Welcoming Shaykh – June 15, 2019

Seminole hamdulillah was set out to Osama Allah Rasulillah already he was certainly a Jamaican and my dad said I'm already going welcome to Allah here. But

first and foremost, we praise Allah subhanho wa taala. And and we thank him for everything and every opportunity that we have. Secondly, I want to say that it is a humbling honor and privilege to join not only your community, but the team of leadership that you have, such as your the Imam, Imam, Naveen chef, as our PA, the was that brochure and everyone that makes it what it is.

When this was first presented to me, you know, I've been asked by many, many communities as I travel, you know, it's kind of a thing, why don't you move here and stay here with us. And I always just kind of shoved them to the side because for the past 12 years, I've had more of a global vision of trying to share Islam with as many people as I can humanly do. So what Allah genuine Allah gives me the ability, and also help as many Muslims come back to practicing their religion as I can do so.

But I've also learned through the past year, with all these gray hairs popping up in my beard, and two pretty serious surgeries that I'm not as young as I used to be, I'm still young, but I'm not bulletproof either. And global travel does take its toll. So it seemed to me that when this was brought forward, not only had I come here and fallen in love with epic, because I saw the ingredients here to make one of the greatest communities in the United States of America. And I'm not saying that just to hype you guys up. I'm saying that because I've been to so many communities in the United States in the past 12 years of nonstop traveling all around this country. And I've

seen some amazing communities. But this one has some uniqueness about it that I believe can put it on top of anything else that anybody is doing in the United States. And for me, that was what I was looking for, if I was ever going to decide to leave the cold frozen tundra of Minnesota, it was going to be for something that I could be of a benefit in that community, as well as achieve the goals that I've been doing for the past 12 years, which is help people learn about the religion of Islam, and help our youth understand that they do not have to choose between rigid religiosity and worldliness that they can have a very good blend that you can be a Muslim, and you can be cool to

that you can be a Muslim, and you can be relevant, that you can be a Muslim, and you can be with it, that you can be a Muslim, and you can have fun. You know, these are things our youth are not being properly told or not being properly taught. And so they're choosing one of two ways, you know, they're either choosing to become a Muslim and think that their life is going to be boring for the rest of their life, or they're choosing to leave the religion altogether. And that has become a very frightening I don't need a Pew Research

poll to tell me that Muslims are leaving Islam or the Yaqeen who does amazing work, masha Allah to tell me because I have been dealing with this for years and years and years, and I've had so many parents come to me and tell me that their children have left Islam, I've had so many youth come to me and tell me that they're having doubts about Islam and having doubts towards atheism. And it's almost to the point where it becomes overwhelming for me to even be able to respond to so I see it with my own two eyes. So my overall vision and Shama Hutan is so I can keep this short and sweet and similar to the point is what I laid out in the football yesterday, is to help nurture the seeds that

we have been planting in our youth to help have a next generation that we can feel safe about leaving in control of the massage in control of the Islamic center in control of the data. We're in control of keeping Islam going for the next generation, for their children and their children's children. That is the goal for me is that I don't want to have traveled the globe and been on almost every continent except Antarctica. And I'm sure if that if Antarctic global warming if Antarctica becomes inhabitable will be there. Muslims will find a way to be there and we'll probably be the first to try to inhabit the place. But I don't want to have done all that and then leave this world

not lifted, anything behind that is going to carry on after me because everything is about pleasing Allah subhanahu wata, Anna and the chase for Hassan at the chase for good deeds. And I saw that as an opportunity here at Epic, unlike any other place that I've ever been invited to stay at, where I believe I can fit into what's already happening, and then enhance that insha Allah Who to Ana to help the outreach go out to help the community around epic know that Epic is an open door center that is here to help and service the community not just the proselytize. That was not all just about proselytizing and shoving Islam down people's throat and tell them that either accept Islam or

you're going to hell, the Dow was about servicing humanity. Servicing humanity being a service to humanity is servitude to Allah subhanho wa Taala Anna and that's something a lot of massage and have not come around to as of yet realizing that if you have a center like the the beautiful center you have here that

that should mean that the community that is around this center should be better because of this building. It should be better because of this building, the neighborhood, the neighbors, the the churches, the synagogues, they all should be able to be a better service to their community because of us. That is our job. Our job is to serve humanity that is service to Allah subhanahu wata, Anna. That is outreach to me. The data is first and foremost, of course, we want people to accept Islam, we want to call them to Dehaene. That is the principle of Dawa. But along with that is the outreach is to service the community to help the people around us. And I've talked about that at this very

table, about helping the poor, helping, you know, the people who can't help themselves helping the homeless problem and hoping, you know, with alcoholism, and drug abuse, and all of the things in societal ills that we see going on around us, this community should be on the forefront of leadership in tackling those issues in Plano, Texas. And that's something I hope to help initiate and keep going and push forward Insha Allah, and with our youth, I don't see these two things as separate. When it comes to youth and outreach, I see them as intertwined and one in the same, because it is the youth who are going to take the torch of outreach for the next generation, they

are the ones that have the energy, they are the ones that have the knowledge, they are the ones who have the willingness, they are the ones who grew up in this society. So not only are they Muslim, but they are truly indigenous Americans and understanding the American experience, like I understand it. So in sha Allah, who to Ana, my goal is simple, to try to be of service to try to be of service to try to help where I can help and be of benefit where I can be a benefit in the areas that are what I call my lane. I'm a person who likes to stay in his lane, the things I know are what I stick to. And that is helping other people understand the religion of Islam, helping people understand how

Islam can be a benefit to them. Because that's been a huge problem I've seen in the Dawa of the past 10 to 15 years, as that we are telling people the arguments about why Allah subhanho wa Taala exists. We're telling the arguments about what Islam is the truth, but we're not teaching them how Islam can help them. We're not teaching them how Islam can make society a better place. We're not teaching them how Islam could make your society better economically, we're not teaching them how society can eradicate poverty. We're not teaching them how Islam can eradicate Alcoholism and Drug Abuse all of these societal ills that everybody wants to get a free from. We're not teaching them

that Islam has the holistic solutions for these problems. So even if we convinced them that Allah Allah Allah exists, we convinced them that Prophet Muhammad Allah to Islam exist. I've had many people many to many accounts, who have told me that they have been given power, and they believe in Allah, and they believe in the Prophet Muhammad, Allah Azza wa sallam, but they do not believe that they need to practice Islam in order to better themselves. They just believe if they can believe they should go to heaven. No, we need to teach people how Islam holistically makes society a better place. So that is the goal in sha Allah Who to Anna and our youth need to be involved in that they

are the ones who are going to take that torch. So I plan to in sha Allah Who to Anna blend the two together, and also bring our youth into this building, because they want to come into this building, not because we've had to bribe them, or you know, we've had to drag them kicking and screaming like we've all had to do all of our children at some point in time. But because they want to be here, they feel like this is a place where they're listened to they have a voice. I want to give our youth a voice. I want to give them a voice where they can feel like they're represented and they feel like their needs matter and their issues count. I also want to be able to give our youth a youth a safe

space to where they feel like they can come here and not be judged and not be stigmatized. But they can come here exactly how as they are exactly as they are as long as they're willing to try to improve upon themselves and please Allah subhana wa Bucha Anna, then come, we're here to help and to service you insha Allah Huzzah, Anna, that is my goal is to be a simple, humble servant, to the youth and to the Dawa and to the community around us working with other faith leaders working with other civic leaders to help the community as it stands today. That is our goal is to leave this world a better place for our children and to leave our children better for this world. That is the

simple goal that I have in Shama hooter Anna to try to leave Plano Texas better than when I found that when I came here and try to help our children as I have children of my own as better people to serve the world when we're going in Shama who to honor it will be my honor and as

our dear President, Joe Wade said, as soon as I find a place I'll be coming and shot along with Tiana so if any of you in the community have connections to real estate properties and things of that nature, please let me know what is it is it is daunting task to try to move across country and find places when you live somewhere else. So if you have any reaches on that, let me know. And as you mentioned, I am born and raised in South Carolina. I grew up around race cars all my life. My my youth was watching my uncle's out in a garage in

out in the backfield, where they would put together the most rickety drag cars that you know, we're not safe in any way whatsoever. And they would not have passed any SFA standards or SFI or any of that, in HRA, they would have been banned off all of that. And then take them to the drag strip in Pickens, South Carolina, and just drag them down the thing and watch them fall apart and then spend the next week putting them back together. So I've I've always had that itch in me to tinker with cars to try to make them faster and louder and stronger and more powerful. And that's just gotten exponentially easy in the last 510 years. So I am someone who likes to tinker with fast cars, I have

one of my own hands. And so I like to tinker and play and that's why I like a garage, so I can do it on my own. It's better when you've done it with your own two hands. I'm an avid sports fan. I

I'm A Clemson Tiger. I'm gonna let you know that right now. hold that against me if you want but I was born and raised in Greenville, which is 30 minute drive from Clemson. I went to all of those games growing up. I am a diehard Clemson Tiger to the day I die.

And it was it's been very hard to be a Clemson Tiger fan for most of my life. Because they really were terrible. The last championship they won before recent before 2015 was 1981. And I was only one year old. So but now it's I can be proud to be a Clemson tire getting shot on NBA I have no team college, I mean, NFL football, I have no team I am willing to support the Dallas Cowboys insha Allah.

I do have some favorable leanings towards Houston, just just because of their quarterback just because of the Shawn because he's an amazing football player, an amazing human being. I had the chance to meet him. And as President comes in from Clemson Of course he's good. Dabo has his stuff together other men.

So I love sports. I played basketball myself. I think if I'd have been a foot taller, I could have been drafted in JAMA who to Anna.

So I look forward to embarrassing some of our youth on the basketball court. Once Once my health is fully back Inshallah, I do want to try to offer a lot of you know, programs for brothers and sisters when it comes to physical activity because our youth don't do are lazy today we don't do enough. And also trying to teach our youth life skills is not just about teaching the deen I want to teach them how to live successful in their life. A lot of our youth, especially our boys Masha Allah, from the age of like 15, up to 25 they don't want to do anything for themselves. If they were left alone with no mother, no wife, no nothing, they would starve to death in a week, they would not wash their

clothes, they were not a cook. If all the fast food shut down, they would not survive. If their car broke down on the way to from here to Houston the middle of nowhere, they wouldn't have not to change the tire. You know, this is another unfortunate reality of our youth they become very, very baby. So I want to try to teach our youth some life skills. They don't know how to manage credit, they don't know how to do anything. So we want to try to put some real life skill training in for our youth inshallah teach them how not only to be productive Muslims, but how to be productive people and make them ready for for taking on their own family. You can't live with mom and dad

forever. And shot online, you gotta get out and in your own. Sometimes you just got to kick them out of the nest just like birds do, they will fly or they hit the ground, they'll figure it out. So these are the goals that I have in sha Allah, I have a long list of things written out. The board has seen them in sha Allah, there's some things that I'm going to be instituting in the next couple of weeks to months in sha Allah and I will be down here regularly almost every weekend until I find a place to get moved in sha Allah so I look forward to being with you guys. I look forward to being back in the south at hamdulillah it's been a long time coming for me to get back home in the south

where I can have sweet tea and barbecue because none of that is available in Minnesota and it drives me absolutely up the wall you Can't you ask for Black Eyed Peas in a restaurant they just look at you like you have no sense in Minnesota. So I'm very very, very happy to be a part and I hope for the insha Allah Who Tana Allah makes it beneficial. If Allah doesn't accept that from us, then none of it matters anyway. And I look forward to working with the amazing team you have here BarakAllahu li come Jimmy I was set on what I didn't come to LA he will better care