 كتاب وأخر متشابهات فأما الذين في قلوبهم زير فيتبعون ما تشابها منه بتغاء الفتنة وبتغاء تأويله وما يعلم تأويله إلا الله والراسخون في العلم يقولون آمننا به كل من عند ربنا وما يذكر إلا أن الألباب ربنا لا تزر قلوبنا بعد إذ هديتنا وهبلنا من لدك رحمه إنك أنت الوهاب ربنا إنك جامع الناس اليوم لا ريب فيه إن الله لا يخلف الميعا صدق الله العظيم من الشيطان الرجي بسم الله الرحمن الرحي ومن تاب وعمل صالحا فإنه يتوب إلى الله متاب والذين لا يشهدون الزور وإذا مروا باللغ مروا كراما والذين إذا ذكروا بآيات ربهم لم يخروا عليها صم والذين يقولون ربنا هبلنا من أزواجنا وذرياتنا قررتاع وجعلنا للمتقين إمامائك يجزون الغرفة بما صبروا ويلقون فيها تحية وسلاما خالدين فيها حسنت مستقرا ومقاق قل ما يعبأ بكم ربي لو لا دعاكم فقد كذبتم فسوف يكون لزاما آمنت بالله سنقل الله عني عظيم بسم الله سلام عليكم شكرا لكم للمتقين جميلة من الذين يتكلمون من الثلاثة من الزيتونة الذين يتذكرون القرآن والذين يتكلمون سيال عبد الله أحمد وسميل رحمان شكرا لكم ومن ذلك أعتقد أننا سنبدأ المساعدة في حالة المساعدة إذا كانوا يتكلمون من الزيتونة يجب أن يتكلمون من الزيتونة المساعدة الآن يتكلمون يمكنك أن تتكلمون للمتقين جميلة لتكلمون المساعدة وإن شاء الله سنبدأ now with a recitation of an official sort of opening recitation of the Qur'an and then we will move into the first few speakers we'll break for Asr and then we'll close off with the final two speakers and then Maghrib Insha'Allah so if you do need to do with you at any point the bathrooms for the men are to my right which are sort of in the hallway where the conference room is and then for the women the bathrooms are at the back in the banquet hall area so welcome everyone to MCC for this event and my name is Ahsan Ahmed I will be your MC for tonight and I wanted to introduce our Insha'Allah I wanted to introduce our reciter who is going to open the night and that is Qari Amr Balaha Qari Amr is a well-known and esteemed Hafid or memorizer of the Qur'an who committed to memory the Qur'an in its entirety he was raised in Morocco and he memorized the Qur'an at the age of 17 from the Madrasa Imam Nafya he has a jaza or a license to teach in the Qur'an for both the Hafs and the Warsh forms of the Qur'anic recitation in the mid 90s Qari Amr was awarded top prizes in the National Moroccan Tadwid competition a competition of the best Qur'anic reciters in all of Morocco and if you've heard some of the reciters from Morocco they are really amazing so Qari Amr is really a talent and a gem that we have and he's one of the bay areas he was recognized as having really beautiful recitation having a clear recitation and just really being an excellent reciter and he's one of the bay areas and he's the most respected and active Qur'an teachers having taught hundreds of students in numerous schools across the bay and we are very lucky ourselves at MCC to have Qari Amr as our main teacher of Qur'an and of Hafs and he leads the prayers often and particularly in Ramadan and so that's a treat and a delight for anyone who's prayed behind him and so I'll ask Qari Amr to please come up and open the program رجيم ويوم نبعث في كل أمة رسولا من أنفسهم وجئنا بك شهيدا علىها ونزلنا عليك الكتابة بيانا لكل شيء ونزلنا كتابة بيانا لكل شيء أحمة وبشرى للمسلم الإحسان وإيتى القربى الفحشى كرى والبض يعظكم لتذكروا قضو الأيمان بعدته وقد جعا كثير قوة أتخذوا تتخذوا أكم دخلا بينكم ربا من أم فيه تختلفوا شامة يشاء تسأل صدق الله صدق الله العظيم بسم الله فالأمر السلام عليكم هو إمام أمور صليمان هو مرحبا الإيقين الإنسطتورا ومجموعة أسلامية في مدينة المثالية هو مرحبا ومجموعة ومجموعة في تنسية مدينة ومجموعة إمام أمور ومجموعة في أمورتا وملاشا ومجموعة تقديم ومجموعة أسلامية ومجموعة سلامية ومجموعة أسلامية ومجموعة which is a non-profit umbrella organization which is serving the Muslim community for Muslims with disabilities and he's been at the forefront of Islamic activism really combining the spiritual and worldly aspects of the job that he does. He lives in Dallas and teaches at the Al-Maghrib Institute as well as others and he's a well-known speaker and lecturer at conferences around the world. He was also named to the CNN and he's one of the most influential Muslims in the U.S. Please welcome Imam Omar Suleiman and I've been informed that Imam Omar has to go right away to catch a flight so as soon as he's done we're going to give him the space to be line it out of here and make his flight. السلام عليكم ورحمة الله وبركاته أعوذ بنا سمينا وعلي من الشيطان وعلي من الحمد لله رب العالمين والعضوان إلا عن الظالمين والعاقبة للمتقين وعلى أنه وصحبه وسلم تسيم الكثيرة. سبحان الله there are many amazing people that are in this room and everyone of course may Allah سبحانه وتعالى bless our leaders our Mashaykh our teachers and people that are far more worthy than I am to speak on just about any subject related to Islam. So I have brief comments إن شاء الله تعالى about the evening or still the afternoons at my biological clock that we stand here today to really reflect on what it means to be on the shoulders of giants and in the short time that I have I actually want us to develop just very briefly a methodology for how we interact for past, present and future. If you look at the way the Qur'an tells us to interact with the past we are to learn from the past as a community so for example all of the injunctions about بني إسرائيل الله عز و جن mentions both the downfalls in بني إسرائيل as well as some of the positive things that we can learn from some of the righteous persons in بني إسرائيل and Allah سبحانه وتعالى also really references the past to let us know that the circumstances that we face though they may be unique but they are unprecedented in terms of their severity and that's something very profound that many people look to the past with this lens of glory and idealizing the past and maybe one day we can get there and as a means of diminishing any present effort because it doesn't live up to this glorious past that we have so anything that's being done right now is not truly representative and this community effort it's not really there because we have to get to this place and we're so far away from that place and so we glorify the actions of the past as an excuse for our inaction in the present and it's really interesting because the Prophet ﷺ did quite the opposite the Prophet ﷺ he interacted with the past he looked at his brothers and sisters that came in the past in previous nations and the previous prophets the Prophet ﷺ had a group of people that he could directly identify with in the prophets of Allah because they are like half brothers and the Messenger ﷺ with all the difficulty that he faced for example being the most tested prophet looked back at Musa ﷺ and said رحم الله أخي موسى لقد أوذي أكثر من هذا فصبر may Allah have mercy on my brother Musa ﷺ he was tested with far greater than this but he was patient so the Prophet ﷺ looking at this situation of Musa ﷺ not as a means of justifying any inaction on his part ﷺ or giving him an excuse or a pretext to say that I can't do anything more because look Musa ﷺ he could have compared the ummah of Muhammad ﷺ when he saw something that maybe he wouldn't have liked he could have said you know you guys are being just like Benny Isla'il therefore I'm going to be like Musa ﷺ particularly like in retreat from you guys and I'm going to but the Prophet ﷺ focused on the quality of sabr that quality of patience that Musa ﷺ had in a period of great difficulty particularly difficulty that was being inflicted upon him by his own people the very same people that he was trying to serve ﷺ and that's something that's very profound because many times Allah ﷺ will test you in your sincerity with the people that you may have initially been trying to serve sincerely and we often forget that if you serve people for the sake of Allah ﷺ you don't just give them your time and your effort and your sweat and your tears you also give them your ego the Prophet ﷺ said الذي يخارط الناس ويصبيروا على أذاهم خير من الذي لا يخارط الناس ولا يصبيروا على أذاهم the one who mixes with the people and tolerates the harm that comes from dealing with people is better than the one who isolates himself from the people and does not tolerate the natural inconveniences and harm that comes with the people that comes with the people I'm trying to do something good for you and the same people that I'm trying to do good for are the same people that hurt me no one experienced that like the Prophet ﷺ so all of us in our situation we get involved with an effort we try to do some sort of good whether it's in the capacity of a Masjid or an MSA or anything and as we're trying to do that good the same people that we're trying to help give us a headache and we say forget this community you're not dealing with the people as harsh as some of the people that dealt with in the past nor are you living up to the fullness of the quality that you're praising in the righteous people that we remember from the past so on both levels the metrics still give us something to aspire to on one end in terms of the fullest of Sabr for example of patience because that is a constant a constant patience manifests itself in so many different ways and Subhanallah I want to focus on this for a moment there were times in the past where great people persevered and persisted and the reason why we benefit from their legacy is not because of the uniqueness of their talents but usually because of their perseverance there are many people in the past who could have done so much more for us as the future generations could have been some of those shoulders and had the talent and the capacity to do so but maybe at some point broke whereas there are others that at some point probably face the difficult point in their lives and had to make a decision a crucial decision whether to persevere or not and they chose perseverance and because they persevered we benefited from their legacy there might have been people that lived alongside of them obviously we're not talking about the ambiat anymore we're just talking about great people in history there might have been people that were contemporaries that were more eloquent than them that were more talented than them that were stronger than them that were more capable in some ways than them but the defining factor was persistence great people persevere in detrimental situations they keep going they don't fold they don't buckle that's the distinguishing factor and the prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم said that the believer is not given a blessing not just that's better that's awsah that's more encompassing than a sadr than patience that's not just to get you through your difficult moments in your worldly pursuits that's to get you through your difficult moments in the most honorable and noble pursuit which is the pursuit of Allah سبحانه وتعالى his pleasure that's where the blessing of صبر is the greatest of blessings and that's what makes a محمد عري for example special رحمه الله تعالى he could have buckled many people don't know the day that مالكم was assassinated رحمه الله تعالى الحجملك الشباز محمد عري came home and found his apartment it was a message to him to be quiet to stop he doesn't even know where it came from what the message necessarily was but it was supposed to intimidate him into some sort of silence just stop stay in your lane keep boxing you know there was a there are so many moments that you could point to just to take that one person's life to take محمد عري's life and even if even if it was through different lenses or different things that were causing him to persevere in those moments like when الحجملك الشباز when مالكم showed up to the sunny listen fight promoter said we're not going to keep you if he stays we go you're going to lose the greatest opportunity of your life a championship shot he says bye turns around and walks away from him and those people go chasing after him in his car to say no no no he can stay he can stay please stay to stand in front during Vietnam to say I'm ready to die by a firing squad who says that in their 20s when they've got millions of dollars and fame and celebrity on the line perseverance right so صبر is the defining trait whether you're looking at the lives of the MBA the profits or you're looking at the صالحين you're looking at the righteous ones you're looking at the predecessors the pioneers of any generation in any field there was a patience that patience was being drawn from which was that well of sincerity which is something that needs to continuously be filled a reservoir most people who made history did not recognize the greatness of what they were doing in the moments that they were doing it you know why because that was irrelevant and insignificant to them when Ibrahim was establishing or raising the foundations of the Ka'ba alongside عليه السلام عليه السلام did not write Ibrahim was here in the Ka'ba it was completely irrelevant to him whether or not his name would be attached to what he hoped would persevere what he hoped would continue for generations and generations to come at no point in his دعاء that he asked Allah سبحانه وتعالى to be remembered or that people would erect some sort of memorial to him and that's why Allah raised his absolutely no significance to him whatsoever his concern was something greater than him and in staying focused on that which was greater than him sincerely Allah elevated him as he tried to elevate something greater than himself when you're in the moment if you're making history you're not thinking about making history you're thinking about making the most of your present and doing that which is most pleasing to Allah سبحانه وتعالى you're not thinking about how you're going to be remembered you're thinking about how you're going to be resurrected and that's what's keeping you that's what's moving you that's what's giving you fuel when there is absolutely nothing else to draw from around you that's what's giving you perseverance when everything else around you is telling you stop and I'll say this when we think about the shoulders of giants past present we don't always have to wait for people to die to appreciate them properly there are people amongst us many of them in the front row by the way you know سبحان الله إمام زيد is someone that may Allah's blessings elevate him you know these are people here that are giving you shoulders here to stand on I mean that's special but we have a legacy I was sharing with these brothers that was in Detroit 2 weeks ago teaching about Malcolm X رحم الله 2 people that some people that lived with him and knew him and I went to مجد ودي which was the first NOI temple now a masjid and there is this sister close to 9 years old making bean pies in the back before she was there in 1960 she witnessed that entire thing that we witnessed she's just the sister in the back that's making bean pies for جمع like she's been doing for decades there are people that still live amongst us that give us shoulders but I'll share this with you and this is extremely important for all of us to sort of recognize Allah سبحانه وتعالى puts upon us 2 responsibilities to honor those people and to continue to work for that which you know if you think about the days of أحود because sometimes we can be paralyzed by the fear of what's to come and in the battle of أحود think about it at that moment they hear the prophet is dead that the prophet is gone these people were still new in islam they're the best generation they're new in islam and there's this idea that there is nothing worth living for anymore can you imagine being in the midst of just putting your arms down and crying so there's nothing worth it's not worth it anymore there were a few صحابة that said if it is true that the prophet was killed then die for what the prophet died for live for what he lived for die for what he died for persevere the way that they persevered you have to you have to be willing to be a part of that and to continue that but in the moment dear brothers and sisters and this is part of the recalibration you don't know what you're a part of right now you don't know the potential that's in front of you you don't know and a lot of times we think greatness we think statues and plaques and history books and things of that sort and people that are you know out there on the stage and stuff like that and you're not thinking about those those hidden ones beloved ones of Allah who's a legacy in جنة would be that they helped a homeless person in Oakland, California you don't know who these people are and so focusing on greatness in the sight of Allah سبحانه وتعالى and continuing the legacy that's been given to us and honoring those shoulders by standing not just standing on those shoulders but making sure that you do so with honoring those shoulders and continuing their legacy by giving shoulders to those that will come after you as well that's a special calling that we have الحمد لله Allah has given us an opportunity to be a part of something like this and I was thinking about this the other day and I'll conclude with this I was thinking about our brothers and sisters in different parts of the world that literally now are in concentration camps and being forced to eat pork the Uighurs being forced to eat pork and drink alcohol and reeducation camps people that cannot go to a masjid people that cannot go to a masjid because the intelligence agencies of that country would follow them people that are suffering like the Rohingya the ethnic cleansing people in Palestine and Syria different parts of the world that are suffering in immeasurable ways because they're Muslim people that are paralyzed by fear in countries that don't allow them to speak out against the corruption that's so prominent and manifest around them I thought to myself what's stopping us can you think about all you have the ability to live the fullness of your Islam you can speak you can do you can be a part of this that's a ni'ma that Allah سبحانه وتعالى will ask us about and there are people that have done that work and that continue to do that work one of those people is our beloved Imam Suraj Wahaj when I think legacy of Imam Suraj Imam Suraj when he was on the streets in New York shutting down crack houses cleaning up people off the street his khutbahs being recorded on cassette tapes that were part of my own formation some of the most important lectures in my life were those cassette tapes and if you don't know what a cassette tape is please ask your parents when you get home those cassettes of Imam Suraj's khutbahs when Imam Suraj in the streets shutting down those crack houses cleaning people up turning this place upside down in a good way I don't think he knew the impact that he was having in those moments but all of us are his students I say that without hesitation his students not necessarily in his khutbahs or in doing the exact work that he did but we all learn something from his intense passion sincerity and love for the people he wasn't driven by any vanity or social media didn't exist at the time or any type of recognition it was an intense love for Allah love for the people that's greatness in action we have to honor that legacy and continue at by paying attention to the two common factors our circumstances will be different every year our circumstance in fact you're living in the same country and your circumstances are so different you can be in the same city and your circumstances are so different but the nama of patience and the well of sincerity have to be the constants in not just making any type of meaningful history but honoring properly the history that came before you we ask Allah to bless our predecessors in khair our predecessors in good and to allow us to be a continuation of that good and to allow us to be the inheritors of the greatness of the past and those that inspire the greatness in the future and not lose ourselves in the present اللهم أمين وصلى الله وسلم على نبينا محمد وعلي وصحبي وصحبي وسلم تسيم الكثير عجزاكم الله خير وسلام شكرا and we pray that you have a safe trip back to Dallas or I think that's where you're going so next we have our sister Dr. Rania Awad Dr. Rania was raised in the US and she began her formal study of the traditional Islamic sciences at the young age of 14 and she traveled to Syria she continued to study there while she was doing her high school, college and medical school studies and she received Ijazah in a number of different sciences including the Jweed in the Hafs and Warsh recitations from the eminent scholar of Syria شيخ أبو حسن القردي and in addition to that she studied the شافة المدهب of Fiqh and she's licensed to teach various texts in Fiqh, Adab and Ehsan Dr. Rania has taught online and local classes for various organizations including the Rahma Foundation Rabata and has served on the faculty of Zaituna College where she's taught all of these sciences Dr. Rania it didn't stop there she's also a medical doctor with a specialty in psychiatry she completed her psychiatric residency and fellowship training at Stanford University where she has been on the faculty as a clinical instructor and her medical interests include addressing mental health care issues in the Muslim community and as part of that she's working with the Khalil Center along with a number of other different organizations but I wanted to call out the Khalil Center specifically because it is a social and spiritual community wellness center that is much needed by the Muslim community and we're very fortunate as well to have Dr. Rania a local here in the Bay Area and she teaches many classes at MCC please welcome Ostawa and Dr. Rania Awad السلام عليكم السمي الله رحمان الرحيم وصلى الله على سيدنا محمد وعلى آله وصحبي وصلم أجمعين ما شاء الله it's an honor to be here to address all of you الحمد لله I'd like to especially welcome our out of town guests شيخ عمر شكرا لك for your words also Dr. Alsaf Hussein is with us شيخ ياسر فحمي is with us إمام ماجد from DC is with us and of course our dear إمام زيد and all of the guests Dr. ياسر قادي as well as with us and I just wanted to say what an honor it is for us here in the Bay Area to welcome all of these guests and scholars from around the country ما شاء الله today our discussion is on the topic of following of our predecessors and the giants that we ride on their shoulders to do the work that we do I was reflecting on this and thinking where exactly to start the conversation and SubhanAllah thinking about where you start with the topic of teachers you know and thank you brother أحسن for your kind words and thinking about the different roles that I play today SubhanAllah and thinking how in this masjid and many of you the sisters I attend with me classes here at the MCC this very room fills the conference room every Friday night بارك الله في كن and I hope that continues to grow and all the girls that have been served by the Rahmah Foundation because MCC has been such a blessed host to the girls and women's work here in the Bay Area and I think about the thousands now we've reached the thousands of girls that we have mentored through our programs through our حلق through our camps through our women's قيام and through our classes through the hip of school that we run SubhanAllah thinking about what that means when ten years earlier there was really no such specific organization set here in the Bay Area for women and girls and when I think about the legacy and what that means and whose shoulders we're standing on I have to think of course of our teachers but I'll come to that soon when I think about the work another field that's underserved which is on mental health and thinking about how we integrate Islamically the work of our predecessors again into the field of mental health today and think about the shoulders that we stand on to do that work I'm also reminded of all of our teachers SubhanAllah that have instructed us not to take things of face value not to take things exactly wholesale how you were taught but rather go back into the tradition figure out what Islam and our great legacy actually said pull that out and implement that into today's society SubhanAllah this kind of work is the kind that you have to look and you think about that journey you have to figure out who inspired that journey and for me SubhanAllah I'm reminded of the famous saying of the scholars that whoever has taught me even a letter is my master and some other sheikh would say that even if you taught me just the simple concept you are forever my sheikh what is the most important concept that each and every one of us here in the room have think about it what is the most prize knowledge and possession you hold today what is it think about it what is it what is it لا إله إلا الله محمد رسول الله that is your most prize possession who taught it to you your parents and I think about all the teachers that I've had and all the scholars who I've blessed to sit on their feet and study but ultimately the first teachers the first my first teachers the teachers who taught me the kalima and likely taught you the kalima is whom your parents and I'm reminded that that's where the journey has to start when we first discuss our own journeys into Islam and into the study and continuation of teaching of Islam and I'm reminded سبحان الله of my own father and here I'd like to share with you a story specifically for all the parents in the room and I know all the young people in the room and particularly as a woman teacher I want to share with you the story my father when he was maybe in somewhere like around middle school went to his father and said I think I want to be a teacher of the dean I think I want to study the dean full time his father masha'Allah الحمد لله took him by the hand and walked him to أزهر الشريف in Cairo and they went to the admissions office and said we'd like to enroll young yaser in الأزهر the response was well since he wasn't with us since elementary school he can't actually be enrolled my father was devastated he was very upset and it was really the foremost place in Cairo where he was from to study the dean but he held it in his heart and continued private studies and he said that day as a young middle schooler he made a dua to Allah سبحانه وتعالى and said يا الله if ever my child was to ever come to me one day and say I want to go study the dean I would let them fast forward years later in comes Rania and the day came where I was a middle schooler سبحانه وتعالى and I said to my father بابا I'd really like to go study the dean and he said the realization hidden and it's like the ayah and the Quran right وليس الذكروك الأنثة he said what am I to do I made a dua to Allah سبحانه وتعالى but if my child ever were to want to study the dean I would fulfill that عهد and what was open at the time was Damascus Syria and سبحانه وتعالى what was there was a beautiful tradition for women particularly young girls to go and study the dean to study Quran to do their hifl to work on the traditional classical Islamic sciences to the level of Ijazah and it was beautiful tradition and I say was because we all know the state of Syria today and I ask you to make dua in that time period of studying the dean it was a beautiful journey that started when I was a teenager and the roundabout way of how I ended up in Damascus is also a beautiful story but what I want to share with you specifically here is the kind of teachers that I met when I was there because when we talk about standing on the shoulder of giants we also have to talk about how it is we have programs for girls and women like today that we do I'll tell you what I saw I saw a woman who were Hafeedat of Quran who were Faqihat who were Mu'addithat who were women who held Ijazahs in and I should translate all of this in Tajweed and Quran who held their Ijazah as a license an Islamic license to teach in Fiqh which is Islamic law in Hadith right in Quran and all of the major Islamic sciences but you know what I saw I didn't see them as one dimensional beings just classes with a teacher and then you go home and it's a different life no we followed them into the home and this is the beauty of having women teachers for women especially young women and I would be reciting my doing my Tasmiar my actual recitation of Quran to my teacher while I'm following her around her house and as she's doing her dishes or folding her laundry and every so often I would see the members of the family go by and life was being lived and I learned more than just the lessons of the book I learned how to be a wife I learned how to be a mother and those were more important than the black and white that I was learning in the texts you see and this is why that lesson was so powerful and why it is the programs we have for the girls tonight which is modeled on exactly what I saw on Damascus is a mentorship program it's not just come and learn a couple of good words feel good and leave it's having Islam be part and parcel of your life every single day the in and the out like my teachers would make this du'a and say ya Allah let our insides match our outsides and let our outsides match our insides that you're true to your dean from the inside and the out and that was so powerful about what I saw amongst my teachers and all the work that I do and all of us do collectively it is on their shoulders that they taught us these things and we have to give thanks because the Muslim the Mu'min is one who has to give thanks and I think we'll fast forward again the trip to Damascus continued many many many years until the war started which meant that it paralleled all of my studies because my parents as much as they it was always a struggle always a struggle to get to Damascus but when I think about the request to continue my regular studies as they called them they insisted that I continue my regular studies and so the dean studies were interwoven in with the high school college medical school residency it was all interwoven in and when I think about that struggle I think subhanallah how we have so much time on our hands and people would say how do you have the time to do what you do and I say I'm just following what I saw my teachers do every single one of those women even though she was a hafida or a muhaditha or every type of Islamic scholar there is or multiple she was likely also a physician or an engineer or a teacher or she was working in the public sector and I think about the combination of roles and then I think about our scholars and how they were what we would call encyclopedic scholars where medicine doesn't necessarily define me it is one of the studies I've studied and one of the things I do and that is how our scholars were just earlier today Shahamza was telling me did you know Imam Ghazali was also a mathematician I'm not surprised they were encyclopedic scholars they mastered multiple sciences and they were real people in real homes that had families that had children that had parents that they cared for and children that they cared to Subhanallah and now I want to tell you you know I would love to talk more and more actually about Syria and the blessed things I want to tell you about one particular teacher I share this story with some of the sisters here I think it was last week in our حلقة but it really it really hits the heart really much masha'Allah it is a story it takes place when I am actually doing my Tasmiyah my memorization to my recitation rather to get ready for my Ijaz exam and in this case it was for the Qiraat of Wadash and I'm sitting in front of talk about giants one of the giants of Damascus masha'Allah somebody who all of the women and all of the men knew to be a master of Quran someone who was so diligent and so well versed in Quran that it is said that that is true but the main in Damascus the way the setup was for receiving your Ijaz in Quran is you have to recite to your teacher then your teacher takes you to their teacher that teacher takes you to their teacher until you reach the final basically the top of Damascus which were five and you have to recite to one of the five in order to actually receive your Ijaz that had the official ختم from وزارة الأوقاف of Damascus it's a very rigorous process and so here I am reciting to my teachers teachers teacher and I'm getting ready just about ready to go to the sheikh and recite so I've prepared for some time and I'm sitting there reciting to her and her Heiba her presence her the vibes masha'Allah this amazing person despite all of my studies all I could get myself to read was and so she she said you know take a break said okay I was so embarrassed masha'Allah she said take a break and then she decided to like call me this beautiful story masha'Allah she decided to call me down by telling me a story and she said do you know my story you're a giant masha'Allah and she said no no no I'm also I had no idea I'm also a professor of mathematics at the University of Damascus and I have been and since the 70s the only female faculty member in mathematics in the department of mathematics and the University of Damascus I had no idea I was blown away amazed and I'm just sort of and she said did you know I wasn't always الشيخ I wasn't always مقرئ جامعة I shared all ten recitations completed in Ijaz on all of them and she said I wasn't always this person in fact I came to Islam late I thought I came to Islam late masha'Allah and then she said you know when the wave of feminism hit Damascus so many of us were taken by it and all of all of the people that were thought themselves to be educated and more advanced maybe social-economically we all took off our hijabs and we all you know and she said I just was raised in a family that wasn't at all religious so it's not like she took off hers she just was raised in a family that wasn't religious and I thought to myself I can do what any man does and I'm going to study the most complicated thing and so she chose mathematics and she became very good at it and it's incredibly brilliant woman very good at it that she became a professor the only professor who was a female in her department in a very male oriented department and so she said there I am and I wanted to affirm that I as a woman can do this right in that kind of mentality she said one day the girls of the college came up to me and said we want to have there's very few women on campus we want to have a woman's gathering a woman's talk about you know being a woman on campus so she said yes anything for a woman so she met with them she's not very busy as a professor but she went ahead and met with them and so she's sitting in the circle of woman and she said I don't know how I didn't realize what I saw later so here we are at first the discussion is just going on about academics and being a woman and how difficult it is and so on in education this discussion is back in the 70s and she said I don't know when the conversation switched from the discussion of academics to the discussion of the prophet Muhammad because if someone had told me they were going to discuss the prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم I would never have showed up I was so closed off to this idea but as they were talking as the girls were talking she said suddenly something hit my heart and it just opened this heart that had been so close to anything related to religion to Islam to the prophet anything was so closed off and when Hidayah is meant to come the moment and how and on the tongue of whom it comes with الله تعالى عالم and it just opened and she said there I was suddenly I was hit with this wave of love for the prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم and I found myself listening intently and then I realized wait a second this group is almost all hijabi and she said and do you know what I was wearing that day and this is where the real the real crux of the story is I said yeah and you could you possibly be wearing so she says that the whole conversation is happening in Arabic and then when she came to this point she said mini skirt and I said what so in English she repeats again mini skirt clearly it showed on my face I was just and she said you know if the woman had judged me for how I looked I never would have entered into that room if they judged me for who just what my outside was I never would have been invited in to study the Dean if they had judged me and said she's one of those women she's one of those feminist I don't know what woman right I would never have begun this journey and there I was fully welcomed by this group and one thing led to another one حلقة led to another one teacher led to another and that brilliance she took to get a doctorate in mathematics at a time when all their women had a doctorate in mathematics imagine putting that brilliance into the memorization of Quran she became so learned in Quran and so accurate in all of her pronunciation that the sheikh the head sheikh that we received from رحمه الله رحمه الله both of them that when he would travel to go on Hajj even though he had hundreds of students hundreds of male students with him he would choose her in his post to fill in for him to give Ijaz on his behalf when she was when he would travel that's how qualified she was and she said had they judged me had they looked at me and said oh you can't enter the message like that sister here's a blanket I'm being very serious I tell the story to you because it really resonates with me and it resonates the kind of woman that I studied with and it resonates that anybody this dean is for everybody this dean is accessible to men and to women this dean is accessible to your daughters this dean I'm talking to the women and to the men it is accessible to your sons it is accessible to kids like me who grew up in America right and subhanAllah there are options now there are options to study now and out here in this country and I could go on and on about my teachers of Damascus they are an important teacher we will kind of take you from the land of Damascus back to the Midwest and here I am having begun my initial studies of Damascus I'm a teenager I was very young just a teenager and my parents جزاهم الله الفخير said you know they had a group of family friends like many of you have family friends they would meet with regularly they would go to each other's houses and so on and they said well everybody now is a teenager maybe we should make sure that all this Islamic knowledge we've been telling them and their Islamic schools and their Sunday schools and their Saturday schools yes we also went to Saturday school and all of the extra things that you know we've been teaching them to make sure it's really resonating how do you make sure that teenagers really understand the Dean that you've been teaching them so the parents the عموز and the group decided that each teenager was going to go ahead and give a lecture to whom? to the parents and before I knew it I was picked to be the first one and I went to my father and I said with my mother I said I don't have anything to speak about what am I going to talk about they said anything everything that you've been you know reading and studying and just anything don't worry about it well right before that right before that I had been to a conference one of my first and I heard some really amazing speakers who speak at this conference and شيخ عمر outdated himself so I'm going to outdated myself too إن شاء الله and the speakers were amazing I'll tell you I'll tell you my very first my very first encounter was I was they asked me to volunteer and to give out little note cards to the people who are sitting in the lecture to collect questions so here I am with a stack of note cards and I'm kind of just going around giving different people and then the speaker step on the stage and he starts to speak and I can and I can't even begin to tell you the amount of eloquence and the Arabic and the English and so on and the Quran and I had never heard anything like this I was standing in the middle apparently in the middle of the aisle I was right because I was giving out no cards to where somebody had to tap me on the shoulder and go move the speaker was شيخ عمر I don't know who شيخ عمر was at the time and I remember finishing that lecture and running over we were in the youth hall and the parents were in the adult hall and running over and going mom, mom, mom looking for my mom frantically and going there is this person and he's a convert and he can speak and he can speak Arabic yes and he can and he's and it's amazing and she said tell you, tell you and then right after that the next lecture in the Arabic hall right that was giving that lecture was giving in Arabic was the same speaker شيخ عمر just finished giving us a talk in English and they gave the parents their talk in Arabic and then my mother said oh this is very special so I took on that night I took cassette tapes back home and I also in that conference heard an amazing other speaker really really taken subhan Allah just amazing when you think of the young hearts what these what these lectures do to young hearts and took on the cassette tapes well back to the story of my father when he asked me to prepare the lecture I was looking frantically through the my stuff I was like what do I do I need to prepare I don't know what to pulling books off shelves and figuring out and then I went through my stack of cassette tapes and I pulled out a tape titled Whom do you follow Whom do you follow it was by Imam Siraj Wahaj which is the other speaker that I had spoken that had spoken at that conference and really touched the heart and you know what I did I copied every single line from from his lecture literally and in the lecture I hope you hear this lecture one day every few sentences he says Whom do you follow and then he would keep going Whom do you follow and keep going Mashallah so I would write Whom do you follow every single time and when it came to and to to give the lecture I held I sat between the mom's hall the woman where the woman sitting where the men were sitting they put me in the middle and I held the the papers and I gave my very first lecture ever in the words of Imam Siraj Wahaj Whom do you follow letter by letter word by word especially for those of you who are all giggling right now yes this is how we started now fast forward a couple more years just a couple more years and suddenly I am responsible for putting together a MINNA conference I'm still high school there at this point MINNA Muslim Youth of North America which was a youth conference that continues to happen and I encourage our children to go and had happened when I was growing up and I really believe the MINNAs the MSAs and these kinds of generations really made from our Islamic identities so I was in charge of 300 kids 300 teenagers like myself and I have zero previous experience organizing anything but to show you where we got our start and the organizer said now mind you this is before email before text stain before social media before you literally had a landline with the cord yes that's all there phones just the landline with the cord or you write a letter the handwritten letter those were the only ways you communicate with anybody they gave me a sheet and the sheet literally had the names of different speakers and their phone numbers and it said on there are things like Sheh Hamza Yusuf phone number Imam Siraj Wahaj phone number different era completely different era I picked up the phone here I am 17 I pick up the phone السلام عليكم my name is Rani I am organizing a minna conference would you be willing to come Imam Siraj Wahaj who picks up the line on the other end and he says minna conference where I say Detroit he says put me down and that was that and Imam Siraj Wahaj shows up to Detroit because a high schooler asked him to speak at a high school conference not MSA college students not adults high schooler he is in New York he comes out because a high schooler asked him to speak and if you look at Imam Siraj Wahaj's itinerary you will see that every day for years on end he has been traveling all of the communities of this country and the impact he has made in every single one of us without fail each of us has stories to share about this person and probably and I will end with this that the most beautiful story is that one of our own teachers was speaking this morning and she said to me back when I converted in the 80s Imam Siraj Wahaj was a name and today Imam Siraj Wahaj continues and I will bless him and increase him continues to be a name and all the names in between they are no longer names and she said what is the most beautiful thing about that time period or about him is the fact that he stayed consistent consistent consistent consistent without fail and thereby affecting generations of people I'm a nameless 17 year old who am I continue to affect generations of people to stay true to their Dean and on their Dean and inspire those of us who went off to studies and now people call us teachers right who inspired us but like the of my teachers my insides match our outsides and our outsides match our insides Allahumma Ameen and this is the like of Imam Siraj Wahaj may Allah increase all of our teachers and bless all of our teachers and bless our parents Ya Rabbi and our grandparents and our forefathers Subhanallah we don't know why it is we're in this room tonight but think about this like they say with the story of Sayyid Namousa Ad-Khidr when he said about why are you protecting these young children these orphans wealth and he says وكانا what أبوه مصالحة and it says in the تفسير that it wasn't referring to their father it was referring to their seventh forefather and because of the seventh forefathers سلح their goodness that is why the grandchildren seven generations down were protected and the fact that it loves you each and every one of you us here today to bring us here to listen to the words of wisdom and to be on the Dean it may have nothing to do with us and it may have everything to do with our forefathers our teachers the people who hadn't maybe less knowledge than us less obvious religiosity than us but raised their hands in the depth of the night one day and said يالله protect my progeny and that's why we're here may Allah bless them and protect them and protect us and protect our children and our next generations والحمد لله رب العالمين وصلهم على الهادي محمد وعلى آله وصحبي وسلام أجمعين سلام عليكم رحمة الله بركات جزاك الله خير دكترانيا for a very moving talk so next up we have إمام محمد ماجد but before I get into introducing إمام ماجد I just wanted to remind everyone that we will be praying us at five if I haven't made wudu then I would recommend people go not all at once but maybe one by one to make wudu so إمام ماجد is the executive Imam of all Dulles area Muslim society that's the Adam center based in sterling Virginia he is the chairman of the international interfaith peace corpse and the former president of the Islamic society of North America or ISNA he is also the chairman of the program and he has a long history of commitment to public service through various organizations he has co-authored multiple books on Islam and he has helped in organizing training and workshops for إمام's and religious leaders domestically and internationally specifically on the topic of violence against women إمام ماجد is also leading an initiative to protect religious minorities in Muslim majority countries through seminars and workshops and and has been profiled in time magazine and the wall street journal he is the recipient of the Washingtonian year of the year award and the human rights award from fairfax county I don't know who did this and please welcome إمام ماجد I don't know who made this bio I don't know in all of my bios بسم الله الحمد لله صلاة والسلام على رسول الله I like this to show gratitude to this community and to my beloved or إمام زيد and the community in the bay area for hosting us and the scholars who flew from different part of the United States to be here we have received tremendous generosity and hospitality and I'd like to thank them بلاشكرا الله بلاشكرا الناس whoever does not show gratitude toward people he or she not showing gratitude toward Allah سبحانه وتعالى you know I have five daughters ماشاء الله and therefore I would like to begin this speech by saying that one of the giant people that was standing on the shoulders are women when I was in Mecca I told the a judge a Mecca city a city of Mecca the city have been established by the effort of women هاجر عليها السلام وإبراهيم علي السلام left her in that place he said ربي إن أسكنت من ذرية يبوادن غير ذي زرحن إن بيتك المحرن ربنا ليقيموا الصلاة فجعل أفيد من الناس تهوي إليهم he said Oh Allah I'll let my family in the valley with no vegetation Oh Allah for the purpose to establish a pair let people be around them people come around them and that's how هاجر عليها السلام وإسمعيل عليهم السلام was the foundation of that city Allah brought people because Zemzem came in and a woman who gave all her wealth in that city for me to become a Muslim and you is Khadija رض الله عنها and the first person gave their life for Islam in that city was Sumaya رض الله عنها for I was saying to them you know when you stand standing in a shoulder of people those are the people standing on their shoulder and therefore when we think about our legacy our spiritual legacy we have to think about those people who made it possible for me to become a Muslim and you those are the people who established this community because of them we have this masjid because of them we have we have people like me and all the other speakers in you we say لا إله إلا الله محمد رسول الله those are the best students of the prophets when we prophet إبراهيم عليه السلام to prophet Muhammad صلى الله عليه وسلم who carried this message to all of us but tonight we are here to speak about a dear brother in Imam Imam Sa'a Johaj when I come to this country 30 years ago I don't mind for you gussing my age no problem I was advised to watch a movie was series called Eyes on the Prize and the professor who advised me to do that he said because I want you to know what it look like to be a black man in America that was the best advice I have seen or heard and I watched tapes video cassette tapes no DVD 17 of them I watched them yes and I didn't have a machine in my home but I watched them in the library University of Maryland and it changed my perspective and at that time I was near to the country it was my father and Allah bless his soul رحم الله and until I came to a gathering in the mall that what Muslim was gathered from around the United States and non-Muslim to speak with our brothers and sisters in Bosnia I don't know if you remember that rally and I was sitting there and Imam Sa'a Johaj went to the microphone to speak like Dr. Rania saying I memorized every single word of him and I said I would like to speak like this man I want to be passionate like this man I don't know who he is I don't know his name at the time except the man said Sa'a Johaj and I like Surat An-Nabak because his name is Sa'a Johaj and I said Subhanallah look how people are passionate about Islam in America and this man if he spoke Arabic because I was living in English maybe he can change at the time he spoke the same way become خطيب in Arabic maybe he can change so many people in the Muslim world but I didn't realize at the time how much change he's doing that really impacting the Muslim world until I come to know that the effort he made in an inner city and I said to myself now I see Imam Sa'a Johaj or Johaj as an African-American Imam Leaders of Muslim in America but I can appreciate also Rosa Park was made possible for him and I to be able to be free in some sense and to be able to have full participation society you remember at that time I didn't have a car I used to ride the bus and I was saying that for that lady Rosa Park to refuse to give her seat and made it possible for many Leaders in this country like me to be able to participate to be able to have a voice I have to show appreciation for Imam Sa'a Johaj and all the legacy also in America that come before him and therefore my dear brothers and sisters when we think about people like Imam Sa'a Johaj we cannot just to say just thank you but we have to show a genuine appreciation for a man who traveled almost every city in the United States and there's millions of dollars for a massage to stand with him and his family in difficult time to be there for him in a difficult time that's how we show appreciation to people because I can have lip service and says talk about me personally and said I really appreciate Imam Sa'a Johaj and this and that but until I show how I appreciate him رصوع سلم said الممينة في دواده وطرحوهم وطعطوهم كمتل الجسد الواحد تشتكى منه عقل انتداع علىه سهر الجسد بالسهر والحمة he said example of the believer like one body if any part of it ate the rest responded fever especially if that part of the body is so essential to the body that your body would act more maybe more painful to have an eye pain or than to have a finger pain and that's what I really want to share with you today that I think as a Muslim community to show appreciation to someone like Imam Sa'a Johaj to say to him with you and your family this time I want to be there for you going back to the hadith that I just mentioned earlier رصوع سلم said لا شكرا الله ما لا شكرا الناس no one will show gratitude toward Allah unless he or she show gratitude toward people I want to conclude by saying the following you know each one of us when he or she reflect in their own life we have people who influence our life in way one another some of those people have passed away they are not with us like my father like my mother like my mother we make dua for the people who have passed away but people who are living among us we cherish them we don't wait until we spoke to them in the past tense we say we are here for you we hear you we feel your pain and we would like to show our solidarity or appreciation to you you know my father رحم الله one time told me he said son do you remember the first person taught you how to do it right the teacher and a name a teacher he said you forgot and I remember who taught you the first person taught you how to do it right he said do you remember that one who sent you to that preschool called Sudan which is I don't recall it now you know to study the alphabet he said I want you to make the dua that is the name of FISA I want you to make dua for her because he was telling me because we live in a different city she passed away last month he said that the first person who taught you to how to do it right she taught you the alphabet then we send you to the Quranic school my point that sometime it will become big become known and we forget who made us who we are and I'm going to tell you it was no hesitation I'm standing on the shoulder I remember this man many times he gave me advice and encouragement he came and taught us at the Adam center this outreach Adam does and so forth he is the first person to give us a workshop how to reach out to other people at Adam center when I was 500 Groves street and I attended that workshop for my Allah bless this community beautiful community of yours and Imam Zaid and all the great people who invited us to be here and my Allah so how to preserve Imam صحاشه and his family and to give him ease very difficult time and my Allah so how I reward you for reaching out and helping him and his familyهم بعمالنقلة بسم الله بحمد و element حسانا سرة surroundings I'll pull doctor Yasser up and then stop him what we'll do is we'll have said a freedom who needs no introduction لن يجب أن يكون one to come up and recite some poetry for us إن شاء الله مرحباً مرحباً مرحباً مرحباً مرحباً مرحباً هذه المدينة هي الثلاثة مني they hear me every day here so we have all these giants that are here let them speak حقاً؟ لا؟ أمام زيت قلت to go so who's going to say no to Imam زيت is 6 feet 4 ما شاء الله أمام صراج وحاج is beloved to everybody when I first started practicing Islam we used to go to MCA and he used to come to MCA I thought he actually lived down the street because every two weeks it was Imam صراج وحاج at MCA and then I realized he's in the east coast and he really inspired many of us he's one of the giants of the Ummah and we have benefited greatly from him I personally met him early on in the 90s I'm not going to say when because he's going to figure out my age too so I'll try to hide but he was the first person to do a major event in 1999 in Madison Square Garden where he did a program called Repairing America, Putting Allah First and we flew from here a bunch of youngsters went to New York and it was one of the most amazing conferences it was sold out and thousands of people came from all around the world I remember the buses were coming from Philly and buses were coming from DC and it was really an amazing scene to be part of and he's an icon of the Muslims in America the man has done so much work that I don't think that a conference like this can do justice but I'm so happy that these works are done for him we did another program for Imam Salaj Bahaaj about 10 or 11 years ago where we raised some money with Shaykh Hamza and some of the speakers they came for his Masjid program but tonight is about just appreciating the teachers and those who have benefited us because without teachers there is no student and there is no other teacher every teacher had a teacher and one thing that Imam Zaid said goes to talk about مولانا رومي I said you don't have to tell me because everything I talk رومي comes in it's the fabric of my life but مولانا رومي was he wouldn't be رومي if he didn't have Shamsa Tabriz so he had a master that made him who he is one of the contemporary poets said about مولانا رومي he said no one became someone they just out of themselves and no piece of steel turned itself into a beautiful sword by itself and no one became a teacher and no one became a teacher no pastry maker became this master chef of pastry until that master that we see now didn't start at the feet of another master as a student each مولانا نشد مولانا رومي and no مولانا there were so many مولانا at the time of مولانا there were so many of them but he said none of those مولانا became those مولانا became the مولانا of رومي تاموري the Shamsa Tabriz until it didn't become a student at the feet of Shamsa Tabriz so everybody has to have the teachers and we are benefiting and we are so blessed in this community to have such teachers and to be sitting at the feet of these teachers and to benefit from them and those who forget about their teachers they will be forgotten those who forget about those people who like what they were talking about earlier a lot of people they came to Islam through these people إمام صراج وهاد إمام زيت شاكر شيخ حمزة يوسف all these giants of the west but then sometimes we forget who they are and we think that we are something and that's the danger of having little knowledge that you think you have a lot of knowledge one thing that إمام فقر رازي he said هارجيز دلمان زعيل محرون نشر فقر رازي obviously everybody knows him for his Arabic to seer commentary of the Quran the masterpiece 12 volume but he did speak Persian fluent and he has writing in Persian and he wrote many poems but this poem he wrote it he said it when he was 72 years old in his last year of his life he said I would never deprive from learning knowledge from seeking knowledge كمان زي أسرار كمعلوم نشر to a degree that very few of the mysteries remained that wasn't unveiled to me in other word I exhausted knowledge I learned it to every science I mastered it هفتا دوسال درس خان دام شاورو he said I studied the sacred knowledge for 72 years in the daytime and in the nighttime I didn't waste any of my time for 72 years full time معلوم شد كهيج معلوم نشر and then I realized that I didn't know anything that's the humility of a person like إمام فخر الرازي I realized that I didn't know anything and the more you know the reality is the less you know because you would see how much there is to know the humility is one thing إمام صراج وحاج his humility is amazing if you look at his pictures all the time he has a pocket right here what about six or seven pins always he always has those pins because he's always taking notes and I've been in gatherings if somebody says something he just threw it down just a humble human being a beautiful human being and just for people who have seen him what an honor to see that man if you have been in his presence to be giving him a hug his hand what a blessing and for us to know him it's a blessing an amazing man a man of God a man of humility and may Allah protect him and his family in this trial time إن شاء الله and we want to thank all our scholars especially ممزيت for putting this program together and making sure that we actually honor our our scholars may Allah bless all of you إن شاء الله time for ودو as said not all of us go to the bathroom at the same time maybe there's a few bathrooms they can talk about people who need to make wudu for a guest صلى الله تعالى رسينا محمد وعن عالي وصحب عجمعين ورحمة كية ورحمة رحمين just before we as we're preparing for us sir before we're going to call that then still at five so we have a few minutes so insha'Allah I'll call up Dr.Altaf Hussein to say a few words as well إن شاء الله إن شاء الله so the the usher prayer is almost upon us and الحمد لله first I wanted to begin by thanking I gave the khudbah on Friday الحمد لله that I got to see the community and may Allah bless as the Dr.Rania said all of the founders of this community plus all of those who are here you know إن شاء الله if I turn and profile to my side to my right like literally as I was growing up I decided how would the beard look and if you look to the side you can see the angle that was إن شاء الله if you want to look good if you want to be a Muslim who like commands respect that's إن شاء الله إن شاء الله the other reason he has pens because every time he would be talking to people that walk away إن شاء الله do you have a pen so he'd be giving away pens and he wouldn't have any for himself to take notes so he had eight pens or ten pens for that but what I wanted to really say is that you know there comes a time in our lives when we start to realize that all of the words all of the deeds everything comes to an end but with إن شاء الله there is a legacy a deep legacy that is Islam in America lived which means we talk about the Nation of Islam we talk about the fact the transition to Sunni Islam we talk about the fact the contributions to community إن شاء الله محمد صراج عددنا كيف يجب أن نسأل للمنزل لا تقلقوا أن نسأل للمنزل يجب أن يتوقفوا أن يبقى المنزل فهي عددنا كيف يجب أن نسأل للمنزل ومن ثم اسألته اخبرتني محمد صراج كيف حدث هذا؟ ما هو السلسة التي نستخدم right now؟ السلسة التي نسأل وقالت اللهم د. أحمد صقر اتمنى هذا السلسة في العام 60 عندما نسأل ونحن نتحدث about a person who has had this phenomenal legacy we have to look and see every aspect of our life has been touched by someone like him I was the president of the National MSA and he was beginning with Imam Zaid and Dr. Jackson and Sheikh Hamza and others to form MANA which is the Muslim Alliance in North America dedicated to an indigenous sort of agenda and someone had said you know you should come because this is a great you know a new sort of gathering we don't know what it will become so I went there I was a PhD student and I just started volunteering to to take notes and then as I was taking notes and just going along at one point he just paused and he goes you know why is he taking notes I said that's I'm just volunteering to take notes just helping out he said he's as much of the indigenous agenda that we're trying to form and he said he has to be in our executive committee and subhanallah and you'll like this at a MANA conference he actually stood up and he gave me and I'm not going far I'm just telling you what happened an honorary African-American status and I'm telling you I was like nobody does that who does that who gets them and goes today you're an honorary Musri right or today you're an honorary Hadrabadi I mean you pay the problems of getting Hadrabadi Biryani right all of us have done that Mashallah but he just got up and he said this is what's going to happen this guy is one of us he was basically saying what everything the Prophet ﷺ did would make everyone feel welcome I have never heard of someone not once complained that Imam Siraj Bahaz was inaccessible not one person whereas even we are now being complaining I said we can't reach you we don't know how to get to you you have people we have to go through Imam Siraj you could stop him anywhere and he would stop with all of his books and by the way for another reason we carried all those books and I'll close with that you know what I asked him he said sometimes they keep trying to shake my hands when you meet all these other people who are not Muslims so he just shuffles the books and they stop shaking hands he doesn't have to explain he doesn't have to do anything I love this Mans upon Allah and my father happens to also be named Siraj عزاكم الله خير السلام عليكم so our next speaker is Dr. Yasser Qadi and he is the محافظ ع disciplines at the Al-Maghrib Institute he is one of the few people who has combined traditional Islamic or eastern Islamic seminary studies with a western academic training in the study of Islam Sheikh Yasser graduated with the BSC in chemical engineering from the University of Houston after which he was accepted as a student by the University of Medina or the Islamic University of Medina he completed his diploma in Arabic and he graduated with a BA في مجموعة حديث وصلاحيات الإسلامية ومجموعة أمام الإسلامية في المجموعة المتحدة وانه ينتهي إلى أمريكا ومجموعة في مجموعة محديات من المجموعة الأسلحة شيخ ياسر is a resident scholar of the Memphis Islamic Center and is a professor at Rhodes College في مجموعة مجموعة المجموعة he's a well-renowned speaker, author and scholar and we are very honored and privileged to have him with us today please welcome Dr. Yasser Khadi السلام عليكم ورحمة الله وبركاته الحمد لله وسلام علي رسول الله وعلى آله وصحبه ومن واله أما بعد ما سيقولون عنك ومي؟ يوم الذي يحصل علىهم أننا لن نعيش هذا هو ريالي that we all experience but we will not be here when it is experienced on our behalf نرى ونرى أن أخرى ينزل كل الموقع ونعرف نفسنا's ريالي لكن أسرع لنا أن نفكر على ريالي عندما ننزل في حالة أسرع يوم أخبار أصدقائي ومصدقائي ينزل ومن أصدقائيين أصدقائيين لنا أكثر من المشاكل هذا هو عمي ومن أول شيء يحدث في نفسنا هل هذه are the memories of the times we spent with those actual people? A friend, I was just with him two weeks ago. An acquaintance, oh my God, he seemed just coming to work every second or whatever. A relative obviously closer. And we always think of the impact they had on our lives and the legacy that they leave behind after they're gone. Now, the true mu'min will be pre-planning his own or her own legacy before people are talking about it. And this is in fact an Islamic commandment and reality. The Prophet Ibrahim A.S. made dua to Allah وجعل لي لسان صدق في الآخرين. And one of the interpretations of what لسان صدق means is Oh Allah, leave my memory to be a good one in the later generations. The legacy I leave behind, I want people to think of me in the best of manners. Of the Quranic du'as وجعلنا للمتقينة إمامة. Make us role models for the believers. So the Prophet Ibrahim is making dua to Allah that Oh Allah, make my legacy a positive one. And Subhanallah, no human being is more universally admired across all fates than the Prophet Ibrahim A.S. وجعل لي لسان صدق في الآخرين. We call them the Abrahamic fates even. Allah SWT mentions in the Quran that he is going to record ونكتب ما قدموا وآثارهم. We will record all that they will send forward and the legacy they will leave behind. Whatever you've sent forward, your good deeds, your صدق جارية, your حسنات and what you have left behind آثار literally means your remnants. Literally. We will record that which they send ahead and that which they have left behind which is their legacy. When they've left this dunya what remains that people will remember them by that's called آثار. What are the remnants that the people have of them and Allah is saying we shall record those remnants. What will my remnants be and what will your remnants be? What will my legacy be and what will your legacy be? We want to have the best of legacies and not because we want fame for the sake of fame. No. But because we want to maximize our good deeds and the way you maximize your good deeds is you expand your influence and the way you expand your influence you have the maximum impact in a positive manner on the most number of people both quality and quantity if possible and if not possible then quality obviously over quantity. Just look at the legacies of our great علماء that came before us. Sometimes I just wonder people like where do we begin? إمام البخاري You cannot give an Islamic lecture without giving some goodies to إمام البخاري You cannot give a خطبة a درس a حلقة You cannot give a خاطرة حلقة except that you're going to be quoting something that إمام البخاري spent time compiling registering recording and when you quote that حديث and say بخاري narrates a little bit of good deed is being added to إمام البخاري he only lived 60 odd years that's it but the legacy that he left behind is truly phenomenal and that's just again so many examples can be given so in today's short lecture that I have I want to remind myself in all of you about three practical steps that we need to undertake in order to maximize our legacy and insha'Allah those three also explain why certain people Allah has blessed over others even when they're alive it's pretty clear that they're going to leave a large legacy when they leave the first of these three and without a doubt the most important is إخلاص or sincerity if you want to leave a legacy then your niyah has to be not for the people but for the creator of the people your niyah has to be to please Allah سبحانه وتعالى and that's why some people get a little bit confused at the Quranic dua that I just quoted وجعلنا للمتقين إمامة إمامة for the believers and people say wait hold on a sec I thought we're not supposed to seek fame you're right you're not supposed to seek fame the Quran is not saying make me famous the Quran is saying make me a true leader for the righteous people let the righteous people look at me as a role model as an exemplary person for the متقين I want to be the Imam the Imam here it doesn't mean the guy who leads you in Salah no the Imam here means the role model Imam oh Allah make me a role model for the people of Taqwa yes we want to have that level and that's why we ask Allah for that level we don't ask the people we ask Allah to give us that level of sincerity Allah سبحانه وتعالى mentions when he talks about يوسف عليه السلام and how he goes from the well to the jail to become the minister in Egypt the raising of the ranks and Allah سبحانه وتعالى says in the Qura'a of Nafi'a إنه كان من عبادنا المخلصين وتكسرة يوسف was of our servants who had ikhlas in explaining how he rose up in ranks in explaining how he went from one درجة to another to another why did he end up where he ended up إنه كان من عبادنا المخلصين he was of our servants who had sincerity and that's why the level of إحسان which is the highest level of our religion it only deals with sincerity as حسن البصري said أبو بكر الصديق رضي الله عنه did not excel over you simply in the quantity of his ركعات and then the number of days he fasted pause here full stop here put a footnote he's talking to the Taba'a and he's not talking to me and you أبو بكر excelled over us yes in the quantity of Salawat yes in the quantity of Zakat yes in the quantity of Siam but حسن البصري is talking to the Taba'a and the Taba'a look again a bit of a tangent here but how many ركعات can you pray in a day how often can you fast Monday and Thursday and then the three days of the month and then Ramadan and then there's just a set number now most of us I know myself I haven't even reached that level yet obviously and that is the difference between Islam and Iman Muslim and Mu'min generally speaking it's the increase of rituals but the real difference between the Mu'min and the Muhsin is not in the quantity of rituals after a while you will max out from the Sunnah otherwise you're becoming excessive after a while you will max out or else you will be like the three people who think that the process is not doing enough I can do more than him after a while you'll max out our prophet says some quick quiz question how many raka'at did he pray on an average daily basis when he wasn't traveling quick quiz how many raka'at would he pray all 24 hours 50 raka'at 50 raka'at a day why because when he went up to Isra Al-Miraj الله سبحانه وتعالى said 50 then he went back down up back down up and then finally he said for your Ummah 5 and I'll write 50 for them but for him when the 50 command was given that was his regular lifestyle calculated out the wajibat the Sunnah Muqadah and the Tahajjud exact 50 that was his daily routine 50 raka'at that would take up 3, 4, 5 hours of the day how much would he on average fast on average it was Monday, Thursday the 3 days of the month and then the extra the 10th of Muharram and whatnot that's the average Sunnah of the process once in a while he'd do more than that so Islam to Iman it's that quantity but Iman to Ihsan it is the quality Iman to Ihsan it is a change in your إخلاص going back to what Hassan Al-Basli said Abu Bakr Al-Siddiq did not go ahead of you simply by the the extra Salah and a Siam but rather it was something that was in his heart it was something in his heart that was then manifested in his عمل his heart had something that you guys don't have and that is the level of إخلاص إيمان توقو إيمان مالك إبن آنس the famous scholar of Medina he was the first person ever in the history of Islam to compile a book of Hadith meant for the other people and he called it الموتط now you know the first person whoever does something immediately there's copycats immediately everybody else follows that's the nature of human society and it's always the first person who goes down you know as the one who does it then a lot of people follow on sometimes those who follow on do a better job than the first person actually usually that is what happens in terms of technology and writing and what not generally the first person writes a book is not necessarily the best one then people build on that so إيمان مالك wrote الموتط in his own lifetime people began writing other books called the موتطة and this and that one of his students came and said and the student assumed through a cursory reading that some of those other موتطة seemed to be better than إيمان مالك's موتطة so he said oh إيمان مالك what are you going to do now there are so many موتطات so many موتطة is out there what's going to happen to your موتطة إيمان مالك said ما كان لله بقية what was done for the sake of Allah سبحانه وتعالى that موتطة will remain and if I now say موتطة every Muslim on the planet immediately jumps to موتطة إيمان مالك nobody's even heard of the موتطة I've written after إيمان مالك this is what إخلاست us sincerity you don't do it for the sake of the people you don't do it for fame you don't do it for anything other than the pleasure of Allah سبحانه وتعالى that's why the smallest of deeds can become magnificent if done for the sake of Allah of the first Quranic revelations ويطعمون الطعام على حبه مسكينا ويتيما وأسيرا إنما نطعمكم لوجه لا لا نريد منكم جزاءا ولا شكورا we're giving you this food and they give their food to the poor to the orphan to the prisoner and they say don't even thank us don't even thank us we don't want your thanks we don't want any money back from you we are feeding you for the sake of Allah سبحانه وتعالى it is reported that one of the صحابة would send food to the poor and he would tell his servant listen to whatever they say and any dua they make for me afterwards then the servant would come and say you said this then he would repeat exactly the same dua and give it back to him basically and then hope that Allah and Allah alone will reward him for the food I don't even want your جزاءا or your شكور for giving this food don't want anything back from you I feed you for the sake of Allah سبحانه وتعالى and that's why again we have in the tradition sometimes the smallest of deeds become the most magnificent of deeds in the famous story of the lady of ill repute who fed that dog water nobody saw what she did not a single human witnessed it but Allah witnessed it and Allah knows how many centuries later our process because you know this story happened in the past before our process it's not a Muslim story per se meaning of the ummah of the process it's a pre-islamic story nobody even saw this incident of this lady feeding that dog water I hope you all know this story nobody heard nobody saw this lady do it but Allah عز وجل صا and the fact that this story has been preserved on the tongue of the most blessed human being whoever walked the face of this earth this حديث is reported in Bukhari and Muslim متفق عليه it is one of the most popular حديث heard so her action was recorded by Allah and manifested in broadcast to all of mankind and all of the ummah to benefit from Allah عز وجل knew in the battle of Tabuk our prophet عليه وسلم mentioned that you know in the battle of Tabuk a lot of Sahaba were not able to go financially they couldn't afford it and the books of Seerah mentioned that the prophet ﷺ said when they were coming back from Tabuk one of the most difficult expeditions in the history of the Seerah read and study that one of the most difficult expeditions when they were coming back the prophet ﷺ said there are a group of you sitting in Medina Allah knows who they are you don't know their names Allah knows who they are every single step that you took they got your Ajr along with you even though they're not with you because they couldn't make it they wanted to make it they had the Nia to make it they had the Ikhlas to make it their names are not known in the books of Seerah we don't even know their names but Allah عز وجل knows their names that's what you call Ikhlas you do it and you do it for the sake of Allah you don't care whether the limelight is on you or not it's not even relevant to you how many people are there or not your deeds and your Ikhlas shall be the same wherever you are that's the number one criterion of success in leaving a legacy number two number two you want to leave a legacy you have to erase ego and pride and kibr and embrace humility humbleness true leaders are humble people true leaders that are genuinely respected by the ummah and in fact it's not even just the ummah these are human characteristics human it doesn't even matter obviously we're talking about within the paradigm of Islam but the fact of the matter is these three criterion they actually transcend Islam you want to see a successful leader outside of the faith community you will find the three things going to say in them as well and I'll give you one example it's fresh in my mind because I just came from South Africa two weeks ago and I visited Nelson Mandela's cell on Robin Island truly a mesmerizing experience if you follow me on Facebook I have a video of it which I was on the island for three hours it's really just I don't even know how to explain the emotions that were overcoming me at the time to see that cell no exaggeration it's basically smaller than this area over here for twenty years he's confined to that cell his restroom is a bucket in the corner that he has to empty himself the bed is basically some you know old carpet on the floor just twenty years living in that and in his own way obviously he had a loss to his cause and it was a good cause he had humility you cannot be a respected leader without genuinely being that humble person to hear the stories that we heard and many of you don't know this by the way you don't have time to go into there but on that island Robin Island there is actually a Musalda and the grave of one of the first Muslim prisoners Robin Island was known for housing Muslim prisoners who fought Jihad against the Dutch these were prisoners from Indonesia from Yemen from other places and as soon as you enter the island and from the cell of Nelson Mandel you can see and Nelson Mandel actually writes about this in his autobiography the walk of something the long walk to freedom he actually writes about this that the Muslims who fought against the Dutch they actually gave him that hope and encouragement that we are walking on the right path human beings cannot live as slaves human beings cannot live as second third fourth class citizens anyway the point being these three characteristics I said transcend any faith community and the second characteristic is humility humbleness not a sense of ego not a sense of deserving something without having given back to the community there's a beautiful حديث إنساء our professor was standing on the member and you know he was obviously the best and the most eloquent speaker and he used tactics that would bring the attention of the people so I asked you to look at me I'm going to do exactly what he did our professor was giving the خطبة and he raised his left hand and he said من تواضع لله then he took the right hand رفع الله he literally used both of his hands to get the point across whoever humbles himself for the sake of Allah الله will raise his ranks up you want to leave a legacy you want to be a leader a real leader not the leader that's in the limelight the leader that the people think is a leader a leader of the إمام of the متقين then you're going to have to eliminate the arrogance the self entitlement the glory and fame the desire to want to be served rather than to serve خدمة and that's why every great leader is a servant of his people and not somebody who pretends or acts as if he's some pompous arrogant you know person even if and here's the iron I don't want to mention any names but there are politicians in this world they surround themselves with those yes men they surround themselves with people whose عزة is purchased with money so they delude themselves into thinking that we are respected and they might even get away with that delusion in their lifetimes because they're paying their عزة is purchased it's not real عزة and this is of the ironies true glory is given to those who do not seek it one of the most ironic realities of human existence and explicitly mentioned in the حديث true glory is given to those who don't seek it you don't want to become famous you don't want the people to know you you humble yourself for the sake of Allah and guess what the people will love you not that you want that's the point you don't want it you don't desire it but it is a blessing that Allah سبحانه وتعالى gives and that's why in that famous حديث of حديث قدسي صعب خاري that the prophecism told us that when Allah سبحانه وتعالى loves someone he announces to the angels I love so and so by name he announces to the angels I love so and so so you love him oh jibreel so immediately jibreel loves the person then jibreel goes down to the heavens throughout the heavens and jibreel announces that angels know that Allah has said he loves so and so so you love him as well so all of the angels love this person then our prophecism said what a beautiful conclusion he said when the inhabitants of the heavens love the person then those walking on this earth will also love him when those up there love that person then those down here will also love him and that is why that genuine love that comes respect that comes that is a gift from Allah سبحانه وتعالى humility and خلاص bring that about you and I do not control those whom we look up to think about it their reputations in our hearts is something that is a mystery why do we respect certain people in our community and not others even though their resumes might be the same their degrees might be the same they might have studied the same institutions they might have attempted to do the same things and yet for reasons we cannot explain and understand certain people are beloved and others aren't هاذا من فضل ربي this is Allah's blessing that he gives to certain people where does it come from it comes from that love that Allah سبحانه وتعالى has it is Allah's blessings so the second ingredient for success for a legacy for leaving وجعلي لسانة سلخة في الآخرين is humility for the sake of Allah سبحانه وتعالى humbleness do not expect that people will serve you you need to serve them and that is why the definition of إحسان as you all know إحسان is the highest level and إحسان is a very very rare trait that exists one of the earliest scholars of the Arabic language الرغب العصرهاني he wrote a book called مفردات القرآن الكريم and he died don't quote me around 440-450 هجراء so a thousand years ago one of the earliest dictionaries of the Quran and it is a beautiful book and in it he says the definition of إحسان is that you give more than what is required for you to give and you are content with receiving less than what you should be receiving think about that the definition of إحسان you give more than what is in any situation in any situation there is a protocol if somebody does something for you you give something back to them how you conduct yourself there is a certain protocol a minimal that is accepted below the minimal which is not accepted and above the minimal right إحسان you give more than what the situation calls for and you are content to receive less than your حق your due this is how he defines إحسان which if you think about it is essentially humility that is what humility is so that is the second characteristic of the three that I'm going to mention obviously this is an exhaustive time is limited the third characteristic is صبر patience patience you will not leave a legacy in a millisecond you will not leave a legacy because you were religious and zealous for one day that's not leaving a legacy a fad will never leave a legacy a temporary enthusiasm is not legacy building material you want to leave a legacy you have to get down in the trenches and dig and dig and dig and then continue to dig and when you're tired of digging take a rest and then dig again consistency over a long period of time that requires patience in all that you do Allah says in the Quran we made from amongst them role model leaders we made from amongst them those imams so when the Quran uses imam it doesn't mean the prayer leader as I said when the Quran uses imam Allah is talking about a role model figure a true leader a legacy builder and we made from amongst them imams why? what was their characteristic when they demonstrated their sabr you will never become an imam and by imam again we mean that legacy builder that leader without that patience systematic continuous perseverance for a higher cause a pleasure of Allah and of course the blessings of sabr are too many to mention you know of them the famous verse in the Quran that the angels are going to be entering upon them والملايكة يدخلون عليهم من كل باب السلام عليكم بما صبرتم فنعم عقب الدار beautiful that Allah talks about the people in the gardens of heaven and in fact in this particular verse Allah says that we shall combine them with their fathers and their sons and their spouses and their families and all of them will be together families will be together in jannah if they were righteous may Allah reunite us with our families and be with our loved ones in jannah so families will be together Allah says in the Quran you will be with those that have gone on and those beneath you in genealogy your children and your forefathers will be together and the angels will be coming in from every door and they will say to you سلام عليكم because you were patient so sabr is a necessary ingredient to bring about that success that legacy and I want to now bring it and make it personal to one of the causes why we are here today and that is to talk about and to honor Imam Siraj and others of that generation some of whom have gone on and some of whom still remain and if you look at these three characteristics and you see those pioneers of American Islam who laid the foundations of these very masajids there is hardly a state and a city except that Imam Siraj and others have traveled and fundraised for the masajid in the schools of those cities you look at these three things number one إخلاص let me say this we have a problem right now big problem we seek Allah's refuge sometimes I feel myself and others of our generation are part of the problem may Allah forgive us and that problem let me just call it it's called celebrity sheikh culture والعياد بالله حوذ بالله let me just be honest with you when I was growing up I mean I grew up in the 80's who was born in the 70's when I was growing up there was no national Islamic figure that we looked up to I'm just being brutally honest early 80's no one that we really and genuinely the way that some of us look up to others of our generation there were some people that we knew Mashallah doing stuff but there was no one of that caliber there was no one who was mesmerizing the entire nation there was no one who made a career out of preaching and teaching we had دعات who were engineers and they loved Islam so they'd give دعوة who were professors of economics and they loved Islam so they traveled to teach and preach we didn't have full-time preachers we didn't I mean that's just a fact look at those early people who were they people like أحمد سكر may Allah bless him and bless his soul people like جمال بدوي may Allah Subhanahu و تعالى may Allah bless him for their end of his life people like سراج و عج let me just be brutally honest here I have a sense of jealousy for that generation positive jealousy you're allowed to be jealous for positive reason you should know because whatever you want to say about them you can never doubt their إخلاص whatever you say about them you can never double guess why they did what they did never there was no fame in Islam you didn't get rich being a preacher there was no limelight no stage where ten thousand people were watching you this is a fitna of our generation may Allah forgive us Imam جمال بدوي I spoke with him a while back and asked him to tell us some stories from the early sixties about his travels and going around in America and whatnot and honestly my jaw just dropped listening to some of the stuff that he would tell us he said that at times when he was a grad student they would take the greyhound bus into a city into a place and sometimes they wouldn't even know any particular Muslim over there so they'd open up the yellow pages and look up the name Muhammad or the name Khan or in some other name Khan is also very common at that stage and they were just random cold call say are there any other Muslims is there some place we can go and have a gathering or whatnot the MSA conventions there was no isna back in the sixties the only thing was the MSA the MSA conventions would take place in graduate student houses the halaqas would take place in the living room of the same place where they'd sleep that night 10, 15, 20 people crammed together the notion the concept of grandiose banquet halls of tens of thousands of people I mean he told me if we got 20 people we would think this is amazing unbelievable there was no money to be made they'd have to pay their own money to go there was no fame what fame is there there's no internet no YouTube nothing they did what they did for the sake of Allah and the brutal fact of the matter let me say this bluntly perhaps after them perhaps after them people came that have a longer CV that have more degrees from Islamic university that have memorized more mutoon but the barakah of that stage it doesn't exist anymore the sheer blessings of those people and what they accomplished we seek Allah's refuge والعياد بالله it's not there may Allah forgive us I speak for myself I don't take the greyhound when I land at the airport somebody picks me up in a fancy car I go to a hotel to stay the night and yes this is a career for me it is one of my sources of income and I do get paid for many times that I go today I'm not getting paid by the way don't worry but sometimes I'll be honest here usually I get paid so yes I am guilty it is my career now by the way we need full time imams and that I mean that's the problem here we need people you know to have a full time career in this regard we cannot have part time but see when you have the fame the limelight the money the fat on a rarium checks don't be surprised when you're going to find a type of corruption there were no منافقون in Makkah why did they start in Medina there were no منافقون in Makkah why not a single صحابي of Makkah was even I mean there's just no question there was nothing to be gained by being a Muslim in Makkah you were a Muslim because you wanted to be a Muslim in the 70's in the 80's in much of the 90's there was no fame or glory or money and I caught that era I know this well and I'm not أستخف الله bragging or boasting I'm just telling you how it was I applied to Medina in 1994 and even in 1994 there was no career to be made out of Islam I literally thought I would come back and continue my I have a degree in chemical engineering continue I worked at Dow Chemical I thought that I'll go to Medina for four years, five years and then come back and continue a career I had no clue no understanding that a full-time career can be made and that has pros and cons let's be honest here has major pros and cons when we look at Imam Siraj when we look at that generation there is no nifak in that generation insha'Allah they caught that timeframe they did it for the sake of Allah humility my time is up it's going to be up in three minutes insha'Allah humility look at that humility sleeping in the dorms with 20 other students traveling greyhound city to city coming back Sunday night to go to work 40-50 hours a week of a job that has nothing to do with Islam and that is their career I mean again what is his career he's a professor those other people you have secular careers they have careers they have to live like all of us are living 40-50 hours a week and on top of that they did what they did I once asked my father my father was one of the early pioneers as well in 1963 he came to Houston and I asked him about those days and inviting speakers and preachers and whatnot and he hosted Ahmed Sakr you know in Houston in their annual convention of 1971 I think it was it told me they had an annual convention in Texas a grand total a massive number of 50 people came for the Texas MSA think about that 50 people and they were ecstatic and they invited Ahmed Sakr to come right and he told me that we all slept in the apartment complexes we lived in all of the people that came and Ahmed Sakr was hosted in the apartment complex I was born in I wasn't born in 1971 I'm that old but the house that my parents lived in at that time they lived over there and then my dad told me point blank because he knows I have a career in this my dad told me point blank in those days we didn't give honorariums we didn't give honorariums the concept of paying somebody to come wasn't there perhaps that is why those people accomplished what later cannot accomplish may Allah forgive us for that and I said you didn't even used to get hotel rooms for the speakers and he thought for a while he said the first hotel room we ever got for a speaker was 1973 or 1974 we invited sheikh qardawi to come from overseas so we thought we should at least get some money for him but no honorarium international speaker and all he got was a measly like motel 6 or something which was a big deal for them but see humility إخلاص and صبر that is how you achieve that legacy my time is up I'll conclude very simply I'm talking about big names preacher speakers please don't don't lose part don't lose yourself in that large picture Allah does not care about how many followers you have on Facebook about how many people know your name in this world that's the whole point of إخلاص and humility and صبر it's irrelevant your fame in this dunya if you manage to be sincere to Allah and consistent in your good deeds serve the people that's all that is required and your درجة in jannah can be much higher than many of the famous people out there Allah doesn't care about that fame and I'll conclude with that the lady who used to clean and sweep the masjid those are the three characteristics in her we don't even know her name do you know that we do not even know her name the lady who used to clean the masjid of the prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم and the prophet some noticed the masjid was dirty and what not where's that lady oh she passed away she passed away why didn't you tell me يا رسول الله she died at night we didn't want to disturb you who knows who she is we just buried her at night tell me where her grave is so he walked from the masjid to baqeer the only time in his entire life that we know of the only incident that we know of where he walked from the masjid to baqeer because he hadn't prayed janaza over that person and she becomes the only person in islamic history that we hear of that the prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم left the masjid to the graveyard to visit her grave and to make special dua for her because he didn't pray janaza over her what was she doing her name but خلاص humility and patience and patience and patience she used to clean the masjid for the sake of Allah her name is not known to me or you but it is known to him and that's what matters the prophet himself walks and makes special dua and he says these are dark they are dark for their people until dua is made and Allah gives light to them so he made special dua for her so her grave is now a grave of light that's special dua she cleaned clean the masjid in the dark nobody saw her because of that Allah gave her that light in the grave may Allah allow us to purify our hearts of any nefaak any hypocrisy may Allah cleanse our hearts of any evil bless us with sincerity may Allah make us humble truly wanting to benefit others without expecting benefit back from them may Allah grant us patience and trust and trust may Allah allow our prophet to be our one and only role model may he bless us to walk in his footsteps may Allah grant us the intercession of the beloved may he allow us to drink from his howl on judgment day may he allow us to enter jannah with him and be a companion with him may Allah bless us to say as the final breath when we leave this earth may Allah bless us to live as Muslims to die as believers and to be resurrected with the prophets and the companions and what a noble companionship they are جزاكم الله خيرا والسلام عليكم ورحمة الله وبركاته جزاكم الله خير شيخ ياسر and I think that was a very timely reminder for myself the ideas of humility, sincerity and patience and so our next speaker is one of the most respected and influential scholars in the Muslim world he was also featured in the CNN's Top 25 Muslims and we know his credentials that he's founded one of the co-founders of the Daytona college and so on but I had the blessing to meet Imam Zaid around 20 years ago and to travel with him and I had the blessing to meet Imam Zaid around 20 years ago and to travel with him and this morning when I spoke to him about this I asked him about introducing people and he said you know people who are well known they don't need any introduction and I know that he wasn't talking about himself because he's that kind of a person he was talking about everybody else but you know I've had the honor myself to if I can count myself amongst one of his students and sit with him and one of the things that I've noticed about Imam Zaid is that I've always found him you know no matter where he teaches where he speaks to always be approachable to always be kind to be principled and upright and to be free with his time for anyone who needs it of him no matter how big or small the matter and this is why this has garnered him the title from the people of the peoples Imam and this is a title that I believe is rightfully earned and for everything that you do Imam Zaid please welcome Imam Zaid to the stage بسم الله برمان الرهيم الحمد لله الرب العالمين والصلاة والسلام على سيد المرسلين سيدين محمد على آله وصحبه والسلام تسلم كثير السلام عليكم رحمة الله وبركاته الحمد لله والصلاة والسلام على رسول الله صلى الله عليه وسلم I think it's very important for us from time to time to reflect on the shoulders because none of us are standing in air and human beings cannot suspend themselves in air like here I am we're all standing on someone's shoulders and we should Shay Gasser said a lot of significant things one thing that amazes me because people see you up here giving speeches and some people think like you want to be up here so they call oh you one of those celebrity mams like if you had a choice between being somewhere in a cabin in the woods surrounded by a bunch of books with no phone you wouldn't choose that but you are a celebrity mame and so they see a celebrity mame and they come up and they say you know I want to be a speaker one day what a lowly aspiration aspire to be a doctor aspire to be a lawyer aspire to be a teacher aspire to be an engineer aspire to be a garbage man to help people to be able to live in a sanitary environment and if love blesses you with their ability or as they say the gift of gab then try to use that feasibility level of sincerity don't aspire to be a speaker because you don't know the tribulation that might bring in your life and you might not be able to handle it don't aspire to stand on someone's shoulders I want to be the one up there aspire to be the shoulders that someone else can stand on and there's a hadith that says just that المؤمن القوي قير وحبل الله من المؤمنة دعيف وفي كل خير the strong believer is better and more beloved to Allah than the weak believer and in each there's good the strong believer is the one someone can stand on their shoulders and if someone doesn't have that strength they're still good وفي كل خير but try to strengthen yourself as people move away from religion they move towards accepting weakness and in accepting weakness accepting that the state is going to compensate for my weakness that this or that agency is going to compensate for my weakness that other people are going to compensate for my weakness that's delusion now I'm not saying the state shouldn't have a safety net there should be a safety net I'm not saying we shouldn't have institutions that help people struggling with this that and the other in their lives you should have those institutions but people should also aspire to be strong and independent and to be able to stand on their own two feet and to be able to provide strong shoulders that others can stand on when we talk about we know the sacrifices the Sahaba made رضي الله عنهم the sacrifices the Tab'een made رحمهم الله the sacrifices those who preceded us in Islam made and we're standing on their shoulders but I want to tell but they're in the giants our teachers and notables the people like جمال بدوي or Ahmed Sakhar or the people like إمام وارفدين محمد or the people like many many others whose names we don't know but there all of us are also standing on the shoulders of people's whose names aren't known and as I was a convert to Islam some of those people whose shoulders I'm standing on they're not even Muslim there's a guy I remember how many of you remember much can remember a song you learned when you were 5 years old raise your hand we got a few Mashallah when I was about 5 years old I was in Atlanta, Georgia and a place called Carver Homes Southwest Atlanta, Georgia there was a guy older than us and I think he died we were in the neighborhood when he died or was severely injured and he subsequently died he was in a go-kart and the go-kart went out of control and he went under a car on the go-kart his name is Hindery Turpentine Hindery Turpentine I remember his name he taught us this song I have to censor it because we're in the Masjid he taught us this song I went to the barn to milk my cow way in the middle of the night to tell you the truth I didn't know how way in the middle of the night I pulled his tail and pulled it way in the middle of the night and all I got was buckled way in the middle of the night why don't you come along little children come along while the moon is shining bright shining bright but what I want to say you know what he used to do to us he used to bring us he was significantly bigger and he was like fire us up shoulder chest BAM don't you cry BAM don't you cry BAM don't you cry and while he was doing some brothers laughed that they had a Hindery in their neighborhood huh you wore the Hindery but what they were doing then let us know you know what it's a hard world out there they weren't deceiving us like it's peaches and cream and hunky and dory that same time a song came out Johnny Cash he wrote a song and sung a song called a boy named Sue some of you remember that Johnny Cash a boy named Sue it was about a guy he was getting ready to leave his wife they had one child so he knew he wasn't going to be there to protect that child and so he named them Sue because he knew as soon as he went to school people going to start teasing him and about his name and he get into a lot of fights and he would learn how to fight and protect himself because he wouldn't have a father there to look after him so he named them Sue so go and google that when you go home don't do it now a lot of you like to google while people giving speech a boy named Sue Johnny Cash you can't google hendery turpentine go talk to brother rashi why did I say that because we betrayed those whose shoulders were standing on who we don't fight for this religion there are too many people who say they're Muslims so I'm not willing to fight for Islam and I'm not talking about a physical fight so you don't have to stop the live stream let me make that clear I'm not talking about a physical fight but I'm talking about when some atheistic fool comes up in you and talk about oh blah blah blah are you ready to give up your Dean and not even fight for it just some get out of my face you don't believe in God that's your problem you probably commit suicide in 5 years because you don't have any purpose in your life instead of fighting for the ready to just give up and we can make hundreds of examples that are happening everyday we betray those who fought for us to be able to say we betray those who fought so that the Quran can be translated and get it into our hands we betray those who built this masjid what's going to happen to this masjid 10, 20, 30 years down the line with this bunch of youth who should be here now and they're the elders who are holding it down they gave up on Islam because people were looking at them funny this group they gave up because people were teasing them for wearing a rag on their head this group they gave up because they weren't sure who or what they were what the identity was I'm not even talking about just sexual identity they didn't even know if they're a human being so they just gave up and these gave up for that reason and those gave up for this reason and none of them were willing to fight for their religion and to fight for the sacrifices that their parents and their grandparents made we're standing on someone's shoulders we're the end of a long line of people who sacrificed for us to be able to say I said some of them were Muslim if you're a Muslim and you're free and you enjoy all this freedom and you can live and your skin is brown or black and you can live in a white neighborhood you're standing on the shoulders of Dr. King and Rosa Parks and Fannie Lou Hamer and all those people who struggled and sacrificed for a dignified living for people in this country we're standing on the shoulders of giants we're standing on the shoulders of giants and some of those giants their names aren't known as Sheikh Yasser said I can tell you people when I was nobody when I was someone who'd be in the back of this room in the corner people coming in they just walk over me they don't want to get up front to listen to the speaker there were people who said you know we're going to do something we're going to start a little masjid because we need to be making Darwin this city and I just came back from Egypt but not from Al-Azhar I just spent 11 months in Egypt beginning to learn Arabic and these people I knew Alif from Bat or Tat and because I knew Alif from Bat they said you're going to be the Imam that's how it was at one time our father were the ones who they were the ones who memorized the first 10 letters of the Arabic alphabet say you're the Imam and now Subhanallah but I'll tell you something they'll die for you they'll die for you they'll sacrifice they'll spend a little bit of money they had and they'll appreciate a little bit of love because a little bit of love because a little bit of love because a little bit of love because a little bit of love goes a long way one thing we get away from the basics now we're up here sometimes and we project that sentiment down on anyone down there they understand the issues we understand they look at the world the way we look at the world they're bogged down in the pettiness the higher you go the better things can get because you lose a sense of perspective from way up there and they project all that down and these are the people who are down there they know it's real they know it's life and death and many situations and because of that they're willing to give their life and they're willing to sacrifice and they're willing to let people stand on their shoulders if it's going to serve the greater good they don't care if they're not the one standing on someone else's shoulder therefore they're not raised and elevated you can't see them they don't care as long as they're providing the shoulders for someone else to stand on can help to advance the cost and that's what we have to focus on brothers and sisters the cause we have a mission we're not here in vain we're not feathers just waiting to be blown whichever way the wind blows we're here to take that message that gave many of us life when I converted to Islam I couldn't talk about it for about 18 months 2 years we have these give testimonial it was powerful because I knew without Islam we were a lot of my friends were there or are now many of them are dead for various reasons I could just as well have been them if it weren't for Islam that could have been me if it wasn't for Islam but Allah blessed me with this religion and he he blessed me to know I'm a segue into that so we said we started this little message they said you're going to be the Imam and right around that time it's when all that he cleaning up the streets in Brooklyn and all that we said we're going now to help Imam Sirajwa Hajj before that one of the first messages I said after I converted in 1977 was Imam Siraj's message I was in the military I'm from Connecticut my wife is from Long Island so we go visit her family and for Juma we ride into New York City to Masjid at Taco in Brooklyn and they had this theater and I sit in the balcony way in the back and listen to Imam Sirajwa Hajj and get inspired and when they had the drug fame we got a group of brothers we're in New Haven Connecticut hour and a half from Masjid Taco we jump in our cars and we drive down to Brooklyn and we go and join the rinks with Imam Sirajwa's with his people helping to patrol those neighborhoods and clean up those neighborhoods and Allah blessed me to establish a relationship with Imam Sirajwa so when we opened our little storefront Masjid in New Haven Connecticut that was probably the whole Masjid was probably from this wall to where brother Yusuf is right there maybe no with this brother with the sky blue shirt squared that was the Masjid the second Juma we had there was a snow storm there were three people for Juma I was the Khatib the sister named Imam the sister Imam sister Allah alone Imam because you meet that salam alaykum Allah alone sister Imam Tauheed Imam Allah alone how you doing sister Allah alone sister can you say anything besides Allah alone Allah alone it was me and my wife and sister Imam that was it then we had the grand opening Imam Sirajwa brought a group of Muslims brothers and sisters I think they came in a bus because they had their own bus up to New Haven and he was there at the inauguration no we knew him from Rutgers University when I was a student we bring him to the MSA and he come and then we started the Masjid in New Haven he came you know we said Imam Sirajwa can clean up the neighborhood we can clean up the neighborhood so we started our own drug patrols in the projects but they used to call our crew F-Troop some of you that you can't relate to that so F-Troop got busted by the cops trying to clean up let the dope dealers call the cops on us we had seven brothers and sisters arrested weapons confiscated but Imam Sirajwa then it was a big trial and we had Alhamdulillah the police knew we were cleaning up the neighborhood so they were actually on our side so how this all happened the police weren't strike the police can't strike so they have what you call the blue flu they all call in sick at the same time and so they called up the auxiliary police they didn't know what was going on because they didn't know when the dope dealers called the cops on the Muslims the cops auxiliary cops when the chief found out he said man you're crazy and the people in the neighborhoods this was important to be working in your neighborhood the people in the neighborhoods said they arrested the Muslims all in the news they went down they protested on the steps of the courtyard and then we all the courthouse and then we organized the people and the police chief the district attorney they said listen because the police chief had higher political aspiration we're embarrassing him he said stop the demonstrations we'll work this out so at that time possession of a weapon a mandatory 5 year sentence felony because there were so many drug related killings the crack wars and they rewrote all their charges as a misdemeanor and put all these seven brothers in accelerated rehabilitation if they didn't do anything for a year they expunged their record and on the day of the trial after one year when their records were clean Imam Siraj brought a busload of brothers from Brooklyn and to the courtroom that's Imam Siraj Wahaj Imam Siraj is there and has been there so we know about the fundraising but he's been there for communities and inner city communities for poor communities he's been there when I left New Haven I'll tell you I'm only out here Imam Siraj gave me permission to be here that's the truth he gave me permission to be here and the day we had my wife is a witness so I went to Syria and came back and stayed almost 2 years and then we said ok we're going to the bay area so we had a big farewell but it wasn't big it was little there was about 10 people from New Haven were there just the Imam Allah alone was there about 9 other people but there was a busload of people from Brooklyn from Masjid Taqwa every step of the way Imam Siraj was there so you don't have to tell me about Imam Siraj and what he meant for me it's his personal and the sacrifices that he made for this community so we pray that we're able to support him and his family his grandchildren the adults they're responsible the grandchildren they're caught up in a situation they're all in custody and he's trying to get them back so the only thing I know we're not supposed to fundraise here so I'm not going to fundraise I'm just telling you to go to this link launchgood.com slash I S W M Siraj and go to that link and then do something for Imam Siraj so if that's fundraising I just broke the rules but that wasn't fundraising as you grab people by the ankles and you shake as hard as you can they have brothers because you don't just lock the door you post up some big brothers and when you go towards the door they look at you and you turn around and go sit back down well love bless this community this is a beautiful community it's a community where there's a lot of love there's a lot of vision and there are very dedicated young people but there are a lot of challenges facing all of us and especially the young people and so brothers and sisters go get some of those old Imam Siraj tapes as I think Omar Suleiman mentioned ask your parents you still got some old Imam Siraj or Hajj tapes in the closet and listen to those tapes listen to the stories the advice the wisdom of people who were shaped in another place and time because the benefits are sometimes we can become so blinded by our time we think that's all there is and that's all there ever was and that's all there will be now this is the time increasingly I know I don't understand it seriously because I was shaped in another time and things were extremely different you know it was a time where you could tell people you know you need to straighten up talk a lot you could tell people like sister you need to go put some clothes on you do that stuff and people might accuse you of microaggressions and you know blame you for their suicide you know suicide no brother told me I didn't have clothes on hey don't laugh so it benefits us for reflecting back on another time and another place where the influences that shaped people's lives were different from the influences currently shaping people's lives and maybe some of that stuff that sheikh yasser akhadi was talking about maybe some of that stuff will rub off on us maybe some of that will touch us and maybe that will inspire us to have a little more straightness in our backbone to have a little more pep in our step to have a little more fight to have a little more love and cherishing for this religion to see what it did for others and to see that we shouldn't take it for granted as sometimes we do and we're not all of us there are people in here that have that pep in their step and they have that straightness in their backbone and they have that fire in their belly and people like that but increasingly we see other than that may Allah give us tofiq may Allah give us strength may Allah bless us with the vision may Allah inspire us to understand that we are the latest runners in a long race it's a relay race I used to run track and I ran the relay I ran 4x1 10 you get a running start look at the running start when you have you can order books online you have teachers in every masjid the person who is half of qiraat is actually half of qiraat and not the first 10 letters of the alphabet that's a running start so you got a running start and then they say like stick you run out and get the baton now you got it and you run as hard as you can to give it to the next man and if you drop it everybody loses if you drop that baton everybody loses and it's not about who has the fastest runners so if you follow the olympics the last few olympics the u.s they're 4 who saying boat the muslim jamaican runner who saying who saying boat they can't pronounce the h in jamaica anyway they had who saying boat they had the one fastest runner but as a team the u.s should have had 3 or 4 gold medals the last few olympics they dropped the baton and they lost so it's not always about who has the fastest runners it's about who has the most dedicated team that's going to practice passing the baton who has the most dedicated team who is committed to teamwork that's what it's about so may Allah bless us to be a cohesive team that is committed to not dropping the the baton and when we get to the end of our leg so the stretch you call is called a leg when you get into your leg you're going to pass that baton and then you might just collapse not for a 4x1 10 you're not going to collapse 4x400 you pass that baton cramp up and collapse and they'll say Alhamdulillah he left it all out there on the track and when each and every one of us when we pass may they say Alhamdulillah they left it all out there in the masjid they left it all out there in the center they left it all out there in the community room in the teaching hall they gave everything they had and Alhamdulillah because of those sacrifices as I looked at them down at them writhing in pain dealing with those cramps they got the baton into my hand and I'm not going to drop the baton ورة مفهو زكبير زكبير زكبير زك الله عميان زايد and Alhamdulillah I also wanted to mention that we're very lucky to have溢ما عميان زايد as a regular teacher here and he teaches a class on Thursday nights on the 99 names of Allah that'll be running for the next month and a half So that brings us to the conclusion of the program I want to remind everyone that there are food trucks outside if you're looking for food and there are donation boxes if you'd like to donate نحن لا نساعدة لنساعدة هنا ولكن إذا كنت تريد أن تساعدة أي شيء إلى المسجد على الطريق then you're welcome to do so وإن شاء الله سنقوم بقرب مغرب at about 6.35 so we have about 7-8 minutes for you to get ready for the prayer إن شاء الله جزاكل مالله وخيرا for everyone to come who came and thank you very much سلام عليكم we'll have a closing we'll have a closing دواء I think before we leave شيخ عبدالله شيخ عبدالله شيخ عبدالله we'll make the closing دواء بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم الحمد لله رب العالمين والصلاة والسلام بارا الشف الأمبياء وسيد المسلين بينا محمد وعلى آري وصحب يجمعين اللهم جعل جمعنا هذا جمع مباركا مرحوما وتفرقنا من بعده تفرقا معصوما اللهم لا تدعت مننا ولا فينا شقيا ولا محروما ليه رب العالمين ربنا اغفر لنا ورأي اخواننا الذين سبقونا بالإيمان ولا تشعل في قلوبنا غلل الذين آمنوا ربنا إننا قرأوا في الرحيم الله سبحانه وتعالى مرسي جرانا شخصا جرانا شخصا for those who come before us الله سبحانه وتعالى please open up your gaze of mercy and your gaze of grace and your blessing to all of us and all those who have gone before us الله سبحانه وتعالى please rectify our condition our spiritual condition our physical condition the condition of our families the condition of our children الله سبحانه وتعالى please show us a bright future make our iman strong granted sincerity granted humility granted granted patience with one another الله سبحانه وتعالى please allow us to come close and to be united upon your faith and upon truth الله سبحانه وتعالى please grant us the ability to tolerate one another and to always work in the best interest of your dean and for the betterment of this world and for society we ask you to grant relief to our blessed iman Imam Siraj Bahaj and his family his grandchildren الله سبحانه وتعالى please reunite him with his grandchildren and please reunite them with their parents الله سبحانه وتعالى please inspire those among us who have the means to provide him with the capacity to do so the financial means and Allah of course is from you but please be the one who touches their hearts الله سبحانه وتعالى please bless our iman Imam Zaid Shahr for bringing us all together and increase him and his closeness to you and please leave a great legacy for him let us be part of his legacy and the legacy of all of our Mashaykh all of our imams that we know of and those we don't know of Allah please make us reflections of the light of your prophet عريه السلام make us imams people who are role models to others role models to our families our children please grant us courage please grant us an understanding which help us to reach you يا رب العالمين الله هم هبلنا من ازواجنا مذرياتنا قرر سعادنا وشعلنا لمتقينا إماما ربنا جعلنا مقيم الصلاة ومنذرياتنا ربنا بتقبل دعاء ربنا قفلنا وليوالدين بل المؤمنين يوم يقوم حساب ربنا وأنزلنا منزلا مباركا وانت خير منزلين مع الذين علمت عليهم من النبيين مصدخين وشهداء مصالحين وحسن أولا إكرافيقة وصفحان ربك رب العزة عامة جسفون والسلام والعالم المسرين والحمد لله رب العالمين آمين