 I seek refuge with Allah from Satan, the accursed. In the name of Allah, the Gracious, the Merciful. Peace be upon you and God's mercy and blessings be upon you. Welcome to this new series in which we are exploring an issue that faces many of our communities, but one which we don't necessarily often discuss a lot. And that is the question of how to be sure those new Muslims, first generation Muslims, those people who are known as reverts and converts to Islam, become part of the community. Not only so, insha'Allah, they have a very good experience as members of the Muslim Ummah, but also insha'Allah, so that our communities as a whole can contribute to grow and develop and progress with everyone working together, calling upon the strength of our cultural and human diversity. In this program, we're going to be exploring a very simple question, which, like the previous questions, does not only relate to first generation Muslims. That is to say, I guarantee it has something to do with you no matter who you are or where you are from. But we will phrase it from the perspective of people who become Muslim. And that question is, what do people who convert to Islam need, both in terms of religious infrastructure and community and also religious knowledge? So we can consider this growth on a general level, because sometimes when we talk about knowledge, we're talking about something very specific, what is found in a book, what is found in a speech, things we can codify and quantify and examine. But of course, from the Islamic perspective, knowledge is something which is much more far-reaching and far-encompassing and deep than just book knowledge. It is understanding. It is marafa. It is spirituality. It is akhlaq. It is introspection. It is what we're able to verbalize. All of these things and more. So rather than just talking about what people who convert to Islam know about Islam or how we can all increase our Islamic knowledge, I want to take the bigger question of what people who convert to Islam need. Now, my conjecture is that I think we tend to discuss this on a very surface level. We tend to discuss basic needs, such as learning how to pray. OK, that's an important need. If someone is new to Islam, they may not know how to pray, and that's important. But as human beings, you, me, everyone else, we have a lot of different needs. And so I'd like to frame this according to the psychological theory known as Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. Yes, there are raised eyebrows. What is she talking about? Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs psychology. What does this have to do with anything? Just bear with me on this point. For those of you who are not familiar with this theory, visit Wikipedia. There's an entire page on it. But I'll explain it in a nutshell. The idea is there is a pyramid of human needs that everyone has, no matter what country they live in. What their situation is, we, as human beings, all share the same needs, wants, and desires, down from the basic needs, such as food and water, up to larger needs, such as self-actualization. This is part of the human condition. Indeed, as Allah says, وَمَا خَلْخُكُمْ وَلَا بَعَثُكُمْ إِلَّكَ نَفْسٍ وَحْدًا. That in the end, our creation, our resurrection, is as one soul. It's in the life of this world that we chop up people into different groups, different countries, born Muslim, not born Muslim, for that matter, different religions. But in the end, we do share an essential humanity. So this theory is addressing the essential humanity. And the idea is we have certain basic needs that need to be fulfilled, such as food. If the basic needs are not fulfilled, then it's much more difficult to progress to the higher level needs. But is it sufficient just to have food and water? If someone locks you in a room and says, here's your food, here's your water, and have a nice day, are you going to feel happy in life? Are you going to be content? Or do you feel like there's something more? So it is this something more I'd like to get to. Now, inshallah, we're going to be talking about this Maslow's hierarchy of needs with respect to people who convert to Islam, but also other Muslims as well, and even other people in general. This is not limited to Islam, both from a practical and a religious standpoint, inshallah. So the lowest level of the hierarchy is basic needs. And this would be things for the human being, such as food, water, and shelter. From a religious perspective, that would also include basic things like knowing how to pray, knowing how to fast, knowing when to pray. We can say basic religious knowledge, which direction is qiblah. These are just the very straightforward, simple things you need to know to be a practicing Muslim. Now, when it comes to people who adopt Islam, that is to say genuinely new Muslims. So we're not talking about someone who's been practicing Islam for 30 years. The last thing you really want to do is ask someone who's been practicing Islam for 30 years if they know how to pray. That might come across the wrong way, but someone who's genuinely new. Likely they may be dealing with both religious basic needs, such as perfecting their Salat, but also they may be dealing with some genuine real needs that you're not aware of. Because especially in the West, or even in other countries as well, it happens due to social, cultural circumstances that when people become Muslim, they sometimes have a big upheaval in their life. They might get kicked out of their house. So they might be homeless. I have known people who became homeless when they became a Muslim. Or their spouse might leave them. They might lose their job, especially if there's a woman who works her job all of a sudden and her boss says, sorry, we don't want that. So they may in fact be in need of practical help. They may be in need of housing, money, a job, real life practical assistance. As well as, of course, they may be, or may not be, depending on their circumstance, they may be in need of the basic religious services that, inshallah, our communities can work to offer for those people who need it, whether they convert to Islam or whether it's just Muslims who maybe didn't get a strong religious education growing up and would like to learn more about the basics of their religion. But is that the end? Many times that's the end of the hierarchy that we talk about. No, there is not. There are higher level needs for the human being. So the next step, according to this theory, is safety. This makes sense. If we don't have safety, it's difficult to pursue higher goals such as aesthetic goals. Now, safety for the human being includes physical security, such as security for warfare. This, of course, is very important. It also includes security of identity, security of morality, security of belief structure. Generally in the West, in particular, this is the bigger issue when it comes to people who become Muslim or if they go from Sunnism to Shiaism. They may have some issues with this, too. They may, inshallah, be physically secure, although even then there are some issues with that. We all know what happened on Edgeware Road in London. So there are issues with sectarian security. But by and large, the bigger issue in society is security of your belief. Sometimes you feel like you're under attack, right? You go to school, you feel like your identity and your belief is under attack. You go to work, it's under attack. And if you don't have a Muslim family or you don't have a practicing Muslim family, to make it worse, it's under attack in the home environment as well. This can really be very stressful for a person. It really becomes a first priority just to be defensive and preserve their belief structure. And insofar as this need is not taken care of, we sometimes get caught in that defensive mode, right? A lot of our communities are very defensive. Why is it we don't want new Muslims all the time? To be honest, sometimes new people come to the community and they're not welcomed. It's because we feel like we have to defend ourselves from the threat of society. So trying to help people have this security, to help foster an environment of having security in our beliefs, our religious identity. For those of us who follow the school of Ahl al-Bait or we strive to follow the school of Ahl al-Bait, alaihi mursalaam, security in our identity. This enables us to progress. But this should be dealt with. We don't want to stay subconsciously in the defensive mode forever. After that comes another need, which is something, inshallah, we should all be able to get from the Muslim ummah. It is part and parcel of our religion. And that is a sense of belonging, a sense of love, a sense that people care. And of course, brotherhood and sisterhood in Islam is so emphasized in our religious texts. And in the Holy Quran, Lotta Adda says that by his mercy, he made the believers into brethren. That we are indeed brothers and sisters in faith, just like some people are brothers and sisters in a family. And of course, another important aspect of that is building strong family relations. And for many people that will be through marriage, especially if they convert to Islam. Sometimes these are challenging points, however. Someone who's an ethnic minority, so it doesn't matter whether they're a first generation Muslim or not. And they may be a Chinese Muslim, for example, Muslim from Burma, Nigeria, perhaps someone who's switched branches of Islam. So for example, they've gone from Sunnism to Shi'ism. So their family is not integrated into the community. Sometimes it's difficult for them to feel a sense of belonging because there is this tendency to be very culturally focused in our communities. Not everywhere, but we all know it does happen, right? It happens to people who are different in general. And so this is something we should be conscious of. In so far, as we are treating our communities as ethnically exclusive areas, only for people of certain languages or nationalities or God forbid, even in London, sometimes there's some Islamic centers for people from certain cities. You're from city X, you go to this Islamic center, right? You go from city Y, you go to this center or ideologies. This is not division of Islam. Revision of Islam is everyone united, such as in Hajj for the sake of Allah Ta'ala, united in love of Allah, love of the Prophet, and love of Ahlul Bayt, Aleyhi Salam. What is a stronger bond than love of Amirul Mu'minin, Aleyhi Salatul Salam? So this is a basic human need. This love, this belonging, and may I mention marriage again? This is a major issue for ethnic minorities in our community, people who convert or switch from Sunnism to Shiaism. I won't say convert, but switch. Or first generation Muslims, converts, reverts, it can be very difficult to find a spouse in the community because there's an idea sometimes that people shouldn't marry outside of the group. I will tell you, this is deeply sad. For women who convert to Islam without marriage, so without a man, they're not converting through their husband, so they didn't find their husband before conversion. The likelihood of getting married in the community is about the same likelihood of getting hit by a truck. It's very difficult. Generally speaking, I'm not saying it doesn't happen. It is very difficult for women to find a spouse after converting to Islam. Now before converting to Islam, it happens. We sometimes meet people who meet a very nice, pious Muslim man, they're so impressed by him that only they get married, but they become a Muslim. But afterwards, it can be a big challenge. Also for some of our brothers, very, very big challenge. I know some brothers who've had to marry outside the Muslim community because when they became Muslim, they thought they would be equal to everyone, but they found out that when the test time came, when it was about, will you give me the hand of your daughter in marriage? That's where the problem was. So we need to think about our ideals of what it truly means to be brothers and sisters in faith. In order to provide the sense of love and belonging for everyone. And it's the gift that keeps on giving. The more love you show to someone, the more friendship you show to someone, the more they will give back. You don't lose anything by giving this. It's free. It's completely free. And we all benefit from it. There is more, however, and this is where we start to get beyond people who convert to Islam as consumers. Many times we have this idea in our mind that converts are like the consumers of the community and born Muslims are the producers. So converts are always going to need to be taking. They're gonna need to be taking the guidance, taking the education, taking the assistance. But of course, this is not how it should be. We all, insha'Allah, can and should reach the stage where we make contributions to the community. Contributions for the sake of Islam. Salam al Farsi, for example. He came all the way from Iran. He had a very difficult situation. When he joined the Muslim community, did he just take? No, he also gave. He gave advice. He gave help to the Muslims. And to Ahl al Bayt, alayhim as-salam. I'm sort of Al-Imam al-Hussain, alayhim as-salam. The same thing. So in the same way, we should start to look more to people who become Muslim, as insha'Allah, future givers in the community. People who will produce, people who will give, people who will be able to do things, whether it is give lectures, write books, do interfaith activities, outreach activities, practical work for the community and the masjid. Masjid al-Masjid, we have some very talented poets, reciters. And this is where we get into the higher levels of self-actualization. The first level is the human desire for esteem, for respect, self-confidence, achievement to really do things. So no longer than basic needs like food or how to pray or even getting married, but even a higher level. Every human being, because we are all like one soul, nafsin wahidatin, every human being has this innate desire to achieve, to produce, to be respected in society for who we are and what we've done. And someone who's converted to Islam is no different. And insha'Allah, we can begin to see them as people who will gain respect in the community through their contributions to Islam. And alhamdulillah, we see that in many places. But in some places I know this is still a change of mindset because this is part of the honor of Bani Adam. All of us do have this innate dignity and esteem. Now the last level, which I'm going to talk about, is the highest level, which many people don't reach. And this has nothing to do with whether or not you convert to Islam. But that is the level of self-actualization. That is the level where we really become people who transform society. And especially there's a bit of focus on spirituality and morality on this level, that ideally we would reach the point where our moral system, our belief system, our religion, all of it, it transforms us to be able to impact the world around us. So this is the level of great people, like Gandhi and Mother Teresa and the Holy Prophet, sallallahu alaihi wa ala. You know, these are people who really went beyond the self and even went beyond the boundaries of community and nation-state to be able to change the world. And we all have the potential to reach this level. Sadly, there are many obstacles in the world, from poverty, lack of opportunity, lack of education, incarceration, you name it, it's there, that keeps people from reaching this level. But we have this potential, converts are no different. One of the people who converted to Islam, who is at this level, most likely, who is very famous, is Malcolm X. And I think one of the reasons why Malcolm X gets so much attention is because he was one of these self-actualized people, despite his obstacles, that was able to serve the world. And in the end, through his religious beliefs. And inshallah, this is something that both born Muslims and first generation Muslims can aspire to, and something we will foster in the community. So this in brief was a probably much more in-depth answer than you expected to what do converts to Islam need. In short, it's the same thing that you need, and I need, and we all need. But inshallah, this hierarchy will help us to nurture the people in our communities, whether it's born Muslims or converts to Islam. And so that inshallah, people can become producers and givers and transform the world around us and become good servants of Imam Zaman, may Allah hasten his return. Alhamdulillah, Lord of the worlds. Wa sallallahu ala Sayyidina Muhammad wa ala ahli baytihi ta'yabinat ta'hirin.