
things, to think about, for example, I belong
to a masjid that doesn't have an elevator.
What about our, you know, the brothers and
sisters who are, you know, you know, who
have disabilities?
We might have a wheelchair ramp, but what
do they do? The sister who is who
is in a wheelchair, if she cannot get
to the 2nd floor,
how is she supposed to enjoin the prayer
with her fellow sisters? This is the type
of forward thinking that we haven't done. And
so until we get to that point where
we can resolve a lot of these issues
in our institutions,
we can't just leave that demographic
without a place. That's why the 3rd space
is necessary. Bring them in, keep them in
because the alternative is what? What are our
youth doing? Look on Instagram. You do an
thing right now, you'll see a bunch of
Muslim youth, hijabis,
brothers, what are they doing?
Right? Halos. What are the halos?
Where are they getting together?
Are they not at the hookah bars?
They're at those hookah bars, that's where their
third space is now. Everybody is in the
hookah because they're open late, you can go
in there and eat, you can go there
and talk politics, no one's going to judge
you.
Is that what we want?
Is that the alternative? Because our masjids are
closed after Isha.
So got it. A little bit. Okay. So,
in direct response to,
Sheikh Omar's question, why can't a masjid be
a third place? So I would say,
that, Muhammad in his infinite
wisdom
granted him by Allah,
he
he
he met the sociological
needs, of his community by creating what was
in effect a third space, if we if
we put it in its particular historical and
cultural context.
Masjid, as currently administered,
do not meet the criteria
of a 3rd space,
and are not likely to any any anytime
in the near future because they are in
effect designed to protect
and isolate
a particular point of view from the larger
community.
So the very establishment of a Masjid, while
it meets the religious
requirements and needs of the Muslim community,
we have to understand what it means
in the larger whole that we find ourselves
in. So the idea of having a third
space that actually connects us to the larger
community,
which is in fact what the masjid at
the time of the Rasool
did, it was a homogeneous
it was a homogeneous group. It served a
completely different purpose. We are a heterogeneous group
with the symbols mean different things. We introduce
a certain level of structure that obviates the
3rd space
aesthetic.
I don't want to fight the board to
have a majlis avika.
This the presence of structure
that completely disallows
the free and open expression of things that
are countenanced within the faith,
given a particular emphasis, one group or another,
is already problematic
in our message that is currently administrated.
Now,
that is compounded by the fact that we
do not provide that nexus that allows for
the larger community to engage with us in
any kind of way that is meaningful or
productive. And I wanna close Sister Amina's loop.
Yes,
our places are a reflection of our condition
but our places also reinforce our condition. And
domestic turmoil
domestic turmoil,
I would say, is is symptomatic
of spaces
of spaces
that create disparities
and create certain sets of expectations that if
they can't be realized in the community, we
wonder how we can effectively realize them in
our home. My daughter is acting like this.
My husband is acting like that. You wanna
treat them gently?
The masjid won't. Why should I?
Okay.
There's no coincidence by the way that I'm
the one standing between the Masjid and the
3rd space. This is my last day on
the job.
So,
you know, I'm not here nor there right
now. I'm not sure where I'm at. So
I'm gonna turn it over to our pro
masjid side.
To start off with the the last point
that brother Ahmed brought up,
the structure is structure was initially built by
individuals, so it still goes back to the
individuals who are have influence and whenever we
brought that about. It starts with the individual,
it goes into the structure, and then it
perpetuates,
and we are the ones who are continuing
to perpetuate it because that is a cycle
that can be broken. It's not a cycle
that's fixed, it's not a cycle that is
nailed to the door, you know, with iron
and steel. It's something that we can break
as human beings, it's if we make the
conscious effort to actually change that. So one
of also one of the points that,
one of the points that he also brought
up was that at the time of the
prophet was it was possible, alaihis salaam, time
of the prophet
that it was possible because
it was a homogeneous group.
Right? And and that they were able to
build the meet their sociological
needs. The fact is, the time of the
companions, that was not a homogeneous group. There
were people from all over the world who
are who came to Medina. There were people
from all over the world who were who
were used to be slaves, there were people
who are higher class, there were males, there
were females. It was most definitely not a
homogeneous group, and they were able to do
it because they stuck to the structure that
was put
within Islam
for community building. And that structure is based
actually on even just the idea that a
lot of sociologists push now of collaboration,
of coming together,
of being able to bring our talents and
our and our energies together, and to bring
all of that into the masjid. So as
sister Hasai was saying is that the problem
is that the, you know, the lack of
forward thinking and the lack of being able
to start putting, you know, how long are
we gonna wait for masjids? But if we
keep building
this outside,
the masjid is not gonna magically change overnight.
Right? Nobody has a Harry Potter wand that's
suddenly gonna come and just, you know, wave
it, and suddenly the masjid is going to
become, you know, everything that we all dream
that it would be. It has to be
from the community to change it. Is there
gonna be roadblocks?
Absolutely.
There are roadblocks
whether it's it's in terms of leadership, there
are roadblocks in terms of ourselves as a
community because we do have problems and we
do have ideologies that we need to break.
So what are some of these solutions? What
are some of the things that can that
can happen? Adding on to what Sheikh Mustafa
had said earlier
is that we need to stop thinking about
all the deficits and all the problems that
we have. That can't be the perspective that
we have. We have to start thinking about
how much wealth and richness we have in
our community,
and realize that we each bring different wealth
and richness, and start facilitating that.
There's actually a very famous sociologist who's at
UC Santa Barbara. Her name is, doctor Tara
Yosso, who I was really honored to be
able to talk to her one time. And
she has this whole theory that is based
in my in for minority communities, which we
are a minority community even though we are
racially
very different.
But in terms of that, it was it's
this idea of community cultural wealth. So we
need to start looking inside of our communities
and start seeing, okay, what what's our strengths?
Our strengths is that we are ethnically diverse,
and we can break that barriers and still
unite on on one thing when the rest
of the world is having trouble doing that.
Right? Our strengths is that we have doctors
and and,
and artists, and we have,
people of different,
you know,
fields and people of different education levels and
people of different social levels and economic levels,
all in our community, and yet we can
still unite under Islam and under the boundaries
of and under the Quran and the sunnah
and the and the prophetic
prophetic model. So, I think it's very important
to realize that we have to start thinking
from that perspective. We have to start seeing,
okay, what are our positives and let's do
it. And as a community, we have to
even individually start breaking down
the minute things that perpetuate the problems that
are talked about.
So are we saying racial slurs when we're
not realizing it? Are we being in a,
offensive to people when we're not realizing it?
We have to keep that in mind while
we're speaking. We have to start becoming cautious
individually, and we have to hold people
accountable and start calling each other out, and
we have to start pushing that door to
change the masjid. Because if we continue to
fragment our resources, and if we continue to
change everything within our society,
sorry, if we continue to fragment our resources
and we continue to sort of separate ourselves
in all these different spaces,
nothing is going to change. We're going to
maintain
being disunited, and we're going to maintain not
being able to be together as one community,
and actually see our
diversity as beauty.
So they answered one of my 4 contentions,
but just talking about that one contention is
why can't the masjid do this? Well, the
answer was, well, masajid don't have money. Does
that mean like 3rd spaces are automatically lined
with gold when you open them up? Masajid
bathrooms are dirty. So are there self cleaning
bathrooms when you form a 3rd space?
Imams are old, 52 and older. They have
time machines, all of a sudden, automatically become
younger. Anyone can make a third space as
well. So the same problems that you're describing
in the masajid, they're not the 3rd space
is not immune from those problems. And if
you're saying for example, well, you know what?
They're going to 3rd spaces like smoking weed.
So are you saying that weed is gonna
be allowed? And if weed is not allowed
in your 3rd space, then what's the incentive
to go there? Why would they leave their
weed and go to your 3rd space? Right?
If you say you have to debate with
the masjid, you know, to have a sufi
zikr circle or something like that, open up
sufi masjid and go ahead and have your
zikr circle and you don't have a problem
with that. Salafis can open up hardcore crazy
salafis. I'm not trying to pinpoint people. They
can open up their 3rd space, and no
zikr is gonna be allowed in there, right?
Because it's the Salafi third space. But the
problem is that we're not addressing the root
cause of the problem. You're you're assuming that
the root cause of the problem is the
masjid, but it's not actually the masjid. Now,
this phraseology of 3rd space that we keep
hearing is intrinsically problematic.
The idea of the 3rd space originated with
a social theorist by the name of Homi
Bhabha. And what he did was, he wrote
a book, it was published in 1994,
republished in 1994.
He was trying to describe how colonized people
were actually resisting the power of the colonizer.
So what he said was, he says, the
third space is the space where the oppressed
people actually plot their liberation.
Now is that how we view our ummah?
Is that how we view the Muslims? That
they're a colonizer,
the oppressor, and we need to somehow liberate
ourselves from them?
Again, masajid
are not the issue because if we were
living in Arabia, we were living in Iran
or some random place, whatever it is, you
can't open your own masjid. You need a
third space to plot against that power structure.
I totally understand it. I'll be the first
one in that third space, the first one
in the cafe. In America, you can start
your own 501c3.
You could literally
copy and paste the bylaws,
you can register the nonprofit in 10 minutes,
and you can start your own space, and
immediately, the shura council would even approve
your application to them and you'll be part
of Muslim community. So if the problem is
the masjid,
then something else is going on. If the
problem is the community, then you need to
figure out how to either fix your community
or start another masjid which doesn't have these
problems. Doctor Hassan Bugbee, he wrote a report
in 2011
about the state of masjid in America.
And he said, from the year 2000 to
2011,
the number of mosques almost doubled to 20
over 21100
in America. And he said, Muslims are so
diverse, such a diverse community,
many people
left one masjid and they started their own
masjid in order to establish
what a masjid should be according to their
vision and according to their understanding of Islam.
So the question is the problem is the
idea of a third space
automatically
assumes
that the concept of a masjid people praying,
having 5 daily prayers and having a jumah
is what is causing the root cause of
all of these problems. Masjid and why would
it be clean bathrooms inside of a third
space? Why is it that all of a
sudden, a third space would have more money
but for some reason, a masjid
doesn't have money?
So this is one contention I'll remind you
of,
the other contentions that I brought up previously
is that, well, how do you plan on
fixing the problems in the mosque? And how
do you
prevent the third space from having the exact
same problems that are happening in the masajid.
Are you not gonna have any rules at
all or you're gonna have some rules to
exclude people? Thank
you.
Last
round.
Last round, just gonna be a quick
conclusion and
closing statements.
And so let's make it concise. We have
6 minutes each side. And then we're taking
questions. In the meantime, the number is up
here if you wanna text your questions in.
I wanna restate the original,
the original
framework
that, Oldenburg
proposed in his analysis
of those
unstructured
places
that were regularly frequented with no other agenda
than to be with people.
With no other agenda
than to be with people.
He identified those places, and he called them
3rd places.
So we're not talking about creating
something,
that has a new power structure.
We're not talking about creating a power structure
that is in competition with an existing power
structure. The answer to how I am going
to fix the mosque is I'm going to
let you do that.
I'll show up
and I'll do what I've been asked to
do.
And when I'm looking for a little bit
of rejuvenation,
if you're offering me something in that space
that will help me to feel that way,
I'll take full advantage of it.
But I will also take initiative
to reintroduce
civic life,
not to Muslims, but to people.
The people that gather with me in the
masjid and the people that are in the
neighborhood surrounding.
And I will work to establish
those spaces
where we can get together
without any other agenda,
where we can enjoy one another's company,
where we can share a few stories,
and call it a night.
A lot of the questions that were brought
up, I think we're going to have to
wait for the Q and A, Sheik O'Shevos,
because of time. But I think,
again, just to reiterate
that part of the problem with the narrative
going around with this whole discussion is that,
yes, this term third space has been
unfortunately,
co opted to mean something that's in a
competition with the masjid, and we've been saying
that it's not. It has nothing to do
with that. We want our masajids to continue
to flourish. We want people to come and
support the masjid. It's not about, you know,
having a space that's going to provide an
alternative where people will no longer come to
the masjid. It's about looking at reality. We
cannot just keep looking at the glory days
of Islam and looking at how things were
and saying, this is how it should be.
This is how it should be. This is
how it should be. That's not a solution.
That's just, you know, patting ourselves on the
back, which, alhamdulillah, we all are very good
at doing. The reality is, let's talk about
how it is.
And that's the problem, is that how it
is is not how it should be, and
therefore you have other problems that come out
of that. When you have,
again, masajids that don't include
or that don't offer services and classes and
that are not inclusive, that actually
force people out, I have seen it with
my own eyes, where post 911,
I remember I was at a masjid,
and again,
how how this is a problem that is
very commonplace in a lot of masajid across
the country, where a sister, she was a
non Muslim, she was reporting on the Muslim
community post 9 11, she walked into the
Musalla area without a headscarf,
and someone, call them the religious police, they're
everywhere,
he came from all the way at the
other end and pushed her out
and said, You cannot be in here, and
he started yelling her. And I remember we
had to come, I was teaching at the
time, at the Islamic school there. She was
shaking.
She was so afraid.
What had I just done? She didn't know
what she did wrong because he didn't even
bother to take time to explain to her,
he just kicked her out. So this is
the existing problem and they're everywhere. If you
go to any community, you'll hear these stories.
I have heard them time and time again.
I'm in a position where a lot of
sisters and brothers will, you know, over the
years
in private counseling sessions, have explained different things
that have happened to them. And even last
Friday, we had a halakat at ICOI, and,
you know, this discussion came up. And we
talked about a sister, and this is a
true story. She's a friend of mine, actually
this happened to her, where she was at
a masjid in the local area, this was
just maybe a year or 2 ago, and
she was doing,
and I don't want to point you out,
but this sister right here, do you see
how her legs or her ankles are crossed?
Her ankles were crossed, and someone came up
to her and said,
Haram, you can't have your feet crossed. This
is a Christian symbol.
You have to get out of the masjid.
And she tried to kick her out of
the masjid.
So these are the diseases, the social diseases
that we're dealing with in our community,
and if you have people who feel they
can no longer
be a part of
a community or, you know, a masjid because
of fear that they're going to be ostracized,
that they're going to be condemned because of
the way they dress or nail polish or
whatever, they're not going to want to come
back, and that's exactly what's happening. I know
many people who have felt
unwelcome in these places. So we're not talking
about creating a space to compete with the
masjid, we're talking about
keeping these people in so that they don't
disappear,
so that they don't leave our community.
And that's unfortunately the alternative. There are many
people out there who are calling these people
and saying, You know what?
You don't feel welcome? Come on our side.
Come to our side. We'll welcome you. We'll
take you as you are. You're gay? I
mean, this is is a very serious issue
in our community. I've had people ask me,
What do you do
with Muslim teens who are struggling with homosexuality?
They can't go to the masjid. They're afraid
to go talk to the imam about it.
What's going to happen to them?
I mean, can you imagine if that happened
during a khutbah or a lecture series, somebody
raises their hand and brings that issue up?
It would be just everything, you know, god
knows what would happen. But the point is
is they don't even feel safe. It's not
a safe space for them to do that.
And a lot of people, this is how
they feel, unfortunately. So we're talking about the
reality,
not
what was and what should be. Insha'Allah, we
get there. We pray to Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala that we get there. But in the
interim, what's the solution?
Let's not lose any more people. Let's not
lose our youth.
Please,
let's try to find solutions. And that's the
function of a third space. It's to try
to provide a solution that will protect
these people who have felt these things as
a result of
our institutions not doing what they should have
done in the beginning, which is making inclusive
spaces, making spaces that have considered all of
these problems, and really trying to be exactly
like the models that were presented by our
other speakers, as was the son of the
prophet to include everybody. One of the greatest
hadith that I'm sure we all know is
what happened to the man who urinated in
the masjid. Why do we all feel so
moved by that hadith?
Because he shows compassion,
he shows tolerance,
he shows
he he calmed everybody down and allowed this
human being to who was doing something so
terrible to finish, and then he taught with
mercy and kindness. Unfortunately, that's not a reality
that we have in many messages across the
country because of of the problems that were
mentioned. So on that note, we'll end. Thank
you, sister Jose.
Mister T. Michelle.
There was
a few interesting so I I think she,
sister Hussai is actually on to something and
that is if we just follow the teachings
of the prophet, peace be upon him, in
our own masajid, we can actually solve all
of the problems, and therefore we don't need
third spaces afterwards. So I think that was
a pretty strong argument there. Let me reframe
this debate by the way. So this debate
is not about, do we feel welcome in
mosques and are they awesome places?
The debate is not, do mosques have problems?
The issue or the debate topic here is,
do we really need 3rd spaces?
And to further that,
will 3rd spaces solve the problems in our
communities
throughout our Muslim community? Because there are mosque
going, you know, members of the vast majority
is mosque going member of community. But to
bring it back to Oldenburg,
what, brother Ahmed was saying.
Oldenburg actually writes that there are a few
characteristics
of what this third place is supposed to
function as. He says it should be free
or inexpensive,
which is exactly what the masjid is. It
should have food and drink, which is what
most masjid have. It should be highly accessible
in the people's locality, which is exactly what
the function of building masjid
throughout every single Muslim community is. It should
involve regulars, yes, which is what happens. It
should be welcoming and comfortable. Just make a
welcoming committee, you got a problem your problem
solved. Both new friends and old friends,
should be found there, and this is what
you find in the masjid. So the the
to to bring it back, what we have
is,
if we wanna talk about a third space,
the masjid is a third space in the
context of
the oppression
that is taking place, the oppression of materialism
in the society that we live in. It's
a refuge. It's a safe haven from getting
away from the secularism,
this this, idea of everything is about this
dunya and about this world and nothing else
matters. That third space that mosque is a
third space trying to get away from that.
So let me bring back my challenge questions.
Okay?
So why don't you just open up a
masjid that does the same thing as the
third space was going to do? I want
you to imagine imagine. I wanna conclude with
this. I want you to imagine there's a
functional third space that's building an awesome Muslim
community.
All of a sudden,
if you incorporate it and you designated it
as a masjid, and you add a a
jumakutba in there,
is all of a sudden the masjid gonna
be completely destroyed? That space is all of
a sudden, it's just gone. And if the
That space is all of a sudden is
just gone? And if the answer is, yes,
it will be gone, I would like to
know why. And if the answer is, no,
it's
not gonna be gone, then why not have
masajid?
Instead of investing in some other space? Clean
up our
will fix the Muslim community problems.
And to add on the stories that sister
Hussein was saying, there it sort of actually
reemphasizes the point that I was saying in
the very beginning is that it goes back
to human behavior. It was that person who
went and said that crossing your ankles is
is a Christian symbol. It was that person
who went and pushed his sister out of
the the prayer hall. It wasn't the physical
wall of the measured. It wasn't the place
of the the community that that did that.
It was those individuals. So it's our behavior
that come it comes back to our behavior
and our mentality as individuals who in turn
are the ones who are building the Masjid
and who are running these Masjid.
So and also, one thing that I found
slightly problematic is saying that the the only
other alternative out there is that people are
going to be leaving Islam, and that people
are going to be accept completely going out.
And that's not true. It's not black and
white. There's there's other alternatives, and that alternative
is what myself and Sheikh Mustafa have been
saying is that we just go in and
we fix our masajid or we build masajid
that are built on that prophetic model that
we will wish to get to. Insha'Allah.
So that means that we have to come
in and yeah. We do have to fix
a lot of things. We do need better
youth programs. We have we don't have a
single youth program. Sorry, Southern California. But we
don't have a singers youth program that's actually
built
by credentialed
youth workers and educators who are able to
maintain a very strong youth program that keeps
in the mind the psychology, the social context,
the development, and all of that of these
youth, and that is actually
there throughout the week for youth. Friday night
is just not enough. Right? So we need
to build that youth program. We need to
be build leadership programs
that are built by people who actually understand
leadership development. We need to build, you know,
we have to have the people who are
writing Masjid understand what running a Masjid means.
And we have to be able to be
able, as a community, to voice our concerns
about that. Instead of going out and building
another space, instead of going out and putting
resources,
you know, in something that it doesn't that
isn't necessary, we can put that back into
our community
and talk about it. That's the solution. We
are being real. We're not ignoring the realities
out there. We are saying that there are
problems. There are people walking away, but it's
that we have to start realizing that as
individuals,
we're the reasons that sometimes people are are
leaving away. We're the ones who are saying
racial slurs. We're the ones who are being
microaggressive
to,
to women or to even people with disabilities.
The fact that a message doesn't have an
elevator is actually a problem. Why didn't we
think of that? And we should and we
should start building that in our masjid.
If women if we don't feel welcome and
we do have problems in the masjid, if
we want more women's scholars or access to
more women's scholars,
let's become women's scholars. Right? We're not gonna
be able to pull out women's scholars who
are not currently in the community
and keep complaining about it if we're not
willing to go and become what is missing.
That's the fact of the matter. Just as,
like, they were saying that we have to
go and and give that, you know, the
in in turn have these 3rd spaces for
everyone. Well, let's bring all of that into
our community. Let's unite ourselves the way that
we're supposed to,
and let's be able to realize that our
diversity and our our differences and the way
that we can come together and collaborate,
the best way for community building in all
ways of and in
Alright, judges.
What do you have for us?
Assalamu alaykum.
This was a very nice heated debate.
So we just like to go over like
We'd like to go over like the strengths
of each team and then their main points
and then we're gonna go over at the
end who won
and why.
So like
Okay. So we like to start For example,
like brother brother Ahmed here, he was very
passionate, he was very visual, he gave us
examples.
And,
she was very factual, she connected with the
youth and so on.
And Sheikh Mustafa on the other side,
he
was citing,
Sheikh Bukhari. He was very straightforward.
He addresses the other the opposing points and
he was very historical, he gave us a
good historical background.
And Sister Amna
with an exeresha
Sheikh Mustafa,
she she made it personal to everyone, how
they can help, how how it was like
to a philosophical level, how we can how
we could do it like within ourselves even,
and how that can affect the masjid as
a whole.
So the main points for the pro masjid
side
would be the masjid is everything a 3rd
space
is. The masjid is defined
by the Prophet
like his mosque and how individuals shouldn't redefine
it and that's the problem.
And 3rd space is prone to the same
problems
as Masai al Jid. So that the last
point was their main point. And then for
the pro 3rd space side, it was that
it was a 3rd spaces were a place
for people that
minorities, people that don't feel welcomed at the
Masjid.
It's a place where
forward thinking is needed,
and how structure limits us, and how like
the board, and the hierarchy, and the politics
of the Masjid
really limits the people's thinking.
And so,
Alright. So now we're going to go on
to who won and why. So we so,
the judges decided to give this debate to
the pro Masjid side
and this is because the pro Masjid side
had a stronger impact because they better supported
their points
in a sense that they gave like they
listed Mashallah, like they said how the Masjid
at the time of the Prophet was a
place of prayer, education,
celebration,
so on and so forth, and how the
Masjid presence is already there
and therefore,
instead of
deviating and dividing the resources,
it needs to be united and we need
to focus our resources on strengthening the masjid.
So
Alright. So thank you. Alright.
Sorry. I'm totally gonna hijack this. Sheikh Sahil,
I did not know that today was your
last day. And,
I have to I'm sorry. I have to
do this.
I just wanna say
for everything that you have done for the
last couple of years.
You have had such a huge impact on
every single person in my family, and everybody
that I know in this community.
And, Orange County will not be the same.
And, we're not just losing you, we're also
losing your wife who's done so much for
us. So, and
may Allah bless you in whatever endeavors you
pursue. Yeah. I just wanna add us some
stuff, like, real quick because I know it's,
like, 10:02. I know people wanna get home.
Some people are usually asleep by now. I'm
usually asleep by now. So
I just wanna add some stuff real quick.
I just wanna add,
so I've already judged a few tournaments and
I debated 3 years before that.
Obviously, those kids are middle schoolers and I
didn't expect, obviously, I knew your guys' level
of debate was gonna be far superior to
theirs. But I wanna say this was an
outstanding debate outstanding debate. It was lovely to
watch. I feel truly honored that I got
to be considered someone that gets to judge
you guys. It felt like it felt like,
you know, a special thing to me.
Right when right when brother Ahmed started talking,
I knew this was gonna be just such
an in informational, educational thing.
Every single speaker that every single speaker that
came and sat came and said something, said
something that really that I am gonna carry
throughout my life, and I just wanna thank
you guys.
I just wanna thank you guys for giving
me these lessons.
And, I also wanted to say,
from each side, both of you guys taught
me something very special.
From the pro masjid side, I take with
me that, sister Amina, you said,
a lot of people
like, we're not having, like, official youth groups
led by people that actually know what they're
doing.
Because, see,
it's a I know it's sort of an
odd comparison to make but you remember the
outrage back with all that stuff that happened
in Ferguson. Everyone was comparing about everyone was
complaining about the police department, how corrupt they
are. Complaining and rioting and destroying all those
buildings didn't do anything. You can't fix the
system from the outside. You have to go
you have to become the system. You can
only you can only fix the system if
you are the system.
So I thought that was something I took
from you guys.
And and,
from the pro 3rd space people,
you guys really, like, when brother Ahmed talked
it when brother Ahmed talked and sister Haseh
talked, you guys really connected with me. Like,
me, I'm in my freshman year of high
school and I'm I'm not gonna lie, all
the time I don't feel I fit in.
Even when I come to the masjid, I
don't feel all the time like I fit
in. You really connected with me and you
really, like, you know, you touched me. You
know what I mean? Emotionally and mentally. And
I thank you guys for that. Thank you
all for coming out.