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.