Omar Suleiman – The Muslim Marriage Scene Texas and Bosnia – After Hours with Sh Yaser Birjas
AI: Summary ©
The Afternoon podcast discusses the challenges faced by young people during the war in Bosnia, including struggles with living in remote regions and resources such as water, food, and housing. The importance of learning Arabic language and gaining knowledge to become a product of the war is emphasized, along with the need for experts and educated people to convince people to take a certain path in their lives. The shift in the Muslim family's approach to parenting and the challenges faced by women are also discussed. The importance of finding a suitable partner for oneself and privacy in a quiet environment for learning about Islam is emphasized.
AI: Summary ©
There's no dispute about this one, we're not
from Valley Ranch Islamic Center, this is my
office, my table, this is my Shaykh Amman,
this is my Shaykh Yasir, this is all
mine.
I'll give you that, this is all yours.
I'll take the vest before you.
Welcome to everyone joining in, Alhamdulillah, this is
a special edition of the After Hours podcast.
Very excited, Alhamdulillah, we get to be in
person and we get to have MashaAllah Shaykh
Yasir Burjas out of all people, Alhamdulillah, no
one more worthy of the proper production than
Shaykh Yasir.
He kind of demands it, he says no
zoom, you know, he can't do zoom, he
needs four cameras.
Maybe fly to Dallas, flying me from my
home, flying you from your home.
But Alhamdulillah, I'm a serious man, Shaykh, we're
really, really happy to have you, Alhamdulillah.
I don't think there's probably anyone I've had
more After Hours discussions with than you about
the da'wah and about the current scene.
So it's kind of cool that we get
to have this on camera, Alhamdulillah, and we
get to have Shaykh Ammar with us as
well.
It's more like the late night Ramadan conversation
in the office before we go out there
and come back.
There you go, SubhanAllah, SubhanAllah, you're right.
So that's the, if you ever watch late
night reflections, Shaykh Yasir and I, we always
have our conversations in the office, Alhamdulillah, before
we come out and after we come out,
over tamil and qahwa, whenever else comes for
Ramadan.
Fueling the Ramadan nights, having a qahwa.
That's right, we should have brought it, but
Shaykh Yasir, Ahlul Sahih, we appreciate you coming
and Alhamdulillah, I think for everyone that knows
you, obviously, they probably know you in one
particular way, maybe they know you through Al
-Maghrib, or they know you through Valley Ranch
Islamic Centre, and I think this will give
us an opportunity, inshaAllah, not just to understand
the da'wah a bit more from your
perspective and how you've seen sort of the
scene change, but also about yourself, your own
journey, and the different contexts that you've been
in with the da'wah.
And I'll preface this, and I told you
this outside, and I told you, I'll say,
Shaykh Yasir Burjas is my kid's imam.
My kids see Shaykh Yasir Burjas as their
imam, which is really nice.
We moved to the community as a family,
Alhamdulillah, to be with you and your family
and just this growing community of Valley Ranch,
and we've seen it grow over the last
decade now, SubhanAllah, over the last decade almost,
coming together.
And you saw, I think we even have
a picture of me and Dima when they're
like two together, and now they're like going
on 13 together, and they're buddy-buddy, Alhamdulillah,
daughters.
Alhamdulillah.
My kids attend your dars, they attend your
classes, they cite you when they want an
easier fatwa because I'm much more conservative than
you, I mean, if people didn't know, obviously,
I tell them you can't do the tiba
'a rukhas, following the fatwa that you like,
they try to use your easy fatwas and
my easy fatwas, and then try to make
their own madhhab, a Sulaimani, Dajjasi madhhab that
doesn't work, but it's beautiful, you know, really,
that they have an imam, Alhamdulillah, that.
You know, actually, this is something very unique,
people don't understand that imam's kids, they are
very special, special club, really, not necessarily in
the most positive way sometimes, because the focus
and the attention on imam's kids is different
and unique, and as a result, there's so
much pressure on them, really.
It's not easy for our kids to survive
that kind of attention, in a positive way
or a negative way, Allah knows best.
Yeah, finding our daughters bonding together, because I
think they have similar backgrounds, maybe they have
similar struggles that they go through in relationship
to their parents, obviously, and their fathers.
Alhamdulillah, I'm very happy for them, really, to
have somebody to talk to.
Alhamdulillah, Alhamdulillah.
And we have, you know, we talked about
the development of the masjid, youth directors as
well.
It's nice, mashaAllah, that we have imams, we
have youth directors, that both do an amazing
job, mashaAllah.
Alhamdulillah.
Abdullah, my son, looks up to Shaykh Yusuf
Fakir, and so looks up to him.
Before this turns into a Valley Ranch conversation.
Oh, you're here.
Let's just introduce Shaykh Yusuf.
It looks like we're talking in their living
room, for real.
Welcome to Late Night Reflections, from the inferior
city of Jusuf.
So, Shaykh Yusuf Yusuf Fakir is Imam of
Valley Ranch Islamic Center.
He is a Senior Instructor at Al-Maghrib
Institute for over, since 2003, since it was
founded pretty much.
Wow.
You've been a valedictorian of the University of
Medina, you graduated in 1996.
Yeah.
And you were an imam in El Paso.
When did you come to the United States,
Shaykh?
So, I arrived, actually, mid to late 2000.
Mid to late 2000.
Mid 2000, came for the interview, and then
moved towards the late of 2000.
To be specific, SubhanAllah, it's very interesting.
It's October 22nd, which is like this week,
to be specific.
MashaAllah.
So, we're celebrating 22 years of you being
here.
Very much.
MashaAllah.
October 22nd, 22 years.
And I stayed in El Paso until 2009.
So, you came from Medina, no, you went
to Bosnia first.
Yes.
So, in 1996, you went, you graduated, and
then you went to Bosnia.
Yes.
And Bosnia is war-torn Bosnia at that
point in time, relief work.
You were there for a number of years,
three years?
Four years.
Four years.
You were there for four years, and then
you came to the United States.
Yes.
Okay.
And so, that's Shaykh Yusuf Fakir's story in
a bio.
Now, you can talk about it.
Can we get back to Valley Ranch?
Yeah, you can get back to you.
All right, let's leave this here.
It's a living room conversation.
Clear Lake.
Let's include it.
Clear Lake.
They try to be Valley Ranch, but they
can't be Valley Ranch.
Allah.
Allah.
MashaAllah.
MashaAllah.
We love Clear Lake Islamic Center.
They have their own glory.
MashaAllah.
An amazing vibe at that community.
And to be fair, when anyone moves to
Houston or around the area and say, where
should I move?
I say, you should go to Clear Lake
Islamic Center.
So, I've been sending my people to your
masjid as well.
When they can't make it.
To Valley Ranch Islamic Center.
Yeah, to Valley Ranch Islamic Center.
But Shaykh, not like you, I think, let's
actually start from there.
You have done da'wah or been involved
in taking care of people and teaching them
the deen in so many different contexts.
Like, when I think of Bosnia, and Bosnia
to me, SubhanAllah, to you, it's literally like
home.
To me, when I went there, it felt
like home because we grew up with it.
That's sort of the tragedy in the background.
We had refugees come here.
And my mother, I used to write poetry
about Bosnia.
I remember actually reciting that poetry to people
in Bosnia.
Sarajevo and Srebrenica.
Going there, connecting beautiful people.
But you were there in the middle of
the war.
I mean, picking up the pieces.
And then you've got that war-torn climate.
And then you've got sort of the hyper
-individualistic, very easy climate, you know, suburban Texas,
right?
Talk to us about what does da'wah
look like in war?
In dealing with people in war.
SubhanAllah, when we went to Bosnia, I went
right after the war was over.
And then when they started rebuilding the country.
But it was still completely divided.
Divided geographically, divided politically, divided ethnically, divided even
actually in all aspects.
It was very divided.
Within the same city, like in Sarajevo, for
example, there's a Serbian section and there's the
Bosnian section.
And each one of them has their own
national flags in the same city, in the
same neighborhood.
You will be driving in one street and
then you have Bosnian flags and then suddenly
you go across the stop sign and then
you're already in a completely different territory with
different flags and so on.
So it was really, it was still dangerous.
It was still not easy to be around
there.
So to try to assess what we're gonna
do, it was more of like survival kind
of mode.
Many, many people there, they still lacked a
lot of the basic needs.
They didn't live in their houses, so they
were refugees from one village to the other
one, from the mountains to other mountains.
They're all over the place.
We've seen areas like, I was honored to
serve in a small village that was hosting
more than 2,000 of the Serbian civilians,
their families, obviously.
And you go there, subhanAllah, one single house,
you have three or four families, and there's
all young families, all women and children, no
men.
So in that situation, I mean, where do
we start?
Do we start feeding them?
Do we start taking care of them?
Do we start teaching them the basic of
our deen and give them their identity?
It was really a big challenge.
But I think, alhamdulillah, our focus and our
agency, we have different departments, and so we
let the whole humanitarian aspect of giving food
and providing services to the shelter and relocating
them back again to their villages into different
agencies and different departments.
We were focusing on the human resources, meaning
how can we make sure that instead of
giving people fish, we actually teach them fishing.
And that was one of our main focuses.
Alhamdulillah, our leader of the team, he decided
that, look, we need to see where are
the brightest kids we can find in local
communities.
We can start making halaqat of Qur'an,
halaqat of Arabic language, for example.
And then we try to see from these
kids, inshallah, who are the most, the brightest
ones, and then hopefully we can find sponsorship.
We send them to Muslim countries where they
can learn a skill, learn a degree, and
then come back to serve their communities.
And I believe, alhamdulillah, in the course of
four years, that's what we're focusing on.
In addition, of course, to working on the
humanitarian aspect of the country.
But alhamdulillah, I was the main teacher in
many of these programs.
So I would teach, and we did camps
as well for these youth.
So finally, we were able to collect out
of hundreds of students that we taught over
a couple of years to highlight 200 of
them.
And alhamdulillah, we were able to send them
to Jordan to study Arabic language.
And then, after one year, we made an
assessment program.
Those who did not do very well, as
expected, we brought them back to become translators
to the community, to the other speakers, and
so on.
And those who did well, alhamdulillah, we kept
them there, and we went to different departments.
So some went to business college, some they
went to Sharia, some they went to Arabic
language, and so on.
And subhanAllah, after four years of studying or
six years being there, many of them came
back.
Some people, mashallah, they even went further to
masters and PhDs, and some of them went
to Medina, some went to Azhar.
Some students even went to Malaysia at the
time, alhamdulillah, to further their education.
And now, just two years ago, it was
my first visit to Bosnia after all these
years.
And I was so happy to see the
results, subhanAllah.
It was just impressive really that the number
of students who came back and started small
businesses and employing other people.
Some of them, mashallah, they were instructors in
certain colleges and programs.
Some of these people also become, mashallah, active
in the politics of the local communities.
Some of them become national imams in other
countries, and mashallah, many, many beautiful things.
So, the fact is that these people, they
had, there was a need, and they felt
the obligation to do that.
Here in America, it's different.
It's very easy.
It's very convenient.
So, the demand to learn is not there.
It becomes more optional.
And it's very, you find a big struggle
really to convince people to take that path
and that route in their lives.
And even when they come to study it,
the urgency of why we need in this
form, it's not very obvious for many people.
So, in Pakistan, you find a lot of
our young, mashallah, brothers and sisters.
What was the urgency in Bosnia, if you
don't mind?
The urgency is that there was nothing there.
Literally.
Like, many people were killed in the war.
Communities were destroyed.
The infrastructure was gone.
So, to rebuild the community, you need experts.
You need educated people.
You need people who know what they were
talking about, what they're gonna be doing for
the community.
And that wasn't there for them.
So, where did the interest in the deen
come from?
So, did you find, number one, people who
were really interested in studying Islam?
And if so, where is that interest coming
from?
So, if I'm in a country that has
no infrastructure and all of that, is my
first question going to be, I need to
study Arabic, for example?
And if so, what was propelling them to
do that?
I think many of the students that we
were dealing with, they came as a by
-product of the war itself.
Because what happened when, of course, when people
in Bosnia, the whole international community let down
the Bosnian society.
And so, the people of Bosnia, they start
finding sympathy and support and help from I
would say individuals in Muslim countries, and also
from some Muslim countries that tried to influence
the situation.
Like, a few leaders from the Muslim world
came visiting Bosnia during the war itself.
One of them was actually Benazir Bhutto from
Pakistan at the time.
She came visit and she was one of
the few leaders who went through the tunnel
of hope that was dug under the airport
just to bring life to the city of
Sarajevo at the time.
So that kind of attention, suddenly people, they
realized everybody's against them because of their original
identity, which was being Muslims.
Although they themselves, a few of them were
really identified as Muslims.
So that trauma made them more attached to
their Islamic identity?
I think it was, for them it's just
like a realization, like, look, all of us,
all of these people are against us because
we're Muslims.
So therefore, you know what?
They're going to attach themselves to Islam and
become Muslims.
Of course, during the war time though, it
was more urgent and more important for them
to identify as being Muslims.
But subhanAllah, once the war was over, and
the things get back again to normal, I
would say.
Well, not normal, but at least better than
what it was in the war time.
That kind of attachment, the identity, slowly and
gradually started being challenged with European mandates and
all the stuff and so forth.
But a lot of people after that, alhamdulillah,
became like an option.
Being religious became an option right now.
And alhamdulillah, it survived all these years, and
mashAllah you go back there, hijab is everywhere,
alhamdulillah.
That's something to be happy and proud to
see, alhamdulillah.
You go to the masjid, a lot of
youth come to pray in the masjid as
well too, alhamdulillah.
People identify, you know, easily with being Muslim.
Still, there's a big challenge to continue with
that.
Because again, the situation right now is never
really stable, politically speaking.
But alhamdulillah, overall mashAllah, the result of that
time, of the people who went to study
Islam and came back, mashAllah.
It was great.
And I think right after the war, the
Muslim identity was so strong and so beautiful
that a lot of people wanted to study
it.
They wanted to identify with it.
They wanted to know what they'd been missing
all these years.
I think that's what encouraged many of these
young people to join and stay with the
program.
To your point, when I went there, I
was actually really happy to see these young
people.
And their way to the deen was entirely
different than the way of their parents, right?
The trauma, it's still fresh.
It's two decades.
It's not that long ago, and there's always
sort of the whispering of genocide in the
background, right?
So how about to see these young people
that found their love of deen organically and
individually is really beautiful.
And it shows you that the da'a
was different for people because the circumstances were
different.
Of course, it is.
I mean, for us, here in America, alhamdulillah,
we do have the luxury of teaching whatever
we want to teach, however you want to
teach it.
We have the resources for it and all
that stuff and so on.
But over there, there are a lot of
limitations.
Some of it is financial resources.
Not everybody has the luxury to live, alhamdulillah,
comfortably to find time to go and attend
a program or halaq or pay for it,
for example.
That's something that's not for everybody.
Even recently when we went on the blessed
voyage with the naghrib to Bosnia, we spent
there about a week or so.
I had a lecture for the locals, really,
in English.
I wasn't expecting that many to show up,
but I was surprised.
There were quite a good number of people,
subhanAllah, who came to attend the lecture in
English.
But then I realized that a lot of
them, they're also expats.
They came from other places, from Canada, from
Europe.
Some of them, they lived there for some
time and now they're back in Bosnia.
Some of them, they attended it, you know,
because, again, they learned the English language when
they were abroad.
But then, alhamdulillah, still we had many, many
locals who learned English in town.
Twenty years ago when I was in Bosnia,
it was so hard to find someone to
speak English.
Extremely difficult.
Because it wasn't the most common language there.
It was Russian or German.
Did you speak English when you went to
Bosnia?
In Bosnia, I would speak quite reasonable English,
I would say.
What I learned from high school.
Okay.
But we had to force to learn the
language, obviously, over there, the Bosnian language.
Can you speak some Bosnian?
Come on.
I've never heard you speak Bosnian.
Which means I don't speak English.
I don't speak it very well now.
But you said that nicely.
It sounded sort of like my Urdu.
First of all, all of our Bosnians who
are watching this, you can comment and let
us know how the Sheikh's Bosnian was, inshaAllah.
You know Javapian, you know Bala.
Yes, I know Javapian.
But I've lived in Zawodovice for four years.
Which means I lived in Zawodovice for four
years.
That's what it means.
InshaAllah.
Sheikh, you're reminding me, one of the major
shifts that's happened in the United States over
the past 20 years is the emergence of
the immigrant imam who speaks English, 20 years
ago.
It was all translations and things of that
nature.
Your English is better than mine, Sheikh.
No, it's true.
Sheikh Hassan is always using amazing words.
How do you do this?
How did you go about learning English?
Do you have a talent for language?
Do you have a particular process that you
went through?
And number two, how did you go about
learning Bosnian?
You did learn Bosnian.
I did, yeah.
What's the motivation behind doing it?
You could easily be the imam who broke
in English here, everybody else has to learn
what I'm trying to say.
But you took it upon yourself to basically
master the language.
Honestly, I think it's in the Quran.
Really, the main motivation for me was a
simple ayah in the Quran where Allah says,
...
...
...
So when I went to Bosnia, I tried
to teach them Arabic to make it easier
for me.
It took longer than expected.
Besides, by the time we taught them some
Arabic, we sent them to Jordan.
Oh Lord.
So we have to learn the language.
And at the time, subhanAllah, where we lived,
because there was no infrastructure, there wasn't really
an institute where you could use to do
that, to go and study the language officially
and formally.
Unless you go all the way to Sarajevo,
or all the way to Tuzla, for example,
the major cities that have institutes or universities
that can teach you the language.
So I had to depend on the street,
basically, learning from the people.
A book, I remember Sheikh Imam Shpandin, his
father, his mom and his father were visiting
Jordan at the time.
I was temporarily in Amman before I left
to Bosnia.
So he's a Bosnian here at the University
of Medina.
He was actually Macedonian.
So his father would speak a little bit
of Bosnian, but him and his parents speak
Albanian.
So eventually he brought me, his father brought
me a book.
I still have it until this day.
From back in 2000.
Or actually 1997, 1996.
So he gave it to me and I
used it to learn the language.
I still have it.
That was cassette back then.
And a dictionary.
So that was the thing.
So learn from the people, read and speak,
read and speak.
I don't claim that I learned the perfect
Bosnian language, but I spoke very well during
those four years.
It hasn't been 20 years right now since
I've practiced it professionally.
This past summer when we went to Bosnia
again, I spent a week over there and
subhanallah, all of a sudden all these words
coming back again naturally without even trying.
Like even I look at something and say,
oh this is this.
I speak and the word comes out immediately.
So the language doesn't really die.
It's just it's hidden right now because now
a new language is taking over, the English
language.
When I first came to the US, as
I was giving the khutbah in English, trying
to give the khutbah in English, I keep
throwing a lot of Bosnian words on the
number.
You're just trying to be close enough, huh?
It's a foreign word anyway.
They're all foreign languages.
But subhanallah, looking back right now, when I
go back to my first khutbah that I
gave in the US, I still have records
of this khutbah in Arabic, subhanallah.
I'm just like, oh my lord, how these
people were able to understand what I was
saying?
Really, because I have the translation in English
language.
So when I came again, the first thing
that came to my mind, look, this is
it.
The language is English.
Time to switch to English language.
So I put so much energy, alhamdulillah, in
learning it.
The way I did it, really I tried
to learn the English language just like a
child would learn English language.
So I would go to the public library,
and I would read actually kids' stories.
I thought you were going to say Sesame
Street, but close enough.
I did that.
I read all the Sesame Street series.
I read the Cinderella books and all that
stuff and so on.
Just pick up words just like the kids
would, really, slowly and gradually.
What about Reader's Digest?
Did you do that?
That came later, Shaykh.
That was my dad's thing.
No, for me, actually, anything I put my
hand on, I would read it.
For example, even the milk jug, the juice,
for example.
Just read the ingredients.
Just like that.
Anything that has the English, I want to
say, look, I don't have much time.
I need to start becoming good with learning
the language.
So I would say within a few months
of the very beginning, I used to do
the khutbah in Arabic, and then there was
a brother who was supposed to be translating
the khutbah for me.
So I tell him, okay, help me out
over here.
I'll give you the khutbah on Saturday for
the next Friday.
Bring it to me no later than Wednesday
so I can at least type it up,
and then I practice this so I can
go and remember and be ready for the
khutbah.
He never brought it to me before Juma
'ah.
Actually, always bring it right an hour before
Juma'ah.
On his way to the masjid, he stops
by and he goes, sorry, Shaykh, for the
delay.
I'm like, yeah, Habibi.
So I have to practice this quickly, and
later on I realized a lot of that
translation is just like street translated.
He made a great effort, but it wasn't
the memoir level.
Then after that he traveled, so we switched
to another brother who traveled, so within less
than a year, I became dependent on Allah,
subhanahu wa ta'ala, first and foremost and
electronic dictionary, and then later on came Shaykh
Shependim as well.
I thought you were going to say me,
like I taught you some English.
Because another imam.
Imam Shependim was still studying in Medina.
So that's when we got to know each
other from there.
So I write the khutbah.
I translate the khutbah myself in English.
I type it up and I send it
to him.
Back then it was Skype and it was
of course, you know, the email.
So he would review it and send it
back to me.
That was for about a year.
You're in El Paso, Texas.
He's in Medina.
Guess where he is now.
He's in Dallas, isn't he?
I trust him right now.
Yeah, yeah.
You're sending an email for him to translate
for you or check your translation.
He did that for about a year Alhamdulillah,
so it was a beautiful experience.
We did that together, mashallah.
And then after that, I decided, you know
what?
That's enough.
I need to learn the English profession right
now.
So I told the board of the majid,
I need you guys to pay for my
English training.
So they said, of course.
So we went to the university, to the
language department over there and I was trying
to put the application on and put everything.
And the lady, she tells me, who are
you signing up for?
I said, for me.
She goes, you don't need it.
I'm like, what?
She goes, you don't need it.
This program is not going to get you
better than what you do right now.
You're doing great already.
I said, okay, well thank you for the
compliment, but I really need to improve my
English.
She goes, you speak better than the graduates
of this program.
I'm like, oh my god.
What am I going to do now?
So there was another institute that teaches I
would say actually dialect and pronunciation.
So I signed up for this.
The same thing, they said you're going to
be wasting your money.
Since then, I did not really do much
except just keep reading and practicing and reading
and practicing and I didn't have any problem
making mistakes.
I was just about to ask you that
because that's, when they say children are able
to develop language, one of the things that's
mentioned is that they don't have a fear
of mistakes.
Adults have a fear of mistakes which compromises
their ability to actually experiment.
So your lack of fear of mistakes meaning
you're being corrected by people left and right,
are you asking them to correct you?
I laugh with them.
It's a joke for them obviously.
When I make a mistake in the pronunciation
or misuse of words and so on, I
just laugh with them.
It's funny, I agree, it's funny.
Alhamdulillah.
They were a moment of embarrassment obviously, but
subhanAllah it's just the courage, they have to
do it.
Again, reading, I used to read of course
high profile papers because I need to learn
new vocabulary especially when you teach classes of
fiqh and usul and this and that, you
have to learn the language for it.
So you go into English books of usul,
papers on usul and fiqh and so on.
Legal terminology.
All the terminology of usul.
It wasn't that simple and easy but alhamdulillah,
I think it became at some point very
natural.
Alhamdulillah.
So we interviewed Imam Sarraj and everyone has
an Imam Sarraj story.
So I want them to hear your Imam
Sarraj story as well and talk about the
American Dawa because your experience with American Dawa
is even before Bosnia, right?
Yes it is.
As a matter of fact, I think he
was my inspiration to where I am today.
I keep telling the people that.
I said, when I was in high school
alhamdulillah, I was active in Dawa since I
was a kid.
So I was in the masajid as youth
director in the masjid.
When I was in high school, maybe I
was 16 years old at the time, maybe
15, 16 years old.
And that's when the debate that happened in
Louisiana.
Is there a photo anywhere of a 15
year old Sheikh Yaseen in Kuwait teaching at
a masjid or anything?
Maybe in a camp but not teaching in
a masjid.
Back then, the luxury of cameras was not
for everybody.
Not like today.
I was watching the TV at the time
they were broadcasting the debate between Jimmy Swaggart
and Sheikh Ahmadinejad and they had subtitles.
And I was just mesmerized by that debate.
I loved that stuff.
It was amazing.
But out of all the debates that were
broadcast, they were doing it on four episodes
every Friday.
In the evening they bring one of those
episodes.
I was so mesmerized and so amazed by
the MC of the program.
I didn't know who he was at the
time.
But he was such a beautiful African American
young man with nice beautiful gray suit.
Eventually I said, one day I'm going to
be like this man.
That's what I said to myself.
His name was fascinating to me.
First time I heard someone by that name.
Eventually, at some point, I obviously went to
Medina.
Sorry, before we go into Medina, I used
to always be the top of my class.
Always the top student in my class.
In high school, the senior high school year,
like what they do in the Arabic quarter,
they always publish the names of the students
and the top students and they interview them
on TV and so on.
Everybody expected me to be that top student.
Everybody expected that.
But that year, relatively speaking, I failed miserably.
Because I know people are going to say,
you call this failing?
Because I still got 93.8 which is
still A.
But for me, people are coming home offering
condolences for my mom.
It's like, what happened to him?
Why is this?
Why is that?
Everybody is wondering what happened.
Honestly, I didn't know what happened.
I didn't do my regular 99.2, 99
.5 for example.
I love how you remember the decimals.
93.8, 99.2 It hurt.
And it still hurts from that time.
SubhanAllah, eventually, I tried to apply to a
local university and they refused to accept me
there.
So I had to go out.
I went to Emirat to study engineering.
Then the war started in Kuwait.
The 93.8, you couldn't get into 4
points in the total they needed extra to
allow me to be among the students.
So I had to go to Emirat UAE,
studied engineering there.
Then the war started in Kuwait in 1990.
So I had to stop and come back
to Kuwait.
I spent the whole war time there in
Kuwait.
SubhanAllah.
So the whole career just became unknown all
of a sudden.
After the war was over, I had a
moment of spirituality.
I went to Amra with a friend and
then we got accepted to Medina.
There in Medina, which was something I never
expected because who am I?
I'm like an intruder on all these Mawlana's
that come study with you.
SubhanAllah.
I ended up becoming the valedictorian.
And Shaykh Muhammad Sharif was there and he
was at the time I was actually my
third year when he joined.
He was asking me, he says you need
to come to Canada, come to the US.
You will do a great job.
I said no, thank you very much.
I'm not interested.
At that time, SubhanAllah, I said I'm not
going to come.
We finished and went to Bosnia and there
in Bosnia we spent the four years and
then I got a phone call from my
sister.
She said hey, they want somebody in El
Paso, Texas.
Why don't you come and visit?
I said I'm happy here.
I have been promoted.
I've become the director of the central region
for the organization.
I don't want to move out of this
place.
She goes why don't you come and visit?
You haven't seen your brother for 13 years.
So that kind of like a convincing moment.
I said you know what?
Why not?
Just a visit.
I came to El Paso.
I loved it.
I said you know what?
There's a huge potential for Dawah there.
And then eventually we stayed.
Alhamdulillah.
It was that moment that I realized I
had a connection at the regional mass, MSA
actually, MSA conference in Atlanta, Georgia.
When I was on the stage there was
Wissam Sharif and there was Imam Siraj Wahad
and myself was on that panel.
I'm just like, is that for real?
And then I told Imam Siraj, I said
this was my first meeting with him actually.
I said do you mind if I share
a personal story between us?
He looks at me like who are you
basically?
But okay, fine.
So I told the people, I said look,
I said subhanAllah, for me this is a
surreal moment.
Like now I realize that every wrong turn
that was going on in my life was
actually to get me here.
Like Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala was directing
the whole Qadr to get you where you
wanted to be.
Because more than 20 plus years ago I
said to myself one day I want to
be like this man.
And this man right now is actually here
with me on the stage.
So I never thought that this moment would
come in real life.
But everything went back again, full circle to
bring you back next to the man that
you said, I want to be like this
man.
Like failing in my high school, not finishing
my engineering in UAE.
The war in Kuwait even, subhanAllah.
All these circumstances just lead you where you
wanted to be.
And then that's when I told, I asked
Sheikh Imam Siraj one time, I said Sheikh
Imam Siraj, what happened to that great suit
that you were wearing on that debate?
He started laughing, he goes, it wasn't even
mine.
He said Imam Ahmed did that, he insists
that I had to wear a suit so
I had to borrow it from some friend.
That was it, the last time I wore
a suit.
I was going to say, I don't think
he's ever worn a suit since.
I have to tell you something crazy.
SubhanAllah, it's not a coincidence.
The first time I shared a stage with
Imam Siraj was IKNA Atlanta Regional Convention 2008.
And I remember freaking out.
I was like I can't, I've attended so
much of his so many of his lectures,
I've invited him to Louisiana.
I knew him at that point but he
got me speaking next to Imam Siraj I'm
like, I can't speak next to Imam Siraj
what are you guys doing?
I remember that moment, it's one of the
most vivid moments of my life.
SubhanAllah, sharing a stage with him and apologizing
profusely to him before starting like, sorry this
is bad adab, I don't know why they
put me here to speak next to you.
SubhanAllah, I want people to understand that the
influence Imam Siraj had on the dawah went
beyond the ocean.
It wasn't just locally here in the U
.S. In the Middle East, I was in
Kuwait at the time and completely young kid,
16 years old, and seeing a random man
on the stage with his demeanor, his akhlaq,
the way he was conducting the debate, it
was just like, wow I want to be
like this man.
And lo and behold, you have Imam Siraj
you have Imam Shbandeen, who was in Medina
while you were in El Paso and helping
with Khutla and now you both have 20
minutes from each other and you have Shaykh
Muhammad Sharif Alhamdulillah Shaykh, we dedicated this podcast
to Shaykh Muhammad Sharif Alhamdulillah the inspiration of
it Yeah, SubhanAllah Shaykh Muhammad I keep telling
people, look all what we see in terms
of the dawah how it shifted in America
in the West, in America in particular by
the grace of Allah first and foremost, and
then by the vision of this man Wallahi,
I think it's his vision the dawah as
we see it today in America a lot
of it had to do with how he
wanted it to be and how he saw
it that it should be in America and
mashallah, he did a great job in doing
that and not taking credit of it because
that wasn't really his major thing, he just
wanted to bring the best to the community,
Alhamdulillah and I always keep telling people, when
we were in Medina Shaykh Muhammad was somehow
getting frustrated from the way knowledge was taught
in Medina how the school was run in
Medina University and I could see just like
many of these Western students, SubhanAllah when they
come, they want to quit and so I
kind of calmed him down and so I
taught him a few tips here and there
on how to benefit from what he studied
and how he studied but when I came
here to the US he was the one
who taught me how to deliver that so
I keep telling people, look, Shaykh Muhammad I
taught him how to gain knowledge and he
taught me how to deliver it beautiful yeah,
it's just such an unbelievable thing because the
way we met was randomly not randomly, randomly
to us but to Allah subhanahu wa ta
'ala, it was another moment of qadr, that
I meet him at the Texas Da'wah
conference back in 2003, I believe, 2002 or
2003 and that wasn't even in the elevator,
that's when he saw me, oh my, Shaykh
Muhammad, what are you doing here?
I said, I'm coming to attend the program
he goes, no, no, you're going to talk
I said, come on man, I'm just here
with my family my English was not, I
wasn't confident yet with the English at the
time you're three years into the US at
that point very much, he goes, no, you're
going to speak and you're going to teach,
inshallah ta'ala the history of Islamic law
I'm like, yeah I couldn't even pronounce the
title you're like, I'm still trying to translate
my khutbahs, I'm sending them over I couldn't
even pronounce the title of the lecture in
English let alone to speak it freely and
mention it but wallahi he insisted, he said,
you're going to have to do it so
he spoke with Shaykh Waleed at the time,
subhanallah Shaykh Waleed didn't even know who I
am eventually we did that, and the rest
is just history he invited me a few
months later to come back to Houston while
he was teaching the tarikh al khulafa, the
conquest subhanallah class, what an experience and then
from there I got my personal training with
him which I still have the notes that
was another moment I was like, wow, subhanallah
I just found these notes that speak history
since 2003 and mashallah, I gave the credit
and the barakah of the da'wah that
we do today back to Shaykh Muhammad rahimahullah
wa ta'ala Shaykh so you as an
imam and you as a person one of
your qualities that seems to keep appearing is
the idea of you growing into fulfilling whatever
the need is of your community so if
it's I need to learn a language it's
I need to learn a language when you
arrived in the US you weren't known as
the Shaykh of marriage and love and these
types of things but I'm assuming you went
through an education process when you came to
the United States, is that what you did?
I blame it on the Maghreb Institute Allah
Akbar yeah, subhanallah I remember the first time
when it was Shaykh Muhammad it was here
in Dallas, one of those moments when we
were still trying to open a chapter in
Dallas Dallas was very difficult at the time
we were discussing which class we should start
first and so forth so he was suggesting
something that has to do with family and
I said, look, I cannot teach people family
before I teach them what fiqh is all
about so he goes, what do you suggest?
so I suggested to teach the history of
Islamic law he goes, you got it you
teach this one, and then the second one
what do we do?
so we start thinking about, okay, which class
would it be then we decided to do
something, we call it it's fiqh al-usra
I, using the lame titles I said, we'll
call it the fiqh al-usra fiqh of
family he goes, no, no, no he goes,
we're going to call it the fiqh of
love ya salam he's always had those moments
he was going like that in the hotel
room the fiqh of love his eyes are
always up there he sees beyond the walls
he sees beyond the time that he was
living he goes, we're going to call it
the fiqh the fiqh of love and I
said, I didn't know the word cheesy back
then, I said, it's something to that extent
I said, come on man he goes, no,
we're going to call it the fiqh of
love and you're going to teach, inshallah, the
whole class and so forth and we started
developing the content, alhamdulillah I showed it to
him and we approved it and we started
teaching the fiqh of love and because of
me trying to teach, of course this material,
we had to discuss love, we had to
discuss human psychology we had to discuss this,
we had to discuss that so I had
to take psychology class actually at the university
in El Paso, I went and registered and
I took a class for psychology, human psychology
I took another class actually as well too
and then I started learning, you know, my
own reading books on the subject and the
matter and listened to podcasts, there were no
podcasts back then but YouTube and all that
stuff it was a personal effort really to
get where you are.
In addition to that, of course experience, being
an imam, dealing with people self-counseling people,
helping people out and subhanAllah, right now just
we have the Muslim family consultant emerging out
of all of this.
And in 20 years you've taught thousands of
students the fiqh of love whether it's in
Maghreb cities or beyond in workshops and things
like that and other masajids and you've, I'm
sure seen thousands of cases as an imam
and beyond.
Actually the class itself evolved, so we taught
the fiqh of love first, which includes both
the fiqh material and also the husband-wife
material then from our students as they evolve
and emerge, mashAllah, they say we got married,
we heard you we understand now you guys
got married how can we keep how can
we stay married?
So the idea of the love notes class
came about, so this time we're going to
focus on how keeping people staying married.
So we discussed in this class, you know,
the nature of relationship, the nature of marriage
the difficulties, the hardships the rights and obligations
and all that stuff.
Alhamdulillah it went all over the world subhanAllah,
and then after some time people said hey,
we listened to you, we fell in love
we got married, we stayed married alhamdulillah, now
we have kids, we're having troubles, what do
we do?
So we developed a new class, which is
Protect This House which is all about family
and how to take care of your family
and run your family and stay together, alhamdulillah
and obviously there's more room to improve, so
here in Valley Ranch, for example one of
the things we did for the past many
years when the board once asked me we
need you to do parents asking for classes
for the youth and for the teenagers and
so on, I said sure, bismillah so what
did we do?
I developed parenting workshops, I said I'm gonna
teach the parents, not their kids so there
are tons of parenting workshops we did mashaAllah,
and I started taking some of these workshops
also around the country, people they ask for
them and we go, we travel, we teach
the people techniques on parenting and so on,
so it's evolving Sheikh, how's your diagnosis of
the Muslim family 2022?
Is it healthy?
Is it on life support?
It's tough and hard, but I speak in
the reality I'm really worried that what the
Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam has warned us
against, it would come to become a realization
I love to be optimistic obviously, there's always
alhamdulillah khayr in the Muslim ummah, as the
Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam says khayru fiyah
fi yawmati layum alqiyamah there's always be khayr
in this ummah until the day of judgement
but being real and looking at reality, the
Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam, one of the
things he told us when it comes to
the subject of marriage, he says if someone
comes to you proposing to your daughters and
you're pleased with their akhlaaq and their deen
then accept them in marriage, and then he
said illa taf'aluhu, takun fitnatu fil-adr,
fasadun arid if you're not going to do
this you're going to cause a lot of
corruption widespread corruption in the society and this
concerns me today for many many reasons the
way the Muslim family evolved 20 years ago
versus today our youth and their perception of
marriage as well too the criteria even to
get married and what you get married about
and for all this is shifting and changing
so sheikh as you're saying we're overwhelmed as
imams, those that have taken courses and those
that haven't taken courses personally it's tough to
be able to keep up because it's also
the breakdown doesn't really fit a particular mold
I feel like my first imam position January
2006 and I feel like the marriage and
divorce dynamics were a lot simpler back then
you could almost see the writing on the
wall now it's like both the marriages and
the divorces are catastrophic there are many complexities
there are many things where you can see
that it's not just one thing anymore it's
hard to diagnose by the time you diagnose
something you can't keep up with what can
we be doing differently as people of Dalat
what do we do better as imams to
be able to keep up with this first
of all as imams we are not trained
to do marriage counseling let's make it clear
I don't claim to be certified marriage counselor
but we do pastoral counseling which means our
spirituality and our training and certification you get
from training and so forth to help people
do that not all imams have that qualification
so therefore the first thing imams need to
do and understand what are their limitations if
people come in to ask you a fiqh
question is one thing but if they are
going to ask you a question that demands
and requires arbitration they need to stop they
need to not mix giving fatwa versus giving
verdict because sometimes the imams give fatwas in
a verdict situation that becomes catastrophic because everybody
says but you don't even know the context
and the extent of the situation so I
believe imams have one of two ways or
paths to do that whether they really take
some training in order for them to qualify
to give people the guidance they need through
their marriages or even divorces or learn to
about the local resources that they have where
they can divert people and direct people where
they need to go so if somebody wants
to go for arbitration we have certain agencies
you can go to for example people need
marriage counseling alhamdulillah we have these resources available
for you to go to as imams we
are not supposed to do all these things
talking about the imams role right so the
masajid for example from the very beginning whenever
they look for an imam you look at
the profile they are looking for 10 imams
they look at an imam who speaks English
and Urdu and Arabic good with youth and
good counselor they are looking for a prophet
I think they were looking for a prophet
not just a prophet basically it was an
impossible mission back then but alhamdulillah I think
our community is right now evolving to understand
the imam cannot do everything so they are
accepting the imam to stay in the imam
role while delegating this path to the people
so coming back to your point shaykh some
of the major issues I've seen so far
when it comes to the subject of marriage
for example the reason why people are getting
married has shifted and changed back in the
days people get married because this is a
moment in life it's more like a stepping
stone for them it's more like the right
of passage into adulthood and so forth so
getting married the average age used to be
in the early 20s but today with the
extreme radical self centric culture not everybody wants
to get married young anymore we want to
keep pushing to enjoy life individually as much
as we can before even thinking about getting
married which is why right now when people
want to get married they want to get
married and still live single it's just like
they don't understand the responsibility they want to
get married and still be single literally they
just want to get married and everybody wants
to have their single path to continue and
when it comes to of course living a
marital life you can't live this kind of
dual life which is why we have a
lot of clashes that didn't exist before it's
like in an individualistic society there's no sense
of collective progress therefore the idea of becoming
a collective when you get married like it
smells we're going to keep on and just
benefit transactionally 20 years ago, 30 years ago
when people used to get married they know
what to give what to take because the
culture set the expectation for them no matter
where they are whether they're educated or not
do you mean gender norms?
very much, it's not just that even when
they both work because I've seen it, I've
seen from the older generation both parents are
working so you have dual income busy lives,
this and that and so and so but
they work it out they still work it
out today among the younger generations when we
are still having two working husband and wife
working right now, household it seems they're having
a hard time and difficulty keeping it together
because the culture shifted the understanding in the
past, everybody knew that even though you're working
you still need to do this you need
to do this as a husband and wife
but today when you get married there's no
standard expectation from husband and wife anymore the
roof was completely removed and is now left
even to the young couple to decide for
themselves so when you have two people are
fighting for expectations and they keep pushing it
up and down, obviously they're going to rip
it apart which is why we're having all
these issues today among young couples today I
see a lot of young people they focus
so much on the event of marriage than
the marriage itself like there is so much
into documenting everything there is the whole you
know, halal bachelor parties and you have the
bridal showers and you have this and you
have that and each one of them would
cost you like an arm it would basically
cost them a lot of money right now
all these things but subhanallah, post the wedding
time there isn't much focus on it, so
there's no premarital training, there is no really
conversation about their spousal roles what to expect
of each other and so on so they
wait for it to be like training on
the job and that's why the way marriage
is being conducted today is actually unfortunately is
an unhealthy situation so when it comes to
divorce it's not like a textbook divorce anymore
like it used to be before a lot
of complex issues come into it whether it's
a matter of child support and custody for
example when it comes to prenuptial agreement or
post after that when it comes to keeping
the role of both having healthy co-parenting
for example, all these things are just becoming
very dangerous in our community today that is
causing so much damage a lot of it
is that I don't think we can discount
the collective trauma of the community too that
like when I go into a marriage I
know that all these people in my circle
didn't work out and so I'm even going
to project the doom of everyone around me
so I'm already my contingency plans are actually
my primary plans marriage is just so let's
see if this works or not and so
it's transactional from the start and so if
you're going into marriage and you're transactional divorce
is also going to be transactional try to
get as much money as you can try
to get as much of your right as
you can, try to use the court system
as much as you can, try to get
as much access to your kids as you
can or sometimes unfortunately the complete opposite of
that like I don't really want the kids
anymore but it feels like the self-centeredness
is like driving every single one of these
problems at the end of the day absolutely
and that's why unfortunately we forgot about them
and the Qur'an is clear, hold them
kindly or at least them kindly and it
has to be with observing Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala above us in marriage and in
divorce as well too I was going to
ask you where's the taqwa in all this?
I mean if a person is marrying someone
who is someone you're pleased with then you
would expect that there would be some sort
of monitoring of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
during the marriage and even during the divorce
so much of the divorce mentioned in the
Qur'an comes with goodness because people unfortunately
don't make this as a priority anymore I
ask people even the religious folk right now
every time I go to a youth program
for example a university program and talk about
the subject of marriage every time we do
that you ask them a simple question, how
many of you are single?
all of them probably raise their hands but
then what was the bigger problem not to
being married?
say we don't find suitable people yeah how
does that happen?
once again we have a whole long list
of criteria that didn't exist back then I
teach people, look when it comes to looking
for a person for marriage you have two
circles you have the primary circle, the main
circle and then you have the preference so
the primary circle is where you have your
main quality that you don't compromise and the
Prophet ï·º gave us two the relationship with
Allah, the Creator and the relationship with the
people of the creation their deen and their
akhlaq as simple as that, everything else is
a matter of preference so age culture, background,
socio-economic status, all these things and so
forth now a lot of people who are
now getting married, they're bringing a lot of
these preferences from the big circle and they
put them into the small circle so you
have a long list of requirements and the
more the more expansive the list the smaller
the pool that you're dealing with, that you're
going to find for yourself and that's one
of our issues but when you look at
what people are looking for, there's a long
list so taqwa becomes one out of many
and as a result obviously it gets diluted,
what level of taqwa are we talking about?
what do you mean by what level of
taqwa to begin with?
so that's why it's missing what about those
people because I know it's probably when we
talk about being imams it's almost the danger
of being an imam sometimes the generalizations don't
fit people at all, like you find sisters
brothers as well sometimes that are like incredible
human beings and they're just not they're not
able to find a spouse that's true, I
mean subhanAllah, once again I think let's be
real one of the biggest problems we have
is the visuals the image, the body culture
we live in a hyper-sexualized society the
image, the body culture and sometimes the parents
and sometimes from the parents as well too
yeah, so among the young ones usually it's
actually the visuals are very very important and
as a result they keep always wishing and
waiting and maybe this, maybe this, so they
don't do that the second thing also comes
specifically from traditional households and cultural households, the
parents, they insist on someone from the same
town, the same village the same, you know,
culture, background and so forth, and they keep
pushing their children's marriage until it becomes unfortunately
a hopeless case I know some guys who
are in the past their 30s and they
don't want to get married anymore because they
just gave up on it unfortunately, similarly we
have a lot of ladies who unfortunately as
well too, they've given up on it it's
not like we have a solution for this
but that's the real problem that no one
really wants to talk about we are getting
to that level where we have a huge
number of unmarried young men and women in
their late 20s and 30s and we don't
seem to be having any infrastructure or system
to help them out and find a suitable
match for themselves what impact we're wrapping up
a couple more questions what impact does this
have on the future of Islam in America
it has a big impact obviously one of
the highlights of the Muslim tradition is the
strength of the nuclear family the family, the
household is strong, it produces the believers, obviously
but if we are coming right now from
broken homes even if they're still together but
they're still unfortunately not in a healthy relationship,
you can imagine who's going to put faith
priority in that moment who's going to think
about spirituality as a priority for themselves they've
become an emotional survivor they just want to
keep managing their household, their family they're tiptoeing
around each other you're surviving not thriving exactly,
so it really affects the quality of our
community in addition to that of course when
young men and women they reach a certain
age and eventually they realize they're not going
to get married at all and there's no
really hope for them to get married in
the community I've seen a lot that many
of these brothers and sisters they start losing
their faith, women removing their hijabs for example
guys come outside on the social media, vocal
on their new lifestyle that has nothing to
do with Islam and so forth it's fitna
may Allah make it easy for them I
mean we wish well for them and I
know we talk about this a lot honestly
this is our biggest concern, I mean we've
seen it's like the veil gets lifted on
the issues in the community I mean the
first shock for me was domestic violence we
don't have time to jump into that right
now this is a real issue in our
community not more in our community than outside
but like woah what's happening here I can't
believe this is happening it seems so under
the wraps and then like the crisis of
marriage now as a whole and divorce as
a whole subhanAllah because we don't want to
end on complete pessimism here, we have to
obviously respond with our resources and try to
give specific resources to people with specific needs
in this regard because not everyone is the
same, everyone is struggling differently in this regard
and we want to definitely be able to
have the proper resources as a community it
can't just be on the imams but I'll
share this especially with the young aspiring parents,
you know you talked about Imam Savage being
your inspiration and things of that sort you
know when you're looking at the TV to
me my greatest da'i was my dad
and he had no idea he was doing
da'i to me as a young person
that was very conflicted about faith seeing the
way that he treated my mother and Allah
have mercy on her by his character and
how the deen engineered him the loyalty, the
character that was the greatest da'i that
was being done to me he didn't even
know he was doing da'i to his
own son in the process we have to
give our next generation a model they believe
in they've got to see Islam in their
parents they've got to see Islam in that
generation so if you're preaching a superior way
of life and of faith but then in
their own family life in their own home
they're not seeing that superiority in fact they
might even be seeing inferiority the opposite then
that calls into question the entire system all
the khutbas, all the stories of the prophets
lies on them, all of that gets called
into question there's a myth that religious people
have perfect households if you become religious it's
going to be amazing but they're also human
beings it's our responsibility to make sure that
our kids Alhamdulillah see the right image of
Islam in our lives as much as we
can and that's why when parents come to
me for advice on parenting a guy asked
me what is the best advice you've given
about parenting I said love their mother that's
the most important thing and the same thing
I give to the mother as well too
because this is the first thing your kids
are going to grow up with how life
should look like, how they model their marriages
in the future and so forth but to
the good note Alhamdulillah in regards to the
subject of marriage we have in our communities
Alhamdulillah I think there's a new trend I
believe Alhamdulillah a new trend among young couples
today to have to do premarital marriage premarital
training before they get married it's becoming easy
in the past I hardly had anybody coming
for premarital training now Mashallah it's more increasing
Alhamdulillah why is that important Shaikh what do
you look for, what does it help for
that person who's like why do I need
to do it because you can't drive your
car without having a license you can't go
practice engineering or being a doctor without doing
so and so today you have to go
through all this training to be qualified to
do something and then you have a life
long experience you don't want to have any
qualification, any training for that in the past
we took that training just simply by observing
our parents our uncles, our aunts, our siblings
and so on but the models we have
around us are unfortunately not healthy anymore so
it's better for us to have somebody who
can teach us professionally so that's why we
teach them premarital training in which you study
personalities so you know what strength and weakness
of each personality, what you need to worry
about what you need to keep in your
mind we talk about the phases of a
relationship how it evolves from being in love
to being a real love and then you
go through this phase and that phase so
we learn exactly how it evolves so they
have a road map for them instead of
just predicting it on the way being surprised
every time yeah right, it's like I didn't
expect that well that's the thing, they need
to be prepared for this and of course
part of the training is to learn about
the most common problems young couples face in
the first years of their marriage just like
Hudaibah radiyallahu ta'ala he said, people used
to ask the Prophet about what was good
and ask about the bad stuff I don't
want to be caught up with that thing
so I want to know what's right, what's
wrong so that's something we teach Alhamdulillah and
there's a beautiful acceptance among young people and
parents right now willing to invest in it
in the past people would say too much,
too expensive, it costs this much you haven't
tried divorce seriously, it's so dangerous the other
thing Alhamdulillah I see that's something good news
for the community right now the concept of
prenuptial agreement many people they have a negative
feeling about it but look it falls under
the shurut al nikah in Islam when you
have conditions in the marriage contract you can
put whatever you want to put there as
long as it's not haram so here people
come with assets before they get married in
this case we help them keep themselves Alhamdulillah
protected because again the reality is telling us
that people are not trained after divorce to
be fair unfortunately or civil or something like
that so that's something right now people are
becoming more accepting of that not that it's
the best thing to do but if someone
has an asset that needs to be protected
you know for themselves they understand that if
Laqadarallah the case was actually death it has
gone to inheritance but if it was otherwise
then at least they're protected it put them
at ease when they come into the relationship
obviously again it's not the ideal situation but
there's much more understanding among young people to
say yeah you know what I have no
problem with that I can sign this agreement
and so on and there's much more of
course but Alhamdulillah I think we still have
MashaAllah hope and the training we do the
people coming back to learn about it and
InshaAllah it's gonna produce healthy families in the
future Sheikh Hamad you have a chance to
ask one more question I'm gonna do rapid
fire oh that's pretty much you ready Sheikh
Hamad?
I gotta do rapid fire actually before that
I'm gonna ask Sheikh Hamad a question what
town in Palestine is Sheikh Yasir from?
I have no idea you didn't even try
you've been there it doesn't resemble any town
it resembles Al-Quds Sheikh Yasir MashaAllah they're
very proud Alhamdulillah well the reason Sheikh Hamad
is asking this question because his wife is
from the same town MashaAllah where are you
from in Palestine?
Tulkarab sorry Sheikh Yasir so here are the
rapid fire questions if you had to replace
the other Imam of the RIC who would
you replace him with?
Allah we're gonna need you to edit him
out crop him out from now you're supposed
to say you're irreplaceable I never want to
replace you you see how quickly he answered
that was so fast you can come but
I'll move to I'm not moving to Houston
I heard you don't even have an office
I have an office MashaAllah I think Alhamdulillah
Valley Rant is really it's not really one
man thing Alhamdulillah it's the community and also
Alhamdulillah the leadership that we have as Imams
in the community that makes it unique Alhamdulillah
so definitely don't worry when I replace you
if there was one more place other than
Dallas that you could live in the United
States what would it be?
what's another city you'd live in?
near the beach New York that's what he
means Jones Beach something warm a beach where
people don't curse at you for no reason
that's love though I think being near the
water is essential because it reminds me of
Jannah the sound of the water it's beautiful
I think maybe I think about that because
of the age factor right now you need
to have quiet time nothing but listen to
the waves and the wind MashaAllah it's so
beautiful this is the last question this is
a serious one I think it's a good
one a young person comes up to you
and says they want to get involved what's
the first advice you give them in a
nutshell you have an elevator conversation with a
young person they need to learn to read
the Quran they need to learn to read
the Quran better first the first thing I
tell them is to go actually to read
the Quran have a Quran teacher let him
teach you the Quran and then I usually
tell people to try to memorize Juz Amma
and study the Holy Hadith that's the most
important thing I think it's beautiful the simplicity
like we're doing the Abu Salihin for how
many years now?
and it's still finding so much benefit in
the Abu Salihin Alhamdulillah he also gave us
that advice maybe 10 or 12 years ago
same advice memorize Juz Amma and the 40
Hadith because if you ever need to give
a Khatir or Khutbah or anything like that
you'll have that foundation at the very least
and I think also in addition to that
it's the discipline you're gonna really learn from
doing that if you don't have the stamina
to stay there to read how to recite
properly and memorize Juz Amma and study the
40 Hadith then we don't want you in
the Dawah field they're gonna be an obstacle
but Shaykh what if I don't want to
be a teacher or anything like that I
want to be in the Dawah field in
some other capacity like I want to distribute
food even then I gotta learn how to
read the Quran you should I mean obviously
not everybody is just like Ibn Mas'ud
and Ibn Abbas for example they were people
who are just very simple people they didn't
know that so if a person is not
in the capacity of teaching Dawah or talking
to people about Islam just only they want
to if they were told do this do
that then Alhamdulillah the only thing we need
for them is just to find a mentor
to be under their guidance don't do it
on your own Jimmy Faisal says don't go
out alone stay with the Jama'at his
most famous quote Ya Jama'at so you
gotta stay with the group stay with the
Jama'at we gotta stay with each other
Alhamdulillah that's what we're trying to do Shaykh
even with this podcast honestly is just like
try to reconnect people with some of the
pioneers in the Dawah some of the people
in the Dawah and I think at the
end of the day our success is going
to be through of course first and foremost
sincerity and being connected to Allah but also
being connected to each other in that shuraan
and trying to draw insights JazakAllah Khair Shaykh
appreciate you being with us we'll see you
tonight InshaAllah I just want to make everyone
jealous MashaAllah I'm jealous MashaAllah I'm a little
threatened now he said so quickly that he
replaced me with you I'm a little threatened
I don't want the camera man come to
Dallas InshaAllah we'll stay in Houston but we'll
come to Dallas JazakAllah Salam Allah
Allah Allah Allah