أعرف بالله من الشيطان الرجيم اسم الله الرحمن الرحيم الذين يبلغون رسالات الله خشاونا أحد خشاو وصلجكم صدقا السلام عليكم ورحمة الله وبركاته إن شاء الله هذا يكتب جدا للمنطقة أجل المنطقة المنطقة وعلى المنطقة المنطقة نحن نعمل الحمدلله لن نضع لك في أول مرة شخصي عبدالله بيب ويساني عمام أحمد بيب الحمدلله ويساني ألوه وإن يتعجبوا في المنطقة ويجعلوا ما فعلوا وعندما أردت أول مجموعة من الشيخ عبدالله، أتمنى أن أستطيع أن أردت ذلك الوقت.  سبحان الله. أنه يجب أن أردت أفضل داعز. كانت جميلة. ولكن هذا هو ما شاء الله. إنه مجموعة من الناس بركة. أن الشخصولة التي تجدها هي إتقان إتقان و أريد أن أرد من أجلها أن ترى في مجموعة و أعلم أكثر عنها لأن حقاً ما شاء الله إنها جميلة إتقان أكثر من الإتقان أو إكسلنس و يمكنك أن ترى في العمل أن يفعلوا ما شاء الله إنهم جميلة لذلك لذا جزاكم الله خيراً لأننا هنا أعلم أننا جميعاً، أنا جميعاً لكي أرد من أحمد أحمد I am also I am a strong host actually I am sorry going to have a little bit of an impromptu interview because this is your first time to our community we are so honoured to have you here I have 2 questions for you This topic is so polarizing in the community و why this topic? What brought you to put together this presentation? What inspired you? Having served the community of Mashallah as an imam and Mashallah you have such a I did not have time to forgive me to look up your bio but I know from knowing you that you do so much Mashallah that we need some time to to list all the things that you do but you've been in the community, you've witnessed you've observed in the sense of again your services as an imam and in other roles that you have so what brought you to the point of presenting on this topic? I'm going to pass the mics back to you yes and then now you caught me I actually was having a moment where I was like wait what is the second question the second question I got it what are the challenges facing so I'm sorry what brought you to this topic or what inspired you to present on this topic of gender and then what are the challenges facing us and what brought you to this topic or just in general that you again can comment on this one so I'm going to pass the mics over back to you we have a live stream Mashallah and a live stream mic requires a different setup so you know how these technical things work but inshallah it's a quick process no worries بسم الله الحمد لله صلاة والسلام على رسول الله والآلهي وصحبين وعلا I'm very honored to be here in this beautiful beautiful cozy place I was telling when years is like one of my favorite places and it's incredible what a space can do to just change the entire vibe of even a conversation like I've had this conversation in a different space and already I was sensing the presentation would be different and the feedback would be different as opposed to where we are now both have their advantages and disadvantages I'm very honored to be here and I want to thank our beloved Shaykhah for organizing this with our brother Munir who Mashallah I wanted to get you a shirt that said ID with the quickest response time in Muslim American history just as a hoodie I need to summarize it into a phrase that's bumper sticker worthy but thank you for your intense excellence in its fun in organizing which is so much harder than people realize because I've done that role as well and it's one of the hardest and most challenging roles that you can have in the community with that again thank you all for coming the two questions great questions Mashallah the first one what inspired me to talk about this level one part is I feel I feel like there are certain conversations that we know are difficult to have we know are necessary to have and that are kind of pushed under the rug and then public intellectuals rise that don't have a Muslim framework for these conversations and then our Muslim men and women follow those public intellectuals and then run around and say why are they following them and that is one of the things that disturbs me most really about about this idea generally is that if this is something this is just a policy not everything needs to be entertained but if it's an essential conversation that deals with some of the most essential aspects of what it means to be a human being and people are talking about it it's our responsibility to rise to it and that doesn't mean it's going to be perfect which is why I want to just write off the back tell you this presentation is not going to be perfect I don't have all the answers sorry I know that's not what you want to hear you didn't come here to hear that but I'm not going to lie to you I'm not going to sit here and say Mashallah come here for your A to Z I have everything figured out for you because we live in an absolute lie because we live in an absolutely unprecedented time with unprecedented challenges what we can't do is ignore these things and we have to we have to address them I think the second point on that first question is that this is a topic that a lot of community dysfunction and abuse is the result of misunderstanding so when we were asked for this concept or this topic we haven't talked about this haven't had conversations about this a misunderstanding of what it means for you to be a Muslim a Muslim woman is one of the most unfortunate and intense pretexts for abuse and I mean that generally but also it it cuts the fundamental role of what we're meant to be for one another as men and women we're going to address that tonight so that's one I think a lot of discord a lot of things can be prevented by having this conversation and continuing to have this conversation ask for your second question which I completely forgot which was what are the challenges so I'll answer this very quickly I like to say that we live in the age of the pendulum age of the pendulum you know what a pendulum is swings back and forth but see what's really important about this analogy is that the harder you pull the pendulum to one side what happens when it swings back the other side it swings back harder and it becomes harder to balance out and it takes more time to get back in the middle right this is how I feel what I feel is the primary challenge to this and many other conversations we don't have them and so when we do we wait for things to combust and when we do it becomes a pendulum swinging on both ways one extreme comes out of nowhere because we're not having this conversation and then that breeds another extreme because the pendulum is swinging so intensely when if we just tap the pendulum a little bit you know those old clocks you've been to these museums or old homes or what have you these old clocks or little pendulum and it swings back and forth if we just tap it by saying oh it's on people's minds let's talk about it and the best way to actually have this which we're not going to simulate tonight mainly primarily due to time and other reasons is to actually have groups, micro groups where we're doing we're simulating a discussion so that all of us get a chance get the healing opportunity to express how we feel about this particular topic so that's how I would answer those I think this is an enormous project that I am so under qualified for I'm here hopefully to simply push the envelope tap a little pendulum and hopefully a positive way that allows us to take this a little more seriously because it's at the forefront of everyone it is so pervasive that this is one of the few topics that literally touches upon every single demographic every age is impacted by this so I don't know if that was satisfactory would you like them like that should we go alright so we're going to start with the presentation do you guys have any questions concerns, critiques, reputations about what I just said before we do nope are we good alright again okay there we go alright can I get the quicker alright what is a man or a woman in the sun general rules in the contemporary world بسم الله oh not bad I don't know what I just did did I just destroy this whole thing oh okay there we go, beautiful الله سبحانه وتعالى makes it emphatically clear and again I think I guess this is an important preliminary remark what I'm presenting today is the normative Islamic understanding of this topic okay do exceptions exist exceptions always exist never ever ignored those it's in every conception of our Islamic law we take exception seriously are there better ways to frame this discussion most likely but I think it's important to understand that what I'm presenting is simply orthodox normative Islam's position on this topic as I understood it and as I was trained to understand it الله سبحانه وتعالى يأيها الناس إن خلقناكم من ذكة وأنثة لنكم شعوبنا من قضاء إلى التعرف إن أكرمكم عند الله أتفاقوا إن الله عليم الخبي الله سبحانه وتعالى يقول أصدقائكم من المسجد وصدقائكم من المسجد لكي تجدوا أن تعرفوا أحد أحد بالطبع وفي المنطقة هو أقل أمانا من الله الله سبحانه وتعالى الآن أمانا من هذه المنطقة جدا جدا أمانا هنا is a definitive definitive objective distinction between who a male and a female is what a male and a female is الله سبحانه وتعالى makes that very very clear no amount of you know fancier hermeneutics is going to change what is said here الله سبحانه وتعالى which I find to be the most beautiful aspect of this verse الله سبحانه وتعالى helps frame our differences by way of what does he say that they are a threat to one another does he say that they are challenged no he says that this unique concept of a male and unique concept of a female is actually one that enhances each other's existence that's the second thing is established the third thing is established in this verse is that the concept of value has nothing to do with those unique differences so and honestly like if we just stopped here I think that would be a beneficial reminder that intrinsically right intrinsically our value is not rooted in the differences between men and women intrinsically our value is rooted in what we call which is one of those impossible to translate words and has so many different dimensions but this idea of righteousness upright moral uprightness mindfulness of Allah and the most beautiful thing about that is what your unique differences cannot determine or cannot tell for anyone if you have more than the other person so I can't look at you this person is dressed in a certain way this person they must have less تقوة than this person you can't do that why because the Prophet clearly states a تقوة ههونا تقوة is in the heart and what that does is it makes it impossible for us to essentially judge one another when it comes to salvation when it comes to our moral standing before Allah SWT any questions before I move on on this you're going to notice with the hard slides I'm not going to say if you have any questions I'm just going to go alright alright Islam is what I like to say is a balance between social constructivism and moral absolutism two big words you don't need to know them very deeply one is a modality is a posture about the world because everything about the world and our existence in it right is socially constructed meaning that there's no essential meaning to anything there's no essential understanding to anything everything is in the eye of the beholder everything is in the conception of the whoever is subject I don't believe that we dictate everything that we believe in Allah SWT dictating certain facts that are unchangeable social constructivism nothing is unchangeable everything is in flux everything is open to change again these are like my very very fluffy definitions I'm sure they're far better definitions are you doing Doctor Ali is a hero of mine and now I actually don't want to keep speaking because he's here but forgive me for speaking in front of you and you sayida so to continue moral absolutism is basically the opposite of that everything is morally definitive there's no leeway right there's no gray nothing it's just pure moral absolutes all the way through which again is first of all impossible no religious tradition can claim that thankfully in Islam we don't have this idea of everything being morally absolute in the sense that there is some leeway for culture for social constructivism there is some leeway for that so both are these extremes that Islam is in the beautiful balance of a lot creates men and women uniquely I'm going to give a few important things so that we can continue the discussion look the idea of male a man and a woman being different in terms of biological sex I mean no one who really disagrees with that is taken seriously I have any man friend that's actually a gender studies major which is like really hilarious it's not hilarious it's actually amazing but I used to be like you're the only man that thought to do this he's a gender studies major and I would consult him about these things in terms of when he was studying and he's like love man even like for the most part in academia the idea that biological sex is also just completely fluid that there's no way to distinctly talk about it it's not something that we should even entertain here because most people don't take that seriously and by most people you don't have to be a phd it's just a common sense there's physical differences between a man and a woman now the real conversation in our time is about how you identify this is what we call gender gender is how what we call ourselves manifests in the world in our dealings with one another when we say I'm a man how does that manifest in practice if I'm identifying as a man if I identify as a woman how does it actually play out in practice that's the realm of gender now what do we say Islam is a balance of social constructivism moral absolutism from the Muslim world view the idea of gender has both moral absolutes to it there is so much more leeway than we understand due to our just cultural developments it is that balance in between now for those who argue that no gender is completely fluid and biological sex has nothing to do with it I say three things number one we know Allah is telling us that we are unique when we start to claim that men and women are exactly a life that actually is not a good thing that's a value deficit we're saying is that there is no uniqueness and we're saying is that if a man or a woman is uniquely positioned by Allah in a beautiful way we strip that away because we want to say we're completely a life this is the whole equity versus equality conversation if you've heard that before equality versus equity equality being we're exactly alike which is again biologically and as we're going to determine more than biologically that's not true but also equity is this idea that yes men and women are given an equal opportunity to fundamental rights that they have we do have a conception of fundamental rights by the way you see that a Roth Institute this is my friends this is a part of I replicated the slides because I didn't have time to make my own so I used this same template he and I bless him and reward him the first time I gave this was in Philly at university he's actually doing his Ph.D. on this concept so stay tuned for it that was just a way of thanking him Insha'Allah in public in addition to that even if you look and you try to say if you have true equity this is an argument that people make you have true equity a truly equitable society then you will see that there will be no differences in how the roles of men and women in society play out okay so not only again from the Muslim world view from Quran and the idea from our scripture that is not true there are some moral absolutes but even as someone who's not religious one of the studies that I saw recently is they looked at I don't know if it's Scandinavia are basically the most equitable society in the world and obviously it's going to be a western one because that's the framework right so the most equitable kind of society in the world where there's equal opportunity across the board and what they found out study after study they found out that women were gravitating towards particular careers and men were gravitating towards particular careers and they're not primed so for someone who are y'all they're just classically conditioned to do this well this is the most equitable society by these standards what classical conditioning and on top of that if we're honest with ourselves this stuff never plays out like that in society like when we actually have real experience I'm not talking about exceptions now we're going to get to this later we're talking about as it plays out for the most part in society we know for a fact we won't know all the details of it but we have a sense as men and women there are differences almost innately when it comes to our roles and our gender and how that plays out in society again this is a much longer conversation I find that I find the idea that gender is purely fluid to be utterly uncompelling I don't see that the evidence points to this in any way and just by basic common sense if we prove that biological sex differences are real do you really think that's not going to impact anything in society I mean just think about that to use forgive me like a crude example and I apologize if this offends anyone but the WNBA exists for a reason and again this is one of those examples that just allows us to think in society if we're honest it doesn't play out this way the idea that gender is purely fluid that anyone irrespective of their biological sex can simply identify as whatever and again gender dysphoria is real exceptions real all that's real we're not here to downplay that but what we're saying is that there's ample evidence outside extra spiritual extra scripturally for the idea that no not only biological sex grounded as distinct which is obvious but also gender so now we'll go to the next slide where I went to the previous slide on that now what is and this is the exciting part what is the primary relationship between men and women a lot of what Allah says which is translated as the believers both men and women are guardians oh yeah another impossible word to translate has so many different connotations protective friends and guardians protectors helpers all of this and encapsulate in this idea of wedi or awliya and it's used in different contexts it's used differently in spirituality which still relates to this you all know that they encourage good and forbid evil establish prayer and pay obey Allah and his messenger it is they who will be shown Allah's mercy surely Allah is almighty always what are the dimensions of awliya or wilaya is three number one oh my god what am I doing I apologize I'm just going to leave this quick right over here I'm having too much fun with this quick does this have one of those laser things it does maybe it does but you don't want to know that because I'll be like appointing I do have a question I had too much fun with these tools first actually let's talk about the dimensions and I'll tell you what I have fifth and the middle number one the idea of collaborating for good against evil that's very reflective in the verse that men and women have a complementary relationship which we'll hear about later from our teacher and they're collaborators for good and collaborators against evil that they work together in this complementary relationship for that number two they are guardians protectors of one's hearts meaning understanding the unique sensitivities of one another and honoring that in our character but not only that they're guardians and protectors of one's bodies that physically there are certain mandates that when we show up physically we're not just thinking of ourselves we're thinking of this complementary relationship and this is accepted as a golden rule when we don't talk about gender so why is it that when it comes to gender we toss this golden rule out do you know what golden rule I'm talking about treat others as though you want to be treated your actions have consequences on those around you we're cool with all that but for some reason and we're going to get to this in a second actually we'll go to it now for some reason when it comes to this conversation and I get it it's a hard conversation if I say anything throughout the night that triggers you in any way I know how intense this conversation is for many of us and I don't mean to offend anyone but the truth is true الحق أغلا when it comes to this conversation we don't want to talk about self-responsibility we don't want to talk about the potential consequences of our actions on other people now it's flipped and we're going to get to that in a second so why is fitna in the middle I find this IA to be one of the most let me go back I find this IA to be one of the most foundational IAS to understand a functional society and I truly believe that discord fundamentally in society that's what fitna is discord corruption haphazard when everything's all over the place that comes when we undermine this fundamental relationship otherwise الله سبحانه وتعالى wouldn't speak about it in this way there are many reports that talk about fitna in regards to gender now the reason I have this in the middle is because there's a common myth and misconception that fitna to prevent discord morally and otherwise that's the responsibility of who woman that they're the ones responsible to prevent fitna and as an imam I'm very sensitive to this how many times how many times have we tried to do such simple arrangements to uplift you know the experience of our woman in massage only to hear fitna have you been fitna is not one sided fitna's two ways and you claiming that they are the result of fitna is the fitna that's the real fitna so when we understand the concept of willaya we both have a responsibility to one another and by the way this goes the other way and I'm going to show you now how does it go the other way one of the common trends of modern existence is this idea of selfish individualism I'm going to do what I want to do you deal with it you know what I'm talking about do what I want to do you deal with it okay like I said this stuff goes both ways so this idea that I'm going to show up however I want to show up I'm going to completely ignore your biological differences and your cultural differences and you deal with it you lower your gaze which is true in many cases that's what we have to tell people right that's not her responsibility now it's your responsibility like in the context of a mesjid is she dressing modestly yes is she in a place that the prophet allowed in the mesjid yes then you need to stay quiet and you need to guard your gaze now that's your responsibility to prevent discord not hers but it goes both ways the idea and I hear this a lot I hear this a lot it's like in popular culture take out Muslim community like I can dress however I want and you deal with it that's not a relationship that is complementary that is a selfish individualistic relationship right and again we don't accept this in any other area our conversation of life this is the interesting thing about this is that if you go to work and say sorry boss I'm not doing my assignment you deal with it ok I will you're fired you want to do that go ahead do that on someone else's time we're fine accepting this in all conversations but when it comes to this because of popular cultural norms we're very scared to admit that it applies to this too you can't just show up physically or emotionally in any way that you want and say you deal with it I'm going to yell at you I'm going to call you names you deal with it no no no you stop the name call that's your responsive you can't just cast dispersions and call people names and show up however way you want and then say you deal with it this is not a framework of a snap and I put this hadith I just I don't know why I connected to this hadith when I was thinking about this where the Prophet SAW says whoever supports his brother or sister behind their back in their absence Allah will support them in the world and then they hear after this is in their absence imagine in their presence this is a commandment to do so in their absence imagine in their presence and how important that is alright oh no we skipped one oh did we not oh no there was just a double sorry guys I'm very like informal up here I know I'm supposed to be like less of that but I am what is a Muslim man this is my framework in fact the more I think about it and maybe our teachers here can help me redevelop it the more maybe I'm making this more complicated and it should be but this is my framework to talk about kind of this this uniqueness that we're alluding to when it comes and I'm talking about what is a Muslim man because I'm a man and we have our teacher here who is a woman and she'll address the idea of what it means to be a Muslim woman but what I want to accomplish with this talk is to just give you tools to be able to understand how to have this conversation and understand this discussion when it comes to a Muslim man for example there's outward responsibilities and inward responsibilities when it comes to outward responsibilities some are divinely ordained what that meant morally absolute some are not morally absolute some lean to social custom what's an example according to the religion of Islam and I don't know of any scholar that's really disagreed with this I don't know I'm pretty sure is in جماع on this issue where Allah SWT when he says are the the caretakers of women almost every scholar that I know understood that to me that men fundamentally for you to call yourself a man you are divinely obligated to take care of the provision of your wife for example and they're different like is that mean how all these fascinating discussions what is provision what are the limits of that that's not what we have to go into what we're saying generally speaking that's a moral absolute so a man can't say oh but we live in contemporary time sister so I don't have to provide for you you can't say that now what's interesting is this goes to custom can a man stay at home and a woman work full-time raise your hand if you say yes raise your hand if you say absolutely not maybe not all of that that's how we feel when we say it right what kind of in Syrian culture this would be like this would be like you'd be enoughmatized culturally like blasphemy يعني طلع you're no longer a Syrian what do you mean stay at home but interestingly custom allows for these unique arrangements as long as a man understands that still fundamentally you're the one responsible now if you as a married couple have a different arrangement custom allows for that this is what we call we're going to get to that in a second now another example of that is the so we said some things are divinely absolute some things have so much leeway for مهر was that a pretty in slip or something which one of you put this some have leeway when it comes to custom should the مهر be $200,000 is that acceptable raise your hand if you say مهر can be $200,000 raise your hand if you say unequivocal never some of you say yes in our time no it's custom $200,000 مهر for two billionaire families is what and that's like $10 for me that's like nothing so again you find that there are things that are morally absolute but then have this leeway when it comes to custom the same thing applies to inward responsibilities what are examples of that one of the ayahs of the Quran were revealed in response to a claim a woman made to the prophet that she was complaining Allah heard this complaint right who knows which which ayah this is this is in right there you go there you go there you go this is one of my fathers here I always joke he's my insurance because I know I'm going to mess up and so at least you heard Quran and you can feel like you got something if this is a fail you got to hear Quran from the shortest to the prophet the prophet a woman complained to him why because the man divorced her in a way that was unacceptable so what we learn is that as a divinely ordained characteristic that a man is supposed to have fairness the opposite to this idea of divorcing right in a way that breaks her heart in a way that abuses her similarly what is that we talked about the action but that is rooted in what that's rooted in inward quality that a man for him to be a man is required to have in Syrian culture if you do something like this right that isn't indicative of just a wrong action that you did that is indicative of a failure internally as a man that you have you are missing a quality that would make you a man Islamically speaking when it comes to custom though so like you know emotional intelligence right what does that look like how do we measure that what type of you know emotional intelligence how do we even understand that in the context of a relationship with a man all of this is open to custom and conversation because we're running out of time some myths versus realities before we get to the tools and we'll finish in next 3-4 minutes which means like the next 10-15 minutes number one the idea that a man because for me like we don't have enough time to curate or describe like the essential what is islamic like whatever that word means you know when we end up using some of these terms that may not exist in our lexicon in our framing we end up being pulled into conversations that don't even apply to us right but anyway like we don't have time for that so one of the easiest ways is to maybe just look at some myths and realities dispel some of them one of them is the idea that a man is defined by their physical strength what does the prophet sallallahu sallam say the prophet sallallahu sallam define quote unquote masculinity or manhood or manliness not by physical strength in fact he spoke against it he said a man how are someone physically he said a true man is one who what controls his anger what would our state be as a community if we taught our children do you know what it means to be a true man to not act upon your emotions reactively imagine how much abuse we could avoid how much how many problems would be warded off if we just taught our children do you know what it means to be a true man it's to learn how to control those impulses to not react to those feelings that are intense within you and of course we should be teaching our women that too another myth men cannot express emotions or cry the prophet sallallahu sallam was not just crying every single day until he met Allah in qiyamullayd his beard would be filled with tears and people could notice it but some say and I heard this recently oh those are spiritual tears right that doesn't mean men should show emotion or be vulnerable the problem Muhammad sallallahu sallam when burying one of his sons he started to tear up and cry and one of the Arabs because maybe that was his understanding well that's not a spiritual tear what's going on over here are you going to cry what did the prophet sallallahu sallam say he said these tears that you see are a mercy from Allah so again this idea that a man but again there's custom involved here how this happens it's very important to invoke custom if a man I'm just telling it to be real with you if a man starts crying amongst a bunch of strangers that are also men that's probably not a great idea because that's a sign of weakness and then how that's determined again goes back to cultural custom which where Islam is very sensitive to thirdly that men are inherently violent right that men the reality is that men may have certain proclivities that are more intense in them as opposed to women vice versa so this idea is because we don't teach people that being a true man means to feel those things and not react we have that the idea of men's needs are completely different than women's needs this is the controversial part of the talk so forgive me in advance one of a problematic thing that we have we have maybe I don't know how to put this something problematic that I think is problematic is the way that we talk about marriage from the Muslim world and the arrangement of Anikah for example you hear a lot of people say Anikah is nothing more than the exchange of money for what? you know the rest for intimacy so the man gives money the woman gives intimacy one of my teachers is one of the great muftis and scholars of the Hanafi school he told me actually contrary to popular belief many scholars rejected this definition of Anikah and they said no it's enjoyment for both that they said Anikah the Mahd was just a gift but it wasn't an exchange for services for the man they said that Anikah the gift is a formality the Mahd is a formality for one to fulfill each other's needs which are very similar that there's this myth and Shaykh is more qualified to talk about this because she's the one who taught me this that there's studies that show that this idea of sexual desire being so much greater in men than women many studies are saying no that there's very similar proclivities but then again these framings these framings have profound implications on how men see themselves in society this is where you get these terms toxic masculinity which I think is a silly term because true masculinity can be toxic it's almost like an oxymoron but these are the terms that are used this comes from a misunderstanding of these things and then finally some may argue that defined standards are limiting when it comes to gender I want to define what it means for me to be a man I say it's the exact opposite defined standards are some of the most freeing things ever because Islam says look here are the things that are fixed beyond that we default to custom everyone's different nothing is defined nothing is absolute that creates far more anxiety and anguish in a person than having defined standards and again you don't have to be a Muslim to see this don't take my word for it go do some googling ask your teachers they'll tell you I'm a training psychologist I'm almost done it's going to take me between 3 and 25 years but look at these psychological studies we have to ask this question if this this freedom this unprecedented freedom is truly a benefit why is everything wrong increasing we can go more freedom than we've ever had we're more connected than we've ever been the list goes on at some point you have to say maybe too many unrestricted options aren't a good thing there's a book on this called the paradox of choice of course you know where I first heard this I was like a teenager and I was watching a Hamza lecture and then he referenced it because I was trying to be a failed nerd immediately looked it up that was one of the most blind blowing concepts I was like choice isn't always good noted that explains 95% of my current suffering as a teenager so what I want to do now to conclude I want to share with you 2 principles that help us have this discussion and I keep doing the wrong way number one we have a principle in islamic law that says that is a ruling that divine law sacred law they're not formed on the basis of exceptions this is essential to understand if you want to be sensitive in having this conversation do exceptions exist to everything I said yes absolutely including gender but islamic law does not legislate on the basis of exceptions because that is one of the reasons for discord when you say we're going to take this exception we're going to subjugate the vast majority of the exception that is by the way in my opinion now you can take it or completely leave it it doesn't bother me but I'm just telling you I believe so much of the discord in western contemporary society is because we failed in understanding that if you take an exceptional circumstance because islam says for exceptions what do we do do we ignore them for the most beautiful things that I saw I only went to Damascus once I grew up here I went to Damascus once I was 15 year old one of the most beautiful things that I saw was that people that had that were exceptional on the mental scale autistic or clearly had almost a level of insanity they roamed the streets comfortably and what was that they all showed them love and kindness whenever he showed I remember this one of the most vivid moments I ever had in Syria as I came out of Jam'a I came outside it makes me tear up thinking about this and someone with down syndrome was talking and there was a group of 4 people just entertaining him you're our king you're our prince here's free snacks that blew my mind so just because we don't take exceptions and subjugate the majority to them doesn't mean we don't show sensitivity and we don't humanize people that are going and suffering through being an exception to some of these rules because that would be injustice now related to this what is the divine framework what does it mean to be a man the simple answer is the Prophet Muhammad SAW that's the simple answer what the Prophet SAW do now this idea of sunnah the divine framework of that because the sunnah is scriptural it's not you know you don't have Quran and sunnah as too completely distinct I shouldn't say anything this is Dr. Aditya but what I'm trying to say is that sunnah is divinely ordained like Allah Almighty says in the Quran obey Allah and obey the messenger of Allah so the divine framework is very simple there are things that are explicitly allowed in other words there are things that are explicitly morally absolute that's what it should say sorry and there are things that are explicitly forbidden another moral absolute in between them are a bunch of gray areas what is in this what mitigates these gray areas besides expert understanding of scripture and sunnah the other principle which is that in Islamic legal theory again these are unanimously accepted principles of Islamic law العادة محكمة culture the idea of custom which norms which make up culture they hold the weight of law now what this means is this is why I told you I don't have all the answers for you do you know why because we never will have all the answers if we did have all the answers for everything and you should reject people that talk about Islam in this way it's black and white you know my way is the perfect way and I have every answer to every that's a huge you know red flag immediately because the Prophet SAW very explicitly taught us that there will be unprecedented times that come which cause us to use our minds have sensitive conversations try to figure out as a collective why are we out yet to begin with do you ever think about that everything is just pure clear why are we supposed to be complementary guardians of one another because there are things that we're not going to all figured out that is the role of having custom and beautiful custom that is informed by our ethos but there may be unprecedented situations that require us to do a further look I'm going to give one example here in Chava an example of an example of Ada most commonly used word in this lecture is sorry about that I made so many mistakes but this is one of the for me this is one of the most fascinating a hadith that I've ever come across in my life because people come and tell you being a man and a woman and interacting between men and women all fixed all absolute all black and white are you ready for this story one time and do not try this at home what I'm glad to say do not try this at home I'm trying to help you understand one that the prophet also made brothers Salman goes to the house of Abu Dardat to visit who answers Abu Dardat's wife and as they're waiting for Abu Dardat which is also already interesting because she's the one who opens the door some say again this was a cultural custom even in Medina people interacted differently even in Medina and they both had very different customs that's why some say our teachers can verify but I heard that in Medina I don't want to say it wasn't allowed but it was almost not allowed if you married a woman from Medina to marry another wife to have a second wife because it was against their cultural custom I have not personally verified this in the sources but this is something I heard from reputable teachers of mine she opens the door and do you know what he tells her again do not try this at home he says why are you looking like this I don't know how to translate this in a nice way but it's like I really don't know what to say it's like why are you dressed in this way why are you looking clearly I'm scared of that word why are you looking not like the princess that you are I don't know how to why are you looking almost destitute so do you know what she says look at this interaction she says he has no care for this dunya almost like jokingly he is only concerned with the Akhira and doesn't have time to be concerned with these things for both of us it was this statement that caused Salman to spend the entire day with his friend who is his brother spiritually speaking and this is the story where we get the famous what's that famous let's continue this story Salman and Salman decides to stay the night that prepares accommodations for him in the same house and and Salman says where are you going he says Salman says no you're going to sleep with me meaning you're going to sleep you're going to sleep at this time he wakes up in the first third of the night Salman says I'm going to have to do some tajir he says no you're going to sleep and I'm going to sleep too he wakes up in the second third of the night what are you doing I want to pray no you're going to sleep you're going to see the Arabic here on purpose because I want you to have the direct source he says he gets up in the third of the night he says we'll get up in the third of the night and we'll pray together so they pray together they pray tajir and then he tells his friend that Allah it says it right here that Allah has a right upon you your family has a right over you and your nefs your own self has a right over you and then the Prophet then affirms what Salman says to Abu Dada what is this an example of am I saying go and do that if you did this this will be a huge problem in many cultures but what I'm showing you is that even in Medina there was so much leeway for custom to hold the weight of law and acceptable interaction between a man and a woman which we can overextend more generally to say that look again what have you learned here there's things that are morally absolute and there are things that are in the realm of custom both have to be honored neither can be undermined for us to prevent discord and to be true awliya of one another and I'm going to hand the mic to our dear teacher I'm so sorry for taking so much time أبو دار دا ما رأيك الله شكرا I don't know why I put Abu Dada forgive me I want to reassure everyone I'm not going to take very long because I know like myself we all want to continue listening to you now محمد so إن شاء الله جزاكم الله خير and what an incredible presentation and I have to just tell everyone the way that this event culminated محمد is perfectly capable as you just saw to do this entire topic I did not need to be up here but he is again محمد ديب so he basically refused to come without allowing me to also speak so I really just feel like this is an add-on but standing alone or as is as what you presented it really was enough محمد is beautiful and we're going to have a Q&A session after this we're probably going to go until about 750 which is the event for Asia and then we'll come back and we'll have a Q&A so I'm really hoping that Dr. Ali will join us for the Q&A no pressure but and it's an honor for us all of you being here is an honor for us but when our teachers are here we have to إن شاء الله invite them and it'll be an honor for all of us to learn from you as well so we can do that at the Q&A so for my portion again this isn't additional information but really the presentation was just so comprehensive this is something I put together for college students really but I do feel that everything that I'm about to present is so relevant given all that was discussed that we're living in such contentious times times where these topics are so politicized and I work with youth I hear all about it all the time from sisters and young girls that I work with they're very curious and confused about what Islam has to say about a lot of topics that relate to women but also just gender this concept of gender so whatever conversations we can have around this topic are so relevant I want to really again thank Ahmad for being so thoughtful and having the foresight to put together such a wonderful presentation and then bringing it to us so may Allah bless you and of course your beloved father and may Allah return you to our community again and again and again this is just the beginning so with that said does this work for me too yeah it does okay great thank you so Bismillah so the first thing I wanted to share is actually a quote that was posted in The Daily Beast and this is just for us to really understand why we have to talk about women in Islam and really have be in control of the narrative because this is the reality that we're up against right Muslim women have been wrongly painted for decades in our country as universally oppressed and silent certainly that's because of the outrageous real life policies of Muslim nations like Saudi Arabia but also it's due to Hollywood feeding us a diet of Muslim women depicted in movies and TV shows as fearful, timid and covered in a burqa whose only sound is allulating this is the sound that women from different Arab countries make when they're celebrating I'm sorry yes I'm not familiar okay Hamdallah thank you for that yes so they themselves recognize that Muslim women have been depicted wrongly for so long and it's important again to depict or to help us to discern what is true and what isn't and to address those myths so let's first start off with the facts what we should know about Muslim women and this is across the board men should know this women should know this young girls should know this boy should know this we should have no difference of opinion on these matters that Alhamdulillah Muslim women absolutely have many rights in Islam the fact that I'm sitting up here is a proof of that the fact that there are so many beautiful sisters here sitting here all came with their own agency they were able to come here it's a proof of that but there are many other proofs another fact is that many Muslim women's rights are actually violated across the world and we have to be honest we have to have honest conversations around this we can't just gloss over the realities that our mothers our grandmothers and even women today of course are dealing with in terms of the oppressive nature of certain cultural beliefs that perpetuate misogynistic rules customs or unjust laws and policies all of which directly conflict with Islamic principles about women's inherent values and rights so we have to be clear that's a truth and then that Muslim women disproportionately suffer more consequences consequences from Islamophobia than Muslim men and that's because we're more visibly Muslim right people can see us so a man can has that privilege of being able to move through society and nobody would know whether he's Muslim or not because now for example the beard is trending right there's a whole what is it called I forgot now but there's a whole movement right where the hipster the hipster movement right right here so yeah he could get away with pretending to be just another hipster millennial you know you know following a trend we don't have that luxury unless you know I'm sure you can style your hijab differently but most of the time people understand that you are a Muslim and that's your fate so and then the you know the other things that we also have to be mindful of is again the rights that women have in Islam are not always given and they are violated as we mentioned but let's talk about other things that in my experience just hearing from women from hearing from young girls that they also feel is missing as a missing piece of the conversation that we openly address that yes there are for example double standards right so there's a mistreatment that a lot of young girls and women experience due to the gender disparity so in households you know boys will for example be given preferential treatment they'll have more opportunities they'll be able to have more social mobility less household chores right raise your hands am I talking the truth girls right all of this is a real a lot of us experiences growing up and I could you know spend a lot of time telling you about my chore list versus my brothers which there was not basically but delayed curfews right and then girls are also held to a stricter code of conduct what most women have in some cases denied access to education islamic and or secular I've lived that reality and I know others have as well forced marriages without their consent and prevention from divorce lack of employment opportunities and or financial abuse from family members or spouse or forced labor without compensation lack of basic civil liberties or the right to participate in public or social life forced cultural practices like female sexuality like FGM forced hijab or niqab physical, mental, emotional or spiritual abuse from relatives including parents, siblings, spouses extended relatives we can go on and on these are the lived experiences of women and this isn't exclusive to muslim women but we have to be real that these things absolutely do occur now with that said we also have to understand that muslim women in the US are experiencing unprecedented challenges so when we look at the research here for example 57 the majority of muslim women versus 43% of men, muslim men say that it's become more difficult to be muslim in the US in recent years because we are bearing the burden we are the ones that are attacked and I have had if you follow me on social media plenty of facebook posts over the years about the different either microaggressions or actual attacks or very very I mean clearly examples of Islamophobia toward myself that I've had to deal with but I know many others who have had very similar experiences so that's one thing and then 83% of muslim women versus 68% look at the numbers look at the difference said that there was a lot of discrimination against muslims because they're on the receiving end of that and then 55% of muslim women versus 42% of men say that they've experienced at least the specific types of anti-muslim discrimination so these are again we have to familiarize ourselves with this because we need to empathize and also just have again honest conversations around the experiences of muslim women in the world and here at home now to the real stuff because this is what we have to do we are again living in times where there's a lot of people who want to speak on our behalf but it is so important for muslim women to be empowered and to basically take back the narrative so that we don't have people just using us which is what they're doing in many cases they use our our our status as a marginalized community or as a member of a society that is often and in many cases as we just read sometimes mistreated so they will use that to their advantage but it is it's very important for us to have our own narrative and to assert our own truth so this is where again but it's so important for us to address what it means to be a woman not from the lens of modernity and politics but to go back to the ultimate source which is the Quran and Allah سبحانه وتعالى tells us and the male is not like the female and I think that wording is so beautiful because I mean of course Allah knows in His own wisdom the way that it was phrased what the implication is but I do think that there's something beautiful about it that says that there are unique traits right which again Imam Ahmed mentioned that we have to honor and to you know fall into this you know idea that we should all just be the same and to negate those beautiful differences is again against what we are taught and then again and of everything we've created pairs but you may remember the grace of Allah I mean another powerful verse that reminds us that there is a binary right and we are living in a time where this idea of a binary is completely being erased and you know something that she comes and mentioned which I think is really we have to keep in mind that when you affirm this idea that everything is fluid and that there's no you know that there is no binary and that you allow for that who is the only non-binary right who is the only non-binary Allah سبحانه وتعالى so we have to be very careful to fall into that same language right we believe in a binary this is absolutely fact we believe in that and the idea that someone can be non-binary or that we don't need to we need to reject these notions is again akin to allowing for people to define themselves on the same level or as as though they are like God like and that is not our right we reject that and so there Islam again the framing around men and women is complimentary it's not contentious but we're living in a time where it's we're being pushed into that direction to just see each other as enemies there's this constant power grab between us that we should feel threatened as women by men and men should feel threatened by women and that's why we have all these movements now we have incels and red pill and then we have feminists and others that are going in the direction where again it's just constant infighting and looking at each other as enemies and that is the complete opposite message of our faith which is we are a compliment to each other and we don't need to fight because Alhamdulillah everything is already defined for us as again you know we definitions are important and when you live in a world or in a time where everything is being forcibly redefined or deconstructed then that's when you get all of this chaos but our definitions are very clear around these things so we have to restore that gender balance and so we go back to the Quran and the hadith our sacred text to look at how do we restore the balance well here Allah is the one that reminds us that we are honored by Him He is the one who is honoring us never will I allow the loss of the work of any worker amongst you you are of one another so He is giving us He's mentioning both of us in this verse to say that the value of what you bring is the same there's no difference right that one is not preferred over the other and for women our rights over men similar to those of men this is real equity this is the equity that we should look to we shouldn't look to lip service equity we should look to real equity this is it surely the men who submit and the women who submit and this is the verse that I thought you were asking about initially but this verse also this idea of the men and the women being mentioned in the same context it's an honor for us as women and we should note that because others are noting it and here at the bottom I just have a little fun fact that might again just warm your heart to see that Allah is always trying to remind us right that there's no competition here which mean men and women are mentioned each 24 times in the Quran something that again a little factoid this is from Dr. Salina in her book the women in gender in the Quran so there are 34 in the Quran where women are speaking directly there's just so many other beautiful facts this is truth that prove that we are in fact honored by God and if you have Allah Almighty your Creator honoring you you don't need to look to anyone else for validation or definitions about who you are and so this fact that the women are prioritize and given this honor what is noted by people like Leslie Hazelton who actually observed that the Bible is exclusively and again Dr. Ali can speak more to this addressing men or using the second and third person masculine but the Quran actually includes women and this is a distinction that we have to know so that when we're in any way you know put in a position where we feel like we're on the defensive these are the types of responses that you can just immediately shut down anybody who comes and you know tries to make a case that women are don't have rights in Islam no we absolutely do and you know the prophesies said them right honored by the prophesies he said what and for all of the parents what an incredible when i think of this hadith i have two sons but i still and my father he had three daughters so inshallah i always look to this hadith as inshallah i hope that hopefully that we do our part to serve him and to continue to do good so that inshallah he can reap the benefits of raising us because this is such a beautiful hadith whoever has three daughters and he cares for them he is responsible to them and he close them then paradise is certainly required for him and then you know again this exchange that the Prophet is having with his Sahaba and he asks or someone asked you know from the companions what if the person only has two he said even two some people thought that if they had said to him one that the Prophet would also have affirmed that yes if you raised one daughter and you know did your best that inshallah that would be your ticket to jannah i don't know of a hadith where he talked you know again subhanallah what a gift that we have been left right and his consistent record again for advocating for women the first issues of course that we know that he came to immediately eradicate was a female infanticide and then by the by the end of his life in the last sermon what was he addressing the man he said what take care of the women take care of the women so this is i mean there's so many proofs we're just again scratching the surface but we want to leave you is that confidence that we don't have to look to anything outside of our own faith to know where we stand and what our definitions are it's all there and it is the best there's nothing that you can find that will come even close to what islam teaches in terms of the fairness the beauty of both the the male and the female and then again he i enjoy you to treat women kindly for their your partners and committed helpers oh yeah again the same the advice that we heard i mean the same message about being complimentary the right to an education we should know this because now for example i mean i am from i've been born there i have not been back but it's certainly i know in the past week or so there's been so much discussion around what's happening with regards to you know the education of young girls and being prevented and i saw the videos it's heartbreaking to see the girl the women in university the girls in school crying because they are barred from from you know knowledge this is not islam and you know i'm not going to get into a political discussion this is the proof of it the prophet says the seeking of knowledge is obligatory for every muslim and he made the distinction man and woman he could have just left it ambiguous and then left it for interpretation but he himself inserted that distinction so that we know it applies to both right so that is the proof again that we have to remember so the right to own property or work or an income you know we're just again giving very generic information here there's much more to this but it's enough for i think all of us just to have a baseline understanding that yes we have the right to own property work in our income but it should be said that we also have the obligation to serve our families right you can't at the expense of the rights that others do just you know completely go rogue and do your own thing that's that doesn't fly we have social obligations we have obligations within our family systems that we have to prioritize and once we do that absolutely you can go and fulfill your dreams pursue your career do all that but your dependence and those who have rights over you that's just there's no argument or there's no discussion there and then you know mentioning here also some which we know that she was a very successful businesswoman and his employer before they were married so just important little things to know if you're not familiar with the these are things you should definitely know the right to vote participate in social and public life there are just so many proofs but again if you're struggling with these concepts here are the evidence is that yes women have the right to participate in the social and public a sense of what are your priorities right you cannot abandon all of the other your obligations to all other obligations to your family and then just throw yourself into public service it's actually doesn't make sense if you think about it because where are you going to be asked about first your relationship with Allah so if you don't even have any idea of your father behind for example you've never studied the things that you will first be asked about doesn't just you know you might have been asked about their life you might have been asked about their life and all of your free time to causes we have to just learn to prioritize and and this is again where you know learning and and going back to the the foundations of and the principles of our faith that prioritize this type of knowledge comes into place but you know proofs in the Quran about again the و will go over examples of women who were themselves politically active right the right to choose and to be respected you know to be able to have a say in your own future this is there's no debate here this is absolutely a right that women are given and this is a wonderful story that one of the companions of the Prophet's life said I'm being given a best reported that a girl came to the messenger of Allah said I'm in this she basically reported to the Prophet's father had forced her to marry someone without her consent and I love this حديث because everything about it is just is so important especially in this content in this time but the Prophet's life gave her a choice when she when he heard her case he said do you want to accept the marriage or or I can nullify it for you right here and there and she said look at her words and I want you to think about this and then think about this idea that women don't have rights she is talking to the Prophet's life and first of all she had obviously the courage to speak to him which says that he created a society where women felt very comfortable you know going to him with their complaints with their grievances it wasn't this you know no you you know you don't have any rights you just do as you're told and be quiet that some people especially orientalists and others have about Muslim women but he actually allowed for for these types of conversation to even occur but look at her empowerment she accepted the marriage okay but what did she say I wanted to let women know that parents have no right to force the husband on them so that's the whole purpose of why she went to the Prophet's life setup she wanted to empower other women so that they know their rights but she you know she was you know she's making her case but at the end of her intention was that so this doesn't happen you know with you know unregulated you know that people just perceive that this is okay that you should not do that and that women should speak up and then the Prophet's of course also encouraged men to treat their spouses in the best way the best the most complete of believers in faith are those of the best character and the best of you are what those who are best to their women and in other you know narrations to their family but there's just so many messages that again if you are familiar with it then you'll know that when it comes to these ideas that again Muslim women have limited rights don't have rights that you would be able to easily defend those arguments but it is important to dispel the myths that that exist so let's look at some fact versus fiction this is something that is you know again we can have we need a whole other presentation on because we're living in times where there is a post-modern agenda and many times what they do is they basically rewrite or reinvent or not even yeah they just distort basically everything and so they may look to different parts of Islamic history and you know try to find cherry pick certain things and just to make cases and arguments because they're looking at it from their own lens right if you're going to re like go through history but you're going to retroactively for example apply modern conventions and sensibilities a lot of things are not going to make sense you have to understand things in their time not like oh because now this is considered taboo and weird i can go back in time and judge all of history we are you know we've i mean it just but that's how they get a lot of people into these situations where they can't defend themselves because they're making these moral arguments you know from from this illogical these illogical positions and people just don't have the way to defend them so we have to just reject their attempts at doing that by again knowing you know their angles and knowing their and a lot of them they're they're not very creative they're not very uh they just cut and paste they'll find you know the Islamophobe of the time and then just pair it what they're saying so they're not really looking into things they're not understanding things it's just a very surface level uh you know cursory understanding of anything but they just try to make Muslims and especially Muslim women or anything related to Muslim women appear as though they're deficient and and and so just don't fall for their games reject those notions and if they're genuine in their inquiry like they really want to know you'll know that but if they're just asking these questions to try to you know do gotcha and then you're gonna fall into um you know unnecessary debate and that I think is where a lot of youth anyway I've seen start to feel insecure because it's like they don't know how to defend their positions but you have to see their agenda that they're trying to corner you um but they themselves have zero real context it's it's ignorance and they're just again parroting maybe what they read somewhere else so to be also aware of you know if you're an act if you're um in college or even in high school now all of these things are trickling down at a very you know even I would say middle school likely level where these ideas are being introduced in the way that we're studying religion religion as well as just ideas around women and feminism and all of these things but we have to be careful not to fall into their narrative you know I mean we mentioned the binary but there's other ideas as well that just don't debate these people know what their agenda is and be very confident in your own understanding of your faith and then the best way to do that is really as masha'Allah you know I would say you know is freedom like they sell this idea of freedom freedom freedom and they're even arrogant enough to look to the muslim world when we have a plethora of our own social ills and problems and plenty of women here who are suffering from all of the disparities of this free society but yet they have the audacity to look at the muslim world and start to you know judge this country or that country's policies and it's just we just have to reject the hypocrisy and the double standards and the best way to do that again is look at the facts right am i not moving the slideshow at all i'm not i'm thank you i've totally lost it on this i don't even know why i'm holding it i'm not too careful just that clock in it so you know in the united states for example here are some facts again for you to know more women than men live in poverty so where's all this freedom getting us right as imam Ahmad said um poverty rates for women and men are nearly even throughout childhood but then the gap widens significantly for women for from ages 18 to 44 and this is the demographic or that age where there's really this big push right be the independent woman just leave everything go do your own thing well where is it leading you know the years where you should be looking inshallah to building a life with someone right having children building something that's going to pay it forward for you when you get into those older years women you know are not taught that they're taught to abandon that and just pursue their own careers or whatever it is on this high of of freedom but then they end up suffering in this way subhanallah and between the ages of 25 and 34 women are 69 percent more likely than men of the same age to live in poverty i mean that's just tragic you know women make up 47 percent of the us labor force um up from 30 percent in 1950 but growth has stagnated so okay we've again been decades hearing this message of freedom but there's only a 17 percent differential from now in 1950 i mean that should kind of you know cause us all to second question this idea that freedom is is everything women's median hourly earnings were $16 in 2016 up from 12 48 in 1980 right and then men earned a median median hourly wage of 1923 in 2016 down slightly from 1940 let's just look at the difference there so we we have clearly not you know been been so successful and something's you know i miss here women working are much more likely than working men to say that they face gender discrimination on the job so you give up your family you give up all of these other things that are actually going to pay you know or really benefit you in the long run but then you go and you're just end up you know serving people who humiliate you who harass you like the it's just there's really the trade-off just doesn't seem right right but these are the ideas that so many of our young women are sold to push against tradition to push against religion and to push against culture but the proof is in the pudding as they say look at this and you have to examine well you know these are this is the this is what i'm i'm going to give all of that for is it really worth it much more but i think the the bottom line is that before we have to break i'm not sure where i am on time oh almost okay i'll quickly go through this this is the real message here this is what i wanted to leave you with there are there are two lenses or i'm wearing glasses right now we all know what a lens is but you can either choose to look at your life the meaning and purpose of your existence through a material lens which is what this society and what modernity really wants us to see that there's no greater objective there's no meta-narrative there's no grand truth we're all just going to die and that's it that's the worldview that they have because they are secular atheists many of them they don't have a concept of any you know overarching truth so when you have a very limited worldview then you're up this is what will likely happen you'll be exploited as so many women are now right they're exploited they're limited they're manipulated they're misunderstood gaslighted suppressed they are treated as being inferior this is the promise of these open societies this is what the results are this is the outcome of of ascribing to that worldview or you can look to your faith and the metaphysical lens the lens that you want to look through your life with what what meaning you have why i'll have started created you it gives you what what is the promise the promise of our dean is that you will be empowered you will be uplifted you'll be encouraged you'll be determined you'll be powerful pure and advantaged and if you do everything for the sake of allah this is the promise that you will that you will have right or that you will receive so at the end of the day what is i mean is there even a debate here right is there even a debate it should be pretty obvious which one is the better worldview or the way that we should see ourselves through and inshallah really i we have we have to break for isha but um the last you know bit here and i'm i can leave the slides up while we're praying are just some women that you should know throughout history to again affirm your confidence in your faith because we are under attack there is um you know and it's not just to muslim women it's really women of of of all traditions we're we're being forced out of things that are very natural for us femininity you know just wanting to be home i've seen so many posts of of women who tried to go a certain route but then realize at a certain point like i actually just really want to be home and raise children and have a loving husband and have my family around me and there's nothing wrong with being a homemaker and there's nothing wrong with working there's no issue here it everybody's different but the message is that no reject everything that i you know the traditional part and just go the other way the way where it's all career driven and it's all like you said individual selfish desire and no you know responsibility to community no responsibility to family just reject no you don't need to do that just do what you you do you that's not our that's not our faith and here are women who were able to do it all they in many cases they had incredible legacies of we mentioned uh kharijada الهان but many others who were first and foremost servants of allah subhanahu wa ta'ala that was their primary identity they didn't look to other labels to affirm themselves they were servants of allah and then there were in many cases wives they were mothers they were daughters they were sisters and they embraced all of those roles and knew that these were valuable roles not because they were looking to other people to dictate to them but because allah subhanahu wa ta'ala told them and they believe in god and that is who they turned to for meaning and purpose so these examples are you know i mean there are so many of them but be familiar with them feel free to take pictures and then we'll stop inshallah for aisha and we'll come back and hear more from بي you guys after aisha um so i was asked by shekho sigh to address the first questions is a really good one i heard the word priorities on the woman's side but not when talking about a man was that intentional absolutely not wasn't intentional um in fact i i i am there's there's just too much to really address um that is impossible to address in one one lecture one of those i mean that's a lecture in of itself what is what are the priorities for a man uh uh in in the household and um generally speaking one myth that we need to totally um shatter is the idea that a man doesn't have to be present with his children that that's what it means to be a muslim man and by the way it's purported by the red pill movement now to which many muslims are are a part of uh and i i forgive me like i take the opinion that i i am more sensitive as to why men and women are following these movements just like shekho sigh we're both sensitive to the fact as to why it happens and so when we talk about these movements that may not have been grounded originally in our faith unfavorably when we speak about them unfavorably i don't want anyone here and this is actually what i wanted to say i don't want anyone here to think that we're not sensitive to why people find them compelling it's absolutely not true i found a lot of these ideas compelling for many years in my life and it's taken me i'm still on the journey right i had to be introduced to people that no one's ever heard of and to read books upon books and have teachers like for example dr he was sitting with us that knows how to navigate these things until i could say comfortably okay حمزة لله فسلام completely um and and that is that that's what Imam al-Ghazali says i think it's one of the most beautiful things that he talks about when in in regards to knowledge is he he makes it clear and and our scholars agree um that not everyone's going to reach this like confidence certainty and all of their values as a muslim like that and certainly not going to happen but i was just telling you be confident you got to be confident that's not that's not how it works many of us are different journeys and we're going to have different types of different types of hesitations about certain things and levels of certainty so then what he says that i think is very important to remind ourselves of is that there's a baseline of knowledge that everyone needs to have about a slap but i don't have the time to go into that i assume many of you know what that is right i'd pray five pillars who's a lot all these things beyond the baseline he says that beyond that what becomes an obligation is whatever is necessary to alleviate these doubts and hesitations that one may have okay so again i want to say this because um i'll be i'll be the first one to tell you i'm very very unhappy with how we as a community at a very a national level talk about these things where we start shaming people oh muslim woman becoming a feminist how it's just like do you understand why they find this compelling similarly with men how how despicable men are listening to adored and peterson subhanallah only they knew and it's like okay if only they knew why are you telling them right instead of shaming them for for finding a public intellectual compelling and the absolute absence of muslim public intellectuals no then go tell go teach go teach so i say that emphatically to say yes we have serious critiques of these movements and these people and individual but that doesn't mean we're not sensitive to to to why they feel compelling to many especially in a time of of of profound religious illiteracy much of it being the the fault of me like it falls on us like we need to provide avenues for people to to become confident about their faith through knowledge so his question of priorities again generally speaking this myth that we need to completely uh uh shatter is that a woman in the home islamically speaking a woman is the one who raises the children right and takes care of the children and then a man is allowed to just go work and come back and be utterly absent from their the lives of their children emotionally completely unavailable and then usually when you when you say that's wrong the counter argument is like look men have their roles women have their roles which i find this is my perspective again i i would i would really love for you to touch on this yourself say that but this is my perspective i find that very ironic because there are a lot of men who are very comfortable saying right like we have a greater degree of responsibility okay so if you have a greater degree of responsibility over woman what happened to that greater degree of responsibility when it comes inside the home when it when it comes to actually being available and and i i can speak about this confidently because my father was like this now every arrangement custom and specific family arrangements we have to be sensitive to that okay and and we shouldn't be so quick to assume oh if a man i'm sorry i'm just speaking bluntly if a man is not available in this particular way that we've learned and i don't know university course or something automatically this person is not fulfilling his rights as a muslim man for his wife first children we should be very careful about immediately judging a situation we don't know all the finer details but generally speaking look at the prophet sasam's example it's not a coincidence that there are a hadith a multitude of them where the prophet sasam is described as مending his own clothes that the prophet sasam is described as cooking the prophet sasam is described as someone who's cleaning uh when was the prophet sasam absent from his children's uh lives i mean subhanallah every single time فاطم رضي الله عنها would appear the prophet sasam would get up they'd go and kiss her on the forehead this is the this is not the example of of of what people assume to be this مسكولة and fatherly figure that just comes provides sits like a jabbaw doesn't look at his children doesn't express any love for his children one time the prophet محمد صلى الله عليه وسلم was kissing Hassan حسين and when one of the better ones he said you kiss your grandchildren you kiss your children the prophet sasam got upset and he said what does my religion have to offer someone who الله has taken mercy out of their heart my in other words let me paraphrase this this dean doesn't have anything to offer you if you have no mercy and compassion for your own children how can this dean be something that you can benefit from if you lack mercy in your heart so we find a far more comprehensive model in the model of the prophet محمد صلى الله عليه وسلم that being said that being said okay um we don't want to we don't want to the pendulum remember the pendulum we don't want to go the other way right and i i'm telling you as a counselor and as an email i'm just telling you what i hear i'm not i'm not making value judgments i'm just telling you what i hear right now i hear a popular sentiment it's not working well for our community they bring these examples of the prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم right and they project this almost unrealistic example of the prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم on every man and the same doesn't go for it doesn't go both ways but that's a recipe for disaster right so we shouldn't flip the other way just because the prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم صلى الله عليه وسلم doesn't automatically mean that a woman cooking and cleaning for a husband is somehow not something desirable or we shouldn't teach our our woman this and and and and we shouldn't um even encourage it well i've heard these things we shouldn't we shouldn't encourage our our woman to cook or to learn how to cook because the prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم used to cook we shouldn't encourage our woman to clean uh or men close because the prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم did this see this is this is what happens when one we swing the other way and that is a result of insecurity that is not the balance of the sunnah what is the balance of the sunnah the greater degree of responsibility is that the man is supposed to be within again customary means whatever that looks like they have to be present for their what they have to fulfill the needs of their wife they have to fulfill it in the in the in the same way and in and much of the same way they have to be present for their children and on top of that they are required to to be physical protectors and also provide financially for their for the household i don't know if that's active adequate but i just wanted to um make it emphatic that you know you'd be surprised much of the priorities that a woman would have in a family or similar to what a man would have in a family but are there nuanced differences absolutely okay and we shouldn't in the effort of trying to respond to very clear um abuse maybe i don't want to use that word but like to to respond to at times an unfairness towards a woman we don't want to swing the the other way as well because that's not going to be conducive or healthy for our community والله تعالى أعلم i should have just said my father can you answer this والله اندقشي زيده he said no uh would you do do you want me to answer this please don't even give me this back does that go up i just as you were speaking much i feel you said it really when you mentioned that all we have to do is look to the prophesies and the discussion is over because he settles it he settles a debate between what is the ideal رول of a father a husband a man in every regard and that's why when um you know when we do parenting sessions or when we talk about parenting often the most common you know حديث that is relayed is the حديث that really also equalizes the the objectives of both the male and the female like you said right there they both have common you know drives or common objectives but sometimes because we become so um polarized in these discussions everybody's again just in their own corners where we're forgetting they're on the same team so the حديث it's just a brilliant حديث right this is and i'll give you the English because look at the way that the phrasing um you know the order of the words or the order of the roles that he describes first he says that everyone so he's speaking to all of us right every one of you is a shepherd and is responsible for his flock so that's unilaterally across the board we're all shepherds right then he goes into the distinctions the leader of people is a guardian and is responsible for his subjects a man is the guardian of his family and he is responsible for them you know pretty clear a woman is the guardian of her husband's home and his children and she is responsible for them the servant of a man is a guardian of the property of his master and he is responsible for it no doubt every one of you is a shepherd and is responsible for his flock this is in صاحي البخاري and صاحي مسلم now this حديث again when i you know when i do leader sorry parenting i talk about the the universal quality that is described here shepherding or leadership right so if you both men and women just understand their role as being leaders in the household then you need to understand what does that mean you know because a leader isn't just someone who dictates right that's not or delegates right that's sometimes how we perceive leadership it's just the one who is do this do that you know that's not leadership leadership is defined by certain qualities among them strong communication right so being able to effectively communicate passion and commitment to who to your subjects who you're leading so you're committed to them that means you're prioritizing them you're not سالفشلي absorbed you're not completely you know have your priorities you know off you're committed to them you're positive right so if you're coming home with negative energy or you're in the home and you're just negative then that's obviously an issue you're also creative in terms of really wanting to bring you know bring a vitality to your home that it's things don't become stagnant and boring and repetitive and mundane but you're trying to bring that positive energy forward and then you're also collaborative so these are the marks of leadership strong leadership and then and you again look and these are all things that are studied right that we have these ideas around leadership but how does a leader really effectively lead first and foremost you understand yourself well so that's you know the baseline you need to know yourself well and if you don't know yourself you don't know your role that you have that you you know are accountable right that Allah ﷻ created you to be accountable to him and you've lost that that that understanding that you you know you will be asked about all that you did and all that you didn't do right to have that um to to be clear about that but then other things as well just if you have certain needs that you're able to communicate those needs right because a lot of times our attention in a household is because either people don't know what their needs are because they were never taught that or they don't know how to vocalize those needs so really having that self-awareness is so important and and then to understand those in your care to understand the needs of those in your care and you know you go into further descriptions potential dangers and threats that's where the protective qualities so both the husband and the wife should protect one another and just see council when they need but these are all the qualities of effective leaders and i think if we really start with this instead of you know i'm the man and i'm the woman and and it already starts off with this negative you know again power grabbing kind of a you know dynamic if we avoid that and say we're both being tasked with leadership right bringing children into this world is an man at Allah ﷻ that has elevated both of us but he's given us our specific roles and as long as we understand what those roles are and we hold each other accountable as well because again we should look out for one another we're supposed to be in this together so if i see you slipping in your duties and in your you know the things that you're responsible for i out of care for you i remind you but what do we end up doing we don't do that we let anger take over us and now it's shame it's you know it's anger and it just it's a repeat cycle of more you know negativity so we just have to i think reframe the entire concept of what a marriage is it's a collaborative beautiful relationship of two individual leaders each task with their own responsibilities and if they're complimentary and they understand that they work together to create a cohesive beautiful family dynamic but if each of them are competing with those powers they they're bringing their cultural understandings or their limited understanding of what men need and what women need you have no understanding of each other or yourself then obviously communication breaks down everybody goes their separate ways and there's tension and the marriage likely is not going to last that's precisely what iblis would love more than anything else so i think the bottom line is know what we're you know the example again of the prophesies i said him that he's the one who gave us this brilliant analogy of shepherding and really understand what that means and if each of us do that inshallah our homes i mean i know that sounds very simplistic but i truly believe there's nothing better than just following the advice of the best of creation صلى الله عليه وسلم and obeying الله سبحانه وتعالى which of course what the same so بسم الله no no i this is actually i'll answer this question i'm going to hand off the rest to you actually yeah you should be maybe reading some of these while i'm answering this one this is a great question بسم الله this is um i'm very lucky to have grown up at mcc in a community that values the leadership and contributions of women and alhamdulillah may Allah reward all the amazing women and men teachers scholars leaders and service providers unfortunately when i went to college i was shocked that the local mosque does not allow women on the masjid board they also have reservations about any female scholars coming in to speak to both men and women i was more shocked to find that this was not surprising to many peers who came who come from hometowns with mosques with similar cultures and policies is this islamically acceptable is this not a form of discrimination is it justifiable why is this a seemingly common policy is it on women to prove their value to the community and if so how can we do that first of all جزاك يلا خرن or جزاك ملخل actually no i'm presuming this is a sister who wrote that but thank you for writing that question because you know i think some of us have maybe in the course of our lives been part of mosques with certain similar ideas and it's very the default you know reaction to a situation like that is to become reactive and angered by it because you perceive it as being unfair and unjust but we have to first of all practice what our dean teaches us which is seek to understand why right instead of jumping to conclusions stop judgments and you just presume everybody's a misogynist and they hate women and they're trying to leave women out of the fold and they're discriminatory which is the presumption from the you know from the from just you know from what you perceive seek to understand and that can only happen with dialogue so i'm a big advocate of actually trying to reach people through dialogue through intellectual you know exchanges through requests for meetings through allyship seeking out people from that community who may be able to accompany you to request a meeting maybe these board members come from a culture or a background that yes it's just a little cultureally maybe atypical to find women involved in leadership but does that mean that there are horrible people does it mean that they are you know they hate women no maybe it's just unfamiliar to them and they don't know how to do it so if we have the proper khusna done and we're not armed with all this anger and just presumption which we should never lead with and we actually request can we talk you know can we see what's going on maybe we'll come to a place of understanding that they're they come from cultures where again that's just very that's not something that they're familiar with to even solicit women to come in and help and they've been gatekeeping because that's all they know maybe they have bylaws that they don't even understand that they've they're restricted by who knows right but i just feel like i think this culture or this time is just so reactive and so suspicious and that's not our dean you can go into right the seerah and you see that even when people would come to the prophesiesome like the beautiful exchange between خالب نوليد and uh the prophesiesome when one of the men came to the prophesiesome imagine he's the خالب نوليد is with the prophesiesome and a man comes to him and he says to the prophesiesome himself directly اتقل يا محمد out of the blood for you mean just the concept of someone speaking like that to the prophesiesome but he tells him to fear god خالب نوليد is of course so offended for the sake of the prophesiesome he's ready he's like i'm gonna i'm ready to take his neck like i'm ready to take him right here do you permit me to do so and the prophesiesome said no because maybe he's amongst those who pray but again خالب نوليد is so immense for the prophesiesome he's not satisfied maybe with that because he really is angered for his sake so he says well there's a lot of people who say what's on their tongues that not what's in their hearts right they may be claiming to be muslim but maybe they're not and the prophesiesome said said what i was not sent to examine the breasts of men like to to presume you know presume the intentions of human beings and this among many other hadiths he's teaching us right to control our presumptions our biases our prejudices to not have these snap judgments to actually give people the benefit of the doubt maybe again they come from backgrounds like i can tell you i'm from you know a very i mean my family background were were from kandahar Afghanistan the the the men of my particular you know city are known to be very it's a tribal kind of mindset but they're very beautiful people they just have certain strict rules around these things and i would never presume that because if i went to an immigrant afghan must shit and that they felt you know a little awkward around me that it was against me like i wouldn't personalize that and i feel like we're in a time where everybody's taught to just personalize everything but maybe it's not about you maybe they again have a total different understanding about these things and culturally it's very taboo for them you know to to to have certain you know situations now to answer the question of course we just went through an entire presentation that says no there is no nothing in islam that would say it would be permissible to remove women from the message or to not allow them to participating they were they i mean that's a clear fact but i think my point is is the way that we approach situations like this should be first and foremost to not jump into a negative state and to then be in any way or to personalize things and then to react to it but to rather seek to understand and try to work within that community maybe there are other leaders that you can contact and say i noticed that there's no women involved in this can we maybe have a meeting with these elders or these board members i would love to come and present a case for maybe including more women for bringing more programming for women and children maybe i can help with that and if you come from that very you know pure intention i love that of course stuff it comes from him but i really believe the way that we do things has to be informed with the with etiquette with good and we can't abandon the principles of our faith in defense of our faith it just makes no sense to me you can't just abandon right the example of the false i said him because you're so it doesn't make sense right so just follow his way of meeting people where they're at trying to you know be a bridge builder be a person who is extending understanding but push advocate don't let people silence you and i'll be the first one to help you if you want especially if they're from us let me know i want to add one well not really add just reaffirm one thing um on this question of mesjids and women in massage because i'm very sensitive to it as you know i'm not just like my field um i want us to go back to the principle we learned today and just remember and hopefully this will help you be um more wise and empathic and engaging this discussion is that um a valid custom a valid custom is that women simply don't go to the message and that is a valid not just a custom that's a that's a valid legal position in islamic law um and and i'm going to teach you something today so you're all upon a lot of men in their fifth well you'd be surprised uh the school of law that takes this position that women are not encouraged to go to the message do you know where they take it from they take it from a saying of aisha they take it from a hadith of aisha which they interpret as general where she said you know uh the paraphrasing of is women shouldn't go to the message right you will mention go to the message one school of law takes that as a general rule other schools of law don't they say no this is a specific contextual situation and even if it was the general rule right these things depend again on you know the application the art of true fetwa and and and islamic application is what we call تنزيل الأحكامي الى الواقع is to bring down some of these rulings to the present realities which is why i have no qualms in saying i say this publicly i've said it billion times is that uh uh in our context in america this is not an acceptable position by acceptable meaning it is not a wise position to to hold at all in our spaces because our مساجد are for to a large extent the place not a place there's no ancillary structures i went to turkey so i always wondered i was surprised by this right this development because you know that the there uh takes that position for the most part they still had uh spaces for women in the massage it but that that was surprising to me and then you know you do this work long enough and you speak to enough people and you're like oh many women actually are comfortable with this they they they're actually prefer this type of setup in situation in fact believe it or not when i was at uh when i was working once upon a time and i was trying to in a particular place advocate for um a space in the main hall of the messjid for women in the back because where they were upstairs was just like i mean i was uncomfortable i was just like i don't want my mom to be there this is weird uh it's like you couldn't see anything at all and it was very tiny and and so i advocated for this um do you know who were the ones that were most staunchly against this woman most of the women in that community and i'm not saying uh and and i don't i don't want the impulse to be ah look woman being other women's you know uh enemies or you know the greatest opposite no what i'm trying to say is that is that we determine priorities based on our reality and in the truthful khat the the the real jurists the people that understand our context will all i mean many of them will tell you that of course woman have to have a place in the messjid and that should be encouraged and we should be emphatic about encouraging because that is our reality here but in having this conversation i just want you to be sensitive that the things that exist that may rub us off like rub us a different way and make us uncomfortable we shouldn't be and this is the training of the post-modern mind immediately we jump to chauvin's 100 there you go men in their filth it's like and this is whenever i tell people that this is a they base this off an opinion of aisha people are shocked because who are you gonna what are you gonna say to aisha who is aisha one of the most public woman right the the the one that had the confidence to correct other male companions in their understanding of islam so we shouldn't be so quick to assume some of these things and be sensitive to to to the various contexts and recognize that here's another controversial thing this idea of like we're all going to be unified in america it is a i would even argue is a dangerous idea in that what do you mean by unity you you really you really think in the most the most unprecedentedly diverse context in islamic history do you understand never in islamic history has there been more of diverse context in the context of american islam or islam america you expect in that context everyone is just gonna worship the same way everyone's spaces are going to operate in the same way it's just not going to happen and i think we shoot ourselves in the foot as they say which is a really bad and i just stop saying that but like we we we work against ourselves when we try to call for something that may be unrealistic we set ourselves up for disappointment that being said again just so people don't misinterpret i have no qualms saying publicly that i believe it is not at all the opinion that we should follow in america and that every single المسجد in america should be a space where women are welcomed honored and and not just welcome but honored that means they don't come in and they find some closet space right with a with a with an ugly dirty curtain that they're you know praying behind this is this is this would not be the حسان of the prophet ﷺ because it didn't exist in his message this is these were not the realities of the prophet ﷺ's message so how dare us say you know we're going to contradict some fundamentals because of custom that's not how that works right okay the other question that we got i'm just going to read it and just tell you i can't answer it but i want to be on i want to i want to let you know that i i saw the question is that our hijab mandates and enforcing hijab as a policy um islamically permissible for a government to establish like is it islamically legal i have a view on this but and i have some reading on this but i'm not an expert in this field and it'll be very irresponsible for me to answer something i'm not an expert about um if you as a friend want to come up to me like what's your view no problem i'll share with you my view as a friend but as a teacher now as a man i don't feel comfortable answering this question forgive me and i don't have the records expertise all right and say that you know our teacher also agrees um what can we do how can we support women that are stripped away from their rights from ignorant muslim men that follow culture over what islam uh preaches okay um first of all i want us to get out of our minds and it's hard this is a sensitive one it's hard to do this but i want us to get out of our minds this idea that culture is this thing that is bad and a slum whatever that means is this thing that is good and they're always like uh in opposition right this has never been the idea of our history in fact culture is the very means by which islam is preserved that the whole point of culture right especially in islamic ethos is to help preserve islam right now at times there are cultural norms and customs that contradict islam those norms and customs should be rejected and opposed and we should speak publicly against them and maybe this this may not be the most satisfactory answer i'm sure you do a better job but i will say that really we just need to we just we just need to raise raise men i mean the stuff happens in the home again cliche this has been heard before i get it it may not be the most satisfactory but i'm telling you i'm telling you that uh we so many almost all almost all of the complaints that i've gotten as an imam my whole life from parents about their children my parent my children don't pray okay do you pray at home when we don't pray at home uh my children you know uh i don't believe you know in this and that question is okay well did you facilitate opportunities for good companies to the opportunities for knowledge did you you know devote time to doing your best to answer their questions entertain their questions facilitate resources so if we if we don't do this if we don't do this i promise you no amount of lectures that we're doing here is going to do anything it's just not it can catalyze it can be sparks this is this is helpful this is important this is like a healing circle for me this is what i see public formats like this us it's just an opportunity for us to reflect upon some of the things that are necessary for our own healing and insha'Allah maybe learn a tool here and there but really the work the real work isn't done by people like me it's done by the parents in the homes and those parents need to be supported recently show jamedi one actually posted this great book i'm not a parent but i'm fascinated with this stuff is is called parenting inside out have you have you have heard it so basically what they found in all of these recent studies about uh you you've heard it okay masha'Allah uh so i guess very quickly is the idea of like the the most the the healthiest children okay are those who had parents who worked through their own childhood and adolescent experiences processed them properly and was able to parent properly in the home as a result right but when parents aren't uh you know themselves they're not taking their own health seriously and then when we don't support the the parents themselves in this enterprise then of course it's it's it's going to be a huge huge huge challenge um so that's what i believe is the ultimate solution and of course it goes without saying that when there are their their quote unquote toxic developments that that contradict are the foundations of our of our dean then that falls on the leadership to be very very public and vocal about these things and so look i don't want to talk about politics but i personally am appalled at how many people are apologetic about women shouldn't be educated i'm appalled by this and you know that's that's that's my realm my realm is i could do my best to publicly be be open as as much as i can to be vocal as much as i can like no this is a right for women uh you know uh this is something that the the men are doing that is wrong and we should speak out against it and we should try to find solutions but ultimately that long-term generational work that we're talking about can only happen when we support parents to do their job in the best way possible lastly and then i'm done حمد لله uh not i'd love to ask it say more charges but you know like i much prefer to answer all of these i just wanted to about the priorities question i actually wanted to address something um i'm going to tell you from experience um what these questions by the way about like priorities and you heard like rights and duties of men and women and responsibilities i had one of my شيوخ he um in fit class once he told us he told us the moment you start talking about rights and responsibilities your marriage is in big trouble what does he mean by that meaning fit is just the basic bare بون like uh uh uh basic bare bone um uh uh what's the word like متجاتر of of of a relationship it's not like you don't go to these فرقي kind of conceptions or or or or or or they're just boundaries like when you get to a state no when it's really bad by the way this man at the core is what he's responsible for a woman at the core like that's when you default to this and so what i have found is that usually these become a problem when they're not discussed before marriage you cannot expect especially from men that they're all going to just accept a pure egalitarian you know uh uh marriage right especially when most of them don't even know what that means right it's like you and vice versa right especially in a time where all our cultural norms are shifting and changing you can't expect from from from woman to have this neat tight you know packed list of all the things she's required to do and the man has all the things he's required to do and they all know it and they've memorized it such that they don't need to discuss it before marriage i promise you every single situation that becomes a problem later is usually not discussed before marriage or when it comes up it's not as they say nipped in the butt is not given adequate care before it becomes and even it brings out all of these other problems so my greatest recommendation you've heard about premarital counseling in these things but like my greatest recommendation is that don't expect especially in our time do not expect a spouse to read your mind don't do that it's it's i'm telling you to recipe for disaster what you should do if and you can correct me from wrong inshallah you'll you'll you'll be giving far better answers but what i really recommend is men and women before they get married they need to be as open in their communication as possible you need to ask what is your conception of a husband what is that what is that what is your rule what is our rule going to be and you know to asking it generally is not as always as helpful so ask specifically like here's how i feel about this and what do you feel about this when these things are discussed in advance it doesn't open open room for problems later say that do you have anything to add of course i'm actually going to ask you what i want you to add yes again we could just listen to you all day right my my right mashaAllah he's amazing mashaAllah i love bless you um this question i'm again presuming it's coming from sister and i've done these programs so often that it's a very um common sentiment a lot of women feel powerless because you know they're they don't have sometimes maybe the the support of within the home or within their family systems or maybe even the community to advocate for their rights and so they feel like what can i do you know i don't you know i i don't have rights that i'm owed and there's a cultural imperative here so how can we work around it and i do think we for the sister who asked just to address her specifically i would say it's very important again going back to kind of what i was saying earlier to approach these problems not from a triggered emotional state but from a really intellectual state where you are trying to solve the problem you know strategically because emotions get us in trouble right i've seen this pan out terribly because we become so overwhelmed by maybe the injustices or whatever is going on in the home that it just can spiral into a really negative place that there's no solutions and there and whatsoever and it just ends up really terrible but if you just stop and humanize your husband for example this is a very personal question to the sister who asked if your husband came from a culture where maybe he has the a flawed understanding of men and women and he has there's just a lot of cultural baggage and ignorance there and trauma maybe and maybe it wasn't modeled for him the first step is just first and foremost humanize him he has a product of dysfunction he's a product of a negative environment if this isn't like he just decided to be you know ignorant or to be maybe oppressive or whatever usually these are cyclical right so when we understand that that creates empathy and from empathy we then go to what we're taught in our dean right adina nasiha this is your spouse and you know for good and for better for worse right all the the vows that that we hear in this culture anyway but that's how we should look at it like this is the person all of us found that I brought as my partner we may have children together and just because things aren't going well and I feel that there's injustices and imbalances of the relationship the easy route is just say I'm done and I'm gonna leave this person to himself he's an oppressor and just fill yourself with all this anger and animus towards him and then he's still going to be the parent father of your children you're likely never going to be rid of him right what good is that do you whereas if you take a different approach and say okay so he's not giving me my rights maybe because he himself is like you said you there's trauma there's a lot of context there maybe I can seek to find that context either by myself or try to somehow strategically explore what's going on with him of course first line is to call on a lot of people have these circumstances whether it's with their marriages or their children or their lives but they don't do the necessary work to call on the only one who could change your circumstance so I always tell people if it's really this bad and you're really feeling oppressed and you're really feeling constricted are you waking up you know for the هجد are you pleading with Allah are you you know really calling on the one who's going to change your circumstance if you're not doing that but you're just sitting with anger and resentment and letting all of that فستر in this toxic pool of emotions that will do you no good then you are letting shaytan base you're doing the bidding of shaytan you have to raise I mean you have to approach this from the position of اقل either a marriage is meant to thrive or not right or I mean meant to survive or not if it's if it's in this if it's not you know I mean if there are problems so you can either approach it like inshallah I want to help this marriage you know out of its problem so what can I do and that's where you seek counsel right we talked about the qualities of a good leader is that they know when they've reached a point where they can't do anymore so if you've been trying you've appealed this your husband he's not listening to you then you have to seek counsel to experts to people who can maybe give you a roadmap or a plan of action or something and seek that advice because on your own you haven't been effective and that's not a slight or deficiency it maybe just he's not hearing you or again maybe there's just too many barriers that he has to you know that we have to work through but another person could potentially reach them so I would say try to find help for yourself to fortify yourself to get to that place where you're ready to do this difficult work don't just discard him as this ignorant Muslim with cultural problems please he's a human being he may have a context that you need to sympathize and empathize with and maybe you will be a means for his guidance maybe i'll bring because your sincere your heart is so sincere that you will be the reason why he breaks free from the chains of enough of nefs and shaitan and all those things that are compelling him towards what he's doing maybe you'll be the reason why he's able to do that and because he's your partner in life you should be invested to try at least to try so reach out to someone or multiple people who can help you try to come up with a strategy but don't just I feel like this idea that I is very comes from this modern lens of looking at the world which is just discard anybody who's not you know serving you you know you can just throw people away and it's such a dangerous and really terrible way to live you know and I think it's really taken hold of a lot of our people unfortunately and that's why divorce there used to be a differential between this the you know american rate of divorce and a Muslim you know right now there's no difference we're just leaving relationships left and right because I'm done I'm in convenience I don't like him he's this he's that she's this she's that so people just throw people away but that's not the spirit of our faith um and ultimately we're accountable to a los pantha you try your best but I feel like when I look at the process I said when I see how he gave everybody a chance you know and he tried to reach people that's our example and if you're not even trying that um that's a problem but I think for this specific sister I would just say again you know do your spiritual work call on a los pantha first second look to experts ask either look for therapists for yourself see if there's a path for maybe some you know marital counseling between you two if not then look to maybe within the family because there might be people in your family maybe siblings or other people who can help you advocate for your rights but do it please with the right Nia with which is not you know I want to shame and I want to just you know take him to task and um get my justice but rather I want him to break free from this ignorance and free us and our family from these oppressive cycles and grow together inshallah and when you have Nia like that I feel like a los pantha will give you don't feel so now I'll make it easy sorry for the long answer I'm just okay to forgive me for the long answer but I feel like this question is also a very deep heavy one Mashallah the sister wrote the other question too I can tell by the hand already you've got a lot of great um and they're very very deep questions but there's just so many layers to answer any types of questions they have to do with cultural you know context uh and I I don't know the cultural context to this issue so I don't I don't feel qualified also to speak about all these things but um do we oh we do have another question yeah bismillah okay so here you can take the inshallah well we after if you want to come off inshallah we'll answer um okay so I'll just quickly because I have the mic for convenience sake answer this one and then we'd love to hear you and your final thoughts you my my Ahmed the question is how do I explain to teenage girls the boys get some privileges the girls may not get without diving into feminism arguments like staying out of it late visiting places with other girls okay i'm a little confused by that last part but um I think the question honestly is yeah oh I see thank you that makes sense okay yeah I um I think the question is a bit problematic because I do feel that these double standards are issues and we should raise our children you know to have there should be one standard in terms of you know what we allow for them to do sons and daughters should both be expected to you know like I said do the chores in the home come home at a certain time but to prefer or to give one gender more access more ability to move and do things and not the other doesn't resonate in this day and age it will cause problems in your home because it reeks of prejudice it reeks of preferential treatment it reeks of and you know all the things that we are and then it just gives them more doubt in Islam because it's like well that's just an unfair system and when they're being bombarded with the message of equity and everything has to be perfect and balanced and then they're living a reality where they're literally seeing double standards right unfold before them it will cause them faith crises why do that what is the problem with saying all of my children I don't care what your you know gender is or whatever it is this is the rule of our house you do this you have responsibilities and you have to be home at a certain time and know that we don't allow free mixing or whatever but I just feel like this um the the the way that the question set up I think honestly causes a lot of problems and this is you know my lived experience it caused issues in our household you know growing up because I saw it I thought it was just really weird you know why it didn't make sense to me but when you learn Islam you realize these are a lot of these things are cultural they're not obviously religious so I feel like we shouldn't perpetuate cultural ideas that actually cause problems for people in their faith and that's what this type of you know just creating unfair systems do you so but I'd love to hear more from you this is my that's the end of me that I'm done no no we need to hear from you and then final thoughts please what I what I agree with mostly is that show house size presentation is amazing so I 100% agree with you on that and uh yeah I think uh you know those were what you said uh this is this is a this is a topic that it's its own topic really it is and um I will say that مودة رحمة if we want to talk about مودة رحمة I think there's a huge difference between Muslims explaining here's what we believe and uh uh uh you know abrasively abrasively uh uh you know speaking about what they believe in a way that dehumanizes people because that's not مودة رحمة مودة رحمة and and this is my this is what I offer to this discussion is that this is a long discussion I don't think much of what you said anyone would disagree with um but we I don't I don't see the kind of the مودة رحمة that facilitates a conversation with others about this in a way that's actually constructed and I think we have to reject these identity politics and structure our entire Islam around these identity politics right that one you know this this you know that our our entire our entire Muslim identity is structured around these these political uh many times political fights that are happening uh in our land so I would just say that yes this is a huge conversation um we addressed it a little bit I dressed it a little bit when we talked about gender and and we also said that there's exceptions that's all over our book those exceptions exist and our always honored those exceptions um and and that is what I would like for us to really reflect on is that at the at the end of the day it's our responsibility to take our truth and to make صح we should we should be comfortable and confident enough to tell people here's what I believe as a Muslim I'll tell you what will fail if we say here's what I believe as a Muslim in a way that totally bulldozes real emotions that people feel people are struggling people are confused right so many of our Muslim kids may not be I'll tell you his name man they're just just confused and if I come and say you know why are we even having this conversation and I'm glad you brought this up because no it's a conversation to have some people it's like what a silly how could we even talk about this what you just did is you just told a bunch of people that may have been sincere in their search don't open this up we're not here to discuss this your emotions mean nothing they're invalid I don't believe this is I'm not you didn't say this you didn't say this this is why I said out this is what I'm adding I I don't believe this to be this one of the Prophet ﷺ the Prophet ﷺ dealt with the most immoral and most decrepit of people in society people were making طواف around the Ka'ba naked okay and he dealt with these people with kindness and gentleness و الله سبحانه وتعالى said that موسى عليه السلام was commended to go to with gentleness how should we go to the people around us who are very justifiably confused because of the unprecedented amount of conflicting and opposing ideas that everyone purports as their as the way of life this is this is this is the truth this is the truth this is the truth people are confused so we should we should just be sensitive to that about a Ka'ba do we have any questions online before the say do you like to say anything all right insha'Allah with that بارك الله فيكم this was a much needed conversation it trust me it's healing just as much for us as it is for you I hope it was healing for you in some regards you know I hope we can continue having these and I would love for massage it to start having these discussion groups where where people are just open just like here's what I think a man should be in a relationship here's what I think a woman should be and and those conversations hopefully are facilitated by people who have some you know like our our teacher have some training in the dean that can help at least have a space where we feel where we feel like we have the license to think critically and there's nothing wrong with that what we don't and we shouldn't do is arrogantly undermine our own faith in the name of these weird ideas that we claim from freedom to justice the whole nine yards no we should have some intellectual humility and say at the end of the day I'm Muslim I'm struggling I don't understand these things I'll go to this measure discussion group I'll express these feelings and we should have you know spaces where those feelings are honored those discussions are had so insha'Allah we can figure out some of these things that are just unprecedented we haven't figured out before so can we conclude with the du'a oh Allah we ask you from your mercy to fill our hearts with mercy that we show to everyone around us oh Allah we ask you to allow the mercy to be our beauty mark in a way that we treat one another we ask you oh Allah for those of us who are confused put the avenues on our path to clear that confusion you are العالم you are the most knowledgeable allow us to to to learn and know the truth of matters your prophet used to say الله مأرين حق حق وزقنا تباعه وأرين الباطلة باطلة وزقنا شجبنابه your prophet instructed us to pray that we ask you oh Allah to show us truth as it is and help us follow it and we ask you to help us see falsehood as it is and help us stay away from it we ask you oh Allah to give us a a certainty in faith that makes the trials of life easy we ask you to give healing to all those struggling here we ask you oh Allah by by they're coming here to make this a means of their entrance into جنة a means of their healing from their pain a means of relieving their anguish we ask you oh Allah to reunite all of us in paradise where we look back at these moments with a smile and with gratitude that we came for your sake يا رب العالمين and allow us يا الله fill our hearts with love that it overflows to those around us and give us righteous company that keep us upon the example of your greatest of creation سيدنا محمد صلى الله عليه وسلم سبحانه ربك رب العزة عما يسفون وسلام على المسلين والحمد لله رب العالمين your homework your homework spoken like a truth no sorry bro sorry bro you have homework on winter break right this will make sure it never comes back your homework is before you leave to make a small du'a for the organizers like brother منير make a small du'a for the mention make a small du'a for our teacher here and and her family and and and and a du'a for yourself because the angels are present with us and Allah سبحانه what we were taught by the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم that in a gathering like this where the angels are all surrounding us this is one of the highest moments of استجابة of of of of قبول and acceptance of our so Insha'Allah take a minute before you go just make a du'a for this beautiful message that Allah preserves it and protects it and protects the organizers and then make a du'a for our teachers and and for yourself for those joining us online thank you for joining us online Insha'Allah we see you for verb