Tom Facchine – Israel’s Ceasefire Rejection, Nurse Fired for Gaza, and the Law of Sacrifice
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It's a pleasure to be with you this
evening, at least in our part of the
world, in our part of the Ummah. It's
the evening. Wherever you're from, let us know.
Drop us a comment
in the chat.
We'll be interacting. We've got a really, really
interesting show lined up for us tonight.
Obviously, we're gonna be talking about current events.
Lots of stuff happening in the news. We've
got a very special guest with us tonight,
somebody who took a stand on principle and
even was punished at their job for supporting
Palestine.
We've also we're nearing the conclusion of the
2 books that we've been going through. We've
got a lot to talk about, but first,
let's see who we have with us tonight.
We have some people that showed up from
the very beginning. May Allah bless you. If
you've noticed, yes, we've been off for 2
weeks. And in addition to that, tonight we're
running a little bit late because we've got
big storms coming through the eastern half of
the United States, so it delayed us for
various reasons. May
Allah grant everybody peace, safety and security,
especially if you're on the roads.
Wa Alaikum Salam, Wa Ta'alaam, Mrs. S.
ZB
Nancy Yahia, alaykum Assalamu wa rahtta Allah. From
Egypt, from Masur, umudunya, welcome.
Hope you're taking advantage of your pre Fajr
time.
Sabria Bint Jaffray from Colorado.
Namaste, and welcome to the program. Hey, Kaudry
from SoCal. Good to see you again here.
It's nice to see the same people week
in week out.
MB from Hershey, PA.
Welcome.
We have Jerusalem Queen from Chicago.
We've got Rasuati Rani from Malaysia.
MSA from Portland, Oregon. Ronnie from Norway.
Zamine from Livingston.
More people, Dora,
DeLoren from SoCal.
Masha'alaikum.
Cook with SK from Pakistan is in the
bad.
Maqsud, walaikum. South Africa.
Excellent. We have such it is always, and
I I always say this and I'll never
shy away from saying it, that it is
just beautiful to see the diversity of our
Ummah and how even in the age that
we live in, there's so much hardship and
there's so much trial, and yet we can
all come together in one platform at the
same time and sort of share thoughts or
there's a sort of concept,
that some people talk about grounding with your
brothers or grounding with your sisters, it means
basically getting on the same page,
swapping notes, seeing what is on everybody's mind.
This is a very, very important thing to
do, and we hope that the Yaqeen Institute
livestream is a very, very small contribution to
that.
Someone from Ohio here from Ohio. I don't
know you. Welcome to the program. Well, we
do know you now. We know you're from
Ohio.
Amy from Senegal.
Wa Alaikum Assalamu waftalla.
I have some teachers from Senegal, a wonderful
place I wish I can go someday, Insha'Allah.
Sole Cyber,
Canada in the house, alayhi wa sallam. Rehan
Abu, alayhi wa sallam.
Shafi from Florida, alayhi wa sallam. Rumi from
Washington.
I thought Rumi was from
Persia. No. I'm just joking. Rumi from Washington.
Welcome to the program. One stop at a
time from Alabama.
Allahu Akbar. Wa Alaykum Salam. Buona Sarah.
Stobani Gracia Attika.
Rahana Abu from India.
Allahu Akbar. London.
Iram from London.
Khalilah from Virginia. Wow. Allahu Akbar. We got
a lot of people tuning in from all
over the Ummah today. Salaam.
Savannah Willis from Mississippi. Glad that you are
with us.
We are doing whatever we can, and we
hope that we are just demonstrating to people
that this is not the time to be
silent. It is the time to stand up
and make your voice be heard and bear
witness in front of Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala
as to what is right and as to
what is wrong. And that's very consonant and
harmonious with the guests that we have,
teed up for us tonight as well. Raffid
Ahmed from Scotland. Excellent. Taheja time in Scotland.
We don't wanna take away from your taheja,
but we'll be here whenever you get back.
Rade or Rade
from New Jersey. Welcome, Nusrat Raza from Sweden.
We've got Aminata
from Pennsylvania,
another from India.
North Macedonia, CA.
Ariana.
Edmonton's
in the house.
Miami's in the house.
Mass from Singapore.
Excellent.
Australia.
Kim.
From Salt Lake City.
More people from headwinds coming in from Canada.
Holistic momma from New Jersey.
Excellent stuff. Manchester, England. I
was given a lovely opportunity to visit Manchester
in my tour in the UK in April,
and I found Manchester,
exceedingly charming. It was a wonderful place. I
really enjoyed it. I only had 2 days
there, but I'm wishing, I had more time
there. We have folks from Havana,
Muslim Fididh, masha'Allah. Some of the strongest students
of knowledge I ever met from Magana.
Emma Khan from Virginia.
Beautiful. Well, we have a nice cross section
of the Ummah here with us,
tonight, and we welcome everybody and everybody who
continues.
Mariam from New York, other people, Pakistan. We
welcome everybody,
to the program. As I said, there's been
a lot that's going on, a lot to
talk about, and a very, very special
guest that we have,
to join us tonight. But first, what's been
going on?
The current events, obviously, our hearts and minds
are still with the people of Gaza and
Palestine.
Now one of the things that has come
about
this week, and if the studio can bring
up the image that we have,
president Biden supposedly
announced
in a very sort of awkward way
a ceasefire.
Okay. You see here he tweeted on the
official channel, not him. I don't believe that
he actually is the one behind the keyboard,
but his staff tweeted out on his behalf,
our proposal to end the war in Gaza
begins with a complete ceasefire, withdrawal of Israeli
forces from all populated areas in Gaza, the
release of hostages and hostage
remains, the ability for Palestinians to return to
Gaza and a surge of humanitarian assistance. Now
what's interesting
there's a lot of things that are interesting
about this. One of them is note the
difference in tone
from a lot of the initial rhetoric put
out by the Biden administration even even for
the 1st several months,
of the escalation of the occupation in Gaza,
that
we went from Israel has a right from
to defend itself and our support for Israel
is ironclad
to Biden has made a succession of moves
that where he's tried to portray himself
as a peace broker and portray himself
as a mediator and portray himself as somebody
who is calling for a both sides sort
of deal. Now this is straight hypocrisy, and
we'll get to that in a second. But
one of the more obvious and humorous things
about this is that Biden claimed that this
was the Israeli
proposal for peace.
And then Israel basically says, uh-uh. No. It's
not. We don't agree to this. This is
not something that we came up with ourselves.
In fact, we reject it.
Now it's significant. It's significant that they reject
it because part of the
propaganda narrative that Israel, the occupying force, has
been trying to,
drum into everybody's ears from the beginning is
that the Palestinians don't want peace. The Palestinians
don't want peace. Every single time we make
an agreement or a peace deal, they break
it. Now that's a lie, and anybody who
knows the history of Palestine and the occupation
of Palestine knows that it's a lie, but
a lot of people don't. So a lot
of people, unfortunately, were taken in by this
sort of narrative. But now what we've seen
time and time and time again is we
have seen
Israel been offered a peace deal or offer
some sort of truce or offer some some
sort of ceasefire, and they reject it out
of hand. They said, no, we're not gonna
do that. And we've seen the Palestinian factions
and even the Palestinian factions from based within
Gaza accept it and say, okay. Yeah. Let's
do that. Okay. Let's do that. Even if
it's not all of what they're asking for,
they've been willing to accept these sorts of
deals when Israel,
has not.
And in fact, they have then taken to
social media and say that nothing will stop
us and the ICC won't stop us and
the ICJ won't stop us and the UN
won't stop us and nobody can stop us.
Insert evil laugh here. This has sort of
been the attitude of Israel the entire time,
which shows that which shows that the ability
for its propaganda
to work is severely diminished. The people are
now easily seeing through this, that this is
actually Israel is not only the aggressor, not
only the instigator,
but they have rejected
time and time and time and time again,
opportunities for peace and opportunities to stop the
violence. But that's only the beginning of it.
The last part and the one that I
really wanted to emphasize is that
despite the posturing
of President Biden and despite the posturing of
the DNC or of the US State Department
or the executive branch.
You can't be a mediator
to a conflict that you are actively
arming
one side of it. That's just
simple basic fact. So the entire posture
is actually very insulting to my intelligence, and
it's insulting to your intelligence as well. And
I hope that you're insulted because I'm insulted
to be able to stand up in front
of a camera and pretend
and pretend
that he's not involved,
to pretend that he's not sending all of
the all of the he won't even condition
military aid. He won't even stop sending
offensive aid to Israel.
And in the same breath, he wants to
get on camera. And this is the attitude
of the entire, you know, the vast majority,
let's say, of the US government at this
point
and act like there are
neutral parties to this conflict. You know, this
is a very, very interesting sort of thing
that happened
on a certain talk show in the UK
that I was invited to speak on. Some
of you already know this. I was invited
to speak on a certain show that is
called uncensored, but in reality is quite censored.
And
I refused to do so. And part of
my reasoning was exactly for this purpose that
I said that
you are pretending that you're a neutral party
to the conflict when in reality you are
anything but a neutral party
to this conflict. And so
the US cannot have its cake and eat
it too. It cannot pretend to be the
mediator
and yet be arming one side to the
teeth and
completely
criminalizing the other side entirely.
That's just not gonna work.
So we have now,
in other news. Now in light of this,
more and more people within Biden's staff are
getting frustrated
and,
and dismayed by this attitude
from the Biden administration, even within his own
party. So I know we've got a lot
of things here,
that's to show the different staff members that
have resigned from their positions.
Right? We have, Tarek Habesh and Josh Paul
and there's others you can keep rolling in
the studio with the different people who have
stepped down out of their disgust. And they're
not just Muslims and Arabs that you would
expect many Jews and other people, people who
have, you know, no religion at all. They
are people of conscience,
people who know what is good and what
is evil when they see it, and they
know that the president is involved in very,
very, very evil things here,
and that he doesn't he's not misinformed.
In fact, he is,
an active participant
in and has got his hands deeply involved
in everything that is going on. And so
people continue. They continue to drop out one
of the more recent ones right here, Lily
Greenberg, special assistant to the chief of
staff. And so we're happy by this, that
we think that anybody who's remaining with Biden,
maybe for the first couple months, you could
have given the excuse that you thought you
would be able to to to push the
the the policy this way or push the
policy that way, but it has come out
and it is obvious that there is no
bigger friend to Israel than the current president
of the United States. And that if you
especially if you're a Muslim and you have
a position
within the staff that your presence is legitimizing
that man, the president of the United States,
and what he is doing to your brothers
and sisters in Gaza and in Palestine. And
we hope and and we would hope that
you would stand up and
refuse to let yourself be used as a
pawn or to let yourself be used as
a PR stunt or let yourself be used
as a diversity hire so that you are
now legitimizing what the Biden
is doing and they can say that, oh,
well, we have Muslims and we have Palestinians
in our staff, and so how could we
be against Muslims and Palestinians?
Don't allow them that.
That if you have the ability and if
you have the courage,
what are you waiting for? That we would
hope that you would take a similar stand
as these courageous men and women have. Now
with that being said, we're gonna transition now.
And actually maybe I'll run through the comments
and see if there's any outstanding questions before
we transition from that to our last news
story of the day, and that's gonna take
us into our guest where somebody who did
take a stand and did so in a
very, very powerful way.
But first, let's see what we have here.
I know a lot of people joined in
the chat as we are going.
From Pakistan.
Mariam from New York. Okay. We got there.
Dallas in the house. Fariel Mohammed, welcome. Sarasota,
Florida. James Martin, welcome.
Abdullah Abdullah is the the man with the
plan behind the scenes. We're we're happy that
Abdullah was delivered to us safely through the
storm, and he's our cameraman here. He does
an amazing job along with Omar Habakk and
the rest of the team. Thank you to
everybody.
Is there faith meditation? Is there any way
for me to meet Omar Suleiman Fisa Bilillah?
Inshallah and Jannah.
Carmen Birx, walaikum Assalamu alaikum Assalamu alaikum from
Kentucky.
Kentucky is a beautiful state.
Let's see who else we have. Walaikum Assalam.
Excellent. Excellent. Excellent. Ayyan. Walaikum Assalam, Walaikum Assalam.
Okay. We've gotten through it. I'm not gonna
comment on on some of the questions to
do with cursing and things like that. I
think if you know, you know.
Okay. Excellent.
Yes. Amin Omar may Allah replace what they
have given up through their resignation
with that which is better.
From London.
Okay. Very good. So, with that being said,
our final
sort of story here, and it's gonna transition
us into our guest, was there was a
nurse,
serving in New York City,
one of the hospitals run by NYU, the
New York University,
who was fired this week
for calling a spade a spade, for calling
it a genocide. Now
and we've got I think we've got an
image right there we go. We've got a
quote here from the speech. It pains me
to see the women
from my country going through unimaginable losses themselves
during the current genocide.
Now what I find crazy about this story
is that sister this is sister Hassan Jaber.
Sister Hassan was fired for a speech that
she made receiving an award for her excellence.
Can you imagine that you are now being
praised by your employer in one moment for
doing an excellent job and you're being given
an award?
And then
in the next breath, the next time you
actually the next time she came back to
work,
her
employer decided to fire her because she called
it what it was. Now if you read
some of the articles,
it's I find it really fascinating. I'm gonna
read a couple statements before we bring her
on here for a sec.
She one of the justifications of her employer
was that she was, quote, unquote, bringing politics
into the workplace. And I hope by the
end of our segment here, you realize what
a
a crime and, what hypocritical nonsense this is.
In a statement,
Steve Ritaya, a spokesperson person
for NYU,
this hospital said,
Hassan Jabber was warned in December following a
previous incident not to bring her views on
this divisive and charged issue into the workplace.
She instead chose not to heed that at
a recent employee recognition event that was widely
attended by her colleagues, some of whom were
upset after her comments.
As a result, Jabra is no longer an
NYU Langone employee. That is the official statement
from her employer.
Obviously, this touches on so many issues that
are going on right now. And with that,
I think we have do we have a
video from her speech?
Lucien, you're a 100% correct. You're allowed to
bring a religion into the conversation, but you
get fired from entering politics.
Do if we don't have a video for
the speech, then we're just gonna keep rolling
with it. Let's bring her let's bring her
into the studio and welcome sister Hassan to
the program.
I can tell you right now that everybody
who's watching is extremely proud of you. I'm
extremely proud of you. Exactly.
Yeah. I mean, it's a very, very noble
stand,
to take.
I want to get your
reaction to this ludicrous statement put out by
your
employer
about bringing politics into the workplace.
You know,
they have the power to speak and they
essentially silenced you. So if we're giving you
the mic back and say,
what do you say to that to this
poor excuse
that they've offered here?
Honestly, at this point, there were no words,
and that's how it ended when they called
me into the office for
my 4th, 5th, 6th interrogation.
That was my response to them was,
where do we go from here? We're just
gonna keep going around in circles. I was
I was done.
The last 8 months
have been very challenging,
but
it was my own
form of, I guess, you can call it
retribution for what's going on right now overseas.
You know, having to
go to work in the belly of the
beast every day,
and having to deal with that and
make my presence known to them even though
it made them uncomfortable
was
enough, I guess, for me at the time.
Growing up as a Palestinian in America and
growing up as a Muslim in America,
I, I had a I have a mother
who's, very
strong,
in the sense that she
she raised us to always be proud of
our identity and to never hide or shy
away from it. So,
I'm sure NYU got more than they bargained
for when,
they hired him, Hijabi. I'm pretty sure they
wouldn't have hired me if they knew I
was Palestinian.
I've always been vocal about Palestine.
I've always posted about it on social media.
Clearly, since October 7th,
it became a divisive issue because the the
the opposing opinion
is, of course, louder, stronger
in in
the place that I live. So,
yeah, by the time it was all said
and done, I was just a little defeated,
I I guess is the word. I wasn't
shocked.
I fought hard until the end because,
you know, every time they did interrogate me,
I used it as an opportunity to appeal
to their humanity, appeal to my humanity. You
know?
Let them know that here I am, a
Palestinian, probably the only Palestinian you've ever encountered,
in your Zionist institution,
at least knowingly.
So here I am. Do I seem scary
to you? Right. And Yes.
I think that's why it lasted 8 months.
I think because I was
I feel like I was able to,
articulate
my stance in in ways that made them,
you know, second guess that every time I
felt it coming every time I got called
into HR.
But, yeah, ultimately, it was the speech and
the people who are sitting in the audience.
Robert Grossman, the dean and CEO,
was sitting in that audience, and
I'm sure he didn't love hearing about Palestine.
And the fact that I was given a
platform
as a Palestinian
and able to say that in their institution
in the belly of the beast, it it
I'm sure it rubbed them the wrong way.
So Yes. And and that was one of
the fascinating things. The more articles I read
and sort of the the deeper that I
dug into the story that this individual, particularly
the CEO, Robert Grossman,
was found
exposed in a previous suit against,
his institution from using crude terms to criticize
pro Palestinian
protests.
Right? And not and not only that, but
these emails were sent to other employees, your
employees.
So Mhmm. That
is it's rather rich that he's going to
accuse you of bringing politics into the workplace
and accuse you of being divisive
when he in fact is bringing politics into
the workplace. He in fact is being divisive.
And really, it's just about he doesn't like
your position and he's looking for a way
to sort of punish you.
Yeah.
And you had been from what I understand,
you had been told by other, an employee,
a fellow employee at one point that Palestine
doesn't exist,
and that you have other employees
that have posted,
very, very brazenly on their social media in
support of Israel and Zionism.
So is this something that, you know,
the
the the institution just looks the other way
at? Is it something that what's sort of
the the take of the institution here?
Yeah. So
the first time that HR contacted me, it
was in regards to this particular coworker who
had filed a complaint against me while she
was on maternity leave. She wasn't even working
at the time.
I confronted her,
offline, off, off NYU grounds. I had nothing
to do with my job, but she was
posting some
insightful
posts, basically,
celebrating
the hospitals that were getting bombed, and
the death tolls of the children were starting
to emerge. And here you here we have
this new mother who's saying, yeah. Let's collect
some money for the IDF so they can
continue their mission.
So I confronted her about it,
and she didn't respond to me. And I
knew I I inherently knew. Like, I I
I felt it.
When I went to
work about a week later, I got called
into HR, and they wouldn't tell me what
it was about.
And, they actually by the time they spoke
to me and I told them my version
of events that this person, when I was
training them
2 years ago, told me Philistine doesn't exist
when she asked me where I'm from.
Their their initial response was shock, and they
asked me if I wanted to file a
counter complaint.
And at that point, I had told them,
no. I I'm not interested in anybody losing
their livelihood over this. I just wanna come
to work, and I wanna go home without
any drama.
I I did tell them, you know,
my politics don't align with the politics of
this institution,
but
you guys shouldn't be
talking to me about my politics. I come
here and I do my job. I don't
bring my politics to work.
So that's how it started.
Wow. And then
it just
increased every time it got it it became
more
surreal with each time that they called me.
You know, one of my coworkers I don't
know who it had to have been a
coworker because my social media is private,
gave HR access to my Instagram account. And
they just picked through my Instagram account asking
me to explain myself on certain pro Palestinian
posts,
and I did. I complied. I complied
each time, prepared to lose my job. Every
time I come into work, I check my
email to make sure I'm employed
because I felt it.
It definitely became more charged in the workplace
and more polarized.
A lot of coworkers most of my coworkers
were sympathetic, but everyone is scared to speak
up. That's just the culture
of that place. So,
yeah, it was isolating, but I stayed true
to to my principles, my values, my identity.
So,
you know One one of the things that
that,
I think is symbolically
significant is that you just wanted to be
left alone. Right? You just wanted to to
go about your business. But
how aggressive
Zionists are and how aggressive the others like,
they're not even willing I I just can't,
like, you know, imagine somebody. You said that
this particular individual is on maternity leave. Imagine
being on maternity leave, and you've got nothing
better to do than count
the and and rejoice and celebrate the murder
of children across the world. Like, what kind
of person does that? Like, it shows you
the level of dehumanization.
It shows you the amount of indoctrination. Like,
you you seem to indicate that when you
trained her, she had never met a Palestinian
or had any experience
or exposure to anybody from, you know, that
was outside of her sort of narrow worldview.
And
just that
not even being
able to tolerate
difference.
Right? It's like like you exist in a
workspace and you have this sort of politics
and this sort of identity,
and they're not even willing to accept that.
Right? So
that that's
extremely important, but
it's almost you know, the silver lining, at
least for me in a way, is that
all of those other coworkers that you had
that were afraid to speak up or who
still are afraid to speak up, you basically
when you were pushed, right, and all of
the buttons that they use, the HR tools
and the policies and whatever they tried to
the intimidation tactics
are all meant to silence you. They're all
exactly like you said, put you in the
situation where every day going to work, do
I still have a job? What am I
going to do? How am I going to
support myself? And that's meant to silence you.
And yet here you are and you weren't
silenced. So
what is responsible for that? Did you ever
worry about what am I gonna do for
a job or, like like, take us through
that process. What were you able to draw
on that kind of just left you sort
of,
not affected by that sort of fear tactic?
I wouldn't say I wasn't affected, but
I
knew that I had to keep mobilizing. I
couldn't be paralyzed by that fear.
So I started looking for jobs. Like, I
I dropped my hours to part time anyway
there because
at one point, I got doxed. I was
concerned for my safety, which I told HR,
you know,
my mental and physical health was being affected.
My job performance was being affected. But at
one point, when I was doxed and my
private information
was made public, I
became scared for my safety.
And HR's responses every time were like, well,
you're anti Semitic.
You need to take down your posts. Wow.
We'll look into your grievances. That was
essentially like, eventually, I did I did ask
to file a grievance for about that coworker,
about previous incidents with other coworkers,
and their response to me is,
you're being anti Semitic. You're being intimidating, harassing,
threatening. You need to fix your issue, and
we'll look into your grievances
Wow. As an afterthought. So I dropped my
hours to part time and started
looking for something else just because I felt
unsafe.
SubhanAllah.
You know,
nursing is a very lucrative job. So I'm
I'm I'm very grateful
that I don't have to worry about that.
So,
you know, small fish compared to the bigger
picture here.
Right. And I totally you know, I think
a lot of us really resonate with what
you said about how
we wish we could do more. Like, we
see every day what's going on in Palestine
and what's going on in Gaza. And it's
almost like it's almost like we wish we
could be there. Right? Even just just to,
just the amount of solidarity that we have,
it hurts that we feel so powerless. And
so
it's almost
it's almost a release in some sort of
way to be given an opportunity to do
something here and to take a stand in
our own small way or in our own
you know, and not to minimize, obviously, what
you did is tremendous. But in in our
own way, to be able to,
to contribute
to contribute to that. So if there was
somebody who was in a similar situation right
now,
as you are or you were 1 month
ago, 2 months ago, 3 months ago, what
would you say to them as advice?
Nothing is guaranteed.
So do whatever your
your heart
what what your heart tells you to do,
what your fitra tells you to do. And
for me as a Muslim and as a
Palestinian,
it's always to stand by by truth. You
know, I was raised on the hadith,
about, you know,
So if I can't change things with my
bare hands, then I can speak up.
And that's where I stopped. Like, I could
speak up.
I accepted the consequences fully, like,
my iman really was
heightened during this whole thing.
And that's something that I had made in
my post. I actually made that point in
my post when I
advertised on Instagram that this had happened was
I don't think people realize
that
when we're tried as Muslims,
our faith what what we understand, we internalize
that our faith is being tested, and it
makes you closer to Allah. It doesn't it
it only makes you more resolute and stronger,
or more stubborn depending on who you ask.
But Maybe both.
Yeah.
So,
yeah,
I'm I'm grateful
Well, that's
Yeah. I don't know about you, but, I
mean, in the opportunities or the the moments
that I've had where I I sacrificed
something,
or somebody tried to intimidate me and I
refused to back down,
there is almost like a freedom that comes
to it.
Right? Because, like, when you're
policing yourself, and that's what they want at
the end of the day. They want you
to police yourself.
Right? You feel like the world is very
tight and there's not a lot of room
to maneuver.
And then all of a sudden when you
realize that, no, I'm gonna stand on my
principles.
I believe Allah is gonna provide one way
or another. I believe in his power. I'm
gonna just take it.
It's
like, you know, it's like office space when
he was hypnotized and the the psychiatrist keeled
over. Right? It's like he's like, you're you're
you're you're set free. You're you're liberated.
I don't know about you, but I've I've
felt that way. So,
I hope that that you've felt that way,
and I hope that other people that are
watching understand that, yeah Allah is going to
send stuff your way. He's going to send
you opportunities and you might be worried and
feel afraid and why me? But actually Allah
is trying to give you a way to
break out of the prison of fear and
the breakout of the prison of, like, people
trying to control you through this and that.
100%.
Wonderful story. Great reflections.
Is there anything you'd like to leave the
audience with before before you sign off?
Keep making dua for Palestine. I really feel
like change is coming. I do.
I just had a press conference this morning,
and
it was with my attorney and speaking about
how we need to hold these giants these
these institutions accountable.
And they do the the reason that they
behave the way they the way that they
do is because they feel like they're invincible,
and they're not. They're not they're not God's
stuff. Like, they're just
they're they're
completely fallible just like anybody and anything else.
You know?
So
always speak up.
Wonderful. Sister Heslin, thank you so much for
joining us in the program. We ask Allah
to replace whatever you lost with more and
better and to continue to strengthen you and
use you for the ways in which that
he loves and for the liberation of Philistine.
I agree. I feel like something really big
is coming. I hope it's not just my
optimism, but,
I'm honored that you and I and other
people get to be just even a tiny,
tiny, tiny part of that. So thank you
again.
We will be tested as Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala said in the beginning of the first
page of Surat Al An Kabut. Did you
think that you would be left alone to
say that you believe and not be tested?
And then later down Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala
explains the reason why He tests us, the
reason why He puts us through this trouble
in the first place is to differentiate,
is to differentiate from the people who
really walk the walk for the people who
just talk the talk. Right? That anybody can
say they believe, they can say they stand
on business, they can say that they have
principles,
but the only people who really have principles
are the people who,
what, they stand on them when they have
something to lose,
when they stand on them when they have
something to lose. And the sister's a great
example of that, and we hope that Allah
helps her,
and accepts from all of us.
Let's run through,
see a lot of people
a lot of
people joining in. Yes. Okay. A lot of
great conversation here.
Rima Chaudhry brings up a great point. I
love that you mentioned that. How can they
be uncomfortable by you and not be uncomfortable
with genocide?
That is a fantastic point. And, that's exactly
the whole thing. They'll use the language of
you're making people uncomfortable.
You're upsetting people.
We're upset. We're upset because we see babies
blown to bits every single day. How come
you're not upset? If you're not upset by
this, we might do something to make you
upset in order to actually see that you're
alive and you have a heart.
Very good. Excellent.
Universal praise and support all around.
Very good commentary, everybody.
Okay. I think we're gonna keep this show
moving.
Yeah. That's true. Testify and notice that as
well. Maldives announced to ban,
Israeli passports from entering in the country, and
and there's several countries that have done as
well.
Now the United States is sanctioning
you guys. May Allah keep you strong.
May Allah keep you strong.
That anything this is the time for principle
and this is the time for courage. This
is the time to stand on your principles.
And I agree. I don't know you,
though we're knowing you better and better. If
you're not upset with Palestine, you're simply not
a human being. You've been dehumanized.
You have some work to do.
Excellent. Well, with that being said, we're gonna
transition to our next segment here,
which is actually a nice little announcement for
Yakin Institute is trying to put out a
lot more
educational content when it comes to participation
in politics. Obviously, it's on a lot of
people's minds. So I know we've got an
image here. A new,
I believe a new blog post by doctor
Oweimer Engem has dropped
in this past week or a couple of
weeks.
Right.
What should Muslims in America do? And it's
got some tips, some very, very important tips
for activism for Palestine.
And what will happen if we don't? This
is something that a lot of people,
they they lose sight of in these conversations.
A lot of people there's a lot of
mixed messages. There's some people that are saying
that,
protesting is haram or encampments are haram or
that you can't do this or that you
can't do that. There are some people that
show up to encampments or they show up
to,
or they would show up to particular actions
or whatever, and they don't like what they
see. They don't like the allies quote unquote
or they don't like the other people that
are participating
or the politics of the other people who
are participating. Is that a reason to not
go? Is that a reason to not participate
in the movement? Whatever. Right?
That's all discussed in the blog post. Highly
recommend you read it. We've got a nice
little quote here that prophet said,
The believer who mixes with people and patiently
endures their harm is better than the one
who does not mix with people and endure
their harm.
Consider that hadith. A hadith probably most of
you already know. Consider that when you show
up to an encampment. Consider that when you
show up to a protest. That
there it's a
a a a false criteria to imagine
that there has to be absolutely no harm
involved
in a protest or in a demonstration or
an encampment for you to participate in it.
In fact, the Sharia operates off of what's
called probabilistic reasoning, meaning that something does not
have to be 100%,
halal
or 100% good, let's say, in order for
it to
be halal. And something does not have to
be 100% evil in order for it to
be haram. And we have proof from this
from the Quran. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says
in Surat Al Baqarah that alcohol has manafi'ilines,
that there are benefits to alcohol and yet
the harms outweigh the benefits and therefore it's
haram.
Just as there are things within the sharia
that are permissible even though they have harm
even though they have harm, the good outweighs
the benefits. So these types of things these
types of things are part of the calculus.
Now we have another quote here. Participation in
protests against oppression is required as it falls
in the category of
prohibiting evil, which is an obligation upon the
Muslims, and it constitutes giving help to the
oppressed, which is also required.
And as for the other things that you
might be concerned about that might be incidental,
meaning non essential haram elements that could happen,
mixing of genders, etcetera,
that thing is impermissible whether it's inside of
a protest or outside of a protest. And
this is the thing that I always bring
back to people, and I have been to
a lot of different types of protests. And
I will tell you that
the protests that the Muslims
take charge of
and
organize themselves are the best protests I've ever
been to. They are respectful.
They are according to our values. They are
family friendly.
They are,
wholesome.
Right? Whereas the protests that we allow other
people to organize for us and we don't
even participate
in a way that,
where we don't have a critical mass of
participation in them, those are the protests that
are the most problematic. Those are the ones
with the elements that we don't want to
be seen with. Those are the ones with
the slogans and the actions that violate our
values as Muslims. And so is the situation
call for an abandonment
of political engagement,
or does it call for increased political engagement?
Does it call for a new level of
engagement where we stop we stop being consumers
of other people's political organizing, and we start
being ones to take charge of this issue,
which is really
our issue.
Good point, MB.
Thank you
for the props.
Mustafa, I'm sympathetic. Yes. There are unfortunately a
lot of people,
a lot of people that look for any
excuse as I brought up one time to
some brother, it's like, some people don't have
any problem with gender mixing until it comes
to a protest.
Some people don't have any problem with any
of these concerns, music, etcetera, except when it
comes to a protest. And we've seen in
the Quran time and time again, especially in
surahs like Surat At Tawba, where we have
people who make excuses to not go forth,
make excuses to not,
indicate
their and this is actually mentioned by doctor
O'Weimar in the blog post, which I highly
recommend you leave. Maybe we could the studio,
if you guys can drop that link,
in the chat, where
one of the excuses you find, I believe
in Surat Atoba, where the people who said
that they wouldn't go out with the prophet
sallallahu alaihi wasallam for struggling in the way
of Allah. They said that we we were
afraid of fitna. We were afraid we're gonna
fall into fitna. And then Allah responded
so beautifully, so beautifully, Allah fil fitna tisakatuh.
Like, haven't they already fallen into fitna by
making this excuse to not go in the
first place?
We call that an uno reverse.
So we encourage you
to read it, Speaking Truth to Power, Islamic
Rules for Protests, Civil Disobedience, and Encampments for
Iqaza. And I am currently working on,
some things that are specifically
specifically addressing the issue of allyship and how
to navigate allyship and how we can sort
of,
use our critical mass in order to steer
that ship and not be drawn in by
other people who don't represent our values and
shouldn't be representing us at all.
And with that, I think we're moving on
now to
our next segment. We've got
our end segment, our actions of the day
and night. We're nearing the end.
But before that, it's important to notice this
part of the the calendar year. We are
right upon the beginning of Dhul Hijjah,
the sacred month of Dhul Hijjah,
which depending on your your moon sighting,
position,
let's just say it's gonna start very soon
within the next couple days. And then this
is the start of the pilgrimage season.
It is the month of the Hajj. And
so this is where,
millions of people all across the world will
be converging upon Mecca to excuse me, to
complete their pilgrims' rights. But don't worry. If
you're not going to Hajj this year, which
many of us aren't, I'm not for example,
then there are other things that you can
take advantage of. The month of Dhul Hajjah
is a sacred month whether you're going to
Hajj or not. And in fact,
the first 10 days of Dhul Hijjah
are the best 10 days in the calendar
year, in the Islamic calendar.
The best 10 nights are the last 10
nights of Ramadan,
and the best 10 days are the 10
days of Dhul Hajj, the first ten leading
up to Hajj. So this is a particular
special time. It's sacred time where the things
that you do are worth extra, that they
will have more effect on the purification of
your heart and more effect on the purification
of your soul and will get you to
a higher rank in Jannah. So not even
just the prayer and the fasting
and the, the Quran and the charity, the
things that you already know and love and
are doing, hopefully,
but also what we've been talking about with
politics and Nahyan al Munkar. Right, trying to
change evil with your hand if possible, if
not with your,
with your speech, if not with your heart.
Right?
Being an advocate for justice within society, this
is all worship. This is all worship. And
so if you're doing it in the 1st
10 days, that this is something that is
even, even more meritorious.
And so we've got lots of lots of
things to help you,
for
your journey through the Hijjah in Yaqeenah. And
obviously, if you want the opportunity,
you want the opportunity to,
worship through your wealth, then there are opportunities
to donate. And there's many, many worthy causes
to donate. And, of course, Yaqeen Institute is
just one of them.
But
for whoever is able and willing for that
particular type of worship,
Ronnie Jay says some Muslims don't boycott and
say it's not sinful to not boycott as
it is not mentioned in hadith. Is it
correct?
I would say to that, the statement of
Imam Ahmed, Rahim O'Hollaha,
to his,
somebody asked him. You know that Imam Ahmed
was imprisoned and was tortured in in in
jail
for,
during the, which is sort of, like, the
only sort of inquisition that happened in Islamic
history at the hands of the Muertazilah.
And he was asked
if his prison guard was complicit.
Okay? Now think about this. So there's people
who are imprisoning him,
and there's the guy who's standing there, who's
got the keys, who, you know, is manning
the door. He's not the person who's beating
Imam Ahmed. He's not the person who commanded
that he'd be imprisoned, etcetera.
And someone asked Imam Ahmed,
is the prison guard complicit?
And Imam Ahmed, Rahimahullah responded,
he's not complicit. He's actively oppressing me.
The person who's complicit is the chef who
cooks their meals or the cook who's involved
in feeding them.
To show you that if you're directly involved,
you're directly involved
with
purchasing from the Zionists or supporting the Zionists,
then you're not even complicit.
You're directly involved. Right? So if this was
Imam Ahmed's attitude to show you how far
away complicity is, right, then you should take
that same attitude to our brothers and sisters
in Palestine. If you give up something for
Allah, Allah
will replace it for you with something that
is much, much
better.
So here we go. Now when it comes
to the particular things in in this book,
we're just gonna we've got some sunan to
go over some aspects of the prophet sallallahu
alaihi wa sallam's life that are not
limited to one specific time of day, but
that happened daily. Right? So we talked last,
session about sleep. Now we're going to talk
about some of the,
the sunan or the habits of the prophet
sallallahu alaihi wasallam of food because food is
unless you're fasting but even if you're fasting
in the morning and night, if you're not
in extremely dire circumstances, you are eating every
day at least
something.
And so when it comes to the sunnah,
number 1, we have very, very simple Bismillah
when you start in the name of Allah
and Alhamdulillah
when you're done. Bismillah sets your intention
so that the food that you eat is
now worship.
Okay. You're sanctifying it by making even your
eating an act of worship because a wise
person is somebody who is going to convert
their everyday habits into worship for Allah Subhanahu
Wa Ta'ala. And then, alhamdulillah, after for being
grateful, being grateful after the blessing has been
completed,
for the one who provided you your food.
Number 2, we have
eating together.
Okay? That means eating not by yourself.
And for those in the modern west, this
is something we struggle with. It's better to
eat together with other people than it is
to eat by yourself. Ibn Kathir mentions this
in this tafsir, that there were a group
of people that came to the prophet
companions, and they complained
that they did not find blessing in their
food, meaning that they would eat and eat
and eat and they wouldn't get full.
And so the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam asked
them a question. He said, Do you eat
together or do you eat separately?
And they said, Well, we eat separately. And
he said eat together. And this was a
recommendation, not a command. He said eat together
because there's blessing in it. And so if
you eat together, you will find more blessing
in it. Eat with the right hand.
Okay. And eat from what is in front
of you. That's especially becomes relevant if you're
sharing a communal plate or a communal dish
with other people. It teaches you etiquette. Right?
Maybe we've forgotten these things if we all
have our little Chipotle bowls or something like
that. But if you share a plate with
somebody else, it teaches you etiquette. It teaches
you manners. You can't go over to their
side and grab the thing that looks really,
you know, nice to you. You have to
eat just from what's in front of you
and be content with it. Number 3.
Number 3, we have not wasting food even
if it has fallen onto the ground. The
prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam, he found food onto
the ground. He would command us to brush
it off, clean it off, and eat it
because it is a blessing from Allah Subhanahu
Wa Ta'ala. We don't take it lightly.
Okay? That we don't waste food. This is
a huge, enormous problem, especially in places where
there is too much abundance. We take it
for granted. That is not grateful, and then
we waste. And then finally, you lick your
fingers and you scrape the dish. That means,
again, part of not wasting means that you're
going to even get every last bit even
if it's on your fingers, even if it's
at the bottom of the pot. Number 4,
praise the food that you
like and give dua for the host if
you're eating at somebody else's place. Very, very
important manners.
Right?
That if you have food that you like,
then this is something that you should you
should praise people. Now the prophet if he
had food that he didn't like, he would
simply not say anything, which is also part
of our manners. And then he would make
du'at for his host because that's part of
gratitude. Whoever,
whoever does not thank the people as the
prophet said,
does not thank Allah.
And finally, number 5, cover your vessels up
before bed. That means you have pots, you
have pans, you have maybe pitchers of water,
things like that. Don't just leave them out.
This is actually from the sunnah of the
prophet to cover them up. Right? Even if
you've got, like, a stopper or something like
that, even better to make sure that they're
not open. And I'm sure the doctors and
the medical folks in the comments could explain
why there's some health benefits to that as
well. But not only are there health benefits
that this is the sunnah of the messenger
sallallahu alaihi
wasallam. Moving on to our final segment for
tonight before we depart, and that is our
personal development segment. We've been going over this
book,
the 21 laws of leadership,
and we've been hastening along. And so now
we've gotten basically down to 2 more sessions
until we're gonna finish this book. So we
split up the last 7 or so laws,
over this particular session and the next particular
section, and then we get to move on
to another book, which is awesome. We completed
a book together.
So we're gonna look at laws 15, 16,
17, and 18 this evening.
Number 15 is what the author calls the
law of victory. What's the law of victory
mean? It means that a leader
has to find a way for the team
to win. Now we've addressed sort of false
notions of leadership before
earlier on in the book about how a
lot of people think that the leader is
somebody
who
a lot of people think the leader is
somebody who finishes 1st.
That's not true.
The leader is somebody who makes sure the
whole team finishes together.
And so that's a different set of skills.
Right? You've gotta bring other people along with
you. It's, you know, it's not easy. It
takes a lot of patience.
And so when you're the leader, you
have
to absolutely
make sure
that you take responsibility
the success of your team and this is
something the prophet
did time and time and time again. Think
about better. Think about the battle of better
when the prophet
made all of his battle plans and then
raised his hands to make du'a. He made
du'a so intensely
that his
rida, his sort of upper garment fell off
of his shoulders and Abu Bakr had to
come and said, listen, babe, that's enough. Like,
we've we've we've done everything that we could.
Like, Allah won't forsake you. Like, we're covered.
Like, that was how personally the prophet sallallahu
alaihi wa sallam took his responsibility
for the success of the team. And he
also communicated that communicated that unity of vision
that we've talked about as well, trying to
raise other people to their potential. That's part
of being a good leader and it's part
of taking responsibility
for the success of your team is putting
everybody in a
position where they can succeed.
If you're disposed to, you know, you're really
smart with money, we're gonna put you on
the business side of things. If you're really
smart with education, with people, we're gonna put
you on that side of things. And the
prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam, if you look at
how he treated the different companions
and how he utilized the special skills and
relationships
of the different companions. There was no one
better at this than the prophet sallallahu alaihi
wa sallam. He was able to divide the
companions in ways where they were all working
to their strengths and that they were all
able to do really important work.
Law number 16
is what the author calls the law of
the big mo. And by mo, he does
not mean Mohammed. He means momentum.
The law of momentum. That momentum is a
key factor to success. Anybody who's ever watched
sports, whether it's cricket
or football,
soccer,
basketball, baseball, you understand that momentum is so
important. You could be on the verge of
victory.
And then if all of a sudden the
momentum flips, it seems like the other team
can't lose, like they can't miss a bucket
or they can't miss a shot. It seems
like
it it momentum is what makes victory or
failure seem inevitable.
And so it is extremely important that a
leader attempts to
generate momentum.
Okay?
Creating momentum and harnessing momentum. Now that sounds
like a really, really tough thing to do.
Like, how are you gonna go create momentum?
One of the ways to do it is
to remove things that are demotivating.
Remove demotivating
elements. Elements or things that stop your momentum.
That includes naysayers. That includes pessimism. The prophet
sallallahu alaihi wa sallam did not like pessimism.
Right? We have instructions in the Quran to
not repeat everything that we hear, especially in
the time of warfare. We don't repeat every
bit of news that comes to us because
some of it's lies, some of it's truth,
some of it we don't know how to
interpret it. Right? This is very, very important
to morale. We see it in towards the
end of Surah Ad Hamran,
there was a group of people who said,
oh, the enemies, your enemies have come and
gathered around you.
And then the people of faith that actually
made them stronger in faith. But this is
something that is
very important that you not give air to
pessimism or you not give air to the
naysayers. And then another way of doing that
is rewarding accomplishment, right? Like saying
such and such a person, if they do
this thing, then you're going to get this
reward. It's something that is able to build
momentum and the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam did
this all the time.
Law number 17,
we have the law of properties and, yes,
we will be getting to everybody's questions and
comments,
after we run through these last two laws
before we close out tonight, the law of
priorities.
And he has a subtitle here, which is
very, very elucidating that
activity
is not the same as accomplishment. A lot
of times we think that we're accomplishing things
just because we're busy doing things,
but we don't stop to think
are the things that I'm doing actually moving
me towards success or is it just busy
work
or
can I be doing something better? Can I
be doing things in a better way? And
so he gave us 3 quick sort of
tests to figure out, are we using our
energy
efficiently?
He says, what work is required?
What gives you the greatest return, and what
gives you the greatest reward?
Required means what can I do or what
do I have to do
that
nobody else can do or nobody else should
do?
This is something that I've had to learn
myself. There are certain things yes. I can
go teach this subject or teach that subject,
alhamdulillah.
But there's a couple subjects
that
I specialize in that very, very few people
can actually teach. And so I feel like
that is something required of me by the
ummah that I have to put my focus
and attention
in those particular areas,
because that is something that very, very few
other people could do or people shouldn't do
for me.
What gives you the greatest return?
By this, he means that you should play
to your strengths,
that if you're really, really good at a
particular thing, then that should be your priority
to be the best at that particular thing.
For other people, you know, or other activities
that you're not so good at, you can
train other people to do them for you
or they can round you out.
And the final one is what gives you
the greatest reward? What gives you the greatest
satisfaction?
Right? Those are things that should shape your
priority so that you know that your effort
is actually moving the needle and is not
just busy work. Final law, law number 18,
the law of sacrifice, and this is extremely
important
and demonstrated by the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa
sallam time and time and time again.
Leaders must sacrifice.
In order to go up,
you have to give up,
and the leader has to give up more
than others. The prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam
was the most generous person. He would not
keep money in his house
beyond a certain
amount of time. He would distribute it all.
If someone came to him, sallallahu alaihi wasallam,
and asked him anything,
he would do it, alayhi salatu salam,
unless he was literally incapable of doing it.
How many times does somebody ask you for
something and you say that you can't, but
really you just don't want to? The prophet
sallallahu alaihi wa sallam never said no
to somebody
unless he actually couldn't do it.
That's sacrifice. The prophet, sallallahu alaihi wasallam, when
it comes to leadership,
giving up your rights, giving up your freedoms,
and giving up your comforts. That's something we
don't like to talk about, but it's true.
The prophet
was more famous than the most famous influencer
we have today. There were people knocking on
his door, trying to get his attention
day in and day out, alayhis salaam.
And he gave people access. People had the
most access to him. Right?
When it came to his lifestyle,
he ate very little. There were times where
he woke up
and he asked Aisha, Aisha, is there anything
that we have? We have any food in
the house?
And Aisha said, no.
And so the prophet would say, okay. I'm
gonna fast then.
There were times that the prophet would sleep
on a reed mat and would leave imprints
in his side.
He did not live a life of luxury.
He had a few clothes, few possessions, few
things to eat.
This was the sacrifice of the prophet
who was the best leader.
So if you want to be a leader
sometimes, and this is what this is militating
against, is sometimes
people want to be the leader sometimes.
People want to be the leader sometimes because
they want the perks.
They want the perks to come along with
being the leader. They want to
have the 1st class flight or the business
class flight or they want to have the,
I don't know. Whatever perks they think that
they're going to get without realizing that the
leader has to sacrifice the most. Whether it's
your reputation, whether it's people talking about you,
whether it is the time that you spend,
whether it is things that you can't do,
because you're
just
you're putting in the work. That's the life
of leadership, and that is,
that's all part of it. So we're gonna
spin it around with the questions now. We'll
see. I'll go to work backwards. Soumaya Karim,
you said law of big mo. That was
momentum. And the leader is responsible for generating,
maintaining,
shepherding,
guiding momentum. Very, very important too whether if
someone is gonna win or if they're gonna
lose.
Our Muslim children says if my job requires
me to be complicit with comments and stances
against Palestine, but many are saying that staying
in my job might be beneficial for the
Ummah for there to be a Muslim inside
do I stay?
Well, I mean,
might be or will it be? I think
that's the question you have to answer yourself.
If they are requiring
you to compromise on your principles,
how much effect do you really have in
the first place? Maybe you're not really affecting
things anyway. Everybody has to make this calculus,
whether your participation
is being used so that you're legitimizing
what's going on,
or whether you're actually able to make a
change. If you're actually able to make a
change, then you have an argument for for
staying around.
If, like sister Hassan, who we had on
earlier,
you're not able to make a change and
in fact, it's just a profoundly sort of
problematic environment,
then sometimes leaving is a,
is a greater statement.
Nusayba,
asks
if people knew what leadership was truly about,
they would have never wanted it. That's a
great point to save.
I think you're a 100% right with that.
Minami Islam Khan,
as of June 2024,
what is an aria of your favorite books?
Oh, boy. Put me on the spot. Well,
it's no secret. It's no secret to people
who know me that one of my favorite
books is Restating Orientalism by Wadh Hallak.
What are some of my other favorite books?
What am I reading right now? I just
I just read it. I just finished reading
Atomic Habits. That was a very nice book.
I I really don't like self help books,
but as far as, like, self help books
go, I think that's, like, the ideal self
help book. I think there's probably,
you know, what everybody would hope a self
help book would kinda be like. I benefited
a lot from it and finally got around
to reading it.
Boy,
there's a lot that I'm reading right now,
but I'm not gonna divulge right right now.
Some of the others, you can see I
have a a video series that I did
with Paul Williams on, blogging theology where I
go through some of my favorite books.
So I'll defer you to there, though it's
always a shifting list.
We have let's see. Nancy Yahia from Egypt.
I remember I have a request, please. Can
you recommend some good books on philosophy and
general and political philosophy? Maybe a list of
recommendation of books. Oh, boy. Again, putting me
on the spot.
One book that I think is useful
for the philosophy
of,
or at least ethics, which is, you know,
considered a branch of western philosophy.
I can't remember the name of it. It's
by Alastair MacIntyre, who's a Scottish philosopher. It
has something to do with
3 paradigms of,
of morality or something or other. That's a
very, very nice book. Or no. I'm sorry.
I'm getting 2 books mixed up. 1, he
has a short history of ethics. That's a
really nice book. It gives you a nice
bird's eye view
of one branch
of western philosophy from beginning to end, quote,
unquote.
And he has another book, 3 I mean,
he has several books, but another one that
I found beneficial was his,
the the title's escaping me,
right now. But it has to do with
sort of 3 different paradigms
of, of ethics, and he proposes
one is sort of
tradition, and that's what he's sort of championing,
and the other is sort of the genealogy.
That's the continental philosophers,
and the other is represented by the encyclopedia
sort of the enlightenment.
But that's
that's over to the side.
When it comes to political philosophy,
stay tuned. I'm gonna be having things more
specific,
to say on that.
Yeah. I saw your question, Mustafa, but I
don't really like that question, so I'm not
gonna answer it.
Let's see.
What else do we have?
I don't see a whole bunch of other
questions going back further.
Yeah. I don't see any questions going back
further, so let me see if we got
anything back up at the top.
K. We got a book recommendation from Nasaba.
We'll check it out. You're professor Swarab. How
to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale
Carnegie.
Niraj, what country do you want to visit
next? Oh, man.
Oh, man. Come on, Niraj.
Oh, there's so many.
That's not a fair question. You're making me
pick just 1, man.
I would like to go to
I'd like to go back to Malaysia. I
had a great time in Malaysia. I'd like
to always go to Turkiye. I love going
to Turkiye.
I would like to go
to Pakistan. I've never been to Pakistan.
A lot of places. Yeah. I
I I enjoy traveling.
Anything
else? We have a request for a Hajj
story, I think.
Tell us your Hajj story, some highlights. Oh,
boy. Well,
when I was a student in Medina, I
was able to
I was blessed to go on hedge 3
times.
And I'll just I'll say 2 things. I'll
say one general thing,
okay, that that everybody can benefit from, and
then one thing about,
somebody who's, a sheikh that I that I
admire.
One of the things from Hajj was that
in working Hajj and facilitating,
facilitating people's pilgrimage, I noticed one thing is
that there's usually 2 types
of people. There's there were people who, when
they arrived,
that
if their expectations
weren't meant weren't met right away, they would
be thrown into a state of agitation.
Right? Let's say that the hotel room wasn't
ready. Let's say that they lost a bag
on the on the the airplane or something
like that. Let's say that things weren't quite
exactly they almost have the consumer mindset to
it. Like, almost like Hajj was just like
a vacation.
And that type of person had a really
difficult time locking into the worship. Right?
And
a lot of the cool thing was by
the end of the Hajj trip, some of
those people would have the most amount of
change. Right? They're broken down. They're crying at
the cabin, all this great stuff.
But there's other people who
had a had a head start where
they would come and they were already in
the correct mindset and attitude where no matter
what happened to them, and sometimes sometimes
really, really inconvenient things would happen to them.
Sometimes their passports would get lost. Right? Like,
imagine how that would make you kind of
freak out. But they understood when they got
there that they were there to worship,
and that was their intention.
And so they
just said which direction to the Haram. I'm
gonna go pray. I wanna get my prayers
in. I wanna read Quran. I'm here to
worship. You guys figure out the other stuff.
That's a really important thing. And that I
think shows that you do have sometimes that
people think that, like, they need to be
in a super sacred place in order to
be a religious person. A lot of people
fell prey to this sort of,
thought process when it comes to going to
Medina to study. Oh, I'll start to be
a student of knowledge or I'll start to
be a good Muslim once I go to
Medina.
You really just have to do whatever you
can wherever you are. Right? That you can
have a righteous person in a righteous place.
You can have an evil person in an
evil place. You can have a righteous person
in an evil place, and you can have
an evil person in a righteous place. Right?
So it really does have to do with
sort of what attitude you bring to it.
Being an opportunist
in a spiritual sense. Right? Always looking out
for
how can I benefit from what is being
given to me right now,
to benefit my afterlife, to benefit my soul?
It's kind of like a whole way of
looking at the world and your life moment
to moment.
The second story, after I go through real
quick,
comments,
Andy Craft,
Yeah. Come to Dearborn again. Inshallah. The country
of Dearborn. I
need a I need a passport. Do I
need a visa for Dearborn?
And then the second thing, you know,
one of the Hajj stories is that we
heard of that our sheikh Sheikh Abdullah Shankiti,
you know, who
who's an elderly man, if you've seen him
before,
that
we some of the students caught him handing
out water to the pilgrims, like, on the
back of a truck.
And,
he was just a very incredible he is,
I should say, he's still living,
A very humble and incredible person.
Because some people would look at this as
below you. Right? You're in the back of
a truck. You're sweaty. There's no air conditioning.
You're handing out bottles of water to pilgrims
and stuff like that. This is someone who
teaches from a chair in the in the
prophet's masjid.
Right?
They can have people do they can send
money anywhere. They can have people take care
of this for them. But he was there
in the back of the truck. People saw
him,
and they they they saw him getting his
hands dirty, mixing with the people. And this
is something that I picked up from Sheikh
Abdullah, but I need to do better to
be frank. I, you know, don't pretend to
be a perfect person. I have millions of
shortcomings that,
mixing with the people. Just as we mentioned
the hadith of the prophet
before, Sheikh Abdullah Shinkidi would not just for
Hajj and mixing with the Hujjaj, but also
after Salat Al Maghrib sorry, Salat Al Aisha,
after he taught tafsir and the prophet's masjid.
He would just sit
on the floor in the masjid. Anybody in
the world could come up to him, ask
him a question.
You know, he was very, very accessible.
Not openly, not every single hour, every single
day, but at certain times and places, you
could find him if you if you needed
to find him, if you wanted to ask
him a question or do something.
And he was the same when it came
to Hajj.
Testify what will be the next book? That's
a big surprise. That's a big surprise. You're
gonna have to wait and see. But hint
hint hint, it's going to be going through
something a little bit more classical.
Something,
with
something that the companions
said that they used to teach their children
around the campfires.
Nusayba
Kossum says, as first time parents, we've struggled
with screen time for our toddler since I'm
home with her all the time while my
husband did his 9 to 5. Any tips
for weaning her out of it?
Yes. Screen time is a very, very toxic
thing, especially for young people. It's essentially and
there's lots of research to indicate this now.
I really, really discourage anybody from,
using and it's tempting using devices
as basically babysitters
for your even for your teenagers,
let alone for children that are younger than
that.
Exactly. You want to you need her to
watch something to get things done around the
home, but know that you are creating a
habit cycle
that is going to continue to require that
type of stimulus and that they are going
every time you allow them to watch,
something like that with that intention,
you maybe are doing a short term good
for yourself, but there's a long term harm
that they're not going to be content
with something that is less
stimulating
for long. Right? So
I would
suggest
a lot of time you know, there are
if you look at some of, you know,
child psychologists and developmental psychologists, they talk about
sort of sensory stimulation when it comes to
there's sand is very stimulating for toddlers,
clay, things that are very tactile.
Right? Things that are natural and that occur
in the natural world as Allah created running
water. Right? These are these are things that
toddlers and other kids gravitate towards because they're
naturally stimulating.
Right? If you take your child outdoors, right,
as much as possible, the outdoors, the all
the bugs crawling along on the ground and
all the blades of grass and all the
flower petals and all the crunchy leaves and
all the dirt. Yes. The dirt, All of
that stuff is extremely stimulating to kids.
And every time you allow your child to
sort of be babysat by the screen, you're
actually making it harder for them to connect
and be stimulated by the things that the
lost has put into the world naturally.
So
I think that's
sort of how to do it, especially with
toddlers. Sometimes toddlers
really,
sometimes easier with toddlers. You can really, like,
cut it off all of a sudden and
and, you know, your phone got broken or
your phone is away or your phone is
sleeping or your phone is nocturnal. You can
say your phone is like an owl. It
only comes out at night when they're asleep.
Something like that. Know, you don't have to
lie. I'm not advocating lying. But you can
sometimes make dramatic changes with toddlers. Usually when
they get older, that becomes a little bit
more difficult,
and Alana's best.
One of the duties of Hajj is to
stay in Muzdalifa.
Yes.
Unless you can't or unless you have a.
Right? If you have a russa, then you
don't have to stay there the night, then
you can leave, sort
of, you know, in the middle of the
night.
Very good. Ameen. May Allah protect all of
us. Thank you very much everybody for your
excellent engagement and stimulating conversation and questions as
always. I think we're gonna leave it here
for tonight.
Inshallah. We'll see you next week.