Christians visit Mosque in Chicago what happens next is Amazing!

I was raised Orthodox Christian, Serbian. So here Muslims will come and congregate five times a day. He was like, you know, we believe in Jesus right? And I was like, well, actually what we have in common and to see where the differences are, has been very good to the Christian faith into at first it kind of surprised me. I thought I was gonna walk into the machine. It's like only, you know, brown and Arabs. And yeah, absolutely. We had a great time at the mosque. I would invite anybody to come with me. I've seen a lot of white people and a lot of black people when I'm like, Oh, this is the most diverse Masjid in the city. You will find everybody here for where he's pretty tall, isn't

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Miss Miller have the de la Ceramica. My brothers and sisters we're here at MCC to meet the community. Come with me. Muslim community center of Chicago. Alright, everybody, I'm going to take you through a tour of one of the oldest and largest Masjid moss in Chicago. All right. So go ahead. If you're not yet Muslim, or non Muslim, and you're in an area you want to stop by, or if you're Muslim, you're new to the city. This is where you want to be. Come on with me. Alright, so you'll come in here, and you'll be welcomed. There's an office to the right. All right, there's another area. Let's go see over here. They're usually having they got a little banquet area here a lot. A

lot of times they'll have people groups, they'll come in from universities, from schools from churches, people want to learn about Islam. Thank you. Thank you for the thank you now. Did you guys enjoy the session

you guys recommend more people Tommy.

Over here what you'll have is this is the area, the funeral area when somebody passes away and all of us are going to go and this is where the family will come to go ahead and the wash the body prepare the body. This is another one of the team here at MCC please introduce yourself slowly. This use of Omar I'm the manager here at MCC Glad to have you ready as always. Michelle

didn't show I think it's very famous. They're doing great job. I wish them the added the best.

Reward him for the hard work and that didn't that's his spreading all over the United States as a matter of fact people out of country they are watching as well. So may Allah make it easy for him Inshallah, I mean, and you guys got to meet the manager here at MCC so make sure you stop by time you saw him and you're here to visit office inshallah. Yeah, to serve him serve as a come. Come here anytime.

Beautiful. Thank you. This is what it's all about here. This is this is the most important place because this is the Masjid. This is the prayer area. The thing that captivates people here is the serenity you know that's found the peace. If you look up at the walls, you don't see any statues, icons, you don't see any saints. People come here to connect with their Creator, without any intermediaries directly to the one up above the One who created creation, God Almighty in Arabic Allah. So if you're not yet Muslim, and you want to connect with your Creator, what better place then to come and learn about Islam from the Muslim community here at MCC. And you'll see Muslims

continuing the same way as Jesus as Moses as Abraham in the last and final messenger pro Muhammad peace and blessings be upon him praying to one and only one God the Creator, not the creation here Muslims will come and congregate five times a day for the five daily prayers. So this is it. This is the MCC This is the main area pretty soon this will fill up. There'll be a packed house here on Juma on Friday. So if you're in the area, make sure you come and visit the Muslims at MCC, the oldest and largest Muslim Community Center here in Chicago. Salaam aleikum. I'm here with use of use of tell us your role here at MCC Bismillah R Rahman Rahim o salat wa salam ala Rasulillah Salam Alaikum for

everybody. I am here as a volunteer whatever they asked me to do, I will do for the sake of Allah subhanaw taala then for the sake of serving our community Alhamdulillah and how as MCC been serving the OMA serving the community. When you're talking about MCC, you're talking about something big and huge significance in the eyes of Allah in the eyes of his Prophet Muhammad, Salah Salem and in the eyes of the community. And CCE considered to be almost one of the oldest masajid in Chicagoland MCC I can call it myself, the mother of so many silly Islamic centers and masajid in the areas that we are living in MCC save the country

At from step one to until somebody passed away from in the month of Ramadan especially the charities for the Arab community so many other non Arab community for the widows for the divorce for the single mothers for the new immigrants just name it as you wish whenever we refer somebody we referred go to MCC you're gonna find your way through MCC inshallah not only that look at Ramadan Masha Allah in everyday very unique Masjid in the Chicagoland there are so many Natalia doing the assignment to but MCC is very unique. They are feeding at least 500 $600 Brothers and sisters facing every day what a beautiful job they are doing and serving our community. Not only that, I want to

talk also about some when somebody dies, I approach and CC so many times it is through the Coronavirus, COVID-19 and so on. When a family does not have enough money MCC is up and bring him and we take care of that with tears Masha Allah with happiness. Then we have here the whistle for the Muslim finance services, Harun Ferdowsi and Salman Ferdowsi and their teams, that's very unique. You can see that in every Masjid. There's a service for the alive community members also for the dead ones Subhanallah MCC, even you cannot describe how MCC and North sashiko serving our community. So I'm Nicole, how are you doing my brother? How you been? Good Good hunting law. Tell us your name

for the audience and your role here at MCC. My name is Ali Bella. I'm a board member and co chair of the building to building committee here at MCC. How is MCC been serving the Ummah at large with the diversity here and all the different from African Americans, Arabs, how they've been inclusive with welcoming everybody. When she sees the most diverse Masjid in the city, you will find everybody here. And all the groups will be here. And we all pray here together. All five prayers will open all five prayers 365 days a year. And everyone gets along here and there's no fitting at all here. So we are messages working, it works well in the city. That's the kind of message you need in a city. And

it's large, and it's so it's clean. So like this is open every single day. It's five days a year. You're also a convert to Islam. You accepted Islam, how far back well actually, I'm not a convert. I was born in a nation of Islam. That was in Worthing, my homeless community for many years I wasn't officially convert. So I learned many things before I came to MCC asking me because I live here and my kids are biracial. And we live in this area. So my wife was Moroccan so we did some rocking community. So we want to be around a lot of Moroccan people to raise the children. You got people who go to different houses of worship, and you have like the Greek church you have here this, this

church is all you know, one color one nationality. But here it's different. Like some people might be surprised you got people from all walks of life white, black, yellow, you know, everybody's welcome. Is that right? You know, you should, if you come here on the last 10 days of Ramadan, it'd be the closest thing you'll find Onra because you will find everybody in the last 10 days, saying and being here you want there's no knife, major nationality here at all.

This message is found about these indo packs. But this message is a firm message. And they always were very welcoming to everybody. Like any place does problems, but there's not major problems. As far as that's concerned, level diversity. MCC is the key. This is the most diverse method that I've seen in the city at all. So this is also for the Not Yet Muslims, people who have heard a lot of hype in the media, you know, if they want to come here, they're not yet Muslim, non Muslim, they want to learn about Islam, they want to meet their Muslim neighbors. What do you say to them? This would be the best place to do that, because everyone here speaks very good English. And they have

very common leadership here and other people can answer your question. They grew up here, most of the people and administration of this masjid, are born in America. And they know what it's all they lived here for quite a long time. So they know all the questions you would have because they lived those experiences. They're not. They're not from another. They're from another country. But they've lived here for long enough time. So they know what is in the American mind. This would be a good place to start. If you had to go somewhere for other reasons, but it's the best place to start for a new convert. We have a guest who just came into MCC how has been your experience here at MCC over

the years. Very good, very good. It's always been very hospitable and great to have dialog to see what we have in common and to see where the differences are. It has been very good to the Christian faith into the people that we are training at our camp. Beautiful. Thanks for stopping by here at MCC. Nice seeing you again. Would you recommend for more people to come and learn from the Muslims to come here to visit a mosque? Absolutely, absolutely. It's important to change misconceptions. So the only way to do that is by learning more about it and you invite people to come visit a mosque. Yeah, absolutely. We had a great time at the mosque. I would invite anybody to come and check it

out. And it's fascinating and enjoyable. Thank you so much. I really enjoyed it. I actually been thinking about myself, converted over to Islam, not because of the fashion or because of my friends but because

I want to be closer to God. So

the school principal whose hard work and dedication has impressed students and staff alike. And recently his work had caught it has caught the attention of national education leaders, Habib Kadri is one of Chicago's Very Own some only cool, why they can sit on? How are you doing? Can you go ahead and let us know your the principle of the MEC? What is the vision and mission of your school? And where do you want to see your students after going through your education system?

So the MCC Academy are if you had to break it down into small like a motto. We call it building character and developing minds and what wide character because one of the big things we want our students, especially our young ones to have our focus on, is that character, a morality is not what people think morality is our human beings think what morality is, but what God thinks morality is when a lot of things morality is so so important for us to make sure that the kids have an understanding foundation. So we want them to have that great character that o'clock that behavior so they can be successful in this world and successful in the hereafter. But we need to develop their

minds to say hey, why does God say the rules and regulations so we could get closer to God to be awareness of God. So this is why through,

you know, the Quran, the Islamic Studies, the anatomy class, but also the academia, which Allah makes sure that we want our kids to understand that we want to be the best in this world, the best in the hereafter. So it's so important for our kids we want them to do is be successful in their schoolwork in their Deen. And as their graduate, they could know how to take care of their families or communities. But also, a masjid like this or the schools because you need support are two programs that like at his Deen show that you know, who's here today, doing some programs, so everyone has certain things that we want to make sure that they understand and they kind of go ahead

and implement. And so hopefully there'll be successful in this world and the Hereafter, and hopefully, they could also be aware and be good American Muslim citizens. I got money, Allah reward you for your wonderful work. He's pretty tall, isn't he? I thought I was trying to reward his brother and for all the work he has done. And also on the side note, for any individuals, please make sure you keep supporting the programs that they are doing, which are trying to make awareness of our deen for not just our own Muslim community, but all of America and the world at large. I came from Colorado to help out as you go is your local guy ad from the Dean show, Nick glass already just

makes it seems that Allah subhanaw taala aids him and lead this project for the sake of Allah subhanaw taala I testified I testified that there's nothing worthy of worship

worthy abortion legislation. But Allah, Allah, Allah, and I bear witness, and then the witness that Muhammad Muhammad is the Messenger

of Allah. Salaam Alaikum. Brothers and sisters now we're at the MEC with the former president, please introduce yourself. My name is Muhammad cashew Rajan. I've been with MCC since 1973, Alhamdulillah Subhan. Allah. So how would you evaluate now the progress that's been made? Since its inception, it's been tremendous progress. And I've been very closely associated with MCC as the president of MCC, for a total of eight years and, and school committee chairman, Sunday school principal, and so on. So, I have seen the progress of the community center from 1973 Up until now. So in 1973, we had one building that could accommodate only about 200 people for Friday prayers. Now

Alhamdulillah, we have three buildings that could totally accommodate about 5000 people. And so Alhamdulillah the progress had been tremendous. And the community has grown and community is ready interact you with each other and they support each other. I just had a brother introduce himself. He's Serbian, his name is Marco. He just took his Shahada. And what fascinated him is when he walked into the Mosque, the Masjid, usually when he would go to the church at his time when he was Christian, Orthodox Christian, he'll see all Serbians what nationality or he'll go to this church, and he'll see this color of people. But he was amazed. He thought he's gonna come in here and just

see, you know, a certain group of people looking a certain way. But he was just amazed to see the diversity and hamdulillah MCC is very much blessed in that regard, you know, because of the location over here. There is not just one type of ethnic Muslim community here. There are Muslims from South Asia, of course, India and Pakistan. There are Muslims from the Middle East, Palestine and Egypt and Sudan and so on and of Africa, and also people from Indonesia and Malaysia. They're all here, And Alhamdulillah they all come to MCC and take it as their home.

What would you say for the Not Yet Muslims? They've been watching a lot of the hype up there in the media every Muslim is a terrorist.

I don't want to hear your mouth

right now what we what we looked at this resistance evil Muslims

are terrorists, every one of your chairs I don't care what you think

you can say whatever you want.

We are we all

knew

you've involved in Dawa sharing the message and they are curious they want to know and they live in the area? Is the door open for them to come in and ask questions MCC door has always been open. And lately we are making it a point to open it up for people and inviting people both in the Elston location and here in Morton Grove location. We are inviting the neighbors to come in here and talk to us enjoy some of our snacks that we know ethnic worldwide, ethnic X snacks and learn about Islam. And people do some fun things for them. Ask them to write their names in Arabic and we write their names in Arabic and give it to them as a nameplate that they can put and do some henna on their

hands and so on. So the people really enjoy Of course they listen to the talk about Islam and they say okay, we didn't know Islam about this way. So the what Islam is presented in the media is completely wrong. Completely different what true Islam is. So when they come to our home, then they know what Islam is. I got an amazing surprise for you. Brother came in approached me Marco, how are you still on? Nico Good? How are you? How are you doing? I'm doing well. So Marco just accepted Islam. And tell us about this journey that you took that you're here today. And we met at the mosque? Well, it started I was raised Orthodox Christian, Serbian. So, you know, the tensions have

always been high. And I haven't really known anything about Islam for like a long time. So just about two months ago, maybe I met a Saudi Arabian girl. And she was just telling me about Islam and, and I was like, shocked. She was like, you know, we believe in Jesus. Right? I was like, what you know, because it's surprising when you don't know anything about Islam. And so she was just teaching me stuff about the Quran and the Prophet, peace be upon him. And you know, stuff like that. And then I started watching YouTube videos, I found the deen show. I started just watching videos and trying to learn as much as possible.

I just prayed. And for the first time, I didn't pray to Jesus, I just said, God, whoever you are, can you just guide me to your way. And that same night I like just started crying, but it was like tears of joy. And that it was Thursday night and I was ready to convert the next day. And as you know, Friday's Juma. So it was it was perfect. And I just converted the next day. And you took your shahada, the testimony of faith, the claim that there's nothing worthy of worship except the Creator of the heavens and earth. And then Muhammad is the Messenger, just like Jesus is the messenger Abraham. He's just the last and final messenger. That makes sense worshiping the Creator, not the

creation. And you took your shahada here at the MEC Masjid. Palomar just right Well, life what I can do? This is one other quote Marco from Serbia. Loba Hadees. I don't know most of the unserved your brother's name is mouthful. Isn't it just accepted Islam 10 days ago, I think I'm not mistaken maybe 10 days ago or something like that? Because of a video that I watched 10 reasons why I think it's what the OSHA FM says I'm not mistaken. 10 reasons why Jesus is not God. Is it? Imagine that, imagine that Allah what? How was the community in welcoming you? It was actually very accepting and loving. And the guy I sat next to he actually I think he moved his own son and he told me to sit

next to him and started this. So it was very accepting and I appreciate you know, everyone welcoming me into the community and it's been nice. So do you see the diversity here when you walk in you see black white you can use your Serbian on Bosnian, you can see people from all different walks of life, nationality, not separating us but all of us coming together under the worship of one God and living a morally upright life. How has that had an effect on you?

It's been very surprising because you know, when I go to church is like, only Serbians. There's a couple Greeks maybe you know a couple. Bosnians maybe you know a little bit of diversity, but I haven't seen one black person one, you know, Middle Eastern person nothing. So at first it kind of surprised me. I thought I was gonna walk into the machines like only you know, brown and Arabs and yeah, but then I seen a lot of white people and a lot of

Like people when I'm like, okay, you know, I'm not the only one here that's, you know, the only white guy. So it was nice to have a little bit of, you know, sense of community as well. But um, it's been very nice, and I think, very accepting me. So congratulations, brother. Welcome to Islam law keep you firm and steadfast assalamualaikum My name is Massoud Vijay Puri. I'm currently the president of the Muslim community center in Chicago. And we have three campuses here. We're here right now in modern bro campus. We have one in Chicago, which is the first one and we also have a new one in Skokie, which is our school full time school. Also, I was the mission and vision being

fulfilled under your leadership. Okay, well, thank you for that. We're currently as you can see, our MCC is growing, you know, and this year on the law, you know, we had, this is my first year at MCC. And we I just completed six, six months with MCC. So it's a short period of time under my leadership currently but Alhamdulillah we seeing the MCC is growing because we have more and more people. Now coming to MCC. We have many programs that are happening under both religious affairs. As you can see every Friday. We have different topics on the Religious Affairs Committee. We also do community services. You know, this is the card services at MCC. We have funeral services at MCC. So we are

also doing many, many services. Besides the religious part. We do the community service and as you see we have two facilities that provide education. You know we have MCC full time school here and also a Skokie full time school. So we're growing every year more and more children are you know are enrolling in the programs for the Sunday school and a full time school so that we're continuously MCC is growing. Our vision is to provide the services both through religious services, the Community Services and the education services. So we can make sure that the community is happy with MCC.

And also MCC is the first Masjid that we you know was in Chicago. So we consider the mother of the organization. Many of the centers that you see around MCC came after the MCC we just celebrated 50 years in 2019. So hungry Allah MCC is always looking forward to other centers how Allah today we are very happy and welcome the incentive team they are here how Allah you know brother Eddie that I know him for almost like you know, good 17 years and Allah has chosen he would like to do the work that he's doing, but we should be grateful to them for helping us to fulfill this obligation that Allah has chosen us to be the best nation to serve the humanity and Subhanallah he is doing it on His

behalf on behalf of many other people also in sha Allah so they are here I would really urge you to in sha Allah to support him and to help him shake Can you tell me what role is MCC played from a religious perspective to develop such a vibrant and inclusive community Alhamdulillah MCC since its inception, almost like five decades ago 1969 was the time that you know this organization was set up. It has been since then, developing the community our focus is on the development of the community in different segments, including our youth and seniors and women in Botswana. And besides these basic religious needs that we fulfill, performing the Salah, and read and all other lectures

and talks and Honda cars, we pay special attention to encourage them for their civic engagement. So one some some of our community members mashallah I'm very happy and glad to tell you that they are on the board of trustees to a village mashallah here to the libraries, the public libraries, and they are also playing multiple roles in different capacities in the civic organization and institutions. And we also work very closely with all the other communities that are here and then including our centers, both our centers mashallah now we have three data centers in three different locations one in Chicago, one is born and grow one is in Skokie. And we are also the voting centers

when the time comes in. So we have been working and we have outreach and our activities and interfaith activities in which like for example of open masjid, open mosque, day open Masjid day, as well as, you know, Malcolm X day and you know, Mama daddy, Mama these days, so these are instances where we are inviting people getting these opportunities to grow with us. And then we provide complete services you know, from child births, Halloween the comes up we have the rental places that they come and rent and they celebrate their applica and their Bismillah and their Quran when they start. We have the school as they grow up. Subhan Allah full time school, Saturday school and Sunday

School for the religious education as well as the academic education because this

says from preschool to high school. We have a full time schooler hamdulillah then as the group we have the weekly Halal Club program we have a yearly youth camping activities and then when they grow up mashallah, they are ready you also have the Nikka restriction ceremonies right here hamdullah almost like bar 50 knickers happen yearly. And then same thing, when the events mashallah they have their own babies this whole cycle comes in. So this is the third generation Mashallah. And in 50 years, I'm glad that we have seen their community has developed and grown, and it has created their impact. In almost every walk of the life MCC really helped shaped like my core

identity as a young Muslim.

And was my education, my growth, my spirituality, and it helped shape my values. And so I was here from pre K to eighth grade. And by the time I left, I felt really, really secure in my Deen. And I think that was like the most important thing that I took away from MCC because I was able to like hold on to that even though I didn't go back to an Islamic institution after graduating, somewhere I come. So my name is Mr. Siddiqui. I actually came to this community about 10 years ago. And right away the biggest impact that was done on my life especially because of me entering high school was the impact of the youth group here MSCI the young Muslims were that they had here. And because of

that, I feel like that made a huge impact in the way I am as a Muslim my Muslim identity, especially going through high school on these those four years is shaped me a lot. But outside of that, there's also a lot of, you know, youth groups for the sisters as well. Why am is more privileged group to the sisters group for high school only. There's also a middle school group for sisters and the middle school group for brothers. And there's also YouTube MEC, which actually combines you know, allows brothers and sisters to be in a gathering together, where they at different events have different activities outdoors, indoors, different led by amazing speaker, I mean, amazing speakers.

And because of that, I mean, this led to, you know, emphasis on community where people even outside of these different organizations and activities, we have things in the masjid just you know, spontaneously because we've been connected to the masjid. So I've ended up because of that. And we've had the opportunity to meet a lot of new people. And it's built a relationship not only with each other and you know, the community here but also with the masjid. And it's led a lot of people to come to the masjid and 10 regularly. As long as my name is Dr. Saba Khan, and I'm the Vice President of Muslim community center, Chicago, which is one of the largest Muslim organization,

you're the land of Chicago. This organization is more than 50 years old. And this is one of the trailblazer in when it comes to these kinds of organization. The women here at this masjid and the school system that we have are very active, and mashallah you'll see the representation of women, not only at the board level where the administrative decisions are made, but also at the school level, at committee levels at different programs that we do. When it comes to religious affairs, social events, educational events, youth events, you will see the participation of the men who are so actively involved in this community and the Masjid.

Thank you guys again for visiting us.

Thank you, peace, please be with you.

I cannot leave without giving you a gift if you're not yet Muslim, and you tune in and see what these Muslims are talking about. And you'd like a free copy of the Quran. Go and visit the deen show.com We'll take care of the postage and everything and get it delivered to you. And if you still have some questions about Islam, call us at 1-800-662-4752 We'll see you next time until then Peace be with you as salaam alaikum. This is your brother Hamza and rare disease. And I want every single one of you to support Eddie from the deen show, financially and otherwise, but in what way? I want you to support his new project. The dean center is going to be a transformative experience the

center why? Because it's going to be a masjid, it's going to be a place of worship. It's also going to have fitness facilities and it's also going to be a dialysis center to call people back to Allah Subhana Allah to Allah Muslims and non Muslims and we trust Edie completely. I for one will take 1000 bullets for Eddie. He has a vision. He has more than 15 years of experience in the Dawa. He's had a huge success with the deen show. And he had the support of many dua 10 preachers and scholars from all around the world. He's going to be an amazing project for everybody. Go to the Dean's into the org Donate now.