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hamdu Lillahi Rabbil alameen wa sallahu wa salam ala
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alihi wa sahbihi Ah,
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so I realized that it's Friday, and it's
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430 or so, which means you're extremely sleepy. We've already, you know, survived a hook by this
afternoon. And then, you know, now there are three speakers that are going to come in for you. So I
understand the challenge that I have, and actually more so you have because I can stay away because
I'm talking. But you have to stay awake by listening, which is a lot harder. But what I want to
share is not very complicated, and I don't think it will take you in the whole 20 minutes. It's
really a heart to heart that I want to have with all of you. And something that I've been thinking
about for the past few weeks personally in my life and the life of my family and my children.
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And that is that the the very fundamental premise on which all of our faces based,
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which is the subject matter of this session, is under attack. And then we are building a
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an artificial picture of Islam personally for ourselves in our communities, oftentimes, that is
really very hollow at its core. And this is a very dangerous trend. And it really makes me shiver.
When I think about the way online expresses this problem.
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The profit sighs I was warned about a dangerous group of people within the ranks of those who call
themselves Muslim. And the big crime that a lot of tribes they have is that they say they believe
their mouths, but their hearts haven't come to believe their hearts have not yet experienced
something called faith.
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This problem is a very serious one. And I want to start in this conversation with something very,
very basic. The fibula is not something that found after you become Muslim. All human beings enjoy
this predisposed sense of decency, that allows origin and pre programmed and all of us a sense of
commitment to truth, to fairness, to mercy, to courtesy, to respect for others, you know, of
gratitude, of appreciation of having regard, these are things that aren't just something Muslims are
concerned with. These are things that humanity was gifted with. And these are things that the
prophets have
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excelled in even before the revelation started coming to him. He was already at the height.
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And actually, we would consider it at least in my limited understanding of the scale of the profits.
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That that predispose decency that the Prophet lived up to it, even before revelation came, gave him
his credibility, to carry the message of a song. Not anybody can just carry any message, and it will
have weight. People can give good speeches and people can talk, or what their character is not there
to backup what they're saying people will, the person will either fake or you may be impressed with
his or her speech, because you know, I'm only from YouTube, or you know, her only from that public
forum, but I know them personally. And I don't want to hear anything they have to say, because I
know what they're like in their personal life, which means there's something hollow. That wasn't the
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case without profits.
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There was a very deep interest. There's a very deep introspection that all of us need. And actually
people that are up on this podium and the people that are sitting in the audience, none of us are
exception to this introspection, we all really, really carefully have to look deep inside and see
what kind of people we've become. I want to get a little more specific, I want to be in
generalities. And I didn't really worry personally, about preserving my own fitrah and the color of
my children. They're growing up, my oldest daughter is 10. Now and I literally accept this and today
I took my talk to her just a couple of days ago. And I said I miss you. And she said I'm sitting
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right here when you miss me.
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But you're not what you were when you were two years old.
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It was something else but still meals I know.
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And I'm gonna miss this one in three years when you're a teenager that crazy monster, that stranger
you know, all the all of the sky, the earth they fear that thing. I fear when a teenage girl is
inside my house, you know?
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But and I really honestly I do worry because the fitbark
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All human beings
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of all human beings is under attack by a, a conglomerate of multiple multi billion dollar interests
that are destroying article. If you even read some basic statistics, like the number of the industry
and its revenues out does all of the tech sector combined, Google, Microsoft, you name it, you put
all of those companies on one end, and the film industry on the other end, outshines them in
revenues. There are sociologists that are doing statistics on what age the average child on this
planet is exposed to this stuff.
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This is a crisis situation, I'd have to be ready to talk to my 10 year old who even if she goes to
the Spanish school, or she homeschoolers, even public school, it doesn't even matter, I have to have
the heart, the strength of heart to sit her down and talk to her about the time when one of our
friends is going to share something on your phone.
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or whenever somebody is going to show her something on a mobile device, even if you don't allow that
an article she will be exposed to the fact that the reality
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is in crisis or innocence is in crisis. She's gonna be exposed to
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I was you know, we have a children's holopainen our neighborhood and, you know, relatively conducts
pretty great with children. And he asked him the question what's, you know, what's the? What's the
thing that you find so different about everybody else than yourselves in school? Most of these kids
are in public school settings. And these are six year old, seven year old eight year old nine year
old 10 year old children. So six to 10.
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What are your friends talk about that you never talk about when you're home? What do you talk about,
that you never talk about when you're among Muslims? Well, all of them have boyfriends, and all of
them have grown. And also talk about the songs and all you have an iPhone, or an iPod, they have the
songs on them. And I don't know this child, one of my relatives came up to me even and said, You
know, he has one of those filthy four letter words. And so what does it mean? My friend was using it
the other day,
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I almost cried because it's a seven year old.
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He has a right not to be exposed to this stuff. You know, it's like we worry about pollution. And
then you know, environmentalist worry about the Earth's water supplies interrupted, and the air we
breathe being corrupted and the landfills contaminating the earth. We're worried about spiritual
contamination, seriously, the contaminated by the social environment in which the entire world is
wrapped up now.
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And so there, there's the story of the rest of, you know, not just the youth, the children that I'm
worried about, and I'll talk to you about, at least I came up with my little scheme, a plan for how
to try to preserve the children and the children in my family, at least some level of them, I want
to preserve and strengthen How do I do that? I will talk to you about that in a little bit. But
before I do, I want to talk to you about the use of turn to Islam,
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young people, they find a spiritual calling something happens in their life, and they make a change
in their life. And may Allah protect you, because you are the exception to the rule. Right. And you
have made some major changes in your life, some of you are sitting in this audience now that
couldn't have imagined themselves coming to anything that began with the water I, you know,
sometimes
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it's doesn't matter if it's Islamic, or Muslim.
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And you can find yourself sitting here today, there's some of you that are like that. But even those
that have made the leap back, it doesn't mean you're saying it really doesn't actually means the
bombardment from your body is even heavier on you. You're even in more trouble. And the big danger
on you is self righteousness. That's the real big danger on you. And only you start seeing other
people that have been involved, yet they haven't taken the leap of faith that you will have already
started to grow your beard or restarted your job. Therefore, you must be in the clear, you're not
I'm not, we're not. These are the outwardly aspects of our religion. The curriculum is constantly
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under attack.
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It's constantly under attack. And so what are the things that I if and this is a litmus test for
you, I don't want to give you an academic discussion. Again, it's a heart to heart. It's something
I've been talking to my wife about. It's something I've been talking to my cousins about, because
I'm worried about our family. And I think that you guys listen to an extension of our family. You
were all of them. You were bonded by this.
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So I worry about this for myself. And all of you know, there's a personal litmus test if for
example, you watch a movie, it's okay. You don't have to raise your hand. I know.
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You watch a movie, and you see something disgusting and you know what I mean? And it doesn't bother
you.
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It didn't
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even bother to turn it off. You forwarded it because somebody else is sending that out because
you've got that.
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Then you have
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that single one review is done. If not already done.
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Because you didn't even feel
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that feeling is all you have is
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if you're in the company of friends, they're bad enough and one of your friends, and you just jump
on the bandwagon without a shred a shred of mercy for the person being trapped
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when you die, and there's a problem, your sense of decency is gone. You're watching the news. And
you see some disturbing images of you know, disaster or children in need of help, or she just
changed the channel and watch the comedy instead.
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It's gone, that gift, the gift of humanity is gone. And if
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the human decency is gone, you can pray five times a day, that's fine, you can memorize the Quran to
it doesn't matter. Now, it doesn't matter, because this is an empty shell on the outside, the heart
is dead.
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That's a tragic state for you in need of me. Somebody came to me this level one. And they asked me
about the curriculum they should have for their Sunday school, some people from the Midwest, to all
the way to Dallas to randomly run into me, and pull me over after a lot outside the budget, like and
give them a counseling session on how to execute their Sunday school curriculum. How much Arabic?
Should they teach? How much to see? Or should they teach? Which dollar books should the kids
memorize, etc, etc, etc.
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You know, delusionally become how many Sunday schools across the country and I think they're
critical. So all we worry about is the outward facade, these kids are memorizing God's they're
learning about the seal of the prophets, taking multiple choice question tests on it.
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And at the end of it all, nobody even dare to our character asked, hey, so how are things going at
school?
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Do you really know why you're Muslim?
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Do you? How do you feel about your parents, you know how many Muslim kids if you had an honest
conversation with you will tell you I hate my parents. In our biggest spiritual problem, that is
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how deepest spiritual problem that when you see kids sitting there, they're intelligent, they can
pass a test, you give them any test, they'll pass it, and that's the same for Islam, you can learn,
you can learn, you can learn to proceed, that's fine. That's just like, you know, that's an
intellectual ability. But it doesn't mean that you become a better person, Allah at all. People come
for our full time program. And I tell them at the beginning of the year, if you're a bad human
being, you will be a bad human being at the end of nine months can speak a little Arabic.
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This is not going to lead to another person. If that predispose decency is dead. If it's gone, how
many industries do I own in programs across our country here, and it's a tragedy, we're supposed to
be
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playing outside? Well, a lot is going on.
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A lot is going on, outside waiting for the playing basketball or watching a movie on YouTube or
whatever, because they hit his graduation ceremonies after
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the case. I don't believe that we didn't, we didn't concern ourselves with that.
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So what plan of action Do I have for my own children, I basically want to share some things with you
something that drives my thought, my discussions with my own children. Number one, I want to instill
in them a sense of purpose. I honestly tell my girls, especially because they're older now, I'll put
you on this earth for a reason. And I want you to do something for him. You have to figure out what
you're really, really good at, and then you're gonna give it to them or you're gonna find some way
of doing that.
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Like I tell my older daughter, you're the older one, you know, everybody wants to be a younger
sister who always steals your toys, etc. You know why? Because she wants to be like you. Well, you
have like a leader. She's like, No,
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no, no, no.
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She wants to be like, you have to act. You have to act.
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I mean, sibling rivalries are natural.
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But when I started seeing an evolution, and instead of fighting, she's taking care of a little
brother and Little Sister, I think Did you finish or neither? Did you go to the bathroom, and you
better go to the bathroom. You know what happened last time. You know, once you go up, there's this
is this is part of the problem.
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And then so sense of purpose. Good companies. We have to make sure we and the people around us are
in company that makes us better people. They are not company that reinforce our bad habits. Doesn't
matter if we have a religious people you can have long beards and backlight. Talking about I'm
talking about people that you hang out with that make you better fathers that make you better sons
that make you better neighbors, that you actually do good things with other than you do stuff with
that good company is absolutely critical for ourselves. And we have to hunted out for our children.
Even if you have to move to a neighborhood where you know other people are raising their kids in a
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good way and your kids can be friends with their kids. It's a good idea. It's worth it. It's worth
the sacrifice.
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Then, of course, there's hands on lessons, you could talk about the profit slices of being
charitable. But what does that mean to a child if you're not asking them to give up their favorite
toy?
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What does that mean to a child when you don't, you know, when you take them shopping for aid, they
didn't go for themselves, they went for their cousins, and got them gifts. They didn't even they
will not even ask for themselves, because they are instilling something in giving lessons about
charity in a lecture and the talk is different hands on experience is something entirely different.
You know, we are over indulging ourselves and our families, and it's creating a culture of
ingratitude, we're just taking everything for granted. And it's, it's destroying earth. And
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then, of course, the big one, the big two or three, others mentioned to Anil and chocolate. And that
is respect. One of the things that destroyed the previous full human decency in our culture, is the
lack of regard for all these things. There is nothing that isn't open to criticism, nothing,
everything can be made fun of everything can be criticized, you know, everything should have a star
rating. You know, whether it's the book of love, whether it's your parents, whether it's your
teachers, whether it's the school you go to, and you know, what that does is a culture when you're
constantly thinking about criticizing and you're the customer, and you're supposed to be pleased,
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and you're in the position of judging everything else. Oh, this is good. But you know, that's good.
But, you know, ask people, religious community, right, the religious community, ask them, What do
you think about your mission?
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Nobody ever starts out we have a machine, we actually have the ability of a given service to buy a
house next door to the machine, we can see here, the another collage on the machine, there are some
issues, but who doesn't have issues, we're all human beings, nobody. Nobody's like that. Everybody
begins with all the problems in their machine, how much they hate, and how much the board members
don't understand anything, and how the individual messed up and how the enterprise Oh my god.
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We're just complaining people that, you know, that, that you've been pre programmed to criticize and
not to be grateful. And I'm the same way we're just we're in the consumer mentality. And we have to
step out of that respect for things is the first step towards appreciating respect for teachers.
Respect your kids have novelist some teachers that deserve the utmost respect. They're giving
knowledge, my children's math, science teachers, English teachers, doesn't matter if they're Muslim
or not. They deserve the utmost respect. Elders deserve respect. Something I really appreciated
about moving to Texas, I moved to Texas about three or four years ago, at least in the neighborhood
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that I'm in.
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You go and when when children see you in the line, and they're gonna say, Excuse me, sir, because
you're older, or excuse me, ma'am. Just the fact that they can show that respect is admirable. There
are a couple of Mormon kids came to my door maybe a month and a half ago, teenage boys read like a
tomato 160 degrees outside, and they're right there by shirt time on dressed up nicely. It's
certainly like to talk to you about God through a little bit of coding, so respectful. And I'm not
at all amazed with the message of Joseph Smith. I'm not, but I am amazed at the fact that these
teenagers are so darn respectful. What did you do, man? That's amazing. Do you see the Muslim
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teenager
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you know, not to mention the level of commitment to not have an iPod or you know, ps3 and to be out
of a geek, to go deliver a God's Word or what you think is God word that's admirable.
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We have to learn from some other communities about how they're raising their children. We've lost
some of these basics. We have those teachings in our books, but that's all they are. Now. They're
just in our books. They're not making their way into reality. We're giving lectures about being
charitable and not being wasteful. And we are the people that throw the most food away after every
product, every machine in America.
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We're the ones that talk about a login, you haven't given us this URL. And we probably produce more
plastic waste than anybody else. Is that something, there's something wrong, there's something
missing,
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is missing, respecting the others is missing. This has to be re instill. And on top of that we teach
our children, the salon, and the da Vinci, and on and on. And all of those things are absolutely
critical for when that basic decency isn't built, all of that is shallow, and they will throw it up
when the time comes. They won't hold on to any of them. They won't hold on to any of them.
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Finally, the last thing I want to instill into my children when they get to the age, reflection. I
like them to give people a reflection and reflection is not that you read somebody else's
reflection. You have to become a person of default yourself. You know, you don't do that unless you
become a person of
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personal writing. Your thoughts are personal
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Case literature because that builds thought, that builds understanding. And that can be actually the
greatest manual for developing your introduction is
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really, and I'm not talking about studying an academic, or even a discussion, a baseline discussion
about the on with our families,
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sources but an easy language.
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For a life of reflection, it really does. It really does start seeing the world through the eyes.
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That's what we want. We don't want this book to be sitting in a shelf. We don't want to be something
that's decided beautifully alone. We want it to be something we think through you see the world
we're reminded of an eye, we see a friend we're reminded of the eye out about friends. You know, we
see nature outside we're reminded about the gift of nature. We see Knight coming quickly, we're
reminded about how time is a fleeting commodity. That's what we're supposed to be a reflection. We
allow us to preserve our temple and nurture it and give us the tools and the ability and the
commitment to combat the attack against this great gift that was given to all of humanity and that
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he has charged this oma with not only protecting but in really really refreshing it in the rest of
mankind. Barack Obama, welcome ceremony.
