 So I wanted to just kind of pick up from last week where we had started with some questions. So normally I do the questions at the end, but I want to flip it, so open it up for questions right now. Pretty much if they're related to the series of lectures that we've been having here on the Friday night Halakha for men, parenting, mentoring, and so forth. And then I had some actually questions for you, so the floor is now open for you for questions. Yes? It wasn't here last time, but it's a question that's been on your mind for a while. Okay. We mentioned the story. I think Imam Malik, his student, his very learned student had a dream, he had a dream and he asked that person that how did you make it into heaven. Right. And the response was, I don't exactly remember, but one thing which has been in my mind is that since your heaven in hell is going to be determined on the day of judgment, so how do you, when you dream something in heaven, how do you make it into heaven? Oh, okay. Yeah. So the question was, a few weeks ago I mentioned a story where somebody saw one of Imam Malik's main students, Ibn Al-Qasim, and I positioned the story by saying this is a, if we look at Imam Malik as being one of the reasons, or one of the men that Allah chose to preserve the sunnah of the Messenger of Allah, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, along with the other great Imams, Imam Al-Shafi, Imam Abu Hanifa, Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal and so forth, and some of the other Imams that we don't have their medhabs anymore, Imam Al-Leith al-Sadi and so forth. And Ibn Al-Qasim was his main student, so somebody might think, oh well the thing that most benefited him was the knowledge and the teaching and so forth. And so after his passing, somebody said, you know, what did Allah do with you or how did you, you know, how did you find the next life? And so he said, what I found most benefit was just a few rakahs that I used to pray in the night. So it wasn't all of that public lectures and the teaching and the answering of questions and the fatwa and so forth, it was just a few rakahs of tahajjud. But the question specifically, and correct me if I'm wrong, is that if our position of heaven and hell is determined on the day of judgment, then how does a person know that at that point? Which is a very good question. And so a few things that we have to keep in mind is that we can't take definite rulings from dreams. This is really a big one. And this is something that's really important in our lives. We have to have a connection with our dreams. I mean, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala didn't create things as a joke. You know, I felt, did you consider that we created you in jest and abath? So dreams are definitely a part of our lives. There's angels that are their specific jobs. They're entrusted with bringing visions from al-Loh al-Mahfud to the person who sees that. So it's a very important part of our lives. That's the true dream. Dreams could also come from our nefs. It could also come from the shaytan. It could come from angels. It could come directly from Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. Not as revelation, but as what they term as ilham. But so it is important for us to recognize what we see in our dreams. The Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, very often after Fajr, he would actually ask the sahaba, did any of you see any dreams? And I've personally brought this into my household at breakfast. I'll ask my kids, did you see any dreams? Most of the times, and this is what happens for most of us. The dreams we see are just the silly dreams of the nefs. You know, it's ad-ghaathu ahlamin like it says in the Quran. So when the king had the dream about the seven cows and the seven ears of corn and so forth, some of the interpreters said, oh this is just ad-ghaathu ahlamin. This is just those jumbled up dreams that the nefs gives you. But when it was taken to use of alayhi salam, he was able to explain it. So we have to be able to differentiate between what's from our nefs. You know, our nefs can speak to us, can also speak to our fears. And then for those of us who are parents, or even if you're uncles or older brothers, speaking to people what they saw in their dreams, your kids, your nieces, your nephews, you can help getting an understanding of what they're dealing with, or maybe what their fears are or something that they're concerning them. I'm not saying that we're going to do tafsid of the dreams because only certain people can interpret dreams, but it is important even to have that conversation. But at the same time, we can't take judgments from the dreams. So some people, sometimes they actually look to dreams to kind of guide them in their lives. And they want to say, okay, I'm going to pray istikhara, and then I'm going to wait for a dream. How many of you have heard that? How many of you, yeah, there are people who wait for a dream. And that's not the way istikhara works. You could get a dream, but it's more of a feeling. But then there's people who will actually make life decisions based on a dream. And yes, could that happen? It could. Allah could give a person a message in a dream, or maybe the angels are giving them that person some direction. But at the same time, our primary source of deriving judgments is the Qur'an and Sunnah, is the Shari'ah. And that's why if something in a dream negates what's in the Shari'ah, then we have to give precedence to the Shari'ah. So I'll give you an example. It's kind of a funny example. Ibn al-Hajj mentions this in the book, al-Madkhal. He says a man had a dream, he found a treasure. And so if you find a treasure, does anybody happen to know what the zakat on treasure is? It's the khums, 20%. And you don't wait for a year to go out. You have to give it out immediately. And actually, I know somebody here in the Bay Area who did find a treasure in his house. So it does happen. He found a box of old German gold coins and so forth. So you know, I know it's not like a here, you know, urban legend type of thing. It happened. So if you find a treasure, but that differs than if you find it like in a Muslim country and you know, it could be property of a Muslim, that has a different set of rules. That's like a lost property. So if you find an old buried treasure, there's 20% zakat that's due immediately. So this person in Morocco, he found, this is over 700 years old, this story. He found a treasure and in a dream, he saw the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam who says you don't have to pay the zakat. Now if you see the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam, you know you saw him because the shaitan can actually take the form of any other person. He can even take the form of like a wali or a saint or a sheikh and come and then tell the person you should do this or you should do that. So that's why it's very important to understand the tricks of the shaitan. But the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam, that's for sure. If you see him, you know that's him. The shaitan can't take his form. So now this person sees the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam saying you don't have to pay the zakat. So he went to some of the ulama and their response was, he said, well the Prophet told me in a dream, sallallahu alaihi wa sallam, I don't have to pay the zakat. He said, well the Prophet told us in a waking state that you do have to pay the zakat because we have a hadith, you know. So and there's a very interesting discussion on that. What happens if you see the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam and he tells you something that actually goes against the sharia, right? So it doesn't mean that he's changing the sharia, but it means that he's actually indicating to you some deficiency in your life. So that's why it's important to study the shama'il. If we know what the Prophet looks like, if we know what the Prophet did, sallallahu alaihi wa sallam, if he knows how he acted, and then we see him in a dream and he does something other than that, it doesn't mean that he's changing the sharia for us. It actually means that he's reflecting in us a deficiency in our application or understanding of the sharia. And the reason is because there's a hadith that says the believer is like the mirror of his brother. Right? Have we heard this hadith? He's like the mirror. Now what is the most polished mirror that we can have in the ummah? It's the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam. So he's showing us, like there's people who say for example, whatever it might be, there are certain elements of his sunnah or his sharia that they've seen him not doing the dream. So people say, well how did the Prophet not do that and so it's a reflection of that person not being able to apply that in their life. And so maybe this person, he didn't want to give out the zakat. Maybe he had some miserliness. Maybe he had something in him and the Prophet said, oh you don't have to give out zakat. Not saying we're changing the sharia. You don't want to give out the zakat, something like that. But the reason why Ibn al-Hajj was mentioning the story is he's saying even if we see something in a dream, even if we see the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam, we still have to balance it out with the sharia. So this is, I'm kind of contextualizing your question, which is a good question. We hear a story about Ibn al-Qasim. He makes this statement. Now we're trying to balance out with the Qur'an and sunnah. Now according to our understanding of the Qur'an and sunnah, yes. The judgment is, like it becomes known at that point. But when did Allah know that people are going to go to hell and people are going to go to heaven? Even before they were born, right? Law is pre-eternal. And now we're just kind of going through the process of finding our final state. And can people be given indications that they might be from the people of hell or of heaven? They could. But even if we see a dream, it's just we take it as a busharah, whether it's a dream or we see somebody in the dream, whatever, it's a glad tidying. But we can't say for a fact that Ibn al-Qasim is in jannah. We can't say that because that's not, as you said, it's not going to become yakeem, 100% knowledge until Yom al-Qayyim and until we all see it right now. So right now, who do we know for a fact is in the hellfire? Or is destined for the hellfire? Fir'aun. And there's some other characters, but let's just take Fir'aun. How do we know Fir'aun is in the hellfire or destined for the hellfire? Through the Qur'an. And that's why. So it has to be established by revelation. Dreams are not revelation. And so that's why even if we see, even if some people say, yes, this person, I know he's going to jannah, we don't know that. This person for sure, he's going to the hellfire. You know, there's some times of, you know, some religious fanatics that will be like, oh, you know, point out somebody and say, you're going to hell. Well, how do you know that? Imam Noah, we mentioned that he said, we cannot make a determination of heaven or hell for anybody because of the hadith. And once I'm, it's mentioned in the 40 hadith of Imam Noah, where he says that a person will be from the people of jannah for his whole life. And then right before death, when he's just a hand span or arms links away from jannah, what happens? He does one of the actions of the people of fire and then he goes in. And then the opposite is true as well. Somebody lives their whole life as from the people of the hellfire. And then when he's just a hand span or an arms links away from the hellfire, he does something from the people of jannah. And that might be right before he passes away. So that's why, like we go to the makbada over here, the cemetery, you know, the Muslim cemetery. But do we know that everybody there has actually died as a Muslim? We don't know. We can only judge based on the outward, but ultimately we don't know. In a non-Muslim cemetery, could there be people there that are going to end up in jannah? Maybe, but we don't know. Maybe they became Muslim right before they died. So there's no definite, we can't give a definite ruling to anybody unless we have wahi. So even if we have a dream where somebody says, oh, I saw this person is in the hellfire. Okay, maybe that was from your nefs. Maybe that was from the shepaan. Maybe it was from Allah. Who knows? But we cannot say definitely. So I know I'm kind of expanding on the idea, but it is true. We see this story. I've actually, you know, and then people say, what have you benefited afterwards? So I don't know. Does that answer your question? Yeah. But there is. My mind is that when the prophets have had visions that so-and-so is in hellfire because of this reason, that is obviously true. But if that hasn't happened, how can you see that? So the way I finally, in a different context, somebody showed this trick to me that if there are two points A and B on a paper, what's the shortest distance between them? Let's just say this diagonal. Straight line. Straight line. And then I bend the paper and I say, now what? They are just together. It's not the straight line and the shortest distance. So in my opinion, I related it, and I want to check that, if that's a possible explanation, at least it satisfied me, is that time is unidirectional for all of us, but not for Allah's will of Allah. Okay. He knows what we're saying. He knows what's going to happen. And what has happened, what will happen, he can show the prophet. Yes, yeah, through revelation. So the- It's like what you have in rapport to just that time is unbendable and unidirectional for us. And it's not for Allah. Right, and so the question is about time and how do we understand and how do we understand things that are going to, like one of the stories that I mentioned too was about somebody on Yom Al-Qiyamah who they were destined for the Hellfire and then they see their, and one of the reasons why they're destined for the Hellfire is because of their disrespect of their father. And then as they're being led off to the Hellfire, they turn back and they see like, oh, my father's also being led to the Hellfire for his sins. And so he says, well, just take my good sins and give them, I mean, give my good deeds and give them to my father and at least let him go into Jannah and then Allah forgives them both. So that's mentioned in the hadith. It's a story that happens on Yom Al-Qiyamah. And it has not happened yet. So it's not like that we're in an illusion. Time is a creation. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is not bound by time and that's something beyond our comprehension because we only know beginning and end, something that has a beginning and an end. Allah has no beginning, He has no end. He's not bound by time. There is no yesterday, today or tomorrow for Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. If you try to think about it and wrap your mind around it, it's incomprehensible. And once you realize it's actually, and this is a very deep point of Tawheed, once we wrap our heads around that fact that like if we just think about that, Allah is, He's not contained by any direction, by any place, by any time. He does not look like anything we can imagine. If you try to say, well, then what is He? Exactly, now you understand Allah. And so that's why the Selef would say there's many variations of this. Um, um, um, um — A'adzu idraaki hi an... A'adzu idraaki ka anhu idrak. Like not being able to expressed, like realizing that you're not able to comprehend Allah, now you've comprehended Him. Not comprehended Him, but that's, that's your Tawheed, the fact that we have to be able to say, lesa kamitlihi sheykh. There's nothing, there's nothing like Him. Time is a thing, place is a thing. Direction is a thing, all of those things, color, sight, smell, anger, emotion, anything we can comprehend is something and Allah is completely different than that. So you mentioned that you are perfect to Hanim and he saw his father, but I thought whatever you have done before you died is going to determine where you go, you can't change it on the day of judgment, so you could change it, you could… Allah can do whatever he wants, yeah. Because there's also people who are going to be punished for a short time, but then he can forgive them, there's also people who will be interceded, you know they will get the intercessions. That's different, they're merciful, but this is his action on the day of judgment. Yeah, so he gives the action, he gives the judgment that he says this person is destined for the hellfire and they were destined for the hellfire and then he abrogated that by saying now I've forgiven you, because he can put a person into the hellfire and then take them out. And the person's action on the day of judgment, I'm sorry. Okay, but let me… Okay, I don't want to get too deep into… I'd make this Aqida class, because now we're getting into theology, which we should proceed it with a number of different conversations and I think that would be good and what I would mention as a point is that every one of us should go through a basic Aqida text, there's a book called Aqida At-Tahawiyah, there's a number of recordings online, everybody just listen through those and what I would say is some of these, some of these discussion, these questions would be very good, but after going through a course like that, so Mufti Abdur-Rahman Mengerah has an online course, but the T'ahawiyah, T-A-H-A-W-I-Y-A, T'ahawiyah. It's a very comprehensive course, there's a number of different translations of it, so I would suggest that they're all very good questions and this is actually brings up a good point that our kids and those of you who have children know this, our kids ask us very, very, very deep theological questions all the time and it's not enough for us to be able to just say, well let me wait and ask, let me wait and ask, let me wait and ask, we each one of us should be at a very, you know, a deep understanding of Aqida to be able to say, okay here's the point, here's the point, here's the point and if something is not specifically mentioned, okay now let me ask the scholar, but that text has over 100 points and the majority of questions would be answered that, so that's what I would encourage everybody to just make a personal commitment, there's some online, there's mash-up, I mean there's so many online opportunities that are available, especially for those of us that have commutes, right, and so now you can just listen to them as you're commuting, it's not the optimum because you want to be able to be focused and take notes and so forth, but it's better than just, you know, worrying about the, so I would just, let's take that as an encouragement to everybody to dedicate themselves, go through a course of Aqida, the Tahaweeh is a very good course and all these questions are really good and maybe one day we'll organize an Aqida intensive, you know, and answer these questions because the question that you asked about that, that's actually, it's called an Ishqa, like how is a person's, because we know that your actions post death do not change and so this is one of the, you know, whenever we find a hadith or an ayah that doesn't match up with a general understood principle, this is the Motashabih, these are the ambiguous ayahs and so the scholars have to tread lightly and say, okay, the Prophet said this, but we also know he also has this other, these other things that he said, how do we balance between them? And pointing out those, this is why it's important to have that solid foundation because children will ask those questions, you know, if you tell this story and a kid will, but I thought, you know, and it's not enough to say, this is what we believe, you know, you want to be able to engage in those questions, in those questions because if we just stifle it, stifle it, stifle it, by the time they go to college, now they're exposed to the world and even before that with the phones, so we want to train them. In fact, one of the, and this is mentioned at the end of the text that we were studying, Bidr al-Walidayn, one of the obligations of a father to their son is to give them a firm foundation in Tauheed, a firm foundation in understanding that because then there's things that pop up in our lives that we have to be able to place them on the framework of our Tauheed. So if something comes up like, say for example, you know, now there's all this discussion about LGBTQ and do we support them and how do we support them and all of those things. Now we need to be able to understand that through the lens of the Aqidah of the Tauheed of the Muslims. How does this, you know, how do we view this? First of all, before we even talk about action, what is our belief about this, about the action, about the condoning, about supporting, about whatever it is, let's just have that discussion. So that's why that's very important. But there was a question to, yeah, okay, yeah. Products, yeah, yeah. So the question was there's people who find new products and it becomes a billion dollar company. This is specifically about, you know, it brings up a good point. If we have something in the sunnah, the Prophet Sallallahu alayhi wa sallam taught us that whoever finds a treasure, he owes 20% of zakat on it. We have to look at that as literal. He's talking about a treasure because if you find, say, minerals, what's that? It's, well it's specific. It is a human product that was buried, gemstones, gold, whatever it might be. If it's an idea like you make an invention or you have a business, there's another set of rules which are the rules of zakat that are applicable to a business. We only have about 10 more minutes. I'll take one question that I wanted to actually ask the audience something. Any more questions? Wow, yes. This is about what's happening to our product. We're on the wires. Oh, okay, yeah. Online there are people with discussions. And I can, me as one of the river community members, there are questions like, oh, this is gonna be a punishment for a little bit of a hundred dollars. Oh, yeah, very good question, yeah. There are scholars talking about it. But personally, I believe so. The case comes from Tadeed and what we went through. But no, what's your take on it? Okay, so the question was about the coronavirus and is it a punishment from Allah, subhanahu ta'ala. Just like how we were talking about earlier when we say we can't determine whether or not somebody's in the hellfire or not because that's from ilm al-ghaib. It's from the unseen. So the description of us right there at the beginning of the Quran, el-iflameem, that's the book, la'ra'ibafi, huddin al-muttaqeen, al-ladina yu'minuna bil-ghaib. They believe in the unseen, right? We believe in the unseen. It's not that we know the unseen, right? We believe in it, but we don't claim to have knowledge of it. So for example, there's a hadith that talk about every single one of us has at least two angels with us, but up to 400, up to 400. When I read that, I said subhanAllah, that's the hafava, that protect the guardian angels. And the more we make our state better, the more angels we get. So there's the two angels, the scribes, they never leave us. And even if we're doing evil actions, unfortunately, they don't like, I mean, not unfortunately. Unfortunately, if we as human beings are doing evil actions, we are harming those angels, but they're assigned to us. They cannot move us. But what they do do is, if a person, especially if a person is a disbeliever, they'll ask, they'll make dua that Allah hurries up and takes their life so that they can be dismissed of their duties for that person. But if a person is in good, they'll make dua that Allah elongate their life so that they can keep, being described to this person who's doing good things. So they cannot leave us, but the extra angels that come for protections, they have the choice of being around us or not. They can come and if a person, there's certain things that angels don't like and if that's being done and one of the main ones is disobedience of Allah, they will leave that person's presence. So the better, the more good that we're doing, the more angelic presence that we can have. But if somebody comes to me and says, you know what, you have 40 angels and you have 30 angels, like, how do you know that? Is it possible that Allah could remove the veil and allow the person to see that? Maybe, but we don't have to believe that. So whenever somebody makes a firm judgment about the unseen, we don't have to necessarily believe that. It could happen, it's a miracle and it could happen, but we don't have to necessarily believe it. So coming now to the adab, that if something is sent as an adab, a punishment from Allah, who knows that? Like who can know that something is adab or maybe it's just a test? So for example, we see in the prophets, some of them were given very, very difficult tests. Think of the story of Ba'if, right? The prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, when we read that story, it hurts us, it pains us like what they did and they called him names and threw stones until his feet bleed and kicked him out of, chased him out of the city. I mean, it's a very hard thing to know that happened to our prophet. Would somebody say that's an adab? No, it's a test, it's a mosleba. So we can say for sure that an outbreak like that is a mosleba, is a tribulation, but to say that it's specifically a punishment, that's only Allah knows that. Only Allah can say that. And this is very important because, especially when we deal with tribulations in our life, and I get this question a lot, a person says, I'm dealing with this, I'm dealing with this or whatever, is this a punishment from Allah? Now, if a person tries to process a tribulation, a mosleba, so a mosleba means just, it's a problem, something happened and the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam told us that you will get rewarded for your mosleba, your tribulation, your problem, your test, even if it's the prick of a thorn, right? The prick of a thorn, on up. And who are the people who get the most trials and tribulations? Prophets, right? And so that's not a, that a person is being tribulated is not a sign that Allah does not like them, it's actually a sign that he does like them because what happens when a person is filled, their lives are filled with trials and tribulations? What does that person do if they have belief? They have a suburb of patience, they turn to Allah, they turn more to Allah. You know, so it actually increases there and they call on Allah more and sometimes Allah, he loves to hear the voice of that person and so he will send tribulations their way just so he can hear that person's voice. So a tribulation is not a sign of punishment. Now, but what happens if a person is now thinking, starts thinking, they get and say whatever it might be a car accident. They get in a car accident, they're like, oh my goodness, is this a punishment from Allah? As opposed to, this is a muslibah. You see the different way of, the prophets got tried, the prophets had tribulations. Ahad and Thamud had a punishment. Which category are you? Now, if it's mentioned in the Quran, we know what happened to Ahad, that was definitely a punishment. So we can't speak on the ghaib about anything. And so that's why the coronavirus, you know, was it, you know, was it a punishment from Allah? Could it be? Sure. Could it also be a punishment because of something that somebody did on the other side of the world? Yeah. What does it say in the Quran? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? That will not affect only the oppressors. So the idea there is that if there's oppression in the land, Allah could send a fitna, a punishment, and when it comes down, it just engulfs everybody. Animals included. And one of the mufessiri, he mentioned something, and I took this to heart, he said, anybody who has a flock around them, right? We know in the hadith it says, kullukum ra'a, every one of you is a shepherd, kullukum mas'ulun ar-ra'ayati, everyone will be asked about his flock. So if you're a father or a mother, you're children. If you're a family, might be your siblings. If you're taking care of parents, it's your parents. If you're a teacher, you're students. If you're an employer, it's your employees. Everybody has people they're responsible for. And so what it says is, be careful of you, of people who are in positions of responsibility, parents, community leaders, teachers, employers, whatever it might be. Because if you do something, what happens if the muslibah comes down and it affects the other people? So it could affect people around you. So it's a reminder for us, when we're at that fork in the road, when we could choose the good road, or we could choose the evil road, we might say, okay, and if I'm punished, I'll have sabar with it. I'll deal with the punishment. But what if the punishment in the dunya comes down and it engulfs other people? So this is something that, and I think is also lost in the discussion, everybody's talking about climate change and things are happening, climate-wise. And they're talking about fossil fuels and this and that and plastics and all this stuff. Nobody's talking about sins. What if it's the sins of Bani Adam? Vahar al-Fasadu fil-barri wal-bahr, Allah says in the Qur'an. Fasad, corruption, which could include like climate change, has become apparent in the oceans, in the land and the oceans. What? From what people's hands have done. So nobody's talking about that. Nobody wants to mention that. It's just, oh, it's definitely fossil fuels. Well, that might be a sebeb, a way that Allah made it appear. But why aren't we talking about, well, let's turn around and this was the state of the early generations. If they saw a muslibah, if they had a tribulation, the first thought they had was not, let me figure it out with my mind or let me do something, it's let me go worship to Allah and make Toba. And you see this consistently in many, many stories where they will, when something happens, it says, okay, let me look back and see what am I doing or not doing spiritually so that we have that spiritual connection. So could the coronavirus be a adab? Maybe, Allah-u-Alam. Could it be a adab that actually is, somebody on earth did something and it just happened to fall down in that area? Could be. It's also right next to a biological military lab. Could it be the fact that they're playing around with things and something got out? Yeah. And part of the façade, be back, is people are doing really, really foul and evil things following the sheytan. All of the diseases of the heart are being implemented in an evil way and then the innocent are punished. Oh yes, the other people, yes. Only us know what we went through for the past three years. Even at this time of age, we cannot even fall over the phone. Yeah, that's... And definitely, like you said, I cannot claim it's from Allah, but definitely I would attribute... Is it, yes, because of what, because of the oppression that they, like when we're looking at it, if we're saying if that country there has done so much oppression, both at the government level, the Chinese people of the William Muslim people, they've done so much oppression. And the other thing is, maybe if the people weren't directly involved, but the citizens who stayed silent. Because this, this ayah that says, wa taqoo fitna ta'laatu s-li-bin la-deena al-walimu minqum khasah, the Sahaba interpreted it as, because you have people who were oppressors and the Quran says it will affect not only the people who did the act and the tafsid of some of the Sahaba is those who saw the oppression and were silent. So think of all of the people, the countries included, think of all of the Muslim countries included that could have put diplomatic pressure on them, instead of giving them rewards for their humanitarian efforts and so forth. People who could have put economic pressure, but we still want our products, you know, that come from the country. We could do a lot, but people are just silent. So could it be for the fact, so this ayah talks about, it talks about the people who are directly implementing the oppression, but then also those people who know about it and are silent. If you see any of those investigative documentary journals, they go up to people, just people in the streets, and do you know about what's going on? Oh, I don't want to talk about it. So we think that not talking about it is, oh, I'm not involved, but for the believer, we have to do something. So could it be, I mean, if we were going to make a case for, you oppressed millions of people in China and now you get this thing. Could this very well be ayah that because of that thing, it like doesn't it look like everything's adding up? We can't say a hundred percent sure, but we can definitely say, if it is, it's a pretty good case. Their own people. Yeah. Well, and even the doctor that came out there, you know, the doctor who reported in and because of the censorship and, you know, no freedom of, yeah. Yeah, I mean, it should be a call to all of us to say, you know, what can we do? And some things, you know, on a global level is very difficult. What can we make a change? What I can say is that here locally, you know, we think globally, act locally. Our sphere's concern is very big. Whatever we, about our, we have to look at our sphere of influence. So actually what I wanted to end next week, we don't have the Halaqa. There's no, the boys and the girls Halaqa is not here. But one thing that, one of the intentions of this men's Halaqa was also to serve the community, but also to look for people who want to be mentors and counselors to the youth in our community. So one of the things on the sister side, there's a lot of women who are involved. There are a lot of teenagers who are involved. But on the boys side, we really struggle. And I'm not talking about just this community. I'm talking about communities all over the place. And I'll share with you something. A few weeks ago, I went to Houston and there was a sister who she was saying, when she was at the masjid, she was a single mother. She had two children. And she would approach people at the masjid saying, I need a mentor for my boys. Like she is the mother, but she wants a mentor for her boys. And the suggestion that was always given to her, well, why don't you marry somebody? She said, I'm not in a position. I don't, I'm not looking to get married. And I don't think that's the solution. And I would just want the masjid to, you know, the masjid community to build up this mentorship. As everybody heard of like the big brother program. So there's a national program of the big brother. That's something we would like to have here at this community. It should be in a lot of masjid. So whether a person's interested in being a counselor here for the boys program. I know some of you may be involved in the Sunday school program. You know, the involvement of men is very important. And so I would just say, just get involved. If you're a father, you're already involved in your children. But if you have time, if you know people who maybe are not as busy with their own children and their work and they have time, the ability to be a mentor, please reach out to me either by email or in person. And I can, it's Rami at mcceastbay.org. And just share, you know, let me know that if you want to be a mentor or a counselor for our programs here or even on an individual basis. But it's something we would like to get established and moving to where it's a, it's part and parcel of the way the masjids runs. So one of the things that, you know, if you hear a masjid anywhere, if they start up, you know they're gonna have a Juma prayer. You know there's gonna be Taraweeh prayer and most probably a Sunday school. Those are kind of like the bread and butter elements of a masjid. But the other elements of the masjid that we should also have is this connection to where we have that mentorship where people who are not only interested in doing it but they're also trained, they go through some basic training and then they can serve the needs in the community. Because I know for a fact that this, every Muslim community needs it. And I know for a fact, being reaching out to people in the community, there is a need. So if you are interested or if you know somebody who's interested, please reach out to me, inshallah. Yeah. And if you have to leave, because I know it's nine to pick up the kids, but I'm here for you. I'm here for mentorship. Oh, very good question. Yeah. So do I even qualify? Because I can help boys with their career things what they're thinking of. But if they have Islam or Quran, any questions, I'm not the best person. Yeah. Thank you for asking that. That's a very question. So the question to everybody here is like if I don't know that much about Islamic, if I don't have that much Islamic knowledge, can I still be a mentor? There's other things that I can do, maybe mentor in professional capacity and so forth. And it's an excellent question. And it's actually a big hesitation on why people don't take these positions, whether it's a Sunday school Islamic teacher or a mentorship or a counselor. And what I would say is that, first of all, yes, maybe not everybody is a scholar or have a serious student of knowledge, but we all have something to give. We all have something to give. And the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam said, Belli Ru'alli Walaw Aaya. You know, convey from me, even if it's one verse. So that's one thing that even if we have something, you know, we can convey. The other thing is, a lot of our Islamic knowledge is embodied in who we are. So maybe we can't articulate, we can't give you, but if somebody were to say, you know, I got caught cheating on a test. You know, maybe you can't reference the exact verse and hadith and Islamic ruling, but you have, you know, that's wrong. And let me explain why it's wrong. And you can convey the message of Islam without having the details on some of the more general things. If somebody asks a very pointed specific fiqh question, aqida theology question, yeah, you want to be able to defer that. But a lot of what is in mentorship is just reinforcing basic things that every one of us already know that's a part of our Islam. And it's also, and I'll mention this again, it's also just showing the care that you care for them, that people come and they can see that there's care for, you know, people care about me. And I don't know if I think I have mentioned it here, but I'll repeat it. There was a researcher who, she was researching about education and she said she wanted to find the magic bullet. Did I talk about that? Okay, so she said, people look for the magic bullet of, what's that one thing that we could do that if we implement it in our schools and our educational programs, it would just make a huge difference? Is it testing? Is it tutoring? Is it after school programs? Is it higher level training of teachers? Is it training, you know, what is it? So in education, they're looking for the magic bullet. In business, they'll come to my seminar and I'll tell you how to make a million and all of that stuff. But in education, they're also looking for. In parenting, they're looking. She was looking specifically in education. So then she looks, you know, they do meta analysis of all these different studies, look at who's succeeding and then try to isolate those factors that have a strong correlation that if they're there, you know, you're never gonna get a one to one correlation or very rarely, but it's a pretty high indicator, you know, 0.4, 0.5, 0.6 correlation of that this actually affects that. So what she settled on at the end of the day, it's not the type of school, it's not private versus public. It's not the parents' level of education because that's always mentioned. It's not uniforms, it's not, all of these things that mentioned, they said it's not that. It's the fact that the teacher cares for the student. They care for the student. So if the teacher shows that care, yes. Abdul Haqq. Oh wow, okay. Are you a teacher? Okay. Oh okay, did everybody hear that? So Abdul Haqq is a teacher and he said that what they try to tell other teachers and teachers is that students won't care what you know until they know that you care. And it's the same thing for as parents, you know, the parents, we have to show, sometimes we have to tell them that we care, but it's also about showing that you care. And there was another study that was done. This person wanted to find what was the changing moment in the lives of some of the great luminaries. So he looked at lives of like Benjamin Franklin, Gandhi, Martin Luther King, a lot of other people. The secular, just look at biographies of people. And so he said, he found every one of them around between 10 to 12 years old had somebody in their life that showed that care. He said, that's the one thing I could find about all of them. They all have between 20 and 10 and 12. And he said, it might've been just somebody, the bus driver, so not even like a lot, but it's, you know, pat on the shoulder, hey kid, you can do it. And that one instance of hey kid, you can do it, was enough to carry them through life. So the reason I'm mentioning that is because, say you have a scholar who has all of the answers, but they don't have that element of care. And then you have one person who, maybe doesn't have all the academic answers, but can either help find it or reference, but they just care, who's gonna have more impact on that person's life. And so now when we're talking about, if somebody comes to the masjid, and so even if you don't go into the capacity of like a counselor, just think about it. Every single interaction that you have with another person, especially children, especially at the masjid, they're already going through a lot of questions of identity and what am I am, who am I, and people are tugging at them, this is what you should be as a Muslim, whatever it might be, they come to the masjid, you show that you care, they're gonna make that association, oh, that Muslim, at that Muslim place, cares about me because I'm Muslim, therefore Islam is great. But if we sit down and we say, here's all the logical reasons why Islam is right. Here's all the logical reasons why you should be Muslim. But then we're not showing that we care. So that's what I would say, that everyone, as long as we have the capacity to care, you have the capacity to help out other people. So now we have to go, Jazakumullah Khair, there's no halak next week, but we'll pick up the week after.