Welcome to tonight's live program. Man often has been described as the best accretion. Man often is also referred to as having three embodiments incorporating his presence. The physical body, which is often referred to in Arabic as a jisim. The mental state, his consciousness as his akal or nafs but also more deep we also have one term referred to as the soul or the rule. Tonight's program, inshallah, we'll be looking at the spiritual aspects. How one can maintain spirituality, how one can evolve spiritually and reach the heights and also some of the challenges faced by man and what he should use it as methods. Often religions and beliefs that specifically the early monotheistic religions talk about methods in terms of how they specifically use to change spiritual heights, the early Mayans, the Greeks, the Indian tribes, the African tribes also. In tonight's program specifically we'll be looking at the Fiqh of Islam, the Jafri Fiqh, the Shia school of thought. And with me tonight we have Dr. Seyed Amman Akshwani. Salam Alaikum. Salam Haji Muhammad. Congratulations. Shukr and shukr and thank you. As you all know Haji Muhammad's been on Hajj so I think you're more entitled to speak about this topic than I am. Alhamdulillah. Thank you. It's been certainly a blessing that I was invited to the house of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and visited also Medina and numerous places. Inshallah one day I'll be able to share with the audience the experiences that I've encountered, some lovely people that I've met. But for tonight's topic inshallah we'll be looking at spirituality and just moving away from the abstract side as it were really trying to take this program so it's personable as it were to the audience in terms of how man can actually evolve. So the first question I suppose what we can ask is the league, do you think there's too much emphasis or legalistic emphasis on the spiritual discussion or not enough in today's world? How can one be really looking to attain those spiritual heights? What should he or she do really? I do believe that there is a major focus on law more than there is on spirituality. Right. Even though when you're looking at the whole Islamic worldview, law is a tool for us to become more spiritual. In many of our mosques today there is a major focus on legal discussion. Much of our identity today as Muslims is very much related to legal ordinances, legal principles. Are we following that which is obligatory? Are we staying away from that which is for example seen as reprehensible or that which is seen as prohibited? And therefore you find a major complaint in our mosques is that there isn't enough discussions on spirituality. They feel that when you go to listen to lectures for example in the mosques or you listen to the sermons on a Friday there is a historical content, there's theological content, but there doesn't seem to be what many define as spiritual content. Now spiritual content many have defined in different ways and what many don't realize as well is that observing law and having legal discussion is part of one spiritual journey. If you're looking at what we call wajib and mustahab and makrooh and haram and mubah, when you're looking at something which is obligatory or something which is recommended or something which is reprehensible or something which is prohibited, a lot of people are like oh this is too legalistic, it's always discussing prohibitions, it's always discussing what is recommended or what is obligatory. What we don't realize is there's a reason behind these laws in usul al-feeq and the principles of jurisprudence. We recognize a number of terms, milak, irada, ehtibar, bayan and kishaf. All of these terms allow us to understand there is a reason behind God's laws. Absolutely. When we find out what God's laws are it's then up to us to be able to follow them in order that we're able to reach spiritual bliss. Absolutely. Many times in the books or principles of jurisprudence you'll see that the aims of these laws are so that the human being reaches saada. Right. I'm on a journey towards this spiritual bliss. I recognize that there's a broad spectrum between pure light and the lower self. Right. Pure light is as close as I am to my reality, that ruh that's breathed into me. Okay. And the lower self is really when I'm going towards the animalistic taking over that rational human representative of God on earth. Therefore when our communities say that if we're discussing law so much that means there is no spirituality. It's been suppressed. What we're not realizing is that no, on the contrary, when you're being told that something is obligatory upon you the Lord has expressed it. There's the bayan. You found it. Now it's up to you to follow it so that you are showing that obedience which the Lord deserves which in turn allows for your growth from the lower self towards pure light. Okay. When something is halal for example or when for example when something is wajib that act which you are told is obligatory Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala doesn't care if you perform that act or no. Rather in the sense that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala doesn't benefit from you performing that act. Yeah sure. Rather it is you the human being who grows spiritually through the performance of that act which is obligatory. Okay. If we take the flip side when somebody is telling you that there is an act which is prohibited something is haram. God doesn't arbitrarily just say you know what I'm just gonna randomly choose what's haram and what's halal for you. When something is prohibited it's because it's taking you away from that path to spiritual bliss. That path to move from the mundane towards the heavenly and divine. Right. So therefore when somebody says to me what are one of the ways in which I can become more spiritual you find many of the many of the times that Imams of Ahlul Bayt tell you do that which is obligatory stay away from that which is prohibited. Yeah sure. It always seems to be such a basic formula. Absolutely. But what people aren't realizing is you are recognizing there is wisdom behind the laws of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala wants us to grow and actualize our potential. Potential. Yeah. There's a recognition that there are battles that are happening with the ego. With the ego. Yeah. And one may argue that the ego is our identity. Yeah. Yeah. Where I am whether it's you know nafsil lawama sometimes you read nafsil ammara sometimes you read nafsil mutma'inna where I am is my identity in reality. Yes. Otherwise society is really dead men walking unless a person reflects on what their spiritual existence means. Yeah. So I don't think we should negate right having legal discussions or the stress on law that ahlul bayt aleyhi wa sallam virtually sacrifice their lives so that we would inherit that heritage. Yeah. Because I think that's part of the spiritual journey. And if I'm not mistaken that actually is the foundation as it were. And also I mean if I play devil's advocate for a moment one may ask well why do I have to do this as it were or comply with these commands but correct me if I'm wrong. That also is a part is part and parcel of faith. It's not necessary for one to know the reason why he is complying with actually praying on time fasting. These are commands that Allah talks about in his divine realm of wisdom Hikmah and maybe perhaps you could say also this is a form of ubudia. Well I think when you're looking at the acts of worship which we are told to perform those acts of worship were even told exactly how they allow us to grow spiritually. When you're reading a line in the Quran for example that prayer keeps you away from evil and indecency for the remembrance of Allah is greater. What we're seeing over here is a couple of key ingredients to our growth spiritually that number one one of the acts that we have made of ligatory upon you five times a day is an act for your benefit because that act when you are undertaking it you are a going towards spiritual bliss the world of saada and b you're staying away from evil and indecency. Islam doesn't want us to go towards the world of the individual it wants us to also grow within us a sense of duty. The paradigm that we live in today is the world of the individual and what makes the individual feel happy. There's also a sense that in my spiritual growth there's a societal growth but in my spiritual heedlessness there's a societal heedlessness. So for example when someone says to me I'm just gonna pray salat I don't need to know what the benefits of salat are no Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala in the Quran is telling you that someone who observes salat properly because you know someone can easily turn around and say well I pray but it hasn't stopped me from doing haram it doesn't have to be a direct correlation at that moment but the more you pray the more you wake up for fajr the more you establish these prayers the more that correlation is going to come together in your life. You see if you're gonna be a football player and you're taking a free kick outside of the box and someone says you know what if you practice free kicks you're gonna score you practice five free kicks that afternoon ten free kicks that afternoon you keep hitting the bar yeah but then if you keep on practicing with the aim that I want to get closer to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and with the aim that I want to infuse the love of Allah into my heart so if we go back to the football metaphor I'm keep on practicing because my aim is to make sure that I do well for my football club so every morning I'm gonna keep practice every morning eventually you're gonna be scoring from those free kicks yes when I remember reading about the likes of David Beckham for example how David Beckham would literally in the park would continuously keep taking free kicks keep taking free kicks it wasn't that he attained that perfection in the free kick from day one he recognized it's a journey he recognized the exercises keep having to be performed until eventually I think it reached a stage in the late 90s where there wasn't a free kick of his but it was going into the bottom corner and I sadly remember some of those afternoons so when when we're looking likewise with Salah with Salah for example God's telling us that listen this act of prayer if you do it properly don't think in one day you're gonna achieve this spiritual bliss and prayer because there are some people who pray out there and then they're like well you know what it's not really not doing anything for me I'm gonna stop no you continue and then eventually even like fasting someone might say fast because your parents do it or fast because the community does it yeah or fast you don't have to know the reason for it no Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala in the Quran said that this practice that I've told you is obligatory for you which I've prescribed for those before you is that you achieve a level of God consciousness in your life and if you ask anyone who fasts in the holy month of Ramadan they'll say to you there's a spiritual moment that takes me above the main mundane that everybody else is living in where I suddenly recognize just how many blessings Allah has showered upon me the eye can look forward to a sumptuous meal yeah and others cannot what spiritual growth emerges here look the lower self human being is suddenly now in this constant movement not just for the higher self but towards the world of pure light yeah yeah which is the origin in the world of the souls so I think with every act of worship in the religion of Islam instead of our paradigm being one that irrespective of whether what we know what God intends or not no on the contrary you'll find that all of these acts salah, som, zakat means purification yeah but the act of giving continues to purify you because you're not that individual anymore there's a sense of civic duty national duty religious duty it builds you as a human being moving away from the religious aspects as it were do you think spirituality obviously spirituality differs in the world today so that's one point and the second point is do you think in some forms perhaps some people have a personal view in terms of it being too materialistic or someone is being too materialistic in terms of the world's become too materialistic I think because I think this is quite important yeah I don't want to generalize the whole world and say everybody's become too materialistic you see I always have a disclaimer which my teachers taught me whenever you'll talk about spirituality I'm not talking about spirituality because I am God's gift of spirituality let's be clear here spirituality is the core of Islam it's difficult to talk about the core of the core I may be one of those people who has a material or materialistic element in his character but I can also hope that I can balance that because we don't want the wrong spiritual worldview as well to emerge which will come to us when we're looking at the materialistic there may be people out there who look materialistic but how do you know what charity he gives to people when you're not there yeah if you're saying to me there are people even out there who are super hungry bankers who don't care about anything but their bonus and their mortgage they couldn't care less if the money they were making was trading for companies out there who are just feeding off the blood of innocent kids finding diamonds for them let's say yeah even that person as long as they haven't reached the level of hard heartedness okay okay this is fundamental because the the heart in islamic thought is fundamental to the growth of the human being spiritually and it's known as the because there is a constant rotating of its position and one may argue its journey but what you don't want is the heart to become hardened you know it's like it's like this really hard hard hard hard hardness that begins to envelope you where I've heard stories of football players yeah who have burnt money because they make so much they've burnt it in nightclubs they burnt it so you know you smoke the the 50 pound note that's a hard-heartedness issue that you've reached you've reached a state of hard-heartedness you know there's kids in Africa who have to travel miles to get clean water yeah and you have the audacity to light a cigarette but with a 50 pound or a hundred dollar note there are people who go to nightclubs and those people who go to nightclubs will order champagne without drinking it or order champagne to show off who has the most bottles on their table that's hard-heartedness we're no longer talking about the physical aspects of the life of the human being we're talking about disease yeah absolutely and what's what's happening here is that when we're looking at the world today it's sad that there are human beings who in one week will have a wonderful charity fundraiser and the following week find it no problem to open a bottle of champagne worth a few thousand pounds and leave that bottle there simply to show off that their table had the most drinks yeah or could afford the most expensive drink at that moment is when the world is in a crisis right and i think part of the jihilia world that the prophet peace be upon his family encounters is is a world where it was all about what makes me happy as an individual excessive worth maybe not even that what makes me happy as an individual in the sense that if i want to plunder that tribe i'll do it right if i want to have a drink at any time and it doesn't matter if it hurts somebody else or even hurts my family it doesn't matter that sense which i keep coming back to of a of a duty to ensure that this trust that god gave you the spirit that's breathed into you that allows you to be who you are his rep which is a great honor which i think many Muslims don't reflect on just how great an honor it is to be known as the x of Allah or the x of god meaning the the caliph of god on earth absolutely absolutely so the world that we live in materialism exists materialism is not always negative except when a person begins to move into this arena of complete hard-heartedness where there is no sense of duty to the creation nor the creator but often people talk about how they are stung in life so let's talk about maybe the wrong spirituality which you've alluded to just now which clearly is the wrong method or it's you know the hard-heartedness of the heart which has made man forget himself really as a holy Quran talks about you've forgotten yourself so i've forgotten you yeah but what essentially is the wrong spirituality is it is it can it be something as a definition for wrong spirituality i think even in the Quran god talks of a wrong spirituality in the Quran you'll find i think in chapter 57 of the Quran god talks of an innovative asceticism okay it's a form of asceticism and people love to call themselves ascetic because the moment you enter the world of gnosis and spiritual enlightenment you want to hear about the ascetic and you want to say that i'm ascetic and these times people love but these can also be manifested in the wrong ways for example there are those who say that i will remain celibate because celibacy is a path to the lord yeah in islam that's seen as an innovative asceticism get married have your children procreate be proud of that child allow the growth of that child so therefore you find that even it reached a stage in islam where there were women who would say i don't want to get married and these women would be asked why not they'll be like because i want to devote my life to god yeah and the reply that came that if not getting married was a sign of spirituality then fatima tizzara alayhi salam would not have got married but she got married she moved from being a daughter to being a wife to being a mother to being a spiritual exemplar for all of us yeah yeah then you've got others who for example will say that i will not necessarily wash myself and what they don't realize is and nazafatum in al iman cleanliness is a part of faith but you'll find that i i tell you you can go to certain very holy cities in the islamic world okay and you can hug a maulana and it's a death wish it's not a it's not a moment of bliss and that person you're like maulana spiritual you've been told all these great things but basic fragrance yeah sure basic fragrance on the beard is completely missing yeah okay and that person he's telling you that this is how you should be spiritual this is the tesbih you should do this the da'as you should read but there's a basic element here and that the prophet peace be upon him and his family allowed us to be extravagant in you know perfuming ourselves you know that's right so that could also be a wrong spirituality as well okay okay and i think what begins to happen in early islam there's the famous example where one of the companions of the prophet peace be upon him and his family is known to now suddenly have adopted this ascetic way and his wife is seen by aisha the wife of the prophet and she asks so why are you in such a disheveled state you know you are such a good-looking lady and now you just let go okay and she's like who should i be good looking for my husband doesn't come near me all he does spend the whole day in prayers and fasting right and he doesn't eat meat anymore okay you know and and what happens then is that this hurts the prophet muhammad when he is that this is a wrong spirituality you guys have adopted we don't want you to go into a spirituality where you condemn everything that's in this world we want you to be a an umma which is a balanced middle umma a middle path yes a community and and so we do have to be careful when we do sometimes meet people and i i've met people who are known to be supposedly they are people of spirituality their salam is the soul the coldest salam they they're meant to be spiritual embodiments when they say salam and aleykum to you salam aleykum okay like do you want to ask about how i am or how's my family or you know i try and make an effort that someone says salam aleykum to me as much as i can not in the name of spirituality but in the name of that walaia that exists not we laia wa laia that fraternity between the lovers of ahlul bayt aleykum salam that when you see each other you try and embrace each other you try and make sure that the person feels your warmth and then you see some dressed in the clerical garb okay not all there are some who are wonderful examples sure but there are there are some dressed in the clerical garbs and walking around with a sebha and you know all looking holy and pristine so salam aleykum salam aleykum now that's a wrong spirituality that's not the spirituality or sitting down there's no real sense of i hope everything's okay can i help you and anything these are all small spiritual points which are much bigger than you reading du'a abu hamza thamali 24 seven yes yes yeah and so there is this wrong spirituality that certainly can arise you know you got people who will sit by the grave of of a member of ahlul bayt aleykum salam reading du'a the whole night but these same people have got immense hatred and envy of people who are more famous than them or people who have achieved plaudits that they haven't but these people will come back looking religious looking spiritual and i think that that wrong spirituality of how the garb and the rosary bead is the defining point that's another point of wrong spirituality yeah we'll talk about some of the methods and challenges that's muslims face as it were in attaining spirituality but just before then in terms of the spiritual aspects as it were do you think society and i'm giving examples now society the way one has been brought up parents tada biya as it were what influence is one to be spiritual now obviously first and foremost one's got to have the knee to be close to Allah swt you've spoken and you've described i think you've hit the nail on the head even you've answered the question with that one line right and i'll tell you why because i think parents have a role in one spirituality but not the ultimate no society has a role in one spirituality but not the ultimate role okay parents let's let's look at this parents for example we're indebted to our parents for how many sacrifices they made to show us which spiritual road to take but that doesn't guarantee that two sons are the same yeah well that doesn't guarantee that the three daughters at home are the same the parents show the road the parents try and explain to you god the attributes of god the blessings the bounties of god and one of you decides yes but the other two of you say no yeah the parents can have an impact on our spirituality but then you'll sometimes find that in one family you may have a son who's just going to hajj and another who's not interested in any of these things yeah so our parents that be all and end all no they're a decisive factor but not everything okay now society someone says you know if i lived in negev i'd be so religious yeah good point but it's because i live in london that i'm not religious you you've been to these cities or no someone says if i lived in caribala if i lived in quam if i lived in medina if i lived in kaira or whatever yeah then i'm gonna be really religious there are people in some of the societies or some of the places i've mentioned who are sitting at a calf five minutes from the grave of imam al-hussein or five minutes away from the grave of the prophet peace be upon this family and they're cursing blatantly there are people who could be living in a society seen as majority muslim in a country majority muslim environment majority muslim don't pray we live in a society that's not majority muslim yeah and i could say that the youth in the west have made immense strides in the protection of god's message and the message of the prophet and his family right so therefore society can have an effect okay but not the beall and end all you hit the nail on the head when you said the major effector is you the cure is within you the disease is within you there's a piece of poetry attributed to imam alayhi salam that's right the cure is within you but you don't see the disease is within you but you don't sense you are the open book who with your creation the unseen can be seen do you think you're something small when the whole universe exists within you you the human being have god's spirit breathed into you yeah it's such a magnificent creation that even when the quran says they ask you about the ruh say i've only been told a little about it we don't know exactly because our minds can't comprehend what that ruh is therefore when a person says to me parents it's because of them i'm not religious or i am religious society it's because of it i am religious i'm buddy you've got the free will exactly i was going to just mention the same word to be on the spiritual path or not it's your free will you have the free will to find a place in your heart for your mom yes for your wife you know sometimes when i'm talking to my wife if i say to her something like ruhi galbi now i don't say edi rigidly i don't say my hand you're my feet no what do i say galbi ruhi when i say that why am i pointing to you are my heart you're my soul because i've realized that i want to find a space for that person in my life in the deepest most important most sensitive area my heart you know the heart is physically or spiritually is of the utmost importance yeah and both times in the Quran and with both concepts you'll find the heart protected by sada and when it comes to the spiritual understanding of the heart it's also there's that sada that covers it and what i need to do is i need to allow the light of my mom for example i'd be like mom galbi ruhi my wife galbi ruhi my brother's this is galbi ruhi when i'm saying that is i'm saying to them i don't see you as my hands or my feet you are my heart my ruhi now this is the point the main factor in spiritual bliss is the moment you decide to make Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala more beloved to you than your own parents by finding that place for Allah to now take over your heart and that's where you'll find these unbelievable traditions Islam and especially Shi'ism and you know i don't want anyone out there saying oh if you mentioned Shi'ism sectarian listen buddy there's a difference between a Ferrari a Lambo and random car when you're looking at the words of al-muhammad you're talking la Ferrari you're talking you know you're talking Aventador s you're talking different league when they are able to tell you about Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala's words outside of the Quran a hadith qudsi a hadith qudsi these hadith qudsi that we read of course there is a belief that these are the the paraphrased words of Allah through the Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him his family we discuss this sometimes yeah we're looking in Oswald al-Fuq on these areas so the earth and the heavens cannot contain me look at this line Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala the earths the earth and the heavens cannot contain me but the heart of my believing servants can contain me this is phenomenal meaning that you know what if you find a place and of course we're not talking physically find a place for Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala you know that's a distorted view the idea that you can find a place for Allah you're limiting and that which is limited should not be worshiped but rather you're allowing Allah to enter your life yeah Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala saying that the earth the heavens nah that wasn't where i wanted to reside i wanted to reside in the heart of the believer and that's why many times we say that we're getting closer to Allah through the remembrance of Allah but not remembrance out of fear or Allah you know i'm scared i'm going to get no rather it's just like you know what god my mom and my dad and my family and my friends i put them in my heart because i'm grateful for what they did for me yeah they don't even come near anything you did for me and if i lose all of them while i know that i have you i don't need anything else yes yes and that's why i'm doing that wonderful line Allahumma oh Allah i get nearer to you through your remembrance and this area of dhikr we need to come to for yeah absolutely absolutely because we remember a lot of things there's only certain things you remember with love that you leave in your heart yeah i mean you you spoke about a dhikr and Allah Spahana Ratala talks about you know remember me and i will remember you we'll come to the point about the dhikr we've got just a few minutes left for the first break i just wanted to read a small part of Najib Al-Arga in English from Amir Al-Mu'mani in Aliyah b.a.s.l. oh god illuminates my outward with the light of obedience to thee and my inner being with thy love my heart with thy knowledge of the my spirit with thy vision and my inmost consciousness sir with the independence of attachment to thy threshold oh lord of majesty and magnificence now this obviously is a parallel to the quote that you mentioned from Dua-e-Kumail as it were now let's go forward now inshallah and we'll probably continue this after the break in terms of the methods we're slowly now moving from this holy mother the lhaj into now muhadam and after muhadam the subsequent mother is naturally Safar at times not all people at times let's be honest we get forgetful we go back to our lives enjoyment were concerned so forth but in muhadam there tends to be a high frequency as it were of the remembrance of Allah s.w.t through that holy al al-bayt al-amslam the message of karbala there's a thousand doors open from the message or the university as i'd like to call it from karbala in terms of justice how you are with people and so and so forth yeah but what can we learn from the al al-bayt al-amslam ziyada it's the word majalis and we'll continue this after the break inshallah what do you what do you what would you hope to offer to the audience as it were listeners how can we maintain this level what should one do well i think muhadam's a miracle yeah the ashura remembrance the ashura eulogies these are miracles and these are blessings for us and these are us honoring those who help you on the path of spiritual bliss in ziyada we say because ultimately i want to get nearer to Allah s.w.t i get closer to Allah in turn get closer to the prophet peace be upon him his family in turn to imam al-alayhi as-salam in turn to fatwati al-zahra al-as-salam in turn to say the shabaabah al-jannah how do i get close through holding on to their willaya what i'm doing in the month of muharram is holding on to the guardianship right of ahlul bayt al-salam when i'm saying holding on to the guardianship the guardianship bestowed upon them right by Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala so that they become a the sabab al-muttasal between the earth and the sky they are the connection between the people of the earth and the people of the heavens and not but we say where is the one who is the connector between the heavens and the earth connect in which sense through following them through learning about them through studying them i am now placing in my heart Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala's love and the love of those who Allah loves even in the Quran the prophet peace be upon him his family says say if you love Allah follow me follow me Allah will love you because someone might turn around and say listen this prophet ahlul bayt i respect these things but we don't need to mention the main thing is Allah Allah in the Quran says say come on say say if you claim to love Allah follow me Allah will love you meaning that in muharram i'm following what my prophet taught me to follow in honoring his grandson for he said he is a part of me and i am a part of him and whoever Allah loves the one who loves him therefore in muharram i believe it's a wonderful opportunity for you to remove some of the hard heartedness that may have grown yes start to chisel that out you may still have a bit of vengeance against a certain family member you may still have a bit of animosity to someone who's hurt you you may just be someone who enjoys causing rifts and trouble between family members chisel that out of your life right right and let Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala the prophet and the ahlul bayt into your lives yeah so now sorry we're gonna have to go for a short break our viewers do join us just after a few minutes inshaAllah salaamu alaikum salaamu alaikum and welcome back to tonight's live show or the imamsaid tv with me tonight we have dr. syed aman akshwani say na salaamu alaikum so just before the break we were discussing and analyzing the season as it were of muharram and what we can actually digest from there and you were mentioning about you know chiseling away that hard-heartedness as it were envy perhaps animosity towards certain individuals you know really letting go so just really going back to that and continuing on from there because i i i really do believe that we have to be careful upon reflection about the spiritual diseases that we have yeah yeah you know if i find out that i have a physical disease i'm gonna straight away go to the pharmacist go to the doctor and i want to make sure that i get this cure as soon as possible and i i'm sad that sometimes in society people don't reflect as much on the spiritual diseases that they have if i'm someone who for example has got certain spiritual diseases and we can group spiritual diseases such as lust envy arrogance anger hypocrisy you know these aren't something i can just go to boots chemists and say good afternoon i would like paracetamol for anger or i would like paracetamol for hypocrisy i'm munafiq and i need two tablets please person will look at you and say either you know if security can take this person out if you don't mind or they'll say sorry we don't prescribe for these things hypocrisy is your your thought and awareness that you rationally decided to be too faced you know it's got nothing to do with your physical state this is your spiritual state and therefore i have to try myself if i'm seeing that i've got these spiritual diseases maybe i'm the type who's enjoys gossiping i enjoy backbiting i enjoy destroying people's lives maybe the month of muharram comes as a blessing there are certain days in the Quran Allah describes them as the days of Allah the days where Allah shared his blessings for example when moses was given victory over ferro this is one of the days in which the grace of Allah was showered upon man and i think that is what happens in muharram that these are days of God they allow us to remember imam al-hasayn and as part of my paradigm on religious culture being beneficial for the growth of humanity i believe that every religion has certain symbolic moments or practices okay that an atheist world can never come and replace because those moments are always going to be better than an atheist world view moment and what i mean by that is for example in muharram even giving out food at the end of the majlis is a spiritual act because if your intention is that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is in my heart and this is in honor of one of the people who sought to protect the message of Allah namely imam al-hasayn that becomes a spiritual act likewise if you're helping in the car park of the mosque however even in these acts in muharram a person has to be aware of the wrong spirituality what do i mean i help in the car park in muharram say for the last 20 years of my life my dad's help my granddad's help my cousins have helped i virtually inherited it right yes yes but for ten nights of muharram i get my car park jacket on and i've traveled virtually all the continents given majlis all the continents and i have a great respect for those people who stand on these cold nights however are you standing there or is your standing there a service to imam al-hasayn alaihi salams majlis and in turn to Allah or has it become an excuse to chill for a couple of hours with a cigarette yeah well said because what begins to happen is shaytan who obviously is a major obstacle and challenge in our spiritual growth iblees gonna make sure that you know what you stay here outside don't go inside no no but you're not going inside the majlis because you're outside looking after the cars or you're cooking and you're cooking for imam al-hasayn therefore because you're cooking for imam al-hasayn you are an extremely spiritual person imam al-hasayn is telling us part of your growth spiritually is gaining knowledge yes yes why are you standing outside for ten nights no well you know if i don't stand outside then the cars want me probably or if i'm not in the kitchen cooking food no one else is gonna do it no one else is going to no there are people gonna do it you did it last year there are others want to do it now don't make a kingdom in terms of your volunteering i bring me and my buddies to volunteer yeah and then we're having a good chit chat outside while the majlis of khusayn is going on because i've seen a wrong spirituality develop even in relation to our muharramajat and it's a shame yeah when a person says for example you know what i'm standing outside uh why because well the main time i want to come inside is when there's the morning rituals of lamentation rather than the lecture here but you've missed the point yeah sure there's a 45-minute analysis of how you can grow spiritually as a human being yes so the majlis of Imam al-Husayn al-salam are a wonderful spiritual gift which the ahlul-bayt loved imam ar-raza al-salam love telling da'bel bin al-khaza'i recite the masa'ib of husayn al-salam imam al-baqar trained 141 poets that's in my conclusion others may differ to recite the masa'ib of imam al-husayn al-salam but within that religious culture of muharram generosity altruism humility do you know how many times when we were growing up there was a fight when food was being served do you know how many times well i remember when growing up and you know you may be from the indoor pack subcontinent you may have seen different things but i remember growing up that people when food would come out at the end of the majlis there'd be a scrum for the food in some cases a punch-up now we've missed the whole point here that majlis spiritually is meant to make me grow and become a better human being i'm growing i'm reflecting on the i making it a wee yeah but if it's all going back to i and it's all about me then i've missed the point yes absolutely absolutely so there needs to be a reflection yeah dear viewers do call in you have certain mediums to actually communicate your messages via facebook whatsapp the telephone number is 0203 51501 double nine once again the telephone number is 0203 51501 double nine so in that there's a key question for tonight's topic and i think we need to sort of address this as it were ethically speaking from a point of view of faith and what islam talks about and what we should really endeavor to do but how can one is god listening to to our invocations does god listen is there some sort of proof can we substantiate that what does what would you say about that i think the ayah in the Quran is wonderful right and the ayah tells you when my servant asks you about me tell them that i'm near i will answer the supplication of the supplicant when they supplicate towards me now a couple of issues arise here firstly how near well what's the nearest thing to your jugular i'm closer to you than your jugular another verse in the Quran secondly will he answer my supplications he tells us in the Quran call upon me i'll answer you there are many doors in this world that close Allah's doors always open you are a witness to that on the day of harafa yeah those few hours for you to sit there and know that everything's being forgiven how then could you doubt that your Lord ever forgotten you yeah and all these people who sat there didn't even have to recite a dua no just sit there just sit there from midday until maghrib and if you doubted that you'd been forgiven hadjdan that level of mercy i remember one of my teachers telling me there was an idol worshipper idol and arabic sonam okay so when he goes to the sonam he says sonam sonam sonam he accidentally said samad and at that moment there was a call i hear you my servant look at that he's been saying he's been an idol worshipper and he's been saying sonam idol idol idol then he accidentally said samad because he accidentally called out samad Allah said my servant i hear you say now we just have a telephone caller Salamu Alaikum warahmatullahi my name is Abbas i'm from south london alaykum salam warahmatullahi wabarakatuhu Abbas yes brother your question please uh salam alaykum say my question is with spirituality so you think it's a bit subjective and maybe plays on the people's mind and it's to do with people's emotions while with an actual scientific text excuse me just recovering from a cold in terms of this point has been mentioned by many who believe in a materialist worldview they say that there really is no no such thing as a soul or a spirit yeah we're now dwelling into the unseen now yeah and um and so therefore people say well how exactly can you show that that exists and i and there are so many different ways i think that needs its own show inshallah to look at the Aristotelian worldview to look at the worldview of certain philosophers and you know in a few centuries ago who were living in in iran and so on and to look at you know their different opinions on how we can prove this but there are a number of key areas firstly there are certain people out there who had physical issues and they took so much medication to recover from those physical issues and they don't work yeah when you ask them what is it that worked they'd mention to you something not physical sometimes they'll say to you my love of my lord got me through this yeah the person has tried the medication which has been prescribed but then points to a non-medical issue love nothing to do with the physical human being but rather he says love others say no my faith got me through at the end we were taking medications there was no improvement there was nothing but my faith i held on to a faith that my lord will help me out here yes these areas love faith awareness of one's religious beliefs all of these are not to be quantified right or to be compartmentalized physically so therefore from one angle you've got the clear conclusions from the lives of people who mention non-physical moments in their life having a major effect on their physical strength that's one angle to look at it then even when we mentioned earlier spiritual diseases you know i don't think anyone out there will say hypocrisy is a physical construct in the right side of the frontal lobe or something hypocrisy is the free will of the human being where they decide to act in a two-faced manner and that begins to affect their character generally so when we're talking about envy we're talking about greed we're not talking about physical diseases in the human being there is no envy ward at any hospital there's no greed ward at a hospital is there a even a gambling ward at a hospital where you say you know i've got an addiction for gambling we reply by saying that that's a spiritual disease that you have but upon reflection upon being aware of your surroundings upon thinking about the blessings that the Lord's given you and remembering the Lord these help you leave these spiritual diseases yes yes so you've got a number of examples there and there's many more especially when we want to talk about you know how certain people at the age of 16 were known as patient the body continues till the age of 50 60 70 with many changes sure yes but the aspect of their patience remains an attribute which is a spiritual attribute separate from their physical existence yes yes okay if i was to remember someone and i say that person for example is someone who at the age of 15 at the age of 18 display the immense amount of patience yeah the body changed 25 45 65 70 but that principle which is a spiritual ethical principle was separate from the physical changes that were happening absolutely you know so this and there's other ways as well there may be some people paralyzed physically okay paralyzed physically but you'll find that certain spiritual attributes remain with them even though physically the person can't move yes that's right their faith remains intact their love for Ahlulbayt remained intact their dignity they remained maintained intact of course somebody who believes that i'm just an animal who was born or who exists because of a set of accidents that person sees this world as a circus i'm a player in the circus where i'm eventually gonna die in this circus play we're all gonna die and that's it that person in all honesty i don't know what happened to them in their early years which made them really hate religion and hate god something's really pissed them off there's no doubt about that but i think for us no we recognize that there is within us a spiritual and a material existence even intuitively intuitively there are statements that i make which have got nothing to do with my physical existence i'm in awe of the altruism of that person now people can give a hundred lectures on the evolution of the altruism of the human being believe you me they're still human beings who have no altruism it requires exercises requires reflection upon god's bounties for me to come to that level where i'm willing to hurt myself so that others grow you know so there's many other ways yeah sure we have two questions here they're slightly off topic if you don't mind in taking to answer the society today is quite progressive and to this end we have also seen a lot of women pursuing careers which is encouraging however if it comes to deciding between career and marriage e.g. delayed marriage then what are the Islamic injunctions for women that's the first question well i think uh islamically it's the you know woman in our community there is no problem with them working and there is no problem with them seeking to find a suitable partner in that progression that's happening in the in their career so if for example someone finds a suitable partner at the beginning of their career yeah there's no issue you know they can move on in their life and if they don't find that suitable partner they could continue in their career until they meet someone and they discuss with each other's world view yeah now naturally if if you're reaching a stage where you're falling into the world of sin or you fear for your spirituality then there should be a bit more emphasis there yes on seeking to be in a relationship if you fear for your chastity or your modesty and this applies to the men as well that you know they say that marriage is a son about becomes obligatory if a person is going to uh fear for their chastity and yeah go astray or something go astray and so yeah the second question is i want to ask a question regarding salah isn't necessary to pray zohar and asa together or can we pray separately same goes for maghrib and isha also can we pray zohar asa just before maghrib due to some reason so that's some reason i'm assuming would be for example delay constraints work not having an available space you know so what is the effect we find in the in the life of the prophet peace be upon his family he was known to separate prayers and he was known to combine the prayers why is it is a reason for that just sort of the reason is very clear and it's in it's in the texts of all the schools of islam that when they asked him why would you combine and he replied this religions come to bring your ease and not hardship right so the combination aspect is there yep where a person is able to combine or they can separate now even spiritually when it comes to your relationship with prayer does your day revolve around god or does god revolve around your day yes and what i mean by that is that say a group of friends want to meet for lunch and zohar these days let's say is at 110 now we can all say okay let's all meet at 130 for lunch but you're thinking hold on if i we're gonna meet 130 for lunch i'm not gonna get there in time because i may live about half an hour away yeah salah will i make it i'll just get there to pray or the group of you can come to a joint decision that listen why not with me at two that's right you know that'll allow us to pray allows to me allows to me in comfort we've prioritized the lord because of the bounties the lord's given us we've taken a step towards god he's going to take 10 towards us yeah we're running out of time so let's just quickly go to some further aspects of tonight's topic in terms of spirituality the for every action there has to be a knee or there should be a knee as it were in terms of what one should do and why they're doing it so in terms of defining and thicker and remembrance what should culminate in terms of liquor so for example what i mean by that is what should be the frame of mind and the heart the presence of the heart how should one incorporate love as it were for Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala all in that one area of dhikr well as i said earlier allahumma inni ata qarabu ilayka bi dhikrik we gain nearness to Allah through remembering and i don't think you can quantify right or you could subjectively talk about the quality of that dhikr there's no limit the Quran says remember Allah kathiran kathiran kathiran how much is that can you ever reach a level where you've remembered Allah enough and done Allah justice and the reason you're remembering Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is that allows your growth as a human being yes you remember the generosity of the lord you're generous to other human beings you remember you know the the mercy of the lord you become merciful to others so therefore the remembrance of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is what helps the growth of the human and also we have to also we have to realize that we human beings because when you're talking about challenges yeah to our spiritual growth i think there are two main challenges to the spiritual growth of the human being okay ego right and forgetfulness now ego is not a bad thing you know there needs to be a sense of pride in the human being okay but not a pride which makes you disobey your lord or not a pride which makes you reach a level where you know Salah's obligatory on you you know the lord deserves more than five minutes of thank you and you just blatantly go months without praying yeah i come back to my point in a lot of cases the spiritual journey is in your hands we make it complicated it's not that complicated if you can kill that ego at that the hard prayer moment or when you've become this really big businessman or woman and you start telling me well you know it was me yeah it was all me at that moment you're now slowly getting black dots onto that heart of yours and which sense in the sense that your ego is now overtaking giving everything out to the lord a very qaruni type you know qarun in the Quran when when he would show off his wealth and they'd ask him how'd you get it's all from my own self nobody else you know but god no no no no me so ego yes number one i think number two forgetfulness mm-hmm that's why dikr is so important because we the human being insan yin se nisyan we forget yeah and insan one of the derivatives is they say nisyan there's this forgetfulness in the human being where we can go a whole day without really saying alhamdulillah or subhanallah or allahu akbar and that's why the gift that we got from fatwati zahra alayhi salam 34 times allahu akbar 33 times alhamdulillah 33 times subhanallah it was meant to take us out of the lower forgetfulness human to the higher realm human who just doesn't want to forget allah to the extent imam alayhi salam would say i don't do anything except that i see allah before it during it after it yes you know so that's the type of level we want to reach and those two challenges ego and forgetfulness are sometimes the biggest challenges to our spiritual growth okay viewers just as a reminder please do call in the telephone number is 0203 51501 9 once again the mediums that you can use to call and communicate your messages or questions are whatsapp facebook and also directly call in just a few minutes remaining you mentioned saying that about forgetfulness and also you know some of the pitfalls and challenges that we face today um going now to perhaps the benefits of spirituality um often people talk about for example what they can attain signs maybe you intuition dreams perhaps and also without them even knowing you know allah is remembering them but what other benefits are they sort of deriving from do you need the benefits when you've met allah do you need the benefits when you've known of allah there are people who may want to enter the spiritual path because they're like well if i don't become spiritual i might go to hell but that's like a business relationship i'm being spiritual so that you don't put me in hell yeah yeah and there are people who may become spiritual because they're like well if i do these spiritual acts i might go to heaven but that's a relationship sometimes i think the first one about fear imam ali described as a relationship of someone who's like a slave with a master yes and this one with heaven he said it's the relation of a business man but you want to go on the spiritual journey because you found god and you want to gain closeness to god because there is nothing but positive vibes in gaining that closeness to god and i come back to my point let's not just talk about islam yeah islam christianity hinduism Sikhism you know Judaism all of them when you you will find that there are special people in their histories who them finding god resulted in them being willing to serve the creation build a lovely culture yes you look at you look at for example in islamic history those companions of the ahlul bayt alayhi wassalam when they found god they were there to help all of the members of that madina society in jewish culture in christian culture there are personalities who if they saw a muslim person who was unwell in andalusia in spain even if he's a jewish physician he would go to help that person such people when they found god they end up help put the building bricks for a better society and that's why this interfaith dialogue that we see is fundamental because i think the more of us talk about our experiences in having god in our lives and how positive these experiences are the more greater world is now someone might come and say to me but islam and christianity and all of these faiths have really bad moments as well therefore why are you telling me about a god when your religions have got some really bad yet my religions bad examples don't mean there's no god no it just means we had some rubbish in our religion yeah but doesn't mean there's no god why do we always look at the bad apples true you know yes if you're looking at these religions you'll find that there were personalities in these religions if a sick person is on the street they didn't care about asking for the identity of that person they saw god within that person and they said that's a child of god on the street they moved from i to we from individual to judius and that's where the spiritual growth takes the human being i just fear for the world that we're living in that in the name of individual rights which has its place we're now moving to a direction where anyone who questions the definition of individual rights is cornered my questioning of the definition of individual rights is does that entail a duty within an ethical paradigm and that ethical paradigm is a paradigm reveal to us through god and his messengers yes abraham christ muhammad peace be upon his family you're looking at these personalities don't just look at them literally in terms of what they did try and scratch the surface or go to the layers below what they're doing you were just in hajj yes abraham sacrifice ishmael most muslims only look at up to that level yeah they don't look at the altruism that emerges they don't look at the willingness to be forbearant for the sake of the lord to give back towards the lord christ washing the feet of his disciples christ with the poor christ with the leper don't just look at the surface of that go to the deeper levels and see that christ didn't ask what religion that leper was or that christ didn't say that that leper do you believe in me as the savior as your guide if you don't i'm not going to help you but rather i don't care i'll help you because everyone else has forgotten you or neglected you and likewise we can do the same and when the prophet muhammad peace be upon him and his family speaks out for the right of that baby girl being buried alive don't just look at the literal surface meaning but rather speak out rather look at the fact that he's possibly saying to you don't you also become one who oppresses the woman folk in your society by beating your wife or hitting your sister or being rude to someone of the opposite gender sure sure yes those are the benefits in my opinion in a religious culture that allows you to find god into your life say now we just have two minutes i think we're left so what i'd like to do is just fast forward to karbala we're slowly approaching muhammad soon inshallah and also i'd like to point out to the attention of viewers that 18th or 19th of lalhaj 1802 karbala was ransacked by the wahhabis just very briefly say now what lessons can we learn from from that because it was a brutal period yeah 12 000 wahhabis ransacked the shrine the holy shrine of mu'sayn al-aslam 4 000 camels were used to take away artifacts exposed of jewels and wealth as it were and it was actually carried out on if i'm not mistaken yeah so just very very quickly if you can possibly just just remind viewers i don't think most viewers really know about this occurrence just what really happened yes it was it was right at the beginning of the 19th century and you know up to 5 000 of the lovers of ahl al-bayt were massacred by the grave of imam al-husayn al-aslam you know they can try their hardest to wipe off the love of husayn al-aslam but they'll never succeed no and it's an honor to have known that there were people who gave their lives away to protect that grave of the grandson of the prophet muhammad peace be upon his family and i think the whole world is now beginning to realize the hatred and the arrogance that wahhabism entails okay and i hope all muslims all lovers of imam al-husayn al-aslam never forget that holocaust that took place okay we have just enough time for two very quick what's up questions is it okay to marry a sunni willing to convert first question second question if i if i want to ask a woman in hand in marriage but the father keeps rejecting while the woman herself wants to agree to the marriage what is one's rights in this situation you know and we'll have to end immediately after those two answers inshallah in terms of marrying someone from another madhhab you know there is there's no harm technically legally and marrying someone else who's a believer in la ilaha allah muhammad and rasulallah but you've got to be practical in your you know in your reality of the situation and your understanding of it what do you both believe in who do you admire yeah absolutely who do you differ on yeah you got to be practical are you gonna focus where you're heading you know and these things have to be discussed way before the marriage is done okay in terms of the second one someone proposes for a girl but her father rejects reaction yes you know if if the father rejects at that moment then one of the things to do is maybe speak to a figure who's close with the father a revered religious figure a revered family member you know maybe have a word with them okay let them speak to the father there's no need to keep on insisting or to become you know there are many guys these days who are you know tear up when when when the father's saying no you know i think just be a bit stronger yeah and if you too it's meant to be then you just have to have patience nothing needs to be rushed um and show respect and um humility in these periods okay yeah from Sayidna Dr. Maanakshwani and from myself Muhammad Ali salaamu alaykum and see you again in shalom next week


I know this wasn't your first time writing about children. How did you come to focus on kids in your reporting overall? And what drew you to this particular story? Yeah. Well, this story is one that really got stuck in my craw. I first found out about it a month after I moved to Nashville. I'd come from Chicago. And this was in the early spring, late winter of 2016. And a month after I moved here, these arrests of 11 children happened in Rutherford County. And it was just a really big story. It was all over the newspapers. It was in the national news. And I just thought, what is going on? Like, how does this happen? And it was a story that I felt surely had a much bigger answer to why this had happened. I at that point really was just kind of watching from the sidelines. But when I started reporting more in Tennessee and I joined a national public radio, I discovered that there had been a lawsuit that kind of grew out of these arrests. In fact, there were five lawsuits from the arrests and then another class action lawsuit that have been filed.  It was an injunction. And when I covered that for like a daily news story, that's when I really was diving into the filings. And I realized that this was a huge story and that it had started with Hobgut because one of the plaintiffs of this big class action lawsuit was a kid who was arrested in that mass arrest of children that I had seen just after I moved here. So for me, it was a real connecting of the dots. And when I saw that and I began to dig into the filings of the court case and just all of the lawsuits surrounding this county, this really big story emerged. And it was kind of exactly what I not what I thought. But what I what I saw when the arrest happened was this must be the tip of the iceberg of something. But like, what's under the surface? And this this is what was under the surface was all of these lawsuits. And what they were describing within them, which was this really intense regime under this one judge where kids were being wrongfully arrested and illegally jailed and it was happening for years. So tell us a little bit more about what you uncovered when you started to investigate. What were the big findings of this story for people who may not have read the original piece? Yeah, so the big findings were that this was a juvenile justice system that was really making its own rules. It was it had a policy on the books that came from the judge that told police to arrest children for any delinquent offense and even for status offenses, which are things that are like the smoking, skipping school, breaking curfew. She had this policy in place where she told law enforcement to take all those kids into custody to arrest them, even though state law says don't do that. It's more strict when you can actually arrest a child. So one of the things we found was this policy on arrests. Another thing we found was a policy that was illegal about detention. So it was an illegal policy that the jail used to decide when to detain a kid, and that policy did not follow state guidelines for when to detain a kid. But we also found a lot of oversight lapses on the state level, too. There is the Department of Children's Services that are supposed to inspect jails. They never caught the illegal policy. There is the Board of Judicial Conduct. They never had investigated this judge. There is the Administrative Office of the Courts. They had received a lot of data that showed that this county was a really big outlier in the number of kids it was jailing. Nobody ever flagged it. So while the policies were on the county level, there was this huge element of state oversight that was lacking. And so Ken Armstrong and myself in our first story really chronicled the kind of like, how did this happen? What was happening? And what wasn't happening on the county and state level? I remember when we were working on the editing, saying over and over again, but these reports were arriving somewhere and ending up in someone's little metal basket on their desk.  It was there and it just sat in that metal basket on someone's desk and no one ever did anything about it. And I think that's what your reporting really showed is that it was available and not acted upon. I'm curious about the larger meaning of this. We've been working together now in partnership for quite a while on this. I think about three years. This between ProPublica's local reporting network and Nashville Public Radio. And I did wanna ask you for your thoughts about why a national audience would be paying attention to this story. And we know that they did because it had a lot of attention before you started working on it, when you worked on it, that story was all over the place. And I just wonder like what resonance do you think it has for people outside of Tennessee? Yeah, I mean, I think this idea of what happens in juvenile court, like what is happening in juvenile justice is really a question that everyone needs to ask themselves. Because while policies and statutes differ state to state, the reality is is there are some things that are constant around juvenile law and juvenile courts. One is that they are highly secret and private. Records are sealed. Court proceedings are mostly private because of those kind of privacy procedures and which are good. Kids should be able to have their alleged crimes and criminal activity stay between them and the court. When they're under 18, they should not follow them. However, the flip side of that is that there is a real lack of accountability for the adults. There is just no light shined on what's happening in juvenile court. I often describe it like a black box. Like you just don't know what's inside there. And when I came across these federal lawsuits, it was like peeking inside, kind of cracked the door open. And so I think on a national level, what it really, what it kind of triggered in people was that, oh my gosh, like if this is happening in one juvenile court, like what's happening in my juvenile court? And we like to think that like the most important and special thing about juvenile court is that it is private, that it is all geared toward rehabilitation, but those things are not necessarily happening. And we don't know a lot of what's happening in juvenile court because of this privacy policy. And so I think it just really got people's attention and it made people think about juvenile court in a way that we haven't in a while. And I think that it forced people to think about what was happening in their own community. And so juvenile court, anything related to children, I think is always really important. And I love reporting on children. And I think that if we can tell more stories that center children in a way that gives them agency, then we can make these systems better for them. But it's also just really hard to tell these stories because of all the privacy procedures in place. So I think the fact that it was around kids and the fact that it was around this system that most of us, unless we're in it, don't really know how it works and we don't really know what's happening. And I think it just really caught a lot of people by surprise. I think the irony that the protections that are in place for kids also protect the people who might be harming them really comes out in the column you wrote when the podcast launched a couple of weeks ago. And I think that is a really poignant thing that policymakers and lawmakers have to think about. When you started the reporting, just wanna dig in a little bit because obviously there were a lot of obstacles to your doing this work. What were some of the challenges that you faced with this particular story? Yeah, well, there were a fair amount of initial challenges. I started reporting on this in the middle of the pandemic. So I knew that I wanted to investigate this story. I knew that at this point, the judge and the jailer, the two people who were primarily responsible for these illegal and troubling policies were still in their jobs and that the judge was up for reelection the following summer. So I knew that I wanted to start digging in, but also we were all in lockdown and that was very limiting. However, this case, because there were seven federal lawsuits and two class actions, there was a lot of paper to sift through, there was a lot of documents to read and request. And so that kept me busy for a while, but the thing that is challenging about requesting any documents or records related to children is that there is this element of privacy. So for instance, we requested all of the audio, and this is the first episode of the show really highlights this audio, which was part of the investigation after those 11 children were arrested. We saw that there was a police review, we read the whole thing, it was like over a hundred pages, but what that was based off of was all these audio interviews. And so we wanted those too. I mean, I'm an audio person, so I wanted them. But in an adult case, they would just hand those over, right? But in a case involving children, they had to listen to all of that and redact every single mention of a child's name. So that was, we waited a long time for those records, those records were more expensive than normally they would be. There's just like, and that's just one example, it's just like every time you want something, there's just like all these extra steps that people have to take to process that material to make sure that they're not revealing some kind of confidential information that is breaking this code of privacy. And so that was initially kind of some of the challenges that we faced was just like, I mean, I would call courts up and be like, hello, I would like X, Y and Z. And they would just say, well, juvenile records are sealed. And I'd say, well, actually no, like in this specific instance, like you can give me this part of it. And it was like, they didn't even know. There's just this assumption like, no, no, no, you can't have anything. And so sometimes I was educating clerks on kind of access that I had that they didn't even know I had. Or I was writing a letter to a judge saying, please tell your clerk to give me this because per rule, blah, blah, blah, like I should have this. So some of the challenges just came in like pretty basic logistical things and processing of records. And then the second part of that was really finding young people. For this project, for the podcast, one of the most exciting things is having those voices come alive in audio. When Ken and I wrote the piece in 2021, we had children, we interviewed children, but I knew that I wanted a lot more and you were gonna get to hear them speaking in their actual voices about what happened to them. And so I went in search of as many as I could and I talked to like more than 25 young people who were arrested and jailed as children. And finding them was hard. Some of them were very eager to talk. Others were really afraid. Many of them still live in the county. This was a scary thing for them to do and many of them didn't even know what happened to them was wrong. So it was kind of like trying to suss out all of the kids, now many of whom are young adults and get them to remember and tell me about what happened to them and just try to get to as many people as possible. So that was challenging. Although I actually love that part of reporting, like kind of finding the needle in the haystack. I mean, I've become more of a document hound as I've gotten older, but like first and foremost, my favorite thing is being out in the field and like talking to people. So I enjoy that. But I think this was one of these stories that had a huge element of primary materials documents, court records, and then this other huge pot of material which was just this cumulative human experience. And so making sure that we were balancing both of those and we didn't have too much of one and not the other was really important. I'm curious about one other challenge which anybody who is working in investigative reporting faces which is communicating with the people who may have been responsible for this. Can you say anything about how you reflected the perspective of the judge or other people who had pursued this policy in the county for so long? Yeah, this story felt like there were these two principle players, the judge and the jailer and obviously getting to them was really important. But also there was this entire system around them and this was lawyers and clerks and youth workers, social workers, guardian and light them. Like juvenile court has a lot of different people that are in it. That's kind of a big difference between that and adult court. There's just like a lot of staff in juvenile court. And so what to me, what that meant was there's a lot of people complicit in this whole thing. There was a lot of people that knew what was happening and never said anything. I mean, we went directly to the judge, we went directly to the jailer, Lynn Duke and asked them for comment, they declined to comment. The thing that again, talking about audio that was so special in this story is that the judge had a radio program that she went on every month for a decade on the local community commercial radio station. And we got 70 hours of that, listened to all of it, trented slash transcribed, all of it. And that was amazing. Like that's just such a gift as a reporter to say like, okay, this person is clearly not gonna talk to me, but like I can hear them talk for 70 hours. And I just like, I mean, it was a slog but it was so interesting and fascinating. So that was an amazing kind of resource for us in this story because I felt like after listening to that, I had some authority. Like I knew phrases that she repeated. I knew stories that she told again and again. I knew, like I had this repeated pattern of things which is like what every reporter wants so that you can say like, no, no, no, it's not like she said it one time.  And so there was that, that was really, really helpful. The other thing was the jailer, she did not talk with us. However, she would go before county commissioners every month and she would relay to them what was happening in the jail. I watched 12 years of those meetings. So even in that, I was able to see phrases that she used again and again, questions that she was asked again and again, her answers to those questions. So that was immensely helpful. And then trying to talk to as many court workers, clerks, attorneys, it was not easy, but we did it. We really did it. And that's just kind of like putting one foot in front of the other and problem solving really, which is a lot of reporting I think is just like problem solving. Like, okay, well, we can't get it that way. Is there another way we can get it? Oh, well, we can't talk to them. Is there another way we can hear them talking about something? And to balance their views. I mean, I think we took a lot of time to make sure that as much as Davenport, the judge like oversaw this whole system, like we needed to know, this was not about her getting kickbacks financially. This was not about like, we knew there were certain things that like you might want to assume about a situation. That was not the case with this. And so it was really about talking to enough people to get a sense of like, what were her motivations? Like, why do you think she did this? And that all comes out, I think in the show and in the reporting that we did. But we really wanted to give these people a fulsome kind of representation. And it didn't always come through. There's always stuff on the cutting room floor. But like, I read, I figured out that the jailer likes to write letters to the editor of the local paper. I read all of her letters to the editor. Like, you just try to find any little kernel of information about a person and you've just put it in your big book of notes. And before you know it, you really do have a sense of like who these people are, the issues that they care about, the way that they think about their job and why they do what they do. Thank you so much for that. So I do want to turn to the podcast, which even as someone who's somewhat familiar with this material was wonderful to hear the first three episodes are now out. I particularly love the moment where the mom of one of these kids is telling you about her first encounters with the investigation that led to these arrests. And it really has so much tension and fear for me as a listener when I was hearing it, not on the page. And I do want to know for you, like what could you accomplish in the podcast form that maybe you couldn't do in writing? Yeah, I mean, the writing was, I mean, we'd treated it as a narrative. However, we were really able to develop a lot of the characters. And I say that, you know, it sounds a bit mercenary, but like every story has these protagonists and antagonists and characters. And this is one of those stories. There is some really fascinating people that we weren't able to flesh out in the print piece. But because this is such a story-driven audio documentary and a narrative, we were able to build those characters out in a way. And most notably the lawyers, you know, the lawyers who brought these lawsuits, they didn't factor into our print piece at all. It was much more straight and narrow. These lawsuits were filed, here's what they said. But, you know, the reality is that the lawyers have a really interesting story in all this. The two lawyers who were behind the majority of these lawsuits, they were court-appointed juvenile attorneys in this court. And so when I found that out, and I found out a little bit more about their backstory, which involves, you know, being so-called juvenile delinquents themselves when they were younger and having their own struggles, I knew that they were characters that I really wanted to lean into and feature and have them drive part of the narrative because these were lawyers who had cut their teeth in this very courtroom, they knew the judge well and they turned around and bit the hand that fed them. You know, this was not some outside national pro bono civil rights crew that came in and said, we're gonna save the children of this county. These were a couple low-level attorneys, one of whom had just gotten out of law school who decided to like take on this whole county. And in the end, it's really kind of a David and Goliath story. And I just loved how they went about doing it. I love that they didn't really know what they were doing. They'd never really been in federal court like this. They, you know, but at any rate, like you wonder what would have happened if these guys weren't there, you know? And if it is a story about complicity, it's like it's also a story about who stood up and said something. So I really loved the lawyers and I was so happy to be able to develop them in this narrative. I also feel like hearing the children in their own voices is so powerful. Reporting for the podcast was, you know, really a re-reporting of this story. Like I said, we had, you know, dove headlong into the records for a long time. We had interviewed some people, but to do this podcast, we needed to interview so many more people. We needed to sit down with the lawyers for hours and hours. And so we really pretty much re-reported the whole thing, but with interview after interview after interview. So we just needed a whole lot more tape. And so we spent the better part of eight or nine months going and interviewing and sitting down and reporting and looking for scenes and allowing or collecting the tape that we would need to drive the story because the tape has to drive the story. Whereas in a written piece, quotes don't drive it, you know? And so yeah, it was just a whole different, it was a whole different kind of mental shift. But I was so glad, you know, those documents never went away. Like they were the foundation for this whole thing, but we had to go out and get a lot more audio. I think one thing that comes through in the podcast is just how much of a mad cat caper it was for these lawyers to start realizing that something was broken and that really animates the listener to realize, oh, you know, it wasn't obvious to everybody around, you know, it had to be slowly recognized one step at a time and one case at a time that something really wrong was going on here. You uncovered a lot of disturbing facts, but obviously not everything has been improved since the story came out and the podcast is unfolding now. What do you think remains to be done and who might work on that?  There was, you know, an inquiry by the governor of Tennessee, the Republican governor asked for a review of the judge. 11 members of Congress wrote a letter to the attorney general asking for the DOJ to get involved. There was a resolution that state lawmakers filed to oust the judge. The judge then ended up announcing her retirement and that she would not seek reelection. So lots of stuff happened. However, the woman who ran the jail for all those years who was the person who put this illegal policy on the books that jailed all those kids, she is still there running the detention center. An oversight board was created to oversee her and the jail and that oversight board has hiring and firing power of the director. They have chosen to keep her in that role and they have said that they support her. So there is, as far as kind of a reckoning and a realization that the county may have really messed up, I don't see that like across the board. I see them still kind of trying to preserve some parts of this system and the key players in it. There's a new judge now and, you know, he says he'll follow the letter of the law. But I think really some of the most glaring things besides the jail director still being there is just on the state level. Like a big part of why Rutherford County was kind of spotted by the lawyers was this data. Like there was this data and you had mentioned like what that report and who saw that report? And, you know, that report said like this county is jailing kids at 10 times the state average, which is like astronomical. And so we knew that because the state had compiled data and then put together an annual report every year. And the state stopped doing that in 2014. They said that the data was just too dirty and that people counted things differently. And we still don't have any data. There has been numerous attempts to get funding, to like do it better. There's been some good momentum in transferring courts to like a more universal counting system, you know, software. But there are 98 juvenile courts in the state of Tennessee and we have no idea what's going on in them. We have no clue. It's completely obscured because there's no data. We can't see inside of it. So that is I think a huge cause for concern. I think just the state of juvenile kind of bills going through the state legislature is very concerning. I wrote about this in my essay which really feels like the clock is kind of being turned back. There's all of these like very kind of draconian and consequence centered bills like that add on time that give automatic transfers to kids to adult court that gives the opportunity for blended sentencing, meaning like you could sentence a kid to juvenile and adult, you know, so a sentence could span from when they're a minor to in their early 20s. And that's really interesting for me to see after coming out of all this reporting cause I just think like, are we reading two different data sets? Cause like all the research that I've done and all of the people I've interviewed who worked in this say like these kinds of consequence centered, you know, scared straight, tough on crime stuff. It just doesn't work for kids and it costs a lot of money. And so now I see all these bills coming through the legislature and I think, what are they reading? Like, are we turning the clock back? So there's still stuff like the data gaps, like the need to kind of a need to have a comprehensive data that we can see inside of these juvenile courts, a need for like kind of consistent reporting, but also like now there's this whole new horizon of the legislature taking on these bills and really changing the code to be more strict and more intense and more consequence centered. So it's a mixed bag. Like there's stuff that needs to happen right now and then there's stuff on the horizon that I feel or as one expert put it, like it will just cause more kids to come into the system. Like this isn't gonna stop crime. It is actually going to create more problems. So, but Tennessee is not that different than a lot of states. I think juvenile crime and there is this narrative around it and the data often doesn't match. When I went into the Capitol, when they were discussing all these bills, people were testifying and our own state Tennessee Bureau of Investigation had just put out this report saying juvenile crime has dropped like over 50% in the last decade. Why are we doing this? And that's the case across the country. Juvenile crime has fallen, arrests have fallen, overall incarceration has fallen, but there is still this narrative around like kids are bad, kids are worse, this is terrible, this new generation is the worst. And so there is a disconnect. And Judge Davenport had that too, when she was talking all about how bad the county was, the juvenile crime rate was going down. So there's kind of a cognitive dissonance. I don't know how to bridge that gap. I don't know how to fix that, but you see that. You see that not just in Tennessee, but across the country. So I have a final question for you, which came up a lot with the original piece and I am sure is continuing to come up, which is about how this story and the question of race intersect. Yeah, don't mind my cat. She's crying in the background. She's fine. She's just got a little ambiance of cat. So race was a huge part of this story. And it was a question that a lot of people had because obviously, in the last few years, we have taken a lens to everything and especially systems. We want to see systems through this lens of race because it matters. For this story, race did play a really important role but not necessarily the way that I think a lot of people might expect or at least I expected. So when initially like the rest of the children, it was all black children. Like these 11 children were picked up. They were all black. That got a lot of attention obviously. And you would think like, okay, this means that this entire system is totally racist. When we crunched the numbers for the, exactly who was being jailed by this county race with those racial identifying factors, the demographics. We found that about 41% of the kids were children of color. Now that is obviously disproportionate compared to the demographics of the county, 17% of the county is black. So yes, totally disproportionate, although very much in line with the rest of the country. So I guess kind of the headline on that is when this whole system was in full swing, yes, it was disproportionately jailing children of color but not any more than the rest of the country already jails children of color. However, when the federal judge issued an injunction saying you cannot use this filter system, you have to stop using it, every kid who gets jailed needs to have a judicial order to be jailed. There has to have been like a review of their case, like does it actually fit into the statute? When we got the numbers on that, it showed that the disparities had just jumped up. Like it had been 41% were children of color. Now it is 66% are children of color. So when you see the system working by the book, you see that these systems are inherently racist, that they are inherently by design going to jail more children of color. And that's really troubling and it's really, but it's shocking. Like everyone wants to say like, oh, what? It got worse? And the thing I always say is like, honestly, like the filter system was so vague, it was so vast.  But yeah, now that they are forced to follow the letter of the law, you see a huge, huge disparity with the children being jailed. That's fascinating. And also a good place for us to stop. Episode three of the kids of Rutherford County is out today. You can listen anywhere where you get your podcasts and read the original investigation on ProPublica's website. Meriba, thank you so much for all your hard work for this conversation and onward to see what you will do next.


Toddler called baby hulk because of a rare condition needs your help. Joni Gatlin and the unusual condition of her newborn daughter is a definite shocker. Until a few decades ago, expecting parents had no idea what to expect when their baby arrived. But with the invention of some incredible technologies, the complications that can occur during childbirth have been drastically reduced. In today's modern world, one can detect most of the possible genetic disorders and other diseases a child may possess in the early stages of pregnancy. However, there are things that even technology can't predict, prevent or cure. Some things must simply run their course. Just ask Joni Gatlin and her newborn daughter whose story is heartbreaking. Joni went for her ultrasound when she was 15 weeks pregnant. The doctors noticed some unusual fluid in the scan, but it was too early to make any assumptions. But the issues that stemmed from those initial findings became apparent after the birth of Joni's daughter, Madison, when she realized her baby was born with a very distinctive condition. Madison's right arm weighed five pounds more than her left arm. The condition that Madison was born with is known as cloves, which causes lymphatic fluid to swell beneath her arms and chest. The disease is extremely rare and only 200 people worldwide are affected with it. The doctors consider her being alive nothing short of a miracle. Unfortunately, the weight around her upper torso and arms will continue to increase with her height and age. Madison's parents have given her the nickname baby Hulk, given her muscular appearance. Joni, a mother of two, said her nickname started during an instance where twin boys asked me what was wrong with her. I told them her daddy was the Hulk and they thought it was the coolest thing ever. She further added, after I told them she was the Hulk's daughter they wanted to be her best friend. I don't want people to be scared of my daughter, there's nothing wrong with her, she just has a gene malfunction, she said. Joni continued to explain that, I've told younger children she's a baby Hulk because I don't think they would understand the condition. And at least this way, they aren't scared of her and don't treat her differently. She further added, you have to try to have a sense of humor with something like this. Her mother was shocked to see her baby's condition and didn't know how to deal with it. The parents were totally unaware of the existence of any such disease and were stunned to see her appearance from the waist up. But they went ahead and learned about the condition and found out certain facts. According to Joni, when she was born she looked like a cute little blob with legs. We believe the mass weighed three pounds. Now I think it's around five pounds. The struggle to wear compression clothes and prevent it from growing further continued to be challenging for everyone concerned. The specialists have to perform chemical cauterization where a small amount of fluid is withdrawn from her body and re-injected with a mix of medication and saline. She has to wear compression clothes 24x7 and even has to get the fluid drained twice a day. Their hope and struggles paid off as they learned that the condition was treatable. The treatment will reduce the swelling to a size where surgeons will be able to operate, but until that time comes, her mother has learned to treat her daughter at home. Meanwhile, the family is raising funds to gather money to cover Madison's medical bills. Hopefully, she can get the best possible treatment that money can buy. Want to help? Click on this link that'll take you to the GoFundMe page to help pay Madison's medical expenses. The family has already raised $2,818 of their $5,000 target goal. So they still need your help. Not sure how much to donate? No worries. Even $10 can make a big difference for this adorable 19-month-old and her family.


in Erlinger, Kentucky for the Winter 2024 DAV Patriot Boot Camp. DAV Patriot Boot Camp is a program for entrepreneurs in the veteran and military community, and I'm joined by one very special participant. This is Kim Hubers. Kim is a Army National Guard veteran. She was the 2023 Disabled American Veteran of the Year. She's also a chapter commander in South Dakota for DAV. Kim, welcome. Thank you. So tell us a little bit about yourself as an entrepreneur and about your business. I have been working. I grew up on a farm in Iowa, and so ever since I was a little girl, farming was in my genes, I guess, in my environment. And as I've gotten older and I've gone through a lot of health issues because of my military service, I've found how important it is to have animals, to have outdoor, to have healthy foods, to have all of those things in your life. So I am creating a farm that brings people joy, brings people healing, and brings healthy things to people's lives. And it's called Willow Meadows Farm. Yes. Tell us a little bit about the farm parties that you've posted. So we invite the whole community out to our farm, and we have a Ninja Obstacle course.  And I think you said was it in your first, like, eight farm parties, you had over 2,200 visitors, is that right? Yes, we did a whole season of farm parties this year, and it was eight days that we were open. We had over 2,200 people, and of course half of those days were bad South Dakota weather, but we still had a lot of people show up more than we expected, to be honest. So tell me why you decided to come to DAV Patriot Bootcamp and what are you hoping to get out of this experience? I came to be with a group of entrepreneurs. When you are an entrepreneur, you are on your own and you're not only championing yourself and trying to motivate yourself all the time, but you're trying to motivate everybody else to get on board and maybe give you funding or believe in you or give you the time you need away from your family to work on it, and you don't really get to be around the community of entrepreneurs that understand it. So being here gives me the opportunity to not only learn from a lot of great mentors and industry experts, but a chance to run my ideas and my thoughts and what I'm doing across a whole bunch of other entrepreneurs and feel like I'm with a bunch of people that understand and they get what I'm going through and it's incredibly motivating. And not only are they entrepreneurs, but they're also veterans and in some cases military spouses. How big of a deal is that to be in a room with fellow veterans? It's huge. I mean you can go to any other training you want, and I've been to several, but when it comes to being veterans and also being entrepreneurs, we mesh and we already have so many things in common. We walk in the door and even though all of our differences are all of our businesses are so vastly different, we have a commonality between all of us and we all get each other and we understand what's going on. So we're a little more than halfway through day one of the three-day boot camp. How's it been so far? Has there been one highlight that jumps out to you? Oh wow, lots of great information, tons of great questions. We had one speaker that had us all just rolling on the floor laughing. He was so hilarious, but honestly the quality of the mentors that are here teaching us is amazing. They're so knowledgeable, there's not a question they can't answer. They're even feeding off of each other. I mean it's incredible. So you mentioned some of your service connected health issues. Can you tell me how this path of entrepreneurship has just kind of helped you personally work through some of those things? My whole business is created out of my necessity to create an environment where I can work. And because I have so many restrictions, so many different things that I have to consider in order for me to work, I have to work for myself. I mean that's kind of the position that I'm in. Mainstream employment's not going to work for me, but I want to give back. That's why I joined the military. That's why I'm doing what I'm doing. I want to spend my days here on earth giving back and adding to my community. We spoke earlier and I know it's been a long journey to get here and it's required a lot of resilience. For any veterans or military spouses out there who are watching and who maybe they have a great idea, but they're daunted by the idea of starting their own business, what kind of advice would you give to them? If you know it's your passion, if you know that it's your place that you're supposed to be, no matter how many times you try to give it up, it's going to come back. That'll be an indication that it's meant to be, but find your community. Find DAB Patriot Boot Camp. Find other veterans that are entrepreneurs. Find that support system that's going to believe in you and keep you going because keeping yourself going when you're the one that firmly believes in it on your own can be really challenging and that's probably the hardest part besides funding. Funding's hard, but keep going and find your community. So like I mentioned at the top, I'm a Moray chapter commander in South Dakota for DAV. You've been very involved in the DAV community. Can you talk a little bit about just what DAV has given you in terms of community and purpose? I always like to tell people that when you leave the military it's like losing your entire family overnight and it's really hard because it leaves a great big hole in your heart and a hole in your life and I was lost and I was stumbling around and when I got brought into the DAV it was through my my comp and pen claim and when I got brought in and I became a part of the DAV family that hole was filled and not only was I able to be with other veterans and have that family back, but I'm able to reach out and bring other veterans in to all the services and all the programs that we do and help people on so many different levels. There's so many things that DAV does and can do that veterans are aren't even aware of and so yeah it's I mean there's no way to quantify it, no way to quantify it, there's a lot. Well Kim, we are certainly grateful to have you in the DAV family and to have you here at Patriot Boot Camp. So thank you for being with us and good luck the rest of your week. Thank you for tuning in to learn more about DAV Patriot Boot Camp. Visit www.patriotbootcamp.org and follow us on social.