Tom Facchine – What Will Ramadan Be Like in Rafah – A Conversation About Shaban and Leadership
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The Hina Institute is focused on protecting Muslims' rights and organizing voter groups, as well as financial support and a reference point for groups. The importance of political engagement and building a strong community is emphasized, along with the need for regular practice and avoiding mistakes and shortcomings. The program aims to help students identify their strengths and weaknesses, identifying their own independence and success, and improve their own development.
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Salam Alaikum afterall, everybody. Welcome to Hina Institute's live stream. I'm your hosting. I'm Tom Facchini. Great to have you with us tonight. Please drop us a line in the comments. Let us know where you're watching from. And we're happy to happy to have you with us tonight. As we approach Ramadan, Subhan Allah Ramadan, just less than a month away. We're in the holy month of Shaban, we'll be talking about that on the program tonight. We also have an esteemed guests from care la, that will be talking to us about political organization, the Muslim community, what we can do what we need to do, and what we have yet to do. And we also have our continuing segments, with the habits of
day and night from the Prophet SAW, I said, I'm we talking about the vicar of of morning and evenings, the sort of remembrances some of them and there's quite a lot who will be focusing on just a few of the remembrances of morning and evening and talking about some of the significance behind them. In addition to going through our book on leadership, we have some really interesting
homework that we have for you all we're going to see how you rated your leadership how you how other people rated your leadership and what you noticed for room for improvement or things that you're already strong and I've got another very very interesting and engaging homework assignment for you this week. So we see who's with us tonight while they come sit down what after lunch at a Carter we have angel with us, Mrs. S Hamza abbiati
Minime from Bangladesh welcome while they can sit down after like it occurred to me Munna deal are they going to sit down what after that who Ricardo? For anybody who's tuning in from Detroit inshallah. Tomorrow I will leave for Detroit. I'll be in Detroit through
through Saturday morning, inshallah. And then we have programs in New York City that are going on, there's a lot of things going along, going on a lot of Muslims in the United States feeling the need to come together and act together think together. And it's a beautiful thing.
Welcome, everybody. Yes, very, very free Palestine. Exactly.
Imran thought of why they call Masada and what after Allah. May Allah give victory to sound the Muslims mean
welcome everybody, masha Allah from the Maldives testify Mariam Molina, Harlequin Sudan from the Philippines excellent.
I used to have quite a few classmates from the Philippines when I was in Medina they were some of the most humble people I've ever met Michelle sabbatical
have not been yet hopefully one day inshallah
I can sit down and after that Ziva
from Michigan, okay, watermelon, I'm coming to I'm coming to Michigan insha Allah if you're in the Detroit area, the Dearborn area I will be there this weekend I'll be giving the clip inshallah Friday at the Islamic Center of Detroit. We'll be doing I think a tea talk program Thursday night and then we also have a Friday night program as well. Are they gonna sit nicely north from Istanbul hosts Gelinas emison is nor from Australia and I'm a second wait welcome we we await you for your alma mater. Inshallah I hope to inshallah you can sit down with Allah
away Swati from Sudan from New York queens. Excellent. I'll be in Queens inshallah Saturday if you're going to be in Queens Saturday, I highly recommend you check out the mass reverse reconnect program that's going on. There's a conference basically a pre rumble on conference from 3pm to 9pm. I'll be speaking there along with shake with somebody LeBron.
It's why they can set up a smart Oh from Nigeria. It's always wonderful and empowering and energizing to see the diversity of our audience and the diversity of this OMA will allow them if we came together, and we organized and we loved each other as the Prophet SAW, I said, I'm told us to love one another. And we felt for each other in the way that the prophets have always said I'm told us to feel for one another, then
most of our problems would go away. May Allah grant us May Allah grant us that Tofik
Nisa Why do you say
Sakina from Ohio?
I also cannot wait for Ramadan. I am really excited for Ramadan this year. I need I need a break. Rama from Durham, North Carolina has not yet been to Durham, North Carolina in Charlotte someday are they going to sit down susu from Tampa welcome.
lovely to have you all with us tonight. We have inshallah a wonderful program lined up. Of course, we always start with current events. And there's always why they're gonna sit down
Kashmir, Kashmir is always in our hearts. Always in all of our hearts. May Allah assist the people of Kashmir and liberate them from their oppressors.
On he can sit down my salah we got from ally, Virginia insha Allah
Tafseer for Soto strat yes insha Allah fotografico Maria from Pittsburg, okay, Pennsylvania Very good.
Yes, it's true. Very, very brings up a good point it will be difficult in Ramadan to have school but you know what sometimes Allah subhanaw taala puts blessing in a difficulty and something that I I have experienced is that some of my hardest Ramadan's were the most beneficial and the most purifying and the most uplifting. When I first became a Muslim.
Ramadan was in the heat of the summer. And I used to work on farms. I used to do physical labor outside with my hands, 10 hour days under the sun, all these sorts of things. And I'm not gonna say it was easy, it was not it was very, very difficult. It was very hard. I've never felt as thirsty before in my life And subhanAllah when I think about the people of Gaza as not having enough water to drink, the only thing that I can even come close to in my life. Were some of those moments. But those Ramadan's were honestly the best when I look back now and now I have
more more comfort in my life.
The Ramadan's aren't, aren't as as impactful, at least I feel and maybe that's my own problem that I need to figure out. But there is a special benefit to hardship.
And may Allah make us ready for it when it comes to us and why they come and sit down with Allah I usually from Minnesota, I will also be in Minnesota inshallah for one day, I believe there's a retreat coming up. The first weekend of March, if I'm not mistaken. Should be there for a bit. And he's a rough man. If you're looking for more info about the New York event, then you can see it from on any of the social media for mass New York. They eat a con from Jamaica, welcome. When it comes down to LA and B, are they gonna sit down? I'm Hershey, PA, okay. J flower, were they going to sit down what I told him to go to? Excellent. Welcome, everybody. Welcome. Welcome. Welcome. We hope you
enjoy the program tonight. And we hope that you take
solace and some energy and some
a little bit of guidance from what we have for you tonight. Welcome, Salam a Kadri SoCal Inshallah, early May I plan on being San Diego in sha Allah to Allah.
I mean, suddenly, I mean, what it comes down to. So what's still on our mind, of course, and we've been running this program since since January or December, Palestine is on our mind 24/7. And it would be, it would be a crime to center anything else at this point. And many people have have pointed this out the etiquette.
On social media, sometimes you see people posting their meals, or their vacations or things like that. And honestly, I'll just speak personally, I won't speak prescriptively. But I find it very, very hard to have the stomach for posting or even looking at any of that, that content these days, because my mind and heart are always with the people that love the people of Palestine.
To the point where some nights honestly, I can't sleep, you know, just thinking about the things that are going on. How can we help feeling so powerless?
And it certainly seems to be in some sense, getting worse or things are coming to.
Things are coming to a head, they're coming to a climax of sorts, the people, as we've said last week in the Rafah.
The occupying force of Israel has squeezed them down to the southern most part of Gaza, like toothpaste in in a tube and they are preparing for a ground invasion. And yes, we have some assets here. Israel has set Ramadan as a deadline for the rough off ground invasion. Now we know that the occupying force of Israel has always chosen Ramadan as a time to provoke Muslims and provoke Palestinians. And certainly, again, we have yet another instance of this here with the suppose a deadline for Rafah. Can you imagine the people of Rafah and Eliza, who already don't have anything to eat, who already have lost the entire healthcare system, who have already lost the ability to
drink clean water? And now they have to be concerned about Ramadan coming up? Subhanallah all of us sometimes, you know, we get too comfortable when we complain about,
you know, the hardships that we face. And obviously, everybody you know, we can't necessarily
we don't wish that things were harder for us. But it's difficult to see other people going through hardship and then look at our own hardships and feel like we have the right to complain about anything at all.
And chi McDougal brings up a good point. I actually agree with this and I'm glad that you said that. You know chi
He says I do indulge in that stuff to a degree simply because my brain needs a break. I feel I'll go insane watching. And that's a good point that when it comes to some people have said, you know, for example, if part of us isn't Omar going through it, then the rest of us don't need to necessarily subject ourselves to going through it vicariously, if especially it's going to incapacitate us to help alleviate it. And we know at least for those of you watching from the United States, that we have a particular duty and responsibility to attempt to end the genocide and to end the aggression against our our Muslim brothers and sisters and all the Palestinians. Right. And so sometimes
there's a situation in which you're indulging and you can't turn away and you're looking and looking and looking and watching everything and it actually stops you from being able to do something about so that is something I'm glad you brought that up. That needs to be paid attention to. Irene senses Rivera while they come sit down after Allah. We have some other people joining us from Brunei Darussalam Welcome to La Alabama Beatrice welcome, Mashallah.
Okay, very good. So, in
what what can we do? Well, that's a there's, there's, hopefully we hope that by the end of the program, you'll have some ideas about what to do and talking about what to do for some weeks here, and it depends on what nation you're in. And yes, Minami took the words out of my mouth. The second thing I was going to say the provocation, so we have the provocation about approaching Ramadan and everything that the people of Gaza are going are being subjected to. And on top of that, Minami says from Bangladesh, that Palestinians are now being restricted from praying at Masjid oxide during Ramadan, which, every single year without fail, they find a way to do something to particularly Aqsa
in order to escalate in order to provoke in order to oppress and keep down. And so we ask Allah subhanaw taala now and always to liberate the people of Palestine and to give them victory against their oppressors.
In other news we've had well, let's say one of the themes of watching the news and many of us these days, I'm the first one guilty, I'm guilty of being addicted to the news on probably in an unhealthy way. I should listen to Kai's advice that we've seen a disconnect between the Muslim masses and the Muslim leaders, right? We've seen the Muslim leaders in the most callous of ways
if not even profiting off of the occupation and attempting to normalize it with their deals than at the very very least preventing the people of this OMA who care from intervening in some sort of way and helping in whatever way they can. And so we have a couple of videos of the feelings and just to demonstrate the disconnect between the average Muslim the OMA and the people who are in charge over them on the other hand, we have one video let's go guys in the studio from the uncle from Turkey.
From the Czech sir America Julia Wilson busy busy. Bernie Sheriff CJ Migdalia we have Sheriff CJ Asha matanza will make dye now salsa beginners yes, no so beginner just yet Arthur here, you sit on the board a little bit.
So again, you see how the Muslim ummah is actually feeling what the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam told us to feel. We would rather it be us than it be the people of Gaza, we would rather us be the ones who put ourselves forward to sacrifice ourselves so that they could be free in Palestine could be free. But we find ourselves limited by borders, by checkpoints by all these sorts of obstacles and then the government's the people who are supposed to represent us, not representing us, stopping us from sending aid to stopping us from going and helping with you know, we have so many doctors here in the United States. I'm sure if that the doctors of the United States were able
to travel to us and just you know, uphold the the health care system because of by themselves and they would do so, but we're prevented or prevented from doing that we have another we have another video I think of the gentleman, a brother or an uncle from Egypt. Now watch what he was doing. Let's get this up from the guys in the studio.
Now, there was a truck passage by his fruit stand now he's just a simple man selling fruit, I think oranges and he sees the aid truck someone tells him it's going to the people of Palestine. Someone tells him it's going to Azusa and he just starts taking the fruit from his stands and heaving it on whatever he can. Whatever he can give. And this is tremendously significant because this is the pulse of the OMA don't let anybody let you feel like the OMA does not care for the Palestinians we haven't figured out yet. True we have not figured out yet how to free our brothers and sisters there
We are how to stop the genocide against them. But the people of the OMA, our hearts are with the people of Palestine. Our hearts are with the people of Gaza. And if you were to let it up if the rulers or if the governments of the world truly represented truly represented the people that they purport to represent, then we would be, we would be in a much better position. So we ask Allah subhanaw taala for for aid and assistance and to hate to aid our brothers and to remove the obstacles from us to truly help. Yes, exactly. MB we all feel like the oranges guy, the guy selling oranges.
And especially and I'll put this out there, as I always do, the Muslims in the United States of America have the greatest responsibility. Just this week, I think just yesterday, there was
an introduction of yet another, yet another move for a ceasefire, this time by Algeria to the UN. And guess who was the only nation to veto it. It was the United States of America. So for all of those in the United States, the Muslims, the United States, we have a very urgent and acute duty to stop our government support for everything that is going on. It has taken us too long, we have some good things that are moving, but we have to move quicker. We have to really push ourselves forward as best we can. And we ask Allah subhanaw taala to aid us.
Pivoting to our next, our next segment for tonight, we have a very special guest. We'd like to bring him on for the studio. And it's very apropos for our current events. We're talking about all of what's happening in Palestine. Well, for those of you who are familiar with the United States, then you should be familiar with care, the Council of American Islamic Relations, one of the foremost if not the foremost organization that assists Muslims in the United States in navigating the terrain, with with the government, whether that comes to our rights as citizens, whether it comes to foreign policy.
Let's just say that we could probably,
we will probably do good to clone care a few times we need several, several organizations doing the work that care does. So we have with us in the studio, have some a allouche who Subhanallah when I was reading your bio, your first of all, Michelle, a very accomplished Second of all, you are the executive director of care la, among other things, and is it true that you took that position in 1999 and you have been there since Is that true?
I would say 90 is first of all, salaam aleikum Wa alaykum
to all the listeners and the viewers. Yes, it was 1998 Okay, so I was nine years old. At the time when you accepted that that position of course I was not a Muslim. And just to give the sense of longevity, masha Allah Tabata, Allah, and the work that you have done for our sliver of the OMA.
We're talking with loads of experience. So we hope to benefit from your experience tonight. And thank you very much for joining the program.
Thank you for having me and my last home to Alex from all of us and trauma them yet. So in California, something was released. Well, let's let's start back a little bit, I want you to sort of give for maybe the uninitiated listener, a quick rundown of what care is, what care does sort of how its structured and how it fits into the Muslim life in the United States.
Give stands for the Council on American Islamic Relations, which is the largest Muslim advocacy and civil rights organization in the country focusing on protecting the rights of Muslims to practice their faith at the workplace at schools and public life. also challenged bigotry in general challenged Islamophobia, whether it's the entertainment media or news medium challenge, misrepresentation of Islam challenge attempts to defame Islam and Muslims by various Islamophobic entities at 90% of them being Zionist, usually driven.
We also focus on
also empowering the American Muslim community politically by engaging in civic engagement, practices, training, youth leadership, engaging Muslims politically so they can know who are their elected officials, what are the issues, make sure they vote make sure they're connected? So this is the care 501 C three, the care, nonprofit organization its care as part of an ecosystem. You know, there's also a care C for care action c four, which is the C four branch of care, which allows for a little bit more involvement on in lobbying on you know, on issues of importance to the Muslim community with candidates. And then there's the care PAC, the PAC, the political action committee,
which focuses on supporting candidates who are
are friendly to our causes and challenging candidates who are promoting bigotry, repression and injustice around the world. Each is run independently in a sense, but it's part of an ecosystem. And maybe explained here is based in Washington DC. It was founded in 1994. So that's the main office. But we do have a chapter in most major states in the country and within the state. For example, in California, there's care California, which you know, I happen to be the CEO of care California, but under care California, there are four offices in San Diego, the LA area, which I'm the IDI for, and then there's San Francisco Bay Area's there, Zahra is the IDI and the Sacramento Chapter, we're
brother Bussum. And in San Diego sister zine.
Excellent. So you have your foot and all of them. Correct. So you have
Carey, CEO of care, California, and then executive director of care LA. And then what's your involvement specifically with care Pac and, and the other sort of initiatives?
Personally, I try not to be too involved. But due to the tragedy happening in Gaza, and the election season being at the same time, I was called upon to come back and help a little bit more. So I volunteer, usually evening and weekend work for that type of work, because it's also something that is dear to my heart, because I do believe real change in America or changing policies in America can only happen when we organize politically. Yes, and that's something I think that a lot of Muslims in America are waking up to that we're not necessarily out funded or outmanned. We're mostly out organized and care is a really essential part of that organization. Now, in the past week, I
believe, a voter guide when we can bring up I think the cover with a study of from the studio was released. Now this was released by the care pack or which exact Organization released this voter guide.
Sure, this was released by the care pack itself, as a nonprofit, C 3501. C three organization, whether it's a measured whether it's European, it cannot support any specific races, because that will be illegal. There'll be a violation of the tax laws. So this was the pact, the political action committee. Yes. And so explain to us what was the need for this particular voting guide?
Is this the first of its kind? Is this something that is common? Or is this something that Muslims up until now have not paid significant enough attention to where this is perhaps where our energies need to be going with this type of thing? Perfect, very, very good question. Actually, this is not the first one we've actually been in existence as pack. The pack has existed since 2004 20 years ago, actually. And it has issued election guide voter guide, every election, you know, mostly the general election, but sometimes the primaries like this one, this year's primary elections, which is the election before the general election, where people get to choose the two top candidates in
California and other states, you choose the the main candidate for each of the the main political parties, we have something called the jungle primaries where it could be to two Democrats or two Republicans as the top two candidates moving into the general election, but this year, it became more important, because obviously, we decided to make the focus of this election for us. Usually, we rate candidates based on many factors, you know, their views on Islamophobia, their views on Muslim engagement, their views on justice, Palestine, Kashmir, Syria, things that are dear to the Muslim community, you know, the protection of Muslim youth, at schools and so on. In this case, this year,
we decided to make the issue about one issue. And that is where the candidates stand on the genocide against Palestinians. And as those who support the genocide, were obviously not supported or oppose, and those who support the ceasefire and end to the genocide, were supported. So this makes it more unique. So we have about a million Muslims in California, one of the largest population of Muslims in any state in America. So it's extremely important for Muslims to have a say, because who makes it to the general election is extremely important. So that's why this year's primary was well received by the community. Yeah. Mashallah. And that's what I was going to point out that some people could
argue and my first degree is in political science, actually, that the primaries are almost more important in some sense than a general election, the general election. You're choosing between two options, but primaries, you're choosing the choices you actually have an effort to, or an opportunity rather to influence who everybody gets to choose from. Now, statistically, unfortunately, there's usually
Much less turnout for the primaries than there is for the general election, which is backwards. Really, I mean, you, we should if, if you had to choose between the two, if you wanted to schedule your I don't know, your aamra During the either the primary election or the general election, then we would say scheduled during the general election and go vote in the primaries, because you're going to have perhaps a larger impact on what is the result of the election than just choosing between two prepackaged candidates.
So I'm maybe to appoint Imam Tom on the issue, because the turnout is so low. So if Muslims are only 5%, or 3% of the population, since turnout, voter turnout is lower, that 5% would be equivalent to eight and 10%. If we vote in large numbers, so that is actually an important point. And that's crucial. That's crucial, because too often I hear the defeatist mentality, say, Oh, we're just 1% of the population. What can we do? When in reality, you know, district by district, we know that the congressional districts are chopped up in ways to benefit this party or that party. But, you know, depending on the district, we actually have a lot of voting power, we're finding that out with
Michigan. Now, the incumbent president is sort of terrified as what's what's going down in Michigan people are like their primary is within 10 days, and they are voting uncommitted, or they're choosing to do whatever they're going to choose to do. You know, this is a big deal. People are sort of slowly waking up to the power that the Muslims have. And as Sammy Hamdi says, could be like the quote saying we have the as often as we can here, the only people who believe that the Muslims are powerless, as the Muslim Muslims themselves.
And maybe to re emphasize that point. I mean, I think there are two factors, if I may talk about because I hear that from a lot of community members. So you know, who are we We're little, we don't make a difference. Number one, you don't need to make a difference. Honestly, you have to do something because this crime, this genocide, is an American is a Biden genocide against Palestinians. So it's our tax money, our veto power, our political, our diplomatic government support that makes it happen. It is as much of an American war on Palestinians as it is Israeli. So we are indirectly responsible. So at least in front of Allah subhanaw taala, regardless of the
results, we have to stand in front of Allah subhanaw taala and say, We tried our best. So that is the minimum. Now hamdulillah actually, I do believe we can make a difference. Actually, Biden believes he can make a difference. Think about it. There are 2 billion Muslims around the world, 2 billion Muslims. But Biden and his administration decided to send the top officials of his of his administration as a delegation not to visit Muslims in Pakistan or in Egypt, where they are to 200 million or 100 million, or in Turkey or Morocco or they the send them to where to Michigan, because he knows that although there are only 200,000 Muslims, of which maybe 120 volt, imagine under 20,000
of them vote he deemed 120,000 Muslim voters in Michigan more important than the rest of the 2 billion Muslim because they can make him win or lose his presidential reelection. So let's let's believe in ourselves a little bit more. Yeah, that's a fantastic point. Last question on this front before I change it up a little bit. This particular type of activity that the care pack has done with putting out voting guides, is this something that the market is saturated and care has so much time that this is just something that you know, we're looking for something to do? Or is this something that is a pressing need, that we really need more organizations doing this type of work?
Across the country in different areas? I mean, I'm hoping it's a rhetorical question, as I assume hamdulillah it is certainly a necessity. It is completely crucial necessity today to build two things. What makes politics change or policies change is politicians, elected officials and what gets elected officials in office are two things one votes. And number two, financial support campaign support. So we need to be active on both fronts votes meaning Yes, we talk about swing states, you know, seven, eight swing states, Arizona, Georgia, Minnesota, Minnesota, obviously Michigan, etc. but also their swing districts congressional district election is not just about
choosing the president because some people might tell me, who do we choose? Do we choose Biden who's swimming in Palestinian blood or Trump who has been very anti Muslim and anti minorities? Well, maybe maybe neither one, maybe you can tell the lesser of two evils in this case and skip that one. But there are hundreds of other races from congressional to the state assembly to Mayor city councils who impact policies, of course, especially Congress impacts foreign policy. So we need to make sure that we organize Muslims to vote in areas where we can make a difference some
elections are won or lost by 100, or 1000 or 2000 votes. I can tell you in most congressional districts today, we have eight to 10,000 Muslim voters. Now who can make a difference. So that is important. So it is crucial. The other area other aspects of politics is the financial support. Yes. We can't continue to complain about bad electoral officials. There are some good ones. Yes, it's the minority is not the majority. Because it is difficult for good ones to make it into Congress, because good people don't believe that good electoral officials can make it is a possibility. So we have to stop stop believing that way. We have to stop looking for the perfect candidate amagno
hilltop, may Allah be pleased with him more I shove into the worker Sadiq May Allah if you are not running for office, right? We have to acknowledge that whoever is running, we're going to look for the ones who bring the most good and the least of harm. And yes, most times we can tell it's not that difficult. I know. They're all bad. Well, maybe sometimes they're all bad. But most times, there's someone who will bring your maybe someone who's racist, but maybe not in support of a genocide. That's a good start. And maybe someone who's actually against occupation, we have to become a little bit more nuanced in order to make the difference in trauma. Yeah, and I would add to
that, thinking sequentially. And beyond just one election, I think a lot of our failure to strategize in the muscle community has only been looking at the election right in front of us. And then that results in exactly the attitude you're talking about where I was like, Oh, well, no one's perfect. They're both evil. They're both this as opposed to, okay, well, in the meantime, we might choose this person compared to this other person. But now let's come up with a strategy. So that come next election, we're going to have to qualitatively better candidates and continue to push in a certain direction. That's, I think, where we need to get to and send the message that there is
appetite for principled candidates around there, because now they think you have to be corrupt because the only the only from AIPAC and dislikes, actually, if they start hearing from people who care about ending racism, poverty in America, challenging bigotry, challenging occupation, apartheid, then I can tell you, there are a lot of good ones who might, there are a lot of ones who are on the fence. And if they feel there's an appetite among voters for that, they will feel more encouraged to do and say the right thing. Great point. So I want to change direction here for a second, just to continue sort of a thread of conversation we started last week on this program, when
we were talking about the nonprofit ecosystem in North America, for the Muslims, and sort of the I think there's a coming to terms with the lack of standards, just because there have been some groups or some individuals who have now who have engaged in, let's say, normalization with Israel, or others who have not been very helpful, or some that have been actually actively harmful, some that got involved with MLA, some that got involved with CVE. And we don't have the time necessarily, you know, everybody in the audience can go look up those programs. But there's been sort of a new, a renewed level of scrutiny to organizations. Now, what hasn't happened is a general across the board
effort to try to come up with a list of ethical standards, or some sort of mechanisms by which we would hold these organizations accountable.
I want your general thoughts on that. And I guess specifically, if you have anything in mind, like what should be a red line for either an individual or an organization, let's just talk on Palestine, where there should be some sorts of consequences for that organization, or individual if they were to cross.
I mean, we can't watch our brothers and sisters being slaughtered and not draw a line somewhere. And that line is anyone who normalizes with organizations or individuals who justify this genocide, who dehumanize Palestinians, they should be put on a warning, I'm not into immediately punishing, because I think there are ranges of why people make mistakes, obviously, the most extreme, there are people who are, you know, still out there working. They're on the payroll of other foes who are undermining the community. But there are people who make innocent mistakes. There are people who make bad judgment, people who whose priorities are different. I've sat with people who said, Well, I
have to work with designers in order to have a seat at the table. Well, no, you're not gonna have a seat at the table. They they're using you to basically normalize their presence and cover up for their Islamophobia. And we can prove that but once we've made the necessary one, we've made the advice and we've told them this is a correction. Obviously, the checks and balances are going to be the accountability to the community and I know the term community is a very good
loose elastic thing. But I'm talking about mainstream community, when we need an umbrella organization such as maybe you a CMO, for example, the United States Council of Muslim organizations that can bring together respected mainstream Muslim organizations, we need things like the soccer Council of America of North America, where our scholars get together so so we can say what is mainstream because otherwise, everybody says, Well, I consulted with my Imam, I talked to my community, I talked to my people. So there must be a well defined reference point. So when we have groups like you as CMO, when we have councils, when we have amnesia of the organization that brings
callers they can set the red lines, whether it's on the issue of Palestine, or any other issue that is pertaining to Muslim affairs and values. I mean, we've seen that going left and right. Quite often, the the concept of canceling people on the first mistake, people who are well intended, I'm not a big fan of it. I mean, that should be the last resort. But sometimes it needs to happen when people refuse again and again, the power of the grassroots the power of donors, because donation is what keep organizations functional. And eventually, yes, calling out if calling in didn't work out. Yes. When people commit as the prophet Aliceville salaam Taurus, if people make sins and mistakes,
that are in public that impact people publicly, then maybe corruption or corruption that is public is necessary at that time. Now, that's, that's wonderfully stated and very mature. And I think that that we do have to thread a needle here, we have to walk a tightrope.
Unfortunately, I've been in enough spaces, many of us have been very politicized to a new level after October, you know, and I'm in so many WhatsApp groups, I can't keep up with everything now. But, you know, on one hand, or on one extreme, I've seen people using the Edit card or using different things, to guilt people or to silence people from holding people from holding organizations accountable. And that's not good. But we also don't want what you're saying, which is the other extreme, which is basically you make one slip up and you're gone, and you're done for and it's, you know, you're bringing up something someone did seven years ago for all you know, they've
repented. Okay, maybe you could argue that they should issue a public apology. Maybe that's, that's fair. But there's a whole range of sort of things. I think that needs to happen between those two extremes. Do you have any sort of maybe preliminary thoughts on what could be beyond a warning? What could be sort of like a ladder of escalation of consequences that we could think up for either an individual or an organization? Yeah, I think once there are two fronts, and our community for those who value the community as a Muslim community, because some don't, by the way, some are driven by other factors, you may be their Arab identity, Pakistani identity, you know that. But from a Muslim
perspective, obviously, for us, there is the consensus of scholars what is acceptable, in terms of defining this is causing harm. And I think the escalation should come from organized groups, you know, respected scholars making drawing the line and saying this is not this is aligned well and accept setting out Palestinians, describing them, as you know, in some of the dehumanization that happens today.
I think from a political perspective, from a legitimacy perspective, that's why organizations such as USC Mo, come in very handy, the escalation could be calling people for a meeting, asking for a clarification. Why did you say that? Because sometimes, you know, people may actually had thinking this was the right thing, once they're corrected, and if they refuse, I think that's when we can escalate in terms of public statements, letting people know, and it should be done collectively also shouldn't be one group against another group, you know, together as a community, we can come together and say, Hey, XYZ and by the way, we're talking about politicians who are Muslim, who might
do things, you know, 80% great things we like and 10% questionable and maybe 5% With disagree with and 5% We can debate about how do we deal with that? Because also for me, I worry about the passion of Muslims that if it goes unchecked, you know, the the young activist Muslim, who ended up shooting ourselves in the foot basically, undermining some of the more imagine Yeah, I'll speak bluntly and a sister Rashida play for example, Congresswoman from Michigan, who has done more to publicize the the pain and suffering of Palestinian people in Congress and in America more so than anybody else by by virtue of being Palestinian, connected, etc. Yes, she might have done or said things that people
don't agree with. But the amount of viciousness that I've seen, trying to undermine her in a way it makes us lose that important voice
doesn't mean we don't. There's a way to criticize you can say publicly Hey, Sam a loose Rashida Tlaib Ilhan Omar
Imam so and so you said this, this was inaccurate, I disagree with you, I hope you correct. But if it's just a statement, if it's not a persistent attempt to undermine the community, we have to also learn about the concept of agreeing to disagree. We're not talking about accommodation, right? We're not talking about somebody saying, I believe you can do this Islamically speaking with about politics, somebody had a judgment that said, You know what, I'm going to vote on this issue or vote on that issue. We can still disagree on this and say, All right, but we're going to move on on the other important because we always have to put the interest of the community. And if people, I can
tell you some of those who are engaging in ways to harm the community, it is being done persistently. And it's done sometimes with complete disregard to the community because their foundation is not the community. And that's where we have to, you know, for those ones, how do you deal with it, it is by telling the community, you know, it's a free country, everybody can organize the way they want, but at least they're outside of the consensus of the community. Let's face it, and I'll conclude with this, the biggest challenge we have today, you know, that we all can recognize is that we don't have yet a good strong structure that brings our community in an
organized, unified way. We're not we're not going to have complete unity. But there must be some agreement on what are the red lines, the general outline of our work of what is acceptable? What are the interests of the community today? And of course, there are many factors that, you know, there's money coming from some countries, you know, that have an agenda, funding scholars funding activism, we have US interest, you know, I can tell you political parties engaging with Muslim communities, to have their ambassadors to the Muslim community, rather than, you know, some people who serve with political parties forget that they're the representative of the Muslim community and the interest
with the party, they think it's the other way around. So I mean, they're all and then there are people of personal interest for themselves, you know, it could be a very narrow minded nationalistic, maybe they like this political party in Pakistan, for example, and this candidate supports that. So they, they're willing to shake hands with a former IDF candidate? Because that gives them that visibility or that access. So it's a lot of factors. But unfortunately, we're not there yet. But hamdullah, we're on track to make that clear. Yeah, that's, that's really great. And that's a great point to end on. I think that it's certainly a lot easier to take the social media
and blast somebody than it is to roll up your sleeves and create the structures and the accountability and to pull together as many people as you can to come up with a system that will fairly keep people in check and accountable. That's difficult work. But that's the work we need right now. We have so many people who can criticize from the comfort of their armchairs. We've got plenty of those probably too many. But how many people do we have that are going to create the structures that will actually create change and accountability? That's something that most people? Well, let's leave it on an optimistic note. That's what needs to be done. So you have any final
thoughts for Sampha? Yeah, it really was a great having you on the program tonight. Any final thoughts? You'd like to leave us with great pleasure and honor to be on the show? Mashallah, may Allah reward you not to praise you in your face. But this is so important, what you're doing is, is actually key indicating enlightening our community. I just want to finalize, I know maybe audiences outside of the US might not like that. But at this point, and I don't say that with any arrogance. It's actually the responsibility. The role and the responsibility and duty of American Muslims is a unique, crucial role today in the world. Because Allah subhanaw taala has blessed us with access
with privileges, the privilege of being able to vote freedom. I know we talk about our brothers and sisters in Gaza, subhanAllah Walla, who they have taught us if if what is happening in Gaza has not awakened us not awakened. The importance of uniting the Ummah doing goodness forgiving each other when we do mistakes and shortcomings. Focusing on the big picture, our brothers and sisters are being slaughtered every 15 minute, a Palestinian child is being killed to being orphaned. Three, maybe or two are being maimed. So we have to do something and no one in the entire world. No person in the entire world can change US foreign policy, which are causing the genocide other than American
voters, and specifically among all Muslims around the world. It is American Muslims. It's a responsibility. I hope everybody takes it seriously and join hands with whatever local efforts that are sincere happening in their community to make sure that we make that change. I'm very hopeful in Charlotte Allah in the next five to 10 years, we're going to see major shift in US foreign policy towards the Middle East and thanks to Allah subhanaw taala for that, and then the work of the American Muslim community, Baraka
Hello, and thank you so much for you control. Take care.
I'm gonna show you lots to think about. I want to pull up a question here from JD, which I think is a good question and probably on a lot of people's minds, what if the Muslim representative says something that is foundationally? Incorrect, something that takes them out of Islam. Now, that's very interesting, because you could separate between those two things, something foundationally incorrect is a category and then inside that category, a more specific thing won't be something that takes them out of Islam. And the question is, okay, who gets to decide what takes them out of a snap? And so this is an issue that would have to be returned to the scholars, not to say that this
isn't something that happens, no, it does happen. And it happens on with unfortunate frequency. But we're stuck in between, I think, a couple extremes, where we jump at the opportunity to sort of pummel people, or where we give someone too many excuses, right? Both of those extremes are undesirable, we don't want either of them. We want to actually do exactly what we say, whether it's the fifth Council in North America or Asia or other bodies, we want to come up with standards, we want to have report we want to do things that it's not just you as an individual or me as an individual criticizing somebody or questioning somebody's Islam on the internet. You know, okay,
maybe we'll go viral, maybe we'll get a couple 100,000 likes or, or views or something like that, maybe we'll change some opinions. But will we actually have solved the problem? I think that's the maturity that needs to happen in our thinking. That, actually, it's in the interest of all of us to create the structures that are able to hold that level of accountability and turn the screws tighter, that we're able to identify and to have, for example, a major fifth Council come out and say, This person X person is speaking on behalf of a community that they no longer represent, because they have left it without necessarily maybe moving into tech fear, because that's what we've
shown. I mean, this is sort of
scary territory. But that would be up to the council. I think what Hussin was saying is a key structural process point, that making this an issue of bodies as an collectives instead of an issue of individuals. I think that that is the safest thing, because the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam told us that react right, showing off is like a black ants on a black rock in the middle of the moonless night, that the ego is extremely slippery and evasive. And it's extremely difficult to parse out if you're only speaking as an individual. You're only speaking from your own perspective on your own channel, extremely difficult to tell, is it really just Islam that you're defending? Or
are you flexing your own ego? Or are you sort of putting somebody down because you benefit either financially, or reputation or any other sort of way, we remove that potential conflict of interest when we work in collectives, and we're able to actually have recognized bodies that are able to do this type of work, which is something that is needed.
So May Allah help us towards that? Well, there's a lot of work to do everybody.
Okay. In the meantime, there is a lot of work to do. There's a lot of work to do when it comes to society. When it comes to politics, there's a lot of work to do when it comes to ourselves.
And the extent of your success in this dunya is going to be limited. If we want to talk about I think last week with her book on leadership rules like the law of the lid, okay, the real law of the lid, we could say Islamically is your sincerity, and your worship and your connection with Allah subhanaw taala that that's the real lid on what you are able to do.
And so
let's turn now to our segment when it comes to animal we're going to be talking about the vicar of the morning in the evening. But first we're going to note the fact that we have entered into the holy month of Shaban and the month of Shaban the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam would fast the most in this month.
In any other month, that wasn't Ramadan,
I believe is headin Aisha when she would recount the habits of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam in sha Ben, it was almost as if he was fasting, a second Ramadan. He would fast most of it, nearly all of it.
And there is tremendous wisdom to this. And I had some people approached me privately today and they were asking me about the Salah, which we've been talking about extensively these past weeks and how do you have crucial in your Salah? How do you have awareness and presence in your prayer, and I gave the example of a runway. If you guys have ever been on a plane or seen a plane takeoff, you know that the plane is not a helicopter. The plane can't just lift and levitate off into the air from nothing that it needs a very long runway.
To be able to pick up speed, and then it has the ability to take off. And if you were to shorten that runway, then perhaps instead of taking off that plane would just crash right into the trees, where it would sink into the lake, it would not have what was necessary to build up the speed to properly take off. Well imagine that your Salah, okay, we've talked about the ways in which your Salah is like that plane taking off, you need that long runway, whether it's listening to the event, and then making paying attention during your will do and all these sorts of things. Right now, you're fasting is just like that. You're fasting is just like your prayer in the in the sense that
you need a long runway, if I don't fast a single day of the year, except I start my fasting for Ramadan, the first Ramadan, what are going to be the consequences that I'm going to lose the first week of Ramadan, feeling terrible headaches, blood sugars all over the place, I'm going to feel, you know, my sleep schedule is all out of whack, it's going to be a hard experience. And I'm never going to get the most out of my Ramadan. But if you treated Shabbat in the month before Ramadan, as the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam treated it, then you will have created for yourself a nice runway, you will have a long stretch where you can accustom yourself to praying a little bit at
night, and fasting during the day. And you're in the zone so that when the first of Ramadan hits, you're locked in, you're ready, you hit the ground running, right. And so this is one of the tremendous wisdoms of a fasting shop and as much as you can. Now we've got something in
let's have the guys in the studio bring up we've got some of the code of of the morning in the evening. And there's quite a few of them. So we're not able to go through all of them. But we'll just mention a few here, you can read the Arabic for the sake of time, I'll just read the English. We call upon Allah Oh, the EverLiving, the sustainer of all, I seek assistance through you, through Your mercy, rectify all of my affairs and do not interest me to myself with a blink of an eye. And that is extremely significant. It's extremely significant. Imagine we've said before, this is how you are starting off your day, this is how you're structuring your day, right, is that you are going
to
go throughout the rest of your day you're doing you're whether you're at home with the kids, or you're teaching or you're learning or you're at school, or you're at your work, right? Don't leave me to myself, not even for a second, because you by yourself cannot do very much.
But we rely upon a loss of data. And when you are relying upon a law, you are able to do anything. In fact, Allah puts Baraka, he puts blessing on what you do see, we make a mistake in our modern era where we think that any second is like any other second or any minute is like any other minute. And that's just not true. These things are not equal. And if you've ever sat in a class that you didn't particularly like, you know that this is true, because you've watched the clock tick, even while you were waiting for the class to end. And the clock seems to be moving very, very slowly. Right? And then you've been in other situations where you're at a wedding or you're at a party for a friend or
you're at AID and Time flies by you look at your watch, or you look at the clock and all of a sudden it's been two hours and it seems like it was two minutes, right Allah subhanaw taala can make time like that, just like he can make money like that, just like he can make effort like that. And so, this is, this is baraka, right or the opposite of Baraka depends. And so we ask Allah subhanaw taala, to not leave us alone, to allow us to have that Baraka that he is constantly watching over us, that we are dependent upon him. He sustains us for everything. We're asking his assistants, we're asking for His mercy. He's the one that can rectify your affairs. All the problems in your
life, whether it's a problem with your spouse, a problem with your kids a problem with your parents a problem at school, a problem at work, a problem in your homeland, a political problem, an economic problem, whatever it is, if you were left to yourself to try to figure it out and solve it, you would fail or maybe of the 10 or 20 or 50 problems that you have to do you would solve one or two of them by yourself. But with Allah subhanaw taala with Allah subhanaw taala it would become possible Allah azza wa jal makes the impossible possible. He can make the fire cool, like he did for Ibraheem Alehissalaam he can make the water dry or the river part as he did for Musa he said he is capable of
that and much more. Let's go studio for just one more.
And then we'll move on to our final segments
okay, we say with your name, my lord, I lay myself down and with your name I rise and if my soul you take, have mercy on it, and if you send it back, then protect it as you protect your righteous slaves. So we see here that this is
perspective
for that part of the meanings of the remembrances of the morning in the evening are about keeping perspective, we lose perspective very, very easily. We move through our day, we have our problems, we have our tasks, we have our deadlines, we have our jobs or responsibilities. Okay? And then what happens if we just wake up and go right to our tasks? Or if we do our tasks, right up until the point where we fall asleep, we lose perspective. The vicar of the morning in the evening is supposed to keep us on track. What is the perspective? How does this all fit together? That every night when you lay yourself down a lot of takes your life away, in a sense, sleep is the cousin of death, is
that Allah subhanaw taala can end everything right there and you wouldn't know it, you wouldn't be able to fight back against it, there's nothing that you could do. Okay. And so if he has that power over you, then you have nothing left to do, but to submit to Him. And to ask him to have mercy when he does finally take your soul in that final way.
And you ask him to give it back to you, so that you can continue your work and continue his work on this world. I think we'll, since we went a little bit over with our other program, we'll cut that short for today. There are many there are over 12, in this book,
remembrances for the morning in the evening. And all of them have very, very deep meanings that have to be reflected upon in order to truly benefit and truly, we're not just trying to ape or imitate what the prophets of Allah holiday was Saddam did, though that's true, we do want to do that. We also want to embody the attitude that he had, we also want to take the benefit from what he did, and have the same perspective that he had. And you can't do that with just the external sort of structure, you also have to meditate on the meetings as well.
So turning back to our leadership book here, we had some homework. Can we bring that up what the homework was for last week? It was rating yourself and I would ask everybody to share.
ask everybody to share if you're with us last week, you were supposed to rate your leadership. And then you're supposed to ask somebody else to rate your leadership. Okay. We won't be able to share our results in detail. But let's say
what was in general your your feedback that you got for those who completed the exercise? Were you a Okay, we have Angel did the homework. So tell us Angel? Was the feedback. Were you a better leader than you thought you were the person who rated your leadership rate you higher or lower than what you thought?
This particular book testify is by Jhansi Maxwell, it's the 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership.
So we're looking for people to share, what were the results? How did you Masha Allah, okay, that's significant Angel. So this is really important. So Angel rated her own leadership. And then she had her mother rate, her leadership, and she found that her mother rated her higher. This is extremely important. And in my time, as an Imam, I found this is true, that there's two types of people in general.
Some people, they are extremely confident.
And other people, they tend to criticize themselves, they're very, very conscientious. And if you are extremely conscientious, you will tend to criticize yourself so much that
other people see something in you that you don't see on yourself. So it's important than to take shorter and to realize and to have confidence, right? In addition to paying attention to the things that you can improve, obviously, but to understand this about yourself, that you tend to beat yourself up, and I can raise my hand and tell you that I am like this, I beat myself up a lot. I have my own harshest critic, definitely. I'm always picking apart the things that I should have done better. Why didn't I do it? I could have done this, I could have done that. Right.
And so that's something that I just have to take into account when I'm reading myself or I'm thinking about myself or I'm critiquing myself, whereas other people, mashallah, you know, you see that they think that they're doing amazing, and then really, someone has to bring it to them that actually, you know, you're not as great as you think you are. And then this can be something that's another test. It's another another type of test. So even to just compare your own answers to somebody else's is an exercise in sort of realizing what's the difference between how I look at myself and how other people look at themselves. And that's something which is very informative.
Yes, definitely. So for this week, we've got a couple of things that we want to get through. Okay.
So first of all, we have something that the author says is, reminds me of
what I would call like a definition of
Our and that's not his language, but it is very, very central to it. This week we talk about the law of influence. And the subtitle is the true measure of leadership is influence. Nothing more, nothing less. Now, my own reflection on this is very similar because in the political science world that I have, you know, some training and experience in a lot of people confuse power with access. And we've learned this the hard way in the United States of America. People think that getting invited to the White House if thar you've made it, you know, you have access with the President, you get invited to talk to this person or that person. And we think that that is power Oh, now they'll listen to us.
That's not what power is. They will give you the selfies and they'll give you sort of accolades and this sort of thing all day long. Real Power is the ability for a lot of people to do the same thing at the same time. collective movement, collective action, that is what power is. If you have even 10 doctors in a hospital, that let's say that their hospital makes a statement in support of Israel. 10 doctors decide one day we're going to walk out the same day we're going to refuse to give our services to this hospital. Ah, look at the power there, just 10 people, if they had done it individually, there would have been no power. But if they did it together, all of a sudden, that's
power.
Mashallah, and Sabir has a really interesting reflection, it was helpful that you asked to think about leadership in the family setting. I'm used to doing this at work. But getting some insight from my husband about my leadership at home was an eye opener, I had the same experience and say, well 100% Right.
Mashallah, that's cool to hear. So he rated you higher than you rated yourself. I know, as parents, we always think that we're failing. Most parents I feel, you know, are definitely going to bring up their their shortcomings. So that was an eye opener for me as well, because these things are fairly common in the workplace and for careers, but leadership as the prophesy centum said in a hadith is something Aquila comas Odin, Kula camera, and Makoto komatsuna. honoree it right that every single one of you is a shepherd, and you're responsible for your flock. So we have to open up our mind about leadership and think about leadership in a more holistic way that we actually have influence
on all of those around us. Right. And that's what that's actually the point of this chapter, that leadership is the law of influence. And so he goes through some myths about leadership that help clarify our ideas about what leadership is and what Leadership isn't. And these myths are super, super common, which I found a good to go through. So we've got, I think, five, yes. One is what he calls the management myth. Okay, the myth that leaders are the same as managers, or that managers necessarily make good leaders, that this is not true that this is a myth. And he distinguishes the two by saying that managers can maintain a direction, but often they cannot change it. systems and
processes can only do so much to move people in a new direction, you need influence. And so that's what we're talking about that if leadership is influence, then you basically in order to influence somebody, you have to convince them that what they're currently doing either is wrong, or that it could be done better. And you should basically trying to convince or influence somebody to act differently. And especially if you're trying to build power, you're trying to influence someone, to follow you and to do the same thing that you're doing at a certain particular time. The second myth that he identifies is what he calls the entrepreneur myth. And this is very common today. We have
all these people, if you're an entrepreneur, you know, you open up a YouTube channel, you get some sort of pyramid scheme going, and you're very, very famous, you get a lot of clicks and followers, okay, this doesn't actually make you a good leader. Because being an entrepreneur is different from being a leader, an entrepreneur, he says, as somebody who sees opportunities and goes after opportunities, they understand what people need.
And they try to meet that need in a way that produces profit. But not all of them are good at working with people, and many of them have find it very, very difficult to influence people. And so that's the key rub there. If you're not influencing people, then you can't be
you can't really be a leader. The third is the knowledge myth, the knowledge myth. So this is the assumption that the smartest person in the room is the leader. And that's not always necessarily true from the same sort of line of thinking that leadership is about influence. And you can go into any major university or college in the world. And you see that there's tons of smart people, but what have we seen from the academic institutions of the Western world since October 7, we've seen cowardice. To be frank, we've seen cowardice. We have not seen bravery. We have not seen courage, and we certainly we certainly have not seen influence. Rather they are the ones that are afraid of
their jobs. They are the afraid of going in front of Congress in a McCarthy like hearing, right. So that's not leadership at all because they're not really
The influencing anybody. The fourth is what he calls the Pioneer myth, right. And he talks about a story about the first people to climb Mount Everest, etc. But the the point that he's making here is that there's an assumption here that the leader is the person who's out in front, that the leader is the first someone, the first person to do something. And that's not true, because you can be the first person to do something. But that doesn't mean that you've brought everybody with you, or that you've brought anybody with you, that to be a leader is to is to be able to influence people to follow your lead. And the last one, and this one should be probably the most familiar to us is what
he calls the position myth. Okay, so the position myth is basically the myth that just because you have the title, that this makes you a leader, I'm the Imam of the Masjid. That means means I'm the leader, he's the CEO. She's the principal. Right? That means that they're the leader. That's not true at all.
Leadership is about influence. And it's not about titles, because every masjid and every community knows that there's that one community member, that if they were to leave, and leave the community in an intentional way, that a whole bunch of people will leave, leave that community with them. And so leadership is a very, very different thing from all of these things, that leadership is about influence, not about necessarily these other things. Now, how do you get influence? Okay, influence is a function of several characteristics. And if you'd like to, then I would consider writing these down.
Influence is not given to anybody. Influence is earned.
Influence is earned.
Influence is a function of character.
What you do when no one else is looking, it's an it's a factor of relationships. It's a factor of knowledge, yes, knowledge has to do with it. There's also some intuition mixed in there. It's also a function of experience, often,
it often has to do with past successes to people will trust you and follow you if you've demonstrated that you have succeeded in the past. And it also was a function of general ability to do things. So we've got seven sort of factors that help
a person earn influence, so we can look at ourselves. And we could be frank, and we could say, okay, these are the sorts of things that it takes to influence other people, where am I at? And what opportunities do I have to develop myself? Now, before we conclude tonight's program, we have more homework for you for next week, this is this is going to be really interesting thing. Okay, the homework for this week, is you have to try to influence three people. And I'm going to do this too. And I'm going to report back to you now, don't get panicked. When we say influence somebody, we don't mean you're going to change the world or change a government policy or anything. Hey, if you
do props to you, I'm happy for you, and I'll be praying for you. But just influence on it could be something very small. It could be what to have for lunch. It could be you know where to put a piece of furniture, it could be where to go on, you know, you want to go to a park or you want to go to do some sort of outdoor activity. But your homework is to try to influence three people this week. Okay?
One person, three types of people, someone at your level?
Someone who's a peer of yours. Okay. The second type of person you're going to try to influence is someone above your level.
Supervisor, an older sibling, or an auntie, or a parent? Yes. And then someone under your level, a child, someone from the next, the next generation down students, this sort of thing. Okay, so that's our homework. And we're going to try and we're going to come back and we're gonna see, was it easier to influence the people at our level, or above us or below us? Let's experiment. And let's see what happens. Let's see.
No, save it. That's a very nice analogy there leadership summed up by my favorite professor, put the right people on the bus, take the wrong people off the bus, put the right people in the right seats, and get the bus going in the right direction. Yes, sir. That's wonderful. I will take any other sort of loose ends or questions that anybody has.
And then we will end the program for tonight.
I see a lot of people, a lot of courageous people here watching Mashallah. That's it's touching to see all of the work that everybody does in any capacity that you're able to. And when we talk about leadership, we're definitely not trying to downplay those sorts of efforts, but we are trying to amplify those efforts. We are trying to say, how can we make take this effort and these skills and actually make them even more impactful?
why they come a Salam Chow? We have a question from article rock man.
As we approach Ramadan Would you share your Ramadan routine or any habit you do in this plus upon to make it extra beneficial?
Okay, well maybe there's a couple of things right so
I like coffee as many people know. And so there's two methods when it comes to coffee drinking.
And that is you can either find a way to get your coffee or you can wean yourself off of coffee in the month of Shabbat and so that you don't need coffee. Okay, so I am of the first method. I usually have coffee with my I have an espresso with my Sahar and I have espresso with my Iftar and then maybe another one after totally
and I know other people like shake Joe Bradford, he recommends the slow release caffeine tablets I know that's a new thing. I have not tried that but he speaks highly of the second thing on a more serious note what I tried to do
take take out some of the core and serious for those of you who are you know fluent in Arabic and able to benefit from the meanings of the Quran and Arabic. Try to take seriously finishing the Quran multiple times in Ramadan. Just to reconnect doesn't matter how far you've gone from the Koran outside of Ramadan. This is the month to bring yourself back.
Calm and touch 17 asks, Can we subscribe to the program if we're new and from Europe? Yes, of course. 100% Where are you from in Europe
there's nothing to do to subscribe except for tune in at this time every Wednesday
scanning for any easy homework Angel says the homeworks easy I think it's also easier from from before or it for Israel to sit down from Atlanta have fond memories of my time from Atlanta and Charlotte I'll be coming back to Atlanta the second week of May
Okay, we have some coffee. We have some coffee lovers here as well. I'm an espresso person everything has to be espresso. Unsweetened Ethiopian coffee sounds really nice.
Obviously misses us when it comes with health reasons. Of course this is covered in the Quran by Allah subhanaw taala if you have health reasons, you know, there are either permanent health reasons or there are temporary health reasons if there are permanent health reasons, then you don't even expect to make it up. So then you do fit Yeah, right. You're feeding poor people in lieu of fasting. If you are hoping that you're going to get better it's expected that you're going to get better then this is something where you will make up the days after you have restored your health.
Okay, Chai for so Mashallah. And after Iftar is very nice. So we're on the same schedule. That's good.
Okay, if there's no other questions, then thank you very much for everybody for tuning in. It's a pleasure and an honor every time this time especially.
And we hope to see you next week my last final thought except from us and from you. So panic all who haven't shut up one day they'll answer stuff here to relate cinema suddently