Imam Tom Live
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The Real Guise of 'Islamophobia' | Imam Tom Live
We delve into the fallout from the recent presidential debate, discussing its implications for the Muslim community. We also explore the complex dynamics of LGBT gatekeeping in Palestinian movements and the phenomenon of "Quranic Revisionism." Imam Tom reacts to viral clips, including Mark Ruffalo's tweets on Sharia Law and recent accusations of far-right activism within Palestinian support circles. Finally, we share practical advice on maintaining stamina in activism and the importance of small, consistent actions. Don’t miss our Q&A and personal development segments, where we link habits to identity through insights from the book "Atomic Habits" by James Clear.
Transcript
This transcript was auto-generated using AI and may contain misspellings. As-salamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh. Welcome back to Yaqeen Institute's live stream. I'm your host Imam Tom and I'm happy to have you with us tonight. As always we've got a jam-packed program. We got lots to talk about. Big stuff is going on both domestically and abroad throughout the Muslim ummah and a lot of intense conversations have been happening especially about political action, who our allies are, who they aren't. Gatekeeping, we've talked about it a bit last week. We've got more to talk about it today. We've got lots of other stuff we're going to be continuing with with our book Atomic Habits. We've also got the next hadith or the next chapter in Kitab al-Jihad otherwise known as Kitab al-Seer in Sahih Muslim and some very very interesting commentary by Imam al-Nawawi in his book. But first let's go to the chat if you are tuning in tell us where you are tuning in from. Let us know if you got anything on your mind or something that you'd like to talk about. Umm what the first person to say salam today. Epic, wa alaykum salam. I'm guessing you're not the masjid but your username is just epic. Welcome to the program. Justice from the USA, mashallah it's a big place I hear it's nice. Think, wa alaykum salam, rahmatullah. Thomas Shelby, wa alaykum salam, rahmatullah. Annette Morrison, wa alaykum salam. Allah is the greatest. I'm happy to hear that things are going for you. Ghazala Mamoon, wa alaykum salam, rahmatullah, from Canada. I like the Urdu script there. Tanveer Amir, wa alaykum salam, rahmatullah from New York. New York's in the house. Paul Reitz from Chicago. Ahlan wa sahlan. Shahnaz Ahmed from Florida. Wa alaykum salam, rahmatullah. Mrs. S from Virginia. Oh epic's coming in from Canada. So you can't be epic masjid if you're tuning in from Canada. Who else do we have? Fatima Ali, wa alaykum salam, rahmatullah from Warren, New Jersey. I am from New Jersey and I'm from the exact opposite corner of New Jersey that you're from. I'm from Camden County, New Jersey. A little town called Audubon. Audubon is in between Camden and Cherry Hill. Let's see Uzi Isak, wa alaykum salam. We have someone in there,
I can't really pronounce your username, from Portugal. Welcome, good to have you with us. Sara, also from I believe Canada. Wa alaykum salam, rahmatullah. Oh we've got, who is this? Zakiya Abdullah from Philly, the hometown. I like it. Welcome, welcome to the program from Philly. Philly is where I took my shahadah, not too close or excuse me, not too far away from home. I took my shahadah in West Philly, 44th and Walnut. Pestify, our good friend Pestify from the Maldives. Wa alaykum salam, welcome to the program. Fanny Garvey from San Diego, California. I was blessed, wa alaykum salam, to visit San Diego and it was wonderful. Very, very cool place. I hope to go back sometime. Who else we have? We have a Qadri in the house, wa alaykum salam, from SoCal if I'm not mistaken. Another one of our regular viewers, Khalid Nurzad from Virginia. I'm sorry, Muhammad Khalid from Virginia, wa alaykum salam, rahmatullah. Julian B from Urbana, Illinois. Saliha from Atlanta, wa alaykum salam, rahmatullah. It's been a minute since I've been in Atlanta but I had a very nice time there. I know some folks down there. Aftab from Calgary. MashaAllah, didn't have the opportunity to go to Calgary yet. One day, inshaAllah. Wa alaykum salam, Shatha from Pakistan. Oh, Sarah has a question already. What do you think about American Muslims working for the dismantling of American hegemony? That's all we do here. What do you think we do in America? Do you think it equates to the destruction of the American people? Absolutely not, of course. And that's a very, very important distinction between the two because honestly, it's in their best interest. Yeah, we're going to talk about that a little bit more in depth, Sarah. What's been going on in the political realm definitely brings to light some disturbing realities about the American political system and the cracks in the American political system. Obviously, we know that the hegemony and the foreign policy of the United States of America for a good long while has been very, very violent, especially towards the Muslim
world. So obviously, as American Muslims, I always say the most important thing that we could do as Muslims and American Muslims is to try to influence and shape and change the foreign policy of the United States. And that might look like something that has to do with reducing its hegemony, or as other people would say, getting it to pull out from different places and stop interfering and meddling in other countries affairs. Imagine that novel idea. But we'll get there. We have a lot to say about that today. Hey, Qadri, Mark Ruffalo comes up. Mark, how did you know? We're going to talk about Ruffalo. That's exactly one of the things. We're going to talk about both wings, both the left and the right, how they do help us, how they harm us, how they gatekeep us, how they silence us, and what the possibilities are. We will be talking about Ruffalo. And man, you really 100% nailed it. Uzi Isak from Sydney, down under. Crikey. Welcome to the program. I have not yet been to Australia, though I hear it's far away. Nancy Yahya, from Egypt. Welcome back to the program. I remember you from before, Sana from Massachusetts. We have Alman Salman. That's a very nice ring to it from Chicago. Kashmir M. Walaikum As-salamu alaykum wa-rahmatullahi wa-barakatuh. Almarie Altamiranus. Welcome. Washington State. Dana Doe. I was able to visit Washington State. Washington State is very, very, got a lot of natural beauty. MashaAllah, Tabaraka Allah. Casanova from Minnesota. It's not winter yet there. Muhammad Ahmed from Allen, Texas. Walaikum As-salamu alaykum wa-rahmatullah. Maysage. East Africa. Allahu Akbar. Maysage. Which country in East Africa? We want to know if it's okay to tell us. David Herring. Walaikum As-salamu alaykum from Sterling, Virginia. Good to see you here, David. Someone I know personally. Iraj from the Emirates.
Walaikum As-salamu alaykum wa-rahmatullah. Sana Siddiqui from Chicago. Welcome. Sara has a question. Do you think the term the West used in the context of criticizing Western elites is counterproductive as it ends up including everyday white Westerners? Not necessarily. It could be. There could be better terms for it. But I think that most people realize implicitly, if not explicitly, that when we talk about the West, we're talking about the governments and the elite, if not the values of the governments and the elite. So most people are intelligent enough to know that we're not meaning every single individual person that lives in the geographical West, right? There's sort of, it's a shorthand for the nations and the governments and the elite that are hegemonic in the world right now, which doesn't even include the everyday people of those nations. Free the World from Toronto. Walaikum As-salamu alaykum wa-rahmatullah. Sister Sahar. Welcome to the program. A Qadri's uncle used to live in Cherry Hill. Okay, very good. I was one of the first masajid I went to. GCLEA in Cherry Hill, New Jersey. Umar Ahmed from DFW. Walaikum As-salamu alaykum wa-rahmatullah. Adi from Iceland. Allahu Akbar. Walaikum As-salamu alaykum wa-rahmatullah. You are the first person I've ever seen on this program from Iceland. Sarah asks, man, Sarah, you've got the best question so far. You're winning the race. Is there a better term than using Islamophobia, like anti-Muslim or maybe discrimination or a better term than those? I completely agree. We have to find a better term. Islamophobia is not a very good term at all to use, in my opinion. It is maybe 10% or 20% good in that it does attract attention to people's feelings about Islam as opposed to racializing us, like some other terms attempt to turn us Muslims into a race, which isn't really descriptively 100% true, even if there's elements of truth to that. But by using the term phobia, we're basically
piggybacking, and I do mean to use the haram phrase there, off of the LGBTQ movement and basically just ripping their term. If you notice, when Zionists wanted to develop sympathy for their cause, they developed an entire new vocabulary. So words like anti-Semitism that did not exist before, words like Holocaust that did not exist before, they developed a new vocabulary to demonstrate the uniqueness of the oppression and suffering that they experienced. Terminology does do ideological work, and we would do well to rethink that term and to come up with a better one. Mila from Mexico, mehlo lindo y querido, bienvenido. Sajid Ghafoor, wa alaykum as-salaam, Dr. Sajid Ghafoor from Pakistan, very good, who we got. Lefty, wa alaykum as-salaam, wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh, from Bradford, West Yorkshire, UK. I have heard that Yorkshire is very beautiful. I have not unfortunately been there yet. I was in the UK in April, didn't get to Bradford, though next time, inshallah, it's on the list. Hafni Mukhtar from Jakarta, Indonesia, salamat datang, welcome. Wai Yasin from Chicago, welcome. Marie Altamiranos has a question, how do we find balance between deen and our career? You make your career in the service of your deen, that's the shortest way and the most efficient way. Now you just completely destroy the barrier between the two so that even your career, you're doing it for the sake of Allah, you behave as if Allah is watching you, which you know He is, in your job, you're not cutting corners, you're having ihsan towards your work, you're having ihsan and you're being a trustworthy person towards your co-workers and a reliable person to your boss. That is the quickest and easiest way to wrap it all into one. Wa alaykum as-salaam, the real empress, inshallah, from California. Faria Afreen, wa alaykum as-salaam,
from India, very very warm welcome to the program, wa alaykum as-salaam, Muraf Talab from Pakistan, Qaidsan. Sajid Ghafoor says Yaqeen is really doing an excellent excellent work in creating awareness about Islam and also teaching how to act on Islam exactly for getting success in dunya and akhira in janatal firdaus, inshallah. Thank you for the compliment, may Allah accept from us and forgive our shortcomings. We all fall short from what we want to do, but we hope that we're sincere enough that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala will do as he said in Surah Al-Furqan and other places in the Qur'an, that he will reward us according to the best of what we did and completely forgive and overlook our shortcomings. Dakhia Vasquez, wa alaykum as-salaam, Muraf Talab from Newark, New Jersey, very nice. You don't have to roll your eyes, I know Newark, Newark's fine, New Jersey, home team. Faria has a question, I would like to ask Shaykh, how to give dawah to the in-laws, oh that's a big question, who have deviated from the path and are indulged in bid'ah practices. Okay, so that's a very very very general question, this is a situation where you would want to approach a local mufti who knows your specific situation, what are these particular bid'ah, are you right, are you correct, they are actually bid'ah, how bad are the bid'ah, right, what's the sort of relationship that you already have with your in-laws, this is something that takes a lot of detail and nuance and someone who knows your individual situation, not someone that you're talking to online. Sajid, yes, we do stay in with Palestine all day, every day. Bread and Zaatar, wa alaykum as-salaam, awesome username from Illinois. May Sage from Uganda, very good, welcome, wa alaykum as-salaam, Muraf Talab. Hafni Mokhtar, the time has, the program's already started, Hafni, we're here, we started, this is part of it. Kashmir from West Philly, okay, wa alaykum as-salaam, very good, West Philly is very familiar to me. Sarah, by the way, some says, by the way, some Western Muslims would say a person is Khawarij if they want the downfall of U.S. hegemony, which is strange,
ah, you know, you'll find a person, you find people saying anything if you look hard enough. Masood John, wa alaykum as-salaam, Muraf Talab, citizen of Tajikistan, living in the United States, what do you say about Tajikistan where the population is 99% Muslim but the country recently banned the hijab and the beard? First of all, I'm glad that you mentioned this comment, this was really, really hard for us to hear, and when I was in Medina, living in Medina, I had classmates who were from Central Asia, from Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, so they told us the situations with under communism and then after communism and the different governments' reactions, some of them, unfortunately, what we've seen is the legacy of the war on terror across the world and part of it is at the behest of Zionists creating a situation in which Islam is criminalized across the world and governments in Central Asia and elsewhere have used the war on terror framing to call anybody who disagrees or anybody that they don't like a terrorist, that anybody who's just a little bit practicing Islam is an extremist or a fundamentalist and we'll talk about that later too because we have even leftist quote-unquote allies or leftist quote-unquote spokespeople, people calling us fundamentalists or Islamic fundamentalists apparently for saying that Palestine is an Islamic issue, we'll get to that, that this is a framing that was given to us by Zionists exported across the world with the United States foreign policy and now countries are opportunistically picking up on it and unfortunately this is something that Tajikistan and other countries have also picked up on and have used it against their own people which saddens us and makes us very very, you know, feel for them. Now the only silver lining is that they've tried this before everywhere across the world, they've tried this in Chechnya, they've tried this in Bosnia, they've tried this in Albania and even if
people had to teach Quran in basements or underground or bury their Qurans in the soil, Islam always wins and Islam always succeeds and Islam always prevails. So we know that this is a trial and a test from Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala but we believe that Allah will, his deen will prevail as he said in the Quran even if those who fight against Islam dislike it. So we're praying for you and we're hoping for patience for the people of Tajikistan and we're hoping for a change in their government either in attitude or in personnel or in structure so that Islam can be freely preached and practiced once again. May Allah aid you and give you success and victory. Sana Saeed asks if Biden steps down then who from Democrats is good for the Muslim world? The short answer is no one Sana, no one because the democratic party is pretty evil and very undemocratic. It will take a lot more, in fact, and we'll talk about this actually in just a minute, Biden is so bad that unfortunately people have asked him to step down not because of a genocide that he's committing but just because he can't do well in debates and he kind of forgets what he's saying halfway through a sentence which is a shame. It's actually a missed opportunity and his replacements probably won't be that much better or honestly it won't even affect our strategy that much. We have to make, we have to make genocide so unpopular politically and so costly politically that politicians will refuse a pack money just because they know that it's not going to get them anywhere but we're a long way from that day. May Allah hasten it. Vasquez says Mashallah love your show may Allah grant you and your family Jannah unquestioned. Allahumma ameen. Thank you very much and I ask Allah to grant the same to you. Aminu al-Ruzeir al-Tahir. Wa alaikum salam wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuhu. Noura Sahar from Pakistan. Welcome. Zal Arts. Wa alaikum salam. Faria. We stand with Palestine.
That's right. All day every day. Khadija Iman. Wa alaikum salam. Cute kitten 12. What was hate on Jewish people called before antisemitism? I don't know. Probably just bigotry. Prejudice. The other sort of general words that everybody else uses to describe uh demonstrate you know prejudice against them or maybe racism right. These are very general terms and they're valid terms and they describe something in reality. There was no very specific word that just applied to them before they kind of came up with that lingo. Zal Arts question. What would you tell someone having the interest in studying at Harvard or Oxford? I would say be careful that you don't end up a non-Muslim on your way out. Casanova. Wa alaikum salam from Minnesota. I'm guessing perhaps the Twin Cities. Casanova. Welcome. Sada says do you think it's being too naive to think that the Muslim leaders actually are working the long game? Yes that's naive. I don't even have to read the last of the question. The Arab the Arab leaders and most of the leaders across the Muslim world are installed by the western hegemonic powers. That they are garrison states. That they are running interference. They are the cutting edge of western imperial policy and foreign policy and that's just facts. Anybody who thinks that CC or MBS or MBZ is playing 5D chess or something like that I don't really know what to tell you. Now strategically okay talking about criticizing them etc. I'm more interested in what can we do. I think criticism has a part because we need to diagnose what is wrong but we can get carried away with just criticism to the point where it actually just becomes venting and when you're just venting then you stop thinking about doing right. We need to make sure that our criticism gets converted into doing and seeing what we can do. Shiraz from Trinidad and Tobago. Khadija from Lillington North Carolina. Welcome.
Shahla is 100% right. The more they spread hatred against Islam the more Islam spreads. May Allah strengthen your mission. Amin. Spreading awareness. Amin. Very good. Tharia says being minorities in India how can we support Palestine? Although we do our best to boycott Israeli products what else can we do? Yeah that's a long discussion but the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam said whatever you can change with your hand then change it with your hand and if you can't then speak out and if you can't speak out then at least hate it and that's the weakest that you can do. Addy what is your opinion on mosques in the west accepting funding from foreign governments? It depends if there's strings attached or not. If it's a one-time gift foreign governments saying here we just want a mosque to be built so that you can have this mosque and worship in it and there's no strings attached to it that's a very different situation than if they're saying well we're going to appoint your imam and we're going to tell you what to say on Fridays and we're going to you know check up on you. Like those are two very different situations. Noor As-Sahar wa alaikum salam wa rahmatullah. Amin from Nigeria. Wa alaikum salam wa rahmatullah. Noor As-Sahar alhamdulillah. I'm glad that you find it helpful. I'm sure may Allah accept it from us. Sada mentions the niqab ban in Dagestan which is a really good point Sada about how the co-optation of Islam is sometimes just as dangerous as the outright banning of Islam like in Tajikistan. So we have other countries that have controlled Islam and put up puppet leaders or the leaders that are amenable to them and now they're passing all of these sorts of fatwas and rules and saying that the niqab is a sign of extremism which it's not. Our sister, our mother, mother of the faithful Aisha radiAllahu anha wore the niqab. We know that the women, the wives of the Prophet alayhi salatu as-salam wore niqab so it's not some sort of recent thing. This is propaganda. You ask anybody from Bosnia go back a hundred years to the 1920s the 1910s and their women were wearing niqab before
any salafi dawah, before any oil money, right? These are lies that people have invented the communists and the secularists have invented to make you believe that being a conservative normal Muslim is somehow a bad thing to do. Okay, oh Mohammed Ahmed asks this is a great string of questions everybody. I just want to say that when school comes back how should college students protest and what should they do differently? First of all we need to make sure there are tactics and strategies are actually going to get real change. That's something that we should learn from the first round of student encampments. We need to make sure that we are creating leverage and that includes organizing alumni and retracting donations right if needed which is almost always needed and sort of coordinating with all these parts. Don't think that just an encampment is going to get your way. We need to be working on the alumni, we need to be working on the faculty and the staff, we need to be working on and the encampments themselves. The second time around the encampments themselves should be, my opinion, you know this from reading my blog pieces on Yaqeen Institute, run and organized primarily by Muslims in a more Islamic environment than the previous ones. That this actually became a liability not everywhere, the encampments were very different but it became somewhat of a liability for some of the encampments to provide a very easy pretext for for pushing them aside. We'll talk about that in a sec. Kashmir, we're in Allentown, Pennsylvania. So we're right up the road from you. May Allah accept for you, let's see. David Herring, what is the best way to keep elementary school children informed about the realities of the world while protecting them from excessive exposure to distressing information? That's a great question, David. You're going to have to package things in an age appropriate way, right? You don't want to be showing primary source material where there's live streams and you see very gory stuff, right? That stuff is not necessarily what children should be seeing if it's possible to avoid. But to understand, and even like at different mosques
we've done letter writing where we've sent letters to Gaza or we have had special prayers or even in the house you're gathering together and praying for Gaza, gathering together to make a donation, give your child the money to donate for Gaza. So that these sorts of things are always on the mind. Those are just a couple off the top of the head ideas. Yes, Shahla says even in Pakistan, Karachi was declined teaching jobs and hijab in a few schools. Yes, unfortunately, this is a common thing where many of the Muslim majority nations are now adopting the vile practices of the secular West when it comes to this sort of thing. Samira asks a question, a nice spicy question is women's financial independence in a marriage discouraged? Isn't it easier to spend your own money before going through the bureaucracy of explanations with the men in the family? Very little question, we don't necessarily have the time to get into the weeds on that for this particular program. I would say it's more complicated than that, than the way that you framed it. And I'll say this, the West teaches us that independence is an inherent good, okay? And Islam teaches us that some types of dependence are actually very good. And just because the fact that some people abuse that dependency and authority does not mean that dependency and authority is bad, right? We rather need the moral uplifting of everybody in our communities. Now that's a general thing and I'm not gonna give a situation and I never, ever, ever give specific fatwa for individual situations because anybody who knows anything about fiqh knows that the definition of a fatwa is a non-binding religious opinion that changes from place to place and time to time. And that's why you need someone local who knows your situation because there might be specific extenuating circumstances in your particular case that would change the default ruling. Tennis cat from the Bay Area, wa alaykum as-salam. Exactly Iraj, Palestinians are Semitic too. So notice how when they came up with the term anti-Semite they had no intention of including Arab Palestinians in with that. That's exactly what we call an ideological term.
Bina, what do you do in a situation? My daughter married a convert, but it's almost two years. My in-law doesn't seem to be interested in learning or practicing Islam as should be. Yeah, I mean, that's a very typical situation especially dealing with convert families. Everybody's different. People are motivated by different things. Some people are motivated by study. Some people are motivated by just emotions or relations or a social aspect, right? So it's not a one size all fits thing. Dawa is very sort of idiosyncratic to the people that you're talking about. At the end of the day, you do your best, and you turn over the results to Allah. Okay, part of me is wanting to get on but we got such good questions. Kashmir M asks a nice loaded question. Let's just bring all the spicy questions up front. Let's just do it. Kashmir says, Imam, can trans people be good Muslims too? If you mean somebody who got a sex change and then they saw the error of their ways and they repented but now they can't do anything about it and they convert to Islam, then yes. But if we're talking about someone who insists upon that ideology, that radical deviant gender ideology and says that I feel like I'm really a woman and I should change my sexual organs in order to match my sort of internal gender, then no. Then that is something that is at odds with divine guidance, with the Sunnah of the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, with the Quran. And so that would disqualify someone from being a good Muslim, though, obviously. When it comes to obedience of Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la, there's many things that you can be doing right. There's many things that you could be doing wrong. We're not saying, and I'm bringing this up because a common retort, especially when we get into hijab and things like that, is that, well, there might be some people that are sinning in one way but are better than other people in another way. Yes, that's true. And Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la said that he would forgive possibly everything except shirk, right, and everything that's repented from. So yes, Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la has the ability, he's declared for himself the ability
to forgive anything other than shirk, meaning if someone dies as a Muslim, right, and they were confused or whatever, or they had trauma and they didn't understand, and then Allah is Ghafoor Rahim. We're not going to say where anybody's at in the afterlife. However, somebody who is living with dislike and actually doesn't like the guidance that Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la sent or the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam sent, then that is a dangerous, dangerous situation to be in. And we ask Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la for safety from that situation, that from us and our families. Ghazala hits it on the head. It is painful to see Muslims are fighting each other and favoring enemies. Favoring enemies is definitely a huge problem that we have. Nazia Riaz, how do you survive in a household where your mom and dad aren't Muslim and are only Muslim in the house and no family in this country? Yeah, I mean, I've been there. I've been there. You hold on and you plan for better, right? You hold on and you plan for better. Always have an escape plan or an exit strategy. Know what your next move is, right? Your goal is to just do better and better and better. Sometimes you can't skip to best right away. Sometimes you have to go from where you're at to what's the next step better. Let's see. Okay, Shahla giving us more detail on the hijab and attitudes against the hijab within Pakistan. That's sad to hear, but not surprising. Sarita Oficial, I'm a student and I want a success both in my dunya and akhira. What are your best advice for it? Be sincere. Be sincere and be ready to sacrifice for Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la according to your principles. Allah will never let you fail. What you can do, Mrs. S, if your family believes we can't do anything until the Mahdi comes. Well, tell them to read the Quran and the Sunnah because the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam says to act, right? And Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la tells us to act and to get busy. I'm in the army. I'm in the army. Sara says University of Toronto took the case of student encampments to court and unfortunately they won.
So today the students are leaving after 63 days. That's sad to hear, but again, not surprising. Walaikum Salam, Casanova. Can you explain what secularism is and what's an example of it? Check out my material on blogging theology and Muhammad Jalal's Thinking Muslim podcast where I have hours and hours and hours of material on secularism, what it is, what it's not. Let's see. Walaikum Salam. Keandra Brown. My husband recites very quietly when we pray together to the point where I cannot hear him during loud prayers. I've spoken to him about it and no change. That's a very specific question and situation. I don't know. Why won't he change? That's what we would have to know. Again, specific situations. You should talk to your local mufti or local scholar. They will know your other situation, your situation better. Okay, Amin Amin. Very good. May Sage talking to us about Tajikistan ban. If hijab is banned in one's country and say, I live alone, I think you mean to say, I have to work, otherwise I'll starve. I can't rely on anyone but myself. Should I take it off? If it's a life and death situation, then yes. Eating pork is permissible in a life and death situation, but the key is to make sure that it's an actual, actual life and death situation. And again, we say, have an exit strategy. If there's a place where you have to make Hidra, where you're running from a bad situation where you can't practice your faith to a situation where you can practice your faith, then you need to start taking the means to do that. How many people did I meet from Turkey who came to the United States during the period when the hijab was banned, right? And then went back to Turkey after the AK Party came into power and it got a little bit easier for them. And just as I say that, Jinnan Ouzjan, wa'alaikum as-salam wa-rahmatullahi wa-barakatuh from Turkey, hoş geldiniz. Sara says, anti-immigration sentiment is growing in Europe and the West. How do we as Muslims deal with this? Because some Muslims agree with it as well, though more towards Hindus because yeah, that's a very, very, that takes a lot of nuance, Sara. I'm gonna pass on that one,
just because Europe and the US are very different scenarios, first of all. In the way in which it affects Muslims. Because in the US, the immigration issue versus the Islamophobia, quote unquote, issue are more separate than they are from in the UK and in Europe. Whereas in Europe, they're all wrapped into one in a very, very intense way. Mohammed Khadid, yes, OIC is shamefully so silent and indifferent because that's what they were put there to do. Abdi, in order to grow the Muslim community, should the focus on Dawah to disbelieving locals or advocating for more acceptance of migrants or refugees, perhaps a bit of both. Yeah, always both, not either or. What if being trans is to help your PDS? I'm not sure what PDS means. Zeeshan, walaikum salam, Rafatullah Rukati from Maryland. Negative thoughts out of your head. Dhikr, dhikr in Quran. I know that's a stock answer, but it's true. We're getting close to the end of the questions. Then once we hit the end, I see Lisa Morel, you're the last question, and then we're gonna skip to our next segment. Though this has been great. Thank you for all the questions and keep them coming. We'll circle back to them through the rest of the program. Saadi K, is it okay to work in a Western bank supporting their digital banking, et cetera, in the head office or any role? Listen, when it comes to jobs and working careers, always think good, better, best. Whatever situation you're in, you want to make moves so that you're going to be in a better situation because many things in the West have haram attached to them. Oftentimes, it's not practical to just cut it off cold turkey, right? But if there becomes an opportunity for you to get in a better situation, where an employment or a job, where Allah will be more pleased with what you're doing, then you should take that. And that's all I'm gonna say. When it comes to your specific situation, you should ask a local mufti or a local scholar because they will know the context of your situation best. Yes, Ekalji, their mugs are nice. I got that, definitely.
Lisa Morel or Morelle, depending on where you're from. As-salamu alaykum wa rahmatullah. Yes, it does appear that the far right will win in France in a couple of days. And that is very concerning. I'm sorry, may Allah make it easy for you. As we've said, it might take a little bit, it might be hard up front, but every time they attack Islam, Islam becomes stronger, especially in a place like France. But it's very, very intense in France. May Allah make it easy for you and allow Islam and the Muslims to be victorious. Okay, transitioning now. We'll get back to more questions. I'm not gonna forget about them, inshallah. But we do have a lot to talk about. We're gonna talk about current events. First of all, let's get it up. One of the main things that went on this week, actually exactly a day after our previous program, was the first presidential debate. And boy, oh boy, was it a disaster. A disaster, especially for Biden, but for both of them, honestly. Most people that were watching it were reflecting on how just, how did we get here? Where these two low lives, we have a geriatric genocider on one side, and then we have a convicted felon on the other side, are the only two options that we have for being the president. And this ties back to the question that one of you all put in the beginning of the program, that it shows how you can call yourself a democracy, you can call yourself this, you can call yourself that. But the reality is that the United States political situation is very, very, very far away from the desires of the everyday person. That if you look at how the Democratic Party has basically has no, doesn't even care about the will of the people, right? When the people are saying, we don't want any more genocide support, stop the genocide, stop support of Israel, stop sending bombs, stop sending bullets, we don't want our tax money to go towards this. And the Democratic Party is like, nah, we're gonna go with Biden. Yeah, we're gonna go with Biden. And whoever else they get to replace him will probably honestly have the same politics.
That shows a, and the fact that nobody other than these two parties can get on the presidential ballot, they're actually suing, the Democratic Party is actually suing the Green Party and I believe other non, the other parties outside of the two party system for certain things in North Carolina and different states to tie them down in lawsuits so that they can't even get on the ballots so that American people cannot have any choice except for these two individuals. Now, the situation was so bad for Biden that now many people that are Democrats and even the mainstream media, which you know it's bad if the mainstream media is panicking are panicking, they're finally realized what some of us have been telling them from the beginning that Biden should step down, that Biden should not run, that Democrats are going to lose and they're going to lose bad and that's just a forecast probably, if they keep on assuming that the people will just be so scared of the other side that they're not going to care who they're gonna put up as a candidate, that they're gonna put up a wooden chair to run for president and they assume that the people are gonna vote for the wooden chair because he's not as bad as the other guy. That's no way to run politics, it's very far away from the way that politics are in Islam where you saw how did Abu Bakr radiAllahu anhu get appointed as the first khalifah with the other companions giving their bay'ah to him and him humbly saying in front of the people, hey, if I make a wrong step, then correct me and I am not the best among you. If you look at the early days, the khalifah al-rashideen and especially even more than that, the leadership of the prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam, shaitan al-farq, look at how different the leadership styles and the political structures are from within Islam versus what we have in the United States of America
and many, many places across the world today where the leadership is completely at odds with what the people want and need, where they have no accountability that they can, we saw the Supreme Court case that ruled that Trump has a certain amount of immunity, if not complete immunity for what he's done in office. Can you imagine the idea of immunity in an Islamic system? Can you imagine the idea, Abu Bakr radiallahu anhu, standing in front of the people, his first day at the helm and telling people, if I make a wrong step, correct me. Can you imagine anybody accepting this idea of immunity where after office that they're not allowed to be sued, they're not allowed to be accountable for anything that they've done? This is absolute madness, it is absolute madness. So we see that there are serious, serious problems with the American political system, which is ironic given that it has put itself in the position to try to, quote unquote, export democracy and freedom, quote unquote, abroad for the last several decades, that this has been something that honestly, it's looking very, very weak and frail and we don't know what's gonna happen. May Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la give us what's best. Next we have, in the United States, speaking of, we have the celebration of the founding of the nation, the United States of America, which has only been around for a little bit, by the way, you know, 200, 300 years is nothing on the grand scale of things, not even as long as the Quraysh were in charge of Mecca before the coming of the Prophet, salallahu alayhi wa sallam. So a very, very young nation and one that prides itself on certain values. And as we see that oftentimes, if not the majority of the time, the country acts in contradiction to those values. And ironically, as we see that supposedly, this day is celebrating independence.
We have seen, especially in the last nine months, how dependent the United States political system is and how captured it is from other nations, such as Israel, or whoever else is going to put up the money, rich billionaires, in order to sort of influence policy, influence law, influence other things. So it kind of makes a joke out of Independence Day, not even getting into the aspect of the religious rule and the Islamic ruling about celebrating such days, which is not advised at all in Islam to celebrate these sorts of days that are celebrating the founding of states and nations and things like that, but that's another issue and another conversation. And finally, for current events, we have that there was a law passed in the US Congress this week that prohibits mentioning the Palestinian death toll number. Yes, that they are not allowed within the State Department to cite the death toll in Gaza. Now, this is the same United States of America that supposedly prides itself on freedom, that supposedly prides itself on not being like the censorial Chinese or the censorial Soviet Union, right? And now we're not even allowed to speak in the State Department. The State Department is not allowed to give the death toll that's coming out of Gaza itself. Rather, it has to accept uncritically the propaganda that is handed to it by the IDF. And if we see a pattern here, then you're noticing, yes, you are noticing a pattern. So that handles, that's gonna take us, we're gonna circle back real quick, get a drink of water. We'll look at what questions we have, and then we'll get on to our next section after that. Bread and Zatar says, as Muslims, should we be trying to elect third parties if the intention is to try our best to change foreign policy in Gaza? It depends. Unfortunately, some of the third party candidates
are not much better than the Democratic or the Republican candidates. However, structurally, there are things in the United States political system that voting for a third party that you know isn't going to actually win might help elect or make it possible to elect a third party in a future election. So there is something to that strategy that does have some sense to it. Yasin, can a Muslim run in the election this year? Nope, too late. Nazir Riaz, alhamdulillah, yes. Ghazala, memnun, why not take this chance and tell Turkish and Syrian peoples not to fight with each other instead to do deen? Because I'll tell you why Ghazala, because the vast majority of Turkish and Syrian people have no problem with one another, right? Unfortunately, this is the legacy of the Kemalists. This is the legacy of the secularists in Turkey. And this is the disease of nationalism. The Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam said that there are four qualities that you can find in my ummah that will continue to exist in my ummah until the day of judgment. And one of them was this type of asabiya, this type of nationalism. And unfortunately, we still see it today. This has been one of the main ideological traps that the West has imposed upon the Muslim world, the idea of nationalism, breaking us up into nations, stopping us from being united. But alhamdulillah, the average Syrian and the average Turkish person are not like that, that they know that the most important thing is the ummah, is the Islamic ummah, and they have the proper amount of love and respect for each other upon those grounds. Sweet Carolina tree care. That's quite a username. Wa alaikum salam wa rahmatullah. Being a reaver in the West, is it best or even required to emigrate to a Muslim country? This is a case-by-case scenario, okay? Because it depends on your specific situations. We can say broadly, if you are in a situation
where you cannot practice your deen, and you are able to move to a place where you can practice your deen, then it becomes obligatory, generally speaking, to move to a place where you can practice your deen. However, when you say Muslim country, I would ask you what country? That we see that just as our brother who was talking about Tajikistan, who is 99% Muslim country, and look at the government's attitude towards Islam, right? So that has to be a part of your calculus and analysis. And we're not talking about following YouTubers and seeing the glam hijra lifestyle, like, oh, moving to this place, moving to that place. You have to have real understanding about what life is like on the ground there. We have Keandra Brown, walaikum salam. How to pay for college in a halal way. Is it true that loans are okay if it's used for education when there isn't another option available? Loans for college are particularly problematic because they are indeed cash loans, right? That can be where the milk, the ownership of which transfers completely. So they are particularly problematic. If there is any possible way, then yes, then they must be avoided. There's more discussion even around mortgages and things like car loans than there are about college loans because of the way in which the contract is structured. Now, this isn't the forum to get into this particular issue, but yes, avoid at all costs. A lot of people, unfortunately, in my experience, they have not really explored all their options. There are community colleges that are good. There are local colleges that are quite good. There are trade schools. A lot of people go to college without a concrete idea of what they want to do. If you're in the United States of America, a college degree is not what it used to be. You can make a lot more money as an electrician than you can with an art history degree. Isn't that right, guys? Art degrees, yeah, they don't pay.
Yeah, it's an inside joke that we have, but it's true. So all of these things have to be taken to account. Don't imagine yourself just on this conveyor belt where you have to go to college, but you don't really know what or what for or why, right? College has been, or university, sorry, for our UK friends, has been commodified to the point where it's really just a money grab. And if there's any way, we should actually, as an act of resistance against that, be trying to completely eliminate any way in which we're taking out loans to pay for it at all. Walaikum assalam, Ahmed from India. Yes, we have some Indians watching, alhamdulillah. Let's see. Walaikum assalam wa rahmatullah wa barakatuh. Optima, yep. So Kashmir is asking, can trans people with 100% sex change practice the faith of Islam with the congregation? By with the congregation, you mean in the same masjid? Yes, though we're saying again, are they making dawah to this particular thing or are they repentant? If they're repentant, then yes, they're part of the community. Where they should be in the salah, for example, that's something some scholars have said that you should make a third space in between the men or the women or something else. That's above my pay grade at this particular point. But the point is that they shouldn't necessarily be completely ostracized and shunned. If they are repentant for that thing, they should not be ostracized and shunned from the community. They do have rights upon the congregation and participate in congregational things. Sada says, the ironic thing is the French themselves will start accepting Islam, inshallah. Yes, yes, yes. Liberia, Mahmood, Dukuli, welcome. Yes, release Imran Khan and all the rest of the principal prisoners. Maddock Dawson, I probably agree with your comment. I'm not sure what you're referring to, but I probably agree.
Yep, all good, I see. That's interesting, Pestify. So Pestify is saying that there's a study done by an Ivy League university that said that America is no longer a democracy. Yeah, I mean, people get hung up on terms and ideologies. If the point of a democracy is to... Democracy is just an arrangement of power and political practices. It's not holy in and of itself. It's supposed to result in a good, in a tangible good, and that good is supposed to be accountability of the government to the people. So if you have the form, right, all the trappings of democracy, but you don't have accountability to the people, what's the point of having a democracy? But we're supposed to be talking about a slam here. Okay, let's see. Any other questions here? Samira, cancel the barbecue parties tomorrow or change your intention, right? If you happen to have a day off from work, then just change your intention, put away the red, white, and blue maybe. Very, very good. Amina Kasupovich, wa alaikum salam wa rahmatullah. I have had... I'm reading from you. I had several offers to join political parties. What advice do you give young people about political advocacy? Well, knowing that you're in Bosnia from last stream, that it's really a case-by-case basis, and I can't really speak to how much you're able to influence things. The general phenomenon is that you're more able to influence things at a local level than at a national level. I think that's pretty much across the board. If you feel... Here's the thing. If you're able to influence things rather than being influenced yourself, then I think that there's a good argument for you to do it. If rather you are being tokenized or you're being used or you're being changed and transformed and assimilated
into a different sort of way of thinking about things, then it's probably not worth it. And Allah knows best. That's pretty funny though. In my country, Muslim expects from every woman with a hijab in politics to act like Salahuddin Al Ayyubi. Hey, we need a Salahuddin. Okay, very good. Yes, Sara, don't graduate with a mountain of debt. That's one of the ways that they domesticate you by trapping you with this debt. Stay out of debt if at all possible. Epic, what do you do if your sisters don't wear hijab? Then you should try to encourage them to do it with hikmah and mo'idah hasanah, as Allah said in the Quran, give them da'wah in a encouraging way. And we're gonna get to that in a later segment of today's show. Yes, Abdullah, as Abdullah says, don't go to film school. I learned from a mentor. Jedi from NYC, wa'alaikum salam. SK, wa'alaikum salam, wa'atullah. Yes, you're 100% right about that. What are the options for Muslims to vote for in November? I have a lot of material on this. Yaqeen Institute's a 501c3, so I can't tell you what to do or not to do sitting here on this program, but I have a lot of advice about that on other programs, such as mostly with the Thinking Muslim podcast, though also a little bit on blogging theology with Paul Williams as well. By the way, new episode of Blogging Theology dropping this week. It's gonna be hot. I was on with Paul recording earlier. It's the next installment of Halak's book critique, sorry, Restating Orientalism. Super, super relevant. It'll be dropping this week, inshallah to Allah. Tasneem, wa'alaikum salam, wa'atullah. Samira, CUNY grad. All right, there we go, inshallah. Let's see. Mauritius, Sarah from Mauritius. Welcome, wa'alaikum salam, wa'atullah. Yasim from Chicago. Who else we got here? Judgment Day. Woof, Mokheef. That name is Mokheef. Wa'alaikum salam, wa'atullah. Laura, welcome back to the program. Wa'alaikum salam, wa'alaikum salam, wa'alaikum salam.
Wa'alaikum salam, wa'alaikum salam, wa'alaikum salam. Casanova, is growing out your hair haram in Islam? No, it's not. That was an easy question. Shahla, Pakistanis are leaving their country for good to non-Muslim countries as difficult to survive too many taxes from the corrupt government. Yeah, corruption is a huge problem in Pakistan and elsewhere. May Allah make it easy. Zaina Latif says, how should I deal with parents who are disapproving of my hijab? They are Muslim. That is a very difficult situation. One that many of us face. Many, especially of our Bosnian brothers and, Bosnian sisters, Balkan sisters, a lot of people from places, especially that lived under communism, where they're afraid. Even if you start praying five times a day, they'll say, now you're an extremist. Even if you start having a beard or wearing the hijab, now all of a sudden, they're afraid. They think that you're an extremist. You have to kill them with kindness. You have to show them that you're a better person, show them that you love them, try to let your actions speak louder than words, and do your best. At the end of the day, you can't guide whom you love, as Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la says in the Quran, but you do the absolute best that you can. Atika rahman wa alaikum salamu alaikum wa rahmatullah. Buona sera, buongiorno, buongiorno. Sto bene, grazie. How many espresso? I had three espresso today. Yeah. Democracy is being challenged. Sarah says, democracy is being challenged in several countries. Islamophobia is on the rise. How do Muslims vote in the US or France? Again, that's, I can't say that here. If you guys want that, you got to go to the other platforms that aren't 501c3s. Then I give concrete political, then I give concrete political advice. Omar from London. Wa alaikum salam wa rahmatullah wa barakatuh. Welcome. Okay, next up, super important topic. I know that we've had a lot of great questions. We'll keep on going back to questions throughout the program, but a super important topic and something that has, is a continuing theme from last week after Yaqeen Institute dropped the blog post about allies or fake allies,
people who are trying to silence us, marginalize us, and basically push us out of the movement to liberate and free our own brothers and sisters in Palestine from the left or from the right, but we were focusing on the left. Let's look at what we've got this week coming up here. Okay, we see here, one of the things is that it became, since we poked the topic and it kind of exploded, a lot of people started talking about it. And some people started throwing out some things about LGBTQ in Palestine and saying that the LGBTQ movement has been the biggest allies to the Palestinian cause. And what will we do without the LGBTQ movement supporting our Palestinian cause? First of all, the genocide is still going on. Let me remind you that. So whatever support has been provided thus far, it has not stopped the genocide. So there's not a situation where we feel like we're indebted to anybody. Second of all, if someone is going to support the liberation and the honor and the dignity of anybody else, it has to be with no strings attached. It has to be because it's the right thing to do. It is not a quid pro quo. This is not a transaction where they are trading their support for our support for their issue. That is not how this works. And the third issue, and this is brought up multiple times and we'll say it again. If you go to Palestine and you ask the average person on the street, would they accept this type of thing? Would they accept these ideologies about sexuality and gender that are very, very popular on the left? The overwhelming response would be no. The groups on the ground that are trying to resist the occupation as best they can, what would there be response to these ideologies and these groups? Would they support their ideologies? No. So if you want to support the cause because it's the right thing to do, you're welcome no matter who you are. But don't for a second think that you're going to impose your values on the same people that you're supposedly trying to liberate and help in the first place.
That is not allyship. It's not. It's actually a type of colonization and a type of imposing and imposition and domination. And we'd rather honestly not have your help if that's what it's going to be. Now going on to, now some people during this, before we move on to the next one, but what some people have tried to say, unfortunately, some very westernized academics and even some westernized Muslims, have attempted to try to eke out an argument. Actually, the Quran isn't against same-sex actions and actually it isn't. And the Qom of Lut story has been misinterpreted. And this all has been, first of all, it's borrowed from Christian apologetics. Second of all, it's been dealt with multiple, multiple, multiple times. There was someone who named Scott Kugel who attempted to make this argument a decade or two ago and Mubin Vaid completely demolished it. If you haven't seen it, go online Mubin Vaid, V-A-I-D. He completely demolished any attempt of Quranic revisionism, right? Which is attempting to act as if, mashallah in 2024, you're the first person to understand this Quran. You're the first person to understand this Quranic verse or the story of Lut in a new way. Wow, Allahu Akbar. 1400 years of people interpreting and understanding this have all been wrong. The Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, according to your logic, okay? Didn't understand this verse properly. Think about how dangerous that is. Our Shahada, need I remind you, is La ilaha illallah, Muhammadun Rasulullah. We take guidance from the Prophet Muhammad Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. We don't take guidance from you. So I don't care who comes in 2024 and tells me that everybody or implies that the Prophet Muhammad Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam misunderstood the story of Lut in the Quran or misunderstood the guidance that Islam has or the Sharia has on gender and on sexuality. Then you should question your Shahada and the validity of your Shahada. And we're not making Takfir, that's not our business. But you should really, really check yourself
rather than point to us and make us seem like we're, what do they call us, Islamic fundamentalists? I think that's what they called us. I mean, mashallah. If believing in Islam makes us a fundamentalist, then I guess if the shoe fits. But anyway, moving on. This bridges us to a conversation, next asset gentlemen, to who are our real allies and do allies sometimes do more damage than good? Do allies people who tell us that they are supporting us actually hold us back and stop us from the work that actually needs to be done either through distraction or through dividing and conquering or for anything else. Two things happened this week that are super, super important in this conversation. One, let's bring it up, Mark Ruffalo, somebody who has been very supportive of Palestine. He made a comment this week where, here we go. Project 2025 is not a game, he says. It's white Christian nationalism. It's the Sharia law of Christian crazy people who aren't Christian at all, et cetera, et cetera. But, okay, what we see here, we have somebody who has spoken in support of Palestine. However, who has used Sharia law as a euphemism for something oppressive and barbaric. Now, Sharia, the Sharia is something that the vast majority of Palestinians believe in and support 100%, okay? Yes, even some of the Christians and the Jews. I hate to break it to the people who play identity politics and ask us to say like, oh, no, but you're erasing the Christians. Oh, no, but you're erasing the Jews. I know Palestinian Christians who said that life was much better for them under Sharia than whatever else has been going on since, okay? So understand, understand that when we have an ally that steps out of line or someone who has spoken up on Palestine, but they need to be educated, then you have to have some sort of accountability structure to educate them. They say, yo, Mark. And many people did.
They say, hey, Mark, listen, we appreciate your support of Palestine, but you're not gonna throw the Sharia under the bus. You don't get to support Palestine at the expense of entrenching anti-Islamic sentiment. Right? Like that, those two things don't go together. Okay? So this is a very, very important thing that we have to keep allies in check. As I said in the blog piece, and I really recommend that you check it out, the blog piece on intersectionality and the Palestinian cause. The Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam made alliances with people, but those alliances had accountability measures when the different tribes within Medina actually, they betrayed the Muslims. There were accountability measures that held them in check and even punished them if they were to step out of line. You can't have an ally without accountability. Excuse me. And an ally, quote unquote, without accountability, sometimes, if not all the time, is worse than having no ally at all. Now, coming on to the next one, we had on the other side of things. So that was sort of on the right side of things. On the left, the Middle East Eye published an article. We could call it maybe even a hit piece, okay? Less of an article and more of a hit piece by someone by the name of Alex McDonald. Now, the Middle East Eye has done amazing journalism on Palestine for a long time, not even just since October 7th, before that. And people are very, very, very appreciative of everything that the Middle East Eye has done. However, in this particular case, they let one through. They laid an egg on this one because they let somebody who is neither a Muslim nor a Palestinian write an article that is basically saying that, okay, it's trying to draw attention to grifters that are going to sign up for the Palestinian cause. Basically, the claim of the article
is that there's all these right-wing supporters of Palestine that have gotten very, very famous and made money off of Palestine. That in and of itself is not a problem or is not wrong, right? It's true. There are certain people on the right who have used the Palestinian cause to increase their own platforms dramatically and have monetized it, et cetera. However, the article doesn't just do that. The article goes further than that and actually implies that you can't be on the right or have conservative values and also support Palestine. It basically casts an enormous shadow on anybody who's not on the left who supports Palestine by creating a sort of inquisition-like atmosphere where if you happen to be an anti-vaxxer, right, or if you happen to be, I don't know, a pro-gun, or if you happen to be socially conservative and you support Palestine, then the yoke of suspicion is on you. You must be a grifter. You must be somebody who's exploiting Palestine. This is nothing more. This is nothing more than leftist gatekeeping of the cause of Palestine. And we started talking about it last week. And we're going to continue talking about it this week because it's an extremely important thing. People on the left want to turn the issue of Palestine into an exclusively leftist issue where they are going to subject everybody to ideological purity tests and basically try to say that if you don't also believe in queer liberation or you don't also believe in gender ideology, then you're not a real supporter of Palestine. All of these issues are connected. Don't you know what intersectionality is? This is sort of the logic and the argument. And we've already addressed this before, how this is very, very, very far away from the politics and the values of the actual people in Palestine itself,
let alone the two billion Muslims across the world. Now, one of the accounts that was sort of targeted by this article was a very popular account called Censored Men. And they responded on Twitter. And I would actually suggest people could go up and look that particular response up by this account because I found it to be a very articulate and respectful response. And I'm just going to read a little bit of this as well, which, first of all, he demonstrates that this particular individual, we don't know who's behind the account, actually does not financially benefit from supporting Palestine at all. In fact, they have taken on financial loss in their support of Palestine, even though they align with the right on some, some, not all, political issues. But here we go. There's a really important part of this that I want you to hear. This is one of the reasons, he says, why I believe this article was clearly motivated by a bias against pro-Palestinians who aren't also liberals. Another thing very odd about this article is that Middle East Eye actually worked with a pro-Israeli organization to write it. They cite an anonymous researcher from Atlantic Council's Digital Forensic Research Lab, DFRL, for research on the reach of the accounts named in the article. And this particular, he goes into why this is actually its CEO. Its funding is tied in with the State Department and also has connection with Zionists. So I'm going to skip down all of that. But the takeaway, okay, he goes through all the connections that show that this relies on Zionist sources, people in the weapons industry, okay. It makes you wonder, he says, why is Middle East Eye working with such a hardcore Zionist organization
to write a hit piece on pro-Palestinian voices? A representative from Jewish Voices for Peace, Liv Kunin-Sperko, which is also quoted in the article as being, quote, alarmed at the growth of the accounts mentioned in the article. One of the reasons she listed was that these accounts have a history of peddling, quote, homophobia. This is the perfect segue to another topic I want to talk about, liberal anti-Zionists attempting to gatekeep the pro-Palestine movement and ostracize those within the movement with differing political views. I'm now going to talk about how the views of Palestinians themselves actually align far more with right-wing anti-Zionists than liberal anti-Zionists. That's his argument. It's got some truth to it. 95% of the Palestine's population, 99% of Gaza's population are Muslim, the majority being Sunni Muslim. If we look at the Islamic perspective on multiple cultural issues that the right and left differ on, you'd find that the Islamic position would be considered more right-leaning and by extension, the political views of the overwhelming majority of the Palestinian population. If you were to map them on American left-right spectrum, would be more right than a lot of leftist people would like to admit. Both Islam and the general position take of the right-wing stance that, or take stances that would be considered anti-LGBTQ, anti-feminist, and sexist by liberals. All of this is to say that the vast majority of Palestinians are Muslim. This would also mean that the vast majority of Palestinians hold these views, views that might be considered right-wing in the current atmosphere. Therefore, and this is the important part, everybody, liberals trying to hijack a movement when the people at the core of the movement,
the Palestinians, identify more with right-wing anti-Zionists is highly illogical and reeks of hypocrisy. And he goes on to say more, but we do have to say it is very, very fishy. It's very, very fishy now that voices from the left are trying to take down and erase and target people that basically don't tow their ideological line, even if that ideological line is far away from the people of Palestine and the Muslim Ummah in general. Why does this relate? We have one last point before we get back to the questions. I see a lot of good questions coming in. Why does this or how does this relate to our relationship in the movement? We've talked a lot, both behind the scenes and with lots of other people across the country. And what we see is that a lot of Muslims are reluctant to participate and they're burnt out, okay? And we were talking among ourselves, actually some of the folks that are responsible for putting the show on. And what we've noticed is that it is exhausting for a Muslim, a practicing normal Muslim to participate in these protests, in these demonstrations, in these activities, when they are dominated by obnoxious left-wing politics, when there are pride flags everywhere. Just happened last week in Denver, Colorado, where there are queers for Palestine and these sorts of things are people in nude suits that are saying that they support Palestine. Okay, we appreciate that you support Palestine, but I'm not gonna show up to that sort of thing. And I know so many people, men and women, Muslims, Palestinians, that would never show up to something like that, because it makes us feel uncomfortable. Those are not our values. And so what do we call a movement that supposedly is in support for us, but actually marginalizes and silences us and makes us feel uncomfortable? We would say that that is getting co-opted,
that that is the hijacking of a movement. And it's something that reduces my stamina and your stamina. It reduces our ability to actually participate in change. So we ask everybody, again, if you haven't read the blog piece already, please go and read it. It is the blog piece that we dropped last week or the week before on intersectionality and why Muslims have to be at the forefront of this movement for Palestine. If the Muslims are not at the forefront of the movement, if we continue to allow ourselves to be sidelined, silenced, and marginalized, the movement will fail, first of all. And second of all, it won't look like our movement anymore. It'll be just another one of these progressive left-wing, this issue and that issue and that issue. And you have to agree to all of these issues if you wanna do anything for Palestine. No, we don't accept that. And we can't accept that, that we are Muslims, we are proud Muslims, and we are dedicated to the liberation of Palestine, but on our terms, not on your terms. What do we got? Let's see. Okay, I see a lot of conversation around women's sports. I don't know how much we're gonna get into that. Let's see. Why do people that are protesting for Palestine get arrested by the police? Well, you know why. Amin wa yaakum Zain al-Latif, amin wa yaakum. Okay. Caleb Warku, would you ever be interested in participating in a publication-moderated debate by any chance? Who knows? I would need more information. Minami Islam Khan, wa alaykum as-salam from Bangladesh. Joined late today, late is better than never. Welcome, happy to have you back. Khadijus River says, I've been told that it's not good that a Muslim woman plays basketball at the college level. Is this true? If I wear hijab and cover adequately, is it still bad? Sada says, ug inferior complex much? Yeah, a hundred percent.
Now, let's see. I'm gonna skip over that. Abdullah, pass. I'm allowed to pass. Abdullah says, reminds me of Malcolm X speaking. Yes, thank you, Abdullah. Reminds us that Malcolm X, who the left loves to hijack his memory as well, warned us about the left and warned us about the people who smile on our faces and act like they're our friends and allies, but in reality are not. Lilia Dimitrova, welcome to the program. Yes, they do, Laura. They assume that we are inferior. Sada says, Palestinian diaspora created a whole thread about how Islam is totally queer aligned. Yeah, well, I mean, they are acting like they know better than the Prophet Muhammad Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. So they should reanalyze their Shahada. Let's see. Yeah, Pestify asks, and we should do this studio. Can we put a link in the chat to the blog post? Some people are asking. We did it last week, but we should do it again this week because it is super, it's key. A lot of back and forth about lowering your gaze. I'm not getting involved in that right now, but I hope everybody stays respectful in the comments because the thing that keeps us together, Al-Qurtubi, Rahimahullah, talks about in wal-mu'minoona wal-mu'minatu ba'dahum awliya'u ba'd. And he says the thing that distinguishes the hypocrites or rather that distinguishes the believers from the hypocrites is the love and unity that the Muslim men and women have for each other.
Because just the page before, Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la talks about the hypocrites and he says wal-munafiquna wal-munafiqati ba'dahum min ba'd. He uses different words. He says that the male and female hypocrites are from one another, but the male and female believers are awliya' of one another. They are protectors of one another. Now that protection does not imply telling just people what they want to hear. There is al-amr bil-ma'ruf wal-nahi al-munkar. There is enjoining the known good and forbidding the evil. However, it always has to be done with the intention of protection. Julan says, MEE as a Palestinian, I have question marks on it. That's good to know. It's not just me. They have good content on Palestine, but they throw resistance movement and Islam under the bus every once in a while. I've also noticed that, Julan. I'm glad that you said that. I have noticed that as well. A Qadri has also noticed the same. Qadi Al-Adeen, wa-alaikum-salam from Maryland. Nusayb Aqas and welcome back to the program. I've been worried by right-wing influencers who ideas on protecting family matched ours. Now, anytime I watch a podcast from someone from the right, I check if they said anything about Palestine. Yeah, I mean, let's just be like very, very real for a second. It behooves Muslims to not align with any side because we don't align perfectly with any side. Rather, there are people on both sides that are open to being influenced and open to being educated. Look at how far Candace Owens has come in the last several months. Like that is like a type of person. And even to some extent, though, a lesser extent, like someone like Tucker Carlson, those types of people you can work with, we have an interest in developing people like that and developing relationships with people like that, just like we have an interest in developing relationships with people who are true supporters on the left. But if some people on the left are going to question us
and say, well, why are you talking to anyone on the right? Don't you know their position on abortion? Don't you know their position on immigration? Don't you know their position on guns? Don't you know their position on vaccines? We say, hey, you're not the boss of us. We get to have our own issues and our own values. And right now, when there's a genocide going on, guess what? The number one issue for us is Palestine. Juden says, I think a lot of its content comes from the PLO Palestinians, and many of them co-identify with Marxism, et cetera. It's hard to catch these nuances if you're not Palestinian. 100%, Juden, I'm so glad that you mentioned that. I, myself, in the last nine months, I've been reading obsessively about the history of Palestine and the Palestinian resistance movements and the different factions that are out there. I was shocked to know how much the PLO sold out with the peace process and how they targeted other movements and things like that. There's a lot of history there and things that you wouldn't pick up on. A lot of people in the diaspora, I think you're 100% right, a lot of people in the diaspora, they're stuck in the 70s, where they think that the PLO is the main resistance faction and the main thing going on. Not so fast, right? And that's all we'll say about that. Nusayba Qasim recently returned a book by Erika Komisar, who speaks heavily on preserving childhood after finding out she tweeted against Palestine, planning to rely on Muslim networks on these topics and so on. That's, I think, the takeaway, Nusayba, is that we really need to understand properly what is the point of an ally. The point of an ally is not for them to do the work for us. We do the work. We're gonna lead the change. And if someone wants to support it, then you let them support it, as long as there's no strings attached and it's not a liability. But we're acting like we have to find our savior, right? Whether it's the squad or whether it's this progressive group over here or this group over here, and just turn everything over and let them do it. That's not how it works, right? So we shouldn't expect these people to be, we shouldn't expect these people to be more than they are. You know what I mean?
Yes, A Qadri brings up that as well. I hate to say it, but some diaspora Palestinians are more secular and liberal in their approach versus Palestinians in Gaza would accept. 100%, we see that a lot. There's a big difference. Any Palestinian protests in the US, listen to what they chant in English versus what they chant in Gaza and the West Bank in Arabic. And if you know, you know. Yeah, 100% agree, A Qadri. Very important for Muslims to take the lead. Servant of God, we're gonna talk about that. Don't wanna make religion hard on yourself, 100%. Laura asks, why can't people support Palestine without projecting their beliefs and expecting us to accommodate them? 100%, Laura, that's all we're asking. Is it, is it, it's not that hard, but some people always want it to be about them. Yes, A Qadri, that's true. Those families also have been impacted. So it is sensitive. We're not, you know, we don't challenge those people face-to-face unless, unless they are being particularly belligerent and obnoxious and trying to, to stomp down on all of the Muslim and Islamic sort of discourse. Yep, that's true, Shahla, 100%. I like it. Walaikum salam, Samer Al-Alami from LA. Walaikum salam, Rick Rashid. Very good. Welcome everybody, Bazar Bazar, walaikum salam. Paul Reitz asks about the Jordan-Peterson-Mohamed Hijab debate. I saw it, but it was a long time ago. I don't really have any particular reflections other than, yeah, I don't have, I don't have anything off the top of my head. I'd have to go back and look. It's been quite a bit. Samir says, I had a lot of challenges working with the community to engage on Palestine. I'm glad you highlighted this perspective. It's important for me to keep in mind.
Alhamdulillah, may Allah accept. Very kind. May Allah bless you, Fatima Ali. Walaikum salam, MB. Yeah, Sara, you would think that, but not necessarily. Some people don't read history. I mean, like you said, I'm not a historian. I don't read history. I don't read history. I don't read history. I don't read history. I don't read history. I don't read history. I don't read history. I don't read history. Some people don't read history. I mean, like you would think that they would listen to the Palestinians in Palestine who understand what the PLO's true face is. Yeah. I mean, but some people have that, you know, sort of nostalgic memory. Green Tea and Mint. Walaikum salam from Uruguay. Bienvenido. 100% Earl. Consolidation and effective leadership. May Allah make it so. Very good. Ah, free abundance. Stand together as humans. 100%. Yep. Well said. All right, very good. All right, let's move on. Great job, everybody. I appreciate everybody's comments and questions. Very, very helpful as always. Now we're gonna get into our next section and it is, walaikum salam, Orange County, LA North, where we talk about our end section where we're going through Kitab al-Asir, which is another way for saying Kitab al-Jihad. Now this is very, very interesting, excuse me, and important because it loops back to what someone was saying about making things hard or making things easy. Okay. Where the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam said, and that was the next Hadith in the book. Now I want you to think, because many of the Hadith compilers, they didn't write commentary, but they gave you commentary by their chapter titles, by the order in which they go, and their decisions about which Hadith they included in these particular chapters. So we know that this is the Book of Sirr. This is the, we're talking about the, you know, Jihad according to the rules of Islam, proper Jihad, not fake, phony Jihad.
And this is the next Hadith, where the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam said, Bashiru wa la tunafiru wa yassiru wa la tu'assiru. And he said this to his generals and people that were going out, make things easy for people, and don't make things difficult on people. And make people give glad tidings. And in this Rewaiah that we're showing right here, he says, calm, and do not repel them, or repulse them, or push them away. Now, this is fascinating. This is fascinating. Now, I read extensively in Noah's very famous commentary on it in Arabic. And I'm gonna highlight some of the things that he points out. The first thing. I'm gonna highlight some of the things that he points out. The first thing. I'm gonna highlight some of the things that he points out. The first thing.
The test. Yeah, Bismillah, we back? Let me know, let me know in the chat. Are we still back? Allah Akbar. Hey, everything happens for a reason. Maybe it was the Zionists. Maybe it was the jinn. Only Allah knows. No, no, no, I did not swear in Italian, Aquarius. This is very, very common. Many meanings, many meanings, but just like, hold on a sec, hold on a sec. Okay. All right, Alhamdulillah, so we're good. Fatima Ali cannot hear, Saleha can hear. I think most people are saying that. Okay, Alhamdulillah. Most people are saying it's back on. All right, cool. Alhamdulillah. So the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam was saying,
make things easy, don't make it hard. Now, and now he points out the wording here. He didn't just say, bashshiru wa yassiru. If he had said that, then maybe you could understand from that, that yeah, sometimes we're nice and sometimes we give glad tidings and sometimes we make things easy, but other times we make things hard. But the fact that he then followed it up with, wa la tu'assiru wa la tunafiru, means that this is what we do consistently, consistently as an ummah and especially in the context of warfare, jihad, seer, you are to be a force of glad tidings. Now, this might mess with your categories because you think, wait a second, how can an approaching army, how can an approaching army be a sign of glad tidings? That is how your reputation should be for justice and fairness, that even if your army is about to conquer somebody, that they know that you're not going to oppress, right? Can you imagine like how great your reputation would be that even as your opponent, right? Cause you can have opponents and adversaries, but they're not you, that you're still actually glad that you're facing them. You can make an analogy probably with sports here. Imagine like the top basketball players or the top football players, we're talking about global football, not American football, the top chess players or something like this. Where there are certain opponents at the very, very top that actually really, really like to face off against each other because they respect each other, because they understand there's a certain respect there that you build a reputation for the way that you treat people. You build a reputation for being principled. You build a, think about how some of the non-Muslims describe the Muslim soldiers. They were like monks at night worshiping, and they were like fierce warriors during the day. That's your reputation.
So then when you are supposed to go out in the world, even if you're doing it in the way of Allah, even if you have to throw hands for a certain reason, that you are an act of glad tidings, right? And you're actually offering people. You're not offering people revenge. You're not threatening people. You're saying, we are here to save you. Even if we're here to save you from yourselves, you guys worship these idols. You guys live in sin. You guys walk around naked. You guys smoke joints. You guys are addicted to meth and crack and whatever else. We're here to save you. We're here to bring you out of that into something better. This is nasiha. This is sincerity. That is the spirit and the intention and what the Muslim forces and the Muslim ummah should be, right? So this is the very particular phrasing of the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. بَشِّرُوا وَلَا تُنَفِّرُوا يَسِّرُوا وَلَا تُعَصِّرُوا The second point that An-Nawawi points out, and this is really major, and it gets to some of the, some of the things that we were talking about earlier, some of you all were talking about in the chat, تَدَرُّجْ فِي الطَّاعَةِ An-Nawawi says that this is proof of a تَدَرُّجْ فِي الطَّاعَةِ What does that mean? That means taking things one step at a time when it comes to obedience. Now I'm going to try to pull this up. I'm not going to be able to share it with you, but at least to see it for myself, to read it a bit. What An-Nawawi says, I found it amazing. He said that وَقَدْ كَانَتْ أُمُورَ الْإِسْلَامِ فِي التَّكْلِيفِ عَلَى التَّدْرِيجِ He said all of the things with responsibility in Islam are upon, it's gradual. That gradualness is part of Islam. Okay, we'll get to why that's important. He says فَمَتَى يَسِّرْ عَلَى الدَّاخِلِ فِي الطَّاعَةِ أَوَ الْمُرِيدِ لِلدُّخُولِ فِيهَا وَسَهَلَتْ عَلَيْهِ He said when something is made easy or someone is encouraged,
it becomes easier for that person. وَكَانَتْ عَاقِبَتُهُ غَالِبًا أَتَزَايُدْ مِنْهَا So An-Nawawi says, this is so huge, that nine times out of ten, not his language, my language, nine times out of ten, if someone who starts to get better, someone who starts to improve, someone who starts to become a Muslim or starts to practice, and you encourage them, the majority of the time, they are going to increase. Okay, that you don't have to worry about being soft on them because they're going to actually increase over time. Now, this is very important. Why do I bring this up? Because we live in a time where we're reacting to ideologies. We have on one hand, we have liberal Islam, watered down Islam, compassionate Imams, quote unquote, people who are watering down the deen. And then other people who respond to that and saying, well, no, we have to be harsh. And yes, you can go through the Sunnah and you can go through the writings of the scholars and you can find examples, specific examples of people being harsh in certain contexts. But that is Mu'allal, like being harsh has its time and place, but it's always geared towards a certain end. It's a tool used to achieve a certain result. What's the default, though, that the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam tells us to do? The default is At-Tabsheer Wa At-Tadreej, right? That it, At-Tayseer, the default is making it easy on people and giving people good tidings, encouraging people, not being this very discouraging force. Right. We have an example of this when Umar Ibn Al-Khattab radiyallahu anhu, he was the leader, the Khalifa, and the armies reached Sham and there was a particular local leader who
he said, I'll accept Islam if I can be the Khalifa after Umar. Now, the people that were there had no idea what to do, and so they wrote back to Umar and asked him, what should we tell him? And Umar radiyallahu anhu said, and he wrote back and said, tell him he can have it because if Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala guided him this far, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala will continue to guide him. That was the attitude of the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam. That was the attitude of Umar and the Khulafa al-Rashideen al-Mahdiyeen who the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam told us to imitate. Are there exceptions? Yes. Do those exceptions have to have specific results in mind? Yes. But the default is giving glad tidings, being encouraging, making things easy on people as much as possible. That's awesome. OK, very good. Let's let's keep rolling. Should we circle back? OK, before we do atomic habits and circle back to our personal development, let's see. Again, we'll catch up with the chat. We'll see if anybody has some interesting comments or a lot of people cheering us on when we got when we got our sound back. Alhamdulillah, all of your dua I'm sure helped. I mean, Aquarius. Yeah, it's an emotional time. I get it. May Allah forgive all of us for all of our shortcomings. Telling your anger is very hard to manage compared to other emotions, 100 percent. Yes, it is the hardest one to to manage for many people, for many, many, many people. Yes, and Nancy has an important connection with the Tadrij. Look at how everything's connected in the show. Tadrij also brings us right into atomic habits because atomic habits is also about Tadrij. It's also about taking things slow and gradual. That's also a good point, Aquarius, about disliking the sin 100 percent, because in the beginning you still kind of like the sin, right? And then once you get used to it, you start to dislike it. And that's a good point, Aquarius.
And that's a good point, Aquarius, about disliking the sin 100 percent. Right? And then once you get used to it, you actually start to dislike it. And now it's, it's easy. And I was in the same situation that you were, right? Like, uh, you know, I, I can't stand to, to listen to music. And I used to be a musician before, before Islam. So I know exactly how that, how that works. Uh, Aquarius asks, Imam Tom wants to know your opinion about Dawa Menz. What does that mean? What, who is Dawa Menz? Is that his name? What a horrible name. No, I'm just kidding. But you gotta be more specific than that. I don't have an opinion and it's better to not ask people about people. That's what our scholars taught us. You don't test people about other people. What do you think about so-and-so? What do you think about so-and-so? Right? We're all a mixed bag. You know, we're all sinners. We all hope that Allah accepts what's good from us and that he forgives what's bad from us. And hopefully we all can have the maturity to be as part of the same team working to the same goal, even if we have different methods. Yes. Uh, I wish I could read your name, but I cannot read that script, but sadly some people harshly judge others for not being able to perform properly, especially towards women. Yes, unfortunately there is, uh, some harshness sometimes that is uncalled for. We could say, um, too, too much harshness or harshness, misplaced harshness. There you go. That's better. Misplaced harshness. No, like all the guys that do Dawa in public, should they be responding to personal dramas? Well, you know, Hey, listen again, some of those people I know, some of these people, uh, I don't know, so I'm not going to be making comments on any individuals, but obviously we hope that everybody can rise above the level of personal dramas. And unfortunately we've seen where sometimes the temptation in Dawa is to turn a personal drama into a,
into a religious issue or to cloak it with a religious veneer and make it look like your, your beef is religious when in fact deep down it's personal drama. Shamil asks, how can you say music is haram? Is there a khilaf? Is there a ikhtilaf? It's very weak. I follow the opinion that music is haram. Uh, we're talking about musical instruments because the word music is more general than what is mentioned in the hadith of al-Bukhari, al-ma'azif, or the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam warned about al-ma'azif, one of the four things that people will try to make permissible that is impermissible. He used the word ma'azif, which refers to certain types of musical instruments, not including the daf or the hand drum. Uh, and that's the position of a majority of scholars. Yes, Ibn Hazm disagreed, al-Ghazali disagreed, but that's the state of that difference of opinion is that it's very uneven, those two sides. And may Allah accept from all of us, we're not here to be, uh, we're not here to be, uh, passing out fatwas or, uh, Moro Sonero asks, what should we Muslims do in America where work culture makes colleagues go for a drink after work? Well, they don't make you, that's your choice, right? I've never ever seen a job that says that if you don't go out to drinks after work, you're fired. Never seen that. Um, so sometimes we're in our own heads. We have our own problems that we have to just buck up and say, nope, those are my red lines. I mean, even the former vice president of the United States, Mike Pence wouldn't meet with women alone. He was practicing sharia. That's creeping sharia right there. Right? So then why can't we do the same, especially in the wake of Me Too movement and all this other stuff. Listen, like stick to your principles. The Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam said, okay, whoever tries to please the people with something that is not pleasing to a loss upon data,
Allah will not let the people be pleased with them and allow won't be pleased with them either. But if a person displeases the people or doesn't care about the pleasure of the people by something that pleases Allah, Allah will eventually not only will allow be pleased with them, but Allah will make the people pleased with them as well. Welcome Shatha. We're glad you're with us. Hopefully not. Not the last time. Yeah. Aquarius, that's a hundred percent. Music is what a lot of people use almost like a drug, like to escape from hard feelings. I totally get it. I totally get it. And there's lots of sort of escapes, right? Um, and we hope that we're, listen, a lot of people have an attitude of black and white when in reality, every single one of us is on a journey. If you were to break down a slam into all of the things that you have to do and all the things that you can't do and all the things that you should do and all the things that you shouldn't do, we're a mixed bag. There's some things that I'm doing and there's some things that I should be stopping just like you, right? Maybe all of you are better than me in some, in some aspects. I'm certain of it actually, right? Every single one of us is on our own individual journey. And the important thing is that you're trending up, that you're getting better and better and better, that every year, hopefully every Ramadan you take a self, a look at yourself and assessment of yourself and you're better than you were the year before. That's all that we can ask for. And if that's what we're on, inshallah, Allah will accept it from us and we'll be in Jannah together. That's our perfect segue to our last, uh, segment of today, which is personal. Then we're talking about atomic habits. Here we go. Okay. Very good. And for my rub, you hit it a hundred percent on the head. Stick to your principles because they will keep checking your limits. You need to show them where it stops. If you don't show them where it stops, nobody else is going to do that for you. You need to do it yourself. Okay.
So this was a really interesting chapter. We're in chapter two today and I want everybody to participate as we did last time. And the participation is going to be through answering this question is a little bit of a trick question and a little bit personal, but I hope you're okay. And I'll, I'll open up as well. What is one negative thing that you tell yourself about yourself? What is one negative thing you tell yourself about yourself? This is really important to the subject of the chapter. And when it comes to trying to change ourselves, that's an interesting point. Amina, my teacher says to me that the base of every emotion is fear. Our fear must have a purpose or a good job in this world. Like the fear of a law, right? If fear is busy, we are imbalanced. Asada says everything. Oh, good. Yeah. Right. Hey, Kaldi, I know I'm, I'm going right for the jugular with this one. I should, I start, I mean, this is a, this is a very, very tricky thing. I have a fear of the law. I have a fear of the universe. It's a very, very tricky thing. I have, yeah, yeah, yeah. Sana, I'm with you. I tell my, yeah. Sometimes I tell myself I'm arrogant. Sometimes I tell myself that, um, I'm an imposter, right? I definitely suffer from imposter syndrome sometimes that I don't, uh, that I'm a fake, right. Um, these sorts of things that, yeah, all these sorts of things. I have a lot of negative self-talk actually. It's something that I've struggled with. Um, definitely my own worst critic. Yes. A quadri. I completely, completely agree. Too lazy. Not a good Muslim. Hmm. That's hard. And I get that.
Don't worry. Uh, Moroso, Moroso Nero. Uh, we're going somewhere with it. Hopefully by the end of the program, you'll feel better about yourself or realize something cause we're all in, in your boat. We all are the, are the same thing. Um, in the sense that, uh, we are our own worst enemy sometimes below average. Oh yeah. No say, but you hit it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That I'm not a good son. I'm not a good brother to my sister. If my sister's watching shout out to you. Um, yep. Imposter syndrome. Uh, free. Okay. Ooh, Sada. That's a tough one. No matter how much effort I put in, I will always fail. Ooh, Nancy, that's hard. You are not a sincere Muslim. Oh man. That is, that's a really tough one. For my Rob says that I'm a hypocrite. I feel hypocritical constantly because everyone praises me on a daily basis. It scares me so much. So I tell myself, you're a hypocrite on a daily basis. I quit my job yesterday. May Allah give you better. Doubting Allah's mercy. That's another thing. Yeah. That I'm too impatient. Farah. Yeah. Yeah. All of the above, right? A hundred percent. Now why am I asking you to be so vulnerable and expose all your negative talk because the author wants us to understand a crucial point. Oh, Amina. Oh, that's heartbreaking that I don't deserve the love of Allah. You do. You do deserve the love of Allah. All of us do. Inshallah. May Allah, uh, shower us all with his love and mercy. Budari Shema. I'm lazy and selfish. Oof. Ouch. Yeah. I mean, it's all very familiar to me cause I, I also struggle with this as well. Big time. So why are we talking about it? Because the author wants us to understand that change and identity go hand in hand. Change and identity go hand in hand.
That actually sometimes when we want to change, we only stick to the surface level of thinking about the results in the output. When we have to go deeper and change the way that we think about ourselves, that sometimes either for, okay, we'll go on the bad way first. We internalize or believe bad things about ourselves and that actually reinforces bad habits and then bad outcomes. So some of the things that we want to change, we actually have to dig all the way down to the bottom and change the way that we think about ourselves in order to change what we do, our habits, and then we'll get different results. Right? And he gives a lot of really interesting examples. So there's three levels. There's like your identity stacked on top of your identity is your process, which we talked about last week. And then after that is your, uh, is your outcome, right? So the difference is, okay, imagine someone who struggles with smoking or imagine someone who's trying to quit smoking. Okay. Someone brought that up last week. Imagine the difference between somebody saying, I'm trying to quit smoking versus someone who's saying, I'm not a smoker. That's what he's getting at. If you start telling yourself, I'm not a smoker, you're more likely to stop smoking. Then if you're just saying, well, I'm trying to smoke, I'm trying, or I'm trying to look at that. Well, I'm trying to quit. Yeah. If you, if you're trying to smoke, you're definitely not quitting. Um, so that behavior, he says that as incongruent with the self won't last. So you tell yourself that you're lazy. Okay. Like Attica says she tells herself that she's lazy and waste too much time, right? If you tell yourself that it actually becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy where maybe you're going to have a day of activity or your high motivation one day and you say, no, actually, I'm going to go out and do like different things, but then you're going to revert back to the mean.
You're going to fall back into that habit because you've told yourself that that's who you are, right? So the behavior that is incongruent with the self will not last. You will always come back to what you tell yourself you are. Uh, and this is actually supported by the Hadith. And this is why we're going over this book, because it has a lot of resonance and harmony with things that we find in the, uh, the Sunnah of the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam where he said, if you basically, when you understand yourself as somebody who submits to Allah, then submitting to Allah becomes easy. If you under, why does Allah, why does the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam pray and ask and tell us to ask Allah to make us min ahlul Qur'an? He doesn't say that we read the Qur'an. We ask Allah that we become the people of the Qur'an min ahlul Qur'an so that we build up that identity and that it becomes now we're reading every day and we're reading more and more. We're not focused on the results or the outcomes. The results and the outcomes take care of themselves. When you walk around, you're in your head telling yourself, I'm from ahlul Qur'an, inshallah, I'm from ahlul Qur'an, right? We also see Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala also does the same thing in the Qur'an. When he's calling the people of the book back to faith, you see almost like two modes or two registers where Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala when he's talking about the Jews and Christians and how they've gone astray. If he's given it to them, he calls them by the names that they've given them themselves. Yehud, Nasara. But if he's inviting them back to faith, he says ahlul kitab as like you people are people of revelation. If you're people of revelation, then follow this revelation. You see how he does that, right? So even it is recognized by the usloob al Qur'an how Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala talks to people in the Qur'an. Very, very interesting, right?
That this when you start telling yourself and changing your identity and the way that you think about yourself, it provides its own intrinsic motivation. Okay? Its own intrinsic motivation. So what's another example of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam doing this? When he changed people's names, if people had bad names, right? He would change them to good names. Why? Because those bad names became bad beliefs about yourself and they resulted in that bad behavior, right? That once you change your name to something that's good, now it's part of your identity. You're going to now almost automatically you have high motivation, intrinsic motivation to do that type of behavior. Or if you find out, for example, that your ancestors, this is why Abu Bakr radiallahu anhu used to tell people the good deeds of their ancestors. Because if you find out that your ancestor did something amazing. You find out that your great-great-great-grandfather or great-great-great-grandmother was like a big scholar. How is that going to change your identity? You're going to say, I am the inheritor of these scholars. I'm one of these people in this lineage of scholarship, right? That this is going to change how you act, okay? Other examples that he brings up, anybody can read a book. But what about becoming a reader, right? I'm a reader. I'm a person who reads books. Now reading takes care of itself. Okay, I want to go on a run every day. By the way, I have failed at trying to establish habits of running. I'm horrible at that. I can play sports. I got to chase a ball around, throw it in a hoop, kick it in a net. But running? No. But if you start telling yourself, no, I am a runner, then the results, they will eventually take care of themselves. The flip side of this is what we began with, the crippling self-talk. So we got to intervene on two levels here. So we've got, who do you want to be? I want to be Ahlul Qur'an. So now I need to start telling myself that I'm Ahlul Qur'an.
The second side, do an inventory of yourself. What are all the self-crippling or the crippling things that you tell yourself about yourself? Oh, I'm no good with directions. Oh, I'm not a morning person. A lot of people say that. I can't wake up for tahajjud. I'm not the type of person who can do that. I'm not good at math. Okay? So if that's our self-talk, the results are almost like a death sentence, right? It almost like takes care of itself. So we have to both build up the good and intervene on the bad. Try to identify those things that we are telling ourselves about ourselves that are holding us back and intervene and try to almost hack it and think about who would we want to be, right? And make it part of our identity and then we'll move to the processes and habits that are going to get there. As he says, habits are a pathway for changing your identity. You don't like who you are? You don't like a part of who you are? Habits are going to help you change that identity. And every habit that you do and everything that you do, every action is like a vote. You can think about it as a vote for the type of person that you wish to become. Let's say I want to become from Ahlul Qur'an. Every time I sit down and read a page of Qur'an or even a verse of Qur'an, I am voting for, yes, I want to become from Ahlul Qur'an, etc. And you can apply to other things. So we have our last graphic here. So you get to decide the type of person that you want to be. Okay, that's the first thing. The formula for change. There's two parts. Ingredient number one, decide who do you want to be? I want to be a person of salah. I want to be a person of the masjid. I want to be a person of Qur'an. I want to be a person who commands the good. I want to be a person that makes other people smile. I want to be a good, a person that people can trust. Okay, and then two, you have to go about proving it to yourself with small actions,
small wins every single day. You can change, you can change, but it will take work. And this is the type of work that is required. May Allah make it easy for us. We'll circle back to the chat. This is your last chance for questions before we close it out for tonight. Okay, yes, yes, yes. Shahla asks, can we move to America or Canada for good keeping in view of teachings of Islam religiously as I have heard that is difficult to protect your Iman in a non-Muslim country? It is difficult, but those things are case-by-case scenarios. You should talk to somebody who knows your situation. And things are, you know, the United States is a big place. Canada is a big place. Okay, if you're going to be in a place that has a ton of Muslims, right, that's different from a place that has no Muslims. So there's the those questions are a little bit too vague. You need to really drill down on the details. Farah, SubhanAllah, Farah says the fear I have my du'as won't get accepted for Palestine. Yeah, SubhanAllah, we all have that fear. I think I'm standing off to the soldier. Okay. Casanova says that I will be stuck in a place of mediocrity. I'll never change for the better. Inshallah, you're already changing for the better. Glad to hear that some people are finding this helpful. May Allah accept and continue to guide us. Ameen. Okay, people took care of Khadijah Reaver. Yep, we're here every week Wednesday night at 8 p.m.
Eastern Time, whatever 5 p.m. Pacific Time, whatever time zone you're in. Farah says I find it it's hard to be a young adult now a days, especially with social media and the pressure of the older generation on us to be like them hundred percent. Yes, I mean at the end of the day, you're only in competition with yourself. So focus on being the best version of you and every day focus on being a slightly better version of you. As we said last week, 1% better every day. If you're 1% better every day, mashallah, you're doing better than most people. Okay, very good. I don't see. Oh, yeah, Abdullah, good call. Yeah, this is something I think that Ibn al-Qayyim said, rahimahullah, watch your thoughts because they become your words, watch your words because they become your actions, watch your actions because they become your habits, watch your habits because they become your character. Hundred percent, that's definitely true. You have to intervene and the earlier you intervene, it's like a plant, it's like a weed. Right? The weed lays down roots and then before you know it, it grows to be this gargantuan thing that you can't even pull out anymore. You want to disrupt that, you want to disrupt those weeds as soon as they sprout. Sada, this is every week, though sometimes if I travel, we take breaks, but it's pretty much every week. Khadijah River asked, do you advise putting kids in private Islamic schools instead of public schools? Generally, yes, though it is a case-by-case scenario. I do know of some public schools that are majority Muslim populations and I do know of some Islamic schools that are really bad. So it is somewhat case-by-case,
but there is enough of a trend for me to say that definitely homeschooling. I homeschool my kids. I recommend homeschooling, honestly, or Islamic school if that's an option for you. I definitely would not recommend public school if possible to avoid. May Sage asked about other self-growth books. This is, I'll be honest with you, May Sage, I don't really like self-help books. This is the only self-help book I think I've read and liked. So I'm not the person to give advice on that. I like to read about secularism and things like that, political theory. Yeah, and Christian Cordero gives good advice. Get rid of the social media accounts. I did, alhamdulillah, I'm so much more happy and peaceful. If you have them, stick to clear friends and family only. Yeah, it's so hard on the mental health to be honest. And, you know, you'll always think of that like 1% of people that's able to do it and do it right and it doesn't consume them in some sort of way. But, you know, think about all the other 99% that it doesn't do good for. I mean, that's true, Aquarius, that you do. I did learn how to deal with people in public school. That's true, but at what cost, right? We're statistical anomalies, you and I, right? We came out on the other end and we're good. But how many other people went through it and didn't? They lost their faith. May Allah protect us all. Okay, if that's all, then I have to thank everybody for a wonderful, wonderful session. May Allah accept from us and bless you all and accept our Palestine, accept our two-free Palestine. Sorry, it's getting late here. سبحانك اللهم و بحمدك اشهد ان لا اله الا انت استغفرك واتوب اليك Until next time, Asalaamu Alaikum Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuh
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