Tom Facchine – Minute with a Muslim #129 – Too Much Drama, Not Enough Dawah

			One of the scariest things is having a good intention but being misled. And the law says this
towards the end of Surah Al Caffee says basically the translation of you know, who's the Biggest
Loser on the Day of Judgment, the one who thought they were doing good, but comes to find out that
they weren't. We have to ask ourselves a question. Even religious things. Oh, yeah. You betcha. And
religious things, especially if you feel like you're doing something for Islam, you feel like you're
defending Islam, you feel like you're doing Dawa to Allah, and maybe you're not, or maybe it's
mixed. Maybe it's some Dawa, and it's some, I don't know, something else. Okay, we have to be super
		

			careful. And that is aimed directly at myself and everybody who's in the quote unquote, industry or
the Dallas scene, whatever you want to call it, people who are my colleagues, we have to be super,
super careful. You know, we know that the shaytaan takes pride in ruining the relationship of
marriage. Okay, we can assume that he takes a similar amount of pride, you know, in ruining the
relationship between people who are trying to call to Allah's power data, or people who are trying
to study his deen or people who are trying to further ISNA, especially in the West. And so we
really, really just have to try to have processes in place and try to have protocols and try to
		

			have, you know, multiple voices, there's a couple of different things that I think would be good if
everybody does, I think that if somebody were to make, for example, a video about somebody else, you
know, if you're monetized your channel, don't monetize that video, I think that would represent, for
example, a conflict of interest. Because now, I mean, everybody knows you have a channel, you've got
3000 views, 3000 views, 3000 views, then you make a video about somebody, you point out a mistake,
30,000 views, that's how people are, if you're making money off of that video, then you've got to
check yourself because you don't know, then it's going to be tempting, the next time something comes
		

			up in the internet land that you want to respond to it. It's a juicy topic, because now you're
getting paid for it. Right. It's a conflict of interest. So I think that, you know, if we're talking
about responding to non Muslims, that's one thing, you know, but if we're responding to each other,
you know, people who have studied people who have who have done good people who care about the
dollar, they seem sincere, they seem well intentioned, you know, I think that we should have some
sort of pact, we're not going to monetize videos, if we're addressing one another. The other thing
that I see a lot of is that we have to try to keep it academic, you know, too many times, like, I
		

			was watching a couple of videos, and you know, somebody starts out the video, well, you have to go
back to the people of knowledge, and you can't take from random people on the internet. That's a
diss. You just, you're just basically saying that this person, this person is a random person on the
internet doesn't have any knowledge. Maybe that person has degrees from university, maybe they're
not ashamed. Maybe they're not in Ireland. But you know, you just made it like 10 times harder for
that person to return to the truth, even if you're right, even if you're right, you just made it
very, very difficult for that person to accept advice and your perspective and counsel because you
		

			basically insulted him, and you didn't give him credit for the knowledge and the study that he did.
Right? So we need to talk just about the issues, right? Instead of and avoid the labels like, oh,
please avoid the label. So say this one's a medical and this one's a hardy g and this one's a this
one and that one. And that one, these labels, they just put people in boxes, and then it just
becomes a sports event. You know, my team cheers for our our logo, and that team cheers for their
logo or slogan or whatever it is, we got to keep those things. My opinion, you got to keep those
things out of the room focus on the issue, right focus on the academic issue, the evidence, the
		

			quotes of the scholars, what do they say? Like is the issue what extent do we have to speak out
against the against the Muslim ruler? Who is oppressive? or under what circumstances would it be
permissible, hypothetically, to rebel or to try to, you know, institute some sort of regime change?
Let's just stick to the issue, right? Let's go back to the books. Let's bring the quotes, let's
bring the AI out and the Hadith and the understanding of the scholars will be safe, we'll be safe
because the second that you the devil would love it, the devil would love it. If we started
backsliding down into a you're part of this group, and you're part of that group. And now
		

			everybody's up in arms. Now everybody takes sides and you see this happen. You see it in the comment
section with the followers that that haven't studied? I'm on I'm on so and so side, okay. Look at
the his via, right, look at the partisan sort of mentality that a lot of people come to. It's not
about sides. This isn't baseball, this isn't soccer. Right, this is about the truth. And so we
really, we want to discuss issues in an exploratory manner. Okay, with open ended questions, not
loaded questions, yes or no questions? Well, are you saying that, you know, either this or that, yes
or no, these are usually loaded questions. No, you these nice, big, open ended exploratory
		

			questions. What would be the conditions of this or that? How would we enact to this and that and a
third, right. And there's many other sort of recommendations. I think another thing that people can
do is try to involve shoulder as much as possible. Okay. We've reached an era where it's difficult
because a lot of times our brands are tied to our names. Okay. And that makes it super hard to
change course. Right? If you try to, if you try to repent and change your ways, or change your mind
about something people accuse you of being a hypocrite
		

			People say Oh, well look, now he's flip flopped banner this is well, that's inconsistent. He's
contradicting himself. He used to say this. Now he says that, yeah, I changed my mind, who cares,
right? If your platform is tied to your individual name, I think it makes it harder, I think it
makes it harder because you yourself are the brand, right? As opposed to man, I would love to see if
we had collectives, you know, if we had like a group of students of knowledge or people from, you
know, this university, and that university or graduates from this university, that part of the
Muslim world that we're able to kind of talk about things again, in an exploratory way, not bring up
		

			some some issues, some hot button issue or some person on and blast them and all this sort of circus
that we have. Now, I think that would be a really good thing to have a little bit more collective
spirit when it comes to these things. So it's not my branding is your brand, my channel against your
channel or my team, my posse against your posse? This is like the street. That's just like, it's
like thug life. Right. And there's tons of other things, you know, when you can reach somebody
privately versus publicly, you know, I would hope that the people who are in line that are in the
work of Dawa are reaching out to each other privately first, especially even just to clarify, you
		

			know, sometimes we get a little sloppy with this. And we say, well, they made the statement
publicly, okay, but your understanding of that public statement might not be correct, okay, you
might be jumping to conclusions about what that person meant, or the implications of that person
statement, you should have perhaps contacted that person privately to verify that that's actually
what they meant before you go ahead out in public, and now I'm correcting them with what you
basically build the straw man, based off what you thought he meant, or what you thought the
implications are, you know, I just I can't see where anybody would regret reaching out privately
		

			first, you know, and that's comes back to Dean and sincerity because, okay, maybe we can't say that
it's an absolute requirement that you have to reach out privately first, but isn't that the way that
you would want to be treated? Then the Prophet alayhi salatu salam said that none of you have
believed until you love for your brother, what you love for yourself. And I have yet to meet a
person that wouldn't love for themselves to be approached privately before they're approached
publicly. So these are some techniques. And I think they're really easy things. But everybody needs
to commit to them. And everybody needs to have a long, hard look in the mirror at themselves and
		

			think about why are we doing what we're doing? And at what point is the, you know, amount of dust
that we kick up trying to defend the truth and trying to defend Islam? And at what point does it
just become a circus and a soap opera? Because what could happen is what could happen is you could
turn off a lot of people that just came to Islam, for example, that happens, people come to the
slam, and they're so hyped up because Islam is is the it's the telehealth. And it's so simple, and
it's like, whatever. And then they see these Muslims beefing with each other, like, what's this? And
if they come from a background, where that's what they were trying to get away from, then a lot of
		

			people might come to the conclusion, well, this is just the same as the thing that I left. So we
don't want to confuse people. We don't want to confuse the lay people, or the viewers or whatever.
And we say we say that everything that we do is just to clarify the truth. And it's not for ego, and
it's not for likes and views and monetization and things like that. But we need to take some more
mechanisms to make sure that that's really what's happening. And I think that yes, if we're really
in the spirit of clarifying the truth, then it shouldn't be any problem to turn off that
monetization when it's talking to your Muslim brother, or to follow up or start with a private
		

			conversation. If we're truly interested in clarifying the truth. I don't think we should have any
problems sort of adhering to those protocols.