Tom Facchine – Establishing Islam in our Hearts and Homes
AI: Summary ©
The speakers discuss the importance of transformation in people's spiritual experiences ofife, including planting new seeds for spiritual transformation and breaking up one's routine. They emphasize the need for mental preparation and focus on worship, while also emphasizing the importance of being an facilitate and advocate for others. The segment also touches on the difficulties of preparing children for marriage, the importance of protecting women from the fire of divorce, and the importance of building community for achieving their goals.
AI: Summary ©
A lot of men that are female hungry, learn Rajpal Alameen wa salatu salam MBR with more saline.
Maybe a Muhammad Ali, he
was get to sleep
with a little talk in sha Allah before the potluck.
I hope this is also an opportunity for people to ask questions. So my rule for today is that I'm not going to take any of the men's questions until we finished with the women's questions. So you should have received papers on the women's side to write down your questions.
And then we will get to them and then we'll get to the men's questions, just because in my experience and no offense to the men, let's start with the men's questions. MashAllah political law, there's so many questions, we never get to vote in this question. And then, you know, the women get upset at me.
So we'll try to remedy that inshallah. So the title of this talk is establishing Islam, in our, our hearts and our homes.
And I think this talk is significant at this time of the year, because we have just finished Ramadan.
And we're all feeling we have a lot of momentum. I think, Ramadan is really an amazing opportunity that Allah has given us year in and year out.
It's a testament to our faith as Muslims, that despite the hardship that we go through, every single one of us, we're sad to see Ramadan go, you know, and the nobody realizes more realizes this more than the non Muslims, people who are Muslims. They hear about fasting, they hear about what we do, and they're amazed. And they say, how do you? How can you go through this, and then when they hear about greed, they're like, Oh, you must be glad it's over. And every one of us like, No, we wish every month Ramadan. That's the usual response that that they get, they can't comprehend that kind of attitude.
So that's a testament to our faith. And it's a testament to
the Sharia of Allah, that Allah could structure, an act of worship that is so perfect, that it's difficult, and it's challenging, but we grow so much, and we feel so inspired by the end of the month, that by the time we get to the end of it, we're ready for more, we're ready to do it again.
There's other parts of Ramadan, that if you think about if you sit and think about, you realize how Allah structured it for our own benefit. One of these ways, is the up ending and the uprooting and the disturbance of our habits. Ramadan touches our most intimate habits, sleep, food, things that throughout the year, normally, you know, if you go without your coffee, before you get to work, you might be a very crappy person. Somehow and Ramadan, we find a way to do it. Whether we tuck it in after November after Asia or however we do it, we find a way we restructure our whole lives in order to
accomplish the will of Allah.
It's almost as if we're tilling a piece of land, if you guys have lawns, you have grass growing there. You want other things to grow on that lawn, maybe you want to plant a maple tree, or something else you want to have a garden, you have to disturb what's there. First, you have to pull out the grass, you have to maybe let the weeds bloom and then kill them off.
And then the ground is ready for something new. It's no incident that we disrupt these habits in Ramadan because guess what Ramadan has to prepare you for something new. Ramadan is uprooting your habits to prepare you for new habits when you're done Ramadan when you're over. So all of that momentum that you had of the Quran that you read the prayers that you made, okay, no one's expecting that you're going to be you know, going for the same amount of time. However, every Ramadan is an opportunity to insert into our daily lives throughout the year, something of those other acts of worship that we were doing along with them.
And Allah gave it to us in a brilliantly constructed gift that is that month. So we look about our lives now it's been a lot, it's been two weeks, I think since Ramadan finished, or three, I'm not sure it's kind of like we have two choices. Either we can leave the ground idle, and not do anything with it, not plant any seeds. And then just kind of neglect it until we get back to it next year. And we're going to find the same grass, all the seeds that were leftover have already bloomed and we're already we're back to the same starting point, we're back to the drawing board, we're back to ground zero, or we can take advantage of this time. We can take advantage of this time and plant new
seeds to get something else out of it.
So this whole entire talk is essentially how to do that. How are we going to convert the spiritual experience of Ramadan and turn it into something that is sustainable throughout the year. So that will
Once we get to the next Ramadan, we actually can see some progress, we actually can say, look, I remember where I was five years ago, I'm a totally different person. Now, I have, so my habits are so much better. And I'm so much closer to Allah and I feel so much closer to Allah, I feel like a stronger person of faith. That is the goal. So how are we going to talk about this, we're going to look at it as three kind of levels, we're going to look at it first at the level of the individual, human being, because we're all individuals, we're going to look at it at the level of family, because we're all part of a family. And we're going to look at it at the level of community, because
Hamdulillah we all are part of a community here, when it comes to the self. So going to the first one that comes to the self, we're really talking about two major things. And the scholars have talked about this, especially among them even on time, Rahimullah where our battle, or our work has to do with our intention. Because the Prophet Mohammed slay Southern, he said in the Milan model,
vignette, that's right.
Every single action has nothing except it has the proper intention. And so there's a dual thing going on, one of the things that we're trying to do is we're trying to rescue our acts of worship.
From the realm of habits, mindless habits,
we're trying to take our a bad back from IOD.
And the other same at the same time, the other kind of move that we're trying to do is we're trying to look at our habits and our eye that the things we do every day and convert them into a better
it's not easy, but we're going to get into Insha Allah, some things have.
So taking the first one,
we stand in prayer, we dedicate perhaps an hour of a day to prayer. If you tally up every minute you leave your house, you go to the masjid you make although you make your vicar and the actual act of praying itself, it probably most of us maybe comes out to an hour a day. How is that hour spent?
Do you feel like that hour? Do you feel like you're actually Subhanallah standing in front of Allah, you know, complaining to a lot about your own self about your own inabilities relying upon him, or is it the way it is for me a lot of the time and I'm guessing you probably some of the time where your interests you're thinking about other things, you're distracted.
You don't feel like you're getting everything out of it.
How do we reclaim this act of worship?
Allah subhanho wa Taala he said well after Miss salata in the salata, tanha and the fascia, fascia, well monka Allah said he made us a promise. He told us a couple here information. He says, Listen, the salah that I legislated for you, it prevents you from committing fascia, and we'll call it can it prevents you from committing evil deeds and spreading corruption on earth. Question. This is going to be interactive by the way question. Are there people who pray who commit evil deeds? Yeah, of course. So there's a low lying to us. How do we how do we reconcile the idea with the reality? Allah said the salah prevents evil. There's people who make Salah who commit evil
passion Maharaj
for sure, okay, exactly. Is it the salah that Allah is talking about in the A is our salah, Salah how to cotton or Surah to Salah is our Salah, the same Salah Can we say that our salah is the same Salah that Allah is legislating because Allah is saying, you must stand before me in who saw in fear in reverence and awe conscious of me
ascribing nothing else with me in worship and not just worship of sujood and zakaah no worship of fear and love can we really say that we're doing that
the promise is that I'm he affirmed this in a hadith he said inner Abdullah comb for Salah la Dr. Bala who made her illness spa mitzvah Illa Thora Illa ruble, Raha Illa Homosassa Hattah kala ala Rasulillah. He said, perhaps certainly, someone's going to stand in prayer, and they're not going to get anything out of it. They're not going to have anything written for them except maybe half of it. Maybe a third of maybe a quarter of it and he kept on going down and down and down.
You can have two people doing the same thing at the same time right next to each other. One person might be getting 100% out of their Salah and one person might be getting it
1% Very, very little.
And so, our intention, and our sincerity is the difference between these two people. Intention and sincerity is the difference between prayer and exercise.
It's moving the limbs.
Sincerity is the difference between fasting and starve.
Prophesy said I'm selling real buzzsaw. I mean, how the homing Civ Alger, well.
Maybe there's someone who's fasting and the only thing he's benefiting from his fast thing is hunger and thirst.
Intention is the difference.
Intention and sincerity. There's a difference between pilgrimage and vacation.
Some people can go to Mecca and Medina and make and walk around the Kaaba. And they still haven't made a pilgrimage. They've gone on vacation, it's in their Facebook feeds, it's in their Instagram. Just so you know.
It's possible depends on your intention depends on your sincerity.
Why does this happen? Why did we find ourselves so easily drugged down into habit? Why do our acts of worship become meaningless when they're supposed to be so transformative in our lives?
One reason has to do with our ideas about what we're doing in the first place. What is this religion? What's this faith that we're practicing? And what do we expect out of it?
Do we imagine our religion as a culture or part of our culture? Simply, do we think that our religion is something we're entitled to? Do we expect because my name is Mohammed or my name serried, or My name is Fatima? I'm, my name is so add that I'm going to be in Jana. It's my birthright because I've been born into it?
Or is it something that is a craft? Is it something that is like a skill that you home every day, just like a professional athlete repeats the same bodily motions every day until it's perfect until it becomes muscle memory.
Obviously, the latter, religion is not so much an identity, although there's parts of it that our identity as it is a practice and the path.
And we accept this, when we look at other parts of our lives, you guys are most of you, Russia, lots of other fellow professionals. Okay, if you're a professional 10 years, 15 years pass 20 years, you haven't done any professional development, you haven't upgraded your licenses,
what's going to happen to you,
you're gonna get fired, or you're at least you know, you're gonna get laid off at some point, or your pay is going to not be as good, you're not going to progress. So we know when it comes to our dunya. When it comes to our money, we don't accept this attitude of entitlement, we know we have to be a go getter, you have to go out and look for what's going to improve.
Whatever is the newest technology that comes into the hospital, you need to be trained on it, you need to learn how to use it.
However, somehow we don't have this idea when it comes to our faith when it comes to a snap. We don't think that we need to do anything. We think that we literally think that we can show up and do the same thing every year. And we're going to get better, or at least hold on.
The situation is much more dangerous. Because in the business world.
If you don't add anything to yourself to your credentials, or to your knowledge base, you might stay the same. You might plateau. But when it comes to our religion, there's another variable in the equation, it's you. And it's your religion, and it is the devil.
And the devil is trying constantly to bring you down step by step. So religion is different. Your faith is different than your occupation or your profession or your education. There is no staying standing still. It's a moving train. You're either going forwards, or you're going backwards.
So what can we do? We look at our worship. And we think okay, my worships in a sad state. It's mostly just going through the motions. I don't really feel it. I don't really feel the magnificence of Allah when I stand before a lot. What can we do?
One of the things very, very nuts and bolts thing that we can do is take our time
the prophesy Saddam he wants praise one of the companions or Szeged Abdullah case he said in the fika hustler team, you should go home Allah al him. Well, Anna said you have two qualities that Allah loves forbearance, and taking your time the opposite of haste. We expect we come through that door. And we walk into the prayer some of us are talking up until the point where we say that said we're
Some of us are on our phones until the point when we say that tech view. And we expect that we're just going to flip the switch and somehow just like feel like we're standing and follow the law almighty.
That's insanity. It's not possible. And if you think for a second about the shitty AI and what Allah asked us to do, or what Allah encouraged us to do,
he he gave us signs of what to do just like a marathon if you're a marathon runner.
Let's say
the brother here was saying, Abraham, Ibrahim wants to run a marathon. Guess what, Utica is going to have the first marathon. I think Utica has marathons. Munich is going to have a marathon tomorrow, Saturday. And Abraham says, You know what, this minutes welcome Allah yellow. Let's go. Let's do it. He's going to show up tomorrow. And he's just gonna, you know, I'm gonna bang this out. Let's do it. How's he gonna do?
He's gonna probably pull his hamstring or his quad or something, it's gonna be a mess. He might not even finish mail man, Allah, you know, I don't want any harm to you. But I'm just saying, you know, can you straight up? Okay, so what's necessary, we have training, we have stretching. We have a cooldown period, after all these sorts of things that we know. Okay, Allah gave us this for our prayer. And for the other acts of worship. The time between the event and the comma is time for liquor. It's time for spiritual preparation. And the prophesy set him said that there's two rock off for anybody who wants between the event and the funnel. It's dead. It's getting yourself ready. It's
submitting your heart.
It's dress rehearsal.
The same with the Sunnah robots of the of the the Sunnah, prayers that are attached
to the obligatory prayers, the two before Fajr and the two after Mowgli, and the ones that have to reach out and the ones bookending the hook. These are like runways for you to take off.
If you come to the masjid with will do already like the prophesy said I'm recommended. And then you you spend your time in Lika. And waiting an extra prayer before the salah comes how, how much more ready? Do you think your prayer is going to be once you actually get to the real deal, the one that really counts?
Fasting is the same thing. It's actually miraculous that we all do so well as a community as we do during Ramadan. Because most of us let's be real, don't faster in the year.
And we go into this thing cold turkey 30 days without having fasted maybe maybe once or twice throughout the year before.
And those first that first week is just you're getting hit with your headache and your caffeine withdrawal and all those other things. Right? You're being it's an opportunity cost, you're being deprived of benefit. Because if you were in the habit already, if you were doing the full moon days, if you were doing Mondays and Thursdays throughout the year,
and then you get to Ramadan, you're ready to go. You're not going to feel the effects as much.
Allah also structured fasting the same way as he did saw that the extra acts of worship that are part of the Sunnah are a mercy to us. So that we derive as much benefit as possible.
There's also another thing going on, and this is completely up here. This is completely mental is that we live in a society that is a lot about entertainment, and leisure. And so a lot of us have
developed a skewed understanding of what our downtime should be.
We think that downtime is relaxing in front of the TV or watching Netflix or doing these other sorts of things for the prophesy Saddam, his downtime in his leisure was a Salah. He used to say to be there,
give us rest with the with the event when he was asking to allow to make the event. So it's a whole different kind of perspective. You work hard and you look forward to the acts of worship punctuating your day because that's your rest and inshallah that will put more blessing in it.
How else can we prevent our worship from becoming mere habits? How else can we prevent it from becoming hollow and static? There are many ways to elevate our knowledge and accordingly our faith you can attend lessons at the mercy of course you guys mashallah from what I understand you have lessons
anybody who's able to come and benefit they will benefit. Allah says in the Quran with a cure for in the Quran. 10,000 Momineen. Any sort of remembrance or reminder is going to benefit the believing heart. That's a promise that Allah made you. We make time for the Koran and not just memorization but meditating upon it. pondering what is a law trying to tell you.
We can and I know a lot of you're gonna roll your eyes at this. We can learn Arabic.
A lot of us are ready to learn languages for business, but we're not ready to learn a language for Subhan Allah Allah for Allah.
Allah
I said that
the way is to be an OB,
meaning it's clear in Arabic, the Hoja, the the fact that this the words chosen are proof upon a people are contingent upon the fact that they are also in Arabic. Those are the words of last spoke Calam Allah.
You don't have to become super way.
But if you try and you start, you will find a difference. While he had been in Medina, for five years now, I would not exchange anything.
For the ability to stand behind the Imam and understand the words of Allah is the most significant thing that will bring you closer to Allah. And it's something that a lot of us kind of we disqualify ourselves, we kind of count ourselves out, I can't do it. I don't have time, whatever. You have people, Michelle on this community, and I believe you also have classes, and it is a game changer.
Another thing we can do is identify the acts of worship that we're not doing, talking about a connection with a law, there's some acts of worship, that we're not doing or not doing properly. A lot of us save up for vacations. And we have not made it.
So reality.
Raise your hand if you're Shafie. If you follow Shafee method, raise your hand if you're a humbly.
Okay, almost wajib upon you. And those were the
the Hanafi cinematic ease they say it's wants to have
there's no set off that Hydras mandatory upon however, many of us it's an ITE its priorities, we've managed to go back to the homeland every year. But we never managed to go to the call and answer the call of Allah. That's a problem. A lot of us don't pay Rs a cat at all, or don't pay it correctly.
I wrote an article the other day that said if every Muslim in the world paid as a cat properly, then it's estimated that the poverty of the entire world could be lifted.
This is all within the first half. We're talking about trying to break up the habit trying to break up the routine.
Now let's look at being an opportunist. converting those daily things that we're already doing anyway, into worship.
Things that we do, every things that are biological necessities can be worship for you.
Your sleep can become worship for you. If you have that intention. When you lay down your head on your pillow. You say the things of the process that I'm used to say this Michaela Houma and will to IKEA, or if you can't speak Arabic, you just say you know, Allah, this is for you. I'm resting. So tomorrow, I can come back and worship you another day.
When you eat, you say Bismillah, you convert that act of biology you have to eat or else you're going to drop dead. If you just say Bismillah. And you mean it, guess what, that's something that's going to sit in your scale on the day of the OPM going to work. Something that's a necessity. It's something you need to provide for your families. And it's something that can also be an act of worship. If you have the intention. You say, I'm going out to do something that's a lot of fires of me. I'm going to make my living, I'm going to establish myself, economically, independently. I'm going to support my family.
This can easily be worship.
into me, intimacy with your spouse is worship.
Intimacy with your spouse, his worship, companions, they once completed the prophesy sudden. So the Rasul Allah,
the Hubba, thornbill. Oh, Joe, and you know, the rest of the Hadith, poor people come to the prophesy center. When they complain, they say, Listen, the rich people, they've made out with all of the rewards Allah, why? Because they pray, just like we pray, and they fast, just like we fast. And on top of that, they have their money to give and they're always giving their money.
How are we going to be there? How are we going to come out on top and so the prophesy Saddam, he responded to change their idea of what soccer was and what charity was. He says, Listen, you've got other opportunities for charity or for soda, that you're sleeping on other opportunities for worship. He said, A smile is worship. He said, being intimate with your spouse is worshipped. They were amazed and said, the artists of Allah, are you telling us that one of us gets has desires for a spouse and all its gonna reward him for it?
And the prophesy son responded, he said, What do you think about the one who has desires and does something haram?
Is there a penalty for him? Is he held accountable for that? I said, Yeah, of course. said okay. Likewise, if you do it in a halal way, then it is for you. It is in your scale of good deeds.
The Companions they actually used to say
A Bismillah every time they lowered a bucket down the well.
Imagine if we took the time to say this, every time we turn on our faucets.
How much blessing Allah would put in our lives, and how much we would be training ourselves to constantly.
Remember a law throughout every single instance of our days.
So if we convert these small things into worship, and if we can convert them which we can,
if we can align our everyday routines with Assam, can we also align the big things in our lives? Our major relationships our major life decisions,
so that they to our worship? Yes, absolutely. We can.
Where are you decide to live can be a religious decision? How close are you to the message? What kind of amenities are you comparing? Say, Oh, well, I want to be in this neighborhood, because this school and this, this and this, and this, where's the message, the message, you didn't enter into that calculation?
That can be an act of worship, who you marry. We know the prophets, I said, I'm said that women are married for four things. And the best one is for their religion, but not just who you marry, but how you are married.
When your spouse comes home from a long day, and you're tired, and maybe you haven't had your coffee yet, and she starts talking to you, or he starts talking to you, ladies, and you just don't really want to listen. And you're just kind of tune in the mouth.
Or you're looking on your phone, or you're like not now let's talk late or too tired.
You've just taken an opportunity that Allah gave you in your hands for worship, and you've just
flushed it down the drain
your relationship, there's a reason why Allah,
this or the prophesy, Saddam describe your relationship with your spouse is half of your religion.
Because most of your time is spent with your wife, most of your time is spent with your families.
Every interaction, every little thing that you can do that makes her happy, that makes him happy, that can be worship for you.
And think about the blessing that Allah will put in your relationship if that's the attitude, you have to towards him.
Who you allocate your time to, in general who you befriend, it can also be worship. A lot of times, especially you young guys, we make friends with people who make us laugh, and have common things in common with, that's fine. But everybody should reserve part of their friendship and part of their time for people who they don't benefit anything from
people who are sick, people who are in the hospital, people who just just got here from a different country.
People who are not supported who don't have a family support or structural support converts to the religion, we have a lot of them from what I understand in Utica, people you don't benefit anything from being with them. You take time out of your day, you say Bismillah and guess what, every second you spend with them is worship.
Finally, last thing for the level of your individual self, putting your possessions in the service of Allah. Allah has blessed us here in this country with blessing upon blessing upon blessing with wealth upon wealth. And the sign of gratitude is what you do with the Lord's blessing.
If I were to give you a gift, I give you Brahim a gift of $100 you give him $100 Bill, so you know what? Give this go go out, buy something for your kids.
He takes $100 And he just drops on the floor and he walks away.
Or he takes it and he uses it in a bad way he goes out and buys lottery tickets or something like this.
Is he grateful for the gift I gave him?
Never. You can't ever say that such such a person is grateful. Okay, Allah has given you eyesight. Allah has given you a house Allah has given you a car law has given you a job.
Allah has given you a family and people who love you and MSG.
How you act with those things and how you treat those things, is a reflection of your gratitude.
You all know the story of Abu Bakar Rama.
Rama was always being outdone by Abu Bakar. And so when the time came for the prophesy centum was raising an army almost like you know what, today's the day I'm gonna beat him and he gathered half of his wealth, and he came to offer half of his wealth to the prophesy some
only to find that when he was on the way back Abu Bakr had already come and given all of his wealth.
You know the story of Earth man. And the prophecies, Saddam said whoever buys this well and puts it in the service of the Muslims, that he will be in paradise.
If man didn't hesitate, he jumped at the opportunity. He bought it. It's a walk
The Well of Earth man is still making money for Earth man today.
If you go into Medina, and you go to the government and you look at the property deed, it's under arithmetic, no offense. It's a date far, the dates are sold, the money is taken and given out to poor people. He's been collecting reward from Allah for 1400 years.
opportunities abound.
That was the level of the self, two major motions, rescuing our worship from habit and then looking to those daily things we're already doing converting them to worship. Now we're into the home. What do we do with our homes?
The home has to be a place of prayer, and it has to be a place of worship.
The prophesy said and he said, Let's take Hulu or YouTube comm cavora. Don't let your homes become like graves. Don't make your homes into graves.
The scholars they talk about this hadith
and they say one of the interpretations one of the interpretations of this hadith is that the grave is a place where it is dead there's nothing going on there's no acts of worship happening there.
Don't make your home a home where prayer doesn't happen don't make your home a home where the Koran isn't recited the prophesy Saddam he told us about the many benefits of reciting different sources in the home. He said that the home that sort of Baccarat is recited in the devil runs away from it.
How you treat the prayer and how you prioritize the prayer sends a message to your children.
Your children, they learn the you know they learn a lot from you, whether you know it or not. They pick up on your priorities. A lot of times they're sharper than we wish they were.
Because we may say one thing to them. But we might do another. I'll give you an example.
When it comes to the prayer, and we're at home, it's the weekend. What's our reaction? are we dropping everything that we're doing?
Most of us are?
Are we telling the kids hey, it's time to go let's everybody go make we'll do let's pray together is the man made in your home, as the economy in your home? Little things. Versus we've got a show on Netflix we want to watch. Let's make the popcorn come grab the sodas Let's gather on the couch is a whole event the kids look forward to you can actually turn the prayer into something like that. Obviously, the prayer is not going to be as entertaining for the kids as as that but to establish importance. Your kids notice what are the things in your life that you drop everything for?
How you go out of your way for a work conference or your how you make you'll make all these sorts of compromises when it comes to things for money. However, what happens when Allah is giving us a simple call to respond to respond to this call?
Is it permissible to pray whenever we want, of course it is. It's not about permissibility we're talking about best practices. There's bare permissibility. And then there's best practices. And we honestly and frankly we live in a land and in the country and at a time where we can't get by with just bear permissibility we need to implement in our homes, best practices.
So if you make the prayer into any events, if you can't get to the messaging, you make your prayer at home into an events that everybody participates in. This will send a message that will send a message to your children about how important the prayer is to you. And they will learn accordingly. Eating together the prophesy centum talked about eating together. This day and age we're taking this one to soccer practice and this one to school and this one to this after school program a lot of time. A lot of times we're on the run so much. We don't even get to eat together. The kids eat outside the home or we eat something quick in the car.
There was a group of people that came in the prophesy Saddam and they said in a nap Kulu Wallah.
We eat and we're never full.
What was the prophesy sellers response. He said eat together. If you eat together, you're going to find Baraka, you're going to find a blessing in your food. And you guys will always the will also realize that when you take time to eat with your children as much as you are able to, you will strongly build your relationships with them.
There's no secret that when you want to train an animal you want to train a horse or you want to train sheep use for
you hold it out to them whenever you want them to do something, give them a little something every time you know positive reinforcement whenever they do what you want them to do. Okay? No offense kids. Kids are the same way. Human beings are the same way. The way to a man's heart we say in English the way to the man's heart is through his stomach.
estroux
So when you sit together, you eat together, you share food, you laugh and you every single moment, it's not wasted, you're building your relationship, you're building your bond together, when you need to then instruct them later, it's going to mean something because your relationship is strong.
nurturing your relationships in general is something that prophesy Saddam was very, very particular about and very, very masterful at
the companions were in love with the province, Lisa, to such an extent that they were upset and sat when they couldn't be with him.
The way even the prophesy son looked at them.
Some of the companions, they said they were so shy from living, they were too shy to even look up at him and his eyes. But they remember all of these amazing memories from the time that they spent with them.
If you turn to your relationships, you will find similar blessings in your life.
Your spouse.
Really, really important story. You know, the story when the prophesy said on is in the house of Aisha, and one of the other wives of the Prophet sends food.
Okay, no story. The prophesy Saddam has guests over, there's people there eating.
And I should get jealous of the other wife. Because she's sending food. And it's her day.
What does I should do? The prophesy son has the food in his hand, is just slaps on the wrist of the prophesy sudden knocks the food out of his hands. So I said,
Can you imagine you in the same situation with your spouse? What would you do?
In front of guests?
I hope that no one will get hurt.
I hope that we wouldn't have to call the cops for all the noise and the yelling and the screaming or the arguing I hope it wouldn't spill onto the street.
The previous lesson What did he do?
He took the shards
of the dish and he scraped up the food he cleaned himself. He was like you're gonna clean this mess, you made this mess.
He cleaned it himself. And he said to his guests, he made an excuse for his wife
said your mother is jealous.
very human thing
be covered for her. He had her back. He wasn't going to throw her under the bus.
Because he understood the process understood that his trade is with Allah. It's not with people. If you can get that in your mind, you'll succeed in everything. If you think that you're going to come down on your spouse because of something they did or something that they're not doing. Why are you doing that you're doing that because you think you're going to get something out of it. You think of I react this way, I'm not gonna be treated the right way, the way I want to be treated.
Your trade is with your is with people. And if your trades with people, you're always going to be disappointed.
If your trade is with Allah, and you realize that a law controls people's hearts, then you will always be profitable. You will always be successful every single time.
You don't act a certain way to somebody because you want them to act. That's business. That's trade. You act towards other people in a certain way because that's how Allah wants you to act. And Allah's control is controlling over everything.
That's with your spouse's, your children are extremely important developing a strong relationship with your children the prophesy centum said Aquila, Qumran, Macola, con Miss Odin, iron, Aurora, Yeti, every single one of you is a shepherd and he is responsible for his flock.
The this doesn't mean that you have to
go crazy doesn't mean that you have to come to the big bad religious guy.
It means you have to build a loving relationship with your child. It means you need to share laughs You need to work to create memories. Think about the things that you remember from your childhood and your father or maybe your mother, your uncle's or whoever you had in your family. There are certain things that stick out and this this just plant love in your heart for those people. You should be actively thinking about making those sorts of memories for your kids. It's going to go a long way to developing your relationship with them. The prophesy Saddam
he was busier than all he was more responsible than all of us.
He had the entire Ummah to take care of forget about your business, forget about your your projects, probably still don't have the entire OMA that he had to take care of.
And he still found the time to talk to children.
He said to one of the children around them yeah ABA or Mr. Metha. Allah ngulia There's little bird that the province says that this
child had had as a pet, probably someone would ask him about his pet.
Because the busiest man,
the most intense worshipper of Allah,
he wasn't this stoic, angry looking, you know, tough guy. Every cent he was honey, every single person that comes to him like, Hey, how are you doing? He asks, he cares, he inquires. This is the type of attitude we have to have towards building our relationships. And finally, we talked about other relationships. Perhaps most importantly, our parents and our relatives.
For the the older men and women among us know that the way that you treat your relatives and your elders now is the way that your children are going to treat you one day.
Again, going back to vacation example, we find time for vacations we find time for going to the amusement park, we find time for going to this festival in that festival, this dinner party and that dinner party, are we finding time to go visit our relatives are calling them even just calling them a lot of us have relatives that live across the world, a regular calling time and all the kids now we have video chat, the means have become so easy.
We really don't have any excuse anymore.
Final thing and this has to be said when it comes to our homes, technology, and media
and monitoring how they enter our homes. None of you, I don't think would invite into your home somebody who used foul language, and somebody who dressed inappropriately in a revealing way. And somebody who demonstrated crassness and meanness and poor qualities, you would not invite such a person into your home, however you let your child sit on devices, and look at these sorts of things day in and day out.
What's the difference?
The average age of exposure to * in the United States of America is 11 years old.
Hello, 11 years old.
What your child sees on a screen shapes their idea of what is normal.
And what your child views is normal shapes their potential for what they can become, and what they can do.
We've become exposed. Because this day and age, we look at things
that should anger us.
And they've become not only not angry to us, they become entertainment for us.
I think Game of Thrones is viewed by think like 11 million or some some crazy number of people. No Game of Thrones has adultery, and it has magic in it. It has many things that we can if you go down the list of major sins like a civil war, that it has most of them in there.
And most of the majority, at least at least for him.
Yeah, we're entertained by it. We're not angered by it.
We too are subject to this dynamic. We too, our sense of normal can be skewed. And I don't think it'll take us very long to think about the other ways in which over the decades, especially people in this society, our morality has been skewed by media and the media that we look at, and
what has become normal to us.
Now,
I know the common refrain, but I need a moment. The kids, they're overwhelming. Sometimes they just need something to occupy them for a little bit. I get that that's true. And I agree with the problem. But I don't agree with the solution. Because every single time you give your child the phone, you are missing out on an opportunity to build your relationship with your child. It's ironic.
They want our attention.
And we don't want to give it to them, we give them the phone instead. And then when they're teenagers. We want their attention and they won't give it to us. And then we can play
is that not true?
Build your strong relationship with your child. Now. Don't turn your child over to media who do not have your best interests at heart to fill your child with false desires and all sorts of strange ideas. Now, don't confuse this as a call to sheltering. I'm not an advocate. It's not enough Jesus to remove things and obviously your kids they go to school, they're going to be exposed to these things. Whether you let your child do them or not because other children have cell phones.
It's never enough to just remove something you always have to provide a substitute and sometimes
As that requires hard conversations with your child,
sometimes that requires exposing your child to the concept of evil on your own terms, before they're exposed to that evil from somebody else in a way that beautifies that evil.
It's not easy. Not everybody can do it.
But if you trust an adult in the community that can I highly recommend.
All that was for the family, and we proceed to the final third. We're talking about now on the level of community, establishing a slum in our hearts and homes, at the level of community. What should we be doing?
The first thing we're doing right now, food,
the prophesy Saddam. He said, We're the rock man. What? Time
Well, as show Salam said, Hello, John, as
he said, worship the Most Merciful feed of people
spread the salam and you're going to enter paradise in peace.
That was one of the first things Abdullah in Sudan heard the province I said, I'm saying when he made the hedgerows, some of the
you guys are doing that now. With these mashallah community dinners, a very, very good idea.
But it's not enough to just keep it within the four walls. There's a whole city out there of people who don't know anything about us.
Or worse think they know something about us than think they know something that's not true about us now.
And as we mentioned in the football today, what I call very Yanni diplomacy can go along with, right, that can be done at an individual level, inviting your neighbors into your homes, sharing meals with them or it can be done at a community level. These sorts of things are very important.
Gift giving was a son of the prophesy seven, not expensive gifts, not intimidating gifts, small frequent gifts. That's how the prophesy Saddam was. A lot of times. I know how things go in the Muslim community, especially Ramadan, we invite people over to Iftar we intimidate people with the huge spread, we have mashallah Tabata Cola, it's like free buffet,
then the person, what do they feel they feel like they have to outdo, and one off the person the next time they invite them to their house.
That's a barrier to meeting, it's a barrier to getting closer for a lot of time.
Don't make that the criteria for every time you get together, be get together in each other's homes as much as possible just for coffee, just for tea, just for baklava, just for clear anything.
It will go a long way.
Turning to our children, one of the most important things that we can do for our children is
guide them in the process of getting married,
guide them, but not control them. Okay, this is a very, very important and there's two extremes when talking about our children good manners, two extremes. There's one extreme that's completely negligent. They don't even think about that they can't even imagine your child when they married one day. It's almost as if they just imagine they're just going to keep on just living at home and just you know, doing the laundry doing the food or whatever it is and just someday, you know, the spouse is just going to descend from upon on high alert is gonna send it down on the cloud. And then you're gonna find that no, you have to take the means a lot created the SPF, Allah created the means take
the means. That means that you should be talking to other people, finding out what's possible, helping your children get married and complete this this obligation because guess what, if you don't,
they're going to take it into their own hands. And you're probably not going to like the result when they do.
At the same time, we can't be
over intrusive and over intensive a lot of us are here in the United States of America. And we expect our child to marry someone from the exact same ethnicity, the exact same social class, this particular family, we won't accept a family that's lesser in status, and that's what looks up to a higher, but we're not going to go lower this tribe and that tribe and we don't mix with this tribe. Guess what?
We're in America now.
Most people who come to this country
you have to choose the things you're going to keep.
And this community is actually quite unique and how diverse it is.
Meditate on this the prophesy Saddam he said there's a sahih Hadith that was narrated in Saudi and they shut down.
He said if someone can't
wants to you in marriage, and you're pleased with his religion, and you're pleased with his character
Bismillah married, if not,
corruption will spread on Earth.
The same sort of thing that we just say, if you don't guide your child through the process, they're going to take matters into their own hands, leading to undesirable results. Have a plan? Have a candid conversation with them? How is it going to go down? compromise with them? It will save you a lot in the long run. A lot of people they wait until Fatima or Mohammed come home with somebody. And then you're so scared and freaked out that you just react and say no, no, no, no, no.
And push them further into taking matters in their own hands.
It's not just about the marriage process. It's also about preparing your child for being married.
What's marriage, like? You know, every other religious community, they have like pre marriage counseling. Like the Christians and the Jews. They actually have their spouses, if they're engaged or whatever, they go on a retreat, or they have us they go to a psychologist, something like this, somebody who's involved in marriage counseling, and they talk about the things that normally lead to divorce. And they try as much as possible to get on the same page before they actually get married.
This is a very, very important thing, a lot of us, again, in the spirit of just ignoring it until it becomes a problem. Our kids get their ideas of what marriage is like from television and movies. They think that they're just going to be staring into their spouses eyes, you know, for eternity.
It's not marriage. Marriage is a sacrifice marriages, swallowing your pride. Marriages, negotiation marriages, is one of the most difficult things in life. Marriage might take several attempts to get it right, no shame. So building those expectations is huge. If you don't, a lot of us don't. And then our kids get married and they find out it's not a garden of roses. It's hard work. And then everybody rushes to divorce. And we all know what happens then especially in our community, some people find it hard to get remarried after that.
Finally, when it comes to our community,
the massage
and martial arts a lot a lot from what I understand you guys have done a lot of work in planning and getting ready to build an SG that's going to be not just a place to gather for prayer, but something that is going to be like the mesquite of the prophets, Eliza, something that was a community hub. Something that at the same time was a university, at the same time was a place to distribute charity. And at the same time was a place where administrative decisions happen, and guests were received, and delegations were entertained. This is the message at the time of the prophesies. So it wasn't just the place where you come to pray.
But we don't have to stop there. There's other things that we can be doing.
Other institutions that need to be built
schools,
gyms, youth spaces, things that other that aren't wild pie in the sky dreams, things that other religious communities have, even in Utica looked at the Catholic communities, look at the the Jewish communities they have these things, how do they have these things? I'll tell you how they have these things.
This the last part, inshallah will conclude with this.
Perhaps more than anything, what's going to determine
the success of this community 20 years from now
is its ability to be financially independent.
What do we mean by that? We are the only religious community in the United States of America that collects its money for its religious leaders, for the lights for the food by
passing around the hat
by locking the doors on the 27th of Ramadan, and saying, all right, you're not leaving until we make the make the number. This is insanity.
The Christians don't do this and the Jews don't do this.
They own property, they collect rents,
they own businesses.
They invest in stock.
They do these things that make them not have to come and ask and beg the people every year to keep the lights on.
They take that money. I'll give you okay, I'll make it real. I'll make it very, very plain for you. Let's imagine two communities community, a community big community it wants to build a mess
In mystery cost a million dollars, community a, they fundraise for years, trying to get this amount of money to build the building.
It ends up costing a little bit more than they expected things go wrong in the construction process, it ends up being more than they expected. But they finally get their message. And then what?
The community's tap dry, and they don't have enough money to pay a good Imam. They don't have enough money to pay Arabic teachers, they don't have enough money to expand or to create other institutions. That's community a, they're in a very, very tenuous position. They're in a very vulnerable position when it comes to their long term future, their long term sustainability. Community B, community B wants to build a mess sheet as well. price tags, a million dollars, they spent five years raising a million dollars. But they take that million dollars, and they buy a block of city apartments, it turn them into condos, and they collect rent.
They make back the money that they spent in another four or five years.
And they use that money to build a mess.
And they're still collecting rent after that every single year.
So in another five years, they can build an Arabic school, or an Islamic school, and another five years, they can build a gym.
In another five years, they start to buy the apartment buildings around they're messy. And they can give them in subsidized, you know, subsidized rents for people in low incomes. This is this is planning. This is thinking 20 years down the road. This is something that most communities, most Muslim communities aren't thinking at that level. But we now you can think about it because I just told you secret Taliban.
You guys are there. You're at a golden, I hope I heard about you guys raised 150 or $200,000. I was just in a community and in in a suburb of Philadelphia. That is almost all doctors and lawyers and engineers. That's wealthier than you guys that's bigger than you guys. People drive Tesla's there. And they could not raise $150,000 In the month of Ramadan.
You're at a critical point when it comes to your community. And that you're you have a critical opportunity in front of you. Don't just plan for the step ahead and plan for the next 10 steps ahead. Put yourself in a position now. Where you can be independent, where you can have the infrastructure where you can accommodate growth, where you can do what you need to do as things come up.
If we do these things,
then we will have taken care of our responsibility to allow everything we've talked about. It's all about the level of the individual, reclaiming our worship from habit, picking up every single habit that we do and incorporating into our worship. We nurture our relationships, we build our community, we plan for the future that's taking care of the responsibility a lot asked us to when a lot told us protect your five year family from the fire that is that consumes people and stones were the prophets. I said I'm said every single one of you as a shepherd, and he's responsible for his flock. We do these things we will have established Islam. Truly in the United States and Utica, New Utica,
New York will have established Islam in our hearts and homes will offer to ANA will hamdu lillah wa salatu salam ala Rasulillah that's it. Thank you very much for your patience. I know it was it was a bit long. If anybody has questions, I'd like to move to the ladies questions first. And then inshallah we will move to the gentleman