Tom Facchine – Minute with a Muslim #269 – What Can We Do Better

			One thing that we as Muslims need to do in North America is begin to professionalize the masjid,
we're only going to be as well respected as to the extent that we are respectable. And it makes
sense when things are kind of in the startup phase that everything's kind of volunteer and
everything's kind of loosey goosey. And there's a time and a place for that. And there are a lot can
put a lot of Baraka in that there can be a lot of blessing in that, but that shouldn't be enough for
us. We should have higher aspirations than that. And so the masjid as an institution should always
be looking to what's the next step? How are we going to further professionalize things. The first
		

			thing obviously to professionalize in the masjid is the email, the religious leader, because you
need somebody instead of what a lot of communities that are kind of far afield, or they don't have
any man, what they end up doing is they end up kind of having a bunch of respected people in the
community just take turns giving a clip, or take turns leading the prayer, that's a stopgap kind of
solution. But it's not a long term solution, because you need somebody who has the level of
exposure, and has the level of training to be able to deal with the harder issues that are going to
come along, know when to prioritize what these are sorts of things that require training. And then
		

			other things need to be professionalized as well, like once you've professionalized the Imam
position, you know, finances need to be professionalized, people are going to give you their money,
their hard earned money for as a cat, or for as a cattle fitter, or for charity, sadaqa, all these
sorts of things, and you need to be trustworthy, right? You need to be able to show people with very
precise data, where their money is going, what impact their money is having. Right, and that is
something that every community needs. After that, you know, we're just basically getting on the cusp
where we need to start thinking about professionalizing the way that we do fundraising and
		

			professionalizing, the management aspect as well. Right, other nonprofits, they have, you know, CEOs
that are that are hired, right, a chief executive officer, their their job and their training is, is
management, how decisions should work? How is the board kind of put together like, what's the scope
of this group's responsibilities, and that group has responsibilities, who's making job
descriptions, who's holding people accountable to deadlines, these sorts of things. And that's not
to say that No good can come without these sorts of things. But again, the Prophet alayhi salatu
salam said in Allah kettlebell SN Allah coalition, that Allah has decreed, sn which is excellence,
		

			or perfection upon everything that we do. And if there's going to be one thing in our lives that we
are trying to perfect, shouldn't it be the messaging, right, as opposed to not as opposed to they're
not conflicting, but we're, we recognize immediately the logic of seeking perfection, seeking press
professional development, seeking to fine tune our skills when it comes to our dunya when it comes
to our career when it comes to our livelihood? Or how are we pushing the envelope in the machine? We
need to be constantly looking for that cutting edge, what can we do better? What can we do more
professionally? What can we do in a more organized fashion? That's not to say that we want to bury
		

			the institution and paperwork and bureaucracy. There's another extreme there too. But right now,
we're not even close to having to worry about that other extreme. We're at the place where, where
things need to be more professional, so that we produce a higher quality product with not really
liking that name, but a higher quality religious experience for people more authentically Islamic
religious experience for people. And there that will have an impact on people's faith.