# Empowering Student Activism | Imam Tom Live

**Author:** Tom Facchine
**Series:** Imam Tom Live
**Published:** 2024-09-04
**YouTube:** https://youtu.be/Lj8YB_qh6X0
**URL:** https://yaqeeninstitute.org/watch/series/imam-tom-live/empowering-student-activism-imam-tom-live
**Topics:** Culture, Family & Community, Politics & Practical Theology, Social Justice

## Description
We talk about a recent IG post that critiques Imam Tom's article, discussing intersectionality and Palestine solidarity, and why leftist causes fail.

## Transcript
**[0:00]** Wa alaikum assalam wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh everybody. Welcome back to our program Yaqeen Institute's live stream every Wednesday night 8 p.m. Eastern New York time. I'm your host Imam Tom and it's a pleasure to have you with us tonight after a brief hiatus. Now we have a very interesting show for you tonight.

**[0:16]** We're going to be talking about a certain Zionist sort of smear campaign against yours truly. We're going to be talking about ceasefire negotiations or the lack thereof going on currently in Palestine and we're going to talk about some recent comments made by former president and currently running for next president,

**[0:35]** Donald Trump, and the whole dynamic of fear and the role that fear plays in politics and when you should take fear into account and when you shouldn't or let's say who you should fear or who is most deserving of your fear. We're going to talk about back to school. It's September.

**[0:53]** Columbia University students first day back on campus picketing and protesting as we have come to hope and expect from them. We're going to be talking about campus activism, how the terrain has shifted and what is sort of in the pipeline and we'll also be doing our normal program or normal segments

**[1:12]** I should say on tafsir covering Surah Al-Falaq and then our personal development book. We're going through Atomic Habits a really really interesting chapter, but first we're going to go to the chat and we're going to see who is tuning in tonight live. We have Saliha Ahmed from Atlanta. Wa alaikum assalam.

**[1:28]** I heard about the terrible tragedy down in Georgia today. May Allah make it easy for everybody. Details are still emerging from that. So we're not going to comment on that very much. One of our returning viewers, Sarah. Wa alaikum assalam. I see you've got some good questions lined up for me. Flaming Eagle from Somalia.

**[1:43]** Wa alaikum assalam. Wa alaikum assalam. Welcome to the program. Shema, wa alaikum assalam from Morocco. Good to have you back with us. Kadera, hope you're well. We've got Rahma Balok from Durham, North Carolina.

**[2:00]** Welcome to the program. So Sarah asks, here we go. Let's get into it. What do you say to Muslims who are constantly talking about the anti-da'wah tactics of online da'wah people and that Muslims are the ones making non-Muslims in the West hate Islam and Muslims?

**[2:16]** And then there was a follow-up comment by Seamus. Welcome back, Seamus. Good to see you. Some of the recent antics of, quote-unquote, da'wah bros have been repulsive, to say the least. Now, I'll be very frank with you all. I don't follow this stuff very closely. So I live under my rock. I live in the mountains and in the woods.

**[2:33]** And I keep to myself. I'm like the J. Cole of the da'wah scene. However, when it comes to, I think the way that Sarah phrased and framed the question is interesting because there is this recurring question that is sort of litigated in the public sphere of either online or amongst Muslims.

**[2:52]** Who is to blame primarily? Where does the primary blame lie when it comes to negative perceptions of Islam? Are Muslims ourselves primarily to blame? Is it our own antics and our own, you know, either a lack of unity or our sort of alienating behavior

**[3:10]** that's sort of, you know, causing people to despise Islam? Or rather, is it more heavy on the Islamophobia industry and those people who are trying to make a bad name for Islam and Muslims? And I obviously, there's truth in both.

**[3:26]** I don't think we have to have an all or nothing black or white sort of account of it. However, my personal experience and what I'm aware of, I think that the lion's share of the blame is on Zionists and the Islamophobia industry. And the way that the media and the for-profit media is complicit in this and how governments have aligned,

**[3:46]** especially after 9/11, fallen in line with the whole war on terror framework in order to securitize and criminalize Islam and Muslims the world over. I think that that is the primary cause of anti-Islamic and anti-Muslim sentiment.

**[4:02]** If we're to split it up, okay, how much would I allocate to that versus whatever antics Muslims are doing online? Which, by the way, there's life beyond online, right? A lot of life happens, probably most of life happens offline. And so sometimes for the very online, the antics that happen online seem to be like, oh my gosh, like the worst thing ever.

**[4:24]** But many, many people live most of their lives offline. And sometimes we lose sight of that. I would probably split it 80-20, something around that. I would say 80% of the blame when it comes to negative perceptions about Islam and Muslims, it's only my opinion, like, you know, take it or leave it, throw it against the wall,

**[4:44]** comes down to deliberate smear tactics, misrepresentation, Orientalism, you know, these types of very, very deliberate smear campaigns. When it comes to Muslim behavior, that's not to give us a free pass. Yeah, of course. When we look bad, when we are excessively infighting, and I don't mean by that, and I'll explain to you why I think this is a question that merits this long of an answer and this thoughtful of an answer.

**[5:12]** When we come across as excessively divisive or dividing on the wrong things and excessively critical or criticizing the wrong things, then yes, that leaves a bad taste in some people's mouths. However, my personal experience is that most people encounter Islam through either personal experience with individuals in their lives or through mass media, not through the quote-unquote da'wah bros,

**[5:38]** which I don't really like that moniker for whoever that's supposed to refer to. Now, why do I bring up the point about why is it significant to talk about this? Because sometimes, sometimes some people use the antics of some as a justification to silence important work that's being done for criticism and for accountability.

**[6:02]** So accountability and criticism is an important aspect of Islam. You know, and nahi al-munkar, forbidding the evil, and with speech and with knowledge, and of course it has its conditions, it has its shurut, no doubt. But there are some people who act as if every act of holding people accountable is a lack of adab, and that is an extremely problematic thing as well.

**[6:30]** So we can't have that. Of course, we know that this is supposed to be balanced. We're talking about balance, but I don't buy, and again, I could be wrong. I stand the possibility of being wrong. I don't buy the idea that the da'wah bros or our own sort of dirty laundry is the primary reason why people have a bad sort of experience or a taste of Islam.

**[6:55]** That's not how I see things. And Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala knows best. Let's see if there's some follow-up comments on that before circling back. Let's see, Sada says, Shams, we've got problems. Sure, but you can't ignore the environment that created it. That's true.

**[7:10]** Yeah, we're going to talk about the Zoom clip and these things like that. Widespread, I mean, I don't know about widespread. I don't know how much circulation the New York Post has. I don't know how many people 35 and under read that sort of stuff.

**[7:26]** I don't think very many. Ash 2020, wa alaikum assalam wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh from Concord, New Hampshire. Welcome to the program. We have Nabisa BV, wa alaikum assalam wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh. Abdurrahman Suleiman from Nigeria, wa alaikum assalam. Sheila Azib from Kuala Lumpur, salamat datang, wa alaikum assalam wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh.

**[7:43]** Welcome to the program. Rick Rashid, wa alaikum assalam, welcome back. A. Ali, wa alaikum assalam wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh. Yes, making, Sada says, making the implicit somehow explicit, like people need to realize differences are OK on implicit.

**[7:59]** Yeah, that's definitely there too. MB, wa alaikum assalam wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh. Welcome back. OK, all right, interesting. So Han has an interesting question. We're going to circle back to that. Let's see what else we've got. So we kind of follow that thread about da'wah bros and who's responsible for people's negative assumptions of Islam.

**[8:18]** Seamus says the NY Post going after Imam Tom. Allah yi khair for the hafidha Allah. Ameen, Ya Rabb. Yeah, so that's going to be our first sort of current event. The New York Post ran a hit piece against me and some of the other sort of conservative media doing the bidding of Israel ran some sort of pieces against me.

**[8:39]** We'll talk about that in depth in a second. Sada says how unsurprising it was to see the true face of BLM. Sada, you're the second person to reference this, and I'm not in the know. Could you tell us what exactly happened? I infer from your comment and someone else that they came out and supported or endorsed Harris.

**[8:56]** But I didn't read anything. So if you could enlighten us what you're talking about. What else we have? Han says, first of all, wa alaikum assalam wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh. Han, genuine question. Do we have to do protests when most of the time it involves free mixing?

**[9:15]** No, you don't have to do protests. But yes, you have to do something for Palestine. So protests aren't going to be for everybody. That's OK. What can you do and what are you doing? You should not use your reservations about protests be an excuse for you not doing anything.

**[9:32]** So there's lots of things to be done. And we'll talk about that when we talk about campus activism and what's to be done and different sorts of things. So that's one thing. The second thing is that if protests have free mixing and there needs to be, and I have yet to see a precise and exhaustive conversation about the definition of free mixing.

**[9:53]** OK, in the English language, we talk about this term free mixing as if everybody understands what it means. And people mean very, very different things. Is the free mixing that happens at a protest the same or worse as what happens at the grocery store? We need to have a conversation about that.

**[10:09]** I don't see that conversation being had. However, taking what you're saying at face value, if your concern is that there is free mixing at a protest or other haram elements, OK, then ask yourself, why is that so? And is there a way that I can change it? And what you'll find most of the time, I find, is that if Muslims are more involved in actually organizing these protests and demonstrations, and I'm talking about a critical mass of Muslims, not just your token Muslim or Muslima, then we would be able to have more input and more say as to the culture of these protests and demonstrations and how they occur.

**[10:45]** Including, excuse me, including eliminating, you know, making time for prayer, making sure that there is some sort of gender division in some way, shape or form, these sorts of things. Seamus says, very high tensions in East Africa, Egypt, Somalia, Sudan versus Ethiopia, RSF, UAE.

**[11:11]** We live in times of fitna. Subhan'Allah. May Allah strengthen the true believers of Taif and Mansura and give them victory. Haleem and Asir, there's your shout out. Wa alaikum assalam wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh. How are you doing? Where are you tuning in from tonight?

**[11:26]** Good to have you with us. Tasman, wa alaikum assalam wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh. Very good. Okay. Pestify, wa alaikum assalam wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh. Welcome back to the program. Maldives, correct? Yeah. Well, Seamus points out about BLM as an organization has been distanced from movement for a few years.

**[11:46]** Yes. And the cooptation, right? And the infiltration and cooptation of movements is an extremely important part of the history of social and political movements in the United States of America. And one that must be studied. One that must be studied. When you see what's happening to the uncommitted movement and how essentially they gave up all of their leverage, these sorts of things, they happen every single time.

**[12:07]** So it's essential that we study these sorts of things. Courtney G, welcome back to the program. Yep. Okay. I see. They made a call for some of the resistance factions to release the hostages.

**[12:23]** I see. Masha'Allah. They pulled- Ah, Asad. I see what you did there. They pulled in all lives matter. Yeah, Asad. All right. Masha'Allah. What else do we have? Amin. Wa alaikum assalam. Wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh. Yes. Rick Rashid. Absolutely. May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala ease the burdens of the people of Sudan, some of the best people on the face of the earth and some of the most pious, humble people on the face of this earth.

**[12:45]** May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala grant victory to Allah's true supporters in Sudan and remove from them any of the hardship and the affliction that they face from those who would do them wrong and oppress them. Ameen. Wa alaikum assalam. Wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh. Nope. You got it. All right. So let's get into it.

**[13:01]** Many of you already brought it up. So let's get to it. We've got a problem with Zionist snowflakes. There's a true pandemic, a new pandemic, which is different from the pandemic of COVID. And we have Zionist snowflakes that are running amok in this country that are not able to take any criticism or take any of their own medicine.

**[13:28]** And so some of you have pointed out that there was some sort of a smear campaign against me. Well, we've got some images, right? Here we go. The New York Post. I'm sorry, I keep on doing this. The New York Post with a circulation of however many boomers it says.

**[13:47]** Let's run through that really quickly. The machinations who I like the fact that they humanize me, who enjoys espresso, hiking and birdwatching, according to his bio at the Yaqeen Institute, are indeed dangerous, the professor said. Let's go to the next item, please.

**[14:03]** So basically what had happened was this, that we did an event or I did an event in my personal capacity with some of the activists from some of the colleges in New York City. Ironically, ironically, none of the people who put on this webinar, it was an online event, this webinar were from Columbia.

**[14:22]** They were not Columbia students. I don't even know if any Columbia students were in attendance. There were other colleges represented, City College, Brooklyn College, these sorts of things, which I have relationships with people, student activists throughout New York City and beyond.

**[14:38]** Now I brought up an example of what it would look like to push back against some of the silencing tactics and some of the intimidation tactics that have gone on against student activists. Because as we know, there are Zionist professors and there are even Zionist administrators that are trying to equate any criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism and get it brutally suppressed and brutally put down, even to the point of expelling students and harming them and their sort of future prospects.

**[15:11]** So I gave an example and just, fi sabili mithal, or as an example, I brought up probably the most vitriolic of the Zionist professors in New York City, this individual named Shai Davidai. And I said, for example, if there was such a professor as him, then one would think about how to get him removed from his position.

**[15:34]** That if he's a professor, he's on a contract, that contract has to be up, it has to have KPIs, or key performance indicators. There has to be some sort of board reviewing his performance. And if this individual is creating a hostile environment for their students, and this individual, which he did for the last 10 months, has been engaged in such flamboyant and hateful rhetoric that created a dangerous environment for the students of his

**[16:04]** own institution, to the point where the student protesters at Columbia were attacked by vigilantes with chemical weapons, with skunk. Okay, this actually happened. And even Columbia University itself implicitly recognized that he was a rabble rouser and a troublemaker because they denied his access to some of the buildings on campus for a bit, which he threw a hissy fit about.

**[16:27]** Now, in the context of this, you know, explaining how students might organize to push back against professors like Shai Davidai, we have two quotes right here, that Shai Davidai, how do we get him in trouble? How do we create a situation which he's in jeopardy? They're able to take somebody out, somebody like that, and make an example that might shut up a hundred more.

**[16:47]** And they were trying to twist this and make it seem like I was physically threatening him, which I wasn't. I was talking about in the context of getting him removed from his position, because I have this crazy idea. I have this crazy opinion, guys, that if you create a dangerous environment for your students, you probably shouldn't be teaching that at university.

**[17:08]** That if you want to silence the free speech of your students and create an environment in which they might be attacked, contribute to the likelihood that they might be attacked, you do not deserve to be a university professor. So I didn't stutter when I said these things, and I refuse to stutter or apologize for them now, because I stand by what I said a hundred percent.

**[17:29]** People like Shai Davidai and other university professors have no business teaching in colleges, universities in the United States of America. If you want to do that, you can go teach in Israel. You can go somewhere else where it's an ethno-supremacist state and you're not allowed to criticize Israel.

**[17:46]** Here in the United States of America, we believe in free speech, supposedly. Supposedly, we believe in academic freedom, supposedly. Supposedly, universities and colleges are places where you're supposed to hash out these ideas and engage in protest. And to have somebody who is however many years your senior, basically using their leverage, using their authority, using their connections, his father, by the way, is heavily involved in the arms industry, to use everything that they have to silence and to bully students.

**[18:15]** I can't stand for that. Sorry. That makes you a bully. And that makes you a coward as well. Because if you're picking on college students, not people your own age, yeah, I'm 35, pick on me. Don't pick on college students, leave them alone.

**[18:32]** I stand by what I said a hundred percent, and I would not take back any of it. If you want me to say it again, I'll say it again. And I didn't stutter then, and I won't stutter this time. So what else do we got guys?

**[18:50]** Yeah, a hundred percent Abdullah. Zionists are allergic to accountability. A hundred percent. Pestify, I agree. He is a drama queen. A hundred percent. Drama queen with a capital Q. Hey Qadri, good to see you here. Wa alaikum assalam, Juju S. from Orange County.

**[19:06]** Hey Qadri, yeah, I'm getting national notoriety. Ahlan wa sahlan. Ahlan wa sahlan. You know, we don't... ... ... And personally, I don't care about... I don't like drama. I don't like to talk about myself.

**[19:21]** But I understand that many university students are going through the same thing. And we're going to talk about that in a little bit when I... Specifically the situation in Columbia. I understand that many young people are going through the same thing. And it can be a scary thing to see your face and your image pop up in a newspaper.

**[19:38]** Or I've gotten some hate email from some boomers with too much time on their hands at the keyboard. It might be a very scary thing. But I want you to know that we're all together in this, and we're not backing down.

**[19:54]** And in fact, we're not going to get past this until we actually face it with bravery and honor. Let's see. Let's go back. Who else do we have coming through? I think I saw Amina Kasupovich. Wa alaikum assalam.

**[20:09]** How are you? I hope you're well. Ishar Ali. Welcome to the program. What else have we got? Samar Zia. Yeah, typical, right, Sara? Seamus brings up Netanyahu's speech today. We will talk about that in a bit.

**[20:28]** Atika Rahman. Wa alaikum assalam. Wa alaikum assalam. Astaghfirullah. Astaghfirullah. Alhamdulillah. Thank you very much. Ameen. Minami Islam Khan. Wa alaikum assalam from Bangladesh. Please don't ever stutter. No, I'll try not to.

**[20:43]** The only time I stutter is if I haven't had my espresso. Alright. So Allah (ﷻ), what the amazing thing is, the amazing thing is this. The more you read the Qur'an, the more you realize that it's all there already.

**[20:58]** It's all there already. Allah (ﷻ) said, we can go to this, guys. يَحْسَبُونَ كُلَّ صَيْحَةٍ عَلَيْهِمْ Wallahi, when I saw Shai Davidai having his meltdown, thinking that I was, you know, I think he said I can defend myself and all this, you know,

**[21:14]** stuff like that, which I didn't personally threaten the guy, you know. But he has a guilty conscience. He knows what he did is wrong. And he knows what he's doing is wrong. He knows he has nothing to stand on. He knows that what he is supporting is just supremacy, is ethno-supremacy in Palestine.

**[21:35]** He's a genocide cheerleader. That's essentially what he is. And deep down, he knows it. And so any little blip that might be talking about him or might be doing something,

**[21:50]** he has a meltdown. يَحْسَبُونَ كُلَّ صَيْحَةٍ عَلَيْهِمْ They think that every peep and every shout is against them because of their guilty consciences. You stand on nothing. You're not standing on truth. You're not standing on righteousness. You're standing on supremacy.

**[22:09]** And Allah has his ways. We'll see what happens. Next up, we've got ceasefire negotiations. Okay, now we've got the fact, one of the excuses that Israel has been using from the beginning of the escalation against Gaza and Palestine

**[22:30]** has been the hostages everywhere, everywhere, everywhere. Every Zionist outlet has used the hostages as an excuse for their barbarity, an excuse for their genocide. Supposedly, according to them, they have said,

**[22:45]** if only they would return the hostages, then we would stop. Well, we know that's a lie. We know that is a bald-faced lie because, first of all, Israel has demonstrated that they care nothing about their own people. The Hannibal Directive on October 7th, when they were responsible

**[23:02]** for the majority of the loss of life on that day. Second of all, they have demonstrated, knowing that the hostages, exactly, it's never been about the hostages,

**[23:17]** the barbarity and the amount of firepower and ammunition that they have used in Gaza demonstrates that they do not care about the hostages surviving whatsoever. Look at the targeted assassinations that they have carried out

**[23:34]** all over the world in the last 30 years against Ismail Haniyeh just in the last couple months. Look at how targeted that particular thing was. Okay, and yet, when it comes to Gaza, they're throwing everything, everything, everything

**[23:49]** at Gaza, they don't care anything about their hostages. And even many Israelis know this, which is why they're protesting, or one of the reasons why they're protesting. Exactly what A. Qadri just said, bad faith. That Israel is operating in bad faith, the resistance factions know it,

**[24:05]** anybody with half a brain cell knows it, that they are just trying to use the existence of hostages as an excuse, as a bargaining chip to prolong their genocide as long as possible.

**[24:21]** As Shema said, 100% Shema, they killed the hostages themselves. And while they have our attention focused on the hostages, just like A. Qadri said, now they are talking about annexing the entire West Bank.

**[24:36]** Netanyahu presented a map of Palestine, or excuse me, a map of Palestine with no West Bank on it. It was all in Israeli blue. And now the media outlets are calling it controversial. It's not controversial, that's genocidal. That means that, when we say from the river to the sea,

**[24:53]** Palestine will be free, okay? And we're accused of being genocidal or ethnic cleansing, and they show a map with no West Bank on it. And somehow this is just, oh, it's just controversial. It has nothing to do with genocide or ethnic cleansing whatsoever.

**[25:11]** So we see that, and this is something that we've seen for 10 months, and everybody knows it, who's been paying attention, that they, yes, exactly, Pestify, the IDF, the Israeli Defense Forces. They killed three of their own hostages while waving a white flag,

**[25:26]** while waving a white flag. So what do you think they're going to do with those who are underground or in a less vulnerable position? They're not acting in good faith, and it reminds us of one of the verses in Surah Al-Baqarah, we can cut to that, guys,

**[25:41]** where Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala in Surah Al-Baqarah, he criticizes Bani Israel for many of the things that they did, and one of them was in acting in bad faith when it came to their own rules and regulations. And some of those were rules and regulations of war. So we have in [Al-Baqarah 2:85], there's a situation where Bani Israel

**[25:59]** was not even allowed to take hostages in the first place, but once they had them, they ransomed them off according to the rules of their scriptures. This demonstrates a type of interaction or a type of disposition, a type of orientation towards virtues and values or the lack thereof,

**[26:18]** that basically you're only appealing to things when it serves you. You're only willing to follow rules when it serves you. But when push comes to shove, it's all about you, and you will break any rule that is out there if it means that you'll benefit from it.

**[26:34]** And this is the attitude that we see Israel demonstrating consistently. Finally, for current events, we've got Trump tweeted out this week. Here we go. Meet your neighbors if Kamala wins. Vote Trump.

**[26:52]** Okay. So we've got what looks like Afghan men, and someone said maybe this is Taliban or something like that, burning the American flag. So we see Trump using this type of fear tactics.

**[27:07]** And of course, everybody who wants to support the genocider Kamala Harris uses this also to justify why you can't let this person win. You have to just suck it up, hold your nose, and vote blue.

**[27:23]** Now again, this is not the place to be mentioning my endorsement, though I did the other day on the Safina Society podcast with Dr. Shadi Al-Masri. I did give my official endorsement for what I believe Muslims should do come November in the general election.

**[27:39]** So if you have not seen it yet, you should check that out in your spare time. After you're done with this program, go to Safina Society and see the live stream we did yesterday. I make my recommendation about what should be done. But we see here both sides.

**[27:54]** What I want to point out here is that both sides engage in fear-mongering, that that's all that they have, that the United States right now is under a death grip. They are caught in the clutches of an oligarchy

**[28:09]** that has two parties that are part of that oligarchy that are barely different, to be honest with you, especially when it comes to Palestine, especially when it comes to foreign policy, are very, very, very the same, very much the same,

**[28:25]** more similar than they are different. So what we need to do is we need to find a way out of this particular problem and going with either one of these particular parties that already is the problem itself, well, if you keep on doing the same thing,

**[28:42]** then you can't expect any results. But we wanted to point out, we'll cut to this guys in the studio, Allah (ﷻ) talks about the role of fear. And fear is an act of worship at the end of the day. I mean, there's certain parts of fear that are natural,

**[28:58]** that happen when you encounter something in the creation that is terrifying in a natural sort of way. Okay, but a certain degree of fear should only be kept for Allah (ﷻ), which is why Allah (ﷻ) mentions the situation,

**[29:13]** الَّذِينَ قَالَ لَهُمُ النَّاسُ إِنَّ النَّاسَ قَدَ جَمَعُوا لَكُمْ فَخْشَوهُمْ Okay, so there are a type of people that when things are about to go down, and the forces are gathering against you, there's one type of person who's a weak-hearted person,

**[29:29]** that is going to basically try to get you to capitulate because of the fear. They're going to say to you, look at all these people who have gathered against you, there's no way you're gonna win, there's no way out of this, you might as well give up.

**[29:44]** And what does Allah (ﷻ) say should be the attitude, فَزَادَهُمْ إِيمَانًا وَقَالُوا حَسْبُنَا اللَّهُ وَنِعْمَ الْوَكِيلُ The attitude of a properly calibrated believer is that's when we smile, that's when we say, no, I believe in Allah, we rely on Allah,

**[30:03]** and He is the best disposer of affairs, He's the best person or the best entity, the best deity, the best one, these words don't translate well from Arabic to English, He's the best one to take care of things, disposer of affairs is how it's translated here.

**[30:20]** So we can't capitulate to fear, we have to act on principle, we have to do the right thing, worry about doing the right thing, know that your decisions, whether it's what's happening in November or before it or after it, that you will be asked by Allah (ﷻ),

**[30:35]** what did you contribute to? And Allah (ﷻ) can decide to have anything happen, exactly like Sarah just said, victory does not always come from numbers, it comes from Allah (ﷻ). In fact, we have many examples in the Quran,

**[30:51]** كم من فئة قليلة غلبت فئة كثيرة بإذن الله How many a small band has defeated a larger force by the will of Allah (ﷻ) when Allah (ﷻ) in [Al-Baqarah 2:249] talks about the story of Talut,

**[31:06]** the story of Saul and his army, and he was not concerned with numbers, he was concerned about having the true believers, the faithful, loyal believers with him, and then doing the right thing. Let's hit the comments, let's see what we got before we go on to talk about

**[31:22]** the return to school, back to school, and what an important school year it is. What do we have here? Muhammad Ibnu asks, Is feeling hopeless a bad thing?

**[31:38]** Yes, Allah (ﷻ) tells us to not despair. Despair is not an appropriate behavior because it indicates, we're not trying to shame you, I mean people can fall into it, but what we're saying is that it indicates a bigger problem,

**[31:55]** which is a lack of internalizing how Allah (ﷻ) is in control of things. Look at the people of Gaza, how much they've been through, and many of them are still, I'll say I haven't seen any of them blaming Allah (ﷻ),

**[32:12]** saying why Allah, why Allah, or why me? That's powerful, because they understand who Allah is, they understand that these things, وَتِلْكَ الْأَيَّامُ نُدَاوِلُهَا بَيْنَ النَّاسِ that these things happen, they can happen in the creation,

**[32:28]** any bad, horrible thing that could possibly happen to you, it's part of the dunya, and everybody takes their turn, every individual takes their turn, every group of people takes their turn, and so to be hopeless and to despair, to say yes,

**[32:44]** is not something that demonstrates that you've properly internalized who Allah really is, and what the afterlife is, and how Allah (ﷻ) rewards the patient in the face of these types of adversities. So it's not like, you know, it's an opportunity,

**[32:59]** I don't want you to just say, oh it's a bad thing, I'm wrong, and get further into a rut, take it as an opportunity, it's an opportunity to rely upon Allah (ﷻ), to address your utter need and dependence upon Allah (ﷻ), and demonstrate your belief that

**[33:15]** He is the only one that can save you, whether it's in this dunya or the next. Let's see. I'm glad you liked that, Courtney, genocide cheerleader, 100%.

**[33:30]** Yes, what do we got? Yes, the crimes are endless, they shot a child on rollerblades, they killed boys playing soccer on the beach, the crimes are endless, let's stop pretending. And this is one of the things that I said,

**[33:46]** you know, pushing back against Shai and the Israeli Post, I mean the New York Post, when they're talking about intimidation. Since when do you care about intimidation? You guys, all you do is intimidate. Oh, he's advocating for the end of somebody's career.

**[34:02]** Since when do you care about ending someone's career? All you do is dox. Let's be real. You don't have any values. You're only upset when it happens to you. And whoever builds a house of cards, the house of cards will fall.

**[34:22]** Muhammad Ibnu asks, are Bani Israel formerly part of Islamic people in the Prophet ages? I'm going to try to re-translate that comment in my head. We understand that when Allah (ﷻ) discusses Islam, he's talking about, there's capital I Islam and lowercase i Islam.

**[34:38]** There is Islam as the continuous religion that Allah (ﷻ) has given everybody. That is referring to the aqeedah, that has been the belief and the theology of one God and only worshiping one God that has been communicated to every authentic and legitimate messenger in the entire history of humanity.

**[34:54]** We call that Islam. We also call Islam the shariah of Prophet Muhammad (ﷺ), the last messenger given through the Quran and his Sunnah. So that's why this term is what they call fancy word, multivalent. Islam can mean the bigger sort of perpetual Islam that has been communicated throughout time

**[35:10]** where the aqeedah was the same but the shariah might have been a little bit different as Allah (ﷻ) says in [Al-Ma'idah 5:48], وَلِكُلِّ مِّنكُمْ جَعَلْنَا شِرْعَةً وَمِنْهَاجًا Or we could be talking about this particular ummah of Prophet Muhammad (ﷺ) and the shariah that he brought. So if we're talking about Bani Israel,

**[35:26]** we're talking about the ummah of the Prophet (ﷺ) and the shariah that he brought. If we're talking about Bani Israel, Bani Israel, okay, Israel is one of the names of Ya'qub. Okay, so the people before Ya'qub, such as Ibrahim (ﷺ), are not part of Bani Israel.

**[35:42]** They are the ancestors of Bani Israel and Lut and others. There are other prophets that are not part of Bani Israel, such as Hud, such as Shu'ayb, such as Salih. These are not part of Bani Israel, at least to my knowledge. And then there are the prophets

**[35:58]** that came to Bani Israel, including Yusuf (ﷺ) and Musa (ﷺ) and Dawood (ﷺ) and Sulayman (ﷺ) and Isa (ﷺ). Okay, now the extent to which the people followed those prophets, with what they brought, those people are

**[36:14]** considered Muslims in the afterlife, in the aqeedah sense of the word, meaning that they will be rewarded for their belief. However, people who call themselves followers of them and they don't have anything to do with them, and they don't have the substance of that belief,

**[36:30]** then that is something that those prophets are free from them. And you can see the discussion at the end of [Ali 'Imran 3:64] and at the end of [Al-Ma'idah 5:116-118], where Allah shows us a conversation that will happen between Himself and Isa (ﷺ)

**[36:46]** where He asks Isa (ﷺ), did you tell your people to worship you? Did you tell your people to do this and that? And He will make bara'ah from them. He'll say, no, I didn't tell people anything other than what you wanted me to tell them.

**[37:02]** Okay, what else we got? Harm Grotto says, I think we should toughen up with someone that didn't support a genocide to sacrifice discomfort than our brothers and sisters. I can't quite follow all that, but I might agree with you.

**[37:18]** I'm not sure. Let's see. This is an interesting comment. The rhetoric is equivalent or worse than 9-11. You think 10-7 happened on US soil. 100% and that's because Zionism is losing. That's because the whole thing

**[37:34]** might fall, not just within our lifetime, within the decade. And I seriously believe that. Because these are the, I believe that these are the last gasps and the desperation. Look at how much credibility. Or, let's not use that term

**[37:50]** because they were never credible. But let's look at how much scrutiny Israel is under now. And Zionism is under now. More scrutiny than it has ever been under. And Allah has a plan. And Allah's plan is always done.

**[38:09]** Tazkiyah Jewelry. Wa alaikum assalam wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh. Ahlan wa sahlan. Welcome. Hey Qadri, don't feel bad, man. Don't feel bad. Everybody needs a break sometimes. Somebody asked me this in person and, you know, I think that for us,

**[38:25]** because many people feel guilty about not watching every single video and every single photo that comes out of Gaza. And obviously there's two extremes with this. The thing is that we need to be functional. If you're doing work that's going to help the people of Palestine,

**[38:42]** then you need to be able to function in that. And so there's a certain sort of critical mass or appropriate amount where you're able to stay motivated and you have your empathy. And there's maybe a point at which it becomes debilitating. Now you being debilitated, how does that help the people of Gaza?

**[38:59]** How does that help the people of Palestine? Right? So you have to make sure that you strike that balance. Okay. Minami reminds us, speaking of victory,

**[39:15]** today marks exactly one month of our revolution in Bangladesh. We had a number of ups and downs through this whole time. And yes, and unfortunately, Minami, I was off the one week when you actually suggested to me, you filled me in about how the floods in Bangladesh, if we had had this program last week, we would have talked about the floods

**[39:32]** and how the floods are actually a tool, just like Israel uses starvation against the people of Gaza, how India uses floods against the people of Bangladesh in order to try to undermine the stability of the country, that it controls the headwaters and the dams of the rivers

**[39:50]** that are coming into Bangladesh and actually intentionally floods Bangladesh to create chaos. So we know that Bangladesh is not out of the woods yet. Please may Allah assist the people of Bangladesh and give them a just government who is responsive to their needs

**[40:06]** and is a good end and result for all. Yes, Sara, that's correct. Isn't there a saying where if you see Allah a certain way, then that's how he'll be for you. Yes, that's correct.

**[40:21]** There's a hadith of Prophet Muhammad (ﷺ), it's actually a hadith Qudsi, where he mentions the phrasing of Allah (ﷻ), where he basically says that I am as my servant expects me to be. So that is a very important thing. You have good hope in Allah (ﷻ), you have raja'.

**[40:38]** You don't have tamanni, you don't have empty hope or vain hope, but you have good hope and good thoughts about Allah (ﷻ). حُسْنَ الظَّنِّ بِاللَّهِ As Allah (ﷻ) says in the Quran a few times, وَمَا قَدَرُوا اللَّهَ حَقَّ قَدْرِهِ They underestimated Allah, right?

**[40:55]** And in other parts, يَا عِبَادِ الَّذِينَ أَسْرَفُوا عَلَىٰ أَنفُسِهِمْ لَا تَقْنَطُوا مِن رَحْمَةِ اللَّهِ Okay, do not despair of Allah's mercy. Yeah, you're right, Ayyadri.

**[41:13]** Everyone knows that the Israeli Post, I'm sorry, the New York Post is trash and a gossip rag. That's right, yeah, they contacted me for comment. Why would I even bother, man? They're not, just like Israel's not good faith actors in hostage negotiations,

**[41:28]** they're not good faith actors, why would I even bother? And Seamus reminds us of the precarious situation of the Rohingya. And Subhan'Allah, one thing I learned in the last few weeks

**[41:43]** was the hand that Israel has played in the genocide of the Rohingya in Myanmar, about how Israel traded, basically, Myanmar recognized Israel internationally

**[41:58]** in exchange for Israeli assistance when it came to what they were doing. There are so many conflicts and destabilizing events that Israel has its hand in. But yes, this problem of sort of ethno-nationalism, we could say,

**[42:15]** or of this problem of borders, okay, and of nationalism is a major, major problem besetting the Ummah, maybe perhaps the most dangerous problem.

**[42:32]** Wa alaikum assalam, Muhammad Bari from Sierra Leone, welcome to the program. Artforge admits to being feeling overwhelmed 100%. Yeah, we all are. Azrael asks, are we in a mosque? Sort of.

**[42:47]** Shayma asks, how can we understand properly the concept of loyalty and disavowal in contemporary context? That's a great question, Shayma, mashallah. Yes, Subhan'Allah, it really has to do, and I'll put it like this.

**[43:06]** There was a Palestinian uncle who I talked to in Dublin, Ireland, part of the diaspora, who told me that how you feel in your heart as a Muslim about Mecca is a sign of your relationship with Allah, Subhanahu wa ta'ala. And how you feel in your heart towards Medina is a sign of how you feel towards Prophet Muhammad (ﷺ) and his Sunnah.

**[43:24]** And how you feel towards Al-Quds is a sign of how you feel towards the Ummah. And that is an appropriate metric that our, of course, our primary loyalty and love and affiliation is to our people.

**[43:41]** And that is the Ummah of Prophet Muhammad (ﷺ). We want Jannah for them, we want Jannah for everybody, but there are rights that other people that are part of this 'aqd, part of this covenant that we have with Allah, Subhanahu wa ta'ala, they have rights upon us that other people don't have.

**[43:56]** Right? And so definitely our loyalty first and foremost is to the Ummah and to the people who are suffering in it, and to do whatever we can to assist them. That's a very big question, I'm sorry.

**[44:11]** That's a very insufficient response to your question, but it really could take quite a lot of time to answer in full detail. 100%, bread and za'atar.

**[44:26]** At this point, Islamic extremism is being used as an excuse to justify Israel's oppression. I would say even further than that, Islamic extremism was invented, mostly, as an excuse to justify Israel's oppression. And we'll talk about that in a bit.

**[44:41]** Fatima Ali from New Jersey, wa alaikum assalam wa rahmatullah. Jersey represent. Ameen, Muhammad Bari. Ameen. Ameen, Ameen, Ameen. Victoria Strusilla, welcome to the program. Okay, let's turn to our next topic of discussion.

**[44:59]** We've got, you know, they're not kids, but the kids are back to school, or the young adults are back to school. They're not kids, they're fully-fledged adults, and they are certainly acting like it. And we have a lot to be proud of when it comes to our young Muslims in institutions like Columbia University and elsewhere,

**[45:17]** who are really on the front lines, and we'll talk about that in a second. So we see that students are back in class at Columbia University and elsewhere, and the first day, heroically, courageously, they said,

**[45:32]** we are picketing, we are on strike, we are not going to classes, until Columbia University divests from Israel, from the occupation. Now, this is a really important move that they made. They noticed that they didn't go right back to encampments,

**[45:47]** and this was sort of a chess match, if you will, that was being played out all summer, where Zionist lobby groups and university administrators were working together to try to find ways to disrupt and prohibit encampments, protests, things like this on campus.

**[46:08]** So it strikes me as significant that the Columbia students are smart enough to realize that tactics might have to change, because it's going to be a lot easier, and I think TRT released an article already, TRT released an article where, I think they called it a police state.

**[46:28]** You look around college campuses, and it's like a police state. There are police everywhere, and there's barriers and blockades and barricades and things constructed to make sure that people don't protest, to make sure that people don't gather together and do these sorts of things.

**[46:45]** NYU, one university, a New York university, changed its rules and regulations to basically include the use of the term Zionist as an expression of anti-Semitism. So these are the sorts of politics that are playing out.

**[47:00]** Now, since they changed all of their rules in regards to encampments and protests and things like that, it's important that you would have to pick a tactic that's going to be appropriate to your situation. And the Columbia students decided to go with a strike.

**[47:15]** They decided to go with a picket, and I think that's a really good idea. I think it's a very courageous idea. Of course, the police were called in yet again to arrest and to brutalize and to break them up. But what I think is significant is that every sort of analysis of power,

**[47:32]** you have to understand what the other side needs, what's going to hurt the other side. And if you want to influence their policies, again, we've talked about this time and time and time again, this is not about being liked. It's not about building relationships and warm fuzzies and things like that.

**[47:48]** This is about building power. And with universities, the two things that they need the most are money and reputation. So all of the students out there, keep this in mind. When you're approaching the new academic year, you're wondering how to push back

**[48:06]** against the draconian policies, the unjust policies, of your university and your college, right? You have to find a way to make it so costly for your university, either in terms of money or reputation, that they will not mess with you anymore,

**[48:24]** that they will allow it to go forth. That they will eventually divest. And there's a lot of ways to do that. Tuition strike is one, organizing your alumni and withholding donations is another. Faculty strike is another. These colleges and universities vie and compete very, very much so

**[48:43]** when it comes to these lists that come out every year. The USA Today, top 40 colleges and universities, they want to be high on that list. What would you do to drop them down a few ranks on that list? What could you do to do that so that they would take you seriously enough

**[48:58]** to listen to you? Now, that being said, all of the students need to be very, very careful because we need discipline. One of the drawbacks of mass mobilization and protests and things like that, even encampments, is that, as we saw with UCLA and other places,

**[49:17]** infiltrators can get in, agent provocateurs. Some Zionist puts a keffiyeh on and goes into your encampment and then starts shouting anti-Semitic things. This happened all across the country. In Canada, there was actually a Hillel group, which is an approved organization

**[49:34]** that does Israel's bidding on campuses all throughout North America that were slapping stickers on things that were in praise of certain proscribed armed factions. That this is what you need to expect and plan for.

**[49:49]** It's extremely important that you both pick tactics that you're going to be able to control the discipline of your group, but also to train your group to be disciplined and to not give any unnecessary excuses for other people to dismiss you and smear you, which they're going to be trying to do anyway.

**[50:05]** Now, the message to the Muslim community, who's not of college age or university age, is to really, really try to get behind these students. We had a little bit of an experiment of that in March and after when these things started up with the encampments.

**[50:21]** We saw a lot of beautiful solidarity and a lot of beautiful support, but we need to go even further than that because I truly believe that these students are on the front line. There is so much at stake right now with what these students are doing. The idea of what a university is in the first place,

**[50:38]** the idea of academic freedom, the idea of having an institution that's dedicated to probing ideas and criticizing ideas and criticizing nations and criticizing ideologies, that is at stake. The Zionist elements would have it that none of these things

**[50:55]** could be discussed whatsoever. The idea of academic freedom, the idea of even American sovereignty, the ability to have free speech, especially on the public universities, the ability to have the right to assembly, right, that this country shouldn't be infiltrated by the interests of a foreign nation,

**[51:13]** that is at stake. And of course, even more important than that or any of those things is the struggle for Palestine itself, that the occupation does not happen and the genocide does not happen without financial, political,

**[51:29]** and military support from the United States of America. The universities are complicit in that, and you all are at the front line of one of the most important fronts of trying to divest from the occupation and to isolate the occupation forces, to chip away at the military

**[51:46]** industrial complex. Ever since universities have become big business on the neoliberal model, they have been very, very subject to the influences of the military industrial complex and all the investments that go on around about that, freeing the university from the clutches of the military industrial complex.

**[52:03]** You all are on the front line in doing this. And finally, last but not least, making sure that when Palestine is liberated, that it is liberated also through stopping the criminalization of Islam and the securitization of Muslims.

**[52:19]** We do not take one at the cost of the other. We are not going for a free Palestine, but Muslims are still considered some sort of fifth column, some sort of inherently violent existential threat. No, we're here.

**[52:34]** It cracks me up every time these people try to say, oh, go back to where you came from. What, New Jersey? You want me to go back to New Jersey? That's where I'm from. I'm here. I'm Muslim. I'm outspoken. You're going to have to deal with it. This is America. Or like we say, this is New York, baby. Right?

**[52:49]** It's like you have to, like, this is what this country is about. There are people and forces and the Zionists are on the front line that want to take that away and stop that. They want to make it, and they have legally attempted to criminalize expressions of Islam and expressions of being a Muslim.

**[53:06]** And we can't forget this dimension to the struggle to free Palestine is also the struggle to stop the criminalization and the securitization of Islam and the Muslims. As Allah ﷻ says, we can cut to that.

**[53:23]** And we take heart, and I hope you all take heart in the words of Allah ﷻ when he talks about the need for both the righteousness of the people who are oppressed only because they say, Rabbuna Allah. That's all that you're being targeted for. Okay?

**[53:39]** In addition to that, the necessity of pushing back, the necessity of organizing, the necessity of challenging these things. These things are not going to go away until we make it go away. Right?

**[53:54]** Which is why Allah ﷻ says, وَلَوْ لَا دَفْعُ اللَّهِ النَّاسَ بَعْضَهُم بِبَعْضٍ لَهُدِّمَتْ صَوَامِعُ وَبِيَعٌ وَصَلَوَاتٌ وَمَسَاجِدُ He's saying that if it wasn't for people pushing back and people organizing and people doing what they can

**[54:10]** to stop the forces of evil, then there would be no mosques. There would be no synagogues. There would be no churches. There would be no monasteries. And these are specifically the words that Allah ﷻ uses. So this isn't just about, we're not, we're not,

**[54:26]** see Zionists have this projection problem where they think that we're like them. They think that as Muslims, we just want to benefit Muslims. That's not true. But we realize that when Muslims are influential and Islam is influential, it benefits everybody. We care about justice and doing right for everybody.

**[54:44]** Whereas the Zionist only cares about benefiting the Zionist. Back to the chat, what do we have? Okay, Abdullah is telling us Georgetown students also protested today. That's good to hear.

**[55:00]** Juliwati Abduljaleel, wa alaikum assalam wa rahmatullah. Salamat datang, welcome. Good to see you. Yes, Sara, it is true. You know, the US has labeled these other nations things for a long time. And chickens come home to roost as we know.

**[55:21]** Servant of Allah, well, you know, he says what he means sort of. In the West, it's more complicated than that. There are buildings in which there are mosques inside of buildings. There are storefront mosques. There are, you know, you might be under the same roof as a musalla

**[55:36]** or something like that, but you might be in a different place. So actually it can be a little more nuanced than that. Mahmud, wa alaikum assalam wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh. Wa alaikum assalam, Muhammad Adib.

**[55:53]** Welcome to the program. Let's see. Be Happy says, Yeah, I wouldn't trust the Muslim leaders to do that, habibi.

**[56:09]** Right? Keep them out of it, man. Like they're doing more harm than good. That's a good point.

**[56:24]** That's a good point, Seamus. That's true. I agree with that. That they're happy to let you protest. It's venting. And it's really easy to, again, like plant infiltrators and stuff like that in big mass actions like that. So people have to be very careful. And this is something I've been calling for for months

**[56:40]** where people have to make sure that they select appropriate tactics that are going to create the type of power and leverage that they want that's actually going to create change and not just get caught in the same spiral of just reaching for the same sort of action that they've always done.

**[56:55]** Just realized this started an hour ago. Did the clock switch backwards already? Not yet. Have not yet fallen back. It's not yet fall, though the weather's turning a little bit chilly. I think it used to be nine. I think that we changed it to 8pm, which is still too late for me. I'm a morning person, but, you know, we try to give the people what they want.

**[57:15]** Queen Ebony, Imam, what days and time are you on? I keep missing you. Don't worry, because we were off for two out of four weeks in August. So we were on vacation and stuff like that. But it is Wednesdays at 8pm New York time, 8pm Eastern Standard Time.

**[57:30]** Okay, good stuff. Good stuff. Yep, you're right. It's out of free speech only when the state permits it. The state of exception. A call that I agree 100% these students have all my respect. I see nothing but courage from the new generation, which is why I'm so confident in the end of Zionism. These students aren't going to be bullied around like that.

**[57:56]** Yep. And I also I'm glad to about the support of the Muslim community at Calgary. That's true. Good. So many of our immigrant parents just wanted us to put our heads down and not to create problems could be a cultural thing, but I'm so glad that we're doing it.

**[58:12]** I mean, I'm not going to lie to you. I'm not going to lie to you. I'm not going to lie to you. I'm not going to lie to you. I'm not going to lie to you. I'm not going to lie to you. I'm not going to lie to you. I'm not going to lie to you. I'm not going to lie to you. I'm not going to lie to you. I'm not going to lie to you. I'm not going to lie to you. I'm not going to lie to you. I'm not going to lie to you. I'm not going to lie to you. I'm not going to lie to you. I'm not going to lie to you. I'm not going to lie to you. I'm not going to lie to you. I'm not going to lie to you. I'm not going to lie to you. I'm not going to lie to you. I'm not going to lie to you. I

**[58:42]** thankfully I was stubborn enough and crazy enough to do something very, very dramatically different with my life. But it takes that type of courage. You're right. The immigrant mentality is keep your head down, play by the rules, be economically successful. And that is not a formula for power. That is not a formula for being self-sufficient and not being able to be messed with.

**[59:04]** There you go. So Menami also brings up the intersection between Zionism and Hindutva. So according to Modi and group, we Bangladeshis are already fundamentalist with our revolution. And many of our professors have been Pakistani agents. Everybody's an agent. You know, that's the easiest thing. If you call out this, you know, you start to call out power, all of a sudden, everybody's an agent. They're going to do the same with us. They're going to say that we're, you know, right now, they're going to say we're materially supporting this group and that group in Madrid.

**[59:34]** Yes, this is all nonsense. Power has always done this. It's always it's it's snowball. If you've read 1984, it's like, oh, you know, this is just the outside actor who's trying to persuade. Jihad. You're welcome. Thanks, bro. Appreciate you, man.

**[59:49]** Muhammad Adib asks, when it comes to advocacy, should we ally with the left in a word? No, especially at universities when you can't really avoid these groups. How can we deal with them? So I've written about this, Muhammad. It's just not as simple as you frame it. It's not about really allying. You need to renegotiate your relationship with your allies to make sure that there's actual reciprocity. A lot of what we call allyship right now is not real allyship. Really, we're just allying.

**[1:00:19]** It's just like letting people speak for us and trample all over us. I've written about this on Yaqeen Institute's website and the blog piece, intersectionality in Gaza protests or something or other like that. Sada asks, do you feel all Islamic sects are aligned when it comes to Palestine? No, they're not. But that doesn't stop us. Sada asks, I think, though, that way of thinking will disparage Muslims who've been oppressed for so long that they've had enough. And so first they they do nonviolent protests and then they have to defend. Not sure what you're talking about, but that sounds reasonable.

**[1:00:51]** Yes, Pestify UK has gone 1984 censoring and arresting journalists like Sada Wilkinson and Richard Medhurst. Freedom of speech does not exist in the West when related to Israel. Yeah, no, it's true. I mean, the UK is worse than the US when it comes to this. It's kind of ironic because the UK has stronger libel and slander laws. So if someone calls you, someone calls me a terrorist, then that's something that maybe I can even sue that person in the UK.

**[1:01:19]** But the other side or the downside of that is that you don't have the same freedom of speech when it comes to criticizing the way that the law is interpreted currently. Now, the same thing here. We have more freedom of speech to be able to criticize. However, we have very weak laws when it comes to slander and libel. So the Israeli post, I mean, the New York Post, can call me a terrorist, say that I support this foreign group or that foreign group, and I can't necessarily sue them.

**[1:01:46]** But we know that Allah is with us. Yes, very good, Seamus. Alliances when others can't enforce their ideas on you. Good. Yeah. Alliance, let's put it this way, Seamus. Alliance implies sovereignty of each side. You enter into an alliance when each of you stays sovereign and you work together on a certain goal. Okay. We don't have that right now. Our alliances are like we give up all of our sovereignty to other groups and we're not going to be able to enforce them.

**[1:02:16]** We're not even recognizable anymore. So that has to change. I mean, Saliha, I mean, oh, I get what you're saying. So, okay, cool. Wa alaikum assalam. Yes, these all of these live streams are posted to the Yaqeen Institute YouTube channel under the live tab. A lot of people go straight to the videos tab. It is under the live tab, not the videos tab.

**[1:02:46]** Very good. So let's roll to our next segment. We've got Tafsir time. It's time for Tafsir. Now, the surah that we are. Okay. Thank you for joining us, Menami. Have a great day, insha'Allah. May Allah bless your rizq and protect people of Bangladesh and grant them victory. All right, here we go. Surah Al-Falaq. Do we have it up, guys?

**[1:03:10]** Do we have a graphic for this or no? We only have a graphic of the word. Okay, then don't jump the gun on me. All right. So, Surah Al-Falaq.

**[1:03:35]** So, of all the words in Surah Al-Falaq, we don't even have the translation, do we guys? No translation? We had Monday off. I apologize. So we're a little bit behind for this show. Say, it's an instruction. I seek refuge in the Lord of the Falaq. Falaq is the daybreak.

**[1:03:56]** From the evil which he created. And from the intense darkness when it falls. And from the evil of those who blow on knots. And from the evil of the envier when they are envious. Of all these words, at least three of them are unique to the surah.

**[1:04:23]** I want you to tell me what is one word in this surah that is unique to Surah Al-Falaq that does not exist in any other surah of the Quran. Go, see what you got.

**[1:04:53]** What word or words in Surah Al-Falaq are unique to it, do not appear in another surah of the Quran?

**[1:05:10]** I can think of three.

**[1:05:29]** I can think of one of them. Oh cool, we got a, mashallah. So we had a poll even. Mashallah, excellent. Very cool. The poll came through, mashallah. 84% of you got it right. At least those who are on, I think, YouTube. I think the poll went through YouTube. 84%, the choices were, hasid, a'udhu, or sharr.

**[1:05:56]** Nobody said sharr, because sharr comes multiple times in that surah. I just said it multiple times. A couple of people said a'udhu, but they forgot that the surah after this, Surah An-Nas, also has a'udhu. Alhamdulillah, the vast majority of people, they went with hasid, okay, of the choices that were given. Other words that are unique are ghaseq, okay, nafathaat is also unique. But the one we're going to focus on right now is hasid. Can we go, will you put that up guys? So we have hasid. And hasid means the envier. It is ism fa'il, right, for those of you who are Arabic learners or speakers.

**[1:06:40]** Ism fa'il, when Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala uses the ism, pay attention to this. When you read the Quran, especially in Arabic, notice when Allah uses nouns versus when he uses verbs. When Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala uses verbs, it indicates an action that someone is doing, but it might not be an essential, unchanging quality that they have, okay.

**[1:07:05]** When Allah uses nouns, it means that this is an essential quality that this person has. It is like jammed. It is like thabit, right? So when Allah says hasidin, it is the envier. It is somebody who is gripped with envy. Somebody who envy is a consistent, relentless part of what they do. They are in the clutches of envy. Okay.

**[1:07:29]** Why is envy and jealousy so important to ask? We could have, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala could have had us ask for protection from many things. And a few things are mentioned in Falaq. So he chooses very specific things. One of them is this, envy. Why envy? Why not like murderers? Why not like, you know, burglars? Why not like, you know, genocide cheerleaders who teach at Columbia University? I don't know. No, he had us

**[1:07:59]** ask for protection from the envious. And it's really interesting because envy within the Quran is, it's almost like a medicine. It's a sin that leads to many, many other types of sins. The first story that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala tells us in Surah Al-Baqarah is the story of Adam (عليه السلام) and Iblis. And essentially the story of Iblis is a story of envy and jealousy.

**[1:08:28]** Why does Iblis reject Allah's commandment? Why does Iblis, after having been raised due to his own merit to be hanging out with the angels, why does he go through the fall and become so disgraced, ar-rajim? Because of his envy of Adam (عليه السلام). And the pride that he demonstrates in other of the surahs like Surah Al-A'raf and other places where he says, how can I bow to this one? I'm better than him. I'm created of fire. He's only created from clay, et cetera, et cetera.

**[1:08:58]** Now, the other interesting thing is that, why do you think after telling the story of Adam and Iblis, Adam (عليه السلام) and Iblis, in Surah Al-Baqarah, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala goes right to the story of Bani Israel and most of the surahs taken up with the story of Bani Israel.

**[1:09:16]** Because Bani Israel is also affected with hasad. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says elsewhere in the Quran that the reason many of the people of previous prophetic nations have disbelieved in the Quran and disbelieved and rejected and denied Prophet Muhammad (ﷺ) is because they're jealous, is because of their envy, that they thought that they were special.

**[1:09:44]** God's chosen people, children of the light, you could say, because God gave them revelation and prophets at a certain point in history without realizing that the point of being given revelation is to follow Allah's guidance whenever and wherever it comes.

**[1:10:01]** And so if a new prophet or a new revelation emerges, I mean a new prophet emerges or a new revelation is sent down, your relationship with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is such that you follow that guidance. You follow that prophet, whether he's from you or not, whether it's from your chosen group of people or somebody outside.

**[1:10:21]** But if you are in the clutches of jealousy and in the clutches of envy, that becomes impossible. You can't do it. You can't bring yourself to do it. You will be prevented from following the truth because the jealousy and the envy has wrecked your heart.

**[1:10:39]** And so it's a big deal, which is why Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala has us. قل أعوذ برب الفلق من شر حاسد إذا حسد You say it. Ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala for protection from the envier when they envy.

**[1:10:58]** Go to the chat real quick. Saliha, you were right. Ghaseq is unique. Good, good. Sara's right as well. It can cause, lead to others. Yep.

**[1:11:15]** Abdullah asks, do you think there is a relationship between envy and bigotry? Absolutely. Absolutely. The coward and the person who is envious at the end of the day is prone to this sort of totalitarian streak.

**[1:11:39]** They can't tolerate any sort of difference. And we see that play out over and over and over again. Bread and Zaatar says, envy is what caused me to be neglectful in my college searching during high school. Khair, insha'Allah.

**[1:11:56]** The door of tawbah is always open. Julia, you've just given me points to help my daughter Sara in her anti-bullying essay. That's great. I'm happy to help her. Aziz Yelow, Yaqub Bovna, wa alaikum assalam, from Uzbekistan.

**[1:12:14]** Allahu Akbar. Iyimasin, how are you? It's good to have any of the people. I had a very good friend from Uzbekistan. A colleague and fellow student, a classmate of mine in Medina. Uzbekistan, wonderful people. Wonderful people.

**[1:12:30]** May Allah bless them. Yeah, Sara, Iblis was the first bigot technically. And by bigot, we mean you're taking characteristics that are not chosen. You don't have any control over. And you're claiming supremacy based off of them. So this is Zionism, right? Zionism is a specific example of this.

**[1:12:47]** Where we have, you know, we're God's chosen people. And you can't really convert. Actually, Subhanallah. That's a story for another time. Never mind. Shema says, how do we heal our hearts from the disease? Allahu Akbar.

**[1:13:03]** Shema, your questions are amazing tonight. How can you heal your heart from the disease? From jealousy. There are several ways. One of them is to spend time with people who are lower than you. Spend time with the poor. Spend time with those who are injured in such a way where it is a debilitating, permanent injury.

**[1:13:26]** Paralyzed people. Things like this. Spend time in their service. Because at the end of the day, jealousy is tied to ingratitude. And so, if we're jealous of somebody else, we're not grateful for the blessings that Allah has given us.

**[1:13:45]** And Prophet Muhammad (ﷺ) said, make sure that you do not look to those people who are above you. Look to those below you. So that you do not belittle Allah's blessings. So spending time with people who are worse off than you is extremely important. Serving. Khidmah is the second thing.

**[1:14:01]** Serving people. And that could be serving people in your home, in your extended family, in your neighborhood, at your mosque, whatever it is. Spending your time in service is one of the most important, humbling things that's out there. And there are probably others.

**[1:14:17]** These are the two, you know, first ones that come to mind. Yes, there are different words, hasad and ghibt, for envy. They have different shades. Ibn Taymiyyah, rahimahullah,

**[1:14:33]** said that there are no true synonyms in Arabic. Take that as you will. Some people, you know, many people disagree with that. But he said that there are no true muradifat. There are no true 100% synonyms. That every single word has a slightly different shade. So for example, ghibt is a much lighter form of,

**[1:14:51]** it's not really hasad. Okay. And there are other words as well, that are slightly different. Either in degree, or in kind, or they're paired with something else, or they're tempered by something else.

**[1:15:13]** Yes, so hasad and ghibt, good point. Hasad is the angry type of envy. Yeah. Causes you to bring other people down. Exactly. And many of the scholars, when they explain these things, they say that yes, the type of envy where you want to have something that somebody else has,

**[1:15:29]** but they still keep it, that's okay. Okay. Or at least it's less bad. The most advanced stage of envy is to envy somebody you don't even want, you don't want them to have it at all. Even if you don't get it, right? Like, it's pretty intense.

**[1:15:45]** It's like, maybe we could say envy mixed with spite, or something like that. I don't know. These words don't always translate. Good. Any other comments? Let's go. Artforges says,

**[1:16:01]** I have had a theory that most of the evil in the world can be traced back to greed and arrogance. Do you think this has any basis? Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. And I would add in there, ingratitude, mostly ingratitude to Allah, subhanahu wa ta'ala. But absolutely, I think that I think that those are, that's why I use the word meta. I think there are like meta sins,

**[1:16:17]** that like other sins basically result or manifest from. Sins of the heart, that other sort of sins of the body follow from. Yes, 100%. So Seamus brings up a point that when it comes to not being grateful, it's also not trusting Allah's qadr and your own naseeb. What is your rizq? What has Allah

**[1:16:34]** decreed for you? You're basically saying you're not happy with it, right? And this is, I mean, bil-munasaba, right? Like we're talking about some sins are like meta sins, like sins of the heart, and they can trickle down to other sins. People who resort to magic, people who resort to sorcery

**[1:16:51]** and fortune telling and black magic, what's the vast majority of people, what are they motivated by to do such a thing? They're not happy with Allah's decree for them. They're not, usually with a relationship or with kids or with a job or something like that. They're not content with

**[1:17:06]** what Allah has decreed for them, and they want more or they want different. The signs, bing bang bro, of an envious person is that they're not happy with what Allah has decreed for them. You're not happy when other people are winning.

**[1:17:24]** Okay. And this can happen in religion. This can happen in deen. Haven't we seen, there are scholars who are envious of their students. There are students who are envious of other students. This happens. Okay. If you're not happy, our Shaykh, Shaykh Abdullah al-Shanqiti used to tell us, if you think that people only

**[1:17:42]** have to be guided through you, you've got this problem. You've got this sickness in you. You're only free from this sickness when you're just as happy that someone is guided by somebody else than if they came to you. And the Shaykh used to tell a story of somebody who used to teach

**[1:18:02]** in the Prophet's masjid, a Shaykh. And someone came up to him and said with poor adab, yes, and said directly to him, it's like, you know what? I really don't like your lessons. I like this other Shaykh's lessons way more. It's a fitna, right? The Shaykh, it's time to demonstrate

**[1:18:18]** what he's made of. And the Shaykh said, Alhamdulillah, I'm so happy that you're benefiting from that Shaykh's lessons. May Allah put barakah in it. So that's what we're after. We're after, it's all the same to you. If someone comes to you or comes to somebody else, you can do the job.

**[1:18:33]** Someone else can do the job. It's all the same because you trust Allah, subhanahu wa ta'ala, you're content with what he has decreed for you. So Aminah tells us, according to the tradition that I know the word ghibt is related to the

**[1:18:51]** story of Yusuf while he was in the well. His story is about the envious. Ah, that's, your last sentence is very powerful. Yes. So we take Yusuf's brothers. Aminah's drawing connections between a lot of things here. I'm not sure, I'm not familiar with ghibt being

**[1:19:08]** related to the story of Yusuf. Of course, it might be true. It might just be my ignorance. But certainly, obviously, I think the story of Yusuf is a really powerful example of envy and what envy can do, how it can drive you to madness and other sins. Aminah.

**[1:19:25]** We can also make sure we make du'a. Thank you very much. I forgot that one. Make du'a for the one that you're jealous for. Excellent. Very good. Love that. Abdullah says, is there a healthy kind of jealousy? Like I wish I was more like so-and-so. Yes. The

**[1:19:41]** Prophet (ﷺ) said, I'm actually said that jealousy is permissible with two things with the Qur'an. Right. So you're, you're able to be like, man, I wish I was a hafiz like that guy. I wish I could recite like that guy. And with someone who spends wealth in the way of Allah,

**[1:19:57]** someone who's who spends wealth in a way that Allah likes and charity and the like that you can say, oh, I wish that I was wealthy like him so that I could spend my money in the way that he spends it so that I could help the ummah so that I could, you know, feed the poor, this sort of thing. Good stuff. A lot to talk about. All right. Let's pivot to our last segment for tonight.

**[1:20:18]** Personal development, atomic habits. We had homework. Let's see who did it. Your task was to tie one of your habits to a piece of furniture or to dedicate one piece of furniture to one particular action. You're not going to read your phone in bed anymore. You're not going to bring

**[1:20:37]** your laptop, your work laptop to the kitchen table, et cetera, et cetera. I want to hear from people how this went. Were they able to do it? Did you run into any problems? Did you have any success?

**[1:20:54]** One thing that I've done is I've stopped reading in bed. I used to read in bed a lot and sometimes I wouldn't be able to sleep because I'm just reading. It's like, yeah, okay. I'm ready to read more. Like the reading wouldn't make me tired. I would just be ready to read more. So I tried to make sure that the bed is only for sleep

**[1:21:12]** and that if I read it's on a couch, in particular, one particular couch that I read on, I should say, a lot. I haven't been doing as much reading as I would like lately, but at least I've dedicated the bed for sleep and tried to make that just the thing that I do there.

**[1:21:32]** Also my work, I've implemented this before, trying to keep my laptop only at the desk at which I work and not bring it anywhere else. And I have, alhamdulillah, had some success with that. Artforge asks, what is the ruling on star signs, Libra, Scorpio, et cetera? I stay away from them,

**[1:21:50]** but some have told me it would only be haram if you're guessing the future with them. Okay. So there's a couple of things that we need to tease out here. So one is the concept of the constellations and naming them after figures or figurines or animals or things like that.

**[1:22:10]** This is something that is permissible. It's not a problem. It's not a problem that we say that Aries refers to a constellation in the sky that resembles a ram. That is part of al-milfalak, or al-kaf, this sort of thing about astronomy and about the purpose of astronomy primarily is

**[1:22:31]** navigation. Navigation, especially at sea, but also on land at night. So being able to organize the stars into pictures and into representations and even naming them, like many even of the

**[1:22:47]** English names that we use for stars and constellations, many of them come from Arabic. Betelgeuse comes from Arabic, and there's others. I believe Antares and others. Okay. However, whenever you get into implying that the presence of these things or the absence

**[1:23:08]** of these things has anything, any causative effect on a personality, on events on this earth, that's where you're in danger. Okay. And that comes from the whole thing too, horoscopes,

**[1:23:23]** which yes, Seamus is saying, avoid totally, 100%. Like there's a hadith of Prophet Muhammad (ﷺ) that says that if you even listen to the fortune teller, then your prayers will not be meritorious for 40

**[1:23:41]** days or accepted for 40 days. Now, that doesn't mean that you still don't have the obligation to pray. You still have the obligation to pray. However, all the reward you would get from doing that is gone. Right? So this is a major thing. It's a major deal in Islam because

**[1:23:57]** it infringes upon tawhid, the idea that these things have any causative power, which we don't have any evidence for. So it's not like saying that when the earth tilts in this way

**[1:24:13]** in the spring, the Northern hemisphere warms up and spring happens and that we have evidence for causative power. So this does not infringe upon tawhid because the causative power is proven. But if the causative power is speculative and doesn't have any evidence, then this is something

**[1:24:31]** that encroaches upon tawhid and what is only Allah's. Right? Allah (ﷻ) is the one that determines people's personalities. Allah (ﷻ) is the one that determines people's, you know, this sort of thing. And so when we, that's the line, that's the limit is what I want

**[1:24:52]** to say, Art, is that when we, you can call them, you know, I have an app on my phone, it's called Stellarium or something like that. Right? It's actually really cool. You hold it up to the sky, you can see exactly what are the constellations. You actually have Arabic on there. You can switch it to Arabic. It's pretty cool. So if you wanted to ever, which I always

**[1:25:09]** wanted to learn the constellations in Arabic, then you can do that. And they're, they have different names. This one's the rabbit. This one's the snake. This one's that. That's fine. Even knowing when they appear, some of the constellations, they disappear at certain times. They reappear at other times of the year. That's fine. What crosses the line is saying that

**[1:25:28]** these things have a causative power on what goes on on earth. Okay. What do we have here? Juju says, I didn't do this all the time. Some days I kept my cell phone away from my bedroom at night.

**[1:25:44]** I bought an alarm clock. Yes, I am. But I need to buy another alarm clock with multiple options. Yeah. Okay. Well, progress, progress, Juju. That's great. Julia says, my daughter has started school in a new school. May Allah keep her among the righteous and may it be blessed, inshallah.

**[1:26:02]** The drive from her school to my workplace has a six minute standstill traffic. I've made the situation my Qur'an memorization slot. Excellent. That is a wonderful, wonderful habit. Abdullah, home team, I have stopped watching videos and snacking in bed. LOL. What did you use to snack

**[1:26:19]** in bed, Abdullah? What are some of your favorite snacks? Enlighten us. Only sleep now. Good. Has your sleep gotten better, Abdullah? I hope it has. Okay. Amina says, I don't read in the kitchen anymore. I used to read and take notes while eating. Oh yeah. I'm guilty. Sorry. I'm guilty

**[1:26:35]** of that still. I haven't stopped that. A Hong says, I bought a small olive tree to place it on my balcony and create a small sitting area for my reading. That sounds amazing. So far, this is working wonders on my drive to read more. I should do that. That's a really, really fantastic idea.

**[1:26:52]** Juju says, I did end up stopping another habit since I limited time with my cell phone, which was reading about celebrities on my phone. I appreciate your honesty and your bravery for being so honest. A hundred percent. It happens even without you wanting to sometimes, sometimes, you know, you open up your browser, they have those stupid suggested articles. And then you're

**[1:27:10]** like, Oh, I wonder what that person's up to. Oh, that's, that's wild. Right. And then you fall into a bad habit. So that's great. MashaAllah. Abdullah, you drink decaf and better. You used to drink

**[1:27:25]** decaf and better. Well, glad that that habit's broken then. Atika, I found Arabic so hard, I can't learn it consistently. Sorry to hear that. We explored before the possibility of doing some sort of Arabic

**[1:27:43]** instruction. We're still sort of gathering interested parties in that. We're not really sure what form that would take. But if people are interested, again, reach out and confirm your interest. And I'm keeping a list of names and emails. And if we ever do something,

**[1:28:00]** then we'll, we'll reach out to you. Because it's a common thing where people want to. Of course, Arabic is 'ibadah, it's worshipping. And so it's important, but it takes getting used to, you know, the scholars of the language, they said, Arabic is like a building. The doors are made of

**[1:28:18]** iron, and everything else is made of sugar. Because it's really hard in the beginning. But then after that, it gets, it gets easier, it gets a lot easier, actually. So if anybody is

**[1:28:35]** particularly interested in that you can email me, shoot me an email, imamtomfakini at gmail.com. And I'll take down your thing. And if we decide to do anything, no guarantees. But if there's enough interest, and we find an appropriate vehicle, we can maybe

**[1:28:52]** do something. Josef Naim says, what is the 'aqidah of Yaqeen Institute? Ash'ari? Well, which question? What is the 'aqidah? Or is it Ash'ari? Those are two, you mix the two questions. You tell me, habibi. All right, personal development. Here we go.

**[1:29:09]** Atomic Habits. So that was the homework from what we had last time. Today's chapter, very interesting chapter. We start the second chapter, the second major law, which is the law of attraction. Make it attractive. The first one was make it obvious. The second one is make it

**[1:29:29]** attractive. Okay. Now he starts this, this chapter with a really interesting anecdote, which is this sort of, it's not an anecdote, it's actually a science experiment where there's a type of gull, a seagull, right, a bird, that it has a beak, and the beak has a red spot. All right. Now, when this

**[1:29:49]** type of bird, it has chicks in the nest, and it flies back, the chicks in the nest will start pecking at the red spot. And the mother or the father will then give food to the chicks. So check out how crazy this like experiment is wild. Like people are, people are kind of nuts

**[1:30:09]** in a good way. So somebody decided to make a very, very poor imitation of a seagull, right? Like cardboard, basically, and make a beak and make a red spot on the beak, but make it huge, make it larger than normal. Okay. Now, when he held up that fake, very, very obviously fake bird

**[1:30:31]** to the nest, what the chicks did, the chicks started pecking at the dot very, very vigorously, more vigorously than at the, at the normal sort of their mother, which had a normal sized red dot.

**[1:30:49]** Okay. And what they found from this is that when any sort of creature is exposed to a stimulus or is used to a stimulus, there's an anticipation of a reward.

**[1:31:05]** And if the stimulus is increased, okay, or even exaggerated, then the motivation is even higher. Even if, even if the delivery of the food is still the same. Okay. Now, this is really, really

**[1:31:22]** interesting. We live in, they call this by the way, super normal stimuli. It's basically exaggerations of reality. And once you understand that there's a term for this, you'll see that our modern culture has this everywhere. Every single bad habit that people are addicted to, it essentially comes down to a super normal stimuli, some exaggeration of reality,

**[1:31:43]** temptations that previous people of earlier times never had to face. So if you look at the food industry, okay, you've got food that has no nutritional value whatsoever, but it's got more sugar than any food has ever had. It's got more fats and more, you know,

**[1:32:01]** this and that, and salts and hydrogenated oils and all these sorts of things. That it produces cravings for these foods that are exaggerated cravings, okay, more than would be natural for anything else. We also fall into this with body image, right? And this is why many

**[1:32:20]** people get addicted to pornography, that the images or the body images that people are exposed to through the media are exaggerations. They're not real, right? They're exaggerated stimuli. And so people, they get addicted, like their anticipation of the reward, whatever it is,

**[1:32:40]** they are super stimulated because of the exaggeration of the cue that's being thrown at them. Social media is also another one that he points out, where if you go throughout your whole day, and you can try this, go throughout your whole day at home and count how many times someone

**[1:32:56]** compliments you or likes praises you. Then go online and make like two posts on Instagram or Facebook or Twitter or something like that. And compare how many likes and comments of praise you get. Social media is essentially a super stimuli. It exaggerates how much praise and thanks that you

**[1:33:16]** get. And so all of these super stimuli cause addictions, whether it's addiction to junk food or addiction to pornography or addiction to social media or addiction to other things, smoking, whatever it is, drugs, all of these things come back to an exaggerated stimuli. Now, how does

**[1:33:35]** this work when it comes to your body and anticipating things? And what does this mean for our habits? We can actually, if we realize what's going on, we can harness it for our own uses. I don't know, guys, do we have that figure from the, there we go. So we have this,

**[1:33:52]** this is a really, really interesting find. So this is about dopamine. Many of you are familiar with this idea. It's this hormone called dopamine that your body produces when it anticipates a reward. And anticipates is the key word here. So what happens when you're first exposed to a cue?

**[1:34:20]** We know that everything here with habits, it has to do with four things, cue, craving, response, and reward. Number one, you're exposed to a cue, but you're not aware of what that cue is. Second, maybe you start to get a craving. You see a commercial. Let's say you see a Pepsi commercial.

**[1:34:39]** That's the cue. There's people, they're young, they're attractive, they're having fun on the TV and that's how they make you want this drink. You start to get a craving. Next time you go to the store, the bodega, you pick up a Pepsi. You drink it, you're blasted with sugar, right?

**[1:34:59]** And so your dopamine spikes. Now that was the first time. Check out what happens the second time. The second time, at the level of the cue, you see the commercial and you're already getting your blast of dopamine because you're anticipating. You're not even given the Pepsi yet. Now this anticipation drives you to go to the store. Maybe you go out of your way to go to the store and get that Pepsi the next time. You drink the Pepsi, that's the response, that's the reward, okay?

**[1:35:29]** And now, but notice what happens with the dopamine. You don't get it when you actually experience the thing, when you get the reward this time. You actually experience the dopamine early, when you're anticipating the reward. All right, let's check out scenario number three. Scenario number three, they said, well, what happens if somebody sees the cue and anticipates the reward, but then they don't get it? What happens?

**[1:35:52]** So let's imagine you see the Pepsi commercial, you have this incredible craving for Pepsi, you go out, that's your response, but there's no Pepsi at the store. You crash. Your dopamine levels actually tank. Okay, then what's going to happen in the last scenario?

**[1:36:10]** The next time you see the craving, sorry, you see the cue, the Pepsi commercial, you experience the craving, you want one, you go out and get it. You're not sure, your body's almost preparing you for disappointment, but this time they have it. Boom, another spike. And this is how habits are formed.

**[1:36:26]** Okay, this is the dopamine loop. And the author points out that this distinguishes the difference between wanting something and liking something. And he argues that wanting something is far more powerful than liking something on the body. Okay, the hormones that we produce, wanting something is way more powerful than actually liking it. Anticipating a reward is actually better than getting the reward itself.

**[1:36:55]** So what does this mean for us and our habits? Well, that brings us to something that the author calls temptation bundling. Now, if we had earlier, we had habit stacking, which was you're going to tie a habit that you're already doing onto, you want to add onto that a habit that you want to do.

**[1:37:13]** Temptation bundling is basically linking an action that you want to do with an action that you have to do. Okay, so there are things that you're doing that maybe you're not, they're not the best things that you're doing. Let's say you're watching television, you watch Netflix, you watch whatever, a show once in a while. Is it haram? No. Is it the best thing to do? No, it's also not the best thing to do.

**[1:37:41]** Okay, but you want to do something like study Arabic, or you want to do something like pushups. You want to get in shape a little bit. All right. How can you use temptation bundling to form new habits? Well, you basically link the action that you want to do to the action that you need to do.

**[1:38:03]** So if I'm watching a television show, and it's got commercials, and I want to also get more fit, I'm going to say, I'm going to do 20 pushups every commercial break. So I get my, the show that I'm watching. And I also get the fitness or the exercise that I'm trying to go for. Okay.

**[1:38:24]** What happens when you link these two things is that you associate or your body begins to associate the thing that you kind of don't want to do, which is pushups. In this case, it begins to associate it with the thing that you actually like to do. So it gets a positive association. And corporations use this type of thing all the time to manipulate you and to sell you their products.

**[1:38:48]** But if you recognize it, you can see when it's being used against you. And you can also attempt to use it for you. So everybody, this is your homework for this week. Think about something that you're currently doing that you like to do. It's fun. It's a TV show, or it's a snack that you enjoy. You sit down and you have a bar of chocolate or whatever.

**[1:39:09]** Tie something that you need to do, whether it is reciting Quran or something physical exercise, or it's reading more or whatever it is, tie it to that thing. So here's your homework. After I blank the habit I need, I will blank the habit I want. And let's see what people come up with.

**[1:39:32]** People giving recommendations on Arabic study. That's good. Thanks, everybody, for helping out. Cool. All right. And if there's no final questions, I think we're going to wrap it up for the night. We're coming up on almost two hours. It's been very engaging as always. Appreciate everybody. We'll check in next week. Yes, we are on next week. So we'll be back next week again, Wednesday night, 8pm, New York time. We'll see you then.

**[1:40:14]** Bring your homework. We'll see how we did.

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