 before saying anything I want to sincerely thank MCC for the second year I believe in a role inviting us here and being generous enough and having enough foresight to essentially initiate the invitation to have us come and to share space and to have it all together and this is slowly but surely kind of becoming many of our home message even if we live far away so we're very thankful for the support and the love that we're shown by this community generally and by many individuals specifically and also by particulars always very very should we say diligent in attempting to give us opportunities to serve together so we're very thankful to you for that may Allah reward you and continue to bless this community and increase it Proves by knows me from about the time I had been Muslim as long as John was so this is it's fascinating to see all of this happen because it's a story that's being called that's not just our story but it's a story of the prophets in general and an extension of the story of Prophet Muhammad Sallallahu alayhi wa sallam specifically new blood is very important to a religious community and I believe is very important for the Muslim community for a number of reasons and because of the amount of time we have maybe to focus on a couple of those and then if anyone has any specific questions that we can talk a little bit about at least specific approach to encouraging healthy conversion and helping Muslims upon their conversion but it's important one as a reminder to us as a community that as much as we experience and love the experience of practicing our religion it's a reminder that it's not our religion and what I mean by that is if we do or don't practice it the religion is going to go on and Allah reminds us in the Quran when he says O you who believe man yarteh deminkum a'indinihi fa sofa yati lalumi qomin you hibbuhum wa you hibbuhum naguh O you who believe and this is very important because it's an address to the believers O you who believe whoever amongst you turns back from their religion so it's not it's addressing people who believe saying whoever man yarteh deminkum a'indinihi whoever turns back on their heels leaving the religion God is going to bring a people in their place in other words if you think that you are God's gift to Islam know that it has nothing to do with you right if you say I don't feel like doing this anymore you're easily replaceable so fa sofa yati lalumi qomin Allah will bring people in your place and then he says something very profound you hibbuhum he loves them or you hibbuhum and they love him so it's a reminder to all of us convert born Muslim and whatever in between regardless of how you became Muslim know that now that you are Muslim that you're blessed to be Muslim and you're fortunate to be Muslim but Islam will continue with or without you and it's interesting that this verse was actually revealed before the passing of the prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam because as soon as the prophet passes Arab tribes begin to leave Islam they begin to throw in the top they begin to refuse to pay the zakat and al-wabakr as-sadiq initiates a campaign to address that specifically because as soon as the prophet passes they begin to leave Islam so it's foretelling the reality that there will be people who give up and we're in a time when many many Muslims are checking out many many Muslims are checking out or are checked out and new blood is very important for that reason it's also important specifically it's like what Dr. Asaq Tarsim calls he calls the convert the canary in the coal mine what do we mean by that you know the miners when they go down into the mine they had to make sure that there wasn't toxic gas in the mine with them so they would take a canary in the little cage and if the canary died that meant what? get out of the mine because if the canary can't make it that means that the miners are going to die right after and a lot of times with gas you can't necessarily smell it and you definitely can't see it so a lot of times people would just end up dead and they didn't know what it was that killed them so they carry a canary why? poor canaries little murders of birds aren't they? they died before the miners actually were sick but the convert is like the canary in the coal mine of America in Islam we don't really know some of the things that are that are happening there's a lot going on that is beyond what we realize if you hear about it in the news that means it already got to the news there's a lot of things happening in the society that doesn't get to the news there's a lot of things happening that are that are not even necessarily outward phenomenon that are impacting the reality of our experience so the convert is a canary in the coal mine if you look at the converts and you say this is working for them and it's working to strengthen their e-mail and to strengthen their connection and to increase them in knowledge and to make them people who are empowered in their practice of Islam and have been afforded the opportunity to have a meaningful relationship with their Lord if it works for them it's going to work for future generations of Muslims in America if you take people John's family, as I understand are Greek immigrants it was probably two generations ago or three generations ago one generation ago they came here but John how many times of walking around school do you identify necessarily as Greek? but people that walk up and say where are you from, you don't say Greece they thank you from a movie you guys don't even realize a movie is Greek you don't identify you say you're from free meaning John's an American kid who may have decided from Greek ancestry so John converts to Islam if it's working for him if he's learning about so many meaningful ways we've got to look critically at that we've got to say this is something that works because it'll work for our kids regardless of where we come from but conversely if there's things that are rubbing converts the wrong way and not because they don't have thick enough skin or not because they're just being sensitive or not because they were wimps but because there's something really wrong then we've got to look at that as potential gas in the mind because if the canaries are dying then it may say something very problematic about the reality for the future people in this country and that's something that as a community we've got to look deeper at because far too often there's a dichotomous conversation around converts and people for Islam and there's almost a tendency to take converts and make them tokenistic represented like trophies almost of American Islam and that's problematic because that's not what it's about it's about the new blood that represents what's going to work for future generations in America what would American Islam be like minus Sheikh Hamza minus Malcolm X minus Imam Murad al-Din Muhammad minus Siraj Mohaj minus Ingrid Madsen she's a Canadian but she's close enough minus and so on and so forth but at least it goes on it would be a very different situation I mean simply put I wouldn't be sitting here I wouldn't have known Probez I wouldn't have known many of the people in the room of Sheikh Hamza Imam Zayb wouldn't have been there we wouldn't have had the connections that we had and that's just a scratch on the surface of the impact that the new blood of American Islam through conversion has brought so the canary in the coal mine is really really important and then finally conversion to Islam is a powerful testimony to Islam as a transformative power in the life of people as individuals to even think about the fact that we chuckle at, you know, I drink a beer because I thought wine was prohibitive people go oh that's you know that's funny it was funny a lot too but think about the fact that this isn't an individual who may have grown up drinking and because Islam says you know what boom I don't drink anymore done alcohol student any number of us who before Islam may have taken relationships with the opposite sex as something light and frivolous that you can do whatever you want however you want with whoever you want to do it with becomes Muslim and says no there's a certain way that I'm going to engage the opposite sex in a responsible way and if it's not in the context of marriage forget about it transformative, majorly transformative there was a brother that I know that went to prison for robbery pretty serious robbery and he became Muslim in prison and had a similar experience of what John just said he said I heard the Adhan and it shook my core brother said he went to the prayer one time and the person decided the fact he had he heard it recited and it shook his heart he knew Islam was true became Muslim in the prison and then learned about Islam he gets out and he learned about glazing you guys know glazing installing glass he was a glazer but he got a job in a glazing company and eventually he got called for a job at Bank of America and he was installing glass behind one of the like the walled areas in Bank of America and he said these people have no idea that the same person who used to rob banks is now installing glass in a bank and the only thing stopping me from doing what I used to do is the fact that I know what law is watching me it's the only thing stopping me I'm still the same guy like it's still me and I still remember how to do that that's the scary part I'm not talking about myself y'all this isn't like I have a friend it really was a friend of mine it's a facet, it's a really really powerful testimony to Islam is a transformative force I just got to call this evening before leaving the office from a brother in Chicago who said I need your nasiha I need your advice and you never know what you're going to get when you're on the other end of that call it could be any number of crazy situations I need your advice I called him and I said how can I help him he said the killing in Chicago is just too much there was 500 people killed last year in Chicago about 200 something this year so far and the last two weeks there was five children killed children a mother and a child he said it's just too much and this is an individual who's already working in gang intervention already brokering treaties between different gangs he said but we've got to take it to the next level and I'm just calling you to get your advice he said because from 8 p.m. until 2 a.m. the Muslims were taken over the streets we're stopping this this is someone who himself spent well over a decade in prison for killing a person but now because he's Muslim he doesn't even see it fit for him to sit and watch killing happen indiscriminately without directly being involved in stopping it and he's already involved in stopping it he has done more in a week than most of us are doing in our lifetime in terms of real social justice but he says I need your advice he said because we met with the brothers and from 8 p.m. till 2 a.m. we're taken over the streets he said what's your advice I said well since you asked me I have two concerns number one safety he said you don't need to worry about that you guys know what I'm saying he said I said number two a lot of the brothers we're working with are just off of parole and they're on they're on parole they're just out of prison and they can get violated he said we have absolutely no intention on breaking the law at all in other words we're not going to do anything illegal because I'm also thinking you realize full on security NSA FBI and any other number of alphabetical acronyms are recording this call right now from 8 p.m. till 2 a.m. the Muslims are taken over the streets alright what are people going to think they don't are doing anything illegal they're intervening to stop people from killing one another to go places that the Chicago police literally won't go that's a powerful testimony to personal transformation to go from killing people to doing anything you can to stop other people from killing people and that's why they say about those who had a troubled past Cameroon, Sousa, Fasado, Sousa these are people that used to be robbers but they became from the elect of the Ummah before Monica gets here I want to say something this is just to kind of create a really authentic space the night that John said he wanted to say his Shahada if I would have retired after that night I would have felt fulfilled and the reason is this you probably don't know all of this but he said I'd like to say my Shahada on Sunday and we've seen the Shahada too in our day so it's you know business as usual people would still get excited so everyone comes around I think you got there like 6 or something I said do you want to say the Shahada before class or after class he said after class I said as you like whatever works for you then class got finished I said are you ready to say the Shahada he said no I'm waiting for my mother I said okay we can wait a few minutes so we waited a few minutes then I said to him I said is your mother agree he said no I said do you want to wait for her and he said in front of the whole community she waited 9 months she waited 9 months for me to come out of her womb I think I can wait a few minutes for her and all of the sisters were like yeah like in a moment it's time he redeemed half of the species because of that statement right he was like she'll find the house and then he waited for mom and then mom came and she held his hand while he said his Shahada and I looked up I remember looking up and seeing Micah across the room he's crying I'm crying but I'm trying not to let anybody see that I'm crying mom's crying and John's crying everyone's crying and there was this moment where I said to myself it's happening I can't believe that but there's two things I thought out about the first one was more problematic than the second one the first one I thought was how come I didn't think about doing that it didn't even cross my mind it didn't even occur to me take your parents with you to the Masjid for your Shahada and the reason it didn't is for so many people from my generation our conversion was part of who knows what part it was part of as social rebellion it was part of the proverbial rage against the machine it was part of our revolution so I'm converting partly because I want to agitate the situation with the power structure why would I take my parents with me right I want to go and say I must deal with them right that's part of the 1990s generation X culture that's the first thing I thought to myself how come I didn't think about that and the second thing I thought to myself was if I had thought about bringing my mother or any family member for that matter to my Shahada a place that I could have realistically taken her to because things have changed things have changed a lot even in the 16 or so years I've been Muslim things have changed a lot from Muslims in the Bay Area the idea that not only will we welcome our friends and family members and neighbors and our colleagues from other faith communities not only will we welcome them but we will make their accommodation and their feeling comfortable and absolute priority that's a significant shift in other words it's not just like you can bring your friend it's like no bring your friend and they will be royalty to us let alone if you bring a family member let alone if you bring your mom if you bring your mom you have to roll out the green carpet green strings that are red and suits no but that reminds me of a situation I had and this is what I mean about the canary in the coal mine my wife and the kids one year were with my mother during Christmas and I was on my way to Morytania to visit some of my teachers and I called my mother I think on Christmas Eve or Christmas day or some time around that time and she said to me son you'd be really proud of me I said why she said we had a Muslim Christmas this year and I know half of you in the audience know what Arab would be like because that's what I thought I was like Arab would be like Muslim Christmas I didn't say that to her and I said mom what do you mean she said well I know that the Prophet Muhammad's favorite color was green so we only put green lights on the tree and instead of putting an angel on top of the tree we put a star and press it I was just like oh okay mom I couldn't easily said what haram bidah shirk not necessarily in that order repeated it three times mom don't you know this is my religion my kids are there what are you teaching my children to pollute the purists I said okay mom and I left it at that probably two years later and my wife is here should tell you if I'm making anything up two years later I was there for Christmas my father is a devout Christian goes to church devout me my mother is kind of like you'll get it in the store and Muhammad actually I'll tell the story in a different order before that happened this was really interesting I was cooking in the kitchen thank god and my mother came up she said I still have the star and press it she said would you put it on the tree for me and that's outside of my comfort zone like I personally I just would feel comfortable doing that personal conviction calling what you want to but what did I say I said mom I'm cooking I got food on my hands I can't do it she's like okay fine so they do that then about ten minutes later all of a sudden Muhammad came to his grandmother he said grandma I'm confused and that's a conversation that many of our kids some of them in grad school if they have a space to really have the conversation they would say what I'm confused if we're being honest there's a lot of people that are confused but when they're young they're not afraid to actually say grandma I'm confused she said well then some of us are celebrating Christmas some of us aren't I'm confused it's gonna look a lot like the future of Islam in America don't be surprised and she said what honey your grandfathers are Christian but you and your brother and your sisters and your mom and your dad and me were Muslims isn't that what she said that's what she said and I wasn't like tap beer I wasn't like that because that was what she said let it happen as a process and if we were to really look back at the history of Islam in what are now Muslim majority countries if we study the history we will see that it didn't just show up Islam didn't just show up that it came little by little and began to integrate into the society that it came to and there was a negotiation process between the cultural realities of that country and what they were experiencing and the Muslims as they came there and the same thing is going to have to happen here if Muslims are going to have a sustainable presence in this country so having spaces where a mother can attend her son Shahada and hold his hand and then she blessed us with some words of wisdom after his Shahada to me that's a sign that something very good is happening it may allow a priestess in Africa uncle's question was about how I personally learned about Islam and experienced it and and then kind of how that translated into understanding what Islam and what being Muslims you know there's like a long version and a medium version and a short version there's not, I don't have like a tweetable version yet of that story that to try to get it that short because like when you heard John talk about beginning to ask the question of the reality of God that's where it began for me and I was both challenged and blessed by the fact that my household did not have a standard religion my father came from a very traditional black Baptist family and my mother was nominally Christian and interestingly converted to Mormonism as a young lady so she was a what you call a Jack Mormon she was a Mormon that wasn't particularly adherent to her faith but she was interestingly the Mormons every single time my mother got sick it was in the hospital or had a child or a birthday she had left the church 20 plus years before that they still would come check up on her they'd know if she was in the hospital they knew she was there and they'd show them in the hospital I don't even know how they knew but they did so I didn't have like a state religion so to speak or a standard religion in the house so asking the question what's present in reality was a personal one the Nation of Islam was the first opportunity that I had to look at anything outside of standard kind of the Christian offerings so I first heard about the Nation of Islam through my older brother who heard about it through hip hop music and then joined the Nation of Islam and through his experience of the Nation of Islam met a Sunni Muslim in Bilal and then he told me about Islam so when I left high school I identified as a Muslim but I hadn't said my Shahada and Yahya Rodes and I went to school together since like 6th grade so we were both on this kind of spiritual journey traveling together and then in high school we began to meet Muslims and then we met Brian Davis now known as Mustafa Davis and he and I were in sushi one day this is the media version believe it or not we were in sushi one day and he says to me I'm thinking about revisiting religion I said you should become Muslim he said are you a Muslim I said no but my brother is he said well what do they believe I said they believe in the bonus of God and they believe in Prophet Muhammad he left and went to Barza Nob with the intention to buy a Bible look he goes with the intention to buy a Bible and on his way into the religion sections come to Eastern philosophy and sees the book Muhammad by Martin Leeds he picked it up and he said that all of the Abu Ibn Abu Ibn this is really hard to give a lecture why you guys don't know the way to that passage he said I'll be Abu Ibn confused him because the genealogy the lineages of the beginning of the book said I was confused so I put it back on the shelf but right next to it was the Quran and he picked up the Quran and opened it to Surah Median and we said Ali is here and I wouldn't even attempt to begin talking about anything about the Bible why he's anywhere in my proximity but I would say that coming from a Christian family and coming from a Christian framework to read Surah Median because it's so crystal clear it's such a crystal clear conversation so he said he read it and he wept in the bookstore and he took the Quran home with him he said but I didn't read anything else because I was afraid I would find something that I didn't like so I only read Surah Median I would read Surah Median that was Wednesday by Friday he was Muslim he went to the Masjid and he came back to campus and he's now the resident of the lake with my brother guy on campus with the kufi and the pier and so on and so forth and then he took me to MCA so it was kind of this feedback what happened at my part there was two things one was clarity around the divine and what I mean by that is what you heard John talk about in his comments about questioning the supposed divinity of Christ and understanding Allah as the only true one God and experiencing that and then secondly the universality of prophecy in Islam that Islam accepts the previous prophets and the previous dispensations and the previous revelations was very important to me because I didn't want to do a religion that was the my way or the highway religion if it wasn't going to be inclusive I couldn't do it so the inclusivity and honestly my first introduction to the prophet was through the pamphlet Muhammad in the Bible translated by Dr. Jamal Badouhi and unfortunately I spent more time arguing with Christian friends and peers with the pamphlet than I did actually meditating on it because you know people would like to use those things for fuel but yeah that's what it was for me did that answer your question? still I behind you very Islam stuff what do you mean okay that's the big question what do you mean when Islam started yeah you mean Islam with a capital I or Islam with a lowercase I none of the above none of the above all of the above yeah Islam with a capital I began with the advent of Sayyidina Muhammad Islam with a lowercase I if you understand the framing here began when Allah created the heavens and the earth that everything in the heavens and the earth are in submission to Allah but Islam in this most recent manifestation came with the Beloved Sayyidina Muhammad as an affirmation of all of the previous prophets but it's always been the way the way of Allah are there any other questions yes ma'am yeah I just wanted to make a comment gentlemen over here one of the things when people who convert to Islam meet aside for what's your name and where are you from like you know where do you live and so on how did you become Muslim everybody has their own story it's their own fingerprint it's quite unique and I'd like to mention one thing that I just got a phone call about today some of you know my husband is there who translated the Quran into easy American English somebody had read his Quran translation on his website this is in India he's in India still and the first day of Ramadan that person became Muslim that's in India and that's just the website for the blessing I've always wondered because I've had friends who've been converts and I've met people who have been Muslims for you know two decades and I would never ask them how they became Muslim because I thought that at what point does one stop being at what point does one stop being a convert at what point does one do you ever feel like you know maybe I shouldn't be asked all the time like hey how did you figure it and I just don't know what's appropriate or not appropriate because I figured the point is that they're Muslim now and we have to help any Muslim whether they are or whatever it is I hear you asking a deeper question and it's almost kind of like when do converts stop being trophies and when do they become members of the community because it's really not even so much what you're asking but how you're asking it and I'll give you one gauge when people have names and they're not called new brother I'm not trying to be funny the new brother or the new sister has a name her name is Salih or her name is Salih or her name is whatever and his name is Juan or his name is Jeffrey or his name is Ahmed he's not just a new brother he's a person and this is what I heard the anti-chart is everyone has an individual story you never stop being a convert the Sahaba never stop being converts there were people who embraced Islam from a different faith that reality never goes away they may establish Imam as a reality in themselves between them and Allah to where they go from just being Muslim as many of the Sahaba did the Sahaba did obviously so then you become a movement but that's the reality only known between them and Allah the social realities of being with Lombard and having the majority of one's family being from another faith community is never going to stop impacting one's experience and if it does it probably means that they're out of touch and it's something that they should be really worried about if they're not in touch with their family and if that healthy agitation isn't always there there's some difference here but at what point does a person just get to be a member of the community and that's what I hear you asking and that onus is on us is when we say like when someone moves to the new community and say they got a job in a company and so they move to Pleasanton when they come do we say like you're new how's the job oh welcome to the community Friday night, Sunday night we're not weird about it because they're just new so when someone's new we don't have to be like oh hi, your brother what's your story just being natural this is your brother we're all Muslim and having an even deeper question to ask is how many of our youth are having conversion experiences that are born Muslim I know Muslim families that don't even know that their children are atheists they'll get up and pray with them but they don't even know that the kids don't even believe in Allah so how many Muslim kids from Muslim families are basically converts once the light goes off may Allah make it easy for all of us