 I seek refuge with Allah from Satan the accursed, in the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful. May the Lord explain to me my heart and lead me to the right path. Peace be upon you. Good evening and thank you for joining us tonight for our annual Supporters' Dinner. First and foremost, I'd like to thank our event sponsors, as this would not be possible without them. Platinum sponsors, we have Rahma Market. From our Gold Sponsors, we have Kabul Kebab and Grill, Rajabali Family Dentistry, Law Office of Spojmi Naziri, Rumi Bookstore, and the Law Offices of Ross Pitlick and North Star School. Again, we thank you for your contributions and continued support. My name is Iman Hamzee and I am a second year student at Zaituna College. From attending Sunday school to shadowing my mother as a volunteer at nearly every event, to teaching Sunday school, and even getting married here this past January, I am proud to call the Muslim Community Center of the East Bay my second home. For those of you who know me, you'll know why when they asked me to be the MC tonight, my first thought was, hmm, I don't know why they'd need an MC in the babysitting room. In all honesty, it is an absolute honor and a pleasure to be able to be here with you tonight and to be a part of giving back to the very community that has given me more than I could have ever imagined. I must say that it was the culture cultivated within the very walls of MCC. The bonds forged with some of the incredible people amongst us here tonight and the guidance and support of my beloved teachers, friends, and family that has given me the opportunity to attend Zaituna College. So, as we commence this blessed night, I would like to say thank you. Thank you for creating and supporting MCC, a place that not only allows us to unite as brothers and sisters around our Islamic tradition, but perhaps even more importantly, a place that is a safe haven for nurturing our youth while equipping them with the necessary foundation and tools to tackle the challenges of society today. Without further ado, I would like to introduce one of the Bay Area's foremost Quran teachers, a top prize winner in the National Moroccan Tajweed Competition, and someone who I have the honor to call my teacher, our very own Kari Amr Ballaha. And has been a dedicated volunteer for many years. Her relentless hard work and passion for serving this community has been invaluable to the day-to-day operations of MCC. Please join me in welcoming Sister Catherine Hamsey. I want to extend a warm welcome to all of you, and before I started, one of the Board of Trustee members asked me, slow down when you talk, Catherine, and are you nervous? But as I stand up here and look out, I realize that I'm standing before friends. I have nothing to be nervous about. Inshallah we as the Board of Directors can move forward to successfully achieve the work that lies before MCC. I would like to take the opportunity to briefly introduce some of the Board of Directors to you, and if you could stand as I say your name. We have Amir Mustafa, the Vice President, Furhan Jafri, Amin Tawana, the Treasurer, Samir Laskhani, Asir Sikdar, a fan alum, and Daniel Abasi, who is not with us tonight as he is travelling for work in China. Last year, Muhammad Baruha, the Vice President, stood before you and spoke about MCC's three goals for the year, and those three goals would be how MCC would engage and help our community members engage with Allah, within our community, and with the outside community. With regards to connecting with Allah, this year we have gone at MCC to regularly holding two Friday prayers. Karyama holds classes on Mondays and Wednesdays. We used to have 20 students in those classes. We now have 40 students in those classes. Karyama's HIFS program continues to grow. Sister Monashwan, who teaches on Tuesdays and Thursdays, her classes continue to grow. Imam Zaid Shaker has conducted a year-long lecture series each Wednesday. Faridun Majdadi, Sheikh Al-Bakri, and Faraz Khan are among other Bay Area scholars who have provided classes during the last 12 months. In fact, Faraz Khan has a class starting next Saturday on the Halal and the Haram of the Tongue and the Heart. Imam Taw here provides a short study session each Tuesday after Asha prayer. And while I'm up here and I have the opportunity, this is the last Tuesday we're doing it after Asha. Next week, the week after, we start doing it after Maghrib prayer. Rahmah Girls program run by Dr. Rania Awad is held every Friday at MCC. Over 90 girls attend that program. That same Rahmah Girls program also runs a girls camp at MCC during Ramadan. What we don't have at MCC is a program for boys ages 4 to 12. If anyone sitting in this audience tonight can help me fill that void, you should reach out to me or to our new centre manager, Muneo Safir. Within the community, we were very happy to welcome Imam Taw here to our staff. With that Imam Taw here, we have Family Friday Nights, the first Friday of every month. After Ramadan, we will have Friday Nights, the first and third Fridays of every month. And to add a little extra sparse to our Ramadan this year, we will have three new Khatibs brought in. Not only will they do the Juma prayer, they will provide study sessions after Tarawiya. We will have community sohurs every Saturday during Ramadan, followed by Fajr prayer, followed by a study session with those same scholars. Two years ago during Ramadan, we introduced new guard lines for when you came to pray Tarawiya. We gave people an opportunity with children to pray while their children were properly taken care of. All for mothers with children to have a place to pray. Going forward, we will be extending the services we offer during Tarawiya prayer so that women and community members can stay longer and enjoy the full benefit of Tarawiya prayer. I have received a lot of feedback that if you want a quiet place to pray Tarawiya prayer, then MCC is the place for you. We have started a new series of Arabic classes at MCC. They're held every Thursday and every Saturday. This first series focuses on vocabulary acquisition, grammar skills and sentence structure. The goal for this course is for students to be familiar with Quranic vocabulary, analysing basic sentences and having a good command of grammar. Each course is three months and we invite you to sign up. With what has been going on in the country in the last year, security has become a big, big concern of people at MCC. In response to that, we hired a security consultant who did a complete and thorough evaluation. We're happy to report that MCC is at a very safe place to be. The last hate crime reported in the area was 10 years ago. With this evaluation, we will be improving the cameras at MCC, activating the alarm system regularly and installing panic buttons for use of the Sunday School staff. What I'm very happy to tell you is that when the consultant evaluated the Sunday School, he was very impressed at the level of security and concern that was provided for all of the Sunday School children and will also be providing ongoing training for Sunday School volunteers with regard to the safety of the children. As for the outside of MCC and how we're connecting with the outside community, MCC has started offering a free legal clinic. It is not only open to MCC members. It is open to anybody in the Tri-Valley area. It is the third Thursday of every month. You get a free 20-minute legal consultation, either on immigration. We have Spojmi Naziri, an attorney with MCC who has headed up this clinic and who is with us here tonight. Spojmi is also the president of the Bay Area Executive Care Committee and she focuses on family-based immigration and citizenship and deportation defence. We also have Ross Pitlick, who offers his services on family law and criminal law. And we've just added a new attorney, Samara Bandari, who does living trusts, wills, estates, powers of attorneys and healthcare directives. They're all specialists in their field and we encourage you, if you don't have a need for an attorney, if you know anyone who does, to send them towards MCC. As for the Interfaith Committee, the Interfaith Interconnect is a large organisation in the Tri-Valley area. Recently, Imam Tahir spoke at one of the Interfaith gatherings. There's a point to notice here. At the Interfaith gathering at MCC, we had 180 people. We had 12 Muslims. Interfaith is reaching out to our community. We need to reach back out. We know we're under threat and we know with current political situation what's going on. When people reach out to us, we should make every effort to give back to them. Brother Mohammed Ali on the Board of Trustees started a refugee welcome group with members of the MCC community and is working with other groups in the area to welcome Syrian refugees. We do an annual food drive during Ramadan and every year we collect about 1,500 pounds of food for the Alameda County. We are a large, very devised community with a multitude of cultural and ethnic differences and mores. MCC, as it is today, the Mosque and Community Centre, is a testimony to the strength of Islam in binding individuals into a robust, thriving community. And today we are together in this room as proof of that strength. Alhamdulillah we are all here together today that under the umbrella of faith we continue to grow in strength and numbers and providing a living proof of the true Islam of growing in the United States. Thank you. The next person I'd like to welcome to the stage is a serial entrepreneur and has been a strong advocate for Muslims with the local congressmen. He is also a founding member of the Board of Trustees and has been instrumental in the establishment and development of MCC. Please give a warm welcome to brother Waheed Qureshi. As-salamu alaykum. You know, today I can definitively tell you that MCC has come of age. And let me tell you why. Since 2007 we have been doing these fundraisers and every year we have to look back at our slides to make sure that you are in sync with your slides. Today when I came in, the audio-visual team told me that you don't need to look back. There is a screen right here. So that will give me an opportunity to be more focused. So my name is Waheed Qureshi. So let me start. Ladies and gentlemen, distinguished guests, young boys and girls, As-salamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh. So today I'm going to give you let's see if I can get this thing to work. Where do I point it? Okay, so I am one of the members of Board of Trustees together with all of my colleagues. I think you probably know some or all of them. I won't take their names. They are all around here. Please feel free to meet them and we always like to hear from you. So today I'm going to focus on a few important aspects. You know, this is a fundraiser. So every time we give you a financial update and update you on why we are doing this fundraiser. So that will take me to the second point which is the infrastructural update on what we are doing with MCC, how we are improving MCC and what resources we are adding to MCC to scale our operations. But I will start first with talking about engagement. I think Sister Catherine talked about it. But as we all know since last year after the events in San Bernardino, we were all very unhappy and upset not only at what had happened in care for our country but also all the statements that were coming out of the media and even some, you know, folks in responsible positions. So, you know, we asked ourselves, actually we as a community, the Board of Directors and Trustees and, you know, we got together and we thought about it and we said what do we need to do? Obviously we cannot change everybody's mind and heart but the one thing that we can do is this whole idea of engagement, right? So if I can summarize this, it's all about problems. Okay, I think you saw the slide but let me elaborate this just in a different direction. So first of all, we have, Alhamdulillah, engaged with Allah. That's why we created MCC, right? So a place where we can pray to Allah, seek his guidance and do all the right thing that we need to do as Muslims. Sorry for this. Still some challenges I can see. Okay, so we asked ourselves, okay, we are doing that inshallah but inshallah we'll increase that. Secondly, we said what can we do to come together as a community, right? What can we do more to help our youth and inshallah we'll do more. You know, whether it is youth internships, whether it is helping our youth with mentoring and anything that we can do even to help other Muslim organizations but the most important decision that we made last year after the events in San Bernardino was that we should not stand still, we should not sit silent, we should make sure that we reach out to not only all the other religious organizations but we should also reach out to everybody else that has a say where Muslims come in, right? So whether it is elected officials, whether it is our neighbors. By the way, yeah, it does matter what our neighbors are thinking, right? You know the MCC facility, we have a lot of neighbors around us and some of them actually had questions about us. What are we doing in MCC? What do we do? What do we do as Muslims? How do we pray and all that good stuff? So we have decided that going forward inshallah we will not only do all the things that we do but we are going to double up on them but also we are going to spend a lot of our effort reaching outside of our community. And let me give you an example of one of the things that we did in trying to reach out to the outside community. So after the events in San Bernardino when we saw all the media attention on Muslims and all the other negative things that came out about Muslims we said look, let us not let others control the narrative let us tell people what Muslims are all about what American Muslims do. So we actually in partnership all with all the major Islamic centers in the Bay Area and in Southern California we published this small ad in all the major newspapers in the Bay Area they were either full page or half page ads. So I think this is one of the little steps that we have taken and inshallah we will continue to do more and I ask actually anybody here in this audience to please come and help us. If you have expertise in communication, marketing come out and help us because we need that because we need to make sure that our point of view is heard when important issues are being discussed. Okay, let us now move on to talk about MCC and why are we doing this fundraiser today? So first of all, if you all remember in 2010 we all came together and we bought this building. This building is actually mashallah a large facility, five acres, 4,000 square feet it's however it was built in the mid-80s so it needs continuous improvement and we did a lot of surveys we ran a lot of surveys, focus groups to get insights from the community as to what should we do with this place. So you must have seen that we are slowly and surely every year we are doing more and more remodeling of this facility. So our goal is that we will inshallah by 2019 we will complete the remodel as you saw last year we did the remodeling on the prayer hall, the conference room and this year we are going to do more. We are going to improve the most important place where we need to go before we go for prayers which is the wudu area, the bathrooms and all that place. We also need to upgrade some of the facilities within MCC. For example we need to uplift the ceiling raise it a little bit, things like that. So there's a lot of work that goes on and we will inshallah continue this. And just to share with you in the last six years we have done actually a lot of interesting work on MCC to make it to where it is today. So the first thing that we did was we actually upgrade the AC system and we also build the rental facility at MCC. I'm sure all of you know that MCC has a day care center which is a rental facility, you all know that, right? So we did that first and that is because when we created MCC in 2006, me and my other trustees, colleagues we said we want to make sure that MCC should be financially viable all by itself without constantly needing donations. And I'll share with you I think we are very close to that point and by the way at that point some of the very established folks told us forget it, it's not going to happen. But alhamdulillah and with your support we were able to achieve that but that was the first thing that we did. The second thing we did was that we paid off again with your help we paid off the MCC building alhamdulillah last year which I'm sure you remember last year we did a major renovation on the center we saw all the new carpets we improved our the conference room we improved the security system, the PS system and inshallah we'll continue that but the most important thing that we did last year is that we increased the human element of MCC by actually hiring two formal staff members if I were to call them that first is Imam Tahir Anwar, Imam Tahir thank you very much for becoming part of MCC by the way, MCC from day one we have had all scholars, they are part of MCC but we wanted a scholar in residence we wanted somebody who's here not for all the grown-ups of course that's okay too but it's mostly for our youth and Imam Tahir showed a lot of interest in that and secondly as you know MCC is a 40,000 square foot facility it's a big facility, there are issues with landscaping, there are issues with security there are issues with all kinds of maintenance and operation that needs to be done so alhamdulillah we actually hired a center manager you know Munir, he's here masha'Allah he is a very dynamic individual and we hope that with all these infrastructure improvement we are in a very strong position to continue that engagement that I was talking about earlier let me go on now let's go to the MCC financial summary when I started this slide I actually had a very complex spreadsheet but I decided to just show you the most important things the top line and the bottom line the top line is that alhamdulillah we have revenues every month of $37,500 and that's because we have a rental facility and because of the generosity of the community so today our monthly expenses are about $25,000 this includes staff salaries we have various contracts for whether it is security whether it's landscaping, utilities and cleaning services that we employ at MCC to make sure that we keep the center in a nice and workable place and alhamdulillah we actually have every month we have a cash flow positive thing we are keeping this we use this to pay off any kersi hasna that come to use we use it for other ongoing operations but alhamdulillah this is a very positive situation takbir thank you ok so now this is an important point if you remember if you came here in 2007 we asked all of you for a very novel thing we said give us a loan we called it kersi hasna and we said give it to us and I'll tell you something very funny everybody told me on the side this is great inshallah we'll give it to you we know you're never going to give us back and we said no inshallah we'll give it back to you and by the way at the height we had 1.8 million and today we only have 509,550 alhamdulillah right but again this is your generosity this is your generosity now today we have $550,000 left and it belongs to some people in this who gave it to us and by the way they gave it to us only for one year and some of them gave it to us in 2007 and since then they have been holding off but we need to return their money I think they have done their part and we need to do that we want to bring this down to zero the board of trustees we are also very interested in the long term strategy and planning for MCC the long term vision in 2006 alhamdulillah we were blessed with this idea of where we stand today so the question is what is next for MCC so first of all as I said let me just summarize again we have increased our human element services with the community we have increased our human element that we have inshallah which will allow us to scale more services for the community we will continue with the remodel of MCC and also in the next two years we want to pay off Karze Hasna it was a promise it was a secret promise we made and inshallah we want to return that to whoever paid us by the way they are 52 families it was half a million dollars can you believe that somebody gave us half a million dollars of course we returned it to them two years ago but they gave us they trusted us and we gave it back to them another point I want to make is that an anonymous member of the community in the beginning of MCC gave us one million dollars donation may Allah give that person a lot of ajr for that inshallah by 2019 we will finish the remodeling of MCC where it will be ready for another 30 years inshallah and at that point the most interesting thing that keeps me thinking is that MCC endowment fund as you know nonprofits universities they have this endowment fund which they use for doing all kinds of activities you know to grow their services so perhaps we can create this endowment fund to help our youth we can give scholarships right we can create a home a facility for retired Muslim professionals for example right I used to live in Danville and the first thing I saw when I moved to Danville in 1997 was a home for elderly Jewish folks I actually went there and I talked to them and I realized it's a great idea so I mean as I as I become a senior citizen I would like a place where I can live with our Muslim senior citizens right you know watch the same good TV channel eat good food and all that good stuff so why not so look these things are possible inshallah so we are planning for them we are thinking about them so keep inshallah pray for us that let's hope that we can create this endowment fund for MCC and hopefully I think this will be a great source of benefit to the entire community more about that in the coming years inshallah please pray for us that we are we are doing it so now this is the most important time I was here in 2007 and now I'm again here after a few years by the way my work took me out of the country you know a lot so I haven't been around but inshallah I can tell you one important thing today today we are at a very good spot but we have a call to action we have a few things to take care of and let me share those with you so first of all we are having lots of challenges in our country today so let's make dua for MCC let's make dua for our community and let's make dua most importantly for our country there's a lot of interesting things going on and we want to make sure that Allah guides us secondly today we are requesting you that we need to raise 300,000 dollars and the reason is as follows we are going to use to pay off it's very important because there are some people who have asked us specifically it's overdue and we want to keep our promise inshallah the second thing is that we want to continue this remodeling it's very important that we remodel the facility so that it remains fit for our use inshallah and I want to thank everybody I want to share something with you personally the difficult thing for me that I have done in America is MCC I have done many other things they were more difficult but they were not as difficult doing something like this is more difficult and inshallah with your support we will achieve these goals so I remember in 2007 somebody asked me can we really do this I said inshallah we will do it the second question used to be what if we can't do it the only answer was inshallah we will do it so inshallah we will do it so now thank you very much let's break up for Salat and not yet okay thank you very much and inshallah we will be talking to you soon we all know that this next speaker has a very extensive bio but per his request I will just say that he is our resident scholar is a tuna college faculty member and a very dedicated community activist please join me in welcoming Imam Tahir Anwar Assalamu alaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh I begin in the name of Allah most merciful I bear witness that there is none worthy of worship except him and that the prophet Muhammad peace be upon him is his last and final messenger when we chose iman as tonight's MC I knew we made a good choice round of applause for sister iman I have been attending the MCC events dinners for many many years and in addition to attending MCC's events for many many years I've also had the honor of attending the events of many other non-profits and masajid in the area in the last decade or so and I must admit brother Wahid mentioned a few moments ago that we've actually come a very very long way and what MCC has been able to accomplish in the last decade since its inception is phenomenal it's actually not a story that many institutions are able to tell you it's not a story that many masajid are able to say this is not the experience they're able to share despite the fact that we have a lot of masajid in the area there are institutions that are still trying to build there are institutions that are still trying to construct there are institutions that are still trying very very hard to pay off very very large loans and it was last year or the year before when we sat at this event when we reminded ourselves we reminded the community that our loan that we had with the financial institution has been paid off that was magnanimous and then as brother Wahid mentioned we had a very large loan Allah SWT assisted and facilitated for us to almost pay that off as well in fact we're so close to paying it off that here brother Wahid stands and reminds us that we are going to begin an endowment project very very soon let me ask you a question in this room continue to attend events of many many non-profit organizations and masajid in the area how many institutions have actually told you on stage made a promise 3-4 years ago and year after year they continue to fulfill that promise right and they're actually standing on stage in 2015 and 2016 and telling you that in the next few years we're not looking for money to pay off our loans rather we will be coming to you to begin an endowment right there's very very few institutions that are actually able to do that and for those of us that happen to be a part of this community part of individuals who attend the MCC for our prayers and our activities we should be very very proud of that we should be extremely proud of that I mentioned this in the khutbah yesterday that I was in London last week and I was asked by a friend of mine a very dear friend of mine said would you be interested in moving back to London and the reason I say back is because I lived there for the first 5 years of my life after comparing what we have right here in our community it's very difficult to fathom living and moving elsewhere and we take this as a community actually take a lot of things that we have for granted our institution the MCC East Bay is not simply a masjid it's not simply a place where the men go to pray as are many institutions rather it happens to be a place for the entire community we have room for the sisters in our community we have room for the brothers in our community we have room for the young in our community and very soon we'll be sharing an update with you just this last Friday we had this basketball event for the youth in our community and over 50 kids showed up and we went to the close by middle school and they just had an amazing time so the goal of MCC East Bay is not simply to cater to a certain specific element of our community rather the goal is to cater to the entire community and I said this providing those services to the community but with your help with Allah SWT's assistance inshallah we will get there as a community we will get there collectively and as you can see both the board of trustees and the board of directors are working extremely hard that all the feedback that you give they continue to make promises to us and year after year after year they continue to fulfill those promises so inshallah this evening in the next few moments when my dear brother and sheikh and teacher and friend sheikh ala comes on to stage and asks you for your funds I can guarantee you inshallah due to my experience that I've had with MCC in the past that your dollars will go to the right place inshallah and everything that they have promised to you will continue to be fulfilled and this is also a board of directors and a trustees for your feedback sister Catherine when she was here she asked for volunteers we continue to ask for people who can assist us if you have feedback we welcome your feedback we welcome your prayers we welcome everything that you have for us inshallah and collectively because this institution is beyond one individual this institution is larger than one or two bodies of a few individuals this institution belongs to the entire community this institution belongs to every single one of us sitting in this room and individuals that couldn't be with us tonight so I would hope and pray inshallah that you continue to support us with your presence with your du'as with your dollars and collectively we will make this a community center that will be a light and beacon not just for our community but for everyone for everyone in this country and around the world inshallah the last thing I'm going to share as sister Catherine mentioned inshallah we will continue with our family night programs you'll be hearing from us about our youth programs but at the same time and I'm not going to take this away from Dr. Brown but this happens to be a very very important year this is a very very important year and I would urge every single one of you urge every single one of you to do whatever you can in your capacity as citizens of this beautiful and amazing country to make sure that your voice is heard and every single one of us it's a responsibility on every single one of us to ensure that this responsibility that Allah SWT that God Almighty has put on our shoulders we make sure and we exercise our right to vote that is something that is extremely important for us as Muslims and this year is going to be an important year so the optimist the optimist individual in me tells me that inshallah we will overcome as this country this country and the people of this country have always overcome the difficulties and inshallah we will collectively as a community choose a leader for our country choose leaders that represent us who happen to be individuals that are moral upright and that actually have concern for the entire community peace be upon you with that said I'm going to invite a few of the members of the board for a brief award ceremony and then the award ceremony is very very brief and inshallah immediately after that we will pray maghrib so hold your horses maghrib is not going anywhere just be patient we'll start maghrib in a few moments inshallah peace be upon you welcome everyone to the dinner fundraising dinner I am the vice president on the board also on the board is brother asir and we're here to just briefly talk about a few members of the community that were instrumental in helping the MCC become more of a center for our community for everyone to come and engage and come together and learn and pray and so these community members were there from the start I'd like to first thank brother Basha Sajad is he here yes he's right here please come to the stage brother Sajad was very instrumental in the beginning of the MCC and one thing you may not know but we actually work for the same company I'll give it a plug lamb research so brother Sajad was the secretary he helped to get the center ready for prayers and helped quite a bit in getting the center started in its early days so the ward thank you very much brother Sajad round of applause thank you very much okay this next award is to a community member who has been instrumental in reaching out to other faiths in the Tri Valley area the Christian community the churches and the synagogues and has helped to foster an environment of sharing and caring you know serving the same goals for our community as their community and reaching out so I'd like to call on stage brother Abdul Awal can you please come to the stage and accept the award okay so that was a part of the evening we were recognizing some of the key instrumental people that were helped out the MCC and now I'll turn it over to our MC sister to present this next award to someone who we are so lucky to have within our community as the principal and founder of our Sunday school she has been one of the most dedicated members of MCC she can always be found before and after school hours she has been very hard in taking care of all the moving pieces needed to run a school personally I am grateful to have worked with her directly and to have witnessed her wholehearted commitment to MCC I think I can speak for all of the staff volunteers and even children in saying that we love her very much and we pray that Allah continues to bless her each and every day please welcome to the stage Lubna Qureshi Assalamu alaikum everyone thank you so much I just want to acknowledge the fact that this is not for Lubna Qureshi this is for volunteerism so I would appreciate our second sister Catherine who said that we should all volunteer so it would be a good idea that each one of us should come out and come up and volunteer and do whatever they do best thank you so much for this gesture thank you so much we ask that you please leave your shoes at your table to prevent safety hazards by the doors the bathroom can be located out the door and to the left and the sister's entrance is through this door to my right and the men's entrance is out the back door and to the right everyone please take their seats again as we would like to begin the program now have a minute we'd also like to recognize a few special guests amongst us tonight the first is Cheryl Cochalio former vice mayor of Pleasanton running for assembly in District 16 which includes Pleasanton, Stan Ramon, Danville Maraga, Arenda, Lafayette and parts of Walnut Creek if you if you like to get more involved if you like to get more involved in the community please get in touch with Cheryl online or in person here the next person we like to recognize is Emma Root from Stone Ridge Creek Sammy Rahmadi event coordinator at the Center for Islamic Studies at the Graduate Theological Union and Sally Bistroff of the First Presbyterian Church we would now like to introduce our keynote speaker having studied his books at Zaytuna College I am especially excited to introduce to you our next guest Dr. Donathan Brown since 2012 Dr. Brown has been associate professor at Georgetown University's Edmund A. Wall School of Foreign Service in 2014 he was appointed the chair of Islamic Civilization he is the editor-in-chief of the Oxford Encyclopedia of Islam and Law he has authored several books including misquoting Muhammad the challenges and choices of interpreting the Prophet's legacy, Hadith Muhammad's legacy in the medieval and modern world and the canonization of Al-Bukhari and Muslim he has also published articles in the fields of Hadith, Islamic law Salafism, Sufism and the Arabic language please help me in welcoming Dr. Donathan Brown thanks very much for inviting me and just so you don't think I'm trying to skip out on fundraising my donations in that envelope Jonathan Brown doesn't freeload I also will donate something else being in the Bay Area I want to contribute my intellectual capital there is talk of a Muslim senior living facility and that means there is going to be a lot of slippers automated slipper bringing you know someone can work on that on the app you two were supposed to laugh out loud at that joke okay so I was I wanted to talk about the issue of what Muslims have contributed what Islam has contributed where Muslims and Islam have spread and I want to talk about what Muslims and Islam can contribute here in the United States the first thing that spread with Islam was justice justice spread with Islam justice and rights and this is true not only in the founding scriptures of our religion but is true in historical practice as well Islam offered basic protection of rights basic due process something that is important to keep in mind today and it didn't matter if you were nasty or nice if you were pious or impious you had rights you had the right to present your evidence or the right to defend yourself you had the right to demand that person making accusation present proof if they were going to if you were going to be convicted and just some examples from the life of the Prophet alaihi salam in the Sunan of Awu Dawu there is a beautiful story about a man from Hadramaut and a man from the kinda tribe and they were in a dispute over land and the Hadrami man accuses the kindi man of taking his land the Prophet says to him to the Hadrami man alaihi salam he says do you have some direct evidence do you have witnesses that this man took your land the Hadrami man said no I don't but this kindi person he's a bad person he's a bad person so the Prophet turns to the man from the kinda tribe and he says this man has no direct evidence he has no bayinah and we all know that in Islam the person who's making accusation has to have direct evidence has to have bayinah if not the person who's accused just has to swear an oath that they're innocent and the kinda man swears an oath that he's innocent the man from the Hadrami tribe says this person is this person is a sinful person he's openly sinful he doesn't care what he swears about of course he's going to swear he's innocent and the Prophet says it doesn't matter it doesn't matter this is all you're going to get from him if he's telling a lie then God will punish him on the day of judgment but just because this person is a sinful person just because he's a nasty person somehow you get to come and make an accusation against him and you get to get your way no he has a right to defend himself and if no one can bring evidence to prove that he's committed a crime then he swears an oath that he's innocent it doesn't matter if he's a nasty person or not so it doesn't matter if you're naughty or nice in Islam you have rights it doesn't matter if you're Muslim or non-Muslim it doesn't matter if you're Christian or Jewish you have rights and again we see this in the life of the Prophet in one famous case in Sahih al-Bukhari the companion Ashaf bin Qais is in a dispute with a Jewish person in Medina about land and the Prophet asks again do you have direct evidence the man says no Ashaf bin Qais says no the Prophet rules in favor of the Jewish person and Ashaf says how can you rule in favor of this unbeliever against me a Muslim the Prophet says you didn't have Vienna you didn't have evidence Islam doesn't matter if you're Muslim or Christian it matters what the evidence is you have rights no one can take away as great scholars like Abu Yusuf in his Kitab al-Kharaj like many other Muslims scholars have said over and over again no right, no property can be taken no blood can be shed no direct strong proof without haq ma'loom without a right that is known this is sort of hard to imagine because today especially as Muslims living in the United States we live in a country that has already a robust system of rights and laws from which we benefit and which I want to talk about but for many, for much of human history where Muslims went there were not robust legal systems of rights so for example when the Mongols converted to Islam they had these courts called Yadavu courts don't even worry about how to spell that it's a Mongol word there is no notion of evidence people just came in and said this guy did this this guy did that the judge hears them and decides what he wants to do kills someone right there takes someone's property right there no notion of rights when Mongols converted to Islam when the famous traveler Ibn Battuta is traveling in now it's part of Sudan on the Red Sea coast it comes across to people who they're not really Muslim they know about Islam but they're not really Muslim and he notes they didn't give their daughters any inheritance they didn't give their daughters any inheritance and Islam daughters always received their rights always received their rights it doesn't matter as a parent all you Muslim parents know this you might not like your child you might love one of your child and hate the other kid but they both have their rights they always will have their rights Muslim scholars as judges and as Muftis were always pushing rulers not to use excessive force not to deny people due process I can give you so many examples of this who lost their careers lost their lives speaking out on the behalf of people who were accused unfairly people who were the victim of some vendetta on the part of the ruler I think actually Republicans should like Muslims because Muslims have always been opponents of unfair taxation these are the original chai party I just came up with that joke right now again I really recommend this just go get the travels of Ibn Battuta it's three volumes it's published in Delhi that's where I got the copy of this I mean I got it from another place it was published in Delhi it's very good translated by Hamilton Gibb excellent we've learned so many great examples Ibn Battuta was a judge, he was a scholar so everywhere he go he noticed things about Islamic law which is fascinating so when he goes to India during the time of the Delhi Sultanate in the early, in the mid 1300s when he goes he enters Multan he comes from Central Asia, from Afghanistan he said something very interesting about Afghans by the way he said Kabul used to be a nice place now it's ruled by this tribe called Afghans which is interesting I swear that's in the book, you can go check it out he goes to, he notices that when he first enters India the Delhi Sultanate the Delhi Sultan is levying one quarter he comes into all imports one quarter tax much more than that it would almost be like Egypt but what happens after the Abbasid Caliph the Abbasid Caliph sends a letter people think the Abbasid Caliph ended in 1258, he didn't the Abbasid Caliph was still in Cairo after that he sent a letter to to recognizing him as the Muslim ruler there the Delhi Sultan he felt very guilty by his taxation practices he only then levied the Sharia taxes of the Osher and the Haraj and the Zakat this is something that's hard to imagine hopefully in the United States but just the idea that it's the person who commits a crime who should suffer for that crime this is also something that in many places is used by Sharia law and I know this because when I taught at the University of Washington we had these Afghan legal scholars who'd come every year and one of them was a specialist in Pashtun Wali which is Pashtun or Pashtun tribal law I had very interesting conversations with this man, very interesting because he said one of the rules in Pashtun tribal law is that let's say I kill somebody's brother and my wife now that may resolve the conflict but what did my sister do I'm the one who committed the crime in fact I've been trying to find out from lawyers what you actually call a legal system that just says the person who commits the crime should answer for that crime and no one can give me an answer because it seems so basic that people don't really have a word that the person who has committed the crime actually bears the punishment for that crime for many parts of the world where Islam appeared they didn't have notions even with it the person who commits the crime is the one who should be punished Muslim scholars that I mentioned before were constantly trying to limit you have these warlords basically pre-modern states are almost always ruled by military leaders and these are the guys with all the muscle they're the most educated they're not always the most they don't always have the best temper best anger management skills and often times Muslim scholars are trying to advocate very gently sometimes forcefully with these rulers to not apply punishment as harshly as they do so for example in Aceh one of the earliest parts of Southeast Asia to become Muslim Marco Polo visits there in the 1290s and he sees that already people there not only are they Muslim but they're actually using the Arabic alphabet this one scholar Nuradina Ranieri in the 1600s he manages to convince the Sultan of Aceh to stop boiling criminals in oil so he's actually very proud he's very proud that he's accomplished this because he's managed to get the ruler to stop this punishment that has no place in God's law another thing and this is very surprising to a lot of people not here but a lot of people in maybe American media where Islam spread religious liberty spread the Quran when it says so religion can be for God alone this is a serious commitment that Muslims have religion it belongs to God and actually Muslims had a notion of religious liberty that in some ways is much more robust even than in the United States people don't people tend to think of Muslims as being intolerant or Islam as being intolerant but actually Muslims in Islamic civilization Muslim scholars and Muslim rulers exercise a level of religious toleration that would really not Americans wouldn't accept it is too tolerant I'll give you some examples first of all people often wonder how did Islam spread so quickly in the Middle East how did it spread in 632 of the common year by 650 Muslims had reached all the way into Central Asia in 711 they entered into Iberia and into what's now sinned in Pakistan how did in 636, 637 they've taken over the entire Middle East including Egypt how did they do this actually most of it was because the people who live there the Christians and Jewish population were really happy to have someone besides the Byzantines and the Persians ruling them Muslims who absolutely didn't care what religion you practice in the year 632 the year the prophet died the Byzantine emperor the Roman emperor issued an edict that was going to force all the Jews in the Roman Empire to convert to Christianity something that had never been done before force of conversion of all the Jews in the Roman Empire fortunately just a few years later all the Byzantine lands fell under Muslim rule and these Jews were not forced to convert in fact they thrived and you can go read David Wasserman's book a professor at Vanderbilt University how Islam saved the Jews very interesting article sorry not a book but you can find it online similarly why would Muslims anyone ever wonder why Muslims built their first city in Egypt where Cairo is now it wasn't Cairo back then it was called Fustath they built it there Alexandria is a much bigger city why didn't they go and make their capital Alexandria because they were a collection of monasteries there still are a collection of monasteries where now Cairo is and Muslims settled there because they were there and the monks in the monastery were going to help them administer Egypt because the Byzantine emperor had forced the Coptic bishop to leave his position and it appointed the Coptic bishop in his place and the Muslims they went in with the support of the Coptic bishop and they put him back on in charge of the church in Egypt so they entered with the support of many of the Coptic clergy there what about religious toleration to this day I get surprised by this I remember the first time I read this I was so surprised so Muslim scholars had a debate they talked about this issue because it happened what happens if there is a Zoroastrian in Zoroastrianism and this was true in Zoroastrianism up until the 1300s you could have brother sister marriage and father daughter marriage and mother son marriage actually it happened it wasn't just a theory it actually happened and so the question was can a Muslim judge let's say a brother sister married couple Zoroastrians come to the Muslim judge can the Muslim judge adjudicate their marriage let's say they have some dispute over maintenance or property the answer is the majority answer for Muslim scholars is yes you can even though this is something that is completely haram in Islam the Muslim judge he said this is your religion you have your religion I have my religion I disapprove of it I don't accept it but I acknowledge you have this right similarly if people who weren't Muslims had riba contracts Muslim if you have a riba contract no judges is like having a drug dealer is coming and saying he cheated me out of my cocaine shipment or something judges aren't going to listen to that the same thing in Islamic law if you have riba contract but if it was people who were not Muslim Muslim judges had no problem adjudicating it even sati sati the widow self-immolation the tradition especially amongst the Rajputs in India where Rajput noble woman when her husband died in battle she would throw herself on the funeral pyre and you can go if you go to some of these old cities in Rajasthan in India you can see on the walls of some of the big fortresses these hand prints in henna where women would put their hand print on the wall as they were going out to throw themselves on the pyre and of course it's a very controversial and in fact the British ended up banning it in 1829 and still to this day we're talking about this and it's still a very controversial practice Muslims allowed it on one condition you had to get the permission of the Sultan we know this in the case of the Delhi Sultanate the Delhi sultans allowed this but you had to get permission of the Sultan why? because the Sultan Muslims have a rule we will allow non-Muslims to practice their religion amongst themselves even doing things that we think are haram like drinking alcohol and raising pigs and marrying brothers and sisters but nobody as long as no haq adimi as long as no one's rights are being violated so let's say there's a religion where it's okay to go up and just knock someone on the head with a tack hammer and take their money no that's not okay because this is a violation of acknowledged rights that people have the right to property that's a human right in Islam you have a human right to property but if the woman herself wanted to do this the Muslim sultan at least the evidence we have there's not a lot of it but at least the evidence we have says that they didn't have Muslim rulers had no problem if they did this there's a level of toleration imagine in America today American court acknowledging brother sister marriage American courts don't even acknowledge polygamous marriages so this is a level Muslims are very serious when they talk about religious liberty they're very serious so what are the lessons that we can take away from this today and the more I was as I was listening to the speeches and I was talking to lovely sister from South Africa always wonderful meet South African Muslims we were speaking earlier about rights so wherever Islam spreads rights spread justice spread wherever Islam spread non-spread liberty spread religious liberty in America today Muslims can be pillars of rights and religious liberty pillars of rights and religious liberty and I was someone came to my office the other day and asked me a very interesting question they said what would you like to see if you could affect change in the society what would you like to see how would you measure the success of Muslims in this country and I'm sure there's lots of great religious ways that I could measure that and you know Sheikh Hamza could probably give much better discussion but the thing that came to my mind I had this image of a statue on the National Mall in the statue of a Hijabi woman probably we shouldn't have statues okay that's one problem with my vision but find out some way to do this maybe it's the stylized statue or it's calligraphy statue of a Muslim woman wearing hijab who is going to be this who is going to be an acknowledged hero of civil liberties in America so 20 years now 30 years now people in the United States were going to look and say it was Muslims who stood up for civil liberties who stood up for rights and liberty in this country they became a column that held this up like where Islam is spread liberty spread justice spread so to here in the United States where there's promise of liberty and justice but people try and take that liberty without due process because of bigotry because of fear Muslims can stand up against that and be a column a buttress against that so what can we do today how can we when people talk about rights you have the idea of exercising your right I want to exercise my right to freedom of speech I actually think that word exercise is very important rights aren't things that you just have you know it's not like a jumper cables in your car or you leave them under your seat for two years and then you use them you have to exercise rights it's like a muscle you have to exercise it this is very important we always have to exercise our rights because otherwise you don't know how to use them you don't know how to be courageous you have to practice being courageous and it's hard because a lot of times Muslims especially Muslims in certain parts of the country you tend to be doing very well for themselves Masha'Allah as a descendant of immigrants who came here centuries ago I have no money I have nothing but respect for my brothers and sisters here people who have good life in this country they think sometimes they can just hide they can keep low and they'll be safe well this is a bad year for that plan because let me tell you if you're in a press minority you can't hide you don't even have to be Muslim they go after Sikhs after this Buddhist monk got beaten up for God's sake right you can't hide but nor should you have to you shouldn't have to in this country and if you don't practice being strong you won't be able to be strong when the time comes when challenges really present themselves how do we practice how do we exercise courage let's think about how do we do it with rights people have a right to a fair trial people have a right to be considered innocent until they're proven guilty we need to practice that we need to exercise that I don't care just try this this is what I do I mean I don't want to use myself as an example especially because my wife would probably disagree with me being used as a model but I'll just tell you what I do whenever somebody you see someone come up on TV and they say this person is guilty this person is guilty even like Bill Cosby everybody loves to say how bad Bill Cosby is you know what I would say when Bill Cosby I say innocent until proven guilty innocent until proven guilty they're very simple it's our legal obligation people in this country are innocent until they are proven guilty and it doesn't matter how nasty they are it doesn't matter how mean they are it doesn't matter what they're accused of it doesn't matter the length of the sheet that the government brings out and reads all the crimes they're accused of and that everyone's so sure they did they're innocent until they're proven guilty and the man in his own self-defense even though he was a sinner people are innocent until they're proven guilty you need to practice that you need to exercise that belief there's no guilt by association this is very important I remember just a few months ago when the San Bernardino attack happened and the people from CARE came out and were supporting the families of the one of the shooters I think it was the guy's family and one of my friends probably a Donald Trump supporter he said he killed me why are the funds of the Muslim community being used to support these people these are the families they didn't do anything even if let's say they committed a crime let's say the parents committed some crime they're innocent until they're proven guilty they deserve to have legal representation they deserve to have support is this the kind of community we're going to be we turn our backs on people are they innocent until they're under suspicion no this is precisely when you show your strength it's precisely when people are being accused that you need to stand by them precisely when the media or the public is trying to make them toxic that you have to hold them close that's a matter of principle and by the way you're going to be happy that people have exercised that right when you get accused like Eric Clapton says nobody knows you when you're down and out sorry that song that always comes to my mind too much Eric Clapton unplugged when I was in high school but I want you stand by people's family and here's a great way to exercise this right on my website drjohnathanbrown.com I think it was a present there's a link says write to a prisoner there's all these Muslim prisoners who've been targeted by things like we saw in Orange County who've been victim of basically entrapment or maybe they even committed crimes maybe they even committed crimes it doesn't matter you are allowed to write them you're allowed to write them a letter even if they're a horrible criminal you can write them a letter and say I just want you to know that there are people out here thinking about you and when you talk to prisoners they tell you when they get these letters it makes the world a difference to them it means everything to them just getting a letter means so much and you can also during Ramadan there's on my website as well a link for a group NC PCF national coalition for the preservation of civil liberties civil freedoms where you can help donate money to prisoners Muslim prisoners during Ramadan this is very I want you to practice this it's illegal there's nothing wrong with it it's your right you need to exercise these rights don't let fear make you deprive yourself of rights don't make fear deprive other people of rights to contact to support to association because that's how that's how majorities work in societies minorities under control keep them in their place they don't do it necessarily through physical oppression they don't do it necessarily by putting people in prison they do it by creating fear you have to break that barrier of fear you have to break it by exercising your rights finally what about liberties how can Muslims contribute to the preservation of liberty in this country well we're gonna have a chance we have a chance now that's a great thing about being Muslim in this country it's always interesting always have a chance to make a difference we need to ask people how far how serious are they about religious liberty you know you often I just read this other article it was very upset by it this Muslim named Ed Hussein who used to work for the Quilliam Foundation in England some of you people from the UK know about this I think now it was the Tony Blair Foundation he wrote this article where he said he said talk about how Muslims don't stand up against extremism one of the things he said Muslims need to stop doing they said Muslims they they wear hijab they put hijab on their young girls it's 4 or 5 years old first of all and I don't have any daughters but I'm pretty sure girls when they put on hijab they want to look like their mom they want to look like their mom it's their right to look like their mom and you know what, guess what if a Jewish parent wants to put a yarmulke on their child or a certain type of clothing on their child you better believe that's their right in this country and you better believe no one is going to tell them they can't do it this is our right as parents to raise our children according to our religion why is it a sign of extremism why is it something to be disgusted at or to be poo-pooed or to be looked down on the Americans to fight the freedom of religion by having their children grew up in the same religious tradition as they did these are things that people how many times have you heard how many times has a Muslim come to you and said why don't you just take your hijab off tonight or when they offer you pork why don't you just try some pork come on or why don't you just try some alcohol don't be so serious since when has it become un-American not to drink since when is it un-American to cover your hair since when is it un-American to have a beard being American has nothing to do with how you dress go ask Amish people go ask Jewish people in this country being American doesn't mean you drink alcohol go ask Mormons they don't even drink caffeine no one has a right to make you dress in a certain way or drink something or eat something to prove you're American you don't have to do that so again how are we going to exercise how are we going to exercise this liberty we need to make people in our daily lives we need to make them respect our right as Muslims our right as Americans to have freedom of religious practice and it's tough it's really tough especially when you're young and I have so much respect for young Muslims when I meet them because they're so strong and they are so guided they're so focused on what's right so I'm very optimistic about the future it's going to be a tough time ahead but inshallah this will be a chance for American Muslims to as Muslims have done in the past bring justice bring liberty and in doing so in doing so win the respect of others in this country who claim many of whom claim sincerely to value this justice and liberty very much our next speaker began his study of Islam at a young age in North Africa and continued his education in the Islamic sciences in Jordan learning from predominant scholars in the Muslim world he has served the Muslim community in the United States in numerous capacities serving as Imam at several Islamic centers and establishing full time and weekend Islamic schools he has also served as a founding board member of Iman inner city Muslim action network in Chicago and as a book editor for Iqra and an advisory board member in many Islamic organizations having been trained in both Islamic sciences and secular education he has the ability to appeal to various audiences and his main focus is in helping Muslims develop a deep understanding of the self life and faith he currently serves as the Khatib at Saratoga Masjid in California please give a warm welcome to Sheikh Aladina Bakri Bismillah Al Rahman Al Raheem Al Hamdulillah Wa Salatu Wa Salam Ala Rasulillah Wa Aalihi Wa Sahbihi Wa Manwala Wa Stanna Bi Sunnatihi Wa Htada Bi Hudaah ila Yawm Al Deem Assalamu Alaikum Al Rahmatullahi Wa Barakatuh Masha'Allah La Quwata Illa Billah Masha'Allah La Quwata Illa Billah Masha'Allah La Quwata Illa Billah Masha'Allah La Quwata Illa Billah Sayyidina Umar al-Khattab who was making Tawaf around the Ka'ba this one person that was making Tawaf next to him and he kept on repeating this dua and Sayyidina Umar al-Khattab after a while he became curious what is this all about so he kept on saying Allahumma Jalani Minal Qalil Allahumma Jalani Minal Qalil Allahumma Jalani Minal Qalil so Sayyidina Umar asked him what is that he said having to read and few of my servants are actually thankful so may Allah make me from the few may Allah make me from the few may Allah make me from the few maybe we have few people in the hall tonight but Alhamdulillah it's usually few people who change history you actually don't need many people to change history and no one knows that better than Allah Allah S.T.S. sends one messenger to change the reality of a whole nation one just one if Allah S.T.S. sees the necessity he will send two Musa and Harun Sayyidina Dawood alaihi salam and his son Sulaiman Zakaria and Yahya they were together at the same time rarely as a matter of fact one time in the Quran in Surah Yasin Allah S.T.S. says that he sent three for example the companions of the village when they sent two and they denied them and we were honored they said so Allah sent two messengers they denied them Allah supported them the third one take two steps and look brothers and sisters who is that one or two or three now imagine Masha Allah we have a room that has two, three hundred people that's more than enough if we had a plan and we are sincere and dedicated to change not only the reality of Pleasanton but probably the bay area California and the United States all I don't like to talk big I like to dream big and I like to talk real Subhanallah brothers and sisters we have at this time to dream big but to start acting small and Masha Allah you heard from the speech the principles of Islam I believe I believe as myself too many of us here are immigrants and I am proud to be an immigrant in a nation that is made of immigrants there is nothing wrong with that and many of us are actually going through rehab many of us are transforming from the beliefs and from the habits and from the convictions and from the way of life that we came with from our homes to come to this new land and new opportunity and new situation that Allah put us in to liberate ourselves from the old way of thinking to the new way of thinking is a process is not going to happen overnight but the good news that it is actually happening we are going through a group therapy moving from fear usually in the countries around the world don't talk about politics we want to be safe we don't want the secret service knocking our doors right if you see someone walking behind you even in a park you are like why are you walking behind me we come with fears fears that have been instilled in us but it takes time to liberate ourselves from these fears and we can see that Allah blessed us with children and our children are growing up knowing how to communicate with both worlds with the world of their parents and with the world of the real streets out there and they are able to accomplish SubhanAllah brothers and sisters someone like our brother Basim Al-Qarab born and raised in San Francisco he could have had a million successful jobs that would make him hundreds of thousands of dollars if not millions he chose to go and work with care and until today he could make at least 10 times of what he is making if he actually would practice with his degree so this shows that the transformation is happening our sister here that will make 100 men shake and shiver but yet with her femininity and with a smile our sister Zahra Bilou right she can call whoever you want her to call the FBI, the CIA, the police anything, any agency the national intelligence services and she will speak with strength and with no fear the good news brothers and sisters is the change is happening and every time the change is happening the people who don't like that change will get louder and louder as you can see people thought like whoa after 8 years of George Bush that Muslims are gone they are done unacceptable unaccepted in this reality but subhanallah I know he is not a Muslim and I don't believe he is a Muslim but for a president to come after 8 years of George Bush and his name Barack Hussein Obama is a listen for those who need a listen from history and for him to appoint people in his cabinet from sister Dalia Mujahed to brother Shahid who is a Hafiz who was appointed to the world Muslim world organization to this and that, to the White House staff people are Muslims people bet that we are not going to do that it was after September 11 that the first Muslim congressman was elected to the United States House of representative brother Keith Ellison and very soon with the election of President Obama another African American representative from the state of Indiana Northwest Indiana was elected and he was a practicing Muslim and Keith Ellison survived all the attacks the vicious attacks the Muslim, the black, the Latino and the Jewish vote was still winning year in year out when did that happen after everyone was bidding that Muslims will be finished that's why brothers and sisters the bright, the future is bright for those who think that it is bright and our hope is not in our whatever we do, our hope lies in God and in the help of God to us when you talk about these big ideas have to start from small places small places you know one time we used to say MCC was small now we can say it's small because you're talking about 40,000 square feet but MCC when you talk about the activities you have to do simultaneous things at the same time in order for the community to survive and prosper and grow and do what it's supposed to do you have to take care of the new generation of children oh my God when I went and visited MCC in their high I mean weekend school graduation last year 400 children I mean do you understand for that that's an entire generation 400 children in that school and they have a waiting list you know how lucky we are the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam says the Prophet comes on the day of judgment and only 10 people listen to him only everybody else said like you're backwarded ridiculous we don't understand you you talk about God but we we're not interested get out the Prophet comes on the day of judgment with 9, 8, 7 and the Prophet went up to 1 and he said the Prophet comes on the day of judgment with no one believing in him by himself just standing on the day of judgment no one believed 400 children you know what that would mean to a Prophet a Prophet not us now imagine when you take this is the weekend school add to that the crowd of salat al-jum'ah now we have two full time salat al-jum'ah in MCC add to that the women activities and the women halaqahs add to that our brothers and sisters in rahmah which they gather the children and you know I live in Santa Clara and my wife would drive from Santa Clara on Sunday last year just to MCC just to join the girls of rahmah and sit down and learn about Allah and make some nashid and beat the duff and she cannot wait the whole week I mean she goes to an Islamic school full time Islamic school and still she cannot wait till Sunday comes so that she can go and join the rahmah girls at MCC I mean do you understand it's like 35-40 minutes drive especially if there is traffic you're talking about an hour brothers and sisters there are activities in MCC people gravitate towards these activities day in and I can go on and on and on on the top of that they are able to rent some of the space and generate income as far as I'm concerned I don't know a single Islamic center in the bay area in California that generates $25,000 in rent a month congratulations to our brothers and sisters at MCC please give them a hand now that's the way to do it you want to know how Muslims and mosques should function go to Turkey they build the masjid then they build a huge bazaar around it and next to the masjid the rooms for the imams and the muaddin then the rooms for the students then the school then the market then the waqf endowment supports the masjid and the school and the imam and the cleanliness and the renovation and the remodeling we need to bring that back again and Alhamdulillah we are very close to that point at MCC in which we will have inshallah zero debt and inshallah we will start having making income that will cover a large part of the operation because right now part of that $25,000 is going to pay off Alqard Al-Hassan I mean MCC as of today and please brother Asif correct me if I'm wrong MCC as of today owes $0 to the bank for the loan that they took 1.8 million am I right or wrong am I right or wrong please give them a hand of applause I mean fundraising after fundraising you wonder where your money went try to buy this property today where they bought it for 4 million try to buy it for 8 million try to buy it for 12 million today the value of that property is already Alhamdulillah and it happened in the right time we bought in the right time and we sold the other land in the right time and I'm a witness brother here keeps on meeting me and says remember the first fundraising for MCC when we fundraised for that land you were there I said brother not the first the middle and the second and the third and the 10th and today the last I'm always there I mean come on it's like I know when the fundraising of MCC more than I know my birthday come on people Masha'Allah La Quwwata Illa Billah it's there on the calendar brothers and sisters Alhamdulillah we are able to make history because look in the south bay we started having huge we know MCA was there and now we added Masha'Allah SBIA and Masjid al-Mustafa 1,000 square feet I mean do you think these places are doing nothing they are making history silently you go to MC to SBIA and Rahima you know foundation is sitting there giving food for everyone Muslim or not how do you think people make history by sitting down and just praying you have to get down to the level to the grass root level and start making the society problems youth problem and you have a solution because people of faith have a solution they have compassion they have love they have mercy they care and brothers and sisters you might not see the change like overnight oh we did this today tomorrow it's the whole chain the Muslim situation in America has changed it wouldn't be for the sake of God if that happened but Allah test you and test you and slowly but surely things are getting better and better including the candidacy of Donald Trump it's one of the best news that happened to Muslims in the recent history this guy is amazing he has united us with everybody else thank you Donald Trump it's equal opportunity now Muslims, Blacks, Jews, Latinos south of the border, north of the border we're all on the same thank you very much JazakAllah Khair for what you're doing every time you're pointing one finger at someone else you're pointing three at yourself you know what are you doing he's doing group therapy people come so mad at Barack Obama the black Muslim president we're gonna change it they come charged they're ready and then he comes and gives them group therapy talk, talk, talk they all feel good and they go home good so he's just doing like Dr. Fell you know you remember Dr. Fell in Oprah he's another Dr. Fell group therapy Dr. Fell does it individually Donald Trump does it on a group level thank you very much but you know this is not this is not gonna go anywhere brothers and sisters even if he wins the presidency he has to change because America will not tolerate that I mean subhan Allah if the Republican are looking at him saying he's vulgar, he's vicious, he's this okay wow if the Republicans are saying that someone is learning a lesson brothers and sisters you know we are here with everyone, Republicans, Democrats that's not our business in the masjid our business is to serve everyone to serve those who are in need and to walk in the footsteps of Rasulullah sallallahu alaihi wa sallam you know I really feel like every year a Muslim should dedicate a month just reviewing the seerah of Rasulullah sallallahu alaihi wa sallam Wallahi it will give you hope it will give you focus it will give you direction one man trying to change an entire peninsula an entire nation that led to the change of the world the amount of aggression, oppression, discrimination women oppression, slave oppression, weak oppression the right and left oppression for him to start with what with service, with compassion and try to find are you compassionate yes come and join me are you compassionate yes come and join me are you compassionate yes please help us out and he will get people started embracing Islam and people made fun of them and people tortured them and people killed them I mean we are facing nothing comparing to that generation that's why we say it's unbelievable what they went through I mean imagine imagine the mentality of Rasulullah sallallahu alaihi wa sallam the entire situation around him is pitch black bleak nothing doom and gloom and he has this vision in his head this is going to be bright and everything goes against that vision in his head and people telling him what are you talking about you coming to change Arabia you don't know the Arabs and he's like yeah I know you don't know how dark is the picture but I see the vision and he refused to look at the ugly reality he kept on looking at the vision focusing focusing focusing until he stood up in his final speech in khutbah hadjat al-wadaa and gave the historical human rights declaration for all Muslims and for all humanity and he told them listen to me for maybe I will not see you after this year let me spill it out to you and when you read khutbah hadjat al-wadaa it's nothing but human right after human right destroying the traditions of jahiliya that is built on oppression and building the traditions of Islam that is built on justice brothers and sisters if you don't learn the seerah of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam every year once a year you know when I was a child people talk about the milad do you know what was the milad for us for an entire month we will have you go to the masjid and you hear the seerah of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam you go to the masjid and you hear the seerah and at the end of the month comes the milad and then you celebrate by then you are an expert on the seerah year in year out the milad was a revision of the seerah of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam in Libya I'm talking Benghazi you know Benghazi where Hillary Clinton is from you know Maliki's to the core Warshariwaya to the core and Qaloon too and you know it's unbelievable and you go there we children were not allowed in the masjid to walk in and play I mean it's the day of judgment if you walk in and play in the masjid not like today we're like please come to the masjid we'll give you candy the only candy the only time we were allowed to walk in and play and eat cake and drink juice in the masjid was at the time of the milad of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam they made us fall in love with Rasulullah sallallahu alaihi wa sallam just through that event of the milad may Allah reward them it's an entire generation that passed away and now what we're getting the literalists the people who want to kill even if they find a qabr of a muslim who's dead they'll blow up the qabr you blow up the dead you blow up the living also the dead this is interesting one time I saw a caricature someone is trying to teach the children suicide bombing so he's telling them listen and listen very well I'm gonna only do this once which Islam are you learning I mean come on people what did we get out of that people love their deen no we didn't that entire generation Libya under qaddafi because these places were allowed to exist graduated some of the largest number of hufaf memorizers of the book of Allah when the relationship got better between the United States and Libya and they allowed the Libyan students to come here they became the free Qaris in almost every masjid leading salat at tarawih with beautiful voices and he would ask him where did you come from Libya qaddafi yeah qaddafi you memorize the Quran yeah I do memorize the Quran entire generation of memorizers of the Quran because there was some religious freedom for these events to happen now what so brothers and sisters alhamdulillah history is coming and history is changing alhamdulillah we are spoiled you know we're sitting in Marriott you know chicken breast dinner you know you can get vegetarian if you don't want on a very nice table very nice screens but we're still changing history life and money did not spoil us money is the means that we get closer to God not far away from God and this is why we are here tonight to make silently history day by day with our sweat and blood Islam one of the most amazing things in Islam it's beautiful from the days 1400 years ago the first principle money time is money is an Islamic principle prophetic principle time is money time is money when Sayyidina Othman and paid the Imam the first one who paid the muazzin and then the Imam some people told him you pay them for leading Salah he said no I don't pay them for leading Salah God will pay them that I pay them for holding them hostage in the masjid and not allowing them to do any other job because time is money that's why I'm paying them as an Imam and muazzin I'm paying them for the time not for the job time is money to be paid for mental anguish and emotional distress sounds very 21st century you know someone came to the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam and he was a Jewish man verifying the description of Rasulullah in the Torah he came he gave loan to the Prophet and the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam did not have a problem dealing with money with the Jews most of the loans that the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam did including the day he died he borrowed from the Jews and he gave them back the money so the man came to him and pulled him and said you family of Abdul Muttalib he didn't only insult the Prophet he insulted his entire tribe he fought an Arab that's the end of the world that's the day of judgement that's the day I die right you family of Abdul Muttalib you take money and you never pay it back on time Omar al-Khattab took the sword out and said let me just chop off his head right now ya Rasulullah the man saw the sword you know illuminating under the sun he started shaking and shivering Rasulullah said put back your sword you could have asked me to pay him on time and you could have asked him to ask me nicely better than your sword ya Omar since this is what you have done now I'm gonna borrow the money from you you go and pay the Jewish man the money and by the way get closer and he got closer and Rasulullah Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam say pay him 10 dinar like we're talking about 10 pieces of gold extra he said why Rasulullah he said that's a payment for how you got him scared for him being scared of you paying paid for mental language and emotional distress I said no Omar looked at the prophet a prophet said Omar go and pay him so he went and gave him and gave him and he finally said this is 10 he said Allah Akbar you're giving me more he said it's not because of me because of him just you know you know in Shaq he said the prophet said because I scared you he said he said that he said yes he said Ashhadu an la ilaha illallah that's the description of this prophet in our Torah that's what I was looking for brothers and sisters we need as the brothers say to go back to that we have it in us we can do it wallahi we can do it but it takes step by step and without institutions and without education and without all of that it's not gonna happen you are making history and you don't know it huge centers that had graduating generation after generation that's why brothers and sisters you know Allah has blessed your community and I know we have few I would like to start before I do the fundraising with seeing if anyone would like to bless this effort this humble endeavor and effort for the sake of Allah to change our reality and the reality around us someone who could help us with $50,000 insha'Allah today someone who would like to make history gives money with love not gives money with pressure gives money because he loves Allah she loves Allah because money they earn money but they spend it they have no problem spending it because of that love and connection you know how much money is beloved to the human I'll tell you how much money is beloved to the human the human is willing to die for his money and it doesn't make sense because if you die you are not gonna enjoy that money how in the world do you die defending your money when you die you're not gonna even enjoy it but money is more beloved to the human than his own life and soul that's why Allah said in the Quran struggle in the name of Allah with your money and with yourselves and Allah mentioned money before the self because it's more dear to you imagine what Allah SWT says that to struggle and to give because Allah give you a guarantee I'm telling you Allah give you a guarantee what's the guarantee you are going to donate tonight and every night you donated before Allah is not gonna allow it that you donate and he doesn't give it back to you it's not gonna happen he will not allow it, why? because Allah will not allow anyone in any moment of history to be more generous than him SWT exalted is he so in the same nanosecond you said I'm gonna give 50,000 I'm gonna give you back 100,000 and Allah never gives back the same I'm talking reward in dunya not akhira, I'm talking about reward in dunya and I say this not because I wanna emotionally pump you because I have heard stories upon stories, people that attended fundraising came back after a month or two six months next fundraising and they told me stories that are mind boggling like unbelievable things happen when people make a covenant with Allah and say here is your Allah, I give fi sabila so before I start the fundraising and asking people to donate I just want to see someone who would like to give fi sabila because every community has heavy, heavy donors even Rasulullah SWT at his days Abu Bakr was a heavy donor Othman ibn Affan was a heavy donor Abdulrahman ibn Awf was a heavy donor who else? the first donor in Islam the woman that first believer first woman that made wudu and salah was I don't know if you know that right after Rasulullah SWT and we will be discussing this inshallah in our seerah starting tomorrow for two weeks at SBIA may Allah reward them they opened the doors and MCC opened the doors inshallah for two weeks you can come in person, you can attend live streaming, you can attend the recording whenever you want, you don't even have to attend it on live streaming we have to have a seerah for at least a month discussing the life of the prophet to remind ourselves and to connect ourselves to the roots the first woman Rasulullah goes with Angel Gabriel to the mountain he hits the mountain with his heels the water gushes out Gabriel takes a form of a human makes wudu, Rasulullah makes wudu jibril alaihi salam stands up Rasulullah stand up next to him jibril prays to raka'a Rasulullah pray next to him to raka'a and jibril looked at him and he said that is your prayers and the prayers of the prophets that came before you now go and teach your ummah Rasulullah goes home and the first one that did wudu and salah was imagine this woman imagine this pillar dedicated herself finance Rasulullah from day one you don't do the job, I'll make the money you go and make da'wah something happened if Rasulullah didn't have Khadija Abu Bakr, Uthman, Abdulrahman ibn Awf Abu Talib himself and Ali Sayyidin Ali they put their everything they have the sabilillah how would have Islam started I know some people say why do I have to donate 50,000 don't say why, say Alhamdulillah I am the one who can donate 50,000 not why thank you Allah for enabling me enabling me to gift 50,000 someone before we start someone with love as Allah said they give what they give with love not to be thanked, not to be recognized but for the love of Allah and they have a relationship with Allah every time they give Allah give them back every time they give Allah give them back and that's why the brother said courageousness is a muscle develop the muscle you might have never stood up in your life and said something courageous you are not going to die nothing is going to happen to you but you develop the muscle also giving is a muscle if you have never given in your life you think, oh my God if I give I will be bankrupt my bank account will go to zero and I'm fried, I'm done you will not be fried inshallah you will be in naeem Allah will give you the nadrah of naeem your face will illuminate your health will progress we want to get that out of the way because subhanallah every fundraising in MCC we had someone to donate $50,000 either he forgive it from the qard hassan or he give it as a check or he give it as a I don't know 401k or whatever you know URA or all of these things some way some way somehow they're giving and brother has just told me that the MCC now president is our sister masha'Allah here so we're following the footsteps of khadija and she's she comes with what with a British accent so don't mess around with her she's gonna get to you you don't mess around with this sister masha'Allah may Allah reward you do I have any donor do I have anyone that would like to bless us and ignite the night and everyone that donates after you today you will get a copy of their hassanat if we raise $300,000 tonight Allah will count it that you didn't donate $50,000 that you donated $300,000 so please help us out brothers and sisters may Allah SWT enable you and give you it's not too much brothers and sisters it's too little how many $50,000 have you made since you came to the United States of America or since you started your job some people they make $50,000 a year some people they make $50,000 a month and that's the fadl of Allah that is the fadl that is the fadl of Allah that is the fadl of Allah who are you our first donor or you know the igniter of tonight anyone would like to take that anyone you don't want to raise your hand anyone a text any of the brothers brother asif you know and or brother purveys I don't want to tell them we can do that because I don't want to spend so much time I just have witnessed with my own eyes almost every fundraising there is someone who give $50,000 so I just want to give the chance to the people do I have anyone anyone in the name of Allah Bismillah that's okay that's okay that's okay because I haven't started my fundraising so I'm not this heartened I'm just like having fun with you inshallah and giving a chance of fadl albab to come forward and Allah talks about these people in the Quran there are people who always come first and they have gotten us used to be first where are you first donor $50 anyone anyone would like to make history and help us out but if we cannot have one person with $50,000 which I know it will come at the end of the night it always does do I have two people that will help each other to together become $50,000 $25 and $25 anyone any two people masha Allah any two people any two people one two 25 25 that's okay inshallah Allah will give us whatever is our rizq tonight no one is stressed out here we are just trying to fulfill our pledge with the people who gave loans to the masjid to honor them because then our institutions will never receive loans if we default on our loans so who would give Allah a good loan imagine Allah goes down to our level human level and Allah says listen if you don't want to donate forget it just give me a loan I'll pay it off it's very interesting how Allah speaks to a level where the human beings understand if you don't want to donate, don't donate give me a loan I will give it back to you many folds and it will not be riba it will be baraka do I have two people with $25,000 one and two do I have two people with $25,000 mashaAllah any two people mashaAllah maybe the people in the back they can update us and tell us something maybe inshallah because envelopes are coming and I am just here as Allah said remind you are only a reminder you have no control over them I have no control Allah has control over you when it rains the rain goes and finds where open channels are it goes find open channel if it finds open channel the rain will make the channel wider and bigger because more rain is going down more rain if the channel for whatever reason closes and gets clogged the water will back off and will find somewhere else to go from exactly the story of rizq Allah sends people rizq the one who gives more his channel becomes bigger Allah gives him more it rains more on his side the second he closes the channel the rizq will back up, back up, back up and Allah will send the rizq to someone else and that's the listen we learn brothers and sisters so do I have two people with $25,000 some two channels of rahma of ataa, of sakha let Allah use you as a channel of his mercy and of his support inshallah as you know the ulama used to make dua ya Allah make us keys that opens the gates of goodness and locks that locks the gates of evil ya Allah make us keys that opens the gates of goodness and locks that locks the gates of evil who wants to be a key today do we have anything alhamdulillah that's okay because we haven't started the fundraising yet alhamdulillah okay brothers and sisters alhamdulillah I know from my experience from before the donation keeps coming and we never fail we've never walked out of fundraising that was a failure at MCC alhamdulillah I have full confidence inshallah tonight we will succeed and do well as we always do alhamdulillah brothers and sisters if we have 10 people in the room if we have 10 people in the room you know each one will donate $10,000 we will end up with $100,000 you see I asked for 50 I'm confident I'm gonna get the 50 I asked for 225 I'm confident that I'm gonna get 225 inshallah $10,000 I want to move to the second 100,000 I need 10 people each with $10,000 who will help us out brothers and sisters if you don't know if you don't believe go to the MCC and look with your own eyes look with your own eyes brothers and sisters it's unbelievable so if you see the hundreds upon hundreds of youth and children and activities and serving and making da'wah interfaith activities talking to the neighbors visiting other churches other churches coming and visiting it's a whole rainbow of good deeds and everyone uses him to where he's good at and that's very beautiful so I want inshallah 10 people each one with $10,000 do I have anyone alhamdulillah with $10,000 if anyone with $10,000 so that we can roll for the next 100,000 alhamdulillah and we will be able to reach our goal inshallah brothers and sisters remember where you stand remember where you are you are in the bay area the whole world looks up to the bay area this is where history gets made do you know where the idea of community colleges came from it actually came from Berkeley the idea of having two years community college which is all over the nation started from here brothers and sisters we have Google here Apple Facebook Twitter and all the other oracle Cisco for God's sake I mean it's unbelievable every company that does large scale change in the world is here close to you we underestimate our effect on the rest of the world you know when I go Malaysia you know Singapore, Indonesia and I tell them you know I tell them do you know where is our location where next to them oh my god the entire dialogue changes the entire interaction changes subhanallah the rest of the world is looking up to us here wallah el-adhim brothers and sisters in Muslim countries in Muslim countries they wish to have the type of Islamic centers we have here you know Muslim countries you go to Malaysia you go to Singapore you go to Indonesia they say we wish we have the way you attract your youth in the Islamic centers in America in Turkey brothers and sisters the majority Muslim country but the youth there when they hear how do we deal with the masajid here and how we have activities for everyone and camping and watching movies and go bowling and go paint bowling and go this they go crazy you do that in the masjid yeah do you know if we do this in the masjid world they'll shoot us they'll kill us you know if you go to Pakistan many of you here are from Hyderabad and I visited Hyderabad like three four times spoke in front of like a hundred thousand people unbelievable and they all like what can we do with our youth what can we do we're losing them they're not coming to the masjid what I said you need to do what we're doing tell me what we're doing I said you I'm not gonna tell you I'm just I wanted tomorrow to advertise on TV they have a channel that there will be an event only and only for high schoolers no middle school is allowed no college student is allowed subhanallah like a thousand youth showed up because you started targeting they felt oh you're talking only to high school next day we said we're gonna only have an event for college for college students oh my god Osmania University my god it was full from as far as your eyes can see because people don't know how to do these activities I'm telling you we're making history we're changing the world if in the Muslim world they start doing what we do here in America the entire understanding of religion will change I mean you know people have come with this interpretation of the hadith a positive interpretation of the hadith the hadith says the day of judgment will not come until the sun rises from the west the sun every day rises from the east until the sun rises from the west the day of judgment will not come so some interpreted in a positive way they say the sun is the truth and Islam rose the first time from the east the second time Islam will rise from the west we're looking for a beautiful sign not a horrible sign until the sun rises from the west it means until Islam flourishes from the west again because you know sometimes you go to the east they're so stuck in tradition they can't see the truth anymore truth or tradition I'll take the truth truth or culture I'll take the truth truth or whatever I think is right I'll take the truth and the truth is Islam is very attractive to all ages this is the solution brothers and sisters you know you feel sometimes you want to scream loud you see now the weapon the new weapon of ISIS is using children and it's upon Allah how else the solution is except in Iraq and in Syria children are attracted to the masjid like they're attracted at MCA and MCC and SBIA and Saratoga that is the solution to the ISIS problem what we do here is a solution you don't see it in the big picture you think you're with a small masjid what are we doing this is the solution this is the solution our children here are on the front run of technology I mean masha Allah in Saratoga we have kids in the masjid that made a robot and went to Amazon say would you take my robot to deliver you know how they say now they're going to deliver packages with Amazon through robots they made a robot like a quadcopter that has the four fans unbelievable Muslim children one of the Muslim children Eritrean masha Allah may Allah bless his parents his heart is in the masjid he came to me said sheikh would you like to come to one of my classes I come to your classes why don't you come to my class I said I'll come how old are you he said I am 13 turning 14 I said and what class do you teach he said I teach how to how do 3D printers work and how to do 3D printing I said okay where in your middle school he said no I teach the class at Stanford University I said you teach who he said graduates and undergraduates I said and how in the world he said when I was nine years old I got attracted to it and now I am like a world resource to 3D printing I have 14 3D printers at home I said can you print me a car he started laughing he said sheikh pretty soon I will be able to do that but right now I can print you a hammer we can even there are printers that print actually with bacteria it print cells like actual cells a living you know a living thing it prints with the 3D printers he started talking to me I just gave him a hug Alhamdulillah that we have amongst our youth people who are like that there is a young person in Fresno a young Muslim you know high schooler had the perfect score not a single answer wrong on SAT and ACT full score one kid in both exams he walked in 100% he walked in 100% they interviewed him on every channel this is the solution to the world's problem this is the solution to the youth to the Muslim youth worldwide we provide the example don't think small think big that's why brothers and sisters Alhamdulillah don't be little what we are doing in these Islamic centers you might think oh it's a small thing no it's a big thing these institutions are big and huge Alhamdulillah so Alhamdulillah do I have anyone with $10,000 Alhamdulillah Alhamdulillah that's okay a lot of the donors did not come tonight to the dinner but inshallah they will donate and the caravan will continue to travel and the journey will continue to be traveled and no center will stop because of you know lack of funds there is no lack of funds in our Muslim community Alhamdulillah there's plenty of funds I'm just trying to think what's next brothers and sisters do you know how many young men and women in the Bay Area that have started a company and sold it for hundreds of millions of dollars you want to know on March 22nd I'm inviting every one of them that I can get my hand on I'm inviting every one of them to come and give a speech 15 minutes their life story people who sold their companies 400 million 500 million 750 million and so far I've got so many confirmations and they are excited to meet the Muslim community because we always tell them to come to the masjid they come and pray they leave given the chance to do something they don't know what to do so I said come and tell us your story that's what I want you to do May 22nd inshallah we're going to have a seminar of success and leadership from middle school high school college students men women sisters who want to start non for profit organizations brothers who want to do some business start an app start a company you will get a consultation from people that if you go in the real world they're going to meet you in 6 months and they wouldn't give you 5 minutes but they are our Muslim brothers and sisters in our community and they're more than happy to do that inshallah so you see you just have to ask we got $25,000 you think it's dry it's not dry it's raining the drought is over we have al-Ninu right now alhamdulillah make sure you don't get wet inshallah or if you want to follow the sunnah of the prophet when the rain used to fall in the beginning of the season he used to stand up in the middle of the rain and get soaked and he used to say this rain was just born it's pure and sinless it was just born it has just came to existence and it's freshly glorifying its lord so he would walk in the masjid and the prophet didn't have a rug or carpet it was mud and after salah people used to laugh because their faces were full of mud and their hands were full of mud and their knees were full of mud and sometimes they would splash the water on each other inside the masjid and the prophet would look at the sahaba and smile and they would laugh such a humble place with no carpet it's some of the greatest men and women in history subhanallah that's the listen that we get it's not about the walls, it's about the people and you have some nice people very welcoming people I've never approached MCC to do a seminar to do anything the center is your center open wide whatever you want may Allah reward them the center is yours MCA it's open doors we don't have ill feelings we don't have hatred we help each other that's beautiful come youth center in the Berlin game next time when you're landing look to the left you're landing in San Francisco you're going to see Yasin youth center you can get there stop there on the way back from the airport stop by and pray to rakah subhanallah we are spreading silently people are beating beating beating but we are minding our own business and doing what we're supposed to do and we're hurting no one we are benefiting everyone we're not hurting anyone we're benefiting alhamdulillah the muslim and the non-muslim one event after another just in the last 2-3 months in Yasin foundation they've invited the churches and the officials and you do that here no one will stop us inshallah alhamdulillah alhamdulillah do we have 10 people with 10,000? masha'Allah anyone with 10,000 dollars? alhamdulillah alhamdulillah alhamdulillah alhamdulillah they're doing the calculation inshallah I really appreciate one thing that you sat down and you had sabr fundraising succeed not because people give money it's because they sit down and have sabr because Allah says you might not donate yourself but the fact that you sit down and listen encourages someone else to donate so don't think that by you sitting down and listening is a waste of time this is how we support at least the least they say be where Allah would like you to be and do not ever show yourself to Allah where He doesn't want you to be be where Allah wants you to be and you are here there is no better place to be in other than this place or another fundraising that is supporting a house of Allah and a community center you are exactly where Allah wants to find you that's beautiful you will find Allah exactly when you need Him you will find Him because He found you exactly when He wanted you and where He wanted you He found you there you will find Him there when you need Him subhanallah Allah doesn't need us but we need Him alhamdulillah so do I have the next level of donation alhamdulillah $5,000 continuing insha'Allah while we are encouraging each other and doing what we are doing here is what we are doing here you know let me tell you about a fundraising Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam did Rasulullah sent a letter a letter to the king of Rome Caesar he said this is from Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam to Caesar the king of Rome if you become Muslim Allah will give you peace and Allah will reward you for you and your nation if you deny Islam you will be judged on the day of judgment on your behalf and on behalf of your nation wa sallamu alaykum I am inviting you to Islam in answer to that one letter Rome sent three armies the first army is the army of Muta the second army is the army of Tabuk and the third army is the army when the prophet sallallahu alaykum was dying he sent them a letter just welcome I invite you to Islam if you accept you accept if you are not accept you are going to be responsible in front of Allah they said who who are you to talk to us like that who are you Rasulullah sallallahu alaykum in the second wave they sent 250,000 soldiers Roman soldiers to wipe out Muslims in Medina we wait for them to come to Medina we are all dead we have to come and meet them northern Rasulullah stood up there is no food, no camels nothing, stood up and made fundraising the Sahaba had a difficult two years with no rain in Medina Rasulullah stood up who will give, who will give, who will give no one has anything to give everybody said ya Rasulullah I am bringing myself I am bringing my camel to feed my family and help me with the journey to go with you I am going nowhere, I am going with you but I don't have money to give so they couldn't raise their hand Sayyidina Uthman bin Affan saw the Prophet asking asking, asking and nobody is answering nobody, Rasulullah is doing fundraising nobody people don't have Rasulullah sallallahu alaykum whatever the total number of your fundraising one third of it one third of the total fundraising it's on me Rasulullah started doing fundraising fundraising, fundraising, asking encouraging, nobody is raising that they say until the eyes of Rasulullah became red because no microphones so he is speaking making everyone Sayyidina Uthman stood up and said ya Rasulullah I ask you by Allah the total fundraising the second third is on me please just sit down Rasulullah said okay we are one third away fundraising, fundraising, fundraising nobody stood up Sayyidina Uthman said until the voice of Rasulullah was gone he stood up and said ya Rasulullah the final one third is on me for Allah's sake sit down it's enough it's enough do you know what Rasulullah said something Sayyidina Uthman Mu'affam reminded people of what Rasulullah said when they came to kill him he said one day Rasulullah looked me in the eye and said Uthman shall not worry whatever he does for the rest of his life Allah has forgiven him ma a la Uthman ma san'a ba'da dalik Uthman shall never worry about whatever he does for the rest of his life I'm a witness that Allah has forgiven him because of one fundraising dinner one fundraising event people who came to kill Sayyidina Uthman because they were not happy with his style of khilatha what did they end up with this is the literalist you're not good enough you're not strict enough you're not following the Quran Abu Bakr died as a victim to that I mean Uthman Uthman died as a victim to that and even Ali the cousin of the prophet the husband of Fatima was not still good enough in the eyes of these people literalist literalist literalist ya Ali you are a kafir why you didn't put Quran as judgment you asked the judgment of human beings not Allah who are you to talk to Ali who are you you see this literalism and this fanaticism extremism from the days of the khulafa it did us no good but you know what's the good news always Islam prevails and survives and comes back to its moderation those people that are trying to think if we kill more people and we make Islam stricter we make it it's gonna become better and we're gonna have the khulafa they're gonna get nothing but defeat and they will not put a dent in the history of the muslim ummah people will curse them Allah will curse them and his angels will curse them that's what Allah said in the Quran brothers and sisters these people will not what they're doing here is the counterfeit to what they do there and Alhamdulillah that Allah is using us as a tool of goodness to make a history for the ummah insha'Allah I am not bothered that nobody is raising his hand because if nobody raised his hand with Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam who am I I'm nobody as a matter of fact Alhamdulillah every time people raise their hands we've raised what anywhere between 6 to 7 million for this islamic center 2 million for the for the old land and then 4 million here masha'Allah we're very lucky because Rasulullah left us with goodness and he said al khayrufiya wa fi ummati ilayum al qiyamah goodness is in me and in my ummah the goodness of Rasulullah is inside each and every one of you if you think you're not religious the goodness of Rasulullah is inside you whether you believe it or not the goodness of Rasulullah is inside each and every one of you you just have to act upon it and Allah will show you wonders and miracles so alhamdulillah you see masha'Allah we're sitting down drinking water, sipping coffee and eating cheesecake chicken breast masha'Allah and we raised what 125 thousand dollars one third if we just have two othman in the crowd they'll take care of the other third and the other third and by the way in this masjid we raised 100 thousand dollars per person in one fundraising, yes we did it's no alien to this community to raise 100 thousand per person it happened and it will happen again insha'Allah I am absolutely not worried alhamdulillah with the weather and with the change of time people got really knocked out tonight and they didn't come but I'm very confident that insha'Allah by the end of the two three months and Ramadan is coming whatever we don't do tonight we will do it in Ramadan very easily Allah opens the hearts and soften the hearts on the night of Ramadan so anyone did not donate would like to donate insha'Allah 5000 2000 1000 alhamdulillah if everyone here who didn't donate donates 1000 we hit the 200 thousand easily no problem it's the small donation that makes the big difference because it's a distributed on the larger crowd instead of heavy one person carry it so the brothers are going around with your credit card swipe or ATM machine alhamdulillah you can always insha'Allah donate insha'Allah but I'm telling you brothers and sisters insha'Allah keep it up keep MCC being active keep it being welcoming to the people who come in men, women, young, old alhamdulillah keep it spiritual and moist and dry alhamdulillah you have all the elements of success for an Islamic center to succeed alhamdulillah all the elements of success alhamdulillah the hardworking people the good intentions the sincerity the devotion, the dedication it's going to happen insha'Allah alhamdulillah I think brother Purveys and brother Zahir how are we doing alhamdulillah any more donations coming insha'Allah alhamdulillah alhamdulillah so alhamdulillah may Allah reward you and bless you for being patient, for sitting down this is really alhamdulillah make dua for MCC for our country insha'Allah ya Allah we ask you this actually explains 150 to pay of qard, hassan and 150 for remodeling funds insha'Allah that's if you wonder where the money is going insha'Allah Allahumma rabbana ya rabbal alameen bless us in our community this is special and in the hands of the muslim community Allah says between our hearts and our hearts and hearts wa l-kirahiyah wa l-daghiyah Allahumma abid anna l-fitana wa l-zahra minha wa ma b-baqan Allahumma inna na'oodu biqa minal ghala wa l-wabaa wa zina wa min ghalabahid dayni wa qahri rija'al Allahumma inna na'oodu biqa minal hammi wa l-hasan wa minal ajzi wa l-kasal wa minal jubni wa l-bukh wa min ghalabahid dayni Ya Allah we ask you to bless our center Ya Rabb Al Alameen and to bless all the other Islamic centers Ya Rabb Al Alameen Ya Allah we ask you for your blessing and for your barakah to dwell between us Ya Rabb Al Alameen Ya Allah we ask you to show us the right path and to show us what we should do and what we should execute and what activities to do and what decisions to make be our guide Ya Allah Ya Rabb Al Alameen Ya Allah inspire us, energize us Ya Allah give us the vision and the understanding so that we will make this ummah a better ummah day by day Ya Rabb Al Alameen Ya Allah it is you whom we seek and we only run from you to you Ya Allah You are the only god, you are our god La ilaha illa anta subhanaka inna kunna minna zalameen Ya Allah bless the brothers, the sisters, the young, the old, everyone who helps and participates Ya Allah we ask you for our Muslim brothers and sisters who don't come to the masjid that you inspire them to start coming to our centers and participate and witness the beauty and the love and the mercy between us Ya Rabb Al Alameen Ya Allah make us lights that you guide others with make us channels that you give mercy and forgiveness to others through Ya Allah make us minarets and make us lighthouses that will show the others and guide humanity to the truth and to you Ya Rabb Al Alameen Subhanah Rabbika Rabbil Izzati Amma Ya Asifuna Wa Salamun A'lam As-Saleena Wa Alhamdulillah Rabbil Alameen Wa Salallahu Alaa Sayyidina Muhammad Wa Alaa Alameen Jazakum Allah Assalamu alaikum Assalamu alaikum everyone Alhamdulillah Alhamdulillah it's a blessing to have Sheikh Al Bakri in Berya I think it's over a decade year after year he comes to different fundraisers all over the US and does amazing fundraisers People don't feel they are giving the money but Alhamdulillah we reached the goal So far we have many successful fundraisers for our MTC project So I would request all the community and especially Khari Amr to make dua for him and his family Jazakum Allah Khari Amr Sheikh Al Bakri Assalamu alaikum Assalamu alaikum Assalamu alaikum So I'm just going to make a dua for all Al Bakri We have Salah Al Bakri in here Al Bakri By the way Al Bakri comes from the family of Abu Bakr Al Saddiq or the ones who doesn't know So Al Bakri The Prophets are The first people who died in Islam The family of Al Yasir So we say Al Bakri Masha Allah They are beautiful people I know all of them Salah al Din Masha Allah He came all the way from San Francisco area They are always helping community They are always with North Star MCC So please make dua for Alaa al Din Al Bakri Shining person Allah gives him Nur Allah gives him Masha Allah Tawfeek insha Allah We ask Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala increase him In Tawfeek Al Nur Knowledge in Shallah Allahumma zidhu ilmin ala ilmin ya rabbil alemin Allahumma zidhu nuran ala nurin ya rabbil alemin Allahumma b-ud anhu ya rabbil alemin Kulla sayeeiatin ya rabbil alemin Wa kulla mikrin ya rabbil alemin Allahumma zidhu min fidli Allahumma asturhu wa afidhunya rabbil alemin Allahumma afidhu wa awlaadahu wa a'ilatahu Allahumma ikhfid ikhwanahu wa hafidna jami'an maahum ya Rabbi Al-Alamin. Allahumma zidna wa la tanqusna wa aafina wa afu'anna wa aathirna wa la ta'thiraalina. Allahumma inna nis'alu karydaka wa l-jannah wa na'udu bikka min sakhatika wa n'ar. Allahumma wufiqna lima tuhibbu wa tarzah wa khudbina waasina illil birri wa taqwa. Allahumma wufaq imsisi wa north star wa zeytuna wa abirus, wa kullu muasasatina wa misajiduna wa zidna ya Rabbi Al-Alamin. Allahumma zidna min fadliq. Allahumma zidna min fadliq ya Rabbi Al-Alamin. Wa barik fi ulama'ina Imam Tahir, Sheikh Hamza, Imam Zaid, wa kulluhum jami'an insha'Allah fiyatil min taq'a wa fi baqil manatik insha'Allah. May Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala increase us in knowledge and iman and in yaqeen insha'Allah. May Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala bring us together here and here after insha'Allah. In jannah, in highest place in jannah. Jannat al-Firdous, with our Prophet Muhammad, sallallahu alaihi wa sallam. Allahumma aridna haudah wa sqina min yaredihi shareefati, sharba tanhani'atil la nadma'u ba'daha abadah. Allahumma jallam min yuhibbuna Allahu yuhibbuna rasulahu wa yattabi'una sunnahum ya Rabbi Al-Alamin. Bi fadliq wa judiq wa karamika ya Ar-Rahman Rahimin. Allahumma hafizlana uladana wa hafizlana banaatina. Wa hafizlana nisa'ana ya Rabbi Al-Alamin. Before we end, we'd like to recognize our event sponsors one more time. From our platinum sponsors, we'd like to thank Rahmah Market. From our gold sponsors, we'd like to thank Kabul Kebab and Grill, the Law Office of Spojmina Ziri, the North Star School, the Rajabali Family Dentistry, the Rumi Bookstore, and the Law Offices of Ross Pitlick. We thank you again. And we'd like to thank you all for joining us tonight in support of your local Muslim Community Center. We pray that you are rewarded immensely for your great generosity, and we look forward to seeing you at future events to see the fruits of all your continued support, duaz, and donations. To conclude, we'd like to invite you all to join us for Isha Salat in the adjoining room. Jazakallahu khayran. Salam alaikum.