Sincerely, Yours
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Transcript
This transcript was auto-generated using AI and may contain misspellings. May the peace and blessings of Allah be upon you all. I'm Abdullah Oduro, sitting in for Shaykh Ibrahim Hindi. We are here with our lovely guests, Dr. Usman Omarji and Shaykh Dr. Sister Tamara Gray. This show, as you know, is Sincerely, where we want to have a sincere conversation with those that are the movers and shakers and those that are doing things for people and teaching people Islam or telling people about Islam and just doing things for this knowledge, for the Deen of Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala. Again, I'm your host Abdullah Oduro and we have Dr. Tamara Gray here and sitting in as well for a guy named Abdullah Oduro is Dr. Usman Omarji. Alhamdulillah, I'm excited for this event because, mashallah, as many of you know, Dr. Tamara is not someone unfamiliar to you. She's been a part of this family for a while and she's had some impactful, impactful sessions, talks and series with Yaqeen Institute. So without further ado, mashallah, may Allah bless you, Dr. Tamara and welcome. Thank you. Alaykum salam to Allah. Always happy to be here. Alhamdulillah, alhamdulillah. So are you in Minnesota now or? I am in Minnesota now where we had snow last night. So, oh, wow. Last night. Oh, subhanAllah. It's interesting. You're in Minnesota. I'm in Dallas. It was just it was windy, but the sun is out. And then we have Dr. Usman who's in Cali. So how's it over there? Alhamdulillah, it's beautiful as usual. MashaAllah. Also beautiful here. Snow is beautiful. Tamara, I have family in Minnesota. I love to visit Minnesota. It is absolutely gorgeous. When you come, you have to come see us at our center. Remember to do that. Be sure. I will, inshaAllah. MashaAllah, mashaAllah, mashaAllah. So, so, Dr. Tamara, when we were speaking earlier before the lights, camera and action came on, I said you've been involved in this and this work for over 25 years. And you said no. 37 years. So 37 years.
If you can possibly just take us to where it started for you, if you can. Did you convert to Islam as well? Yes, I did. Yes, I know. I just wanted to ask now that conversion, if you could touch on that briefly. And then what was it that from that conversion that pulled you to want to seek knowledge or just to learn about Islam? Yeah, so I became Muslim in 1985 and 1985 in Minnesota. So I wasn't like, you know, in Los Angeles or San Francisco or Chicago or New York or places where there were a lot of Muslims. It was a small, small Muslim community. And I became Muslim in 1985. So very. And then my my conversion was really much more of a spiritual experience rather than a knowledge experience. I considered myself back then and still do somewhat of a, I don't know, I guess, an academic mind, you might say. I mean, I thought of myself as someone who liked to read and study and think about things. But my conversion was much more based on a spiritual experience than it was about knowing about Islam. So after I became Muslim, the next thing was, oh, my God, I have to learn about this religion. And I was very frustrated, extremely frustrated, especially as a woman in 1985. Really, the books, the attitude and the tone in books in English at that time, I mean, still today, oftentimes as well. But we're really negative towards women and the experience of women as a whole person. And really, there came this point, almost a fork in the road where my choices were one or the other.
Either I needed to study deeply outside of what I was able to read in English or I needed to or something else. And that something else because of my spiritual experience, I couldn't just easily take that. So many converts sort of walk away after frustrating experiences. That would have been much more difficult for me because of my spiritual experience, my community, the community experience. I had plenty of all those horrible experiences everybody likes to share about and some really good ones and some really good ones as well. But the knowledge piece was critical. Like I was I couldn't I felt the religion I knew the religion was true and in being true, it couldn't have a negative attitude towards women. It made zero sense to me. It just couldn't. How could it? This is God. This is Allah. So that is really what pulled me into wanting to go deeply into the study of Islam and study it for myself so that I wouldn't be a victim, really, of the books and things that I was reading at the time. So you were someone that loved to read even before you always someone that you consider yourself an avid reader. Were you before the conversion an avid reader? Was it Islam? No, no, I was an avid reader. I've always been an avid reader. I was in sixth grade. I had well, it was a new a new fashion when I was in sixth grade to teach speed reading. OK, and so I learned it in sixth grade and I learned it quickly and I learned it well because I didn't want to be in that class with that particular teacher. And it was a mastery learning type of thing. So the faster you learned it, the faster you didn't have to go. You could do I can't remember what you could do. Stay in our classroom, I guess. And so I learned that quickly and learned it and it stayed with me. So I was always an avid reader. Yeah. And I still am. OK, Mashallah, Tabarik Allah.
So can you jump in on that, Sheikh Abdullah? Since you're an avid reader, I just I'd love to hear, like, what genres do you like to read? Do you read fiction, nonfiction, only Islamic books like anything that's on your shelf right now that you highly recommend to us? I'm a rabbit hole reader, meaning that if I start well, if I start with one genre or start with one book or one author, I tend to sort of dive into that particular author and that all the books connected to that author. Or if it's a genre, I'll start reading all over in that genre because I want to understand it better. I've as far as like entertaining reading, I'm I mean, this is a get to know people kind of event. Right. So I'll share that when I was young and even I mean now, but I don't really have time and maybe I just read them all. I was always a big Agatha Christie fan. My favorite detective is Miss Marple. She's awesome. But as far as like regular reading, I really love nonfiction. I love sociology. I like philosophy in English. These are the things that I really enjoy reading. I like to read authors. So, for example, maybe an author comes out with a new book. I want to go back and read the different things that that author has written so that I can understand what their perspective is. I would be it wouldn't be honest to say that I read everything, but I would like to. But sometimes I just don't have time. So or just it's not practical. It's not practical, but I do like to read all those different things I've been reading lately. Well, you know, it's almost Ramadan now. So I have about four or five different books going. I have a book about volunteerism and nonprofit work because I run a nonprofit organization and we are working. We have a large volunteer force that's that are mostly virtual. So I am looking and reading about virtual volunteering.
I'm also I was reading recently a lot of different books about truth and virtue philosophy books about that. I'm really interested in I spent about six months really interested in truth and and what does that mean for us today as people living in a post-truth society? But how does that what does that mean? And I'm teaching now, so I just finished rereading all the books, you know, that you teach. So it's almost Ramadan. So I have like behind me, I have my bedouin tafsir that I have ready to read and review as we enter into Ramadan. So, yeah, that's kind of stuff I like to read. Mashallah, mashallah. Where? Oh, can I just say one more thing? I just finished this morning. I just finished. I just got Nijazi in the Shama al-Tirmidhi. So I've been spending a lot of time on that. I just passed the test this morning. I was very nervous about the test. I didn't even tell anyone I had the test because I was too nervous. I wouldn't pass. But Alhamdulillah, so I spent a fun year of hadith this year. I've been really trying to delve more deeply into hadith. Beautiful, beautiful. Doctor, if you can explain ijaza, because I know a lot of sisters are probably, you know, they look up to you and they're probably, what is ijaza particularly? What was the process? How long did it take? Why did you want to do a Tirmidhi? And what is it? Who is a Tirmidhi, by the way? So that's a lot of questions in one. So let me start with the word ijaza. The word ijaza is, oops, is that me? Do I have feedback when I'm talking or am I? OK, the word ijaza is a word that means sort of a license to teach. That's how I would like to translate it. And originally, actually, there's a great book by a professor named George Mokhtisi called The Rise of Colleges.
And this book really talks about how the ijaza system is the forerunner of the university system in the West, even like the outfits and everything else. A really fascinating book, Rise of Colleges by George Mokhtisi. And so one might think of the ijaza as. OK, wait a minute. There are different kinds of ijazas, right? So there are different levels. So there's the ones that are really time consuming and there are sort of light weight ijazas. And then there's the super light ones I've heard about. I've never experienced one of that myself where someone just reads it to you and you just listen. So that I'm not sure how I'm going to say about that one. But anyway, but the whole idea of ijaza is that you study with a teacher and there's a senate. So senate meaning that who you study, who you study with, studied with someone, studied with someone, studied with someone going back to in the case of hadith, going back to the Prophet ﷺ. So that's ijaza. I didn't actually choose to do shama'il, but I'm in a four ijaza program. So we started out with 40 nawawi and then we did a collection of 100 hadith. And now we're doing the 400. We just completed today the 400 shama'il. And then we'll be moving on to a fourth one, inshallah. So I but I'm the shama'il as the shama'il means the qualities, the virtues, the characteristics, the details about who the Prophet ﷺ was as a person. And I mean, this is something that I've studied before because Sira is my is my thing, right? The biography of the Prophet ﷺ was a very important part of my studies. But to study the shama'il as separate hadith and to delve deeply into them in the way that I did in this program was really.
It just reignites that relationship with the Prophet ﷺ. I think that's. So you feel that level of closeness when you're when you're reading through the shama'il in that fashion, mashallah. I wouldn't recommend people read them on their own necessarily because, you know, Arabic is a high context language. And so you really miss a lot when you just read, especially in English. I think some of them could even be. I mean, I really recommend if you're going to read through the shama'il to read through with a teacher or someone who really knows and understands the contextual places of these hadith and the meaning of some of the words as well. I've seen them translated in all sorts of hilarious ways. So in the shama'il basically meaning like the sifat, like the characteristics of the Prophet, how he ate, drank and things of that nature. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. OK. In a nutshell, to make it sound very, very brief, who has had the greatest impact on your life and why, if you mind? Well, I always struggle with superlative questions because I feel like there's it's forcing us into making choices that are maybe not necessarily fair. However, I will say here that when I met, I studied Sira or the biography of the Prophet with Anseir Sheikha Samir Zayed. And she is the author of really the most important Sira book of this century called the Jami' al-Siri. When I met her, I was a young convert and eager to learn. But I harbored a secret. And that secret that I harbored was as a convert, I really struggled with knowing the Prophet.
I didn't talk about it with anyone. I had been Christian before, very, very active Christian. And so I had experienced this sort of Jesus thing that was part of the semi-evangelical background I come from. And when I became Muslim, on one hand, I felt some fear. And at the time I became Muslim, there was a lot of pushback in the community about that. Like, don't get I don't really know. It was just a very sort of cold approach to the Prophet, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, back then. And I also, I would say personally, had faults there that I didn't know how to approach him. And so she cured me of that. She cured me of that. She taught me she was an academic brain, brain person who loved the Prophet, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, not in a soft, fluffy sort of pillowy way, but loved the Prophet, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, in a deeply intellectual understanding of who he was and what he had done for us. And so that was definitely not only life changing, but it preserved my religion in ways that otherwise would not have been. How could it have been preserved? We have to have a relationship with the Prophet, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. This was something I wasn't sharing with anyone because I didn't know how to talk about it. I didn't even recognize it. It's sort of, it's the messiness of it, I don't think, as much, until she helped me out of it. Dr. Elmer, could you help us unpack that a bit? I mean, you work with converts all the time now, and I think that it's not converts alone who experience that. I've been born into Islam, and you view the Prophet, Muhammad, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, as in your mind, it's like, yes, he's a messenger of God, but you don't really understand what that means. You don't have a relationship with him. So how do you walk new converts, especially sisters who might have been in the same situation you were in,
you know, when you first converted, through this process of getting to know the Prophet, Muhammad, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, building that love for Islam that I think was not there in the 80s and the 90s, which was very just like rules and regulations. Well, I think it's really important to have quality writing in English about the Prophet, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, because one of the things that is happening in the world is that we can, if we'd like to cast blame, the Islamophobic machine has websites and books and all sorts of things that really tarnish, A'udhu Billah, but tarnish the image of the Prophet, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, in the hearts of many people. And so the first thing is to correct those doubts, to correct those hidden things that nobody wants to talk about. So somebody may have become Muslim, but still, or maybe they grew up in Islam, but having read in textbooks at school or even some of the English canon like Frankenstein or whatever, may have read things without their knowledge. They've sort of attached themselves to their hearts. And so the first thing is to correct those things, and that's through ilm or knowledge or studying about the Prophet, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, through preferably through people who love him, because you want to learn intellectually, but you also want to have that exchange of feeling. Secondly, I would say, and I usually recommend a lot of salawat, because salawat is like opening a conversation with the Prophet, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, and that helps to soften the heart. And the third thing is, I always recommend, of course, is to think about the sunnahs we can do. For new converts, it's often overwhelming just to do what is farad, so I don't mean piling on a whole bunch of, let's say sunnah prayers, but to think about the attitude of sunnah, the attitude of what kind of person am I, and recognizing that when I'm trying to be the best person I can be,
that I am walking in the sunnah of Rasulullah, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, and being careful when we're teaching about him, that's a pigeonhole, his life into a place of just separate deeds. And when we translate, alladheena aamunu wa amiru salihati, into English, those who believe and do good deeds, do good deeds in English, at least for me, means a deed, like you did a deed, and then you do a deed, and then you do a deed, and then you do a deed, but that's not what it means. It means to live a life of goodness. And so if we can help to, if we can help new converts and old converts and nonverts alike, open up that understanding of my life in the shade or in the footsteps of the Prophet, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, is a better life. Yeah. I like the term nonverts. That's a very, very, very, very interesting mashallah to Barak Allah. So you mentioned you're an avid reader. I think Dr. Usman has a question on a particular text that you may have written, that he may want to ask about. I don't know if I asked early, but... Absolutely. I didn't want to interject too early, but I know you've written a few books, like Project Lina, right? And I mean, I just really was, I found the metaphor so beautiful that you talked about this idea of like people being like palm trees, growing like palm trees, and being strong, but flexible. And at Me and Shehabella, we speak about this all the time. Like, how do we raise people who have this like firmness of faith, but who are not so rigid? And I'm just curious to understand, how do you walk sisters and the converts you deal with through that phase of being knowledgeable, firm, confident, but being flexible, because a lot of different opinions out there. So just walk us a little bit through that. Well, the book is actually built around what I believe you need to be that flexible person.
So the step one, if you will, would be to know the self. And I do think that we as Muslims, we as Muslims are subject to the wider culture that pushes us into sort of a selfish attitude, almost a narcissistic attitude, if you will, about the self. And that's not what I mean here. I mean, to know the self, to know who we are, understand our personality, let's count out our creatives, what are our strengths, what are our weaknesses, what are our talents? What is the culture that we come from? How does that affect us? How has our upbringing affected us? And really know all of these things, because in knowing the self, we begin to be able to know what we can handle and what we can't, how we're growing and how we're not. So that would be step one. Step two in the book, the second module is to declare independence. Declaring independence is especially for converts, because a lot of times converts come into Islam confident, like they've studied, or they had an experience, whatever, something happened. And so they took that step of becoming Muslim. And then it's like they shrink into three year old children and all the whole Muslim community around them is like, oh, you're my convert and you should do this and you should do that and you should do this. And instead, I really want everyone, not just converts, but I think converts need to grow their knowledge. So declare independence is about growing our knowledge, growing our base knowledge so that we have confidence. So that if somebody asks us a question, we don't have to say, just a minute while I go ask. We're never going to know everything, we're never going to know everything. But there should be some basic things that keep us confident. So even when we see stuff that just blows your mind, you say to yourself, okay, Alhamdulillah that I know that doesn't fit with who I
know the Prophet ﷺ is. What I know, I have حُسْنَةٌ بِاللَّهِ, what I know about God. And the third one is to tend your ties. It's really important to have, well, tending your ties, that whole section is about the struggles that converts go through around losing friends and gaining friends and things like this. Also family matters. But I think this applies to everyone. We're in a day and age where it's not cool to be a person of faith. It's like the last living thing it's okay to make fun of. And so anyone who really wants to walk on this path is struggling to find friends, is struggling with family, is struggling. And so to learn how to tend those ties to make friends to grow companionship along the path, while not cutting off the people that love us, but maybe don't understand us, maybe family for converts, or even nonverts, or friends, or co-workers, or what have you. So I think these are the three building blocks, knowing the self, declaring, let's say, academic independence, like really learning, having enough knowledge, there's a foundation. And third, tending the ties so that we can, and these three things together allow for the type of roots that a project, that a project, that a palm tree has, as and then it allows for this idea. So the part of the metaphor is that once a palm tree grows, it also gives fruit, very nutritious, nutritious fruit. All the different kinds of palm trees have like coconuts, and dates, and mango, and things that are really nutritious types of fruit. And that's what we need to be giving back to community. Mangoes, you're speaking my language. Okay, I'd like to go a bit more into that. Because me and Shigabdula, we talk all the time, actually, we were just speaking earlier today about this idea of trying to help young boys become men. And we see the same phenomena you're speaking about, like that transition of becoming like from a boy to a man
in today's world is so tough. Like you said, everyone is attacking your faith, you're not cool, if you're not doing the things typical boys are doing. So on the flip side, you work with women a lot. And we don't mean Shigabdula, both have daughters, I have a 12 year old. Shigabdula, I think you have a teenager as well. How do you help girls become women? In like, and how do you use like the concept of sisterhood and community? Do you really help along this path? Well, we have a program called Robotines. And it sort of represents what I think is necessary. So I think with young people, they need to have skills of adulting, they need to know how to live in this world, we need to teach them how to do stuff like changing tires and managing a metaphorical checkbook, nobody has a checkbook anymore. But just sort of that idea of budgeting and all the rest, while at the same time, giving them connection to the faith, and connection to the Prophet ﷺ and a sense of pride and the identity of faith. And we're in this sort of weird world of identity, where people are identifying themselves with all sorts of things. But really, to understand that this identity in the heart, the only place the heart will be calm is when when it identifies itself, who am I with Allah? I think when it comes to young women, one of the things that I find important, is helping them see goal life goals. And really think about what does it mean to grow into what kind of an adult woman do I want to be? And thinking about the steps they may need to take to reach that place. One of the struggles, if you will, in Muslim community is sort of brainwashing young girls to find their value only in marriage and motherhood. Oh, bin naam marriage and bin naam motherhood, both are great blessings. But not every woman, young girl will be married or in a happy marriage,
not every woman will be a mother. And sometimes there will be tragedy in motherhood itself. And so if anyone, that is going to be the only identity. First of all, this is a trick of shaitan because all of us are human and all of us, our identity is in this place of worship and khalifa. Like it's in this place of taking responsibility for the earth and worshipping Allah ﷻ. And so we need, I think, raising young girls to latch onto that while still respecting and loving all the different parts of our social experiences and the seasons of our lives is really helpful for them to feel confident as they grow and make decisions as they grow older. Oh, Subhana, yeah, I'm so glad that you mentioned, you know, Yanni, bin naam, that they have to, not that I have to, I'm sorry, not have to, that it's told that it's indirectly or indirectly implied that if you're not married, you know, then what is life really about that, you know, you're not successful as a woman, as a Muslim woman, you know, there's a lot of cultural, I don't use the word, I'll use pressure. SubhanAllah, you've probably seen that through, you know, what you've been doing, you said, you know, Rabatan, that's the organization I think you started a while ago. Have you seen it through that work and throughout the organization, just the influx of sisters that are educating themselves and you know, SubhanAllah, they may reach out. Has that been the case? I mean, I see it often, just a couple days ago, actually maybe this morning on one of the threads I'm on, there was, again, it's just like you get tired of it, again, someone quoting from someone who has stood at a mimbar and said, the word, literally, you said indirectly, but they're often quite direct, the worth of woman is in your marriage and your motherhood, like that sentence. And so anyone in the audience or anyone who is secondary, a secondary audience, so someone who goes home with
that, you know, there's just, you can't imagine the impact that that can have, the negative impact that that can have on a young girl or an older woman or any woman who happens to be in a difficult situation because of her qadr, SubhanAllah, we can't control the qadr of a person's life, we can, that's their qadr that they're dealing with and to sort of limit themselves and to tell them that you're not fulfilling, I mean, I don't know, it's something very upsetting and especially because where does this come from? Where does it come from? I don't know. Would it be fair to say, because I mean, SubhanAllah, we're both converts here, would it be fair to say it comes from culture? Is that fair to say? Because I'm, I mean, you know, I think a lot about culture. And my whole mission statement of our book is positive cultural change to creative educational experiences. So I think about culture all the time. And the thing about culture is that culture is circular thing. It grows because of our beliefs. And then it and it changes us. And it will change our beliefs if it is, if it, if it, so if our beliefs are strongly, let's say, within Islamic tradition, the culture that comes out of that should be reflective of that. When the culture doesn't reflect that, it also then circles around and messes with our beliefs, because it frustrates us, it makes us bitter, it makes us whatever. So I hesitate to say it's from culture, just because I think it's so much more complicated than that. But I do think that it comes from many years of both a lack of knowledge of deep knowledge about what this religion is about, on one hand, and a lot of unexamined postcolonial stress disorder, as I call that a lot of unexamined
where we have a lot of men around the world that are struggling because there, there were serious things that happened intentionally to sort of break Muslim men in their various countries, let's say, and not only Muslim men, but and that that hasn't has had a negative impact on culture. And it's caused a lot of control issues. And then we had a whole nother thing going on in the 90s, as you know, the late 20th century, where religiosity was if the man could control his woman, I mean, la ilaha illallah Muhammad Rasulullah, and what is that even? And so a lot of this, you know, we've lost the essence of this, the beautiful relationships of the Prophet, that original culture, we've lost it because of a number of different things. So I, I'm a great believer in education, education is my thing. It has been for most of my life, all of my life. And so I really believe that education can make that switch, or that shift, where we learn differently, we do differently. And when we do differently, we create new culture. And when we create new culture, positive culture, we open our arms both to the struggling Muslims and to those that are that are not yet Muslim, but boy, do they need us. Well, would you say that that I mean, that right there is kind of an explanation of why you started Rabat? Can you explain that? Like what Rabat is? And what you know, what was the motivation? Yeah, I came back to the United States in 2012. And I remember standing in my I rented a little yellow house right next door to my brother. And God bless him. He was such a help. And but here I was in this little yellow house, I was trying to find a job. I really didn't think I was going to be back here for more than five months. And then suddenly, I was here because of the war in
Syria. I don't think I said that. And so I was really struggling. I remember being in my little yellow house in West St. Paul and thinking, having a lot of grief about what was happening in Syria. And just struggling, you know, survivors guilt kind of thing. Really, really, it was not an easy time. And at that moment, I talked to myself, you know, and said, Well, you can't do anything about that. You can't do anything about that. And nor does anyone want you to. I mean, I'm not Syrian, ultimately. I'm not. And, you know, I said, No, but you can do nothing saying to myself about what's happening in Syria. Obviously, I can pray for them. But I but you know, but what you can do is you can take what Syria gave you. And you can give it to others. And I had just come off of a in Ramadan, actually, 69 lecture circuit, where I had met Muslim women all across the United States. And I was really surprised, I felt that the status or state or situation, if you will, of Muslim women in the United States hadn't changed in 20 years, I'd been gone for 20 years, I was like, nothing has changed here, what is going on. And so having that background, and then and then having this moment, I just that's when I said, Okay, so what are you gonna do? You know, what are you gonna do now? And so that's where we started. We started with a pilot class, and it just blossomed from there. So yeah, Mashallah. Can you mind explaining the meaning
of the name for those that don't know, of the organization? Yeah, so the word Roboto is actually kind of a weird name to call an organization in Arabic, because it's a verb that I like, I'm an action oriented person, very pragmatic and very practical. And I liked that. And originally, I wanted Roboto to be the name of the organization in every single project, to have a derivative of Roboto. So Rabat, Rabita, Murabit, you know, like this. But after Rabat, which is our academic program, one of our board members said to me, you know, people don't speak Arabic, they're going to be so confused by that. So I was squashed, my idea was squashed. So now we have things called Daybreak and Roboteens and Dragonflies, which is wonderful, Alhamdulillah. But Roboto means to come together. Rabat is a place, it has a lot of history, the word Rabat, it's very appropriate for our academic program. Roboto is, and I like this coming together, actually, I learned later, I don't know if you're familiar with Nana Ismail, but her Yantero movement, actually, the word Yantero means the same thing as Roboto. So that was really touching for me, because I'm a big fan of Nana Ismail, of course, who wouldn't be. And to know that this term has a very similar term, meaning, I felt like that was very serendipitous. MashaAllah, Tabarak Allah, MashaAllah. I like Robotoens, like that English, Arabic, getting all that in together. That's clever. Yeah, and our teens like it too. Our teens are awesome, MashaAllah, yeah. Yeah, that's beautiful. May Allah bless it and protect it and allow it to flourish and change lives, Inshallah Ta'ala. Amen, thank you. Dr. Tamara, if you don't mind sharing with us a hadith or an ayah that you would like to share with the world, MashaAllah, Tabarak Allah, and just expand upon that. You know, I knew you were going to ask me this, and this is like,
so hard, because I'm the kind of person, when you ask me what's my favorite color, I want to answer, well, you mean what's my favorite color today? I'm the same. So that's, yes, so that's why I struggle with questions like this. However, I decided just to talk about what I'm thinking about right now. So I've been really interested in the verses that are describing believers and really connecting that belief to action and worship. And I mean, that's everywhere, right? And I've been doing a clubhouse thing about Surah Al-Ahzab, verse 35, and then Muslimin Muslimat, this verse 10 qualities. I'm not gonna say that one, though, because I've been talking about that for a long time. So I was thinking about Surah Al-Anfal and the very beginning of it, from like, I think it's two to five. And here you have, you know, this real description of the believers. And this description is so beautiful. And so, I mean, again, I'm very pragmatic, I like to look at things and figure it out. So you can literally lay it out and say, okay, this is what I have to do. So that I, it's not a mystery, you know, it's not a mystery, some kind of strange mystery where, how do I become a believer? No, here it is. So the believer is the one who, when Allah is mentioned, their heart like moves around, or it's affected. Okay. And if the signs of God are shown, so the verses are shown to us, it depends on the tafsir,
then their iman increases. And I like this concept of increasing iman. We have to know that iman is a, is a, there's a word I like to use, I can't think of it now. But it's something that moves, it's not static, you know, and I don't mean to say it's dynamic either. But it's like this, it's a, it's something that is affected by our what we do and how we live. And so, so the believers are those who establish prayer. And when we don't establish prayer, we can't ask ourselves, why is my faith struggling? Because if we haven't established prayer, that's why. And then giving and sadaqa and giving, it's not just about the giving, you know, it's about the act, the attitude of giving, which we live in a capitalist society today. And this is not the attitude that most of us have. I recently in February, I did a no spend February. So I, my daughter and I decided that in February, we're gonna, we're gonna not spend any money at all. And it was a wonderful exercise. It taught me a lot. And one thing it taught me is I really always consider, I consider myself generous, masha'Allah. But I mean, what I learned in that month is that I, that, I learned that one thing we don't do in this capitalist society is think about how we can reduce what we spend on ourselves, so that we can spend more on others. Masha'Allah. And I was ashamed to say that I never even like thought of doing that before. May Allah forgive me. But so yeah, so that sort of attitude of belief, you know, and that's these are the ones that are the true believers. And then it goes on. But that's, I mean, those
kinds of verses are the ones that really affect me. I'm thinking about right now, I guess, like, what is that space that we need to be in to be changing ourselves and to be really authentic about who we are and listening to the Quran and not just sort of reading over it and saying, yeah, yeah, I'm doing that. No, no. Am I? Like, what do I need to look? Get curious. What do I need to learn that I'm not doing? How can I improve myself more, for example? Jazakum Allah khairan. That was that was very an interesting aspect of looking at it. SubhanAllah. Masha'Allah. That's an interesting aspect of the non-spending, no spend February. I mean, it doesn't have to be February, but it is the shortest month of the year. You got to start somewhere. You got to start. So that's practical. That's being very practical. You start somewhere. Masha'Allah. It wasn't easy. We got to 20 day 25. We're just like, can we make it? I don't know. Can we make it? So did you like go to like like a big like Costco, like January, like 31st and like five into the month? No, we didn't actually. No. And we had like we set rules. So my daughter had a rule that she could spend $30 like, you know, throughout the month of needed, she could spend $30. And I had a rule that I could fill up gas when needed, because I mean, I wasn't and that doesn't have to be the rule. Like you can decide, no, you're not going to because you're going to limit where you go. But I don't really drive a lot. And generally, I'm just driving to stuff for work. So I needed to have gas for that. So, I mean, we made rules for ourselves. So it's not like we spent zero money. I paid the bills, you know, but but yeah, but it was a no spend February. It was tough, but it was really I learned a lot. And so did she. And I want to do it again. No, I really I want to do it again. So it's a different kind of CM. I really is. It's another kind of CM. Yeah.
A great thing to do like a group of people just like everyone like being this together. Right. Yeah, I usually given. Yeah, in one of my classes I teach a class about the companions and I've always given a five day no spend homework. Because in the image, like just to follow in the footsteps of some of the different things that the companions do, because every week it's a practical homework and assignment. And so I've always done that sort of five day assignment thing and thought about that. But a month is different than five days. So, MashaAllah, Tabaraka Allah. Salat al-Tahajjud. We know that you have an immaculate series with the Aqean Institute on Tahajjud. Can you tell us why? I mean, we're coming close to the month of Ramadan. I mean, we're practically here, MashaAllah. Can you tell us why you chose that series? And what did you really after you were finished? What do you hope that the viewer gets from it? Well, so first it was the article, right? So, yes, yes, ma'am. Yeah. And I read a book in 2012, actually called The Power of Habit. And in this book, it talks about the keystone habit. And it is a whole discussion about aluminum factory and all this kind of stuff. And I really was thinking, OK, well, what is the keystone habit of the Muslim? And one of the things that I learned traveling around the country in 2012 and meeting some women from all over the place was that we are in a whole nother type of pandemic, if you will. At that time, I might not have called it that. But nowadays we know what that is, which is the lack of prayer. We are a community that's not praying. And if you ask your friends, how many what is the percentage of people of Muslims do you think pray all five prayers without missing them?
The percentage is low. Like I I poll people all the time and 10 percent is usually the high one. About 10 percent of Muslims praying all five prayers all the time without missing. And so I spent I was just deeply grieving and thinking about this. How do we change this? And I really believe, believed and believe that the Hajj is the keystone habit that if we decide that we will pray to Hajj, OK, and we will set that alarm, we're going to do our best. It may be that people are not praying it every single day, but just making that effort. The one who prays the Hajj is not missing Fajr. And the one who prays Fajr is going to pray Dhuhr and then Asr and then Maghrib and then Isha. And it becomes this energizing force that changes the household so that now people are getting up and prayer is becoming part of life. Once prayer becomes part of life, then we have much more of a chance to be the ummah we're supposed to be. So, I mean, that's what I hope people get out of it. I hope people get out of it that. I mean, I'm not trying to sort of make some kind of I'm not making some claim that everyone has to pray hours and hours a night. I want our community to pray. That's what I want. I want us to pray five prayers a day. It's a lot. It's a lot. SubhanAllah. I want us to pray five times a day. And I believe that adding this keystone habit is going to make that happen. Just intending it even. Even just two raka'as, ten minutes before Fajr. It's going to make everything else come forward.
And of course, now it's Tahajjud. So many families, not everyone, but many families, sorry, now it's Ramadan. And many families are waking up for for suhoor or for their early breakfast. And so they're getting up anyway. They might as well pray just two raka'as and start that new habit for the rest of the year. Mashallah. Jazakum Allah khairan. Jazakum Allah khairan. If you don't mind, Dr. O, we have some rapid fire questions and some questions from the audience. OK, this is my first time to answer a question, but I hear them a lot. So I'm just going to say two things and you can answer whichever one you prefer. I'm so not good at these rapid fire questions. OK, we'll start with something subtle. IOS or Android? IOS. That was pretty easy. OK. Oh, spring or fall seasons? Oh, fall. Chocolate or vanilla? Vanilla. Vanilla. Chai or coffee? Coffee. Coffee. Which kind of coffee like? Like a light roast, freshly ground, recently, recently roasted, brewed or brewed with a high temperature, very special high temperature or percolated. But if it's percolated, then you have to drink it right away. OK. Wow. Mashallah. Mountains or oceans? Mountains. Mountains. OK. OK. Steak. Well done or rare? Well, neither. I want it medium. OK, OK. Your favorite city and you cannot say Mecca or Medina.
Every time I go to a new place, I tell everyone around me, oh, I could live here. This is where I could live. Really? But the one city I went and Damascus is near to my heart. So I'm going to just put Damascus in the same category as Mecca and Medina that I can't say that one. So the one city I went to that I said I could retire here as opposed to live was Konya. So I think Konya. In Turkey. In Turkey. Mashallah. Tabaraka Allah. I guess that's what is the most beautiful place you have ever seen. I guess it's one of what you've answered, either Damascus, Mecca, Medina or Konya. Well, most beautiful place, I think, I think Wales is I mean, when I went to Wales, I stood and I looked and I said to the girl with me, what would the prophet have said if he saw this? It's a green that I've never I mean, you can't the greenery of Wales is just beyond the beyond. It's just something I thought, what would what would he have thought to see this kind of greenery? Wow. So I said to him and I just can't imagine. Mashallah. Do you sleep on airplanes? Yes. The second it goes up in the air. Really? Wow. Mashallah. So difficult for me. How about you, Dr. Osman? Are you able to sleep on airplanes? Absolutely. I can sleep anywhere, anytime. Wow. Mashallah. If you had a superpower, which superpower would you wish to have? Hmm. Which superpower would I wish to have? My initial thing is to say I'd like to fly. But I don't know if that's the most useful. So maybe. Maybe I want to be like the bionic woman. Do you remember her? She's from a long time ago. She could hear things from far away. Oh, yes. Yeah. Yes. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Mashallah. OK. What language do you wish you knew?
Somali. Somali. OK. OK. What's the radical law? What was your first job? And this is the last one. I worked as a dietary person in the Presbyterian homes, a nursing home here in Minnesota when I was in high school. And I used to work on the floor that the elderly that needed the most help. That's where they were. So I would serve the food and clean up the food. It was very not very. It was a very non-glamorous job. I mean, that's if you're not that's if I'm not including babysitting and working for my dad and stuff like that. That was my first official I have to hand in my Social Security number of a job. Wow. OK. OK. Mashallah. Now we move on to some questions from the audience. If you can see here, the first question is from Aisha Habib. In your early studying days, how did you manage family with Islamic studying? So. I guess I had two answers for that one is I'm really good at focusing in the middle of chaos. And so I could manage to just focus, even though there was sort of chaos or, you know, kids around and this and that. I you have to plan, you know, you have to plan when you're going to get up before them. You have to plan how you're going to do it. I remember when my son I was studying Hadith and my son was six. He wasn't he was four months old. I think he couldn't sit up yet by himself. And I stuck him on the couch surrounded by pillows and stuffed animals so I could teach him Hadith because I know about myself. Remember what I said about you have to know yourself. So I know that I learn best by teaching. So I was always teaching somebody. Sometimes I was teaching a teddy bear. Sometimes I was teaching a kid.
I mean, they couldn't respond to me oftentimes because once they can respond to you, they don't want you to teach them anymore. So when they're really little, then you can set them down and talk about all sorts of things. OK, OK, I saw that. But I didn't have help. Like I know a lot of people, they're like, I don't have a husband doesn't help me. My in-laws, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You know, I mean, just manage and you're going to manage it. You're going to figure it out and stay positive. And, you know, it's best if we have help. But I didn't at the time. I didn't have help. So I'm the. I'm the. There's a question that it must squeeze a sense from Aisha as well. Let me ask you this for half of how do we approach studying Islamic studies? How do we start this journey for someone who is already a half of someone that is already memorized the Quran and into learning the Arabic grammar? How do they approach Islamic studies? Well, I mean, you definitely want to sign up with a curriculum. It's really important to be walking on a curriculum. So it's not just random learning here and there. Obviously, at Rebots, we have a formalized curriculum. There are other programs of a formalized curriculum. I think it's really important that you just choose a curriculum and walk with it so that you're learning. You're going through the steps and advancing your learning as you go. Yeah, that's I guess that's my general advice there. I mean, if you can travel overseas, but I don't know. Those are the old days. I feel like now with Zoom and everything else, there's so much that can be done from home. And this is a blessing, especially for women, but for women and men as well, that you can access so much from where we are. I mean, my class that I told you about was from my my teachers in Libya. You know, so I'm like going to Libya every Monday and Thursday, MashaAllah.
Just kidding, everybody. That's just through Zoom. OK, OK. Another question here. OK. From Sister Umama. Is Hiv a must for those who want to pursue advanced Islamic studies? Do they have to memorize the Quran? Well, definitely Arabic is a necessity. Hiv is a sort of a given, like it's sort of a given that you're going to be working, at least working on memorizing Quran. When people ask me this question, it really depends on what their language background is, as far as like how much how much they might feel they can advance themselves. Traditionally, you should do that first. But for an adult who is working on Arabic, I would suggest that everything kind of goes together. So you're working on your memorization, you're working on your Arabic and maybe studying your Islamic studies in English so you can really begin to build that understanding of Islam while you're building your language skills. And I mean, at our program, what we have is that by level four of learning, they should be able to read Arabic books while listening to the lecture in English. So that sort of that to me, that's that's good enough. It's good enough for someone who wants to be at that at that stage of learning. They have to be able to access Islamic texts and heritage texts. I know that doesn't answer the question of Hiv, but that's sort of an Arabic answer. And then Hiv is coming along. I wouldn't want anyone to be frustrated or to just say, I'm not going to learn now because I haven't memorized Quran. You know, yeah. I know people are probably asking right now, so the name of your program again. So if they wanted to enter to this program, what's the name of the program? Where would they go? Ribat.robata.org. Ribat, that'd be R-A-B-A-T-A? R-I-B-A-A-T.robata.robata.org.
OK, OK. Next question we have here from Arshia. Can we please get the names of the books mentioned by the doctor and the one she wrote? So I don't know all the books I mentioned, but Project Lina, Bringing Our Whole Selves to Islam, is the one that I wrote that we were talking about. I also wrote Joy Jat's Exercises for a Happy Heart. And I translated with two other translators, and I'm a compendium of the Prophetic Narrative, which is one of the works of my seerah teacher that I talked about earlier. Mashallah. It says here, it's a nice little comment. It says here, a nice little comment concerning that. My daughter is taking Rabateen's classes and the way it is supporting her as a Muslim young woman is something I would never have been able to give her alone. That's our goal. I learned a lesson. SubhanAllah, we learn things. When you say this is an expression, activity brings blessing. And when we started the Rabateen's program, I keep telling people I had in my mind, oh, this is going to be the opportunity for teens that don't want to go to the masjid, that don't want to go to classes to come and learn about Islam. And I'm not even thinking about those that were really distant, but the way it worked out is we were able, not everyone, but most of the teens that are coming to these classes are those who, they want to meet other teens who want to be good Muslims. And it's such a blessing. SubhanAllah. So I learned from this, you know, that Allah sometimes guides you to do something, and it's not for the audience you think. It's for the audience that is meant to have this. So I've just been really, we've been really blessed with these Rabateen's. We love them dearly. And we hope that the world will, that they will be the ones to be continuing this rising tide of Muslim women leadership and knowledge, and teaching and community stewards. InshaAllah.
InshaAllah. MashaAllah. MashaAllah. TabarikAllah. That concludes the questions that we have from the chat. I just have one last request. And you actually kind of mentioned, and you can reiterate if there's any, you mentioned a number of forms of advice. That's the actual question. What advice would you like to conclude this Jalsa with in regards to what you've seen go on, or what we've particularly talked about in particular? What advice would you give to our viewers? That's one of those open-ended questions again. Well, yeah, I mean, I think that I'll, I would say that right now we're two, two and a half, two and a half years away from Ramadan. And this is an opportunity for tawbah. This is an opportunity to turn our lives around. Think well of Allah. Have, you know, know and believe that Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la is the merciful one who accepts our repentance and come back to Allah in Ramadan. You know, if you've not been praying, maybe you've been drinking, maybe you've been in some sort of other place, just drowning in this dunya and there's a deep emptiness inside. Ramadan is an opportunity to come back to Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la. And it's in the fasting. Yes, it's in the praying. Yes, it's in, but whatever you can do, like start with the fasting, come back to Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la through fasting and dua. And then from there, you know, and bring those prayers back. We need to come back and be a community of prayer again. And that means each individual person making that decision to start praying, making that decision to get up at night for Hajj or to just try to decide to be what we were created to be. And Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la, you know, anything that is created for something is only going to be working correctly if used in that thing. So if I make, if I get my father's, I don't have one, but my father has a,
one of those things, the saw, the chainsaw, he used to live on a farm. So if I go get my father's chainsaw and I bring it and try to fix my sink with it, it's not going to work and my sink is going to explode in my kitchen. I'm going to be really upset about it. I can't say, oh, this chainsaw is terrible. I didn't use the chainsaw how it's supposed to be used. Well, we are created to worship Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la and to be of the Khulafa of this earth. And so this is, this is Al-Ladheena Aamanoor, worship, Wa Aamilo Salihaati, acting like the Khulafa, the representatives of God, if you will, on this earth. And so when we're not doing that, that's, that's, we're just, we're not, we're not feeling it. We're not feeling right. And so if you're lonely, if you're feeling in pain, if you're struggling, don't give this up. Go, come here. It's Ramadan. It's an opportunity. This is the opportunity to grab on to your future. Dunya wa Akhira, the happiness of dunya wa Akhira, of this life and the next life. And it's not hard, like, stop thinking it's hard. It's not hard. And it was in the tawbah of one word and the, in the coming back to Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la in one sincere moment is that life changing experience. And then back it up with knowing yourself and learning and tending your ties. And shortly you'll find happiness. I always tell people to make dua to be of the su'ada ad-dareen, those who are happy in this world and the next. And so, yeah, let's all be of the su'ada ad-dareen and take advantage of this upcoming month and remember me in your dua as well. Inshallah. Inshallah, inshallah. Well, Dr. Tamer, it's been a phenomenal jalsa. Benefited a lot. I really got some real good insight. I got to know more about you, masha'Allah. It's always been, you know, the last time we see each other, it's like five minutes before the 30 for 30 or, you know. Right, exactly. That's how we meet each other, you know.
But masha'Allah, I heard about Rabat when I was in Malaysia and I saw a booth and this was 2000 and I think 15, 16, 17 maybe. Yes, subhanAllah. And it was, it was, masha'Allah, it was very nice. It was very nice. And I saw a number of sisters there, by the way. They were working diligently to tell people about the movement. So may Allah Subhanu wa Ta'ala put in it barakah. May He make this an expiation for any shortcomings for yourself and any of the members that are working there to worship Allah via Rabat, inshallah. And Rabat teens as well and everything that falls under it, inshallah. And our dragonflies, those are our little kiddos. The dragonflies, they're super cute. Dragonflies, yes, the dragonflies. Masha'Allah, masha'Allah. So if someone wants to reach out to you, would they just go through the website or is there a way that they can reach out to you? I mean, I'm on Instagram, I'm on Twitter, I'm on Facebook, I'm on LinkedIn. It's pretty hard to not find me. You know, I also have email. It's not my favorite way of communication, but, you know, I do have it. And yes, at the website as well. I mean, basically just about anywhere they can find my, they can get access to me. And I'm here in Minnesota. If anyone's visiting Minnesota, come see us at the Rabat Cultural Center in Arden Hills. We have parking, very important in Minnesota. There is parking. And we'll be having a pop-up message in here in Ramadan for women. So if you're a woman and you're in Minnesota, come on and pray Tarawih and then do Eid al-Fitr with us at the end of the month. And if you're a man, you can come and shop in the books and buy books and support us that way too. So, masha'Allah. Masha'Allah, masha'Allah. Hard work, hard work and dedication. I'm gonna tell my cousins and my aunts who are there in Minneapolis. So they know you, but make sure they come by, yeah. Yeah, tell them to come on by. We have a full, full schedule for Ramadan. So they can check our Instagram, our Rabat Cultural Center Instagram, or they should be on the WhatsApp thread. We have WhatsApp thread for the local thing as well. Do you have a Rabat twins, but you don't have a Rabat tots, right?
Well, we have a, we have dragonflies. So dragonflies are like kids, I guess, Rabat to kids. And those are six to 12. And those are super fun. And then we do have here in Minnesota weekly, what do we call it, toddler music time. It's so cute. We get little six month old to five year olds. They come in and they sing the sheed and they play the drum and every month is a theme. So we had the first month was Laila Hilallah, that was a theme. And then it was the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam and then Ramadan is coming. So obviously that will be the theme Ramadan. I don't know what the theme is after that because our manager here runs it, but yeah. So sort of, we have tots. May Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la reward you, doctor. And may Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la allow your work to flourish and be a rippling effect on those that encounter any of your work and any of the work of your students and of those that are affected by it, inshallah. JazakAllah khair for your time, inshallah. Assalamu alaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh.
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