Behind The Minbar #08 Rethinking Masjid Education

Sit on a coma Tula hula hamdulillah Sarpo salam ala Rasulillah early he was a huge Marine. Welcome back everyone to behind the member where we try our best to set blueprints for better massages, better Islamic centers. And Hamdulillah we are very honored and humbled that someone as busy as the doctor thought Hawaii has given us. His evenings like literally like a thought article last week 100 Dr. Farhad Wyatt is a PhD in comparative religion. Yes, did I get that right hamdulillah I'm rushing to all the other parts of the of the biography in my head, Mashallah. You're involved in my Nisha is one of our senior research directors at European Institute at Hamdulillah.

At the UNM and Philadelphia and co founder here at Eden's garden, a mega promising project in sha Allah, Allah, may Allah bring it to fruition?

I mean, I mean, so chef, now, let me begin by reading the bio about behind them in but besides that, I don't have one actually.

But to be honest, if we just wanted these, as we keep saying, to represent a bit of a conversation starter, a commitment or a spark for commitment towards your son. And we are fully cognizant that these sorts of discussions are not necessarily for mass consumption, even like going into it, we knew these weren't necessarily, you know, these mass inspiration type pieces, but they were very much so for niche audiences, people trying to get to work or at work trying to like move past spinning their wheels in the mud or whatever else it may be.

And that Hamdulillah you know, Allah azza wa jal has shown us bits of that, yes, it has not

gained mainstream traction, per se, in terms of the views of these videos, and we expected that and what we were hoping for, we weren't sure to expect it or not, will it actually reach the right audiences? And you know, I, we just feel did a an email recently about, you know, a sister all the way in,

in Hawaii, that, you know, has renewed her resolution, her determination to get involved in her masjid, her Masjid Sunday school, and, you know, level up, and that's what this is about, right. And, you know, I always say that

it takes a village to raise a child, right. And so I often refer to my Masjid in hopes that it will become almost as an intention that it is the Islamic village. That's what's intended by right the Muslim Life Center. And recently, the inspiration for this episode was why I said we need to sit down with you. And benefit from your LLC. How is that the recent nj.org conference, you said that it takes a message it to make a hero, but that dovetails really well, like, you're like, oh, man, I gotta get this man on the podcast.

And Hamdulillah. So I do want to speak about the educational element in particular, how masjids manufacture heroes through education more than anything else. But why do we even need heroes to begin with, right? Regardless of how we're going to produce that hero, because other episodes, to be honest, have covered some of the socio emotional elements, the atmosphere of the masjid, the vibe, the welcoming nature, the professionalism, but we haven't touched education yet as part of one of the core components of making these Muslim heroes of the next generation. But why do we need heroes to begin with? So humbly lo salatu salam ala Rasulillah?

Salam, my back. So first of all, I want to thank you, and Yaniv, first of all, for hosting me, but even more importantly, this series is amazing. I think that it is extremely impactful to target message boards,

or let's just call it the leadership of the messenger, whether it's the board or not. Exactly Sure. Committees and so on and so forth, to to have some kind of blueprint, as you talked about for those folks. So it doesn't really matter Subhanallah Yanni, maybe, maybe the person that listens to it is going out and affecting 1000s of families and you only see one view, right one one like but the impact is greater than that. And that's that's better for a person with a life so anyway, right. As he mentioned, I've got him all the time to say I would hope that this knowledge was spread. Well I use of helium and Hussein, right and that nothing of it would be attributed to me. The point is for

the knowledge to get out there sure. And so this to me, mashallah is a is a beautiful, beautiful effort. It is much needed. I am hoping that there are copycat efforts as well means that people go out and just think about how can we make our masajid more impactful for the community as a whole. I genuinely have seen

masajid changed neighborhoods, not just the Muslims. But I don't have any data on this. But anecdotally, and and I can tell you, you know, in Philadelphia for sure, everywhere where you put a message it, the real estate goes up. Because the if they if it's if it's something, if there's anything going on negativity, clubs, drugs being sold, or whatever it is, whatever else it might be the same thing in New York happened to as well different places. And you think about managing tobacco and what happens

when domestic comes in and negativity pushes out slowly, but surely, or sometimes faster, depending on who's in.

But so so what happens is they call it physical therapy, physical therapy. That's it. That's it, depending on how many physical therapists you have it invested, right? So it helps to clean up the neighborhoods, which changes the dynamic of the community as a whole. So, I mean, masajid can be even more impactful be the lights on and I think that the issue is, like you said, striving for sin. It's not just about being good. It's about how can we continue to improve and be better being the lights on and so on the point of heroes and why we need heroes? The reality is, is that every body looks for somebody to follow. That that's just the nature of Benny Adam and Allah azza wa jal told

our prophets Elijah was salam. So follow the middle of Ibrahim, like even our prophesy Salam in that respect was not Malcolm to be diamond also. And he I'm not some innovator amongst the messengers, I'm not coming with something new. In that sense, I'm following that long line of, of messengers, so everybody is going to look to somebody to follow. Everybody needs heroes in that sense, or we can use the broader term role models, right? In our Prophet Isaiah, so it was sent to him, without a doubt, was the best role role model for America, Canada COVID, Rasulillah, switch on Hassanein, you have in the Messenger of Allah, the best of examples. And so we're all looking for someone to follow

that is just the nature of who we are, we recite and soulless and fancy which I find to be

very interesting and amazing, because when we say Dino Swanson was stuck, he got us to the straight path.

That's that's a drive by itself. Like, you technically you don't need to add anything to kind of stop there. Yeah, but the fact that Allah azza wa jal is commanding us to say see Ron Paul Lavina, and I'm talking to him. The path of those whom you have favored, means that we should be actually cognizant of the fact that people have walked this path already. Who are those people? We should be the ones seeking them out and following them. They are our heroes. You think about the drive lesson that you hear all the time. And what's it Allah Medina best love, the net female head eight guidance amongst those whom you have, have guided so we're even being even on our dua like we're being

instructed to look for those people who we should be following those people who should be our heroes. And so, long story short, if, if we are not

consciously teaching our children and even ourselves, honestly, we're not teaching who our heroes should be. And we're going to take other people's heroes, we're going to take them as icons, idols, American Idol, whatever it might be, right? We're going to take somebody and we're going to try to be like them, we're going to try to follow their path. How much you know, I listening to two things came to mind. First of all, is like the minimum and Fatiha being 17 times a day, right across the five prayers. That means my mind should be visiting the notion of who's my role model Allah 17 times a day. you contrast that with how many messages there are out there of sort of unworthy role models?

Like there is the shoe, there is the billboard Yes, there is sort of the News Feed there. So you need at least 17 sort of antidotes to that sort of that poison, right? That that venom The other thing that came to mind is not just that we need the role models, the world needs role models, and we can't be that for them unless we're an extension of the prior ones right now when memorable Claudio himolla just comes to mind right now the

the narration when he read

with John that in which Akina Imam I will lie I was the same thing I must have learned it from you then.

Very likely so make us Imams.

Imams could be modeling not necessarily just authority in the in the Power Sense, right like command authority, you don't necessarily have to demand or

wield political authority or sort of communal authority. Make us Imams for the pious illimitable hottie Rahim Allah He said, Now Patel DB min pub Lana where Yaga dBm and vedana that we follow in the footsteps of those before us so that we may be followed our footsteps those after by those after us. And so the world needs the role model so not mistaken I think a Tubridy also nary, something very similar or Mujahid or Hema hula, a very similar Tafseer. For that particular do i My song again? Yeah, John Tokina.

Another words make us good followers of the good people who came before us so that we can be good leader enough to be follow good leaders for those after us. Yes. So why does the world need heroes? Why does the world leading leaders leading them where where has the world drifted to?

At this moment, because sometimes we overlook it, we think, you know, like, that Islam is, is fine. We're not gonna say inferiority complex. But by slamming exceptional Islam being the need of the hour, I think a lot of people, they sell themselves short or sell their Islam short of what we have to offer. So I could not agree with you more.

It is a common message that I try to

inspire other people with, because I feel like I've also benefited from from this message, which is that on a communal level,

I feel like, I feel like the dialogue shifted a lot after 911.

I feel like, and again, this is purely my own experience. I don't have any data to back this up. But I will say that if you even if you go back, and you can find old footage of things, from the 90s, for example, most likely before then, and I interviewed over 100, Muslims from the 70s, I'm talking about from the early 70s, who were Sunni Muslims, from the late 60s, some of them from the late 50s.

And just what was their attitude towards Islam? How did they feel as Muslims during that time? So what I will say was, there was a lot of is

feeling really proud to be Muslims. And there's a big difference between pride and arrogance, as I'm sure I mean, but I don't want to go into that whole spiel. So they were proud to be Muslim. After 911

national organizations

were pushing a different type of rhetoric. And this happened on a on a local level as well.

Because we didn't want to be labeled as terrorists, please accept this rhetoric base, that that became the language. And I'm not saying it was a please accept this. But the the language was more like we want to be accepted. Right? That's, that's what we're looking for. We want to be accepted by society. Even the interfaith work was a lot of, you know, just how can we just want the same rights as everybody else, you lose exceptionalism, right? When you just want to be accepted?

And you just want to be equal?

And he SubhanAllah? If that's if that's the messaging is, it's dangerous? Not not so so. So listen, what happens? Because now instead of you, because there's a there's a, there's a there's a shift in the questioning? And let me let me tell you what I mean by

that question, how do we help our kids stay on stay in his lane? That's a question. So valid question. And we hear at the beginning of every hotma Well, I had to move to Nila Anton was the move, don't die, unless you are Muslims. So how do we keep our kids Muslim? That's one question. And we're going to develop a program if that's the question that we're asking. Yeah. If I change the question just a little bit, and I say, how do we raise a generation of Muslims

with the tools that they need to lead society as a whole?

It's a very different project. It's a different project. It's a different question. But I personally believe that you keep the Muslim along the way like that's if, if I'm giving them the tools that they need to be leaders of society as Muslim, then they're going to be Muslim inshallah. And they're going to, they're going to be working on the skill sets that they need to be able to lead, whatever wherever they are. Now, they may not be senators or presidents and even those people in the night actually, well, I don't want to get too political but they a lot of them got strings on an ID being pulled by other people actually leading them, but I'm saying even if it was just on a community

level, even, you know, I know that

America has

very different demographics. But when I think about it from a urban context, most blacks have black captain's, for example, imagine a project where if there's a Muslim on a black that Muslim is the Black Cat, right? I mean, it's just a different kind of thing. And, and what what type of, you know, programs that they would institute just for the black, to make sure that you don't have old lady 70 years old, 75 years old down there shoveling the snow, which is what we just went through, which was happening, right, where the Muslim organizes it in a different way, where the young people respect to older people, and take care of them. And I mean, just along those lines, what I'm saying is, if

we think of ourselves in that light that we actually can lead because Allah azza wa jal has given us revelation.

The gift of unadulterated revelation is we probably take for granted as Muslims, but believe me, as one was, you know, going through the religious texts of other religions and so on and so forth. It is a NEMA a true blessing from Allah azza wa jal to have his speech, right, that we can rely on. And the best example, the most superior example of any human to ever walk the Earth. And that is our prophet, Isaiah Solana. So those that are having that, and then taking what we have the resources that we have in the Muslim community Subhanallah I mean, we're not

we're not a community of one demographic, which is also part of our strength. Yeah, we bring together most religious community in America, people. It's amazing. That is amazing. Right? So I genuinely believe, right, that we have the tools to begin to move in that direction, where we change the question that we're asking, and our kids are going to be the beneficiaries of in the later on in civil society as a whole. You know, Dr. Sherman Jackson,

Philly guy, by the way. Is he Philly? Yeah, I didn't know that. Philadelphia in 1978. Russia, well, that's eight years before I was born. So I know him as the West Coast guy got got his PhD from Penn. Oh, wow. No phenomenal, phenomenal, visionary lesson in protecting.

He, I heard him not too long ago mentioned how we have been captives of the argue a terrorist question.

Since 911, he said, Look, 911 happened. Many people don't remember this. Everyone is pointing a finger at us where the boogey man, are you a terrorist or not? And so since that was the question, we mobilized all of our efforts, all of our resources, whatever little they were, and relatively, they are little, even if they're a lot, right. To proving to the world, we are acceptable, we are fine. You know, we're not that bad. He said, and think about that, just like our black people inferior. People went down the path of putting together you know, academic campaigns and research studies to prove you're still a captive of the question. It's a distraction. The question is a

distraction is what he's arguing, right? Likewise, our Muslim terrorists, you sit there a captive, feeling forced to respond? He says, And now fast forward 20 years. So many of the average Americans you ask them what are Muslims think so you know, Muslims are they're decent people. They're not terrorists. They'll never tell you they believe in one God. They believe in a final prophet. They believe in Jesus as well. They believe you gotta be good to your parents. They believe an elderly woman should be helped shoveling the snow in the wintertime, because we never were trying to answer that question of what is exceptional. What value does Islam add? But I have sort of two questions I

want to

render you captive of for the rest of the episodes. The first of them was Mila. The first of them is do we sometimes assume that the Muslims This is the educational side right? even know what they have? Right? I so many times these are yes, I've isolated cases. But I have a lot of I mean, I have data as well. And even if I didn't, I can make it up because everything. Everything on the internet is a fact. And no one's gonna fact check after me. Because I'm wearing a goofy

right now. But the really like the average literacy of Islam, like it's no secret. I mean, I'll never forget, you know, the example of an Islamic school there was a scholar visiting from the Muslim world. I've shared this maybe on a previous episode, and they're giving him a tour of one of the Islamic schools in Brooklyn. And they're like she was one of our sort of students and she was like a sweet girl. It wasn't like sort of top academic achiever anything sixth grader from Muslim country,

Muslim majority country and so he just gave her like a simple a freebie question. He said, Sir, what

is the Prophet Muhammad last name. And she said to him sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. So it's cute. You laugh for a second, but it's also very scary because like if you're in a world that is antagonistic to religion, and that's all you know. And then actually, when I, when I went to another city, once, they asked me to sit with the high school girls, and I don't know why these are both girl examples, I have tons of guy examples as well, don't judge me.

I was giving them a talk, they asked me to give the high school girls a talk about manners. So I'm just you know, whatever's coming to mind of sort of anecdotes from our setup from our righteous predecessors. I wind up getting to a story about you know, I will Boca so therefore the Hola, Juan. But I'm seeing that like, most of the girls in front of me are totally checked out. They're not interested. I'm trying to figure out what it is trying to find, you know, an inroad with them to stimulate them. And then all of a sudden, just a thought came to my head and said, Hey, you who's ever booked?

She looked at me. And she said, the prophet.

And like, I almost passed out, because this is the daughter of a founder of a masjid. Right? Right. And you're talking about an Islamic school? In a masjid. Okay, got it. Right. And I can spend the next half hour and so can you sharing similar stories? And so sometimes there's assumption that we know the, the very basics even of what is Islam, let alone? What is a distinction of Islam? What makes it exceptional. Okay, so this is a profound,

profound examples that you have given that point to another

issue, I think that exists in our community. So let me let me I'm looking at this from two angles. Number one is, I think that we often do not value what we have as Muslims. Many of us just take it for granted. For example, we don't realize the value of the Quran, we don't realize the value that comes in the example of the life of the prophet Isaiah. So like it was sent in. And we've already adopted another worldview, whether we realize it or not, we've just kind of absorbed the, the environment in which we live. I mean, it's it's natural, like, people are products of their environments. So

if a person I mean, you look at these children who are spending, you know, oftentimes the majority of their waking hours outside of their homes, right? And they're getting all of these signals and messages coming from, as you mentioned, the clothes, the billboards, the whatever, the curriculum, the curriculum in the schools, this is a worldview, worldview. Start with ontology, right? What exists, what doesn't does not exist.

And so when your worldview, or the dominant worldview, either there is no God, or it really doesn't matter irrelevant. If there's a God, right? Then what are we actually left with? Because everything comes after that. And even when we start talking about morals and ethics, or we talk about law and policy, that's pretty low on the totem pole of a worldview. That's all based on. Do we have a purpose? My ultimate reference point? Yeah, foundations. Yay, pista myology? How do you know what, you know? What are your sources of that knowledge? How do you acquire it? Right? So if you don't, please don't lose your train of thought. But, you know, one, sort of Muslim scholar said something

that needs to be captured here that epistemology ontology, you don't have to even know these terms to be inundated sort of with these lenses. They're basically lenses. How do I look at the world? Right? You may not know that you're a radical skeptic that stems from sort of a Cartesian doubt, which is attributed to Rene Descartes, which, which is a reaction to distrust from the church and some trauma from being lied to. You just inhaled it. Correct. That's how you see the world. Correct. People need to realize that it's and it does. It's not just when you get to philosophy one on one and get all the jargon. No, no, he gets Shin you early. No, no, here, I'm gonna tell you like this.

Yeah.

It's really too simple. Your worldview is like language, you just have it. Right? It's, it's whatever environment you're in. So soak it up, you soak up that worldview, st where you sort of like right now, I mean, you could go to probably a large majority of Americans and and say a sentence to them and say identify the noun, the adjective, the verb and the adverb in addition to that, and if you get a little deeper, and then syntactic structure and all of that, and they'll be looking at you like you made noon, right, they speak. They speak perfect English and they can pick up a book and read it just as right right. But they don't know all of that stuff. So same thing like you just say

you

We may not know all of these terms, but your worldview, you just get it. And and what I'm saying is that if we are not actively in, you know, pushing a different worldview, right, that is centered around Allah azza wa jal, that that theology and everything that that comes that stems from it, we're going to be fighting an uphill battle down the down. Yeah. Right. And so I feel like so that's one side of it. So the one side is just us not valuing enough, what we have in Islam, and then Subhanallah, you know, going through all of these hoops and everything like that, only to face some type of calamity and life or wake up call or whatever it might be. And then a person starts

backtracking and trying to find out where their life went wrong and where it fell into pieces. And I'm saying this even Muslims, but just without the, without the proper education, right. So then the other side is what I think is happening in a lot of you mentioned, like the Sunday school example. And so we'll get back to the education now in the masajid. Is that humbling law is a good thing, that there's been this cycle, if you will, of, you know, you can go into many different masajid across the United States of America, and you'll find helicopter to feed and mashallah people memorizing the Quran and not just not just with the one camera with different cable ads and Rewi ads

and my sha Allah, Allah Mubarak, like, really,

you know, even teaching them how to beautify the voices and it's, it's amazing Aloma Beranek and

the number of Quran competitions that we have both regional and national, mashallah inspiring these kids to, to put effort into the memorization of the Quran. And I think that that is a great thing. I think that now we have to step it up and start, you know,

instituting other types of

structured learning for our youth like so this is where the structure is right now, we have a lot of structure around memorizing. But I think that and this kind of goes back to the initial question that you asked me about heroes, I think that there has to be a structure that is in place, that, that now all of these kids who we have mashallah, and we have the attention for a certain period of time, every day or every week, or whatever the program may be, that we start teaching them about who their real heroes are and who they should be trying to emulate.

And also also, and I think that this is critical as well,

is that, that there be some type of structure around learning the meanings of the Quran, right? So a lot of us get really excited about taffy, and we go and we quote, the man or the Allahu Chyna, and who said that the prophet Isaiah salatu salam said, hydrocodone, hydrocodone, Al Shabaab, the best of you the best of human to animal Quran, Allah Allah, those who learn the Quran, and who teach you I am not aware of any of the scholars of Hadith who have explained that hadith to stop that memorizing the Quran

Pty limited Quran and learning the Quran, it's not just learning the horror of the letters, learning the Tajweed of the Quran and memorizing it. It's also learning the meaning Nephi human anatomy with Ahmed Yeah, okay, so 10 at a time, right so the model the a lot of time, anyone who was in others from amongst the Sahaba, who would learn 10 at a time, as you said, but I look at it even on another level write the mission of the prophet Isaiah Salatu was Sudan

was not just to recite the ayat. Right? Who Allah divided will Amina Rasool Amin, whom yet to Allah him at will use a key in where you are living human Kitab al hikma right, so the Prophet Alayhi Salatu was Salam was sent by Allah azza wa jal to do what to recite to them. The ayat, that's that's the touch we the huddle of the memorization, hmm. And to purify them, and to teach them the book. So the Prophet alayhi salatu salam did not stop at just reciting the Quran to them, he taught them the Quran, and what the Quran means. And I really feel like foreign institutions to step up to the next level and to start that process of giving the youth the tools that they need, right to be leaders

and in society. They've got a value also the meanings of the Quran. Schiff What do you

think of my theory?

Let's go that not just is this absolutely essential,

but rather this should be prioritized over memorization, you know, because you have like three layouts that Tylenol EMA and atoma Tylenol Quran right? We learned faith first. And then we learn the Quran and increase us in our faith and people after us at the end of time will learn the Quran first before they learn faith and sort of like they will go astray. The you know, I know it's very tricky territory because this can always be misunderstood misconstrued as downplaying memorization of the Quran I remember actually just to keep it a little bit light. Dr. Sadie the Kennedy half of the hula

great Moroccan scholar, contemporary scholar, he heard a young man

comment about this brother memorize the Quran. And he said, you know, another book on the shelf, or he said something along the lines of Well Ben was sort of eat or described in the Quran as chemotherapy marianella As far as like a donkey carrying a library, meaning you didn't benefit. You don't even know what you're carrying. And so the ship got tight. The chef said, How dare you speak about a bearer of Allah's book like that? Allah who didn't even deem you worthy to be a donkey carrying a library? How does that feel? So I get it, that's not what we're saying. No, no, but a little bit of pragmatism or even a lot of how the early Muslims did it, push come to shove, as you

know, even shipside himself, Dr. Kennedy, you know,

he says that in the Halaqaat, we have in the bedroom of Morocco, where they have the time they have sort of the atmosphere, the competitive its culture, it's second nature to them, like it is in in Mauritania, for example, certain parts of Morocco are like this, they go from Halifax a halacha. So like is it you get 10 ayat, memorize it, right? Then you go get the Quran, but then you go get sort of the performance story, you know, skill that you know, and then you you go get the outcome, and you go get the FT laugh. And so you're doing all the NASA convince every one of them as a Holika. And you circle is, but like, let's be real, you know, at the end of the day, you know, how do we

purify ourself on the most fundamental level, right? It's Oh, it always came out my theory, not my theory, but what I called prematurely my theory, use a key hemo your limo, it was always purified them before taught them because if you learn it without sort of being purified by its presentation first, it will not benefit you or it will sort of like harm you it will adversely affect you, you got people who have Quran, they get nothing from it. I know people who left Islam, I know people in prisons that are fourth, right? Or people that sort of have the Quran has just ammo for their arguments. It's just sort of like ego artillery for them. At the end of the day, if push come to

shove, how do you keep Muslims Muslim? Right? So the prioritizing of comprehension of the worldview, like how much how many hours and dollars do we have in our community for these kids? So she, so I'm with you on prioritization, I don't necessarily think that we can't combine between the two. I think that

a lot of this has taken the easy way out. Right? It's It's not difficult to find someone who has memorized the Quran Well, right. And who has a very good method, for example of helping others memorize the Quran

the issue of actually finding the type of mache

students of knowledge or otherwise, who can

extract from the Quran, the or even communicate to a younger audience, these meanings of the Quran not we're not just because we're not just talking about, hey, let's sit down and read it in English, right? We're actually talking about explaining to them a bit of the Quran I will tell you something on a personal note,

that has been very helpful for my children.

As they would memorize the Quran, we would also have them read the Quran into the some some translation that we would pick. And they would read it in English, after they memorized. And sometimes while they were memorizing because for some, for some of my children, it was difficult for them to memorize what I have in some kind of cursory understanding. Now, mind you,

most of my children grew up most of their lives in Saudi

and a couple of them had a decent grasp of what they were memorizing in the first place, right?

Okay, so this is going to vary from child to child. I still have a child that's memorizing the Quran and well hamdulillah

Even his you know, his mother reinforces that, hey, make sure you read this in English as well, because then we might ask questions. What's that mean? Sometimes they get tripped up on an eye. And sometimes, like, you get tripped up on it, and it totally like, obliterates the meaning, right? Like, whoa, what do you mean? And the solid enough to handle Whoa, like, What do you mean? So?

So there's, there's that, but again, this is giving you

just a very broad overview, right? And then it's but there's so many other gems. All right, they can be pulled SubhanAllah. And I think that that's important to instill in the children from a very young age. This is a book that holds so much wisdom, so many gems can be can be extracted from it. So again, my whole point is, it's it's not easy to find those kinds of people. Right? That will actually but again, this is where we have to start thinking out loud to say, hey, wait a minute, can we do a juice ama for children? Chef, it's not very easy, and I'm not disagreeing. It's not very easy to find a full time health teacher. Okay, right. Like, it's a very difficult job. I have such

deep admiration for teachers, right, like year in year out. I don't want I don't know if the word sort of tedious is inappropriate, but it's like rote, you know, typical, just cyclic, take so much stamina, so much self motivation, right. And so I believe it's harder to find sort of a reliable, you know, tier one health teacher than it is to find even a healthy Bernie mount. Right. And so what I'm talking about is finding not even healthy people that know Quranic themes. Like, what do you mean, you went to Sunday school for eight years and you don't know the meaning of Columbo? Allahu Ahad? Right. Like what do you mean you don't know the meaningful Fatiha. Right. That's what scares

me. You know, at the end of the day, I feel like I probably pointed, well taken shift. I think also, we're giving ourselves a false dichotomy. It's like all or none. Like we only have two hours. So like, what are we going to do with them? I think that's a part of the problem with the way I'm thinking or I sort of accepted that the parents are only going to give me their kids for two hours on a Monday and a Wednesday and that's it. Right? Yeah. Evening time because they have piano Yeah, and they have everything else right. But you gave a beautiful example of at the end of the day, you're not just expecting this at the masjid when we get home. We're reading something together as

well. Yeah. So but in light of what the masjid can do Quranic themes, Quranic worldview, Quranic ethics, you only have time for so much Sheikh Muhammad. So I still think that this is a a duty of those who have recognized that this that there's this gap, right, there's there's a gap in the literature, there's a gap in us even talking about it, right. So let me give you let me let me actually tie this back into the the hero's theme,

which which is extremely interested in the method of Matic bananas. Rahim Allah Tada Imam dal Hijrah imam of the mother right?

He said Kenneth sallahu you Ali Munna hola the home hook, but every bucket in Walmart coming here I can tell you I live on almost all the time and on Quran, right? That they that the son of our righteous predecessors, and this is him saying it right away in my Malik died in 179. Right. He's saying his self, they used to teach their children the love of Abu Bakr and Omar or the Lord Tana. In other words, they teach them their see their bios, their virtues, their merits, what they did their accomplishments they used to teach their children their the way that they would teach them a slaughter from the Quran. So what we get from here is that anything that there was emphasis on

teaching, they would say, like you would teach them a surah from the Quran, yeah, right. So, as it comes, for example, in

and the Tisha who would have been our best, or the Allahu Taala anima. He said that the prophesy someone told us this to share hood, the way that he would teach us a surah from the Quran, that even Masood is the hand in hand. So, and other things like the jab or the allow time to enter when he talks about a istikhara the prophesy son will teach us is to counter the way that he would teach us a surah from the Quran, that was the that and that was the standard, which means that teaching a sorter from the Quran, had a very high station with the prophet Isaiah Salatu was Salam with the Sahaba and it followed down by tradition, right hon Allah so but what does it mean to teach them a

surah from the Quran doesn't just mean he's teaching them the recitation at all. It also means that the same way that he's teaching them to share what he's teaching them this they're not just learning words. They'd be learning the meanings of those words and how to implement them. So again, back to the statement of Matic Rahimullah

Are you saying that they would teach them to love every bucket and to love Omar or the alota? And the way that they would teach them a surah from the Quran? So, my thinking when I

say you're structuring a Sunday School ship, right, you mentioned memorization, comprehension, right? The importance of knowing your heroes, the earliest heroes, starting with the right idea, so I was huge. How much time would you allot to these for a typical student, you'll you'll have outliers that are going to be her fault. They were never the majority in our own right. And you have people that will not give you the time of day, I'm gonna give you my kid an hour a week, fix him. We're not talking about those, right? Yeah, let's talk about the msgid doing his due diligence, you're being asked to counsel a Sunday School give me the best fighting chance to keep my Muslims

Muslim SubhanAllah. So I would actually off the top of my head and this is a really difficult question shape, but I would probably split it into four. Okay, I'll tell you, I'll tell you that it's very practical. So we want Yeah, so a fourth would be for memorizing the Quran. Okay, a fourth would be dedicated to comprehension, especially, and it depends on how you know where these kids are at in terms of their memorization, but we will be working through some chronic themes together, but we're no matter where you are in terms of memorization, because that's just impractical to try to line it up with everybody's memorization because they memorize different things different times.

I would set a fourth aside for Sierra and

tardi of some sort, right? So I'm saying, specifically the life of the prophet Isaiah, so that was sent and biographies and biographies that are righteous, they need that will law he will lie he shake let me tell you something Subhan Allah.

Allah azza wa jal casalino cosas who Quran right? I mean, he's telling us stories in the Quran and mashallah, you have a beautiful article on this one way. Shameless plug.

But, you know,

this is this is a significant portion of the Quran dedicated to stories, which to me means a lot because Allah azza wa jal is our Creator, He knows our psychology, he created our psychology. And he knows that we need those stories. We benefit we extract lessons from stories, and they stick in our mind and we and we remember them more than somebody just telling you this is the hook of this. This is the ruling of that or whatever. Those things come and go story. Stay Subhanallah sidebar.

Good friend of mine.

My last month Allah bless him.

He he was a juvenile lifer. Okay.

He murdered somebody at the age of 16. And they sent him to prison for life. So you never get out of here, spend a lot.

The Supreme Court ruled that unconstitutional sentenced juveniles to life Subhanallah six years ago, Allah azza wa jal blessed that sentence to be overturned. And he came out, he came out of prison, a totally different reformed human beings who had Allah. I mean, just amazing person along with Eric, and now he wants to help

other people who are transitioning back into society, but also develop programs to address youth from falling into what he fell into. And what's he What's he call his program, and he's just developing it now. We just met the other day he was trying to get some help.

He calls it Josef's house.

I said is this because it used to be that I said I was in prison, he said exactly right. But that story the story of Yusuf is like, ingrained in like even the kids minds once they learn it right. It'll fight your demons for you. Hola. Hola, como that's what you know Junaid

Rahima, Hola. Hola. He said from the early generation, he said Hecate to June Doom and you know dilla these stories are one of the armies of God. They fight your demons for you, Allah like, you want to be like, wait, I am the hero. You want to walk in somebody else's shoes. That's my point. This is my point. No, well, that was life Trent shift hats and actually like to have to encourage that give a little bit of a nugget that he's gonna kill me for sharing.

You know, whoever knows she had him. Don't show him this clip.

But he has a very unique attachment to the province of Santa Rosa.

And he shared with us once that a big part of this was his obsession with the biographies of the sahaba. He said I'd been I think he said sixth and seventh and eighth grade. I'd be in my room. My mom walks in. She sees the math textbook open. Inside the math textbook. I have

Have

rejet Hello Rasool Khalid Mohammed Clotet men around the messenger which means every translation I mean Allah bless the translator putting in English but it's it was translated maybe 3040 maybe more than that and it just needs a little bit of revamp because it just it'll never be the Arabic the Arabic just has just this magic is different though yeah different takes ages is different but it can be done justice to

because he's a literary and he he just he there's a

a charisma and a spirit to the writing that insists that you let go of your life for a second and live in their shoes. And he builds up for it very well and to the end of it, but literally he has inside his textbook looks like he's studying math and whatever. He's going through life so I have over and over. And then finally I did it. She finally said you know what I'm gonna figure this book out. Like I thought I know the lives of this will have and I took it with Mina on the trip. And I just I hibernated with that book. It's transformative. And it's not just you know, like amazing sacrifice and it was deep conviction and it was like, you know, a burning passion for Allah's

pleasure and but also to see the transformation real time like you're talking about studying the Quran and studying light of this so high, but then you realize, wait a minute, these aren't different things. This is the product of the Quran. That's what the Quran did. That's what the Quran did for them. And the rappers of sheep leaders of nations one Quran right you It connects all the dots for you. And so you see it it's not like oh, the Quran theoretically says that it transforms people it transform it even on Josie Rahim Allah he says US law school in what en Fowler alone and novel FISI are a self we see a solid here Oh, my God. And then he said and that is the statement of

Allah azza wa jal de cana Dena had the law for being down we'll continue to translate that for their listenership. That is the end that is

Oh, I forgot I didn't

go for that. He says that the the foundation of all knowledge in the most beneficial of all knowledge is to to learn the lives the biographies of the righteous, Jonnie, specifically, he mentioned the life of the prophet Isaiah Salatu was Salam in his Sahaba. And then he says, and this is the meaning of a law statement. These those are the ones that will actually need to have the law those are the ones who Allah has guidance. So follow their guidance. follow their guidance like the activate button based on your faith like you

know, because shake we need to we need to see it. We need to see it in action. Yeah, right. We need to see how does that play out what exactly what does that actually mean? Quick story, and then I'll get back to my last horse. I didn't forget how they learned guys. Usually, usually Subhanallah like go on a tangent. I don't even know what I was talking about before. But you got this. So So one day, I was at shake up the birdies house and Madeline sorry. And Allah, like one of my hands is like, you know, shake him as library was, like, famous in Medina for being this huge library anyway. So I remember at one point, we were,

you know, we got around the corner to bio section, and I'm looking at CNM and the Willa there B, which is a, you know, voluminous work 24 times over, not mistaken, beginning with the life of the prophet Isaiah slots with Sam and finishing with the lives of some of the great scholars up until, you know, his his lifetime.

And something came up and shake up the bear. And he said, Yeah, I actually didn't notice that to the second time I read the book. And I was like,

you read that you actually read the book. So like, saying only No, no, so I was like, sort of SHAEF? When you say, like the book? I mean, you know,

you got it. You gotta read it. I never knew that. Like, it was like, for him, it was just like, we mean, how do you like, how do you consider yourself?

Like a tolerant? You didn't really say it I'll ever know. Like, like, you got to know these people are? Right. So the point is, I would definitely, we, I think we have to, like, I think this has to be a part of our curriculum, anywhere, whatever we're doing, we have to teach them to love these people. We have to tell the stories over and over, it's got to stick for them. Right. So so there's that, that the last fourth, I would dedicate to practically slab like, learning how to pray properly, learning how to make will do properly you can't assume Subhanallah trust me,

that they're just learning this.

Like that their parents are teaching them actually a lot of them. They watched their parents but who said their parents are doing it right. I mean, with all due respect, I'm not I'm not trying to be but the thing is, a lot of this stuff was just passed down. Sometimes the parents themselves were not really practicing Islam until later. I mean, all of that. Right. So I think just the practical aspects of Islam are really important. 100 The land is located on for that. So cool.

ranek memorization comprehension, learning to love and be very familiar intimately familiar with the lives of the early Muslims beginning of course, the Prophet SAW Selim himself and just had to leave Islam. Right? Yep. Mashallah. MashAllah talk Allah. Chef Now is there anything else we missed on the educational front, you know, when I came to Philadelphia missed it, and this is important.

I love the way you were very intentional with your community.

Developing a sense of duty, you know, you got to pick up your own, you got to pick yourself up, we got to pick this generation up, you got to think from now how are you going to contribute to the on, you know, other communities out there

with the, you know, their racist projects and sort of ethno fascist

agendas were very patient. And we're very intentional about putting themselves under the premise that they needed this for survival, and they were under attack by the entire world, right? That we need to be in law, we need to be in media, we need to be in banking, sort of, we need to be in technology. So very intentional, and sort of like you give credit where credit's due. And I think some credit is still there. Likewise, I think the masjid may not have the resource or the bandwidth to do more than facilitate, but at least two point right to recruit sort of Muslims with a sense of duty, or a crew recruit for them that mindset, should I say, right, how do you inculcate in a

Muslim, that I need to take my education seriously, right. And I need to be intentional education. I don't want to be sort of defined by career ism, like my career is the Bible and or I'm gonna have a career, I'm gonna be conscientious in it. But I'm also going to be an automatic and my contribution in terms of my career. If you could share a little bit about that, and whatever else you think we missed out on in terms of the messages, educational

investments, right? How do we invest in educational purposes, that bring about the greatest ROI, the return on that investment for our communities? I SubhanAllah. I think the first thing is being intentional about being a part of a community. So

some people just treat the masjid as a place to pray.

Extracurricular.

It's, it's an obligation I gotta go on. Alright. It's, I got this burden on me. And I get this monkey off my back. Right? go to gym I hulless.

The, the reality is, is that

that type of mentality of one,

basically, kind of navigating all this,

this whole life alone or just, you know, with your spouse and your kids and things like that, that the survival rate for that approach is is I don't think is as high as a rivalry. I don't I don't think we're talking about generations of Islam. And people who have detached themselves from the curiosity drown

in the prophet Isaiah Salatu was Sadam did tell us like in no uncertain terms, that the

that the wolf is the lone sheep, right? If it can be a real gem, and he said this as it relates to Salah right, so be with the Gemini and the person in a private area. So I was saying also told us that the person who goes and mixes with the people in his patient with their heart, because the reality is, is that when you mix with people, not everything is going to be your way yeah, it may not even be harmful, you may interpret it as being harmful because it's not what you particularly want.

But be patient with that right that that person is better than the person that doesn't mix with the people in his that patient with the harm. Well, he couldn't be had these in Hadith, Yanni, sometimes you may just need to breathe and back up and that type of thing. But that that the default is that you need to be around like this is this environment is is difficult alone for us to navigate it together. Alright. So when you are taking an approach, where you've kind of distanced yourself from from the community, it's even more difficult to navigate. So I want to start you to begin with, correct for you even talk about circling back to contribute to the community they are. Exactly,

exactly so now. So now, once a person has determined that, hey, look, I'm going to be a part of the community. Look at the talents that Allah Subhana Allah has given you Subhanallah not all of us are to saying Allah azza wa jal opens up doors to some does not open them up for others. Find your door, like literally Subhan Allah, Hadith, where the prophet Alayhi Salatu was Salam without going through the whole Hadith but he talked about so whoever is from Allah Salam will be called from the gate of Salaam and Jana

in the Hereafter, and whoever was from the, the whoever was on the sadaqa will be called from the from the door sadaqa. And whoever it was from the people of cm, will be called from Babel, the yen from the gate of the yen.

And to the end of it, and then Abu Bakar, the longtime man who says you have a sort of law, they somebody's gonna be called from all of those doors. And I promise I'm sorry, yes. And I hope that you are for most of them. Don't have the bar Rahimullah to add in some heat after he narrates this hadith was an assignable party. But he says that it is very rare. It's very rare

that more than one door will be open for a person. It is, it is the norm for most of Benny Adam.

That Allah azza wa jal is going to bless you with one thing. So so value, so value that one thing and go for it, if you find it like you're just as generous person and it's easy for you to give sadaqa and then keep doing the Dasha door, that your door be in the lady we call from that. If it's easy for you to fast on Mondays and Thursdays and the M and B then and out have fun and desha door Bismillah go for it right Subhanallah because maybe that person is not really the one extra like a whole lot of extra Salawat or whatever it is, right. So he also narrates a beautiful story here. That happened between I want to say

the last ease Falana lamare. Who was a, who was a very well known Zed at the time, like another words. How would you translate say that because I said take the Animalis who was there? Yeah, let's all steer and minimalist and you know, just didn't have any concern for the dunya he was a worshiper. Okay? Well known for that. And he writes this letter to him ematic ly, they and he trying to convince him to leave off all of his teaching, you're just sitting there teaching all these people in his taken away from your ability to ritual devotion, your ritual devotion, like what's going on with you. Like, you need to step away from all those people and don't worry about that,

like, you know, dedicate yourself to enfilade and Salaam in Filomena isolation and get in the way. So he may Malik's his response if I can tell it was a beautiful response. And he said and he wrote back to him, he said, that Allah azza wa jal has customer Lima has distributed the the Atmel that those acts of worship the way that he has distributed risk amongst people and some people are rich through candles and others through through gold and others are not rich at all and today they have a right so Hala any any split this up and so perhaps a person may find that so a lot has been made easy for him and sadaqa is not and perhaps the first meet find that CM has been made easy for him

and and and slight has not been made meaning extra right. And he says and as for me, as for me

I believe that this door that allows me of Nashville and spreading knowledge. I don't believe that what I'm doing is any less than what you're doing and I hope that we are both upon goodness was sellin right. So we take it back to the mesh to educating our communities. How does your door exactly find your door and the message it needs to open up its doors for those people who have found different doors Subhanallah Hey, maybe this guy mashallah he's a

like I met this

doctor Mohammed obaidul, who runs it can robotics like amazing, amazing like, I went to visit him next time you go, I'll tell you what familiar Okay? Mashallah. Like an amazing program, right? And you see these kids in a built in robots. And when it's time for salon, they stop and pray. And they pray at the competition's, right. But imagine the Masters is like, what would we do what a robotics program now, like, if we can facilitate that, hey, that's your door. You're good at that. Even if it's three four kids, whatever, mashallah, let's let's do that reason from Mississippi and let's be the best at what we do. Right? Subhan Allah, maybe somebody Allah azza wa jal is bless them with a

great, you know,

grasp of finance, for example, and they understand the ins and outs. So, look, man, we need to host

you know, Wealth Management, for the community as a whole will lie. I'm gonna tell you something else. I mean, obviously, living in a capitalist society, Money Talks is very important that we learn a little bit more about wealth management, because I don't think that we're necessarily literate in those manners and we waste a lot of money Subhanallah and it's very important, because we can if we pull our resources together properly beaten the bank tighter, I think our impact and influence is going to be even greater. My whole point is, I think there has to be also part of our educational process. But to your point, no, just like look later, educating them on the importance of educating

yourself in a way that can make you that's all

contributor for the community thank you go sort of keeping that keeping that in house. Not that we don't want the betterment of society for sure. You don't mean that no one should ever misunderstand. You are saying that not what do we have a compounded duty towards our communities?

The community needs to be educated on the fact that they do we have a special duty

towards those who have multiple rights on us the right of humanity and the right of Islam. So may Allah azza wa jal use us for hate is like a lovely May Allah use you as a key for many doors

played always and make you a lock for many doors of evil Allah whom I mean I'm really appreciate your your time shift and sort of coming through for us on short notice a lively Allah make it heavy in your scales and brighten your face with it. The watercolor thick of everybody said I want a quote.

When I have to live with a cat