Tom Facchine – Oh Muslim!

			Muslims need to be comfortable with sticking out, we need to be comfortable with being different.
You know, it's funny, you know, in high school in the United States, there's all these sort of
cliques that are arranged usually by like, what type of music they listen to, and what sort of
things they're into their activities and stuff like that. So you have the jocks and the preps, you
have people who are like the punks, and the Goths. And they all have different clothing, and they
were strange things and they, you know, like, do crazy things to their hair and stuff like that. And
here we are, as Muslims afraid to stick out, right, you've got other people in society that all they
		

			want to do is stick out and be different and be recognized as being different, they wear clothes,
they have a different kind of uniform, they have all these sort of, you know, things their own lingo
and, and here we are just trying to fit in, if they have the right to stick out and be proud of who
they are, then we have more of a right to stick out and be proud of who we are because we're not
based on some music genre or some sort of, you know, you know, culture that was cooked up in some
sort of corporate office somewhere, we have the last revelation that was given by Allah subhanaw
taala to the humankind, right. And so if Allah says, you know, don't participate in Riba and don't
		

			participate in in an alcohol and don't participate in these other sorts of things, and we have
certain boundaries, that that exists in our sort of way of life than we should wear those proudly.
There's other groups that have a parade, right, and they parade downtown, where's our parade? And we
don't want an actual parade per se, but it's the idea of the thing, where's our is, where's our
festival? Where's our where's our pride in who we are and what we have, right? We're not supposed to
be meek and like, oh, please accept me, please accept me now. This is who we are. And the crazy
thing is, And subhanAllah there's a hadith funnel or the where the Prophet salallahu Alaihe Salam
		

			said that whoever tries to please the people with what Allah hates will neither please the people
nor please Allah. And that's so deep, because when you chase approval, you're never gonna get
because people can sense it. And they don't respect you. It doesn't matter. I can shave my face
clean, and I can wear you know, the same clothes everybody else is wearing and forget this, this
headgear I got and I can look and act just exactly like everybody else. No one's gonna respect me
for that. If I'm a Muslim, I show up in a place and I have rules. I say, sorry, lady, I'm not going
to shake your hand. I don't shake hands with women, or I'm not going to sit at a table where there's
		

			alcohol, I'm not going to show up to an event, you know, where there's alcohol present, I'm not
going to do X, Y and Z, it's against my faith, people will respect you. They might not agree with
you. They might even joke and make fun of you. They might say, Oh, this guy, you know, he walked out
of the Stone Age or something, but they will respect you. They'll respect you much more than if
you're just trying to be an imperfect copy of what they're already doing. And people especially in
the West, especially in North America and Europe, they many people are searching for something
different, right? What they've been doing and what they're used to is not working. People are
		

			depressed people are on medications people are addicted to substances. People are you know, just
like Mindlessly scrolling through their phone, swiping, swiping, swiping, their life is hollow, and
they feel it. And so you want to be just like everybody else. What's the point be different? Show
them that there is another way show them that there's another life to live another worldview,
another sort of way of looking at things and other paradigm it's attractive people will be attracted
to something that's different if it has dignity to it, and if it has truth