Importance of a Waqf – EPIC Fundraiser

Salam aleikum wa rahmatullah wa barakato

Alhamdulillah wa salatu salam ala Rasulillah, who are early he will be here woman who Allah Hama, but first a correction, the greatest asset that we have with the blessings of Allah subhanho wa taala. In my opinion, it is our youth that are doing the heavy the brothers and sisters, this is where Allah's Baraka will come, these young children that are doing HIV day in and day out, they're coming to the masjid every single day, I come here, I see them all running up and down doing their HIV, that is our greatest asset.

After that, our asset is all of us here as a community, and I'm a member of the community, brothers and sisters time is tight, I want to get straight to the point. How many of you in this audience, how many of you were born in another land and came here to America, please raise your hand? I would estimate 80% of the audience is raising its hand. If I were to ask you why you came here? What was the goal? What was the vision? I believe that most of you would say, we wanted a better future for ourselves and our children. We wanted to make sure that our children had opportunities of education, and of scholarship and leadership and have a life that was better than what we had back home. And

dare I say that most of you have achieved that goal. Dare I say your sons and daughters are living far better at their age than you did at their age back when you were home, you have achieved that vision of providing your children a better career opportunity, a better education, a better standard of living, you have handed your children this dunya on a silver platter. And the fact of the matter is they don't even appreciate what they have. Is that not the case? Is that not the case? We have to tell them when I was your age, this is what I used to do. It doesn't matter. It's on last year's but still Alhamdulillah the bar has been raised for them, they are inshallah who are going to be smarter

than us. They're going to be better educated than us. They're gonna have better careers than us. But my question to you tonight, you have invested in the education and the careers and the standard of living of your children. But have you invested in the deen of your children as you came here? That is the question that you need to think about. You have raised the bar of education in the secular realm, you have ensured that the house that they live in is far better than the house you lived in when you were their age, you're giving them food quality and a safety of living that you could not even dream of when you were their age Alhamdulillah we thank Allah for that. Alhamdulillah but what

have you done to protect their Deen? Because frankly, that is far more important than their dunya. What have you invested to raise the bar and make sure that their religion is preserved? Because Do your parents, dear parents back home, there were checks and balances to maintain your Islamic identity. There were checks and balances to make sure even if you weren't that religious, you remain within the faith. But moving to this land, there are no checks and balances after the blessings and mercy of Allah. There are no checks and balances in society. The closest thing that we have is a community and that community it has to take on the society that you guys grew up in, it has to act

as checks and balances. It has to imbibe within our children, a love of Islam, an appreciation of the culture and the heritage of being who they are. And that is why today, we're always raising the bar epic. But today we're gonna raise the bar even more, we're going to continue raising this bar because let's face it for how long can we come to you year after year and squeeze you for more money, the same amount we needed and more. We need it for how long? And let's be honest, I asked a very, very difficult question. Parents. Are you listening to me? Are you listening? I'm asking you Do you think your children will have the same zeal and enthusiasm to donate to the masjid as you do

right now? Do you think they will understand how important it is to preserve the deen when they're your age? Now think about that? Because you made the choice to come here. hamdulillah nobody's complaining I thank Allah but that choice is on you. That choice you made. You have to invest in their future. You invested in the future of the dunya. Now it is time to invest in the future of their Deen. And the whole point of tonight is going to be the first fundraiser to end all fundraisers. This is not the end. But this is the beginning of the end. That is the goal. The first fundraiser to finally have a Ramadan where we don't have to come and say Brother

resistors one more year, we want to get beyond that we want to be able to sustain. There is not a single Masjid in North America, I repeat, not a single Masjid that has an endowment that makes itself sustainable. And that is a tragedy. And we here at Epic in sha Allah, who Tada that's my vision and goal, we shall be the first fully sustainable Masjid in all of North America. That is the vision and goal and I know we can do it in sha Allah to Adam, I want to give you a personal anecdote.

I want to give you a personal anecdote about my own life. hamdulillah as you're aware, my parents came here born, I was born and raised here, studied engineering went and studied overseas in Medina. And financially it was, I had to, you know, take a loss when I left my engineering degree. When I was in Medina, I was applying for PhDs. I'm wondering, how am I going to finance myself during the PhD? How am I going to find that at that time, I had three children. At that time, I was 30 years old, and I did not have a job or career. And I'm wondering, I want to do a PhD. How am I going to do that, but I know I had the desire, I had the drive, and Charlotte hamdulillah had the grades. So I

applied and I got accepted to multiple universities. Hamdulillah I got accepted to Yale, As you're all aware, and when Yale's offer came to me, it said that over 10,000 people have applied for the PhD, and only 600 of those 10,000 got accepted, very small, 6% and Hamdulillah. They said, you're one of them. hamdulillah thank Allah for that. Then they said, If you accept this offer, we shall give you five years stipend that will take care of your and your family's needs. We shall give you subsidized housing, we shall give you free medical for you and all of your family for as long as you're here. And I was doing the math. How can this institution pay me so much money? It was enough

for take care of it's not it's not a large amount of money, but it's enough. I don't have to pay them. I didn't pay them. They're paying me to be a student. How can they give me subsidized housing? How can they give free health care to my family? The first day that I went to the Yale program, I got accepted, they gave me the tour. And they told us the whole story in the year 1701. That's 300 plus years ago, 1701, they opened up Yale College, and a businessman by the name of Mr. Eli, who Yale, that's what his name is, yo, he gave a whopping $500. To start the endowment of you. $500 was the beginning of the endowment of yield $500 back then, was still a large amount, but it's still not

a fortune 500 is maybe 50,000 equivalent, our time, still not that much. But it is a good amount over the next 300 years, that 500 continue to grow and grow and grow and grow. Until finally today, the endowment of yield is over $30 billion. A private institution of education, they don't spend their money on welfare. They don't spend their money on building public buildings. They spend their money to attract the highest talent, the best minds, the best library, the best college professors, and that's why they are who they are. This is what money buys you. When you have money, you can attract the top quality you can give back to your community, you can be a world class institution.

Can you imagine? Can you imagine dear Muslims, a time will come and I am confident it will come when our East Plano Islamic centers endowment is going to be giving us more money that we can spend on our Masjid because that's the goal. The goal is not just to pay the staff and to make to take care of the children. The goal is we have so much money that we start thinking nationally, we start thinking what can epic do epic can build hospitals, epic can have a soup kitchen, epic can have a presence in the Dallas area, we will become a beacon of Islam in North America. That's the goal. But in order to get there, we need the finances and in order to have the finances we need to move beyond

the fundraisers. I was at Yale for five years, five years I was there. Not once did they ask any fundraiser for anybody? They don't need money anymore. They have $30 billion. What are they going to do with my $505,000 they don't need it anymore. But that 30 billion it starts with 100 200 500. Once you do the math, and you compound it and you invest and you nurture these small amounts become magnificent quantities. That is why we are here today today in sha Allah hooter. Allah today is the first day

of the endowment. In other words, all of you sitting here today, you're attending the historic inauguration of the walk, The walk will one day One day inshallah be 10s of millions 100 million inshallah. But today is the day it all begins and when history is recorded, and when people talk about the East Plano Islamic Center and the history of the East Plano Islamic center, they will mention the work of epic, and they're going to mention the epic fundraiser that began at all and this is the opportunity that Allah has given me and you the seed that we planted today, it is the deepest seed of the whole work project. What you're going to plant will be the foundation of every

single fundraiser and every single donation that's going to take place afterwards you shall be the base of all basis, you shall be the deepest of all see, so what you give today, Allah knows what's going to happen after 5100 200 years and how many projects are going to be happening, we will long be gone from this earth, but inshallah we will be continuing our good deeds and the work will continue to shower us with what we don't even know because we donate it for a cause. We believe in brothers and sisters, brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers, parents, you are not donating to this building. You are not donating for the salaries of the employees. You are donating for the

future of your children. That's what you're donating for today. So never forget that. May Allah subhana wa Tada make tonight's fundraiser, an epic fundraiser. May we raise more funds today than we have ever raised? And may this be the beginning of the end? The beginning of the end of all fundraisers for epic that's our goal today and in sha Allah Allah, we're going to meet it to Zakum Allah who was Salam alaykum Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuh