Unveiling Truths – Aaron Bushnell, NYT’s Agenda, & Stopping Military Aid to Israel

Salam Alaikum Hello everybody and welcome to Yaqeen Institute live stream. I'm your hosting. I'm Tom Facchini. And it's a pleasure to be with you tonight we've asked you as we usually do to say hi say salam in the chat and let us know where you're tuning in from.

And let's see what we've got today. As we quickly quickly quickly approach Ramadan Ramadan

mashallah, we have meme noon from DC smz br from LA Ali Khan from Nova Sudan or the Mariah Watson from Seattle was Michelle also from Nashville. San Francisco Bay Area

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Yes mean Pasha Atlanta. Sada when it comes down Amanda Walker from Philly while they can sit down we're off to La

Ibrahim from Orlando, Florida Tasneem Idris while you can sit down with Allah from Tunis, Tunisia, very nice to am Allah reward you for spending this time with us Mari himsel from Dubai Subhanallah it's always very touching I'll say every week it's always very touching to see how extensive this this program reaches and our Ummah reaches. And it's very nice to have you all with us Daniela tan multicam salam after we get to from Penang salamat the tongue, more people from Florida from SoCal Quadri from SoCal. Vicki Munira Dean from Lansdale, Pennsylvania I have an uncle and Landsdale mashallah SATA Emadi gonna sit down and after that he would occur to Jasmine from the East Coast

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Masha Allah. Absolutely amazing Houston, spring Cypress, Calgary, Monix and a while so I just ran through everybody and it's very, very mildly impressive. Well, we have Weddington sit down with South Africa to

welcome everybody to the program. We have an excellent show lined up for you today. We've got a very, very important guest who is going to be talking about very, very important initiatives that are going on in Washington DC

mashallah, we have Aqua shake, as prior guests that have shaken the in the chat, Washington, Costa Mesa, California welcome.

And we've got some really important current events to cover. We've got the run up to Ramadan, we're only going to have two more counting this program. Live streams until Ramadan, we're gonna take a break for Ramadan as we all sort of focus on worship, and recollect and refuel ourselves. So we'll have this week we'll have the next week, at the same time, and then we're going to be off for a bit.

So when I sit down with Allah,

when it comes to the rest, we've got our leadership program, we've been going through a book about leadership. Now you all had some homework, if you recall, we were talking about trying to influence people trying to influence people both at your level above your level and below your level. We're going to check in with that. We're also going to take a poll when we talk about sort of Shaban and the do her prayer and we're going to see how your shot Shaban has been going. If you've done extra fasts, if you've done extra worship, so we will have all of that for you in tonight's program in sha Allah Tada. Now, first, we have to cover current events. And boy, there have been some really,

really important events going on. Now the first event we want to talk about is of course, Aaron Bush now

there was an Air Force,

a member of the United States Air Force, and if we have any of the media, then we can have the studio bring it up, who want to come sit down tesni Mashallah, in the middle the night who

he was. He marched up to the front of the Israeli embassy, I believe in Washington, DC. He was covered in some sort of ignition.

fluid or, or gasoline or something like that, and he self immolated, he set himself on fire. And he eventually died. He, he died because of his injuries. Now, this particular form of protest of this particular action is very controversial. It has sort of engendered very, very sharp responses from both within the Muslim community and outside the Muslim community. And it also has a history.

It has a very, very interesting history.

The last time you know, this happened in a major way the United States was actually earlier on. However, it got almost early on meaning when it comes to Palestine and the aggression against Palestine in this particular conflict. But it got almost no coverage. Another memorable event of self demolition occurred during

it was during the Arab Spring, one of the people we have someone watching from Tunisia, probably remembers, there was a gentleman who set himself on fire out of desperation in Tunisia. And that was a rallying point and a galvanizing point, to start off the Arab Spring, the revolutions and the sort of reforms that were happening in the Arab world in 2011. And earlier than that, in American political conscience, we had somebody in the Vietnam War, who set themselves on fire a Buddhist monk in Vietnam, that gained mass attention. Now, when I was tracking sort of the different responses of people to this act, I saw,

I saw a couple things, I noticed a couple of things. One thing that I noticed was, I noticed some people, both within the Muslim community and outside the Muslim community, rushing to assume that there was something mentally wrong or mentally unstable with Aaron. And I think that a sober assessment of the facts indicates that that is not the case. Right that this person seems to be fully there rationally in their right mind. We can read you hear the statement here. He says, My name is Aaron Bushnell. I'm an active duty member of the US Air Force and I will no longer be complicit in genocide. I'm about to get engaged in extreme active protest. But compared to what

people in Palestine had been experiencing at the hands of their colonizers, it is not extreme at all. This is what our ruling class has decided to be normal, free Palestine. And one of the shocking things, one of the shocking things was that

while he's burning, and I hope that you know, if you haven't seen the video, I would not recommend to watch the video, I watched the video and it's very disturbing. He repeated screen, he screamed Free Palestine, free Palestine until the very end, they were his last words. And his the messages that he had sent, or that he had posted on social media indicate that this was something that was planned for quite a while, and that this was something that was done in a very premeditated way. There was no sort of indication of any mental instability, or anything like that. And we'll get back to that in a second. The other thing, and I see I see Ibrahim is as he is mentioning, the thing that

I was going to say next in the comments. So he can post that comment, which was a quote that an interview with one of his friends was provided a key piece of information that, Aaron, he said that he told me on Saturday that we have troops in those tunnels that as a US soldier is participating in the killings. His actual job involves the processing of intelligence data. So Aaron was someone with high level clearance

that understood certain things that was not public information. And he understood that not only was the United States, indirectly supporting the genocide that's going on in Palestine, with its weapons with its political cover with its diplomacy, with blocking the International Court of Justice with blocking the UN, it wasn't that it was even worse than that, that there are United States soldiers on your tax money in my tax money in the tunnels, fighting against Palestinians, and also taking part in what is going on there right now. And he knew it. And his emotional reaction to that he had such dissonance, that it caused him to choose to do a very, very extreme act of desperation. Now,

the other observation that I noticed within the Muslim community is that many people rushed to basically say, Well, you know, suicide is haram in Islam, and we shouldn't be talking or here realizing these these sorts of Acts, and we shouldn't, you know, encourage them or make them seem honorable in any sort of way, because we are basically afraid that other people are going to get this idea. Now, there's a little bit of merit to that, but I would challenge the relevance of this information.

For reasons one of the reasons is because when we're talking about people who are not Muslims, we don't expect them necessarily to

abide by the guidelines that we hold ourselves to, I think everybody or the vast majority of people know, in the Muslim community that within our deen within our religion, suicide is something that's off limits. That is not something that we do and it's not a legitimate tactic or illegitimate statement or things like that. That being said,

why would we necessarily apply those expectations to somebody who does not abide by our guidance that does not understand our deen does not live by our rules.

You have to take him for the moral universe that he was living within, that he was somebody who was in a situation that this is what he was complicit, he had, he knew that he had blood on his hands. And I would argue that someone in that situation with the type of guidance that they had, that you can differentiate and there is room to differentiate between the intention behind the act and the form of the act itself. I do not think that you can ever argue that this was an irrational act. I do think obviously, that within our we have religious guidance that says that we do not do that sort of thing. And it's off limits for us. But as an American, who understands the history of that

particular act, and understands what it means politically, and knows that there's something very, very sinister going on secretly and wanted to draw attention to those things in order to try to galvanize people and rally people. You can't say that his act was irrational. In fact, it was very rational to the ends that he was trying to achieve. And when it comes particularly to being too harsh and too judgmental, we actually have in our tradition, we have in our tradition, guidelines and guidance that encourages us to differentiate between the intention that people do and maybe the form that they take. I'll give you an example. There's a hadith in Sahih Muslim, where the Prophet

sallallahu alayhi wa sallam mentions a man and that man out of fear of being resurrected and held account to Allah Spano Tata. He told his children that when he dies to take his body and burn it into ash, and then spread his ashes in different parts, some of the mountains, some of the sea, some, et cetera. And then Allah subhanaw taala resurrects him. And he stands before Allah subhanaw taala. And he asks this person, why did you do this? And he his response is that I did it because I was overwhelmed by the fear of you. And so Allah subhanaw taala in the Hadith forgives him. Now this is something and the other man they have.

They have commentaries on this hadith in Sahih, Muslim, you can go and look it up.

In the commentaries, they state that this man committed not only sins in the sense that, you know, he did something that's not permissible, but he didn't kill, he killed himself, okay. And he also, he also committed some sort of spiritual sin, he basically underestimated Allah, he, he acted as if Allah subhanaw taala couldn't resurrect him, which some could say, is a really big problem. Right? Something that is borderline, you know, it's it's major, it's not, it's not a little deal. And yet, and yet, Allah subhanaw taala forgave him, because there is sometimes a distinction between the intention that somebody has behind an act and the form that it takes up on when they mean well, but

maybe that's the sort of universe that they're operating in. So I would discourage people, and I would discourage Muslims in particular, from trying to force this particular action into just a tut tut finger wagging, of saying, Well, you know, you know, you shouldn't talk about this, and you shouldn't, you know, heroes that are you saying, everybody knows, and everybody should know that that is in tactic that's off the table for us, but what we can do, and many Palestinians have recognized that it took courage to do what he did, considering his positionality right position, considering his location within the armed forces. And it was an act of desperation that was for a

higher cause. It was not a waste, it was not something that was just him, you know, lashing out, and he was looking for any excuse, that doesn't hold up to upon close scrutiny. And so I'd exercise and I would, I would encourage, everybody who is talking about this, if you see it on social media, or you see it elsewhere, if you have to talk about it with even friends, to exercise caution, and to be nuanced, when we're talking about these things, there is a way to talk about these things, where we recognize the courage and the usefulness and the rationality of the thing that was done and the desperation from which the act took place without necessarily putting it forth as an example to

follow that we want other people to do. And this is actually a Zionist talking point that if you've seen the sick ways, in which Zionist online have basically tried to silence anybody who looks favorably upon this act by saying, why don't you go and do this yourself? If you think it's such a good idea? Well, that's almost something that mirrors something that people

within our own community are saying that this this should not be paralyzed or talked about in any positive way whatsoever. I think that's a little bit too far. Second issue that's been going on this week, is a major scandal has hit the New York Times. And to be frank, it was well overdue because the New York Times is a rag or has become a rag. It has been one of the loudest mouthpieces for American propaganda and Israeli propaganda in this escalation against and genocide against our brothers and sisters in Palestine. And so the chickens came home to roost finally, for the New York Times, and we have some media, I think that the guys in the studio, we're gonna bring up that

when it comes to, yeah, well, we have some general things about their bias. But in particular, they had run an article

in which it was supposed to what is now we've developed a new language for some of the things that we've seen in the last several months. And one of those terms is atrocity propaganda. Okay, now, what is atrocity, propaganda? atrocity propaganda is when a fake news story is allowed to circulate. And it creates what they call in political science, a plausibility structure, it makes it possible for people to justify genocide, right. And by the time people have caught on, it's based on a lie and all these exaggerations and fake news, the damage is already done, and people can

and people can pivot to something else. And so what we saw was there was a lot of allegations early on about mass rape and the weaponization of sexual violence done supposedly by Palestinians. Now, what came to light was that these stories that the New York Times had posted, they were written by journalists, quote, unquote, who are not journalists at all people with no experience in the field, people that were basically fast tracked, express leaned into positions to write an extremely influential and consequential piece in a very, very irresponsible way. We see that one of the authors are the head author, and that Schwartz was someone who was found on social media liking sort

of posts that called for us to be turned into a slaughterhouse calling Palestinians subhuman monsters, etc.

peddling the 40 bit, the head of babies hoax, all these sorts of things. This was the this was the author, or one of the three authors of this particular piece. Now, the other two, were not much better. One of them was when he was confronted in public about the lack of evidence. In his piece, he basically said that he doesn't need evidence that he's in this in the business of telling stories. And the third one, I believe his name is Adam Sela is just as bad in the sense that he was someone with absolutely zero business writing this type of investigative journalism he had experienced as a food writer, he had written two articles on food before, and he was put in a

position to write a front page piece in The New York Times, that's basically allowing for the past the dehumanization, the further dehumanization of Palestinians, and the atrocities that would be committed against them. So thankfully, they've been, they've been caught with their pants down, so to speak, and it's been exposed. And it has drawn attention to the motives of these authors who have in in private conversations been recorded as saying that they wanted to do it for Israel, that they wanted to do it for Israel. And yet, we've seen also how Palestinian voices and Muslim voices have been sidelined, marginalized systematically and repeatedly from every news outlet. So we see the

double standards that we've come to know and expect on full display. Now, with a little bit of positive news that we want to end on here, before we move to our esteemed guest this week, is there was an incarcerated man and we've done this last time when it came to the type of solidarity that we see across the world. Okay, so we've seen previous weeks, the Egyptian fruit seller, who took oranges from his own, own his own stand, and threw them on the back of the of the truck to a truck that was passing on its way to us. And then we saw how those aren't just arrived and how the people of Palestine sent a message to that man. Well, this week, we have an incarcerated man in the United

States, who donated the equivalent of 136 labor hours. Well, everything that he could $17.74 that as this person is think about 136 labor hours, look at how Allah subhanaw taala will weigh this deed on his scales, that it's not about the amount of money that he raised. It's about what does it mean to him? And what was it worth to him? And how much did he have to struggle and strive to get even that? Now, there's a larger conversation to be had about sort of the legalized slavery that takes place in the US prison system. That's going to have to be for another episode, but today it will suffice ourselves with seeing the type of solidarity that even the people who are imprisoned

Everybody has forgotten and unfortunately, unfortunately the United States of America, the Muslims who are in prison, most of the Muslims have completely forgotten about them. And yet they have not forgotten us. And they have not only forgotten us, they've not even forgotten their brothers and sisters in Palestine, that they're willing to donate what little they have, in order to aid them in any possible way. That is an amazing act of solidarity and something that we can all learn from.

Lots of stuff going on this week. In the interest of time, we're going to pivot to our next segment, which is our amplify segment we have a very special guest on with us today. Nadia B. Achmed is an educator, author and mass movement mobilizer in 2021. She became the first hijab wearing Muslim Muslim woman to teach at Yale University with the rank of Professor when she was a visiting associate professor at Yale Law School. She's currently pursuing a PhD in Environmental Science at the Yale School of Environment. And 2023, she was part of a worldwide coalition awarded the UN Human Rights prize for advocacy in the right to a healthy environment. As a political strategist. She is

an elected DNC member, co chair of the DNC Interfaith Council, co founder of the Muslim delegates and allies coalition and co founder of ceasefire 24. That's a lot of co founders, Nadia, welcome to the program.

Thank you so much for having me, man, Tom body gonna sit down, I'm gonna have to look at it. So we've got extremely important things to talk about, because things are moving very, very fast when it comes to everything that's going on. But first, I want you to sort of give us a little bit of background on that last coalition that we mentioned. The ceasefire 2024 coalition, what is it? What are its goals? What is the strategy?

So with ceasefire 2024, we want to make ceasefire, the only election issue for 2024. And we only want to support candidates who are supporting the ceasefire. And it's not just about a ceasefire, but it's an end to occupation, an end to war and an end to to militarism. And this is really the call to action that we have been mobilizing around. And we're also really reaching out so that people can can have an empowerment for not only themselves but for their communities. And this, this coalition group really, really grew out of out of a frustration, of not being able to fully activate and mobilize the Muslim community. And for many of us who are working behind the scenes on this

coalition group, we had worked before on the 2020 primary campaign for Senator Bernie Sanders when he was running for president. And that was a really a moment where we had a had a sense of hope. We've seen that dissipate during the Biden years. In fact, even when I was had been campaigning for Biden, during 2020, my daughter had also served as a Bernie victory captain, the middle daughter, and when the when I was trying to get them to support the Biden campaign, they would tell me I would they would say, Gee, hon, don't listen to Mommy just say, Biden, Boo Biden, boo. And so Subhanallah, it's like, you can see that they can, that the children can see through that, that this that this

Biden presidency would not be what it would was meant to be. Excellent. And so you know, I think one of the key takeaways there is that the folks that are behind the ceasefire, 2024 coalition, they're tested, they're seasoned. They they know what they're doing. They have a lot of experience on the ground. And so now you're trying to utilize that sort of experience for a new aim, which is first ceasefire, then, you know, the further goals down the line.

Let's talk about the primary. So let's talk about it. Maybe explain to the audience that might not be familiar. We have a very international audience. What is the primary? How does it work? What is Super Tuesday coming up? And what is ceasefire 2020 fours goals for the primaries.

So for the United States, they have a two party system, a lot of other countries have multi parties, and they can build coalition groups. But in the US, we've really struggled with having this two party system. So essentially, right now, voters are looking at two candidates, Joe Biden and Donald Trump for the election. It's hard to bring up a third party candidate, but what the strategy should be for 2024 should be to select a candidate other than Biden for the Democratic primary. And so the sense of having anybody but Biden is stronger than choosing for example, uncommitted, because it's like uncommitted as like, for example, if somebody's uncommitted in a relationship, it's like

they're kind of in or out. They're not completely sure about it. And then we've also seen, for example,

documentation in the sense of, we're still gonna vote for Biden, no matter what he's better than better than Trump. And that's really what we have to move away from as a Muslim community is that this inferiority complex, where we think we're not good enough to have a self respect for ourselves, and the better strategy, for example, would be to select a candidate who has supported ceasefire. So whether that is somebody like Marianne, who

Williams are the co founder of The Young Turks. Any any of these other candidates who support a ceasefire would send a stronger message than simply uncommitted. So for example, in Marin, in Virginia, Marion Williams is on the ballot. She is a ceasefire candidate for the Democratic primary. And we were telling folks that they should endorse her.

She's also on the ballot in California. And she's and we also have

candidates ceasefire candidates in Texas on the ballot. So it's better to choose those candidates than to write in ceasefire are uncommitted, or to just leave the ballot blank. Because what that also does is it creates the opportunity for delegates, and those delegates will have the opportunity to, to vote, because it's not as if it's a sure thing, once the candidate wins, what happens is in August, there will be a Democratic National Convention in Chicago. And when that convention happens, it will have an opportunity to perhaps select another candidate, like it's in the bylaws of the DNC, it's not likely to happen, but it's better better than nothing. And so not only are we encouraging

people to select these other candidates to give them delegate positions, but we're also encouraging people within our community to run for delegate as well. That's how many of us became involved as we ran for delegates during the 2020 election summit run earlier in 2016. And for me, when I got involved, it was because I just wanted to know, from an academic perspective, what was involved. And when I saw what was involved, it wasn't that complicated. In my campaign simply consisted of me asking my dad if he thought it was a good idea, and his response was, why not. And then the rest of the campaign was him going to the motion and telling people on WhatsApp to vote for. And that was

really all there was to it. So those who are from a small, small, small counties, or rural areas, or as well as medium sized counties, or those from red states, which are Republican states, will also have an easier time getting elected. And so that's one thing that we're also pushing out is to get more of a critical mass of delegates to really force force, the hand of the party, and that type of theoretical understanding about how the system works, and how, you know, delegates really shape a lot of everything is really, really crucial. And we have to put it out there that Kenya's students a 501 C three, we're not giving an advice, we don't endorse or or not endorse any candidates. But our

guest is sharing her experience and knowledge with us. And so we appreciate that, and especially information about the system works. Now, I want to slightly pivot to another initiative that ceasefire 20 to 24 is doing that's really, really timely, time sensitive, and very important. And that is spring break in DC. There's a very crucial bill for military aid for Israel that is returning to the house that is going to be decided upon in the following weeks. Tell us about what's going on? And what's the ask and what were what you want us to do. What about it.

So for spring break, we really want to mobilize the community in ways we have not before. For the past few months, we've had groups that have been going out to the Hill, they've been working with other groups as well. But we want to have a really defined presence from the Muslim, Arab Palestinian, South Asian communities, that this is that it's really like Not in our name, no more war. And we really have to be at the front of this movement. We have people who have shown us the way during the Vietnam era. And this is really our time as a community to stand up in ways that we haven't before and to really just stand in our power. And early on, I did some research. And I found

that the direct lobbying is the most effective way to influence political action, as well as having a direct media intervention. So for example, earlier, you were talking about the New York Times, and what was happening. And so that specific media strategy is also effective, because it's reaching not just the those who are on social media and in the hundreds or 1000s. But it's reaching millions of viewers. We're also seeing, for example, that when you have strategies, that that are like phone calls, or phone banks or even protests, those are actually weaker actions, because you're not getting media attention to it unless you're doing events where the media is present. That is so

crucial. Can I just pause you just to make sure the audience stays with us and understands what you just said? It's so significant what we're talking about, because some people are in the comments. They're saying, what do we do? What Nadia has explained to us is that direct political lobbying, that means don't think that you have to just you know, send money and be done with it. You go show up, you go to Washington, DC, and you show up and you can actually I've been in WhatsApp groups falling around people who are walking the halls of con

Griffis confronting the representatives about how they're about to vote or about how they voted or making an appointment with them, or their staffers and telling them, we expect you to vote this way, you have to vote this way. This is part of how the political system United States works. And our guest is telling us that that is Data Wise, the most effective way along with direct media representation. I've got it right.

Yes, exactly. Okay, sorry. So please continue.

And so another another part of that is we want to target the people whose minds we can convince and change, and for what we've been focusing on as the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and we're also going to do outreach to to progressive Democrats, as well as others. And so right now, we're actually reading reaching a very critical moment, on March 1, and on March 8, there are deadlines for the US budget. And if things are not approved in Congress, we're going to have a government shutdown. And so during this chaos, we would also like to make a push for having a complete end to the military funding that is happening. And that's because we don't see a benefit and having

constant war and killing people it was especially when people in our own communities lack health care, lack basic housing, and there's the rampant homelessness that that exists. There's lack of education, there's so many problems at home, and we're just throwing billions and billions at war. And that's just not a solution. So if we're able to convince a critical mass of US senators, as well as those in the house, we're going to see we're going to see a change, and it is completely possible. So for example, you have Senator Van Hollen. You have Senator Chris Murphy, Senator Tim Kaine, Senator Jeanne Shaheen, Senator Elizabeth Warren, Senator Merkley, Senator Brian Schatz from

Hawaii, and Senator Tammy Duckworth as well as Senator Cory Bush, we think that all of them could potentially could potentially support not only a ceasefire, but if they're convinced that it goes against even their own best interests within the party could cost them the White House, could cost them could cost them control of the Senate, then maybe they're going to change their mind as well. But at the others at the other side, we've also seen that President Biden is really willing to just fall on his sword for Israel. And that's really where we as a community as as well as a movement need to really need to really stand in our power. I also come to this from the space of

environmental justice. And we have this saying in environmental justice, that we don't we don't abide by respectability, politics, and respectability politics is that you kind of cater and control what you want to say, to fit the audience, just because environmental justice and Frontline communities have been so negatively impacted. And those are communities who are impacted by climate change by toxins and pollution. And that's really where I think we should be going coming out from as a community is that we're just been too cozy to too comfortable in the places that we have been, we've achieved success in this in this country. And we really need to also take it upon ourselves to

move out of our comfort zones. And that's why the direct lobbying is so important to go face to face, and to meet with your representatives and your senators. There's no better way than to impact legislation than that. And I just think it's so crucial that because people get confused. And there's a lot of disparate efforts that go left that go, right, that sort of, you know, is it phone banking? Is it petition writing? Is it calling? Is it this or that. And what I liked the most from what I'm hearing from you is that you give us very clear data backed evidence for why this is really going to have the biggest impact and that is going to have the biggest impact. I'm trying to bring

up the website, because I was very impressed by the ceasefire 2020 four.com website and how easy it made it all seem right it you know, things that you wouldn't necessarily think about as to, you know, when you show up that you are, you know, there's a directory, right for to find out who your representative is, and try to ask, you know, who you're going to meet with how many people can attend, bring your friends with you, right? You know, sort of the way to strategize and what talking points on how to highlight impactful personal stories that are going to actually persuade, you know, your person who's an elected representative, like some of them are actually human beings, believe it

or not, and can be it's hard to believe sometimes, but they can be persuaded, or some of them might need to be, you know, legally threatened in the sense that it's like, Listen, you say that you stand for this, where your constituents were telling you to do this, if you're not responsive to us, then et cetera, et cetera, but even to the point of two

Choosing which sort of talking points to use, that's going to match up with what your own representative has already sort of said and what they're about. You can think of it in terms of love languages, you got to find your representatives love language, essentially, to the end of leaving, you know, behind the one pagers and the printouts for the staff or little gifts. This is how it's done. I think it's really, really interesting that we do have a political culture in the United States. There's various tactics, sometimes it can get like into the weeds where we're not sure which tactic to use when, but I feel like we're starting as a Muslim community to figure out, okay, these

are the tactics that make the most sense. These are the ones that have the most impact. And the ceasefire 2024. website and group makes it very, very easy. It makes it very logical, it makes it very understanding. So what you're asking ceasefire, 2024 is asking for people who's ever is able to to come to Congress to come to DC and join the movement. When do they need to come? How do they do this.

So one thing I just want to go back to is like for the military aid budget, like the budget is just so much money is being spent on on this war. And it could definitely be used by communities at home. And so what we've done is the for the first three weeks of March, we've set up the action. So if you go to the website, ceasefire 2020 four.com, you're going to see that there's a tab on the top called Spring Break action. And we have the dates listed on there for the first three weeks of March. And they are March 5 through eighth, march 11, through 14th and march 19, through 22nd. And that's the time that Congress will be in session. And that's a time that we really want people just basically

you have to bootstrap it, you have to go there and make your own accommodations, make your own travel arrangements the same way you would for any other spring break, trip and schedule meetings with your representatives. You're also doing this as a part of a nationwide coalition. So you can also request meetings with with those who are outside of your, your district in another states as well. And that's what we're doing. We're scheduling meetings, like all across the board. And another thing that we're encouraging people to do is to attend, we're going to planning to have watch parties. So even for example, if you can't get to DC, the State of the Union addresses on March 7,

we're asking people, especially those who are located in swing states, Georgia has actually aren't organized their own or started their own watch party event, it has already been organizing it. And swing states like Arizona, North Carolina, Michigan, as well as Minnesota, in Florida. Any any of these types of swing states as well as any other states that are out there should organize watch parties, they should have, they should also call the press, and then have a listening session discussion. This is what I thought of the State of the Union. This is where I think Biden is headed in the right or wrong direction, we have to flip the narrative so that it's really focusing on the

issues that matter to us. The presidential campaign is spending a lot of time in these swing states to really convince voters for another Biden presidency. And so if we flip the narrative like they have done in Michigan, and Minnesota and other states to focus on issues that matter to us, we're taking away airtime from them. And that's really what's what's effective is that you're you're really changing the narrative. And that's something you can do very easily. And I think that people have this idea that you have to have a lot of money and have to have a lot of connections. That's completely untrue. Because all the work that we did first these fire 2024 was completely unfunded,

and all volunteer led effort. And we've been Oregon able to organize people to DC, and everybody's just gone because they know this is a moment that we're going to be asked, you know, what did we do, and we need to say that we've done everything we can so even if this military Bill funding bill passes, it's that we stood the line like we held our ground and we stood firm, and that we went to DC and spoke up about it. And that's really something that we have to really inculcate in ourselves. And I also see this as an opportunity for the Muslim community from from the perspective of the faith, also saying this is this is this is like it's a type of battle, to be able to lobby on the

hill. And to also see that we can't just sit back and be keyboard warriors, we have to go out there we have to go outside of our comfort zone, whether it means having district level meetings or going to DC. That's what that's what we really need to do. And I'll give you a couple of examples where we're where these types of strategies have been effective. So for example, has AMI, who is activist based in the DMV area has organized the Occupy Blinken event at

called kibbutz blinkin, where she basically has set had has had folks set up tents at Blinken home out in out in the DC suburbs area. And, and when an action first started on day three, I realized it wasn't getting the attention it deserved. So I started creating tick tock videos, and then tagging the foreign press. So I tagged like Al Jazeera,

the UAE national news, and Don news the Hindustan Times, and I tag these foreign press, and then they also started running a newspaper or TV segments on on these actions. And then once all these other foreign press is covering something that's happening in the backyard of American journalist, then it forces the Washington Post in the New York Times to also cover it. And so even though they won't give the same type of coverage that should be covered on the event, it really changes the narrative as well, that they looked at if they're just doing poor journalism, not covering what's happening. Right behind them. That's amazing. Yeah. So So you've left us a lot to think about. So

get there, if you can, I'm going to try to make it down in sha Allah. And if you're able to, then you should to have your moment of

standing, standard deliver, right, I think that's maybe what what we should be channeling right now, standard delivery, this is your time, this is your time to prove to us found out that you did everything that you could. Those are really wonderful words to conclude on. And you've given us a lot of ideas. You've given us a very clear strategy, some very clear tactics, and you've organized our thinking on this. So I really am grateful that for your presence on the program tonight, you have any final final words you'd like to close off with. Yeah, I wanted to just share last week you use you spoke about John Maxwell. And so I have a John Maxwell book is called how successful people

think it's backwards. But one of the things it says question popular thinking and there's a quote from Douglas Cardinal who says, I'm not an answering machine, I'm a questioning machine. If we all have all the answers, how come we're in such a mess? And then he quotes economic economist John Maynard Keynes, whose ideas profoundly influenced economic theory. And he says The difficulty lies not so much in developing new ideas as an escaping from old ones. So going against popular thinking can be difficult. So whether you're a business person bucking company tradition, or a pastor, introducing new types of ideas to his church, a new mother rejecting old wives tales, all of this is

about kind of ignoring popular styles and why it's important to kind of go against this. This like, like, like groupthink.

Excellent. Well, that's, that's a wonderful note to end on. And thank you so much for being on the program tonight. Thank you.

Okay, speaking of we have two books to get to mashallah, that was one of our more enlightening segments. Let me just grab these books.

Okay, so we're going to pivot now to our,

our segment on daily habits and as we're fast approaching Ramadan,

we're going to spend a little bit of time talking also about Shabbat. Right now. Shaban is more than half over, and there's only a little bit of time left. So we want to do a poll. We want to see how much as anonymous poll, so don't worry, how much people have been benefiting from Shabbat. So if we're able to guys in studio if we can do a poll, polling people to see how much they have fasted so far, in the month of Shabbat, right. We know that the month of Shaban as we said last week, is one of the months of the Prophet salallahu Alaihe. Salam used to fast the most in other than Ramadan.

And many of them that have talked about how stressed or emphasized worship and Shaban is because it's a common time for people to slack off. And this is sort of a recurring theme in our tradition, where we have sort of extra merit attached to times where you're worshiping but nobody else is worshiping because they've kind of sort of, you know, overlooked it, it's an oversight. And Shabana is one of those times. So if we're able to do a poll, let's pull our audience and then we'll at the end of the segment, we'll see what they come up with. Now, we also have an infographic to share with you while we're doing that, about Chevron and this is an infographic that you have seen Institute

has put together, are we able to put that up?

Okay, so we've got some things here from the province that really set them about the importance of fasting, chat, Ben, and we cover some of these last week. I wonder if we can skip down to how to flourish and Shaban do we have that. Do we have that up?

So we have some points this you can find that on the ugliness two website. There's five points to making the most out of Shaban.

Okay, point number one is to have a plan. That as the saying goes, if you fail to plan you're really just planning to fail, that your daily action

And of worship and good deeds that you would like to accomplish in the month of Shabbat, it will help you because you're planning your worship as opposed to just sort of cruise controlling it. And so this is going to make you already in the habit of planning your worship when you get around to Ramadan. Step two is to follow the Sunnah of the Prophet sallallahu Sallam and fast as much as you can, right, you have tremendous rewards, you're preparing your body, you're sort of getting in fasting shape. So particularly meritorious are the 13th 14th and 15th days of the month, we've already passed those. But still, there's still time to go. So if you haven't started already, then

take advantage of the time that you have left. Step number three, is to set a goal. And this is one of my favorite ones, because it's interesting, and I never thought of it before, is to read half as much of the Koran in sha Ben, as you want to read in Ramadan. Okay, so let's say you want to finish the Koran once in Ramadan, then try to finish the Quran, try to finish half of it in Shabbat. Now, obviously, we're a little bit late in the game. So the important thing is that you're already starting your habits before you get into before you get into the space where now it really counts. Ramadan. Number four, and this is a crucial one for all of us, myself included, I put myself first

is to purify your heart.

If you're angry at somebody, try to forgive them. If you've wronged somebody, say you're sorry. And I apologize to everybody I've wronged

whether it's somebody that I know in person, or somebody if I said something online, that somebody you know, took the wrong way, or I said, and I was wrong. I apologize to you right now. Like, I've been thinking a lot these past weeks about my own shortcomings. And you know, I have so many of them. So I apologize to everybody. And I apologize to the people in my personal life, and those who are close to me and those who are further from me, and and we all should be doing this. When it comes to Shaban, we don't want to reach Ramadan with grudges, we don't want to reach SubhanAllah. And I'll even confess this, there was somebody who I remembered that I owed money to

back in Medina because I left Medina in the middle of COVID. And it was very financially difficult times for me. So there was someone that I owe money to that I reached out to somebody this week. And I said, Hey, can you get me in touch with this person, like I still owe them and it's not a ton, but just just to take care of it to try to settle it. So whether it's something financial, whether it's something personal, whether it's something that you wronged somebody, or you offended somebody, or you hurt somebody,

I apologize. And you should apologize. And we all try to enter into Ramadan with clean hearts so that we can really benefit from the renewal because I don't know about you. But I need this Ramadan more than I needed any Ramadan before ever. It's been very, very emotionally and psychologically difficult to watch a genocide unfolding live streamed every day, the images that I've seen, and the videos that I've seen,

honestly, I've probably watched too much, you know, I should have shut it off at some point. And it's definitely taken its toll. So we need this Ramadan, maybe more than ever. And so trying to set yourself up where you're reaching Ramadan with as pure a heart as possible. And the final one, remember that find to find blessings in places and times that are overlooked. And this is what we just talked about a second ago that if other people are sleeping, well, this is from the Hadith, the prophesy said I'm or the rough man

was aloo when Nasaan em, oh, come on call the Rasulullah sallallahu sallam, or how the prophesy centum set the meaning of which is pray when the people are sleeping. And many of the other men have pointed this out that worship becomes more valuable if you're the only one doing it. Now we don't want to like, you know, sabotage other people's worship, but we want to look for the opportunities where other people are typically not doing it. Either in a time where people have become lacks with something or a time that's not convenient for other people. So we asked our sponsor to make us reach Ramadan. Now, because of the

because we're running a little bit late, I think we're going to pivot to the next segment, we're not going to cover actually what was in daily habits, which was the do ha prayer. Although half prayer is something that many people have never heard of, because there's some different opinions about it. So whether you do it or don't do it, this is acceptable. But it is a narrated and extra act of worship. It's not an obligatory act of worship, that the Prophet salallahu alayhi wasalam did do the fuqaha the auto mat have several opinions on it and what its status is, but for the sake of time, I think we're going to skip that this week. And we're going to shift to our personal development

segment and then we're going to take questions and close out so we're into our Maxwell okay, we see that you know, Maxwell is books are well known as our guest tonight. Now Yasmin also had a quote, first of all, Oh, we never showed the results from the poll guys in the studio. Were we able to do were we able to pull off the poll or no, we're able to

make it work.

And if we did, can we show the results?

No, didn't look like it.

Okay, so we'll move, we'll keep moving that doesn't look like we're able to pull off the poll. Sorry about that, you know, we're all new to this, it comes to trying to, and this is this is one of the first sort of regular live stream programs that we have. And there's a lot to live streaming and we're kind of clunking along and experimenting with things as we go. So hopefully in the future, we'll be able to do more posts. Anyway, we have homework to check in on when it came to this particular book that we're learning with together the Irrefutable Laws of Leadership, your homework was to influence three people. Okay, to influence someone at your level, to influence someone above

your level and to influence someone below your level. And I'm really, really interested to see how it went for people, please in the chat.

See how it you know, let us know did you find any success? Were you able to influence all three types of people? What are the types of things that you were able to

to influence them by? Okay, you see the results? I don't? Well, Mashallah.

So,

oh, let's see. Here we go. Here's the how many days have you fastest far this month, zero to three guests. 73% 19% have done four to seven 6%. So a lot have done over seven days this month. That's incredible. Masha, Allah said, We're gonna overload May Allah bless and accept from all of us. Excellent. Thank you for that. Okay, so let's check in about the homework, I'm really interested to see how it went for people trying to influence someone at your level, someone below you, someone above you, I found that I had several opportunities this week to influence people at my level.

And I had some success right. Now, what was interesting was to try to map on to other people like basically, it made you more attentive to what motivates other people. Like I brought up sort of humorously the idea of love languages, when you're talking to an elected representative, like, what do they care about? But in a very serious way, you have to take that into account when you're trying to influence somebody, what does this person care about? What motivates them? What do they want, right. And so there was a couple situations where I was communicating back and forth in sort of like a work setting. And one person wanted something done a particular way. And I was almost in between

two people, and another person wanted it done a particular way. And I had to basically influence both sides to do it my way. Now, not just because I like to have things my way, which everybody does. But the particular nature of this task, which I'm leaving general, for a reason. It actually it had to be done this way, in order for it to happen. So I got more opportunities to influence people. At my level, I didn't really get any opportunities to influence anyone above me, I thought I'd be able to maybe influence my parents about something, but I was not.

And when it came to people sort of, quote unquote, below me, yes. Okay, that sort of happens when you're talking to your children have to convince them that you know, you're not going to go to the store to buy ice cream. That's normal. How did it go for you? I'm interested to see if you could

hit us up in the chat to let us know. Did you try? Was it something that you spaced on entirely? Were you able to respond or to influence somebody at your level or below or above and be said, I didn't have the chance to influence anyone above my level? Well, me either MP. So we're in the same boat there.

It's an interesting exercise. So keep it coming in the chat with your feedback for how the homework went. Let's continue on to this particular week's lesson, which is about the law of process. Okay, the idea of the law of process is that leadership develops daily, not in a day, and that's a really, really nice catchy slogan. Leadership develops daily, not in a day, as if Hanalei you know, I was reflecting on leadership in the Muslim American community and the sort of political leadership that we have and thinking about how

we want everything to happen now. But things don't happen like that. They take time. And so it really is just about those micro habits, those atomic habits, those putting in the work every day that creates the capacity five years, 10 years, 15 years down the line, then you're already in a position to do what you need to get done. So the first thing that the author wants to communicate with this idea that leadership develops daily is that you have to be committed to self improvement. Now, this is something that is squarely from our deen from our faith that the prophets always had him said that the most beloved act of worship to Allah strong data is something that is King

insistent even if it's small, right? So leadership is not going to be just going all of you know, you're not going to learn leadership in one day, even if you pack it in 24 hours, it's going to have to be bit by bit a little bit over time. Right? As we say, in Turkish, Don't lie, don't lie a girl, right? As that dropped by drop, a lake is formed, that that's how leadership is. Now, once you're committed to self improvement, you have to realize that you're gonna go through five phases. And that's what the that's what the main, there's the main point of this chapter. So let's go through the phases quickly. Phase one is what we say in our tradition as Gen modaco. You don't know that you

don't know. Right? Or I don't know what I don't know. So let's say that you come in, it's like, okay, you know, I'm Tom, I want to be a better leader. But I don't even know what I don't know. I don't know what I know. And I don't know what I don't know. Mashallah. And that's the starting point. Nobody should feel embarrassed to be there. That's the starting point ground level with anything. Even with Arabic, someone comes to me and says, Even Tom, I want to learn Arabic. I don't even know how to start. Do I start over here? Do I start over there? Leadership is like that, too. So let's imagine Okay, that's phase one. So phase one, what do you have to do is you have to figure

out what you don't know. Okay, with maybe books, like the one that we're going through? Phase two is, I know that I need to know.

Okay, so I know that I need to know that basically, like, I'm aware of the fact that there's things out there that I don't know that I need to know. Phase three is I know what I don't know. So now you're starting, you have the idea of okay, let's give the Arabic example. I know that there's grammar, I know that there's vocab, I'm going to be going through, I've got this for my, you know, how am I going to approach grammar, and that how I'm going to approach voc vocab. Phase four is I know, and I grow, and it starts to show you like how he did that there, right, it rhymes. It's nice. So basically, again, we'll go with the Arabic example. Now you're putting in the work daily, you've

got your Anki app, or your flashcards or whatever you're doing, you've got your five new words a day you're going through it, or you know, or I should say, and you're doing your Medina books, or you're doing whatever Arabic sort of grammar you've got. And you're going, now you're marching. And now you can look in the past, you can see a week wow, I've made a lot of progress in a week. Wow, I made a lot of progress in a month, wow, I've made a lot of progress in six months. Okay. And the fifth phase is I simply go because of what I know that almost like riding a bike, that when you first learn, you have to learn each step independently. But once you know it, it's something that is an

integrated whole, it becomes a singularity. So according to the author, this is

this is how leadership is to leadership is a hidden mudras as we would say it is its own thing to be studied. It's its own field. And so just like any other field, there are leaders, there are thinkers, there are theorizes there are best practices, there are industry standards, right? It's all out there for you to sort of explore. Now, the second those three points. So that was point 1.2. In this chapter, he says, what you're going to do now we have to make a personal growth plan, what are you going to do to invest yourself? And this is an amazing point, because again, it carries over to everything it carries over to studying Arabic it carries over to studying and to anything else.

But when we're talking about leadership, okay, what are you going to do to invest in yourself as a leader, you're not just going to magically become a better leader, just by thinking about No, you have to have a plan and walk the walk, and you have to do the things to invest yourself. So he has another sort of homework assignment. And this is gonna be the homework assignment for last for next week. Okay, that's going to put you on the road, to actually invest yourself, to actually invest in yourself to become a better leader, you're gonna have to identify a person that you admire in whatever field you want to master. Let's say you want to master Arabic. Let's say you want to master

Koran. Let's say you want to master cooking, let's say you want to master I don't know.

Karate, kung fu. Okay.

Pick somebody that you can have access to in your location that is a master in that field, and interview them with these four questions. Why did you choose this field? Who were some of your mentors? Were there five? Were there any influential books? And could you name some of them? If you get five? Mashallah, and what daily learning or self improvement habits do you have? You will learn a ton about leadership just from talking to people who are leaders in their field. Right. And that's the idea and the hope for this particular for this particular chapter. And we've had just about the hour mark, look at that.

hamdulillah we're gonna rifle through the comments real quick and see if anybody has any dangling questions.

We got a lot of Saddam's that I missed while they come sit down and I thought that everybody

nusseibeh Awesome has an interesting reflections. He says Subhan Allah for some for someone below me, I recall my toddler making Sagitta at the masjid when she heard the event and everyone was amazed. I hope she is getting influenced to prayers by seeing us pray. Yes, of course. And that's actually pedagogically when you talk about the education of children that they do the most learning by following your example. Right? So that's a really interesting reflection has saved me because influencing somebody is not just about saying words to them, unfortunately, sometimes we're hypocrites, because we say something to our children, and we do something else. We tell them to take

the prayer seriously, and we're lazy to pray there. We think we don't have any influence over them. We don't realize that we're influencing them with our actions, not our words. So your actions are just as important as your words when it comes to influencing people.

Okay, let's see. So we've got a couple of reflections a lot of them have to do with family.

I don't see a lot of questions per se

Okay, Mashallah. Well, if anybody has we'll leave it open for questions just for a few seconds more.

And then we will sign off with a night and let everybody get back to what it is that they're doing.

athma I'm not a leader in anything that you would interview me for. Ackman says I want to interview you with with with four questions. I don't know what field you think I'm a leader in stuff for

Okay, Vicky says talking to my 12 year old about consistency and prayers keeping their self clean and praying with attention like when they look sick got cut off but that's really like when he's playing video games Yeah, we're playing games sorry I inserted video not not video games just games Yes, that's I think that's a universal struggle.

Article Rockman

Bon giorno asked me about Ramadan time in Medina house. How are we and pm in the Haram? How was all that? It was great while it lasted. Unfortunately, I was there to see COVID and COVID What kind of forced me out to leave. So the hudon was shut down during those times. But of course I mean, the schedule of Medina was the best if I can be and everybody has their prejudice, right. I definitely have my prejudice from Medina over Mecca. But the reciters of Medina like Shikibu there and Sheikh Salim Hamid and who else was deciding at the time

they were our favorites, Sheikh avatar that was my favorite, you know when it came to and

bought a jet. And what Aja those two are my favorite when they were on the on the list for that night. So

Okay, Minnie my seat, Minami Islam Han says Do you have any advice for people who are about to perform Umrah for the first time

ever? That to in the budget? Yes, try to understand the main points of Umrah before you go. You don't want to be completely unprepared. That being said, there's a fine line between being over prepared than underprepared. Some people they get these little, these little tiny books, and it's filled with all the dirt you could make and everything you could possibly do and soon and you don't even practically have the ability to do any more like taking a shower once you pass them because no one no that's a bad example. But taking a shower once you arrive to Mecca, Mecca city limits, that's a sunnah. Alright, but it's something that practically has become very difficult for people, right?

So avoid books that are both too detailed. And also avoid not preparing at all find yourself something, there's four main parts to Ramona, there's the prom, there is throw off there is say and there is the Hulk there is getting rid of the hair, understand the main parts of it. Don't over engineer it too much. Leave that nice space for yourself to connect to your heart to a loss of panel data.

I sharpened as Who were some of the leaders that I looked up to well when it came to

when it came to my studies. I mean I had people both on the US side and in the medina side. So you know, some people that I've looked up to

your friends on check. Dr. Wyatt was somebody that I looked up to and still look up to quite a bit. There's many people that I look up to but you know of the people that I actually had a relationship with that spanned my time in Medina and my time coming back. Shake tell her why. And everybody else who's who's helped me along the way Sheikh Rashid Akbar the sick John

In New Jersey, John Starling many, many others.

But so, you know, the too many to mention when I got there, my professor is absolutely fantastic. She accomplished in PT, obviously the shape that I felt closest to, that I studied

in his Tafseer hella close in the home with. I also had other professors that were absolutely incredible that I took as my mentors, too many to name, but I saved all their names. I have a spreadsheet where every class that I ever took, I have their names in a spreadsheet, so I don't forget them in my dua.

Okay, let's see.

Ebony Brown says, What advice do you have for an autistic person who struggles with routine and executive functioning? That's not my lane ebony. I gotta just be honest, I wish I could give you advice and my heart goes out to you. I know people on the spectrum, but I'm not qualified. And so I would hesitate to give bad advice. I don't want to give bad advice for that.

Moron, Ali, what's your favorite books in Arabic besides the Quran and Hadith books, or oils for Han is a video live Academy, Sharia is one of my favorites, and also the mahasin literature. I love them the mahasin literature of

Hassanal Islam, which basically is almost like a fifth book, but it's not about the fit of the rules. It's about the wisdom behind the rules, which are really, really neat.

Rather, yet they will pardon me for mispronouncing your name. I influence my daughter of two years old reminded me of prayer time when it was time for Margaret. That's because she knows and had seen me praying, Mashallah. That's great.

We got some, we got some fifth questions here some juicy fifth questions? What?

Are women allowed to go to Umrah with a strange man as a package group? Can women participate in a group and repackage the mail? We're out of time for that. And not the purpose of this particular program, though I encourage you to seek that's what from responsible scholars who are able to give you that guidance

is yuckiness to preparing Spanish speakers to do doubt know, but there are industry leaders who are doing it. And so Yaqeen doesn't necessarily have to do everything. But what we hope is that we partnership, we have partnerships with people who are doing that work. So if you look at the three Puerto Rican Imams, if you look at River three, connect, if you look at Islam and Spanish, right, there are a lot of great groups doing great work of for data in the Spanish language, and we collaborate with them, and we hope to develop our partnerships and continue the good work

Addison has an interesting question.

Who are international figures that fascinate inspire you outside of the US before we before I introduce that, boy, that will take some thought

I would have to think about that. Pardon me? Yeah, I'll have to excuse me on that. I'm sure that there are some there are many I'm sure but I would have to I would have to think about that.

We're 10 minutes over I'm sensitive to people's time. We want to keep it within the bounds inshallah. But thank you everybody for joining us this week and again, we have one more program before Ramadan next week and then we will be off for the month of Ramadan. So we will see you after inshallah Tada as Imam Tom signing officer panic Allahu Hamza shadow Allah, Allah, Allah and Estelle for the call to the lake Salam aleykum after Allah