We're very happy to have everybody join us today. We are gathered today, inshallah, for, I think this is our fifth conference. Is it our fifth? Sada Hussain, our fourth? Yeah, I think it's our fifth women's conference, masha'Allah. And this time around, we picked the theme of reflecting the light. And masha'Allah, I'll leave it to the speakers to expound on the theme and their select topics. Sada Hussain Mujed Dedi is an educator, public speaker, author, writer, spiritual counselor and mental health advocate with over 25 years of experience serving the Muslim community. She is co-founder of Mental Health for Muslims, a site dedicated to providing mental health related content tailored to the Muslim community. She also produced an author, she's also a published author of a children's book entitled, Clear the Path, a rhyme book on manners for little Muslims. So this is our second speaker and second published author, masha'Allah. Actually, because happy the happy the, so could Sada Shamida, we need a book. We need a book. Masha'Allah, it's a really nice rhyming book. So she writes, she edits, she's active content creator on social media. If you're not following her, if you're the only reason you're allowed to go on Instagram is to follow Sada Hussain, masha'Allah. She's on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and one of the lone soldiers on Clubhouse, masha'Allah. She teaches weekly classes on Islamic studies, logic and critical thinking to middle schoolers and tajwita college students. She also offers monthly halakas for teens on contemporary issues and year-round classes on spiritual development and self-development for adults and youth through different local and national organizations, including the MCC. So she's a wife and mother of two and resides here in the Bay Area. If you want to learn more about Sada Hussain, you can visit her website, hussainmujandidi.com and then you can follow her on social media at Hussain Mojo, insha'Allah. I am really tired, so I'm going to ask for your forgiveness ahead of time, but masha'Allah. Following you is so difficult. No, really. Because masha'Allah she's amazing. I feel like, you know, have you seen those pictures of like these spider web?  You just do it so beautifully May Allah increase you and protect your preserve you Alhamdulillah Amin wa ajma'in. It is an honor to be with all of you here today and I want to thank again the Rahmah Foundation and all of you for For being here and for supporting this incredible organization This is as Osada Fadwa mentioned our fifth installment of the series and Mashallah each time we've come together at a spotlight Incredible women in our tradition, but I'm going to veer into a different direction today similarly to what Osada Shamir presented in terms of this concept of reflecting, right? So I'm actually going to share some Reflections I'm going to reflect on reflecting Righteousness and I'm going to start off as I love to do. I'm a teacher. I like to teach So I like to look at words and what they mean So if we look at this word reflect, you know websters you can look it up But I'm specific. I'm I want to actually focus on on specific definitions here There's many of them you can their expanded definitions but here to make manifest or a parent, right? And then reflection is the production of an image by or as if by a mirror So I want you to keep in mind those Concepts right to make manifest or a parent and then this concept of a mirror because it's very relevant to our experience as Believers and what Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta'ala asks of us Here in Chapter Surah Al-Hajirat I have 13 Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta'ala says Oh humanity he's speaking to all human beings right indeed We created you from male and female and made you into peoples and tribes so that you may get to know one another Surely the most noble of you in the sight of Allah is the most righteous among you Allah is truly all-knowing all aware so to make Want to become known to one another but also in order to do that you have to make yourself known And this is one of the great gifts of Our tradition especially for us as women is that by wearing our hijab whether you wear it all the time or not You know, and I've given a talk on this subject before but I really encourage you to not Fall into this black and white type of thinking that I have to I have to either be a hijabi or don't not a hijabi Don't do that just to wear the hijab embrace it It is a beautiful symbol and it's an act of devotion and worship But also one of the gifts of the hijab is that we recognize one another right? How many times have you been somewhere and maybe you didn't feel safe for whatever reason? Right, but then subhan Allah Allah brings someone around the corner and immediately you're like oh Hamd Allah my sister. She's here She came to bring me relief when I was feeling something right? So we get to know one another through this beautiful gift of hijab And you don't have to as I said fall into this binary of I either identify as a hijabi I'm using specific words or I don't know just wear the hijab Just like with prayer pray do they get it's all access We have full access to it all of us and many people actually by doing that Slowly they never want to take it off and inshallah. That's the goal He now speaks specifically to the prophesal. I said and also through him to us He says tell your wives and daughters and the women of the believers Shallah that includes all of us to draw their cloaks over themselves thus it is likely that they will be known Right, so this is specifically what I was referencing So we are apparent to one another and this is the gift again of Reflecting our faith outwardly Mirror remember that was part of the definition. So one of my favorite hadith right the believer is a mirror To the believer right al-mu'min al-mir'at al-mu'min Some of you have heard, you know stories that I've shared over the years But the one that always this hadith reminds me of is the story at the airport And if you haven't heard it, I'll quickly tell you I don't want to bore you But I'll tell you because it's a good reminder This is when I was waiting for someone many many years ago And I used to dress a certain way that I thought fulfilled my Identity at that time and I was very very focused on the outward. So I dressed In all black and I wanted to look very intimidating. I had certain very strange ideas.  I'm not whatever it is I'm doing I'm doing it and then subhan Allah this car pulls up and this woman comes out and she is not She's scantily dressed. She's not dressed modestly and of course, you know, I I just started immediately judging her I looked at her. I was like a lot look at her, you know Tank top shorts, what is this, you know, all these thoughts came to me and I'm just sitting there and subhan Allah Allah in his perfect timing and his perfect wisdom she Puts she was getting something out of her trunk of her car She puts the trunk down and she looks directly at me Across all these people and I see her full eye contact and she just starts to be lying to me She walks to me and at this point my heart is like racing like what's going on Was she in my mind? I don't know maybe but she comes and she stands right in front of me and She's so humbled. She's he puts her head down. She's she's not looking at me now She just kind of head down hung low and she's like salamu alaikum Not the words at all. I expected to hear from her. This is an American white Average blonde Californian woman. We're not thinking she even knows those words let alone saying them And then she proceeds to tell me she's embarrassed that she's dressed the way she is and she is Muslim But she would you know, she saw me subhan Allah look at her state She saw me and she was so happy Because she felt it was like a sign that Allah wanted her to come and meet me and ask me she has a son who she's raising Muslim she wanted resources so we start talking and the entire time I am filled with Disgust in myself because I Just had all these horrible thoughts about this person and Allah sent her to me was such humility So to me that single event was the mirror that Allah subhan Allah reflected to me to for me to see my inward Ugliness, whatever I judged her for her outward Whatever display my inward ugliness was far worse and hampada That was a huge turning point for me spiritually So this hadith reminds me of that and this is why it's so important that when we see each other We see each other as mirrors that are reflecting and that's why we have the beautiful Sunnah of Smiling right this is a Sunnah the promise I said I'm because we want to reflect as Sadashah mirror beautifully beautifully elucidated the light of faith and we do that through prophetic character We do that through receiving people with pleasant faces So it's very important to to do that and also to remove burdens Right how many of you have ever been low in a low point and someone just by their smile They uplifted you right and you just felt Instantly transformed because even whatever was going on at home. Maybe your health wasn't well, but someone's energy Mashallah, I mean we just experienced it with the sadashah mirror, right? She just she has that ability to just wake people up, but people can do that people can transform So we're mirrors of one another and it's a very important concept to internalize that when you're out and about That you see yourself with that capacity and to be honest I feel like it's such a gift when you really think about what Outwardly displaying your faith does it not only reminds you to be better But you're also inshallah serving as a reminder for other people And these are the types of rewards that await us on the day of judgment that most of us will have no idea about Because we're doing all these things unknowingly that Allah so generous. He's taking it to account for us Just you know guiding people there are people and I'll tell you this is a kind of an odd story But it's still something to share when I was in college because I was When I wore hijab it became you know kind of buzz-worthy and Years later. I met a friend from college. She was sick. She's not Muslim But she she had a turban on and she said you inspired me to wear my turban And I thought that was amazing, you know I didn't you know She just saw me wearing my hijab and she started looking at her faith the next thing You know, she's wearing her seek turban. So, you know, I'm doing that, but this is the You know capacity we have in shala to help ourselves and help other people If we go to the next word of the title of my talk, which is righteousness, this is also a very important word to understand This is specific, right the words here that I've highlighted Really do bring us back to The divine law morality to be upright and this concept of righteousness In our tradition is is something that we also need to understand in terms of the terms that we hear because there's a lot of Terms that are interchanged often when we're talking about this concept of righteousness So here, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says So these two words specifically bir and taqwa are what we need to understand in order to have Real clarity about what it means to be righteous, right and they work Beautifully, they're complementary to each other. How is according to the scholars, al bir is the comprehensive term or phrase For acting upon everything which Allah loves And is pleased with right from the outward and the inward actions That's bir so when we do things that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala loves we're showing bir we're showing piety And then taqwa is the comprehensive phrase for avoiding everything which Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and his messenger sallallahu alayhi wa sallam Dislike from the outward and the interactions. So they're both needed in order to be righteous We have to act and that's why even in the Quran. They're often paired together. We need bir and taqwa And again, here's another reminder Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and this is a beautiful reminder because all of us have to ask I love if I mean, I wish I don't know if there's a list Maybe someone knows of all the questions Allah poses us on the in the Quran But I really think that is a wonderful way of Interacting with the Quran is finding maybe someone can do that any any any students here want to take that project though But to take all the questions out and just see them as an aggregated list so that you can Examine the questions that we should be asking ourselves that Allah wants us to ask because he's asking us right He's asking us. Will you enjoin piti upon mankind? And then forget yourselves While you recite the book Do you not understand? I mean this is this should put some fear in all of our hearts because a lot of us We'd like to you know, correct other people police other people, right? um I mean we can ask our husbands. I'll tell you that right now. My husband will be the first to say yeah you're the Police in the house, you know correcting him. Why are you doing this? Why'd you put this there? We like to correct a lot our children, you know our siblings any older siblings in the room, you know who you are I'm I'm in the middle. I have one younger sibling who doesn't even listen to me. So I get piled on a lot from older siblings But we like to correct others and then when do we examine ourselves, right? So this is why these verses are really important because Allah is asking you to examine yourself, right? So how do we then achieve this concept of taqwa? How do we get to the place of ber and taqwa this right concept of righteousness? Excuse me three things I wish this was uh, you know in a in a way that I could Like reorder it, but it goes in this order I was like arc arc works, but it doesn't so acor is going to be the acronym for this Try to remember acor But what is uh, what are the three components of achieving righteousness? First is action It's very important that we Call ourselves to be people of action. We are not people of just words Right, we're not people of words So we must take action to move away from and I'm going to get to this specifically each one I'll expand on a little bit, but we have to have action to move away From what three things that destroy us spiritually doubt distraction and despair These three things also, you know, I like alliteration So ddd, right? Um, these are the things that take us away from the remembrance of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala And we have to be people who move away from these three things and I'll get to that in a moment Knowledge we are a dean of knowledge blind faith is not acceptable in islam You have to and I read this recently. It's not enough to believe in Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala You have to know Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and that's very powerful because if you just believe without actually Really examining right because he calls us to look pay attention. Look at the signs Then you'll come to confirm that belief But if just believing because your parents told you or whoever told you is not enough for the For the believer So we actually have to learn and then we have to learn about our faith our creator and our purpose What are we doing here? And then we have to obviously act upon what we learn and then reflection so this idea That is informing the theme of this whole program of reflecting Is also part of our responsibility as believers, right? That we openly and outwardly act upon our knowledge To keep ourselves accountable and reflect the light for others. So this these three are how we do it So how do we do this specifically the first one, right? This is from a hadith where Ibn Omar may Allah be pleased with him He said that the servant will not reach the level of true Righteousness until he leaves what waivers in his heart So this is why if you're having doubts You it's on you to seek and ask those as Allah Almighty says Ask those who know You can't just sit and uh, you know be okay with that and I recently had this incident with someone who is having um, some doubts and We we you know, I explored it with them and I I gave them answers and they said it was sufficient And then a few weeks later They came back and expressed the same issues and I said well I thought you said it was sufficient and I said well You know, I didn't want you to be frustrated with me and I said I stuff for the law I would never become frustrated with you. I would want to help you But you can't be okay with Just sitting with those types of doubts because that's where you give the in road to shaytan to come and monopolize Right. He's the waswas. He's the whisperer. He comes when you're having a seed and he will flat He will water it He will pour on that seed until it flourishes into something that really now causes you A crisis of faith. So that's why you have to nip it in the bud right away Seek out people who can answer those questions and don't ever lose conviction The answers are there. Where did we're insufficient? Like I will tell you right now I don't have all the answers But our deen Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala said it is perfected. It is complete. That means there's nothing That's missing the prophets. I said them and all the prophets completed their mission. It's part of the The the the responsibility of the prophets that they give you the full entirety of the message They completed the message. It's perfect We are limited but we can at least do our best and find the answers inshallah just through You know through our connections and networking, but don't let shaytan convince you otherwise So it's on you though to move away from it and also with despair if you're in a state of sadness over something that has happened in your life You've got to remember this life is temporal And and despair is forbidden. We cannot become hopeless We cannot become hopeless because when you're hopeless What you're doing is you're showing a lack of confidence in Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to change your circumstance And there are people who have been through horrific atrocious Circumstances who are walking with smiles bigger than many of us can maintain How does that happen if it's not for the power of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala? They've been through loss of everything that you can imagine and we don't need to look beyond our prophets a little A lot of so them to see the possibility of a heart that is strong With Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and Allah can change their circumstances. So never let despair and depression sink you down And then distraction. This is very important because we are in the age of distraction This is the age where our minds our hearts are every minute You know i was uh speaking to someone recently about these phones. They're so intrusive It's so difficult to have like a clear Organized thought right how many times have you planned something but then you get derailed because oh ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding So we've got to accept that There's too many distractions And that's why you have to hold on to the things that help you to get out of distraction Number one being prayer your prayer is literally like You know imagine, uh, you fall asleep at the wheel and then you get a splash of water on your face, right? That's dunya dunya is like we're constantly falling asleep in terms of distraction in terms of just forgetting our focus And the prayer is it wakes you up.  So we need to Hold on to those things that break out our minds from the distractions of the dunya And what that will do when we're actively doing this, right? This is where action is so important being proactive is we will inshallah increase in our knowledge Which will increase our certainty and our conviction, right? And this is this is the path inshallah So that's action now knowledge is also important because we we talked about you know the what it what it What what is taqwan in its essence? But what is knowledge of the of the mutaqi of the one who believes and who has these beautiful qualities this verse again Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala baqara is teaching us and I love that he starts off with what it what it isn't it is not Piety to turn your faces towards the east and the west Very powerful subhanallah because what is I mean there's you know, I when I first read this I was thinking subhanallah You know of the you know the end of prayer You know, what do we all do we give our salam So I just thought okay. This is like this reflexive act that we're all doing we're all very You know proud of ourselves very happy with ourselves Which is by the way one of the dangers of the nefs is whenever you get content too content But sometimes we think oh, I'm doing you know the bare minimum. I'm praying. I've got my bases covered So you get too comfortable But then I read the tafsid and it was specifically Referencing the the christians who prayed toward the east and the jews who prayed toward the west and I'm sure there's more opinions But anyway, either way He starts off by telling us what it isn't it's not pious to Turn this way and that way or to basically outwardly do certain things that we may Find ourselves Proud of but rather what is piety? We believe in Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala the last day the angels the book the prophets We give wealth look at the qualifiers here despite loving it Right when you give that which you love It's this is taqwa, right? Because it's hard to give away things that are nice or money We we want to hold on to it. We're scared and this is where shaitan is He he you know insights or a fear in the heart of the believer by through poverty, right? This is one of his tactics So you give for the sake of allah subhanahu wa ta'ala even if you love that what you're giving To who to your family to orphans to those who are In in difficult circumstances travelers beggars and then the one who performs their prayer and gives the The alms. I'm sorry. There's a there's a typo here And those who fulfill their oaths when they pledge and those who are patient in misfortune This is also this is these are all qualities of taqwa. So not only are you doing your basic, you know, obligatory actions, but you're also what Patient in misfortune Which has to do with according to the tafsir It specifically has to do with loss of wealth or struggles with wealth that you're patient And hardship which has which is referencing health issues So if you are dealing with financial struggles or health issues These verses are speaking to you that you're patient and in moments of peril are when they're like war or any, you know Meeting of the enemy. There's more on that specific definition or term But it is they who are sincere and it is they who are reverent So these are the qualities of a person who has this This concept of righteousness right ber and taqwa and here they are in an organized list for you if you like lists Which I love lists so and again forgive me for the typos I actually have two copies of this presentation and I realized I edited the one that I did not send to So there you go. That's what happens when you don't sleep enough So but here they are right the beliefs and the actions and this brings us back to that second quality right Which is actions are the first thing that you need to have taqwa knowledge And then the last one which we'll get to is reflection But this is a quote that I I was reading. Um, this document was just really fascinating. I can't wait to finish It was long, but it was um a christian document and it was really dealing with the modern world and how Christians have lost their way and it was I think published in the 80s But they were dealing with some of the things which I'll get to in a moment relating to post-modernity So they wrote this and I said this is so relevant because For you know, this program was designed for the youth as well. So I'm really happy to see a lot of The young teens girls in the room, but I love this message because I saw myself reading this, you know When I was your age, I was very zealous You know we zeal the zeal of youth makes you want to just act And you just want to be active and we were I was doing so many crazy things when I was in college like The stories actually I'm so glad the internet was not around I was just All right. No, I sometimes I swear. I'm like, thank you a lot because Nowadays like imagine you do something and then people have a picture of it and it's like on your record for life Um, so anyway, but the things that some of the things I did like just protesting and being very very active But the warning here, especially in this second quote Let's just read it actually many of the important world changing movements in history were started by teenagers and young people So those of you who are youth heed this warning and that's because they're still fresh enough And idealistic enough to believe that the world can be changed Right, you get to our age. You're kind of like looking at the exit door. You're just like, I'm out I'm just we do our best, but I'm can't wait to get out But with you guys much like some hope. So, how did I but Here's the warning If you're going to change the world you had better be informed about the issues before you change it And have an informed commitment to changing the world and not just a youthful zeal that is without knowledge because action Without knowledge actually leads to darkness, which is the opposite, right? We want to reflect light We don't want to just be acting and that's what this culture does is it activates people with zero basis of knowledge Or purpose and you just have all these people that are Emotionally just triggered and dysregulated looking for something to as an outlet to get those emotions out That's not our tradition. Our tradition is a tradition of knowledge First and foremost, you'll get to the action, but you better work yourself first Before you start dictating to the world, right? So just a really great reminder. And why do I mention this? Well, I'll get to sorry. I have more to say on that, but this is also another important Uh concept in terms of reflecting, right? So There's many things that we could do but my brain You know, I like as I said lists I feel like the simpler the message the easier that we can retain it So just if you can work on these four all of us if we can work on these four things We're good Inshallah, we're good perfect our salah Have a relationship with the Quran where we never and I wish can we just do that now? Can we just do that right now? Ya Allah Can we make an oath right now every single one of us? Ya Allah. I'm sorry. I'm gonna get emotional because Just make an oath to never leave the book of Allah for a single day Can we all make an ania right now? Ya Allah never let me leave your book for a single day If that means a verse If it means half a page If it means more than that, alhamdulillah But you have to this is what action is make an oath and stick to it I will never ever leave the book of Allah. How could we leave the book of Allah? I'm Mortified what I think of the days that I left the book of Allah And on the day of judgment The regret that we will have the most is the hour That we did not remember Allah We will regret many things, but that is going to be the biggest regret of our lives So have a relationship with the book of Allah where you never leave it for a single day Dawah, we have to Make the appeal that we want. I hear all the time when I talk to sisters or people My children my parents, you know, and we have so much weighing on us about the future and so many fears Take it to the mat as they say wake up wake up and cry to Allah Ask him to save your marriage. Ask him to heal you from your burdens physically.  Ask him to bring those things. Ask him to guide your children to keep them on Haqq We don't know if we're going to be around You have to think about these things ask him, you Allah you can do anything just protect them But make our dua and make that a part of Your life that you don't also leave and then zikr Being in a constant state of the remembrance of Allah. I know that sounds like a tall order But it's not because if you're as mashallah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said if you're looking with the divine light You can't help but see Allah subhanahu wa sallam in everything You'll see it.  Alhamdulillah. And that's why the prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam look at his life He was constantly in the praise of Allah subhanahu wa sallam because that's all he saw We can do that. That's why he gave us these duas But we have to want these things right? So if we can work on these four things We will reflect inshallah the righteousness that the light that is in our hearts And then we can also and we should also reflect righteousness in our companionship the prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam was asked Which of our companions are best? So look for these companions if you don't have friends who do this may Allah bring you friends who do this I am so grateful for the people that I call my soul sisters these beautiful people Suzanne who please make thought that she returns People who we love Salaamu alaykum From our hearts like oh my god because why they remind you of Allah We don't come together to talk about frivolity and idol talk nobody's talking about Television and music and concerts and handbags. I couldn't care less. You give me a bag from The 99 cent store. It's just as valuable as a Louis Vuitton. I couldn't care less about brand names Why are we obsessed with these things? So you come together with your sisters look for people who their appearance reminds you of Allah Just looking at them.  She reminds me of god Whose speech increases you in knowledge? When they speak you're like every time I leave I I learned something That's the kind of friends you want And whose actions remind you of the hereafter you see them running around helping people serving Doing khayr because you know a sabikun a sabikun. That's who these people are. I want to be like them That's the companionship. So reflect that right reflected The prophet's license said a person is on the religion of his companions Therefore let every one of you carefully consider the company he keeps And then said naali radi allah and said mix with the noble people you become one of them And keep away from evil people to protect yourself from their evils Now this is just going to be the closing. I do have a few more slides after this, but I really want to to send this message. This was really the The most essential part of what I want to share, especially as it relates to the youth here We want all of us should be as we've talked and heard to reflect the light of our the truth the single truth The truth of islam it is the single truth In order to do that we also have to be mindful of the time that we're in we are in an era Where there is a huge push To privatize faith to suppress the practice of faith We have to be the ones who reject that openly. I will not be suppressed. That is why I will proudly Apologetically wear my hijab. I will proudly say my name I will proudly greet people the way that our deen teaches us to greet You can greet non-muslims with peace be upon you. Salamu alaikum. Say it. Why not? It's a beautiful gift to give, right? And when we do that inshallah, we restore the balance. So what do I mean by this concept of privatization of faith? This is a post modern world. What does that mean? You need to look into post-modernity, but we're in it It's the world that we're in it. And what is it? It's this framework that teaches Right that there is no universal truth with a capital T. These are atheists secularists Marxists many of them who deny God they do not believe that God exists. So what do they believe there for that? We all have little truths Do you have your truth? I have my truth. We can all just be in a truth. I don't know Party all the day long. We're just Partying up with little truths. No, there's a single truth, right? um But they what they've done is they've created a society in our world now Where religion is consigned to irrelevance Like it's irrelevant if you're religious or not How does that how do muslims exist in a time where this is acceptable or normalized? How can we I mean exist, right? We can't accept that we cannot accept this worldview because religion is literally We are dean. We are not a it's not a faith that we just have it's a way of our life It's a way of our existence So it cannot be irrelevant. It is the most relevant and the most essential part of our Entire being is our faith, right? All of these other things is what we call the accidentals You're uh the family you were born into The you know color of your skin your height your weight your color all those things are Accidentals you had nothing to do with them. The essential is your heart The essential is your faith. So the most essential part of us is actually our faith, right? But what they've done is they've privatized faith practice where It's a separation now, right between the private and the public and this is something that this Philosopher christian philosopher described as a two-story truth. This is what this society has created and in order to again Normalize the secularization of society. We're seeing massive changes happening. I know we're all shall I'm I feel like I'm shell shocked Like every time I open the news. I'm like, I get what this now I was already dealing with this and now I gotta deal with this It's happening at such a rapid rate the just the decay of our society But that's in order to do that they have to force people to privatize their faith In order to secularize the society. So it all works to their agenda But let's look at this concept a little bit more again Uh visually, okay This two-story model of truth. This is a two-story house. Okay, just bear with me. I was looking for a good image This is what I found. Okay, so there's a two-story Building here. The top is where they want our faith to be consigned to which is Not basically grounded. Okay, think of all the symbolism here, right facts Knowledge science reason rational thought Right, these are verifiable things. They're grounded. So they're on the ground level, right the physical level It's it's touching the ground because that's we're in the world of materialists and scientists and And people who care more about this physical world So they want us to just keep our ideas because they're, you know, personal They're uh, non-rational non-cognitive. There's not much thought. It's all heart Right and this separation to create this this division that faith is in the heart is actually quite Um, it's it's it sounds nice, right? This it's kind of purposefully Uh presented that way. It sounds nice, but it's actually quite insulting because what they're saying is that we're not we're not rational thinkers We can't think if we have faith, right? You're not using any thought. It's all driven by your heart No, this is why our deans subhanallah, maybe the other traditions that claim could be true But if there's ever I mean if from all of the world religions, there's no greater Emphasis on knowledge acquisition than in islam. You will not see any other tradition focus more on knowledge And learning and activating the brain than islam. So we reject this idea that our faith is Consigned to the heart. It's in the heart, but it's absolutely a rational Think we think about things. We're supposed to anyway Right, we're supposed to be thinking so We need to really take this seriously especially for parents and educators that when we're teaching our children That we get this message across to be Unapologetically proud of your faith if other people are out there celebrating all the stuff that they're doing Most of which should never be even known to anybody else Why are we being Or accepting this idea that we have to hide or minimize because even like, you know, if you're if you're Outwardly wearing your hijab, but you feel like you have to minimize Your faith and what it means to you.  We just went through the verses that teach you to be outward and proud so that people can know you So we don't accept this and that's why it's a very important message and I hope you're with me here Now I'm gonna close. I don't know if you know this story. I love this story. It's so powerful The parable of the elephant and the blind man This is a story. I don't know what culture comes from But it's often used to talk about atheists will use this to talk about and some, you know perennialists who kind of have this idea that there's truth in every faith that Religious people are just a bunch of blind people who are like these people touching different parts of an elephant and that is all that they um Are are experiencing so they believe that Part of the elephant to be true. So one will you know, touch the tusks and say, oh This you know, it's smooth and another will touch the trunk and say it's rough and then the tail The point is is they've this concept comes out of we're all just blind faith believers, right? that's what they want to Categorize all people of religion. We're like these people with blind folds on And we all think we have the truth because we're just Blinded by this section that we've been given and that's all we see We can't experience anything outside of that. So they they create this idea and then that's what they perpetuate whereas again our dean is all about what Light it's about knowledge. It's about um, like I mean, I just had this little, you know image here that I created But this is sister. I was like it's so obvious what the solution is, right? They're all kind of trying to Fumble around this elephant not sure of what's going on and the answer is pretty obvious remove the blindfold Remove the blindfold and you'll see truth as truth That's the the issue and for us that blindfold is not entrusting ourselves to ourselves Don't don't entrust yourself to yourself no matter how smart you think you are No matter how, you know, what family you come from You need Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.  So for us, don't trust yourself We remove the blindfold and we put our hands ourselves in the care of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala That is what being a person of Kaqwa is is always reliant on their lord Never getting ahead of themselves never Falling for the for the spiritual pitfalls and disasters that are that so many others go through And so we don't accept this idea right that that we're all just a bunch of blind believers No, we we are turning on the lights.  It's not just turn on one light Flood me with light bring me from all directions make me light turn me into light That's the kind of utter Desperation that we have to beseech our lord with because this world is dark And it will remain dark And the only light is the light of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala So may Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala make us again people of light inshallah And we should do this dua together Allah place light in our hearts light in our tongues Light in our hearing light in our sight Light behind us light in front of us light on our right Light on our left light above and light below Place light in my side. I think in my flesh in my blood in my hair and in my skin Place light in excuse me in our soul and make light abundant for us Make us light and grant us light. I mean, yeah, but I don't mean jazakum. Allah. Okay, then wassalamu alaykum. Rahmatullahi wabarakatuh All right, masha'Allah. I'm gonna introduce sheikh Aisha prime. She's a world renowned speaker and scholar She's the founder and executive director of yantaro project and currently serving as the resident scholar and curriculum director Uh, masha'Allah. She converted to slam over 20 years ago She's been everywhere and studied. Masha'Allah I wanted to talk to you about a woman actually that I I'm trying my best to model my life after to be honest Um, when I read her story some years back. I just I don't you know, will you have that? You know, when you read something or you hear something about just like one particular person and you're just like I just want to be her Right like I just even if I even if I recognize that I can't be all that right I just like give y'all. I'll be just give me a piece of it And this is the great nana asma'u So nana asma'u is the daughter of sheikh uthman den folio who was a great Uh, a very great scholar basically in the late 1700s and long story short He was not only, you know, he he wasn't only a scholar. So hanala when the west talked about him They say he was just he was the he was like a fighter that he was a strong fighter But in reality was what is that he that he was the the caliph Basically of a very large islamic empire that had been an islamic empire actually at that point for hundreds and hundreds of years And so we don't actually talk about islamic empires inside of africa. That's just a whole other You know, we just got to work on that. That's a whole other thing But what happened was is that at that particular time the the base of the sangha empire For the caliphate sorry was actually closer to west africa But the encroachment of slavery literally the Because slavery was introduced, of course, it was coming down through north africa into west africa through the coast Entire basically entire villages if you can imagine like entire towns we think about villages We think small but in reality some villages are very big. They're biggest cities that we know them today Would be completely disappeared right would be completely disappeared. So if we were to look at let's say in one year Over the course of slavery, there's more it's it's recorded somewhere Somewhere into the tens of millions right tens of millions of people came up missing and one particular layer Basically, let's say out of gambia about two million people Came up missing now the entire population of gambia is only 2.5 million people All right So when we talk about the encroachment of slavery what we're saying is There are people who are stealing folks kidnapping people in in mass amounts and and bringing them to the states So at this point there was also I want you to to understand what's happening I want to give you a little bit of that historical context Because as a result it's something that the islamic caliphate said We actually have to move the capital of the caliphate because of the level Of of harm and war that we're fighting on an ongoing basis. Sometimes we think of slavery think oh They distilled people that was it We don't know that they were actually people who were fighting on the forefront to do their best to kind of push back against it And so they move the caliphate and then there was also an internal conflict To be honest between between the muslims And part of the internal conflict and just you know, we we have to tell that is it okay if we tell ourselves the truth of our history Is that okay? Okay, because that you know, it's not usually my way to sugarcoat things But so I want you to understand that the muslims in west africa are in a war against basically the the europeans From the portuguese to the british that basically because of the encroachment of slavery And then there's a war that's happening We'll just say with some of the northern tribes not all but some of the north african tribes Against some of the west african tribes because they were some of we'll just say there were groups of folks that were that were saying Well, you know, we were warring with you guys. It's okay to say to sell you into slavery for a number of reasons The details of that we can talk about later if you if you want But the point is Is that he moved the caliphate? And there is a war on two fronts Right like we're trying to solve an internal conflict Right while at the same time we have a very large enemy from the outside And the daughter of the uh, basically of the caliph at once shehua with mandemphoria who was growing up And when she began she was in her young 20s Basically she herself was also a half of quran She was considered someone who was a master of maliki fiqh She was also a poet But she decided basically the way that these men are behaving and fighting amongst themselves. I've got no time for it She literally started a woman's movement of her own Loha akibara And this movement basically is she decided You know what because inside of that so you've got this political War going on inside of that the muslim community of some not all Are debating whether or not women because of because of what's happening should women go out Maybe we should shut down the girls schools Of because at that time that there were very large institutions where women when girls were memorizing quran and learning maliki fiqh There was like a a push it always happens during conflict political conflict. It becomes a question Maybe We in order to protect our women we should keep them at home Right that we shouldn't let them go out to the institution out of fear nana asma'u May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala continue to just elevate her rank and expand her decided i'm not having that So basically she began with a group of women in her area And she said what is that feedback? right that far So basically she started with a small group of women And she brought these women together and she was like listen This is what we got to do There are number one We have to make sure that women no matter where they are Understand their dean That they understand their personal relationship with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala That they don't become disconnected from the quran and their spiritual tradition We have to make sure that these women know their fit because this is also we're in spiritual warfare This is not just a political issue. We're in a matter of spiritual warfare We have to make sure that these women that their prayers are accepted On top of that subhanallah. She said that what happens in the midst of war Is that subhanallah the people that are most affected are women and children? So she said we have to make sure that these women also have their own means of economic empowerment And they have to know how to do it in a halal manner They have to know how do they start their own businesses and have their own businesses And they're going to do it according to fiqh not according to we just got to do what we got to do But they were going to know how to do it so that those women would have a tofiq inside of their affairs She also said we know that subhanallah She said in some of these areas that people don't have you know people don't actually have Access to water we have to make sure that people always have access to water That we want to make we have to still take care of our people because when the caliphate when the caliphate moves, right? Then basically it's like the capitals going they they her fear was like now the capitol is going to be that place Where people you know the elite can also move but everybody can't move Everyone can't afford to move who's got a tissue for me? I ain't tissue Somebody have a tissue does that go ahead? We know what's happening. Thank you So she understood that everybody can't move but also she understood that because of the encroachment of slavery I want us to think about it for a minute if you go into a region And you steal The most You steal basically let's say those that could be the labor and the ones who were going to be able to do the work And we're not just talking about the farmers, right? We're also talking about the muscle We're also talking about the stealing of the army. We're also talking about the stealing of the teachers We're talking about the stealing of the uh of the builders of the craftsmen We're talking about those who do construction. We're talking about the doctors We're talking about the quran teacher. We're talking about we're not sometimes we think it's just one class If we say we're gonna steal Right majority of this place Who's going to be left? The weak The vulnerable And so what she says is you know what happens in these situations is sometimes they won't have they won't have proper access to food We've got to make sure that these populations are still taking care of And lastly she said of course in these situations Is that if you know if women are having babies If people are getting sick because of not having clean water they've got to have access to health care So basically she started with a small group of women And to make a long story short Every time she would go into a village And she would make sure that the that village would have those five things She would always come and teach sacred knowledge Making sure that they knew their dean properly. They knew uh they they studied akida. They would study maliki fiq Uh she would make sure then that they had some kind of economic arm by which those women would be able to sustain themselves She would so then she would also build a school And she would build a clinic And she'd then train a group of women who were in that village that she would train them to the point that now I can hand over this project to you So you don't if if they tell you you can't come into the masjid you don't have to worry about it Because your job is to make sure that these women the women in this particular area Know their dean fully intact And that they are not dependent upon anyone economically because they know how to sustain themselves That they have established their own businesses when it comes to she looked at okay Who are the midwives and the converse one right and we can train one of you to be the midwife Then your job is to train somebody else and to get an apprentice. So then we're taking care of our own health care She did that in over 800 villages I know raise your hand if you're like, can I just have a piece of just a little bit? Just a teeny bit, right? So i'm like wait a minute first you didn't just train and in every in every village she went to she made sure she left a group of women Who were basically who were at a scholarly level? That they could then train the other women that they then became responsible to date We still have the we still have that Definitely throughout Senegal definitely throughout places in Nigeria and Gambia and Mauritania You have places where women have their own centers their own quran memorization centers They study Maliki Fiqh They have their own what they like a they call it even they call it a susu in terms of the way they support each other I tell us this to say that a lot of times as women I give you this this story To it's it's exactly what we're talking about when we talk about Having a level of faith right and resilience And knowing what is you you don't actually need to know it all And you don't actually need the support of every man in the masjid I I I know please maybe you know, so I'll close the doors because I don't want nobody to get mad But in our you know, sometimes we're so focused on well the men won't let me or I you know The men are holding us back or the blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah right Whatever it is as opposed to let them run their affairs and let us run ours Right that they are not basically look for the path of least resistance I'm not concerned somehow allow you as women you're raising men You're raising them So if you want something different then you make something different Right you want a different reality for the next generation You're the one responsible for that trust me Trust me So when I think about subhanallah us like even you know, all of you are familiar with the kubaisi movement Right inside of syria. Yes. No Alhamdulillah What was it? It was a group of women who said I don't know what these men are teaching. No, am I concerned? But I know where subhanallah the if I if we get to the root of all of them If I get to the um of the umma If I get to the roots of this force, that's where the change is going to happen All right, that's where it's going to happen And we subhanallah in america. We've gotten it. We've gotten it so twisted That we're so we're so busy and it's funny because on one hand We understand it If I say to you the power of the you know powers with the people you understand that Well, somehow you're more concerned about the imam than the people who are following him When the imam does not actually get any azad unless the people unless he has a jamal and if you're contingent you're if you're in Contingent making your dean contingent upon you're in front something like that Okay, you know what i'm trying to say though, right? If you're just pinning Your dean on this one person When you yourself Right, and I see it I we're not knowledgeable about our own dean So if the imam makes a mistake and he you know he's if he salams out in the third rakaat And you know that therefore but you don't know what you're supposed to do You also have a personal responsibility To know your dean We have a personal and alhamdulillah. Well, shukrillah. You have enough teachers Inside of your kid much. I'm actually impressed with you to be honest. I'm very impressed with you in the bay Like you you you can't you guys can't cry that we don't have female scholars.  Some of you. I mean masha allah to barak al-ahman You're probably in this room alone We probably have about a hundred powerhouses in this room alone But we have to act collectively We have to be those women who are saying I don't know what's going on out there nor am I really concerned Right that I know what's happening in here I know what I'm I'm I'm concerned about making sure that we stay consistent And yes, alhamdulillah, it cannot just be on the you know, yes, it's on a religious standpoint. It's important Alhamdulillah, I want to talk a little bit about the way that we are Addressing as women. I hope y'all don't get mad at me. If you do, it's okay. I love you anyway How we as women are beginning to address the what I would say the incumbent I don't know. I'm my English is lacking these days make do after me The encroaching threat that's what I want to say That we have a number of threats To you to your to your daughters to the to your most basic identity But are we using the methods of islam and the prophetic example and the teaching that we've been given in order to address it and if you are waiting for men I'm gonna tell you a funny story And it's I wish it was funny, but it's not really I was at a conference let's just say in the conference there was a moment of like difficulty so there was a break And then it was like, okay, let's huddle up and figure out how are we going to address uh Basically the the conflict that happened in the session So we came to convene And as we were convening I wasn't in the session. I knew what the session was about. I wasn't in that session for a reason But when it came to convene they said can you please come and Uh, you know help us figure out how we're going to go back and and to address the problem So I said, Bismillah in the course of that Someone who is a scholar Graduated with many degrees in Islamic studies Also has multiple degrees. Let's say in a in the American uh from an American academic standpoint Said to me The truth is sister Aisha Is that we don't have any idea what you women are talking about He said i'm just gonna be very honest with you. I said, please be He said when you women talk about that you guys get broken He's like, I don't know what that broken is I literally was like Are you for real? He's like i'm being honest I don't know what you're talking about In that moment I said to myself, I actually didn't try to explain it Then I realized We're depending on someone To teach us the Islamic sciences of the heart That have no idea about About not just the condition of your heart, but the anatomy of your heart So we're expecting someone to do heart surgery on us It doesn't even know What is in your heart? What is your heart? How does it work? Immediately I said at that moment, I need to call all my sisters who study Who are in this work? and say It's important that Just For now, I don't mean this in a bad. I don't mean it in a bad way. It's not a it's not a um A discredit to them That's that's not my fear. I'm not worried about that's not about a discredit to them It became a serious charge for us Sometimes we're looking at somebody else's inadequacy when in reality you are the change that you're looking for And so when I think about the story of Nana Asmo She there's something that you have been gifted with as women It's a it's a it's like a gift That Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala just adorned you with That other people just didn't get it And it's it's like the it's literally the filament in a light bulb That mashallah the casing Right Right. It looks like it's out front. It looks like it's the light bulb But really it's the filament inside That makes it work. That's what you are and so I go back to say this When we respond To our circumstances our societal circumstances in a with a philosophy or a methodology that is Not consistent With the Quran and the prophetic example Number one, we lose credibility That's the first thing We lose credibility And number two Eventually, it's going to harm our own selves. Let me give you an example In the feminist movement They rah rah rah And philosophize themselves Out of their own identity So the whole point initially Was to talk about our empowerment as women And to talk about this is my place as women and to fight for the rights of women. That was the point, right? That was the point But see when you keep acting out of a way That's not serat al mustaqim That's not a straight path Now you're not a woman The one who was a woman is no longer a woman. She's a birthing person A chess feeder Anybody can be you Actually your womanhood is not that it's a commodity We could just change some parts And then anybody can be you Not only we just change your parts and anybody can be you I could just claim it and you must call me that And your rights that you had that you fought for Whether it be in the sports realm or in other realms you soldier you said yourself you were so equal so same We were the same same same same then men say well then we're the same So now we compete and we're the same So now you're that now men can command now men who claim to be women can now compete with you And then say well you have no problem that you should lose because i'm a woman too So going back to what I was saying as it relates to Meaning that when we you can you can have Actually a righteous intention But if you don't have the correct methodology for how to address the problem Then you'll actually end up with a bigger problem than what you started with So in our situation as muslim women What we did they they they spoke to our pain They spoke to certain in certain injustices that were happening with us They spoke to the to the issues of gender injustice But because they used a man-made model in order to address the problem Literally in the end it becomes something that by which we're almost becoming a renegade out of our dean So when we look at our when we look at the likes of nana, I smile what I love about the her methodology That's just so weird, right? But don't worry we're gonna pray Right Right they definitely right okay So the the point is that in the case of nana I smile what I loved about the way that she said we need to address the problem Is that the first thing is that these women have to know their dean? Hey Now at that time there wasn't a question And I I actually find this beautifully and uncanny That there there's something that you don't actually You don't have to tell a woman who's raised in tradition about being a woman Like the thought that somebody else can be a woman for her that's laughable But the fact that we are in 2023 somehow thinking that now we are the first people to somehow come up with like this great idea is laughable But We as muslim women Have actually began right to even start studying taking up four or five years Of study on something without first having a proper foundation and our akida What if I were to ask you from an akida standpoint, who are you as a woman? Right and if you tell me a mother I'm gonna shout from the top of my lungs Because our mother ish already Allah was definitely a woman and she never had children If we look at you know queen asya The woman who raised musa who's known as one of the most four perfect women Right, she never had children So we are that's the my whole point is that we are You know somehow even like we're invested and we're following these and we're down for this and we're following this method That's the method i'm gonna go we have mistaken when we talk about resilience and resistance We have come to a resistance movement Misunderstanding that our resistance is a resistance to shaitan and the and the dijal and his army and their thinking and their ways and their methodology That our resistance is a submission to Allah no matter what That's our resistance That our resilience is to stand up for this is you won't you will not encroach upon dean And you as women subhanallah you're you're you are created to be hafidhaatil and ghaib Haafidhaatil and ghaib meaning that you are the preservers of the unseen when we look I want you to understand this about yourself because it's so significant What does it mean for Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to name you as the hafidhaatil and ghaib The first thing is that i'll give you an example in our mother khadija Right or even in the in the mother of musa in the mother of musa. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is giving her in ham He's speaking to her while haina in a only musa that he's given her revelation that i'm going to inspire you and to protect Something and you're the way that you're going to protect and guard over you have no idea that This is this is about to be serious Like the mother of musa is holding a big secret that we don't talk about The mother of musa is told by Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala don't worry I'm going to return him to you and i'm going to make him from amongst the messengers. Is that not revelation? But this is this this is the secret that she's holding and her job is to be a guardian over that Which hasn't been told yet About that which hasn't been revealed yet When we look at our mother khadija Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala anha and the way that she loves and takes care of And supports the prophet sallallahu alayhi wa alayhi wa sallam Allah put her in that position Because of her qualities because of what she brings to the table And i'm not talking about her finances I'm talking about her character What is she preserving? What is she protecting? She's protecting rahmat al alamin We could go into some of there's so many So many aspects of what it means, but you're this is why even historically Women were known to be the preservers of ahadid they're known to be the preservers of the prophetic tradition That's the role we've played in society until now Right that you are the preservers of prophetic tradition That the way that someone one of the key ways to know whether or not a hadith was sound was whether or not It was what there's a woman in its chain because she's never known to be a fabricator To fabricate a hadith So I just want to say that as we're talking about this, you know There are number of enemies that you've got to be resilient over And i'm sure sheka samir o you've heard it and especially what are your four enemies? shaitan nefs shaitan or iblis You know, do you know iblis comes from Oh, okay. I'll tell you in a minute. Let's first get to it. So Dunya hobu dunya love of dunya. These are your four enemies Iblis comes from the root word belasa, which means to be hopeless So one of the biggest things that that house shaitan comes to you and whispers to you Is that sense of it's not going to get any better That sense of hopelessness.  They're not responding. They're not listening as opposed to Why are you even inside my framework?  You've got to study the women and our in within the prophetic tradition Subhanallah, you guys are all familiar with new sabah on the model, right? For me, that's like that. I just love her. She's like one of my You know my great loves Where subhanallah, she's she's in the tent of women who were helping the wounded And the men subhanallah the archers on the mound descend from their position in the battle of uhud And she can see the warring army coming from one side and the prophets and the line is on them coming up on the other All right, and she does this I stand there come with these men. Oh my god Let me go running around and tell these men what they need to do. No. She just ran up the mountain right stood between The soldiers and the prophets on the line. You I need something to sign that And she defended the prophets on the line to send them and saves his life until they realize. Oh my goodness We need to go back to our position Why did she do that? Because she's a preserver That who we are is that we're someone who are preservers of this dean and so We can't throw our dean behind our back thinking that we're That islam is that what you'll press us and I've got to run towards some kind of Anything liberation of any type that's somehow going to set me for free.  You don't know what you are So it becomes Incumbent upon us Number one. I've already said it. Like I said, I'm emphasizing in 10 different ways We've got to come together to study our own dean and become rooted We've got to know it like know it like know it like know it like know it And then we've got to come together and build institution together And we've got to make sure there's a there's a care and concern That we have to have for each other on a regular basis Do you need anything that I know you just had a baby? Let's get this rotation going make sure you have food You know, there should be definitely there should be no one in our in our community That's why I don't think nobody in the bay is hungry. No A lot of people hungry in the bay MCC feeds 400 people That's that shameful don't be that shameful Like in a place so wealthy like for there to be people who act that's that shameful That shameful Yeah, so we have to make baham dunilah. You guys are organizing. You're feeding people, right? There are people who are involved with that. You want to be involved with that? That's one of the first commandments that the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam gave when he entered into medina Give salam and feed people Right, so how do you that you you guys are doing that? But that's I I cannot say enough enough enough enough Even when we're thinking about going into business when we're thinking about organizing You you got to ask what are the rulings on how do we how do we do that? How do we do it so that we can be sure we're having tolfiq with afya and that we're doing it According to the way a law and his messenger have decreed. What are the rules and regulations about that? So that we can have success if you're doing it. What are you? So Testing you know testing on an individual level that part is promise Allah say you will you will did you think that you will be left alone and not be tested saying you believe in not be tested? Of course you will like that's the part of the you know That's a part of the process you squeeze a lemon. What are you gonna get? Lemon juice if you squeeze an apple. What are you gonna get? Huh Apple juice you squeeze a movement. What are you gonna get?  How do we start a movement? How do we do it? So the first thing even like nana asma, they started with a small group of women and it's women who are committed So, you know what i notice in these situations like you say, okay, we're going to do a year intensive And inside of that year intensive. We're gonna study akida. We're gonna study feq. We're gonna study certain verses Let's just say i'm gonna say some a highlighted verses from the quran Then you train those women on those particular things and those verses are pretty much connected, of course to their ibadah But also connected to their circumstances. So you train those women now You're gonna start out with 40 in the end you have about 10 It's just The nature of it. Oh, I got this. This is why this is why i'm that's that's fine That's i'm always like it does it just takes a few to make a difference amongst many So panala you with that 10 once you train them. How do you do that? Now they have responsibilities All right, whether it be in a masjid or in a general community and their job is they need to train at least five All right, preferably those women are also from other places. So if you did it online All right, preferably those women are from other places The other thing is is that so that's your women who are knowledgeable You need to find out also who are the who are the women in business who are the women in finance Who are the women who are the who are the the money makers in the community? And so really those women have to also be committed They should have some training as it relates to like these are like these are the So there's a really great sheikh male bless him But I think also get them They have some basically the rules around like non-profit work and you know things like that that also related to business as well And you start with them a social enterprise And we say okay from these from this group and that may be larger They say okay, we give this this much to get so in the susu what they do Um and for example in west africa is the women say we're going to support this particular business That's run by That that'll be run even also by the community Um, I'll give you a perfect example. You ever heard of an organization called 10 000 villages So listen, but 10 000 villages is a group of women Who go to different places in the in the world? It's a little bit. They're christian men and night women They're basically they buy different products fair trade from different that are used just they're produced by different people They sell them in a store in america. They bought they bought this for 75 cents. They sell it for 75 dollars Just being honest. I've seen it right But they have a store They use it actually to run their church Most people don't know that they're they're they're men and I they're they're now Also, the women who work in the place are part of that church and they're just volunteering so many hours or whatever a week All right, and so then it it becomes back recycled Now, I don't know if they use it for particular causes But I said then we should use it for particular causes that are specifically related to women So what are some of the initiatives you guys have in the community? Like that are specifically related to women Hurry up. Yes. What was it? Oh, yes, right Like the domestic violence shelter and they always need funding they always need help So it's like, okay This particular business venture that we came up with whatever the model it is that we're selling That the proceeds from it at least, you know, of course You've got what you need in order to run it and to pay the employees But then in addition to that we can say this much 80 percent or whatever the profits Or we can even say the hundred percent of the profits once we've taken care of the business side of it Then goes towards the domestic violence shelter and then repeat Right, then you do it as it relates to to other things Then you've got my show now you guys have a portion of it already Like this 10-year program mentorship program that you guys have been doing here in this masjid with the young girls Like that is that's huge Right, that's one of the things that also does it but then you say, okay They're a group of there's some of them who are going to be who have the aptitude to be who found All right, there's some of them Masha Allah who can who can study some fiqh and we can like really train them So it's like then we start training them because the truth is and they can be small Do you guys you got right my foundation? So you just have a have a an elm arm of it Right And they're just their whole thing is Like their their job is to make sure that you they study this dean and they have but they have an assignment Right, so I heard that there are women who actually work together here in the bay But they're a part of different masjid So now that one of those young women who've just finished right now her job is she's stationed at this masjid And she's going to run this young Women's holoca, whatever whatever whatever for however long and this one is not going to run this woman's holoca for however long Eventually you have a women's movement Especially if every year you come together, let's say for a women's retreat or women's conference But and those are the women who are running and they're teaching it you have a that's going to sprint Pretty much. That's what they did to us today Like in the end We're majority at least the ones who were in america Then you got like macaw seed you got What is it greensville trust in the uk they all end up going somewhere and establishing something resources educational resources Oh, no, that's not oh There's a book You know so sad the first woman that um is known in the in the known the more modern world to write A story about her was young. Uh, what's her name Jean clothes something John oh called the it's called the the cali the caliph's daughter The caliph's daughter Jean Boyd Jean Boyd wrote a book called the caliph's daughter gives her a whole life story. Masha'Allah robbata did uh They have like a feature on there about her like an article about her But if you look her up now she is something it's amazing that now she's becoming more and more and more known Um But her project was a very similar project that we have in the gambi is called the yantaro project So yantaro means mit the blessed collective and it was the collective of women And so it's actually the yantaro Organization that actually is what you know, so the collective also has a double meaning also means the sisterhood And so it's these women that you know would go and and do these villages very similar to Yeah Even so how long if we with the organization right like we're talking about from the economic arm if you start a business Whether it's an online business rock about the foundation. I'm just saying rock my foundation decided they're gonna sell he jabs online Right, so the proceeds from those he jabs that are being sold online Will then actually go meaning she the message doesn't have to give money for that sister to go teach Right the sisters who are part of that collective they pay money for her to go teach Right and could be somewhere else. Oh, wow. I need to yes They can go to chicago like okay.  I'm job in chicago, but but but it can be right The thing is is that we you know, so i love you You guys are paying all kind of you paying the imams you're paying But if you want a women's if you want women to succeed and to be able to have access Right for daughters all over because the truth is we need it at this point. We need it We're you know the um I can even the emotional and gender intelligence I don't know you have it. Yes, somebody had a question Yeah, the caliph's sister. Thank you So shehul with mandem folio and that's very important when shehul with mandem folio Rahm to laleh when he passed away Uh, mohammed bellow became the caliph her brother became the caliph And so there was kind of like this, you know big thing and she you know, basically when he came to power Then she was like, okay, you run that Politics that I got to make sure that we have that the women are taking care of So this one is a tough one. Let me say this when it comes to you studying Oh when it comes to studying if your husband is not in alignment with you studying The first thing is that you don't have a choice in that matter because it's the matter of your father's mind So it's your responsibility. It's your duty to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to go to study Now we do have to make it easy for each other.  I mean, that's not that's a in that case.  That's it. No, come on now um That but however if it's There are more resources that are accessible and available Now when it comes to if you're not able to study like for example, if there's you know Akita is not being taught in your region and you need to go to Minnesota Right you need to go to minnesota to take this class You know for a few months because it's not being taught. Okay.  Yes, I did them But I'm also I'm the only Muslim in my family Right and I'm the youngest of eight girls So there wasn't there I there was no mahram, you know that could take me. Let me say that there was no brother There was no uncle You know that was going to take me overseas And at the time when I began studying I was married. So I did have permission To go and study. So that's a different That's a very different case that I had permission to go study. So I love your humble Any other questions Let me also say this There needs to be a lot of dua and in qiyamulayn in sujood Regarding the marriages of our community Pray for each other and each other's marriages because that's like you make dua for your sister It's it's you know a dua almost a job. It's accepted It's also something that is a very it's it's a very difficult situation to be in where you feel like I want to study I want to be more Committed to my dean, but I don't have someone who is supportive of that and that's usually based upon either one or two things Either because that person is concerned And we have to we also have to take on this concern either that person is concerned that okay You're going to become knowledgeable and expose what expose me for what I don't know So there's an insecurity in your spouse That's one aspect The other thing is is that there may be a fear that Um and this happens. I've seen this happen. You're right. We have to tell the truth about this I've seen women like oh get knowledgeable and then you know, you're going home like Was you don't know that and you don't know you're far than I well if you studied your akita brother Well, you know, like we we get a little sassy Right, and so it's important that as we study and as where you cannot be studying I'm gonna be honest whatever you're studying that's you know Tosov and tesquia has to be has to be a part of that like akhla has to be a part of that um because if if if ilm Made you arrogant Think you missed the point right and so and if Especially if that brother is financially supporting you I don't know the case right. I don't know the situation.  My sister's gonna recite it for me. Where is she? No, she stopped out but i'm gonna recite tell you in english And like Allah talks about the patience and when you have patience, right? Have patience until Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala gives you a way out I remember when I I find it amazing surah to toba Surah to toba surah toba Sorry, surah to toba and it's about that if you're patient that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala will give you a way out And don't think that that means exactly don't think that that means like oh, i'm glad Don't think that means of divorce. No inshallah. That means Allah will open up his heart Allah will soften his heart that Allah will increase him in knowledge and understanding by which then, you know You studying you being more religious mean you being more committed to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala It's is easier on you may Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala make it easier on you may Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala bless All of our sisters that are having that are struggling in their marriage Out of especially that are that are struggling in ways by which they want to be more committed to Allah May Allah yalla be blessed their husbands to be more understanding more compassionate and increase them in knowledge and wisdom Make do offer your husband. Please don't just you know, we have enough divorces make do offer him Allah give him he died a lot I'm going to introduce a standard maniam amir who is the creator of the free app kariah The woman could on reciter's app now available on google play and app store. Masha Allah. Masha Allah. So you got it down If you did if you haven't downloaded this app this app has has really transformed So many women's experience listening to and reciting Quran Masha Allah like it was my companion app Dama ban You know like you know when you like have a goal, but you can't quite get there But you have to like I do a read-along sometimes Because it helps me like with pacing when I'm deliriously tired And that was my app so And then they have like The faster cider the medium reciter the slower cider so you can choose your favorite So yes, I'll take the percent of uh, you know royalty I was just gonna say She's not paid for the not paid advertisement or promotion much a lot from Allah some patterns Right, so it's q a r i a h And app a pp and uh, we can inshallah Share that oh, you don't have your little tea. I can't believe I forgot my cure cuts. It's okay. So, um That's a big thing that masha Allah said that many of them does she received her master's in education from UCLA She holds a second bachelor's degree in Islamic studies through Allah's heart She studied in Egypt memorized the Quran has researched a variety of religious sciences Tafsir Fik Sida masha Allah commentaries human rights women's rights So many things in the last 15 years. She's host of the Quran champion series on islam channel She has been interviewed by for her work by major news outlets Like bbc npr and cbs her focus is on spiritual spiritual connections identity actualization Social justice and women's studies Um, all of that has humbled her to get to sorry. I'm just fumbling because I'm really tired Wait, wait, wait, just one really quick Alhamdulillah about a month ago I had the honor of being and masjid al aqsa and the iman of masjid al aqsa He points to kind of like a membar that you can see off in the distance and he says there is a school there That 20 000 women scholars have graduated from and they would teach in masjid al aqsa And they would travel to syria and they would go to syria and they would teach in syria And masjid al aqsa is this incredible incredible area. Subhanallah. It's abadakullah Not a single space of it has not been walked upon by a prophet Not a single space of it whether a prophet or an angel has not been occupied by that space This is a land of blessing. This is a blessed space and in that space What we see is this history of woman scholars, this history of woman teachers like umad darudat as-sohra radi allahu anha may allah spanthal be pleased with her That she came and she would teach where the dome of the rock now is Inside or outside and then when her lessons were done the khalif at the time would come He was her mahram. He would hold her hand and they would walk to masjid al qibli where he would lead salat Many times when people see masjid al aqsa There's this like that's not actually masjid al aqsa That's the dome of the rock and it's interesting because that's not correct The dome of the rock is one masjid of five that is within the compound of masjid al aqsa So when you see that other one that everyone says that's the real masjid al aqsa that is Masjid it's called masjid al qibli But it's one masjid of many masjid within the massive compound of masjid al aqsa and within this compound Subhanallah when umar radi allahu anhu Came into Jerusalem came to get the keys to masjid al aqsa to quts to quts The very first time that the adhan was going to be called in quts The very first muslim to pray in masjid al aqsa after the prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam himself had prayed there When umar radi allahu anhu takes the keys and he comes in and then it's a much longer story But just focusing on the aspect of going into the place of aqsa He didn't know where aqsa actually was because at that time What happened was the christians who had ruled previously Remember surah al rum surah rum surah rum where allah sapan al ta'ala says that they are going um fi bil lor i sinin that allah sapan al ta'ala is going to uh, he he prophesizes It's allah sapan al ta'ala he's telling them He's telling them that the room the romans have been defeated, but they're going to get it back They're going to they're going to defeat the persians and this is like shocking at the time But what happened is the persians had destroyed this area of masjid al aqsa Then the christians came and they were not respectful of the area of masjid al aqsa So it had been turned into a dump masjid al aqsa was a physical dump It was a place in the space of time where crusaders would keep it as a pig pen It was a place where you can still see the markings of the crusaders where they would latch their horses To the walls because they would keep it like a stable So this area when um aradiyallahu anhu comes in he doesn't exactly know where's the actual like Play spaces of worship And so one of the companions who used to be jewish who had converted to islam showed him aradiyallahu anhu where And then he asked bilal aradiyallahu anhu to make the adhan now bilal had been the muazzin of medina But he had left medina after the prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam passed away He used to make the adhan in medina And then the prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam passed and he couldn't bear To make the adhan in the city where the beloved sallallahu alayhi wasallam was resting Where the beloved sallallahu alayhi wasallam asked him to make the adhan And when he would come upon the name of the prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam in the adhan The the pain of the entire city and hearing the adhan it was so different after the loss of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. So Bilal radiallahu anhu asked for permission to leave Medina and he was going with a group of people including Abad ibn Sumaat and he was part of the Fatah of al-Aqsa and when he was part of the Fatah of al-Aqsa and Umar asked him to make the Adhan initially he said no and then Umar radiallahu anhu encouraged and saying if the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam was here he would want him to make the Adhan. So Bilal radiallahu anhu made the Adhan and when he made the Adhan, Umar radiallahu anhu just fell to his knees sobbing. It was the first time the companions had heard the Adhan from Bilal radiallahu anhu but can you imagine that now it's in Masjid al-Aqsa? Can you imagine that now it's with the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam led all of the prophets? Can you imagine that this is a space where the angels have been and the angels have come and Angel Jibril alayhi sallam gives the revelation to Miriam alayhi sallam that she's going to become the mother of Jaisa to Zakiri alayhi sallam that he's been he's answered in his dua that he's been making and making SubhanAllah this space is where Um Haram bint Milhan, the companion radiallahu anhu was with her husband Ubadah ibn Slamet. Ubadah ibn Slamet is buried right outside of the wall of Masjid al-Aqsa. So if you go to the compound there are graves on one side outside of the of the compound and you can his grave is literally at the wall with another companion Shaddad ibn Aus radiallahu anhu. When you go to see Ubadah ibn Slamet radiallahu anhu he is buried right at the wall where Masjid al-Aqsa is. This was one of the first scholars and judges of this whole area in Palestine. This is just the opening the fats of this area and who was with him Um Haram bint Milhan radiallahu anhu. So when we talk about 20,000 women scholars who graduated, 20,000 women scholars who taught in Aqsa and went to Syria, think about where that tradition began. It began with the women companions themselves. Why? Because the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam took a nation who would bury their daughters alive and mentored them to learn from women as their teachers. So Um Haram she was actually a relative of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam and it could have been through blood lineage or it could have been through rodoa. It might have been because of the way that they would have the nursing system where if there's lineage that's established when people nurse each other's children. And so the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam would go and would sleep at her home. This is his aunt and it wasn't just her she also had a sister Um Sulaym radiallahu anhu. And their stories are so powerful because of who their personalities were and because of the fact that they were so intentional despite the hardship that they faced, the resilience that they showed and the intentionality of their worship as women. His one, the Subhan Allah, we see the Um Haram was there when the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam woke up smiling from a dream. He had this beautiful dream and she asked him what are you why are you smiling and the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam had fallen asleep because she was massaging his hair. Sulallahu alayhi wa sallam she was looking for something in his hair and could you imagine the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam carrying the message of Islam, carrying the worry of the whole umma, worried about his own family members, worried about his own daughter, losing his own son, losing every single one of his children except for Faltima radiallahu anhu.  The Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam doesn't respond with don't you know the fact that you're you have a prophet falling asleep taking naps in your home is enough for paradise for you. The Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam's response wasn't well you have responsibilities to your husband and your children. The Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam's response was you will be with them and another narration making to offer her sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. We have other narrations of mothers coming and asking about their reward and the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam teaches us that their reward is in taking care of their home is in taking care of their children is in taking care of their husband. Every single woman companion had a different lifestyle life reality personality life objective and what's so powerful in the seerah is that we see that their aims for islam were appreciated by the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam whether it was the Benu ghi farah tribe the woman of the Benu ghi farah tribe coming and asking to help nurse the wounded and the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam at the battle of khaybar saying with the blessing of Allah giving them the blessings of coming or in another circumstance where it would be better for a woman to pray in her home because of the dynamic she had with her husband. Every single person's reality was reflected in the society of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam and it's an obligation upon us as women really to mirror the nuances of that dynamic so that we don't have young women who go into a masjid space and many of us are blessed with MCC here and some some of you asked the question in the other session we do have a couple of amazing masjid but what about all those masjid that don't have that example and where we don't feel like we can have a space and where our daughters grow up or our sons grow up not seeing that as what should be normative access what about for them and the message when someone grows up in that way not knowing that Islam is actually for every single one of us no matter what we are going through the resilience that we're showing inshallah that really can shift the way a person has their relationship with Islam in general and i get messages like that every single week and those of you who are from the generation of mothers and grandmothers in this room i'm seeing you nodding your heads and maybe you've seen that in your own lives maybe you've seen that in the lives of your children maybe you've seen that in the lives of of your peers whose grandchildren are making a different decision and it's a very difficult one to acknowledge when we see that there could be a different reality if we were to mirror the society of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam um haram radiallahu anha she wanted to go on this expedition and aisha radiallahu anha she taught us a statement from the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam that the best jihad for a woman is what what is it no but that's very nice try may Allah bless you louder not a no but very nice try hajj hajj is hajj the answer is hajj but i love that multiple people said taking care of the family that is a jihad first may Allah bless every single one of you in every single way reward you all and the men and all of our oma amin and so aisha radiallahu anha learns from the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam this narration after the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam passes away aisha radiallahu anha wants to make hajj again because of this narration because of the strength of this narration and her seeing that it is the best type of worship for women so she goes with the women the mothers of the believers not all of them the majority of them wanted to go for an extra hajj because aisha radiallahu anha had already made hajj with the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam the obligatory hajj and what happened to her when she went yes she got her period and what did she do she cried she sobbed and when the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam saw her he comforted her he connected that moment of pain for her to a great grandfather adam alayhi sallam and what he taught her the rights of how to make hajj in this circumstance her sharing that narration is a gift for all of us until the end of time and subhanallah ibn tamia uh he was in a circumstance in his time period where he had to make a fatwa for what women should do when they are on their periods in hajj and they can't finish hajj before they leave before the time of ibn tamia there was a political uh there was political support for hajj which meant that the ruler or the rulers of the area they would have hajj caravans go out to meet the hajjj on their way back so you're you're going through the desert for days months almost a year depending on the place that you're coming from and there are bandits in the desert you don't have water and food so they had these caravans that would meet the hajj caravans they would meet them on the way and they would provide for them the the provision that they needed and the protection because if you're constantly meeting caravans there's less of a chance that there's going to be some sort of bandit coming through and trying to take your provision or even murder some of the individuals on the caravan but during that time the ruling class shifted and they no longer put the the policy of protection for the hajj that was suddenly gone and so the hajjj who would come into mecca and the woman who used to stay longer with their caravan to complete hajj after their period these caravans started to leave immediately and they were scared because if they're going to stay to complete the hajj just because they're on their period and it's only going to be one caravan of their relatives or just a few people that's not enough protection in the desert for months at a time sometimes and so ibn Taymiah looked at the reality of women and individuals losing their lives and their property because now they are stragglers on their own without the state's protection and so he made a ruling that he said he hit the people before the scholars before him didn't even have to think about this issue it never came up for them but now he made a ruling that if a woman is in hajj and she's on her period or Amra and she's on her period and she's not going to finish before she leaves and you can't always wait for hajj groups to wait for you and also realistically it's extremely expensive to delay for another week not everyone has that type of financial capacity you can't always leave your children for another week or your job for another week or whatever the circumstance and so now because of because of Aisha radi allahu anha going through that experience and ibn Taymiah going through an experience in his lifetime woman today can go for hajj or Amra and make hajj or Amra if you are going to be there and your period is not going to finish while you are there and you cannot extend your stay then you can just go ahead and make hajj or Amra in that state now there's a difference of opinion on this issue the Hanafis for example say that a sacrifice is required Ibn Taymiah doesn't hold that position because he says it's out of her hands but different scholars had different opinions don't just take this one statement and go for hajj or Amra talk to your local imam get some more information this isn't intended to be a thick session on hajj or Amra the only reason i'm telling you this is because Aisha radi allahu anha despite the fact that she went through hajj with the prophet sallallahu wa sallam she saw hajj as the best jihad because of the teaching of the prophet sallallahu wa sallam so after the prophet sallallahu wa sallam passed away she wanted to go again and then when she wanted to go again she went to Amra radi allahu anhu who was the Khalifa at the time and he did not allow it because they did not have a mahram now when i was younger i was invited to go on an Amra group i was in college and a local masjid here asked me if i could go with a youth group as kind of like a guide like a hajj tour guide for the high school students and at the time i only followed the position that it was haram for me to travel without a mahram and i didn't even know there was another position so i asked a local scholar what why is it that there's the statement that Aisha radi allahu anha that she went for hajj like i mean yeah an extra hajj like if her mahram wasn't there he responded saying well Amra radi allahu anhu initially prohibited her from going he prohibited her from going so actually she was in the wrong that's what he told me but Amra radi allahu anhu if we look at the text that describe his response he allowed her because he was convinced by the strength of her proof he's not allowing her as the khalifa as the one who is responsible for an entire nation including the mothers of the believers who are the highest caliber amongst the highest companion and companions he's he's responsible for these decisions and so Amra radi allahu anhu convinced by her proof he sent Uthman and Abdu l-Rahman radi allahu anhu with her to go and make hajj with the mothers of the believers and so she had the state protection she had the state protection she had these great companions go with them and the reason that i wanted to mention any of that is because in that moment where that she told me well no she was wrong Amra radi allahu anhu didn't agree initially i have thought back to that moment so many times in my life and i thought why didn't he tell me that Amra radi allahu anhu himself accepted her proof why was it she was wrong and that was the end of the statement we're talking about aisha radi allahu anhu why couldn't i have been taught it's a difference of opinion why was i taught there's only one right answer and that perspective when we're looking at the woman companions is really one that shifts our perspectives of ourselves as women in islam because when um haram asks to go she could have said well aisha radi allahu anhu taught us that later on even if the statement about hajj was made later on she could have then said well actually you know there's there's a better form of worship it's hajj and that's what i should do which of course is a hundred percent true of quite the best is such such an important type of worship but she never amended her desire to go and she was 75 years old when abad and ibn swamit they had captured the Byzantine ships and for a long time he wanted to allow them to build a naval fleet and these are people of the desert they're not ready for a naval fleet so no but later on said yes and so this was the first group that was going on a naval fleet and she wanted to go with them as 75 years old because years ago she asked the prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam to be with that group of people and the prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam told her that she will be with them and this really speaks to the prophecies of the prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam also because in addition to the fact that he had this dream and it did come true because literally it could have just not come true but it did but she didn't have to go it could have been her own personal decision she might have passed away before that time literally anything could have happened to stop her from going but she was with them and it really speaks to the prophecies of the prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam when Faltima radiallahu anhu was told she was going to be the next one to pass away by the prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam amongst his family and she was when he told the mothers of the believers that the one with the longest hand is going to pass away first they were measuring hands but it actually meant the most generous one the prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam prophesied who would go to Allah swt next and every single time it was true because he's a prophet of God so when we see that um haram joins this battle we also see that her example is not in a vacuum because her sister um sulaym um sulaym there are multiple narrations of the prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam saying that he saw or he heard someone in paradise and it was her it was um sulaym in one narration he mentions the footsteps of bilal radiallahu anhu the palace of um radiallahu anhu and he mentions her so um sulaym radiallahu anha the sister of um haram so also a relative of the prophet sallallam she is one of these women who has a very feisty personality she has a feisty assertive aggressive personality she's one of the women of medina who are known to have these descriptions and um sulaym radiallahu anha at a battle she had a dagger and her husband abul talha is like wanting to tell the prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam like look at my wife and the prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam is like why do you have a dagger and she's she talks about how she's going to be there to defend she's going to make sure that there's no deserters from the muslim army but she's there that's the point that she is there and the prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam knows that she's there and her husband knows that she's there and she is present abul talha radiallahu anhu he is the one who married her after her husband passed away and who knows whose mother she is anas anas the one who we have so many a hadith from the servant of the prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam um sulaym was one of the first believers of yathrib before he became madina when musab ibn umayr radiallahu anhu was there making daawa to the people of yathrib she was one of the first people to accept islam and her son there's a category of women in the companions and that category is called the woman who accepted islam before their husbands the woman who accepted islam before their families these are the mothers that accepted islam and guided their children to accept islam she guided anas radiallahu anhu from the time of childhood her husband came back after he was on a like a like a trade trip and he noticed that something was different about them and he was not happy about her conversion and then he went on another trade trip and he died and she was considered to be exceedingly beautiful and she was known to be like a noble woman and so now a lot of men want to marry her and abul talha is like her level so he comes to her and wants to marry her and abul talha there is one thing that she asked for him as her maha who knows what it is yes his conversion to islam i have a lot of people tell me that their child who's in college or a young young professional wants to get married to a man but the man is open to converting he's actually completely open to becoming muslim but they're worried that it's not really islam because you know it's actually out of interest for the daughter and so they don't want to say yes and i just think a lot you don't know who's what is going to be the the the the moment where someone becomes muslim they find islam they accept it okay maybe the rule that they didn't find islam other than through this woman but they found islam their co-workers are interested and then they learn about islam through her they confer out of yeah it's a general i agree with okay it's in general i agree they i could believe in that but they're really converting because they're interested in getting married even though they accept the shahada and now they're a muslim and they they may not pray five times a day they may still be doing other things but they generally accept it but i've seen those people become the most committed to islam in their families i've seen that they are the ones who can help their spouse go from not praying at all to praying five times a day go from their children not caring about islam at all to helping them love the masjid you don't know what moment is going to be the reason someone really falls in love not just with the person but with islam so abul talha radi allahu anhu he wasn't interested in islam at first he learned about islam through um sulayn and she would ask him like are you really worshiping idols like are you legitimately worshiping wood that like if you got cold you would break it and use it for fire you're worshiping that and abul talha subhanallah is one of the one of the greatest companions radi allahu anhu ma so this woman who has this intense personality and her sister who wants to be with the group who goes in cyprus this this this household is also the one that the prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam would visit out of love for them why because um haram even though i mentioned her husband was um obadi ibn somit this was the next marriage she had her husband and her son both were killed in ohad they were accepted islam very early when ohad took place 70 people were martyred in ohad 70 of the companions and she found that both her husband and her son were martyred and she took it with resilience she radiated resilience and then her brothers her brothers were appointed by the prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam a group of 70 of the of those who knew islam those who were hafal of what had been revealed so far were asked to go and teach a tribe about islam this tribe requested that they send those who know about islam to teach them and her two brothers went and her two brothers were massacred in this ambush against all of the companions who had went with them with this group and her brother haram he smiled as he was being killed and he said i won i won it is said that there are people as they're passing away one of my teachers told me that when someone passes away sometimes they can see the place that they're going to be or an angel of goodness that comes and gives them glad tidings and that moment i'm going to tell you some panel law um when i was studying in egypt there was a woman i had gone to the masjid so that i can ask the imam if a group of us who were american studying in kairou if we could study with this imam and i didn't physically see him i mean we were like speaking through a barrier and i asked him like can we study a quran with you because he was known to be a scholar of quran in that region and he said i don't teach women and i said we're a group of you know foreigners this this is like access that we normally don't have in america this is way before like anything youtube streams and like online classes and i asked can we can we study behind a wall we will even if we don't wear naka we will we're naka we will sit behind a wall we don't need to see you can we just study with you and he was very respectful and he said no and i was very sad honestly i just thought panel law this is such an opportunity to study with a scholar like this and he's not comfortable teaching woman may Allah bless him and i didn't know where else we were going to study with quran with someone from this background so i went upstairs into the musallah and there were a small group of women there and one of the women was like can i ask you what what did you ask the sheikh for like it like i went down to the sheikhs you know area where there's generally there's only men they're asking questions so she was like what did you ask him and i was like you know i really wanted to study and he said he said no and then she was like you were truthful so Allah swt rewards your truthfulness and she said i am here because i'm going to be taking a tafsir class and it's just for a woman and she was holding books of tafsir at that point i barely knew any arabic and they were all in arabic she's like i will give you all of these books and i will give you my phone number and i was like subhan Allah may Allah bless her and she gave me her phone number and i met her again one more time um and then many years later when i was back uh it was actually not that many years later it was a few years later um someone told me about a woman who was killed in raba'a she was in a hospital and her back was facing the window and a sniper shot her and killed her and they said her name is asma sakr and i was like asma sakr i know that name but there's probably many asma sakr so like and then i saw her picture and it was the same sister but suddenly on social media i don't agree that this should have been done i was shocked to see it but it was her picture as she was covered in the in the burial shroud and her face was literally this i've never seen someone smile that wide in my life in life i have never seen someone with a bigger smile alive than i saw with her picture in the burial shroud just radiant and again i don't agree that that should have been spread on social media i was surprised to see it but that moment for me i thought of what she said you were truthful to Allah so Allah was truthful to you look at how truthful she was to Allah's panawat and how truthful Allah's panawat was with her she didn't live a very long life but subhanallah the fact that in such a short amount of time she made such an impact on my life and the lives of the people that she knew and that commitment to opening a door of knowledge for someone who felt like the door was closed for me in that moment that was a moment that had i never known what happened to her i still held that moment with such healing in my heart when haram is saying i won what kind of life did he lead and he was muslim for a very short amount of time this is uhud he accepted islam early jizakullah khayran he accepted islam early he learned the quran as much as it had been revealed he was a half of the quran for that amount of the quran and then fuztu i won this is the family that um haram came from so she's lost her husband she's lost her oldest son she has lost her two brothers um sulaym radi allahu anha the same and their reaction is not to say i don't have a space in the muslim community or islam only brings hardship or every single time i believe in Allah's panawat more i'm tested even more or why isn't my da'a being answered that everyone around me that i love is being taken away all of these are very real feelings all of us have these thoughts and these experiences that's very human but what do they do with it they say how can we serve Allah's panawat and the messenger of Allah sallallahu alayhi wasallam in the way that's going to be the most effective and also in the way that fits their personalities the way that fits their personalities the great granddaughter of the prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam her name was sukayna it's panel when i heard her story actually sheikh al muslim al permal was the one who told me her story first and the way she told she was like you would so she was like you would love her and the way she said it was like her personality was just like so like cool she people wanted to be like her she was an influencer of her time she made a hairstyle as a preteen a hairstyle that became so popular in mecca it was so popular in other areas that she didn't even live in it was called the sukayniyah like people would do is called the sukayniyah and she would make her hair like this really cool way and even the men tried to do it and then umar ibn al azeez who was the khalif at that time he was like stop men are not allowed to do this you will be punished this is only a woman's hairstyle because men had long hair at that time too and he wanted to differentiate their hairstyles and so when a man came and proposed to sukayna from her dad her father the grandson of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam do you know what what he said he said listen listen to her so i told you about her right she has this like cool personality she has a hairstyle that everyone wants to have this is when she was really young so you can imagine that she's growing older and and people know her as this like amazing cool character with like everyone wants to be like her and in and all these guys want to marry her and and then what does he say he says that her heart is too connected to Allah she won't be able to handle being married but she won't be able to give you your rights as a husband because her heart is too connected to Allah. she does eventually get married and her life is so devastating one of the poems that she says is that to the people who murdered her her father and then later murdered her husband she said you made me an orphan as a young person and you made me a widow as a woman the pain that she lived was so real and yet when you read about her or you read the lines of poetry that she would write her connection to Allah was so much more real that intentionality of being who you are and when you face circumstances that shake you what do you go back to you go back to that connection that light internally that new to the Allah spent all the puts in the in the hearts of the believers that there are going to be times that we will stumble and we will not be who we want to be and I don't know if you feel this way but I catch myself frequently thinking I miss who I used to be I wish I could be that person again I wish I could be another person I wish I could be better there are times I have those thoughts where I just sit there like when am I ever going to be who I want to become and I know that the only reason I'm not becoming it is because I'm stopping myself I am stopping myself and yes sometimes it's because of outside messages and yes it's just the reality of being busy with life and all of those things but also I you know it's funny because they say like you shouldn't really care about what people think about you you should only care about Allah spent all the things about you and you should care about or sees you not thinks about how he sees you and what you think about yourself and it's like what if you're your biggest hater what if you're your biggest critic and the way you think about yourself is always one where you're never worthy enough but that's not how Allah spent Allah sees you why did he create you to be a part of this umma why did he give you the examples of umharam and umsulaym and sukayna radi allahu anhun why do we have the scholars who were women throughout our history you know it's a really funny statement um there's a woman um and uh another century I don't remember this century off the top of my head but she is in a masjid and she is approached by a man and the man says you woman you come in here and you put your heads on the floor and you raise your bottoms up in kasejda that's what he's referring to and and then she tells him just put your put dust in your eyes and stop looking that's what she says to him but then do you know what he says he says I can't stop looking and do you know what she responds with she doesn't say well you don't deserve to be in the masjid which honestly I don't know I wouldn't have responded the way she did mashallah she was like I focus more when I'm here when I'm at home my children distract me and that moment for me was very powerful because she expanded on why the masjid was something she placed she needed to be she didn't have to do that she did not need to give an explanation she did not need to give a reasoning she could have said well really just stop looking she could have just said that and that was enough but her giving us insight into that I don't know what happened to this man maybe that conversation helped him recognize why sometimes for women with children being in the masjid is so much more important than maybe someone in a different circumstance but the point is that she said I need this space I need this space and I need this space to be a place where I connect to Allah's panawat sa'ala and what impact is that going to have on her children and what impact is that going to have on the children who see their mothers and their grandmothers going to the masjid and connected to the house of Allah's panawat sa'ala that is the legacy that we are given when Allah's panawat sa'ala tells us that those who are foremost that they are the closest that they are in paradise that verse when we talk about it we talk about a very select few people who are part of that verse though I mean we cannot compare to Um Haram and Um Sovei or any of the companions or any of those who came after them but we can follow what a companion asked the Prophet Sovei said them we may not have prepared what they prepared but we love them we didn't we didn't prepare what they prepared we never can prepare what they've prepared but we love them and the Prophet Sovei taught us that you are with the one that you love so we ask Allah's panawat sa'ala to make us of the sadaqun al awwalun make us of the muqarrabun make us of those who are in jannah to naeem even if we know we don't deserve it and then even if we know we don't deserve it and we are harder on ourselves than anyone else is and on top of that we may feel like we're never going to be good enough we ask Allah yalla not because of my goodness but because of your mercy and not because of my actions but because of my love for the people of action count me of those people we live in a country where we do not hear the adhan five times a day and we do not hear the aqama on top of that but we still choose to pray or we're struggling to pray in public places in random places just to make sa'ala on time do you not think that the angels who are roaming the earth who are sent to protect and make dua for you are not acknowledging that witnessing that and praying for you we're here for a reason in this land for a reason in this time for a reason every single one of us has a role to play what that role is we need to go back to what the woman companions did look at what our skills are our interests our passions are and stop denying them and instead say how can i use this for the sake of the lost pattern what sa'ala may Allah swt uses for his six panic so dr. rania mashallah she's a co-founder of the lafah foundation a nonprofit organization dedicated to educating women and girls as well as madistan a holistic mental health nonprofit serving the muslim community so she has uh this these two roles um she uh her research and clinical work are focused on mental health for muslims dr awad has pioneered in finding the first muslim mental health community advisory board uh in the u.s she's also established multiple muslim mental health clinics clinical training programs for clinicians and educational programs for religious and community leaders that are custom tailored to addressing the mental health needs of the muslim community so she was this morning at a conference and then she's here that was the for the pediatrics right was it pediatrics psychology it's mashallah not pediatrics i thought it was cycle i thought it was children children in psychology american i can't even keep up with this her she was at a conference this morning then she's coming here and then next she's heading back to stanford for the msa west continued program so for those of you who still have energy you can follow her to stanford this evening for the next program mashallah um so she's at standard i say that to say that she's at stanford as well mashallah uh she's a clinical associate professor there and um it's a it's a real honor and pleasure yeah i'm going to stop there real honor and pleasure but today she's going to talk about reflecting radiance so an appropriate topic for a beautiful woman mashallah start bismillah ar-rahman ar-rahim wa sallallahu ma'a ala Sayyidina Muhammad wa ala alihi wa sahfi wa sallam ajmain it's always an honor to be here with all of you and mashallah are we were here last night alhamdulillah with our Friday night halakaz at the rahmah foundation which i hope many of you will continue to join us on those Friday nights either virtually or in person alhamdulillah and for those of you who were here how was shea khayesh's takeover she did a halakaz takeover last night was it good yes alhamdulillah i'm so awlahi what an honor and also how wonderful for all of you to get that experience alhamdulillah today i was tasked with the topic of radiance reflecting radiance and inshallah there's a couple of stories and people that i want to kind of bring up in this particular conversation and also turn into our attention as women and as young ladies mashallah what does that mean to reflect radiance so shall we begin yeah bismillah ar-rahman ar-rahim in thinking about radiance one of the first people that came to mind i don't know what to do i'll hold this one how about that one of the first people that came to mind for me and there's so many subhanallah because we know that anybody who is actively worshiping Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala actively reading Quran actively connected to the new the light of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is going to reflect radiance so i'm going to tell you the story briefly of imam malik do you know the story of imam malik it's a beautiful story how does imam malik become imam malik someone said it his mom see so many of the biographies of the greats of our scholars if you read into their biography who exactly had helped them promoted them continued pushed them it's almost always the mom and i say this to a group of many moms in the room or future to be moms one day or if it's not biological children then it's spiritual children and mentorship that you give to so many and you're nurturing as a woman imam malik radiallahu anhu came to his mom and said to her came to his parents and said to them i want to become a singer did you know this the great imam malik who we today honor and cherish and we quote and we love and an entire school of islamic law is based on his wisdoms subhanallah he came to his mom when he was young and said i want to go into singing entertainment and she said some really wise advice to him she said as you get older your voice will change your face will change and what they love you for now this beautiful face and this beautiful voice when you are older they will mean nothing any fame and any this one too it's like we have had a long day any fame and any glory that she will be given when you're young will fade but if you channel that energy into studying it will become more honored and so he thought about this and decided that maybe his mom is actually right and imam malik was heavily criticized for his appearance does anyone know why what is it what is it ah yes mashallah imam malik loved to wear beautiful clothing but he was not arrogant nor was this ostentatious he loved and he would quote the hadith of the prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam that if Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala gave you wealth material wealth then he loves that it shows on his ibad on his servant but you don't do this from a place of arrogance you do this from a place of understanding your standing in the world and what was imam malik standing imam malik was somebody who all the kings and all the greats consulted they would visit him they would have they instead of him going to their courts they would come to him that's how important he was and so you can imagine if you're going to be sitting and advising people you're going to sit with dignity before i tell you why i'm telling you the story let me tell you one more thing about imam malik when he would wear this beautiful clothing and it said he would also wear very expensive musk right he would smell good it said that often people would say this must be in conflict with piety how do you have somebody who's pious who worships Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala daily and focuses so much on Islamic learning yet is he has this beautiful clothing he would change his clothing often they were like pristine white right and musk right mashallah why is he so interested in this outward form and it goes back to his mother when he was a little boy a young boy deciding to go to now study the dean he would say to her is it time for me to go write my lessons and she would say come here here and she would literally put on him scholars clothing remember he's a little kid and she would tie his turban for him because he didn't know how to tie his own turban yet and then she would say to him come here and put scholars clothing on and then go write and so it connected for him that if somebody is going to be a person of scholarly tradition and somebody who Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala has given them either wealth or knowledge that it should show on them this concept subhanallah is important because many people would criticize ibn Malik and say what is his concern with the outward form but in reality we have this very funny idea that if you're somebody who is pious if you're somebody who is dedicated to Islam not arrogant then you shouldn't care about what you look like but that's simply not the tradition of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam nor the tradition of many of the greats i won't say all but many who understood that actually you did have to make sure that you can carry this he would say the hadith of the prophet he would say this is when people criticizing would specifically say the dignity of the hadith of the prophet demands that i look this way that i look honorable because i am carrying the honor of this dean and i'm working with and explaining to people this dean how are they going to take it honorably especially if they're people of the quote dunya the people of the dunya only speak language of the people of the dunya and so our teachers would tell us if you're going to make some headway in the dawah of Islam and this explaining teaching and propagating of Islam you have to be able to speak the lingo of the people of the dunya and imam malik understood this now all of this story is to say when we focus on the topic of radiance people immediately think beauty when they think beauty they think outward beauty and i just gave an entire explanation as to why outward beauty is important but it's not the kind of beauty that we talk about in conventional wisdom and in fact conventional wisdom today just does not count anymore there's a lot of young people here but also all age people here and i'm sure you are on various social media platforms as i am as well and the trends the many many many trends that we see one thing that we talk about in our girls halakas here at rahmah is how incredibly fickle beauty is the concept of beauty what does fickle mean come on girls what does fickle mean yeah it changes one day it's like this one day it's like that if you roll back enough into history what today is trending was once trending in the 70s and then it goes out an