 Being once an inmate, myself, is something that is no words really to describe that experience, especially when you find Islam in that type of environment. A lot of people don't realize that many of the inmates or the Muslims inmates inside embraced Islam while they were there. So many, just like myself, had really no contact with Islam or Muslims before incarceration. So like myself, being originally from South Central Los Angeles, where on the side of LA that I lived, we called the East Side, we really didn't have much presence of the Muslims. Whereas on the West Side, that's where you have a lot of the known messages that you hear about like Masjid Ibn Omar Ibn Qatab, Big Masjid there. You have several other messages on that side of town. So for myself, coming in contact with Islam and the Muslims, and then finally reaching free society, it's been like something that's undescribable because being in one world versus another world, only knowing one way to live prior to incarceration, then getting out and you're in a totally different world. It's not like you're getting out after 20-something years and you're going back to your old family in the same situation that you was once in, but you're actually coming out as a Muslim. And there's a totally different set of circumstances that you would face versus before. So I just wanted to say that briefly about myself, that I'm here before you as an ex-gang member, ex-immate, the whole line. So Alhamdulillah that Allah blessed me to be a Muslim today. So Alhamdulillah. I just want to take something from this story of Prophet Yusuf alayhi salam. One of the things about it is I think about is when Allah swt raises people up as he raised the abusive alayhi salam after being thrown in the well, after being thrown in the well and forgotten and essentially purchased for a low price by people in the marketplace and sold. And during that time and that process of being disattempted to be a seduce by the women, the king's wife, all of these different things that follow. One of the things about the story though, you know, just throwing into the well and being forgotten is something that I think about because I look at myself in that situation where I was on a bus being transported to prison and I was just sharing this story recently with someone and I didn't think about it until just the other day that when I was being transported to prison out of all the times that I had been in and out of the courts and things like that, they would take a certain route so that you're not near the neighborhoods and no possible breakouts and things like that. But this particular day I told myself, I said this will be the last time that I probably want to see my family again. I knew it. I was sentenced to life. So I said I'd never see my family again. But this particular day for some strange reason, the bus drove right down my block and it's never happened. For some reason that they was, you know, for whatever reason, they saw it by law, but they drove down my block and I was able to look down the street that I was raised on. And that's the last time I've seen that street in 23 years, 23 years. And I never knew what would happen. And I'm sure with Prophet Yusuf, when he was thrown into the well, he never knew where he would end up. I never knew where I would end up. And one of the things I told myself, even though my lifestyle was definitely jahlia, you know, my lifestyle was totally against Islam. I told myself that God, I said God is not going to leave me in this place. I said that to myself. I said for some strange reason, even though I know I was sentenced to life, I feel like at some point, at some time that maybe I will be released. And as I went through my prison sentence and the Islam came into my life, I knew soon as the moment that I knew that I was going to accept Islam, I said to myself that this is what I thought years ago that Allah would not leave me in this place. So when we relate the story, people will plot against you, even your own kin. Your own kin would even plot against you. Your friends, the people that you thought would be your friends. And in the case of Yusuf, Alayhi salam, it was his own brothers that plotted against him to throw him away. And that's what happens to many of us because so many of us are embracing Islam inside the prison system. It's the fastest growing religion in prison. And it's many of the African Americans and Latino Americans are embracing Islam. And we're people that don't know anything about Islam when we embrace it. So it's like we're in an isolated bubble just trying to figure out what's Islam, what's Islam? And when we write letters trying to get some type of response from the outside, usually it falls on deaf ears because there's a disconnect between ourselves and the people in the free world. So Yusuf only trusted in Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala, which for us, that's all you have is Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala. But it's actually a strength. It actually raises us up. And in the population, the prison population and amongst the guards, the prison guards, the employees, when they see that taking place, when they see an inmate becoming Muslim and they see his state being raised up by Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala, they don't understand it. Because now him coming through the regular child line and take a meal, he's saying, I don't want to eat this food because it's not halal. They don't understand what's this transformation that's taking place. They really don't understand it. Then they see that we're not involved in any of the legal activity that's taking place in the prison. They see people being called away from gangs and gambling and all of the things that take place inside the prison. It's more of that inside than you see sometimes out here. So now they wonder, like, wait a minute. So what they want to do is remind us that we're still the lowest of the people. We found you in the well. How are you going to be walking around calling people to Islam, calling people to uprightness, telling people that they don't have to eat pork and drink alcohol and do drugs? How are you going to be this type of, you committed a crime, you're in prison. You think you're special? How many times have we told that? Who you guys think you are? Y'all think you're special? And this is the response. So our only response was we have to write to the people in the outside. We have to put in some type of complaint to the outside that we need help in here because they see us and they see this transformation and they go look at our file and they say, wait a minute, this person came to prison for this crime. How is he doing all these things now? So it baffles the imagination. They don't understand how is Islam doing this to people? Because, believe it or not, there are Christians there as well. There's Catholics, but they don't get the same response the way the Muslims do. Whenever something bad happens in the prison, who do they call on? They ask the Muslims to come negotiate and let's work this out. Let's try to see what the Muslim, because they look at the Muslims of people of intellect in the prison. So they come seek out the Muslims, even the inmates amongst themselves as well as the prison staff. They look out for the Muslims to actually solve and answer their questions. Just like the inmates in the story of Yusuf, where people, the inmates will come and seek out an answer. They want him to interpret dreams. He was a light that was amongst that place that the people didn't have, the guide. And this is what's taking place inside the prison, but people don't know about it. So when the letters go out from the prison to the various misogynies, and there's never a response, the responses are usually coming from strange type of ideas related to Islam. Because usually the people, the sectarianism in Islam, you know, you're always looking for followers. When you have a deviant view of the religion, those are the organizations that always respond. So often time when you don't have organizations like the Table Foundation, a lot of Muslims inside end up having a false belief about Islam. They don't have a correct al-Qaeda or, you know, they, they write, they send in books to them for free and say, read this. And now, you know, they they adopt Shia, extreme Shia of views and various other type of ideologies because they don't have the support of the various communities that's teaching them Islam. So here it is. We have Yusuf, alaihi salam, in prison and essentially forgotten by the people. But he's patient. He's patient with Allah, and many of us, you know, half of the people that we talk to and communicate with today, if they had known that we actually spent as much time as we did in prison, I've actually the majority of my Islam has been in prison. I've only been out almost a year. I was a Muslim for 18 years in prison. So I spent 18 years practicing Islam in prison before ever seeing a masjid or a station. So it's a it's a very it's indescribable. And I shared this with the brothers. I asked them, do they have the same experience as myself for myself because we don't see beyond the walls ourselves. It gets so desperate at times that when we inside the prison, you feel like you're never going to get out of the well, right? That you're inside this place. So you never look over the gates. There's these gates and barbed wire and walls that you never your eyes never venture over those walls and that gate because you know that you'll never find yourself there. So all of us, when we inside the prison, we walk around and we see each other. But our vision doesn't go beyond those walls, right? So I've been telling people since I've been out, my vision is real bad distance wise. It's like I always get lost. I call the shake. I say I'm lost because I can't see the signs that's saying, you know, exit 34 or 45. And I just happens all the time, but it's because I realize that it's because we've only our mind has adjusted our eyes to only see so far. So I never look ahead. I never look beyond what's right in front of me. So by the time I reach the exit, it's like, OK, and this happened to us a lot. We always find ourselves on the highway saying I'm getting lost. So when people ask me, do I want to, you know, exercise and they want a job? And they say, let's go. Is they got a nice track at Castro Valley High School? Beautiful track, if anybody's been there before. But I said it's in a circle, though, right? And they say, yeah, I said, I mean, I said, that remind me of walking on a prison yard because they keep you. Walking in a circle because you can't go beyond the perimeter of the of the yard, the recreation yard. So every since I've been free, I always draw just distance. I never jog in a circle. And it's something that's subconscious. I don't think I consciously do it until I actually was told about, you know, the track. I just started finding myself do it. So you hear a lot of brothers and sisters or whoever, when they when they get out, they always want to go distant. Not in a circle. So, you know, it's an amazing thing that when we look at the story of Prophet Yusuf, that we find our own story, we find our own story. There's so many different aspects where we find our own story and just, I don't know how much time I have here, but just I don't want to be too long-winded. It's just something that I was thinking about. There's an ayat in the Quran in Surah Yusuf, Ayat 53. And it mentions, Inna nafsah la'amuratu bi suri ila ma rahima rabbi, inna rabbi ghafura rahin. And in this ayat, it says, and I do not declare myself free, most surely man's self is want to command him to evil, except such as my Lord has had mercy on. Surely my Lord is forgiven, merciful. One of the reasons I read this ayat is because the nafs, we know that the nafs can cause us to do terrible things. The nafs that's prone to evil, this nafs amara. And during the time when you're in a place like that, similar to Yusuf, where he was attempted by these women, he refused because of taqwa. And so many times, so many times, so many times we would tell brothers while we was there that if you don't keep the nafs in check, if you don't follow this deen as presented to us by the Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam that you're going to be here for the rest of your life, we used to tell brothers that all the time. And we were convinced a long time ago that as long as we follow this religion, that we as long as we follow this path of Islam, that eventually someday we will be free. And it was so obvious. It was so obvious that, you know, because again, the sheya thing always want us to be in enmity with each other. The sheya team want us to disobey Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. That's their job to disobey Allah. And I'm truly convinced to this day that because I stayed taqwa Allah and remained on the path of Islam without deviating, without, you know, messing around, because believe me, they have a way of keeping you there. And, you know, there's been experiences that I've had. I can share with you right here today. And the insular family major support told me why I was there. They was right along that ride with me in some of those situations. But as long as you hold to the path, as long as you don't leave anything for them to say, look, you're still doing this. Because once you say that you're a Muslim, they definitely go expect you to uphold that standard of being Muslim. So they waiting for somebody like us to, you know, get caught doing something illegal inside the prison or not truly following the dean. Right. And they would even ask us questions like Muslims pray five times a day, right? And we like, yeah, he said, why some of your brothers here don't pray five times a day? I know they don't. I see you guys going over there. Leaving the basketball games and go play a praise that I, but I don't I know it's more Muslims than that on this on this facility. Why all we see you guys praying always going to the chapel, reading and they couldn't understand that. But the every person that they said that to all of the Muslims that they presented that with are on the street right now. Masha Allah, I can name them, they all out right now. Every last one of those brothers is free right now, and they were all serving life sentences, which means that they could have spent the rest of their life there if they decided. So that's a proof that Islam rehabilitates. It's a proof that Islam raises people up. And as long as we follow it, whether we in free society, whether we in a place like that, whether we in a well, long as we have talk over loss kind of what the Allah that he will change our circumstances. So I just wanted to, you know, it's it's so much that can be said about this topic and. It's not an easy one to talk about. But hopefully that I've said something that would actually open your eyes to some things about this and how. We can reach out to those brothers and sisters that are still there. Because there's one brother in particular, I just want to I have to bring this brother, mention his brother, because I just want to, I don't want to misquote something that I said or misrepresent something that I said about all of us being out. It's actually only one of us is left. It's only one brother that's left brother name I did. And he actually claimed really came really close to being free right after myself. And we really hope that with the programs that we have here, Taba, he just needs help. And I feel like if he had an attorney or something like that, because he has a kind of difficult, complicated case, that's the reason that he's still there. He's been in prison now 32 years. 32 years. He was a military man. He wasn't a criminal. He was not a criminal. He was in the military. He actually protected his wife from because she, the child, they had a child together and the child died because of her abuse or negligence. I won't say abuse. I will say negligence. And he came from the military based home, seeing what was going on. And didn't report it right away. And he's still in prison to this day for that. He didn't commit a crime whatsoever. And I know this for a fact. We studied this case and he's been in prison for 32 years, but all he needs an attorney. And I think he'll be free right now. If he had an attorney, that brother would be out of prison right now. He's been in prison 32 years. Only one of us is left. Right now, he's been in prison 32 years on the path. The brother's been practicing the Dean. He's basically filled my shoes since I've been gone for us teaching the Muslims right now. There's no reason why that brother should still be in prison. So, inshallah, maybe we can do something for that brother's case. Inshallah. I'm going to end on that note. Inshallah. Jazakallah Khair for having me and the organization, the Table Foundation. We appreciate you all attention and attendance today. Inshallah. As-salamu alaykum. As-salamu alaykum. As-salamu alaykum. As-salamu alaykum. As-salamu alaykum. As-salamu alaykum. As-salamu alaykum. MashaAllah, although I've known Yusuf for 10 years now, I'm always finding out new things about his life. And that's the way all of our lives are, right? Ali, radiallahu anhu, one time speaking in rhetorically to a person, he said, you, O man, you think you're a simple creature, but inside of you is the universe. Like each one of us is a universe. And there's so much about ourselves, you know, that we, we don't know. And there's so much we don't know about other people. So that's why it's good to, to, to get together in, in Jama'a, in congregation, to learn more about each other. And that's what Allah SWT says. He's made us We made you tribes and nations that you may know that the most noble of you are the most God fearing. And we can see that through stories in the people coming to Islam from the prison because they came from the depths of society, both in socioeconomical-wise, from poverty, from states of being criminals, many of them, and to the other end of the, or I won't say the other end of the spectrum, but to the middle path. So the talk is about Yusuf alaihi salam and how we relate it to our lives. And we have to remember that when we read the Quran, when we read any aspect of the Quran, each one of us have to relate it to our lives. We're not reading it as a history book. We're not reading it as a book that's related to somebody else only. It was given to the Prophet SAW, but as a message to all of humanity. So we have to relate every single ayah, every single lesson, every single thing to ourselves. And Umar ibn al-Khattab used to remind people of this. He said, even those ayahs that talk about Abu Lahab and Abu Jahal and the Kuffarat Badr and the Kuffarat Uhud and all of those other ayahs and Fir'aun and Haman and all of those other evil characters that are mentioned in the Quran. He said, you relate that to yourselves. You relate that to yourselves and see what lessons you can draw for that. And stories are one of the greatest way to pass on a lesson. And that's why Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala or one of the reasons why He uses them in the Quran. And you'll see from teaching whether it's adults or children, once the group or the group of students get kind of dragged down as soon as you say, let me tell you a story, everybody kind of perks up. And they listen to that. And even if somebody spoke for two or three hours, if you ask them what are the main points of what they talked about, they'll say, oh yeah, He told me this story about when He was young. So it's very powerful. So we have to look at what lessons are being presented to us in that story. And Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala begins Surah Yusuf by saying, we give you the best of stories. So everybody has stories that they can tell, but Allah is saying we give you the best of stories. And this is something we should remember for ourselves and especially if we're parents. And Sidi Ahmed Zarruq, the famous scholar of Tasawwuf and of Fiqh, and he joined between the two and he used to be able to audit both sides. He would audit the Sufis and tell them what they're doing wrong and he would audit the Fuqaha, which very few people in the history could do that, but he was one of those people that could do that. Imam Al-Ghazali was also another person that could audit both sides, the Fiqh, the Fuqaha and the people of Tasawwuf, the scholars of Tasawwuf. Sidi Ahmed Zarruq said, because he was an orphan, he said his grandmother raised him and she did a number of things to raise him. And a lot of who he is is because of his grandmother. One of the things she would do is she would hide the food because they were poor. She would hide the food in their house and then she would tell Sidi Ahmed Zarruq, she would say, let's go make dua for Allah to give us food. And so they would make dua. She said, okay, now let's look for the food. So they would look around for the food and then he would finally said, our dua was answered. And so he said she was giving him early training. I did that one time with my daughter. I was telling her not to roll down the window and I put the window lock on. And then she said, I heard her under her breath. She's saying, Ya Allah, make the window go down. So I pushed the button and then it went down. She said, my dua worked, my dua worked. Maybe that, I mean, we know we have to teach them that dua does work. There are people that are going to facilitate that dua, but it works. You made the dua, I pushed the button. It worked. Allah maybe, you know, put it in my heart to open up the window. So another thing Sidi Ahmed Zarruq's grandmother would do is she wouldn't tell him fairy tales. He said, you know, people put their kids to sleep with fairy tales. They make them up. They read them out of the books. She said, he said, she would never tell me those fairy tales. She would only tell me stories of the Sahaba and of the prophets and of the of the Awliya and of the friends of Allah. So that's how she reared him. So that's a reminder. When I read that, I said, okay, I got to start reading less fairy tales and tell those stories because the kid wants that those amazing things that happened. But when you tell the stories of the prophets, there's plenty of Mu'ajizat miracles that happened. So in the story of Yusuf, alaihi salam is something that we can all relate to just like any aspect of the Quran. We can relate to one of the things that it's really good for and the scholars mentioned that because of the content of the story is it's an anti-depressant. And they actually mentioned that that it's they save a person has huzun if they feel depression, if they feel sadness reads the story of Yusuf alaihi salam. And why is that? Allah of all of the reasons, but one of the reasons is that when we when we have a disease of the heart and sadness is a disease of the heart and it could be at different levels. There's two kinds of there's two kinds of cures for it. One is to actually do something to actually do and whatever the disease is, the scholars have laid out either do something or reflect on something. It's either an action or reflection. And so in for example, for depression, one of the the the sunnah. Methods of like an action is to wear yellow clothing and Ibn Abbas mentioned that he said that it's a if you wear yellow yellow clothing, it helps relieve relieve sadness and he uses as a proof of this the story of in Musa alaihi salam it was what color was the cow? Not the golden calf. The cow that they were supposed to slaughter. What's that? No. Yellow. It was yellow cut to us to sort of now they're in it. It delights the people that look upon it. So he said they they're delighted. One of the things that they're delighted because of its yellow color. So he said yellow color looking on yellow will remove sadness. So that's a amali like a an action. There's also reflections that we can do. So when we read surat Yusuf, we're supposed to be reflecting on what's going on here. What are what are these different aspects and I'm not going to go through the whole story because it's very long. In fact, there's a joke that there said that they invited this this teacher to dinner and they. Oh, there was two teachers and one of them wanted to to distract the other one so that he could eat more of the of the dish. So he said, yeah, she tell us the story of surat Yusuf alaihi salam because he's thinking, okay, now he's going to go through, you know, the longest story in the Quran and and and so he said there was a boy that got lost and they found him Bismillah. So we all know this. We're all familiar with the extended version of the story of Yusuf alaihi salam. But I wanted to pick out three points of where he was forgotten and and and and talk a little bit more about that. We know the story of he saw the dream and his father told him to not tell the dream and it's not mentioned in the in the in the in the surah but in the tafsir it's mentioned what happened. He actually went and told his brother that that dream and they knew what the 11 stars and the son in the moon they knew that this was something special that Allah had subhanahu wa ta'ala had chosen him for something special. So it increased their jealousy that they already had of him and then they plotted to get rid of him. One of the older brothers Yahuda said, okay, we're going to do this but we're not going to kill him. Just promise me that we will not kill Yusuf. So they said, okay, we'll promise. So then they went through that that plot with their father. They said, take him out so that he can race with us. He took him out there. They took him out there as they take him out. Now imagine this imagine the people who you trust the most your own family members that you would never think that they could that they could abuse you and think of his state when they start abusing him because before they threw him in the well, they started beating him. And some people say that he was 17 years old. Other scholars say no, he was closer to like 9, 10, 11 years old, but in either case, he was still a young man and these were his older brothers. We all know how much younger brothers for people that have older brothers or they've seen other people with older brothers. You know how much people look up to older brothers. Now here's Yusuf, alaihi salam. He's he's a young man. His brothers are all men. They're young, they're they're young strong men. He's looking up to them as his older brothers. He's looking up to them also because they have a connection. Their prop their father is a prophet. Their grandfather is a prophet. Their great grandfather is a prophet. It's the Iqoo Ibn Isha Ibn Ibrahim, alaihi salam. Their great grandfather is Ibrahim, alaihi salam. So they're from that same family. They're from that a little bait. They're from that family of a prophet. So he's sharing this connection with them and then they start beating him and he doesn't understand why this is going on. And as they're beating him, they start saying to him, they start insulting. They say, now where are the 11 stars? Why don't you get the 11 stars now? And for anybody who's seen when oppressors start beating on people, they'll start ridiculing their faith and they'll say they'll say, where's your God now? Where's your God now? And they'll start ridiculing whatever they where's your mom? Where's your whatever that person holds dear to them, they'll start ridiculing it. So that's what they did. Now they're adding insult to the injury. And yeah, who that calls out to them and he says, I you I took an oath with you that you wouldn't kill him. They said, okay, let's throw him down the well. And where was this well? They were in the out of Sham, the land of Sham near Palestine. Some people, some of the Mufassirin said it's a it's a well in bait and Maqdis in Jerusalem. Others said it's a it's a it's a well on the other side of the river in Jordan. And some said it was no, it was a it was a well near where Ishaq, alaihi salam, is buried and that's in Hebron. So it's either it's either in Palestine and Jordan somewhere. That's where they were because he was taken into the land of Egypt. They were in the Palestine, Jordan area. So they throw him down the well. Now when he's down there at the bottom of the well, he's one of the only prophets that gets revelation before being 40 years old. The Sunnah that the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam gave to all of the prophets is that they got revelation when they were 40 lunar years of age. But Isa, alaihi salam, when did he get his first revelation? What's that? Right when he was born. Yahya, alaihi salam also received it as a child, received revelation. And and then and use of alaihi salam as well. He got his revelation as a young boy 9, 10, 11, 12, something like that age or 17. But as a young boy or a young teenager, he's at the bottom of the well now imagine how he feels. Put yourself in his shoes. That's what this story is for. Put yourself in the in the shoes of Asya, the wife of Fara'un. Put yourself in the shoes of Musa, alaihi salam. Try to feel what they felt. And this is why the ulema say these stories of the prophets they're given to us as what they call an Arabic tasalli. It's to make its consolation because if we know that the prophets are the greatest of mankind and they cannot, they're, they're better than the angels. There's nothing in creation better than the prophets and yet they experience hardships in their lives. Some of them have experienced hardships more than what we could ever have. So when we're sitting there with bills piling up and income going down, when they're sitting, when we're sitting there with our children, having problems with our children, when we're sitting there with having problems with our, with our community, with our spouse, whatever it is, whatever problem that we're dealing with, just think about the prophets, they're better than us. And a lot of times they experience worse than us. How many of us have ever been thrown down a well, abandoned, kicked out of their house by their family? You don't have to raise your hand, but you raise your hand. I don't think so. Be careful about saying that. But there are stories like that. My mother shared a story with me about there's a group in of prisoners in in Georgia that started a meditation process. It was like a Buddhist, what were they called the the Dharma brothers. They did a, they did a documentary called the Dharma brothers. And I was sorry, it's Alabama. And they're not all the same, by the way. It's the South, but each state has its own subculture. So my mom's from Mississippi. So we have a connection to the South. So there, there in the prison, they instituted a program for using meditation, Buddhist meditation practices, and it helped a lot of these guys. One of the guys that's in the documentary, I haven't had a chance to see it, but he was him and his sister were like eight and nine years old, right? Young kids, their mom, their mother drove them out to an abandoned house in the middle of the countryside in Alabama and just dropped them off. And she took off. Now imagine an eight and a nine year old kid, boy and a girl. And you know they can, they don't, little kids don't understand a lot of things. If you, if you get angry at a little kid, they can't, they can't process that. They think if a parent yells at them, oh my dad, you know, or my mom, you know, they don't love me at all. They can't understand. They can't distinguish between this one incident, this one incident that they're, they're reprimanding them for and like a complete rejection of them. So imagine those two kids being abandoned in the, on that place. They were, that was their well for them. And then they came up and then they had, the brother went his path. I don't know where, where his sister went, but just imagine their life that they had to experience. So when we get down, when we feel down, think about Yusuf alaihi salam, read that story and reflect, how would he have felt at the bottom of the well, being left there, abandoned by his brothers, after being beaten and insulted. But now Allah SWT gives him consolation, gives him revelation in the well. And sometimes Allah SWT will bring us down to raise us up. The greatest honor that Allah SWT has given to any prophet. You know, because he gave Musa alaihi salam the, the, the, the, the seven, the seven miracles. It wasn't just the staff in the, the, his hand of shining light. There were other miracles, the, the locusts and the blood and so forth. He gave them the miracles. He split the ocean. He brought the menna and the salwa to them. For Saleh alaihi salam, he brought the camel out of the rock. He gave all of these honors, but what's the greatest honor that Allah SWT has given any prophet? What's that? Anybody, that's a question. Open, open for. Isra'ul-Mu'raj. It was Isra'ul-Mu'raj, where Allah SWT took the prophet, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, to the furthest point of creation. We're even at that point, Jibril alaihi salam said, and one of the poets said, Idhab taha. Idhab wahdak ya taha. Go by yourself, taha. I can't, I can't go beyond this point at all. This is, this is something special for you. But what happened before Isra'ul Mu'raj? Aam al-Huzun, the year of sadness. His wife Khadija passed away. His uncle Abu Talib passed away, and he was driven out of ta'if with insults and rocks to where his feet were bleeding. That had to, that was a process that Allah SWT was bringing him closer to him, because at that point, you know, we're talking about forgotten believers. When Yusuf alaihi salam was forgotten in the well, who forgot him? It was his brothers. When the Prophet, sallallahu alaihi wa sallam, felt rejected out of in ta'if, who rejected him? It was the people, it wasn't Allah SWT, because when we read in Surat al-Duha, what does it say? Ma wa dda'aka rabbuka wa ma qala. Your Lord has not rejected you and he is not angry with you. This is what the people are doing to you. I'm not angry with you. I'm not rejecting you. I'm not forgetting you, Yusuf alaihi salam, in the well, because we'll never be forgotten by Allah SWT. We'll never be forgotten from him. The creation is going to forget us. Your spouse may forget you. Your brothers may forget you. Your company may forget you. Your community may forgive you. Everybody's going to forget you around or could forget you, but Allah SWT will never forget you. He will never forget you. So that's what we have to remind ourselves when we feel forgotten and everybody's going to go through this at some point in their lives. Even the people in their ivory towers with their yachts and their millions and their riches and all of that stuff, they're going to feel sadness and forgotten. But they have to remember Allah SWT is not forgetting us. So Yusuf alaihi salam gets taken up from the well, sold into slavery for a measly price. Darahi ma'ma adoodah, just a few dirhams, a small price and sold into the land of slavery in Egypt. Now imagine that too. Your freedom, the greatest thing that you can have ripped away from you. And we don't have time to go into all of the correlations between Surat Yusuf and the experience of the prisoners in the US, but the overwhelming majority of prisoners in the US are of which race. African Americans, is that because they're because they have a higher incidence of criminality? No, it's not. Statistics have shown that for every 100 convictions of crack cocaine, there's one conviction of cocaine. This is like, they're arguing that this is Senate committees. It's not just like conspiratory theories. Who's using cocaine? Who's using crack cocaine? So the laws are designed to have more people of minorities, especially African American males in prison than other than other than other groups. And if you read, there's a lot of history that's been done that this influx of African American males into into prisons. When did it happen? When did it start? No. No, go back. Before Jim Crow. Right after slavery. Right after slavery. There's and there's there's research done, you can go like look and find there's research done on this. It's right after slavery. And there's a lot of historians that have researched the numbers on this and they're showing that these that the people that have cheap labor slavery because you still got to pay them, right? You're giving them food and clothing, shelter, whatever rags or whatever. You still have to pay them. You're giving them the leftovers, but you're still paying them. Now they've lost this great labor force that they had. What did they do? The prisons. The change gangs and they used to just bring him into prison and now it's still same thing. It's a different system, but now cheap labor. And if you look at the 14th amendment, slavery is outlawed in the U.S. except for as a punishment for a crime. You can still have slaves in the U.S. You still can and the CDC has them and the federal Bureau of Prison have them and then they get them in those in the prison industries and they're paying them seven cents an hour, nine cents an hour, 10 cents an hour. They'll be lucky if they got 75 cents an hour making making that money. It's just cheap labor for them. So use of alai salam was sold into slavery. A lot of these people were sold into slavery. And then if they weren't sold into slavery, their communities were flooded with cheap alcohol and cheap and drugs and all of these other things and weapons and so forth. And so now they're enslaved to a life of drugs or alcohol or gambling just look at you can't even find fresh vegetables. Could you find fresh vegetables in like south central Compton those areas? Like nice vegetable stores. But there's plenty of liquor, right? Plenty of liquor. So that and that's not done. You don't go up into Dublin, Blackhawk and all that stuff and see liquor stores in every corner. So there's there's city planning. There's there's there's permits that have to be taken whatever there's a there's a process that's that's making that happen. So they're being sold into slavery just like use of alai salam was sold into slavery. Now, let's fast forward because we can't go through all of the story of use of alai salam. But when he goes into prison and one interesting thing to know about him going to the prison is that a prophet's dua is answered all the time and Allah will answer the dua of anybody. And there's some ulama that say that you have to be in a righteous state and you have to be a good person to have your dua answered and other ulama said No, no, you don't Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala when he said I answered dua I answer everybody's dua. What did the shaitan make a dua for? Give make me give me immortal life. Give me immortal life. What did he get? Mortal life. You made a dua you asked for it. One thing that really struck me I was reading about we were trying to look into some stuff to say to processes to save some manuscripts from West Africa because it's one of the last strongholds of where a lot of manuscripts are and they're not preserved. And so I came across a website of the University of Michigan had donated or not donated but given this 800 pounds of titanic recovered material whatever it was and it's all waterlogged so you can't open up those books you have to go through a special chemical process and one of the letters that was there was from a young man like he was a young teenager who long story short he was from South America boarding school in in in Europe in Britain and he was on a ship to go back to his or to go to his sister's wedding in New York City. You can imagine the affluence that he's coming from right his parents are in South America. He's at a boarding school going to take a ship to his sister's wedding and in New York. He misses or he's not able to get on the ship that he was supposed to get on to because of a cold strike. So they put him on to the Titanic. Well, they found they recovered his suitcase and in it is a letter and he's writing this letter to his family. He says he's writing about his disgust of being on the Titanic rather than the other ship that he was supposed to be on a couple of days ago and he said I hate this ship. I wish it would sink to the bottom of the ocean and Subhanallah, Rahim. I saw that letter in a museum in Michigan at the Ford Museum where they had the Titanic exhibit. They had that letter there. Allah with it whether it was his Dua but he wished for it and there's a saying be careful of what you wish for because you just might get it. So if you make a Dua you're going to get it the way you ask for it and that's why they say it's Haram to ask for the Haram because you just might get it and so you don't want to even open up that door. Now I'm saying that, you know, we have sometimes as regular human beings, non-profits, we can have bad edab in something and do and do a Dua that's not proper. The profits cannot do anything Haram and I want to preface that because I'm about to say something about Yusuf alaihi salam. What was his Dua when he was dealing with the the tribulation the fitna of society? What did he say? What's that? He says I'd rather have prison. You ask for it. He could have asked for Oh Allah, free me from this fitna. Allah would have given him that. But he asked, he said, put me in the prison. I'd rather be in prison than have to deal with this. He got it. That's just a reminder to us when you sit down there and you make Dua especially for parents against children. They said be careful because parents for their children their Dua is always answered. So don't make a Dua against your children. And one man came to a scholar and he was complaining about his son. He says my son does this my son does this my son does this. The scholar looked at him. He said, did you make Dua against your child? And the man thought he said, Yes, I did. He said, well, you're dealing with the situation. You caused it. You you asked for a bad situation for him. And now you got it. It doesn't make it right that he's mistreating you but you're the one that started this. So we should be careful when we're making Dua. Now, Yusuf alaihi salam goes into prison. One of the first thing that he does you can imagine and it's not even no matter how hard the modern prisons are like California prisons, federal prisons. It's not like the dungeons of yesterday. The dungeons of Firaun, the dungeons of Firaun were underground dungeons, no windows, no light, nothing. The and there are some modern dungeons where they do that. There's a place in Morocco where the late King of Morocco, Hasan Attani, there was a rebellion and he took all the people involved in that military attempted military coup and he put him in a in a prison in Southern Morocco called Tas Marat. And I was reading about it in this guidebook of of Morocco and they said, and if you ever mentioned this name of this city to any Moroccan, they'll shudder. And so I tried. I said, let me try this. So I asked the Moroccan. I said, have you ever heard of a prison in Southern Morocco? It's called Tas Marat. He's like, and what happened at that prison is that he had these guys prison in 20 for 20 years in small cement boxes about the size of this thing. They couldn't even stand up. This is and this is not like some of those guys had got out. And they said they some of the way they dealt with the with the they go, you know, the because you're going to go insane. If you if you put somebody in that for a couple of hours, you're going to go crazy. We're all naturally claustrophobic at one level or another because it's fit the fitra is reminding us of the cover of the grave. So they said one of the ways that the the men that actually survived that was through a spiritual brotherhood that they had created. So they had created. They had done their own created their own form of Tasawuf to deal with the madness of being engaged in in cement boxes. So if it on had underground dungeons, you can imagine what the the Kings over there. They didn't have you know, the some of the the the some of the federal prisoners send send emails to us. We answer questions of one email. These people are in dungeons when use of alaihi s-salam comes in. He's a he brings up he he lifts up their life when they look everybody looking at him. Just imagine looking at a profit. Could you imagine just looking at a beautiful face of of any profit, especially use of alaihi s-salam who was given half of the beauty in the world. And the other half was given to to to the rest of humanity. And somebody one time asked one of the scholars. He said, well, if use of was given half where does the Prophet sallallahu alaihi s-salam come in. He said when we're talking about half and half half for use of half for everybody else who's whole are we talking about? Who's the whole that we're talking about? We're talking about the Prophet sallallahu alaihi s-salam So they're looking at him. He he lifts them up and when those two men that came in with the that they had the dream and they wanted to ask about the dream. They said, what did they say to use of alaihi s-salam? They went to him. Inna naraqah and you know and the Waheebs got him. Did you memorize Waheeb Surah to use of alaihi s-salam? Where's Waheeb? No, not yet. You did. Inna naraqah Pop quiz. Okay, he's nervous. I'm not going to put him on side. Meen al-muhsineen. They came up to him and they said, we see you from the good people. We see you as a person of goodness. Tell us about this dream. So they tell him the two dreams. He gives him the explanation. He tells one of them you're going to you're going to be executed. And what happened was in that story because it the details aren't always mentioned in the in the in the Surah. It's left. It's kind of almost like an outline and there's a hadith that fill in the blanks and there's also tafsir. Some of the early Sahaba were the Jewish like Ka'bel-e-Akhbar and he had access to Jewish scriptures. So he filled in some of the blanks of some of these stories because people say well, where do we get like where do we get some of this tafsir? He had access to some of the Jewish scriptures and he filled and he used to teach a lot. And then also we have the Israeliyat. We have the Jewish scriptures. And so some of this is filled in by by by other scriptures. So what happened was those there was a person. The the baker was going to poison the king. The plot was found out. He blamed it on the guy who pours the wine. And so the the king he threw both of them in prison and was going to execute both of them. Then they had this dream. Then the guy said I see myself carrying bread and the birds eating the bread from my head and the other man said I see myself pouring drink for the for the king and Yusuf alaihi salam gave them the gave them the tafsir of that. And when they when the one man went out that was going back to the king what did he say to him? Remind the king about just remind him because the king locked him up for fear of a of a of a scandal. Right. That's why he didn't want the scandal. You know we see it now in the news. Right. All these big guys up at the top the scandal breaks and that's it. They're wiped out. So he didn't want this scandal to break and wipe out his section of the of the empire of the of the Egyptian Empire. He wasn't the main guy. He was like he was a minister. And so he he jailed Yusuf but then he forgot him. And that's some of the that's some of the situations in there. Yusuf's talking about a deep the system just forgets you. The system will forget those people in prison and now just counts it off and it's just a deep and I know him personally a deep is just he's just a piece of paper to the state of California. That's it. And maybe his file gets misplaced and oh couple years later Oh we need to address this. Right. Or maybe they just like oh we can't deal with this section of the file. Put it in storage. We'll deal with it and in 2014 when we need a reelection or something. So they just forget them. There's also people. There's one person who he went recently to the board of parole hearings and one of the things that they want to see when they when they see are you suitable for being released. They say do you have remorse about your crime. Well he was claiming innocence. So he said you know what I'm innocent. So they said you're denied denied. So he went back the next time. He said yes I feel very remorseful for the crime that I committed this that the other. They said well you know here in the the case it actually says that you're innocent. So how are you saying that you're you're remorseful for your crime like we've we don't have enough evidence to say that you're guilty. Why are you saying you're innocent now and now you're denied on that you're you're you're trying to mess up the system. They're agreeing that he's innocent. It's just the system the paperwork hasn't caught up with him to let him out. Now they're saying well you know this doesn't add up. So the system can forget you and that's what happened to Yusuf alaihi salam the system forgot him. And so he was in there for nine years before these two men came in there. When the one man went back to the king he said remind the king about me. Well when the king when that man went out what what did the shaitan do to him? He made him forget made him forget Yusuf. Now here's the here's the forgotten believer but it's not Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala that's forgetting him. It's the people and the system. So three years go by his whole his total sentence was 12 years and then finally the break came with the dream being the dream the king having the dream or the minister having the king having the dream and nobody being able to interpret it. Yusuf alaihi salam gives it gives an interpretation and they say let's free you. He said yes but before you free me I want you to exonerate me. I don't want to come back into society and people say that I did a B.C. You make sure it's publicly known that I'm cleared and it was actually Zuleikha the wife of the the minister she clears she said it was I falsely charged him I falsely accused him. So then Yusuf alaihi salam comes out he's in charge of the storehouses of the earth of of Misr and then we know his family comes and they and they they come and they see him and it's really Subhanallah. Subhanallah. When you read the last part of that that story where he does everything and then and then Yusuf he asks his brothers because now they you know he did the the thing where he put the the the king's cup in the in the in the baggage and the why did Yusuf alaihi salam put the baggage the cup in the baggage because he knew their law the law of of their of them at that time Ben-Israib was that a thief if he's caught he becomes the slave of the person he stole from that that was their sharia so he knew that so when he put it in there he said okay you guys you have a thief amongst you they said no no no thief amongst you he said okay if there is a thief amongst you what are we going to do Yusuf knows but he's getting them to say he said well our laws that he becomes your slave he said okay now search the baggage okay binyamin stays with me then he goes back to the next process and then the brothers the brothers come back and then he asks them and one of the Mufasereen say that Yusuf alaihi salam was still wearing his shirt that that that he because they remember when they threw him in the well they took off his shirt to go put the sheet blood on it to take back to his father but around his neck he had an amulet and in that amulet he had a silk shirt and this silk shirt was from Jannah and Yaqub his father had tied it around Yusuf alaihi salam where did he get this shirt he got it from his father Ishaq where did Ishaq get this shirt from he got it from his father Ibrahim alaihi salam who Jibreel alaihi salam gave it to him when when Ibrahim was in the fire and all his clothes got burned his skin didn't get burned but his clothes got burned and he brought him the silk garment from Jannah Ibrahim wore it he gave it to Ishaq Ishaq gave it to Yaqub Yaqub tied it in an amulet around Yusuf when he was in the well he opened it up and that's what he wore and that's what he continued to wear so he was wearing that when he was speaking to his brothers and so they looked at him but something wasn't adding up it was as if they recognized the shirt but this can't be Yusuf and then he said what did you guys do with Yusuf and they say is that you Yusuf? and now they go back he takes off that shirt sends it to Yaqub alaihi salam and then Yaqub comes into the land they all come in it was Yaqub his wife and his 11 sons and they all bowed out of respect and now the dream comes true the sun and the moon his parents and the 11 stars his brothers bowed down in respect to him you know how long it took from the time he had that dream until it became true 40 years 40 years and Yusuf alaihi salam he waited out that 40 years and he knew that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala would never forget him Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala has made a promise to us as believers he's going to fulfill his waad he's going to fulfill his process all we have to do is wait it might take a year it might take two years it might take 30 years it might take 40 years so with that I want to end and mashallah it's a blessing to be able to speak about the prophets because they say when we speak about the prophets and the righteous people Allah descends mercy on that gathering I'll end before the before the documentary just talking a little bit about what we do at the Thayba Foundation to remember the Forgotten Believers a section of the Forgotten Believers one interesting thing to me was that when we put this documentary out in Ramadan there was another documentary going out called Forgotten Believers as well did anybody see it? about the Muslims in Myanmar that are being dislocated from their homeland and so forth read about them and it was a reminder to me that even though our organization serves these brothers in prisons these brothers and sisters in prison there's plenty of Forgotten Believers out there and there's plenty of Forgotten people so what we have to do is go out and be the people that remember these people the orphans the poor and the and so forth what we do is when these prisoners need an outside line to the community we we respond to their letters and we receive hundreds of letters and we also deal with the letters of some organizations that don't have the capacity to have a prison outreach program and and so they give us their letters Zaituna Institute or Zaituna College is one of those organizations they any letters that come to them from the prison they give them to us and we have a collaboration with them and that we answer those those letters some of those letters are just a simple question or a or a request for something a Quran a prayer rug prayer beads questions about the Dean questions about last will and testament yesterday we got a letter from a brother who was inside prison who became Muslim in prison and he was diagnosed with kidney failure and he wants to know can you help me design right out my will so we're helping him with that and also trying to make his whatever life he has remained and he's in a type of solitary confinement so it means he's in a cell by himself for 23 and a half hours a day so we answer those letters some of those letters turn into students they there's we have an application process they become students and then we we involve them in our distance learning program where we send them books and audio commentaries and answer and answer their questions and go through a certification process to make sure that they've answered those letters some prisons we work directly with the chaplains that are there at the at the prisons we also in this whole process we have a board of advisors comprised of one who's a non-profit a tax accountant and he deals with a lot of the accounts for ikna mca a lot of the nonprofits here in the Bay Area and he's on our board of advisors we also have a lawyer who's on our a non-profit lawyer who's on our board of advisors so and chaplains and all of this is to make sure that we keep everything in line because when we're working with in the prisons it's a very sensitive situation especially for the Muslims in the prison so we have to be where we have to realize we're walking on thin ice with the law in that we're we're doing everything by the books and staying well within the boundaries but we always have to have these board of advisors consulted on various issues that come up that's the majority of what we're working on right now is our religious education through the distance learning program we also have hopes in the future to be to be able to service the prisoners at at various levels one is through having a reentry program right now we don't have a an official or I won't say it is official but it's not the majority of our focus is not on the reentry but we do help people as they're coming back into society in whatever capacity that we can but the majority of our focus right now is on our distance education but we're working for the towards the reentry we're also working with other organizations like one that was founded by Yusuf and Taha to call the timeless organization that does that focuses on non-religious based rehabilitation and mashallah they just got they're going to be called into the what does it call the board of parole hearings up in Sacramento so that's that's a big a big so we're going to go in to he's going to to speak about those programs that he's doing and play but has been alongside helping out in whatever capacity that we can with that we take the the resources that we need the main resources human resource we need people to come in and be dedicated and help us various things and operations volunteers events like this spreading the word also going into the prisons and jails as visitors we need monetary donations for operations we also take Zakat and we use the cat to pay for the religious educational materials of of the prisoners so if you donate the cat it's transformed into books and CDs Islamic books and CDs and that goes into the prison prison sometimes actually in one case excuse me we use the cat money to pay for a lawyer and that lawyer was essential in in getting out a person from prison and so we had and we have a guidelines for our Zakat distribution approved reviewed and approved by a number of Muslim scholars Mufti Abdul Rahman, Sheikh Faraz Rabani, Sheikh Tami Mahmadi and I was the one who developed it and it's actually now used by a couple of other organizations as their Zakat distribution methodology we use it in the traditional method and by that I mean we don't use any Zakat for our operations it's all for programs and that's the traditionally accepted opinion that Zakat has to be used for programs directly benefiting the recipients we also have a program where we're sponsoring students so it's not to where you would know the individual directly but your donations could be assigned to a specific person and that would cover their educational materials we also have projects and one we have displayed over there that was our first course that we've developed a book in an audio commentary CD and it took a long time to get everything the whole system from the recording and developing the tracks and working with the sound engineers to printing it but now we have the system down and we have a lot of audio material a lot of audio material has been donated to us by seekers guidance by Zemzem Academy a number of online academies that have a lot of wealth of audio material and we just need to get it into the prison and then we work with the prisons of each prison has various rules and regulations some can receive the CDs directly some it has to go through the chaplain some can't receive it at all so we have to give a transcript of the commentary and so forth so those projects that we have if you're interested in sponsoring a project like as a Sadaqa Jaria maybe for a deceased relative we're doing that as well where we take money to sponsor a project to get some material to final production and that would be a Sadaqa Jaria that we would then distribute to students of knowledge in the prison right now we have 150 accepted students and we have a wait list of 75 students and it's growing every week it's just people are saying all over the US now from all over the US men and women they're asking to be part of this so I took a little bit longer than I had originally planned for I hope staying till 4 rather than 3.30 is not as much of an inconvenience for everybody but right now what we'll do is we'll show the video and then we'll have a panel discussion to answer questions about that anybody has one project that we have right now is that we would like we have, Alhamdulillah, we have dedicated people talented people that are talented in the audio visual realm but we just need some equipment in our office right now we're using the former Zaituna Zaituna Institute office in Hayward, California it's part of the collaboration where we're dealing we're taking on their prison outreach work and they're allowing us the use of the facility so Alhamdulillah we have an office that's not draining our draining our budget we have the people we just now need equipment everybody's been using their own personal laptops and I mean even myself my laptop crashed last week and I had to get another laptop so everybody's using their own personal laptops we would like to get a very solid computer and the to do some of the audio visual work that we need and what was recommended to us by people that are well acquainted with that is to get a Mac so a Macintosh to do that material and we'd also like to get another desktop for our volunteers when they come in to be able to answer and respond to all of these questions we would like a budget of $1,500 to $2,000 for those two computers and for other associated things that would be a Sadaqa Jadia if you're interested in an ongoing charity that's something that's going to be very essential to our organization in the back we have coin jars that if you'd like to take a coin jar and just have it in your home doesn't have to be placed in a business and we record it and then those donations we collect them and we also give you a tax receipt for those is there anything else? okay and the coin jars it's like very it's good for us and it's good for you because for you in your home it gives you the opportunity of doing a Sadaqa on a daily basis even if it's just a penny and trust me those pennies add up when we run it through the machines to see that and the average that those jars bring us is $250 a year so it's very good and you don't even notice it it's just the spare change and we call the program make a change with change and you will be making a change with change because all of those coins in the quarters and the we can't right now we have a lot of Chuck E. Cheese Money and some other world currency Khalil was tripping was interested in all the world currency we get you know somebody comes back from a trip they're like well it's Sadaqa the world currency we can donate to the we can have converted at the banks but the Chuck E. Cheese Money we still haven't figured out how to how to deal with that it's there's a value to it so it's in a manner we have to figure out maybe guys want to buy some Chuck E. Cheese Money so we'll start now with the I was sentenced to 16 years of life and for a second degree murder I started my time about 91 my case my crime was actually committed in 89 but I was out on bail this and that in the county so my time actually started in February 1991 I had a lifestyle that was you know just crazy so once I went to the hole during that time it allowed me that break to just read things like that because during the time you know whole you pretty much in solitary confinement you know isolation so pretty much the only thing you're going to be doing is either writing letters or reading so during that time I started requesting books I knew I was going to be doing some reading so I started asking the guys on the tier as they call it you know where we live you know you kind of like shouting out of the sale block you know asking for books or whatever and so I ended up with an almanac a world almanac and in the world almanac it had a section on religion so I said you know what I'm gonna just read that because I was in search I was actually I went to the hole I messed up you know I said man let me try to get myself right let me look at some things right reassess some things so when I started reading the different religions Judaism Hinduism Buddhism I was reading all these different things when I got to Islam as I read that whole section it kind of broke down the pillars it talked about different the articles of faith and things like that and it really was attractive it made sense it seemed practical so after I completed reading this I said that this is it so I immediately got up and went to my cell door and started yelling out the tier telling the staff you know the state you know workers that I need a Quran after I got maybe to the first through the first couple of chapters halfway through Surah Baqarah Surah the second chapter of the Quran I knew I was going to be Muslim I just got up and I yelled out the tier because it was a few guys I'd been communicating with on the tier there I said for a hero now I'm a Muslim just so y'all know I'm a Muslim and they was like okay whatever you know I was in a prison in Kalinga so now now that I'm here in this hellhole I'm like at the bottom of the ladder of life and I need to find something that's going to uplift me I guess that's what it was Allah finally it based me enough to the point to where now you're at the point to where you're going to hear me when you find something and you feel that it's for real and you try to be serious you do it the best you can so that's what happened with me and so it took Shahada I'm gonna lie 1998 you know it was a trip the journey was for me was real good because I had been reading all these books I had accumulated you know I had read the entire volumes of a Bukhari I went through each volume I was on quest for knowledge I just want to knowledge you so every day I would try to seek out the brothers that I knew that was there the inmates among the Muslim inmates and ask them for knowledge you know whatever they had if it was learning the prayer if it was the Arabic whatever it was I was like you know give it to me give me some books to go back with a year later you should have showed up on the yard and then that time he really introduced us into studying Fik he was the one that really said look you know we didn't there's more to Islam than just you know the five pillars so that's when we started really started we started just learning Juma and we started to educate each other you know I felt like it was important that I teach the Muslims that was there that would come in contact with so that when they get out and go to their families and go to their community you know they have something to offer or even if it's just themselves being you know sound we wrote to a whole bunch of organizations whole bunch of massages all over and no one would answer us then we got a we did get a letter back from Zaytuna actually I was with brother you said when we got that letter back and everything so you know Hamdullah you know me and Yusuf sat for many many many nights together talking about man when we get out we're going to do this we're going to do that and but you know he had life and I was getting out and I actually got out in 2002 so right up to the time that I was leaving he was just like brother Yusuf Yusuf Zaytuna first one from our little Jamal that's going to get out and sorry I had been telling him before he had got out before he had paroled make sure that he goes to Zaytuna you know brother make sure you get down to Zaytuna and and find the brothers that's basically what I said find the brothers I you know now we saw brothers come we saw brothers come and go we saw brothers Muslims leave us from that prison and say oh yeah brother when I get out man I'm a put you know they knew our dilemma that we didn't have no outside contact with a lot of the massage and so we was always we were seeking this knowledge man we was hungry for this knowledge and we couldn't get it from nobody and so like all these brothers that get out they were like yeah man yeah I'm going to go to this place and I'm going to hook you guys up I'm going to have people come back in here and write you and and give you the material that you need and we said okay and we all these empty promises you know the brothers got out nothing never happened so a use of told me that look man the core out of the core I was the first one from the core to get out and he just said brother it's up to you now and I'm like it's show up man I'm not going to let us down you know and then I got out I would have to say that the beginnings of Tlava started back in 2002 and it was I met a brother named Ansari Greenwell and he was he was in prison and he came out and he was studying he was a group of of dedicated students with it within the prison they didn't have many resources but whatever they had whatever Arabic books books on usul books on fiqh books on aqidah they were studying them and really soaking them up I said hey Rami you know there's this brother man that I was in prison with the name use of man look he's he's like the album for us in there and I and what happened was I had this little fake book this little book that I took notes with and when I got out and was got to know Rami and everything and then one day I was studying that I was going through my book and I was like oh yeah what's the deal a little what's the deal on that shit you know you tell Rami what's the deal on that and and he was like what's that book you got and I was like oh there's just some notes and then he looked he went through my book and he was like what did you learn this he was amazed I was like man we learned that I learned that in prison he's like what he couldn't believe it that we this extensive little book of fake that I had and he's like man you touch it and I said yeah man I said I was what I'm telling you I'm with this brother named Yusuf and we learned we taught each other there since that's how then I said look you really need to help this brother further his quest for sacred knowledge so then he comes to tell me there's a brother named Yusuf Wiley who's in prison he's leading a number of of Halakas in teaching questions. I said this brother needs to needs to needs to further his studies and and have and have access to a teacher so I started teaching Yusuf in 2002 through collect phone calls really that I would pay out of my own wasn't associated with any organization so we kept that up for a number of years and we we studied a number of texts the introduction of introductory Fik through Ibn Ashid and Akhdari the purification of the heart Matarat Al-Qulu by Muhammad Maulu the prohibitions of the tongue by Muhammad Maulu the Ajru Mia and Arabic grammar a number of other texts by Muhammad Maulu the the rights of the parents the the poem of reflection the Eddab of the student by Imam Zarnoji also Mustalah Al-Hadith Al-Bayt Punea Osoo the Osoo the Osoo and and all of this and and along with this also he's asking questions and I'm you know responding to the questions and so it's building up his his his studies and then he turns around directly and starts teaching other people and so then we is that we we founded Tlaibah Foundation 2008 to as an educational and charitable organization to continue this by that time he had gotten the he had got he had studied all of his far dine to where at mastery level and and even for the kifaya sciences and he was busy in in in teaching other people rehabilitation programs and then in his own fight to get in his own legal battle to get out of prison when he when he went up for the board review and we were waiting for the response this was in December I believe it was the 21st I I saw some emails and I was looking at some other some other emails and I had just passed by the email on my phone from the governor legal affairs office and then I clicked on it and this is basically going to say like whether or not which means another 2, 3, 4, 5 years and this process has to start again so I looked at it and it said the governor has this has denied to review the case which means he's he's free but as I'm reading it I'm saying am I reading it right am I reading it wrong and so I went over and I and I looked at it and it said you know I it finally hit me that okay he's going to be free and I went and I I immediately went and I prayed Salata Shokor and when I I remember clearly having my forehead on the ground you know and at that and it was it was a sedgeday that I've been waiting for for years to be able to you know to thank a lot for for what he for what he's done for us in the dream you know yeah like a ms in the dream 21 years later you know I just feel walking into like just like driving around in the city driving to Berkeley Bowl with Insati? Yeah, it's just, it's no words for it. It's really no words for it. Yeah, it's no words for it, you know what I mean? I think that once I sleep and wake up, make sure I don't wake up inside having all the state prisons. I know you're gonna beat you right here, man. Hey, you know what? How does it feel to look like out of a big, green field and know that you're not in a no, no, no, grass period. There's some barbara, what barbara right there, razor wire. Grass, though. We didn't have grass. We didn't have grass, we only had dirt. Wow. So how long has it been since you seen grass? It's been a while. How about trees? It's been a long, long while. Trees, yeah. I wanted to touch some trees too, when I was in the van before. Did they let you? No, I didn't get a chance to get out. Yeah, they have a smell. Yusuf made a vow. He made a vow with Allah. He said, he later told me this, but he made a vow with Allah that he said, Oh God, if you get me out of prison, release me from prison, I will dedicate myself to serving the community every single day. And he means the community, humanity, not just the Muslim community, but the human community every single day. So since he's been out, he's been involved in a number of projects. And with us, he dedicates a lot of time helping the Tava Foundation in our distance education course, because there's a lot of other usifs out there. And there's a lot of other potential. And there's one thing that always amazes me about the prisoners, the inmates, is the amount of potential that they have. And, you know, we see whether it's questions of Fiqh, or understanding of Tafsir, Arabic, you know, we get, I see their work in Arabic and their writing in Arabic, and they're all doing this in the confines of prison, and with extremely limited resources. So what we want to do is replicate the model. So whereas it previously was myself, one person, teaching one student, or two or three students, we want to be able to have a team of teachers teaching hundreds of students. A promise is big, and it's not. So if you didn't do something, and you didn't rectify, you just let the weeks go by, you know what, I never took my off to the store that day, and it's blah, blah, blah. Did you ever call me and I said, you know what, I apologize, I know I promised to teach you to the store last week, and I didn't even get around to it. Yeah, you gotta make talk, brother. You asked about the letters, and can one person handle it? And really, when you open a letter from an inmate, it's not really just read the letter, respond to them. You're opening in to the life of a human being, and a life of a human being that really feels forgotten. A lot of the Muslim inmates feel forgotten in the Muslim community. They identify themselves as part of the greater umma, but they don't have a connection to them. You know, even if they send out mail to organizations, those organizations and massage it, especially if they don't have a prison outreach program, they're not able to respond. So you're getting a person that's been writing for years and years and not getting a response. The Muslims didn't embrace them. So they wrote that Masjid in their neighborhood that they was paroling to, but that Masjid didn't write them back. So going in there now, hey, y'all didn't get my letter? You know, they not, see what I'm saying? There's this disconnect. Because you can see, we just get stacks and stacks of letters, and each one is going to involve a lot of care and concern because if they don't get a response, then as if they feel, well, just one more time, here's another organization we've written and they haven't written back to us. So when I read the mail every Friday and we set up all of the mail to be responded to starting on Monday, so when I'm sitting there at my desk and reading these, one time it struck me, just reading letter after letter and hearing people saying that they don't have any connection, you know, there's nobody responding to them. And I asked another brother who was in prison. I said, did it ever feel when you were writing organizations that you were like stuck on a desert island, putting a message in a bottle and throwing it out there and just hoping one day that it'll float to somebody and that one day somebody will open it and actually be able to respond. And he said, that's exactly how we felt. So every time I open those letters, it's like opening a message in a bottle and just somebody just with a hope and a desire that just wants to learn more about their faith. This is where my prison outreach started and starting getting all the letters, I started getting so many letters, you can see even with my filing, it just got too much for me to handle. And these letters, this is letters from Yusuf going back to 2003. And then Yusuf's letters in correspondence with me became so much that I actually had to have binders just for him. But I wanted to read one letter that, and it just kind of sums up what a lot of people feel because at the end of the day, these are human beings, at the end of every one of these files, at the end of every one of these letters is a human being with a heart, with feelings. And so this brother writes, he says, Alhamdulillah, the ugliness of this prison and my imprisonment is balanced by my ties of Iman and Islam to you and other mu'minun. The harshness of my existence is softened by Allah's mercy manifesting itself through you and the mu'minun. Alhamdulillah, Alhamdulillah, Alhamdulillah. May Allah bless you with new and illuminating insights and guide you in piety and righteousness to success in this life and success in the after. First and foremost, the Muslims have to understand that the brothers inside are generally Muslim. I think that's the biggest issue, especially for them inside. They feel like the Muslims in free society don't look at them as Muslims. I think that's the biggest single thing that the Muslims need to know out here is that they literally believe that the Muslims in free society don't consider them genuine or bona fide Muslims. Therefore, they don't help them. You want somebody coming back out there as still a thug or a gangbanger or a revert back to this old lifestyle, hustling and being a difficult neighbor to you or somebody that gets out that's generally Muslim and that has Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala on their heart and they're connected with a community that cared about them while they was in there. You see what I'm saying? Alhamdulillah, I'm trying to do the work and like I said from the beginning, the last talk that I gave while I was inside was service, urabidea, and urabidea from the standpoint of to Allah but also to humanity, the rest of humanity. And I think that as long as I stay in that mindset of being of service that everything else is going to fall into play. We are the Ansar. We're the helper of the people, man. And that's all we want to do, man, is help people. That's all I ever want to do is do the best I can. To help the human being. So I think the support an organization like this would actually fit society as a whole. Not just the Muslim community, but society at large. A number of Muslims in prison, they refer to themselves as the forgotten believers. And so what we want to do is to bridge the gap between our Muslim brothers in prison and the community that does have concern for them if they knew about their situation. But in a lot of situations, they just don't know. And so we just want to remind them and remind them to remember their forgotten Muslim brothers and sisters in prison.