 It's a very good topic, the question of nurturing faith in an ever-increasing, faithless world. I would just say that I think a major obstacle for young people is the university system. Religious universities in the West, the dominant epistemology, tends to be one of untruth, that there is no truth, right? This goes by different types of names, critical theory, probably the best term for it is postmodernism, this idea that there's no real truth, there's no objective morality, right? So when young Muslims are exposed to these ideas, it's very difficult for them to be able to articulate responses that have some substance to them, because a lot of the rhetoric that they're hearing sounds really good, right? I would say that it's sort of has this air of pseudo profundity to it, it's formed way over substance. When you really break down what's being said, it's full of contradictions, even this idea that there's no truth, right? That's contradictory in and of itself, because that's a statement of truth, the only absolute truth is that there's no absolute truth, right? However, Muslim students, or confessionals in general, it's not just Muslims, it's Christians, it's Orthodox Jews, when they enter into these institutions, they feel themselves sort of inadequate, because their faith traditions make absolute truth claims, that there's truth, there's haqq and there's batil, right? And this whole idea of haqq and batil is something that is ridiculed in the academy. Abrahamic morality is ridiculed, is attacked in the academy. To say for example, there are things that are moral and there are things that are not moral, right? So oftentimes, confessional students, be they Muslim, Christian, or Jewish, the only viable solutions that they have, according to them, is either to what I call sell out or check out, right? To sell out meaning, well, I need to start thinking a little bit differently about this, because I don't want to offend anyone, I have to sort of mitigate the hurt feelings of people, because I don't want to be offensive, and sort of reinvent what I think the Qur'an is saying, right? So the literary method of postmodernism is known as deconstructionism, so this idea that there is no normative reading of anything, the idea of a meta-narrative, the sort of overarching interpretation of a text does not exist according to deconstructionism, which is what students in high school are taught. You can make up the text whatever you want of it, right? So this idea that, you know, one of the pioneers, I was telling this to Sheik Farah, one of the pioneers of this movement, he said, you know, as long, there's no such thing as right and wrong, as long as it's interesting, then it's fine. All you have to be is interesting, right? So you have this phenomenon of radical hermeneutics happening in the academy, you have people reading a text that are drawing conclusions from the text that are absolutely irreconcilable with the traditional faith of the ulama or the articulations of the traditional scholars. But tradition seems to be part of the problem. Traditional value systems are seen as oppressive, they're seen as tyrannical, they're seen as patriarchal, you know, this word, they really like patriarchy. The patriarch is, you know who the patriarch is, right? So Ibrahim, his name means father of many nations, Abraham, father of many nations. He is the patriarch, the ruling father. So there's this idea that before the Abrahamic faith traditions, the world was sort of this utopia where everyone just sort of got along, it was peaches and cream, it was Disney world, and then here comes these Abrahamic faith traditions that oppress certain people and they're still here, and this is really the problem according to them. So this is the type of epistemology that young confessional students are up against in the academy, right? So it's incumbent upon us to be extremely fortified in our faith to at least know how to articulate responses in order to get people to think, you know, and it's difficult because I think it's the nature of, the nature of our dean to be, I don't know how else to put it, it's going to be offensive towards certain people because when you make absolute truth claims about theology and morality, some people are going to be offended, so we have to do our best to mitigate that, but at the end of the day there are certain parameters that we cannot breach because we want to be in the spirit of Allah and his messenger, right? We want to be, we want that to be our foundation, that's our bedrock, that's, that's, that is really the basis of everything, right? So we need to do a lot of spiritual work, we need to do a lot of intellectual work. From a standpoint of spirituality, it's important for us because these institutions, they breed in gratitude, right? They promote self-victimization, that you're a victim, if someone's doing better than you, if another group is better than you, it must be because they're oppressing you, you've been victimized, so this slowly but surely sort of rings us out of shukr, and we just need to take a few minutes and just think about our lives and think about our lives with respect to or compared to what's happening in the world. And that fact by itself should fill us with shukr, with gratitude. Shukr is a type of kufr according to the Qur'an. فَذْكُرُونِ أَذْكُرْكُمْ وَشْكُرُولِ وَلَا تَكْفُرُونِ Have regard for me so that I might have regard for you. Be grateful to me and do not disbelieve. So these two words really are put in juxtaposition. So there's a term that Westerners use for Arabic rhetoric. There's a concept called parataxis where you find this in Semitic rhetoric where two terms are juxtaposed because they're antonyms, they're opposites. So the opposite of shukr is kufr. So it's important for us to just take a moment, you know, every day, a few minutes and just think about the blessings of Allah SWT upon us. Just the mere fact that we're Muslims right after the defeat or after the tragic event of the Qura'an, Allah SWT revealed in the Qura'an, Don't lose heart, don't be sad, don't fret. In any case you are in a dominant position as long as you have faith ultimately comes down to having faith because the nature of the world is that of high and low. That's the nature of the dunya. That's why we have hope. Hope is very important. We have hope in Allah SWT. We have hope in the Prophet SAW. We have hope in the Yom al-Qiyamah, Allah SWT says, You have the Messenger of God, a beautiful pattern of conduct. For whoever has hope, hope in Allah and in the final day and makes the thicker of Allah in abundance. So having hope in Allah SWT is something that we need to cultivate. And that Allah SWT, he is the Lord of the worlds and he can change our situation 180 degrees and we recognize that but there are certain things that we have to go through in the dunya because that is the nature of the dunya. The word dunya means a low place. That's what it literally means. So don't make this dunya into paradise. At dunya signal mu'min. We have to do the best we can obviously to create a just society and whatnot. But the problem is the ideology that is coming out of a lot of these institutions does not recognize an afterlife. So then students, they sort of put all of their eggs in the basket of the dunya and then the dunya disappoints them and then they leave the religion. So they check out completely. They don't want to deal with it. And it's really a misunderstanding of what is the dunya? What is its nature? What do we hear for? And then contemplation, this idea of thinking about the ni'am of Allah SWT. This will engender shukr in our hearts. So I would say although activism is very important, I would prioritize knowledge over activism. Because activism, again, very important, but you're going to be disappointed because that's the nature of the world. And if you don't have the spiritual discipline to deal with these disappointments, and then it becomes dangerous to your iman. The Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, if you look at his life, you have hardship upon hardship. Who has the most severe of tribulations? He asked the Sahaba and they were probably thinking, well, maybe the kuffar, the Munafiqeen, who? He said, Al Anbiya, the prophets and those closest to them. If you look at the life of the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, as Sheikh Faraz reminded me, the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam did not complain to anyone ever. He did not complain. Even on the day of, the most difficult day of Ta'if, when he was stoned out of the city of Ta'if by the Bani Thaqif, the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, with blood covering his legs and people mocking him and trying to kill him, Allahumma Ashku ilayka da'fa quwati, he carried his complaint to Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta'ala, oh, Allah, I complain to you of the weakness of my strength, right? So he's attributing his weakness, he's attributing his shortcomings to himself, and this is called Tawadur, this is humility. This is someone who has good ubudiyah with Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta'ala. So there's a difference between ibadah and ubudiyah. You can have a lot of ibadah, a lot of acts of worship, but ubudiyah, good ubudiyah indicates a good attitude with Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta'ala, a good attitude. So breaching adab, breaching good character with Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta'ala is something that's very dangerous and we seek refuge from. But a lot of times we're taught by certain institutions that this is sort of what needs to be done, or that's the logical conclusion of the ideology or philosophy that young people are taught. So we need to fortify our spirituality. So taking time out every day and just thinking about the blessings of Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta'ala, this will engender shukr in the heart, right? And the Prophet ﷺ, he is the Paragon of Virtue. And when he would pray, there's a hadith, Abu Huraira, it's mentioned in the Shama'il Ibn Imam At-Tirmidhi, that it was said to him, why do you do this when Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta'ala has forgiven your past and future transgressions? And of course the transgression of a Prophet is very different, a thumb of a Prophet is very different than what we do. And his response, should I not be a grateful servant, right? And shakur according to the ulama is different than the shakr. The shakr is the one who is thankful, the shakur is the one who continues to thank even in a state of deprivation because the shakur knows that if he's being deprived of something by Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta'ala, in essence, Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta'ala may be staving off some sort of harm from him. And so in reality, Allah is still giving to him something. But this takes spiritual discipline to come to these sort of realizations, you know. So trust Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta'ala, tawakul is very important. And you know, one of my teachers told me, and maybe this is a bit cynical, but it works for me, so you know, and that is that, you know, don't really expect anything from anyone in the dunya and you won't be disappointed. And obviously that's not true. You know, people that, you know, your parents, insha'Allah, Ta'ala, the masheikh, they won't let you down, right? But know that this is the nature of the dunya. The nature of the dunya is to break you, right? And the shaitan is active in the dunya. And shaitan is real. And oftentimes I mention shaitan on the minbar, I see Muslims rolling their eyes at me. Or shaitan, what color is this pitchfork? What is this guy talking about? No, the shaitan is real. If qaalil insan uqfur, this is what he wants to do. He says to the human being, disbelieve, right? So we have to be wary of that. I mean, people worship satan, today is very common. You have different types of satanism. You have something called the church of satan. You have Crowley and satanism, or thalayma, as a massive following. They have a qiblah, they call it a qiblah, a house where their founder performs some sort of demonic ritual, they make pilgrimage to it, right? So shaitan is real. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says in the Qur'an that the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam is uswa tunhasana. He says that one time in the Qur'an about the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala mentions the name of our deen, al-Islam, eight times in the Qur'an. You can look this up in a concordance. How many times in the Qur'an does Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala refer to the shaitan as adoo mubeen? At least 15 times in the Qur'an. At least 15 times. And the shaitan, he wants us to disbelieve, right? So there seems to be a relationship between an increase in the reddah or apostasy seems to be commensurate with a demonic presence. So in some of these institutions of higher learning, you have Muslims entering these places and I've read articles that up to half of confessionals leave the religion when they enter into these institutions of higher learning. And of course the response from academics is, well that's because this is the first time they actually know how to think. So they're leaving their archaic, antiquated, divisive, irrelevant religious creeds and they're coming into this new enlightenment, right? But if you actually talk to some of these Muslims, and you know, I did 10 years in a graduate school, I'm a professor now, a lot of it has to come down, a lot of it comes down to them not knowing how to articulate things, feeling inferior, inadequate, and then choosing to leave because they just don't want to deal with it. And then if you stop praying after a while, you stop fasting, you stop making vikr, you know, sometimes as they say, the damage has been done and it's very difficult for them to come back, you know. So it's important for us on the intellectual side to be able to form strong arguments, at least for traditionalism, you know. Because appealing to the Quran, they would say, well that's just a logical fallacy, you're appealing to unqualified authority, I don't believe in the Quran. People will find it offensive. But that's the nature of the beast, right? I mean, you can't make everyone happy and you shouldn't try. What we should concern ourselves with is making Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la happy as it were, is pleasing Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la. At the end of the day, that's the only opinion that's going to matter. In a hundred years, no one, unless you're Justin Bieber, no one on earth will be thinking of you. I try to think of a Canadian celebrity. That's the first one I popped into my hand. Who's another one? Ben Johnson, you guys remember him? Anyway, no one is going to be thinking about you. No one's going to be looking at your picture. So we really have to think about, you know, who do we want to please, humanity or Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la? Now, Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la says in the Quran that it is hoped that Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la will put between you and those who antagonize you, Mawadda, which is a type of love or mutual respect because Allah is omnipotent. That can happen, obviously, right? And that's what we hope for. Asa Allahu, and asa in Arabic is fi'l taraji, the verb of hope. It's good to have hope, as I said. So we have to keep moving. We have to keep striving. Ultimately, the dunya, the time in the dunya is very short. It goes by quickly. I remember Y2K scare like it was yesterday, you know. And as you get older, things really go faster. I'm, you know, 24 now. And it's like, you know, everything just, it just moves quickly, you know. So we put things in perspective. We try to please Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la because ultimately, that's the one we should be concerned. He's the one that we should be concerned about, you know. And, you know, keep striving to speak with people, with adab, but tell people the truth, be principled, right? And because the truth is powerful, the sunnah is tried and tested. It is powerful. And people that have, you know, issues, there are a lot of amrad al-Qulub that people have. So there's a lot of barriers to things. But as we chip away at things, and we chip away at our own hearts as well, obviously, sooner or later, inshallah Ta'ala, we have hope that these things will be embraced and people will become Muslim and love Allah and His Messenger. And this could happen in a supernatural type of way. It can. The Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, you know, once he placed his blessed hand on the chest of Fudala, and this is a man who was going to kill him and he just put his hand on his chest. And Fudala said that before he lifted his hand from my chest, there was nobody on earth that was more beloved to me than he was. Or this happens just through virtuous conduct, right? So like, we all know the iconic story of the Bedouin who came and relieved himself in the Masjid. This iconic story, right? The Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam showed him gentleness. Fadima rahmatim minallahi lintalahum. It is part of the mercy of Allah that you have gentleness. He was mild mannered. And, you know, he told the Bedouin that this is a Masjid, this is for Dhikr, this is for Qira'ah, this is for Salawat. And he showed him so much gentleness and ihsan as they were leaving the Masjid, the Bedouin turned around, addressing everybody. And he said, Allahumma irhamni wa muhammadan wa la tarhamma anahadan. And the Prophet laughed. He said, oh, Allah bless me, have mercy on me and on muhammad and nobody else. Because the Sahaba wanted to, right? They were going to address the situation to put it mildly when he was in the Masjid doing what he was doing. Laqad hajarta wasi'an, the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. He said, you are constricting something that is vast, the mercy of Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta'ala. So how do we fortify ourselves spiritually is that we acquaint ourselves in a very intimate way with the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, right? So I mentioned this at the khutbah today. We know this. We read the seerah and if you've already read it, read it again, read a different translation, read it in a different language with good intentions of ma'rifah of the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam that will translate to ma'habah, read the khusais literature about the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. What makes him so special? What makes him so unique? Read the shama'il of the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. Just read about how Sahaba used to talk about him, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam and how they understood his reality to a degree that we can only hope and dream for, right? And these things will fortify our faith and make du'a to Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta'ala and then learn argumentation. But with adab, learn the classical arguments for the existence of God. Do research, defend our morality. I don't know what I can say in Canada. You all don't have a First Amendment. So I don't know what I can say, so I'm not gonna say it, but there are certain secular arguments you can make against certain lifestyles that are very, very compelling without even touching scripture. You can make a very compelling case that certain things are immoral and certain things are detrimental to the flourishing of society, right? So the last thing I'll say is prioritize compassion over justice. People scream justice, justice. Of course, we want just societies, that's true. The Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam always prioritized compassion over justice. Ghazwud Uhud, again, an iconic story, the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, blood was streaming down his face and the Sahaba saw him with his hands raised, catching his blood so it would not strike the earth because he said if one drop of blood strikes the earth, then these Quresh are finished. Right? Allahumma hdi qawmi, Allahumma izhfir li qawmi, fa inna humla ya'lamun. Oh God, forgive my people or guide my people for they don't know. Preferring justice, preferring mercy over justice. The Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam was long suffering. He didn't give up on people, like Abu Sufyan ibn Harb, Amr ibn al-Aas. These are people who were trying to kill him for years and years and years. The Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam didn't give up. I told the story of the khutbah today. I was in a masjid one time, youth halaka many years ago and a Christian brother was there and the Christian brother was asking a lot of difficult questions. But he was being respectful. And then, and then an uncle walked in. God bless the uncle. And he listened for two minutes and he said, you know, these kufar, why bother? Allah has sealed their hearts and blinded their eyes and deafened their ears and things like that. Well, after two minutes, that's your response. The Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam dealt with people who were trying to kill him for over 20 years and he didn't give up and they became Muslim. So, have hope in Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la. Have hope in Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la. Trust Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la. Really just be annihilated in gratitude to Allah. A lot of people now, they have a lot of stress. People have depression, there's mental illness. A lot of it comes down to this idea that you have to make a change in the world. You have to be famous. You have to put your name out there. There's a lot of pressure, especially on young people. I'll end with this. There's a hadith that's attributed to Isa A.S. where he said to the Hawariyun, he said nine out of 10 parts of worship is silence, is Sukut. I dedicate this to the Facebook users. I used to be a Facebook user, not anymore, but obviously there's good and bad and things. But there are people who are addicted to social media and it's like their attitude is tied to the end of a string that's connected to social media. So I didn't get a lot of likes today. I'm not in a good mood. Oh, this person said that. I feel so depressed. I mean, to be honest, it's pathetic. Look how many followers I have. Going back to Bieber, he calls them Beliebers. Sorry, I don't know, I'm talking about Bieber up here. But, you know, what was I saying? I got sidetracked by Bieber. But Facebook, yes. So, prioritize compassion, that was my point. And find joy in Allah and his messenger. So jizal kala khairan.