 As-salamu alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh Alhamdulillah, it's a great honor, great pleasure to be here at MCC and to see the community is thriving full of energy, vermin vigour, may Allah preserve everyone, preserve your families, protect our youth, elevate our elders in our esteem. Alhamdulillah wa salat wa salam ala Rasulillah. Unfortunately I didn't get the memo about the Shaaban talk so I will inshaAllah talk a little about Shaaban but I'm gonna talk about several things in fact I hope you'll forgive me. The first I'm not going to repeat the talk that we gave at the lighthouse it was a very long talk but I will start with the Black History Month since this is February and that's Black History Month and as we said over there at the lighthouse Black History Month wasn't given to the African-American community as a slight you know we'll give you guys the shortest month and we have women's month March 31st days and Black History Month get 28 days but Black History Month built on the legacy of Carter G. Woodson the great African-American historian second African-American to get a PhD from Harvard University after the great W. E. B. Du Bois. Carter G. Woodson famously wrote amongst other works the Miseducation of the Negro. In 1926 Carter G. Woodson started Black History Week. Black History Week was celebrated in the second week of February not because February is the shortest month but because the second week of February marks the birthday of Abraham Lincoln February 12th and the birthday of Frederick Douglass February 14th hence Black History Week in February the second week of February and 1970 after first conceiving of the idea of a Black History Month African-American students and professors at Kent State University in Ohio famously known for the Kent State Massacre a protest against the Vietnam War was violently broken up leading to the deaths of four students at Kent State in Ohio that was March May 4th 1970 that same year group of as you mentioned African-American professors and students on the campus of Kent State University came together and they initiated a Black History Month and that began to spread in 1976 Gerald Ford designated February as a National Black History Month to celebrate the contributions of African-Americans and before America's America the contributions of Africans to the building of America so we just quickly want to segue from that into why is that relevant for us as Muslims conservative estimates say that 20% of the slaves who were brought to this country from Africa were Muslims some areas such as the coastal islands of the islands off the coast of Georgia the missus the Mississippi Delta area where rice was cultivated rice is a labor-intensive crop so the plantation owners preserved preferred slaves who already knew how to grow rice in one of the rice growing areas in West Africa the Senegambia River Delta I was recently in Gambia talk about that very quickly and so that area is about 90% Muslim and so slaves coming from that area were disproportionately Muslim and so you find off the coast of Georgia Louisiana Delta area southern Virginia you find a disproportionate in some areas up to 50% of the enslaved population were Muslims why is that relevant for you and me it's relevant because those are our Muslim ancestors in this land because the ancestry is not an ancestry of blood as we know our Muslim ancestry is an ancestry that transcends blood it's an ancestry that's built on faith and knowledge Ibrahim is our father not many of us are direct blood descendants of Ibrahim but he's our father millatabikum Ibrahim Khadija Aisha radiallahu anhu ma'um salama joiria and Habiba and the other wives of the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam our mothers muhatul mu'mineen most of us in here probably the majority are not descendants of the Arabs yet those are our mothers would anyone disagree with that no one disagree hence it is a spiritual brotherhood and sisterhood that's relevant for us the lineage is important with people that acknowledge our roots and our lineages but our ultimate allegiance is based on our faith and those are our brothers and sisters in faith many of them were scholars that's documented so may Allah give us tofiq and tasheer to to really feel a part of that history and to feel that we're building on that history and to not feel that we are recent arrivals who have no roots here and not to start feeling unwelcome when people to start to talk about a Judeo-Christian America they say no my Muslim ancestors were here even before America was America you've been Suleiman Hafiz of Quran a scholar who studied in Timbuktu was here in 1917 31 his story the fortunate slave is the oldest extant work of African-American literature a literary work about an African in the Americas the fortunate slave job Job been Solomon a you've been Suleiman so we won't go on this story you could go to lighthouse and think they archive that talk but just to emphasize how important it is to acknowledge that history because in acknowledging that history we immediately gain deep roots in this country roots that transcend the the 1960s when the immigration laws were changed and the doors were open for my migration of not large numbers of Muslims from the Arab countries and particularly from South Asia the State Department is still looking for the one person who gave the first Pakistani a visa because he had two suitcases filled filled with male and female Pakistanis and they were fruitful and they multiplied I mean I'll give a Stofi can taste here and and but and there are others there are others we can celebrate those European American Muslims who who are part of the early history of this country such as William Bethune English we can celebrate the life of Alexander Russell Webb who was the American ambassador to the Philippines who accepted Islam only to the influence of the Muslims from Mindanao and the Philippines and did incredible things once he returned to the States we can celebrate that history that's our history we can celebrate those Syrians and Lebanese who went to Ross South Dakota in the 1890s and built a masjid that's still there it's been rebuilt a beautiful little masjid 92 square feet if you ever go to visit and the middle of a wheat field that's our history although Syrian and Lebanese in the 1930s who built the mother mass in Cedar Rapids Iowa or those Albanian Muslims who built a masjid in 1909 in Lewiston, Maine and then other Albanians who built a masjid in 1914 in Waterbury Connecticut that masjid still stands it burned down in the 1940s they rebuilt it is still there today or those Yemenis and Bengalis in the Central Valley Valley here who came to help to cultivate and pick the crops to feed this country and their presence so significant that many of them were were instrumental in assisting Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta in the formation of the United Farm Workers Movement and the first Shahid of that movement because as the farm workers under the leadership of Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta began to organize the the there was a violent they met violent opposition from the the farm owners the farmers and landowners and there were martyrs and the first martyr of the United Farm Workers was a Yemeni Muslim Najee Dehfullah so this is our history as Muslims in this country it's a rich history it's a deep history and it's a history that brings us brings us all together and as we come together now and just to conclude this part of the talk many if we talk about in the African American context the largest kind of proto pseudo Muslim movement was the nation of Islam the members of the nation of Islam they referred to the period of Elijah Muhammad until the leadership of the man what if they did Muhammad as the first resurrection where what they were taught wasn't really Islam it was a lot of psychological upliftment identity building a positive identity and so this was the first resurrection and the second resurrection Imam worth the Dean Muhammad in a phenomena a a development that is tremendously understudied there should be myriad PhDs on the work of Imam worth the Dean Muhammad because if we can accept that what the nation of Islam was teaching was not Islam that W.D. Farad or Ford Muhammad appeared as a law in Detroit Michigan in 1930 to bring Islam to the black man in America that doesn't sound like Islamic belief or or that and and Elijah Muhammad was the messenger of Allah to the black man in America after the Prophet Sallallahu alaihi wa sallam that it had its place I'm not trying to as the young people might say hate on the nation of Islam I'm trying to make a point and that point is and you know the white race was grafted on the island of Patmos in the Mediterranean Sea by a big head black doctor named Dr. Yaqub so if you can accept that's not Islam per se then Imam worth the Dean Muhammad bring half a million people out of that movement into Islam and the nation of Islam our fast is December because the days are short and cool so it's a baby fast for a baby nation Imam worth the Dean Muhammad brought the members of that many of them half a million into fasting Ramadan half a million into la ilaha Allah Muhammad Rasool Allah half a million from praying like facing the east and praying like this to putting a head on the ground and making prostration to Allah five times a day the Salat as we know it make a change in the pilgrimage from Chicago Illinois to attend Savior's Day to me going to Mecca so Imam worth the Dean Muhammad and my estimation out orchestrated the greatest single act of mass conversion and human history within a couple of years that's part of our history and that's something we should we should study and try to understand how did he do that underappreciated and so that period coming out of the teachings the old teachings the first resurrection to the leadership of the man worth the Mohammed the second resurrection into a proper Islam but still with an emphasis on the uplift and development of the African American community and now something that members of that movement something Jackson Dr. Sherman Jackson highlighted in his book Islam and the black America awaiting the third resurrection the third resurrection is when this entire community what you see represented here acknowledges and plugs into those roots and then brings the full fruition of Islam to our people in this country that's the third resurrection and we can no longer say we're waiting the third resurrection the third resurrection is here but now we have to organize it and we have to focus it and we have to bring it to the people we cannot we cannot in good faith complain about how lost people are we cannot complain in good faith about how asleep people claim to be woke are we cannot in good faith complain about all of the nonsense and foolishness that we see happening if we're not out there trying to guide the people and direct the people and show the people there's a better way to live that they don't have to be watch this country being polarized along racial lines not to deny the progress made in that regard but progress can be quickly undone I've been recent reading recently the trilogy of Dr. Richard Evans Dr. Richard Evans has written what many consider the definitive history of the Third Reich Hitler's Germany the trilogy the coming of the Third Reich the Third Reich empowered the Third Reich at war and the quickness with which the German people learned led down the path to madness the way that national sentiments were exploited in the light of legitimate grievances the harsh measures that were imposed on the German people after their defeat in the First World War but how that how that happened and how quickly it happened is illustrative for us it shows that if it happened once it could happen again if someone said in 1930 that ten years from now Germany will be on a path would have initiated a war and was soon beyond the path of a war on two fronts that they will kill 25 million civilians including the six million Jews in the most horrific ways undeniably and the most horrific ways some of us they will see a crazy that can never happen but it did happen and so we as Muslim should understand it could happen but we have a solution and not because I say we have a solution some of the greatest minds in human history say we have a solution to the race problem and I don't personally I'm I don't want to hear people saying we're we have racism in our community we have problems we have problems we don't have hardcore racism hardcore racism is when you sell your house if someone the wrong color moves next door hardcore racism makes the cemetery the most segregated neighborhood in America because if a black man is buried in a white cemetery that cemetery is going to go out of business because white folks aren't going to want to bury their their deceased there well I'll give us Tophik hardcore racism is where people ignore the danger or the the damage that was done by the third right and they open their spouse neo-Noxie movements and they call their publications the Stormer after the SS which was the the the most genocidal wing of the next party personally responsible not just for the Holocaust but for the massacre of millions of Russian prisoners of war and they name their publications and they have the crooked s of the double s of the SS and they have websites and they're gaining adherence Arnold Toynbee said in his book Civilization on Trial a chapter dedicated to Islam the West and the future Islam has a solution to the West race problem in the West because at the end of the day it's a largely Western phenomenon not to deny color consciousness and other things that have existed in other societies but the whole idea of race itself as we contemporarily understand it is a European phenomenon a European invention that's less than two centuries old so Arnold Toynbee said Islam one of his distinguishing features if it is its ability to get human beings to rise above racial consciousness and then he said the problem of alcoholism by extension drugs and opiates and opiates and opium land in the law so at a time we see racism and many many quarters resurgent and not just white racism we see black racism we see theories that say all white people are are inevitably racist incurably racist that's not the Quran that if you're in this group you enjoy privilege just because of the color of your skin that's not Islam Islam tells us what that well that is you were zero to was a little no bear of burdens can bear the burden of another you're an individual you're going to be judged as an individual not as a member of a group because when we we make group identity something that's inevitable and escapeable we get into all sorts of absurdities we say that some coal miner in Appalachia who lost his son in the Iraq war because he couldn't get a job the guy was 50 years old his life was done he had black lung disease and it's back bent out from stooping over for 30 years in a coal shaft and black lung from breathing cold dust and he ended up on with a overprescribed opiate on Oxycontin because that company was marketing to these areas and then prescribing for the whole family and then when he died of premature death and his prescription expired his wife who was strung out on the Oxycontin now she had to go to get and start buying heroin because the prescription expired and the son died in Iraq and their wife has two babies from two different guys and she's an alcoholic and then someone comes and say you enjoy white privilege that's an absurdity and tell Robert Johnson who made three billion dollars selling BET to MTV African-American paid off the tuition for the entire senior class of Morehouse College a few years back that he's oppressed because he's African-American it's an absurdity well I tell you who was here to with her okra no bear of burdens can bear the burden of another everyone will come to Allah for that as an individual for judgment we have to be have confidence in what we believe I was I was almost moved to tears I was recently at Georgetown Law School and the young lady was moderating hijab Muslim sister every word of her out of her mouth was like it was a a a a scripted advertisement for wokeness you know we have Muslims we have to stand up for social justice because the intersectionality dictates that our allyship naturally lies with other marginalized oppressed people and it was it was like I couldn't believe my ears and the saddest part for me the saddest part is why would someone jump on a bandwagon of an intellectual fat if you're here and you don't think it's an intellectual fad then I would challenge your thinking because 10 years ago to be safe 15 years ago there wasn't a single Muslim on the face of this earth who's using that language tell me if I'm wrong there wasn't a single Muslim on the face of this earth using that language and I guarantee you 20 years from now there won't be a single Muslim on the face of this earth using that language that's not an intellectual fat I don't know what's it what is but the danger the danger is that language informs our worldview language informs how we see the world the Quran ushered in by canonizing the Arabic language and ancient tongue it define how Muslims see the world we see the world and categories that are predicated on the centrality of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala that language of privilege and hegemony and toxic masculinity and intersectionality and marginalized oppressed groups for ain't a law where's the law and all that it's a secularizing of the mind and when the mind is secularized Allah systematically moved from the equation and so people will say that this or that or other we should be advocating for will no consideration is it haram or is it halal when Allah is at the center of our consciousness that's the first question we ask is it halal is it haram when Allah has systematically been removed from the equation we don't ask about is it halal or so haram is it liberating or is it oppressing it does it elevate and exalt and ultimately deify the individual self or does it affirm that the only deity in creation is Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala it deifies the self and systematically removes a law from the equation and make any calculation of haram and halal irrelevant for us and it also does something even more insidious it reduces the parameters of our or confines the parameters of our thought to this world and so the quest for justice becomes a zero-sum proposition because if I don't get it in this world I don't have it because there is no world to come and we shouldn't expect that there's a world to come when every single theorist that one who might use that language quotes is an atheist every single one Foucault is an atheist Leotard is an atheist Marcus is an atheist John Paul Sotter is an atheist the entire Frankfurt's Coordynal and Max Horkheimer Gramsci there are atheists Marx is an atheist linen is an atheist Judith Butler is an atheist so you're talking about men need some women Judith Butler is an atheist there are atheists how is an atheist going to be queef unto a believer a worldview that accommodates Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala in the hereafter it's not going to happen and because it's not going to happen we have Muslims running around here talking about social justice I don't deny social justice but why not just plain justice what happened to just plain justice why just social justice because if we talk about just plain justice we have to talk about justice in our relationship to Allah subhanahu with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala are we are unjust in our relationship to Allah in the shirkah the woman of him you talk about oppression shirk is the great oppression and we idolize ourselves we're engaging in a form of shirk and liberalism which is the ideological foundation of all of this stuff idolizes the self what was one of their slogans at the beginning of the 20th century I am the captain of my ship the master of my fate not Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala not the messenger of Allah I am the master of my fate the captain of my ship your ship is the Titanic and it just hit the iceberg now what so we have to think my brothers and sisters social justice what about just plain justice I like to use to illustrate this point the hadith of Abidar Mu'ad ibn Jabal Kala Kala Rasool Allahi sallallahu alaihi wa sallam Attaq illa haythuma kunt wa atbesi it al hasin a tamhuha wa khalikan Nasi bi qulukan hasin be mindful of Allah whoever you are in any misdeed you do follow it up with a good deed being way dear in terms of this reward will wipe it out and treat people on the basis of good character well khalikan Nasi bi qulukan hasin there's your complete picture of justice justice in our relationship with Allah as we said it taq illa haythuma kunt being mindful of Allah's commandments and prohibitions and understand being mindful of the primacy of tawhid and we are violate tawhid and we are violate the prohibitions and commandments we're oppressors and the greatest oppression is shirk in the shirk ala volumun aadim not because I said it and I'm trying to convince you to embrace my theory of how the world works this is Quran wa atbesi it al hasin a tamhuha a tawhid wa mal lam yatub fa ulaika humu zalimi humu zalimun whoever doesn't repent they are the oppressors so people think they can sin with impunity and just because they are advocates of social justice they're in like Flynn it doesn't work like that because those two realms of justice define what's valid in the realm of social justice which is the third wa khalikan Nasi bi qulukan hasin there were people in the social realm on the basis of good character be just with them be merciful to them and so it's a system we can't just dismiss those two which the atheist dismisses because there is no Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala there is no God to worry about shirk and idolatry and kufr there is no soul we're all this this we're all material what we might these identify as the functions of the soul for them they're just your neurological processes waiting for us to discover them and that's why they're pet science is neuroscience we'll find out about all this stuff and these mysteries it won't be deja vu all over again once we figure it out now look at this trophy can taste here but we have a worldview and so from here we can move and so when we dismiss the hereafter we know that ultimate justice is in hereafter any theory that puts forth and advances and advocates that there's going to be perfect justice here they're deluding you they're deceiving you that's why so many people get depressed they find out that as time goes on sometimes justice is a long time coming as dr. King said the moral arc of the universe is long but it bends towards justice but the bending in the context of the universe it takes a long time we've been struggling we've been sacrificing and working and many of us we haven't seen justice but it will come if Allah wills and if it doesn't come in this world it will definitely be established in the hereafter and there will be perfect but if you move the hereafter you don't have any hope and you see people despairing you see Muslims despairing and that's not a characteristic of a believer in the hula a summa rahi la illala qomul kafirun only a dispute leaving people despair of Allah's mercy but if you don't believe in Allah either in a real sense or in a de facto sense because one's mind and thought process have been secularized then it's going to be this world is going to be a very depressing place we had the earthquake in turkey and like the tsunami in 2000 December 2004 the hardest hit aerial was aches aches most religious part of Indonesia a sister Deion Elian is there by the grace of Allah got to spend 10 days at two days where that her orphan and out and Wichita and near the Moroccan-Algerian border and this past January beautiful organization wonderful it's all girls young ladies there mashallah dedicated staff beautiful facility may Allah preserve them Allahumma salli Rasulillah where was I but we're on that tangent testing huh yes thank you so the tsunami struck people in the West were saying you know Christians were apostating where's God's mercy look at this terrible occurrence earthquake in Turkey is terrible where's where's the merciful God what's the believer saying Hamdulillah everyone who died their murder a Shuhada or Khamsa and Matt on Matt on well Mabtoon well gharik was Ahib el-Hidmi was Shahidu feast ability la one who dies in a demolished structure 4 a.m. in the morning sleep most of those people Paris they were sleep never knew what happened and some were injured and they suffered what a house the believers see suffer nothing afflicts the believer even a pricking of a thorn except some of their sins are expiated because of that and the martyr goes to Jannah fast track or easy pass whatever I get confused by post by coastal some people some bipolar I don't know easy pass fast-track straight to Jannah there's Allah's mercy Khalidina Feeha abad dwelling there and forever there's Allah's mercy those who suffered and wounded sins expiated there's Allah's mercy but if we don't believe in the hereafter if we don't believe that there's a God that Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala can wipe away our sins if we don't even believe in the concept of sin then where's the foundation for us really understanding at a deep level Allah Khalid's mercy the ability to sacrifice if we deify ourselves it becomes very difficult to sacrifice for others wonder why it's so difficult to get married when everyone's deifying themselves I know I know I know I've read him and it took a day lahahu hawahu wa dalahu Allah who I love him and cut him out of the same he I'll cover a lot of samiq samiq Sammihi wa qalbi he wa wa ilahe lil aya have you not none So have you not seen the one that takes their very whims as their God? People worshiping their whims themselves. If everyone's worshiping themselves, what's the foundation for sacrificing for others? If we worshiping Allah SWT and we understand the sacrifices we make for others are rewarded by Allah SWT. The sacrifices we made for others are a source of enhancing our standing with Allah SWT. The sacrifices we made for others make for others are the foundation for building a strong society. But if we're worshiping ourselves and glorifying ourselves and aggrandizing ourselves, there's no foundation for those sacrifices for others. And what happens to our society and our social bonds, exactly what we see happening. When we see everything as progress and only the only good in human society lies in progress, then we devalue the past. And then devaluing the past, we reject the spiritual foundations that those who preceded us have built. And that energy is very important for pushing us forward further down the road of history. I truly believe that the prayers that were made by those Muslims who preceded us who were being exploited and the blood, sweat, and tears built this country for free labor, that they prayed that one day there will be Muslims here who will be able to do something they couldn't do. They could worship, they could pray if they had the strength, but they couldn't build an MCC. They couldn't build the schools in the Madaris. They couldn't build a Masjid al-Huda. They couldn't build Quran schools. They had Mus'haf circulating. That's documented. But they couldn't build institutions. And because they couldn't build institutions, they cannot establish the foundation of knowledge that is the bedrock of this community. As the great Orientalist, Franz Rosenthal in his book, Knowledge Triumphant, Islam is the only knowledge-based society, civilization, and human history. So unlike other civilizations, the Chinese civilization, Confucian civilization is not found outside of China, just rare pockets. The civilization of the Buddhists isn't found outside of South Asia and Southeast Asia. The Nelotic civilization of Kush and then Lubia and then Egypt is not found outside of the now really River Valley. The Mayans aren't found outside of the Yucatan Peninsula. The Incas aren't found outside of the Andes Mountains, primarily in Peru. The Aztecs aren't found outside of Central Mexico. All these civilizations, they're localized either based on geography or based on tribe or clan. Islam had a civilization of flourishing amongst the Arabs, it has a civilization of flourishing amongst the Persians, a civilization of flourishing amongst the Turks, a civilization of flourishing amongst the Africans, great civilization, the wealthiest civilizations in the world at their time. You all know about Mansa Musa's Golden Hodge, the greatest university and centers of learning at Timbuktu and other and Jinnah and Gao and other centers of learning and commerce and civilization amongst the Europeans in Andalusia, in the Balkans. Why? Because it's not based on race, it's not based on geography, it's based on knowledge. And when that knowledge comes in this country, as it is, we see our young people learning the Qur'an, learning the Arabic language, the foundations of that civilization. There was a time when I first converted to Islam, Ramadan came, everyone was scrambling to go to the Egyptian embassy or the Pakistani embassy to get a hafiz to come over to lead the Tarawee prayer. Now most Masses, they're three or four, five, six, seven, eight, some places ten of the Shabab who can lead the Tarawee. Our sisters meeting in their houses and sisters leading their sisters in Tarawee prayer in their homes. La ilaha illallah is happening brothers and sisters, we have to have eyes to see it and to appreciate it. And this leads us to Shaban, which leads us to Ramadan. It's time to fast, it's time for us to minimize the influence that the physical has over us and to bring to the fore the spiritual. And we do that through the Qur'an, we do that through the fasting, we do that through missing sleep. That's part of the process. Don't refuse to come to Tarawee because you're going to miss two hours of sleep. That's part of the process. Don't fail to eat the pre-dawn meal because you're going to sleep to 20 minutes before Fajr goes out, so you can get two hours of extra sleep. Missing sleep is part of the process. Imam Ibrahim An-Nakhayi, Rahimuhullah, he said, The people who were ruined before you were ruined because of three characteristics. Too much eating, too much sleeping and too much talking. Ramadan cuts down on all three. If we're staying for Tarawee and we're getting up for Suhoor, we're sleeping less. After we were fasting, we're eating less. And we're so tired, towards the latter part of the day, we're talking less. We start monitoring the call, call ID, this is going to have to wait until after if Tarawee. And then we know the etiquette of the fasting in terms of controlling our tongues. And to end where I begin and talking about those African slaves. Don't use the excuse, I'm working, I can't fast. You're getting out of your air-conditioned house, to your air-conditioned car. It's winter now, so you don't need air-conditioned, but you know what I'm saying. And going to your air-conditioned office, I'm working, I can't fast. Dear brothers and sisters, slaves, many of those slaves that documented by the likes of Dr. Sylvia and Yuf, Michael Gomez and others, Dr. Michael Gomez, they were fasting many of them on a starvation diet. A slave was systematically starved to death. The working life of a slave, every slave was 14 years. And the master wanted them to drop dead after 14 years. So you literally had them on a near starvation, enough energy to work, but not enough to be healthy after 10 or 12 years of slave labor. And they didn't want old people around mentioned in the lighthouse, 80% out of every healthcare dollar goes to take care of the elderly. So slave masters have to care for a bunch of old slaves and they can't work any longer to feed them and clothe them and shelter them. That's a big chunk of their profits. So they didn't want old slaves around. But on that starvation diet being worked to death, our brothers and sisters were fasting. And so as we approach Ramadan, let us approach it in that spirit, that I'm going to fast. I'm going to do this. I'm going to sacrifice. I'm going to miss sleep. I'm going to attend the Tarawih prayer. I'm not making excuses because I worked even physical labor. I'm not going to fast. Now if your health is jeopardizing, compromise, break your fast. Don't let me be the excuse for you meeting Allah Ta'ala earlier than you already would. But you know what I'm saying. We know when we're making excuses where there is no excuse. So may Allah bless us in Ramadan. May Allah Ta'ala bless us to have that spirit of appreciation. May Allah Ta'ala bless us to have that spirit of resistance. Let's say the first thing Kunte Kinte did, and I was in Gambia. I went to Kunte Kinte's village. I went to his Koran school. Like they hint that Kunte Kinte was a Muslim. The new roots starts with the Adhan. But they don't say he was probably half as of Koran. Like all the young Mandinka boys in that part of the world, they go to the Qutab. They go to the Koran school. They're still learning from the law. And those laws, they last a long time. How long can a law last a quarter of a month? Being treated in a hundred years, Yani, 200 years, Allahu Adham. But when I was there, I was just imagining, you know, maybe one of these young boys are young girls. The boys and girls, they're all in there together. Maybe one of them is holding Kunte Kinte's law. But they're definitely going through the same process he went through. And looking at that, this is like the third conclusion, but when we talk about jumping on intellectual bandwagons, those who do that bits of the Vali mean a bed-a-lat. What a terrible exchange. That's oppression. Bits of the Vali mean a bed-a-lat. Because we have something that transcends, Islam is not a fad. Islam is a transcendent historical reality. And that was reinforced for me when I was in that village. And the sheikh is just casually leaning up on the wall, he has his switch, tap the kids, and they're learning the Koran. At Koran school and Islam, the masjid is all still there. It was there before slavery. It was there during slavery. It was there during colonization. It was there during liberation. And it's there now. And inshallah, when everyone there is gone, it will still be there. Islam is a transcendent, ongoing, deeply rooted historical reality. And the challenge for us, my dear brothers and sisters, is to ask ourselves honestly and truthfully, do I want to be part of that progression of faith and spirituality and knowledge? Do I want to be part of that going all the way back to the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasalam and extending it to our time, or do I want to neglect it for something passing and temporal? That's the question we should ask. And if we choose to get off that train and jump on some passing bandwagon, we should understand Allah doesn't need us. Allah doesn't need any of us. We mentioned today in Juma Allah is saying, Ya ayyuha ladina amanu addressing us, the believers, Ya ayyuha ladina amanu mayyar tadda minkum an deenihi fa sofa yattillahu bi qawmin yuhibbuhum yihibbuna. All you who believe, if any of you turns back, and usually the first thing the exeges mention, they mention other things, mantawalla annusrati deenihi. If you turn back from assisting, helping, strengthening this religion, Allah will bring another people whom He will love and they will love Him. Wala dina amanu shadduhu habbalillah. If we love Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala, our heads and hearts are swayed by some atheists. If we love Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala, our heads and hearts are unswerved and deviated by people who are hell bent on destroying this religion, on destroying the family, the social bedrock of the religion. They all tell you, Judith Butler tells you. They all tell you, Black Lives Matter, which were formed by three queer women to disrupt the patriarchal heterosexual normalcy, to disrupt, to dismantle, to destroy. Allah doesn't need us. Allah doesn't need us. If you turn back, Allah will bring another people, they won't be like you and Allah is bringing those people and their hearts are filled with the light of faith and they're impacting this world. So brothers and sisters, we have a job to do and may Allah bless us to come together, may Allah bless our leadership to provide the blueprints to bring us together so that we can go forth and bring in and usher in the full force of that third revelation and save this country at a time where there are many forces threatening its continued existence. May Allah bless all of you, give you tawfiq, taiseer, qabool, may Allah keep the light in your heart and a smile on your face that haqiran min al-ma'roofi shay'a wa la antalqa akhaka, be watching, taliqa, don't be mean the smallest amount of good that you can do even if it's meeting your brother, your sister with a pleasant face. May your faces be pleasant, may your hearts be filled with light, may we steal ourselves and prepare ourselves for the work ahead, may we take this religious seriously. This is not a joke. This is serious business and the people are spending billions of dollars to turn us away from it. They know and recognize this serious business. Sometimes we don't, but they do. May Allah give us tawfiq. May Allah bless all of you, bless our sisters, bless our brothers, bless this wonderful center, bless our students, bless our imams and leaders and shuyukh. May Allah bless everybody, bless us to really enjoy and appreciate the great honor that we've been given to hold Allah the Banner of Tawheed. Alhamdulillah, wa sallallahu ala Sayyidina wa Habibina, wa kurrati aayunina Muhammad, wa alihi, wa sahbihi, wa salam, wa as-salamu alaikum, wa rahmatullahi, wa barakatuh. Thank you for coming to MCC again. Would you be able to indulge us with some comments? Of course, yes. So raise your hand sisters, let's do sisters first and then your dead people here. And then we'll do brothers after. Let's do sisters first. Just raise your hand, we'll have the mic come to you, shy group. We have questions online if nobody wants to. Or comments. Or comments. A lot of people freely, you know. Really? You got the big exchange. People's Imam here. There we go. Yep, got it. Sister Liz. Mashallah, I was just struck by your suggestion that there should be more PhDs done on Imam Wadateen. Absolutely. Muhammad and it just struck me that the kindergartners need books too. And I'm sure in all your studies, maybe you have like a long list of beautiful places that as a story writer could go to, you know, like histories to bring out in children's books. The Seer of the Prophet, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. You could write just a children's book on the stories of the Prophet's interaction with children. Sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. The various companions, the children amongst the companions. And then from every epoch, brothers and sisters, every era, you could do the stories from every region. Just the Muslim folk stories in every part of this ummah. So that is a treasure and a gift that we'll keep on giving for a very, very, very long time. Mashallah. So it's just going into those histories, going into the Seerah, going into the history, going into the biography, going into biographical dictionaries. One of the scholars at Columbia University, Richard Bullett, went into the biographical dictionaries, tabaqat literature, to see how Islam actually spread amongst people. So in this first generation, who accepted Islam and how is Islam practiced? In the second and the third. And he, so he went into that literature and he found just amazing things. He wrote a book documenting that Islam, the view from the edge. We could go into that same literature in mind, look at who are the children and what are their stories and their biographies, et cetera, and just mind from that the things that we need to tell the stories, the stories of children in the Qur'an. So there's an incredible wealth of history. I mean, I was really focusing on the African American history in the U.S. because I, it's really hard to find stories about Muslim African Americans. But children are just... For children's stories. For children's stories. So you could look at the lives of the Muslims who were here during the Spanish era. And there are incredible stories, including out in West, the western part of this United States. Those Muslims who were killed for propagating Islam. You could tell that in a nice way to kids, to children. Context of sacrifice and what it means to children not to be introduced to the reality of the world. And a way that's appropriate for them. Then during British colonization, the likes that we mentioned, Ayoub bin Suleiman, and after the United States were formed, Ibrahim Abdul Rahman, Prince, Omar bin Saeed, Muhammad Baquba. There comes a women, Sylvia and the youth. I haven't read it yet because it's almost out or it just came out. Sylvia and the youth just finished the book of women amongst the enslaved population. So we know the story of Aminatou who recorded the names in the book of the Negroes when New York was about to fall to the American rebels. That's what they were at the time. The American rebels and the American rebels had promised to slend those escaped slaves back to the south so the British brought them to Canada and they recorded their names in a log that became known as the Book of the Negroes. And there was a Muslim woman, Aminatou, who was described recording the names in the Book of the Negroes. And like I said, Sylvia and the youth is just finishing or recently finished a book on Muslim women amongst the slave population. So you could go into the likes of that book and you can bring forth incredible stories. Mother Teresa was the wife of Sheikh Dawood Faisal in New York City in the late 30s, 40s, 50s into the 60s. And Sheikh Dawood gave Dawood to Malcolm X. You could Google and see just go to Google Images, Malcolm X and Sheikh Dawood Faisal. And you could see Malcolm listening very intently to what Sheikh Dawood is saying to him. But his wife, Mother Teresa, you study her story, you'll find amazing things. But people are starting to die. Some of our students want to do meaningful dissertations, go to New York, go to Brooklyn and talk to some of those old timers who are still around and get the stories of Sheikh Dawood and the stories of Mother Khadija, Mother Teresa, Mother Khadija. And get that recorded. There are a lot of incredible souls whose stories, you could write a children's book on the life and career of Dr. Fatima Jackson. We got her PhD here at UC Berkeley, world class geneticist. She was chair of the African-American studies department, her career primarily University of Maryland. She taught at Howard. She was the chair of the African-American studies at UNC North Carolina Chapel Hill. All of her children have PhDs, like five or six children. They all have PhDs. She started a school where she had professors from local universities teaching at, for lack of a better word, a storefront high school for young African-American males being taught by pro bono by professors from University of Maryland and Howard, et cetera. So that story alone would be so incredible. So just use your imagination. There's a... Why they come as a cinema? It's getting in his work. You're mentioning something that's been just puzzling me. Somebody who grew up in a very liberal area and, you know, very hippie kind of neighborhood for lack of a better term. What kind of neighborhood? Hippy. Hippy's pot smoking hippies, you know. All you were saying is give peace a chance? Yes. Yes. Love, peace and happiness. A lot of it resonated for me at least, you know, the peacefulness. You didn't smoke any hippie grass? I was the only one that didn't. Take me there. I was offered it many times. But, you know, that's where I grew up. And then, even if you look in politics, there's the, you know, on the left, there's, you know, at least there's anti-racism, you know, the argument for equality. And then on the right, there's racism. But then there's a focus on religiosity, whereas on the left, there's anti-religiosity. How? Like in the United States, it almost seems like there's split, like perfectly split in such a... You know, devilish way that you can't... Well, I would say we have to look beyond the labels. I would challenge the premise of anti-racism on the left. California is the most reliant, the most left-leaning state in the Union. It has the largest prison population. It's a world-independent nation who have the third-largest prison population on Earth. And the overwhelming majority of those incarcerated individuals are African-American, or Latino, and African-American and Native. And so that's California. You know, we have some of the most segregated neighborhoods. And so, we have some of the most segregated schools in terms of their performances. Abdul Haq, what's the drop-out rate for an Oakland compared to somewhere like San Ramon or Pleasanton? Night and day in California, liberal California. So, you know, I would challenge just the basic premise of that question, but I think as Muslim... Ostensibly. The image. That's all I was going to say. But let's take it for the sake of argument. We have to form our own political agenda and shop that between the parties as opposed to being bought and sold and pimped by the political parties. We have to have an independence based on our vision. And then if the Democrats are going to meet us here, then we'll do business on this issue with the Democrats. And if Republicans are going to meet us there, we'll do business with the Republicans. But this whole idea of sort of the whole political question being, we use the term once, I'll use it again, a zero-sum proposition was all with the Democrats, all with the Republicans. And there's no third choice. There is a third choice. And we should begin to position ourselves as the third choice and invite people to jump on our bandwagon. But we have to have confidence in ourselves as a community. And that leads to something Malcolm was emphasized greatly that if we confine ourselves as Muslims, in turn, both at the level of consciousness that my awareness of what it means to be a Muslim is confined to the boundaries of the United States or in terms of our membership in a global community, then we're going to be weak and we're going to perceive ourselves as being weak. And we're going to be insecure. And that weakness, perception of weakness and that insecurity will lead us to making the kind of political compromises we're making. But we're part of an umma. We're part of an umma. And we have to see ourselves as such. And when we see ourselves as such, then we can not only begin to formulate our own programs that a lot of Republicans who might see the same kind of situation you described or Democrats say, you know what? I like what these Muslims are saying. A little way. You know, you don't have to get in bed with a party that I would argue some would disagree is essentially a party of white nationalists, even though it has a lot of support from African-Americans. You don't have to accept that just to have healthy family values. And you don't have to wave a rainbow flag to be serious about ecological issues. There is a third way. And as Muslims, we have to begin to articulate that third way confidently, believing in ourselves. And I think it would be amazing what would happen if we do that. And then so that's domestic and then internationally. We began to, uh, as a community, enter into dialogue with foreign Muslim powers as opposed to part of the community is aligned with Qatar formally when Qatar was against the UAE. Qatar beef was going on. And part of the community is aligned with the UAE. And now we're fighting each other on issues that have absolutely nothing to do with us. That we say, no, we're going to offer the resources of our community to help both of you accomplish some of the goals you want to accomplish in the United States based on our terms. So we have to mature and start to think beyond the parameters that have been laid out for us. And I'll give it still for you. They see it. I don't know if we, yeah, we'll take it. Allah. Peace be upon you. Peace be upon you. So my question is for teenagers, I guess high school to college where these ideologies that are being presented are seemed, you know, to be very empathetic and merciful. And it's inherently good until you disagree. Until you disagree. What tools do you think are best? When the African-American community here in California was blamed for the defeat of Proposition 8, the gay marriage amendment, which became irrelevant when the constitutional change. You had the merciful kumbaya, which is innocent victims of historical oppression as it's spitting on brothers and sisters in San Francisco and LA. So is merciful to you disagree? Anyway, who was your question? I agree. It got lost in the shuffle. My question is for people that age, you know, Muslims on the edge or even Muslims that are strong in the fundamentals, what tools do you think are best to introduce alternatives? Is it Sharia? Is it Sunnah? Is it Hadith? Is it Quran? What tools can you use to introduce, I mean, I know it's cliche, wholesome, angelic ways of living rather than satanic, hedonistic ways of living? The foundation is on Qida. That's what I generally speak, and you don't find those strong East Coast African-American Salafi communities contemplating putting a rainbow flag on the masjid. It's not happening because they hammer Akira, Akira, Akira. That's the found our beliefs and anything contrary to the belief is not acceptable. So Akira is definitely important, but at the end of the day, it's just having faith and confidence because you can have all the Akira in the world if you don't have faith and belief in yourself and confidence that Islam has something positive to offer the world starting with this country, then you're just setting yourself up to be sucked in by either either we're calling to this way or being called to someone else's way. There's no middle ground. No longer is Taufiq. It's Shia. So it's that old-time religion. Like the old lady who was reputed to have said someone said, oh, there's the great Ahlam, Kakhruddin al-Razi. He has a hundred proofs for the existence of God and she just scoffed and, supposedly scoffed and said, well, if you didn't have a hundred doubts, he wouldn't need a hundred proofs. Akira to al-Ajaiz, the belief of the old ladies. We need some of that old lady belief, some of that old-time religion. And then we'll be on the, I mean, I was terrible in grad school. I was like, I looked back on it. Professor probably thought I was crazy, but we're like, no Islam challenges that idea. We're like on the war path. And so we have to be aggressive. We have to believe in ourselves. We have to have confidence and we have to believe in the depths of our soul that this way of life that has saved me, given me direction, spared me a lot of the hardships that so many people are wrestling with, that there are a lot of other people out there, it can do the same thing for them. Allah give us two feet. So I think that was the last question. Dua and zikr. Salawat. Salawat. Salawat. Allahumma s-salana Sayyidina Muhammadun wa al-i was-salam Allahumma s-salana Sayyidina Muhammadun wa al-i was-salam Allahumma s-salana Sayyidina Muhammadun wa al-i was-salam Allahumma s-salana Sayyidina Muhammadun wa al-i was-salam Allahumma s-salana Sayyidina Muhammadun wa al-i was-salam Allahumma s-salana Sayyidina Muhammadun wa al-i was-salam Allahumma s-salana Sayyidina Muhammadun wa al-i was-salam Allahumma s-salana Sayyidina Muhammadun wa al-i was-salam Allahumma s-salana Sayyidina Muhammadun wa al-i was-salam Allahumma s-salana Sayyidina Muhammadun wa al-i was-salam Allahumma s-salana Sayyidina Muhammadun wa al-i was-salam Allahumma s-salana Sayyidina Muhammadun wa al-i was-salam Allahumma s-salana Sayyidina Muhammadun wa al-i was-salam Allahumma s-salana Sayyidina Muhammadun wa al-i was-salam Allahumma s-salana Sayyidina Muhammadun wa al-i was-salam Allahumma s-salana Sayyidina Muhammadun wa al-i was-salam Allahumma s-salana Sayyidina Muhammadun wa al-i was-salam Allahumma s-salana Sayyidina Muhammadun wa al-i was-salam Allahumma s-salana Sayyidina Muhammadun wa al-i was-salam Allahumma s-salana Sayyidina Muhammadun wa al-i was-salam Allahumma s-salana Sayyidina Muhammadun wa al-i was-salam Allahumma s-salana Sayyidina Muhammadun wa al-i was-salam Allahumma s-salana Sayyidina Muhammadun wa al-i was-salam Allahumma s-salana Sayyidina Muhammadun wa al-i was-salam Allahumma s-salana Sayyidina Muhammadun wa al-i was-salam Allahumma s-salana Sayyidina Muhammadun wa al-i was-salam Allahumma s-salana Sayyidina Muhammadun wa al-i was-salam Allahumma s-salana Sayyidina Muhammadun wa al-i was-salam Allahumma s-salana Sayyidina Muhammadun wa al-i was-salam Allahumma s-salana Sayyidina Muhammadun wa al-i was-salam Allahumma s-salana Sayyidina Muhammadun wa al-i was-salam Allahumma s-salana Sayyidina Muhammadun wa al-i was-salam Allahumma s-salana Sayyidina Muhammadun wa al-i was-salam Allahumma s-salana Sayyidina Muhammadun wa al-i was-salam Allahumma s-salana Sayyidina Muhammadun wa al-i was-salam Allahumma s-salana Sayyidina Muhammadun wa al-i was-salam Allahumma s-salana Sayyidina Muhammadun wa al-i was-salam Allahumma s-salana Sayyidina Muhammadun wa al-i was-salam Allahumma s-salana Sayyidina Muhammadun wa al-i was-salam Allahumma s-salana Sayyidina Muhammadun wa al-i was-salam Allahumma s-salana Sayyidina Muhammadun wa al-i was-salam Allahumma s-salana Sayyidina Muhammadun wa al-i was-salam The people of this ummah, the ummah, the wider ummah of Muhammad s-salallahu alaihi wa s-salam To the way of Muhammad s-salallahu alaihi wa s-salam And who is better in speech than one who calls to Allah and does righteous deeds Bless us to be those who call to your way, ya Allah Bless us to be those whose deeds are righteous and pious, ya Allah Bless us to be proud to say, la ilaha illallah To be proud to say that we are Muslims, ya Allah Not an arrogant, venglorious pride, but a pride that's rooted in the happiness and the joy of knowing that we're undertaking an affair That's beloved to you, that we've been commissioned with by you, ya Allah Ya Allah, ya Allah, ya Allah Bless this community, strengthen this community Bless this leadership, ya Allah Bless all of the people who support this community Who benefit from all of the services that are offered here, ya Allah We ask you this and intercede with you through the righteous deeds that were undertaken By everyone, every believing soul on the face of this earth In the preceding day of Jumu'a, ya Allah From prayer and from reciting the Qur'an From traveling great distances in some instances to attend the Jumu'a prayer Whatever acts of good, of zikr and thikr, whatever it might be, ya Allah We ask you to intercede with you, to you through that, ya Allah That you accept our prayer, that you accept our prayer, that you accept our prayer Wa sallallahu anil Sayyidina Muhammad Wa ala anihi wa sahbihi wa salim al-fatiha