Suhaib Webb – SWISS Focus Group #1 Listening to College Student’s Needs
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Okay.
That was, extremely electrifying.
It's great to be with all of you.
Certainly, you know, young people teach us how
to live again, man. So it's invigorating
to be with you, and I'm very happy
that you came.
So let's let's talk about if we can
just share, because I think this is important
for me to learn as well. Like,
what are the most important
questions around Dawa? Those 2 that I ask.
If anyone would like to share what
what's there for you?
What showed up when I asked that question?
Right? The internal need to understand something and
then
at the same time being able to project
the needs around me. So dawah,
like, oftentimes and this is something to think
about when Allah talks to the prophet he
orders the prophet first. Right? Then his family.
Then the community. We tend to think of
that was being something strictly
projected.
Right? But there's also the thikr for ourselves.
So the first question was, like, what's important
to you? What questions on your mind that
you may be grappling with? And then second,
what's the important question that your immediate environment
may be either through pressure or genuine,
interest is asking you? Who's gonna set us
off?
Nobody? Can you repeat the question? Yeah. I
remember the 2 things I asked, like, what's
important to you and what's important to your
environment. So doubt what to yourself
and doubt what to people around you, Miriam.
Yeah. So
you can just give one, like,
something that people ask you a lot or
something that you may have thought about a
lot that you need to know an answer
to? Okay. When I think about law is
my parents because I'm from Pakistan
and they
they often,
they confuse a religion with culture. Right. So
I grew up thinking
a lot of cultural things were religious and
a lot of religious things were cultural.
So
at this point in my life, I'm trying
to convince, like I was raised I went
to Islamic school where it was all about
religion. So, like, at this point in my
life, I'm trying to convince them a lot
of things that is in our culture, isn't
Islamic. So I think it's an internal struggle
that I have because I of course, in
Islam, we have to respect our parents
100%.
So I don't know how to do that
without
low key being disrespectful.
Right. How do you find the balance between
authentic religious practices
and cultural delusion?
Yeah. And also sometimes what happens is people
go so so fast that they think, oh,
my culture is completely not religion. And then
they go so fast that they wipe out
aspects of their traditional culture, which are really
rooted Yeah. And founded in religion. That balance
is tough. How many of you struggle with
that? The issue of culture and religion.
Yeah. See, as a convert, that's something that
I struggle with maybe in a different way.
But
no one was framing
Oklahoma
culture as
Islamic. You know what I mean? Like, I
didn't have to deal with that aspect of
it. Awesome. Thank you, Miriam. That was wonderful.
Who else? I'm external thing too. Okay. Let's
hear it.
Basically, in, like, my classes, when they bring
up Islam and I have answers to their
questions, but I get so embarrassed or, like,
shy to answer. Even though I know what
the answers are, I know what Sharia law
is. I know a lot of, like I
know what jihad is itself, but, like, to
them, it's like holy war. So I don't
know. I don't answer the questions just because
I get, like,
shy, and then I and I feel guilty
because I know this is my job as
a Muslim to educate everyone else. I mean,
being vulnerable, like, thank you for being vulnerable.
That's dope. Like,
how many of you struggle sometimes with the
confidence to speak the truth?
It can it's there. Right? It's it's there.
Right?
Even some of us raised their hands kinda
like this. Someone's really like I mean, that's
just and we need to create safe space
for like, we need to talk about
love. Right? We need to
bring the sense of a loving community
so that we can be, like, vulnerable in
the way that we address our vulnerabilities. So,
like, thank you for, like, set framing that.
And,
like, the first question.
Just killing, Mariam. You got me from Brooklyn.
Right? Yeah. I know it. Alright.
Who else?
This is a safe space, Insha'Allah. I don't
know who else is in the room,
but I really I really need you to
share in order to, like, be able to
serve you.
When we talk about education, religious education often
in the Muslim community,
we commit a great offense that it's only
a one way street. Sheikh or teacher or
myself, like a student
just talking.
Whereas we should there should be a period
of intake.
Right? So that we learn from from you.
And then we're better able to serve you.
Yes.
Can you say your name? I'm sorry. Oh,
my name is Asma. Asma.
So for who I struggle with and what
I experience with is that, like, most of
them, they, like, come in the
Yeah, how's that feel? How does it feel
to have someone just call you out like
that? Because your hijab is low? What does
low mean? Your hijab is low? What does
low mean?
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's I got daughters. I
asked her about it. But, like,
I'm just trying to understand it. Right? So
when that happens, you've been Yeah. Because, like,
all used weddings. Because before, I just started
writing the values when it's happened to the
This is a man?
Yeah. This is a man saying this to
you? Yeah. Why is he all up in
how you look?
A lot of people are like I don't
know how to come out there. I feel
like Yeah. I'm not supposed to do this.
I'm not supposed to do this. I'm not
supposed to do this.
And it's also creepy. Yeah. Like
so so what what
what would be something that
would work? Like, I'm not saying what I
I honestly don't think jeans are an issue,
and I don't think it's my business how
you dress personally. But, like, what would be
an effective way for someone to say approach
someone who
like, not this. Like, someone's doing something really
wrong.
I don't think calling them out
is effective. Like you said like you said,
like, I felt it. Like, it's humiliating.
I'm sorry, you you know, that you experienced
that. Yes. Your name? Sorry. Fatima. Fatima.
I was just gonna add to that. I
think, an internal struggle
I have as well is,
not trusting
the people I should trust within my community.
Right. Like growing up,
I just never had any I didn't have
a strong relationship with
the the shoe or the the Islamic, like,
leaders
in the community because
I felt like their advice came from a
place of pride and not a place of
love.
And what whenever What's that mean? It came
from a place of pride instead of a
place of love. That's
powerful. It's so light. Gracious.
It's like That's that's real.
Like, don't wear jeans because my daughter doesn't
wear jeans and my daughter does it the
right way. Or it's like,
I don't listen to music. Why are you
listening to music? It always places the burden
of a person
displaying their religion,
how much they love Islam or how much
of a Muslim they are on that person
and just limiting them to that sin even
though that person themselves may not view as
a sin, like listening to music.
A lot of people when they try to
give give advice about music, it's always like,
haram, bestaffarullah, what are you doing? And it's
always like, I I don't wanna be around
this or I don't wanna be in this
area. And it's like, nobody ever wants to
listen to that person. Like, maybe they have
a different opinion about it. So I always
felt like I felt constrained to what other
people had to say about me rather than
being given a safe space. And on the
comment about, like, you commenting about what women
dress, that's kind of what I felt was
always carry
yourself.
In a weird way, it was a very,
like, hypersexual,
like, are you dressed to, like It's objectifying.
I mean, it could be objectifying. Right? It
reduces a person's religious value to how they
look. Sorry. Exactly. And it's like, it's never,
oh,
other subjects. It's always about, like, all the
lectures about women or how to be a
good wife or how to not dress a
certain way. There was, like, nothing else. And
then for men, there's, like, so much for
them to explore. And for us, it's sometimes
it feels limiting.
Or even sometimes, and I'm I'm not saying
this to, to reduce what you're sometimes young
men are just ignored in the community. Right?
So you find a lot of young guys,
brothers can chime in, like just not even
connected to the community. Like they've they've just
given a free license. One share, I went
to school with, he said, we love our
boys, we raise our daughters.
That's a mistake, right? What he meant is
we should love and raise both. But oftentimes,
there's so much freedom
that you talk talk to some young Muslim
men and you just feel like neglected.
Anyone else? Yes, sir? Yeah, man. I definitely
want to chime in on living life. Alright.
Susan. As a young man? Yeah. Yeah. When
it comes to listening, man.
So, like, obviously, the the issue on the
sister's side 100% exists.
And
conversely, on the brother's side, when it comes
to some rapists and young men, not only
are they neglected, sometimes they're even, like, driven
away from the messenger. And since they're like,
why the messenger isn't for you. Like, it's
How are they driven away from why would
someone drive someone away from a message? Basically,
like, to them, the the the mindset is,
like, oh, well, you know, it's when you
get old. Right? For now, like, all of
your life,
I mean, how does it happen to my
You mean, like, become religious when you get
old? Yeah. Oh. Basically, go go go Go
sow your oaks. Yeah. But work on your
career now. Work on your money now. Have
fun now. That's kinda like the message with
a lot of,
families. Sometimes it didn't happen with me, but
a lot of people I know have just
happened to. And it's definitely a big problem
when it comes with brothers because they
end up really focusing on their careers or
having fun or, you know, doing whatever the
* they're doing, and they do it without
purpose or direction.
Mhmm. And that's, like, it's a huge problem.
That's a lonely place to be too when
you're living a life without purpose. Yeah. Exactly.
You know what I mean? Yeah. It can
be it can be a challenge. Masha'Allah, man.
This is gold. Like, this is really gold.
It's not like, oh, You guys are volunteers?
You guys are awesome, man. Thank you so
much.
I mean, I'm the last it's not easy.
As you get older, you realize time, you
know, time is is really important.
Anyone else,
wanna share before we
get into some of the theoretical, maybe optics
of of thinking about Dawa? These are really
I'm I'm grateful. You don't know me. You
know what I mean? Like, I'm very grateful.
Like like, I felt your pain.
You know? Asma when you said what you
said. Yes, sir. That one, sorry. Your name?
Aman. Aman. Aman. I don't want to chime
off, what Mary was saying right there about,
how I don't want to jump off, what
Miriam was
saying right there about how the aspect of
culture and also religion really intertwines and a
lot of
different backgrounds. So, personally, for me, I'm Bangladeshi.
So
Okay. A lot of the like, I've seen
it happen with my brother who married off
who's, married to
someone that's not from our background personally. She's,
a different ethnicity.
And, with our
well, with most Desi cultures,
they don't like it when you go outside
of your own, you know, your own group.
So, they don't like if you marry someone
even out of your own city, for instance.
Okay. Right? So, it's it's really a hard
road for me personally because right now I'm
struggling to give the dialogue to someone that
I'm in a relationship with, which I wanna
make it a a beautiful relationship. That's a
beautiful thing though. And it's beautiful though. Like
if you can marry, you know, and settle
down with a person that
shares your religious passion, that's like, that's like
dope. That's gravy. Well, she's not
a she's not a Muslim yet. Yeah, I
mean, I'm saying, but if she do I'm
with her, Lance. Oh, yeah. Beautiful, man. Now
I'll make it easy for you.
So, I know it's a like, I've seen
my brother go through that road and that
path where it was a lot of struggle
for him, but I also want to say
that it really helps if you have people
of your generation,
younger ones supporting you, where, like, we all
supported my brother and all the, you know,
older people with traditional mentality. They came and
they, you know, and they try to, you
know, stigmatize whatever it was or, you know,
attack him in a certain sense. You know,
we we'd be the ones that, you know,
come and back him up. And I'm hoping,
you know, the same thing happens for me,
you know, where my brother's is a big
family for us, where they would come and
they would, you know, support me in a
sense
where when that time comes that you know,
she's not a Muslim as of yet, but,
where they would support her to get to
a new path Right. To get on the
street path.
So, I just wanted to say that, you
know, maybe the best, you know, solution to
where you're coming from is also support from
the younger generation.
Because I kind of, you know, been through
my brother's side, and I'm going through it
right now.
And, I'm hoping, you know, the same thing
goes steadily with us, you know, as well.
But, support support is a great mistake.
And this is where, you know, what I
was always able to do is gauge
how familiar
the institution and religious leadership is with the
community,
by the Duas they make in Jumah.
Like have you ever heard someone in Jumah
say, Oh Allah, help people that may be
in a
that. Or help people that have, like, body
shaming issues, help people that go through eating
disorders,
like, help people that have, like, who've lost
family.
Like one time,
there was an imam in my old city
that I lived in in in California. And
this is where I learned this from. And
he was like, oh, Allah bless the parents
of converts. And this lady just start crying.
This older white lady. So she came up
to him afterwards and she was like, I've
been Muslim for 37 years. I've never had
anyone pray for my parents.
You know what I mean? So, like, may
Allah make it easy for you, man, and
for Asma and for Miriam and for everyone.
So what we'll do is we're gonna spend
a few weeks together, Inshallah.
And
I want to kind of frame this in
a few ways. Number 1 is, like, what
are the kind of intellectual raw materials needed
for dawah? Right? What are those intellectual raw
materials?
And number 2 is, and you touched on
it, Amari. Amari.
Amari.
That
what are the also the emotional and psychological
needs of doubt? Like having a strong supporting
cast.
Right? Not people that verify when I do
something wrong, but like people that are there
to help me, like your brother, when I'm
trying to do something right.
So today we'll introduce
the kind of intellectual, cognitive, if you will,
raw materials. And then,
cognitive,
if you will, raw materials.
And then over the few weeks, we'll break
those down and then go into some of
the psychological,
like, self care. Like, someone should you've seen
sometimes people in dialogue, like, they're mad. Right?
They're angry. Mhmm. And you ask them, like,
yo, have you tried yoga? You know what
I'm saying? Like, do you do CrossFit? Like,
like, are you are you engaged in any
type of, like are you engaged in self
care? Do you eat clean?
So what would be
the intellectual raw materials that are kind of
needed? And then what would be kind of
the self care support supplements if you think
about working out. What's like your protein shake
that's gonna help you maintain
your own kind of internal health. And you
don't have to be an activist to benefit
from these things. So the first is we
find, a number of characteristics
of people who are engaged in dawah. Of
course, dawah means a call.
Here we're talking about a call to goodness,
a call to Islam.
Right? A call to reform. It could be
a number of
things. But of course, the Quran says
right, call to god.
And
there are certain kind
of intellectual, theoretical, raw materials that we wanna
have in our minds
when we think about calling to god.
The first are found and there are 4
found in Sholto Yusuf,
Where,
Allah says in the 12th chapter after.
It says,
say, this is my way.
Okay?
I call to god.
Okay?
Upon
knowledge.
I, meaning prophet Muhammad alaihisar's son, and whoever
follows me
was
then
god
glorified be he.
And I'm not from the polytheists.
So these are the first five. Right?
Calling to God, knowledge,
group work,
spirituality,
and staying away from evil.
5 found in one verse.
So I call to god like the outcome
is the end of my call is god.
So that's sincerity.
It's not about my own personal
agency. You know what I'm saying? I'm not
doing it for the gram. I'm doing it
for a.
Right? No different. And Graham,
Like, I'm doing it for Allah, not for
the gram.
Secondly,
is
knowledge.
3rd,
I I have that supporting cast. I'm engaged
in group work. It's not I'm not alone,
like, on my own solo.
Spirituality.
And I don't do this like bad people.
What's called Tamiiz.
So I don't I don't sacrifice
my values and my principles
in this effort. So this is the first
five. The
Well, Allah says
to the way of god.
That's the 6th wisdom.
And in a way which is impactful, like
your communication is impactful.
Your
is.
You communicate in an excellent way. That's the
second, being able to communicate effectively and properly.
And the end is about being prepared and
qualified qualified to engage in those discussions. So
argue with them in a way that's better.
It doesn't necessarily mean, like, your character is
better than them. That's already understood. What it
means is that I've
taken the time to prepare myself and qualify
myself means is that I've taken the time
to prepare myself and qualify myself intellectually,
right, through my and through my actions. So
there's there's not a contradiction
to speak on the issues.
Right? So again, we'll review
them. Number 1 is sincerity. Number 2 is
knowledge. Number 3 is cooperative group
work. Number 4, spirituality. Number 5,
not suck not sacrificing values and principles.
Number 6 is wisdom.
Number 7 is
effective communication.
And then the 8th is being prepared.
So these are all found in the Quran.
What we'll talk about, today is is is
knowledge.
And and the word
used in this verse is. And we
should talk about sincerity too, though. Right? I
call to god.
I don't call to myself.
That's tough. Like, we all struggle with it
and I wanna say something briefly about sincerity
because, again, we often frame
these things as events instead of a process.
But sincerity is something I can say I'm
46, right, that I always struggle with. Like,
it wasn't like, you know, one day I
went and took a weekend course at at
a college. I'm like, no. I'm sincere.
Right? I'm so good now.
Right? You know, Sophia and Athori, one of
the great early scholars
said, like, there's nothing more subtly dangerous than,
like, believing in your sincerity. Lupe says, I
can't believe my own truth.
Right? So
we've always gotta question ourselves in a way
that doesn't become counterproductive,
but, like, just we check-in. You know, I'm
I'm not sure I'm doing this for the
right reason. It's like, what are the signs
that I'm doing this for the right reason?
But the word in Arabic for sincerity is,
like, everybody knows that, of course.
When you're finished with something in Arabic, what
do you say?
Halas.
Halas. Like, I'm down with it. I'm done.
I'm so done. That's really how you could
translate halas. Like, I'm so done right now.
I mean, that's really what it means. Depending
on how you say it. Right? But but
the word actually
means
from
is the word which means to clean something.
So I had a teacher from Eb Fatima,
who I studied with for a year. And
he used to say,
like honey, you clean it, you purify it.
That's called.
You it from dirt. You it from filth.
So
is doing
of the filth and dirt in my heart,
making sure that the reasons why I'm doing
something
are noble
and not about my own agency.
And nowadays, we live in an era
because of instant fame. Right?
Likes, attention. We all struggle with this
where if we're not careful, we may be
doing things for the wrong reason.
So it's important to check-in.
And that's why the goal of being sincere
or the means of sincerity is called,
right, to audit myself,
to make sure that I'm doing it for
the right reasons. Not to the point that
I become OCD
and incapable of functioning. That's a clinical problem.
Right? But to the point where I'm just
like, yo, make sure you're doing this for
a reason, dude.
Right? That's it. Not like, oh god. That's
not healthy.
And in the Quran, we find something. How
do we achieve sincerity is number 1, awareness,
mindfulness.
When I know something's wrong,
then I'm able to recognize my insincerity, my
mistake, of course. And then secondly, going through
life, you know, Allah says in the Quran
The Quran says that there is a
parable for you in cows.
We give you, we provide you drink
from what comes from the belly of the
cow
Right? It says between feces and blood came
pure milk.
So my sheikh from Absheh Abdul Hamud,
he used to say to me in Hamtramck
when I lived in Detroit,
that
you will go through life,
and life will have, like, feces and blood.
This is a great metaphor.
And just as milk comes through feces and
blood,
the test and mistakes,
and failures and successes that you experience. Right?
The blood
and the feces as a metaphor
are what's preparing you for purity.
So tests come oftentimes through
to adversity.
The second thing, and then we'll we'll mention
this and we'll stop and, you guys can
ask some questions.
Is
knowledge. The word means more than knowledge. He
didn't say. He didn't say on knowledge, he
said actually means to see.
But it doesn't just mean to see. That's
Rota. Here, Basira, as mentioned by some of
our scholars, is
to see with discernment,
to see subtleties,
right, to pay attention,
to be mindful, to be woke. Right?
And most of our scholars said that
involves 2 important things,
the marriage of theology
and sociology
and anthropology and history.
Meaning that I I should have foundational knowledge
of my religion. I would say
one of the greatest tragedies
in the American Muslim community
outside of great efforts within Islamic schools
is that we have not provided
your generation
a
curriculum for religious studies.
I'm not talking about for ulema.
I'm talking about, like, anyone here work out.
I'm talking about functional fitness, functional religious literacy.
Like, what's functional religious literacy? So how do
we gain functional religious literacy? By listening to
what's important to you. That's what's in your
life. That's why I asked you when I
walked in, I have questions for you because
I don't wanna be speaking, like, you know,
in, like, the cloud somewhere. I wanna try
to be able to speak to issues that
are important to you.
So so without the presence of, like, a
functional religious curriculum, I curriculum,
I would say and I say this respectfully,
ma'am,
that the functional literacy of most American Muslims
is suspect.
It can be replaced and buttressed sometimes by
cultural assumptions. Right? Cultural the cultural imagination
is a filler, but that tends to be
like processed food like like you experience with
marriage. Right?
Where's the real kind of religious voice
on issues?
So the first is that you gotta prepare
yourself for dawah, and that would involve,
you know, studying,
whether it's through
trying to fulfill that through, like, YouTube lectures
on topics that are important to you.
TED Talks on topics that are important to
you. If you're able to sit down, and
I know this is hard with, like, a
shayef or an imam and say, listen. I
just wanna, like, come to you, like, once
a week, man. Me and say, like, 5
or 6 of us and just study. Like,
in NYU, there's, like, 7 girls that came
to me. I was like, I can sit
with you twice a week.
And they're just, like, reading a classical Muslim
curriculum. I have, like, 30 other people, men
and women, who would read different text to
me. Right? That access
for people who are trained as educators,
we have to be accessible to you. Like,
there's no way we can say no unless,
of course, no, we have life issues.
So the first is
to learn your religion and don't assume you
learned it.
Because that will take you down that road
of
well, well, since you're not Bangali, you can't
marry this person. That's where that ends up.
Right? Those assumptions that haven't been investigated
or that I can go to a young
woman and just, like, put her on blast
because of her hijab. Is it being
low? Right?
That's an assumption.
Right? That's an assumption.
So when we learn
religious education, we're talking about really 3 or
4 fundamental subjects.
Number 1 is to learn how to read
the Quran properly. Like, that's very important, man.
That's something that you'll pass on to your
family.
Right? That's something that you can give to
others. That allows you say to teach other
girls, teach other boys to engage. Right? You're
there now as an asset to people. Number
2 is to learn theology.
And I can't stress how important that is.
That you should be able to sit down
and
go through, like, a series on functional religious
theology.
What do we believe about god? Why do
we believe god exists? What do we believe
about prophets? What do we don't believe about
prophets? What makes us different from other people?
How do we talk about those differences without
sounding crazy? Blah blah blah blah. Like a
proper education.
Number 2 would be, of course,
an education at ihsan.
Right? What are the internal
emotional components that Islam holds are very important,
like tranquility,
love, hope,
fear,
awareness,
mindfulness.
Right? Those kind of altruism.
What does Islam say about, like, kind of
universal,
right,
ideals and concepts
like justice,
community,
how do you formulate that in your internal
sphere
Right? So that you're able to think about
your own life, and then you automatically become
someone who advocates for that without having to
say it.
The third area, of course, would be the
life of the prophet,
peace be upon him, and Muslim history in
general. Because Muslim history is not perfect, not
romantic, not like people try to sell it.
That imagination again. Right? I mean, if if
Spain was so amazing,
why is Muslim Spain gone?
You know what I mean? Like, if it
was Wakanda, you know what I'm saying? Like,
if Andalus was Wakanda, it would still be
there.
But just like we see now in Yemen.
Right?
Who's attacking Yemen?
Yeah. It is. You know, they're using bombs
made in McDonnell Douglas and Boeing,
and they're paying people for that. But, largely,
you have
Iran, Saudi Arabia, you know, you have Muslim
players
in inflicting pain
on people.
You know what I mean? So
it's never been perfect.
That's important to know because when we tell
people like, yes, we're gonna go back to
these glory days and everything was fine.
We put too much weight on that bar
for you to hold it up because you're
like, I'm not perfect, dude. I live in
a, you know, I live in Brooklyn. I'm
trying to maintain my dean. Like, it's real.
The third thing I think that we should
familiarize ourself with or the 4th, sorry, is
Hadith.
Especially those Hadith that are foundational
points of Islam
and those,
hadith that talk about the, you know, like
the rulings, questions people have. And then the
5th would be contemporary issues. Like, what's important
to you?
What are the questions that you have?
So what we'll talk about quickly now is
knowledge. We just gave you kind of a
a kind of pedagogy. Like, how would you
approach it? What would you wanna study?
Right? And now let's talk about the second
component of Basirah.
That is after having some foundational knowledge of
our religion. Right?
Like, I think every Muslim should at least
know 2 parts of Quran, man. Like
2 just like
right? Sorry, I spoke speak in Egyptian. But,
like, you know, at least that
or at least the last part of the
Quran or at least the verses that, like,
Islamophobes are constantly invoking. Like, that should be
part of our curriculum for high school Muslim
students. How do you respond
to when Sean, you know, Sean Hannity
is trying to, like, drop bars
on Tops here. Like, how are you able
to now respond academically,
intellectually? We do a great job of respect
responding passionately now,
but we don't necessarily do a great job
of responding intellectually.
Sha'Allah,
is
the other component of knowledge is knowledge of
people.
So, Bolseera doesn't only mean that I have
like religious education that and we're not asking
you to be scholars. I don't like what
we tell people this.
That's like telling people become PhDs. Like, not
necessarily
functional
religious
scholarship.
Some of my worst teachers, necessarily functional religious
scholarship. Some of my worst teachers,
in Islamic studies were considered brilliant scholars in
a given subject, but they were horrible teachers
because they would always conflate
their focus with whatever they were trying to
teach us. And some of my best teachers
had, like, associate's degrees.
Right? But they were
seasoned
teachers.
So no one's asking you to become
so you can rock the r line hard
if someone asks you a question.
You know, you don't wanna be going to
Bay Ridge and you're like, well, you know,
I'm not a scholar, so I can't tell
you about this. Like,
and this happened to me. When I converted,
I said at the MSA booth. I don't
know if you have MSA booth on campus.
And there was this guy from Pakistan.
So, like, that's my boys. My boys are
all from Pakistan. We're not convert.
So people would come and be like, so
what's Islam? He's like, I don't know. I
have to ask a scholar.
So these non Muslims are like, I don't
need a scholar to know what your religion
means to you. We've made a mistake in
our community. We said that this voice, that
public intellectual,
that public advocate
has to be
a scholarly level of literacy. No. It needs
to be functional religious literacy.
And at times, a functional carrier may be
more impactful,
say like Linda
Sarsour. Right?
Then the the shei.
So the second component is crucial because as
young Americans,
living in perhaps the most important city in
the world, I mean, you're you're up on
what's going on.
And the ability to know people is the
second condition.
That's why when someone asked Imam Ahmed,
you know, what is a functioning scholar? He
said,
Right? To know the religion and to know
the people.
And knowing the people means to know their
as best you can, their emotional and psychological
needs and historical trauma.
Right? Or historical successes to be aware. So
we know the prophet forbid us to stand
for people, but we have narrations at times
when when people would come, he would stand.
And some of his students asked him, didn't
you tell us not to he's like, yeah,
but that's the chief of a certain tribe
and their tribe, you gotta stand.
So he knows the difference between, you know
what I mean, Brownsville and Brooklyn Heights.
He knows that in Harlem, it's different than
Brooklyn. He's aware how to deal, engage with
people.
The prophet
asked people how they are emotionally. He checks
in with men and women because
he cares about how they but he knows
that they have this need.
He always says to I love you. I
love you. Why? Because needs that. He's a
single
child. He was raised by a single mother.
So he needs that male to step in
and be like, yo, I love you and
to help model for him what it means
to be a a growing pre adolescent.
Now, we understand the prophet differently.
So, Dawah isn't just like, yo, that's haram.
Your hijab is low blah blah blah. Like,
no. If I really know Esma,
then I might say to myself, that's not
the best thing to even talk about right
now.
But maybe there's other issues that are, like,
that show I actually care about Esma, that
I'm worried about that issue.
We've all been there.
And that leads to the later condition that
we'll talk about, Hikma. How do we get
to know people?
Conversations,
man.
Live with them. Know them. There's actually a
famous axiom in Islamic law that says, you
know, you're not allowed to give a fatwa
to people if you don't understand the cultural
norms of those people.
Because you may destroy them.
You may wreck them.
You may cause great you may cause more
harm than good.
So by communication,
by learning their history,
right, by reading
about them. By building relationships with them. By
volunteering with them.
By working with them.
Right? Not just being the passionate person that
feels somehow connected,
but going to a deeper
level. So the process, Allah says about the
prophet,
like, he was sent in you, in
means
inside you. Like, the prophet was in the
guts of his
So he can better serve them.
We see our sister, Ocasio
Cortez. Right? Like, how does she win? She
knew her constituents
seat. She wasn't a an establishment
democrat.
Right? She didn't have a lot of corporate
funding behind her, but she knew people.
Right? She understood her constituency.
So to truly be someone in Dawa,
right, is to know that person.
So if I know that perhaps and I'll
give you an example. I I I was
in Boston for a number of years. Sorry.
It's 3 o'clock.
And
this brother came to me and he's like
imam. I don't think you know me. I
actually found out I was Irish at that
time. I didn't know I was Irish.
I did the *.com. You know what I
mean, hooked it up,
but he took me to a Irish pub
man.
They took me to Irish pub. They were
playing the ukulele and stuff. I thought I
saw Dwight from the office up in that
joint. Although Dwight was German.
Dwight was German, though. Right? So, like, I'm
up in there with all these like really
Irish folks, right?
And then he says to me,
I was raised a functional alcoholic.
I was raised in a pub from the
age of 5. And that's not to say
our Irish have had this experience.
But what he said is a lot of
us were converting were from this cultural group.
This is what we deal with and you
need to be able to group.
This is what we deal with, and you
need to be able to understand how to
serve us.
That's the point I'm trying to say. When
we talk about knowledge, we're talking about knowledge
of religion,
but then investing in community
and moving into community
and not appropriating that community's experiences like my
folks like to do. You know, Tom Cruise,
Last Samurai.
You know, appreciating and seeing, like, how I
can be an ally
to that community. So next week, Inshallah, we're
gonna build on this. If there's any questions,
we can take them. If not, I apologize.
We we finished a little late.