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Israel Bombs Rafah During Superbowl, that Biden Tweet, and Constructive Conversations | Imam Tom Live
Join Imam Tom live as we discuss the Israeli massacre during the superbowl, Biden’s tweet about it, Israel’s despicable PR commercial. We’ll also have Ahmad Shaikh on to discuss Constructive Conversations, and we’ll end with a personal development segment on the 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership.
Transcript
This transcript was auto-generated using AI and may contain misspellings. Welcome everybody to the Yaqeen Institute live stream. I'm your host Imam Tom Fekini And it's a pleasure to have you with us again this evening, at least this evening in this part of the world Welcome to the program. We apologize. We had quite a few technical difficulties. We're still Working through the kinks, but it looks like we're up and running now So I appreciate everybody and actually very touched by the patience of everybody who was hanging around We're gonna try to make it up to you all with a very special episode tonight We've got a lot to discuss as Normal any at any point during the program if you have questions pop them in the chat You can also just say hi and tell us where you're viewing from. It's always a pleasure to see the diversity of our audience We've got people from all over the world So without further ado I think we're going to get right into it and talk about current events that have been happening in the past week obviously one of the big the big news stories For the Muslim world was the Super Bowl, but for all the wrong reasons, right? there was something that people have been calling the Super Bowl massacre that took place that seemed to wait just for the Super Bowl to kick off in the United States when the IDF Assaulted the last sort of Area that was supposed to be protected area in the Gaza Strip known as Rafah All right, this was a place where I think I'm Salam Muna Thanks, and I'm not that we got to we got yes mean very good. Welcome everybody I shall so, you know what the the IDF has been doing in a buzzer since October 7th has been squeezing down the people of Gaza to the south like a tube of toothpaste and Every single place that they had said was going to be a safe zone the place where you should go if you're looking to get out of harm's way They have attacked and that happened now suspiciously, but not unfortunately very surprisingly They waited to unleash this bombardment upon Rafah
until the literally the start of the Super Bowl when everybody in the Western world would be presumably distracted and Unfortunately, there were over a hundred people killed many more injured Horrific scenes a lot of people have seen The images and the videos throughout the week and we're not going to put them up here because they're actually quite gruesome but this was something that obviously Was very upsetting to the point where now there has started to be a little bit of discussion even in Congress when it comes to the House of Representatives and the Senate about Some soul-searching and maybe some hesitation or is the United States government doing the right thing in sending money in lending support This has been a long time coming and extremely overdue and unfortunately the Senate on Sunday They passed the resolution to send yet more money military aid to Israel However, yeah, we can bring that up in the studio Right, and this is a 95 billion dollar bill with a aid for Ukraine Israel and Taiwan now initially It was a bill that that also included things for the border with Mexico and that bill was defeated But not to be outdone. I believe it was I believe it was Senator Schumer from New York, but I could be wrong about that Redid the bill to leave off the board of the things that have to do with the Mexican border In an attempt to just to get this military aid passed Disgusting indeed. I mean to and so this is something that passed the Senate. It still has to go to the house It's not a hundred percent certain that is going to pass if you are in Washington DC Or the surrounding areas, Maryland, Virginia Even as far as Delaware or New Jersey or southern Pennsylvania I highly recommend if you're able to get down to Congress this week You know If you have it can take a half day off of work or if you're working remote and you can rearrange your schedule
There are people Muslims and non-muslims people who are sick and tired of the United States funding a genocide and funding The horrific massacres that all of us are seeing and following on social media I recommend that you link up with them and get down there and make your voice heard It's perfectly legal and permissible and it's within American political culture as well to go down and to have a face-to-face confrontation with these senators with your representatives and to tell them that you're not happy with how they're behaving and how they're voting that they are giving money to To this specific cause which the world has condemned the entire world has condemned at this point. Yes, I agree a Quadri, they are some of the most gruesome images that I have seen since the beginning of Of the escalation here We ask Allah to give us patience but also to give every single one of us the Telfiq right the success the facilitation to Exhaust all the means that are available to us To put a stop to it because in the end of the day if you are a United States citizen if you live in the United States, that's your money. That's your tax money that the government is sending abroad To kill children and that's something that should upset every single one of us so In other news now while this was going on. Okay, we have the The president of the United States Joe Biden who has been his his mental faculties have been challenged in the past few weeks He's had several gaffes and slip-ups. He called President CC the president of Mexico. He's not he's the president of Egypt And he said other things seem to lose track mid-sentence for the first time I believe in history he will be refusing a cognitive test in His reelection bit which is very very strange behavior that his White House sort of staffers have had to explain Now while this was going on, let's pull up from the guys in the studio. Let's pull up That's what he tweeted. Of course now it's not Joe Biden himself tweeting
This is some sort of staffer or intern but in an effort to attempt to be maybe I don't know relatable to the youth He posted this tweet of him with laser eyes Saying what does it say here? Just like we drew it up or just like we planned it now The intent was surely to refer to the Super Bowl in the game that was going on and the fact that the Chiefs won The Super Bowl so I've been told however, the timing of the tweet was so dark and the double meaning of someone being at the helm when this Specific massacre and this in general this genocide has taken place has something that really really did Horrify a lot of people and show people, you know a perfect sort of we could say Representative image or a symbolic image of what has been going on for the past several months and it was not lost even on the White House team. They've had to delete the tweet and shame after they realized that this was being taken and understood in a completely different light, but it does also show and many people have reflected upon this about the The ambivalence and we could even say obliviousness of many people still in the United States of America when it comes to how its government functions, especially abroad that there are many many things that are done in the name of Americans abroad with your tax money and my tax money and That it is done to overthrow democratic regimes. Sometimes it is to destabilize societies sometimes it is to intervene or to drop bombs or to have drone strikes and These things often go without any sort of oversight or any sort of awareness of the American people now then there are people who are very upset at the United States government and even at Americans and We wonder why and our media presents it to us as if well These people just hate us for our freedoms or these people are just you know They're savages or they're barbaric or they're hateful
When in reality the vast majority of the time it is the policies of the United States government that are at the bottom of so much unrest and sort of You could say animosity. So as any person who has a shred of Responsibility or feels the need to to actually have their government be responsive to what is their own best interest and their own sort of will that it is on all of us to hold our Elected representatives accountable and to be aware to not get lost in the endless distractions, especially the Super Bowl and things like that That we have to and one Jonah on Jonah. I mean all of us inshallah That to to take advantage of all the means to hold our our to hold our Representatives and our governments accountable to not let them do things in our name that we would not have them do and of course as we Have you know, I took a rough man joining us from from Pakistan we could say everything that's been going on in Pakistan the past week with a sort of Overthrow of the popularly popularly elected parties there a very similar story a story and the people of Pakistan have been very courageous despite the Army intervening to attempt to steal the election from who the people have expressed their support for so we ask Allah to give everybody the courage and The steadfastness to be able to persevere and stand up for justice wherever they are and wherever they may be And finally when it comes to current events we have I think we have a commercial So in in response to one of the other sub lines for the Super Bowl was that the nation of Israel? Purchased two ads to run during the Super Bowl and these ads were very very politically charged and motivated attempting to portray Or to drum up sympathy for their side now, okay Anybody can purchase an ad however in the United States
there's actually laws and rules that govern what foreign nations can do when it comes to airtime and These rules were completely flouted and not followed at all that, you know these commercials You know how much money it takes to run a commercial in the Super Bowl about seven million dollars per commercial That's 30 seconds. You're paying seven million dollars in order for to have so many eyeballs on the message that you want delivered and many groups have taken advantage of this Christian groups have taken advantage of To to to preach their religion to spread their religion, you know, there's nothing necessarily illegal about it However, if you're a foreign nation that's doing it there needs to be some sort of disclaimer according to US law There was no such disclaimer with the two commercials that Israel ran And of course with the amount of money that Israel receives from the United States. It feels a little bit disgusting though that that's actually not their own money, but My money and your money if you're from the United States that has now gone to a foreign nation that then it purchases a 32nd seven million dollar commercial Super Bowl commercial with in order to justify its genocidal campaign Twisted times we live in so anyway, so Sheikh Omar shared on Twitter. We bring it up here in the studio a counter I I'm not sure if that's it because the the the actual commercial that was run during the Super Bowl was about fathers and there is a commercial that Sheikh Omar Suleiman shared To all the dads The Patient ones the brave ones the compassionate ones the grieving ones To all the dads who have been killed by the IDF for over a hundred and twenty days we vow to bring you justice
A Very powerful stuff as a father myself, obviously that that resonates with me much more so than sort of the storyline of which was the opposite storyline which is trying to draw up sympathy for People who were in a place where they shouldn't be doing things that they shouldn't do Allah's aides saw a long time Um So with that said we'll transition now to the second segment of the show We have a very special guest on with us this evening We can bring into the studio Ahmed Sheikh, he is somebody who is an Islamic estate planning attorney. He has someone who is Has a very active substack and I became familiar with his work through his substack In which he has become something of a watchdog for the Muslim community And being a watchdog or being a whistleblower Certainly draws a lot of negative attention and controversy And we won't shy away from that. However, I believe that the the things that that Mr. Sheikh are is bringing attention to are absolutely essential conversations that have to be heard and very very very timely Conversations given the level of political organization that has been motivated and the motivation that everybody feels now So many people are asking in this program every week. What can I do? Who can I donate to who are the reliable organizations in the trustworthy organizations? What's the way forward and to be frank the Muslim community has been behind the curve and scrambling a bit But we also want to make sure That our energy and our money and our efforts are being applied in the best way forward and We're happy to have Ahmed Sheikh with us to help us think through what that will look like Thank you so much Ahmed for joining us on the program
Well, I guess I don't know so, you know, I'm trying to have you know, because there's two aspects to it, right so we we could characterize a lot of the The organization when it comes to Muslims in the political sphere attempting to have political influence as an abject failure and I think that is where you and I would probably agree because The way I said it in a clip, but is that whatever we've done since 9-eleven whatever we've done for the past 20 some years we That has contributed to our failure to stop 30,000 Palestinians from being slaughtered Right, so we're sort of sitting on a watershed moment where we can't repeat the mistakes of the past We have to turn a new leaf. We have a small amount of time It feels like there's an urgency, but it also feels like there's an immense opportunity where people are paying attention They want to contribute they want to get involved. I want to have you talk to the audience and make them understand What is the sort of terrain that we see now when it comes to Muslim organizations in Trying to organize politically and what is missing? So, um a lot of what we can attribute to is kind of the modern sort of Muslim political organizing Happened a little bit before September 11 specifically during the 2000 elections And then there was this one organization that was kind of combined with his care impact another organization that American Muslim Council and they there was a there was a There was somebody named Aga say it who created something called the American Muslim political coordinating Committee, it was a it was a pack and they did in an endorsement of a
presidential candidate and they wanted to have a Muslim bloc vote and And get involved with political with the political process And they actually endorsed George W Bush and George W Bush was was very was very nice and charming to them and you know brought them in Many Muslim leaders actually personally spoke with George W Bush He brought up the big issue that Muslims had with Clinton at the time Which was secret evidence being used in immigration proceedings And he actually brought it up during a presidential debate He thought that Arabs should be treated like human beings and Gore wasn't really willing to go that far and then of course You know Bush became president 9-11 happened the same organization endorsed Kerry afterwards And then they wanted to endorse Obama, but Obama asked them to not endorse Him they he didn't want any public Muslim support at all which was Incredibly dispiriting that organization, of course does not exist anymore. That pack is now long gone But there are other other Political organizing that has primarily been not moved moved away from from the political action committee scene It's there been a lot of Muslim nonprofits a lot of them because a lot of them want Zika And they want to be Zika eligible and all of the things that they do they I think that there's a there's a desire to raise money and figure maybe And some of this is kind of speculative as to how this this this developed and part of it is maybe cultural within the Muslim
community we want we want donations to be considered to be tax-deductible and we want it to be Zika eligible and And a lot of and you're allowed to do some lobbying You're not allowed to do any electioneering with a lot of these nonprofits and many nonprofits in order to want to be Relevant and many donors actually want Their nonprofits to consider to be relevant to show. Okay. Hey, we're doing things. We're talking to politicians And so, you know, we're being invited to these if stars that they're doing with pictures and selfies um, so it is important to have relationships, but a lot of these relationships have some level of Humiliation built into them in many instances May I just sort of pull a couple things out from what you're saying here Just feel so would you say that there was a feeling after after what happened with Bush and the change Would you say there was a feeling that we got burnt that many of those Muslim community? organizations sort of then shied away or pivoted away because they feel like Something happened that they didn't foresee. Would you say that's accurate? I think that for the people that Were involved with that it had to be very very dispiriting Now those were the specific people and there's that generation now a lot of that generation is still there There's still obviously cares leadership back. Then it's the same. It's essentially the same leadership as right now I mean they were of course involved in that and that is same same as impact on the other third organization I don't believe exists anymore But but a lot of a lot of that generation is still there like care here in California Has a has a pack they've had a pack for about 20 years, but they they really just endorse candidates They really haven't raised any serious money or have really done anything with it
They they do host fundraisers with with other wealthy people With wealthy individuals within the Muslim community or donors or you know political donors, but it's not it's not something that They haven't really focused on the on the political organizing aspect of it. Now. There is an exception to that That is in the emergence in the past several years of an organization known as engage And and I've written quite a bit about engage in that they are there are some Muslims that are involved There are some non-muslims that are involved. They've been primarily funded by Non-muslims and their main focus has been In my view to be to be there for getting Muslims to support the Democratic Party the Democratic agenda Etc. And and being safe because remember to The Muslims need to be the Muslims who do go to speak to politicians Especially national politicians like Obama Biden They need to be vetted and they need to be vetted by people who are maybe skeptical of the kinds of politics that Muslims might Have specifically with respect to Middle East policy, right? Over that especially like you were saying the Obama years and then the Clinton campaign that you know Who was allowed in the room? Right, right What was heavily sort of controlled? To the point where you could make an argument that said that some of the people that were handpicked were not very good representatives of the Muslim community Um, so one thing that I see you saying or at least an implication of what you're saying Is that we have a lack because I asked you sort of about needs, right? but it seems like we have a lack of organizations that are really just focusing on political strategy and Because you sort of seem to indicate that maybe Organizations were doing a lot of things right and if you're doing a lot of things then maybe you're not going to do
This one particular thing extremely well that maybe what your funders are looking for Maybe it's pushing you into politics or that's what everybody's caring about now, but we don't necessarily have good focused sustained right Organizations that represent the Muslim community in politics develop strategies hold candidates accountable Would you say that that's accurate? I think so. I think that with a lot of Muslim organizations They especially when there's this marriage with the Democratic Party There's this need to be relevant within the party itself and so say for example in the early Obama years, um, the big issue was health care and health care legislation and suddenly these a number of Muslim organizations Began talking about health care and became experts on health care and health care policy Now this this also this also became an issue with you know whatever whatever it is during that era that becomes an issue and with pertaining to the Muslim community, obviously, um, it was a Democratic Party priority to to be involved with with countering violent extremism within the Muslim community um, and to be relevant in those circles you needed to actually have a position on Extremism and how to make Muslims less extreme stuff like that Was going on you have to accept the framing and this was one of the big problems of CVE You have to accept the framing that Muslims are inherently dangerous um, which is Contradicts the FBI's own sort of studies of the thing, you know anybody who's ever done a workshop with the FBI You know, I mean you had to if I mean if you wanted to be invited to the right rooms Um, if you wanted to get your pictures taken with politicians You needed to adopt the frame. Otherwise You're in the wilderness and if you're in a non-profit and your job is to get grants. It's to get money. It's to get donations
You're not in a comfortable place if you're going to be the stranger all the time, right? So I guess that's my that's my question where I would like to go because you have a lot of powerful ideas about um Both how things were done wrong and how things should be done correctly. So let's imagine we have a blank canvas Let's imagine now that there's a lot of people who are watching that have good intentions. They're they're probably naive They're probably it's a steep learning curve. They're trying to understand the process and the players and things like that If we're Making organizations that fulfill the objectives that we want What should they look like? How should they learn from mistakes of the path the past? How do they not be? tokenized or in the wilderness, how do we get to Effectiveness that is representative of actual muslim interests. So there are a couple of things that uh that go on With non-profits, I mean and a lot of the muslim community is organized through non-profits. That's where our leaders come from That's where that that's where a lot of the stuff actually happens if it's a conference it's being done through a non-profit Um, you know, obviously the the organization, you know, yakin is a non-profit a masjid is a non-profit Um, and so a lot of this is just run through run through non-profit organizations um, and there is this um There there are a few trends, I mean obviously some there I think there have been some criticisms about okay Well, I mean to what extent is there? Um, there's influences that are coming from uh from american culture american law, um the way things are organized in the united states because the non-profit Sector has some very very serious ethical problems Um and has some very serious problems that have really nothing to do with the muslim community but because the muslim community is kind of Um operating under this frame, um, we have we have we have some structural issues now if you're a non-profit organization And you're a fiduciary for the non-profit organization
your main purpose in being a fiduciary for the non-profit organization is To is is the non-profit organization itself. It's the it's the corporation itself, right? And so when I was when I was involved with ISNA, I mean one of the things that you're thinking about is well How does this benefit ISNA? How is this going to increase turnout here? Or how is it going to increase donations or how is it going to make us more relevant as an organization? Etc. Etc. I'm not speaking for everybody at ISNA I'm just talking about myself and that's kind of like what we normally will think about when we're thinking about like non-profits. Um now There's this there's this notion from um from uh corporations, right? So if you're a for-profit corporation, the idea here is that you know, you want to Increase profits for shareholders and that's all right Um, and then there's there then there's this movement within corporations about well, wait a minute. That can't be everything There should be this corporate social responsibility movement that we should really care about everybody in our supply chain We should care about the environment. We should care about whatever thus and so Um, and one of the questions that one person just asked me before like when I was talking about this notion about about um About uh fiduciary duty And and what we need to do is, you know If we if we have a non-profit and I thought about it in terms of like in amana, right? I mean, there are these people they donate to our organization They think that we're doing something good and we need to make sure and spend it in the best possible way In a way that they kind of expect us to do Um, and there's a lot of ways that you can, you know, misspend money, etc Especially something like zakah. Um, but one of the questions I think it was uh, um, uh, it was it was uh, um Sheikha sheikh hamza makbul. He was asking me this years ago I don't even know if he remembers this but he was like, uh, you know, then who's the uh Who's the fiduciary for the umma?
Right like who is Who is there for? Our brothers and sisters around the world um What is there as far as a larger role not just for the organization itself? but for everybody in our community everywhere um and that's something that doesn't exist in non-profits because the notion of corporate social responsibility Doesn't Doesn't it's not really defined Yeah for us yet. It doesn't really exist as a concept. That's really really intriguing Especially a lot of my academic work was is with secularism Uh, and how sort of adopting these if it's a secular model, let's say of education, right? You are unknowingly adopting a certain way of doing things There's certain concepts and structures and practices and a culture that you sort of are that's becomes your default You know your ground zero And what you're saying reminds me of you know, not just in education or other spheres But even in non-profits that we're basically stepping into and we're using a vehicle And the vehicle has a logic to it, right and it's set up in a certain way And there are certain maybe even values or metaphysical assumptions behind it Would you say that we need to islamicize the non-profit in order to move forward? I think there really has to be an element of that. Absolutely I think that we need to reimagine how islamic leadership works who it works for um what our values are um Because I don't necessarily think that and this isn't really any fault of anybody who's running a non-profit Um, I I think that uh, we we slip into our roles, you know, and and we always do I mean we get to You know, i'm a lawyer for somebody i'm in court and i'm like focused on that I don't care if my client cares about me or not, right?
I mean, that's that's that's the case with uh with any types of uh, any types of roles that you have It's an understanding of what your role is um, and uh, and who are you supposed to What what what what what type of what type of function are you supposed to serve? um, and and when we understand Uh, you know that as a non-profit are we supposed to help democrats win? Is that our long-term goal? and then we're going to talk to them and We're then we're going to make friends with them and they're going to maybe respect us because we help turn out the vote or you know, is it is it really important for me to Um, you know, what what does it actually do? For the muslim community if I get a selfie with a specific politician, right? What what what did that? What did that politician do to earn a selfie with a leader in the muslim community? um and uh You know, I I think that there's there's just a lot that when you understand what it is that your role is And maybe it needs to be, you know, just adopted Um by by muslim organizations in general. Why why do we exist? Do we just exist for ourselves as an organization? Do we exist for the ummah? And if so, what does that exactly mean? Yes, excellent and you've talked a lot in in other, you know conversations that we've had about about Morality statements or morality clauses and and sort of ethics, right? Could you uh, we don't have a ton more time, but could you walk us through maybe? What if we're imagining constructively in the future? What should? Muslim non-profits be adopting when it comes to morality clauses or ethical standards that they don't currently have now That's going to prevent them from slipping into that sort of just into that role where we're only serving the organization We don't even pick our heads up to see if it's working or serving us Yeah, and so it's kind of interesting when I bring up things like the morality clause or non-profits or whatever But that that or you know, like corporate social responsibility
These are all things that exist here in the united states because that's kind of what I know, right? um, and so, um, you know when we when we think about well, who do we associate with and why? Um, and uh, and there's this these questions about well, can we is it okay to uh, You know if if there's somebody who supports genocide Um, is it okay for me to sit on a stand on a lectern with them and talk about our common shared values? On something we actually do Um share in common. Is that is that appropriate? Um now is it appropriate at another level to share a lectern with somebody who shares a lectern with somebody like that, right? Right. Um, and so, um, so those are those are things that we we actually need to consider And I think that a morality clause like you if you are an if you're a muslim leader Um, say you are say you're a ceo of an organization And you commit some sort of a crime, right? Um that involves moral turpitude you uh, you defrauded somebody, right? Um, and you know, you need to have some morality a morality clause will typically state that well You know if you defrauded somebody and you were convicted of defrauding somebody you probably shouldn't be ceo of our organization anymore, right? That's that's what a morality clause does now what i'm thinking of doing is actually expanding that um to um to a morality clause that encompasses not associating yourself with um Immoral things as we understand them, right? Um, and that uh, and but I mean I think this this is a in in part. This is some of this is obvious, especially now when we all agree Generally within the muslim community while we all agree about about palestine and we support our brothers and sisters in palestine right now Um that hasn't always been the case necessarily Within the muslim community, but we all we're all on the same page right now
And this is actually a really good moment to demand these things of our muslim leaders and of our muslim non-profits Um other types of things I think is a matter of like shura, right? Like what if there's a muslim leader who makes like statements of kufr and what does that even mean? And you know those types of things I think that those are those are really important things that need to be addressed as well um, but uh, but I think that uh, if somebody supports, uh, if somebody supports, uh, you know, Genocide or supports somebody who supports it. Um, or gives money to them Uh, or um, you know or tries to I mean if if somebody carries their water then they're not doing They're not working for the ummah. Um, they're working against it, right? And then those people should not be in positions of muslim leadership. They should not hold positions of trust within the muslim community Yeah, no, that's what it fundamentally is about. Yeah, 100% and no no 100% and that's what uh, our latest comment here by a Qadri brings up is that you know, the more granular we get I think that's really what we need to figure out Right, uh exactly what you're saying How many degrees of separation is acceptable like and the example you gave about a lectern or a panel, right? Um, you know, okay. It's pretty obvious to not let yourself be tokenized Um, or to be used in a sort of a faith-washing exercise where you're on the panel with someone problematic But what if it's another degree removed? What if it's you on a panel with somebody who just got back from a panel with some, you know? These are the type of really granular things. I think that we need to to to tease out Uh through shulra through folks like yourself who have you know A certain set of experiences and skill sets folks like myself who have a different set of experiences and skill sets To sort of come up with standards right, um Baseline standards. What are our red lines really and then to approach?
organizations and to start to create a culture of accountability that Neither goes too far to one extreme or the other because sometimes We in the muslim community were ready to break out the pitchforks for the mob just for an accusation Right before it's even proven and then on the other side. We're ready to completely overlook everything You know, um in other cases right so I I see this and I think I think you're with me here. I see this as As a constellation of issues that cuts across a lot of what we struggle with in in the muslim community in north america And it feels like if we're able to figure this out and it is a golden opportunity That we can improve the quality of our institutions significantly Through the development of these sorts of things Um any last thoughts or final thoughts that you'd like to share with us before we uh before we bid adieu Yeah, absolutely. So, um, I think that that brings up the the issue of uh, of What about people who are critical of muslim organizations and institutions? um if we have some baseline standards for that I think that We're going to have some space within the community to address what is good leadership and what is bad leadership? Instead right now we have this wishy-washy. Well, he's uh, well He's a muslim and we shouldn't criticize them and we're all trying to work on the same thing and we're all We're all good and we're all wonderful and let's let everybody be because I mean that's not true There's actually people within the muslim community actively working against the interest of the muslim community. That's been the case Um, not just in the united states that's uh, that's been the case throughout all of muslim history Um, and uh, and so if we if we do have some sort of understanding Of what are the standards? um We I think we're going to be much better off as a community and we'll be able to do a lot more for our brothers and
Sisters in palestine as well as anywhere else in the world. Excellent. Wonderful. I'm ashamed Thank you so much for coming on the program tonight. I really enjoyed it and we'll be in touch Well, it's been a pleasure Thank you Turning now to our ilm segment Okay, we have um a couple things and we'll keep it a little bit short since we started late and we're running over time so we've got our Our book here that we're running through habits Uh taken from the life of the prophet muhammad salallahu alaihi wa sallam that have to do with the actions of day and night and then the next part of this we've talked a lot about sort of how to wake up and sort of Habits for the early morning and making night prayers and remembering allah and connecting sort of with his signs You know, we finally got into the part of the book that talks about actual the actual federal prayer All right. So the first prayer that we make, uh in the morning And there's some specific etiquettes. There's sunan. There's certain things that are recommended to do Um specifically and i'll talk to the guys here for a second or maybe the ladies as well If you do go to the masjid, but specifically about approaching prayer in the masjid going to the mosque How should you conduct yourself? One of the sunan one of the parts of the sunnah for going to the mosque is actually making wudu your purification at home Before you leave right so that you're leaving to the mosque. You're only there for that purpose and then you're ready to Jump right into your prayer and to your worship Another one we have and this is probably something that's maybe a little bit less Well known is walking peacefully the prophet salallahu alaihi wa sallam encouraged people to walk and proceed peacefully to their places of prayer Now that sounds obvious But then what happens is that sometimes we leave a little bit late or we're delayed on the road And then what what ends up happening is we rush and that rushing can be in a car, right? that rushing can be when you pull up and you uh, you park crooked and you block somebody or you know, you go in you you throw yourself into the mosque and you sort of maybe um
Cause a commotion right because you are you're hastening you're you're rushing you're trying to get there in a certain amount of time Um, and then what happens the consequence of this is that you actually might even accumulate sin In your effort to get to the mosque as soon as possible, right? If you're on the road and you cut somebody off and that person, you know, then you're making gestures at the person Right and you're about to go pray and stand in front of your lord and have a conversation with your creator Those two things don't go together. What quality do you think is going to be in your prayer? Do you think that your prayer is going to be peaceful when you approached it in such a hasty manner? Right and so proceeding to the prayer in a dignified and peaceful way Is an essential part of having a peaceful and beneficial prayer Um, you know and that includes how you park that includes how you walk that includes, you know Putting your shoes up on the rack not just leaving it for somebody to trip on that includes approaching the actual row of people praying That includes also Not being on your phone until the very last minute There are some people sometimes you're approaching the prayer and you're getting in that last text message and you're you know pushing buttons on the phone and then up until you're just about to join the line and then you expect to say Allah and you're going to be in the prayer and as if you're going to be able to focus As if your attention isn't going to be back with the phone Just like we're talking when we talked about how to prepare yourself the time between the event the call to prayer and the prayer itself about the time that you spend when you Make wudu right when you purify yourself. This is all given to you as a runway Right so that you can get in the mode of being prepared for your worship That it is going to be focused that is going to be clear It is going to be sincere and is actually going to benefit you And every little bit that you take away from that whether it's rushing whether it's being busy with something else
Right, then it is going to detract from that prayer Once you get to the masjid we have if the studio could bring up we have the prayer upon Answering the masjid. We have that for people to see There we go Okay, so when the prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam would enter a mosque he would say this and he encouraged us to do it as well that You say allahumma iftah li abwab rahmatik, right? And then when you are leaving there's also something else to pray There's also something else to say and they're very very interesting In their meanings and the difference between the two Okay, so you see Allahumma inni as'aluka minfadhak Oh allah, I ask you for your bounty now It's it's interesting to reflect upon the difference between the two when you're entering the mosque You're asking allah to open the doors to his mercy and then when You're leaving the mosque. You're asking allah to open the gates of his bounty. That is because what is the mosque for? What is the masjid for? It's for Your forgiveness of your sins It's for bringing your creator's mercy upon you and when you leave you're going back out to your work to your job to whatever else You have to do and so that's when you ask allah for his bounty and then finally This is another sort of reinforcement of the importance of leaving early and giving yourself enough time which unfortunately in the modern era we do a very very poor job of doing is The importance of the first row and I think in the studio. We also have this if you could bring it up One of the hadith that was mentioned by the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam about the yes, there we go About the importance of the of the first row and we're talking here the men because the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam also Instructed that for the men the best row was to be in the front and for the women the best row for them is to Be in the back
But the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam also said that if the people knew how much reward Was in pronouncing the event or for standing in the first row meaning in the masjid and found no other way to get to that Except by drawing lots than they would draw lots drawing lots like picking the short straw, right? and If they knew the reward of the dhohar prayer in the early moments Then they would race for it meaning they would go early and if they knew the reward of rishah and fejr in Congregation in the masjid, then they would come to offer them even if they had to crawl Sometimes and every single one of us is guilty of it. We Were too spoiled by the modern conveniences of life We think oh the water is cold or it's cold outside or oh, I have to fire up the car I have to start the car. I have to do this or I do that and we let them we let those sort of circumstances And what does the Shaitan tell us he tells us that oh you're tired You didn't sleep enough all these sorts of things. They stand in our way, don't they and then we Essentially are Undervaluing what is going on when we actually go to the mosque and pray that all these sorts of things when it comes to the forgiveness of your sins when it comes to all the sort of blessing and And Success that your creator is giving you from your worship in the mosque that we don't value it enough that we consider it basically the process that I'm communicating to us if you really knew the value of Going to the mosque for prayer in These certain times doing these certain things then you would certainly you wouldn't act the way that you did Which is on us that we basically see that we don't value it enough To conclude tonight Before questions and no we don't necessarily Take personal questions here. It's not really the right form. It's best to reach out to someone on an individual level for that But when it comes to we'll have our personal development
Section and then we'll take questions So if anybody has any general questions or other questions Then you can drop them in the chat and then we will sign off for tonight. So when it comes to our personal development We are starting a new book this weekend and as Allah would will I forgot that book at home So I can't show you the cover of it, but I have my notes So we'll do what we can that it was the 21 irrefutable laws of leadership and that's a very grandiose title, right? You know people have these marketing teams and they have to make their books seem extremely convincing however, there's much good in the book and there's much good in the topic in general to talk about leadership if we look at the life of the Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam that he was an Immensely capable leader. He was an exceptional leader a superior leader and One of the things that this particular book here is there's a title Addresses is a lot of misconceptions about leadership that you might not understand what a leader does or what leadership often is and I think we'll get into that next week a little bit more when He talks about myths of leadership thinking that being a leader has to be the person who knows the most or the person who's out in front or the person who Does something first? These are all myths. It's not really what leadership is and the first sort of myth to deal with when it talks when he's talking about leadership is to think that You don't need leadership is to think that leadership as a skill is only for The presidents or the people running organizations or you know The the big movers and shakers and that's not true That's not true at all. And we have a hadith from our tradition a saying of the Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam Where he said hulukum ra'in wa hulukum mas'ulun an ra'iyati. He said that every single one of you is a shepherd every single one of you is a shepherd and
Every shepherd is responsible for his or her flock That means that no matter who you are if you any gives examples right the leader the head of state right he is responsible for the whole nation a father and A husband is responsible for his family. Okay, a wife and a mother is responsible for her children in the house Even if you were a servant in those times you were still responsible for what you were entrusted with, right? So every single person Every single person has responsibility and If you have responsibility, then you need leadership. You absolutely need leadership So rather than think about sort of running some sort of fortune 500 company, let's think about being better husbands Let's think about being better wives. Let's think about being better parents. Let's think about being better people in our family right that this is an Essential aspect of being a good Muslim is having some sort of leadership now when it comes to The first chapter of the book he calls it and he he calls The separates them obviously into 21 different laws the first law that he mentions what he calls the law of the lid Okay, what is the law of the lid the law of the lid essentially means that leadership depends or determines rather how effective you can be okay that leadership when it comes to the ability to Influence people or the ability to get people to do something that maybe they wouldn't normally do if left to their own that Developing leadership is going to unlock potential that you didn't have before and that specifically of all the Characteristics and qualities that you need in order to be the most effective version of yourself Leadership is one of them. That's right there at the top So let's imagine for example that you are you know, yeah, let's say that you're a wife. You're a mother
You your job is to raise the kids Okay It's a battle on that's our hospitals under attack right now may Allah Assist and aid our brothers and sisters in Palestine and accept their martyrs and lift the oppression that they are under I mean When it comes to your effectiveness, let's imagine you're whether you're you're a mother you have kids Okay, you put food on the table you work hard You call your your kids to come to the table to eat and they don't come What's going to happen? You get upset. Maybe you yell. Maybe you try to guilt people maybe you try to do these various things to get your kids to come but they don't they don't come when you ask them to come or The same thing could happen if you're the father you ask your kids to get ready for something You have to go to an important appointment appointment that they kind of blow you off They don't listen to you. And then you end up being late for the appointments an extremely frustrating experience that many many people many many people Are familiar with right so even when it comes to being a parent even when it comes to Effectively leading within your home how to get your children to listen to you or how to get your spouse to listen to you or to consider your point of view or to adopt another way of thinking about something or doing something that every single one of us can stand to be a better leader and That this is something that is actually there's there's rules to it like any anything else. There's there's practices There's ideas. There's techniques, right? And so the first technique or the first idea is To realize that you need this thing because if you don't realize that you need leadership Why would you necessarily concern yourself? He's like, oh, I'm never going to need that. No, you need it Even if you're just you know, you only have one or two people family members under you you need leadership So
There's the one of the benefits of this book is that it's also an activity book and so there's activities to do So this is going to be This is going to be your homework for the week. Okay? There's three steps to this homework Okay Number one is that you're going to make a list of five major goals And what we mean by major goals is that you're going to make a list of five goals that are going to take at least a year to accomplish so a major goal would be like memorizing the Quran for example, or You want to start a business or You want to? Start up a new program at the masjid or you want to build a masjid, right? These are major things that are going to take more than a year to accomplish You're going to make every single person you're going to make a list of five major goals Okay, step two is you're going to go through that list of five things and you're going to ask yourself How many of these things require cooperation from other people because some things you can do on your own But other things you need other people to help and assist and that's where leadership comes in Okay. Now the third part of this is you're going to now rate your leadership I'll pay close attention because I'm going to give you sort of categories to rate your leadership You're gonna rate yourself from 1 to 10 and then after that you're gonna ask somebody else to rate you 1 to 10 and you're gonna Compare. Okay. This is what I want you to do for next week. So There we go, so the four Areas in which you want to rate your own leadership from 1 to 10 rate your people skills How good am I with dealing with other people? to your planning and strategic thinking 3 your vision and 4 results Okay Yes, exactly So we have those four things, yeah, that's the reality check So you have those four things rate yourself after going through the other things that we said to do
Rate yourself on a scale of 1 to 10. I'm a 7 with people skills But I'm just a 2 with strategic and planning and thinking and planning etc Then after you've done that go to someone who knows you well and ask them to rate you 2 and compare we're going to check in next week and see if it was higher or lower or what you learned about yourself and What you learned about the difference between how you perceive yourself and how other people perceive you and how you perceive your leadership ability and how other people perceive your leadership ability So with that we have just a few minutes for any other questions I would really encourage anybody who's asking anything about marriage to talk to somebody Not in an anonymous form on the internet Because that is a it's motif There is a that's a very there's a high-stakes situation and you need to get somebody who knows your particular Particular situation do not go with generalities. So we're talking about marriage and divorce I would strongly discourage people from asking other people in a chat I would definitely encourage you to find someone qualified. There are Fetwa banks, there are scholars. There are hotlines. There are people, you know in any Muslim country in the world There are people and I used to see them when I lived in Medina that their job is to stay there all day By a phone waiting for a phone call for a certain situation All right. So please if you are looking for something that is more than a just a general answer Please reach out to someone qualified because a an unqualified answer is really going to end up doing more damage Than not having an answer at all. I Don't see any other questions But we had we made the best of it I know we had again we have some technical difficulties tonight I appreciate everybody's patience and everybody tuning in If there is nothing else then I think that we will bid adieu tonight. We'll say goodbye we hope that you have a blessed week and we Will look forward to checking in next week. I'm gonna do this. I'm gonna do the same exercises, too
So we'll have a very frank conversation about our our leadership Our leadership abilities as they are now with the hope to Again, the whole purpose is not to feel bad or to feel good about our current leadership skills But to improve them to improve them and so we'll go on this journey together inshallah Ta'ala I ask Allah to bless every single one of you Barakallah Feekum Subhanak Allahumma bihamdika sharaa an la ilaha illa ansa, wa astaghfirullah wa atubu ilayhi wa rahmatullah
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