What Makes a Muslim Leader

What Makes a Muslim Leader?

Opening and Introduction

(بِسْمِ اللَّهِ الرَّحْمَٰنِ الرَّحِيمِ - bismillahir-rahmanir-rahim)

We begin with the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful. As-salamu alaykum everybody.

Usually I would speak before our illustrious scholar and brother, Dr. Yasir Qadhi, also who is a very good friend of mine. I have seen him eviscerate beef brisket on more than one occasion, mashallah. Evisceration is the word to use.

But he graciously went first because my flight was canceled yesterday and then my flight arrived around 7 a.m. today. And then, mashallah, there was no hotel room, which is all cool. It doesn't matter. So I slept in the lobby. No, it's good, man. Those things are good for you. It's great. Not a problem. I think my speaker buddy is somewhere in Lake Michigan right now. And, yeah. And, no, I'm joking. Everybody's like, what? And when I slept past my minna program, I apologized to minna. I got you. I swear to God, I got you. And then I came and, you know, I told him I'm a little groggy. So he graciously went ahead and rocked a mic.

The Context: Leadership in Our Time

So what we've been asked to talk about is our time and our challenges. And the context of what I read in the description is talking about leadership. So you're going to probably need to write some things down. I have to do this really quickly because I want to give you the opportunity to ask questions. With someone as immense as our sheikh, you need to take advantage of that. I even have some questions for him. I'm going first.

The First Quality of Leadership: Truthfulness )الصدق(

The first is that if we look at the prophets, we believe that the prophets epitomize, really, leadership in its universal form. I remember in the 90s, Dr. Rafik Bacon, who many of you know, we did a program on leadership. And he brought out this Forbes magazine survey where they had asked, like, the top CEOs in America, what are the qualities of a leader? And the first quality was truthfulness, to be an honest person, to have integrity.

So the first quality that the prophets have, according to a great imam, you don't have to write, I say names, forgive me, it's just my habit. But I think if we know the names of, like, our favorite sports players and actresses and actors, then, you know, I felt when I was young, I should know the names of people who are important in our tradition. There's a great imam named Imam al-Marzuqi. He wrote a book called Aqidat al-Awam. It's a book that we teach at Ella Collins Institute introducing creed. And he mentions that the first quality of prophets is is truthfulness.

Understanding Leadership in Everyday Life

So the first quality, if I'm looking at myself as becoming a leader, and what I mean by leader, we don't have enough time. It's not that you're, like, leading the world. Every one of us are a leader. I was playing, you know, people ask me, what is your creed? I say, I'm Assassin's Creed, right? My son and I were playing Assassin's Creed. And I said to him, you know, one day, hopefully, you'll be like a leader. And he was like, no, I'm not going to be a leader. And then he did all this incredible stuff on the screen. And I said, well, it looks like you're leading in something, like you're good at this. Every one of us has something in our life that we lead or that we direct, regardless of its level. So the first quality is truthfulness.

The Two Dimensions of Honesty

Marzuqi said بصدق وتبريق والأمانة . You know, he says in his poem, it's a poem he memorized many years ago, that the first quality is to be honest. Honesty, a great scholar named al-Raghib al-Asfahani said, honesty means two things.

Number one is honesty with Allah. To be honest.

"[Those who break the covenant of Allah after having pledged it.]"

To be honest in that. And that means to struggle with it. Not to do it perfectly, but to struggle, to fall, to grow, to learn. The Prophet ﷺ said, everybody makes mistakes. So to be truthful in coming back to him.

"[And whoever does not repent, then those are the wrongdoers.]"

So to be truthful, meaning I try my best. Like I don't like accident, like oh man, I hope I don't hit that alarm for Fajr, like really. I was like, you know, the good wife, binging for like the last two days was amazing. No, there has to be sincerity in our relationship with Allah, that even when we fail, we still come back to Him.

The second is to be truthful to those around us, to be honest. And the Prophet ﷺ was asking, can a believer lie? He said, no. Imam Ibn Taymiyyah said, usually in the Quran, when Allah talks about the believers, the context is truthfulness.

The Second Quality of Leadership: Intelligence )الفطنة(

So that we should look for, and we don't have time to go through all these, you can write them down and you should build and elaborate on these things. After truthfulness, the second one is what? Intelligence.

He said, بصدق وتبريق والأمانة والفطان، أرسل المبيان الفطان ذو. The line of the poet says, and this is a poem if you're from Morocco, West Africa or Egypt, this was basic 700-800 years in those communities, it was memorized by people. He says that intelligence فطان

The Two Dimensions of Intelligence

Imam Ibn Qayyim said that intelligence means two things. As Shaykh Yasir pointed out, knowledge of the religion, and that's why I believe like if you're going to be an MSA president, or you're going to take on the leadership of a community, you should also spend some time in institutions if they were smart would sponsor you to take like a course at Qalam or to take a course with Maghreb, to take some kind of course that will give you, hey, these are the fundamental principles that are non-negotiables, and these are the things which are negotiable.

Understanding What Bends and What Doesn't

In DC this summer we plan to do an intensive called What Bends? What can bend and what can't bend? The presumption of post-modernity is that bending itself is bending. This is the problem of post-modernity, that the presumption is that bending itself is bending, there's absolute chaos in the world, and you can deconstruct everything and you can invoke every ism until the only ism you have left is nihilism. And this is an outcome, but if you're not educated and I'm not educated and we're not engrossed in some kind of formalized study where we understand what is negotiable, what is non-negotiable, because that's part of being sincere to Allah, and sincere to His Messenger, and honest is to have some basic knowledge.

So I would encourage you before you take on a position that, and your institution should be so serious that they're able to fund that. They're funding that educational process to learn the basics, to learn the fundamentals.

Wisdom: Knowledge of the People

The second thing Imam Ibn Qayyim said that equals intelligence is knowledge of the people, wisdom. To understand where we are, and I'll give you a story. When I became Muslim with my friend, we used to DJ together in high school. Imagine your best friend became Muslim, imagine when you saw that. Like you used to smoke blunts and now you're making dhikr. You know, you went from the liquor store to the dhikr store. You know, it was amazing, right? And it's like my homie, this is my boy, he married a Moroccan woman, hence he's overweight, but he's happy. Brother, kill the couscous.

A Story of Wisdom in Da'wah

So we became Muslim and next to our mosque was a convenience store, and this brother in this convenience store, speaking of post-modernity, you could find everything from a Bible to pornography, right? That's post-modernity. Cable television, Dr. Yasser, if you want to understand post-modernity, cable television. Everything from ESPN to the most nefarious things you can imagine, and right next to that will be Christian broadcasting. You know, you're like, so if you're trying to lower your gaze, you get like whiplash trying to watch cable television. That's post-modernity.

Post-modernity, although it's funny, I just dropped something on you, so pay attention. Post-modernity gives you a soul whiplash because you're always like this. Nothing's stabilized. So you get hurt in your heart.

So we decided that we're going to make dawah to this brother. So we went there, we knew him. He's from Bangladesh. He's a cool guy. We went in there dressed like sheikhs with turbans and thobes and everything. This is like 1994. Pak, I think, was still alive. We went in and the brother saw me, and I was giving khutbah even then in this small community. They were trying to groom young brothers and sisters, right?

We went in. It was like, as-salamu alaykum wa rahmatullah, wa alaykum as-salamu alaykum wa rahmatullah, and I got a 24-pack of beer, right, and I think some Nat Turner's or something. I forgot. No, some Marlboro's. And then we went up there, and then Mujahid, I can't say what he grabbed because that would indict him, and we put it all in the cash register, and the brother starts, like, going crazy. He's like, imam sahib, like, right? I was like, just ring it up, man. It's light beer. I'm watching my carbs. I'm a Bostoner. I'm watching my carbs.

So he got freaked out, and then Mujahid said to him, hey, can I ask you a question? He said, yes. He said, are you surprised to see us buying it? He said, yeah. He said, well, this is how we feel when we see you selling it. And he made tawbah. He came back to Allah. That's فطانة. That's understanding someone.

Institutional Knowledge

So the second quality is to be intelligent. That means also to understand how to run an institution. You should not accept the leadership of a community if you do not know anything about nonprofit work, social enterprise, B corporations, structuring an institution around a vision that's strategic. Be very serious about going into the work that you do. Just don't think, okay, I'm going to accept a position, and I do not know what I'm doing.

In fact, the Prophet ﷺ, when he held up this flag, and he said, who will take this flag? Everybody wanted to take it, but then he said, who will give this flag its right? And everybody took their hands down except Sayyidina Ali رضي الله عنه .

So leadership into institutions means also I should have some familiarity with how to run an institution. Not just I'm going to be the president or whatever. No. So knowledge of religion, knowledge of the people, and the knowledge of the task at hand equals فطانة

Divine Support in Leadership

And there's an important point. If the Prophet ﷺ was not able to complete something, Allah always provided him with someone who would help him complete it perfectly. صلى الله عليه وسلم And that takes us into volunteer work.

The Third Quality of Leadership: Propagation التبليغ

The third quality, and I'm running out of time is التبليغ . And التبليغ means that our goal is to propagate what we consider to be good and truthful. As Sayyidina Musa and Sayyidina Harun said with the blessing of Allah

" [That we may glorify You much and remember You much.]" - Like, you blessed us with this ability to communicate, so now we're going to praise you. Now we're going to extol your virtues. سبحانه وتعالى.

So that means whatever talent you or I have, we should use that talent in a way that magnifies our relationship with our Lord and encourages others around us. This is part of tabligh. And that's why we say كتمان العلم حرام - To hide knowledge is forbidden.

So again, three qualities I mentioned of leadership. Number one is truthfulness. Number two is intelligence. And intelligence can be relative, right? Sometimes our intelligence goes up, sometimes it goes down. Except for the prophets, it was stable. The third thing is propagation. To call.

The Eight Conditions of Da'wah

And within that call, there are eight things we should know. And I have to say this really quickly, I apologize because of time.

First Condition: Knowledge )العلم(

Number one is Allah says

- If we're going to call people, we have to have knowledge. The basic knowledge, not scholarship.

You know what's happened in this country? I think Shaykh Yasir and I talked about this before. Is that we've exchanged dysfunctional scholarship, dysfunctional literacy for dysfunctional scholarship. We have neither or. But what we need is functional literacy.

When Ibn Abbas was asked, what's knowledge? He said, knowledge, I'm gonna put it in our language so we can understand it. Knowledge is what moves you. Knowledge is what makes you passionate. Knowledge is what brings you closer to Allah سبحانه وتعالى

Pursuing Knowledge with Purpose

So there should be knowledge of the religion and the things which move me. And you as people who are not, you're not ignorant people by any means. When I became Muslim, I set out a goal for myself when I wanted to study. Number one was to learn the basics. Like what do I have to know so I don't become stupid white convert guy who does all the fundraisers. And they say, look how Islam is spreading. Masha'Allah. Brother, come up here. Right? And I'm like, yeah, we pray eight times a day and I'm going to the club to make it rain later. Like, hey, what does brother know? Can't believe I just said that. Second thing is, I don't even know what that means, I swear to God. Second thing is, like go outside, pray for rain.

Second thing is, I wanted to learn the things that made me doubt. What are the things that challenged me like the situation of Ayat Mutashabihat. I wouldn't, in those days, we didn't have Twitter or Facebook, so I'm like, hey, Yasir Qadhi, like can you please deconstruct the notion of Sayyidina Bilal in light of certain, you know, esoteric theories. I just had this, you know, class in sociology. No, we would actually travel to a scholar. We used to drive to see Sheikh Mohammed Nour in St. Louis. So you would prepare your questions. And when you got there, you couldn't be rude because you knew your time with him was limited or Dr. Ingrid Madison. We

Cultural Awareness in Giving Fatwa

The next quality that we should have is knowledge of the people. Imam Al-Qarafi said, if you give a fatwa, as Dr. Yasir was talking about in Al-Ihkam, this is incredible text. If you give a fatwa to someone that is rooted in a cultural aesthetic and you fail to know the culture of that person, your law license should be suspended. You have to understand who you speak to.

Second Condition: Group Work )الجماعة(

The second quality for the person who calls to Allah after knowledge is to work in a group, group work.

Third Condition: Spirituality

The third quality is

- spirituality, after hurry.

Fourth Condition: Distinction and Integrity )التمييز(

The fourth quality

- This is antithetical to post-modernity. It means that I have a position, I am anchored in my character. I do not sell out my character to appease other people.

So he said, pay attention, I apologize because of time. The qualities of leadership are being truthful, having intelligence, and the next is da'wah. And then the conditions of da'wah, underneath that you should write the following: knowledge, group work, spirituality means I pray at night when people are sleeping, I fast when people are eating, right? That's what that means, I should try to. And then the fourth we said is what? تمييز to differentiate myself from the evil around me. I don't just go with the status quo.

Fifth Condition: Wisdom )الحكمة(

And then there are three more, we have to finish under the qualities of da'wah. Wisdom

- Wisdom means to do the right thing at the right time, like the Bengali brother in the convenience store. No offense to Bengalis, I love fish. But I like potatoes, not rice, from Oklahoma.

Sixth Condition: Good Admonition )الموعظة الحسنة(

Second one is

- It's to argue in a method, like if you're on Jon Stewart, which is gone now, right? But if you're on Jon Stewart, you're not like, well, it's great to be here Jon. Thanks man. But you're not gonna talk like that, you're gonna be like a little bit more loose, you're gonna be a little bit, maybe with Bill O'Reilly you're like, what's up man? Right? So, that means you adapt to the situation, you speak what we call اقتضاء الحال in rhetoric.

Seventh and Eighth Conditions: Preparation and Argumentation

And then the last quality of da'wah, I'm gonna say this all again, don't worry, is that I prepare myself for arguments. I go and do research.

Summary of Leadership Qualities

So again, three qualities of leadership, I said, number one, being truthful, number two, intelligence, number three, I said, what? It's propagationتبليغ and under that are conditions for da'wah. Number one is to what? Have knowledge.

Knowledge Leads to Sincere Care

Knowledge makes us sincere. Like when you realize, like for example, now in Washington D.C. where I live, the murder rate is 30% higher than it was last year. Like, we should care about people. When we see that Tinder and those type of apps have contributed now to a 33% rise in STDs, like we should be concerned, people are miskeen, man. They're just chasing after hawa. Like that should be a concern for us. Not just that we blast people, but we're invested in people. We care about them as part of having knowledge of their situation.

We realize that the largest number of homeless in this country are children, that America is the top three largest country in trafficked women. Those are things that we should be invested in. Black Lives Matter is Black Lives Matter, but it has to matter to us in the way that we support and remove structural oppression. Because we care, because we know.

And then the third we said is that there should be da'wah. And we mentioned the conditions of the da'wah.

The Fourth Quality of Leadership: Trustworthiness )الأمانة(

The last, and I'll finish inshallah, condition of a leader, and I'll repeat them again one more time because I know it was a lot, mashallah. The last is that I should be someone of integrity. What's called الأمانة. Someone that people can trust.

A Story of Building Trust

When I went to Boston four years ago, I'll give you an example. I met the city councilman, his name is Tito Jackson. Not that Tito Jackson. And everybody asked me. And I went into his office, and I sat down, I prayed two rakat. I was like, oh Allah, I'm about to meet the city council. This is the first, second day I was there. I went in and he sat down, he looked at me and he said, so. I said, so. He said, brother. I said, brother.

And then he got quiet, I said, how can my community serve you? I don't know how I said it because it's not what I wanted to say. I wanted to make a million demands, we want to have an Eid holiday, our sister's this, that, this, this. We need the trains on Eid day to work, this. And he stood up and he said, you're the first person to ever walk in this office and ask me what you can do for me. And he said, that's integrity.

And I said, do you need us to walk kids to school in gang ridden areas? Now I started getting ideas, you know what I mean? Do you need us to do this, this, this, this? How about a backpack program we do now with one sister in Boston? And he was like, wow. So then he said, you know what? Tomorrow is my first prayer. I just took this position. It's my first prayer since I've been in office. And I'm going to call my, the person I had asked to lead the prayer and say, no, I want you to do it even though I'm Christian. Right?

Trust Precedes Leadership

The point is, if people feel they can trust you, then they will take your leadership. But if they can't trust you, they won't let you lead them. And that's why the prophet is الأمين before he's نبي. Many of us in America, we want to be نبي before we've been الأمين. So people don't know much about us. They don't... Right. This is a whole new thing for me. I'm old school. You don't interrupt Nas when he's, you know what I'm saying? Like Rakim, you just let him finish. But I understand it.

Examples of Trustworthy Leadership

So, we have to be trustworthy like we see what Iman is doing here in Chicago. Maruf is doing down the street. We see the work that Project Reach is doing in Washington, D.C. We see people who are akhfiya. We don't even know them. They're not speaking. But the work they're doing, people trust them so they take religious guidance from them.

Practical Application: Serving the Community

And I'll give you an example. I was consulting a mosque in the West Coast. I apologize. And it's in a Hispanic neighborhood. And the brother was telling me, like, we put a Hispanic sign up, like, come worship one God. In Spanish, right? And he's like, but nobody came to our barbecue. I was like, of course not, man. That's what everybody says to the Latino Hispanic community, man. Like, it's very cheesy.

So, he's like, what should we do? I said, well, two weeks from now, you have school starting, right? And you have this massive immigration discussion. So, why don't you consider doing two things? Why don't you provide vaccinations for children? Right? We have enough medical professionals in our community that can do that. Why don't you provide vaccinations for your neighborhood's children at the mosque? Right? And then secondly, why don't you provide pro bono immigration attorneys to give people some basic advice, at least in the initial phase of immigration?

And the brother told me, but that's not what a mosque does. And I was like, then what does a mosque do? And he said, I'm serious. He said, they call to Allah. I was like, what? How did you get that with that? Post-modernity.

Final Summary and Conclusion

So, four qualities of a leader that I mentioned. Honesty. Number two, intelligence. Religious as well as

professional intelligence and integrity. Number three is propagation. Do not sacrifice the principles of Islam for others because there'll be no barakah, there'll be no help from Allah. No matter how great, no matter how many people respond. And the fourth, we said, is what? To be someone who people can trust.

The Eight Conditions of the Caller

And under the quality of the caller, we said these eight things, right? Sorry, it's a lot. Number one is knowledge. But you didn't come here just to cheerlead and get happy, right? You came, you have someone like this, you should learn, right? You want to take something home, have some grit in them notes.

Number one, we said is knowledge, religion and people. Number two, group work. Number three, spirituality. Number four, I differentiate myself from the evil around me and the facade. I do not use the facade, the evil as an excuse to be a caller. No, no, I have to take certain positions yeah, I can kick it, I can hang out, but I stop right there. Right?

The next is what? Wisdom. After that is the ability to articulate ourselves in different ways. Like today you heard me make some references and you heard the young people like, mm-hmm, right? Because you can't just go one direction. Sometimes you got to flip it up. See that? Watch it. You a Zayn Malik fan or something?

And then the last one is be prepared in how you argue.

. بارك الله فيكم. والسلام عليكم