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Biryani Diplomacy: The Illusion of Political Influence & the "Flour Massacre" | Imam Tom Live
This week on Imam Tom Live we uncover the distressing "flour massacre" and starvation in Northern Gaza, highlighting the complex intersection of humanitarian aid and political maneuvers, including the use of expired food as aid. We dissect the implications of Super Tuesday's results, Kamala Harris's ceasefire advocacy, and scrutinize "biryani diplomacy" within the context of Muslim America's representation.
Our "Ilm" segment preps us for Ramadan with essential tips, while "Personal Development" focuses on leadership through "The Law of Navigation," supported by interactive homework.
Join us for a thought-provoking session filled with insightful discussions and practical advice.
Transcript
This transcript was auto-generated using AI and may contain misspellings. This is a Yaqeen Institute video containing references to the Qur'an, sunnah and hadith. This is a Yaqeen Institute video containing references to the Qur'an, sunnah and hadith. This is a Yaqeen Institute video containing references to the Qur'an, sunnah and hadith. This is a Yaqeen Institute video containing references to the Qur'an, sunnah and hadith.
This is a Yaqeen Institute video containing references to the Qur'an, sunnah and hadith. This is a Yaqeen Institute video containing references to the Qur'an, sunnah and hadith. This is a Yaqeen Institute video containing references to the Qur'an, sunnah and hadith.
This is a Yaqeen Institute video containing references to the Qur'an, sunnah and hadith. This is a Yaqeen Institute video containing references to the Qur'an, sunnah and hadith. This is a Yaqeen Institute video containing references to the Qur'an, sunnah and hadith.
This is a Yaqeen Institute video containing references to the Qur'an, sunnah and hadith. This is a Yaqeen Institute video containing references to the Qur'an, sunnah and hadith. This is a Yaqeen Institute video containing references to the Qur'an, sunnah and hadith. This is a Yaqeen Institute video containing references to the Qur'an, sunnah and hadith. This is a Yaqeen Institute video containing references to the Qur'an, sunnah and hadith. This is a Yaqeen Institute video containing references to the Qur'an, sunnah and hadith. We're going to check in with how your homework went, which was to interview somebody that was a leader that you respected. So let's get to the comments, let's see who we have with us tonight. I had noticed, masha'Allah, some funny comments spinning off of our title about Biryani Diplomacy. If you don't know what Biryani Diplomacy is, if there's one thing I hope you walk away with tonight, it's understanding this new terminology that we're bringing to you. Polkadot says from Minnesota, wa'alaikum salam, wa'alaikum salam, yes, you bet we're going to be talking about Super Tuesday results. Hello, Sufian was enticed by the Biryani, I'm happy that you're here. Ibrahim Zaini, masha'Allah, wa'alaikum salam, ahlan wa sahlan, privileged to have you tuning in. Who else do we have? Sumaya Ahmed, we have someone from Montenegro, CA, insha'Allah, Mir.
Salahuddin from Dallas, welcome. AM from Atlanta, Naeem Lakhani from Fremont, California, Shabina Hussain, wa'alaikum salam. Minami Islam Khan, wa'alaikum salam, wa'alaikum salam. We've got people from, that's from Dhaka, Bangladesh. We've got people from Canada, Grace Rose, wa'alaikum salam. Fort Lauderdale, wa'alaikum salam. Alexandria, Virginia, Atiyah, Princess Hannah from Minnesota. I was just in Minnesota last weekend with the Yaqeen team. We had a nice conference organized on Sunday. It was always great to be in Minnesota. A lot of great stuff going on in the Twin Cities these days, and they really came up big on Super Tuesday. We will talk about that. A Qadri from SoCal, wa'alaikum salam. Raftallah, it's pouring there. May Allah make it a beneficial rain. It's also pouring here in Pennsylvania, alhamdulillah. Amna Kamran from Maryland, wa'alaikum salam. Sugar, marhaban, ahlan wa sahlan. We have, okay, Ontario in the house. Mohammed Shahbaz, CT Nuriati Studio, wa'alaikum salam, from LA. Mahvish Rashid from New York, allahu akbar. Yes, we certainly have a diverse audience as always. Meem Noon, wa'alaikum salam, from the heart of the empire. I have some guesses where that is. Let's see, from Iowa, wa'alaikum salam, welcome. Another from Minnesota, good, wa'alaikum salam, raftallah. Maldives, welcome. Illinois, Layla, welcome, wa'alaikum salam, raftallah. Lamia from North Carolina, wa'alaikum salam, welcome. Sana from Nashville, Tennessee, very nice. Rosewell, Georgia, maher, ahlan wa sahlan, maher. I saw you in Dallas, I noticed you in the crowd. Mariam from Michigan, wa'alaikum salam, raftallah. Fame Appeal, Center City Mosque, Philly in the house, mashallah. The home team. CuteKitten12 from Toronto, wa'alaikum salam, raftallah.
Jamal from Kenya, wa'alaikum salam, wa'alaikum salam. More people from Dallas, there we go. Here's the Malaysia crew. I was gonna say this is the first week we haven't had someone from Malaysia popping right in. Beasy from Malaysia, salamat datang. Welcome to the program. Neha Khan from the Bay Area, wa'alaikum salam. Omar, when are we doing maqluba, habibi? New York City, that's right. I need some maqluba, habibi, you tell me. Uwais from New York, wa'alaikum salam, raftallah. There's a poll. Okay, can we do this, guys? I don't know if we can run a poll here, but we had a debate last time I was in Dallas with some Jordanian friends of mine. What was better, mansaf or maqluba? I'm a maqluba guy. I'm not really, you know, mansaf is not how I get down. I prefer maqluba. I don't know about you. Fatima Ghali from North Carolina. A. Kamil from Minnesota, excellent. Neha Khan from San Jose. Abdullah Khawaja from H-Town, mashallah. I had a great time in Houston recently. Salima, wa'alaikum salam, all the way from Germany, allahu akbar. Okay, excellent. Welcome, everybody, to the program. We've got a lot to talk about today. Let's get to current events. Now, one of the things that has happened in the past week, where we have seen starvation and the intentional starvation of our brothers and sisters of Gaza hit new heights, particularly in north Gaza, which has been cut off from, you know, and sort of dominated in a unique way, right, in a unique way, that food is extremely scarce. Now, this has created a situation that is so dangerous that people are literally having to choose between going out and looking for food and risking the possibility of being shot in the neck, in the head, in the chest, in the back from the cowardly snipers who are too cowardly to face anyone but the innocent people of Gaza who are going after their food.
As we have, and we got the guys in the studio brought this up, yes, a quote from one of our brothers, I went to bring them food, and I returned laden with death and blood. I would rather die of hunger than be shot. Without mercy, we have begun to feed on the grass of the ground, as Ibrahim Arifi. And we've seen this time and time again. We've seen people going out just to get bread, and either their families are decimated by the time they get back because an airstrike took place on their apartment building and their wives and their children were eliminated and martyred, or they themselves, they went out to get bread and they're shot by snipers when they go out. And then even the people that try to reclaim the bodies are targets. So they have this policy, if you've noticed from the videos, where these snipers will shoot not just individuals, but anybody who tries to recover the individuals. So then people are left on the street rotting for days on end. That's the level of barbarity that has reached you. And yes, as Qadri mentioned, there have been people that have resorted to eating on animal feed, making bread out of animal feed, all these sorts of horrible things. The situation is extremely, extremely dire. And so we have a horrible situation. Now, in the middle of the situation, something terrible happened last week. Actually, two terrible things happened last week. One of them was what is being called the flower massacre. So there was actually some aid that was delivered in a truck. And because of the levels of starvation, everybody started crowding around the truck. And then the Israeli soldiers open fired on the people that were gathered to collect aid. And over a hundred people were martyred in a very, very short amount of time. Now, this is among the most cowardly things that we have seen in this aggression against our brothers and sisters in Gaza. And that is saying a lot because there have been a lot of cowardly actions that people
who are just trying to get food that are on the brink of starvation and many, many children have died of starvation. And we've seen the horrible pictures that to open fire on people who are lining up for bread or for flour is one of the most horrific things that we've seen. And it is devastating. Exactly. And so we saw even subhanAllah, the levels of cowardice from the Israeli forces who after the fact, after the fact, tried to justify and say that, oh, we were scared. We were made to feel scared by the people who were hungry. And if you believe that, then I've got a bridge to sell you in Brooklyn. Now, there were other things that happened within this past this past week that are along the similar sort of thing. So there was some PR stunts that were done and they are PR stunts when it came to airdrops. Okay. Now, now consider this. First of all, there are hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of trucks that are lined up at the border, the Egyptian border with Rafah, waiting with food to get in that the people of Gaza need. The people are dying because they don't have. And we've seen already, and we've covered on this program, we've covered how Israeli citizens, if we can call them that, have been amassing at the border, sleeping over in tents, blocking, blockading the way from humanitarian aid from reaching its destined target or its destination within Rafah and within Gaza. Okay. Now, so it created a possibility, a possibility or created a situation where people start, okay, maybe let's airdrop. Now, first of all, there was an airdrop that took place and the food was dropped into the sea. And so this was a, an act of humiliation and perhaps potentially deliberate where you had the people of Gaza had to wait out into the water and swim, and then perhaps even exposed themselves to open fire from Israeli soldiers where they had to collect these things, collect whatever food they could from the sea.
Some of that food, it turned out later was actually exposed. I mean, excuse me, it was expired. It was not even good anymore. It was not even edible. Can you imagine yourself in Gaza on the brink of starvation and food is being prevented from you from the ground. And so it's dropped from the air and you have to go and, you know, risk your life to get it. And then it's not even worth anything. And then finally, the amount of food, and I think that there's a graphic, I'm not sure if you guys can bring it up. The amount of food that is being airdropped is literally hardly anything that could subsist or get anybody. And there was a really nice image that people have been passing around online that shows basically the bombs being dropped and a couple loaves of bread. And this really, really sums up. It sums up the situation of how much of a PR stunt these food drops have become. The same forces who are at least collaborating and cooperating with creating the situation in which food is so scarce and starvation is so rampant are now then dropping food in and acting like they are doing something to help. It's absolutely, absolutely disgusting. Now, on the back of this, on the tail end of this, we have seen where we've had a lot of agitation in this part of the world when it comes to the United States, where we're in primary election season. Now, let me explain to you all who are international audience, what the primary elections are. Basically, the two main parties, the Republican Party and the Democratic Party have elections within themselves to see who is going to be their candidate for the general election in November. And so one of the tactics, there have been many tactics in attempt to demonstrate to President Biden and the Democratic Party that Muslims and Arabs and anybody who has a soul
and anybody who has a conscience is extremely upset and enraged at what this administration is doing to the people of Palestine. And so many people have decided that they are going to vote uncommitted or they're going to vote for somebody else. And we saw the results pour in many of these states. So it goes state by state. That's how primary elections work now in Michigan, which was one of the first primaries to take place. Over 100,000 people voted uncommitted, warning Biden that they are extremely upset with what he is doing and that he is risking his position and losing the election if he doesn't change course right now. Further than that, the majority of Muslims that I have spoken to and the majority of Muslims that every Muslim that I know have spoken to is firm on the position. Yes, Qadri brings up the point. They were only expecting 10K uncommitted votes. They got 100K. They took delegates away from Biden. It was extremely significant. It was a warning shot. Now, well, we'll talk about that dynamic in a bit. I won't jump the gun. Now, so this past Tuesday, which is today's Wednesday, so just yesterday, several states had their primary elections, North Carolina, Massachusetts, Virginia, Minnesota, and some others, and the results came in, and in Minnesota in particular, even more people voted, or a higher percentage of people in Minnesota, and our brothers and sisters in Minnesota, which we were there on Sunday, and we saw the amazing organizing that they're doing, and they're very, very well organized, and they're integrated. They've got boots on the ground in the community. They're very, very smart and strategic about how they're going about things. We're able to deliver almost 20% of the vote of Minnesota was uncommitted. Now, the sad thing is, and we'll get there, we'll get to the consequences of this, is
that there is an ambiguity. There's an ambiguity for people who vote uncommitted. For the majority of Muslims, the intention behind voting uncommitted in the primary is to say that we are abandoning, or that the people, the Muslims are willing to abandon Biden because of his punishment or his barbaric position on the people of Gaza. Some people are hoping that it means that Muslims will run back to Biden when it comes November, and we have a quote here. I was reading an article just before we came on the air. That uncommitted means that, Khadija Mustafa, uncommitted means that you are declaring that you have no intention at the moment to vote for Biden. The governor of Minnesota, Tim Walz, he's a top Biden ally, and he said in an interview on Tuesday, quote, at the end of the day, Democrats are going to come home. They know that the choice, he continues, is democracy versus totalitarian chaos. We see that the Biden administration refuses to take the hint, and they refuse to take the Muslim vote seriously, and they refuse to take Muslim power seriously, which sets them up to be in a shock and a rude awakening, perhaps, when it comes to November. Now, that's not to say that there hasn't been any change that these sorts of agitations and demonstrations and the popular opinion and the ceasefires that people are announcing, and all of this sort of pressure, the public pressure, has at least started to shift some of the rhetoric from the White House, and we have a clip from the vice president, Kamala Harris, that we're going to play that's going to show the two-facedness of this administration, first of all, but also show the way in which this type of agitation and organization has forced the administration into a very, very uncomfortable position. Let's play it, guys.
I must address the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. What we are seeing every day in Gaza is devastating. We have seen reports of families eating leaves or animal feed, women giving birth to malnourished babies with little or no medical care, and children dying from malnutrition and dehydration. As I have said many times, too many innocent Palestinians have been killed. And just a few days ago, we saw hungry, desperate people approach aid trucks, simply trying to secure food for their families after weeks of nearly no aid reaching northern Gaza. And they were met with gunfire and chaos. Our hearts break for the victims of that horrific tragedy and for all the innocent people in Gaza who are suffering from what is clearly a humanitarian catastrophe. People in Gaza are starving. The conditions are inhumane. And our common humanity compels us to act. As President Joe Biden said on Friday, the United States is committed to urgently get more life-saving assistance to innocent Palestinians in need.
All right. We've got to stop it there, guys. That's all I can take. I can't take any more of this. What is probably one of the fakest and most hypocritical speeches I've ever seen in my life, as many of you have pointed out, it's a very deliberate tactic to portray what is happening in Gaza as simply a humanitarian crisis and to ignore the political dimension and the political conditions that have produced the humanitarian crisis that the United States is at the head of, and that Israel is at the head of, and that, as many of you said in the comments, that they are deliberately participating in and enabling to happen every single second of every single day. It is an insult to my intelligence, and it's an insult to your intelligence to act as if this person cares one lick about one single Palestinian life. These are some of the emptiest words that I've ever heard from any politician, and I've heard a lot of empty words from politicians over the years. We, and she goes on to demand a quote-unquote a six-week ceasefire. Now, why this is, what's significant about this is not the pandering, the absolute shameless pandering that she's engaging with when it comes to the Muslim politicians, but as Mariam pointed out, that they're only trying to say this, I'm going to quote you Mariam, to try and pacify Muslims before Ramadan and to try to sway us to vote for them too little too late. That this type of thing, we are not going to fall for it again. We are past the point, we have been shaken awake from our slumber, where we, you and me, have seen enough children blown to bits, and we've seen enough babies
starved, and we've seen enough people murdered in front of our very own eyes, on our screens, and on our phones, that we are not going to be content with empty words, with temporary ceasefire, with any sort of quote-unquote solution that's going to leave in place the entire structure and design that was made to produce this exact result. The entire structure of U.S. foreign policy was designed to produce this result. The blockade of Gaza has been going on for decades. The arming to the teeth of the genocidal nation, the racist nation of Israel, has been going on for decades. This is exactly the result that the U.S. policy was designed to produce. And for someone to then stand up and act as if she cares about Muslim life or Palestinian life, and act as if this is just a humanitarian issue, and act as if she is not directly responsible for it, her and her superior, is an insult to every single one of us. An insult that I hope nobody forgets. Now, when it comes to political organizing, okay, this is where we got our title from today. We talk about dining with wolves and the end of Biryani diplomacy. What is Biryani diplomacy? Biryani diplomacy has been the default tactic and strategy of Muslim Americans perhaps since 9-11. After we were criminalized, after the Patriot Act and the quote-unquote anti-terror laws and the quote-unquote counterinsurgency laws and these sorts of things were on the books and turned against us, that the idea of Biryani diplomacy
is that we are going to get our way or we are going to be able to achieve power by getting next to power, by being likable, by inviting them into our masajid and serving them food and smiling in their faces and taking pictures with them and accepting invites to the White House iftars and accepting invites to the Congressional Eids and all these sorts of things that if we just are nice and likable enough that they won't murder us. And I think that five years down, excuse me, five months past October, we can say that that strategy was a total and abject failure. It did not work. That the idea of an inside game, the idea that we would put people in power close to the Biden administration, on the staff, what good have these staffers done us when most of them haven't even had the courage to resign from their positions? Most of them worded very weakly worded letters long after the fact. We're talking three, four months in and we're still going to pretend that this insider game is going to save the lives of our brothers and sisters in Gaza. The entire strategy has contributed to the results of today, not minimized it, has contributed to the results of the today. And it's a misunderstanding of power and it's a misunderstanding of politics and it's a misunderstanding of deen. It is a misunderstanding of deen, which I'll elaborate on in a moment. Now, unfortunately, there are some organizations within the Muslim community or claiming to be from the Muslim community and some individuals that have played this game, the insider game,
the positions game, and have tried to reassure us time and time again, and some of them are still reassuring us that this is the way forward. We're just biding time to wait to make our big move, that once we get even more positions closer to Biden and more glass ceilings broke, then we're going to somehow leverage this power. Where is it? I don't see it. What power? Where? Again, this is a misunderstanding of power, it's a misunderstanding of deen, and it's a misunderstanding of politics. How can organizations be accountable to you and me, the average Muslim in the community, when they're not even in and of those communities in the first place? How can we hold these groups accountable when they claim that when we criticize a tactic, that everybody who criticizes them is either hating on them, or causing fitna, or causing division, or is perhaps a foreign agent? We have the right to be suspicious. You and I, the average Muslim, has the right to be suspicious, because, yes, we know about 70 excuses, but we have the Prophet ﷺ who told us that the believer is not bitten through the same hole twice, or the believer is not stung through the same hole twice. So you have some organizations that claim to represent the Muslim community, that some organizations that present themselves to the powerful, to the president, and to the higher-ups as representatives of the Muslim community, that just one election cycle ago were funding Zionist candidates, they were funding pro-Israeli candidates, they were endorsing pro-Israeli candidates, and now, one election later, they expect us to forget, and they expect us to not be suspicious, and they say, basically, the equivalent of, trust me, bro. Bro, we're not trusting you.
You have to show change. You have to show responsiveness. You have to show that you are actually accountable to the community that you purportedly represent. That is how these things work. And so, rather than telling us that you're really playing chess, when in reality you're not even playing checkers, you're playing tic-tac-toe, please, these organizations and these individuals, it's not too late, realize that the strategy has failed. Do not gaslight us. This is not about speculating about your intentions. We can say that you had good intentions, that you thought this was the right way, but 30,000 Palestinians dead later, if that's not enough to show you that this strategy has not worked, then I really want to know what will show you that it won't work. It hasn't stopped the genocide, and it won't. Now, I said that this is a misunderstanding of power, and it's a misunderstanding of Dean, that power is not obtained by proximity. It's not a cold or the flu that you can catch if someone sneezes on you. You happen to be next to the person who has a cold, and you catch a cold because you were next to him. Power responds to power, that you have to build power if you want people to take you seriously, and Allah ﷻ tells us in the Qur'an when he says, وَأَعِدُ لَهُم مَا اسْتَطَعْتُم مِن قُوَّةٍ He says that you have to prepare what you can of power so that other people will take you seriously as a deterrent, that you don't wait around, you don't ingratiate yourself, you don't humiliate yourself, you slowly build power so that people take you seriously. And if we reflect on the seerah of the Prophet ﷺ, we notice that this is also true. One of the most misunderstood things about the seerah is the Treaty of Hudaybiyyah. Usually when people cite the Treaty of Hudaybiyyah,
they talk about it as if, oh yes, well we have to make sacrifices in the short term to pay off in the long term, and we need to not, you know, sometimes we have to compromise and make compromises and make compromises. That's not the main takeaway from Hudaybiyyah, because, and here's the shahad, that the things that the Muslims compromised on in the Treaty of Hudaybiyyah were not actual compromises. They were actually in the benefit of the Muslims anyway, right? They both agreed that either any sort of tribe or any sort of group could join whatever side they wanted to, right, during the period of the truce. They agreed that any person from Medina who left Islam would go to Mecca. They would be able to leave. And they also agreed that any male convert from Mecca who accepted Islam would not go to Medina. Now, on the surface, this seems like a compromise. On the surface, this seems like it's asymmetrical. But this is actually something that the Muslims would want. This is not a compromise. Because why would they want phony Muslims in their midst when they're trying to shore up their ranks? And why would, it actually would benefit them if their goal was to march on Mecca and conquer Mecca one day, that to actually have people on the inside, people who believed but were hiding or secret Muslims or whatever, was actually a benefit to them, not necessarily a compromise. So the idea that Hudaybiyyah just represents compromise is simplistic, if not false. What Hudaybiyyah really teaches us is that you have to build leverage, and this is something that we have not seen from some of the Muslim political organizations that claim to represent us. You can make demands and demands and demands until you're blue in the face. If you don't have leverage, your demands are nothing. You don't have any power.
And so when it comes to Hudaybiyyah, we see that the process, Hudaybiyyah was the culmination of the Muslims building leverage. What leverage was this? Think about it. They're in an active state of war. The Quraysh on one side, the Muslims on the other. And Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala orders the Prophet ﷺ to make Umrah in the middle of a war. It sounds kind of crazy. But he knows that there's a deeper wisdom behind this. And so he ﷺ gathers 1500 men, and they go and they're not armed except for their swords, which is normal, and they go and they march on to Mecca. Now think about this. The Muslims reached the outskirts of Mecca, prepared for Umrah, not prepared for a fight, and the Quraysh stopped them and absolutely panic. Why did they panic? What was the reason that the Quraysh panicked? And that the Muslims sent Uthman as a messenger into the city, and he was gone for so long that the Muslims thought that maybe he had been assassinated. They took the Bay'ah Ridwan under the tree, right? They said, if it's true that Uthman was assassinated, we're going to fight to the last man. This is something Allah approved of. Why did the Quraysh panic so much? The Quraysh panicked so much because the Muslims had exposed them and had sprung their leverage on them. They had created a situation in which the Quraysh had to make an extremely difficult choice. If the Quraysh stopped them from making Umrah, it would violate the custom of that land, and it would undermine their entire legitimacy. Because the reason that the Quraysh had power, the main factor behind their political power was the fact that they facilitated the Hajj and the Umrah. They facilitated pilgrimage to the house. The Kaaba. They have never stopped somebody and said, no, you can't come in.
So if they stop someone and say, no, you can't come in, then this is going to create a political crisis. There might be other groups, other tribes in Arabia that say, wait a minute, if you're doing this to the Muslims today, how do I know you're not going to do that to me tomorrow? And now people might want to unseat the Quraysh, and they might want to revolt against the Quraysh, and they might actually want to replace the Quraysh and develop sort of sympathetic or sympathy with other tribes by saying, look, look what they did to the Hajj. Look what they did to their Umrah. We're not going to politicize it. Now, so they couldn't do that, but they also couldn't, and that's also the same reason why they couldn't slaughter everybody. Because if they slaughtered everybody, again, it would lose the confidence and the trust of the entire Arabian peninsula. Nobody would know. If I show up to make, to visit the Kaaba next time, am I going to be slaughtered too, just because I'm the enemy of the Quraysh? Furthermore, if they were allow the people to visit the Kaaba, if they were allowed the Muslims in to perform their worship, just like that, it would have been free dawah. It would have been like a Super Bowl commercial for free. The Muslims in all their strength, in all their power, making Umrah defiantly in the face of their own enemies, right in the heart of their enemy territory. So you see, this is why the Quraysh panicked. They were in an impossible situation, and that's what leverage looks like. Leverage looks like knowing what is the weak spot of the people in power who are your adversaries, and putting them in a situation where you threaten the basis of their power. That's what it looks like. And that's what the Muslims did, which is why the Quraysh panicked, which is why they said, yes, okay, in the agreement of Hudaybiyyah, they said, okay, you can come back next year and make Umrah. You can't make Umrah this year, but come back next
year and we'll evacuate Mecca. Everybody will leave for three days. You can make your Umrah and then go home, and then we'll come back. That's how petrified they were. If we're looking for a model of political organization, if we're looking for a model of political organization for the Muslim community in the West, it has to be centered on a different idea of power entirely, on a different idea of politics entirely. Biryani diplomacy has not worked, it will not work, and it cannot work. You do not, the Prophet ﷺ did not send biryani or kibsa or thareed to his enemies, or to his opponents, or to his adversaries. He built strategic relationships, he built power, and he built leverage, and then he used that leverage to put his adversaries in a difficult spot. That should be the model upon which we are based, and I'm currently working on things where we will develop more of these examples, and systematize them into a curriculum, and some papers coming out for Yaqeen Institute, insha'Allah ta'ala. So when it comes to, and we'll end with this, this segment, because I've gone on quite long enough, but when it comes to, nobody can get anything confused. When we look for accountability in the Muslim community, we're not looking to cancel anybody. As Muslims, we don't believe in cancel culture, okay? We believe in redemption, okay? Umar was redeemed. He was somebody who fought against the Prophet ﷺ, wanted to kill the Prophet ﷺ, and yet he was redeemed. We look at all of the leaders of the Quraysh on the battle of Uhud, Abu Sufyan, Wahshi, Abu Sufyan's wife Hind, Ikramah, Ibn Abi Jahl, Khalid, Ibn Al-Waleed,
all of them eventually accepted Islam and redeemed themselves. So we are a deen of redemption, but just because we believe in redemption does not mean that you can guess like us, does not mean that you can just placate us with assurances and say, no, trust me, bro, trust me, bro, I know what I'm doing. If something isn't working, the sensical and sensible position is to leave it and change something else, and to change it to a different strategy. So this year, the Muslim community has higher expectations of our so-called political representation and leaders. If you are a community leader in the Muslim community, we expect you to not go to a White House iftar. We expect you to not go to an Eid celebration. We expect you to turn down the photo ops, to turn down the appointments, to turn down the positions. This is Biryani diplomacy, and we are suspicious of it. No, we are engraved out about it. And if, in some scenario, you ask us to throw our political support, whether now or later in November, behind somebody who is guilty of war crimes and murdering over 30,000 of our own kith and kin, our brothers and sisters in Islam, then we will hold you accountable. And we will not trust you until you find a way to redeem yourself and demonstrate that you should be trustworthy. And Allah ﷻ knows best. Moving on to our M component for today. We've got to prep for Ramadan, folks. It's right around the corner. Allah ﷻ. And so, when it comes to all of our political organization, we ask Allah ﷻ to bless all that we do for our organizing and our power building in the month of Ramadan, that it's that much more sincere, that we drop the pretense, and we drop the conflicts of interest,
and we drop the sensitivity. If we make a mistake, yeah, let's be held accountable. No problem. You can hold me accountable. I've made mistakes. You make mistakes. I sin. You sin. Okay? But if I were to be in the wrong about something, I wouldn't just give you empty words. I wouldn't just say, yeah, you don't really understand, inshallah, inshallah, inshallah. Trust me, bro. No. I don't want to say, okay, even if it's 5% correct, here's what I can improve on. Everybody should be like that. What can we improve on? What can we get better? Don't take it personally. At the end of the day, it's about organized message, organized money, organized action. That's what power looks like. And inshallah, we hope that Allah uses us in Ramadan and uses Ramadan as an opportunity to purify us and to move us and elevate us as an ummah. Ameen. So, let's see. Guys in the studio, I think we've got 10 essential tips for Ramadan from something that Yaqeen Institute has already put out. Let's roll through these, inshallah. Okay. Number one, be mindful of live streaming. Okay? There's going to be lots of things coming out. Yaqeen Institute always goes hard in Ramadan. MashaAllah. So, pay attention. Set notifications on your phone. It's better than watching soccer. It's better than watching some sort of drama or whatever you're usually doing. Take the opportunity. If you're not going to be reading Quran or you're not going to be doing some serious worship, you're having downtime, check out Yaqeen Institute. Set your notifications. See what we've got going on. We've got a lot of stuff coming down the pipeline that you can benefit from, inshallah, and also to motivate you. It can be a synergistic relationship, right? If you've worshipped, worshipped, worshipped, you're tired, you're feeling a little out of it, you can go to Yaqeen Institute. Maybe you can catch some motivation. You can catch a thermal, right, to ride high so that you can go back to worshipping intensely after that. Number two, yes, I am also looking forward to 30 for 30. We had a great session recording 30 for 30. All the
30 for 30s this year were recorded live. So, in person, I mean, as opposed to remote. So, a lot of the episodes were very, very heavy hitting. So, I'm looking forward to seeing it, and so should you. Number two, tips for Ramadan prep. Reflect over the Quran. Reflecting over the Quran is one of the most important things that you can do in your life. Allah asks it as a rhetorical question. Don't they reflect on the Quran? Almost in a pleading sense. Don't they reflect? Won't they reflect on the Quran? Everything that we need, if you return to the Quran with an open mind, it never gets old. It's inexhaustible. Time and time and time again, we find gems. We find things from a different perspective. This past week, I was talking with many of the mashayekh in Minnesota, in the Twin Cities area, and they were sharing things I never thought about. Things that are going to make it into our next papers, inshallah. Just seeing things from a very, very different way. It's always new. So, make sure that you spend some quality time with the Quran. Not just being focused on quantity, and that's the rub. Because sometimes with the Quran, we're only focused on quantity. How many khatms? How many khatms? Yes, okay, do your khatm. But maybe you need two tracks. Maybe you need to recite for your khatm in the morning, and maybe in the evening, you're just reading for tadabur. You're just reading for reflection. Have that open space and give it to yourself. Let's go to number three. What's number three? I see one and two. There we go, three. Take personal responsibility. That's something that I need. That's something that you need. It's something that all of us need. No more excuses. Take the initiative to establish structure during Ramadan. If you don't have a plan, you're planning to fail. Fail to plan, plan to fail. Okay, those who take the initiative to do good, they're going to get the most reward. Make sure that you have a schedule that you stick to
as best as you can. Number four, don't overeat. This is a huge mistake a lot of people fall into. Unfortunately, unfortunately, some people treat Ramadan like it's Eid. It's true. Some people treat Ramadan like it's Eid. Ramadan's not Eid. If you don't feel hungry in Ramadan, something's wrong. You should feel hungry, right? Let the hunger purify you. Let that develop patience within you. It's not comfortable to be hungry, but that's the point. So you'll also notice that if you spend less time and less fretting about cooking lavish meals every single night of Ramadan, you're going to have more time for worship. You're going to have more time for reflecting on the Quran. It's a very, very important thing to be modest with your food. Let's go to number five. Focus on self-care. Okay, we all are going to sacrifice, alhamdulillah, we know that that's the name of the game, but we don't run ourselves into the ground. Okay, there's always a balance to be had. And so I know one of the things that I struggle with, full disclosure, is commitments. I find it very, very hard to say no to people. I always want to tell them yes. And so sometimes, actually, almost all the time, I overcommit myself, try to scale back, try to get back on my feet, try to scale back, try to take breaks, try to focus on yourself. It's actually going to give you more ability to plow forward with your worship. Number six, practice mindfulness. Okay, mindfulness, Islamic mindfulness, is a very, very useful tool. We know that the slipperiest, most difficult thing is the intention. Okay, and so Islamic mindfulness is all about keeping your eyes on your intention, right? You want to make sure that your intention is being brought with you all along the way. You're not just going about the day automatically in cruise control.
Let's go to the next one. Set manageable goals, right? If you've never recited a khatm of the Quran, consider not setting your goal as reciting the Quran front to back five times, right? Do it slow. Make sure that you'd rather make goals and keep them, or make some goals that are a little bit above what you're used to than make goals that are unrealistic. That can be very discouraging, and then it can have a negative impact on the rest of your goals. Eight, stay active. This is something I need to work on. Set a time every day before Iftar, after Fajr, to stretch, engage in other sort of physical activity, right? That'll help boost your metabolism, and it'll stop you from feeling sluggish. Next up, we have prioritize with a purpose, right? Fasting is the priority, so anything that's going to be an unnecessary distraction, if you're considering taking a social media break, this is the time. Take a social media break, right? Challenge yourself to change. Number 10, every day after Iftar, do something uncomfortable. Work out. Memorize something, all right? Call somebody. Sometimes we forget about our relationships, and we forget about worshiping Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la through our relationships. There's somebody that you offended along the way. It's true. I've done it. You've done it. There's somebody that you probably forgot that you owe a little bit of money. There's somebody that you spoke bad about them behind their back. You know, if it's uncomfortable to say, hey, listen, I backbite you and I insulted you behind your back, at least call them to rekindle that relationship. Hey, how you doing? How's everything? I haven't heard from you for a while, right? This is the least that you can do. Very good. Excellent. So that's our prep for Ramadan. When it comes to our book about daily habits, it's very minimal this week because we wanted to focus on the prep for Ramadan. It's interesting that in the life of the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam,
the largest sort of gaps that existed in his day were between Dhuhr or Fajr and Dhuhr, and then between Dhuhr and Asr. That those times were largely unstructured, meaning that they were times for amal, shughal. They were times for getting your livelihood, taking care of your responsibilities, doing your duties. You know, that's work time. That's business time. That's whatever you have to do. That's your opportunity to do it. And so there's a certain way the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam would structure his day so that everything was in, as we say in the modern language, buckets. You have a bucket for your livelihood and your wealth. You have a bucket for your family. You have a bucket for your worship. You have a bucket for this, a bucket for that. That's how the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam structured his day. We saw that the first thing that he took care of, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, was his worship. From the time before Fajr, when he woke up, till after Fajr, he was focusing on worship. And then after that, the time was to work. It was time to get to work, whether it's school for you or whatever it is, but that was what his, that was his amal. And so this time is largely for work through Dhuhr and the things that are tied to Dhuhr well known, and then even up to Asr. So when it comes back to, or when we rejoin this program after Ramadan, we will be, we'll be talking about picking up after Asr, you know, starting to get into the evening time. What did the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam do? Let's look, I noticed that we passed over a lot of questions. So let's take some questions before we get to the last segment of our show tonight, which is the Personal Development, Our Leadership book. I remember, I think it was Mariam asking something about Egypt way back, about why Egypt doesn't let in aid. And the unfortunate and sad reason is that many, actually the United States and the other Western powers have conspired to
make many of the governments in the Middle East, what they call garrison states or client states that do the bidding of the West whenever they can, whenever possible. And so unfortunately, that's the situation we find ourselves in until we're able to find a way out of it. Maher asks, many subgroups are rushing into forming PACs and organizing in a very fragmented manner. How do you inspire unity of such efforts? It's a very difficult question, Maher. The answer is that we're going to have to have some growing pains, that we are attempting to make up for 20 years of bad organizing in four months, and that is not mathematically possible. So we're going to make mistakes. This is a time where we have a ton of people who are This is a time where we have a ton of energy. We're high on energy, maybe a little bit lower on strategy and unity. Just like most things, you're going to see a lot of organizations pop up. Some of them are going to be great and do great work. Others are going to be mediocre. Others are going to be bad, right? And we'll have to go through the process of sorting them out and winnowing through and sort of getting, focusing on the ones that are actually going to make the most impact. Ahlan wa sahlan, Bashir. Running through the questions real quick. I'll accept. Khadija Mustafa asks, a common question, should we be voting at all? I'm going to answer this in an upcoming article, inshallah, before the year is over. Long story short, voting is a political technology. As long as it is not tied with a certain belief or intention that you believe that it is somehow superior to the sharia, then it is a tool. And the default rule of a tool is that it's permissible. Unless there's something very specific and explicit, that would be haram. Which there's a larger discussion to be had there, but that's the general framework.
MB asks, Iman, what tafsir of the Qur'an do you recommend? In Arabic? Some of my favorite in Arabic are Adwa al-Bayan by Sheikh Muhammad al-Amin al-Shanqiti, and also al-Qurtubi. I love al-Qurtubi's tafsir because it is very organized. I like to think the way that al-Qurtubi thinks. He'll say, this particular ayah, there are six issues. And then, bump, bump, bump, bump, one, two, three, four, five, six. And I kind of like that style of thought. Pestify asks, in time, will you be hosting any programs? I'm guessing that means in Ramadan. Nope. I'm going to focus Ramadan on family, on worship, on the masjid, as much as humanly possible. Wasi Ahmed, what's the different model? Stay tuned. Yes, Maher, I also agree. Masjids should be very sensitive. Some people, unfortunately, I've seen two extremes here. I've seen some people suggest that masjids should not have iftars at all because of the situation in Gaza. I think that's extreme. I don't agree with that. I think it's fine for masjid to have iftars. But yes, there's a big difference between modest, sensible iftars and then lavish meals. Keeping it simple is definitely closer to the sunnah and closer to sensitivity in this time. Layla asks, advice for parents of young children? Such a struggle, subhanAllah. It's a very general question. I can't really give a specific answer. Okay, let's see if we've got anything else. Ibadah. Okay, Ibadah is difficult. Okay, Layla is saying that Ibadah is difficult when you have young children. And that's true. When you have young children, you have to reconceptualize. You have to reconceptualize what Ibadah is. Okay, because being a parent with the proper intention
can be Ibadah. Okay, establishing those things in your kids. It might not be the same stay in the masjid, recite Qur'an sort of type of Ibadah that you really, really want. But if you teach your child Surah al-Fatiha in Ramadan, and that's the Fatiha that they're going to use their entire life, and you're going to be rewarded for that Fatiha every single day of their lives, you're worshipping. Pestify is asking, I want to take a social media break like you, Imam Tamba. Ghazans need their voice amplified. Do we take a break? It depends. It depends on your situation. For me personally, I'm taking a break from my personal channels, but I'm looking to plug into larger initiatives. So it's not, I'm definitely sensitive to the amplification of Palestinian voices and the voices of Gaza. But, you know, mashallah, there's a lot of good work that's being done. We have to make sure that we're hitting all fronts, right? If we put all of our eggs into one basket, or if we put all of our effort into just one front, or even me personally, if I put too much effort into one front, it's not good. We also have to be strategic. So me personally, there's other initiatives that I'm working on that are going to have a larger impact than what I was doing on social media. So that's sort of my reasoning behind that. And that kind of gets to Art Forge's question. Very common question, but confusing to many people. Can we brush our teeth or use them as swack while fasting? Yes, the majority opinion among the Fukaha is that you can you brush your teeth or use miswak while fasting, as long as you don't swallow. And I believe it's only the Hanbali school, if I'm not mistaken, only the Hanbali school says that it is makrooh, not haram, but makrooh to do it after, I believe this is a while, I believe after dhuhr time, if I remember correctly, but that's just off the top of my head. Walaikum assalam, Muna from Montreal. Walaikum assalam.
Okay, Mariam brings up an interesting point. She says, I can't vote for my local officials, they also voted to send money to Israel. And here's why I want to pick this up, Mariam, is that we need to think beyond this election. You know, we need to think about, okay, let's say you have two people to choose from, and both of them support Israel, you don't want to give your vote to either of them. That's totally legitimate. I don't think anybody should tell you that it's wajib to go vote or vote for either of them. I think that what you should do, though, is start to reverse engineer next election. How do you make sure that you have better options to choose from? How do you make sure that the people that you're that you have a candidate, that you can feel comfortable supporting? Infinite Dab asks, what are the most best most reputable charities to donate to directly help Palestine? To be frank, I don't know. Walaikum assalam. Sorry. Okay, good. We've gotten through all the questions. So now we're going to turn to our last segment of the day, which is our leadership book, book, John C. Maxwell, the 21 irrefutable laws of leadership. Now it's a little bit of a bombastic title. So you'll have to pardon that. But there's much to be benefited from. Now, you all had homework. Now the homework was to interview somebody who's a leader in your field, or a leader in the field that you wanted to do something in. And there were some questions that you had to ask. We're not going to have time to go through all these what I really want from you to put in the chat. If you were able to interview somebody, one was book recommendations. If you were able to get book recommendations, I think everybody that's watching can benefit if you share your book recommendations in the chat. Right. So when it comes to leadership, which is something that I'm trying to improve on, okay, this book is I'm sharing it because I'm, you know, this is something I've benefited from. There's also a couple books
that I was recommended that I have not yet read, that some people basically sent my way, that I will be getting I think one was called like the 33 strategies of war or something like that. And the 44 I don't know something or other strategies of power. I forget exactly who the author is. I'll share maybe after Ramadan. And if there's any other other than book recommendations, the other thing I'd like to see from the chat, and we'll, you know, keep it there for everybody to benefit from our daily habits, you're supposed to pick up on daily habits. And it's cliche to say, 48 laws of power. Yes, Angel, you got it. It's cliche to say Robert Green. Yes, thank you. Thank you for reminding me, Angel, I was escaping me. One of the daily habits, that's the most cliche, but it's very important is night prayer is the head. And obviously, I'm like most people, I'm, I think average when it comes to struggling with a night prayer, sometimes on sometimes off, right? This is something that everybody I've talked to that I respect that I look up to that I want to be like, has told me that this is the key. This is the key to success, that and that's something that I have to, that I have to work on myself, and something that I'm going to try to improve. Now, the chapter that we were supposed to read for this week is called the law of navigation. Okay, the law of navigation. That's a really interesting chapter, because he talks about, again, he's trying to really refine our idea of what leadership is a lot of people think that being a leader, as we said, last week, there were some like myths about leaders, like they're the first or the smartest, or they're the one that's out in front. And we said that wasn't true. So the author is giving us different sort of ways to think about leadership that show us what leadership is and what it's not. So the law of navigation, he sums it up by saying, anybody can steer the ship. But it takes a leader to chart the course. Now, this is so relevant to us in the political situation that we find
ourselves in, that we have a goal, we know that we need things, we know that we're not in a good state. But who's going to actually take the lead to chart the path forward, who's going to show us, this is what we have to do. First, we do this. And then we do this. And then we do this. And they work on the messaging, and they get everybody to believe them. And they get everybody rallied behind them. And then we move together. That's what a real leader is. So he gives examples. And some of those examples, he gives examples of two different explorers that attempted to be the first to reach the South Pole. Now, the first explorer was very unsuccessful. Okay, he was somebody who was a bad leader, and that there were several things that he overlooked, and he ended up getting everybody that came with him killed. Okay. Now, the second leader went about things in a very, very different way. He took advantage of sort of local knowledge, and he took shorter and he asked a lot of sort of different things. Thank you for the book recommendations, everybody. Okay. And he was successful. Not only him, but also his entire team made it to the South Pole together, unharmed. And they actually got it out of there, too. So he uses those two different stories to demonstrate what leadership is and what it's not. Leadership is not just confidence. It's not just being assertive. It's not just saying, it's like, yeah, we can do it, guys. We can do it. We can do it. No, there's certain things that you have to be sensitive to, so you don't get everybody killed. Right. So he distills three of these such considerations, and we'll take them into account, and then we'll give a little homework for the Ramadan break, and then we'll be out of here if there's no other questions left. So one of them, before we get to the homework, how to navigate. How do you navigate as a leader? The first thing that he says is that you make sure that you examine conditions before making commitments. Examine conditions. Before making commitments, you don't want to get into the situation where you make commitments, but you didn't examine the conditions, and then you can't deliver on your promise.
Every time that you don't deliver on your promise, that's something that erodes your credibility as a leader and your ability to be trusted. Right. So make sure and this is something, again, I've already confessed that I struggle with this because I tend to say, yes, I have a hard time turning people down, that examine conditions before you put yourself out there and make commitments. Try to focus on minimizing that gap that you make fewer commitments, but you deliver on more of them. That is going to help your leadership. Number two, the second consideration, he says, listen to what other people have to say. Now, this is an extremely important point. It looks like Angel is very familiar with some of the leadership literature more than I am. She says that this story is also in laws of human nature. One of the things that the captain going to or the explorer was doing was able to keep up the morale of his crew by leaning into their intrinsic qualities. Thank you for pointing that out. Listening to what others have to say is also extremely important. Right. When you and this is something the Prophet ﷺ did when it comes to the Shura that he took, when it came to the Battle of Uhud, he ﷺ did not want to fight the Battle of Uhud outside the city. He wanted to fight the Battle of Uhud inside the city. He even had a dream and we know that the dreams from the prophets or the dreams of prophets are wahi, their revelation, indicating that he should fight from within the city and yet he still not only asked the opinions of his companions, he actually took the opinions of his companions, even when they went against what he wanted. It's very, very fascinating. I know that I would struggle with that and you probably would too. Right. So listening to what others have to say, and not just in a tokenized way or a surface way, but actually taking it into account and
incorporating it into what you're doing. And the final consideration, the final consideration is to make sure that conclusions match faith and fact. So once you've examined the conditions, once you have listened to what others have to say, make sure that the conclusion that you make as the leader, what we're going to do, here's the plan of action. It matches both faith and fact. That means that you don't have one without the other. If you only have fact without faith, you're going to be a pessimist. You're going to say, we can't do that. We're only one percent of the population, guys. We're never going to be able to do anything. We can't build any power. That's defeatism. And it's not helpful. But also faith without fact is not helpful either. You're basically just papering over mistakes of strategy and mistakes of tactics and mistakes of leadership by saying, well, you just have to believe. Come on, guys. Trust me. Come on. We're going to get there. When the same strategy, and we talked about this earlier, the same strategy, the same tactic over and over and over again is not working out. You have to have both faith and fact when you are crafting your plan. So your project, and now we can bring that up. Your project, I want you all to locate and identify a problem, either in your community, preferably, because that will require the involvement of more people. Or if you can't find a problem in your community, then find one within your family and exercise everything that you've learned in leadership to try to solve it. Okay? These three considerations, right, that examine the conditions, listen to what other people have to say, make sure conclusions match both faith and fact. They can be funny examples, okay? In the masjid, you've got one person who loves to make the event, and their voice really isn't so great. You've got other people that are afraid to say anything to him. This happens all the time, right? How are you going to solve this problem? Or you've got other people who put themselves forth to lead the prayer, and they
can't do tajweed properly. They make mistakes in tajweed, bad mistakes in tajweed, and now it's an awkward situation. How are you going to solve this problem? Or you've got a bunch of people who sit around the masjid, they've got nothing to do. Or the youth aren't activated. Or the women feel like they don't have sufficient space. Or, you know, there's a million things that you can probably find an example of an issue in your community. Your challenge is to pick one, and you have the whole Ramadan to try to solve it. But solve it not unilaterally, not just through muscle, but to use what you've gained in these leadership lessons to try to solve it. Bringing people in, getting them to buy in, and follow you. Because remember that leadership at the end of the day is about your ability to influence others. Okay, nice work. That's about an hour. Let's see if there's any dangling questions that we haven't addressed. I see a lot of good book recommendations. I'm definitely going to be checking them out. Thank you for everybody sharing. And I don't see any questions that we haven't addressed. Yes, Angel. Sorry, you're going to have to just go back into the previous recordings, unless you have the book. I don't know, maybe there's a PDF somewhere. Everybody always asks for the PDFs. Well, if there's nothing else, then I hope everybody has an uplifting and enlightening and a cleansing Ramadan. I ask you to forgive me for any of my shortcomings, any of my wrongdoings, if I've I ask you to forgive me for any of my shortcomings, any of my wrongdoings, if I've wronged any of you in any sort of way, knowingly or unknowingly, then I sincerely ask Allah ﷻ to forgive it, whether it was intentional for me or unintentional. We're all works in progress, and we all need the mercy of Allah ﷻ at the end of the day.
Aisha asks, Imam Tamim, what's your favorite thing about Ramadan? The Qur'an. I love reading the Qur'an, you know, Tadabbur style. You know, I really love to spend time with the Qur'an. And so the best thing about Ramadan for me is that the schedule clears out, and that I can spend more time with the Qur'an. May Allah bless you all. I don't see any other questions. Subhanakallahumma wa bihamdak ash-sharau an la ilaha illa anta astaghfiruka wa atubu ilayk. As-salamu alaykum wa rahmatullah.
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