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The Lives of Imams, Hate Crime in Texas, Israeli Humiliation, Ceasefire Resolutions | Imam Tom Live
Join Imam Tom live this week as he's joined by Dr. Osman Umarji and Dr. Mohamed Abu Taleb to discuss the newest Yaqeen Research Report covering the lives of Imams in North America. Imam Tom will also cover the hate crime in Texas, ceasefire resolutions around the U.S., and an attempt at humiliation that backfired on an Israeli soldier.
Transcript
This transcript was auto-generated using AI and may contain misspellings. Welcome everybody back to Yaqeen's live stream and I am your host Imam Tom. We had a little break So we hope everybody else enjoyed their break too. We are just a very very short time away from Ramadan So all of us are preparing for it And we hope you're preparing for it too as we get closer to Ramadan We're going to try to highlight some more tips, especially when it comes to our actions of the day and night our habit series This is very very important to building up good habits so that we can make the most out of Ramadan Wa'alaikumussalam We have, let's see, we have Daniela Tan from Malaysia, salamat datang Excellent. We have a few people from Malaysia today, salamat datang. It's the It's a the morning for you all over there From Bangladesh, welcome, wa'alaikumussalam, naftara from Dhaka All of our Eastern Hemisphere folks, the Maldives, wa'alaikumussalam, naftara Everybody welcome to the program Kerala, very nice. Favas from India, excellent. Sophia Chowdhury from New York, wa'alaikumussalam, naftara, excellent Who else do we have? We've got someone from Albany. We've got Boston, ma'sha'Allah, tabarakallah. Mustafa Syed from India We've got Ruth Langston from Houston, Texas. Welcome Ruth. I will be visiting Houston, insha'Allah ta'ala, not this weekend But the following weekend. We have some programs with the University of Houston So insha'Allah, I encourage you to come and join what you can Queen Ebony from Ohio, ma'sha'Allah. Holly Newton from New Mexico, Allahu Akbar A. Qadri from California. Can you believe I've never been to California in my life? Everybody makes fun of me when I say that But insha'Allah before too long I'll get to see I'll get to see the famous, California Sara Moulin from Mauritius, welcome
Sameh Mounir from Toronto, ma'sha'Allah, very good memories of Toronto Welcome everybody to the program Um Khalil, Connecticut, Worcester, Nusaybah, ma'sha'Allah, Livingston, New Jersey, Zameen I just can't help but smile every time I see how beautiful you are I just can't help but smile every time I see how beautiful this ummah is and how diverse we are and all of our different names and cultures and languages and locations where we're all from Yeah, Camilla Brown from South Carolina. We've got another New Yorker in there When am I coming to KO? Good question Insha'Allah ta'ala, I'll be coming in late July So if anybody actually, if anybody wants to reach out and do some programs insha'Allah You can reach out to my email imamtanfakini at gmail.com And we can set something up for when I'll be in Malaysia Last time I was in Malaysia, absolutely loved it, didn't want to leave So I'm looking forward to being there again insha'Allah Khizr from Pakistan, ma'sha'Allah, wa'alaikum salam Pakistan zindabad, in the house, may Allah aid you and all the people of Pakistan and all the people of the ummah Okay, so transitioning on to we have a lot going on every week now subhanAllah Especially with our brothers and sisters in Palestine And the constant struggle for all of us in our prayers and our thoughts and in our activities To attempt to aid our brothers and sisters of Palestine in any way possible A lot has been happening in these past two weeks Here in our part of the world in the United States One thing that has been unfolding is the Let's say an increased turn in popular perception Against the occupying force of Israel And its nefarious activities to our brothers and sisters in Palestine And we've seen a change in American attitudes Such that cities have now taken it upon themselves to pass ceasefire resolutions Excuse me, insha'Allah, maybe they're revolutionary but they're resolutions
Where they condemn the slaughter and the genocide of Palestinian people And even though at the city level of government There's no mechanism for this to actually take effect or quote-unquote do anything This is a very very important discursive act It's a very very important act when it comes to public advocacy Raising awareness, right? You might not realize it because in Muslim social media spaces These things are very obvious to us But when we talk to other people that live in the United States People who are not online as much or not in social media as much Or don't have any Muslim connections or any Muslim relatives Or any Muslim friends Then these things, sometimes the things that we're seeing that are so obvious to us Are completely unknown to them So every time something very public happens Like city councils vote for a ceasefire resolution Or the ICJ court case that's live streamed on television These sorts of things raise the awareness of what's going on a lot And they help shape the popularity of the movement, right? Because we know very very well that the forces that are against us Are attempting to portray the movement in various sorts of ways Either they're trying to portray us as some sort of violent people Or terrorists or things like that Or they're trying to portray people who want the genocide to stop As foreign actors We've seen in the past week Different United States Congress people Accusing people, protesters of being funded by China Funded by Russia Echoing the statements of Putin and things of that nature Which is ridiculous But it goes to show you how important publicity is Positive publicity And so we have, our guys in the studio have put up We've got Chicago became the latest US city this week To seek a ceasefire in the war on Gaza and the people of Palestine The city councilors, actually it was a tie And I believe the mayor of the city
Made the tie-breaking vote in favor of Palestine Chicago has a huge Palestinian community I know several people from the Palestinian community in Chicago So it was, I'm sure, a very very small but important victory for them We've got lots of people, Mashallah Assara Yes, Mashallah, I actually had some friends from Mauritius When I was studying in Medina Fatima Mohammed, Alaykum Salam from Trinidad Everybody else coming, Ahlan wa Sahlan So that was part of it We also have, in other news, unfortunately Part of why publicity is important And publicizing and mainstreaming the struggle is important Is to create consequences and awareness and protection For those people who are speaking out Because when it is a fringe movement When something is only, let's say, a couple people Speaking out for something Then other people feel that there's a license Or that there's not going to be any consequences If they do violence to those people Or hurt those people in some way And unfortunately we had this happen Just this week in Austin In Austin there was a protest for Palestine And a gentleman was driving home from the protest He was taken out of his car And he was stabbed Now, Alhamdulillah, he's okay This is something where all of the irresponsible rhetoric That we see in the media That people have rightfully condemned From the president to the secretary of state On down to the so-called free press that we have Which is really dominated by corporate interests When they repeat things And they portray people who are advocating for justice If they portray us as terrorists They portray Muslims as violent They portray Arabs as violent They actually give a green light to people To take matters into their own hands And commit violence against us
And this has happened a few times now Wa alaikum assalam wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh And to Aliyah Wa alaikum assalam wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh Right, so this has happened a few times It happened with Wadi'ah, the six-year-old boy In Chicago, nonetheless Who was stabbed by his landlord Someone who he used to refer to as uncle Because this individual was ginned up He was provoked, he was incited By the inflammatory, irresponsible rhetoric That people were spreading on the news And so we suspect that this is the same sort of case Here in Austin Where someone who was watching the news Got incited by the hateful rhetoric And the demonization of Arabs and Muslims To the point where he was moved to violence To actually drag someone out of their car And stab them But we believe that Allah subhana wa ta'ala Certainly the brother, may Allah bring him ease And a speedy recovery And certainly he has his reward For being brave in front of it all And one of the things that I like the best Was that his picture from the hospital bed I'm not sure if we have it in the studio But his picture from the hospital bed He still got his kufiya on in the hospital bed And his first picture has his fist raised in the air May Allah strengthen him And strengthen all of us to speak out And that's one of the things that we have tried to Raise awareness about Yes, we have a statement here from Sheikh Omar Suleiman This must be investigated as a hate crime And America needs to wake up to Anti-Palestinian bigotry all over It's anti-Palestinian bigotry It's anti-Arab bigotry It's anti-Muslim bigotry Buona sera, buona sera So we have, it's very important This is why publicity is very important It's very important to speak up Because if we are silent We actually create a dangerous environment
We create a dangerous environment For everybody else who is speaking up The more people speak up And the more people raise their voices Which Allah subhana wa ta'ala expects of us anyway Because he said that we are people Who stand up for justice Even if it's against ourselves And he said that what distinguishes us As the best ummah that he's ever Sort of made or brought forth from humanity Is the fact that we command the good And forbid the evil If there's good we're going to try to Contribute to our society To ensure that the good succeeds And if there's evil going on in our society Then we're going to stand up to it And we're going to do whatever we can To stop it That is what makes us the best ummah And that's our responsibility So if only a few people are doing it Then that emboldens other people To try to punish them To try to hurt them in some way But if we all do it If we all do as much as we can Then this creates an environment That's actually safer for everybody And finally when it comes to The previous couple weeks There was one particular image That went viral And I think we'll bring it up here If the guys in the studio have it Of a detainee from Gaza Now this is the second time That something like this has happened Where the occupation forces Have attempted to Put online Things that are boasting Things that are attempting to Humiliate Palestinians That are attempting to Humiliate the people of Gaza And it blows up in their face And it backfires Because Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala Told us that Allah can Raise who he wills And he debases who he wills He honors who he wills And he humiliates who he wills Wa alaikum salam angel Wa alaikum salam everybody else Who joined the program Right, this is something That's in the hands of Allah You might think If you're that soldier Who actually posted this On his social media He thought that he was some tough guy That he was going to look
Like he was lording over Or controlling or dominating The Palestinians But look at the posture Of our brother here Look at his defiance Look at the look in his face You can tell who has honor In this photo And who doesn't And of course This photo went around the world In no time And it became One of the many symbols Of the Palestinian resistance To what is going on The horrible genocide Against them That the will and the strength Of the Palestinian people Will not be broken And actually the person Who posted this actually Ended up taking it down In shame May Allah give him What he deserves So with that I think we're going to turn now We'll turn to the second part Of our program We have a very special program today It's a little bit different From how I normally run it Because Yaqeen Institute You know that what we do Is da'wah research So what we mean by da'wah research Is that we are taking two things That are usually separated Right, we have research over here And then we have da'wah And we're putting them together And so part of da'wah research Is everything that goes Into these livestream events It's everything that goes Into our papers It's everything that goes Into our curriculum And our books But another thing that we do Is we actually do Research and reports And a very, very important And crucial report Has been released By Yaqeen Institute this week That's called the Imam's Report And as a recovering imam I can definitely attest To the significance of this report The personal and professional lives Of Muslim religious leaders In North America There were four At least four scholars Who participated in this report We're going to invite Two of them on the program now Dr. Muhammad Abu Tadab And Dr. Usman Omarji If we can bring them into the studio We're going to have A long extended discussion About the findings of this report Before finishing with some daily habits And then a preview Of the new book That we're going to start
In preparation for Ramadan So welcome to the program As-salamu alaykum wa rahmatullah Wa alaykum as-salam wa rahmatullah Wa alaykum as-salam wa rahmatullah Thank you for having us Welcome so much to the program Now as, again As a recovering imam I can't tell you how much I appreciate this report It's something that I don't think it's an under I don't think that it's I don't think it's What's the word I'm looking for An exaggeration To say that We have very serious problems When it comes to the masajid In North America And when it comes to Staffing and keeping Qualified, talented, religious leadership And there are several reasons For why this is And it creates a bad situation All around Bad situation for masjids They've got a revolving door of imams Or they have no imam at all It creates a bad situation for imams They lead sort of Very unfulfilled existences And bad outcomes for the community That has to deal with this revolving door And maybe a beat up imam Or no imam at all So the significance of this report Is, cannot be exaggerated I think that it's a perfect timing As we look Especially with what's going on in Palestine We ask ourselves How did we get here? We don't have the capacity To do very much We don't have the capacity To stop what's going on I believe personally And I'd like your opinion on this But I have an inkling That you're going to agree with me That part of our lack of capacity Is the suboptimal status Of our masjid And our religious leadership And that's not to throw shade At anybody who has credentials Or went and studied But that has to do With the way that Our students of knowledge And our imams are being used Or being misused In the facilities That we have across the country So without further ado That's just my own suppositions We're going to get into the report
We'll go section by section We have We dropped the link in the chat Definitely hope that you Read the report in your own free time And for everybody who's watching And listening We have We're going to have open Q&A With the researchers After this is over So please If you have questions Send them in the chat And we'll have them answered In sha Allah So the first section Has to do with Who are religious leaders? You talk about demographics You talk about educational background Employment status And implications Dr. Usman Give us a sense Of what some of the findings were What are some of the surprises Or what are some of the things That you expected to find When it comes to Who our religious leaders are? Bismillahirrahmanirrahim As-salamu alaykum As-salamu alaykum So just to give A little bit of perspective First before we Just delve right into that I do want to speak about Why this matters Why did we do this research In the first place? And that will lay out My answer for your question Is actually That who are religious leaders Is like the first thing That we need to figure out When we talk about Hey, you know what? There are troubles with the masajid Right? There are troubles with The institutions in the community But who is employed To lead those communities? It's often imams It is religious directors It's executive directors And so I want to just start With a definition That religious leaders Is a very broad term We don't want to speak Only about imams Because people who have Sought traditional knowledge Serve their communities In all kinds of different ways And so that's Maybe I'll just start With this idea Religious leadership Refers to Scholars who might be In imam roles Executive director roles You know, resident scholar roles There might be chaplains There might be independent scholars There might be instructors In seminaries and universities This is what we're speaking about And alhamdulillah By the blessing of Allah Azzawajal In our study of 205 Approximately North American scholars We find that our imams and scholars Are incredibly diverse Number one is that They're highly, highly educated And I know that As Imam Muhammad and I Have talked about this Quite a bit There's a Just this kind of Adopted kind of tradition
Like, you know I studied in Egypt, right And the idea is that Hey, you know Only if you can't pack it, right In medicine and law, right Then you have to go to Kulut al-Shariah, right You have to go to The Islamic law program I know the same As in many other countries And actually When you look in America It's quite the opposite That those who serve In these roles The vast majority of them have I think about 90, 80, 90 percent Have college degrees Like from secular institutions As well as 80 percent Have these religious degrees So they got dual degrees We got engineers We got doctors We got lawyers Who became Imams and scholars We got people from all different Ethnic backgrounds We have female scholars as well And that's a growing tradition Right, Alhamdulillah In North America So who are they? They are different races They are different ethnicities We got African Americans We got Hispanics We got Pakistanis And we got Arabs So Alhamdulillah In North America We're a very diverse group Theologically represented By all the Sunni traditions Madahib are represented By all the different Madahib So there's a lot to unpack But I'll just leave it at that That's excellent Dr. Muhammad Give us a sense of What are the implications for that? What does it mean that American Imams Or religious leaders Let's leave it broad Are more highly educated Than maybe other parts Of the Muslim world? So you know Imam Tom You were mentioning earlier When you come to spaces like this When you come to conventions Conferences This type of space That Yaqeen and others organize Despite the challenges out there We feel very overwhelmed We feel very encouraged Very empowered And yet On the other hand When we come home When we come to our communities Sometimes we come to our local centers To our youth spaces We can feel very alone and isolated That we're not ready To face these enormous pressure Against the Muslim individual And Muslim families And in many ways One of the things That we explore in this report Is that a big part of that gap Lies at religious leadership In its broad sense Men and women Different roles
Including executive capacity And that's a real beauty Of our findings On the education Of these religious leaders Is that many of the problems And Yaqeen has looked at research In this in the past That are important to Muslim families in North America And worldwide Are multidisciplinary problems And their solutions Are therefore multidisciplinary In order for our institutions To be able to face them They need leaders That are grounded in the tradition That have studied Islam deeply But they also need the ability To relate to congregations To an incredibly diverse Set of stakeholders Young and old Men and women All across the world And all across their network And a really encouraging thing About that education Is it shows the potential In the North American context That there is a set of Highly talented people That feel motivated To solve these problems And are grounded in this training In some sense It would actually be A great tragedy then If our institutions fail To retain and hold on To this group And empower them Because it would seem That the training Is demoralizing Constantly greater and broader Than past research of past decades And is encouraging and hopeful In facing the very real and overwhelming challenges all around us That is extremely significant So what I take from your commentary is that We're loaded with talent We actually, we have unique problems But the good news Is that we are in a position Where we have the talent pool To potentially address and solve these problems Which seems to be a really nice segue to the next section of the report
Which is what are the tasks that Imams or religious leaders find themselves doing And is there an alignment or a misalignment with those two things? I guess we'll get your comment first, Dr. Mohamed Yeah, so interestingly, as we look at the breadth of job responsibilities and tasks I think a lot of us know anecdotally that Imams are asked to do a lot of things And broader than Imams, religious leaders in general And as you look at the study, you know, those tasks go well beyond teaching, preaching, issuing religious rulings to other needs of the community, spanning counseling, administration, outreach, endowal work, youth work, answering questions And of course, religious practice, prayer, taking care of funerals, marriages, and so on It is in and of itself a very broad role And an element of that is representative of the breadth of what our communities need And what our dean addresses in its comprehensiveness A challenging finding, though, of the report is that we find that religious leaders are frequently Asked to serve in areas that are stretched beyond their capacity Both in terms of time and in terms of the areas they feel most competent I put this in a light-hearted way in an anecdote of one Extraordinarily senior, PhD level, decades of experience Imam that was, you know, sharing why he did not apply to a particular Imam position And someone was asking him, you know, you're super qualified, why don't you apply to this?
And the person shared, you know, that job description is not looking for an Imam They are searching for a prophet, right? Speaking about how broad and overwhelming those demands are And so, you know, a big theme throughout our report is that we really Want to encourage our listeners today and those that they impact That we really believe that everyone has a piece of this pie Can help move these centers and the religious leaders closer to our ideal Some of our listeners may be in the position where they can think, scrutinize, advise Those job descriptions, think about how to staff And, you know, we're happy to engage in discussions to support that as well But even much more granular and on the ground Sometimes when you see a person, an Imam a little or a little bit distracted perhaps After a prayer service or you see one of our women leaders coming out of the office And perhaps looking away or a little bit It may be something that they're carrying That they're not even able to share with their own families It may be a very sensitive counseling situation It may be stepping away from a funeral service Where they had to be very present for that loss That's only going to occur once for that family And, you know, the smallest things about just knowing Well, maybe just advising, helping that person Maybe get a little bit of airspace Or maybe that's not the best time to debate Whether the hadith that was used in last lecture was daif or not Those little things really make differences in people's lives And remind us that religious leaders and community servants Overall are human beings, right They are human beings and we're all responsible for taking care of them
And their families so that they can serve And give our communities their very best for a long time No, so many crucial points, subhanAllah And I think one point I know Myself and a bunch of colleagues We actually humorously save to our phones All of these sort of exaggerated job descriptions That, you know, mashallah, tabarakallah They involve sort of everything under the sun That you could possibly imagine And some of those tasks, like you said I mean, the nature of religious leadership is that it's quite broad But some of those tasks are even outside of that Such as, I know imams that make their own flyers for events I know imams that do administrative tasks Or, you know, they hunt and peck on a computer Things that could be easily handed off to somebody else So an implication I feel of what you're saying is that You know, if you're in a community And I have seen communities like this Where the volunteer engagement and the support level is so high That you've got other people that are actively looking for What tasks can they take off of the imam's hands Or the religious leader's hands That really can free him up And I think that's sort of the perspective here To free him up to focus on what he's really qualified to do That nobody else can do Dr. Osman, I really want to get There's a section within this section Specifically about counseling You mentioned counseling It's a hot topic among imams and colleagues And masjid goers in general Is counseling something that a lot of imams are doing? Is it something that imams are sort of Find themselves doing anyway Without any sort of qualifications? What did you sort of find there? Yeah, exactly So it's a strange North American phenomena It seems like Because when you go to any of the Middle Eastern countries And universities There's nothing about counseling No one goes ever I don't know if you ever went to Medina and the masjid And asked the shaykh for some, you know How to help with your marriage or raising your kids, right? But the vast majority of religious scholars
In all capacities Not just imams Are asked to counsel Frequently, it's putting it lightly I mean, it's almost like 24-7 A very small percentage that they don't counsel Who set really hard limits But what was fascinating Was of all the tasks that imams reported doing From administrative tasks To youth work To speaking To teaching To whatever it might be The task that they actually enjoyed the least And felt the least skilled at was counseling Both marriage counseling And mental health counseling So it's a strange mismatch of something Which is a high-demand skill And one that they don't want to do And don't feel very good at doing So that's kind of a recipe, right? For a lot of problems Shout out We have some wonderful other imams Who are doing work in this space You know, Dr. Muhammad Izz, right? One of those who's written his entire dissertation On this topic of imams and counseling Dr. Omar Hussain Who's been doing this work But the point I want to make with this is that The imam becomes a trusted figure every year Or the scholar That he's in a community So when you're an imam I remember the first day I was an imam No one comes with their life problems to me But after the first month And they get to know you Some families come Six months later More families come A year later The whole community is at your door And it's 24-7 they report It's 10 o'clock at night It's 5 in the morning It's 2 in the morning So that also bleeds into irregularity of schedules And some of the issues that Dr. Muhammad's pointed out Yeah, that was going to be my next question, right? So then, you know, work-life balance Has to be extremely difficult Workload, managing workload Has to be extremely difficult Dr. Muhammad, what did the data sort of suggest When it came to workload And that sort of balance? Dr. Omar Hussain So the data really showed us a spectrum In terms of the volume of work And in terms of the impact of that volume So a number of imams These duties are vastly overstretching them And I should say religious leaders
Imams and the other job titles That Dr. Othman mentioned earlier And others are at a full-time capacity Or even lower, right? And so there's a spectrum there But a challenge is that The irregularity of the schedule Even for those that have a little better situation In terms of the volume of work Is a consistent stressor Not only on the religious leader themselves But on the family as well And we explore both of those In different chapters of the report The irregularity of the schedule Is not something that we suggest Is entirely avoidable in all of these roles Some of these roles are not traditional nine-to-five roles And our findings are that The religious leaders that step into that Are understanding and willing to work with that Where it becomes difficult to navigate Is, for example, those that are working seven days a week Or those that are consistently working Always when people are off And so they essentially never intersect Or infrequently intersect, I should say With their children or their spouses Most of whom tend to be associated with schools Or other things that are going through A traditional kind of Monday through Friday Nine-to-five type schedule So that's something where Not only support with the types of tasks Ememtam, that you mentioned To offload the volume of the work But a special attention to the scheduling To make sure that at least a day is blocked off And to really scrutinize the schedule To look for those times that Children or family are traditionally available To ensure that something that works For that family unit is available
And make sure that that father or mother is present For that important and for us That Islamic duty and obligation as well Well, since we've already gone there Let's go there with the family life And it's an entire section of the report, Dr. Sman What are the family lives of religious leaders like? Are they falling apart? Are they holding on? What is it like? Hamdulillah, this chapter actually was In some ways a breath of fresh air Keeping in mind some of the challenges we've spoken about The irregularity of schedules Some of the burnout they're facing Just to give you like an idea Like half of them take one day off a week 15% take no days off a week Actually, the vast majority About 70% of our imams were in like decent Like they were satisfied in their marriages So that was a really, really big thing Unfortunately, a quarter of them Which is actually not trivial One in four reported being in kind of Dissatisfying marriages And a lot of that was correlated with things at work Not all of it, right? But what part of it was So, oh, I think we're pulling this up here So yeah, we got some nice data There we go Yeah, so 85% of them are married But like I said, so those who are married Imams have a lot of kids So that was one actually fascinating finding That I think about a third of them Have four kids or more So Hamdulillah, they're in Generally good marriages But there's a lot of stress and pressure, right? On their spouses And that goes both ways So whether it's a female scholar, right? And her husband, right? Or an imam, right? And his wife They are bearing a lot of burden And just I really want to just put a shout out To like the wives of imams and scholars Are incredibly patient In putting up with a lot of the challenges That the communities put forth That almost like they're the last one To get time from the scholar Because everyone else is stealing that time Because when he's off of work It's like eight o'clock emergency Ten o'clock emergency Saturday emergency Sunday emergency, right? So Hamdulillah, the marital lives were okay But there's a lot of stressors That communities need to be aware of
And trying to do their best to be supportive And recognizing that they're not married to the masjid They're married to actually their spouses, right? Mashallah So Dr. Muhammad, how that translate into Mental health and well-being What did you find for religious leaders? So this chapter shares with us You know, some positive elements And some elements for further attention and concern On one hand, a number of religious leaders Have mechanisms for coping with the stress And are connected with good support networks Such as mentorship in the career Or advice in their personal lives But a significant number of religious leaders Meet the criteria that would, you know, indicate screening The screening criteria for potentially suffering From mental health issues Such as anxiety, or stress, or depression And stress is the main contributor to these challenges But we've spoken about several others as well From the irregularity of the work schedule To workload, to other things To other potential contributors That are causing mental health challenges And burnout, right? Which is ultimately a major contributor In fact, many imams anecdotally reported As the number one contributor Perhaps to the revolving door of talent That many of us have sadly experienced In Islamic institutions in North America With the loss of this talent Something that we speak about in the study Is referring to other professions That deal with so-called helping professions Where they're helping others, serving others Even sometimes in very high stress Or emergency situations Such as law enforcement, counseling professions Or medical and care professions
And a study there on burnout Has really shown a correlation Between effective support systems And better retention of these professionals And we really wanted to lift that up Again, lifting it up in a way That everybody has a piece of that pie So for those that are specialists Or decision makers, or policy makers, or board members You know, something we suggest in the report Is really thinking about this And thinking about how to actively create And support mechanisms to promote the well-being And keep an eye on these religious leaders In a very professional sense That respects their personal boundaries But helps combat burnout And combat the mental health issues in the profession And I know this is a difficult topic It's not easy for us to admit That a segment of religious leaders Are suffering from those mental health issues But we really made it a point in the report That it was important to name that First of all, so that those that are struggling Know that they are not struggling alone And that they do not need to struggle alone And those that want to lift The baseline of this profession Start to connect with those mechanisms That help promote that quality in these families And again, everybody has a piece of that pie So even if that's not my lane What I recognize, as Dr. Rothman said That the contract is not with the religious leader's family That they're not married to the institution And I'm in a position where I'm able to just Give a religious leader's child a social opportunity Or just have dinner without talking about The work aspect, if you will At every weekend and evening and so on That we suggest in this report
Is a step towards the promotion of best practices in this field And the betterment of mental health and burnout prevention That's very profound And I would imagine from my experience And my sort of network that Religious leaders are not going to Well, let's put it this way Religious leaders are probably going to blame themselves first And not necessarily recognize That they have mental health consequences Maybe they would But I feel like there would be also a lot of religious guilt Sort of associated with Oh, am I falling short in my duty? This is my community This is my mischief I have to, you know, take up the mantle myself And I have to be everything for everybody And if not, maybe I'm in it for the wrong reasons Or maybe, you know, I'm just not cut out for this Or this sort of thing Is that something that you feel like I'm not sure if that was outside of the scope of your report But was that something that came up in your conversation with religious leaders? Yeah, absolutely I mean, this came up both in the data and in conversation So in the data that shows up in, for instance Imams admitting that they don't take a lot of time off And so they just skip their days off Because the community keeps needing them It also showed up in them admitting They don't take time out for their physical health Or for their emotional well-being A large number of them I remember distinctly like learning from one imam years ago He said, look, I don't care what's happening in the world He's like, I do community volleyball from this time to this time He's like, it's my one chance to escape and just relax And just to be like a guy in the community And the fact that many imams have not learned How to set those boundaries Is a problem that they need to learn But also the communities need to recognize The imam will almost never say no Because by nature, they want to always help And so they'll just ignore their own needs at times In the desire to give And then they're the ones who actually end up suffering because of it And then like Dr. Muhammad mentioned Then they want to leave And when they leave, everybody suffers the community rights
Well, that's the perfect transition to Looping back to chapter three, which is the satisfaction, right? How are religious leaders in our communities doing? Are they satisfied? Are they're leaving? What is sort of the data uncovered there, Dr. Muhammad? So it's an interesting and complex story You know, to give you an anecdote That was hard to reconcile with part of the data I remember a room in a large convention With hundreds of Muslim leaders convened And the question was asked How many of you would like for your child to serve as an imam? And not one imam in the room raised their hand Everyone that raised their hand Was not actively a religious leader in the profession On the other hand, our data showed That a huge proportion of our sample The religious leaders that we studied in this report Aspired and hoped for their children to serve in the position And we spent a long time exploring this But actually, I think the tension between those two stories Is very much the story of the job satisfaction, right? That this population remains positive Remains aspirational Knows that they're working a noble work And a number are satisfied and pleased To be able to be working there But that's not by any means 100% And even those that are satisfied Are struggling with very real issues And it may be that despite their satisfaction They may not be able to continue For factors outside of their control And many of them being avoidable factors Like finances or professional development Or boundaries or job duties Things that are solvable As opposed to unsolvable problems
That might force one from one's profession And so, again, that tension between those two stories For me was the theme of job satisfaction To really appreciate that despite all of these pressures It is not at all a doom and gloom scenario There's a lot of positivity in the community And in the religious leaders On the other hand, it is important to name That there is an urgency and importance to this work That without substantive change In the profession If we care about these institutions Care about religious leadership And care about the outcomes that we want That Despite this satisfaction That there are a number of people That are very much considering leaving the profession And others that will, quite frankly, be forced to by these factors Without changes for us to promote the retention of talent And the increase in capacity and desired outcomes of our Islamic institutions So, Dr. Osman, how much of the job satisfaction Or lack thereof Or the reason for, you know, the revolving door Is compensation? I know that was one chapter that we haven't touched. What does compensation look like for religious leaders? Is it where it should be? Yeah, that might be one of the most sobering chapters of the report. So, there was a number of factors that actually led to their frustrations But definitely one of them was a feeling of not being able to make ends meet So, about half of the imams reported either not just barely making ends meet or not making enough to make ends meet And they would report things like they would take a loan from their wife regularly in order to pay the bills And by the way, one of the things that came out was it's not just about salary It was actually about the entire package they were getting So, when you think about income, right, the median income was around 60 to 70k in the U.S.
But, again, that's a median, which doesn't make a lot of sense because if you're in California, that's kind of like below poverty If you're in another part, that might be good So, I really want to focus more on... Perfect, glad you guys pulled this up Like, this was shocking to me. Half of the religious scholars in North America are either broke or have less than $5,000 of savings And just in my own head, I was thinking about this. Well, the Nisab to give zakah is actually more than that So, in many cases, a lot of our religious scholars who are highly educated and talented professionals are actually eligible for zakah, which is actually shocking And if you look at this, I mean, for anyone who's a professional in the IT world or any other world where you have 401ks and you have retirement plans, this is abysmal And shockingly, this didn't matter how old you were. It didn't matter how educated you were These are just... I mean, you can see it. I think if we just stopped here and stared at it, it's probably going to make people cry So, savings is a huge part of it. But then even if you move on to health insurance, talk about retirement accounts Again, the vast majority, two-thirds of them don't have health insurance About 60% or so don't have... There you go. So, that's number 65% don't have any health insurance at all And they rely upon things like a doctor in the community to volunteer and step up if their kids get sick or something else They don't have retirement accounts So, a lot of them, even though they love their job, if you're a 30-year-old imam or a 40-year-old imam and you're thinking about, one day I got to leave this profession, you realize there's no path to leaving And so, that's one of the reasons why people will jump out of the profession or, on the flip side, actually never leave the profession when they need to be able to retire with dignity So, we got problems on both sides of this equation Very fascinating. Dr. Muhammad, I'd also like your comments to this particular section because it seems like there's a lot there Yeah, there's a lot to unpack here And let me comment also that we're sensitive to two realities
Number one, that the financial struggles highlighted in this study are not unique to religious leaders We do recognize that many other workers and professionals and families are struggling with the very real economic inequalities and wage issues and so on in North America and beyond And secondly, just recognizing our place in the ummah, we do recognize that North American imams tend to be paid better than several reported studies of imams in other Muslim minority countries and in many Muslim majority countries as well So, we recognize those realities Saying that, still in this very sobering chapter, had to really, you know, it is an emotional topic, but to look at the data and try to tease out how to improve this Because essentially we do not want religious leadership in our ummah, the compensation, to be a race to the bottom Our focus is on North America, but inciting other Muslim minority populations like the United Kingdom and South Africa, there is existing work that is showing an even greater struggle at retaining religious leadership So that's not good there, and that's not good here Secondly, it is inconvenient but important to name that in North America overall, while recognizing that individual communities may differ, the compensation is not based on an inability to pay This may be true in an individual community or in a particular neighborhood, and we're sensitive to that, but demographically, it is not based on an inability to pay It is structural, and it is therefore a decision that the Muslim community has agency on
When you look at these sobering statistics and recognizing that the average North American religious leader, again, has less than $5,000 in savings, does not have health insurance Coupled with the fact that the average person is married, the spouse does not work, with approximately three children, well regardless of what job profession that person has, those numbers in North America lead to only one conclusion That person will have to leave that profession if they have a choice Those numbers in the overwhelming number, you know, in the places where most Muslims live in the United States do not formulate a living wage, and certainly add more pressures as, for example, children grow, educational needs, and then ultimately looking towards retiring with dignity So this is a difficult topic, but it's an important one, and at the end, the variables as they are overall really don't serve the desired outcomes of anyone That's not going to bring the institutions and the Muslim families the type of talent retention that can deal with these complex problems Imam Tom, the type of very real challenges that you bring us together as a community for in this space, let me tell you, the folks on the other side, the morally ungrounded evil people trying to make a living off of demonizing Islam and Muslims, those people are not working on their spare time And they're not making pennies, and they're not unfocused in their evil approach. Therefore, it is unlikely, as I said, that they can be countered without focused, talented, and well-organized efforts, you know, within our legal rights and means
And so, you know, in our implications, we really try to explore a lot of different angles on this, so that although it's an overwhelming systemic issue, we really encourage people to think about how they can take one step with Ihsan towards improving this in their situation You know, if they can make a difference in an Imam's life, or talk to their local Masjid, or think, or consult, or, you know, even those that have specializations in things like health insurance, right, there are a lot of ways to move this one step closer to something sustainable where the best and brightest can keep serving our community for a long time to come Well said, and Subhanallah. We're over time for the segment, but honestly, it's very, very crucial that we talk about it, and truly, I think, an existential threat. I think, honestly, if you look long-term, you know, 10, 20, 30 years, and all of the issues that we face, I think that truly it is something that if we do not fix this in an organized and systemic and structural way, and fix it soon, that the viability, the viability of the Muslim community in North America is under threat. So I hope that everybody, I hope that Allah makes the study that you all did a means, first of all, for your salvation, the afterlife, and way in your good deeds, but also a rectification for us in this life, and a wake-up call, a wake-up call for people to take this seriously I would like to get to just a few questions. I know we're already over time. Angel asks, what attributes make a good leader in the Muslim community? We'll just, I guess, go back and forth, so let's say Dr. Usman
Okay, so from the study, there's a few things we can probably pull out. So number one is somebody who recognizes that the role of an imam is going to be much broader than the role of simply being a traditional scholar who's going to teach traditional Islam. So an imam who recognizes that he's a community leader, and that he has to serve and wear multiple caps, be able to get along with the youth, understand the issues of the youth, right, get along with elders from different backgrounds, different ethnicities, that's all a big part of the thing. Soft skills actually emerge quite a bit, right, so these, you know, public speaking skills, like, you know, communication skills. A lot of imams actually asked for, you know, in aspects of professional development, these are the things that they want to add, right, adding counseling skills, so on and so forth. So I don't know if there's an easy answer to this, but part of the dilemma of actually giving a formula is that because a job description is not uniform, it's very hard to say there's a uniform skill set to have. So in one masjid, you might need to have, you know, interfaith skills and, you know, all kinds of other technical skills. I mean, honestly, like, some masjids are like, hey, do you know Photoshop? Because we need you to make flyers, right? So it's like, hey, if that's a determinant, you know, most imams aren't going to do well. So I think to answer that question, we do need to, and I know Dr. Muhammad writes about this in detail, is begin to define what we mean by a religious leader or by an imam or by an executive director. More clarity on the job description allows us to get more clarity on the skills needed for that person to thrive. Excellent. Abdullah Abu Mahfouz asks, what are the pitfalls in supporting our religious leaders that Christians in the West have made that we need to avoid? Dr. Muhammad, do you have any thoughts of that?
Yes, that's an intricate question. Certainly, the organization of Muslim spaces and Islamic institutions in the West is organizationally different than most Muslim majority countries, in the sense that considerations like separation of church and state in America or the organization of nonprofits is different than the space in which many Islamic institutions have thrived or otherwise in al-Qa'if and other ways. So we have a lot to learn from how religious groups, including Christians in the West, have organized their nonprofits and their religious organizations while retaining our own values and our own authentic Islamic understandings. Muslim organizations tend to not be as similar to the hierarchical Christian denominations, wherein clergy are endowed with a special status or a special decision-making religious authority in that sense. However, a number of Islamic organizations have perhaps gone to an opposite extreme of somewhat corporatizing decision-making and taking away a religious element of how decisions are approached. So something that can actually balance is something we can learn to avoid some of those pitfalls, among other lessons, is coupling with what Dr. Othmane said, is having a very diverse organizational body where power is not endowed only in one locus or only in one center, but that religious leadership carries an important responsibilities and empowered to lead religiously.
Some organizations among Christians and others went to one extreme or another, and Muslims are mirroring this in parts of the United States, in stripping and kind of more commoditizing or making kind of too corporate our religious organizations or going to the extreme of essentially giving unchecked and unlimited power, financially or otherwise, to religious leaders. And there's a beautiful opportunities for Muslims to learn and to really embrace our religious values and finding that justly balance in the middle. Masha'Allah. Last question for Dr. Othmane, which is from Nusayba Qasim. She noticed that there are many Imams that are migrating to the southern states. She says, anecdotally, our Masjid has been without an Imam for almost two years. What can Northeastern communities do to keep their Imams? Is this something that you get into in the report? Any geography? Any trends? Honestly, no, we didn't unpack the geography of it. And since you're in the Northeast, maybe you can chime in as well. But what I'm going to speculate is that a lot of this, because I live in California, but we have the same issues as the Northeast in some ways, which is cost of living. So if you're an Imam that lives in Southern or Northern California, or you live in Boston, or you live in New York, or you live in some of these really expensive places, the message is pretty much, even if you take less salary in the Midwest or in another state, that's going to be more desirable for your family. And so that's one of the common trends that we do see is that Imams who are in these very affluent communities tend to leave because they can't afford the cost of living. And to add to that, Imams don't get a lot of raises. So even if you come in at a salary that at today, I can pay the rent, five years later, they're priced out, essentially. And so we see that a lot in the Northeast and in the West Coast.
I think another aspect of some of this is Imams often want to be where there are stronger communities. Sometimes in the South, sometimes they see strong communities, they want to raise their families in those communities as well. So it's kind of like this, the rich get richer effect. I know we see that phenomena in Dallas as an example, right? When people want to move to Dallas, because the Muslim community is strong there, and it gets stronger as more and more scholars move into those locales. So those are some of the reasons that I think we know anecdotally. But maybe you can add it and close us off with the Northeast, because it is particularly tricky, right? Yeah, I mean, I think that it could be also in addition to everything you said, which is very true. Everything you said, I'll add to that opportunities for their families. I literally just the last time I was in Dallas, ran into an Imam from a certain Northeast city, I don't want to out him, who was there sort of incognito, and I recognized him. And he was scoping it out for his kids, his kids are grown, they need to be put in school. He felt disrespected and poorly compensated at the institution he was at. And so he was had his eye on the exit sign, as we say, and he was just arranging things down in Dallas. So that's definitely a real phenomenon. Excellent. Well, I very much appreciate both of you for your time and unpacking everything. Again, may Allah accept it from you both, and the rest of the researchers on the project. And we hope to see more of these reports. And we hope to also continue to tease out the consequences and implications of these reports. And we hope maybe above all that everybody watching would share it and tell somebody else about this report and the implications of these reports, so that we can step in and change things before it's too late. So thank you both again, may Allah bless you, and I look forward to talking with you soon. Thank you for having us. It was a pleasure. May Allah bless you all. Sorry.
May Allah bless you all. Now, there's a little bit of differentiation here because the obligation or the level of commitment that is expected when it comes to the masjid is different between men and women. Our sharia does recognize differentiation. It is gendered, right, in the sense that there are different expectations for men and women. And so the strict expectations about going to the masjid for prayer have more to do with men than they do with women. There's a heightened emphasis on attendance of the masjid for men, but obviously women can benefit from this as well. And in particular, the things that are mentioned in the book and that the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ sort of indicated with his prayers and his dhikr are things that you can apply anywhere.
So when it comes to the first thing that we'll talk about when it comes to heading to the masjid for fajr, one of the first things that we realize is the benefit of hearing the adhan, that sometimes we take the adhan as almost for granted, right? We maybe set it on our phones, and then the second that it rings, we silence it, right? And this is a shame. Or if we pray at home, and especially for the ladies who perhaps pray more at home than they do in the masjid, the prayer time comes in, but there is no adhan. Either there's no adhan on your phone, or there's no adhan in the house, or nobody makes it. And it is actually a recommended act to make the adhan anywhere you are when the prayer time comes in. So even if you're at home, making the adhan to announce that the prayer time has come in. And this comes back to mindfulness, a certain type of Islamic mindfulness where we are raising our level of consciousness and awareness of the Islamic days, the Islamic calendar, the Islamic hours, right? The way that we structure our time really affects the way that we live. And so if dhuhr happens to come in at 12.03, and you're doing lunch or whatever, and then you look at your clock, and then it's like, oh, it's 1.30, I guess I should pray. That's a lot different experience than, or it's a very different experience than when you know that dhuhr begins at a certain time, 12.03 or whatever, and then you have an alarm, you stop what you're doing, you make the adhan, or you have your son make the adhan, or you have somebody in your family make the adhan, and then you benefit from all of the religious acts that are tied to the adhan.
Okay, those are two completely different realities. So we've given homework before, and I think the homework and the challenge for this week is going to be to focus on the adhan in a very, very serious way. If you are entering into prayer times, and the adhan is not being heard by you, then find a way to hear the adhan more and more and more. We have a question here from Attica. I'm confused. If witr is the last prayer of the night, and we want to pray tahajjud, is it necessary to leave witr earlier part of the night? Normally I leave witr. I've been doing this for four years. From what I understand from your question, I'm not sure I understand it 100% right, is can you pray witr in the earlier part of the night, and then if you wake up for tahajjud, also pray tahajjud? The answer is yes, you can do that. If you're concerned that you are going to miss tahajjud. If you want to pray the witr after isha, you're going to make some raka'at, two, four, six, whatever, and then pray witr just to be safe. You don't want to miss it. And then you wake up, alhamdulillah, you happen to wake up for tahajjud in the last prayer of the night. Yes, you can pray tahajjud, but you should not pray witr. Pray a second witr, okay? I'll leave it at that. The fifth discussion gets a little bit more into it, but I'll leave it with that, and that's a very, very concrete thing you can benefit from. So hearing the event, okay? I want everybody in the next week that's coming up to try to develop a mechanism, make a plan that you're going to hear the event more than you have in the previous weeks, and that you're going to focus on the actual event and what it means, and how we're supposed to respond to the event. So there we go. The event is not just something that somebody made up after the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam passed away. It was something that was given to one of the companions in a dream, and the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam affirmed it. So this is part of revelation. So that means that the words of the event, the order, the sequence of the event is all part of revelation,
and that means that there are secrets, that there are actual tangible things that you are supposed to be thinking about, focusing on, meditating upon, right? And so when Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la revealed this thing, he also said that there is a way to respond to it, okay? And the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam gave us exactly what to do. He said that when you hear the event, you should respond in kind. That means that everything that you hear in the event, you should repeat back, Allahu Akbar, you say Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar, Ash-Sharu'an la ilaha illa Allah, Ash-Sharu'an la ilaha illa Allah, and so on and so forth. With the only exception being when the person who says the Adhan, either on your phone or in the masjid or a family member says, Hay ala al-salah, that the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam said, for us to say, la hawla wa la quwwata illa billah. Hay ala al-salah, la hawla wa la quwwata illa billah. Hay ala al-falah, la hawla wa la quwwata illa billah. Hay ala al-falah, la hawla wa la quwwata illa billah. If you do this, I promise you, you're going to become attached to the Adhan in a way you've never been attached before. And sometimes you will find people, and I know people, who actually will get choked up and shed tears and cry just from hearing the Adhan because they're paying attention to what it means, they're responding, and that response is preparing them to connect to their Lord, to connect to Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la in the actual prayer. So going and making sure that you benefit from this Adhan and responding to it, there is a statement from the companions that said that we used to listen to the Adhan as if we used to listen to the recitation of the Quran. Everybody asks all the time, how do I become more focused in prayer? And we've talked when it came to night prayers about part of the answer is in your wudu, well, now we've gotten another answer, part of the answer is in the Adhan as well,
and that you should be paying attention very, very carefully to the Adhan. Now, after the Adhan is completed, there are a couple of sunnah, there are a couple of things the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam did and encouraged to do that will also help you prepare for the prayer, lock yourself in, get focused, and soften your heart for having the best prayer possible. And one of them is the dhikr, a certain remembrance that the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam used to say after the Adhan was finished, okay? So he used to say something that's dhikr and then there's a du'a to make. And so we'll go over both of those and have a couple of reflections off it. Okay, one of the things is to, yes, here we go, we've got the studio up on the screen. To make the shahadah, ash'haru an la ilaha illallah wahdahu la sharika lah wa anna muhammadan abduhu rasuluh. Okay, that's something that we all know, the shahadah. Radheetu billahi rabban wa bi muhammadan rasulan wa bil islami deenan. Okay, this is something that if you know the dhikr of the morning and the evening, this is part of the dhikr of the morning of the evening. It's also something that is recommended to say after you hear every call to prayer, okay? And that means that we are pleased with Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la as our Lord and cherisher and sustainer. And we are pleased with Muhammad Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam as our messenger. And we are pleased with Islam as our path and as our way. Now, after this, okay, one of the other sunan and one of the things we'll leave off with, we get it up from the guys in the studio, is the dua that the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam would make and encouraged us to make after hearing the adhan. And this one is very, very famous and you probably see it on your apps for the prayer times. Allahumma rabba hadhihi al-da'wati al-taamma wa al-salaati al-qa'ima
aati muhammadan al-wasilata wal-fatila wa ba'athu maqaman mahmudan al-lazee wa'adta Okay. innaka la tukhlifu al-mi'ad According to some narrations, what does that mean? And obviously, if you don't know the Arabic, you can't say or speak Arabic or read Arabic, the most important thing is the meanings. That you can have a book, you can get a book, you can take a screenshot of what we have here, go back to the video once we publish it, take a screenshot, look at it on your phone, read the English and ponder the meanings. Focus on the meanings because this is actually supposed to loosen your heart from the chains of hardness and sort of rust that have built upon it. And it's something that is supposed to be the runway, the long runway, just like you, a plane needs a runway to take off and needs a runway to land. And if you want to have a good salah, if you want to have a good prayer, you need a runway up to the prayer and you need a runway coming down from the prayer, this wudu, the adhan, the du'a, the dhikr is all part of your runway. So we ask Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la and we address him as the Lord of this particular complete call or invitation, which is the adhan and the prayer, the established prayer. We ask Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la to give the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam the wasila wal fadila, the specific honor and means that Allah has given him, which refers to the shafa'ah, his intercession for us on the day of judgment, which means that the Prophet Muhammad Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam will intercede with Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la on our behalf to ask Allah to forgive us our sins, even the major sins. In a hadith where the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam said, inna shafa'ati la ahlika ba'r amin ummati, that my intercession is for even the major sinners or the major sinners among my ummah. We ask Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la to grant us that shafa'ah and that intercession from him and to give him the station that is praised that you promised him.
So that is the du'a. So we've got a lot of things to work on. We've got listening to the adhan. We've got repeating the words after the adhan. We've got the dhikr after the adhan and we've got the du'a after the adhan. So this week until next week, we're going to focus on the adhan. You and me, we're going to try to benefit more from the adhan and use it to ramp up our focus and our benefit from prayer. Next week, so this week, in order to accommodate the review of the study, we cut out a session, a section, sorry, or a segment of our normal program, which is going over a book. And that's because we're in between books right now. I'm going to tell you the book that we're going to start going over next week, insha'Allah Ta-A'la, that will take us up to Ramadan. And that is a book that I was recommended to read when I came back from Medina from a very famous sheikh and imam in the U.S. It's a book by John C. Maxwell called The 21, what is it? Irrefutable Laws of Leadership. Now I'll confess, we were talking about the imam report and we were talking about, we were talking about the soft skills that imams must develop. Well, when you study in Medina, you study in Egypt, you study in Mauritania or in Morocco or in Turkey, you don't learn how to lead. You don't learn how to lead people. You learn Quran, you learn Sunnah, you learn Fiqh, you learn Hadith, you learn all of these things, but you don't actually learn how to lead people. And so leadership was something that I didn't really have on my radar as something that should be studied and understood. And I don't necessarily even consider myself a very good leader to be frank, but I'm willing to learn. And if I can do it, then you can do it too. So we will together insha'Allah be going through this book starting next week. And we ask Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la to forgive us for our shortcomings and to reunite us in this life. And if not, then in the next, thank you everybody for your time and attention and wonderful participation. Until next time, As-Salaam Alaikum.
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