Yasir Khan – Special Youth Program Growing in Todays Society Imam
AI: Summary ©
AI: Transcript ©
As we had been announcing,
this program for the past couple of days,
just to let you know about a bit
background
of, the sheikh that is here with us
today.
I've known Sheikh Yasir for,
since he was, I think, what, 10, 11?
10, 11 years old.
Right? That makes you think how old I
am. Right?
We had just graduated, and Sheikh Yasir had
just started his journey to the to the
knowledge of Din. At that time, he just
about to finish his.
And after that, he had gone to South
Africa to study there.
And,
one of the things
that, you know, as 10 years already being
into the career 7, 8 years after Sheikh
Yasu, he had come back, after his studies,
I saw a lot of passion,
in in him,
And,
Allah
he uses whoever he likes for the deen
of his. But, as him, you know, being
growing up into the field and the work
that he is doing,
for the past,
almost 10 years, almost a decade has been
that
has been affiliated with many of the departments.
And and, you know, I will request him
to share what are the things that
he is doing currently,
benefiting a larger community,
getting into those areas where no one go
goes,
and providing
Islamic educations,
Islamic education
for those who can afford.
Right?
And that is something that we we all
need to be part of
that, masha'Allah, you know, we have tuitions and
we have expenses and things of that nature.
But these are picking up the kids because
if you understand the demographic of California, especially
Sacramento area, in the past 10 years, there
has been about
close to a 25,000
refugee Muslim families that have just jumped into
this in the past 5 years.
And these kids, they've come from Muslim countries
and they have nowhere to get around.
A lot of difficulty. A lot of these
Christian,
churches,
they were having these,
Ikhuhwa programs
where each
individual of the church was assigned to a
family. They will pick him up from the
airport, take him to their house, give him
food, visit them regularly
if they had to go.
And, unfortunately,
a lot of our Muslim brothers and sisters
and families that were weak in faith,
right, they started to go to church.
Right? And this is something that we saw
in our in front of our eyes. Whereas,
masha'Allah,
the effort that Sheikh Yasir brought, he went
into these homes,
brought them out, provided them with food,
provided them with needs, not from the government.
Whatever system that the government had in its
place, he, Masha'Allah, took it to the next
level,
introduced to the Muslim community,
and and and and has been running Masha'Allah
almost, what, close to a, 1,500,000
program,
dollar worth of,
assets that he has just providing food and,
and he will go through those numbers, as
he would start his talk.
But
Alhamdulillah,
Allah, azza wajal, he is using and utilizing
his people. Right? And also,
one of the things that he,
brought to the Muslim community was especially
this was was was very rare,
for those who are not able
to read,
who who who who were blind,
to be able to give them the knowledge
of Quran. So he actually knows how to
teach
those the the verbal language
how to recite the Quran and teach it
to and and and he has taught into
many different,
you know, special needs program within the country
where people are learning the Quran
who are not able to see, but they
are learning it with the real language that
Allah
has provided the means and source. So, inshallah,
these are just my personal attachment. I'm not
reading off his bio. Right? These are just
my just by knowing him for many years
and,
for him to be here with us and
especially an encouragement for our youth that,
how much you how much work that is
required
and how much work that can be done
if we were to utilize our expertise and
abilities in the right direction. So without any
fur further due, I
will invite, Sheikh Yasir to begin his talk.
Before
I recite the and
start, I would ask everyone to come closer
Come closer. I said the same thing last
night in one of the masjids.
1 of my teachers, when he would be
in the mood of sharing something,
he would say something along the lines of
come close
Come close
So come closer
Let's make the environment.
All praise due to Allah for everything.
I quoted Imam Al Zayed
yesterday at a masjid,
where
what he would say
was
whenever someone says words
of encouragement,
positive words,
or refer to
an accomplishment or series of accomplishments.
He said, I would make 2 duas
in my heart.
One of them
this is Imam Uzza'i addressing
Allah in his heart. Number 1, he would
say, oh Allah, you have concealed my shortcomings
from the people. Oh, Allah. Keep them concealed
until I enter
Jannah.
Number 2, he would say, oh, Allah,
because of you being
because of you being the one who has
concealed
my
shortcomings,
oh, Allah,
make it such that everything that the people
think of me
a reality.
So I quote Imam in
this setting as well
because all praise is for who?
Allah.
All praises for Allah
You know, before
we dive in,
to be honest,
there is nothing that you and I have
in our possession.
There is nothing that you and I
have accomplished in our lives
that we can truly give ourselves credit for.
It's from Allah.
It's from Allah And
those of you that know me personally,
there's one thing that I like to say.
What is it, Mustafa?
I'm just going for the ride.
There's room for one more. I say that
as well, but
remember I even said it in a kutba.
There's always room for one more. Right?
What I'm what I usually say is,
right? I'm just going for the ride.
Meaning Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is in control,
Allah is Kareem, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is
absolutely amazing, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is in
full control.
A second thought I would like to share
before we dive into the talk is
the honest truth is,
Imam Kashif is one of my teachers,
and that could be a shocker to you.
Back in the day when Imam Kashif came
back I remember when he came back as
a new grad, and I was trying to
figure out how to memorize the Quran.
When my teacher, Mufti Ahmed,
would be on vacation or he would be
sick, Muqaddi Qashaf used to come and substitute.
He was our substitute teacher.
Now in Islam, there's no such thing as
substitute teacher. He's my Sheikh, he's my teacher
as well.
And the words that he was sharing before
you
what were they? They were words of encouragement
for a student sitting on the floor.
You know, Husla Abzayyah, they say in Urdu,
you know, Yasir, good job, here's a star,
you know,
keep going.
Alhamdulillah.
Now in spirit of
I will share what Allah Azzawajalah
is allowing us to do.
And honest to Allah, this is not
this is not a fundraiser. There's no I'm
not gonna pull a fast one on a
lighter note. This is
Al Amr Focal Adad. Sheikh mentioned, you know,
Yasser, you have to share a few things,
so I'll spend a few minutes
inshallah. So Al Misbah is an organization that
is established by the youth,
and
I could have gone on for 30 minutes,
but I'll just go over high level numbers
to show how amazing Allah
really is.
So one department we have, which is what
we call our charitable aid department,
which consists of a food bank. We've worked
with deep, domestic violence victims. We work with
refugees, asylum seekers,
new Muslims. You know how many new Muslims
get kicked out of the house when they
when they take their jahada?
Right?
You have
different kinds of challenges. So on an average
monthly basis,
we have a warehouse
trucks, forklifts, and
it's basically a fulfillment center. Right? Trucks are
coming and going every day. We receive semi
trucks of goods and everything. So to give
perspective,
we are serving on average approximately
anywhere from 25100
up to 5,000 families a month
with diapers, groceries,
Amazon returns,
fresh fruits fruits and vegetables, furniture,
anything that a family could need,
which equates to anywhere from,
I would say, 12 to 20000 people a
month.
And
the model that we've adopted is primarily,
we do mobile distributions.
So what that means is that we load
up our trucks. I don't want to bore
you with the details, but we load up
our trucks.
We primarily conduct our distributions at Masajid,
and, yes, that is intentional.
We want our Masajid to look like
Anyone that walk into Mashir ibn Abwe with
any need,
their need was fulfilled.
So primarily these mobile distributions
take place at Masajid.
Muslims and non Muslims come and they pick
up these
whatever is in their naseeb.
Right? And I'm not exaggerating.
One of our distributions take place 10 AM.
I'm not exaggerating. When we go for Fajr,
people are waiting since Fajr,
waiting in line.
Alhamdulillah. So that's the charitable aid department. Then
we have our Maktab department.
Maktab
meaning it's an after school Islamic studies program.
When I say Islamic studies, Quran, Islamic studies,
we've
we even tried something new to attract the
youth, which is we've incorporated a PE program
in our Maktah program.
We have a syllabus,
you know, 8 year syllabus.
We have,
as of now, 8 locations, again, primarily at
Masajid
because our vision is we're here we are
here to support the Masajid. We're not here
to compete with anybody.
Plus minus, like, we've we've passed 400 students.
90 plus percent of these students are newly
arrived immigrants or refugees,
and they are literally unable to afford this
education.
We have 2 types of waiting lists. Every
Maktab location has a waiting list of students
that want to attend.
We even have a waiting list of masajid
and cities that want to open the Maktab
in their locality.
We can't make this up.
The budget for our charitable aid department for
2023 was $1,400,000.
The budget for our Maktab department for 2023
was $500,000.
Okay. Next, Alhamdulillah. Again, this is all
Then we have our youth departments.
We have 3 youth departments. 1 for ages
about 7 to 15,
which we call junior lanterns, if you know
what I mean. Al misbah, you're a lantern,
but you're a junior lantern from ages 7
to 15. This sounds like a very long
infomercial. Forgive me for that. But this is
all what Sheikh mentioned
at
Yasir So we have all types of programs,
integration programs of refugees, nonrefugees,
soccer teams,
you know, field trips, corn maze, anything that
kids want to do.
We literally have a bus. We pick them
up from the masjid. Again, everything revolves around
the masjid.
Right? And what did sheikh mention?
We would see
Muslims
standing outside churches
and our.
Our of iman would stand up and say,
no. That's not. No. Not on my watch.
So pick a pick students up from the
masjid in our big red retired San Diego
bus. Right?
Take them, bring them back.
That's the junior lanterns department. Then we have
our 15 plus youth department, ages 15 plus.
The budget for that is a quarter $1,000,000.
We have, masha'Allah, youngsters that I'm traveling with
from California that are
part of that department.
Weekly barbecues on the house,
Sunday morning halakah,
duroos.
Basically, the objective is how can you bring
these young men back into the masjid?
Simple
as
that. In Urdu, it is said
I'm being honest. This this is this is
open source, this is open book. So you
bring the brothers in
through Iqram,
you talk to them and alhamdulillah they change
their lives.
There is even a story where one young
man came in on a Friday night,
he became a monkdul teacher
and then he developed his own program where
he's teaching approximately 15 refugee children math,
STEM,
and English tutoring.
He came in on a Friday night barbecue.
Similarly, we have, young, a young sisters department
for, again, ages 16 plus.
They have their own space, similar. Sisters have
their needs, they come in, their needs are
fulfilled, spiritual needs, social needs.
And the amazing thing about these two departments,
the youth departments, they're both led by our
lama.
Both are mustnal,
scholars. We have a female scholar that is
leading the sisters.
We have a male scholar who's leading our
brothers.
I think those are all the departments, I
guess. Yeah. Our total budget for the entire
year for 2023 was around 2.4, 2.5,
$1,000,000.
Now
to to dive right in,
there's something that
there's something that's been bothering me and,
yes, this is a talk, but you could
also consider this to be something
where
you could say,
consider this respectfully events a venting session.
Okay? And forgive me if I come off
like that, but
I'm your brother in Islam. Let's open up
a little bit. Let's be you know, it's
it's okay.
I was born and raised in Sacramento.
I spent about 5, 6 years as a
child in Pakistan
and the remaining of my life, minus 7
years of South Africa, so my upbringing has
been little different, if you may.
So I could literally speak the language of
the youth,
and I could speak, alhamdulillah, 5, 6 different
languages.
So I get to so when I'm talking
with parents about their children's issues, I could
see where the gap is.
Okay.
The challenge that I'm having
and sometimes when I bring this up, respectfully,
it comes off as if
to me, as if it comes off that
people don't appreciate what I'm saying.
So I'm hoping that in the Dallas community,
you are much more established, you know,
you're in Irving Sharif,
so you could relate.
I want us to
pay attention to the fact
that when we Muslims
those Muslims that migrated here
from our Muslim countries,
doesn't matter from where,
k,
doesn't matter from where,
chances are
we came here
with some level of
post colonialism
type of trauma.
Okay?
Unfortunately,
many of our Muslim countries were colonized.
Okay? Either from the British, from the Dutch,
from the French, doesn't matter.
And again, there's like I'm not even bringing
up any race, I'm just speaking generally speaking.
For whatever reason, Beros Gari or challenges or
whatever,
we got here. Okay? We got here.
When we got here,
we were in
I like
to coin a term
and this is my tazia, this is my
personal perspective.
When the first immigrants came here
30, 40 years ago, if you may,
they came with
a mindset
where they came to a foreign land,
chances are they did not speak the language,
chances are they had to relearn
everything they needed to learn about navigating life,
and what I like to call they developed
a mindset which I like to call
survival mode.
Right? Survival mode.
Now I've intentionally
used
these words to describe this mindset
because what happens
when
a human being is in survival mode?
Your perspective
becomes a keyhole perspective.
You focus on only
and relative
to the trauma,
relative to the challenges,
some, you know, some of some of them
were
looking through
this big of a hole, maybe are in
itches,
and some of them were looking through something,
you know, just their world perspective
in the US or in the West was
just a very just that keyhole perspective,
Which,
I didn't study psychology,
if I connect the dots, that's okay.
It's okay. It's okay to be in survival
mode.
Right?
In the process,
my generation was born. My dad came my
dad my dad came to the states in
the eighties. Okay? He came in 84.
So in the process, you could say my
generation was born.
Okay?
Here's the challenge.
I'm arguing
and and again, this is something for us
to
discuss amongst each other
when we get together at some you know,
at each other's homes, at the dinner table.
Let's talk about these things.
I'm arguing
that when my generation was born
or subsequently
the children of these immigrants were born on
US soil,
parents
were still in survival mode.
You see I'm going with this?
And the children that were born in such
homes
without even realizing
they have
inherited that mindset without even realizing
it.
Why do I say that?
I see
again, I'm a very observant person. We all
observe, right? We're all, you know, we all
observe people's behavior,
you know, body language.
Sometimes you ask a question, you could read
the response before they even respond to you
with words.
It's deep. Right? How like, we say a
lot more with our body language than we
do with our tongues.
So
I see
people that are older than me,
children of immigrants
that are hustling and struggling
as hard as their parents were.
Time out! That doesn't make sense, does it?
You understand what I'm saying?
See, I remember my dad working 2 jobs.
I remember my dad driving a forklift for
12 hours, and in an automotive warehouse,
and then him delivering pizzas. This is my
childhood memory.
He literally had to do that. I'm not
trying to open my personal my my my
family story in front of you. It's not
about me. It's about the community.
My
father was the breadwinner not only for my
mom and I at that time,
but he was also responsible for the family
back home.
I'm sure we could all relate.
Survival mode.
But what I don't understand
is why
is my generation
putting in 16 hours of work
whereas objectively
they're living in a cash house.
You see the difference?
The socioeconomic
status. My dad came in, I'm putting myself
on the spot, right?
That generation came in to rent a studio,
a 2 bedroom,
and they had they were forced to work
that hard just to survive.
But it doesn't make sense.
Their children don't need to grind that hard.
And the reason why I say that is
because
I'm arguing
that
too much talent
is going to waste
with that
survival mode mindset.
What we need
from
speaking to my generation
and subsequently, you know, basically, those of us
that were born here,
what we need to understand
because now I'm, you know, I'm shifting now.
I was addressing the parents. Now I'm addressing
the children of such parents.
It is our responsibility
to understand
that our parents' generation and before them,
they did whatever they could
to survive
and Alhamdulillah
they survived.
They did what they had to do
and they have given us everything that they
could.
But now
it is our responsibility
to build upon
what was presented to us.
It is our responsibility to build upon what
was presented to us.
We're not responsible
to
grind as hard as they were.
No.
Why do I say this?
I'm
attributing
maybe maybe someone may argue, Yasser, I think
you're attributing too much
to why our
younger generation, right,
the 30 40 like young professionals, for example,
right, Why are they working so hard? May
yesterday, maybe you're attributing too much of that
toward this.
Maybe.
Maybe
it is
maybe
we need to consider the fact
that the generation that was born
from the immigrant generation,
maybe they got caught up
in this western rat race.
Capitalism,
materialism.
I'll give you that.
I'll give you that.
But I do believe Now
for someone to say that Hey You Sir,
it's only materialism and the rat race that
they got caught up in,
I'm gonna have to disagree with that.
Let's, for argument's sake,
agree
that
a percentage of it is
getting caught in materialism
and this rat race as as as it's
known, quite literally,
and then
the survival mode mindset.
I don't know the the demographics
of this crowd or Dallas.
What I mean by that is I'm not
sure how many of us in this crowd
were born and raised in Dallas and how
many of us
migrated to Dallas
either from out of, you know, from overseas
or from different states.
But I will what I will tell you
is
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala
has,
you know, and and mashallah you all know
this, Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala has blessed you
at least in this part of Texas
where
you have what you have.
You know, anytime
you establish something,
like, what are the stats
when it comes to new business? Right? And
and it I'm just talking I'm just using
that as an example.
A good percentage
of new businesses
fail
within the first, what, 2 years?
Within the first 3 years?
Masha'Allah.
This community, masha'Allah, has long surpassed that. And
the reason why I say that is because
when you travel the country You know, I
was telling youngsters
just a few hours ago, there are still
clusters of Muslims in the United States
where you have upwards of 200 plus Muslim
families
living
in cities,
towns
throughout the
country,
and believe it or not,
let alone them having
this,
you know, this institution,
right, where they're able to establish themselves and
they're able to see to their own needs,
they don't even have Jummah.
It's a fact.
It's a fact.
I'll tell you which freeway to drive
up towards,
like, you know, northwest, for example.
If you drive
from Nevada, Arizona area, Phoenix area, and you're
driving towards Seattle or towards Vancouver,
right,
that part of the country, there are it's
a fact. There are
towns and cities where you have hundreds of
Muslim families that exist,
but they don't they don't even have a
Jummah.
What am I trying to say? What I'm
saying is
respected
children of immigrants.
Our elders,
our parents
have sacrificed so much
for you and I to even come and
enjoy an amazing facility like this.
I'll tell you as an outsider
what you got for
for Aisha today,
we don't get for Jummah.
What
your your 5 times salawat. Right? 4, 5,
sufuf, 6 sufuf
It
was the sac it was the sacrifice of
countless brothers and sisters with a vision.
Allah knows
decades ago that one day
this facility will exist.
But now
it is
our responsibility
See,
anytime
you create something,
anytime you put something together as a team,
we all know this,
everyone here,
is a professional. Right?
The hard part is not getting it off
the ground.
You see where I'm going with this?
The hard part is not getting it off
the ground. The hard part is
to keep it consistent, to keep it going.
But I'm arguing
that
personally looking at the talent that we have,
looking at
the untapped potential
that we have in the community,
by settling for just
survival
is leaving too much on the table.
It is imperative
for us Muslims
to
actively involve ourselves
to do what is necessary to not only
survive
because
Islam
Islam didn't get to you and I
by mediocre efforts.
Islam did not get to you and I
by
group of men and women
relative to whatever the situation may be
by them making mediocre efforts.
No, it was actually tremendous sacrifice and effort
that was put in
that allowed us to even
understand what is tawhid.
The reason why I paused is because I
was asking myself,
should I share
one of the things that the young men
that I came with know that I share
about, that I share almost everywhere I go.
Should I even do that or not?
And don't worry, I'm not gonna leave you
on a cliffhanger. Right? I'm gonna do it
now
Like, it's too late, we're not gonna back
out.
One of the things
that keeps me up at night and when
I say it keeps me up at night,
like, it literally does.
It's not this is not just lip service.
This is not something that I'm just saying.
But one of the things that that keeps
me up at night
is a study that was conducted by Pew
Research.
Raise your hand if you know which study
I'm referring to.
Those of you that know me, of course,
I'm like, you know, like this. It's like
knowing the answers to the test. No? Okay.
Subhanallah.
Okay. Let's dive in.
I have the link here. You don't even
need the link. You could you could you
could search it yourself.
Pureresearch.org
conducted a study in 2017.
Okay? They conducted a study
where
and and this is something that keeps me
up at night. Okay? I'm not even lying.
Because we as Muslims
cannot live only in the moment.
We can't be we can't
become complacent
when we see 100 of Musaleen
for 5 times salah,
you know, and just
sit down and say: No, Masha'Allah, we made
it.
We shouldn't become complacent.
I was staring at that massive poster
of that new facility that the Waqf, you
know, the Waqf
program. Again, the board did not say me,
you know,
no one told me to say any of
these things.
Right?
We need to be looking
20, 30, 40 years down the line.
Why is that?
Multiple reasons, one of the reasons
is because everyone else does the same.
Everyone else does that
20, 30 years.
And when I say look 20, 30 years
down the line,
I'm talking like I'm not talking about simply,
you know, you know, like the programming and
the needs
of ICI.
I'm talking about the condition of the ummah.
So in 2017,
pewresearch.org
conducted a study
where they
interviewed,
they surveyed
adults
that were born in Christian homes.
A percentage of them no longer identified
themselves as Christian.
22 percent,
22 percent of
adults that were born in Christian homes in
the US,
according to this study in 2017,
no longer identified as
Christian.
In the same study,
Muslims
were
also surveyed
and there was a percentage of Muslims
that were born
in Muslim homes
and they no longer identified as Muslim.
Who wants to guess
what's the percentage of Muslims
according to that study that no longer identified
as Muslim?
Yes.
5%,
50%,
27?
10%.
10%. 10%. 25%.
25%. 33%.
33%.
Okay. So so time out time out. Understand
understand the implications
of the numbers you're throwing out there.
Okay?
33%
means 1 out of 3 have left the
fold of Islam.
25%
means 1 out of
I'm not saying stop guessing but I'm just
saying, like, let it sink in.
Okay?
And let's be honest,
I've witnessed conversations
talking about churches are being empty, you know,
churches are empty and yada yada yada. Let's
face it. I know I'm on camera, I'm
not gonna talk about it more, but you
know what I mean. Right?
In fact, how many and some of you
may not like this. Right? How many churches
have been bought and turned into masajid?
It's a fact, you know, throughout the country.
22% of Christians that were born in Christian
homes did not no longer identified as Christian.
23%
Muslims that were born in Muslim homes did
not no longer identified as Muslim.
According to this study, more Muslims have left
the fold of Islam
than Christians leaving Christianity.
You deserve to know.
Okay? You deserve to know that
new Muslims
that are entering the fold of Islam
are replacing those Muslims that are leaving the
fold of Islam. But I'm gonna call time
out and say,
why should we be okay with that?
Why are we looking at it as simple
as a spreadsheet? Oh, you know, net positive.
If we lost a 100,000 Muslims
due to Irtidah,
a 100,000 Muslims accepted Islam.
Oh, oh, at the end of the day,
you know, like, you know, no problem. You
know, it's just that No. Even one person's
iman
even one person's iman is too valuable.
In this equation, even one is too many.
Let me tell you why. We find in
narrations, and we believe this, that
the moment iman
the moment iman ceases to exist
on this dunya,
existence will fail to exist.
That is the value of one human being's
iman.
This is what keeps me up at night.
I honest to Allah.
I flew out of California a few nights
ago,
the night before I flew out wallahil adheem,
my eyes opened up 3 am in the
morning and I'm laying in bed for 2
hours can't sleep.
Thinking about this,
thinking about what's the condition of the of
the iman of the youth,
what's the condition of the
I'm not trying to digress,
but have we ever
shed a tear for the ummah?
When we are faced with the challenge ourselves,
chances are we call home,
and you're gonna laugh when you hear this,
we call back home and ask them to
tackle the haru for a goat.
You know what I mean by that, right?
Tackling a goat.
Sadaqayani. When something happens in my life,
I call back home
as a mechanism to attract Allah's mercy
to come out of that situation that I'm
facing myself.
I'm
sending money for my family back home to
slaughter a few animals
to attract Allah's mercy.
When I'm facing a challenge, I lose sleep
myself.
When I'm tested I lose my appetite.
Where is that energy for the Ummah?
Where is that energy for the Ummah?
Have we shed a tear for our brothers
and sisters in Gazzah?
If I may,
if you have shed tears
for your brothers and sisters in Gazzah
since this last
increase of oppression until today
then pray 2 rakas of
salah, you know like shukranah
appreciating Allah
and if you haven't
then pray 2 rakas of salah and say
Allah soften my heart.
Going back to the point,
going back to the point,
we as the Muslim Ummah
of the United States,
forgive me for saying this, we cannot be
hyper focused on
the amazing things that are taking place in
Dallas.
We have to zoom
out. We have to zoom out and see
what is really going on.
I hate to sound like a pessimist,
and
it's like 5th like 50 plus minutes since
I've been sitting here
and going on and on and on and
on. Right? But the honest truth is this.
There's a little homework assignment for everybody.
Okay?
I want everyone to go home tonight
or over the weekend. Right? There's no due
time but it's for your own
fiqh. Now you could do this for yourself
InshaAllah Ta'ala.
Do the research and find out:
Hey,
how many Muslims
migrated to South America?
I'll tell you in the late 1800s
early 1900s
and approximately those 50 years, 100 years give
and take,
x amount okay, I'll give
millions of Muslims.
It doesn't matter from which country because it's
irrelevant,
okay? I'm not here to talk about different
ethnicities, none of that, we're Muslims, okay? Let's
get past that. Millions of Muslims
migrated to South America
in the late 1800
early 1900.
Fast forward to
2013,
let me share a story with you.
A true incident in fact.
To set the stage, the school that I
studied in South Africa,
they would send
huffaf, they would send
young men
because we had students from 60 plus different
countries. So you could imagine
Masajid from all over the world up and
coming Masajid that
unfortunately
didn't have the resource of
a Hafiz of the Quran
that could lead the Muslims in salah
in Tarawiyah. Okay?
So they would call,
they would reach out to the school I
studied in and ask
can you please send 1 person? Can you
please send 2, you know, 2 students?
So it was normal. It was normal that
you had a student that was there from
Malaysia
was sent to Norway. A student that came
from Fiji was sent to Brazil. Like, if
it was somewhat like like it was ajeeb.
I've never saw something like that in my
life. Allah knows how many huffad were sent
out from that one school alone, and let
let alone that
the different darul ul o looms of South
Africa was, you could say, supplying huffad for
the world.
Okay? Not all of it, but you get
the point.
The stage is set.
What we would do as a tradition
is every time we would go back for
the new Madrasa year for the new year,
we would huddle together in the classroom and
share
what we did in Ramadan.
So the classmate from Thailand would say oh
this is what I did. The classmate from
Vietnam would say I would this is what
I did And yours truly, Yasir, would also
say, hey, this is what Yasir did in
Ramadan. Okay?
Now,
I had a classmate
who was sent to South America,
I believe it was Chile.
He was sent to Chile
to lead Taraweeh.
Okay?
And he is narrating this incident to me.
I was standing amongst the students.
He says during the day
we were conducting visitations, we were meeting the
Muslims
because honestly on a latter note, Ravi is
only at nighttime.
You're gonna walk around during the day and
see what's going on. Right?
He says,
I come across
a young
man
who
by just looking at him, not judging the
man, but by looking at him, I could
see
like he looks Muslim, Yani, if that makes
sense.
I know, I know it's very like Yassir,
I know but you get the point, right?
But he has a cross around his neck
and he speaks
a language that Muslims speak in a specific
region. Okay? A Muslim language.
Okay? So he's like, time out. He didn't
say time out, but you get the point.
So he asks him,
okay.
You're a Christian?
Yes.
But your last name is this?
He says, yeah.
It doesn't make sense.
You're a Christian, but your last name is
a Muslim name.
So in broken Spanish or whatever other language
they had to communicate, he says, you know,
just one minute. Right? He runs home, he
comes back
and he gives them
this piece of paper
which had
his lineage,
his family tree.
He gives my friend, my classmate,
this
this family tree,
and on that family tree he saw
that this young man
was from the progeny of Abba
Think about that for a second.
Every time I share this story, I'm afraid
of my iman getting salb
because I do not want to be the
source of anyone looking
differently to the name of Abbas Radiallahu anhu.
That's not my intention.
I hope to die with iman.
But why am I sharing this heart wrenching
story?
Abbas
in his bloodline,
people became Christian.
I hate to sound like a pessimist,
right? And of course I'm hopeful, of course
we have to be hopeful that this is
not the trajectory of the Muslims in America.
Of course it's not. But we cannot let
our guard down.
We have to do what is necessary to
preserve the iman of the Muslims in America.
We have to.
We absolutely have to. There's no other choice
that we have.
One of the reasons why
we serve thousands of families with groceries
is because
we want them to send us their kids
for us to educate them.
I said it.
Otherwise, what's the correlation?
Like Yasser, why do you have forklifts and
trucks and all this diesel that you're buying
and all of this, you know,
carbon emissions and literally tons of groceries getting
dropped? Why?
What's the correlation between Maktab and charitable aid?
You earn their trust
and then you're able to work on them
to save their iman.
This is prophetic
work, this is the way it's supposed to
happen.
This is
similarly with the youth.
You make their iqram,
you spend on them,
you spend a half a $1,000,000
on your youth,
and then you see the results where they
become leaders
and they take initiative to save the amount
of other youngsters.
I know this sounds like a massive plug
for the organization
but the work is bigger.
You know what I'm
trying
to
say?
For the preservation of Iman of our generations
to come,
we cannot sit idle
and be complacent.
That oh,
we have a good problem.
When I came in earlier for Jum'ah,
I saw people praying in the jib,
which is an amazing problem by the way.
It's a good problem.
I saw the yellow mats and Mashallah Amuz
Mashallah worshiping Allah.
It's an amazing problem
but we cannot sit
and become complacent.
Remember one person's iman is too valuable.
Sometimes I say to my colleagues at the
organization
that
one metric
is
how many students attended and what you know,
you look at the you know the KPIs
and all that good stuff, right? But
from an Islamic perspective,
one person's iman on one side
and the entire budget of 2,400,000 on one
side.
Isn't that the right way of looking at
it, right?
Is it one person's iman worth 1,000,000, and
1,000,000 of dollars?
It
is.
It is.
If it requires
that some of us have to learn
Arabic braille
to educate to allow
an a visually impaired individual
to learn
how to read the Quran in Arabic braille
and that is going to save that person's
iman, wallahi it's worth it.
If that means you have to learn an
entire new language in 4 days it's worth
it.
May Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala be pleased with
us. May Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala bless us
with the worry and concern of the Ummah.
May Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala
never allow us to ever become complacent.
May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
bless us with such worry and concern for
the Ummah that we lose our appetite when
we sit down to have a meal, that
we lose
our appetite when we sit down and drink
some water or whatever that we enjoy to
drink. May Allah
allow us to lose sleep when we lay
in our beds over the concern of the
ummah. May Allah
allow us to shed tears
for the ummah. May Allah
allow us to shed tears for our brothers
and sisters in Gaza. May
Allah allow us to shed tears
over the iman of our brothers and sisters
throughout the world. May Allah
bless us with everything that we need to
do
to be
to be that key of khair, to be
that key of good wherever we go. Because
as yours truly mentioned
in the Khutba that was attempted today,
We could
all be a source of khair,
we could all be a source of goodness,
we could all be a source of
goodness wherever we go.
If there was anything that was of benefit,
it was from Allah.
Again, I say this for my for my
own Islam.
Anything
that was
anything that was said that was of any
kind of benefit
was from Allah
and
everything else was for myself, nafs and shaitan.
If I had said anything that has hurt
anyone, offended anyone,
my intent, I was not coming from bad
place.
I did not intend anything bad. So please,
you know, I I believe all of you
are righteous men and women.
Why do I say that?
You know
you know what it takes
to frequent the masjid every day.
You are people of Jannah.
Every single one of you, man, woman, child,
every single one of you are righteous individuals
in the community.
Please,
please have concern
for those that for whatever reason we're not
judging anybody.
Please make fiqr and concern
regarding
everyone else that is not with us in
the masjid.
For every one of us that is here
Allah knows how many of us are not
here.
Why do I say that? I want to
start off with like you know like really
a part 3 Khutba now or like talk,
but I'll prove it to you.
In fact, I will allow you to prove
it to yourself. I'm risking it now. Oh,
Yasir, I corner myself now. Okay. Tell me,
how many people pray Eid salah here? Anyone?
Here in Irving.
Tell me, someone.
How many 1,000?
4 aids.
Not 3, 4. What's the average number of
current aid that we have?
Okay, give me 1,000, 3000, 4000,
2000. Okay, let's be conservative.
2 times 4, we have
8,000
Muslims coming here for Eid salah. Do we
all agree?
Yes or no?
Do we have 8,000 Muslims for Jummah?
There you go.
How many Muslims do we get for Jum'ah
at Irving? Tell me, combined.
34,000.
Okay,
fine.
Let's agree that 50%
of
your Eid pop you know of your Eid
guests that are coming to worship Allah
only 50% of them are coming for Jumaa.
You see where I'm going?
We cannot,
we cannot sit back, relax
and say: Oh, Masha'Allah,
we have 4 Eid Salas.
Yeah, that is the,
that is the ceiling.
And I'm gonna argue
and we all know that
not
all Muslims pray Eid as well, okay? We're
not even bringing that in the picture. But
4,000 Muslims are missing Jum'ah every single Jum'ah.
Instead of
looking at
the like I'm not saying
look at things, you know, from the perspective
of pessimism.
No, don't be that negative person. There's enough
of negativity in the world. But
maybe some maybe there's something wrong. I don't
know. Am I looking at it right or
there's something wrong?
Because logically
if the 4,000 Muslims that have that were
here for Eid
I'm sorry the 8,000 Muslims that are there
for Eid
are they praying Jummah and other masajid? I
don't know. These are questions for you respected
members of this community need to answer yourself.
We need to
change our vantage point.
A Muslim is never complacent.
There's always something to do.
Always.
Remember,
there's always something to do.
Take 2 on me completing this talk. SubhanAllah,
bihamdulillahi, subhanAllah, bihamdulillahi, bihamdulillahi,
and
if any if anyone has any questions,
please,
if I know the answer, I'll respond. Otherwise,
I'll say,
Yes.
That's a very good question. So the brother
asked,
what
what do stats look like
of Muslims in South America today?
Well,
there is an amazing effort that's been taking
place
since the 1980s
of ulama of South Africa
and neighboring countries
that have been migrating to South America.
Yes, like literally making Hijra.
They have been migrating to South America
foregoing everything that they had going on,
going into
a community,
relearning a language or 2
for the sake of Allah
and Alhamdulillah
1000 if not 100 of 1000 of people
have entered back into Islam.
In fact, this network of Makatib in South
America, the last time I checked was over
800.
Over 800
Makatib
are being run throughout South America
that is teaching children Islam,
that is teaching
new Muslims Islam.
In fact, anyone that is interested,
I have the PDF of the book that
they published
that that one book consists of multiple
multiple courses
of different increments
what to teach a new Muslim in the
1st 3 days, like a 3 day crash
course for Muslim.
You know, if if this brother or sister
could give you only 10 days, then what
can you teach? Like, the syllabus, I have
it.
Open source, You know, like I'll get some
Majr
something I could show up in a day
of judgment that, oh, by the way Allah
Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala, You sir airdropped this PDF
to this person. Okay? I'm a selfish guy.
But the point is,
Alhamdulillah,
things are getting better,
but again
even one is too many. When it comes
to iman
when it comes to iman,
even one
is too many.
Any other questions?
Yes.
Brother brought up a very powerful and very
real
perspective of what is also going on.
The retention rate
of Muslims are accepting Islam. How many Muslims
actually stay Muslims?
Very scary statistics.
The brother mentioned plus minus 50%.
According to the brother statistics that maybe he
read somewhere, he may be guessing, right?
Half of the Muslims that are entering Islam
are leaving the fall of Islam
And for that, brother, I'm not trying to
scapegoat, you know, out of this, but,
honestly,
maybe an hour or 2 hours are needed
for this. Right?
The simplest
Allah knows best. The simplest way I could
put it is
there are conversations that need to be had.
We,
as the Muslim community at large
okay?
I'm not targeting Dallas. Okay? Imagine we're out
in Dallas.
Next thing you know,
someone approaches me to Churak.
We as Muslims in America,
we need to
see to the soul to the social needs
of these new Muslims.
Remember what I mentioned in the intro of
the organization of you know like not the
organization but the work that Allah is allowing
us to do with the permission of Allah.
There are many cases
we come across
where new Muslims
they become
unhoused or they become homeless
or they literally lose everything they had because
they accepted Islam.
And the reason why
the reason why that is the case the
reason why we get these cases
excuse me is because
Allah has blessed
our organization
with
individuals
that are converts or reverse themselves.
So they could relate with the person for
example, right? Not to name drop but it's
it's it's a fact. Sister Elena
Madera Selmi, who is the director of charitable
aid is a convert or revert sister herself.
So because of that,
when new Muslims
go through
that kind of challenge
of losing everything that they've had,
they come to her
and Alhamdulillah
that department
herself,
they're a source of
they're they're a safe space
to serve these
Muslims, right? That's one example.
I'm speaking for Sacramento.
Okay. I have no idea
what
like I know Masha'Allah,
ICI does absolutely amazing things Masha'Allah.
But I'm speaking for Sacramento.
One of the things that it's a dream
of mine if you if I may is
both
the Haids, Haidul Fitr and Haidul Adha
to have
a special
you know,
space
for new Muslims
to come to celebrate Eid
because what happens, right?
Those of us that are not converts or
reverts
after Eid salah
we run
into our living rooms or whichever tradition we
have, we visit our families and all of
that, and it breaks my heart when I
have converts
or reverts
tell me that,
yeah this past aid was set, you know,
they were lonely.
It's sad.
These are just two examples that I'm giving
from my very little experience in life.
So
we as Muslims in America, again, I'm not
speaking on behalf of Dallas or ICI,
we Muslims in America,
we need to
really pay attention
to to this issue and yes it is
an issue,
right? And again I just only give to
I gave only 2 examples.
So Allah, Allah knows best maybe it's because
maybe it's because new Muslims
for whatever reason they don't feel part of
part of the community. Maybe
they don't have the
financial support that they need.
You know how many times we had to
go in especially
especially when it comes to
a convert or revert sister.
My Allah, like sad, absolutely sad. But then
you get inspired off of their resilience.
Next question.
Yes, sir.
Yes.
Yes.
So what I could do is
you could find me by the you know,
in the back of the masjid, and anyone
that wants it, please take it.
Yes, sir.
Before I take that question, there was another
hand that was up. Yes, sir. I'm I'm
gonna get to your question. Yes, sir.
All of us.
I mean I mean
yes.
Brother, your question and your question,
there is overlap,
believe it or not. And this was not
staged by the way. Okay? This is not,
you know
Once a person
develops the recognition of Allah,
once a person develops the love
for Allah
it is very difficult to remove that love
for Allah from this person's heart.
That is the objective.
Marifa of Allah.
Recognition of Allah. Who is my Allah? Allah
has done like what hasn't Allah done for
me?
To get
anyone, doesn't matter
convert, revert,
youngster,
doesn't matter. To get anyone
to that
stage
where this person develops Ma'rifah of Allah,
love for Allah
the most effective way and this goes to
your point brother is education.
You have to educate.
If you don't educate
someone
about
everything that Allah has done for you,
you will not develop love for Allah.
And education comes up like
This term education comes off as like academic.
No!
Talking about the greatness of Allah,
it really helps,
it really helps talking about the greatness of
Allah.
In fact, if I may digress for a
few seconds and come right back,
part of
what we want to implement in our Maqtub
system because there's always room for improvement remember,
right? We're never complacent
is teaching imaniyat.
The Sahaba radiAllahu anhu jama'in said we were
taught iman for 13 years first
and then we were taught Islam in Madinah.
If you look at the injunctions that came
down in Makkah,
they were to strengthen the iman of the
Sahaba
which made it easy for the Sahaba to
let, for example, khamr
or to let alcohol and wine
to flow the streets of Madinah. Why? Because
the iman was built first and how iman
was built was through education.
So the bottom line is you have to
educate.
You have to educate.
And when we talk about
youth, honestly,
that is the objective.
We
again, we're in Sacramento so what works for
us, okay, is
we spend
as much as possible on these young men
and young women
for one reason:
the number one objective
is to win them over.
If it means we have to have a
month a weekly barbecue and is gonna cost
you a few $100
on the house, so be it. If it
means sisters require their own space and that
rent itself on a monthly basis a few
$1,000, so be it.
So step 1 is to bring the youngsters
in to win them over first.
Step 2
is
working with them 1 on 1,
peeling away the layers of the onion of
the different challenges that they have in their
lives,
providing that 1 on 1 mentorship.
You know how many cases Allah has used
us,
Allah has allowed us, I'll take that back,
Allah allowed us to save
lives when I'm talking about suicide.
There was a case where a young man
was suicidal,
he refused to go to the local hospital,
He refused to disclose this to his family.
He came to
Imam Abuuk, who is the scholar leading the
brother's guidance department. What he does? He takes
him home. He takes him to his personal
home,
spend the entire night with him,
and alhamdulillah, this young man
is okay now. Right? So what if you
so step 1, you do what you need
to do to bring the youngsters in. Step
2, you develop these bonds, you develop this
relationship with them where what the objective is?
You prove to them that you are their
well wisher.
Once you prove to any young man or
woman
for a man
to,
you know, for a because the thing what
we do, and I'm saying this out loud,
the way we operate, everything is separate. We
have male staff that only works with males,
like, with with the brothers
and sister you know, female staff that works
with sisters
literally in different ZIP codes. So I just
wanna clarify that. Right? We're not in that,
like, yeah Sharia like no, Islam says dignity,
respect, sanctity, everything in this place.
The objects the objective is
allowing them to understand
that we are their well wisher.
Now, what happens after that?
Then we have
preset
classes that are there where we encourage them
to start attending weekly duroos
and these classes are on
schedule throughout the year. 1 series is going
to be the sira. 1 series is going
to be 5 5 week classes.
Nothing too dramatic.
5 weeks of sira, 5 weeks of tafsir,
5 weeks of taskea,
5 weeks of Hadith or whatever it may
be.
Allowing these young men and women
to develop the Ma'arifah of Allah.
And that is when we've seen we've seen
once you bring these youngsters in this is
the runway, the roadmap.
Wallahi,
I know brothers
that came in on these Friday night barbecues
and today they pray Qayam every day.
Hajeem.
These are true stories this is not something
I'm saying from hearsay. Now going back to
your question, brother, is
affordable education. Because this education I'm talking about
is
for your teenagers.
Right? 17, 18, all the way up to
when they finish university.
Because, honestly, the reason why we
prefer that over the younger generation the younger
children is because
the younger children are literally driven to the
masjid.
The older kids are not.
They get their credit card, they get their
driver's license. Assalamualaikum.
Honestly, let's face it, let's look around us.
How many teenagers do we have right now?
Case at point. Right? But then look at
the younger kids.
I'm not trying to put them on the
spot, but the reason why they're here is
because they cannot drive anywhere else.
And that is a fact. And there's nothing
wrong with that. I'm just, you know, sharing
the facts.
Brother, there are multiple models of affordable education.
And one of the models that
it's it's a dream of mine. I say
what I say to the youngsters that, hey.
If something happens to
this is what Yasir is. You know, like,
it sounds weird.
There's a model where you're able to at
least in California, I can't speak for Texas.
Right? But at least in California,
insha'Allah,
if you do everything right, meaning you turn
to Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala, you wake up
in qiyam, you you read your Quran like
literally you attract the mercy of Allah first,
you have iqlas, you you you pay your
dues
and then you're able to go into the
the tying the camel aspect of it, where
you're able to utilize state funding
to
allocate
approximately
anywhere from a 150 up to $200 a
month
per child
to educate them.
So if bringing in the tea it's a
it's
when a student walks into this class room,
the child thinks he or she is going
to Islamic school,
but on paper, it is something else. It
is technically a tutoring center.
You know what I mean? So there's there's
there's more I have a presentation on this
and, like, one of my life goals
is to see a refugee child sit next
to a multimillionaire's
child in the same classroom.
Because education is meant for everybody,
not only for those that are able to
afford it.
You know what I mean? So,
we could connect offline
and and maybe Allah uses you in this
region. Allah knows best. Right? Again, one more
opportunity for Yasir to stand in front of
Allah
and say, you know, Yasir at least airdropped
this PDF to so and so brother in
Dallas Sharif.
Any other questions?
Masha'allah. Masha'allah. These are some deep questions, Masha'allah.
I appreciate that, you know.
Masha'allah.
Masha'allah. Okay. So the question was, you know,
for those of us that are not able
to hear our respected brother,
was throughout the United States, okay, throughout the
United States you see
Masjid leadership
that predominantly
exists of immigrants.
Why is it that we don't see
US born
leadership of these masajid? Is that correct brother?
Okay.
Very good question.
Very good question. Okay.
I
believe we have a gridlock situation. We're in
gridlock.
And what I mean by that is
our
okay.
I'm not trying to call anyone old, but
out of respect, let's call them our elders.
Our elders throughout the United States
because our tradition teaches us to respect our
elders. K?
So our elders
that
are found to be
leadership of our masajid
whereas they happen to be immigrants,
if you ask them
I'm explaining it to gridlock. If you ask
them
why aren't the youngsters
on the board for example or why aren't
the youngsters in leadership?
Chances are they will tell you
the reason why is because we don't see
the young people stepping up,
right?
Perhaps
they will say we don't see the young
people stepping up.
But now if you ask
again, I'm still defining the gridlock situation. Okay.
This is my personal opinion.
If you ask
the younger
okay. Let's call them the US born. Okay.
Because Masha'Allah, you know, I'm old too now.
Yeah. You know, 30 plus years old.
So
those of us that were born in the
US,
why isn't the US born Muslim in leadership?
If we ask
the US born folks,
they will have a similar response.
They will perhaps they will say, perhaps
we're not stepping up because our elders are
not stepping down.
And this is my personal again I'm like
wallahi I'm not trying
to hurt anyone's feelings and this is like
honest to Allah this
is my
like
my like
right. Like, my this is this is my
opinion. I'm not saying this based on facts.
I did not conduct any studies. None of
that.
So we have this gridlock situation. Our elders
are not step you know, stepping down. Right?
Whatever that means because they don't see the
youngster stepping up, and the youngster is not
stepping up, whatever that means, because our elders
are not stepping down.
We have to understand
that
in fact, I sat with,
I sat with
must a Masjid board in a different state
few months ago,
and we had this open conversation.
You know, like where are your youngsters?
And believe it or not, he said the
same thing.
So, okay, you say you know like don't
scapegoat yourself like what's the solution? The solution
is
inshaAllah,
we need to come up with
relative solutions at each of these masjid. Again,
we're not talking about Dallas, we know that.
Okay?
Wyoming or Illinois, wherever, right? Doesn't matter.
Each community
has their own challenge
and
each community needs to come up with the
relative solutions
to
to resolve that gridlock.
I wish I was able to tell you
this is a, b, and c
because it's not gonna work. Like Sacramento, California,
where I was born and raised is a
whole different world.
You go to,
you know, Brooks, Brooklyn, New York is a
different world. You go to Keys, Florida all
the way down, you know, and
the least we could do is we could
have
a healthy conversation,
right? I was, you know, we were talking
amongst ourselves in the van yesterday. Was it
yesterday?
When it comes to our conversations, where are
we coming from?
Ask them where where am I coming from?
If I'm addressing
a board member, if I'm addressing the imam,
if I'm addressing
someone in leadership,
I need to ask myself where am I
coming from? What I mean by that is
am I coming from a place of sincerity?
Am I coming from a place of khair?
Am I coming from a place of being
a well wisher?
Or the opposite?
Because I was telling the brothers last night:
You could have the biggest challenge that like
not the biggest but you could have real
challenges
but as long as 2 people
both come from a good place, you're able
to resolve it inshaAllah.
You You know what I mean?
But on the flip side,
there could be no issue but 2 people
are coming from a bad place
there's always going to be sparks flying:
oh, he looked at me this way
or she said this or
we need to ask ourselves where am I
coming from? Allah knows best. This is what
I've learned relatively recently in the past few
years of my life and it has changed
my life.
I changed my life. Alhamdulillah, I changed my
life.
I sat with many many many youngsters
and I sat with many many many boards
and
Allah
Allah knows best but this is
I believe many communities have a gridlock situation.
You know, and then many communities
MashAllah.
I hate to compare it to uncontested
politics,
you know, like what I mean by that
is in some state, in some county, the
DA
is uncontested.
It's publicly
like yeah like who's gonna contest this DA?
The member of Rasool Allah SWAMI is not
the place for politics I'm just giving an
example.
No one shows up to contest that DA.
6 months later that DA does something
that hurts the Muslims
and that's a different topic for another day,
we then react.
We need to stop reacting and become more
proactive.
You know what I mean?
So, there are many many examples
the reason why I brought that example up
there are many examples where
many many Masajid
have open
like
like on their Whatsapps, on the website, you
walk into the Masjid hall like
if you want to
join so and so committee or if it's
there.
You know,
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala knows best.
Next question. Yes, sir.
That's an excellent point.
So for those of us that were not
able to hear the respected brother, what is
his you know, what his thoughts and sentiments
were, if I in a nutshell, if I
may, what the brother mentioned was,
yes. You have
parents that are
raising their kids with that tunnel vision mentality
as well.
Perhaps, we need to also pay attention to
parents to allow them to ensure
that they're making an effort that they're not
raising their kids with that tunnel vision,
and they're actually empowering their kids
with the with the right vision that they
need necessary
to not only survive but thrive as Muslims.
Am I correct?
Number 1,
there are a few things that came to
my heart.
Maybe there's khair in it. The first thing
that came to my heart, respected brother,
is that
when I said
parents are raising their kids with that tunnel
vision
and I'm glad you brought that up is
because I believe
I want
to clarify
that
it's not that the parents
intentionally
do that,
it's what the child sees
the parent doing.
You know, children
learn what they see.
So again, putting myself on the example, I
was I'm the oldest of my siblings.
I remember my dad working 2 jobs.
That's that's my childhood memory.
My dad never told me that he asked
you, you must also work 2 jobs. In
fact, everything he did
was so that
this sinner could sit in front of you
and we could share some thoughts, honestly. Right?
That's a very important point that you mentioned
brother because I
could only imagine
I'm not a parent myself yet, right? But
I could only imagine
the challenge of raising
kids in the US. I could only imagine.
I've heard
parents share their concern
that
and I'm not saying I agree with them,
I'm just narrating or relating what I've heard.
I've had,
you know parents
share their concern
more for their daughters
than their sons
Because of the odds that are stopped that
are stacked against our daughters and women generally
in society, right?
That's an excellent point for us to
you know brother,
I hope insha'Allah
each of these issues that are being brought
up to be honest
to be you know if I may be
honest each of these
questions or each of these
topics are being brought up, they deserve their
own discussion on their own
to, you know, full, you know, to give
it even full justice. I feel that
yours truly is not even able to do
full justice because it's literally 9:41 in in
the evening right now. You know what I
mean?
But I will say this,
I'm visiting from Sacramento.
I'm here today, I'm gonna fly out in
a few days, I may never come back,
I may leave this world, I don't know,
may maybe I come back to Irving, maybe
I don't, but but maybe,
maybe
and again maybe
this
program
was a means
for us
to have some conversations to get started.
Because and the reason why I mentioned that,
with all due respect,
there's no one more blind than a person
who refuses to see.
And you see where I'm going with this?
There's no one more deaf than a person
who refuses to listen.
The reason why I mentioned that is
for parents
to come in
into ICI
and to attend some type of parental workshop,
there needs to be some type of admission
that you know what, I need to improve
myself.
I'm being honest.
If I'm a parent and I see a
flyer, oh, you know
parental workshops. Man, what are you talking about?
I know I'm raising my kids just fine.
You know,
that's
our own responsibility
at an individual level
for us to have that mentality
where
we're always learning,
having the learning mentality that we're always learning
always learning.
To share a personal note,
I learned from 5 year olds.
You know, it's easier said than done. Right?
I'm not trying to portray myself as if
I'm some you know? No. I'm honest. Like,
when it comes to certain situations, when you
know? Like, sometimes I benefit from a 5
year old. Sometimes a 7 year old says
something. I'm like, oh, wow. That's that's deep.
You know what I mean? It's all about
here.
Maybe there are conversations that can take place
where
parents could come into a safe space
and we can
have a circle maybe in the form of
a support group.
I'm pretty sure it already exists here in
ICI. If not, then there there you go.
Maybe a support group can be created. This
is something that I saw in South Africa,
by the way.
Not only for
parents.
The community would come together once a week,
and they would sit in the form of
a circle,
and
it was a safe space.
One parent would raise their or one community
member would raise their hand and any challenge
that they're having. Oh,
something as simple as oh, I'm like I
have a roof leak. Does anyone know a
roofer?
Right? Oh, I'm having challenge like my my
my son or daughter is having
a hard time with his or her math
homework or whatever it may be.
9 out of 10 times
a fellow community member would raise their hand
and say okay we'll connect
after the program.
Something as simple as that was so amazing
that I saw in South Africa.
It was amazing to see that.
The community was able to have a safe
space
where they were able to come. So maybe
maybe
there could be some kind of support group
for parents if if it doesn't exist, it
can come it it can come into existence.
Come on, we're in Dallas. You have to
have,
psychiatry, you know, psychotherapists, you have to have
mental health experts in this community itself,
that you could reel them in, right? You
have Imam Kashif, you have your other Imams
here,
Mashallah,
Allah knows best.
Any other questions?
Forgive me for having everyone hostage until 9:45
at night, but I'm hoping there's some benefit
coming from this
Hopefully,
Any other questions?
Final boarding call?
May Allah accept all of us. May Allah
bless us may Allah bless everyone here for
their concern and fiqh of the ummah.
May Allah
bless everyone here with the
necessary
sincerity,
good character,
good qualities,
and everything that is needed
to do what is needed to happen.
Ameen.
May Allah bless everyone. May Allah
continue
to allow ICI
to be a role model
of providing whatever ICI is providing.
May Allah bless Imam Kashif,
his team. May Allah bless everyone here that
is working here as volunteers
to ensure that we have, masha'Allah, this amazing
facility and this young man to walk in
with this amazing Minecraft, you know, backpack
and to have this memory of growing up.
There was this guy wearing a white coat
that's sitting behind a table on this night.