Tom Facchine – All Praise Be to Allah in Every Situation
AI: Summary ©
AI: Transcript ©
We'll talk about it.
Here we go, guys, let's go.
Current events.
We're starting with the war in Lebanon, okay?
It has exploded literally and figuratively.
So we have had the pager attack.
We realized that, how it worked, we didn't
really necessarily understand.
But now that we know that, what happened
was Hezbollah was getting pagers that were made
in Taiwan that were shipped through Hungary, I
believe.
And at a certain point, Israel figured it
out and they intercepted the supply line intercepted
the shipment, planted explosives on those pagers and
then allowed them to continue forth and then
detonated them, killing over 100 people, okay?
So that's really bad.
And in fact, even an ex-chief of
the CIA called it, called it terrorism, which
is really sort of surprising.
You wouldn't necessarily expect that.
Now, people were freaking out because the prospect
was, oh my goodness, this is a huge
problem.
If people can remotely detonate electronic devices, this
computer that I'm using, this smartphone over here,
anything else, are we really just sitting ducks?
It became a little less urgent once we
figured out that they actually intercepted the shipment,
but that also has other problems.
That mean any shipment of any sort of
vessel that they can just sort of do
that to anything.
That's a very, very scary thought.
However, one of the larger storylines is not
just the brazen encroachment and violation of sovereignty,
but the fears of an escalation and a
war that is going to spiral out of
control.
And certainly it looks like things are heating
up now.
Israel has pursued the policy of trying to
provoke Iran and to try to provoke Hezbollah
and try to provoke other actors in the
region, calculating that if they're able to make
it into a regional war, the United States
will back it and will get more involved.
Especially, for example, they're talking now about a
potential ground evasion.
And there is, I think Israel's hoping that
the United States will provide soldiers to assist
in the ground invasion of Lebanon itself.
That remains to be seen.
But up until this point, this is sort
of capturing the dynamic.
A lot of people were saying, well, how
much should we thank or how much, how
should we feel about these groups that occasionally
they do target Israel and they try to,
you know, but they always sort of pull
back from doing anything that is too risky
because they are afraid that they will give
Israel justification to involve the United States in
a major way.
However, as we can tell right now, political
will of the average American person to support
such a thing is doubtful.
And political will among even the elites right
before an election is doubtful, right?
Usually politicians are very, very hesitant to do
something dramatic like this before an election.
So it could be, it could all come
to nothing.
We don't know, and we will see.
How should the Sunnis and the Sunni Ummah
feel towards these Shia elements who are a
mixed bag?
And I think that we should be just.
I think that you should be just.
I mean, there's definitely, it's no doubt true
that Iran and its satellites, whether that includes
the Houthis, that includes its militias in Iraq,
that includes its militias in Syria, that includes
Hezbollah, they have committed atrocities, right?
And we shouldn't gloss over the fact this
is not the enemy of my enemy is
my friend sort of thing, that we don't
necessarily ignore that.
We can talk about that.
And we should talk about that.
As we talked about, I think last week
or the week before that this is an
insult to our Syrian brothers to not talk
about it.
It's an insult to our Yemeni brothers and
sisters in certain parts of Yemen to not
talk about it.
Anybody who's from Yemen or who's from Syria
or who's from these areas knows, from Iraq
knows some of the horrors and the atrocities
that have been committed, right?
So we have to be honest about those
things.
And yet at the same time, we can
recognize how they have been, how the autonomy
or even the tiny amount of autonomy that
they have created for themselves has given them
more capacity than the Sunni garrison states to
take any action whatsoever against Israel.
I mean, think about it.
I mean, what if none of these forces
existed?
What would be left of Palestine?
We don't really know.
So sometimes we just have to accept the
complicated and messy nature of life and especially
of politics.
And you know, Alasdair said something that this
reminded me of this thing, especially the whole
Pager thing, but the belligerence and the arrogance
of Israel to always escalate, escalate, escalate.
Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la says
in Surah At-Tawbah.
Let's go to it.
la yarqoboon fee mu'minin illan wala dhimma wa
ulaakika humal mu'tadoon They don't observe toward a
believer any pact of kinship or covenant of
protection.
And it is they who are the transgressors,
SubhanAllah.
If you read the history of Israeli assassinations
and Israeli, like there is nothing that they
won't do.
There is nothing too low when it comes
to assassinations, right?
Some people remember the Khalid Mishal affair in
Jordan where they had that crazy sort of
thing in his ear, that poison that the
Jordanian king had to sort of demand the
antidote for, assassinating people all over the world,
attacking British interests, that's happened, American interests, the
USS Cole, like civilians, children, old people, like
literally nothing, nothing, nothing.
There's no limits.
There's no limits whatsoever.
And so it was reminded, this ayah came
to mind because when you talk about different
types of elements in the world and what
happens when the righteous people are not in
charge or are not have power, then these
are the types of people that are running
things.
And that's a scary, scary world.
We've got some more questions and we're gonna
take those real quick before heading to the
next one.
Siti Nuriati asked me, what's my motivation to
learn Bahasa Melayu?
I love the languages of the Ummah and
I would like to learn many of the
major languages of the Ummah.
And Southeast Asia and Malaysia in particular is
a wonderful place.
And who knows what's in store.
People going back and forth about Mehdi Hassan
in the comments.
Dina says, I support Mehdi Hassan.
Sara says, Mehdi Hassan's a careerist.
I say, we don't support anyone blindly.
These aren't sports teams.
We support people when they speak the truth
and we are against them when they're wrong.
Okay, so in the past 12 months, Mehdi
Hassan has done things, many things that look
like careerism.
He's done events, fundraisers for Engage.
We're gonna talk about Engage in a second.
He did not demonstrate principled action when it
came to the Democratic Party.
However, he did really good in that debate.
So props to him for that.
And we can walk and chew gum at
the same time.
We can do both.
Shayma Budadi asks, how to get ready for
facing great tribulations and adversities in this worldly
life?
As we see what happens around the Islamic
world, it makes me realize that at any
moment, I'm so glad that you asked this
Shayma because I've been having a very, very
similar reflection.
I look around and I see like everything.
And sometimes I think, yeah, I mean, I
put myself in the position of the people
of Gaza.
I put myself in the position of Marcellus
Williams.
I said that that could happen to me.
That could happen to anybody.
So what to do to get ready for
it?
You have to realize that this is just
the dunya.
And we're gonna look at Marcellus Williams and
some of his, how peaceful and submissive he
was to the will of Allah and the
qadr of Allah, that he was ready.
I mean, subhanAllah.
We'll talk about it in a second.
Ameen.
Smila rahma.
Welcome.
Ameen.
So Latisha says, so we're gonna just go
with a couple of relevant questions.
Latisha says, I have been told by my
teacher that Shias have and will always be
against Sunnis and that we should not think
of their support as genuine.
I think that's fair.
I mean, it might sound bigoted to some
people, but if you look into history, if
you follow history, you know, there's an, you
have an argument.
And that doesn't mean that that precludes any
type of support or collaboration.
The Prophet Muhammad, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, collaborated
with non-Muslims.
Okay.
So that doesn't preclude those sorts of things.
However, you know, yeah, when it comes to
trust, you may not extend your trust all
the way and that's perfectly fine.
All right, cool.
Let's move on.
So we have next story.
In the West Bank, Al Jazeera's offices were
shut down today or this week, I should
say.
Here we go.
We've got a video, correct?
We've got a video of them going live.
They were literally recording right when they were
shut down when the IDF, Israeli Diaper Forces,
showed up and shut them down.
See if we can play that video, guys.
This is the statement that was brought to
us by the Israeli army.
The statement includes an order to shut down
our Al Jazeera office for 45 days.
This is a decision that was made by
one of the Israeli generals.
He is ordering us to immediately leave the
office and take our personal belongings and cameras.
The army says we have only 10 minutes
to take our belongings and leave the office
so they can shut it down.
Yeah, so you see right there, subhanAllah.
I mean, like literally, they are on air
and they show up again.
No limits, right?
There's nothing, there's nothing that they won't do.
So we see that nothing is sacred.
We've seen this.
We shouldn't be surprised at this point.
I mean, there's, you know, children are not
sacred.
I mean, they gloat when they shoot young
children in the kneecaps, right?
So why would we be surprised that they
would shut down a news agency?
Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la said,
ala inahum hum al-mufsiduna walakin la yash
'uroon.
And of course, this is a well-known,
well-known, well-known ayah.
And of course, it applies to the, quote
unquote, children of the light, as Bibi says,
right?
The Israelis that can do no wrong.
One of the good things, one of the
nice things, I'll give flowers to Mehdi Hassan
today.
I don't have any problem.
I don't have any problem recognizing the good
that people do, right?
But I will also hold people accountable when
they're off.
That Mehdi Hassan delivered one great line.
Well, more than one great line, but one
of the great lines that he delivered was
that according to Israeli logic, 10-7 justifies
everything, but nothing justified 10-7.
And that was very succinct.
That was very succinct.
Yes, gee dude, we support the haq, not
a person, 100% right.
We got that.
Excellent, let's move on.
We've got now, of course, our brother, Marcellus
Williams, who went by the name Khalifa.
He was known as Imam Khalifa Williams.
He was somebody who was a very, very
avid learner of the deen.
He was somebody who was responsible for the
Islamic education of tons of Muslims in the
facility that he was imprisoned in.
And he was somebody that was executed this
week by the United States government and the
state of Missouri on very, very, in very,
very suspicious circumstances.
So he was essentially charged with and convicted
of murder, of stabbing somebody.
But later, and the evidence that was produced
was apparently, I think, his girlfriend and somebody
else at the time, he had a past.
His girlfriend and somebody else at the time
claimed that he confessed and claimed that there
was some sort of circumstantial evidence that he
never himself admitted to.
But later, it came to light that these
two individuals that basically testified that he had
done this, it seemed that they had felonies
against them and they stood to gain financially
from basically turning him in.
You can read up the details of the
case online.
So that was fishy already.
That was kind of strange.
And then when it comes to the composition
of the jury, the jury was made up
of almost all white Americans, no black people
whatsoever, except for one.
And in really a very, very sort of
like old school racist attitude, I think the
prosecutor, he said that he disqualified me.
You know how prosecutors and the defense, they
get to sort of choose who's on the
jury.
And one of the African-American individuals who
was a potential for the jury, he struck
that person off by saying that he looked
too much like Marcellus Williams.
Basically, he might as well have said that
y'all look alike, right?
It was a very, very racist thing to
say.
And so the final jury that presided over
the case was not representative of the defendant
nor of that area in general.
And so there was a perceived bias against
it.
Now it gets weirder.
The conviction, okay, and the sentencing to death,
later on, it was opposed by the victim's
family themselves.
Okay, so the victim's family themselves were saying,
hey, we don't want you to execute this
guy, okay?
And even the prosecutors, that's the crazy part.
This is very, very rare.
Even the prosecutors were saying, we don't want
you to execute this guy.
Or at least give us more time to
like figure this out because some of the,
after they found that, as they did DNA
tests and they did not find any of
his DNA at the crime scene, things were
very, very fishy.
The whole case was in question.
And basically what happened was that the politicians
ran it through.
And they ran it through and he was
executed this week.
And now one of the main, so there's
a lot to unpack here.
One of the things we have is, and
we've talked about this just a minute ago,
certain lives are deemed expendable and disposable and
others are not.
And in America, it has many different factors,
okay?
One of them is color, for sure.
That white supremacism is a real thing.
That anti-black racism is a real thing.
And that people are treated differently according to
the color of their skin.
And they are treated as, by default, a
suspect or by default, innocent.
That's a fact and that's historically demonstrable and
that's very obvious for people to see.
It's also true that being Muslim makes you
eligible as a target for violence, whether that
violence is vigilante violence, such as Wadiyah, whether
it is foreign policy violence, like in the
people of Gaza or in Palestine or anywhere
else in the world, that to be a
Muslim, and especially to be a Muslim man,
they have a little bit more sympathy because
they think they wanna save the Muslim women.
They think the Muslim women are oppressed and
that they get to save them.
But the Muslim man, especially, is particularly a
scary, scary individual.
So, Brother Khalifa had everything going for him.
He had all strikes against him.
He was a black Muslim male.
And so, he is extremely expendable or killable
or his life is not worth very much
according to the current sort of power structure
that dominates the United States of America.
Now, the interesting thing is that, we shouldn't
say maybe interesting.
I mean, like the Imam understood this very
perfectly.
He understood what they call the intersectionality between
the way in which Muslim lives are denigrated
and deemed expendable and the way that black
lives are also denigrated and deemed expendable.
And he actually wrote a poem that I'm
gonna read for you now about Gaza when
these things started popping off after October 7th.
He called it, Alhamdulillah, the perplexing smiles of
the children of Palestine.
Despite the actions of the few and excessive
retaliation, drones, planes, bombs, tanks, rubble, buildings demolished,
vanished houses and neighborhoods, hospitals targeted, UN shelters
disrespected, murder, death, deliberate killing of non-combatants,
babies buried alive, amputations, hunger and political starvation,
lack of or no water, strategic sanitation, daily
terror and terrorized daily, military maneuvering, moving here
and there to return back again to nowhere,
trauma with all its manifestations, international parlays and
hesitation, defiance to the realization of two nations,
global aid thwarted, global amnesia, siblings and relatives
gone forever, parental worries, in the face of
apex arrogance and ethnic cleansing by any definition,
still your laughter can be heard and somehow
you are able to smile.
Oh, resilient children of Palestine.
Alhamdulillah.
Let's go.
We've got his last statement here.
So he said in his last final statement,
now check this out.
All praise be to Allah in every situation.
Three exclamation points.
All praise be to Allah in every situation.
And we've got a video.
Now think about what it takes to come
with that in your last statement.
Now we've also got a video of him,
an interview done with him.
Let's go to that.
Whatever Allah determines, no saying I'm satisfied with
it.
Whatever, you know, so I already been right
there at that moment.
And I, you know what I'm saying?
There's nothing changed about it.
You know, I'm still, like I said before,
I don't believe in the system, the criminal
justice system.
I don't believe in it, you know what
I'm saying?
To that degree.
But I know that it can be used
for good as well.
So if good come out for me and
for my family and for all those that's
been supporting me, then all praise be to
Allah.
There is a little supplication that the Prophet
Muhammad, peace and blessing be upon him, he
used to say, he used to say, oh
Allah, if life is good for me, then
give me life.
If death is good for me, then give
me death.
You know what I'm saying?
So that's how I feel.
You know what I'm saying?
I say the same supplication.
So yeah, I'm at peace, of course.
So panel, and that was from everything that
I've witnessed and read and watched the past
24 hours about the brother.
That was what he was known for.
The Imam, I encourage you, we're gonna cut
to here some footage of his janazah.
The Imam made a very, very lovely speech
and indicated some of the last conversations, the
last moments.
One of the powerful things he said was
that the Imam said that he was sent
to be there for him, for brother Marcellus.
And he felt like the opposite.
He felt like Imam Khalifa was actually teaching
him because he was so submissive and pleased
with the will of Allah.
He was so completely unperturbed.
He was ready to die.
And honestly, this is something that all of
us should aspire to.
I mean, it sounds crazy to the person
on the outside looking in, but this is
what we call husnul khatimah.
This is what we call a good ending.
We don't care about whether, well, somebody was,
they were wrongfully killed and they were bombed
in this way or they were executed by
the government of this way.
Yes, okay, we can be sad and we
can be angry at the injustice and we
want to fix the injustice.
But when we look at the heart of
a believer and the way that their face
manifests what's in their heart, that they are
completely submissive to Allah's decree.
They are ready to meet their Lord.
They have witnessed everything that Allah and the
Prophet shallallahu alaihi wasallam said were true.
And they're ready to meet their Lord.
Then we have to say, alhamdulillah, as he
said.
Praise be to Allah in every situation because
that is what we want to aspire to.
You and me, we want to be like
that.
When we die, however we die, Allah has
already decided it.
We don't want to go fighting or kicking
and screaming.
We want to be as submissive, as submissive
as him.
May Allah grant him mercy and forgive him
his sins and give ease and patience to
the family.
And it reminded me of this one hadith
of the Prophet shallallahu alaihi wasallam thinking about
this whole situation, where the Prophet shallallahu alaihi
wasallam established that very clear consequences happen when
we are talking about oppression.
Why do we care about oppression?
Why some people were asking in the chat
about du'a or what can we do
more than make du'a?
Do we have to do more than just
make du'a?
We have an obligation to set things right
in society by whatever legitimate means they exist
because the Prophet shallallahu alaihi wasallam said, adh
-taqul dhulma fa inna dhulma dhulumatun yawmun qiyamah
wa adh-taqul shuh fa inna shuh akla
kaman kana qablakum hamlahum ala an safakud dima
'ahum wastahallu ma harimahum.
So be on your guard against committing oppression.
Now that's an individual command and also a
collective command.
You have to be on guard to make
sure that your society is not one that
oppressed.
For oppression is darkness on the day of
resurrection and be on your guard against stinginess
for stinginess destroyed those who people were before
you as it incited them to shed blood
and to make lawful what was unlawful to
them.
And there's another hadith the Prophet shallallahu alaihi
wasallam said and this is very, very, think
of the irony.
I just want you to think of the
irony.
The government kills this brother, okay, on shaky
evidence.
And the government's also killing people in Gaza
and Palestine, okay.
And the Prophet shallallahu alaihi wasallam said that
one of the things, another one of the
things that destroyed the people before you is
that if somebody who was weak and powerless
they committed a crime.
Upon the possibility that he committed a crime
which it doesn't sound like he did to
be frank but let's just say even if
he did that when someone poor or someone
weak or someone oppressed committed a crime that
they would throw the book at them and
they would punish them the worst punishment they
could think of.
But when a rich person, the elite, the
person in the stuff suit, the person in
the Oval Office, the person who's the Secretary
of State commits a crime well then they
let that person go.
But we believe in Allah and Allah Subh
'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la will exact justice.
He is Al-Muntaqim, he is the Avenger
and he will avenge his people.
If not in this world then definitely in
the next and we are here to struggle
for as much as we can in this
life.
Let's go quickly to the chat see if
there's any questions before going on to endorsements.
We got something to talk about everybody.
Yep, that's true.
So Abdullah Khan says, Salaam Imam, I agree
with Smila.
This overall feeling of having to fight against
what feels like the world and a hundred
plus years of roots that are deep within
every facet of our lives is becoming dot
dot dot, I guess overwhelming.
Smila had said, I feel helpless and guilty
that we're okay in the UK while our
government along with Western allies are enabling this
regional war.
We believe in Allah.
Now we believe that Allah is able to
do it.
As we will see in a bit, we're
gonna talk after this section about sort of
political maneuvering or the lack thereof and we
will see how Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta
-A'la can take care of it.
Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la will
find a way but we have to fix
ourselves and we have to do everything that
we can.
And once we do both of those things,
okay?
Once we do both of those things then
Allah will help us figure out the rest.
Yeah, it's true Sisa.
So Sira says, wrongful convictions.
A reason why wrongful convictions really get overturned
is the state doesn't want to pay millions
in damages.
Ah, so once they admit fault, all the
cases in the same product.
I see, that's a good point.
I mean, Smila to your duat.
Nuri Hassanov talking about the matrix.
Now we're getting somewhere.
FP2321 quite a username there says, why is
there no vocal criticism of Jordan, Saudi, Egypt?
There is plenty.
There's plenty all the time.
I call them, what do I call them?
Garrison states.
Every single week I call them garrison states.
They're criminal garrison states that have been set
up by the Western powers to do their
bidding.
I don't know what else you want me
to say.
They get plenty of flack, don't worry.
But since I'm in the United States, I
don't get to decide what Jordan does.
I do have a say in what the
United States foreign policy is.
I work to try to change the United
States foreign policy because I know that if
the United States changes its foreign policy, Jordan
falls, Saudi Arabia falls, Egypt falls, the whole
thing.
It's a hustle, it's a mafia, it's a
racket, the whole thing.
They do their thing to get weapons from
the United States and to get aid and
to get sort of perks and for protection
or in exchange, they protect Israel and Israel's
interests in the region.
That's the game.
So if I can take away the carrot,
then the game falls and my duty is
here where I am and your duty is
where you are as well.
Victorious Drusilla Amin, good to have you with
us.
Yes, Marad Ali points out there's a beautiful,
there's a beautiful phone conversation with Sheikh Hassan
Somali.
Yep, definitely listen to that as well.
There's a lot of beautiful stuff.
I'll tell you, I've been listening to this
stuff all day.
There's a two-part interview, there's a phone
conversation, there's stuff that Imam in St. Louis
said.
SubhanAllah, I mean, I was brought to tears
at a couple of points, like really, really
powerful stuff to see so many people, even
one of the persons reflected about his son,
who was obviously processing all this.
He said that the son was just like
his father, just completely, this is what Allah
wants.
This is what we're here for.
This is what we submit to.
And of course, his last words were, ash
-sharwan la ilaha illallah, ash-sharwan muhammadun rasulullah,
Allahu Akbar.
We can only hope for an end like
that.
Madika Easton, Walaykum As-Salaam, Ahlan wa Sahlan.
Sajda Markan As-Farhad, may Allah accept everything
from him.
And his last request, thank you, Alhamdulillah, Seamus,
you reminded me.
His last request, and this is very, very
important for us, is to take care of
the brothers.
And what he meant by that was the
brothers that are in prison.
And I can tell you as somebody who
has done dawah in prisons before, when I
was in Wisconsin, I did some dawah in
prisons.
When I was in New York, I did
some dawah in prisons.
And they are completely forgotten.
They are completely, it'll break your heart.
And what breaks your heart even more than
being forgotten when they're in, is them when
they're snubbed when they get out.
I have had grown men cry on my
shoulder who have told me that the brotherhood
was better in the pen, in prison, than
when they got out.
Then when they get out, they go to
the local masjid, they expect Islam, they expect
people who are going to be about deen
and accept them as deen.
And yes, they might have a tattoo on
their face from stuff that they've done before.
And yes, they might, you know, yes, they
might have certain ways or habits that they've
picked up from the street or from being
locked up.
But the way that people treat them is
just, is embarrassing.
The way that Muslims treat them is embarrassing.
And unfortunately for most of us, they are
out of sight and out of mind.
And so I would ask everybody who's watching
this program that we use this platform to
reach out to your local imams that are
doing dawah in the prisons.
Whether it's a pen pal exchange, whether it's
sending books, they used to have a great
program in Philly that I used to take
part in even before I was a Muslim.
They had a program called Books Through Bars
that I used to participate in West Philly
where we would send books to prisoners.
Like they would request certain books and we
try to work with the library and the
prison and things like that.
That this is the least that we can
do to try to keep them in our
minds, try to reach out to them, try
to provide support.
And especially when they get out to ease,
to ease, to ease their way back into
society and into the Muslim community.
Salahuddin is my hero asks, would you ever
debate Mahdi?
Really challenged him in his support for war
criminal Harris?
Yeah, why not?
I probably wouldn't.
I don't know.
That's just like not my lane, but I
would think about it.
And that's a great point.
Nusaybah says, I hope, I just hope we
don't become oppressors in our own homes.
Something that's easier to overlook, especially the children,
the elderly.
Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar.
Thank you so much for putting that out.
Salman Sayyid asked me a question, said I'm
Imam, what's a good allocation distribution for Sadaqah?
X percent for local causes, Y percent for
Gaza, Z for the Masjid.
I don't know.
That's interesting.
One, an interpreter one, Imam Tom, how do
you know he was wrongfully convicted?
I don't know.
I discussed the case already.
Listen, bro.
The prosecution is saying we shouldn't kill this
guy.
What does that tell you?
How many times has that happened, man?
Jess Conness says the Jewish attack on Gaza,
hold on there, has given them so much
audacity to do more wrongs.
Let's correct that, the Zionist attack, because there
are Jews that are against what Israel is
doing.
There are Jews that are anti-Zionist.
I've been in protests with ultra-Orthodox Jews
that say that the entire existence of Israel
is haram for them, in their law, in
their tradition.
Though the rest of your comment is right.
It's audacity.
They think they're invincible, but let's make sure
that we correct that.
This isn't just about, this is an issue
of Zionism.
Great point.
MFB, Prophet Muhammad Alayhi Salatu Wasalam said that
this world is a prison for the believers.
May Allah grant him, Jennifer Das Amin.
Yes, also people bringing up this case of
Dr. Afia Siddiqui, I highly recommend that you
check some of the work that Muslim Man
has been doing, and others for Dr. Afia,
one of our many political prisoners.
We need, hey guys, if you're talking about
starting up organizations in the United States, we
need a cage equivalent here in the United
States.
We forget about our political prisoners, 100%.
We forget about our Muslim prisoners in general,
and we forget about our political prisoners specifically.
Okay, so we definitely have to step up
our game in that.
I mean, some men say it, I mean.
We're getting there, Seamus.
Yo, I've been impressed within the last 11
months, that Seamus says one of the biggest
problems Muslim world has is that the rich
Muslims invest in massive tech corporations and Western
universities, instead of starting projects by themselves.
That's starting to change.
I've noticed a shift, and that's really actually
exciting.
Jabariya asks about Saudi Arabia and modernization.
It's a bad idea.
I wish they wouldn't.
Not really much to say.
Jyoti Prakash says, why don't you all leave
the United States?
Because I was born here, Habibi.
I was born here.
This is my home, okay?
I'm not going anywhere.
Plus, this is, oh yeah, I see you're
trolling.
Iran and Saudi Arabia.
Why don't you go to, I don't know,
wherever your username's from?
Let's all go back to where we're from.
Get an original comment.
Leticia asks, under the Islamic law, is there
such a thing as a prison system?
Certainly not like America has it.
Certainly not like that.
Ali, radiallahu ta'ala anhu, was the first
one who instituted incarceration, but it was not
anything.
It's just like servitude or slavery, quote-unquote,
in Islamic tradition.
It's not anything like chattel slavery in the
North Atlantic slave trade.
So imprisonment as ta'zeer, as a potential
punishment that someone could undergo, yes, that became
a thing pretty early on within Muslim history.
But, you know, chattan al-farq, very, very
different from what we have here.
And we see why, because just like the
chattel slavery system of the North Atlantic slave
trade, the prison system is based on profit.
And that's fact.
The prison system is based on profit.
It is big money.
Slavery, chattel slavery, North Atlantic slave trade was
big money.
That's why John Locke, your favorite Enlightenment philosopher,
had stock in the slave trade and wrote
the constitution for the island of Barbados and
then used that constitution to write the constitution
of South Carolina, which was, anyway, that's a
whole nother tangent.
Prisons and Israel.
Those three things, they are rackets.
They are rackets.
That means they are immoral things.
They are vices that the elites are profiting
off of, and they do it out of
profit, in addition to ideological concerns.
Mario asks, is it possible to participate in
prisoner support from outside the US?
I don't know.
I wish I knew that.
Do they accept letters?
Well, most of like accepting letters and books
and stuff like that is facility to facility.
It differs.
But if you know of a particular political
prisoner that's held somewhere, you could always reach
out to the facility by phone or by
email and see what their rules are for
accepting letters, inquiries, and reading materials.
SADA is making some recommendations.
Some people are recommending various things.
Yeah, somebody pointed out, you know we're getting
big if we've got trolls.
Ah, namaste trolls.
Ah, namaste.
Come on and get your whooping.
I've got the whip up on the wall.
I'll give you your lashes.
Irene has asked me to repeat something.
I'm not sure what I'm supposed to repeat.
Sorry about that.
I'm late to the chat.
My Oma asked for a Muslim who got
killed even after doing many sins.
Do they get Jannah?
Yeah.
All of us did many sins.
Come on now.
Which one of us hasn't done many sins?
Salahuddin asks, or Salahuddin Mahir asks, from a
strictly selfish perspective, why aren't the Arab garrison
states worried about their seats of power?
They are using American weapons to protect them
against their own people.
That's why.
That's why.
MBS literally said, like not too long ago,
like a month ago, hey US, you guys
gotta make sure that I'm safe because my
own people wanna take me out, especially if
I normalize with Israel.
G Dude asks about dogma disrupted.
He said dogma disrupted is dead.
Maybe it'll come back at some point, but
right now we're rolling with the live stream.
Smila Rahma asks, Imam, should we invest in
creating feature films and documentaries to create historic
accounts?
Yes, generally.
Absolutely.
We're losing the media game.
Hey, listen, I, an interpreter one, I could
be wrong.
If I'm wrong, then I'll take back anything
I said.
I tried to read up on that.
You're right.
They are not calling for, they're calling for
commuting the sentence.
Okay.
But commuting the sentence, does it mean that
they are just trying, does that indicate that
they still think that he did it?
Or does that indicate that they're trying to
bring it down because that's all that they
feel like they can ask for?
Right?
And these things, I don't know.
Ask someone who knows.
Nuri asks about Dow activities.
Yes.
Yes, you should.
You should definitely increase them.
Smila asks, will you be coming to Scotland
before the end of the year?
Not before the end of the year, unfortunately.
I'm booked up all the way to, all
the way to the new year, to January.
But I'm trying to come to the UK
in early 2025, Inshallah to Allah.
The Bay?
Not, I don't have any plans to be
in the Bay right now.
SoCal in the end of November.
Yep.
Good stuff.
Good stuff.
All right.
Excellent.
It's true, Juju.
So Juju says, I feel like many messages
are not as welcoming in general.
That's true.
I've always been Muslim, but don't feel like
I really fit in.
Sometimes be clicky.
I always should be more open.
I agree a hundred percent, unfortunately.
Zainab Azam is asking, how do we write
letters to Dr. Afia?
Personally, I don't know.
I know that there are groups that are
focusing solely on her case.
So we should definitely, if anybody knows, you
can drop it in the chat.
Oh yeah.
Dr. FP.
We're going to talk about Engage.
We're going to talk about Engage.
Let's get to it right now.
All right.
So we've got the Muslim vote rundown.
Let's do it.
We've got the good, the bad, and the
ugly.
In the last week, different orgs have come
out within the Muslim community, or at least
pretending to be part of the Muslim community
and have endorsed various candidates or not for
the upcoming US presidential election.
Let's get it.
So the first, we have the good.
That is USCMO.
USCMO, you know, decent, decent job guys.
Mashallah.
You know, you can pat yourselves on the
back.
There's some, I still have a critique of
it, but in general, especially compared to the
ones that are coming after you, not bad.
Why?
If you read their endorsement, it is about
principle.
They are based on principles.
They said that we are not going to
endorse anybody who is not committed to a
permanent ceasefire and an arms embargo on Israel.
That is the USCMO statement.
Who's the USCMO?
United States Council of Muslim Organizations.
The largest council of organizations that covers the
most amount of Muslims.
If you want to talk about the most
representative organization for Muslim Americans, this is probably
it.
We're talking about CARE is part of the
USCMO.
AMANA, MUNA, ICNA, MAS, they are all part
of the USCMO.
So tons of the major players in the
scene, they came, they had a task force,
and they said no endorsement for Harris, no
endorsement for Trump.
They encouraged Muslims to vote for third parties,
and they did not specify which one.
So people can criticize them on strategy.
They say, well, it would have been more
strategic if you said this and that, but
at least we can say principles.
Principles, and we applaud that.
Let's go to the bad.
The bad was the uncommitted national movement run
out of Michigan, partly by, from what I
understand, Rashida Tlaib's sister and others.
They released an extremely confusing statement.
This past week, can we pull up the
statement?
Do we have it?
No, we don't have it, so I need
to read it.
One second, where is it?
I gotta read it because if you didn't
know, now I've gotta read this to you
because you gotta try to make it make
sense.
So the uncommitted movement started as a dissent
within the Democratic Party, okay?
It's a very long statement.
I shouldn't read all of it.
I'm gonna try to skip to the good
parts.
There's a lot of words here on the
page.
Today, the uncommitted national movement announces that as
we continue advocating for life-saving policy change,
which ends the bombing in Gaza and ends
US support for Israel's military war crimes, Vice
President Harris's unwillingness to shift on unconditional weapons
policy, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, makes
it impossible for us to endorse her.
So here we go, ready for this?
At this time, our movement, number one, cannot
endorse Vice President Harris.
Two, opposes a Donald Trump presidency.
Three, is not recommending a third-party vote
in the presidential election.
All right, you following the math here?
So we've got no Harris, no Trump, no
third party.
But wait a second, are you telling us
not to vote uncommitted?
Not quite, not quite, hold on now.
On the last page, at the bottom, they
say, we urge uncommitted voters to register anti
-Trump votes and vote up and down the
ballot.
Our focus remains on building a broad anti
-war coalition, both inside and outside the Democratic
Party.
So let's get this straight.
So they want you to, they don't wanna
endorse Harris, and they don't want Trump to
be president, and they're not, they're telling you
not to vote for third parties.
And then on the back page, they say,
we want you to cast anti-Trump votes,
but we don't want you to vote third
party.
By process of elimination, by process of elimination,
it seems like they're telling you to vote
for Harris.
It seems like they're just shy to say
it, which is bad politics, which is why
the uncommitted movement, sorry, maalesh, is a failure,
because they tried to negotiate, but they never
intended to leave the Democratic Party in the
first place, okay?
And we're not making a comment, this isn't
our place to tell you who to vote
for, but right now we're gonna talk about
good politics and bad politics, and good negotiation
and bad negotiation.
And anybody who's been to a souq, anybody,
yeah, Yaqeen Institute, okay, alhamdulillah, does not have
any position on any of this.
And if you want my position, then you
have to go elsewhere, off Yaqeen.
But we're evaluating strategy and what makes sense.
Anybody who's been to a souq in Egypt,
in Morocco, in Arabia, in Pakistan, anywhere in
the Muslim world, and if you wanna haggle
with the person at the table, you wanna
buy something, they say 20, you say five,
say no way, 20.
If you're not willing to walk away from
the table, you're never gonna be able to
haggle.
It's only once you walk away from the
table, he's like, okay, okay, okay, come back,
come back.
Okay, 15, right?
If he knows you're never going to walk
away from the table, then that means you
have to accept his price.
And that is exactly what happened to the
uncommitted movement and the Democratic Party.
The uncommitted movement said from the very beginning,
we're never going to abandon the Democratic Party
no matter what, so they didn't have any
leverage.
They couldn't negotiate anything.
They said, please, will you please at least
call for a ceasefire?
Democratic Party's like, nah, not really feeling it.
Okay, well, what about conditioning aid, military aid
to Israel?
Democratic Party's like, nah, no, not gonna do
that either.
And then the uncommitted basically had to release
this kind of embarrassing statement that is really,
really a head-scratcher.
Now, that was the good, that was the
bad.
Let's get to the ugly.
And the ugly is M-Gage, the ugly
is M-Gage, folks.
And it always has been M-Gage, but
it especially is M-Gage.
M-Gage came out this morning and endorsed
Kamala Harris.
Okay, now, they also had the AP and
different other major national media organizations on speed
dial, somehow, I don't know how that works,
to run with this headline, top Muslim voter
organization in the world.
The organization endorses Harris's Middle East conflict escalates.
Now, part of M-Gage's projected power is
basically telling the Democratic Party and other groups
that it is the top Muslim voter organization.
But M-Gage is not the top Muslim
voter organization.
M-Gage does not represent the Muslim community
very well, if at all.
First of all, some of you might know
or not know that M-Gage was started
by Ismailis in Florida in the early 2000s.
And it was started not even pretending to
serve the Muslims whatsoever.
Their first papers of incorporations show that they
were called something very generic.
I forget what it was at this time.
But it had nothing to do with Muslims.
It was only years later that they decided
to change the name and to say, oh
yeah, we wanna represent the Muslim community now.
And they have a very, very shady history
of supporting Zionist candidates.
You can go check out on Electric Intifada
and other sort of news, AJ+, Sana
Said from AJ+, has written extensively about
them and others to show how basically the
game is.
There are organizations out there, and M-Gage
is one of them, that positions itself and
tells the powers that be in the Democratic
Party that we are the most influential voice
for the Muslims.
And that if you give us support, either
through appointments, either through special access, through funding,
through whatever it is, and M-Gage is
mostly funded outside the Muslim community, by the
way, not from the Muslim community, then we
will deliver these votes to you.
And so we shouldn't be surprised when this
type of treachery comes from a type of
group like this that is not accountable whatsoever
to the actual Muslim community that it purports
to represent.
And bin Munasabah, I was asked, I was
requested by a certain organization in Florida to
come to a conference to speak, I think
in January.
And the secretary reached out to me and
said, Imam Tom, we love your work.
We'd love for you to come and talk
at our conference.
And I knew that this particular organization worked
with M-Gage.
And I said very clearly, I do not
work with any organization that works with M
-Gage.
Thank you very much.
And it was only a short time later
when the president jumped on of this organization,
jumped on the email exchange and said, oh,
this is maybe a misunderstanding.
Why don't you call us?
Can we get on the phone and talk
it over?
There's nothing to talk about, Habibi.
There's nothing to talk about.
And when more Imams start to educate themselves
and when more scholars and when more organizations
start to educate themselves as the different players
in the political sphere and who are really
genuinely grassroots supported by the community and doing
good work and which ones are only here
to basically play us, that's when we will
start to see improvement in Muslim political opportunities.
Now, what my big objection to all of
this is and one of our takeaways here
is that this type, this style of politics
by uncommitted movement, excuse me, and M-Gage
is exactly the opposite style of politics of
the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam.
Now, I was reading through some of the
Quran today and coming across Surah Al-Fatih.
And Surah Al-Fatih is very, very important
read for these types of things.
And we'll go to the ayah, go ahead,
guys.
We have, Surah Al
-Fatih.
Certainly Allah was pleased with the believers when
they pledged allegiance to you, O Muhammad, under
the tree.
And he knew what was in their hearts.
So Allah sent down tranquility upon them and
rewarded them with an imminent victory or an
imminent conquest.
Why is this relevant to political negotiation and
this sort of thing?
Okay, I need you to understand something.
This surah and this ayah was revealed in
the context of the Treaty of Hudaybiyyah, okay?
The Prophet ﷺ was given a command to
go make Umrah.
He was given a dream in which he
saw himself visiting the Ka'bah, making tawaf
around the Ka'bah and making Umrah.
So he gathered 1,400-1,500 of
the companions and they left in pilgrim's clothes.
They did not have arms, they were not
ready for war, they were not armed to
the teeth.
They were not ready for any sort of
military activity.
They were just there with what they needed
in order to make pilgrimage.
When they came to the outskirts of Mecca,
the Quraysh panicked and stopped them.
They said, wait a second, you guys can't
come in.
What do you think you're doing?
And they made them wait outside the city.
And the Prophet ﷺ sent Uthman ibn Affan
as their delegate to go represent them, to
try to negotiate something with the Quraysh.
And he was gone for so long that
they were afraid that they had assassinated Uthman.
And in response to this, the Muslims gathered
together under this tree and they pledged right
then and there that if it's true that
Uthman was assassinated, that they would fight and
they would fight the last man and they
would all die if they had to.
And this is known as Bay'at al
-Ridwan.
This is the pledge that Allah is pleased
with.
And this is such an important lesson for
Muslims today because they were ready to stand
on business.
They were ready to stand on principle.
They were not tricked by materialistic causation and
concerns like, Oh, let's put our person on
the inside.
Let's ingratiate ourselves to power.
Let's get someone appointed in a high position.
Let's make compromises and get on the inside.
And then one day, 15 years, 20 years,
30 years, 50 years later, we can convince
them not to kill us.
That was not the politics of the Prophet
ﷺ.
That was not how the Prophet ﷺ dealt
with his genociders and his murderers and his
killers.
He sought to build power.
He built power.
He exercised power.
And he was ready to die.
He was ready to stand on business, on
principle, and he never betrayed his principles.
Never once do you see the Prophet ﷺ
compromising on any of his principles or the
companions compromising on any of their principles with
the enemies or with the people who want
harm for them.
And you see that this attitude when the
Muslims, when they took it to Iraq and
they took it to Sham and they took
it to Misr and they took it to
across the world, and what was the thing
that they told every single general and every
single person that they faced?
They said, you're about to face off with
a group of people that loves death more
than you love your own life.
And that was their attitude.
It was not a cowardly attitude.
It was not a, but we're just 1
% attitude.
It was not a, we're an aggrieved minority.
We have to lean into our allies.
We have to let our allies do most
of the work attitude.
It was not, I'm afraid of my McMansion
in the suburbs attitude.
It was not, I'm afraid of my 401k
attitude.
It was not an attitude that cared about
losing money or losing wealth or losing life
or losing freedom or losing anything.
That was not the attitude of the companions
of the Prophet ﷺ or the Prophet ﷺ
himself.
That was not their attitude.
Their attitude was, aren't we on the truth?
Isn't this the truth?
We are ready to die for the truth.
What do we have to sacrifice for the
truth?
We believe in Allah ﷻ just like Marcellus.
We believe in Allah ﷻ and we're ready
for anything.
We're ready to pay any price.
We're ready to sacrifice any sacrifice.
And that is when you have honor.
That is when Allah gives you honor.
That is when Allah takes the fear from
your heart.
That is when Allah stops the fear from
entering into you.
That's when He gives you tranquility.
So we have to compare the attitudes.
We have to compare the attitudes.
Take the seerah of the Prophet ﷺ and
map these different movements, these people who claim
to represent the Muslims and probably wouldn't even
dare to represent Islam.
We can say one thing, you've tried to
say that you represent the Muslims.
But to say nobody is even bold enough
to say that you represent Islam.
Compare them.
وَأَيْنَ نَحْنُ مِنْ هَلِ نَبِيِّنَا صَلَى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهَا
صَلَى How far have we come?
And the inspiring thing that I see, the
inspiring thing that I see is that the
youth get it.
The young people get it.
When I go to campuses and I go
to encampments, we're gonna talk about encampments in
a second.
The young people get it.
They're not impressed with your tenure, your 20
or your 30 years in Congress.
They're not impressed.
They might count that against you.
They might say, well, this person can't know
what they're talking about.
They've got too much experience.
They've been domesticated.
They've been tamed by the system.
They've been playing biryani diplomacy and respectability politics
as opposed to actually building power according to
our principles, not betraying our principles, not betraying
what makes us us, which is people that
are the ummah of Muhammad ﷺ, people who
follow the guidance that was given to us.
وَلَا نَخَافُوا لَوْمَ تَلَائِمُ And we don't fear
the blame of the blamers.
وَلَا نَخَافُوا إِلَّا اللَّهُ And we're not afraid
of anyone except Allah.
We're not afraid of anyone except Allah.
Let's get to some comments and questions, and
then we'll roll on with new student encampments.
The Muslim apologist says you can write to
Dr. Afia through her lawyer.
Google it.
Thank you.
Salahuddin is my hero.
Does Sami Hamdi think we should vote Jill
Steiner third party?
Umm, not 100% sure.
You should ask him or check his stuff.
I mean, I think he probably does, knowing
Sami.
I'm going to meet him soon.
I think he's coming to the U.S.
soon, inshallah.
Javeria asks how to stop ourselves from backbiting.
Concern yourself with your own sins.
The Muslim apologist says if the Muslims in
America are not voting for Kamala, you can't
be serious in supporting Trump instead.
No, nobody said that, Habibi.
Nobody said that.
You don't get to decide the president anyway
in America.
There's this thing called the electoral college.
So you might as well, you might as
well vote on principle.
Amina says in my city the state contacted
the Islamic community and asked for cooperation.
They wanted weekly lectures to be held in
the women's prison.
MashaAllah.
That's awesome.
Murad Ali asks what do you think about
Stein where Green Party ticket?
You got to see my work elsewhere.
This is Yaqeen Institute.
Okay, Seamus is saying that Mahdi Hassan is
talking about impeaching Blinken for hiding the fact
that Israelis blocked USA to Gaza.
But yeah, if he's also saying vote for
Harris, then Allah hadik.
Yeah, Allah must not.
Stick to debates.
Smila says if everyone voted Dr. Jill Stein,
it would make a dent and send a
clear message to ruling elite and positive signal
that a viable alternative is possible.
Mom of two agrees.
I agree uncommitted is bad politics.
Yo guys, do we have a vote?
Do we have a poll guys in the
studio?
We have a poll to run about who
people think that we should that the US
Muslim should vote for.
Can we run that poll?
Exactly Seamus.
You walk away from that table.
You find out it was just three.
Hey Farhad, don't feel bad.
I was a very bad negotiator until recently.
This politics thing is just, you know, awaken
the inner Italian in me, I guess.
Yeah, Sada, you're 100% right.
Amused and not surprised.
I saw it from the beginning because I
knew.
I saw it.
I saw the way that things were happening.
I follow this stuff very closely.
The uncommitted movement and how different groups were
sliding into it and how it was kind
of on the back of and how it
was on the back of Abandoned Biden movement
and they're basically sort of cozying up next
to Abandoned Biden and stealing their thunder a
little bit.
But then I think that it was always
it was always in the cards.
They were always planning on going back at
the end of the day.
Okay, we had a poll on YouTube for
you goes to you on YouTube that we're
saying where we're asking people what to do
about how should U.S. Muslims vote in
the election?
And we had it came back.
Most people said they don't know.
56% said I don't know.
26% said Stein.
10% said Harris and 9% said
Trump.
That was our own poll that we just
did.
Good.
100% Smila, put it up in lights.
Muslims must stop being played and splitting votes
or becoming redundant altogether.
Nice.
Abdurrahman Hussain is in the house.
My colleague and former classmate from Medina Imam
up in Ottawa.
Canada's best.
May Allah bless you.
Great to see you in the chat, Habibi.
And the former and also one of the
only Imams that also has a political science
degree and a Sharia degree.
So cut from the same cloth.
My brother from another mother up there.
Yeah.
Most people.
Issa Lutef Amile.
Most people and mom of two.
Also first time you've even heard of them.
You wouldn't have heard of them.
The Democratic Party believes that M.
Gage is like the representative of the Muslim
community and doesn't even realize that M.
Gage is a paper tiger.
They don't exist in our communities.
They exist on paper.
A lot of PR.
Just a lot of PR.
Yeah, that's true.
Sada.
I send sub stack.
Did some of us saw from the beginning.
Some of us have been saying this Sada
about the stance that I can actually who
we had on this program in the spring.
If not the winter.
Some of us have been saying this for
a long time.
Some of us have been warning against M.
Gage and similar actors for.
10 months.
And there's going to be a whole lot
of I told you so putting the past
around good points all
around.
Juju says and this is an important comment.
I feel Palestine is the test of character.
Palestine has been revealing.
What's truly in people's hearts.
It's cause only for the true truly loyal.
It's a cause for the only for the
truly loyal.
That's amazing.
I love the way you said that.
I stopped for love me.
I'll make me better than you think.
It's me.
Allah rahma.
100% Mariam shackled to it.
Let's see.
Abdullah Abu Mahfouz says I feel like there
is a perception fueled by popular secular media
that there are only complex antiheroes and that
everyone compromises on principles every once in a
while Muslims.
Don't be fooled.
Great comment.
Thank you from our own studio.
Yeah commentary leaves an interesting comment.
I've been so disgusted with life lately.
I don't know what some people are made
of that makes them that strong in such
bad circumstances.
Yeah.
Well, I mean looking at Marcellus and looking
at the people of Gaza, you know, it's
just like it's it's very heartening, but you
also have to just be in awe and
wonder as well.
Hey, Allah Akbar truth for peace.
Put that up in lights.
The prophet Muhammad Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam slept on
a straw mattress.
Just think about this for a minute.
Wallahi man.
One thing.
I fear Wallahi.
I fear it that the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi
Wasallam rejects us or turns away from us
on the Day of Judgment because of our
addiction to luxury and dunya and how much
we complained and we clutched at straws.
Not willing to sacrifice not willing to pay
the price.
It's mad.
Zahra Suleiman asks Sheikh.
I was told I can't repent.
That's crazy as it's too late for me.
No, that's not true.
You can always repent.
Rick Rashid.
Welcome.
Oh, that's hilarious.
G screenable said, unfortunately, I prayed for any
candidate other than Biden.
I should have been more specific.
That is hilarious.
Denise Catalina asking about homeschooling.
You don't need a special education for homeschooling,
but it is something that it will depend
on exactly the style and what you're going
to do will depend on your skills as
a couple.
Like, what are you able to handle?
And what do you need to outsource?
Salahuddin is my hair.
I said, thoughts on care action.
Is it the biggest one?
Can I take, can it take on app?
APAC remains to be seen.
It's still new.
It's very, very new.
I've talked to the, to the CEO or
the ed, whatever it's called brother, but Sam
Cara, we need more of these types of
things.
That's for sure.
So we're still on the ground.
We're still on the ground level.
We're still on the ground level, but we'll
see where it goes.
Yeah.
Sameer.
I agree.
Palestine is the North star.
Excellent.
Either people stand on principle or they don't
ask.
Sorry for asking question.
I have context.
If I take a shower, a whistle, is
it enough for a widow?
Yes.
But the best thing is to make both
at the same time.
The Sunnah, the extra beyond what's required is
to make will do, and then make a
whistle.
Nice point.
Mariam there says she can't morally vote for
either of the main two parties.
I like that.
I feel, you know, that's reasonable.
Small eyes.
And five says, do you think our addiction
to luxury is shaped by living in America?
Absolutely.
I'm sorry.
Be happy.
I, you know, be happy.
You're the first person to tell me this,
but I was always waiting for someone to
tell me this.
Please don't disrespect our beloved Brianna.
I also am a fan of Brianna.
I had to pick something.
It was either going to be samosas or
Brianna.
And I figured, you know, too much Brianna.
And, you know, isn't healthy for you.
So I just went with the Brianna, but
I apologize.
So I had, you know, saying, asking me
if I can come to Chino Hills for
a civic engagement.
Many communities have had the same thought process
inviting me in September and October and early
November.
And I'm, I'm all booked out until a
new year.
Yes.
Rick Rashid.
Thank you very much.
Keep making do out for our brothers and
sisters in Sudan.
A hundred percent.
Unfortunately, out of sight, out of mind.
All right, let's roll to the next thing.
We've got new rounds of student encampments that
have started up.
Harvard in particular was one of the more
recent ones.
And the question came, what should our Muslim
communities do to help the student movement this
time around?
What have we learned from before?
And I asked some students and sort of
pulled their, their ideas.
And this is what came through four points.
Okay.
So I want everybody to think about these
seriously.
And especially if you're in these communities in
the U S tell everybody, you know, to
try to get this done.
One, the supply lines have to already be
in place.
We're talking about the food we're talking about
funding.
We're talking about all the sorts of things
that we actually did a pretty decent job
of getting going in an ad hoc way,
but we already have to have that infrastructure
in place in order to support the student
encampments to physical presence.
This was huge last time.
And it was lacking physical presence of Muslims
on campus is extremely important.
That means MSA students, especially you have to
come out, but even if your college has
not become a complete police state militarized zone,
then you absolutely should be there and show
up physically to stop people from getting attacked,
to prevent a deterrent presence three is lawyer
up.
Okay.
The lawyers and the legal funds and the
pro bonos that we have are overwhelmed.
There's a ton of stuff to do.
They're at max capacity.
If you are a lawyer, or if you
know, lawyers try to bring them in.
That's a huge need that we have.
And then finally share the framing from the
students themselves.
So don't try to reframe the issue according
to what you think should be the framing.
Take what the students are telling you and
run with their framing, basically amplify, and don't
try to reinterpret because they have a sense
of what they're going for.
Good.
Let's roll a tough seer.
We're running up on two hours here.
We'll try to not make it too much
longer than two hours long.
Let's go to tough seer today.
We have Surah Al-Nasr.
When Allah's help comes and he opens up
your way.
When you see people embracing Allah's faith in
crowds, celebrate the praises of your Lord and
ask his forgiveness.
He is always ready to accept repentance.
Where's that sister at?
Get her back here.
This is meant for you.
Look at that.
Allah wrote it.
This is meant for you.
He is always ready to accept repentance.
What is the unique word?
Okay.
We have a couple options.
Is this on YouTube guys in the studio
or is this here?
Okay.
On YouTube, go.
There's a poll.
What is the unique word?
We said every chapter of the Quran has
a unique word in it.
What is the unique word in Surah Al
-Nasr?
Take a second.
Go to YouTube.
Fill it out.
Young Apex asks about unity in the masjids.
Yeah, the masjids are kind of broken.
We have to fix them.
Yep, that's true.
Truth for Peace brings up the fact of
Orthodox Jews being against Zionism.
That's 100% correct.
Oh, Faye Joy, I appreciate you.
I appreciate you Faye Joy.
I forgot in the last minute, because these
things have been unfolding all day.
Can you shed a little light on why
AMDC National endorsed Harris, including Nadia Ahmed, who
we have had on this program before?
I apologize if you cannot or already have.
To be frank, I didn't expect a whole
lot from people who are inside the Democratic
Party.
You know, party politics, you're part of the
party at the end of the day, and
most people fall in line.
So, it is what it is.
Ali, he said that you don't put too
much stock in people.
If one day they become your adversary, and
you don't completely give up on your adversary,
in case one day they become your friend.
And that is Mushahid.
Suzy Q, does he read the chat?
No, I don't.
Art Forge, I have seen a lot of
leftists who support Palestine, having stances against our
Uyghur brothers and sisters, and supporting Assad.
What are your thoughts on this?
Art Forge is a great question.
That's exactly why we need sovereignty in our
dealings with coalitions, and quote, unquote, allies, because
we can't tolerate that.
We can tolerate, you can have that opinion
separately, but you don't bring that into our
spaces, right?
If you want to support Palestine, because it's
the right thing to do, but there have
to be conditions, okay?
So, we have to negotiate that in an
intelligent way, and not be too dependent on
that.
And not be too dependent on any allies,
because we shouldn't be letting them run things,
right?
Because then they're going to make this whole,
exactly what you said, pro-Russia, Assadists, nonsense,
coalition, and then we're awkwardly standing there, like,
oh, we don't really agree with all that.
That's why Muslims need to be on the
forefront, as a leading partner in these sorts
of things.
And we have to call it out, and
say, you can have that opinion in private,
but you're not going to bring it into
the space.
Attica talks about her younger brother, and Biryani,
he can love Biryani, as long as he
doesn't love Biryani diplomacy.
No, Juju, we're going to go to Atomic
Abyss in just a second.
Yeah, we absolutely, do have opportunists, everywhere.
100%, Sada, put it up in lights.
I feel like in the messages at times,
there is an elitism that folks tie to
their Dean, and it makes it difficult for
new believers to try to integrate.
Well said, I agree completely.
Excellent.
All right, let's roll.
No, we got the, oh, here we go.
Oh, I tricked everybody today.
I tricked everybody today.
Let's go to the polls.
Surah Al-Nasr.
What was, what was the unique word?
The options were, Afwaja, Wastaghfirhu, and Tawwaba.
63% of you said Afwaja, and Afwaja
is in Surah Al-Nabar, people.
Come on, it's still even in Juz Amma.
Wastaghfirhu is unique.
Only 18% of you put, Wastaghfirhu, and
even if you cut off the well and
said, Istaghfirhu, that is unique.
It doesn't come in any other Surah in
that form.
Usually it says, Astaghfirullah, or it's in the
plural.
It's a command for the second person plural,
Astaghfiruhu, or Astaghfirullah.
Okay.
And then Tawwaba.
No, that comes, that, that is all over
the Quran.
So, tricked you.
Sorry about that.
The unique word for today is, Wastaghfirhu.
So, seek forgiveness for him.
And, this is relevant to our sister, who
is asking, will Allah ever accept my repentance?
Absolutely.
The, this Surah is about the death, of
the Prophet Muhammad Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, and how
even he, was supposed to seek forgiveness, towards
the ends of his life, for any sort
of shortcoming, or anything like that.
So, even the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, is
seeking forgiveness, and he expects Allah, we have
good, expectations about Allah, that he forgives us.
Then of course, us as well.
That, seeking forgiveness, is one of the fundamental
parts, of what it means, to be a
human being.
In fact, when Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta
-A'la, tells the first story, of the
first person, Adam, in the first part of
the Quran, Surah Al-Baqarah, it's a story
of repentance, essentially.
Adam had to sin, because he's human.
It was only a matter of time.
Okay, Allah decided it, he willed it.
When he did sin, what was the purpose?
To instruct us, how to turn back.
And, Taabayatubu Tawaba, means to, to turn, and
to turn back, and to return.
So, imagine you're going down, this wrong path,
Taab, and then you, you turn back from
it.
And then imagine, Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta
-A'la, turning towards us, in forgiveness, because
of our turning back, from our actions, and
our wicked ways.
That, nobody is, off limits, from Allah's mercy,
given the fact, or I should say, on
the condition, that they repent.
Let's see, Kat says, can you talk about,
how Harris went, from a disliked position, from
a disliked VP, to being advertised, as a
hero of democracy?
Yeah, that's called, a lot of marketing money.
Uh, Valerie Deleon, is in the house.
Walaikum Salam.
Welcome.
Good to see you again.
Mariam asks, what is Biryani Diplomacy?
Glad you asked.
Sorry, this is a, this is a phrase
that I have, that I have coined.
Mariam, Biryani Diplomacy, refers to the idea, that
if you show, a politician, or a political
party, that you're loyal, and you do favors
for them, that they will then later, do
favors for you.
It's not how it works.
That's not how it works.
They will always, be doing the least amount,
the most token things, that throwing you breadcrumbs,
and then you're stumbling, over yourself, to do
their fundraisers, and to do phone banking, and
to do all these things, for them.
That's not good politics.
It's not good negotiation.
Lutfiyah Suleiman says, Walaikum Salam.
What is the Islamic view of FGM?
Um, FGM refers to several practices.
Some of which, are, part of Islam, and
some of which are not.
Or, we can say, we should say, recognize
is valid, and some of which are not.
So, FGM is not one thing.
Um, and, that's a larger discussion.
Walaikum Salam.
May Muna, do.
Welcome.
Alright, let's go to our last segment.
We've got, personal development, atomic habits.
Today, we cross over into, law number three.
Law number three is, make it attractive.
Make it attractive.
Okay?
Um, which, is, or does it make it
easy?
I'm sorry, I'm skipping around here.
I've got my notes from, before.
We're in law number three.
Law number four is to make it satisfying.
No, no.
Law number three is make it easy.
Law number two is make it attractive.
Okay?
Make it obvious.
Make it, attractive.
Make it easy.
Make it rewarding.
Okay?
So, previously, what you had to do was,
you were supposed to, you were supposed to,
have a motivation ritual.
For yourself.
Remember, there's certain habits that are just, not
fun to do.
Okay?
Especially in the beginning.
We're going to talk about that, about how
habits are not fun to do, in the
beginning.
So, one of the ways that you can
kind of, trick yourself, is to develop a
motivation habit.
Think about, a, um, a baseball player, before
they step into the batter's box, they usually
have this sort of ritual, that they do.
They're not just all superstitious, mushrikin.
Right?
They, they just do it like sometimes, just
to get the adrenaline pumping.
Uh, think about your soccer players, when they're
about to come on, and they're about to
get subbed on, that, they are, you know,
they usually do some ritual.
It's not that they think it has cosmic
powers.
Sometimes, it is just about motivating themselves, and
getting themselves to focus.
Okay?
So, if you had something like that, we
want to hear about it.
If you took a difficult habit, then, what
was that habit?
And what motivation ritual, did you come up
with, uh, for yourself?
Interesting.
People are both asking, about Bitcoin, and passing
fatwa on Bitcoin, in the comments.
Go crazy, everybody.
Go nuts.
So, today, we've crossed over to law number
three.
So, law number one was, make it obvious,
that you have to, actually pay attention, and
bring into the realm of conscientiousness, and consciousness.
What are your habits?
Do you want to keep them?
Do you want to change them?
Okay?
Um, two, was, make it attractive, that you
need to have some sort of payoff.
You need to, the, the, the habits that
you want to inculcate, okay?
That, it has to be attractive.
You have to be sold, on why you
should do that in the first place.
And number two, sorry, number three, the third
law, is, make it easy.
That your habits, and your new habits, you
want to make them as easy, as possible.
And I think a lot of us need
this, the guidance in this particular chapter, or
this particular section especially.
So, the first, part of this section is,
walk slowly, but never backwards.
Walk slowly, but never backwards.
Now he gives an example, and I think
it was a really powerful example, of, a
professor of photography.
He had a photography class, and he divided
his class into two halves, and he said,
one half, you're going to be the quantity
half.
You're going to, shoot as many pictures as
possible, and, then you're going to submit only
one of them, your best one, at the
end of the year.
And your final grade is going to be
based off of that one that you submit.
The, other group is about quality, that you're
only going to shoot one picture.
And that's going to be, that's going to
be your grade.
That one picture that you submit.
Actually, I think the quality, the quantity group,
they had to submit more than one photo.
They had to submit all of their photos,
or a certain amount or something like that.
So he had one group, that was focusing
on quantity, and one group that was focusing
on quality.
Which group do you think submitted the better
photos at the end of the year?
It was the, quantity group.
The group that, the group that took the
most pictures, became the best at taking pictures.
Okay.
And the group that only took a few
and just submitted one, their pictures were not
so good.
They weren't very good whatsoever.
So this is part of, what he derives
from this, is, sometimes when we want to
start a new habit, we focus a lot
on the plan.
Okay.
And we plan and we plan and we
plan and we never do anything.
Okay.
Imagine we're that part of that quality group.
We're only going to shoot one photo and,
and submit that one photo.
We might think theoretically about where to shoot
the photo, what the lighting should be and
how to do this and how to do
that, but we're not actually doing anything.
When we sit down to do it, our
execution is off, because we're out of practice,
or we don't have enough practice.
Whereas the other group, right, they are the
doers.
They're the ones that are just doing it.
And by doing it, they are actually getting
better and better and better at it as
they are going along.
So his point is to plan less and
to start doing more.
As is well known, there's a phrase, perfect
is the enemy of good.
That if you wait and wait and wait
until things are perfect, usually you'll end up
not doing anything.
And if anybody writes here, then you definitely
know this is true.
Right.
Writing and meeting a deadline.
You're like, well, it's not perfect yet.
Well, I have to review this.
Well, I have to, this sentence isn't quite
right.
It's better for you.
Or as one of my mentors, you know,
I'm John Starling down in New Jersey said,
be a happy C student.
Don't be the straight A student or the
A plus student.
Be a happy C student.
You'll actually end up being better because you'll
have more practice and you'll be more productive
and you'll get things out.
So the author distinguishes between motion and action.
On one hand, motion is basically all of
that pre-work.
You know, you're making your list and you're
thinking about what to do, et cetera.
You're not actually doing it.
Action is what produces results.
Action is what actually makes you better at
the thing that you want to be better
at.
Now, what's tricky about motion and why motion
is so appealing, all the lists, all the
journals, right?
All the, oh, today I'm going to start
journaling or today I'm going to make my
list or whatever, is that that's motion and
motion can trick us into thinking that we're
making progress without actually risking anything.
Because to truly take action, to write the
book, to write the paper, to do the
workout that actually has risk involved.
But to think about it and to plan
and to plan and to think that doesn't
have as much risk, it's kind of safe.
So the main point of the author is
to practice, gets your reps in.
Getting your reps in is the most important
factor to establishing a new habit.
He says, when people ask, how long does
it take to establish a new habit?
And I know that some people were asking
me that earlier when we started this book,
that it's the wrong question.
The right question is how many repetitions does
it take to form a new habit?
Repetitions are the path to change and habits
are all about frequency, not time.
Do we have that image guys?
Now he has something called the habit line.
There we go.
So we've got a graph here.
So at point A, the habit, the new
habit requires a ton of effort.
It's not automatic, a ton of concentration, and
it's not fun.
But if you keep at it repetitions, then
it gets easier.
And then finally, when you cross over that
line, that habit line there, it becomes, you
get to point C, and that is when
the habit is fully entrenched.
So notice that you just have to put
in the right amount of repetitions.
Now for the homework this week, are we
going to be okay?
We're filming.
Okay.
Next week is a special episode, folks.
Next week is a special episode.
It's not going to be shot here.
It will be shot in Dallas, inshallah, at
the office.
We will rough ride it.
Exactly.
Improvise, overcome, and adapt.
Definitely.
100%.
So next week, when we go live from
Dallas, from Yaqeen headquarters, okay, I want you
to have this homework.
This is going to be your homework for
the week.
Pick one thing that you're already doing, a
habit that you're already doing, that you just
want to do more of, that you want
to increase the reps for.
Okay?
Now, I don't want you to read ahead,
because he's going to give us, in the
next chapters, techniques to help us make the
reps easier, and help allow us to increase
our reps more easily.
I don't want you to look at that.
I want you to just on your own,
without guidance from the book, try to do
more of it, whatever it is, this week.
If it's pushups, if it's reading, if it's
language study, if it's Quran, if it's Salah,
whatever it is, try to do more of
it this week, just on your own, and
see how it goes.
Then, what we're going to do, is we're
going to try to do more of it,
using his techniques, for how to make doing
more reps easier, and we're going to see
if we can observe the difference.
Awesome.
Let's hit the comments one more time, and
then we will sign off for tonight.
Abdullah said, I started playing rain ambience, when
needing to focus for work.
I do that as well.
I do that as well actually.
Rain especially.
I love to listen to the sound of
the rain.
I was glad that today actually it rained
all day, so that was nice.
People arguing about Bitcoin, what is it?
Just goes to show you guys, if you
want to know Fiqh, you have to understand,
تصور شيء حكمة شيء فرعا من تصوره that
you have to understand what it is in
the first place.
These questions, is it gambling, is it not
gambling, is it a deposit, is it this,
is it that, right?
These are all part of understanding the thing,
so you don't plunge into Fiqh by giving
rulings.
It's haram because it's gambling.
Well, you have to really understand what it
is, and then understand what gambling is, شرعا,
and then make the analogy between the two.
As for me, I don't understand how Bitcoin
works, so I'm not going to give you
a fatwa.
Like so, I understand what gambling is in
the Sariyya, right?
But I don't understand how Bitcoin works, in
the level of detail that I would need
to pass a fatwa on it.
So you're not getting anything out of me.
Because from what Truth for Peace 2023 says,
you put money in, and it is not
definite if you will get an increase in
your investment, and can lose it all.
You have to distinguish between gambling and investments,
because the same, your comment right there, could
apply to investments as well.
So what's the difference?
That's why we need Fuqaha.
Juju said, and Juju, you've been really good
with the homework.
We appreciate that.
The homework was a bit challenging.
I tried to stop checking social media.
I realized I do this based on guilt,
because if I don't check the events in
Palestine, then I feel I am turning a
blind eye.
Yeah, I definitely understand.
I definitely understand that.
What else we got?
Yes, I agree, Valerie.
I found that a very, very useful phrase.
Walk slowly, but never backwards.
Totally agree there.
Abdi Hakeem Hassan.
Wa alaikum salam wa rahmatullah.
Ahlan wa sahlan.
Nida.
Wa alaikum salam wa rahmatullah.
May Allah love us all.
Amina says, in order for it to go
to bed earlier, I always light a scented
candle, or use scented room fresheners.
Smells regulate my stress, and I fall asleep
more easily.
I should try that.
I don't really, I'm not really tuned into
the smell game, but I should really do
that.
Nusayba.
Nusayba, that's awesome.
That's a tough comment for the night.
Daisy Paris just had a heart attack having
a happy sea student child.
You guys heard about the Indian Cobra, right?
There's a political cartoon that said, the Indian
Cobra, it kills, what is it, 96%
of its victims that it bites.
And then the father asks, why not 100
%?
I thought that was kind of funny.
Ashiq.
Wa alaikum salam.
Signing off for you.
Good to see you.
Thank you for your dua.
100% Sara says about writing.
Yep, just write every day.
Let the wastebasket be your friend.
Yep, you know it.
Perfectionism.
Mariam says is the enemy of progress.
Yes.
Nida telling us to use natural aromas.
I'm all about the natural life.
I appreciate that.
How many repetitions exactly?
Life and Zindagi?
Depends on the thing probably.
Truth for Peace 2023.
I wish I could visit Yaqeen Institute.
Ahlan wa sahlan.
Come on down.
AFR.
Wa alaikum salam.
Nusayba says, I know there was an exercise
about meeting new people.
Yep.
To build habits, but I see I am
feeling happier alone.
And avoid people altogether.
I guess I understand why the Prophet says,
don't show salt to new kids.
To be frank, Nusayba, I'm the same way.
Don't be fooled by my ability to act.
I am totally an introvert.
I like my peace and quiet.
I like to be alone.
I like to reflect on stuff.
So I get that.
I get that.
Yeah, I'm with you.
E salute.
E salute says, I barely have enough money
for subsistence, let alone to play money with
Bitcoin.
100%.
All right, Abdullah.
If you come to Dallas, Abdullah, I will
taste decaf.
Just for you.
It will not replace any of my normal
coffee drinking.
Rick Rashida asks, Is it true, I am,
Imam Tom, I think that Shia are of
the gold.
I think, I think autocorrect gave you a
smack down there, Rick.
I think that you, you're trying to say,
is it true Imam Tom that Shia are
out of the fold of Islam?
And I will say the same answer that
we said to Sufism in the beginning of
the program.
Shia refers to a variety of beliefs and
practices, some of which might take one out
of the fold, and some of which do
not.
So we have to be specific and deal
with the substance of things and not labels.
Yes.
Shaq.
I'm on.
I sent a text actually to Abdullah.
And thank you for reminding us.
Put that up, guys in the studio from
within our lifetime.
Wonderful group that I've worked with before.
May Allah grant when she fat.
He was totally brutalized by the NYPD.
He was sent to the hospital.
The NYPD roughed him up bad.
He's one of our star youth.
We love him.
We love him for the sake of Allah.
We support him in everything he does.
We've had him on the program.
I visited him several times.
We're in conversation.
I sent him a text.
I replied.
I'm sure he's, he's, you know, got a
lot on his mind and a lot to
recover from.
But he was put in the hospital after
by, by the, by the NYPD.
So make dua for him.
And make dua that Allah deals with the
oppressors.
Attica asked, do you like Napoli Macchiato?
Why not?
Sure.
I like Macchiato.
I don't know what makes Napoli Macchiato different
from normal Macchiato.
Nori asks, do you think Muslims should own
guns where it's legal to?
Absolutely.
I own guns.
Very good.
Mariam has good advice.
I think keeping our brothers and sisters in
our five daily prayers and keep the connection
and the sentiments alive for the Ummah along
with other actions.
Good job.
Too much socials can be toxic and unproductive.
Yes, Mariam, I'm so glad that you said
that.
It can actually make us shut down.
And if we shut down, what good are
we to our brothers and sisters?
There's a lot to do.
Zaheer Younis, you're the man.
Appreciate you.
Glad to have you with us.
May Allah bless you.
AFR, kindly keep, keep more uploading more on
Sahaba stories.
I'll try my best.
I think that's almost a man you want
to talk to.
How about Hamas tiramisu?
Astaghfirullah.
Astaghfirullah.
Who's there?
Who is that?
I think this is a troll.
Saud, is that you?
Separate, separate them.
Wa baynahuma hijab.
Okay, I'll have hummus, and then I'll have
my tiramisu, and it'll be a good day.
Ainur says, what if you're, one of your
parents are unnecessarily abusive, like curse a lot
and don't even want you to listen?
I mean, these are things that are best
dealt with the local Imam, but obviously there
are limits to what people should be able
to tolerate before moving out and exposing themselves
to.
True abuse, obviously, is not cool.
Susie Q asks, how much would you consider
in terms of ethics and support for Israel
when considering companies to work for?
Yeah, I mean, I would adhere to BDS.
If there's a company that is involved in
Israel making statements, you know, I would avoid
it if at all possible.
Definitely, 100%.
And Allah is Ar-Razaq.
I have left, I've left jobs for less.
I left jobs for less.
And as I said earlier, the more you
sacrifice for Allah, the closer to his deen
you'll become.
It'll become so precious to you that you
won't care.
These people want to cancel you writing about
you and the papers are smearing you.
Don't care.
I've, I've gone too far.
I've given up too much stuff.
Doesn't bother me.
Won't lose a wink of sleep.
I promise.
Nusayba says, I want to hear more about
pro guns.
Don't hear much about that side.
Yeah, you do.
You come to Texas or come to Atlanta,
Georgia, come to Philly, come to Pennsylvania.
We're Muslim community strapped up.
I mean, we, we, we're, we go to
the range, man.
I mean, like that's something we do.
We've got gun club here.
Like we got a masjid gun club.
This is America, baby.
Like somebody said before, this is, you have
to, you have to be able to defend
yourself.
And in America that involves gun ownership, legal
gun ownership, perfectly legal, perfectly normal.
Everybody does it.
So why not you?
So that was asking me provocative questions.
No comments.
For another forum.
All right, here we go.
As a last comment of the night, please
pray.
I get a permanent job placing and has
a stable income to help my mom out
a bit.
I mean, I mean, as may Allah bless
you and protect you and grant grant you
sustenance and preserve you and all of you.
Thank you very much to everybody for a
wonderful attention and interaction.
It's always a pleasure.
See you next week.
Coming to you live from your headquarters.
Inshallah.