Tahir Anwar – Take A Stand Against Domestic Violence
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AI: Transcript ©
Prophets of the love, I believe, who said
that says,
to curse a believer is like murdering them.
I want people to think about this.
How many times do you,
call people needs?
Like, curse people?
Sometimes we find
spouses
cursing at each other.
By the way, I should also clarify, it's
not just women that are abused, it's men
that are abused too.
Far
less. Okay? But it is a reality, so
I do wanna accomplish that.
But it's so much harder, you know,
for for women, especially and I'm gonna come
to Nissa in a moment. I'm not gonna
speak to Nissa right now.
You don't do things that bring harm unto
others,
we have paradise. And if not, then we
have a lot that we're going to be
responsible for. There's a narration that reminds us
that prophet says
that so many people are gonna be thrown
face down into the hellfire
because
of what their tongues did.
Right? Because of what their tongues did. That's
why, you know, people who are in a
constant habit of just screaming, calling names, etcetera,
That's not part of our tradition. And then,
of course, there's physical abuse. Physical
physical
abuse
is not tolerated. It is not at all.
If
anyone
ever comes to you and tries to justify
physical abuse of any form, let me tell
you very clearly, it is not
justified, period.
Whether that physical abuse is against
whether it's against whether it's against anyone,
I mean, me and your children,
me and your spouse, me and elders, me
and a friend, whoever it is, a physical
abuse is not tolerated at all.
You know this concept of beating children?
That's not allowed in Islam.
There's reprimanding
children,
okay, spanking children,
but not beating them. Those are 2 very
different things.
When we talk about
hitting anyone,
it's very, very interesting. The prophet, alayhis salam,
you know, sort of specific narration reminds us
that hitting anyone neck upwards is actually a
problem. Period.
Period. So that and then you don't want
people to slap either. That's how I'm like,
yeah. That's a major
You can't hit anyone in the stomach either.
And in fact, interestingly enough, when you go
through certain iterations
of the properties we have on him in
the a little bit of my after after
or something, they have kind of defined,
you know, certain things, that we find in
our in our tradition.
Some of the mentioned that if you were
to physically,
snake anyone or reprimand anyone,
your your your arm here would actually have
to be touching your side here completely like
this. And then that's all you can do.
Like, literally, that's actually mentioned in the books
of this certain books of this module. All
you can do is just that much. So
anyway,
password time to if anything in your paper,
that's what we find. So on a on
a more serious note, coming back to what
I was saying is that physical abuse of
any form
is is not allowed,
in our tradition. When you're you're taking this
down from Facebook, you know. Right? Yeah. So
we're making this
too much and then we have people who
are looking for a late junior high. You
know what I'm saying? We're living in an
interesting age. Okay?
Yeah. Mister at least, well, he did now.
He was 70 at the time.
He was a good teacher now. I am
you know?
Coming back
to,
a few things really quickly.
I do wanna close it maybe whenever you
have an agency, any of our board members
or staff have any comments.
So, Nissa,
there were a few people in our community,
volunteers,
all of whom are alive at this point,
but some very, very old.
Just concerned
community members
who came together
oh,
2,002. 2,002.
And,
said enough is enough.
You know, we can get phone calls in
the masjid.
There's no place for people to go.
There were 1 or 2 families that were
actually some of us actually know these families.
We're housing them at home for days on
end.
It was it was it was, you know,
it was it was real. It was it
was in our communities.
And,
many, not all, but some of the clients
are people who are immigrants,
students being in English,
being in a shelter,
you know, that didn't cater to their needs,
you know, general support, you know, diet,
language, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. It was really difficult
for them. And a few individuals in our
community, came together and established in this in
2002.
And, initially, for those of you that may
or may not know who it was, you
just call 1. So you called, you know,
1 triple 8 asking this out, and,
you know, that's eventually,
you know, you you knocked through to someone,
someone answered the phone,
and, you know, you were in an unsafe
situation.
You were put up in a motel,
for days on end until they find you
some safety, etcetera.
And really, honestly, it was just I think
too few elderly aunties in the community made
a lot less than a reward than who
were doing this. They would just literally
stay away from their families
and go out and pick them up. You
know, there's a semi hot date,
what, you know, has stories of, you know,
she sits down and then she's picking up.
They're gonna meet a child for those kids.
And then she would start her stories, like,
picking people up in the middle of the
night.
We still have that, by the way, but,
you know, for privacy reasons, you know, we
we don't share a lot of stories. But
in any case,
and then when the real estate market dropped,
in
2007, 2008, we were able to buy our
1st
home, which has served as a shelter,
for many, many years.
In the initial years,
if you if you spoke about
in our own community, if you spoke about
domestic violence in a public setting in New
Alaba or any program,
you got a lot of heat for it.
Men still don't show up as much as
women. Yes, brother. Right? Right?
You know, you got a lot of heat
for it.
I've been heckled many times.
You know, one of our previous board members,
doctor Rajivani, would say, you know, that he
has been referred to
as,
you know, housebreaker.
Right? Homebreaker.
Right? You you that's when you kind of
end up hap having to. Right? You call
it homebreaker. You just make the office public.
But in reality,
inshallah inshallah, we probably saved a lot of
families, saved we probably potentially, inshallah, if I'm
gonna assume, probably saved
lives of individuals
as a result of them,
coming out of, you know, unsafe,
extremely unsafe situations.
I probably can't speak to this, so please
correct me if I'm wrong, but most of
the time, our shelter is usually full. And
then we don't have room at the shelter.
Yes. We don't have room at the shelter.
Yeah. It can be difficult to get in
at times of waiting list.
There have been times when we've only put
up people at hotels.
And then in recent and then the community,
by the way, I have to add this,
to the community
and the massage.
There's about a half a dozen
to a dozen Masjid,
MCC being one of them, San Ramon, Valley
Islamic Center. I only mentioned these because these
are your local Masjid. These 2 Masjid have
been
supporters of Nisa for many, many years. They
have very strongly supported us financially and in
other ways. Muneer here and himself,
Muneer is an institution.
Say, I mean, inshallah. He's like, I know
you were expecting this sometime.
You
know, but, you know, we've had just dedicated
individuals who have come and supported us over
the years. And very recently, about 2 years
ago, we ended up buying the Tribblex,
here in the Bay Area. You have to
understand, buying common Bay Area is in the
Bay Area.
With this money, we could easily go to
Sacramento
and buy an entire apartment complex. And we
thought about it in a we actually had
people offer us homes in Sacramento and so
often in other areas. But most of our
clients are in the immediate area.
They have some of them have children, which
means they have custody issues. They have to
go to court. There's just a lot of
logistics. We need to be told, why don't
you take your clients and keep them in
the socket? We logistically can't because they have
a life here. There's a lot going on
here, so they kind of have to be
here, which is why we're and and this
is this is where we've decided to do
the work that we're doing. So when when
an institution in Sacramento
opened up a a a Navy shelter, we
help them in every which way possible. Minnesota
has consulted,
you know, other Navy institutions and shelters all
around the country as far as,
Miami,
you know, in in Florida.
And so the point I'm trying to make
is that we ended up buying this triple
x,
which has which, by the way, was supposed
to be it is a transition home. So
the clients can only be at the shelter
for up to 3 months.
For those that happen to be in need,
because rents are so expensive, we needed a
transition home. That was our next need. And
so we, you know, we moved them from
there into the transition home where they can
be up to a year. But
okay. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
We've had so many
clients
of domestic violence
that one of those units has had to
be changed into
a TV shelter versus a transition. Right? So
we have some clients at the
at at the so the transition home property,
instead of it just being transitioning clients, because
we have a have room with shelter pads
to be permitted. So what I mean to
say is that the need is real.
K. The need is real.
We, the client you know, we have,
advocates
who,
assess the clients when they call.
You have to be assessed
as a,
a d v client.
Unfortunately, we do not house homeless individuals, homeless
sisters, and we've had I think in the
past, we've had a lot of flack for
this. I think it's more and more clear
now to the community as a result of
which, and I think people understand, we do
not house.
So if you are homeless
or you called us and said there's a
homeless sister that needs help,
we we will try to do what we
can, but there's no way we can house
her at the shelter.
Even if we have room at the shelter,
just for the record, because we have to
keep that space open
for a potential victim of domestic violence. So
we're very, very clear and helping all of
that. So for those of you that have
been following our work in the last few
years,
know that our goal, inshallah, our next big
goal, inshallah,
is,
a homeless shelter for Muslim sisters. By the
way, I should also add that
the domestic violence shelter,
is not,
while while the past majority of our clients
have been of Muslim faith, we've had some
non Muslim clients there as well. But it
Am I correct? Yes. We have. Okay. Yes.
We think it's correct. So by the way,
like, the reason I'm I'm asking all these
questions
because I I simply happen to meet the
president of the board, whatever that means.
But we are very strict on privacy.
So
I I think I've been on the board
for 7 or 8 years. I have never
knowingly
met a client in the show.
So if there if anyone is or has
been a client in the shelter,
I would never
know. That's how strictly we maintain privacy. Just
not even the entire board, just a few
individuals on board and staff,
know what happened to me at the shelter.
And I that's been very again, I shall
also just share this. Again, it's been very
interesting because over the years, I do get
phone calls.
It's not even better.
You know, the mo
beta is really scary.
Beta means child for those of you that
don't remember. And beta means child. The moment
you get a phone call from an elder
in the community, start with beta, that could
mean, like, something really, really awesome
or something really, really scary because now they're
using their elder card. You know, in our
tradition, in our culture, we respect and we
pay our elders. So that card is usually,
oh, Berta, you know, there's a family friend
of ours, you know, my nephews, yada yada
yada. You know, just you know, they're not
they were just having typical husband and wife
issues.
And, she's no longer there. They're waiting to
find out if she's at the shelter or
not.
And it's like, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's it.
Not a common request, but a request I've
had many times of the year. I don't
know. But can you please find out? Nope.
I don't even bother picking up phones. It's
just a very clear line that we have
when we maintain privacy for our clients.
And I I only say this because, knowingly,
because, over the years, I've actually had one
person, 2 people now, actually, not very well,
who told me that they were clients in
this, in the past. That's why I don't
even know who they are anymore. But in
any case, those are the only typical I
know. Otherwise, I I wouldn't know.
So, yeah, we, you know, we have a
key we have a TV shelter. We have
a shelter. We have the transition home. It
is now a slowly,
but, you know, it is a growing operation.
For the longest time, we had one staff
member,
Saha, who is part of this community.
You know, she, she was single handed in
doing everything for us, over the years.
Accompanying them, maybe allow lesser family,
for their efforts. I mean, extremely dedicated extremely
dedicated,
you know, to that member that we've had.
And then very recently,
over a year ago actually now, we decided
to, you know, get our 1st, executive director
as a sister. Why is that this joint?
So the institution is growing.
This is not an institution you wanna grow.
You get what I'm saying?
But as the community grows,
the needs happen to be there.
Our our helpline is also very, very effective.
So not everyone that calls to the helpline
ends up with shelter. In fact, very small
percentage of people that call helpline end up
with shelter.
Many people usually just need some guidance.
They need to know, again, what their options
are. They need to know, you know, what
my next steps should be,
and they may have friends or family members
to support them from there on from there
onwards.
But in extreme cases where this individual you
you have to understand that the individuals that
come to the shelter
are in dire need.
They have language barriers.
Many some of them have been here for
years.
No ID, no driver's license, no bank account.
Absolutely nothing. Like, it's almost like how long
have you been in America? 3 years, 4
years, 5 years? And they're literally starting from
scratch. They don't even know their Social Security
number. Nothing.
Right? It's just like complete starting starting a
brand new life.
And I'm doing a Nissan,
kind of has Apple system now. Like, okay.
Do you have this, this, this, and this?
If you don't, then we know what to
do. Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom. We
immediately get you the services. It's on and
so forth. So I think that's that's a
piece that we're we're really good at. We
do have room for improvement, of course.
But with that said, you know, that's just
a service
that Allah has, facilitated,
for us to provide,
to to the, you
know, to the abused,
in our community. And we like I said,
well, we pray that that we've saved your
life. We've pulled, women and children out of
an abusive situation,
and for them to be able to have
a good life.
In closing, and I'm gonna close with this,
it's a really,
a story,
about Muhammad Ali, a lawman. Muhammad, as we
all know, is one of the, closest friends
in the prophet Muhammad
Ali, who later became,
a Hanifa of Caliph.
He was once lying down
and,
his children his little children were playing with
him, you know, around him or jumping on
him or whatever he wants.
And a man came,
told him that one of all of his
employees came to him
and said and started screaming at kids. You
know how some people are? They like to
scream. Some people are very proud of the
fact that when I go home, everyone quiets
now. You know? You gotta get a bit
of a rock rolling. You know what I'm
saying?
It's really nothing to be proud of.
This man screamed at the kids.
The loved one who looks up to this
man and says,
is this how you are,
at home? Or how are you with your
family?
His response was,
and he was proud of his response. He
says,
when I walk inside my house,
everyone's quiet.
Nazi neel sting. Do you know what I'm
saying? Like, can you imagine so many nazi
neel will sing?
The narration mentions history mentions
that Umar
fired him on this earth.
And it said to him,
how can you be compassionate
with the ummah of the prophet Muhammad sallallahu
alaihi wa sallam when you can't be compassionate
to your family.
You don't need to spank your children to
raise them, honestly.
You know, some people believe that how many
raised children without spanking them, screaming them.
Screaming at them, I kinda understand. You know
what I'm saying? I'm a dad. I'm screaming
at my kid in a few times. But,
you know, like, the constant bickering and screaming
is not good for them. Any child is
like, oh, this will tell you that's not
good. Weird. It's constant bickering and screaming is
not good for them.
But when there's need, you scream with them.
When you know, you don't you don't have
to. You can get away with raising your
children without ever having to spend them. You
know, just how you raise them. It's also
in our tradition we believe about your prayers
to come off. You know, an an elder
once told me, a good friend of mine,
he said that whenever I have problems with
my kids and, you know, I'd be angry
and, you know, we're all we're all adults.
We don't get angry. Don't don't get me
wrong, but I'm just a saint. But in
any case, he would say that when I
would have when I would need to have
a conversation with my kids around something difficult,
I put it to her house. I'd make
no other call. And then, like, I'd have
a conversation with my kid. Dude, I never
thought about that.
You know, because I'm just like, okay, you
did something wrong. Come here. We're gonna have
this conversation right now. You know what I'm
saying? Well,
you gotta get to the bottom. Like, you
never and you're angry. You're angry. So that
may not be the best time or place
you have to to do it. So
you just need to you need to make
cognizant. You need to be aware
of what our responsibility
is with Allah. In the end, and this
is the last thing I would say, we
believe, as Muslims,
when we do things the way Allah wants
us to do them,
then Allah creates Barakah and blessings and everything
around us.
So even the most difficult child, even the
most difficult spouse,
potentially,
you know, can we can come to terms
with them to some extent
by prayers. So prayers are very, very important.
But
this does not mean that if you're being
abused
that you simply rely on your prayers.
And by the way, abuses abuse is very
interesting. If you're an abuser, if you've been
abused, you may end up being an abuser.
And and abuse could've been towards yourselves, towards
your children,
and as you get older, it may be
towards your elderly parents.
We find abuse, you know, towards parents. It's
not as prevalent
in
not as prevalent in our culture,
but it is it's it's it's how it's
it's real. Right? There's financial abuse,
with elders. There's elder abuse, so on and
so forth. So we just we just pray
to God. We pray for,
guidance and we ask for the lord,
for for,
you know, for ease in the work that
we're doing. And then we do believe that
prevention is better than here. Alright. Prevention is
better than here. So we we do wanna
be able to. Alright? I do wanna take
a moment to,
applaud once again all of you for being
here. For those of you that actually came
with your children, that's not really possible.
Okay. Like, that's I think that's really, you
know, getting them started early for this kind
of stuff. It's probably a month.
I'll I'll stop at 7:30.
I you see, I have a microphone.
If anyone has any questions, please feel free
to ask.
I may not have the answers to all
your questions,
but, you know, I'm gonna try her her
her hand over to my colleague and John.
Go ahead.
No one. Is our, our board members or
staff want to say anything?
No? Okay.
Yes. Go ahead. Go right there.
So,
can anyone have any questions?
1 triple a task in this thinking.
Yeah. 1 888
ask miss. It's full free line.
And, again, is it on the flyer there?
It may be on the flyer.
Thank you. You know, the other thing is
that,
yeah, you can talk to them right now
if you want later on or you can
call the number,
and if again, please correct me. And I
don't think unless and otherwise someone sort of
simply leaves a message and asks to be
called back, we don't simply just call back.
Like, these are all Correct. Right?
Yeah.
Yeah. Well, it's interestingly, most DB websites, if
you ever notice, have an emergency exit on
the top.
So,
I don't know if we have that removed,
so we should. Most TV websites will have,
like an exit button right there on top
in case they're browsing the website
and the abuser walks into the room, boom,
you can exit your office.
So it's it's just I mean, you have
to understand that it's real.
There are women who are abused
and beaten,
like, literally beaten. And
a
lot of people don't know where to go.
There's there's there's just so much fear of
being in a new land,
fear of the unknown, no friends,
you know, and and fear of telling others
because, you know, it's just nice to talk
about 2 days ago.
It's almost like you can't even go to
your husband and said I spoke to the
imamsa
because he's gonna meet you even more, the
same example of the prophet. You know what
I'm saying? You meet her even more. So
you it's not like you're gonna tell him.
It's really, really scary. So,
I I just I I just, honestly, I
just feel,
I feel I feel, you know, honored.
I don't like to use the word proud.
I think it's very good to know that.
But I feel honored to be in a
community
that is attempting
to look at all the different facets of
our community and assisting those,
assisting people who happen to have a need,
whatever their need may be. We have we
have food banks. We have you know, we're
we're trying to meet the the needy and
hungry. We're trying to look after individuals who
happen to have this kind of a need.
Whatever it is. So that's it's an awesome
community to me.
And and and the struggles in life are
real. There's they're gonna exist. Just because you
have a Udemy shelter doesn't make your community
bad community.
It just means that, you know, it's it's
it's it's it's real and and it exists.
And, you know, at least in the child,
all of us and our families are are
part of the solution.
One last thing I will say that if
you know someone who happens to be in
an abusive situation and you don't know how
to give them advice, don't.
Okay? Because many times, you could probably give
the worst piece of advice
to an abused individual. You know what I'm
saying?
It could be something like, oh, no. Be
patient. Stay at home. Or it could be
leave immediately. Right?
Even leaving
needs a little bit of time. Right? You
don't just simply wanna step out. Of course,
it's extremely bad. You're fine. We want it
to sit with the right? So we don't
we don't tell people. Sorry.
Yeah. So, again, we don't tell the pilot
too. We we can we can let them
know what their options are. We don't decide
we don't decide for it.
We do not decide for it. If they
wanna leave, that's only their own their decision.
We are there to support them after they
made that decision. So I've answered
long answer to those simple questions, your phone
number.
Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Maitreyi and Narika, do you wanna quickly
introduce who are what Maitreyi and Narika is?
Just a little bit of people.
The ever persisting problem with the microphone.
It's okay. You don't blame you.
So
as as Arik can make me like, I'm
a say I can do this. Do pay
me. We actually, alhamdulillah,
collaborate with
other sister organizations like MITRE and Arik, and
there's no discrimination.
After all, we house a lot of our
sisters in our,
shelters.
We we have a lot of assistance from
those communities.
And they are,
organizations
like ourselves.
They also cater towards the Middle South, Asian,
Indian,
women from some of that background.
And I guess America and my crew do
not have,
homes and hence,
we welcome them in our footprint to to
having them in our homes until they need
to be and be settled.
Hi. I'm Christina from Turtlehaven. Thank you so
much for having me, and I really appreciate
it.
Shida is actually our wonderful volunteer coordinator, so
she was really,
helping keeping us going. So at Tar Heel
Haven, we've been around since 1977.
We do, have a domestic violence shelter,
very similar. It is a confidential
shelter.
We take
all different kinds of of women at our
shelter.
It's a very diverse shelter, and we do
work with, Norika and other agencies
to try to have culturally competent services.
We also have, a recreation center.
So if somebody is sexually assaulted,
we are there for them for if they
like to report.
Even if they would do not wanna report,
we can also have, counseling services.
So we have the individual and group counseling
services.
We also have a food pantry. So,
if there are people in the community who
don't have enough food, they can come by
and get fresh fruits and vegetables,
free groceries.
We also do a lot of prevention
schools, so we really like to go into
the schools and talk
about prevention, talk about what it means to
be in a healthy relationship,
and what people can do if they, you
know, are not in a healthy relationship.
So we really love collaborating with great organizations.
I think Weta Nesta is an amazing organization.
We really appreciate
you having us here. And I and we
do have a 24 hour crisis hotline.
So you can we have crisis parts here
with that number on it.
And it's always answered by a trade counselor
24 hours a day. So 3 in the
morning, when you need to talk to somebody,
you could call. Somebody won't answer. We will
be honored to talk to you.
So we have that available.
If you have any questions about any of
our services,
please you can take a brochure,
or you can go on our website, which
is www.drivevalleykaitman.org.
And thanks for having me today.
I'm glad to have her coming up and
being here and being supportive. I know some
of you, are, you know,
extremely supportive. I came to see you at
all of our events and have been for
over the years, so may Allah bless and
reward you.
And, you know, if you can take those
flyers home or share them with family and
friends,
contribute if you can, become a monthly contributor
if it's possible,
ask it to pay for your friends,
to become monthly contributors of any amount, you'd
be greatly appreciated. And so I'm gonna love
later. Send our money more.
And she's like a lot better to NMCC
and Lumiere specifically,
and sister Shazee and all the other volunteers
here, who are always meeting here for us.