Tom Facchine – Why Diversity Is Essential

			We have a problem with mosques in North America where a lot of times they're silos. Right. And by
silo, we mean that they're an insulated community. And this happens in a couple of different ways, a
lot of mosques are set up so that they are specific to one ethnic group. That's one way it happens.
Another way it happens is that it can be sorted by so socio economic class, you'll have a very well
funded mosque in the suburbs. And then the same city, there's an inner city mosque that's barely
struggling to keep the lights on.
		

			And this makes us all poor, in the spiritual sense, because all these folks have to be together. Or
it's better, we should say, if all these folks were together in one machine, or at least if this
wasn't the, okay, maybe one city needs multiple messages, it's not possible to just have one, but it
shouldn't be organized in that sort of way. Right, based off of ethnicity, or based off of what are
based off of this money, class, race.
		

			Because that's not how the first community of Muslims works. The first community of Muslims was
extremely diverse in these types of ways. You had poor people, and you had rich people. You had
people from you had the Sahaba Rumi, you had some man infatti. See, you had Adams, you had people
who were black, you have people who are white, you have people who are other colors, you have people
who are from all different places.
		

			And that is one of that's a core belief, or a core lesson that Allah subhanaw taala wants us to
learn, because here's the theological problem, people, you know, people delude themselves, and
people want to take the easy way out. And so one of the easy ways out that people try to convince
themselves of is that they're going to succeed in the afterlife based off of some sort of identity
that they don't have to work for. Now, that could be lineage, me or my father, my ancestors, and I'm
gonna say it or I'm this or I'm that, that could be race, that could be color, that could be
ethnicity, tribe, all of these sorts of things.
		

			And Islam came to destroy all that, that mentality, not to replace it, like Allah says, In the
Quran, it's
		

			so that you know each other. That's the reason why I lost pounds, Allah created it so that you know
each other, it's not to separate the people out, like that rounded and create separate classes and
separate castes, and one has privileged and the other doesn't, right? How are we supposed to benefit
as Muslims? If the poor and the rich don't exist? In the same question?
		

			How are the rich people going to get the benefit from
		

			redistributing part of their wealth to the poor of their community? How are the poor of the
community going to benefit spiritually from fighting against their envy and jealousy of the people
who are rich within their community? Allah created them both, and allowed both to exist to benefit
each other in both material and spiritual ways.
		

			So having this mix, and the euro committed, we're very blessed to have this mix.
		

			It's got so many lessons to be learned in it and so many purposes, and people really need to,
especially in North America, where you have forces of assimilation that are working in forces that
are calling your kids away from Islam, it's not going to work, to have an ethnic masjid for three
generations. It's not going to work to have a masjid that just serves one micro community. For
multiple generations, it might work for a generation or two. But if we are serious about wanting to
establish Islam, long term in the North America, then it's got to be the big umbrella. It's got to
be bring the diversity, bring the ethnicities bring the hip, right? Oh, this one chef, are you this
		

			one's Hanafi. This one's mata ki, this one's humbly bring them together. And let's figure out a way
to unite on what we can unite on and agree to disagree and some of the things that we disagree on
and go forward from there.