Suhaib Webb – Ramadn & Religious Education
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Everybody. It's great to be here. Masha'Allah.
Before we start, I just want to say,
like, really humbled
by, you know, kind of the warmth
that we constantly receive
when I come. I feel like Irvine is
like my home, you know, in a weird
way. California, West Coast.
So it's always a pleasure
to, you know, be loved and be cared
for and be shown
sympathy
and and and grace. So
Then pray for my wife because, of course,
she's on the front lines, right? She's about
to deliver, hamdulillah,
few weeks.
Make du'a, insha'Allah,
baby girl.
And, you know,
the struggle that sometimes our families,
make for us really is what allows us
to, like, scaffold as people. Right?
So we pray for all of our families,
our spouses,
you know,
those on the front lines who helped us
when we were in residency, you know.
Yeah, you hear the sisters laughing and brothers
laughing. You know what it's like
as well as, you know, old friends
and great great people I've known for years.
The second thing is like Sister Sophia,
Brother Amir,
you know, the staff here at this institution
has been, like, really incredible.
The volunteers,
just, you know, the professionalism is, like, really
something, alhamdulillah.
You know, so I hope that you can
continue,
you know, that kind of like,
intensity
for being a professional. So barakalafiqum.
And of course, Imam Atif. He's not here
so we can say how awesome he is.
Masha'Allah.
My alumnus,
you know, someone with the same school
and how lucky you are to have him
and his family
amongst you. For Jazakamalahu Khayran.
Assalam Jazza.
Alhamdulillah. We're going to talk briefly about Ramadan
and then we're going to go through a
quick text
that was written by the teacher of 1
of my teachers
on reciting the Quran properly.
But of course Ramadan
is this special month, the Prophet Ataq, shahr
Ramadan.
You know, the month of Ramadan has come
to you. And then he mentions like numerous
narrations that every night an angel calls you
Abahi Al Khairi Aqbel
You know whoever is seeking good then like
accept the good find the good every night
of this month. And of course, then he
said the one who's doing evil like stop.
Then he mentions also that a naful is
equal to a fard
and that one fard is equal to 10
fard
And of course he said alsiamujunnakajunati
ahadikunfilkital
You know, Ramadan is like a shield that
protects you
Just like someone will use a shield in
battle. So it's an opportunity after a year
of struggling and trying to maintain our iman.
Alhamdulillah.
The month has come where we're able to
find like a safe and secure place
to scaffold, alhamdulillah,
our faith and our deen. Alhamdulillah
And in the Quran we find like 3
things that I'll just focus on and then
we'll segue into the text.
The first is that the goal of Ramadan
is very clear. Allah Subhanahu Wa
Ta'ala
says fasting has been prescribed for you so
that you can achieve taqwa.
And the la'ala here doesn't mean like maybe
maybe not from the point of God.
The means maybe you,
oh, believer, maybe you will take advantage of
this opportunity.
Maybe you will use the month
to improve taqwa.
So the first lesson that we take from
these verses, there's 4 lessons, is the important
of individual agency and resilience.
And oftentimes, we need to be very careful,
of a world
that's framed human beings and it's interesting because
it's a great contradiction, right?
That through the
possession of worldly things you find value.
But then when it comes to real change
and agency
this world reinforces the notion that we have
no agency, like we're not responsible for how
we feel.
We should just give up in the face
of the tsunami of sorrow
and that of course makes people conspicuous consumers,
right? Sad people, what happens when we get
down? We eat a pizza,
right? When we find pain, we remedy, we
know the pain
with shopping sprees.
So there's this really dangerous
position that we find ourselves framed in the
modern world and that's why al Busti
al Afghani, the great scholar from Afghanistan who
was a student of Sayyidina Shefiri, he said,
Kamtashpa
bhitmatihi.
He said, Oh you who just serve your
body.
He said, How have you toiled
in the service of your body?
Are
you seeking a repayment of an investment
in something that by its nature
is like loss, like you're dying, like, you
know, he doesn't mean to neglect looking good
or the balance of beauty. He means opulence.
Then he says
You should turn to your soul
and you should learn how to utilize its
best qualities.
SubhanAllah.
He said it's by your soul,
not your body, that you truly reach
the opinion of humanity
to become truly human.
So the Islamic worldview is very different than
something that's anchored in simply owning things and
finding value in that ownership.
The Islamic world view is something that says
start
inwardly
and develop great qualities like
treating your spouse well,
being good to your kids,
being a good neighbor,
being nice to people.
We know that the Pope, the new Pope,
right, he wrote,
a few years ago on the danger of,
like, unbridled materialism,
the impact that it's having on the environment.
It's like a very brilliant document.
So as a Muslim community, as a faith
based community,
we are not one that derives its value
through what it has
in the sense of the material
to the degree that that becomes intrinsic, right?
Naturally and normally, yeah, we all like having
an, you know, m5. I get it.
But to the point that it becomes what
drives my value is a problem. And that's
why the prophet
The prophet said cursed
is the slave of money.
Cursed is the slave of clothing.
And we know the beautiful narration of Sayyidina
Abu Hurairah from Sayyidina Rasulillah
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala doesn't care about your
possessions and how you look
but he cares about where your heart is.
So Ramadan
actually does something very powerful. It says, you
know, take responsibility of yourself.
And if you and I use this month
right
and we are resilient in the face of
this month, then we will achieve taqwa.
And that's why the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa
sallam said, laysaluginaan
kathratilaaar
walakinaluginaaluginaaluginaal
nafs alaihi salatu salam. He said being rich
is not what you have. Being rich is
content in your soul.
That's why some of the Sufis, they used
to say, O Allah,
never allow me to be poor by feeling
autonomous of you.
And make me always rich
by feeling impoverished to you.
That's why one of the highest
Maqam is the Maqam wa Iftikar
It is the station of feeling impoverished to
Allah.
That's why I say the Muhammad said, Allah
oh Allah, resurrect me with who? With the
messaikim.
Resurrect me with the poor because their responsibility
will be left
less. Of course, no one should seek poverty.
That's a problem also, right?
But it's not about what I have that
makes me rich and poor. It's about where
I am with what I have. I've seen
people that have nothing that are super arrogant
and I've seen people that are very wealthy,
who are very content and very service oriented.
And that's why when someone came to say,
named Imam Ahmed,
they asked him, can a millionaire
be a wali?
He said, of course, if the million is
not in their heart but it's in their
hand. Sayna
Abdurrahmad ibn A'ouf is a venture capitalist in
Medina.
The first place he goes when he arrives
in Medina is not the masjid of the
prophet, alayhis salatu salam. The first place he
goes is the market. Sayyidna
Imam
Shafi'i.
Sayyidna Shafi'i used to say, if I'm busy
thinking about
I can't think about fiqh
meaning,
you know, I I have to take care
of my myself financially but not opulence.
That's why Imam Ahmed, when he was asked
what's the condition of the Mufti, Sur Al
Kaffa, you know, that they have sufficient
financial means.
So the month of Ramadan
reminds us to
reformat
how we look at life in the world
and to understand
that by being hungry of the world,
by starving ourselves from the world,
we become hungry for Allah.
So we go into the month of Ramadan
hungry for gulab jamun,
missing coffee,
right?
Missing food.
But if we practice Ramadan properly,
we leave hungry for Allah.
The material becomes less important.
So the idea of agency and responsibility,
everybody's responsible for themselves.
We all have to carry our own burdens.
And then a taqwa.
The word taqwa is from a shield, al
wiqaya,
to protect.
So we say in the Quran
that they were protected from * by Allah
So the word Taqwa means that I achieve
this protection
between myself
and Allah, subhanahu wa ta'ala's punishment in the
hereafter
by faith and struggling to do good. That's
taqwa.
So the outcome of of Ramadan is that.
The second two lessons that we'll take insha'Allah
is how Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala,
how the Quran
builds people slowly.
So the verses of fasting found in the
second chapter, verse 184 to like 187,
you know, in the second chapter of the
Quran.
There is a lot to unpack in the
method of
ministry and pastoral care and education
because Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala said,
fasting
has been prescribed for you.
And the companions of the Prophet when they
heard of siyam,
they were kind of scared like what is
a siyam?
They'd already been fasting before the days of
Ashura.
So they were kind of like, oh snap.
What's next?
Then a few
words later, the next verse
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala introduces what fasting will
be
And he does so in a way that
builds hope and resilience
It doesn't destroy people. It roots itself in
grace
and the law. It marries
religious commitment
with the idea of hope and mercy.
It says
It's called
a form in Arabic
which means 3 to 9.
Aya means like 3 to 9 days.
So they're like, oh snap. What's fast and
what do we gotta do?
Don't worry.
So the Quran builds an idea of hope.
Just a few days, you got this. Don't
worry about it. You can do it.
Then later it says,
Then it defines
what those few days are
after giving people hope
and the promise of the ability to fast,
it says shahurul Ramadan,
the month of Ramadan.
So we learn a lot from these verses.
Number 1, each and every one of us
should not allow ourselves to be controlled by
the material.
The material should not be pushing how we
see our relationship with God.
Secondly,
what is taqwa?
And the third is a method in dawah
that takes in
consideration that people a method in teaching people
and ministering to people that builds them slowly
and gives them hope,
helps them find confidence in themselves.
The last is that this is the month
of the Quran.
Quran That this is the month that the
entire Quran
was revealed to what's called Baytul Izzah
and the heavens from
from Lohin Mahfou,
and then it was sent to the Prophet
Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam
over time for 23 years.
That's why Allah says
in Suratul Qadr in and zalnaahu
fee Laylatul Qadr. Laylatul Qadr is talking about
when the Quran was sent to Baytul Izzah.
But then and the word
means it all came at once.
Like as I made him sit down.
Like, understanding the mystery of why the words
are formed the way they are gives us
the doors to the opening of the language.
So the form in
is
which means at once the Quran was sent.
Because some people, they read Surat Al Qadr
like so the whole Quran was sent to
the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam, then how
come later on it was sent to the
prophet? No. Later the Qadr is talking about
the night it was sent to Baytul 'Izzah
in its whole form from
and then was sent
piece by piece to say So
that's why when Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala talks
to the prophet, he says, nazalaa
araikal Quran. Nazalaa doesn't mean it all came
at once. Nazala means step by step.
So the whole Quran is revealed to Baytul
Izzah on that night, and then Iqra comes
to say, Narasulillah,
sallallahu alaihi wa sallam, and then from there
on, the Quran is revealed to him, sallallahu
alaihi wa sallam,
step by step.
It's very important that we understand
the importance of the Quran.
And our first step in Qur'anic literacy is
to read the Quran properly.
And I've started
an online institute that will start this July
inshallah called SWISS.
Suheib Web Institute of Sacred Sciences, not the
cheese.
And
we started pre enrollment now because,
unfortunately, even Muslims that we asked to invest
were like, okay, give me equity. Like, subhanAllah,
man.
Like, I'm an imam. How much equity do
you think I have, dude?
You know, you're the one that has a
Bitcoin mind. Give me some equity.
And we believe that one of the conditions
of being an educator is financial freedom
because too often
our religious leadership has been so underpaid
that they're not allowed to speak freely
or to teach freely.
So alhamdulillah,
one of the books that we teach
in this 5 year
2 semester
program, which is an entire Islamic Studies curriculum
rooted in foundational text that I learned in
Esar and in West
African system and synagogue
and then married with my background in professional
education.
For the first time, we hope in English
language, you'll have a complete curriculum from A
to Z. Like what are the as we
said today earlier, like starting Islamic Studies in
America is like going to the gym first
time.
You know, when you go to the gym
first time, you don't know what to do,
you just want abs.
You just want abs or other things that
we can't mention here.
Right? So what you do is you look
for those machines that you've seen on TV
or you see someone else who you wish
you could look like.
I've been there. And then we go and
do what they do.
But we don't really know what we're doing.
And the proof is as soon as we
leave the gym, we smash like, you know,
an entire bucket of fried chicken
because we don't really know what we're doing.
Islamic studies in the English language, why is
it that we don't have a curriculum from
a to z for homeschoolers who are teaching
their kids at home? For our Islamic studies
teachers that are struggling to find resources?
For parents who are looking for after school
options, right? We don't have where do I
start? Where do I finish?
But not only that, how do we tailor
the curriculum to the needs of students? So
we talked about this this morning. We may
translate text and render classical text into the
English language that are normative text, but the
questions we translate the questions too. But those
questions were old.
Those questions have passed.
Like, those days are gone. People aren't like
bartering donkeys and goats.
That's a different time. There's some important things
that come out of that for the scholar.
But where is the curriculum
that focuses on functional
literacy?
We have dysfunctional attempts at scholarship.
Right? But where is functional literacy like functional
fitness?
So the the ethos of that curriculum when
I started it 3 or 4 years ago
and putting it together
was how do we take these texts that
are important normative texts,
but then allow them to work as a
public
theology,
a public
Fiqh,
a public study of Hadith,
a public study of Tafsir. We have private
Theology. We have private Fiqh.
But the public's questions remain unanswered.
So the goal initially was to translate the
text, to render them into English, but then
my educational antenna started kicking in.
And then when I was on Snapchat with
your kids, who I know all about
and most of them, I'm gonna be honest,
they ask amazing questions, like,
Very beautiful questions. The most common question I
get on Snapchat is how can I be
closer to Allah?
The most common the second most common question
is it allowed to shape my eyebrows?
That would lie. I never knew that that
was a thing, man.
So,
what we did is took the questions
of the object of that curriculum,
like, for example, teens,
and we plug their questions
into those texts.
So now the text is there, the foundation
is there,
But the questions that are driving the curriculum
are the questions
of the public
now.
So we have, hamdulillah, working with us,
a great brother who's gonna help us on
furthering,
you know, unpacking that curriculum. We have Haneen
who's here. She doesn't want to be shown.
Therapist dealing with family issues. So we go
through the language,
make sure the language of the curriculum is
not triggering for people.
But then what we hope to happen is
that we continue to run focus groups, not
only with teenagers. We have a curriculum for
teenagers.
But what about converts? Like where's the book
on fiqh for the convert? Like if you're
a convert, you know this.
The first day or the second day of
practicing Islam in your in your home with
your non Muslim family, you literally will run
into 50 fiqh issues.
Literally.
And you won't find
the fiqh of the convert. Where's the fiqh
of the young professionals who are thinking about
investments,
right? Thinking about financial longevity, thinking about generational
wealth.
So we created this curriculum in a way
that over time, not tomorrow,
through focus groups and listening, we plug your
questions
back into that curriculum. So that book that
I wrote, some of you may have it,
Essentials of Islamic Faith. If you look at
the questions, these are the questions I was
trying to ask you in Azhar.
These are the questions that came from kids
on Snapchat and Instagram and parents.
So we force also people to have conversations
about religion.
So, for example, the question
under visiting the graves, it's like go with
your father to the graveyard and ask him
what have you prepared to die?
That's a conversation with fathers we should have
with our kids.
Ask your mother, you know, when has Allah
helped her through a difficult time? That's a
conversation that we want to have with our
parents
instead of highly curated
successfully
uncontextualized
stuff.
So the goal of Swiss is to create
that curriculum that's founded
in theology,
founded in Quran studies, reciting the Quran properly,
founded in the study of
worship like fiqh and Essen,
those 4 foundational things at this moment.