Women’s Seminar at the Islamic Center of Cleveland – Part 1 of 2
June 18th, 2017 – Ramadan 2017
Yasmin Mogahed – Journey Back To Allah 01
AI: Summary ©
The speakers emphasize the importance of social media and how it can shift one's focus on health and prevent poison usage. They stress the need for parents to be more empowered and forgiving in order to avoid future similar experiences and the importance of forgiveness in preventing future harms. The speakers also emphasize the need for parents to be more empowered and forgiving in order to avoid future similar experiences.
AI: Summary ©
Everyone
it's very warm here.
So let me start out with Shayla, she's a pain
and also the left side the edge may be slightly Southern sorry, we acidity of the water of the 77 year old phony.
I want to start off by saying how
pleasantly surprised I was to see how awesome your trees are.
Honestly, like, I know you guys probably don't notice when you live in a place, it's easy to just not really notice. But you have really, really beautiful trees. And I've missed that because I live now in California where I'm missing my trees. I used to be in North Carolina, I don't know if anyone's been to the east coast, more, especially like the Virginia North Carolina area. It's just amazing. But anyway, you guys remind me of that. So comes in not very blessed to be here. And your community seems really very, very welcoming, and have that in them. So it's an honor to be with you today. And especially especially, because it's such a it's such a it's such a
blessing time. I mean, this is the most blessed time of the year. Not only is it Ramadan, but we're in the last 10 days. We're you know, getting the odd last night was an odd night. So coming in, and I feel very blessed to be with you Just so you guys know that I did very, very little travel in this Ramadan. So this was one of the very few exceptions that I made.
So that was that that somehow convinced us
you guys can all think her. But here we are.
The title for this talk is how to return back to all of us panel data.
It's extremely important for us to understand this idea of returning to a low. When I tell you when I when I mentioned the a word that many of you have heard before that word is tell them what what comes to your mind or how would you translate your word Toba just off the top of your head.
You guys can just yell it out.
Repentance asking a lot for forgiveness. Okay? This is all true. But if you actually look at the literal meaning of the word Toba, it means to return it means to return. So you have to someone who who is is is doing Toba basically, he had to means to return. So a person who is returning to Allah subhanaw taala. So if you were to sort of imagine it up, you have a picture in your mind, it'd be like a person who is running. But away from Allah, some kind of fantasy, all of us are in a state of movement at any at every moment, we're all moving, we're all traveling, okay? Nobody actually stands still, you know, life doesn't stand still, right? time doesn't stand still. Our development, we're
always every single moment getting a day older, or rather a moment older and everyday getting a date, older. Time doesn't stop. And so we're always moving. But the question becomes, in what direction are we moving? Makes sense. There's always a state of movement. So tell that means that you are moving, but you're but you are moving in the a different direction, you're moving away from a law. And what you do is, you pause, you stop and you make a U turn. Okay? That U turn, you know, when you're driving on the highway, and your GPS tells you you're going the wrong oil doesn't say you're going the wrong way, but it says rerouting and it tells you that you need to make a legal U
turn. Yeah. And the reason that it's telling you to make a U turn is Why? Because you're moving away from your destination. Everyone know that? Right? I'm trying to get to a certain place and I'm moving away from that destination. So my GPS, my, my, in this case, my guidance is my GPS, right? It's telling me that I have to make a U turn. If I continue to go in that direction away from my destination, I'm just getting further and further away. And so towba literally is that U turn. It's that coming back. And it's coming back to the direction that we're supposed to be moving which is towards and closer to a wall, not away. Now, how often should we do that? Like, is this something
that we just I mean, how often in our lives do we need to make these even this this U turn? What do you guys think?
All the time, right? Sometimes people think
so sometimes people think that tobacco is something you do once in your life, right? You want us to live a life of clubbing and drinking or whatever sin
Maybe you weren't. Maybe you weren't even listening, right? You live the life where you were not running towards a law. And you thought, Okay, I'm going to change my life. I'm going to make this massive future now, right? But then that's it. I've made the U turn. Once I'm done. I've come back to a law once. And now I'm good to go right? Now the problem with that is like a person who's driving and they only check their GPS once, right? So you're driving and everything's okay, maybe, maybe, or maybe you found out Okay, I'm going the wrong way. My GPS says turn around and I come back, but then I never recheck what's going to happen if you never read check the map or never
recheck the directions or never recheck the GPS, is that you're going to go off track again. See, it's a constant V. Newell, it's a constant returning. That's what we have to realize this Toba is not something we do once to tell but something we have to consistently be doing. Think of it like this. It's
it's one one shift explained it as a reorientation. So what does that mean? It's, it's, it's in a sense, it's the checking of my, my compass or my GPS, and say, Okay, I'm off track. Let me come back. So practically, what does that mean? It means that we all get distracted. It means that we all sometimes get off track life. In fact, the world we live in, is full of distractions, full of distractions. I'll give you just a practical example. Social media, okay? Social media is one of these tools I'll call social media tool, it's just simply a tool. It's not inherently evil, and it's not inherently good. It is a tool, which you can say is neutral. Depending on how you use it, you
follow? So you have Instagram, Instagram, can be
a place where I get extremely distracted. Yeah, and I'll just leave it that's like the best I could say about right, it's something that where I can become very, very distracted. Or it can be something that helps bring me back or remind me of a loss of habitat, just like Facebook, just like twit just like any kind of social media. It's something that can either be some a tool that takes me away from Allah, or it can be a tool that brings me closer to Allah. And everything in life is that way that it can be used in either way. And we decide how we use these tools. Now I bring up things like social media, because the reality is, these are the practical
things that we're doing, you know what I mean? I can sit here and I can talk to you about concepts, I can say return to a law, come back to love, but then it becomes difficult. How do I translate that into my everyday life? Okay, I'm going to use one example. And that's the example of what it is that we focus on when it comes to for example, social media. All right.
One thing I really emphasize a lot in, in my in my talks is something that is a psychological principle, which is very, very important for us to understand. And that is, whatever I focus on most becomes bigger, okay? It becomes more encompassing, in a sense, the more I focus on something, the more I feed it. Does that make sense?
In other words, what I focus on grows, what I focus on grows. That might seem conceptually That's weird. What I mean is, think of it as you have a pet. Yeah. And every time you focus on this pet, it's like feeding it. So imagine that eventually this this creature becomes a monster, the more you feed it, okay. Now, depending on what that focus is, you've now you may have a big problem because if that focus is wrong, then it actually becomes bigger and bigger. The more I focus on it is everyone following so far? Okay. So now going back to the example of Instagram, I'm just going to use one simple example.
What I follow on social media becomes what I'm focused on, in a sense, all right. Now, assume that my social media my Instagram, for example, the things that I'm following on Instagram are only and right now I'm not talking about her on the credit. I'm not I'm not a FIFA, I'm not up here to talk about them. I'm talking right now about just psychology. Okay. Imagine that the only thing that I'm, I'm following or what I'm focused on on on Instagram is all like the Kardashians, and what this person is wearing and this fashion, he said that fashion is and that's fine. Again, I'm not talking about huddled and headed. I'm talking about psychology. So assume that my entire Instagram is all
different kinds of clothes.
Different kinds of scarves how to put on those clothes and those scarves, all the different makeup tutorials, got it, got it got it, got to have those right? Lots and lots of those. And then different celebrities, what they're eating yet what they're wearing, how they're standing, you get what I'm saying. And that's it. And that's it. Right? So my entire feed my entire, you know, Instagram newsfeed, whatever you want to call it is just hijabs makeup tutorials, what the Kardashians are doing, what what Kim is wearing, how she did her makeup, whatever it is, I don't even know
Jayla, whatever it is we're following. Okay. And that's it, guess what happens? I'm telling you from a psychological perspective, this becomes our primary focus in not just when I'm on Instagram, in my life.
So it isn't just what I'm following for that, five minutes, and then after five minutes, and then however many times I'm going on, and I'm looking at this, but it actually affects my focus for the rest of my day. Does that make sense? It will affect my focus for the rest, even in the rest of my life. And so now, what is what becomes a priority is is different. It changes based on what I focus on. Okay? Another way to kind of
get this point across is think about,
think about it in terms of food, okay? We know as human beings that whenever I when I, every time I eat something, it's it's affecting my body, right? So say if I'm eating healthy food, I'm becoming
guys, you are what you eat, right? It's becoming healthier, right? If I'm eating poisonous food, if I'm constantly ingesting poison, like, it's not enough to kill me right away, but it's eating away at my body. By the way, there's a lot of stuff out there that's doing that. Food wise. We know this, right? It's cancerous, if you know what I'm saying. So imagine that my entire diet is these things that are eating away at my body, little by little, not all at once, but little by little, I'm ingesting toxins all the time. What's gonna eventually overtime happen inside my body? I'm become sick. Yeah. And then I'm going to become weaker. Physically. Does everyone follow me? The same thing
happens spiritually and psychologically, that when whatever I am taking in through my eyes, see, we have to understand that everything that's coming through our eyes, everything that's coming through our ears, everything we listen to, everything we see, and everything we talk about. Everything comes out of our mouth, is all input. It's actually it's all like food that we're ingesting, but it's not going to our stomach. It's going to our heart. Make sense? So what's happening is, I may be taking I'm taking in this stuff daily, daily, daily, right? And now for a moment, put aside now I'm just for a second put aside the blatantly hot on in decent things. Yeah, right now, that's obvious. I
don't you don't need me to tell you that that's a sin, or that's how over that's harmful. Yeah. Obviously, if you're looking at anything cut off, anything indecent. That's clear, like, that's clear cyanide, that's clear poison. And that's going into your heart. It's coming through your eyes, but it's going to your heart. Okay. Put that aside for a second. Put aside the blatantly wrong things we listen to. Right blatantly like, like poisonous types of lyrics, for example. Okay. Put that aside. That's again, clear, like, open sight. We're taking in poison right through our ears, but it's going to our hearts, although I'm going to put that aside for a moment. Okay, that's just
that'll, that's just clear. But I want to take for a moment, this middle ground, this sort of gray, sort of what would seem like harmless. So what I'm just, I'm just following all these fashion people, or I'm just following a tutorial or I'm putting in I'm saying these types of things. They're not blatantly harm or highlight. It's not about how I'm headed. But the problem is, what's my ultimate focal point, right? Because what's happening is if my ultimate focal point is fashion, just fashion, even that alone, then all of a sudden, I'll tell you, what's going to happen psychologically, is that there becomes a shift in my own psyche, in my own heart and in my own mind,
of what matters most. And the more that I focus on what people are wearing, and what people how people are looking
Like, and what people, you know, I'm saying, basically, appearance, the more that becomes important to me. And now I have a shift. And this is what is feeding our obsession with appearances. This is an obsession that we have today, right now, do you know why this obsession is growing? with appearances? It's because our focal point with social media, what we're looking at what we're talking about what we're reading is all so much focused on books, so much focused on what you're wearing on what you look like, you know, it's like,
everything has a filter, you know, I'm saying, and so the idea is that now this isn't, you might be like, okay, it's just just a, it's just an app, you know what I mean? But I'm talking about it from a psychological perspective, that now this becomes a shift in me psychologically, that now there's literally an obsession with how I appear. How do I look? Because you know what, now, I can't put on a filter in life. So I try to put on I try to put on other kinds of filters, right? And it's this idea that I have to appear a certain way. And then isn't, it becomes an obsession with appearing according to a certain standard, right? And of course, that standard keeps changing. And it differs
based on which culture you're in. So in some cultures, it's an obsession with skin color, and obsession with how fair are you how, how, how, how much, you know, pigment is in your skin, and how fear and this obsession with with pigmentation with the shade of your skin is so serious, that it will determine, you know, who marries who. It will determine who marries who. And it's just based on how fair the person is. And that's it. And that's it. Which which daughter is more fair, she's gonna get more proposals. Can we be honest? Yeah, we can be honest. Yeah. Which which of the sisters are more fair, she's going to be more marriageable. That's just the reality. Okay, in some cultures,
which, which one is and it's like, skin color. Yeah. And some, it's going to be an obsession on the body type. Yet, we live in a culture here in the West, which is an obsession with how thin you are. You're your size, okay. And each culture has its own different kinds of obsession. But the problem with this, and you might be like, oh, but I don't want to fall into that. But the problem is that when that becomes your focal point, with, for example, something as innocent as your social media, and you might, you might not realize it, right? Well, I'm not I'm not that way. Or I don't want to be that way. I don't think that way. But the problem is, you are making yourself think that way.
Because you're because of what you're ingesting every single day, you're ingesting a culture, which is just obsessed with books obsessed with what you're wearing obsessed with what you're what you're looking like, you don't I'm saying? Do you guys understand what I'm saying? And it isn't because I'm, I'm up here to say it's hard to follow. fashionistas. You know, like all these different.
But I talking about when that's it, when that's all you're doing. And that's all you're being bombarded with. It does shift your focus. And now all of a sudden, what matters most isn't your character. It's not people aren't looking at that anymore. People don't don't make that important anymore. What matters is simply and the reason I'm emphasizing this so much is I'm talking to a group of women. Yeah. And the reality is, and I've seen this so much, the reality is, at the end of the day, what matters is how you look. And that cannot be argued. It's just at the end, you peel apart everything else. And at the end of the day, it's how you look. And this is across the board.
And I believe that this sickness, the sickness is because of what we are ingesting every single day is because of the media that we're taking in. It's because of what we have on our social media. It's that we are now making this aspect so big, because it's what we focused on. Yeah, it's all we look at. It's all we talk about. It's all that comes on our newsfeed etc. So that's just one example is you have Instagram and then Facebook it's very similar as well of course there's a selfie for everything but there's also this, this
obsession with needing to appear perfect. Needing yourself to appear perfect. needing your family to appear perfect your life to appear perfect. It's like people will put on this this show on social media that I'm perfect. My child is perfect. My husband is perfect.
My spouse's perfect Mike, you know what I mean? We're perfect. And then we put that out there on social media because we feel like that's gonna get that's going to make us feel better about ourselves. Now, that's a big farce. Really, it's it's fake. Its fake. No one's perfect. And no one's life is perfect. And no one's kid is perfect. And no one's skin is perfect. Even though the filters make it look like that. Yeah.
But we we somehow have had missed the we as
British say, lost the plot, okay, that we've missed the actual focus, the actual destination. And what does this have to do with coming back to a look,
what this has to do with coming back to a lot is that this is the, the direction that we're running to, and it has nothing to do with a lot. We are focused on the wrong things. We are focused on how we look, how we dress, how we appear, how other people view us, this is a big obsession. How are other people looking at me? How, what is my image in front of other people? What are other people going to say, this is a big one. What are other people going to say if I do this? Or if I, if my child does this? What's happened here? What's happened is that my focus is no no longer What does a lot going to say? Right? What is a lot going to say about this? It's what's my friend going to say?
Or my friend's mother or you know what I mean? That becomes my focal point. There needs to be a shift, there needs to be a turning a U turn, get where we're not focused on these other things. But we turn around and we find our proper focus. How is that going to happen practically?
Here's how it's going to happen practically, there is no way that you ingest poison every single day, and it doesn't affect you. You can't You can't it can't not affect it will affect you. So what do you have to change if you want to change the health of your body? Anyone?
Change your input, change what you're eating, change what you're taking it. And when you shift your input, you shift your insight. Fair enough. It's just simple. If a person wants a person is unhealthy, if a person comes to the doctor, and the doctor finds that this person is very unhealthy, and then asks, okay, what's your diet like? And you basically, you basically tell the doctor, well, I eat a little poison every day. And then I have this and then I have and it's all poisonous, unhealthy food. What's the first thing the doctors gonna say is, you need to completely change your diet. Yeah, now psychologically, and spiritually, it's the same thing. You need to change your diet.
So what you have to start to do, I know, we live in a world that's constantly bombarding us. Oh, mg, that media is constantly bombarding us with messages. Even just driving down the road. There's billboards, even just being on your laptop, there's ads, it's constant on the TV on, it's everywhere, you have to make a very focused, concerted effort to manage what you're eating, make sense, manage what you're taking in. But you have to, you have to be conscious, if you just go with the flow, it's, you're gonna end up taking in all this poison, you have to make, you have to actually put in effort, this isn't what I'm saying what I'm saying, you have to put in work to
manage what you're taking it. And when you are very, very conscious of what you're taking in your insights change, they will change, your focus will change. Your psychology will change, your whole paradigm changes, what matters most changes, it will change, you will have a shift. But it has to be it has to start at the root of what you're taking in the food or the input that you're taking. All right. So how do we change that? I'm not up here to tell you to just get off all social media, right? Obviously, social media, as I said, from the beginning, is a tool. It's a tool, but it's all about how you use it. So going back to Allah subhanaw taala making this U turn, coming back to Allah
subhanaw taala the return to Allah, how is it going to happen? Number one, the first step, the first step, even before we talk about our input and all that is, number one, we cannot fall into despair. One of the biggest barriers to Allah is despair. What's despair? Anyone can someone to find despair to me.
Denying What else? hopelessness, hopelessness, and despair is basically giving up. It's saying what's the point in trying
Sometimes people feel that they're so far away from lala land put that in quotes. Yeah, that they're so far away from a lot that they can't return. It's like, you know, it's like a person who's like, trying, who's driving, and they're trying to get to one city and they find themselves in a completely other side of the country. And they realize they're so far away. But then they say, you know what, there's no point. I just give up. Because I'm so far. Yeah. People who believe that they're too far away to return to Allah. That's despair. And that is actually a deception. It's a trick, guess remove anyone
on exactly. shaitan wants you to believe that it's too late. You get it. He wants you to believe that you're too far. He wants you to think that allows you to You're too far away from Allah, or Allah is too far away from you. So just give up Don't try the U turn. That U turn is pointless. You're too far. You get it. But this is actually a deception. This is a deception. This is like a person who's like in your in your passenger seat while you're driving who's whispering to you? You know what? Just give up? Just forget it. Don't even try to go home. Because you you drove too far. Don't even try, right? It's nonsense. It's nonsense, because all you have to do is make a new turn.
Right? So this this is the first barrier is the barrier of despair. It's the idea that I'm too far away to come back. Yeah. And so what's the point in trying? That is a trick from shaitan. You must, you must fight against that trick, that deception. And realize that if you go back and you see what a lot has said, Put aside what shavon is saying? Because shaitan lies. We know this yet, Allah tells us shaitan lies, shakedowns always lied to us. But Allah speaks the truth. Alone, his messengers speak the truth. And what does Allah and His Messenger say? They teach us that anyone can come back.
Do you know that? Anyone can come back to Allah? And you might say, but what if it's just, I've been just going with this wrong road for my entire life. I am so far I've done so much. Anyone can come back to Allah. And at any point, they can come back to Allah, as long as they're still alive. The only closed door comes at death, in a sense, and the reality is, no one knows when they're gonna die. No one knows. So it isn't something that I can say, Well, let me come back to a law before I die. But I'll put it off. Because how do you know when you're gonna die? Does anyone have a guarantee? Have you never heard of a person who died unexpectedly? Have you? I've never heard of
someone who died young. Does that not happen? Of course it does. No one has a guarantee. I mean, people go to sleep and don't wake up. Have you ever heard of it? Am I making it up? People go to sleep and don't wake up. People get in the car, and they don't leave the car, you understand? Or they don't leave a life. This is the reality and the fragility of Life Life is a very fragile, literally all it takes is a just a hit to the head. And that's it. Yeah. All it takes is a few seconds of deprivation from oxygen, you understand how fragile we are? Don't think Don't Don't be deceived, thinking that we're the kings of the world. You know what I mean? That we're invincible.
There's this this, by the way, one thing I've noticed, there's a lot of superhero movies. You know, I mean, it's like this ups. It's like this sort of fantasy of the human being becoming superhuman. You know what I mean? That somehow we can compensate for our humanism somehow, it's this it's this desire to almost become into semi gods or like something superhuman, we can't, we can't escape our humanity. The reality is that we are human. And we are fragile, and we are temporary. And we can go at any moment. And we're actually extremely vulnerable. But we like to think that we're invincible. Some people drive like they're invincible, especially teenagers. Right? But the reality is, that's
actually why they end up doing very foolish things and then they get into, into into accidents that are sometimes deadly. And it's this deception that you're invincible. You're not anyone. No one knows what they'll die. Okay, but a law has said that his door, his door of Toba, the door of Toba of return is open for anyone at any time, as long as the person is still alive, but after at the time of death, then it's too late. At that point, Allah tells us in many in many cases
different texts, that people at the time of death, that's when they're trying to, to like bargain, you know, like they want to bargain civil war time, or they want to bargain. Let me go back so I can actually do the good deeds, you know, do the things that I didn't do. Let me go back so I can pray let me go back so I can give charity, right. But you can at that point, it's done. That it that's when it's done. But let me just tell you something, the trick of shikon is he wants you to think it's already done. You get it, he wants you to think the door is already closed. Because you have done so many bad things, that for you, the door is closed, you're too far away, don't even bother
that U turn thing. Don't even do that. Because you're too far away, you might as well just keep on getting lost. Do you understand the trick here, just keep going down the wrong road because it's pointless for you. That's alive, unless upon on the islands door is always open as long as we are alive. So the first thing is not to allow the trick of despair to keep us from coming back to Allah. Allah didn't put us on this earth to be perfect.
You know, Elon knows what he's doing, right? A lot of knows that human beings are gonna make mistakes. In fact, a lot of design the human being, that they're going to make mistakes. Allow me to angels that don't sit that allow me, humans and Jin, who are going to sit and the prophets I said, it tells us in a Sahih Hadith, that all the children of Adam will make mistakes. And the best of them are Who is it? The ones who never make mistakes? No, the best of them are those who repent. The best of them are those who make that U turn who aren't foolish enough to keep going down the wrong road out of just thinking it's too late. Okay, but they're the ones who repent, those are the best
allies knows that we will make mistakes. So make sure that we do not allow despair, to keep us from returning to almost the final guess that's number one is removing that barrier, that is a false barrier. It's an illusion. It's a hologram. You know what I'm saying? It's, it's fake. It's fake. But it's put up by shaitan. To keep us from turning around. Number two.
Number two, we have to manage what we're eating, we have to manage our input, we have to guard our hearts. Because we are what we eat. believe we are what we eat, the heart becomes a like a result, like it's it becomes sort of think of the heart as this vessel, like a giant like a bowl, okay? And it's going to be filled with whatever you fill it with. Okay? And so if I am constantly pouring poison into that vessel, then guess what? I'm going to poison myself, if I'm constantly pouring healthy food into that vessel that I'm going to be healthy. It's an vessel that we decide what we put in there. Okay, so managing what we ingest? is one way to put it. That's number two. How do we
manage it? How do we manage it? Here's how we manage it. Two ways, okay. Um,
eating or ingesting healthy food, and avoiding unhealthy or poisonous food. Those are the two parts of managing what we ingest. So the first part of and I talked already about a little bit, and that's avoiding the unhealthy poisonous stuff. And a lot of this is coming through social media, and not just social media, but media in general, right.
The things we're watching, whether it's on YouTube, oh my god, the kinds of things that people watch on YouTube is, is I don't know what to say I have an adjective. There's this one page I've heard about. It was like on the news or something. And it has so many followers, and you know, what they were doing on this page. They're basically abusing their kids. And people were watching it, and I thought it was it was interesting. I mean, this is the point of how sick we become, that actually we will get entertainment out of things like this. Okay, they would be like abusing and, and, and, and people are watching it. Okay, and this, this, these people are getting tons and tons of Guess what?
They're getting lots of followers. You know what followers on YouTube mean? Money. It's actually getting paid. They're getting paid from advertisers because they have a lot of viewers. That's how YouTube works. The more viewers you have, the more money you get from advertise. That's how people get rich off YouTube, in case you didn't know, okay, and so what's happening is they're getting paid for this for abusing their kids in front of people. This is sick, but this is my point is that we have and if you look at the kinds of people
We're very famous on YouTube.
Most of the time, it's not good content, guys. I think you know this better than me, it's actually garbage. But people like to watch garbage. And so the idea is, please be mindful what you're watching. Don't think you're just passively. It's just passive. You don't passively ingest poisons, you don't see you're not a passive observer. It's affecting you. And you're contributing to that poison. Every single person who's watching that channel was contributing, and feeding them doing this to their children, because they were getting rich off of it, you understand? So the idea is, be very mindful of what it is. So don't allow yourself to be ingesting these kinds of poisons, media,
so media, like what you're watching, not just on YouTube, on TV, on movies. And now I'm going to make another subtle point. This might seem a bit confusing. You might not expect it.
Be mindful what kind of news you're constantly ingesting. Now might be weird, right? Well, what's wrong with news?
news? Let me see this news. Yeah.
Please understand, I've studied media, news is not unbiased. News have an agenda. You know, what an agenda means, means that there's something that they want you to come out with. Okay. And it does not take a media expert order genius to know that the news agenda is very, very Islamophobic. What does that mean? means that there is slim is very much you're supposed to basically leave this news thinking that Islam is out to get us as Americans, that Islam is something that is added is anti American, Islam is is something other, it's like very unAmerican that those people, you understand. And I, I'm not even going to get into all the different data on that. But the reality is that there
is an agenda. Okay, there is an agenda. Now, you might think, but we're already listed. So what's the problem? I mean, how's it gonna affect me, it's just intended for maybe non Muslims to hate them, but I'm already because it will affect you. And I will tell you how it is intended to make you ashamed of sin, to make you cower. You know what cowering is to hide, to try to hide your Muslim is to try to sort of, let's loosen the hijab a bit, you know, I'm saying, Let's hide the hijab, let's just actually take it off. Because I don't want people to know I'm Muslim, maybe. Or maybe I want to be less, like visible. So that the if you think that Islamophobia, or all of this December phobic
media is only intended for non Muslims, you're wrong. The primary intent is for Muslims, to make Muslims want to apologize for being Muslim, to make Muslims feel self hatred, and shame. I'm so sorry, I'm Muslim, I'm so sorry that I'm part of this group. That's so horrible, you get it. And the more that you ingest of this, the more you become that way, the more it starts to affect you. So be mindful of that. Be mindful that it is not innocent. It's not just news. It isn't. It is not innocuous. It's not just just, oh, I'm just finding out what happened. No, there is an agenda. And there is a very, very clear agenda. And there's a bias. And that is something that if you did an
experiment, if you did an experiment, and you looked at if you if you took someone, and you had that person, a Muslim, and he took a non Muslim, and had that person just ingesting a lot of just news, like I'm just saying just news, plain news, whether it's Fox or CNN, or whatever it is, they're all essentially the same, okay? They're taking in this news. And then you have this person, like, like, spend a certain number of hours just taking in this news, and then measure their psychology and look at how they feel about themselves as Muslims, how they feel about about other Muslims, how they how how, how they feel about their identity, and you're going to see that it will have a very, very
strong effect.
Put that aside for a second. Think about yourself. Think about times when maybe you started getting really, really into the news. You guys had that happen. certain certain things happen, and you're just kind of glued to the news or you're watching it a lot. You're reading a lot of stuff. How did you feel after all that, that someone told me? Did you feel real great. Did you feel real great. Did you feel pumped? You felt absolutely depressed. You felt absolutely more and more into despair, more and more
hopeless, you know what, that's it for us.
You understand, you understand my point, you just look at your own experience. And that is because you are taking in something very toxic. And you have to be mindful of that. Okay, I know we talk a lot about, okay, don't watch bad movies office, jack, don't watch bad videos, obviously. But no one tells you about the news, what the effect that it's having on you, because of the agenda and the type of news that there is right now. There is a very clear agenda. And so that also is something you have to be mindful of. Okay, so you might say, but then how will I be informed? Right, that's your next question, isn't it?
Let me tell you just one little secret. This news isn't important.
It's greenwashing. It's not actually unbiased news. It is what we call it has
an agenda? Yeah. It's it's it's it's it. When you study media, you find that there is agenda setting, there's, there's a very clear, so it's not that you're actually getting more informed. You're just getting what they want, what the what the intent of the media has for you to think a certain way, there's a certain message that you're supposed to be coming out with. And it's not about actual news, okay, you're not getting the actual picture. Okay? So don't think that the more that you're watching or reading of this news, the more you're being informed, you're not getting the actual picture, you're just getting the picture, they want you to have the agenda, what which is
very clearly,
they're out to get us, Muslims are out to get us Islam is is in hates America, and all that kind of stuff.
It's not only Trump saying this stuff. It's not just Trump saying this stuff. This is being set at different levels in different ways. Throughout the media, okay. And it is not only in the US, it's not only the US, one thing that you're going to find. And this is I mean, again, and again, you see this bias that
if someone commits a crime, you all know this, yeah, if someone commits a crime, you first look at
what their religion is, okay? If they're Muslim, then they're a terrorist. Okay? And if they're Muslim, then their religion had everything to do with what they did. Okay? And their religion will actually be emphasized, like, you'll see it in the headline, right? You'll see Muslim, whatever, whatever or you'll, you'll see it in the in the first paragraph in news basically put the most important information at the beginning of an article, okay? You'll see their their religion put at the top when they're Muslim. But when they're not Muslim, when they're just a white male, for example, you never even hear about their religion. You don't even know what they don't even know
what the religion is. Yeah. And now all of a sudden, it's all mental health issues. You get it, you get it. So if you're Muslim, it's not that you're crazy. It's that you're Muslim.
It's just that Islam is crazy. It is not, you are crazy, you get that you get it. So that the message here is that if you commit a crime in your person, it's your religion. That's crazy, not you. Just that you follow a crazy religion. And that's the message because it was a devout follower. And then they'll start talking about their practice and how they went to the masjid or this and that as if it's relevant, as if it's relevant. But if it's a non Muslim, right, then all of a sudden, you'd never hear about how often they went to church, or an article. Dude, white dude does something you hear about his church, like how often he went to church? It's irrelevant when it's anonymous.
Yeah. And what you do hear about it, we're mentally unstable, right? All of a sudden, we look at their mental stability, we don't look at their religion, but all of a sudden, apparently can never be mentally unstable. Right? Like, it's like a Muslim is just following a crazy religion, but they can't be crazy. It's there. And this everyone. I mean, there's, there's tons of data, there's tons of data. So if you believe that you're getting this unbiased, you know, very accurate kind of news, you're not, you're not you're getting a specific type of message. And the more you ingest that Kool Aid, the more it's going to affect your mind and the way you see things, and now all of a sudden,
you will feel more and more like you want to hide your religion. It will be that those times when you were stuck on the news, did you feel really involved Did you feel Did you feel secure stepping outside, or did you feel afraid? Did you feel like you know what, let me just think about should I be even wearing my hijab? Or should I try to maybe hide it somehow? You get it. So what it does is, it puts fear into you. It grows your career. And it also makes you want to feel it makes you feel ashamed. Almost like we
need to apologize as if you did something wrong? It's to make you feel like you did something wrong when you didn't do anything. Get a sense, Isn't that how you felt? is not how we feel. So one thing to keep in mind is that make sure that your that your input is healthy. Yes, at some level, you need to have an idea of what's going on. But please manage and be mindful of how much and what kind of toxic toxicity you're taking in. And a big part of that is from the news media. All right? Does everyone follow that point? Okay. balance, balance is key, make sure that what you're taking in is more healthy than it is, like more more positive than it is negative. Remember what I said at the
beginning, what you focus on, grows, if you focusing on bad news all the time, you start to think the world is all dark,
you start to think that everyone's against us. Yeah, they're all you know what everyone hates us? Do you ever start to feel like that? Depends on how much you're focusing on these issues. If that's all you're seeing on your newsfeed, and takes me back to your newsfeed. There's this thing on Facebook called unfollow
us it.
No one has to know. I will tell.
unfollow
is something that means it doesn't mean that you're unfriending no one's gonna get a notification, guess what? So and so this unfollowed you it's something we need to use on our newsfeed because I'll tell you why. Every time you know, we're using our Facebook a lot, let's be honest, we're going on our newsfeed a lot. And so think of your newsfeed as your diet as the food you're eating.
If it's not healthy, or it's all negative, even a person who's constantly posting negative news, I would, I wouldn't want that on my on my newsfeed. Why because eventually, what I focus on grows, if I'm always looking at negativity, I'm going to think the whole world's negative, it's gonna grow in my eyes is unable to make if that makes sense. So try to make your feeds healthy, healthy, meaning positive stuff that's going to uplift you stuff is going to inspire you stuff that's going to empower you stuff that's going to remind you of a law, you know what I'm saying? That, the more that you have that and and this is something that you you can do through Be mindful of what it is that
you're taking, alright. I, over the years have like, put in a lot of work into like, making a healthy newsfeed. You know what I'm saying? You don't have to keep following everyone just posts about their burger, or whatever it is the same with Snapchat now, you know, you can manage who you follow, you know?
I don't need to say you guys get it. Yeah. Um,
again, it's not just about how I'm glad it's helpful to post about what you're eating every single day. But guess what, it's not the most useful information. All right.
Yeah, that's all I'm gonna say. The point here is just use these tools for your own good. use these tools to get you closer to Allah. That's all I'm saying. So manage them in this way. And the more that you take in healthy things and block unhealthy things, the more healthy you're gonna be. Okay. And I'm going to end on this. And this is probably the most important point that that I'm going to make. And that is
the remembrance of Allah. Because the most healthiest kind of food, the most healthiest kind of input is the remembrance of Allah. What do I mean by that? the remembrance of Allah means anything that Allah subhanaw taala like, let them put in. Yeah, anything that reminds you of a law, whether it's the words of the prophets, I send them or, or reminder from a die for anything that reminds you of Allah subhanaw taala is the most healthiest kind of input. Right? I'm going to leave you guys with something that I tried to mention all of my talks recently, and that is a three part prescription for a healthy spiritual and psychological self. three parts. Sorry, and this goes under
taking in taking in that healthy input. I talked about keeping out the unhealthy and the healthy input number one is salon.
I want to remind you of your salon because it's one of these things that we sometimes don't really realize the importance of, and that's equivalent, the equivalent of saying
it's not really bad.
Important to take in oxygen. Let me talk about something else. If I'm up here, say I'm a doctor, and I'm trying to give you guys a prescription of how to be healthy. Maybe you guys want to train for a marathon.
If I don't, first make sure you're getting oxygen, it's not nothing else I say it's gonna matter, right?
If you're not breathing, if your blood if your blood is not oxygenated, and I sit and talk about organic food, it doesn't make sense yet. Anybody follow me? Everybody's yet no talk.
So the first thing, we have to make sure that we're getting oxygen. So LA is oxygen, supplies oxygen for the heart and the soul. And when a person disconnects from the salon, when a person abandons the salon, or neglects the salon, either by not praying on time, or just not praying at all, or missing some prayers. It's like a person who is neglecting their oxygen.
Maybe breathing once in a while, right? Do you guys get it? You can't say, I don't need to breathe today. Because I have an exam. Let me breathe tomorrow.
Or maybe I'm not in a very good mood. I'm feeling a little down today. Let me breathe next week. Or let me become really, really another interesting trick of shaitan. Is, but you're not even focusing in your salon anyways, you're so distracted. So you might as well just not pray.
You're not your salon is just movements anyway. Why don't you become more spiritual? First? Why don't you become closer to a law firm? And then you can pray? Do you know what that's like? saying? That's like saying, why don't you become healthy first, and then you can breathe.
And exactly the same thing. Y'all are gonna be coming out healthy. If you're not breathing, you get it. And to neglect oxygen, until you're healthy is a trick to kill you get it? So this is what these are the games that shaitan plays. Okay, so the salaah has to be a non negotiable, it's oxygen. It's something that has to be on time prescription. when when when a doctor gives you a prescription doctor says you have to take it at certain times. You got to take it at those times. You can't just say, Well, today I was busy. I took all five doses before I slept.
That's not what you do in medicine is that anyone do that with medicine, especially life saving medicine, cancer medication, for example, you're gonna just skip a few doses, or take them all before you sleep because you were you were busy. You were on Facebook, you were at the mall. Who knows? You know what I'm saying? It's It's crazy. But this is what we do assault. Oxygen. Yeah, that's number one. Number two, is I advise you, I advise you, I advise you to please download an app for us called there's an app called my dog. And why DUA so double A. It's basically fortress of a Muslim on an app. And what you do is and by the way, most important dollar you bet you'll ever
spend.
Yeah, I'm serious. And what it is, is it's a collection of the supplications that derive that the Prophet sallallahu Sallam would say throughout his day, there's a dog for everything. Everything. There's a dog, he left the house, he came back in the house, he started eating, he finished eating. Yeah, even before intimacy, there's a dot always he was remembering Allah, always remembering alone, no matter what he was doing in life, the more that we can incorporate these dogs into our life, the more healthy we will be talking to just simply about health, psychological and emotional and spiritual health. All right. And so what you do is when you download this app, make sure that there
are the eyes that you're seeing every single day just like food and water. Okay, I'm going to tell you that among the most important because there's a lot and Mashallah, the more you can do the better, the more healthy you'll be, but there is a lot, but what I will tell you the most essential ones you need to do is your morning supplications. There is and your evening supplications you just click on morning, evening, and you do this after fudger prayer. And then evening supplications you'll do after a surprising Everyone follow among the morning evening. Of course there's a lot there might be like 50 or so. So what you can do on this app is you can star certain ones that will
be your collection, your your list among those so that you can be consistent, because I don't want anyone thinking I can't do all 50 so I'll do not
again, that's another shy phony tactic. All right, if you can't be perfect, just don't do anything at all. Right. Right. might as well take off your hijab because you're so bad. Right? You know, this type of thinking this is shaitan you thinking a lot is not all or none. A lot is not all there not a lot takes any good goodness we do and multiplies it. He doesn't say well, you weren't perfect, so I'm not going to take anything. That's not a little
That's a trick of shaper. So do what you can do what you can and try to do consistently, just like you need food and water consistently. Even if it's a small amount, you start in just a few, but just do it consistently. And then next time when you click on morning, evening squad, it'll bring up your list that you've started. Okay? evening, same thing. Yeah, after us. And then before you sleep, these are the times when people are most susceptible to the
to shape on it is army sleep. Morning, sunrise, sunset, before you eat. Yeah, when you enter the bathroom. And before intimacy. These are the times when it's especially important to say you're off guard. The Of course of these different sort of openings. The way I like to describe it is like if you're in a house, No one leaves the windows and doors open, and then wonders why the robber came in and stole everything. Yeah. And that's because we close our doors, we close our windows to protect our homes. Yeah. And these are the doors and the windows to the enemy. shaitan is our you know what, forget all the enemies we think we see in the in the physical sense. shaitan, Allah tells us again
and again is our open enemy. And so this is how we close the doors, this is the best protection. I'm not sure how popular it is here. But there's a lot of cultures that feel that you're protected by wearing a certain type of necklace, or by hanging something in your house, or putting something in your car. That's not what protects you. It's this what I'm telling you right now, you want to be protected. You want your family to be protected. This is what you do. You You remember a lot of safety of God, you don't just pay him to be a fuckup. You don't just hang it, you don't just hang it on your neck. You understand it the protection of a law comes through saying this, of course this is
the center. This is actually what the prophets I send them did. And guess what you cannot improve on the sun. You cannot I can't come and say but I actually think this is better. Because I'm just I'm better than the Prophet. So I said I was a bit that I can't improve on the sinner. the sin of the prophets. I said is this, this is what he did. And guess what he knew better than all of us. Okay, this is how you protect. And number three is the Quran. Number three is the Quran. Make sure that it's a consistent relationship. maleness, kind of how to make it easy on all of us, not only in Ramadan. Yeah, you can't say I'm only gonna breathe in Ramadan. You gotta read the whole year. All
right. All right, I ask Allah subhana wa tada to make it easy for all of us to turn back to Allah subhana wa tada to make that Toba. I'm Cody Cody. Heather was back home in Oklahoma here. So panicle lobby, Shadow 911. And today, we are going to have q&a now. Yes.
cinematic. So for those of you who had note cards, if you just want to, if you prefer to come up to the mic and ask a question, you're more than welcome to do so. Or if you have a note card you like me?
Does anyone have a question from the floor once just asked a question?
Yes.
Okay, yes. While we're getting the note cards, go ahead.
Yes. And also,
generally speaking, all the negative news get
raised rate, you know, Black Lives Matter movement and
you know,
that really pulls on your heartstrings.
Yes.
All of these things.
Question. Great question. I'm gonna repeat your question is very important. She's saying in this discussion of managing our intake, and I mentioned news, yeah. Does she's saying does that apply to all negative news, for example, things that are happening of injustice, Black Lives Matter, stuff like that, which actually should push us to act and she made a very, very good point. And that's the key. Okay. What I'm trying to get across isn't that we put our heads in the sand and we pretend that nothing bad is happening. No. What I am saying is that we are conscious of what we're taking in and conscious of how it's affecting us. So for example,
if we're finding out about some injustice, that's happening.
It's intended to motivate us to act. And that's excellent. And that's what, that's what that's what we need to do. We need to take action against injustice. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about when our intake isn't motivating us to act, it's motivating us to fall into despair, and to become depressed and to become hopeless. You get what I mean. And that's what a lot of the media about Muslims does. Now that you got what I mean,
for example, you know, something happened somewhere in the world. Yeah, there's a there's a crime that happens. And of course, if it's a Muslim, it's called terrorism. If it's a white man, it's just a crime, right? Suppose something bad happened somewhere in the world? Okay, you found out about it. You know what happened? Look for ways that you can help look for ways you can aid the victims look for ways you can donate, but don't just sit there and watch every news station, talk about how bad Muslims are, that's not useful. You don't want to meet. So what I mean is that we have to be mindful of whether we're taking unhealthy input, or it's just meant to beat us down. Does that make sense?
Yes, we should be a people of action. Don't ever get me wrong. And it isn't about sugarcoating the world and just pretending it's all rainbows and butterflies. It isn't. But it's about it's about empowering ourselves, not debilitating ourselves. Because what's happened is majority of people aren't taking action. They're just getting depressed. The majority of people aren't taking action from these things. They're just feeling ashamed. And they're just wanting to hide. What we need to be is a people of action of people of hope, and a people of empowerment. And so if yes, I absolutely want I'm glad you clarified that, because what we need to do is yes, we take we see injustice, we
want to take action, but we shouldn't just keep ingesting stuff that isn't in motivating us to take action. It's only beating us down. Does that make sense? I hope that clarifies Any other questions we had last year. But any follow up about that question? Yes.
Especially
for the past year.
A lot of the news portrayed you put it closer. So a lot of the news there to portray
the news there portrayed that Westerners especially when hated Yes, it was so scary coming back. Always.
It made me so paranoid. Even when I was going through customs in the airport, I was like so scared and shaking and like say shaking, and I almost had a meltdown. Because I'm so scared. Like, what what are they gonna do? It was like horrible. And that's because of what you were seeing in the selective media, my in laws watch,
too. So it's like always on repeat the same thing over and over.
It's actually like hypnosis. It This is the interesting thing is like,
a very good point. And that and she just, she's talking about the other side of the coin from the, on the other side of the Atlantic, right. And I've seen this too, with people who are who are watching us from over there, like either either from the UK, you know, in Europe, or in the Middle East, etc. The way that the type of news that they have about America will make them think that you just enter the airport and you're going to be put in jail, or like a concentration, or we're all being rounded up and put in concentration camps. This is the impression that's being given. Why because it's selected media. And so it's exactly the other way around as well. Um, but you know,
what that does is it's that whole idea that what you focus on grows, so there's this idea that all everyone's out to get us that the people people in America hate Muslims, you know, if you watch enough of that, that's what you're gonna that impression you're gonna get because they don't have things on the news about the people who are coming out and hating Muslims. That's not on the news. Do you know what just just look at what happened when this Muslim ban went through? You know, the majority of the people camping out at airports were not Muslim.
It was a Muslim ban, but the majority of the activists who were literally camping out at these airports were not Muslim, they were giving they were there were lawyers donating their time and volunteering their time activists, and now most of them weren't even Muslim. Muslims were there too, but look at look at how they came out. So this idea that they're all against this is also a skewed image. Yeah, well, you're gonna say some
people.
If she's very right, it puts a divide between people and in some sense, that's the objective us versus that. We just can't allow. We can't be
feed into that. Yes.
Can I? First of all, I want to thank you a lot.
I think she's not gonna reach Can you slip up?
Can you?
It make sure you put it real close if these mics need to be like your mouth shifts. So I work as a psychiatrist, and I do with my job every day. So keeping myself away from the media, I could help my patients better. And they could come closer to me. And I go without that. So I get my news one day later, when people say, and they're putting on WhatsApp, this is going on. Yeah. So it takes me one day. However, there is a good response that's going on. Also that people who were amazing friends, I don't know how much they feel that people come to protect them. Okay. So we are
picked up, people take a lot of responsibility when they wear the hijab, that we have to keep the honor fees up high, we sort of tried to outperform, as most of the Sisters of mine I have seen in females, they overdo it, because they don't want to be called dumb and barren, or something like that. What would you tell us about your experience of that? Is there any positive thing? Have you noticed? Not in person to person, about them from being visible? yet? Yeah. Yeah, I'll just give you one example of when I was in graduate school, when I was in graduate school.
I think that it was weird. Like, I was the only person in the lecture hall wearing hijab, right? And so what it did, I feel like it empowered me, I'll tell you why. Because I was like, I'm already different. So I can just say whatever I want. It was like this kind of like, I didn't feel these shackles of fitting in, because I already didn't, like, quote, unquote, fit in. So I kind of it was it was a strange sort of empowerment for me that I felt the freedom to ask and comment as I please, you know, not to say something inappropriate, obviously. But like, if I had an opinion, I wasn't afraid to say it. And it was almost actually because of my hijab, because I felt that I'm already
seen as different. So now that was empowering. Interestingly enough, and then I think it brought about respect is interesting, because six months later, I was like, I don't know the gap or something that's not product placement. But I was at that I was at the wall somewhere, is a micro canopy. And someone working there was like, Oh, I remember you from class. You were the one who was asking me insightful questions. She remembered me as the one asking insightful. I was like, Yes. Because she remembers me from my pajamas. Right. And then I was asking insightful or making insightful calls or whatever she said, and now six months later, yeah, so it definitely I think, for
me, throughout my upbringing, I've been wearing agenda companies since I was 14. That's a long time and I won't tell you how long
it's just not working. Because I'm like, almost eating.
So okay, it's better.
And so I've been wearing Hijab for a long time. Yeah. And I, this is surprising to a lot of people. I never even went to an Islamic school, a full time Islamic school. I always I went to public school. And that's like, that's kind of strange to people, right. But the reality is, I was always different. I didn't grow up with everyone around me Muslim, I actually grew up with very few people around me. But from the time I was young, I grew up in Madison, Wisconsin, we didn't even have a full time of Sunday school. We didn't even have one. And so I went to public school since I was young, and through college and graduate school. So I was very used to being
sort of like standing out. And I embraced that. That was that was something that I felt and I felt empowered. But, but if I was beat down every single day with shame, someone telling me you should be ashamed, you should be ashamed, I would not have been able to be strong. Yeah. And it was because I actually had a sense a strong sense of identity and pride in my in my deed, like I was proud to be Muslim. It's very important to to grow that strength and that and to feel proud of our dean and have our oma and our P. And you don't I mean, because that's what's going to enable us to to be strong, and also to give back that's the thing. We are part of the company.
Right, we aren't just in our in our messages and we just we just worry about ourselves. As the sister said, We are, we are at the forefront of causes like black lives matter that we have to be involved. But if we are beat down and we feel that lack of empowerment, we can't be involved we can't really contributes, because we're just so worried about surviving. We're just worried about survival. So it's a bit that's why I think it's very, very important. And I applaud you for your being sober.
From from all that toxic type of input, and yes, as she said, you're gonna hear about it, guess what, it's gonna be all over your news feed, it's gonna be on your watch, you're gonna hear about it. But just be mindful of that. That's all you're taking in, because then it can really beat you down. All right, I'm going to start looking at ESL, there's a lot.
Okay, good question how to communicate with our kids on how to deal with a semi phobic news or some a phobia. Please shelter them from it, please. Honestly, this is something as parents that we are not careful enough of, they should not be watching it. Simple as that. I am a very against children watching that garbage. Because what benefit is it all it's going to make them do is go to school powering. They're going to be going to school feeling, feeling beat down, feeling ashamed feeling, you know, like, like, they need to apologize. It's not making them stronger. It's making them more shaped. And not, it's not empowering, that please shield them from that garbage, like, shield them
from that poison. Instead, empower them, empower them, and teach them you know, one of the things that made a big influence in my life is like these SME accounts I went to I told you I didn't go full time to seven school right? But what I did do is I whenever I could I go to these Muslim camps like Mina, I was a minute kid. Yeah. Do you guys have enough minutes Muslim youth in North America? Whatever you've Why am I Why am young Muslims, you have, you know, mass hazard. There's a lot of different organizations that do youth work, get involved in that, get your kids involved with that, because that's what actually builds strong identity. And that builds the strength. It doesn't cut
you down and build. That's what they need. They don't need to be watching CNN and Fox that's toxic, toxic, so please shield them from that. I mean, how do you think it's going to make them feel to watch on the TV, everyone hates you, every constantly every they're gonna start to feel like, everyone hates me, everyone who needs to maybe I should stop being called Mohammed and just be Mo, right? You gotta see that's what's gonna breed that desire to hide. And that's not what we need. We need to be more involved. And we need to be more
empowered. Now. I think what the sister here is rightfully going to ask me is what about?
What about things that we want them to know that are happening, that they need to take action about? Yes, no, well answered anyway.
And that is this. Please be selective as parents, your job as a parent is to do to try to protect your children from the heart, and to try to empower your children to do what's right, as parents, so let them know about the struggles of people. But I'm talking about this Islamophobic very, like one sided, very toxic type of news. Because the question is actually about the semi phobic news, please shield them from a semi phobic news. But let them be conscious of the struggles of people who have less than them. And people who are struggling from, you know, minority groups or wherever in the world they are. They should be aware of that. And it also breeds gratitude. Yeah, because a lot of
children growing up today are very sort of spoiled. Yeah. And the fact that they have so much luxuries and so much ease, and maybe they're not aware of the struggles of those people around the world, there was this movie that came out called lion, just knowing. And it's about it's a true story about this kid who gets lost because he gets on a train, he's only like, eight or seven is a little kid. And he gets on a train. And he ends up completely on his own in India, and it's just about his story. And I just honestly broke my heart watching the,
the way in which these children were living on the streets of India, and that this is real. This isn't a movie. This is real. It's a real story. And I was just thinking how our kids need to see this type of thing because they don't, you know, they complain so much. They don't like, I don't know, they don't they don't like the crust on their sandwiches, you know,
the whole sandwich because they don't like the crust. You know, I mean, and it's like sometimes, it's important not to
Hello, hello, Okay, anyway.
Okay, um, it's important not to
Hello, okay, it's important not to shelter them from that from them realizing how privileged they are, and that there are people who are very legitimate real struggles. But what I'm saying to shield them from is the beatdown against the seven Muslims. Is that clear? Yes. All right, you have to follow question.
Okay, great question. How do you bring them back if they have experienced a similar phobia or an experience, maybe at school or bullying and that kind of thing? I believe that it's very important to take an active role in that, as parents do not be passive about anything that involves bullying of your children, you're not being a better parent by telling them Oh, it's okay. Just,
you know, just be quiet, be passive, turn the other cheek? Heck no. Like, no, you actually have to take a very strong stance, take it to the to the administration, if they don't care, take it to the school board, but make a fuss.
Psychologically, yes. Okay. So psychologically, that there's one aspect of psychological yet helping them cope from that. And I believe that, that one of the things to help heal is what I spoke about. And that's having them surrounded with more positivity, more empowering experiences, have them going to these camps, having them around experience, environments where they're accepted, and celebrated, as opposed to always be around environments where they're critiqued and criticized. That can be very demoralizing, if everything I'm watching is, is is is criticizing me, Everywhere I go, I'm being critical, but you need environments where they're actually being empowered, that will help with
that, as well. But to see that you're taking a stand against it is also empowering, to see that it's not okay, to see that the principal is taking a stand to see that the teachers are taking a stand, that that is also going to be empowering to that child who experienced that, to not feel helpless to not feel like because there's something called learned helplessness and psychology. And if a person is constantly being abused, and they can't do anything about it, and there's no consequence, they start to fall into helping to learn helplessness. And they'll feel for the rest, you know, they'll start to feel like, well, there's nothing I can do. And it becomes like a victim mentality. And
that's not good. You want them to feel that there are consequences, and it's not okay for people to treat them that way. So that's why I'm saying it's very important to take a stand against that as a parent and take it to the administration.
Due to the news issues, you mentioned, many parents tried to talk their children out of wearing Hijab dressing islamically because of how they worried for their daughters will be targeted, or something. What do you think about this? This is exactly what I'm talking about this is because they're ingesting too much news. This is a result of what the parents are watching. See, but what I said is that what you focus on grows, and if you're watching only all this incident hate crime, then there's this hate crime, then there's this hate crime, guess what you're gonna think hate crimes are having happening every five minutes, you're going to actually inflate in your own mind, the amount
of or the or the the level of the risk. And that's because that's all you're being fed. Does that make sense? It does become I understand that hate crimes are happening. I'm not denying that. But what happens is that it becomes disproportionate. In your mind, it looks bigger. And scarier than it actually is. It starts to seem as if it's happening all the time, as opposed to it happening some of the time. And because you start to fear that it's happening all the time. Now you don't want your children to wear hijab. And now you become so afraid that you don't want your kids to be to be openly or outwardly Muslim. So that's again, that's a result of that of that issue. If you if you
manage what you take in as a sister seven was a psychiatrist, she, she she stopped all that obsession with news. And now she feels more empowered to be able to help her clients and not go into work feeling like this, you know, feeling like she wants to take off her hijab or that everyone's looking at her and everyone hates her. That happens when you're feeling that fear.
Okay, how do I purify my heart and let things go? Yes, I do pray, how can I ignore some people? Well,
and then someone also says, any advice for how to be more forgiving and not hold grudges? So you can refocus on what's important, beautiful question.
Okay, one of the best and easiest ways to forgive and to not hold grudges and to let things go is the understanding that
there's a hadith in which the prophets I send them says I jumped on board.
could look at that the matter of a believer strange. Everything's good for him or her. Okay, so what does that have to do with anything? It means that for a believer, anything that has happened to you was ultimately Good for you. But wait, what about this? What about that? Allah and as messenger teaches this really powerful phenomenon, this viscerally this, this is the power of human really. And that's that no one can actually harm you. Because anything that happens to a believer is good for them. Now, I'm going to have people saying does that mean we put up with abuse, but no one can harm me? No.
Here's what it means. It means that if somebody is wronging, me, or someone wronged me or harmed me or did something bad to me,
I do two things at the same time. First, I take every action to ensure to be most of my ability, that it doesn't happen again, that it does not repeat itself. We are not a religion of turning the other cheek. We don't allow people to abuse us. We're not passive. That's not what dissent teaches. Islam doesn't teach that patience means you hit me here. So here, let me turn my cheek. So you can hit me here. Yeah, that's not what Southern means. Yeah, Sabbath. And I've, I think I've said this a million times. But until, until I can scream it from the top of a mountain, I'm gonna keep saying it. Southern doesn't mean that you passively allow yourself to be mistreated. That's not Southern,
Southern, the concept of suburb includes perseverance. And in fact, to take action, you need something.
Somewhere is also an active term is not just doing nothing. It's not just closing your mouth. How sobered sister? Yeah, have some?
No, have silver sister get out? Yeah.
That's, that's half. That's the proper usage of the word. Yeah, in that sense, in that context, yes. When a calamity strikes me, a calamity strikes me, I need to have Southern that's when I have to have Subbu. That's when I have to accept the will of a lot of calamity that is not in my control, that there's nothing I can do about it. I have to accept that is solid. But when someone is mistreating me, or there's some injustice happening, and I just stand still, and I take it, that's not the proper response. The prophets I sent him said, if you see something wrong, you should try to change it with your hand if you cannot bend with your tongue, if you cannot then hate it in your
heart. That's the weakest. Amen. So he's telling us to take action against injustice or something wrong, somebody is harming me, or something harming my children, or harming my neighbor or harming, you know, overseas, I need to take action. That's part of my event. That's what the prophets teaching us.
But when there's a calamity that I cannot change, that's when I have to accept, right? So sometimes we misunderstand this summer thing, and we use it to keep namely women quiet.
have silver sister? That's That's not right. That's not right. We're not a religion that allows injustice or oppression or abuse. Okay, so one. So on the one hand, I do what I can everything I can to make sure you don't do it again, that you don't consistently keep doing this to me. This isn't, this isn't what what it says tells us. And then at the same time, I find I do everything in my power to forgive what has happened in the past, while at the same time, making sure it doesn't happen again. Do you understand the two go together? forgiveness, yes, is in Islam. But forgiveness does not mean you hit me on this sheet. Let me turn so you can hit me on that sheet. That's not what
forgiveness means. Forgiveness means I'm going to make sure you never do it again. But I'm going to, I'm going to forgive you for doing it in the past. And I'm going to keep it in the past and it's gonna happen again. In a sense, you guys have said that? How do you forgive? So when I say that, that all the matters of a believer are good for them? What I mean is that this thing that happened in the past the thing that you're not allowing to happen in the future, yeah, that this thing that happened in the past was in fact, will can become good for you. If you respond properly. A believer has this superpower, that anything that brings us closer to a law is ultimately good for us.
And anything that took us away is that for us, okay? So just be conscious that this person that you keep giving all this power to, they hurt me, they took from me, they did this, you need to take that power back because they didn't actually have the power to hurt you. As long as you responded properly, which means taking action against the injustice, making sure it doesn't happen again, to the best of your ability and
forgiving and trying to come closer to Allah than they didn't hurt you. It may have seen pay per view, externally it may have seen, but in reality, the alt like, like, ultimately, the real reality, they brought you closer to law, they didn't hurt you to get it. Does that make sense? Even if they did XYZ to you, as a believer, you can even take that and make it good for you. By bringing you closer to a law by allowing you to get the mercy of Allah, can I tell you how the law tells us
sort of the law, when at Walker lon found out that his daughter was being accused by a relative or relative was spreading the rumor against Ayesha of the line.
The rumor right about her being a chest like the worst thing you could do, he found was a relative doing this. And it was a relative who was financially supporting. So what he does is he just withholds the financial support. He doesn't go out, get a hitman he doesn't go try to you know get revenge. All he does is withhold stop the financial support a law reveals an adding up
at this incident at this time and he miss a Allah subhanaw taala says, Let them pardon and overlook.
Let them pardon and overlook and then Allah says something very, very interesting at the end of this AI. And that's okay buena and you're gonna love hula, do you not love for a lot to forgive you.
So all of a sudden here it was made a transaction with a person. Once that transaction, you forgive this person, and I'll forgive you. Forget it. A law is offering his forgiveness. Can you put a price tag on that? Can you put a price tag on the forgiveness of Allah, or the mercy of Allah? This is like, what we call priceless meaning it is there's no amount of everything in the heavens of the earth that can by the mercy and forgiveness of a lot. It's priceless. And allows offering it to those who have been wronged. And forgive.
Get it. So now you need to be sending these these folks. thank you letters.
How much time do we have? Anyone?
Sorry, couldn't hear? four minute, four minute? Not five? Not
all right.
Oh, deep questions. Okay, good. Um, I feel like the more I grow in events, the more judgmental I get. Thank you for your honesty.
I also take on more and more religious rituals, more, more prayers, and overburden myself and crash because I can't keep up with my own expectations. A level above such a deep question. Thank you for your honesty. There's a chapter in my book. And it's called, it's about this exact. It's called This is awakening. There's a chapter called This is awakening. And in that chapter, I talked about this phenomenon. What happens is this when a person
starts off, and they start to become more practicing, so it's a great thing. Yeah, I'm there, the person maybe wasn't practicing and then started switched on. Or they weren't Muslim. And they reverted slash converted, right? They came to Islam. When a person begins this, a lot of times they are at what you call a spiritual high. And that means that they're really they have a lot of, sort of the zealous hominem, it's almost like spiritual steroids. They're on. This is awesome. But it's temporary. It's by definition, temporary. And what a lot of people don't realize is that when they're in that high, they start to create certain expectations. And there are some pitfalls of that
high. I'll just tell you right now, shaitan will come to us in different ways, depending on our state.
Those who are in a high, he'll come from one door, those who are in a low will come from another board meeting, when I'm like on top of my Islamic game, right when I feel like I'm really good. I'm practicing on praying, I got my myself I got my coat on and I got my hijab on. I'm just bagging it. I'm just wanting
I'm like awesome. Yeah, awesome. Here's the problem. Yeah. Is that when I am like up there, in a sense of a high spiritual high, man Hi, we're gonna call it should I thought comes through. I'll tell you which door he comes through the door of areas. So here all of a sudden, this is the judgmental part.
This person is pointing out shaitan will come when we're up and say how awesome you are.
Look at you, they should make a shrine for you. Yeah, you prayed. You wear hijab, you are the king of the world. Look at you. Now look at those little people.
They're not like you, you get it. So it becomes this arrogance put in us where we see ourselves as really great because of our deeds. But we forget that our deeds are a gift from Allah.
That's very important. Our deeds themselves are a gift.
And trust me that gift comes and goes and it can be taken like that. If we're not grateful.