Community Work and Leadership

Community Work and Leadership

Br. AbdelRahman Murphy

Opening

Main Content

Then the house will crumble. You build a house with a powerful foundation, it might look good, it might even hold up by itself, but the minute that you put weight into that house, the house will crumble. So if someone does an action with riya (ostentation), with the intention of showing off, it might look good, in fact, when it's by itself, it might look great.

You might say, oh, that looks amazing. But the minute any pressure is put on that action, it will crumble. By pressure, I mean obstacles, circumstances, right? So someone, he prays a lot in front of the people around him.

But the minute he gets tired, he decides he's not going to pray by himself, because it's been tested, the foundation's been tested by that difficulty. So the first step, if you want to get involved in community work, if you really want to build and have some sort of level of community involvement, the first step is to check your intentions. Say you checked his intention three times, but he didn't action.

Once before, once during, and once after, if you agree to do so. Make sure you check your intentions, and we check all of our intentions, inshallah. And we ask Allah to make this amongst the righteous people.

Second Advice: Not Placing Judgment

The second advice that I have is the one that we talked about yesterday, and that's not placing judgment on people before Allah has judged them. Not placing judgment on people before Allah has judged them.

Shaykh Muhammad Ghaffi told you a story about his friend who was all tatted up, and he was hot and swollen.

Did he tell you the story, did he? Some of you may have heard it, maybe. It's a good story. Maybe I'll ask him to tell it to you tomorrow, inshallah.

But that story kind of emphasizes, or takes in parcel, or part and parcel, the idea of not judging someone. There's a lot of people that I've met, a lot of individuals that I've met, that I placed judgment on them, and they proved me wrong. They proved me wrong, and they made me feel like, you know, from a big old white guy with a nervy, to a small little thing.

Because they proved me wrong. There was once a sister at a university in the city that I used to live in, and she, when she got to the university, she would open up her trunk, and she wasn't wearing a hijab, and she would take a hijab out of her trunk and put it on her head. Right? And she would go to class, and she would do her thing, do her day, and then as she got back to her car at the end of the day, she would take off her hijab, put it in the trunk, and drive off.

A lot of people used to talk about her. A lot of people used to really, really judge her, and say, why would she do that? You know, why would she not really pull off the hijabi? They would say she's too verbal with the hijabi, or whatever. All these phrases that are really disgusting, in my opinion, to be honest with you.

And whenever, first of all, on a side note, brothers should never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever comment on the wardrobe or the outfit of a sister. None of you know how difficult it is to stand out in 105 degree heat and cover your head. None of you know how difficult it is to always wear long sleeves.

Not just physically, but emotionally, and spiritually, how difficult it is to do such a thing. Second of all, lower your gaze. Right? None of you have experience wearing hijab.

I don't have experience wearing hijab. Right? We should be supportive and uplifting. We shouldn't be condescending and judgmental of a sister if two strands of her hair are showing, or if her sleeve is a little bit up.

First of all, maybe she doesn't know. Second of all, maybe she's struggling. Right? And this goes for brothers as well as sisters who cannot be known.

Have a little bit of judgment. It's difficult to wear hijab. It's tough.

It's not something that's easy. Oh, Allah said so. Yeah, Allah said a lot of things, but Muslims do a lot of things.

You know? It's tough. And don't equate it to the beard. Please.

You can't line up in a hijab. You can't shave a hijab. Right? Don't equate it to the beard.

It's different. So, please, please. So, the sister, she used to take her hijab off when she was going back home.

And the kids used to make a lot of fun of her. And then one day, we found out the story from one of her friends, what happened. And the story essentially is that her parents are very anti-hijab.

Very, very anti the headscarf. And so they were so anti-hijab that whenever she dared to put it on in front of them, they would physically beat her. I'm talking hangers.

That's your typical, like, jumbo. Right? I'm talking hangers. I'm talking rolling pins.

You know the rolling pins you roll the dough with? They would hit her with that. They would put, like, really, really, like, they would put hot pepper in her face, in her eyes. They oppressed her.

But her iman was so strong that when she did whatever she could to wear hijab whenever she could, she put it in her trunk.

And, man, the sisters used to make fun of her because the hijab didn't match her outfit. Because she could only put a couple different colors in her trunk.

She couldn't, like, have a whole wardrobe in her trunk. And they would make fun of her and say, why are you wearing, like, that pink with that red? Right? So ugly. Right? Your purse doesn't match your shoes because of the hijab.

Oh, my gosh. And this girlfriend he met was so attached to Allah. She was so on the path to God that she didn't care what people were saying about her.

She was so good. But judging people is very, very dangerous. Right? As Allah said in the biggest hadith, give people 70 excuses before you place judgment on why they did something.

There was once a person in the community I lived in. He was, he didn't have a beard. He didn't have a beard.

And he was on the board of one of the institutions in the city. And he didn't have a beard. And once, someone that I was very close to used to make fun of him and judge him and say, how can someone without a beard couldn't even follow the sunnah of the Prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم) by having a beard? How can that person be a leader of Muslims in an organizational setting? And we found out that he had alopecia.

He was unable to grow hair. And he actually wore a wig. Like, imagine, like, standing on the day of judgment having all the judgments that we place on people in front of us and those people coming and telling us with tears in their eyes their circumstances.

And why they couldn't do what they wanted to do. It's not worth it. And every time we're in a situation where we wish people wouldn't judge us, so we're at the mall with a girl that we used to go to high school with or a guy that we used to go to high school with and they go in for the hug, the awkward moment.

You gotta go, let's doodle, right? And then your youth group walks by. They see Brother Murphy's getting hugged by this girl. And you know it wasn't your intention to do so.

Think about those moments whenever you want to judge someone. The moments that you wish you could not be judged but you're being judged at that moment. It's very important.

You know, human beings are interesting. We see people on the street. We'll be driving down the street and we see a man and a woman talking and they seem like they're having a passionate conversation.

And instantly, we come up with a story about them. And we haven't even met them before. Like, oh my God, they're married. Like, what can happen to kids? What can happen to dogs? He definitely cheated on her for sure. He didn't even know these people. He could be saying, hey, have a great day.

She's like, yeah, you too, stranger. Like, we don't know who they are. But human beings, we have like, we quickly come up with stories about people.

So how do I walk? Right? And you know what this is? This is a byproduct of the fact that we're so into fictional culture. Like, we live in a false reality. Movies and books are fine.

They're great. As long as they're cut out, they're great. But don't get sucked into it to the point where you're living like an alternative reality.

It's not as touchy. So we can't judge people. If you want to get involved in community work, judging people will be the fire.

Will be the negative fire that will burn down the structure you're building. You're trying to build an institution. Fire will burn it down the structure.

It takes down wood. So judgment, if you place judgment on someone, then it will burn it down. Whenever I work with young people, they always say, the reason why we like working with you, first of all, because Allah has blessed us with some sort of success.

And I'm not worried about it. But the reason why they say it is because you don't place judgment on us. Right? You don't place judgment on us.

Third Tip: Establishing Social Gatherings

The third thing, the third tip when you want to do community work is to establish a social gathering. Establish social gathering. Social gathering doesn't mean, hey, we're having a party next night.

We're going to be 45 feet. And then go to the shuttle. And then maybe, maybe, just maybe, we'll open up a beautiful theater.

That's not social. Social is balding. Social is watching NBA finals.

Social is going out and playing basketball. Social is going swimming, ice skating. Social is going on a hike.

Right? You live in an area that has these kind of accommodations or commodities. That's what social gatherings are. So the Prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم), he rarely, rarely, rarely engaged in intellectual debate.

Rarely. You don't find him. If you look at how he did dawah, right, Allah said,

"Invite to the way of your Lord with wisdom and good instruction"

That's the method of the dawah of the Prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم). Has nothing to do, very rarely did he get involved in intellectual debate.

Because the faith of a people is more affected by the way they are treated than what they hear. And the number one reason why people are not religious, whatever that means, is because of religious people. Right? The number one reason why people choose not to take part in community is because of people who dominate the community.

With their fervor. And again, we shouldn't place judgment on those people either. The people who strive to be religious, we shouldn't judge them.

But we should talk to them and educate them. And we should not be amongst them. Those people who push people out of their community.

Right? The Prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم) right now with tattoos all over his arms and huge spacers for earrings and a mohawk and this and that. And he came and he prayed to our God. Everyone we want to be staring at.

We need to get to a point where a person like that walks in and we don't even notice him. How far away are we from that? Pretty far. But, I believe that this generation is the one that's going to take us past that.

So you have to make sure you create social safe spaces. People cannot be judged. At roots in Nasha from the left, say what you want.

We have many, many boyfriends and girlfriends. Haram, obviously. Many, many boyfriends and girlfriends coming to a khalaqa together in the same car.

Right? They get out of the car. The guy puts on his kufi. They're like, hey baby, do you have a kufi jacket? And he has their hijab.

He wraps his hijab. They come to the khalaqa. They learn about the Prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم). They sit on separate sides, obviously.

But they don't just sit next to each other. They're on separate sides. They learn about the beloved of Allah.

And they leave. And you know what? They're growing. They're growing.

How well? We have one guy who comes in. On his Facebook, he's openly bisexual. Openly.

Yeah. Does it make you feel uncomfortable? Yes, definitely. A little bit.

But at the same time, where else is he supposed to go? Right? Why do we feel comfortable picking sick people out of the hospital? If he went to the hospital because I'm sick, it's like, sorry, we only serve healthy people here. You know what I mean? Hospital. That's what the community is.

It's a spiritual hospital. And people who are sick constantly come in. It's an ER.

24-7. Constantly coming in. And for some people, we're like, yeah, we can treat that.

It's easy. But the typical sicknesses, we're like, no, no, no. You might want to go visit a Catholic hospital.

Or that's what you don't like. Yeah. You can just go.

You'll still get sick. You're electric. You must leave.

That's not comfortable. So establish social activities and social spaces. When I moved to the hospital, I didn't teach one halawa for six months.

Six months. What did I do? I played basketball. And I'm not talking myself up.

I'm really not a good youth director. Honestly, I'm terrible. I mean, I'm here right now.

I'm not even there. Right? So I went to the nursery. I was like, whoop-dee-doo.

I climbed up. Right? And I'm not even a good teacher. Like, I'm not knowledgeable at all.

I know a little bit of what Sheikh Ahmed Nasser taught me. And I try to read a little bit. But I know nothing.

I'm low. I'm low. You know what the fifth mirror, you guys know what that is? It's the little membrane that surrounds the pit on a date.

So thin that probably you wouldn't even notice if you ate it. That's why. But I didn't teach in public health for six months.

I just played basketball with them. We set up FIFA tournaments. We set up NBA 2K, 12 tournaments.

We went hiking in the mountains. We did all these things. And these kids who were with me, man, they were like addicted to stuff.

And they were like, you know, yada, yada, yada, yada, yada, yada, yada, yada, yada, all these things. After six months, right, the people who brought me to Knoxville and wanted me to move there, some of them were like religious, were like, we didn't hire you to babysit. We didn't hire you to play games.

I was like, first of all, you didn't hire me, right? So I was like, second of all, second of all, you've been trying to do youth work for the past four years, and this place is not working. The kids are still leaving. So why don't we try a different method? Okay?

And we tried it, and it comes to that.

Those six kids who I didn't teach for six months, we have 80 teenagers in Knoxville, Tennessee, coming to our houses on Sundays. 80 teenagers. And these kids are addicted to it, to the point now where if I leave, like I'm gone this weekend, coming up for Shabbat, they text me, where are you? Why can't you do it this weekend? How did it all start? By creating social activities.

Social activities are the bread and butter of any community, right? Any community. And not basketball and pizza. Be more creative.

Be more creative. My little sister-in-law, she's 14. Unfortunately, she's going to become a doctor.

She has to. I don't know what I'm talking about. But, unfortunately, she loves makeup.

No, makeup in the right setting, right? Girls party, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Right? In the halal setting. She recently just taught a class at Ruth's called Pretty Prep.

She taught different, I don't even know a different school of makeup. But she taught foundation, right? She taught how to blend and all these things for eyeshadow. And like 30 girls showed up.

They all brought their mirrors. They all brought their things. They were all hanging out.

And we ordered food for them. We ordered like egg rolls and like little finger foods. And they had a great time.

And they pretty much, in general, wow, right? Success. And they spent some time learning about makeup. And that's cool.

You know what I'm saying? We watched movies. We watched The Dark Knight. We had an 80 teenager gathering watching The Dark Knight talking about how the Joker is like Shaitan.

And they walk away from that. And Voldemort is like Shaitan. They walk away from that understanding.

I was trying to tell them, like, do you know what true evil is? Do you know what Shaitan is like? Like, what? I'm like, Voldemort. He hates everything. He doesn't want anyone to be happy.

And they understand. Because we create social spaces for that. But if you sit there and you say, okay, you know, page seven of this book, so-and-so, you know, the prophet, so-and-so, he was racing a red sheep camel.

They're like, what? Like, they don't understand. What a red sheep camel is. So, when you get involved in community work, you have to do social things.

Fourth Point: Speaking Their Language

The last thing is this. And it kind of bled over from the third point. What you have to do is, unless Allah said he didn't send a messenger or a prophet, except on the tongue of his people.

Right? So, number one, this teaches us. And the tongue, by the way, the Prophets didn't say, it doesn't just mean a language. But a big part of language is understanding the culture.

It's understanding the culture. So, when you do work with people, number one, you have to speak their language. Number two, you have to speak their culture.

So, we speak English. But more importantly, if you're here, if you live in America, I know there's a lot of interactions. You speak American.

You know what YOLO means. Right? You know what LOL means. My mom doesn't know LOL.

She types LOL, LOL, LOL, like 30 L's. Right? I'm like, mom, what does that mean? She's like, I'm laughing. Right? Oh, yeah, basically.

Right? We know what these things mean, so we can talk to them. And we can translate for their language. So, you have to be part of their language and part of their culture.

You have to understand them to be able to translate what you learn here to their language. If you learn something great here, come check out the master. Realize something.

That you might be at a level where people aren't ready to learn it. And it might not affect them the way that it affected you.

You have to translate it to a point where they can understand it and appreciate it.

Otherwise, they never will. They'll never get it. And you're wasting your time.

So, make sure that you are interacting with people the way they want. Make sure, number one, you don't have, you have sincerity. Because if you don't have sincerity, a lot of your work, make sure that you don't judge people.

Make sure that you create social gatherings. Right? Make sure that you speak in their language. And then after all this is done, you'll find people coming to you saying, When you first came, or when you first started this youth group, or when you first started this young professionals group, or young families, young couples, When you first started this, brother so-and-so or sister so-and-so, I had no interest in learning.

I enjoyed the pop-ups. I enjoyed the outings, the field trips, the overnights, all these things. But now, I want to learn a little bit more about the Quran.

I want to learn a little bit more about Allah. I want to learn a little bit more.

That's what happens. After six or seven months, they'll come and say, Teach! We like you. You connect with us.

Can you teach us something? What makes you the way you are? Right? This is important. So we're actually going to go over a couple lines of poetry that you see on the screen here. This is from a great scholar named Ibn Ashur.

Poetry Analysis - Ibn Ashur

I don't know why, but the poem is from Kitab al-Jabi' al-Tasawwuf, for the Hawaiian Ta'awwuf. It's a book on Tasawwuf, which is the purification of the soul. A lot of people get really, really weirded out when you say Tasawwuf, or Sufi, or whatever, but you have to realize that these things are part of Islam, and there is a certain context in which they are part of Islam, and there is a certain context in which they aren't part of Islam.

Right? Just like jihad. In jihad, there's a certain context that yes, there are certain parts that are definitely, without a doubt, part of Islam, and there's a certain context in which people took it, deviated it, twisted it, and we don't even accept it. No scholar accepts it.

Tasawwuf is the same way. Since the time of the Prophet (ﷺ), the companions, the scholars have had no disagreement that rectifying and purifying the soul is part and parcel of this faith. The method, however,

goes back to the style of the Prophet (ﷺ), and that is very vast.

بل. It's broken plural, very good. It's broken plural. Meaning what? Paths.

The Prophet (ﷺ) has many paths to him. Not one. So we can't force people on our path, right? There's a reason why.

Some of that is facts. Okay. So we're going to go over inshallah.

Now this is some advice that Ibn Ashir is giving. Okay. Do you guys believe that? No? Okay.

So Ibn Ashir, this is only, we're going to go over eight lines of it really quickly. Inshallah. And this is for just pure enrichment, pure purification of our hearts as workers, as people, as slaves, as people who are on the traverse of Allah's path.

We're on the path. This is for us. Ibn Hashir is giving advice to people.

He says اعْلَمْ. Right? اعْلَمْ is? What is it? It's a command, right? اعْلَمْ, right? So he's saying, No! Right? أَنَّ أَصْلَ كُلِّ بَلِيَّةٍ He's saying that the origin, the root, right? The root of these afflictions, or the root that causes these afflictions, he's talking about diseases of the heart. He says, Know that the root of these afflictions, حُبُّ الرِّيَاسَةِ وَطُولُ الْأَمَلِ Right? حُبُّ الرِّيَاسَةِ Is love of leadership, what? وَطُولُ الْأَمَلِ here as what? Procrastination, right? You know what طَرَحَ is طَرَحَ means to throw something. طَرَحَ means to throw something.

And آت means something that is coming to you. Right? So a deadline is approaching you, and you take it, and you throw it further in front of you. So you're doing what? Procrastinating.

You see how affiliated these people are? He could have just said procrastination, but he said no. Love of leadership, and taking deadlines that are approaching, and tossing them further in front of you because you don't want to deal with them now. That's beautiful.

And the reason why I'm doing this with you guys in Arabic, this poem, is because the foundation of your knowledge in Arabic is great, but I'm showing you what you're going to be able to do after, Inshallah, you graduate and you work on this program and also study. He then continues. رَأْسُ الْخَطَايَا

رَأْسُ means head. خَطَايَا means like mistakes. Right? Mistakes. So he's saying the head, or the thumb of the head, being translated here, or like the origin of all mistakes.

حُبُّ الْعَادِلِ حُبُّ الْعَادِلِ It is حُبُّ doesn't mean he or he did, right? حُبُّ love, and عَادِلٌ عَادِل is something that is fleeting.

And here he's using this as a metaphor for the world, for earth, for dunya, for this life for الحياة الدنيا. He's using this as a metaphor saying that this life is so quickly moving that he doesn't even have to say he doesn't even have to say الدنيا الحياة هو العاجل He says and he stops. That's it. It's so quickly moving that he doesn't even have time to finish the description.

الْعَاجِل Right? The love of things that are leaving you. What's the cure for fixing when someone loves things that are leaving them? لا دَوَاءَ لَهَا إِلاّ بِرِضَاءِ النَّاسِ That nothing, absolutely nothing is the cure except for رضاء الله. To please Allah.

You know when you get scared coming when you're a kid? How many of you have kids here? Any mothers or fathers here? We ask Allah to bless all of you. We ask Allah to make you insha'Allah good for our community, good for your kids, coolness on the eyes, especially the mothers. أُمُّ أُمَّهَاتُ أُمَّهَاتُ You know the mothers, the bottom of their feet are the ceilings of Jannah.

So we shouldn't, we should not at all disrespect any woman or a mother at all. They are the pillars of this faith أمة means nation.

أُمَّةٌ أُمَّ means mother. If you don't have a right to أُمَّةٌ you don't have a right to Right? Very important. So So you know when a kid, by the way, just while I was going, you know when a kid gets really scared? Usually when I'm approaching, right? Ah, come on, come over here to me, right? They get scared, right? Like Shaykh Abdul Nasser, Shaykh Abdul Nasser's niece was just here and his kids love me a lot.

They call me one kid that I met called me white tattoo, right? He said, white tattoo? I'm like, yes, racist, racist, racist baby.

Shaykh Abdul Nasser's kids, they like me a lot. But kids that don't know you, right? They get scared.

And when you go up to them and you approach them, they flee to their parents. They don't just run, they flee. Like they drop everything.

It looks like they're being pulled by their truck and like running to their parents, right? This is the description that Ibn Hashim is giving when he's saying that if you want to secure yourself, you flee to Allah. When you're fleeing from something, you let go of everything. You don't weigh yourself down.

If there's a fire, they'll tell you what? Leave your belongings. Flee from the fire. Leave your belongings.

Don't grab anything. It's going to weigh you down. This is the description that Ibn Hashim is giving.

He says, flee to Allah. Run to Him. Don't hold on to anything in this dunya, right? Holding on to your money or your fame or your popularity or your status or this and that.

When you go to Allah, it's only going to drag you down. So he's saying, let go of it all and run to Allah just like a child who is scared and wants security runs to their parents. This is beautiful language that he's using.

The only cure from running to a fleeing world is by fleeing to that which is not fleeing from you. The world is running from you. Allah is not running from you.

So to cure yourself from that which leaves quickly is to run to that which is permanently from you. Allah ... Then we continue. This is a very important part.

Huh? Oh, okay. I have an iPad. I'm not used to this uh this bought-in technology.

Okay, so anyways, uh then this is what we've been talking about. We're going to finish up right now, insha'Allah. Don't trust in the shadows.

We told them to come a little bit later. So don't, don't freak out. Okay.

... to keep companionship. So he's saying this is also part of the cure. To keep companionship or to become a companion of a sheikh who knows someone who's a sheikh i.e. that they are a knower of masalik of the pathways.

Right? We call someone someone who's a salik. Right? If you've ever heard of someone who's a salik. Salik means someone who is on the path.

Right? A masalik. So the teacher knows the pathways. Right? ... That they can protect you from the roads of destruction.

This is why it's important whenever you go anywhere to have a teacher. To have a murabi or a sheikh. And most of us, our first teachers, all of us, are our parents.

Our first mashayekh is our mom and our dad. Right? And we take them as murabi, as mentors, to protect us from the paths of destruction. And then it's also important to find someone who's qualified.

If you're lucky enough to find someone in your community who speaks your language or who you really jibe with, then that's good. But if you can't, then make sure you find someone. Right? For me, I have one in my community under that.

But I also have Sheikh Abdul Nasser. I also have, you know, some other people that I can call and I can say, listen, I'm going to want to do this, like, save me and it's going to hurt myself. And this is what the sheikh is saying.

And then the last line that he goes over is about Allah. That when they see, right, when they see this person, they think of Allah. The reminder of Allah comes when they see this person.

And this person connects the sheikh. Talking about the sheikh. They connect the alim to the master.

So the job of the teacher, this is how you, by the way, you test and see if your sheikh is helping you. Does the sheikh connect you to your brother, to Allah? Does, because the sheikh is already being connected. The sheikh is already sending a message to Allah.

So is that sheikh taking you who is a servant to Allah? That's the question. Right? Inshallah, we're going to send out this little eight line inshallah now that we've gone over it. Inshallah, I want you all to reflect on this.

In fact, I can send you the whole poem. But I want you all to reflect on this a little bit, inshallah, that you're studying Arabic and you're guiding inshallah, or moving forward. But if you want to build a community,

you have to work on that aspect.

But this poem talks about addressing yourself. And these things, when you finish this class, inshallah, will be accessible to you. You can read them and understand them and benefit from yourself and your family.

Closing Dua

Inshallah. We ask Allah to help us all. We ask Allah to give us the best in our end.

We ask Allah to increase us in knowledge and benefit. We ask Allah to help the people of Syria and help all the world who are suffering. Help all of our families and the other armies when they don't have the money to feed us.

We ask Allah to help us all. Inshallah, you have a good day.