 Bismillah ar-Rahman ar-Rahim. Alhamdulillah Alhamdulillah Alhamdulillah Alhamdulillah Welcome everyone, welcome everyone, welcome everyone and not only welcome but thank you. Thank you for coming here because your presence here is already a success. Your presence here is a success because it brings us together. So anyone who wants to go home you've already six years you can go home now. I'm just joking, you're trapped in here. I'm just joking again. But no for real thank you for coming here. Is this anyone's first time to a mosque? Beautiful, beautiful applause for coming here. Thank you for opening your hearts and coming here. This is that you're always welcome here. This is a community center and honestly we're all brothers and sisters in humanity. Your fellow Muslims, neighbors, they're human too. They laugh, they cry, they get hurt. See, I just got hurt here. I was on my daughter's bike, she's nine years old. I was going down a hill and I put my feet on the pegs trying to go down kind of like Superman style, not a good idea. But it was okay because my three daughters ran around me and they started taking care of me and I was like wow. It feels nice to be a father and be loved like this. Yes, so welcome and thank you for coming here. And thank you for coming here because it helps us feel what is true, which is this is our home in America. I think I was born here and you'll hear from the panelists. I think we've been here essentially all our lives. This is where we call home. So if someone says go back home, where should I go to Chicago? Michigan, go back home. I thought this is my home. So thank you for coming here and helping us feel what is true is that this is our American home and we're in this together. We're in trying times, we're in difficult times, we're in confusing times. But that's the beauty of this world because when we come together, then we'll triumph. And this is an example of a triumphant feat today, a triumphant activity and it's successful because of you. It's because you decided to get up on your Saturday morning, get in your car and drive to your local mosque. And so thank you. Thank you again. So today's panel is about meet your local Muslim neighbor. So who are your local Muslim neighbors? And we're a different, you'll see a doctor, you'll see a teacher, a principal, you'll see a real estate guru, myself, I'm a lawyer. My name is Mehdi and I'm born and raised in Chicago. I've been a lawyer for about 13 years. I have three daughters and I worked for Dell Corporation. I graduated from the first accredited liberal arts Muslim college in Berkeley, California. The first ever accredited in the history of America and the Western Hemisphere. And that's in Berkeley. So there's exciting times because there's a, it's exciting because there's a resurgence and a revival of true, true correct understanding of what Islam is. And so today we have the framework of our presentation is broken up into three parts. In line with the Islamic spiritual tradition, the first step is takhliya. Takhliya means to clean, to empty out. And who's doing our takhliya today is our dear Hina and Mike. And their role today is to help clear some of the misconceptions, to clear some of the misconceptions that exist. The second step is takhliya. Takhliya is to then adorn and to fill with beauty. And for that we've tasked Dr. Assad Tarsim. And Dr. Assad will tell you, won't answer the question what isn't Islam, but he will answer what is Islam. So first we're going to answer what isn't Islam and then what is Islam. And then the third, the third step of the spiritual path is takhliya. Takhliya means elevation. And we've given that bonus to our dear sister Sarah to elevate all of us in this room. So our first speaker is Hina Muhtar. Hina is a writer, speaker, teacher, mother, principal, and her most difficult job is being a wife. And she is our myth buster. Without further ado, please welcome Hina Muhtar. Hina is actually so grateful that you all came to join us. Is that we have the awesome responsibility of trying to facilitate a significant shift in the understanding of Islam and Muslims for many people here in our audience. And I wanted to start off by making it really clear that our goal isn't to proselytize. Though obviously if anybody has any questions, if their curiosity is piqued, you can meet with us later or ask your questions. Nor is our goal to give our own personal opinions about politics or about different facets of the religion of Islam. We're not here representing all Muslims. Obviously as many Muslims as you'll meet, that's how many different perspectives and different stories that you're going to encounter as well. But the perspective that each of us here on the panel shares today is that we all follow and practice what's called an English traditional Islam. Now with any religion, you're going to find splinter roots and different sects. You may have heard of some already, that some different offshoots of Islam like the Ahadiths and the Arghanis and the native nation of Islam. And all of these are offshoots that were certainly influenced by the original teachings of the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him. But over time their core beliefs and tenets have been changed to such a degree that they're virtually unrecognizable now from mainstream Orthodox Islam. And they also have very few followers when compared to the 1.6 billion Muslims of the world today. So the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, was known to have said that my nation, meaning his followers, my nation will never err in the majority. So stick with the majority. And our aim, the panelists up here, is to practice what a majority of the scholars of the religion uphold to be correct and true. And this majority is what makes up traditional Sunni Islam, the mainstream. So after I speak and Mike speaks, Dr. Asim will be going into a bit more detail about what Islam is. But before he dives into that, we feel it's critical for everyone to understand what Islam is not. And since I only have 15 minutes, and I want to be respectful of the other panelists' time, I'm going to try and tackle two common myths that many people ask me about at different interfaith events. And hopefully you all may be wondering about these as well. If there's anything more beyond what we cover up here on the panel, we can address them during the Q&A. So the first myth that I get asked about is Sharia coming to take over America. I spoke at a church in Danville where an elderly lady stood up during Q&A, and she was really upset. She looked like she was ready to cry, and she said that, I'm really upset that Sharia has come to our courts, and that judges and juries are now deciding cases according to Sharia. And I'm not happy about that, and I'm just here to voice my frustration. And I really didn't even know where to begin with that, because it was so clear how deep the misunderstandings and the fear can be for some people. Now if you're regularly going to watch media like Fox News, it will be easy to start to believe that there's this propaganda by Muslims and these people who look and act and believe differently than us and they're here to take over the land. But obviously nothing could be farther from the truth. So I wanted to go into what Sharia is. Sharia is, first and foremost, simply put, a moral code. Before it's a legal code, it's a moral code. So for example, if I were to tell a lie to my friend, there's no earthly law that's going to punish me for lying to her. But according to Sharia, it's wrong for me to tell lies, and because I believe in a creator, I know I'm going to be held accountable unless I repent and change my ways. But it's Sharia that tells Muslims how to live their daily lives. What we wear, what we don't wear, what we eat, what we don't eat, how we worship, our rules of inheritance, our rules of marriage, our rules of divorce. All of this comes under Sharia. So it's the day-to-day life rules for Muslims, not for anybody else. And one of the things that people may not realize is that Islam actually does not allow for anarchy or chaos. Muslims need to live under some form of government, even if it's not a Muslim government. And they need to respect the laws of the land. That's according to Sharia. So if Muslims feel that they're being persecuted or they can't practice their religion in peace and safety, then Sharia tells them that they need to migrate. They need to leave from that land. And the highest law of the land here in the United States of America is the Constitution. So for Muslims, according to Sharia, respecting and following the Constitution is part of our understanding of how we practice our faith. And with everything that's happening right now in the political landscape, trust me that nobody wants to protect the Constitution more than Muslim Americans right now. So when people hear about Sharia, what they're actually wondering about are the penal code punishments. So what are the penal code punishments? Do they actually exist? People have images of stonings and beheadings and whipings and cutting off of hands. So there is a penal code punishment for certain transgressions under Sharia law, but that makes up 0.1% of the entire body of the Sharia law. And just like in the United States of America, there are certain capital punishments for certain crimes. The same thing exists in Sharia as well. But the important differences between capital punishment in American law and capital punishment in Sharia law are two. The first is that the penal code is first and foremost meant to be as a deterrent. It's not actually meant to be implemented. And the second is that the evidence required to prove a capital crime is very, very difficult. So for example, the punishment for adultery under Sharia is death. However, to prove that somebody has committed adultery, you actually need four eyewitnesses who actually can say, I saw the act happening. So it's really meant to illustrate how grave the sin or the crime is for Muslims. And so it's making it clear to us as a society that this is how big of a transgression this is and you need to avoid it. And if we're going to look at how Sharia is actually implemented, we need to actually look at the Ottoman Empire, which was the last legitimate Muslim government that ruled a large portion of the world for almost 700 years. The punishment for adultery during that time, almost 700 years, was implemented only once. And even then it was considered to be politically motivated and the scholars spoke out against it and it was never repeated again in 700 years. The other very important fact for people to understand is that according to Sharia itself, the laws of Sharia can only be applied and upheld when there is a legitimate Muslim government in power. And a majority of the Muslim scholars today say that no such government actually exists anymore. There's no official body which has the authority to implement penal code punishments. Unfortunately when people hear the words Sharia law, that's all they think of are grizzly capital punishments. What you see on the internet, what you see in certain news stories, Muslims consider that to actually be vigilante justice. There's no legality behind it. There's no authority behind it. And it's no way sanctioned in Islam, in the religion of Islam. Now before moving on to the next myth, I'd like to share with you some of the principles, the foundations of Sharia. As Muslims we believe that all Sharia laws are divinely inspired and therefore as Muslims we think that they're the perfect set of laws for mankind. Now upon close study of Sharia one will find that each and every part of Sharia is meant to protect one out of six things. So any rule or law that you see in Sharia will protect one of six things. The first is the right to religion, meaning that nobody can force you to convert or nobody can force you to not practice your faith. The second is the right to life, that means that nobody can be killed unjustly. The third is the right to family and lineage, so everyone has a right to know where they come from. That's why sex is sanctioned only within the rules of marriage. The fourth is the right to honor. You can't slander, lie, or backbite against people. Something like tabloid journalism would be something not allowed under Sharia. The fifth is the right to intellect and reason. So you don't take intoxicants, you don't take recreational drugs, anything that affects your ability to think. However, Sharia is very nuanced. It's not black and white. So when it comes to things like anesthesia, during surgery, there would be exceptions to that rule. And then the sixth is the right to property. So you can't steal, you serve people's wealth or cheat anyone out of what's theirs. As far as my notes are concerned, I covered what I have about Sharia. One last thing I wanted to explain is that Muslims worship God with their bodies, their minds, and their souls, which are also their hearts. And anything that has to do with Sharia has to do with our bodies. And Dr. Asa will later be explaining a little bit about what we do with our minds and with our hearts. But Sharia has to do with anything physical. Okay, the second myth is that women are oppressed in Islam. That's probably, I was in a Trader Joe's and I had a woman stop and strike up a conversation with me and she was asking me about some of the things in my cart and then after maybe a minute she said to me, by the way, you do know to call 911 if he ever lays a hand on you, right? What do you even say to that? I was so startled I actually laughed because I didn't think she was serious. And then she went on to say, you have rights in this country. So that's a big myth out there. So are some Muslim women oppressed? Yes. Do some Muslim majority countries have a culture which is oppressive to women? Yes. Are there stories of domestic violence in some Muslim household? Absolutely. Yes. But does Islam teach condone or in any way support the oppression of women? Absolutely not. The Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him said the best of you are the ones who are the best to their women. The majority of the focus of his last sermon before he passed away was on the rights of women. And Muslims believe in the story of Adam and Eve just like the Jews and Christians do except Muslims don't hold Eve accountable for Adam's mistakes. They were both held equally responsible. She's not the one to blame. She's not considered to be a temptress. She's not the reason mankind lost paradise. So there are a few reasons that Islam gets a bad rap when it comes to women. The first would probably be the first thing people see which is the hijab, which often gets translated as the headscarf. But hijab actually means barrier. It sets up boundaries for how we interact with one another. It's the first thing people see and they don't understand it. They're usually not thinking of the Virgin Mary when they see the hijab on Muslim women's heads. What they're usually wondering is why do women have to wear it and men don't? Men do, Muslim men do have parts of their bodies that they have to cover according to our Sharia. For men they have to cover everything from the navel to the knee. So they can't wear speedos, they can't wear shorty shorts, they can't show their kneecaps or their belly buttons. For women it's everything but the hands, the face and the feet. Now why different rules? We believe, like we said, that Sharia is divinely inspired. But if you even look at our laws here in the United States of America, there's different rules. If a man wants to go jogging in your neighborhood park and it's a hot day, he can take off his shirt and continue jogging and nobody will bat an eye. If a woman was to take off her shirt and continue jogging, she'd be arrested for public indecency. So why are the rules different? So for us it's, we believe that our Creator who created us knows what's best for us and so we submit to those rules. Okay the second thing people see is that the women pray behind the men in the congregational prayer. And they often think in the Rosa Parks kind of framework that, oh if you're in the back then it's like you're at the back of the bus and you're a secondary citizen. But it's actually, that's not the way we look at the prayer. Where you stand in the prayer and who's leading the prayer has nothing to do with you're standing in front of God. Everybody is equal in the sights in the eyes of God. We stand shoulder to shoulder in prayer. We're very intimate, we stand, we bow, we prostrate on the ground with our bottoms up in the air. And it's, many Muslim women would not feel comfortable having men standing behind them watching them pray in that position. So it's really about privacy and modesty. It's not about where we stand with God. And the last one is that people often confuse how women are treated in countries like Saudi Arabia with how Islam treats women in general. We recently read the headlines that it's been changed. But the fact that up until 2017 women in Saudi Arabia could not drive, people often ask me about that. You're part of a religion that doesn't let you drive. No I'm not. The fact that women in Saudi Arabia could not drive was because of a Saudi law, not because of an Islamic law. Muslim women have been heads of state. They've been leaders of countries. The vice president of Iran right now is a woman. Here in America we have yet to shatter that glass ceiling. And so the Saudi government can make whatever laws they want to, but that doesn't give them legitimacy over the world's population of Muslims. So those are the two myths I was going to cover. I'm going to hand it over to Mike now. And we'll tackle some more topics during Q&A. Thank you, Mina. Everyone, we passed off some note cards for one of the essential segments of this gathering is the Q&A. So anything on your mind, be real, be open, be honest, write the question down. We have a no-knowledge rule here. So if we say anything that doesn't make sense, if we say a word that doesn't make sense, please, please go ahead and write that question down. And make this a meaningful day. Make this a meaningful moment. Make this a meaningful gathering. So when we leave today, that we all leave in a, we benefited something, we took something home. But the onus is on you to make it meaningful. We'll do our part and answer any questions. So I have a question. Does anyone know how many Muslims serve in the U.S. Armed Forces? And he guesses 2%. What's the total number of armed forces? 4,000. 4,000 Muslims serving in the U.S. Armed Forces. We have a Marine sitting right here. He used to serve in the Marines. And our next speaker, Mike, served the Naval Academy as well. Does anyone know, according to FBI, what percent of the terrorism is caused by Muslims? About 4% to 6%. 4% to 6%. Does anyone know? I'm sorry to ask this question. In the last 72 hours, how many acts of gun violence occurred in America? 240. 240 acts of gun violence in the last 72 hours in our home. About 60 people were murdered and about 179 were injured. Now, the interesting thing I raised that, because it's relevant to Mike's presentation, that he's going to talk about terrorism, jihad, ISIS, is because none of those acts, none of those 240 acts were mentioned prominently on the news because there was no Islam, Islamic, Muslim element to it. But if one of them got verbat- or any of them got verbat- all of them was Muslim, then we'd hear about it and then it would affect our psyche. May God protect this country. So, our next speaker, Mike Kim, he works in real estate, father of seven. I don't know how he has time doing anything else. And without further ado, please welcome Mike Kim. My task is to continue the myth-busting and talk about jihad and ISIS. But before I get out, maybe I'll share the quick story of how I came to Islam because I wasn't born Muslim. I converted to Islam. I grew up here in the Bay Area and through my college years at the U.S. Naval Academy, I was filled with all sorts of misconceptions about Islam. And in the eyes of military personnel in particular, the Muslims were considered the enemy, right? The not us, the them. So Islam was to me at face value 22 years ago a very foreign concept and something that was very distant. It wasn't until my freshman year at Annapolis where we were given an assignment. Pretty innocuous. The assignment was to research and write the biographies of the most eminent scientists, philosophers of the Western civilization. I found myself in the library flipping through the books. And I came across this passage that really struck me which was that all these great philosophers and mathematicians and scientists like René Descartes and Newton, so on and so forth were believers in a transcendental or a deity or a universal. These are academic neutral terms for God. So what was incredible to me was that I was never taught that anyway. That the greatest minds in the Western civilization at the core of it were trying to understand the creative universe through their life's work. It was an incredible awakening moment for me. So from that moment it launched me on a quest. And the quest was to really understand because I mean obviously through their brilliant minds that if they were believers in a creative universe there's something to that. So it launched me on a quest to figure out what is this whole thing about? Is God in a creative universe? So throughout the remainder of my years at the Naval Academy I studied, debated, read books, questioned. In fact one of my favorite pastimes was you guys look at St. John's University in Annapolis a well-known liberal arts where they studied the great books. I used to drop mine homework and go over there and do a coffee shop and debate them about such matters. And I learned more than I contributed certainly from them. So through that process I established what I was a fairly strict criteria of the type of religion that I was going to subscribe to from philosophical standpoint, sociological standpoint, scientific standpoint. For example from a scientific standpoint it was important to me that the revelation was the head of scientific discovery. Scientific discovery should support and validate revelation because after all we're talking about the creator of the universe. How can he be wrong? He most certainly cannot. And I found Islam certainly did meet that standard and exceeded. And we don't have time to get into it but you can really look at the scientific proofs of Islam and there's a whole, you can Google all kinds of documents and books written by people highly qualified. So part of the process that I was having to do was warfare. So for me as a naval officer it concerned me greatly how we conduct ourselves in warfare because we knew whether you're at West Point Air Force Academy or Naval Academy we are taught that there's a moral code to how you conduct yourself in warfare because if we don't we may walk away from the battlefield damaged. So we have to apply a moral code. The circumstances in which we take a life matters as a human being because we go against a very nature in conducting warfare because it is a brutal act. So living by a certain moral code was of the utmost importance. And interestingly enough Islam says quite a bit about such matters to give you an example. And the corner says that I'm going to read here. Permission to fight is given to those against whom war is made because they have been wrong. Those who have been driven out from their homes unjustly only because they say our Lord is God. In another passage it states and if God did not repel some men by means of others there will surely have been pulled down temples and churches and synagogues and mosques. There are no two things. Fighting is sanctioned for defensive purposes only. Secondly it doesn't say just mosques, right? It's the universality of religion. In the chronic explicit state all religions must be protected. So for example if the Christians in a certain community were being attacked it is a chronic injunction upon us to protect that Christian community. It says it's only from unambiguous. Okay so as I researched more and more I found that the standards of the just war concept in Islam was quite comprehensive and voluminous and we won't have time to get into it but our Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him implemented that moral code because in addition to being a parent, a husband, son, brother, businessman, student and teacher he was also a warrior because we believe that he was the last Prophet for end of time. Therefore that Prophet had to bring the comprehensive aspect of humanity and give us examples and guidance in that full spectrum of our human existence which includes warfare because that is the world in which we live in. So I want to share with you this quick ten bullet points that he implemented to his soldiers when he came to applying the moral code and they're on that handout so I'll read it pretty quickly you can read it as your leisure. Do not harm women, children, elderly or sick. Do not commit treachery and never mutilate or disfigure. Do not uproot, cut down or burn shoes. Do not harm any livestock except for food. In combat the voice tracking the face for God created all of us in the image of Adam, the Prophet Adam, is good. Do not kill the monks in monasteries and do not kill those sitting in places of worship. Do not destroy the villages and towns. Do not spoil the cultivated fields and gardens meaning you can't starve people in warfare. Do not wish for an encounter with the enemy pay to God to grant you security but when you are forced to encounter them exercise patience. No one may punish with fire except the Creator. So weapons of mass destruction, chemical, nuclear, napalm, atomic all of that we forbidden in Islam because it's fire. And finally a customer yourselves to do good people do good and do not do wrong even if they commit promise. So incidentally on number 7 do not destroy villages and do not spoil cultivated fields and gardens. I'll just read the NPR the other day and you're talking about PTSD the kind in which your moral code your morality was violated because the act that you participated in it were witnessed. And the soldier was asked what would you like to do given your experience in Iraq. He said I would like to go back to Iraq and help rebuild the farms that we destroyed. You see here's your average American person with that sense of morality saying what I witnessed there was we the American military destroyed people's backyard and little farms and fields. He thought that was an injustice. And he says right here do not destroy villages and towns do not spoil them. So these moralities are universal it's not just ours it's a universal morality that applies to all of this humanity. So these things resonated with me because it no longer became foreign because it resonates with your heart. Yeah I believe that. Let me get to Jihad in the interest of time and Isaac. So Jihad the term Jihad in Arabic does not in itself have anything to do with war. The root word for Jihad is juh which means to make an effort or exert oneself. So the precise definition is to make an effort or exert oneself in the way of God. In other words do good be a good person. So whether you're Muslim or non-Muslim you guys all are embarked in Jihad which is to be a good person. That is the greater Jihad. There's a lesser Jihad which has a component of warfare and defenses I just mentioned. So on the example given in Jihad the Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him stated that the best Jihad is to speak truth to a tyrannical leader. So the way we say in America to speak truth to power to be honest and be truthful that is the highest form of Jihad. Another example that the Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him was asked by a young man permission to join the military the Prophet's response was perform Jihad by serving your parents. So that gives you a little taste of the greater Jihad the moral struggle against your own ego and to speak to be a good upright citizen. The lesser Jihad does include warfare and all Muslims all Muslims are required to engage in the greater Jihad the struggle against your own ego but not all Muslims are required to engage in the lesser Jihad the military conflict. Because there's certain criteria you have to be a man of a certain age and not be the character of elderly this is also the criteria whether you qualify to be in the military so that's an important point. So defensive fighting as I mentioned so some of the controversies religious conversion territorial conquest and acquisition of political power are not sanctioned reasons for Jihad. Okay so following ISIS so what about ISIS? The misperception that ISIS somehow is a partial of the Sunni Islam it's not okay we consider them vigilantes essentially and as a result of the geopolitical condition in which there was a power vacuum created it's a functional equivalent of if Russia came to our country destroyed our governmental police and security apparatus and left who's going to fill that power vacuum in Mississippi militia probably and somebody somewhere in the world would call them crazy terrorists right so that is a geopolitical reality ISIS is the fact that they claim whatever they claim that doesn't give them any sort of creed in broader the big 10th Islam you know young boys that especially when he asks his mom how can ISIS say that they're Muslim they do everything the opposite of what we are taught to do they take everything that is beautiful and make it ugly there you go young boys they have to do it wrong so what we look at ISIS is to say ISIS is to Islam but the KKK is to Christianity that is a real sort of pointing way to look at it so okay I think I'm done I'm done you say thank you thank you Mike so the KKK is to Christianity as ISIS is to Islam thank you for that our next speaker is Dr. Assad Tarsim our physician works at Kaiser so he saves bodies and he saves hearts he's an author of an awesome book it's called Being Muslim a Practical Guide I love this book it's a comprehensive overview of everything one could need to know as they journey to God through the faith of Islam and so right now I would like to challenge everyone to kind of remove any of the preconceived notions that exist anything right now that that is blocking our vision our sight or blocking our insight in our heart that's clouding it to move it for a moment move it momentarily they say you hold a feather so close to your eye you can't see them out so right now Dr. Assad Tarsim has the awesome task of sharing with you this mountain of the Islamic tradition what is Islam and so I would like to invite everyone to explore that and enjoy that and digest that with an open and clear thinking and a clear mind that's not clouded by any of the myths or other notions that existed before we walked into this room please welcome Dr. Assad Tarsim good afternoon what I would like to do is to give a brief overview of what the religion of Islam is I'm going to look at it from a theological perspective a religious perspective a philosophical perspective as well and hopefully leave some room for a conversation discussion and questions at the end but I'm going to through this I guess it's only this projector that's working so I apologize for the folks who are a little farther away I'm going to be reading everything here I'd like to start first of all some definitions can everybody hear me okay? some definitions I think it's always the best place to start with any topic so the first is Islam what is Islam? Islam is the proper name of the religion itself that we follow it's an Arabic word and it means literally to turn oneself over to or to surrender and it comes from a root word everything is Semitic language it has a trilateral root system and it's related to words that mean peace that mean wholeness that mean something being healthy and so there's a relationship between all of these meanings a Muslim on the other hand is the term for one who follows the religion and is here to the religion of Islam and it is one who you can sort of connect these dots through their willful surrender to God attains an inner peace and wholeness within themselves and so all of these meanings are related in the words themselves now there are people of all races and ethnicities and here are some more famous and prominent Muslims anybody recognize I mean one of them has his name I forget that anybody recognizing somebody what's that? yeah but one of the left is Kat Stevens Kat Stevens and Muhammad Ali one is a British I guess he's Greek Greek in origin and is that something in there? and then Muhammad Ali obviously being African American only known as Cassius Clay so we're going to go through these again so it is not Muslims are not people from one part of the world not necessarily quote unquote foreign although I would argue that there is a lot of people who make a lot of effort to make it seem that way it's a religion as universal as any other the same way Christian doesn't mean from any part of the world or a Buddhist doesn't necessarily mean that they're from a part of the world it's the same for Muslims there are Indonesian Muslims there are African Muslims there are over 60 million Muslims in China there are some in Burma, Myanmar if you can follow the news there Muslims are from all over so continue with definitions I want to talk about who is Allah and again this is in the interest of removing some of that mystery that can sometimes surround Islam so if you look there that is probably too small for some of you to see but that is a copy of the New Testament in Arabic and the first line says what's the first line? sorry, this is Genesis what's the first line of Genesis? in the beginning God created but it says Allah so Allah is simply the Arabic name for God used by Arabic speaking Jews Christians, Maimonides if anybody has heard of him would often write in Arabic and you talk about God as Allah so this is simply what we would in English call God with the capital G so it's not the God of the Muslims but this is God with the capital G when we created the heavens and the earth the God who sent Abraham Noah Isaac Ishmael Moses Jesus Muhammad all of them would be in their original tongues be called Allah so how does Islam see itself if we believe all of these prophets were talking about Allah or were sent by Allah God so what does that mean? so Islam sees itself as a culmination of the previous religions so Islam does not see itself as a new religion alongside of or independent of these other religions that sort of came and were false and you know these people Moses and whoever I don't know what they were talking about but the prophet Muhammad is a prophet quite the opposite of that Islam sees itself as a continuation a completion and a culmination some authors like to use the distinction between Islam with the capital I and Islam with the lower face I and what that means is what does the word Islam mean in Arabic? to surrender to surrender oneself over to and so what they will say is all of God's prophets and all previous peoples were in a state of surrender to God so would we in Arabic say the people on the ark with Noah they were in a state of surrender so we would say that they were in a state of Islam in the lower case I sense that it is a way of being so it's not a religion named after a people or a tribe or named after the founder of the religion right or it's it's a religion that takes its name from the central feature of all of God's ancient religions which is to surrender oneself over to there's a famous tradition from the prophet Muhammad peace be upon him in which he tells you know prophets always speak in parables so he uses the parable he says the likeness of my coming is like a beautiful edifice or building in which people are walking around and saying oh my what a beautiful structure this is and they say oh except it's just missing that one brick there and he says I am that final brick and so the prophet Muhammad peace be upon him did not see himself it's a beautiful metaphor he could have said there's this old decrepit building and somebody destroys it and builds another nicer building right most religions like to see themselves as sort of the best thing and they will create an understanding within the religion that says all of the religions just have it completely wrong and we're the only ones who know right Islam is something different than that and it says that it's a completion of these of these previous religions there's a tradition from the prophet Muhammad peace be upon him in which he said that God sent over 124,000 prophets to humanity we know of 25 by name so when we talk about Eshmael, Jacob and Moses and Abraham right Enoch all of these people those are the 25 that we know by name in the Muslim tradition but we also know that God sent guidance to all mankind so you have the Aborigines in Australia the Native Americans here in North America Muslims would believe that they had guidance sent to them we can't confirm where it is what happened to it what does it look like but we know that when we encounter an ancient tradition sometimes we find truth therein and that truth is because they have remnants of revelation so it allows a respectful dialogue with all religions because their origin could have been something that is that is divine now what I'd like to focus on this isn't the easiest way to summarize the religion of Islam there are three dimensions to the religion of Islam this is what the quiz will be on so it's faith, conduct and character you have to have each of these three for a complete expression of Islam so the first I want to focus on is conduct this is part of what Hina was talking about when she said worshiping with the body when we talk about the body we need action so these are things who here has heard of the five pillars of Islam the five pillars of Islam are just one dimension these are the five things that every Muslim must commit to do the first is to proclaim the two testimonies this is a short phrase by which a person declares their faith this is the way in which a person enters into the fold of Islam it is simply by declaring that I testify that nothing is worthy of worship save God and that Muhammad is the final messenger of God and when a person declares that and believes it they have to accept and affirm all of the previous prophets before that a person cannot affirm the prophethood of Muhammad by denying Jesus or Moses or Abraham or Noah because the prophet Muhammad affirmed that the second are five daily prayers so based on the position of the sun whether it is dawn or noon or the afternoon sunset or the night time Muslims take time to wash and perform a ritual prayer every Muslim who is above the poverty line must give a 2.5% of their savings of their unused wealth as charity that is called a purifying charity so this isn't on your full income but if you have a certain amount of money and after you take care of your needs you have a month that is left over that 140 of that must be given in charity as a minimum and then fasting the month of Ramadan there is a holy month in the Muslim calendar it is the ninth month of the lunar calendar in which Muslims fast from the break of dawn all the way until sunset and they have stayed from food drink intimacy and they engage in an intense self disciplinary month of exercise where they increase their devotions controlling oneself and the last pillar of actions to be performed is the pilgrimage to the holy city of Mecca which was founded by Abraham and Ishmael the actual sacred house was built by Abraham and Ishmael and Ishmael was actually buried there and so that is conduct so we should say faith conduct and character so now I would like to cover faith briefly and faith are realities that we must believe in so as was mentioning that we believe that we must surrender to God in our bodies and this is the minds so our beliefs are to affirm realities and truths as they exist in the world so if I believe the earth is flat right now you realize that there's this resurgence of the platter community but either it is or it isn't and if I feel that the earth is flat if I believe the earth is flat is that an action or is that an incorrect conception that I have it's an incorrect conception so that is what faith addresses is conceptions of the world now one of the interesting things about Islam is Muslims do not believe that faith is juxtaposed with reason so faith is not to withhold your reason as a sign of your faith but muslims believe a very interesting relationship between faith and reason is that faith is based upon reason and it's supported by reason and we could get into this maybe a little bit more in the Q&A and rational you should have a rational proof for believing in God and one that is not contradicted by reason the second is to believe in angels so we believe in God and then God has told us that he has created beings in another dimension that are called angels that interact with our world in various ways we believe that God sends communication called revelation which is super rational doesn't contradict reason as the mind was reminding us that revelation should never contradict reason or science or any of the things that we can know with certainty but instead affirms it so this scripture is super rational all muslims believe in the Torah as a reveal from God the Psalms the gospel and the Quran what muslims will believe is that as time carried on the authenticity of these documents was compromised like any other sort of historical document and one of the great miracles of the Prophet Muhammad is that God promised him that he will vouchsaf the Quran and that is something academics can agree on even if they don't believe in the divine source of the Quran they will affirm that it's the same document that they had in the seventh century arabia we believe in messengers that these are people that God sends as intermediaries to communicate his will to us when it comes to all of the other prophets it's a pretty straightforward belief Jesus is a bit of a unique figure and he is very interesting that he returns at the end of the time in both muslim and christian eschatology because there's so much dispute about his nature the muslim conception of Jesus is probably closer to an early unitarian view that Jesus was born of a virgin birth that he was indeed the awaited messiah that he will return at the end times etc. but yet he was a mortal prophet that when we say he was the son of God that that is a metaphor a metaphorical and not a literal meaning meaning he was a man of God a godly man etc. so we affirm Jesus as a messenger but muslims do not believe that the divine can be incarnated into creation and then we believe in a day of judgment in which all of us will be resurrected before our creator and held accountable for our needs and the last is we believe in what's called divine decree which means that destiny is something that cannot escape us and that God has decreed everything to be and that nothing happens outside of his will so the last we said faith conduct and character right I think it's helpful to talk a little bit about how Islam views the human being what is human human kind so first we believe that we have a human nature and there's a primary nature to our humanity the primary nature is an innate knowledge of right and wrong it is that aspect of us that if we're healthy that can see beauty in a sunset that feels guilt when we do something wrong that knows that some things are beautiful and good and true and other things are worthy of guilt and not doing any condemnation we have an innate sense of morality that this is not something that we simply learn through culture but that we actually have it imprinted on our soul and you can see this with children especially when they tell you that's not fair like why is that a refrain of children that's not fair they have this innate sense of justice so but on the other hand we also have a very selfish ego nature and what this means is that each of us has a capacity perhaps even a tendency to have a vengeful and carnal appetite and what that means is sometimes we can lash out at those who we feel are threatening us and harming us modern day psychologists we call this the our brain we also have a nature that is concerned with fulfilling the appetites and this is something again in the Catholic tradition that we'll see as well and so these two parts our primary nature that knows and is attracted to all that is good and beautiful and our selfish ego are essential to understand and knowing about the development of character for Muslims we purify our soul by purging our egos of these vices of the desire for jealousy and hatred and envy and all of these things that are there within us as latent potentialities and we have to adorn ourselves it takes a little bit of hard work with being generous and forgiving and loving and altruistic et cetera so these two things it is by suppressing the selfish ego and enhancing and developing our primary nature at the same time we believe in a certain type of Muslim asceticism and what this is is this means that we have a balance between rejecting the world outright living a monastic life right and indulging in it that this world there's a famous statement in the Muslim tradition on the tongue of Jesus in which he says that this world is a bridge right and so you have to not invest in the bridge but see it for its destination which is the afterlife so that is the balance that we have to one Muslim sage put it best when he said true asceticism is to have the world in your hand but not in your heart so that is what Muslims see so these three dimensions of the religion again just to reiterate are a result of a tradition that sees itself bringing together all of the teachings of the previous religious traditions they will bring peace and harmony based on the word to self and society and body and Muslims will use the term quite often of the middle road this is a phrase in the Holy Quran in which God says that we have made you a middle nation and some of the commentators have talked about that this is the emerging of the rich and the middle tradition found in the Torah and the higher spiritual colonies found in the Gospel and then with the emerging of these you have both the Sharia on the one hand you have the actions and the moral of how we are to behave but we also have we have both the law the letter of the law and the spirit of the law and that you don't have to abolish the letter of the law and that both can be preserved and that is what Islam brings together so just to recap there are the three dimensions which are faith conduct faith is truth in the mind conduct is goodness in acts of the body and the last is character which is beauty of the soul these correspond to the three central virtues of Islam truth and beauty each of us seeks goodness in our behavior truth in what we know and perceive to believe and beauty of our characters so this is the best that I can do to summarize what Islam is as a complete tradition thank you for your attention and hopefully we will have some conversation with you later you can enjoy this in more detail in the book being Muslim and a practical guide again he didn't tell me to say this by the way or to plug the book but I'm a fan I order it by the hundreds I got a good deal so finally so we did Zahniah and now for Tejadiyah so we cleaned up some of the space or false ideas we adorned it with some of these ideas and beautified it and finally for the elevation our final panelist one of my personal role models Sarah Kim a mother, a wife operates the Siena Ranch in Lafayette a fully functional ranch many bustling activities for our children and Sarah Kim is going to share with us a little bit about her story and bringing together Sarah Kim so please let's enjoy Sarah's story as she shares and please welcome her so we formed this panel almost exactly one year ago maybe a little bit more now actually in response to some of the horrific things that were being said about Muslims in the media after a few days of feeling someone helpless after the San Bernardino tragedy we decided to do something anything, however small to help balance the messages that people are receiving about Muslims and Islam most of which are just plain false so it's very important that I start by thanking you all for being here we can assemble a panel of speakers all we want in an attempt to share the truths about who we are but this would have no impact whatsoever if sincere people like yourselves weren't showing up to hear us so I am honestly both honored and humbled to be sitting before you today I'd like to believe that we're all here because we love our community and we love our country and our world when we seek to know and understand and respect one another we are able to elevate ourselves and our respective communities and our beloved country to the highest levels the title of my talk is How Islam Made Me a Better American but what does that really mean American? There are likely many many definitions for this however I am confident that there are a set of ideals which resonate with most Americans compassion, integrity mutual respect kindness, generosity equality these are all qualities which I think good human beings, good Americans strive to embody and what I'd like to specifically speak today about is a topic that I can address what I hope is a sincere and passionate heart and that is the topic of racism growing up I was very close to my paternal grandparents I would spend summers in North Carolina with them and since I was an early riser like my grandfather he would enjoy a daily 7am breakfast at a restaurant nestled at the bottom of the mountain where he lived I was proclaimed his favorite grandfather partially because I was named after his eldest daughter Sarah Jo and Sarah Jo had passed away in a tragic car accident the year before I was born apparently I look like Sarah Jo as well so his affinity towards me was clear and understandable to all and in return of course I deeply adored him, he was a generous man who showered love and affection on all of us but there was one thing I remember not knowing how to love about him and that was his deep seated racism and hatred for people of color he openly insulted and disrespected black people he frequently used the N word I remember being really uncomfortable with his attitudes and actions towards blacks so naturally I exonerated myself from being racist in hindsight however I realized that the post civil rights era in the south was still rife with unspoken racism though there were African Americans in town and in school we had very little to do with one another I didn't have any black friends I didn't live near black people I didn't sit near them in class or at lunch basically there was minimal to no interaction between them and us separate but equal may have been damaged by law but it was alive and well in everyday actions even in mine in my mind however I was as American as apple pie a blonde hair blue dyed blue eyed high school cheerleader my European ancestors landed on American shores in the early days of settlement my mother is part of the native American I lived in southern suburbia and was the daughter of a self-made businessman attending some of the best public schools in the area along with church on Sundays I had my mind set squarely on attending a service academy after graduation who could possibly be more American than me in 1996 I had completed a couple of years at the US Naval Academy before deciding military life was not for me I transferred to the University of Maryland and got my degree I married my husband Mike and had our first son then Mike was still in the Navy and stationed in Japan I stayed in the States to finish my degree and it was at this time that I was introduced to Islam since my talk is not about my conversion story I won't go into much detail about how I chose to enter this religion but I do want to share with you how being Muslim completely altered my understanding of race before I do that however I hope we have time to share a few of the Islamic teachings regarding race which came to us via sayings from our prophet Muhammad peace be upon him or via verses taken from our holy book the Quran which we believe to be the direct word of God as I share these with you please keep in mind the opening line of the free animal of the Declaration of Independence the document that formed the foundation of our nation the truth to be self-evident that all men are created equal well in Islam we are taught that righteousness is the only quality that makes someone virtuous in the sight of God not race or skin color or lineage or country in his last final public sermon to the Muslims over 1400 years ago the prophet Muhammad very clearly addressed this topic of racism when he said oh people your lord is one and your father Adam is one there is no favoritism of an Arab over a foreigner nor a foreigner over an Arab neither red skin over black skin or black skin over red skin except through righteousness we were also taught by the prophet Muhammad that God created Adam from handfuls of clay and dirt which had been collected from the different areas of the earth so just as the dirt of the earth is different colors we have black soil white sands and red clay the children of Adam come in different colors as well finally the prophet Muhammad taught us there is no good in red skin or black skin but that our value lies only in our righteousness and in our closeness to God so these are just some of the teachings that made my life to help me develop a deeper understanding of the problems with racism however there was one crucial time in my life that these teachings really took hold of me and taught me the true essence of what it meant to be an American my father at the age of 50 was diagnosed with a terminal brain tumor and given two months to live I wanted to take my young son Ben back home with me to South Carolina so that I could take care of my father he readily agreed to have me come but firmly warned me against trying to convert them to my new religion I had just become Muslim only three months prior I assured him I would do no such thing and I headed to South Carolina interestingly enough in a very short period of time after quietly observing me and my worship and noting my new found mindfulness that I brought to my day to day life my father began questioning me about my faith facing death he was forced to think about his own mortality so he started seeking answers to the questions of what might be coming after death and what had been the real purpose of his life I tried to answer his questions to the best of my ability but my own limited knowledge of my new religion could not satiate his deep curiosity he peppered me with questions and I literally ran out of answers in desperation to provide them with what he was looking for I searched for a local Muslim community where I might be able to take him so that he could speak to someone anyone who could give him the answers that I could not provide I searched in the phone book I asked around nothing I could find no Muslims anywhere close to us I was desperate for days and nights I prayed to God and though I didn't know everything about Islam I did understand that one of the tenets of the religion of prayer is that you have to recognize and submit to the knowledge that only God has the power to answer your prayer and answer it he did one morning my father stumbled across an ad in the local paper announcing the grand opening of an Islamic center in the next town he eagerly showed it to me and I couldn't believe my eyes it was truly a miracle God had sent us some Muslims that very next day we drove to Rockville, South Carolina in the hopes that they could help my father settle the affairs of his soul to my surprise and honestly, to my disappointment we saw that the entire group was comprised of African Americans not one other white person was in the room my heart sank, certain that this was a mistake deep down I knew there was no way my father could be guided to a new belief system through a group of African Americans it just wasn't possible to envision all of his life to spur them but another fact we are taught in Islam God is greater what you often hear as Allah w'ikbar God is greater than all the limitations we place upon ourselves and the limitations that we place upon others when my father emerged from the center he was a man deeply moved by all those whom he had met he was a man who received answers to the questions that had remained answered for unanswered for so long and he was now a man of the Muslim faith God is truly greater than anything we can imagine through the words and actions and sincerity of those whom he had been ruined to hate he had found acceptance love and a faith that he would embrace and practice as a means of drawing closer to his creator until his death almost one year later may God have mercy on him this is something Muslims say about those who have passed similar to when people say God rest his soul or may he rest in peace the Black Muslim community in South Carolina took very good care of my dad and me they would invite us into their homes every Friday after congregational prayers my father would be with the men and I would hang out with all of the women and children the men became an unwavering web of support for my father teaching him, guiding him and helping him come to terms with his impending death while I was comforted and thrilled by the peace that my father had found this was actually a momentous turning point for me as well for the first time in my life I had Black friends they were more than friends to me however they were my sisters we would pray together, sing together eat together and laugh together it was a beautiful and memorable time in my life it was a Friday in February nearly one year after my dad's conversion to Islam he was born at the time of his passing my two year old son Ben an African American brother named Abdullah and I were all sitting at his bedside by the way Muslim women often refer to Muslim men as brothers and Muslim men will refer to Muslim women as sisters out of respect anyway this brother had come to visit my father so that he could read from the Holy Quran in his presence Muslims believe that the recitation is flawless to the heart and the specific reading of the chapter called Yasin helped ease the souls passing from this world to the next it was through the lips of this Black man that these verses aided my father's soul it was the brothers from this community who came to pick up his body it was they who watched his head and lens, who perfumed him who shrouded him and who prepared him for his burial after the funeral they transported his coffin to the cemetery lowered his body into the ground and then prayed over him in accordance with the Islamic rituals of burial there were rows and rows of Black men praying for my father's soul if only my grandfather had been there to witness that tremendous and powerfully ironic scene so that was the starting point from which all my unrealized racism began to melt away it was at this point that I became truly Muslim and truly American I understood unequivocally the power of humanity without preconceived notions or discriminatory underpinnings and upon moving to California I have continued to be blessed with the most amazing friends and community members from all backgrounds, races and religions and it is on the premise of mutual respect for all of God's creation that I have found a true kinship with all races and people I have been taught that to treat everyone with dignity and respect is actually an act of worship because of our faith my life and my husband's life and my children's lives have been elevated and I hope and pray that we will always be positive contributors to the greater society in which we live I can surely say with immense humility and gratitude that I am a better human being and a better American for it it is my sincerest wish that our children, along with all of our children will lead future generations of Americans based on the time of God's command to get to know one another in peace and respect and to create a life that uplifts all that is good and suppresses all that is evil thank you for taking the time to get to know us and for honoring me by listening to my story I sincerely pray that this afternoon is just the beginning of a wonderful new friendship God will thank you sir I can hear that story time and time again it's like I heard it the first time so before we take a few minute break and we go into our Q&A session again I invite everyone to use the note cards write any questions you have and we'll reconvene in just a few minutes I just want to share one kind of parable that one of our teachers shared with us he says Islam is like water and it flows over various bedrocks and it reflects the bedrock over which it flows so when Islam goes to China it has a Chinese flavor of Islam but the water is still the same water it goes to India it looks a little Indian it goes to Malaysia it looks a little Malaysian and when it comes to America it looks a little American again the water is the same Islam is the same American flavor and I share that in light of the story and in light of why we're here today to show that we don't have to choose am I going to be Muslim or am I going to be American you can be both and you can be both beautifully and that's our goal and that's why we're here today so please everyone take the stretch we'll reconvene in just about 4 4 or 5 minutes or so and we'll collect your cards prepare for the questions and we'll conclude today alright we're going to jump right into it so I'm going to pass them like first who's going to begin Dr. Esat or Hina here we go we're a small group but we're curious so I think what we'll do is anybody ready to start otherwise I'll jump into a couple I'm going to apologize ahead of time this is going to be like speak answers that's been debating kind of a thing because there's about about 20 questions and we've got less than 20 minutes I believe some of them will probably require longer answers so I'll start off with when okay so the sixth point this one has a lot of great questions the sixth point under faith was about divine control of destiny how does this impact the question of human free will versus predestination really a question whoever wrote this it's like a PhD thesis to answer but I will answer as best I can in a brief format and if it requires more conversation hopefully we can do that later it is on one level it's simply stated Muslims believe in both human free will and they do believe in predestination simultaneously and that seems to be a paradox on one level so I'm going to sort of delve into that a bit deeper on one level taking to its full explanation it is something deemed to be a mystery so Muslims will they do have rational explanations but there is a point in which the human mind cannot reconcile the two and they will say that that is the ceiling of the human intellect but one scholar uses this metaphor to explain it and I think it's very helpful he talks about a chess board everybody here know how to play chess familiar with chess at least hopefully on some level a chess board comes with predetermined rules right and none of us can alter the rules of how the horse moves, how the bishop moves what a castle is but within that we all have our free will of every move that we play but depending on how our opponent plays and the circumstances of where our pieces are I can't be 6'6 I've tried many times especially on a basketball court I cannot change that that is part of my that is part of the predestination of which my life engages with but my my free will is limited and it works within the parameters of what's been predestined so like the chess player still can make a certain number of moves I mean if he's corner he's almost in a checkmate you might only have one or two moves that doesn't remove his free will to have to work within the rules of predestination having said that this is a very deep philosophical argument Muslims are definitely not deterministic and they do affirm human free will morality is all hinged upon free will in any tradition I would say but definitely in the muslim scholastic tradition free will is essential and that is in fact what humans have over all other creation is reason and free will that's what makes us what we are the rational animal as can be called by the philosophers and I'm going to hope for this one and then are you guys ready to jump in here soon to save me can you review discuss the comment about true asceticism I wasn't clear about the world being in the hand versus in the heart when something is in your hand it's something that you use it's an object in which it is outside of you and you know its purpose is to serve another end when something is in your heart right you become worldly and you're a person of possessions there is that nice kind of bumper sticker sounding phrase where we are meant to use things and love people but instead we use people and we love things right it's something along those lines that we should never love possessions in the world in the nice house and the reputation in the car that those things are acceptable in life but their means to an end and if you are a horrible person who is very happy that you have a certain kind of lifestyle or house then you become worldly particularly if your attachment to material possessions is what pushes you to start to maybe compromise your ethical practices or you know wall street anyone right something like that so that's because it's in the heart now you have greed and you have worldliness and on a spiritual level you are not looking to the afterlife and not as Jesus said you're not using this world as a bridge you're making this your home instead of the bridge right so you're not looking to the life to come that is sort of my answer I had a Muslim teacher once tell us that having the world in your hand and not in your heart also means that if tomorrow God takes away what's in your hands that it shouldn't change your heart with God you should still have a good opinion of God okay so I have a question here do Muslims believe in demons and the equivalent of Satan yes there are three creations of God that we believe in we've got there's human beings who are made of clay and all the different elements and minerals that are in the earth are also in our bodies as well and there's angels which we believe are made of light and then there are jinn which are made of fire and human beings and jinn have the ability to choose between right and wrong and they will be held accountable on the day of judgment angels cannot disobey God they can only fulfill his commandments and in the crystal they don't have free will and so on the in the Christian tradition I think the Jewish tradition as well it's believed that Satan Lucifer was a fallen angel Muslims don't believe that because Muslims don't believe that angels have free will we believe that Satan who is named Iblis in our tradition that he was actually the most learned of all the jinn he was created from fire and God gave the commandment after he created Adam to have everyone bow down in front of Adam out of respect and Iblis actually rebelled and he said that I was created from fire he's created from clay basically I'm better than him the first sin was actually arrogance and it was a form of racism he thought he was better than somebody else because of the way he had been created and he refused to bow down to Adam and so God expelled him until the end of time and Iblis asked to be given until the end of time to basically test human beings to see whether we obey God whether we are going to give him to what he encourages us to do so we believe in jinn created from fire we believe that angels created from light and human beings created from clay okay I have a few questions here the first is why is it the most difficult job to be a Muslim white and I think that that was a joke because his husband is sitting in the audience so that was what happened another question you're Mike's wife it's not hard to be his wife it's probably hard to be my wife that's the other way around I think wasn't better sometimes across so this question says if I were to become a Muslim would I be converting even if I'm not part of any religion at this time I think the word converting is just a term and you could say you entered into Islam you converted if you went from one thing to another some people say you reverted if Islam is like just a natural state of submission to God the way that Assad explained it then the idea would be that anyone who's born is already in that state and so when you come to Islam you are reverting back to the original state so there's different ways of looking at it the term isn't really that important and the second question is why are the prayer times specific can I pray whenever it works with my schedule there may be a scholarly answer to this I just wanted to share my experience when I was considering becoming Muslim I was very busy actually I've been busy my entire life that's just how I am I was very busy and I was doing many things and I was like how am I possibly going to fit into the prayer like this is just whole another thing that I have to add in talk to a friend of mine and add it up the minutes in the day that it would take for me to do the five prayers and I think it ended up being like about 20 minutes and I was like okay I can give 20 minutes and that's how I approached it which now is like ridiculous but so it is you know it is something that you put in your life but you know the more you the longer you experience it the more you realize what the gift of the prayer is the time when you kind of retreat from the world that we live and just give a minute to God and it's very recentering and it's really a blessing honestly and another thing I've noticed with some of the things about Islam like the prayers which the times do change throughout the year based on the length of the day you know the early morning prayer can sometimes be as early as like 4 a.m some countries even earlier than that 3 a.m and it can go as late as 7 a.m and then in terms of Ramadan the month of fasting it moves throughout the year so in summer you'll have these long days of fasting and these short nights and in the wintertime you'll have these short days of fasting and these long nights for worship and so it's one thing I've reflected on because I thought to myself it would be so convenient if it was just always the same you get into a rhythm and a routine and kind of like you know you could count on what you're doing you know what you're doing but there's such a wisdom in the fact that it's not like that because you're always on your toes it's always fresh you're having to think about it and kind of plan for it and put your life around it rather than fitting it into everything else that feels important so once again that's not a scholarly answer to the question but it's just my experience the last question I have is in Christianity there is a concept that all humans sin and need forgiveness when this was widely accepted 500 years ago it propelled the proliferation of democracy which said kings popes and prophets were outside of the realm of sinlessness and that a balance of power was necessary is that Islam aligned with this too absolutely we are all human beings we are all subject to sin we are all worthy of forgiveness no one has a different status in the eyes of God yeah no this is not no original sin when I was born in the state of sin we don't believe that but we do believe that all human beings have the capacity to sin and to be forgiven we mentioned prophets oh yes prophets are sins we do believe that nobody has any questions one of the questions is could you talk about the degrees of adherence to Islam for example I work with many Muslim women who do not wear the hijab how are they viewed it's not our job any Muslims job or to be viewing anyone else as higher or lower than anyone in the religion we're supposed to be concerned with ourselves the general understanding is that we're hard on ourselves and easy on everybody else there's many different parts of being a Muslim many different rules to follow and everybody has their own understanding based on how they were raised what they were taught and how much they've studied I didn't always wear the hijab I decided to start studying my religion and as I began understanding it and believing in its tenets more and more I decided to take on the hijab at the age of 28 and my mother had decided to take on the hijab like a year before I did she was much older than I was so yeah it's really as far as viewing one another one where Muslims just like any other religion you've got the whole spectrum of how much people adhere to the rules and principles alright so we only have about a few minutes left two questions can you explain the no shoes so Muslims when we pray we have seen that we pray what includes standing, bowing and prostrating so we put our face on the ground so part of it is cleanliness it's just cleanliness because of how we pray sometimes we sit on the ground in our gatherings and our study circles as well but also everything that a Muslim does physically we believe also has a metaphysical reality so we wash before prayer but we believe that water reflects the light of God so you're cleaning your heart instead so removing our shoes has that metaphysical element as well and that it's a humbleness to God preparing yourself for prayer preparing your heart and so it's both the outward and the inward reality as we're composed of a body but our essence is our soul so every act we do may touch upon our body but it may touch upon our soul as well the other question is what does Islam say about poverty so poverty is not something shameful it's not something wrong you can have a very honorable poor person and a dishonorable rich person we know that in the Malina richness is the richness of the soul and that contentment is a treasure that never ends so poverty is not blame worthy and richness having richness through wealth is not necessarily praise worthy it's using what you have and giving $1 in charity can be better than giving $100,000 in charity if that $1 is given from a heart in a manner in a way that's humble and loving and caring without arrogance or pride and with sincerity and if that $100,000 was given with arrogance and pride and showing off and boasting so poverty we also believe in the afterlife that one who has more wealth will be judged longer possibly and so poor people will likely enter heaven before rich people depending on the judgment so there are statements about that I hope that helps answer those questions and I'll pass it on one of the questions is as a woman who is fought for equality against misogyny and patriarchy helped me understand and not to fear women's roles in Islam and then it says thank you so I have to be honest I'm a little confused by the question because I'm not sure what the women's roles in Islam are that feels there's patriarchy or misogyny I mean I'm a mother, I'm a wife I'm a daughter I'm kind of like the principal of this homeschooling co-op that we run and Muslim women have been heads of state Muslim women have been CEOs of companies so I'm not sure exactly what the question is maybe there's a feeling that because Muslims recognize that there is a difference in the genders that that somehow means that they're unequal that's not the case because Muslim women maybe cover different parts of their bodies as compared to Muslim men doesn't mean that there's something more shameful about women or that men are more liberated it's basically what I look at for any religion is do men and women have equal access to God and do they have an equal chance of earning his divine pleasure and for me in the religion of Islam that's absolutely the case there's no man that I would say other than me simply by virtue of being a man and yeah so I would need a little bit more if the questioner has interest I would recommend reading about the life of Muhammad specifically there's books about the women around him and it's really enlightening to find the people that he were his companions at that time and there was such a spectrum of the women in his life there were women who were in the economics who were fighting in battle there were women who were just staying home it was literally everything so that was his world and that was what he deemed to be okay and what he supported and he was supportive of all different personalities of women and all different roles of women so that shows you what really what Islam teaches about roles of women unfortunately you do see things that are cultural so there might be confusion between culture and religion yeah and I would just add that the outward ceremony that we observe in different cultures and countries may be exotic maybe we interpret it in a certain way within the lens of our own life experience but when you go back to the root reason why they do what they do you know resonate with us by and large somebody already mentioned this idea of women inside not being able to drive but if you stop and ask the question well why did they have that role we mean surprise ourselves that the reason why they have their role comes from a good place the outward application or the ceremony of it may be exotic and odd to us so I think it's important to realize that distinction and I found that to be the case in my travels around the world you know that's the spice of life people do things differently and celebrate things differently do things differently the laws and customs and traditions are very different but the fundamental reason why they do what they do it resonates with us same reason why we do what we do here I'm going to try we're running out of time so I'm going to try to do in 60 seconds here another very tough couple of the allergens here in the audience today what is a Muslim response to why people suffer so this is the philosophical tradition is called theodicy Muslims have written quite a lot about this and it would be a different answer than I think you would probably give from a Christian theologian Muslims would contend this is really hard to do in a short amount of time Muslims would contend that the very nature of this world is meant to be an admixture of light and dark ease and difficulty good and bad and the purpose of that is it is meant to be a moral testing ground we were created as moral beings with free will and the only way in which we can exercise our moral agency is to experience, confront and engage morally in situations and scenarios and within that complexity once you multiply that by 6 billion people sort of all at the same time you will have a world of senseless suffering of difficulty of starvation of poverty you will have all types of things and these are all ways in which we are morally challenged as Muslims we believe that God created each of us to be a vice-genre sort of a fancy word that I don't think he used except outside of the setting as an ambassador of God on earth and the question becomes what are we doing about it so the hurricanes hit and people are flooding in Puerto Rico and I mean where aren't, where haven't they yet I mean it's crazy so the question becomes not oh why is the hurricane hitting if there is God why did he allow this hurricane the question becomes this is now a situation that brings about moral challenges and responsibilities upon us so the question is do we look up from our staked energy and say wow what a tragedy and then go back to like can you pass me the Able and Steak Sauce and we continue with our own enjoyment while our fellow man, woman, child is suffering so that's what it is but this is a finite amount of time and it's an arena with a particular purpose and beyond that is God's eternal justice and his wisdom and his mercy and all of it will make sense and everybody will be compensated there are people here who are victim of horrible abuses we don't know the stuff that exists in the world the human trafficking the child labor all of these things and they won't have their justice on the day of judgment even if human beings fail to attain it for them here but there would be no test there would be no moral test for us if there weren't the result of free will which is evil and suffering and difficulty and pain et cetera so it is an essential component in order for us to exercise our free will and I hope that answers it and if not I apologize and my last one how do you define righteousness how does it apply to moral people who are non-muslim so what about moral people who are non-muslim this is so there are sort of two different questions here one is there's the theological question of who is saved and what Muslims believe is if somebody knowingly rejects God's message let's make this extremely simple Pharaoh and Moses so Pharaoh says you're a liar you're not speaking on behalf of God he rejects Moses' message he's held accountable as a rejector of truth that's black and white as clear as can be you're not going to get a better truth given than Moses and you're not going to get a clearer rejector of that truth than Pharaoh can we agree on some level there for everyone else it gets a little more great and what we can't say anything about individuals but what we can say is God holds us accountable for our conscious rejection of truth now sometimes we don't get truth we get something else we get distorted versions of the truth we get truth mixed with a little bit of falsehood we get truth mixed with horrible images on TV and so what our moral accountability is in terms of a theological question of how are they held accountable by God our answer is that's for God to judge now somebody can still live a moral life somebody can still be a person of God in their own ways here and this is proven in the life of Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him he allowed Christians to pray in the mosque he would engage with the Jewish tribes he validated other people's ways of growing closer to God and in fact called them to the highest callings of their own religious traditions and so he saw that in them that they could be righteous through their own traditions but again there's the theological question of who's saved and what are we held accountable for in the afterlife as one of my teachers always says theologians write things in books but another one of my teachers says theology is the quest for the least silly definition of God so at the end of the day God judges and our human minds try to make sense of it all on some level but all bets are off when it's his dominion and we're on that day so I'm done we said we're going to honor your time and we said we're going to honor your questions and we're going to do both may I have the unanswered questions please so it's just about three o'clock and we have a few unanswered questions and we do want to honor these questions by not ignoring them and so I'm here and I'm not leaving afterwards come see me I'd be happy to chat or you can you can have my phone number my email or contact us via the the website or Facebook and we will set a time off to answer these questions because again I said the onus is on you to ask the questions and then we will answer them and we want to honor that we want to be truth because we want to have a meaningful engagement so I have these unanswered questions please come and see me today by the way in this day in history was the day that Moses was saved from Pharaoh according to the Muslim tradition yeah so he just mentioned it reminded me in this day in history was the day that Prophet Muhammad traveled peace be upon him to another city Medina emigrated and he found some of the Jewish tribes fasting he said where are you fasting and they said because this was the day that Moses was saved from Pharaoh and so borrowing from that tradition Muslims also he said we also will fast on this day and the day before after as well so it's a beautiful day to be here together where the Abrahamic faiths and for the American people to be here today was a beautiful moment so we're going to conclude with a simple recitation of the first chapter of the Quran called the opening Arabic and it's a prayer feel free to participate as you do comfortable prayer thereafter Arabic Arabic Arabic Arabic Arabic Arabic in the purpose of life and finding you and searching for you and loving you and obeying you and serving you we ask you our Lord the master the controller the powerful to restore harmony tranquility peace love and serenity in our inner selves and in our homes and in our marriages and in our families and in our countries and in our continents and in our world we turn to you and everything as we are weak and you are strong and we are poor and you are the provider and we are far and you are close when we are heedless and forget you you are still with us we ask you our beloved Lord and our provider and our master and our owner to help us submit to you and surrender to you in a beautiful manner we ask you to call us to you with gentleness and not with difficulty we ask you to call us to you with gentleness and not with calamities or tests and we ask you to help those who press throughout the world whatever their calamity is a fear hunger or thirst or coldness or or distance and we ask you to give us wisdom and to grant us wisdom as you are the all-wise and the all-knowing and we ask you to bless those who have attended today who have reached out and have come today and honored us today and we ask you to bless those who have prepared and worked and organized for today as you are the true and the best provider and we ask you to gather us all in your heaven as no one can do that except you and that is easy for you and that is easy for you and that is easy for you and we turn to you in the beginning and in the middle and in the end and in every moment please accept that from us our beloved master and our God we ask you to send your peace and blessings upon all the messengers and prophets whom you sent to us and all of the righteous who followed them I mean and we would have to believe that you don't be a man of mean and all praises to you and any man.