Yahya Rhodus – Lectures- Essential Topics in Religious Literacy
AI: Summary ©
The importance of environment in learning and growth is emphasized, particularly in the context of religion and belief. The speaker emphasizes the need for water, soil, light, and air to grow, as well as the importance of finding environments of learning in public spaces and specific places. The speaker also discusses the importance of cultivating and cultivating in the context of religion and belief, as well as the importance of learning in the natural and spiritual environments. The speaker also discusses the social and cultural forces that shape people and their environments, including microclimates and climate control, and the importance of social and political growth in education.
AI: Summary ©
So your handouts are coming insha'Allah ta
'ala.
Bear with us.
وَلَا حَوْلَ وَلَا قُوَّةَ إِلَّا بِاللَّهِ الْعَالِيُّ الْعَظِيمُ
Alhamdulillah, we ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
to give us tawfiq in these sessions and
bless us to be able to learn that
which benefits us and to benefit us through
what He allows us to learn subhanahu wa
ta'ala and may He increase us in
learning, Tabaraka wa ta'ala.
Tonight's lecture topic is on environments of learning.
And this is a very important topic and
it pertains to one of the core parts
of our pedagogy here, how it is that
we like to teach and what it is
that we strive for.
It ties right into our mission statement.
And when we speak of environments of learning,
and again, as you'll be getting your outlines
here shortly, bismillah ta'ala, the right environment
is needed for growth.
You just ask them to turn the speakers
off downstairs.
The right environment is needed for growth.
Just as certain conditions must be present in
the physical environment for growth, likewise, there are
conditions that must exist for religious and spiritual
growth.
So when we speak of this meaning of
environment, what we really want from that environment
is growth.
And the idea of this growth here relates
to the human individual.
And we're not speaking here really in an
outward sense.
Human beings, naturally from the time that they're
born until when they get older and older,
that they're growing.
And what we really mean here is a
type of internal, spiritual, religious growth.
And this is important because this is what
we hope to benefit from, this world.
And if you think about how the righteous
refer to this world, they call it the
mazra'a of the akhira.
A mazra'a is a farm.
You could also use the word seedbed.
So the dunya, this world in which we
live, it is the mazra'a.
It is the farm or the seedbed of
the hereafter.
So even this very famous and well-known
way of referring to this world points to
this idea of environment.
الدنيا مزرعة الآخرة In other words, it's here
that we plant our seeds that we hope
to harvest in the hereafter.
And the harvest of the hereafter is the
greatest of all harvests.
The harvest here in this world is going
to come to an end.
It's at certain times, most plants and most
fruits, that it takes time for it to
bear that fruit and then it comes once
a season and so forth.
But the harvest of the hereafter is even
greater.
This is the eternal harvest.
And there are so many, so many metaphors
that relate to planting seeds here physically and
then watching those seeds grow until eventually they
bear fruit or whatever it is that you're
trying to get out of those seeds that
you plant.
It could be some form of a vegetable,
it could be some form of a plant.
But these meanings of harvest here in this
world teach us the true meanings of harvest
which are always going to be related to
the hereafter.
And the more that we plant seeds here
and cultivate those seeds here in this world,
the more that we will then be able
to harvest our actions and the fruits of
them in the hereafter.
And so our Prophet ﷺ, he also referred
to these environments in his choice of words.
And of course that we know that everything
that a Prophet says is exactly, the words
that he used was exactly the meaning that
he was trying to convey.
And so in the famous hadith again that
our Prophet told us, إِذَا مَرَرْتُمْ بِالرِّيَالْدِ الْجَنَّةِ
If you pass by the gardens of paradise.
So رِيَالْدِ is the plural of رَوْضَةِ رَوْضَةِ
is a garden.
So just imagine a lush garden in a
desert climate like an oasis and in a
very arid climate and then all of a
sudden you come upon a very lush garden
when there's water, that it's filled with trees
and all different types of foliage and the
way that the temperature then drops and all
the different flowers and the smells and that
once you have all of these other plants
and you have all different types of birds
and animals and so forth and so on.
It's very much alive.
Everyone who's been to the desert and then
that been in this environment, it's a very
beautiful feeling.
So our Prophet referred to gatherings as رِيَالْدِ
الْجَنَّةِ Then he was then asked, what are
these gatherings of paradise?
And then our Prophet ﷺ said, هِلَقَ الْذِكَرِ
They're the circles of remembrance.
And so this word remembrance takes on a
two-fold meaning.
Remembrance like the gathering that we just did,
reciting the Burda Sharifah which is in praise
of the Prophet ﷺ.
But also, remembrance insofar as it relates to
knowledge.
So the meaning of ذكر, the هِلَقَ الْذِكَرِ
refer to the gatherings of invocation and remembrance
just as they refer to the gatherings of
knowledge and learning.
So when Allah Ta'ala says in the
Quran, فَاسْأَلُوا أَهْلِ ذِكْرِ Ask the people of
remembrance.
إِن كُنتُمْ لَا تَعْلِمُونَ If indeed you did
not know.
And so this dual meaning, the people of
remembrance are the scholars.
But they are also the people that are
aware.
They're aware of their purpose of life.
They're aware of the trajectory that they need
to take.
And they're aware of their surroundings.
And they're aware of how to guide other
people as a result.
Which means that they also have to include
as a part of their scholarship their piety
and devotion to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
in the form of ذكر, of invocation and
remembrance of Him.
So environments of learning.
And when we speak about this, we're going
to take this eventually to a very practical
meaning.
But the right environment is needed for growth.
Without the right environment, you're not going to
get growth.
And just as you have conditions outwardly that
must be present in the physical environment for
growth, likewise there are conditions that must exist
for religious and spiritual growth.
So think about outwardly.
You need water, you need soil, you need
nutrients, you need light, you need air.
And then all of these things, think about
the type of water that you use is
important.
And if anyone's ever spent time even in
their garden, in their backyard, think about how
things grow in relation to rain water as
opposed to water from your hose.
It's a very different experience.
Things grow much better and much more full.
They grow much quicker with rain water.
And think about soil, the type of soil
that you plant that seed in.
If it doesn't have nutrients and it's been
over farmed and it doesn't have the right
consistency, it's not going to produce the same
type of plant or fruit.
Light, air, all of these other types of
things that need to be there in the
physical environment.
Likewise, there's a number of things that must
be present in order for there to be
religious and spiritual growth.
And just as outwardly you could have a
place and it's not too far from another
place, one where you can grow very good
crops.
Not too far from that, it's land that
can't even be used to plant anything.
And likewise spiritually, even religiously, you could have
places that you go to that place and
it's a means for you to blossom and
to bear fruit.
And you go just down the street and
it's the opposite.
It's a means for you to, that have
these meanings of religion and belief and piety
stripped from your heart.
And especially in a place like the United
States of America, is that there are many
places like that.
You don't have to look far when you
go outside the door to find a place
that would actually bring about difficulties for you
and that make you compromise your religion.
And so environments of learning, this is really
important because one of the blessed aspects of
our Deen is you and I, we can
create environments of learning in very easy ways.
It's not that hard.
You can do it in your house.
It doesn't require a lot of money.
You can do it in a very small
space.
It doesn't have to be elaborate.
You don't have to spend millions of dollars.
There's ways of doing it.
It could be two or three people getting
together in a public place and consistently doing
something so that that halaqa, the plural of
which is hilaq, of dhikr, is an environment.
So it could be that on a college
campus where most people are doing things that
are distancing them from Allah subhanahu wa ta
'ala, people coming together regularly.
It could be in someone's house.
It could be, like I mentioned, in a
public place of some sort.
Or it could be in a mosque.
Or it could be in some other type
of center where the purpose is to create
that environment.
And the whole purpose here is you and
I need to be very careful about where
it is that we are in order that
we want to be able to receive what
it is that we need to grow.
Now also the beautiful thing here is as
our roots get deep and as we grow
stronger and stronger, then we will be able
to withstand conditions that normally we wouldn't be
able to withstand.
And even Ibn Atayla uses this metaphor of
planting when he says, ادفن نفسك في ارض
الخمول Bury yourself in the earth of obscurity.
And so if things aren't buried, if that
seed is not planted under the soil, and
then it's not nurtured and allowed to reach
a point where it can then become strong.
And oftentimes when trees are weak, you put
a stake next to it so that it
keeps it up until it grows strong.
And then when it grows strong, most weather
conditions, short of a hurricane or short of
a tornado or something like that, it can
withstand.
And it's not going to fall over unless
it's very violent weather.
And likewise in the broader environments you and
I are living in, and this is the
goal, is that if we grow religiously and
spiritually, we'll be able to withstand.
We will have resilience.
But it requires an environment.
And I ask myself this question.
This is the second bullet point.
And in the places that you go in
the Muslim world, the blessed environments of learning
in the Muslim world, there are certain things
that are present there that allow for these
beautiful environments to really help you grow, to
have this incredibly rich and enriching experience.
And part of it is the people.
When you're in places where the family of
the Prophet Muhammad s.a.w. is prevalent,
when you're in places where there are awliya
and there are saints, when you're in places
where there are ulama and scholars of both
genders, both male and female alike, this is
one of the core components of all of
a blessed environment, are the people.
And this is actually the greatest factor that
makes everything else in that environment mubarak and
blessed, are the blessed people.
And so just think about the Prophet Muhammad
s.a.w. Think about the two most
sacred places on earth, Mecca al-Makarama and
Madina al-Munawwara.
The honor of Mecca was in that Allah
chose for the Prophet s.a.w. to
be born there.
Mecca was honored to have the Prophet s
.a.w. born in, not the other way
around.
The Prophet honored everything.
And this is the proof of that is
in the words of Allah, that, لَا أُقْسِمُ
بِهَذَا الْبَلْ وَأَنتَ أَحِلُّونَ بِهَذَا الْبَلْ That He
says that, I swear by this land and
you are dwelling in this land.
The blessed land is Mecca al-Makarama.
So Allah chose the Prophet s.a.w.
to be born there.
So Mecca becomes noble because the Prophet s
.a.w. was born there.
And it is also a place where you
have the Bayt al-Atiq, the very first
house of worship on earth.
So Mecca al-Makarama is the spiritual center
of the universe.
That's an environment.
You go into that environment and you know,
that if you gaze upon the Kaaba al
-Musharafa, it's like worshiping Allah s.w.t.
for an entire year, according to a Hadith.
In every moment there is 120 mercies descending
upon the Kaaba.
60 for those circumambulating, 40 for those praying,
20 for those just gazing at the Kaaba.
That's an environment.
You go into that environment, it is not
like other places.
One prayer is like 100,000 prayers somewhere
else.
One time of saying La ilaha illa Allah
is like 100,000 times somewhere else.
That's an environment.
You go into Madina al-Murawara and you
visit that blessed place.
By scholarly consensus, it is the most pure
and best place on earth where the blessed
Prophet s.a.w. is buried.
It's different when you enter the Masjid of
the Prophet s.a.w. One prayer is
like 1,000 prayers.
For those that actually prefer Madina over Mecca
and say that it has even a greater
merit, they say that 1,000 is an
addition to the multiplied rewards of other places.
So it's even 1,000 times greater than
prayer even in Mecca and Muqaddimah, which is
100,000.
So you times that by 1,000.
There is a difference of opinion in this
matter.
But the point is these are sacred environments.
And then this is where it all started.
And then look how Islam spread.
And a place would go from a place
of disbelief to a place that was a
beautiful environment where shortly after that, some of
the greatest people on earth stemmed from that.
And look at wherever Islam spread.
Not too long after that, you have great
people from those places that learned this Deen
and that became blessed people through their scholarship
and piety and putting their knowledge into practice.
And then the whole environment changes.
This became very clear to me not too
long ago visiting the blessed region of Mawara
-an-Nahar, known in English as Trans-Oxyana.
And that modern-day Uzbekistan being that part
of this area, the likes of Imam al
-Bukhari, in such a short period of time,
Islam reached this blessed land.
There's companions buried in this land.
And you have some of the greatest scholars
in human history that are buried there.
They're not too far.
You're only talking about 200 years roughly, 150,
200 years after the time of the Prophet,
sallallahu alayhi wa sallam.
And this rose in that environment.
And the same thing takes place in modern
-day Iran and Afghanistan and moving further into
Central Asia, all across North Africa and in
other places as well eventually.
And what you see is that when Islam
spreads to these places, blessed environments follow such
that still to this day, despite all of
the dysfunctionality in the Muslim world, you go
to these sacred lands where there's still blessed
people.
And there are environments that are still there.
Although they're being compromised, the more they open
up their doors to the pollution, the spiritual
pollution of the modern world, and oftentimes their
practices lead to physical pollution as well, the
more that these things start to become hidden.
But you go to the old cities and
you still find very special people.
You go to places where there's still scholarship
intact and you find very special people across
the world, literally.
From Morocco all across North Africa, they're still
there.
Sub-Saharan Africa, they're still there.
East Africa, they're still there.
South Africa, they're still there.
All throughout the Arabian Peninsula, they're still there.
All throughout wherever the Ottoman Empire went, they're
still there.
They're still there in Afghanistan.
They're still there beyond the borders of Afghanistan
and further into Central Asia.
In the subcontinent, in India and Pakistan, you
go to Southeast Asia, they're still there.
They're still in places in China and in
the Philippines and others.
It's still there.
It's not what it used to be, but
these blessed environments are there that stem primarily
from these blessed people that were in them.
But then when you add to that their
methodology, how it is that they were and
how it is that they interacted with people
around them.
This is another core component of these blessed
environments.
What is the methodology that is behind them
that ultimately when it's rooted in the Quran,
in the Sunnah, this is what's going to
open up the door for that environment to
become blessed.
And then all of the practice that stem
from this methodology, the strong societal relationships that
come from people doing things like establishing funeral
prayers, consoling the deceased, and that all the
different things that you do, the aqeeqahs for
the newborns, and visiting your neighbors, and all
these other types of things.
And when these things come together, these societal
practices, along with the methodology and the people,
and you could have mentioned several other factors.
These are just to kind of point to
this meaning.
What happens is you create a blessed environment.
And everywhere Islam went, this is what happened.
Blessed environments were there such that many of
you that are in this room now or
maybe some of you that are following online
know people in your immediate family if your
family is a Muslim family that you were
raised in.
You know people in your immediate family or
aunts or uncles or grandparents or people that
were close to you in some way or
maybe even neighbors or friends.
You know exactly what I'm talking about.
Many of these people never even went to
a madrasah or studied formally.
But they came up in this environment and
culture became a capsule to transmit many of
the realities of this deen, good culture.
And then people learned these things and attained
great degrees of closeness to Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala as a result without even stepping
foot oftentimes in a formal school.
That's amazing.
That is an environment.
And this is why we have to speak
about these things.
And one of our biggest jobs here in
a place like the United States of America
or wherever we're from, wherever we go back
to is to be aware of the importance
of this and to establish these environments.
Because once these environments are established in small
ways, in large ways, in ways in between
that with individuals and with households and with
communities and then once it leads to the
institutional level as well this is where when
people start to come into those environments they
realize this is different.
I just sat through a gathering and spent
my time from about 5.10 to 6
.10 doing something that if I would have
spent that time from 5.10 to 6
.10 that just driving my car around or
going to another store I had a very
different experience.
You could have been there or you could
have been here.
But what was it that transpired from 5
.10 to 6.10 when we're referring to
the recitation of the Burda Sharifah which is
the recitation of whom, of who?
This great Imam, Imam al-Busayri who grew
up in one of these environments and met
these blessed people who opened up his heart.
And he met the likes of Imam Abu
Abbas al-Mursi and is buried not too
far from him in Alexandria, Egypt.
And as a result of that encounter everything
for him changed.
And then here how many times have his
words been recited in praise of the Prophet
ﷺ for centuries?
That 8 centuries roughly or more from his
time and we're still reciting his words in
praise of the Beloved ﷺ.
And what transpires what growth is taking place
when we come into that and we recite
those words with love and with longing and
then your heart starts to change and tribulations
are warded off from you and your Iman
strengthens and your perspective changes and you get
a new sense of determination and resolution.
All these other things happen.
That's growth.
And these are just things that can be
pointed to.
What happens in the unseen in these gatherings
is even greater.
But that's exactly what it means is to
do an environment.
So one of the core meanings when we
talk about environments are majalis and hilaq gatherings
of different sorts circles of learning.
But again you can do that just with
yourself if you have no one else.
You can create that environment with your own
self even from the bounty of Allah Ta
'ala just by engaging and doing the right
thing.
Then you can do it with two people
or with three people or with a smaller
group of people like we mentioned.
You can do it in your home you
can do it in a public place and
you can do it on a college campus
you can even do it at work and
then you can move towards opening that places
where then other people can go.
So that it's not a burden on a
family and people can congregate and people can
then benefit from these environments.
And then what happens is once this starts
to spread sometimes at the level of almost
an entire city you have an environment.
And you come to realize this city is
different than other cities.
And so forth and so on.
So this is one of the main things
that we want to learn how to benefit
from and then do.
How to create an environment of learning.
So if we look at the Al-Maqasid
mission statement it is to cultivate holistic learning
environments rooted in knowledge, devotion and service.
By providing full time part time online and
community programs.
And the words in this mission statement were
chosen intentionally.
Because the best metaphors are the metaphors of
the natural world.
So did they pass out the outlines on
the sister's side as well?
I'm already noticing a couple of typos here.
Please forgive me.
Environments.
Spiritual.
Anyhow.
We're on the third point here.
The mission statement.
And there's room there for you two to
add some notes.
But the purpose of mentioning the mission statement
here is that this is the practical way
that we move towards the vision.
Which even in the vision statement it's about
planting.
Planting the seed of the prophetic inheritance in
the hearts of individuals.
That is the essential vision statement.
Is to plant the prophetic inheritance in the
hearts of individuals.
And this is what you want to grow
within you.
Is the prophetic inheritance in all of its
meanings.
Because the prophetic inheritance is synonymous with the
sunnah of our Prophet ﷺ.
So when the sunnah is planted in you
and how is it planted in you?
It's planted in you informally and formally.
And you can even add another category maybe
I learned recently of non-formally.
But just as you have these different types
of things and when it comes to exercise
as we took, remember, last Friday that you
have physical activity and exercise.
Physical activity is any type of that body
condition that you get just by your everyday
activities.
And then you have exercise where you actually
intend to do something specifically to get that
exercise.
And likewise is that you and I need
to live a certain way so that we're
always cultivating these meanings in our heart just
as we have to that intentionally that do
it as well.
So formally and informally.
And so we want to look a little
bit more closely at these words because this
is the heart of the work as you
continue your studies and even while you're studying
that you want to take back with you.
And then likewise anyone who's inspired to contribute
to the da'wah of our Prophet Muhammad
ﷺ And so let's look at this word
here cultivate first and foremost.
So key words of the message statement.
The first is cultivate.
And this meaning of cultivate to prepare and
work on land in order to raise crops
or to till.
And you see how important this word is?
This is what we have to do to
our heart.
You have to till your heart.
And have you ever seen them prepare land
in order to plant seeds?
That now they've kind of mowed everything down
this is the end of the season.
But come April they're going to start bringing
out the manure and this type of stuff
putting that on the earth and then eventually
they're going to bring out their machines that
till the land to prepare it and to
turn some of the undersoil with the topsoil
and so forth to be able to plant
a seed therein.
This is what we have to do to
the heart.
So the meaning of cultivating and that cultivating
holistic learning environments but here cultivating that is
this idea of tilling outwardly and then inwardly.
This is what you're doing that same process
where you're turning the topsoil over this is
what you're doing outwardly that you're preparing things
in terms of the physical space that it
is that you're using for that gathering.
The text or whatever it is that you're
going to be reading or doing in that
gathering.
How did you do it?
The ambiance of it.
What you do in it.
Why are things like coffee served in these
gatherings?
These are small little things to help is
that why is incense burned and why are
all of these things in and of themselves
is that they're not the whole part but
when all of these things come together it
creates a certain type of ambiance.
Why was this poem, i.e. the Buddha
Sharif the one chosen and the whole setup
of the room and so forth and so
on.
These things are all important.
These are components and some of them of
course are more important than others.
So to prepare, one of the meanings of
cultivate is to prepare and work on land
in order to raise crops.
But then it also connotes this meaning of
to try to acquire or develop a quality
or skill.
So there's qualities that have to be cultivated
within you and there's a way about going
to do that.
So you would speak about this in the
sense of to develop or improve by education
or training.
To train or refine.
These are the meanings of cultivate.
To devote oneself to a particular science and
even in terms of people.
To seek or promote friendship, love.
To seek the acquaintance or friendship of a
person.
These are all meanings of cultivate.
What a beautiful word it is.
It denotes this meaning of actually tilling land
but also it connotes all of these beautiful
meanings that relate to so many different aspects
of our lives.
So when we talk about the meaning of
cultivating this is a really important word to
understand.
Because we have to one, cultivate the environment
outwardly but we also have to cultivate the
environment inwardly.
And we want to be on both fronts
at the same time.
And so this word cultivate points to the
work attention and care that must go into
this.
As well as the long term nature of
it which requires patience in doing the right
thing at the right time.
You can't do something in its wrong time.
You can't plant a seed now.
It's not ready.
You can't plant a seed now unless there's
something specific that a seed that needs to
be planted in late April or early May.
You can't plant it right now.
It's not going to grow.
The seed is going to die.
You have to plant it at the right
time.
And you have to do the right thing
at the right time.
And you have to be patient.
And let the natural process go.
And likewise with people.
We are not machines.
We are not robots.
You cannot turn us on and off with
a switch.
There's a process that human beings have to
go through for their growth.
So that's the first word cultivate.
And then we have this word holistic.
Which also is a very important word.
And the meaning of holistic is it's characterized
by the belief that the parts of something
are interconnected and can be explained only by
reference to the whole.
And so it's commonly referred to when we
talk about holistic medicine that the idea of
holistic medicine is the treatment of the whole
person and all aspects of well-being including
the physical, mental, psychological, and social rather than
with diseases and symptoms in isolation.
And what is meant here and the reason
we're using this word specifically is compartmentalization of
religion is a tendency of our time that
must be combated.
The flow, if you will, of the way
things are going if you just kind of
go with the flow, you will tend to
just practice your religion partially.
This is the nature of the secularized world
in which we live.
This is that if we just let things
happen as they're transpiring around us and we
get sucked into these tendencies this is going
to be the result.
You will just see your religion as just
a part of your life as opposed to
every aspect of your life.
Religion for us is not just one particular
day.
It's not just one particular prayer.
It's something that we devote ourselves entirely to.
And this is something for our people.
This is one of the main things that
brought me to this religion was when I
read of Islam as being a dean, a
complete way where every single aspect of your
life is regulated.
That brought me to this religion.
Because I remember as a young college student
at the University of San Diego and at
UC San Diego University of California San Diego
when I was about 18 and 19 years
old maybe by then and actually 18 years
old then and wanting religion but not knowing
really what to do.
And then when I read a little bit
about Islam and how that it regulated every
aspect of your life I was like Allahu
Akbar that is what I want.
I wanted Hidayah.
I wanted guidance in everything.
And Islam provides you guidance in everything.
There is nothing that is outside the scope
of this dean.
Nothing.
The dean informs everything about what it is
that we think, what it is that we
believe, what it is that we do.
It informs the state of our heart in
terms of our own selves, our relationship with
all different types of people, our relationship with
the creator, our relationship with the world and
everything else.
Our relationship with animals, our relationship with inanimate
objects, our relationship with plants and trees and
things, everything.
There is absolutely nothing that is outside the
scope of our dean.
Complete teachings.
And then you start to realize the miracle.
All of that in 23 years.
What life was like?
The life of the Prophet ﷺ.
No one's life was as blessed as the
life of the best of creation ﷺ.
All of that was conveyed in 23 years
such that everything that we need and not
just we, people in every time from his
time all the way until the end of
time and all the different civilizations, all the
different geographical locations on the face of this
earth and all different types of people from
the most simple to the most sophisticated and
everything in between, all the different language people
speak and the different beautiful colors of their
skin.
Islam was for everyone and every time.
And the ulama that have left us with
this legacy such that in a very real
way there is no one on the face
of this earth no people that this dean
is not for.
And that were those same religious principles could
be applied.
It might be slightly different based upon different
situations and conditions but it's all there.
What an amazing thing.
What an amazing thing.
So the idea of holistic here is to
combat the tendency of the compartmentalization of religion.
And so there's things that we need to
learn though in order to combat this.
There's things that we need to know.
So part of this is knowledge.
And one of the most difficult things is
your career track.
And what it is that you do to
earn a living.
Because sometimes it's very hard to earn a
halal living but it requires knowledge.
But knowledge is not enough in and of
itself.
It also requires traits.
If you don't have a trait like courage
in our time how are you then going
to combat this tendency of the compartmentalization of
it.
So it requires courage as well.
Knowledge, courage and a number of other things.
So this is why the word holistic here
is being used.
So we've spoken about to cultivate holistic and
then learning environments.
Learning is clear.
We want to be learning every day of
our lives.
Every day we want to be learning.
And again here, learning like we just mentioned
physical activity and exercise.
There's informal learning and there's also that formal
learning.
So we want to be learning from everything
that's happened in our lives.
Our interactions with our spouses, our interactions with
our children, our interactions with other people.
Different things that happen to us.
Watching the seasons around us.
All of the changes in the environment.
All of these different things that are happening.
We want to be learning from.
And just as we want to formally learn
as well.
Learn the Arabic language.
Learn the basic sciences of the sacred law.
Learn other knowledges that will benefit.
We want to constantly be learning.
Learning is one of the most important things
that we need to do as a believer.
Knowledge.
We are the Ummah of Iqra.
The first revelation began with Iqra, read.
Which is about knowledge.
So we are a civilization of knowledge.
And it's a deen that led to this
civilization.
And we need to internalize it within our
own selves.
But then we have this word environment.
So the environment simply is the surroundings or
conditions in which a person, animal or plant
lives or operates.
And then it can also connote the meaning
of the social and cultural forces that shape
the life of a person or a population.
So just as there are the different forces
that shape the different types of plants and
animals that exist in a certain region.
And certain animals that live in certain regions
are fit to do that.
And if you take this animal and put
them somewhere else, they're going to suffer.
They might not be able to live.
And likewise plants.
And this is why when you go to
buy plants at the nursery for instance, they
have like numbers on them.
And then you go and you look at
the map and you see like wherever you
live, what are the numbers where you can
actually have that type of plant.
And then if you don't have the right
environment, but then there's other things that you
can do.
You can have like a greenhouse or you
can have a closed off area where you
have climate control and you replicate those conditions
and things grow fine.
So the engineer put me onto this beautiful
place called Longwood Gardens where they have these
beautiful, there's this conservatory with all these beautiful
plants from all over the world, but they
control the environment for it to be that
way.
Isn't that amazing?
You walk outside, you're in Pennsylvania, and only
certain things grow.
You walk inside that controlled environment it's as
if that you are somewhere else in the
world.
Because that plant can't grow here without that.
Isn't that amazing?
That there's certain things that you can do
where it's as if that you're in that
particular place and look it's growing right in
front of you by changing the environment.
And so the idea of environment here is
to really understand the social and cultural forces
that shape who we are as human beings.
And, again, if we don't understand that, how
are we going to disseminate this dean if
you don't understand that?
You have to understand that.
And then the amazing thing is we have
this idea of microclimates, and I'm originally from
the Bay Area.
The Bay Area is known for microclimates.
That 10 miles away the climate is very
different.
If you're in, let's just say, Castro Valley
or Hayward, because you're closer to the Bay,
that's very different than if you just go
over the 580 and you're in a place
like Dublin.
Or if you just go down the road
where you're in Lafayette, that's different than being
in Oakland.
It's different than being in San Francisco.
There's different climates and they're not that far
in terms of miles away from each other.
They're microclimates.
So what is a microclimate?
The climate of a very small or restricted
area, especially when this differs from the climate
of the surrounding area.
So the macroclimate of our society is a
toxic one.
That's a typo.
You can take out the E.
A toxic one of kufr and fisk.
That's the reality.
Disbelief and we're being called to indecency and
that immorality.
But then how you can have a microclimate
within the macroclimate where you and I come
together in a place like this.
How big is that piece of land compared
to everything that is around us?
It's tiny.
How big is this building compared to everything
that is around us?
It's tiny.
And this is what we need to have
all over the United States of America and
everywhere else where Islam spreads.
Place microclimates where you and I can come
and grow and be nourished.
And then once we get strong, we take
this light and this khair to people that
are outside.
So, to cultivate holistic learning environments, rooted, and
again you have this word, this was chosen
to invoke this sense of this natural metaphor.
It's to cause a plant or cutting to
grow roots, but then it connotes this meaning
of to establish deeply and firmly.
We want these learning environments to be rooted
and knowledge, devotion, and service.
And for time's sake, I'm going to have
to spare myself from going into those details
and everything else that they include.
And then we have this word, programs.
So, by providing full-time, part-time, online,
and community programs.
And you have the difference there for you,
but the whole purpose here of talking about
programs being full-time, part-time, online, or
community is to relate to all the different
groups of people.
In other words, is that you want to
have different offerings for people that are able
to do it full-time, people that are
able to do it part-time, people who
geographically can be here with you, either on
a daily basis or a weekly basis if
they live close enough, and then online for
people who can't physically be here.
And yes, you can create an environment online.
It is more difficult, but I would love
to see very serious research into how blessed
environments can be created online, whereas normally technology
in the online world, it's a medium where
there's various degrees of separation.
But there are people of Allah that through
the blessed state of their hearts, they can,
if you will, spiritualize technology where it actually
has an impact that it wouldn't have had
were it not to be for the state
of their blessed heart, even if that person
be online and not be in person.
So yes, even online, there will be people
who are never able to be able to
live close to Muslims.
We have thousands and thousands of people like
that in this country and throughout the world.
There are people in the heart of Tel
Aviv that take online classes and no one
can even know.
There are people whose families don't even know
they're Muslim and they hide in their closet
to learn.
And not just one or two.
These things might sound like they come as
a shock to us, but these things are
very real.
There are people all over the world that
follow different things that people are doing here
in this country because they can't find people
locally that fit their needs.
So this is very real.
We have to really study this.
And online is a very important part.
Online is a band-aid in so far
as someone could actually do it in person.
But if someone can't ever become a person,
that environment has to be created for them.
So then we get to this idea of
programs.
And the heart of the work lies in
these programs.
Programs is not really the best word for
it.
It's the only way we really knew how
to refer to it.
But programs or offerings, what it really is
is these opportunities of these individual environments of
various sorts, either online or in person, full
-time or part-time.
It's different opportunities that people have to come
to that receive nourishment and to benefit for
growth.
And then the last bit of this here
is this idea.
And so there's that when it comes to
programs, there's a few things that are really
important.
One, that we recognize that they're the heart
of the work.
Two, this is where relationships come in.
And the realization of Iman, Islam, and Ihsan
is a lifelong process.
So relationships must be emphasized.
And as we like to speak here, being
a lifelong partner for a lifelong quest.
But then there's the idea of weaving.
A diverse set of programs that allows for
various levels of formal learning, as well as
regular opportunities to sustain and increase one's knowledge
and practice.
And then you have this idea of accessibility.
And it's of the utmost importance that these
programs remain accessible to the community.
And there not be barriers that based upon
gender, based upon that socioeconomic demographics, is that
we try our best to remove these barriers.
And we try our best to make education
accessible to anyone and everyone who wants to
learn.
And one of the biggest barriers oftentimes is
the financial one.
And we have to find ways to get
around that.
And then finally, and we'll go over these
very quickly, I think I've gone a little
bit over time, is this idea of the
environments of learning, the key components of them.
These are just a few.
And again, just as there are certain conditions
that must be present in the physical environment
for growth, likewise there are conditions that must
exist for religious and spiritual growth.
These are some of the key components that
are like those other factors that lead to
growth of plants.
So having a chain of narration back to
the Prophet ﷺ, having teachers with a direct
chain back to Rasulullah ﷺ, this is one
of the most important because this is where
the floodgates of meded, that spiritual nourishment that
flow.
And this word meded is a beautiful word.
Meded is spiritual nourishment.
Meded is to the spiritual aspect of you
what food is to the physical aspect of
you.
So when you eat food, you get energy
as a result.
That energy comes from the food that you
eat.
Spiritual nourishment, meded, spiritual food, is where you
get your spiritual energy from.
And one of the sources of that are
the great mashayikh who have an unbroken chain
of narration back to the Prophet ﷺ.
But it also has to be an environment
of love.
Love of Allah and the messenger of Allah.
People come into that environment and this is
just how people are.
This is an affair of love.
Loving Allah, loving the messenger of Allah, loving
to worship Allah, loving to draw near to
Allah, loving to help people, loving to serve
people.
It has to be an affair of love.
We can't let the nafs get the best
of it where we start having problems between
us and so forth and we can't love
our fellow brothers and sisters for one reason
or another.
But it also has to be an environment
of following of the Prophet's sunnah.
When people come into that environment they see
people following the sunnah.
That's an environment that will nurture them.
But there's also a permeation of spirituality.
An example of this is why we do
the tasbihat out loud, this is why we
do the invocations out loud so that we
can all benefit from that.
So we're constantly making, if we're just all
left to ourselves which one of us is
going to make dhikr?
Maybe a few people.
But when we do it out loud and
the deen has this latitude in the sharia
to do this, everybody can benefit from that.
And also purity of heart.
When you come into an environment where hearts
are pure, we can sense that.
Where people actually really want good for each
other.
They don't envy each other.
There's no hatred in the hearts.
There's empathy.
And in an environment, and some of those
qualities are coming, that remaining people-centric, that
the whole point here is that it's about
people.
It's about individual transformation.
It's about planting those seeds in the hearts
of individuals.
And then mercy, empathy, and concern for people.
Imagine you came into that environment and everybody
who was present had mercy and empathy and
concern for everyone that was around them in
a real way.
Oh my God.
You would be transformed just by having that
in the heart.
If someone walked through this door and that
was our reality, that person would be transformed
before we said anything or did anything.
Just by what's in the heart.
There would be a rain in the unseen
of mercy that would be a copious rain
of mercy in the unseen that people would
come into and they would feel like, Oh
my God, where was I?
Just as if you walked outside and it
was pouring down rain that you would know
the effects of that because your clothes would
be soaking wet.
And if there's spiritual rain pouring down, people
feel it.
They know this is different.
And this is not about calling to here.
We need this environment.
Not just here.
We need these environments all over the world.
And there's keys that you and I can
learn in order exactly how to do that.
It's a science and it's application oftentimes in
art.
Respect of the ummah's diversity is key.
People from different backgrounds.
People with different understandings.
People that practice slightly different.
We have to respect the ummah's diversity.
A spirit of service.
Text-based teaching.
Group invocations and gatherings and remembrance.
These are all key components that come together
to help create this environment and more could
be added there.
But if you look at this, all of
this can be learned.
This can all be learned.
And if we embody this and live this,
is that we will then be people who
wherever we go is that people's experience of
us and what it is that we do.
It creates an environment that's different than everything
else that is transpiring around them.
This is the secret of transpiration.
Is living these realities and then doing whatever
it is that we can at every different
level.
And hopefully that environments of living will spread
in these lands and may Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala give us tawfiq and bless us
in all of our affairs and open up
the doors of His mercy for us.
Ya arham al rahimin wa sallallahu alayhi wa
sallam wa ala alihi wa sallam walhamdulillahi rabbil
alameen I apologize for going over.
I think we have to move right into
the next class.
So we'll have to save our questions inshallah.
Assalamualaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh