And the topic that I was assigned today was Islam, mind, body and soul. And of course, it brought me directly into contact with the famous hadith of the Prophet alaihi salam that I'm assuming most of us are familiar with, right? Between them, we have the Prophet alaihi salam when we were sitting with the Prophet alaihi salam. And a man appeared, and it's mentioned in the hadith, Sayyidina Umar ibn al-Khattab r.a. is narrated, that none of us knew this person. And whenever I'm teaching this hadith, I remind people that we are accustomed to seeing people that we don't know. In fact, I live in Chicago. I don't expect to know the vast majority of people that I encounter on a regular basis. That's a regular expectation of mine. Living in a smaller, more insular, more self-contained community, one's general expectation is that they either know the people they encounter, or the people they encounter must be travelers. They're really only those two possibilities, in smaller, more insular communities. So when Sayyidina Umar r.a mentioned that this person was not known to any among our group, nor did we see the athar of Safar. We did not see the traces of travel. And having traveled in the desert myself, there are traces of travel. You know, when I first moved from Chicago to Yemen to learn Arabic, I brought with me the clothes that I would typically wear in Chicago. Pants and shirts and jackets and sweaters. And the first day of class, I was walking to class, somebody saw me and just started laughing hysterically. Are you getting married or? I said, no, I'm a student. I'm going to the institute to study Arabic. They said, dress like that? And within 15 minutes of that conversation, I understood why they were looking at me as incredulously as they were looking at me. My beautiful clothes were all dirtied with dust.  It's not that kind of scenario. When this person approached the Prophet, alaihi s-salam, and the Prophet alaihi s-salam did not appear concerned, the Prophet alaihi s-salam appeared quite at ease with this person. There's actually many shuruh, many commentaries that say if the person had appeared hostile, if the person had appeared to be someone that spawned an adverse reaction from the Prophet alaihi s-salam, then the Sahaba would have moved to defend the Messenger of Allah alaihi s-salam. But because he appeared comfortable, they became comfortable. And then the person sat down and the person is mentioned as for us nada, rukbatehi ila rukbatehi. He put his knees on the knees of the Prophet alaihi s-salam. So there's ulfa, there's closeness. And you know there's some there's some there's actually quite a few differences of opinion. Some people say he placed his that the a'id in that the fakhidehi goes back to Jibril alaihi s-salam. Oh I gave it away. Some people say that the a'id, the dameer, goes back to the the the the person himself that he put his hands on his own thighs. Right? Some people say no the a'id goes back to the Prophet alaihi s-salam that he put his hands on the thighs of the Prophet alaihi s-salam. Right? Indicating great closeness, great familiarity. You know not going off on a tangent but I think it's it's worth mentioning. You know when I was in Yemen I had a question about Arabic. My teachers were both Sudanese and as my teacher proceeded to answer my question and we left the medrasa he took me by the hand and we were walking down the street and he was holding my hand and that might have been the most uncomfortable five minutes of my entire life.  And I said yes I am. He said why? Right?  What's wrong with that? And then he said something right? Very insightful. He said I think people in America assume that every kind of bodily closeness is romantic in nature. This is why there's so much shuhud. There's so much he said what's wrong with that? Have you ever experienced being close to an elder? Being close to a relative? And there's bodily closeness but there's nothing romantic about that. There's nothing there's no there's this is just sadanqa. This is friendship. This is Ulfa. This is muhabba. This is love. Why are you so uncomfortable with this? And I was just like sheikh I'm from a different culture. We don't hold hands with our friends or male relatives and then he said to me you should. And then he told me a story I will never forget this and I had mashallah read the sira many times. He said when they were in the ghar when they were in the cave the prophet was resting his head in the lap of Sayyidina Abu Bakr. He said and there was nothing there's nothing unusual about that. You know every time I speak publicly somebody offers me water to help me with the scratchiness in my voice but it does nothing. This is just my Chicago Sam cook. You know he says yes he has a right. So the person either placed his hands on his own thighs or he placed his hands on the thighs of the prophet alaihi salam and then he said Muhammad alaihi salam which was a very unusual form of address right. The companions of the prophet alaihi salam typically said Ya Rasulullah or Ya Nabi Allah. O messenger of God. O prophet of God. It was actually a sign of it was it was one of the Tawab Ya one of the characteristics of the family of the prophet alaihi salam that they would say Muhammad right. This was something that this was this was something that indicated their closeness to him. So you find a hadith where even Abad says Muhammad. Abad says Muhammad. Hamza says Muhammad. But most of the companions of the prophet alaihi salam they said Ya Nabi Allah Ya Rasulullah. So this was unusual and he asked the prophet alaihi salam what was Islam. What is Islam? What is Islam? And the prophet alaihi salam gave him the Arkana Khamsa the five pillars of Islam that are known to us right. Shahada, Balsala, fasting in the month of Ramadan, paying the Zakat and making Hajj. And when the prophet alaihi salam answered the question is said Sadaqatah. That's true. Now this is where things must have become very unusual for everyone in attendance. You know something that I reflect on often is how the prophet alaihi salam combines in his person so many mutually exclusive virtues. So for instance a person is either when you talk about what what characteristic defines their personality either a person is a person of Heba like they have reverence there's a kind of you know there's something redoubtable about them something uh are inspiring about them or a person is very familiar there's something that puts you at ease about them makes you comfortable makes you relax in their presence it is very rare to see someone that has both of those qualities that they can make people very at ease and relaxed and they're awe-inspiring people approach them with great reverence the prophet alaihi salam was both of those right he of course you know you have many hadith in the shema'il muhammadiyya wa khisla mustafawiyya imama termidi that you know many of the descriptions of the prophet alaihi salam actually come from younger companions because many of the older companions didn't even look at the prophet alaihi salam directly focusing with the hadith like focusing their gaze on him he was just too awe-inspiring right they would demur they would they would look away from him right and at the same time you find people able to engage him about the intimate details of their personal life the personal lives without feeling this preventative embarrassment that's really that's really a miracle of character you it's very hard to find people like that right i have some teachers i can talk to them about anything i have other teachers that as soon as i see them i start like straight in my clothes and you just can't you know they're just the person you know a lot of the teachers like that they tend to be syrian you know a lot of teachers i feel great familiarity with they tend to be egyptian you just have a conversation with them right so when nasuh abba we all heard someone say to the prophet alaihi salam sadaqta like that's true that was a highly unusual you know you have a hadith where the prophet alaihi salam would ask his companions regular every day mundane well-known things and they would say what day is it today right what day is it today if i asked any of you that you would say sunday they would say allahu wa rasulahu a'lam and i'm thinking what does it mean to be so inspired by someone that you think if they want to they can inform you that today is not really sunday i think it's sunday but maybe you know something different right this is the level of their deference to the messenger of Allah sallallahu alaihi salam so to hear someone actually do tasdeeq someone tell the prophet alaihi salam no that's true that's that's correct that was puzzling to say the least then the questioner asks the prophet alaihi salam what is e-man and whenever i'm teaching this in chicago i always say you know he didn't say what is aqida he said what is e-man what is faith right he didn't say what is creed right that's a public articulation of one's faith right he said what is he said what is e-man the prophet alaihi salam explained e-man is to believe in Allah to believe in his angels to believe in his messengers to believe in scriptures to believe in yomo qiyamah the day of judgment and to believe in qadr it's good and it's bad then the questioner asks the prophet alaihi salam what is ihsan what is i guess i would translate it spiritual excellence what does it mean to worship god in a beautiful way and the prophet alaihi salam explained it is to worship god as though you see god but if you don't see god no god sees you then he asks the prophet alaihi salam after again confirming his response and when is the day of judgment prophet alaihi salam said concerning that the one being asked has no more knowledge than the one posing the question but i can give you some of its signs right and the prophet alaihi salam said you know when a bondswoman gives birth to her master and when you see the bedouins of the desert formally barefoot in destitute competing with each other in building tall structures which is subhanAllah you see all of this construction taking place in the khilij right now it's almost like they read the hadith and said guys we have to do this i mean it's it's it's it's been prophesied you know we have to do this and then the questioner departed and you know say na'amar said that you know the prophet alaihi salam asked them do any of you know who the questioner was who that person was and say na'amar said no we have you know allahu wa rasulahu a'lam god in this message is no best and the prophet alaihi salam explained to them that that was jabriel he came to teach you your religion so when you talk about comprehensiveness you talk about kind of our tradition being embodied being expressed in one hadith of the prophet alaihi salam many people point at this tradition as being foundational being fundamental being pivotal in that respect and that in islam we're talking about right our sharia right and it's very significant that this was mentioned first right because our submission is not just a submission of the heart or the mind it is that you do what god told you to do we follow the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam through my macy's my medic emulation of the prophet alaihi salam even if you do not cognitively grasp why the messenger of Allah alaihi salam did this and you do it and that should be esteemed as the essence of worshiping god you know i travel to a lot of college campuses and many college students they tell me you know i mean i pray but i don't feel anything i don't experience anything it's just it's called al-fard it's just you know to believe to them that it's just to get the obligation off of my back it's just to free myself of the responsibility of praying i say good that's good that's what you're supposed to do right dean actually comes from the same root word as the word dain this is an obligation this is a debt you know our teachers used to tell us one of the great travesties of modern islam is that we confuse the moral foundations of islam with the moral ceilings of islam the five pillars of islam this is what every human being must do to acquit their existence this is like like just a modicum of god consciousness is expressed in doing just these things god has commanded of you this will not make you a spiritual giant right just by doing those things you won't be someone perhaps that levitates or walks on water but why is that so important to you subhanallah i feel like this is one of those places that we we struggle being inheritors of a western european and particularly christian spiritual inheritance right where you know materiality spirituality are divided and in our spirituality we only want that which transcends materiality you know once i was sitting with a teacher true story and he was talking he was teaching akida and he was teaching a break in the natural chain of events and he said and he only got to muajizat and karamat when a break in the natural chain of events what you know what is customary what is typical in the creation of Allah happens at the hands of a messenger of god we call that a muajizat it's a miracle when it happens at the hands of a righteous person we say karama but it can also happen at the hands of a wicked person we call it istidraj but he didn't get that far he just got to muajizat and karamat so there was a woman that was also sitting in this medullus and she was waving her hand like almost like wildly and she said sheikh before i was muslim i used to be a witch everybody in that gathering was like yo it was it was the most shocking thing perhaps any of us had ever heard you know i used to be a witch and she said i once attended a conference of witches and warlocks warlock is the male equivalent of a witch and in geneva switzerland i guess that's where witches and warlocks hang out and she said the highest ranking member of our assembly when he wanted to change positions in the room he would just levitate from one place to another and her question was these were not god-fearing people these were practitioners of black magic people that engage the occult how could they do this again he didn't get to like istidraj and other kinds of khawad and kula adad he just talked about khawad and kula adad i was thinking the same thing that you're probably thinking my sister check the expiration date on your guacamole right eating old guac and then she actually maybe she felt that in the room and she said i just want to disclose to the group that i have no experience with mental health issues seeing external stimuli i have never experimented with hallucinogenic drugs or i saw this i really saw these people doing this and the sheikh said well if you go out to the airport you'll see people flying around all over the place that doesn't impress me people that fly and float and walk on water and instant karma uprightness character itiba'u sunnah adhering to the prophetic way these are the things that strike me as miraculous these are the things that we esteem when we talk about a person's value spiritually not that they can do things that bend the laws of physics you know it reminded me of one teacher telling us a story a west african sheikh told us a story of sheikh ahma dubamba and he said that he was being held in custody on a french military barge a ship and the time for asr came and he asked them for space to pray and they denied him space so in this story he took a sejada he took a prayer mat rolled it onto the atlantic ocean prayed salat al-asr folded the mat and got back on the ship and we were sitting there mouths a gape and he said you see this is your problem you're more impressed that he prayed on water you should be impressed that he prayed on time this is this is the problem of your generation i tell you the time for asr came he folded the mat he prayed you're saying in the salat al-asr means the kitabamakuta no on time on time just those farahid they have tremendous spiritual value in fact you know sometimes i caution people against reading some of these anthropological works that they talk about islam and the islamic tradition but salat al-asr he has some some worthwhile contributions in the field and one of the things that he said in his book genealogies of religion is that the rigor necessary for regular spiritual practice it prepares the soul for that spiritual encounter that you want right it prepares the soul so if you take someone they have no regular commitment they don't pray they don't fast they don't give of their wealth they're not trying to make hajj to the bait of allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and let's say they experience something one day let's say they're sitting in a medullus and they do see someone levitate or let's say they do have this experience of haqqa they do experience kind of ultimate reality without the soul being prepared without the rigor necessary what happens to them after that experience how do they even know how that experience should be indexed into their worship of god it was just an experience it came and it went so don't devalue those faraqt don't devalue that practice of islam you know a man came to the prophet al-asr waslam and he said just give me what is salient just give me what is essential just give me what is required to be muslim and the prophet al-asr explained you know al-khamsa and the man said i'm not doing any less than that and i'm not doing any more than that and the prophet al-asr said if you are true in what you say kethubullahulakjannah god has written paradise for you right don't devalue these faraqt you know something that i really worry about in our community is our use of the term spiritual and this culture of what i consider in ersatz and inauthentic spirituality that being spiritual means i'm always smiling right i'm one of these polyanish i'm always happy you know why i'm happy because i'm spiritual that's why i'm happy i don't get upset i don't get angry right and i recycle you know i'm into composting spiritual right not to devalue any of those extremely worthwhile activities recycling and composting and mashaAllah we should be people of approach people with a good face you know don't don't be you know abbas you know the word abbas means a person that frowns a lot abasawatawalla right the prophet al-asr I'm not devaluing that, but true spirituality is acknowledging what God has made an obligation for you in trying to complete those obligations regularly. This is what it means to be truly spiritual.  How can you have an authentic spiritual practice with no ritual? Many of us have encountered people that say, you know, I'm spiritual, but not religious. What does that mean? And when you ask them about those practices they engage in to access their spirituality, it's indistinguishable from things they themselves like. I feel more spiritual when I'm like in nature. I bet you like nature. I do. I do. Listening to classical music and going to the animal shelter and serving animals and wine tasting. It's just a spiritual thing for me. And I'm just thinking, subhanallah, your spirituality is indistinguishable from your appetites. It's indistinguishable from your appetites. And this is spirituality. And some of our youth are attracted to these pseudo spiritual modes of engaging, you know, and we should be, we should be mindful. No pun intended. We should be mindful of these things, of these traditions. Mindfulness. That was good.  You know, my mindful. Okay, I mean, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not ridiculing those as traditions. But for us, spirituality begins with doing what God told you to do. Right. Well, okay, the more run, even if it's better, you know, I embraced Islam when I was 16. Best decision of my life, hardest decision of my life. And I still remember, you know, we didn't have the same culture around conversion to Islam that I think exists now where everything is tailored to the experience of the convert. They just gave it to us straight. It was just time to pray. Again? Yeah, again. You have Wudu? Yeah. No, you don't. You just came out of the bathroom. Get in there and make Wudu. You know, that's the funny story, man. A brother sneezed.  He said, we don't say that. You wait for me to say, then you say, then I'm gonna say, we used to have that. And I said, all that for a sneeze? Man, this is a, this is a difficult religion, man. Yeah, do all that for a sneeze, man.  And he said, this would always give him a headache.  You don't have to like sniff the water up to your nose. He said, but doing that prepared me that if I want to embrace this religion, I might have to experience some discomfort. I might have to experience some uncomfortability to be Muslim. This might not be just a seamless, easy transition from my form of life. That is Islam. You know, my grandmother used to tell me, if you find that you're disillusioned with something, you should ask yourself, why did I have any illusions about it to begin with? This can be hard, man. You know, not eating what you want to eat, right? Not doing what you want to do. You know, this might, do we have any young people here? Maybe some. You know, when I first embraced Islam, we're just talking about Islam here. And I realized I don't have too much time.  When I first embraced Islam, I had a girlfriend. I was very committed to this relationship. As committed as a 16-year-old can be to anything. I thought I was committed, you know. And I was completely oblivious to the fact that Muslims were not supposed to date. I just thought we're a religious community. I know that we have to practice abstinence, but what's wrong with dating? I'm hanging out going, you know, I just knew that we had to practice abstinence. So I would actually take my girlfriend to the masjid with me for a juma. Just, just wait right here. I'm coming right back. Right? Just in the, sitting in the, the lobby of the masjid, right? Just in the veranda, just wait right here. Right? I would introduce my girlfriend to brothers. So this is to honey, my girlfriend, man. You know, you know, and brothers would be like very uncomfortable, but I think they would just be shocked. Like, is he crazy? Or, you know, and I was really just completely oblivious, you know. One day I was in the mall and there was a brother at his kiosk. And previously I had gone by his kiosk and introduced him to my girlfriend. And I asked him what he was reading. And he said, I'm reading a book on I'm reading a book on enjoying good and forbidding evil. First off, I had never heard the word enjoying before.  I've never heard a non-Muslim English speaker say enjoying. I've never heard that before. I'm just enjoying Samariko. I've never, you know, I'm reading a book on enjoying the good and forbidding evil. And I said, what does that mean? He said, well, if someone is doing something wrong, you should encourage them to do right. I said, like, give me an example. I said, give me an example. He said, like, if there was a young brother that was spending time with a young lady in a way that I thought was potentially detrimental for his spiritual development, this book is offering lessons about how I should approach that brother. And I said, well, how would you approach him? How would you approach him?  I mean, the main message of the book is that I should think very carefully before I approach him. And then he moved to the next topic. And that was all that he said. And I sat there thinking, I wonder if there's something wrong with what I'm doing. And so I inquired of people and they told me, yes, this relationship that you have is completely inappropriate. And just to be Muslim, I called my girlfriend the same night and told her, we can't keep doing this. You want to get married?  Of course, when I get married, okay, I just thought I would throw that out there. Because that's what brothers told me, you know, that we would have to be married. And that was just the end of that. Never talked to her again. Never seen her after that. Just to practice Islam. Right. And it was hard. But it was, you know, what was required. And I want people to see the spiritual significance of those sacrifices, just making your prayers, fasting in the month of Ramadan, giving of your wealth. You know, SubhanAllah, man. I was, I was listening to this comedian. I know you guys are Muslims and you don't watch TV. I know. And this comedian was joking. He said, he said, you know, in black communities, there is very much this culture that money justifies anything. Right. Just get the money. If money is being offered, get the money. Right. And then he made a joke. He said, you could imagine someone that was like an informant telling on Dr. King. He said, his mother was probably bragging. They're paying him $15 an hour. All he has to do is snitch on Dr. Martin Luther King. He said, there's very much a cultural ethic that, you know, if money is being offered, get the money. And that is an expression of certain kinds of insecurity that you learn when your position is economically precarious. You learn a certain kind of. So the idea that God is telling me to give of my, just give to somebody that is not a relative. Just give them of my money. Man, this was something challenging for me at first.  I mean, this was a paradigm shift. Give it. Give, give it away. I remember the first time I gave this to a cat, it was like, I'm about to give somebody my hard earned money. My grandmother was slap me. You better get that to somebody in your family. What's wrong with you? Just because God says so. Just because God says so. So in Islam, we experience the fruits of great spiritual rigor just through trying to practice our Islam. And I think this is a good opportunity to remind people that it's important to learn our father dying, learning how to practice Islam, learning how to pray, learning how to fast, learning how to give of our wealth, right? Learning how to make Hajj, trying to make Hajj. Very, very important. Moving to the next thing, how much time do I have? What times do they pray? Also, okay, so we have, we have some time. I mean, they gave me initially an hour and I started at about like 3.30, 2.30. I started like 2.30. I'm gonna leave some type of questions. Um, you know, thinking about Eman, one of the worst developments within American Islam is that Aqida became a site of a lot of unhealthy, uh, intramural religious argumentation. People just arguing. And in the process, we forgot that learning about your Lord is not supposed to make you more argumentative and loquacious, talkative. It should make you more devoted. You know, I was talking with again, my teacher, Dr. Sherman Jackson, and he was saying, you know, we have to get back to teaching Aqida, but not just restrict you to the SMA and the Sifat, but rather, Aqida is an internal subjectivity, a lens through which you see all of your experience. And it goes back to the Book of Allah and the Sunnah Muhammad A.S. That is your Aqida. He said, if we were more rooted in our Aqida, some of these debates that are hotly contested in our community about LGBT stuff, about gender stuff, about politics, these debates would have a completely different complexion. If we were actually rooted in our Aqida, right, we were rooted in our belief. But the fact is, we're actually being calibrated and indoctrinated in someone else's Aqida. You see, right? You know, I like to say the most powerful aspects of our understandings are those things that are they don't have to be explained. They don't have to be explained. See, if you talk to most Americans, the worthiness of democracy is not something that needs to be explained, right? The worthiness of an egalitarian ethic, this isn't something that needs to be explained. This is what we just know almost innately, intrinsically, inherently. Everybody knows that. And somebody who would oppose those things could only do so at the risk of being labeled morally depraved. Something's wrong with you. How do we root ourselves in our Aqida so that somebody rejects the book and the Sunnah at the risk of being labeled morally depraved? Something's wrong with you. Something is wrong with you. Right? This is where we need to take our engagement with Aqida. You know, I was reading a book by Neil Postman and he was saying, we live in a scientific age that science for moderns has transcended the merely empirical. It's become a part of our almost creedal. It's not just an empirical. These are hypotheses. You test them. These are the results. No. He said, you can say something to someone that is counterintuitive. Something that is intuitively false or fictitious. And if you appear to support that with scientific data, they will not completely disbelieve you. He said, that is belief. That is not, you know, results-based or, you know, this is not, that is not falsifiable. That's belief. And he said, just test it. Go into the office and say, you know, I was reading a study that Harvard Medical School released that, you know, the fastest way to lose weight is eating two to three chocolate eclairs a day. And I guarantee, at least a few people will say, what? Get out of here. Really? Right? There we're completely credulous. Completely. Oh, even things that are demonstrably false. By eating sweets, you can lose weight because science has become now. It can take us anywhere it wants to take us. We have to get back to a place of Islam being able to do that. Sayyidina Abu Bakr. Whenever I'm thinking about Islam, Iman, if he said it, it's true. You know, I always tell people, if you study any of the humanities at a good American college or university, absorb this sensibility that just makes people of the past gullible. Right? These were unsophisticated, very credulous, very gullible people that lived in a world that was not possessed of the same level of scientific precision that our world is possessed of. And thus, they believed in anything. And I'm like, not if you read the Quran, they were actually quite skeptical. These are very skeptical people. I don't believe that. Right? When Sayyidina Abu Bakr was approached by the Quraysh, let me tell you what your sahib is saying now. We've heard all kinds of things, but now he's saying he traveled to Quds. He traveled to Bethel, Monctis and back in the span of a single night. No, Abu Bakr, you are an upstanding member of our community. Please don't tell us you cosigned this nonsense. Now, you'd have to admit this is quite far flung. This is quite, right? They were skeptical. Really? Sayyidina Abu Bakr said, if he said it, it's true. And then he said, I'll tell you something that you're bound to regard as more fantastic than that. I believe he receives revelation from the top seven heavens. I'll tell you something. If you really want to hear something that will forget travel, right? If you really want to hear something that will make you say, I'm completely sold on this man's integrity, listen to this. Now, take that with you. That is Al-Qaeda. That is E-man. So when we talk about the relevance, and I'm condensing in the interest of time, of E-man in our lives, we want to get back to that place of belief. And it will take education. And it will take intentionality. And it will take acculturation.  You look at our children's views on something like some of these alternative lifestyles and sexualities. It's not simply that they're being indoctrinated. They're being acculturated. You're seeing this, right? You are being made to accept many of these things when you are in a posture that is completely uncritical.  Just how do we get to a place where we are intentional about wanting people to uncritically absorb the norms of the Book and the Sunnah, so that it becomes a sensibility, right? It's something that without even understanding, right, maybe not all of us will become scholars like Dr. Abdullah, but even if I can't understand why, that just feels wrong to me. I just, no, no, that's not, no, no, that's just, right, you know, I mean, being in Egypt and trying to explain what a mulhed was to just a regular Egyptian man. Mulhed is atheist. He was just incomplete. Just what? Hold on, hold on. There are people like that? Hold on, hold on, hold on. What are you saying? What are you saying? What are you saying? Like, and I said to myself, Subhanallah, this is really beautiful. This is beautiful. At the end, he said, Subhanallah, my Lord is the best of creators. If Allah can create and sustain and have mercy on people who don't even believe he exists, he must be all of them. Right, that's, this is what I want from our community. We talk about what is Iman, not, you know, this adventitious disputation around the names and the sifat. That hasn't served us. Right, and because of that, there has been an overcorrection. Nobody wants to talk about al-Qaeda now, because we think it's a source of argumentation. When we talk about al-Qaeda, we're going to end up fighting. Right, somebody's going to say, where is Allah? And then someone's going to, and then we're going to be in fisticuffs in the parking lot of the masjid. And when you look at a lot of these cultural issues, as Dr. Jackson, I think, very perceptively identified the solution is really al-Qaeda. But how do we re-approach al-Qaeda? How do we really, like, how do we re-approach Iman in a way that doesn't lead to this fighting and argument, but rather fortifies the Muslim community in America, so that we can do our work, right, of representing this dean to our colleagues, classmates, neighbors, co-workers, et cetera. And then, of course, the Prophet, al-Islam, talked about what is ihsan, right? What is spiritual excellence? And a lot can be said about that. You know, a lot can be said about that. But suffice it to say, the sunnah of the Prophet, al-Islam, should represent our highest spiritual ambition. You know, in many communities, people don't talk about wilaya. They don't talk about friendship with God. And it's a great misfortune. Because by focusing on the sunnah of the Prophet, al-Islam, one is able to say, if you engage in this demanding, rigorous religious practice, you're fasting, and you're praying, and you're giving of your wealth, and, you know, you're working to refine your character, and if you really try to bring your heart and your mind into alignment with what God has revealed, there's a treat. There's something, there's something that happens. There's a kind of tahawwil. There's a kind of transformation that happens. And the verse in the Quran that many scholars point to is, say, if you love God and follow me, God will love you and he will forgive you of your sins. And that the highest spiritual aspiration of the Muslim is to be a receptacle, to be a recipient of divine love. That's the highest aspiration. We start with those farahid. We start with those yaniwaji bats to complete your obligations. But the highest aspiration, the goal, is close friendship with God. To live with a realization of God's presence in every moment and in everything. This is what we want. And to know that God is never absent. God is never distant from us. Right? And then the Prophet, alaihi sallam, the last of these is a science called eschatology, or eschatology is that branch of religious knowledge that deals with the end of time, the end times. And I always tell people, you have to know how to read eschatology. You have to know, you have to be trained how to read eschatology. Number one, I have teachers to whom I'm indebted. They said, when you read eschatological things, if they sound farfetched, that's a good thing.  Because whenever you're reading about eschatology, the theme is usually inkilabul haqqaik, things being flipped. Nothing is the way that it's supposed to be. This is why the ultimate expression of inkilabul haqqaik is the sun rising from the west. That means things have completely shifted. Right? So if you're reading, you know, in eschatology and something sounds like, what? That's crazy. Say alhamdulillah. On the other hand, if you're reading eschatology and it sounds probable, or worse yet, I mean not worse yet, but even more intensely, that's already happened. That's happening. Then prepare for the coming of Qiyam. Prepare for it. Prepare for it. And if you look at, you know, again, just that that theme of inkilabul haqqaik, things being flipped around, we actually see the Bedouin of, you know, the desert competing with each other in building grandiose structures. Like that's happening. People that you would think would be characterized by simplicity are now characterized by extravagance. That's strange. When you think about the relationship between parent and child, right? It says a woman will give birth to her master. You know, some people, I mean it's different interpretations, but some people say this is an indication to thelial impiety that people will treat their parents like their parents are slaves. That's what this hadith is referencing that people will treat their parents like, you know, I own you. Subhanallah, we've already seen this. Sometimes it's stuck for a lot in our own Muslim community. The things people say to their parents, the things people do to their parents, unbelievable, unbelievable.  And that has been one of the most challenging aspects of her entree into the Muslim community. She's like, well, Muslims don't believe in whooping their kids. These kids, some of them are just disrespectful will. I wish you would talk to me like that.  I said, Mom, I know you would. Because you did that. My mother, nobody had to tell her.  But I tell you, some days I want to reconsider. Some days I want to reconsider. Some day I say, man, I mean, we, babe, I don't know if this is the right decision. Maybe, you know, maybe a little bit, you know, could be helpful.  But that representation of things flipping around is a theme that you should be aware of in our context. Nothing is the way it's supposed to be. Right? In other ahadith, some weakness in their sentence, the most immoral people that should be despised, they will be celebrated. These will be people of great social esteem. People of great social esteem, they will be treated with disregard.  What does that mean? Right? So, to summarize, you know, this hadith of the Prophet alaihi sallam is something we should teach our children. It's something we should rehearse in our homes. When my daughter started praying, when she became moqallif, my wife decided to host her a party. I said, babe, this is kind of like a bidah. It was a bidah hasana, yani. It's like a Muslim bat mitzvah. Right? And so, when my daughter, you know, when prayer became her wajib, we threw her a party.  To come in, and I, you know, I wore a tuxedo and everything. It was nice, nice.  Right? Just come in and ask her these questions. What is Islam?  What is iman? What is ihsan? When is the day of judgment? She responded correctly. I said, keep this close to you for the entirety of your life. This is your life. And then I walked out of the party and, you know, that was, that was, that was my only job. That's all I had to do. But this hadith should be central to us. Right? This hadith should be central. So in thinking about Islam, mind, body, soul, I think the hadith of Jibri and alaihi sallam is, you know, something we should review often and reflect upon often. Are there any questions, comments, concerns? Okay, that was easy. Could be about this. Could be about anything else. As long as, you know, I reserve the right to say, I don't know. You can ask me anything you want. Somebody has a camera. MCC East Bay. You got to be careful, man. I didn't know that.  Like I come in, I sit down, I say, okay, if there's a camera, I'm at liberty to say certain things. If there's no camera, I'm at liberty to say more things. I thought there was no camera. But there's a camera. So I don't like that. Be careful. Very happy to be with you. Comments, ideas, questions, rebuttals, challenges. Yes. Assalamu alaikum. And thank you so much for a beautiful lecture and coming all the way here, first of all. So my question is, the soul is, we know, is more important as compared to the body and we spend so much time on nourishing our body and not the soul. But how do we know that we are nourishing our soul? How do we feel it if, even if you try it? You know, the word huluk is very closely related to the word halak. You know, halak, think about it as how you look on the outside. Halak, you know, your appearance, right? Huluk is how you look on the inside in the same way that we look into a mirror. To see how we look on the outside. And if we see something wrong, we adjust what we see. Right? Unless it's something that can't be adjusted, like the fact that I'm bald. That's just nothing. I just can't be adjusted.  The mirror for your inside is righteous people. It's suhabah. Right? Sitting with righteous people, sitting with good people, using them as mirrors for my inside. To see how I, just like I use a literal mirror for my outside. And I can see, oh, I mean, I need to, I need to lose some weight or I need to gain some weight or whatever the case might be. I should brush my, I should call my beard or whatever the case might be. Suhabah or keeping company with good people is the mirror for the inside. And it is through their lived example that we become clear about those things we need to adjust in our souls. Right? Those things we need to nourish. Those things we need to pay attention to. Right? So you will only know your impatience through association with the patient. You will see them. Hmm, I see. Right? You will only know your rash and impetuous behavior through association with the forebearing, the people of Helm.  Right? You will only know your irresponsible, your irresponsibility with regard to your speech by people that are careful with regard to theirs. Right? So I think when you talk about nourishing the soul, it's the rule, it's the mirror. Right? It's the mirror for the internal, just as you use a mirror for the external. Right? I hope that helps. Insha'Allah. So my question is that, like, in some way that can say, Alhamdulillah, that, you know, I recently gained knowledge on such, like, topics that, you know, how to fix our internal, like, heart or, like, diseases of the heart, for instance. But, like, like, now that I identify them, but I don't know how to work on them or even who to work with. So could you maybe, like, Bismillah ar-Rahman ar-Raheem. You know, I feel as though over analysis of this issue can leave us stagnant and indifferent. Just, I don't know what to do. I don't, you know, I don't, you know, I, there are many ways to work on yourself. There are many ways to improve, you know, in your faith and in your practice of Islam. I think the key thing is, like, it's theft in color back. It's like asking your own heart and figuring out where you feel not only most comfortable. I think we tend to overemphasize the importance of comfort, but most inspired. Who are those people that you feel most inspired by? Who are those people that you see reflecting the character of the Prophet, alaihi s-salam, the virtue of the Prophet, alaihi s-salam, and then trying to develop a relationship with them? That relationship can take on myriad forms. Sometimes it's the relationship between a disciple and a teacher, like a murid and a sheikh. Sometimes it's just the teacher between, it's the relationship of just a student in a classroom and a teacher. Sometimes it's the relationship between two friends. Sometimes it's the relationship between a mentor and a mentee. I think that we tend to emphasize the form while setting the much more important essential substance aside, right? Finding, you know, a relationship in which you intend to improve through accepting someone's instruction that works for you. I think it's very important because I don't think that you will be able to really learn from someone that you don't, your heart is not content with their instruction for whatever reason. Right? If you don't, you know, I think, you know, the essential quality of gaining from someone's instruction is trust. You have to trust them. You have to trust them. You know, I trust this person's knowledge of the sharia. I trust that they will not do anything that is, that goes against the clear dictates of our religion. And if they do, I'm prepared to, to, you know, question them about that. And then their method of instruction, their pedagogy, is something that I think I can benefit from. Right? And I think when you find that, you know, it's like, I'll do it, he'll be in the wajid, bite down on it with the, with the, with the molar teeth. But you have to, you have to look for it. You have to look for it. And when you find it, you know, adhere to it very strongly, cling to it. But everybody is different.  That is a path that I think I can adhere to. Because I want some ni'ama. I want some blessing. I want some blessing. I want to be challenged with gratitude. Right? Someone that, you know, it's like, you know, has a path of like extreme to kashuf. All of the, the, the ni'ama of the dunya, that's just not a part of their instruction.  I would probably say, you know, Sheikh, I don't know if that's gonna, you know, that could be really hard for me. That could be really hard for me. So finding a teacher that says, no, the ni'ama with the shukr, it's like the ibtila with the sabr. Like that is something that inspires me. How can I become more shaker? Right?  Right? It's, it's very important. It's very important. You know, very important. I hope that helps, inshallah. If you give the mic to Dr. Abdullah, I'll be afraid. Okay. Well, I know we got to, we got, we got to wrap up, inshallah. We got to wrap up, inshallah. JazakAllah khayr. In the name of Allah, the Gracious, the Merciful, the Merciful. Thank you for giving a portion of your Super Bowl Sunday.


No one ever thinks they've gotten older, or in my case, just plain old. So when I go to conferences, like I did earlier this week delivering alpha, that's CNBC conference, and talk to portfolio managers, I'm deluged with negativity. And I find their arguments compelling. They present them so well. Until I think back on all the years of investing that I've been through. And I realize that most of the people that I'm listening to have never experienced buying a stock when treasuries were yielding 14%. When the consumer price index is jumping mid-single digits, or even when the feds at war with the stock market almost seeming to wish it would go down. It's that lack of perspective that I think ales so many other money managers put simply when things were bad in the investing world and they haven't been bad for so much of my life, even though the Dow has been a monster overall. I used to dream, dream there would be periods where there would be little to no inflation, where I wouldn't have to worry that every government bond auction might send interest rates up dramatically, or that there would be synchronized global growth or a president who'd be so pro-business that he wouldn't dream of hurting the stock market. Much to the chagrin of the endless hedge fund managers who somehow think it is against the religion to make money on what we call the long side, so they think each day is terrible. I am comforted by the fact that ex-North Korea. We had the situation that I have always dreamed about. Think about it. Got a 10-year treasury that earns a measly 2%.  Even the best of the best of the stocks back then were not competitive. That remains the single most positive part of the investing story right now. Interest rates are just too low. I remember periods where the stock market would be inundated with new issues and secondaries, despite the fact that there are literally thousands of companies that would like to come public right now in Silicon Valley alone. This market is so unforgiving to private companies that lose money. Think about the disaster that is blue apron. Oh, I saw today they're going to have some sort of cheeseburger that should get people excited. Please. Well, there's just not that much new supply of stock out there. Meanwhile, the dividends keep getting boosted. Stocks keep getting bought back, maybe not at the rate that they were before. I mean, a lot of companies that wanted to buy back stock lower are less inclined to do so up here. That makes sense. But certainly at an emphatic pace. Now look, the Fed would love to raise rates, normalized rates so to speak, but it doesn't want to derail an economy that's been stalled by not one but two natural disasters that really have resulted in a short term decline in economic growth.  So there won't be any new competition to existing stocks coming from more equity issuance or higher bond rates. Even at December rate hike, once I thought would happen, a given seems off the table, which is why we've had to cut back our bank exposure. After all though, it's not like we will run away inflation. If anything, the numbers just reported are anemic. They shouldn't trigger any reaction from Janet Yellen and company. Yet that doesn't mean there's no economic growth, far from it. Yesterday a real smart guy in May of Monies, a fellow named Brad Jacobs, used to see you have an up and coming transport company, XPO Logistics. And he's talking about the industrial recovery in this country that he can't believe has snuck up on everyone. Business and the industrial heartline, he says, is very strong. Well, the stocking caterpillar test and that, doesn't it? Again, thinking back on my career, we've never gotten a really strong economy without inflation, meant the Fed would always be against us, never. If you haven't been around for a long enough time, you may not know how special this moment really is. Plus, it's not just our economy. We do have synchronized global growth. Europe's been so strong that the central bankers haven't been able to keep the euro from flying, making it less competitive. I think the euro can still go much higher. It's one of the reasons why we own the ECU. Countries in Southeast Asia are putting up amazing numbers. China is no longer stumbling. Japan has a legitimate expansion. The yen is so strong, that's another reason why a lot of the industrials are doing well. Russia is much better, so is India. Of the markets I follow, only Brazil's weaker. And as Brazil goes, well, nothing else goes. It's suing generous, as they would say in law school. Now, upon all of that comes the natural disasters that, while slowing growth now, will no doubt raise growth later, as the insurance checks come in and the states do their best to rebuild infrastructure. Both Texas and Florida are flush, and they will do what they can for the poultry aid to offset the poultry aid I expect from the U.S. government. I don't like to speak positively about sad events that have caused people their lives, but the hundreds of thousands of cars that need to be bought in Texas post Harvey, and the tremendous infrastructure damage that is caused by Irma will require tens of billions of dollars to fix, and the insurers will have no problem meeting these promises. By the way, that's why GM's on fire. They are flush from having so few disasters in the last decade that they can pay. They can pay without worry, and they can raise rates. Then there's the currents. Our dollars being hammered worldwide. As we're just a few weeks away from earnings, I think the narrative is going to change for our international companies that are based here. For years now, for years, they have had to talk about what their numbers would have been, had the dollar not gone so high, not this time, which is why I expect some very strong year-over-year comparisons. The impact, when we see these earnings reports, I believe we will realize that the whole market may be cheaper than we think, at least on a price journey's basis. The very public bears will dismiss this whole scenario as some sort of weak dollar fantasy. But when numbers were getting hurt by a strong dollar, oh boy, they embraced the reality of the currency, and they did it in a very negative way.  Hey, we won't allow it. Then there's employment. It's robust. And we'll only grow more robust once the rebuild starts occurring. Florida and Texas are so big for this economy. I'm sure there'll be a moment where some economists will say, hey, that's a real slowdown, and not adjust for the storms. But I would say hiring remains on track, better than expected. And that will fuel continued home buying and auto sales. Those cycles, given up on by so many, turn out to be very alive. Hence why I don't know if you've seen the Illinois Toolworks at 144 today, but that's all about auto cycle. Now, we had seen a pause in takeovers as corporations tried to figure out what the tax regimen would be for 2017. But now that there's been so much convolution in Washington, no one is waiting. I expect several mega deals before the year's over. Given how cheap money is, that will take out even more supply of stock.  Hey, that's not unlike how he viewed the Nielsen's for the apprentice, something I saw acutely when I was serving as a judge on a bunch of episodes.  Most of them were hoping never to be linked to the material beast that is the market. Now, the president's not been able to get much done with Congress, and as you know, I've been very skeptical about anything coming out of Washington this year. Again, though, that's a positive, because it'll still put out all the possible good stuff in 2018. As long as it can ultimately happen, I am sanguine about the timeframe. We don't need it in 2017 for stocks to keep going higher. And those that think that there's a day of reckoning coming because nothing gets done, I think they will be sorely remiss. The fact that the president is still calling for reform of taxes is enough for me, especially as he remains steadfastly anti-regulation. Sure, he may not be rolling back regulation that hurts business at the pace you may want if you're a bull, but it is the lack of promulgation that really matters. That's why I believe that the small business person's index remains as abjectly positive as it has been, and that's good for more hiring too, because we know that more than 50% of hiring comes from small and medium-sized business. Now, there are always going to be negatives. You saw how far we bounced this week, simply in the news that there was nothing out of North Korea over the weekend. Of course, last night there was something, that's why the market opened lower. Now, I get it. I think North Korea is the single greatest risk to the market right now. But if you want to look at it another way, if there's any change in the policy by dear leader, the market could explode to the upside.