# Is Gender a Social Construct? | Iman Cave

**Author:** Sh. Abdullah Oduro
**Series:** Iman Cave
**Published:** 2024-11-04
**YouTube:** https://youtu.be/-XW3iwCogGw
**URL:** https://yaqeeninstitute.org/watch/series/iman-cave/is-gender-a-social-construct-iman-cave
**Topics:** Allah, Faith, Family & Community, Marriage

## Description
What is it that makes you a man? Is it the way you act? Is it something that we’re born with? Dr. Zohair Abdul-Rahman joins Sh. Abdullah Oduro in the Iman Cave to dive into the core of Islamic masculinity, describing the balance between nature and nature, gender differences, and the role that...

## Transcript
**[0:00]** Remember death. Death is hadhimu'l-addat, it's the destroyer of pleasures. Death puts everything into perspective. All these discussions, all these online, the red pill, the blue pill, the green pill, this person saying this, this person flashing their Bugatti, this person showing their women off,

**[0:19]** the people chattering and whatnot, none of that's going to your grave. None of it. You remember death, you remember your purpose. I want you to journey with me real quick. I know you know my name, I know you know who I am,

**[0:37]** but I want you to just think that my name is Maher Walsh. Maher Walsh. Maher Walsh, got it. Maher Walsh, alright. Now, I have a question for you, and this question, you know, this question may, you know, it's known by someone else that shares my last name.

**[0:54]** Okay? When you think of the question, what is a man? Even though it's been asked, what is a woman? You know, I commonly think to myself, you know, you're looking at one. We certainly are. We certainly are.

**[1:09]** What is the motive behind the question, right? And then I think to myself of the hadith of the Prophet ﷺ, that many of us know that the Prophet ﷺ said, كل مولود يولد على الفطرة. أو ما من مولود إلا يولد على الفطرة. That everything is born

**[1:25]** with the natural instinct the mother board, if you will, the fitrah. And then he said, إلا أبواه يهودانه أو ينصرانه أو يمجسانه. Except that his mother and father say that he's a Jew, Christian, or Zoroastrian. Is it fair to say that there's the, you know, they have nature and nurture?

**[1:42]** Is the first part of the hadith the nature, and then the second part of the hadith is the nurture? It seems to be the case, Allah Ta'ala, that's what's being described. These are both parts of the way that we understand the world, spiritually, intellectually, morally, our own habits towards ourselves, and based on our own gender identities as well.

**[2:01]** Okay, I see you opening the door. Okay, so you said gender identities, right? With that being the case, are we saying that the fact that they were born naturally with these characteristics, that there's, are there natural characteristics within the gender? First, how many genders are there? I want to make sure.

**[2:21]** Let's make sure that we're going on the same مصير. Look, when it comes to, obviously, genders, there's obviously two genders. There's the male and the female gender, right? And that's something that's very clear in the Quran, and that's clear from within our tradition. Now, what the West has constructed as the concept of gender,

**[2:42]** they've redefined it to mean something else completely. And that's where a lot of the confusion comes from their side. They've made gender to mean something, some sort of a term that they want to, that will inform them of their sexuality, inform them of their,

**[2:57]** the way that they want to dress, the way that they want to speak, the tone of their voice, like a whole bunch of things. And they want to create and invent various different personas. So what would you say in that regard when we're talking about, firstly, the difference, is there a difference between sex and gender? So, I mean, again, it's how you use these terms.

**[3:15]** Obviously, there's not a difference for the bulk of human history up until literally just maybe a few decades ago. We're talking however many thousands and thousands and thousands of years. There's no difference between these two concepts that a person, male gender is a man, a woman, you know, female

**[3:30]** sex is a woman. That's just the way it is. It's been this kind of binary understanding of gender, and then that feeds into the concept of roles, marriage, institutions, roles in society, etc, etc. That's the way that societies have been organized for thousands and thousands of years.

**[3:46]** Okay, let's break that down. Yeah. So societies have organized that thousands of thousands of years. Was there a fitri element in the motivation behind that organization? What do I mean by that? So before the Industrial Revolution, for example, it was

**[4:02]** known that the men were outside in the fields and that the women were inside, right? Or the woman would come outside, but it was predominantly known that the men would be outside, as you say, you know, even before the bringing home the bacon concept. It was known, quote-unquote, that men did this and women did this. Is the fact that it was known, is that more of the first

**[4:20]** part of the hadith? A fitri biological understanding that men would do so-and-so and women would do so-and-so. That when it came from like, you know, some would say, attributed to Umar al-Khattab, be rough for verily niceties aren't consistent, right? So is that rough nature, for lack of better words?

**[4:39]** I don't want to say only present in men, I will say predominant in men. Because I think this is important to understand that we need to have the, we start, when we talk about male and female, firstly establishing that there's two, that it starts from the biological

**[4:55]** conversation and not falling into the sociological. Exactly. I agree. And I think that's where we need to start because there's certainly something, see, the thing is that the West doesn't believe in a creator. So they see nature as an accident. They see it as the result of

**[5:11]** millions of random mutations that arbitrarily, that had adaptive advantages for survival to be passed on to the next generation. They don't see any moral value in the way things are biologically, for example. Okay. Now for us as well,

**[5:27]** we recognize that there are certain things that are also naturally biological that we must resist against as well. And that's where your morality comes in. But just in general, they look to everything with a high suspicion and not necessarily as something sacred. So for a Muslim, when we look at biology and the way people are naturally born, for example,

**[5:44]** then certainly there's something there that we see as, you know, this is something, Allah's created it in this particular way. So there's the principle in Fiqh about the idea of تغيّر خلق الله Are you changing the creation of Allah? It forms a lot of modern Fiqh when it comes to many issues like cosmetic surgery and that sort of thing.

**[6:02]** One of the principles is are you changing the creation of Allah? It comes from the ayah in the Quran. That's one of the goals of Shaytan, to change the creation of Allah. The verse of the Fitrah in the Quran لا تبديل لخلق الله No change in the creation of Allah. So there is something about the creation of Allah itself.

**[6:21]** There is something for us to learn about this being, there's value in it. There's sacredness in it. There's a reason and a purpose behind it. So certainly the way men are born, the way women are born, generally speaking, or the way an individual, and that's the other thing. We're talking about these groups as if they're the same thing. That's not necessarily the case.

**[6:38]** I don't want us to think that. Men are this way, women are this way, because every individual is born differently as well. Now, what do you mean by that? Every individual is born with their own genetics, their own levels of testosterone, estrogen, their own

**[6:54]** behavioral temperaments, their own personalities. But are they static? Is there room for something being immaleable? Okay, we say testosterone, right? Can we safely say that testosterone is predominantly more in males than females? Of course. That's one of the clear physiological objective differences.

**[7:14]** Right, so there is something that is static within males and females, therefore having some leeway to say men are like this because of their chromosomal makeup. Because of the XY, yeah, aggression is more. Doesn't say that aggression is not in women. Exactly. Yeah, right, aggression is present in women. And also one thing that I've noticed, subhanAllah,

**[7:33]** you know, we say men protect and provide. Yeah. Women protect in a way that men don't protect as well. Like if a newborn baby, the way she protects her son or her daughter, we think just breastfeeding is just like, okay, she's giving. But she's protecting and providing in a certain way. And that's why I think it's beautiful when we talk about

**[7:53]** from a chromosomal element. And I think this is where a conversation, even with an atheist, yeah, what are your thoughts on that? Like even with an atheist, if they talk about gender fluidity, for example, if we start from this element XXXY,

**[8:10]** the conversation starts from a binary concept. Yeah, it certainly does from that point of view. But there's many different... So look, when it comes to things like arguing someone doesn't believe in God, it's just not as simple as saying testosterone versus estrogen. There's so many other factors that will determine a person's aggressiveness. Culture is a big part of it.

**[8:27]** So I said, fitra and your hormones and even your physiological makeup does not exist in a vacuum. It exists within a culture. Your parents as well, and that's why the Prophet ﷺ specifically mentions the parents. The most base fundamental aspect of a person, which is their religious identity or their spiritual identity,

**[8:43]** that is strongly influenced by the parents. And so therefore their manifestation of their gender, their aggression, of their emotions is also going to be... There's a lot of factors here from that. Now, I think the way to understand it about the idea of the differences between men and women, and there clearly are differences,

**[9:00]** physiological differences, when you look at the personality data, there clearly are also personality differences that persist across cultures. There's certainly the, you know, This is the Quran, though man is not like the woman. There's obviously clear differences. Now as you said, just because something exists more in a man doesn't mean it doesn't exist the same thing in a woman as well.

**[9:20]** The traits that people identify as masculine or feminine, they exist within a bag in each gender. Within each, sorry I should say, within each individual. Within each individual they have things that people would describe as masculine, things that people would describe as feminine, and vice versa.

**[9:36]** I think the way to understand it is about, as you said, Allah has created and given certain fadl of the man over the woman, and also some fadl for the woman over the man in terms of advantage when it comes to their spiritual, moral responsibilities in this world. The woman, it's a lot for a person who's higher in agreeableness, for example,

**[9:57]** who's generally more compassion-oriented, who wants harmony, who has a lot of love to give, it's a lot easier for them to obviously love and raise children. And a person who's a bit more disagreeable, who is a bit more maybe conscientious, whatever it may be,

**[10:12]** then certain roles and responsibilities will be made easier for that person as well. Now as individuals, we're all given various different attributes of all these different concepts. You could have a man that's very compassionate and very easily able to love other people, and we all know people like this, and they're absolutely lovely men to be around.

**[10:32]** Doesn't make them less of a man or anything like this, because the point is I think we need to move beyond this concept of necessarily the masculine feminine and look more towards the responsibilities for the man and for the woman. Because masculinity, femininity, this area, you know, there's genes, there's hormones, there's biology,

**[10:50]** there's all these things that will create this variance, which is the reason, the hikmah, why Allah has created duality in this world and why there's different roles that people fulfill. And for a man who's a classically more masculine, their roles will be easier for them to fulfill because they're naturally like that. Whereas a man who may have more feminine characteristics,

**[11:10]** then those responsibilities might be a bit more difficult, but doesn't make him less of a man. In fact, perhaps even more because they have to go against their nature to be more courageous, to be more assertive, for example. I just want to give one example to understand this idea. I think hijab is a good example of this.

**[11:26]** So when it comes to modesty, modesty is something that is expected from both genders, right? It's not a quote-unquote feminine only. Men also meant to be modest. But for hijab in particular, it's very clear based on the ahkam of the sharia,

**[11:43]** which gender has a higher standard for modesty. And because Allah has generally blessed the women with more beauty, then therefore the responsibility for modesty is higher than for the men. And same thing with the shahwa as well. That generally speaking, men will have more shahwa.

**[12:00]** And so these are the, you see some variance in terms of the ahkam sharia when it comes to gender in this regard. So the same thing can be understood when you're speaking about things like you talked about protect and provide, for example. It's not to say that women are not protecting and in some cases providing as well.

**[12:16]** I mean, we all know of many scenarios in this regard historically and also contemporaneously, which is obviously increasing as well, double income families. So it's that both are doing it. Both are providing in some sense. You know, the Prophet ﷺ said you are all shepherds.

**[12:32]** Yes, and it was including both the men and the women. But the Prophet ﷺ explains for the man, so if you look at leadership, for example, so for the woman, she has her own responsibility in her flock. The man does as well, but just like hijab, it's now flipped. Who has the greater responsibility when it comes to protecting and providing? It's the man.

**[12:50]** And this is some of the wisdom by when Allah says, وَلِلْرِجَالِ عَلَيْهِنَّ دَرَجَةٌ And for them, for the men, upon them, and the them here is the feminine, upon women is one level. And that level is a level of responsibility. It's not like, you know, a lot of times it's misunderstood.

**[13:08]** This verse is like, okay, the men get more and the women get less. No, more responsibility, which means more accountability. Exactly. You know, so I think that's very, very important. So the biological element, we realize that there are some things that, you know, Allah has created us different.

**[13:24]** But I mean, we're universally generally the same, but there are some specifications that he has given us more than others, the fadl. Yeah. And that doesn't make one less than the other. And what's beautiful as well is like, Allah, you know, what I've noticed is that the Sharia or the Deen of Islam gives those responsibilities

**[13:46]** based on those fitri, natural characteristics. Like you mentioned hijab, and you mentioned modesty, and you mentioned beauty. You know, you're going to hear more times guys say, man, she's beautiful. You're not going to hear a woman say, man, he's beautiful. You know, if a girl says, you're beautiful, I'd be like, what?

**[14:05]** You know, like what? Or if a guy says, man, you're beautiful, I'm like, yo. It's interesting that that's... What's good, man? But it's so interesting as we're going into society, not to derail, but it's an important tangent here. We're seeing a bit of a switch now. I've been speaking to a lot of teachers in high school, and they're saying now, because that, from the biological point is being all flipped all upside down

**[14:25]** and confused and marbled, we're seeing the output of this. They're saying, at least this is in Canada and Australia as well, they're saying that women are more bold, the women are more sexualized. The girls, I should say, you know, teenage girls, the boys are more shy. There's this... And so you said that about the idea of commenting and whatnot.

**[14:43]** I mean, it's something, you know, growing up, I obviously went to an almost high school growing up. That's something all you hear, you know, that type of really kind of, as your former president liked to say, locker room talk, right? But now you find that the boys are actually more modest about that,

**[15:00]** which is a good thing, it's not a bad thing per se, but then the women are the ones who are making, not the cat calls, the whatever you want to say. Yeah, yeah, the dog calls, I don't know what you want to call them. But this is deep. Okay, I'm gonna... There was a situation, I remember I was at a sandwich shop,

**[15:16]** and I was leaving the sandwich shop, and I'm a Muslim, right? So I'm leaving the sandwich shop, and I opened the door and some women walked in, some ladies were walking in, so I held the door open for them. And she was like, ooh.

**[15:32]** Thank you. I said, you're welcome. She said, what's your name? I said, my name is Abdul, I got to roll out. She said, no, no, no, come here, come here, come here. I said, nah, I'm good, right? But it was, I'm gonna admit, it was weird because I'm a man.

**[15:51]** I pursue, she pursued me and it seemed like I was, because you think, and now we move to the social element, it's like, yo, you don't like... Girls? She puts you on the other end, that's the thing, right? And someone like yourself even, and that's the whole point. If someone acts in that way, naturally human beings

**[16:08]** will respond in the reciprocal way. If someone's being bold and assertive, you're gonna be a bit more passive and closed then. So they completely flip the script, which is the, it's a very interesting thing. No, and that's deep, and that's for like, I mean, let's, I mean, we were in college. You know, nowadays, I mean, the guy's 18, 19,

**[16:25]** he's in college, he is muftoon. There's a lot of fitna for him. So when the girl sends him a note, Muslim or non-Muslim, and she expressed interest in him, and he's not pursuing that, you know, it kind of goes back to when we look

**[16:41]** at this Hadith, I mean, the real question is, does the biological submit to the social or does the social submit to the biological? You know what I mean? That's the question, that's the deep question. Right? That you've just articulated the crux of it. Right, because I remember when I was looking

**[16:58]** for a job, I was looking for a job, and I was looking for a job, and I was looking for a job, and I was looking for a job, and I was looking for a job, and I was looking for a job, and I was looking for a job, and I was looking for a job, and I was looking for a job, and I was looking for a job, and I was looking for a job, and I was looking for a job, and I was looking for a job, and I was looking for a job, and I was looking for a job, and I was looking for a job, and I was looking for a job, and I was looking for a job, and I was looking for a job, and I was looking for a job, and I was looking for a job, and I was looking for a job, and I was looking for a job, and I was looking for a job, and I was looking for a job, and I was looking for a job, and I was looking for a job, and I was looking for a job, and I was looking for a job, and I was looking for a job, and I was looking for a job, and I was looking for a job, and I was looking for a job,

**[17:13]** and I was looking for a job, and I was looking for a job, and I was looking for a job, and I was looking for a job, and I was looking for a job, and I was looking for a job, and I was looking for a job, and I was looking for a job, and I was looking for a job, and I was looking for a job, and I was looking for a job, and I was looking for a job, and I was looking for a job, and I was looking for a job, and I was looking for a job, and I was looking for a job, and I was looking for a job, and I was looking for a job, and I was looking for a job, and I was looking for a job, and I was looking for a job, and I was looking for a job, and I was looking for a job, and I was looking for a job, and I was looking for a job, and I was looking for a job, and I was looking for a job, and I was looking for a job, and I was looking for a job, and I was looking for a job, and I was looking for a job, and I was looking for a job, and I was looking for a job, and I was looking for a job, and I was looking for a job, and I was looking for a job,

**[17:29]** and I was looking for a job, and I was looking for a job, and I'm like, look at it in my mind, thinking, no, man, that's not pure, that's not, no, I don't look at it, no, I don't look at it. And I talked to one of my mentors, I was like, yo, I didn't look at it. I told my father a lot of times, I didn't look at it. He was like, Allah is not shy from the truth. Just as Allah made her wear hijab,

**[17:45]** or he ordered you to look at it, it's okay, look at it. Her father told me that, and I was like, ah. And it shows that the sharia has that avenue for the masculine outlet, right? That people are calling whatever toxic, all these other words. There's a halal and wholesome, morally consistent outlet

**[18:04]** for a person's masculinity, and one of those is there, right there, in the khutbah arrangement and whatnot, and another, yeah. And that's so deep because, you know, that's why I spoke about college, because I find a lot of young men, they're in a conundrum, man, because their parents are saying, until you get the letters after your name,

**[18:19]** but he's like, yo, I'm a freshman, and it is rough in chemistry class. Because Katie, or Khadijah, is giving me some play. Yeah, yeah. And it's rough because he knows three years is left, and I have a computer at home, right?

**[18:34]** Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I can easily go online. Yeah, these days, yeah. It's really, yeah, it's a dangerous, slippery slope. It's a slippery slope, so when we look at, just like what you mentioned, because when we talk about the biological, you're a man, we accept that, but that biological is, being the fact that you're fit

**[18:49]** to, you have natural masculine characteristics, to tie that into the theological of like, okay, Allah's watching me, you know what I'm saying? Yeah. Now, moving to the social, you mentioned locker room talk. Yeah.

**[19:04]** My man, I don't know if you have, there's stories you have, man, I remember, I always, like my son, my sons, I tell them, you are not staying after school. Like, till practice, that's not happening. Yeah, yeah. Why, Baba? I said, look, if you stay after school,

**[19:20]** there's no parents around, there's no teachers around, you're gonna go walk over, your friends will be like, bro, let's go over to the volleyball section. And you know they were just dressing volleyball, but it's like. Allahumma sa'an. Allahumma sa'an, Allahumma sa'an. I was like, you're not staying after school, right?

**[19:36]** So, I remember when I used to stay after school, we used to hang out in the locker rooms, you just walk over to the volleyball section, you just walk over, right? And, you know, guys would be made fun of, because they were a virgin. There was one particular brother, Rashid, may Allah bless him, he was the only Muslim.

**[19:52]** And we'd rank on each other, you know, I wouldn't call it roasting each other. And it would always end with, yeah, whatever, you're a virgin, bro. Yeah, yeah. And that would like, nail in the coffin. They'd be like, so what? Yeah, yeah, you're a virgin. And then everyone would know, whoever was roasting with them, they knew they had in their harness, you're a virgin.

**[20:10]** As soon as that was said, khalas, done. And this is very damaging for a young Muslim, very emasculating for a young Muslim as well. You put them into a scenario, and there's physiological differences that occur to people when they're made to feel this way.

**[20:25]** Your testosterone goes down. They've done studies, when you win at something, your testosterone goes up. When you lose, your testosterone goes down. When you're made to be fun of, particularly in this way, your testosterone is gonna go down. So not only are they muftoon from that angle, then they're also muftoon at home,

**[20:42]** because a lot of times, especially with the immigrant parents, they become emasculated at home, because they've removed any responsibility made to feel like a child still when they're 23 years old. And then at school, they're emasculated further because, oh, you don't drink, you don't have a girlfriend, you don't have this or this.

**[20:57]** On every level, it's shrinking our young Muslim men. Hold on, Dr. Zainal, give me a second, I wanna hold your hand. You mentioned a lot right there, bro. We're gonna have to unpack that. I'm doing it. Okay. Okay, hold on. Habba habba. You said with immigrant parents, he feels emasculated.

**[21:15]** Unpack that, please. Generally speaking, I mean, I have an immigrant parents. No, of course, of course. My parents are immigrant parents, so I'm the first American in my lineage. I'm the only one. But what about that? In general, the trend obviously is, particularly immigrants as well, but I'm sure it refers to many others,

**[21:30]** there's this concern with security, and there's this control sense. And I think a lot of it comes from trauma from the immigrants themselves, that they wanna be in control of everything. And so they're afraid of their children on where they're going,

**[21:45]** so they have to control the child in a particular path that they have in mind. Now, when the child expresses their individuality, they're taught to repress it and to know that their individuality and what they're interested in means nothing, and it's stupid, and it's not something they should consider, and that their wants, thoughts, opinions

**[22:03]** are completely valueless. Because if they want a different career path, for example, or if they wanna explore some particular talent, told to note, doctor, engineer, lawyer, whatever it may be, and that's the only path.

**[22:19]** Okay, let me put a semicolon there, Sheikh, because I wanna even that, so I said that. So, okay, the immigrant parents, and they feel that they should be, I guess, confined because they wanna keep them safe. I think it's part of the motivation. Now, what's interesting here is that it's not only the Western phenomena,

**[22:36]** but the religious phenomena as well. Because non-Muslim parents may still have those apprehensions for their first American child that's gonna have many more opportunities than we had, and we don't want that to be jeopardized by the uncivilized Western yoga pants,

**[22:56]** short shorts, or you're not a virgin culture that can affect their way of thinking and how they act. But then on top of that, you're Muslim. You come here, if I catch you talking to a girl. So, it's a lot of pressure.

**[23:13]** You know what I mean? It's a lot, and as I said, it's shrinking the person rather than expanding them at every angle. But the masajid and the Muslims and our families should be working to expand the confidence of the young Muslim men.

**[23:29]** We're wanting to expand their confidence because one of the aspects, and this is going back to our concept of the biology, submitting to the side, you submit to the biology. At some level, I mean, replace society as well with culture or even religion.

**[23:44]** There's certain elements with biology submits to our religion, obviously. So, unconditionally, our biology submits to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. So, there's certain things that may be our nature, our personality, but we regulate and modulate our desires, our lusts, our anger, whatever it may be. But then there's certain things within society

**[24:02]** that we cannot submit to, but we have to overcome. If society is working to make our lives less productive, make us less than reaching our full potential,

**[24:17]** if there's mafsada, if there's clear mafsada that's coming out of it, that's when the biology has to overcome the society. And we need to create spaces because, as I said, fitrah never exists in a vacuum. What it means is that if the culture is turning the biology and warping it into something else,

**[24:34]** what it means is we need to transfer that incubator of that culture that the fitrah is going into and place that fitrah into a different culture. And this is the idea of creating spaces for young men to develop within the masajid, within our religious groups, so that it allows them

**[24:51]** to develop traits that are consistent with their Islamic responsibilities as a man. And their biological makeup to become closer to it. Exactly, that's the idea, it's putting those together. Now, with the important caveat, I never like to give very sweeping statements

**[25:08]** in generalization, every individual is different. And there are some people, and there's going to be exceptions to the general norm, there are going to be men who generally do not have as many innate, part of their biology even, as innate kind of quote unquote masculine features, they can be more introverted, more to themselves,

**[25:25]** maybe shy, et cetera, et cetera, but that's not a problem. Those need to be enhanced as well. And we have to look at the Muslim man as not just one little circle, but there's a whole image, there's a whole forest, there's a beautiful landscape

**[25:40]** of men that are coming based on the confidence, assertiveness, courageousness, and boldness of what Allah has given them of their personality traits. Uthman ibn Affan (رضي الله عنه), was known as one of the shyest people in Medina. He was the third khalifa of Islam.

**[25:56]** And he held onto harmony in a time where the strength that it would take for those six years, 12 years khalifa, they say first six years, things were good, the last six years when the fitna started, for six years to keep the Muslims from fighting each other, his shyness was there, yes, and it led to his sadaqa

**[26:11]** and his charity and his sponsoring of so much. It led to so much khair. And this is the point, I don't want, because this is a mistake that many of us make, which is that we turn the Muslim man into a particular archetype of, based on societal understanding of masculine, feminine,

**[26:29]** a more rugged, rough, maybe a bit aggressive, maybe a bit scary type of person, which is alhamdulillah good, you got your Khalid bin Waleed (رضي الله عنه), you got your Omar bin al-Khattab (رضي الله عنه), but don't forget the Uthman ibn Affan. Don't forget the Abu Hurairah (رضي الله عنه), not using this term in a negative way,

**[26:45]** like the nerds, like the person that mashaAllah was just a machine, two years, two years being able to collect how many hadith he was able to collect, Zaid bin Thabit (رضي الله عنه). There's all these, the spectrum, I should say this image, this force, this landscape of the Muslim men, that cannot be lost.

**[27:03]** There's all these spiritual personalities. That's exactly what it is. All these spiritual personalities, that's one of your research papers. Yeah, exactly, yeah, yeah, yeah. One of the best papers I love. Exactly, may Allah bless you. But that's the point that these companions, they're all men, and they're all expressing

**[27:18]** this masculine energy, whatever you wanna call it, that pushes a person to be assertive, to pursue, et cetera, et cetera, but they're all doing it in their ways. In their ways, yes. In their ways, and it doesn't make anyone more or less of a Muslim man. Certainly, some may be more, quote unquote, masculine,

**[27:35]** but that's just a personality temperament. That's the way a person is. That's the inbuilt kind of level of testosterone they may have. Now, I understand that there's variations, and it's malleable, it can go up and down, but generally speaking, you'll have people who, mashallah, have naturally a deep voice, naturally have the features of high testosterone

**[27:50]** with the cheeks and the square face, and if they go to the gym, mashallah, they bulk up very easy, versus the person who go to the gym, the scheme for however long, doesn't matter, they just don't have that same level of the hormonal kind of landscape

**[28:05]** or the physiological genetics to be able to build as much. So, there is the spectrum there, within there, but the idea is how do you grow the confidence, the assertiveness, et cetera, et cetera, within the Muslim man, the young Muslim man, so that they're able to achieve their full potential. Well, you know what's beautiful?

**[28:20]** I mean, even the one that's strong, right? He may have the jawline, he may have the deep voice, and people look at him, they say, whoa, I'm gonna be, if anything goes down, I'm running right with him, right? Exactly, yeah, yeah. But it's not masculine if he was to be a domestic abuser,

**[28:37]** if he uses that aggression in the wrong way. I would say that he's not being a man. Yeah, exactly. Because the thing with masculine is, that's the different, the thing with masculine femininity, Sheikh, everyone means different things when you talk about it. It's a very difficult concept to discuss, masculinity.

**[28:53]** Manhood is a lot easier to discuss, because that's the moral aspect of things. Masculinity, I mean, unless we're using it in that term, and everyone understands it in that way, then I'd agree with you 100%. If masculinity is the idea of manhood and the ideal, then yes, this is misplaced energy of their traits.

**[29:13]** They're not being a man, they're abusing, and I'm using it a different way, they're abusing their masculinity for their own ego. So they're becoming the tyrant. So it was interesting how you made a distinction between masculinity and manhood. Is there a distinction? There can be a distinction,

**[29:28]** in the sense that it all depends on how you define these terms. Some people equate them, and that's where sometimes the difference within our community comes. There is certainly, conceptually, a difference between a person's temperament, their personality, and an idealized form

**[29:43]** of those personality temperaments, or skills, or talents. So give an example, strength, we can say is a masculine trait. But that strength is neutral. What are you using that strength for? Are you using it, as you described, are you using it to hit somebody, abuse someone, to intimidate people for your own self-interest,

**[30:00]** or are you using it to protect the weak and the vulnerable? Manhood is using your strength for a cause greater than yourself. And this is actually one of the definitions of futuwa and muruwa. Ibn Qayyim mentions about futuwa, that idea of putting up with the annoyances of others

**[30:15]** and extending ihsan to everybody. That's manhood. The idea of masculine and the way I'm using it and distinguishing the term, masculinity here, and you can use any other term, like la ashkal fil istilah, right? There's no problem in using what the terms are. You can use whatever term you like.

**[30:31]** If you don't like masculinity to be negative, and I understand the reason behind that, because people think, oh, everything is toxically masculine, toxic masculinity, and so we can use a different term. But then the idea is that there are certain traits that you've been given by virtue of your gender, the testosterone that you have,

**[30:46]** the way Allah has created you, and your makeup, and your genetics. If you utilize that, because it's neutral at the moment, it doesn't mean anything. If you're strong, if you're confident, it means nothing. It's about how you use it. Now, if you're using it for your ego, then that becomes, that's not manhood, that's not manly.

**[31:07]** It's you're less of a man, why? Because you do not have the control over your ego. And you look into the concepts of muruwa and shivari, that's the main key quality. Can you control your nafs? If you can't, that's not true strength, and that's a hadith of the Prophet (ﷺ).

**[31:22]** And so, that's the idea of manhood, true strength, true assertiveness, et cetera, et cetera. You could have the talents, but that doesn't make you a true man, it makes you a weak man. It's an incredible fertile, you can look at it like a fertile soil, your masculinity. There are seeds that are there

**[31:38]** that if you water with revelation, and you have the sun of the Quran and of iman, then it grows into this incredible forest of your character and your akhlaq. That's what it should be seen as. You can't see that landscape is toxic and throw it out.

**[31:54]** No, that's not it at all. But if you neglect it, and you don't have the light, and you don't have the... the water, then it's going to shrivel and die, and it's going to be death. And that's where you get weakness as a man. So masculinity itself is neutral. It's not a problem, and it has not yet become good until you've chosen to channel your masculinity into what is good.

**[32:16]** Okay, so now that what is good. So, Alhamdulillah, I think we talked about biology pretty sufficiently. Now, if we move on to... and we've kind of delved into and we're actually within the realm of... illa wa ba'a wa huy hu dani yunusirani yunusirani The whole rites of passage. You know, what it means to be a man. What are the signs of manhood?

**[32:36]** You know, one thing that I've been trying to investigate is does Islam in and of itself have a rites of passage within the fabric of the sharia? So one thing that I noticed within there are certain nationalities, I think it's certain cultures that if a man wants to get married,

**[32:51]** one of the things that they look at and they ask is has he made hajj? Which is interesting. So is hajj, dare I say, a spiritual or Islamic or just a rites of passage for the man? Interesting. Because there are certain characteristics within the rites of passage which are universal amongst different cultures.

**[33:12]** There's a really good book called Manhood in the Making. I think it's Gilmore. Yeah, David Gilmore. And he talks about the fact that there are universal concepts that are present within every culture. Whether it's going in a forest at the age of 13 and chopping the head off of an antelope and having to bring the head back.

**[33:28]** Or whether it's putting your hand in a bed of fire ants and if you scream you go back to mama. Allahu Akbar. Yeah, in each one of these. Because what that shows is in both situations you put yourself in risk, fear of your life, and having to come back and protect your habitat, your environment.

**[33:46]** Because when we look at animals and we look at even men in a particular area, men and women and families in a particular area, if there's going to be another group of men that come, it's about resources. So we don't have resources, y'all have resources, something's got to give.

**[34:02]** And most likely we're not going to get along because I don't know you. Right? So it becomes territorial. And that is what is even happening today in the realm of competition. Even sports, you know, it can be healthy, it can be unhealthy. So when looking at this in rites of passage and understanding the social quote-unquote construct of this,

**[34:23]** you mentioned, you know, is there a right way, you know, to allow the biology and the theology to go hand in hand when dealing with sociology, when dealing with those particular environments. So when we look at that kid in the locker room or we look at that guy that's at work, right, and everyone's going on happy hour,

**[34:44]** you know, I remember one time this doctor came back, they had pictures of what they did at happy hour. And I was like, yeah, I don't do that. Right? You don't do that. How? These women are interested in you. What is holding you back? I know you like her, but what is holding you back, bro?

**[35:01]** You know, the rites of passage is such an interesting concept. I think that what you said is very profound. I mean, Islam always exists also within different cultures as well. And there's a room for understanding of that.

**[35:16]** Now, obviously, within the sharia, things that would be akin to a rite of passage is coming into balagha, coming into maturity. And what are the things there are spiritually, there are spiritual rites of passages. There's the tahara that a person has to learn.

**[35:32]** Yes, purification and ghusl that needs to be made when a person reaches the age of puberty. They need to learn how to clean and purify themselves. 40 days, right? They have to learn how to pray and they need to pray. And there's ages that are given in the hadith of the Prophet ﷺ. Seven is when you start and ten is actually when you really severely reprimand them if they haven't started praying yet.

**[35:51]** And so, and then it's interesting because in marriage, the Prophet ﷺ said, you know, if a man comes to your daughter and his deen and khuluq is good and you reject him, then there's going to be fasaad on this earth. But what that tells me is that there's the rite of passage and how do you identify the khuluq?

**[36:10]** It's the salah and it's the purification aspect. So as you said, the other cultural forms of rites of passage are about indicating a person's ability to protect and to bring in resources. It's material, it's financial, it's dunyawi, not in a negative way, but it's dunyawi.

**[36:28]** But it's missing the deen aspect. And so it's almost as if for a man, that the husnul khuluq in the deen, this is the rite of passage that a woman or someone is meant to see and say,

**[36:43]** this person can become a man because of their spirituality. Because with the other aspects, with their physical prowess or whatever, doesn't mean that they're going to be a true man or a good man. They could still be a weak man with insecurities and abuse them. What is it that would regulate from that?

**[36:59]** It's their spirituality. It's the idea that they're praying. And that's why the khutbatun nikah, ya ayyuhalladheena aamanu taqwullah, that's the first advice that's given and heard, is taqwa. A person who's not God-fearing, a person who doesn't have the discipline to pray, to purify themselves, that idea of self-accountability muhasaba.

**[37:17]** There's the physical tahara, but the spiritual tahara as well. That a man has to engage in this. That's what murua is and that's what fatwa is. That you have to have this ability to be self-accountable, to be responsible to yourself, to take account to yourself, not feel so insecure that you think there could be nothing wrong with you

**[37:35]** and if anyone criticizes or gives you feedback, instead of engaging in tahara, you engage in this kind of ego protection, then that turns you into a weak man. And so this aspect of what Islam adds to the table in terms of the rites of passage, the spiritual dimension of, and perhaps this is something that's really important

**[37:53]** for our children because the Prophet ﷺ even mentioned this about how do you introduce salah to your children? That itself is the rite of passage as well. When are you going to start praying five times a day? That's going to indicate to everybody else around that this person has a control over their nafs.

**[38:09]** And that's what true masculinity or true manhood I should say is really about. Now the other aspects, the resources and the protectedness and that sort of thing, that's really important. Why? Because we know from our fiqh as well. Whose responsibility is that? It's for the man.

**[38:24]** And then of course there's space now within the sharia. Each culture, how do you develop a person that's able to take on those responsibilities? That's ibadah and that's religiously a space and that's something that we should be doing to ensure that they're able to engage, to be qawwam, to have this qiwamah.

**[38:44]** They need certain strengths, talents, skills, maybe even adjustments to their personalities or what's there so that they're able to do this. So that element there, there's room for this even within the American Muslim culture or something like this. Something of whatever it may be that can,

**[39:02]** in North America they're the scouts, right? These sorts of things teaches them certain skills. There's certainly lots of room in various cultures throughout human history as you've identified to give them that other element. But the Islamic aspect is the spiritual. No, and that should be the guiding light throughout all of these social interactions

**[39:19]** and manifestations of manhood, if you will. And that's why I'm a really big proponent of sports and particularly combat. Particularly individual combat because that individual combat allows you to speak with yourself

**[39:34]** after you lose and then to get back up and keep going and fear loss and losing again and then getting back up and then losing again and getting back up. That's a beautiful concept and particularly combat because there's a physical,

**[39:49]** all of this physical but there's nothing like getting slammed on the ground in front of your mom. Right? I went to a boxing gym and I was leaving the boxing gym because there's a whole bunch of 15, 16, 17-year-olds that walked in and I loved it, man. And then you see the mom, there was one mom, she was looking so distressed.

**[40:06]** And I looked at her and I said, you're in the right place. He's got a release. You know what I'm saying? So that physical element is something that's... Yeah, we do that in Brisbane actually. We have this program called Wrestling With Your Nafs. And so it's for young men to come through and we have a wrestling coach that comes.

**[40:23]** MashaAllah, Coach Abed, he goes through and he teaches these guys principles of grappling and wrestling and that sort of thing. And subhanAllah, you see the confidence start to build. You see people that will come up to you and express insecurities, fears, even suicidal ideation.

**[40:40]** They go through that, they feel that physicality. There's something there. There's a reason why even the companions engage. It's an ancient sport, right? You look at children, how do they play? They wrestle with each other. MashaAllah. I mean, it's something you see in the animal kingdom as well. What do they do? Chase and... Fitri.

**[40:55]** It's very fitri. And it's definitely something that it's... MashaAllah, a good thing. You're starting to see this trend amongst many Muslim cities and societies and communities across the Western world, English-speaking world at least. I'm sure in Europe as well and even in the Muslim world. You're starting to see this return to a lot of combat sports, which is so important because it teaches you so much about what we spoke about.

**[41:13]** Oh, man. And that's why I love talking to those that are in combat sports in particular and in general sports. When you talk to them about Islam, it's so easy. It is. Because that physical exertion, there's a connection psychologically in your brain

**[41:29]** and also, dare I even say, in your soul. Yeah. Because when you face a loss in front of people, you have to go through a mental process and there has to be a level of motivating yourself to get back up and do it again because you can easily quit. But if you have someone that's... Particularly someone that's Muslim

**[41:46]** and then speaks to you about the qadr, after that loss, you train nine months. I think it's Usain Bolt. Train nine months for nine seconds. Oh, my goodness. Yeah, that's true. You train so long and you lose? Yeah. And then everybody is looking at you like, you're a loser anyway.

**[42:01]** Or after the game is over, everybody's giving that, but this person doesn't want to, walks away. He has to learn what it means to be a bad sport and tie that to the qadr. Yeah. The thing is with sports as well, it's different. In the intellectual landscape, they always say the stereotype in academia, everyone's arrogant and stuck up, right?

**[42:17]** In sports, I mean, you do have those, but generally speaking, people are humble. People are a lot more respectful because people have been humbled. It's a lot more objective. In the academy, everyone's trying to say, I'm smarter than that person. How do you tell which paper is better than the other?

**[42:33]** Who's smarter? Who's et cetera, et cetera? You can't tell. Right. But in sport, particularly combat sport, it's as clear as day. I mean, someone submits you, someone slams you on the ground. Submit, exactly. And then learning to deal with that loss is something that a lot of people don't learn. And that's what makes people weak as well because they're not able to live

**[42:50]** with that aspect of I lose sometimes, I win sometimes. Like a lot of people, they have this fragile ego and they're not able to actually take a loss, take failure. Not just for combat sports, team sports as well, I think is very, very, I mean, for me, I mean, talk about combat sports. I was humbled yesterday with Dr. Julio, mashallah, tabarakallah.

**[43:07]** That guy's a beast, mashallah, tabarakallah. Yes, I was like, my goodness, mashallah. Came all the way from down under for that. My God. But it was something that is humbling. But in team sports as well, I used to play a lot of basketball. It's the same thing. You're training the whole season.

**[43:22]** It's that moment in the, you know, I still feel bitter about the semifinals. I still have dreams that I'm still like this, like 18 years ago, I still have dreams that I'm there and like it could have been different. It sticks with you, but you have to learn to be able to get over it.

**[43:37]** It teaches you to care about something, especially amongst teenage apathy. That's one of the biggest threats to the development of a confident young Muslim man is apathy. Teenagers love to be apathetic because they're afraid of caring. They're so insecure to show that they care about something.

**[43:54]** And so they say, oh, yeah, yeah, whatever. It's so easy to do that. It's hard to put yourself out there and say, no, I'm so passionate about this. People say, man, what you on, man? Calm down, calm down, calm down. Who do you think you are, Malcolm X? Like, calm down, you know what I'm saying? But sports teaches you to care about something

**[44:11]** and then lose that thing. Working with other people. You see the difference later on in life, people who have that sports background, just dealing with them in general, Muslim, non-Muslim. You see the humility, you see the ability to be able to, the emotional stability and the security.

**[44:28]** You see that there. There's a development there within sports that sadly, in a lot of Muslim families, they see no value in that. Exactly. And this is what I'm trying to bring life to, especially amongst Muslim families. But you'll find that the moms, the divorced moms that have been divorced and they have young boys,

**[44:43]** they see that reality immediately. How many of them come to me and say, he needs to get involved in some physical activity because he needs to learn what it's like to lose. He needs to learn what it's like to just go all out on something and then lose, instead of just being in front of the computer all the time.

**[44:58]** Not say being in front of the computer is bad or video game here and there, but to not have any kind of discipline, to train and lose. There's something so, that is a huge opportunity for you to come closer to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala in a, dare I say, that is a huge part of your manhood

**[45:16]** because as I say, you learn your reality through physicality. When you go through that exertion. Now, within the culture of sports, within the culture of physical exertion, it's important for the young man to have that spiritual element

**[45:31]** to know how to navigate through that. Yeah, exactly. Because you may want your son to play basketball or soccer, but the culture around it, for instance, if you're athletic, I'm going to keep it 100%, a young black kid and he's in an environment

**[45:46]** where there's a lot of black people or not, especially in basketball, he's getting picked first. He's getting picked first, man. And if they win and he dunks, how many girls are going to come to him? And they don't want to be his wife, man.

**[46:01]** You understand me? So, he has to know how to navigate through that. The wins as well. It's not just the failure, it's the success and being in that, you're right, 100%. That's a huge rites of passage for him.

**[46:16]** Because him rejecting that for something greater than what's in front of him, and then on top of that, due to the fact that he rejects that woman or those women, his teammates may indirectly reject him.

**[46:33]** And he has to be ready for that. And to be totally honest, if he's not the star player, they're going to look down upon him. If he's a star player, we're going to let him ride. He doesn't like girls, but we win with this dude.

**[46:49]** You know what I'm saying? But if he's not, he has to deal with the fact that they're probably making fun of me and saying that I'm homosexual. And my team doesn't pass me the ball anymore because I don't go out on social hour with them like that. Because I'm going to just be the party pooper.

**[47:04]** I'm not going to get along. So, for the Muslim, that's what I was saying when you mentioned the immigrant parents, it's going to be, okay, they're afraid of the immoral, non-cultural practices of America or the West, and then on top of that, he's Muslim. All of these are kuffar, and by default,

**[47:20]** the standard is that they're upon misguidance. So, we don't want you to get mixed up in that. In the end of the day, Dr. Zuhair, what would you tell that 18 to 25-year-old kid

**[47:35]** that's suffering on understanding what a man is when you or I tell him red pill is not the way to go? Like, does Islam have the answer for that in regards to who I am as a man? I like girls. I like making money.

**[47:50]** I want to make a lot of money. What's wrong with that? What is wrong with that? And is it Islamic for me to like girls and to persist them as they do in college? What do we tell that guy? What I'd say to the 18-year-old if I was looking in front of him...

**[48:05]** Do we need to give you another name now? Maher Walsh? Yeah, Maher Walsh. Young Maher Walsh. Remember death. Death is hadhimu'l-addat.

**[48:20]** It's the destroyer of pleasures. Death puts everything into perspective. All these discussions, all these online, the red pill, the blue pill, the green pill, this person saying this, this person flashing their Bugatti, this person showing their women off, the people chattering and whatnot,

**[48:36]** none of that's going to your grave. None of it. You remember death, you remember your purpose. That will be your north star to finding who you are as a Muslim, as a Muslim man. And you can never lose sight of that.

**[48:52]** The reality of death has to be there so close to you. That's why the Muslim men of the past, that's how they acted. That's why they were able to act. That's why they had the courage to be able to act. That's why they did such incredible things. Because their mortality was so close to them.

**[49:07]** And they understood that they're going to meet Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. And Allah is not going to ask about all those little things that you care about. It's going to be about, are you really a man to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala? Doesn't matter what X person thinks about you,

**[49:23]** or whatever person thinks about you, society thinks about you. You were given this gender by Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, and you were meant to fulfill your role here, as a Muslim man, Allah is going to ask you. So the real question is, are you a man in the sight of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala?

**[49:38]** That is the most important thing to focus on in terms of trying to understand all these different things. And death is that thing. Umar bin Khattab (رضي الله عنه), he would keep a candle by sometimes, and he'd put his hand by that candle and say,

**[49:53]** Ya bin Khattab, if you're not able to handle the heat of this candle, then what about Jahannam? There's so many stories of the Salaf who used to literally bury their own graves, and they'd lie down in the graves in their backyards, and just reflect. And just spend time in there.

**[50:08]** It will put everything into perspective. Take time out, if there's someone there that's listening, like at this point in time, it might be 2, 3 in the morning, or whatever, midnight, and they're thinking about whatever it is. There's a reason why Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, had you clicked this particular video,

**[50:23]** and you listened to this particular point in time, just 10 minutes, and just think about death, that day that you are going to die, and when the soul is extracted, the angels are going to be calling you by different names. What names do you want them to be calling you by?

**[50:38]** That's what you should be concerned with. Yeah, and ending on that note, man, I mean, death is something that we will all face. And it's fitri to be afraid of it, and to always be curious about when it's going to happen. But then ultimately to ask, what am I doing in preparation for it?

**[50:53]** What did you prepare for it? Allahu Akbar. I mentioned to the man when he asked, when is the hour? Dr. Zuhair, man, it's an honor, man, it's a pleasure. And inshaAllah, I hope we have more of these, inshaAllah, really talking about this particular subject matter, amongst many other subject matters,

**[51:09]** that I want to talk to you about. Alhamdulillah, understanding the merger, the connection between the biological and social of what really is a man, and I think we sufficiently, alhamdulillah, were able to answer those questions. And we ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to bless our shabab

**[51:25]** and to guide them, and to make them a means of guidance in regards to what manhood is, because we should own it, inshaAllah. Jazakumullahu khairan. It's been an absolute pleasure and honor as well to be able to discuss with you these ideas, inshaAllah. We've always been going back and forth,

**[51:40]** and Alhamdulillah, being able to do this in this format, it's been incredible, alhamdulillah, may Allah bless you and increase you and preserve you for the ummah. And I do want to let the audience know as well about your MasterMan program, because that's what we've been talking about, really.

**[51:55]** What's the website for that one? If you go to school, S-K-O-O-L, in MasterMan, and look up MasterMan, it's like an online community, alhamdulillah, for brotherhood and community, and to learn what it means, and to share each other's experiences, to increase each other.

**[52:10]** And also yourself, man. You have one of the best papers, in my humble opinion, in your spiritual personalities. MashAllah, many, many, many beautiful papers that you have in your team, inshaAllah. May Allah increase you and bless you in that effort, inshaAllah. BarakAllahu feekum. BarakAllahu feekum. Assalamu alaikum.

**[52:25]** Wa alaikumussalam wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh.

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- [Motivation is Overrated. Here's Why | Iman Cave](https://yaqeeninstitute.org/watch/series/iman-cave/motivation-is-overrated-heres-why-iman-cave.md)
- [From Orphaned Parents in Africa to Changing Lives for Orphans | Iman Cave](https://yaqeeninstitute.org/watch/series/iman-cave/from-orphaned-parents-in-africa-to-changing-lives-for-orphans-iman-cave.md)
- [Significance of the Sacrifice | Iman Cave](https://yaqeeninstitute.org/watch/series/iman-cave/significance-of-the-sacrifice-iman-cave.md)
- [Raw Truths for Divorced Dads | Part 3 | Iman Cave](https://yaqeeninstitute.org/watch/series/iman-cave/raw-truths-for-divorced-dads-part-3-iman-cave.md)
- [Raw Truths for Men: Uncensored | Part 2 | Iman Cave](https://yaqeeninstitute.org/watch/series/iman-cave/raw-truths-for-men-uncensored-part-two-iman-cave.md)
- [UFC Fighter Abdul-Kareem Al-Selwady is Unbreakable | Iman Cave](https://yaqeeninstitute.org/watch/series/iman-cave/ufc-fighter-abdul-kareem-al-selwady-is-unbreakable-iman-cave.md)
- [Divorce: Problem or Solution? | Part 1 - Before Marriage | Iman Cave](https://yaqeeninstitute.org/watch/series/iman-cave/divorce-problem-or-solution-part-one-before-marriage-iman-cave.md)
- [Arrested for What!? | Iman Cave](https://yaqeeninstitute.org/watch/series/iman-cave/arrested-for-what-iman-cave.md)
- [Bravery, Tawakkul, and Risking it all for Allah | Iman Cave](https://yaqeeninstitute.org/watch/series/iman-cave/bravery-tawakkul-and-risking-it-all-for-allah-iman-cave.md)
- [Overcoming Addictions | Iman Cave](https://yaqeeninstitute.org/watch/series/iman-cave/overcoming-addictions-iman-cave.md)
- [Focus in the Age of Distraction | Iman Cave](https://yaqeeninstitute.org/watch/series/iman-cave/focus-in-the-age-of-distraction-iman-cave.md)
- [Why Me? | Iman Cave](https://yaqeeninstitute.org/watch/series/iman-cave/why-me-iman-cave.md)
- [Confidence through Combat Sports | Iman Cave](https://yaqeeninstitute.org/watch/series/iman-cave/confidence-through-combat-sports-iman-cave.md)
- [Masculinity through Allah's Names | Iman Cave](https://yaqeeninstitute.org/watch/series/iman-cave/masculinity-through-allahs-names-iman-cave.md)
- [Mentorship, Purpose, and Contentment | Iman Cave](https://yaqeeninstitute.org/watch/series/iman-cave/mentorship-purpose-and-contentment-iman-cave.md)
- [Mother's Strength, Father's Prayers: Success through Struggle | Iman Cave](https://yaqeeninstitute.org/watch/series/iman-cave/mothers-strength-fathers-prayers-success-through-struggle-iman-cave.md)
- [Husain Abdullah's Sajdah that Broke the NFL | Iman Cave](https://yaqeeninstitute.org/watch/series/iman-cave/husain-abdullahs-sajdah-that-broke-the-nfl-iman-cave.md)
- [Discipline: Who Are You When No One's Watching? | Iman Cave](https://yaqeeninstitute.org/watch/series/iman-cave/discipline-who-are-you-when-no-ones-watching-iman-cave.md)
- [Lead with Integrity | Iman Cave](https://yaqeeninstitute.org/watch/series/iman-cave/leading-with-integrity-iman-cave-with-sheikh-abdullah-oduro.md)
- [Sami Hamdi's Path to Purpose | Iman Cave](https://yaqeeninstitute.org/watch/series/iman-cave/sami-hamdis-path-to-purpose-iman-cave.md)
- [Series Trailer | Iman Cave](https://yaqeeninstitute.org/watch/series/iman-cave/series-trailer-iman-cave.md)