Creating Safe Spaces - Ustadh
By Usama Canon | 2026-01-12T20:48:47.930312+00:00 | Topic: Iman
Creating Safe Spaces - Ustadh Usama Canon
Opening
"In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful."
"All praise is due to Allah, Lord of the worlds. O Allah, send blessings and peace upon our master Muhammad, his family, and all of them."
"Peace be upon you, and the mercy of Allah."
Introduction by Chaplain Abdul Malik Ryan
My name is Abdul Malik Ryan, I'm the Muslim Chaplain here at DePaul. I'm in my third year here as a Muslim Chaplain, so I'd like to welcome all the DePaul students and all the guests that we have here today. We're very honoured to have Ustadh Usama Canon with us and inshallah to Allah we hope to have more programs like this in the future.
Ustadh Usama Canon, I'm sure most of you came because you're already familiar with him and familiar with his background, but just to introduce him for anybody who's not familiar, Ustadh Usama was born and raised in California and embraced Islam in the mid-1990s. And then he studied Islam overseas and with many different teachers and has continued to study Islam here in the United States and overseas. He was originally known to most of us through his affiliation with Zaytuna Institute where he taught Arabic and taught classes for beginning Muslims or Muslims coming back to the faith.
And he's now part of a project called Tatlif Collective which is an institution that tries, as far as I understand, and he's going to explain to us in a little more detail, what the idea and the concept behind it is, but to try to create spaces in the American Muslim context that are relevant and welcoming to all different kinds of American Muslims or people who are interested in Islam or people who know Muslims, family members of Muslims, and all the different people in the American context that are associated with Islam or Muslims. And sometimes don't find spaces that they feel comfortable in to just talk about issues and just socialize or do all the other things that human beings need to do with each other in a way that's healthy and will give people a positive experience with Islam and Muslims.
So what we asked him to do was kind of explain that vision a little bit to people who may not be familiar with it and then also to maybe specifically relate some of his nasihah, some of his advice, for how we as people on a college campus can try to create that environment on a college campus.
We all know that among some people, the whole concept of Muslim Students Association and MSA, well for many of us, including myself who converted to Islam while I was at college, has the most positive institution in the Muslim community. That we have a very high opinion of it and we feel like that's where people are very active and very excited about the deen and do a lot of dawah and all this stuff. But we know for other people in the community, it has an image of people who are somewhat narrow-minded, somewhat not open to people who are not practicing at certain levels or more interested and can also
sometimes get caught up in intra-Muslim debates over different methodologies and who's going to control this MSA versus who's not going to control this MSA.
Some people think of the MSA as a place where people who don't have knowledge argue with each other about people who have knowledge, which one they should follow or not follow. Or they just look down on people who are not wearing hijab or not having a beard or all these other kinds of things. Whether that's true, I think obviously MSA as a student-run organization will vary completely from campus to campus. You really can't generalize, but for whatever people have that image or just for the fact that we know there are many Muslims on campus, I noticed something when I became a chaplain because I did come with such a positive feeling about MSA, even though I knew of the negative things. It always struck me as surprising, especially when there are practicing Muslims. But even Muslims regardless, I would hear that there are Muslims at DePaul who never hang out with the MSA or they don't come to MSA meetings or they don't consider themselves part of the MSA.
Or they never knew that we had a prayer room and all this kind of stuff. And like I said, some of these people are people who are praying and some of them are even people who are wearing hijab. But they don't consider that they're a group for whatever reason. Included are all the other people who consider themselves Muslims and who are Muslims and come from Muslim families, but for some reason they don't feel comfortable approaching the Muslims or being around the Muslims on campus. And so let alone people who are non-Muslims, how they feel about being around the Muslims. So these are some of the issues that we wanted Ustadh Usama to address.
And inshallah ta'ala, I'm going to ask him to talk. Obviously he can take as long as he wishes, but if he wants to just talk for about half an hour until 8 o'clock, and then that could leave a whole hour for a question and answer. Great, thank you.
Main Khutbah by Ustadh Usama Canon
"In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful."
"All praise is due to Allah, Lord of the worlds. O Allah, send blessings and peace upon our master Muhammad, his family, and all of them."
"Peace be upon you, and the mercy of Allah."
Good evening to everybody. Thank you for having me. Special thanks to my dear friend, Abdul Malik, for inviting me, and for everyone who was part of the process of getting me here. Coming to Chicago often is my first time in DePaul. I feel very remiss in that I didn't adequately kind of study the history of this university, but I understand just in the time that I've been here that it's the largest Catholic university in the country.
Is that accurate? And I had some pretty cool exposure just on my walk here to some of the stuff going on. So it's cool. I think it provides an important backdrop for the conversation that we're going to have.
And I think that if I was going to maybe advise one principle that's relevant to this whole conversation, it's just for people to realize where they are and to not be deluded about that. And I think in that is a great,
great success for people to just realize the time and the place in which we live, both in the beauty of that and in the challenge. Muslims have never probably had this complex of a situation before them because people have never had this complex of a situation before them collectively, just by virtue of the time that we live in.
And the challenges that we as a species, let alone as Muslims specifically, face. In the brief time that I've been given, maybe I'll just talk a little bit about Tatlif Collective because that's what I was asked to discuss, the organization that I serve. And hopefully that will provide a foundation for a conversation that will be relevant to what you all are doing here.
And I by no means want to bore you all, so if at any point I'm going in a direction that is not the direction you all want to go, feel free to stop me and redirect me. How's everybody doing? Are you guys okay? Good. So, Tatlif Collective grew out of an outreach program that started at Zaytuna Institute, which is, as many of you probably know, an American Muslim educational institution that has now become a college.
It was founded the same year that I embraced Islam in 1996. And in the mid-90s, I think you had a big, there was a large influx of people embracing Islam, a large number of people who embraced Islam in that period from a pretty unique background. And interestingly, many of those people were people who were born in the 1970s. And at that same time, around the time that many of us were born, the likes of Yusuf Islam, Hamza Yusuf, Zayd Shakir, Noah Keller, and many other American or Western Muslims converted to Islam. And from that period in the 1970s to the 1990s, many of those people, with their respective, and many, many other people, with their different paths, traveled to the Muslim world or studied extensively at home. And then began, by the 1990s, they've kind of come back and begun to impart that knowledge.
So that was part of what Zaytuna Institute was about. And having converted to Islam the same year that it was founded, in many ways, I, along with many of my peers, grew with the organization. By the early 2001, 2002, I had done a bit of traveling myself overseas and studied and came back and was part of, really, the infancy stage of Zaytuna Institute.
The Story of Tatlif Collective's Beginning
There was a property and there were people coming there to learn. And there were a lot of people asking questions about Islam, particularly after 9-11. A lot of people were calling Zaytuna, asking for advice, looking for direction, especially in such a charged climate. And so in 2002, the founders of Zaytuna Institute asked me to lead an outreach program. That, actually, the day that I was asked to do that, I was wearing overalls, riding a lawnmower. I was also the property manager.
Sheikh Hamza had this meeting, and he was like, we want to have this meeting, this powwow. And being the wannabe revolutionary 80s baby that I am, I was like, I'm not going to the meeting. So I was out on the lawnmower, mowing the lawn. And I had gas all over my overalls and stuff. And someone came out and was like, turn off the lawnmower. Sheikh Hamza is calling you. And so I was like, I can't go to the meeting. So I walked in looking like a farmer or something. And then Sheikh Hamza had been asking certain people to take on certain roles within the organization.
And he asked me to direct the outreach program. And I said I'd be happy to do that just because my teacher asked me to do so. And there was an interesting conversation that pursued immediately after that that I think is relevant both to Tatlif and to the work that you all will do.
I told him some of the ideas I had. And he said the famous saying that the Arabs, they say:
which essentially means assign an intelligent person to do a job and then don't give them directives. In other words, make it happen. And that was his response to some particular questions that I asked. And that guided a lot of what we did because there was a very real sense of trust and a very real sense of empowerment.
So from that point, we developed the outreach program within Zaytuna Institute, and we focused on three things. One was prison outreach and addressing all of the questions and correspondence that would come from both county, state, and federal institutions from across the country asking Zaytuna for educational material. So we focused on that. And then the growing number of folks that were embracing Islam and needed assistance in the process of converting to Islam, and that was a core focus.
And then also reengaging the Muslim youth. And as you all know, youth is a very broad stroke, and the Muslims have very much embraced that, I would say, sometimes maybe not nuanced enough approach to working with youth, that we're going to have a youth program. And a lot of times you have people my age because technically I'm under 40. I mean not technically, I'm under 40. But Shabab is up to 40. So you have college kids and then some nine-year-olds all in the same room. So it needs to be a little bit more focused, obviously.
So we focused specifically on the emerging adult population post-high school and the college and what have you. And we saw within a period of three or four years, somewhere between 150 and 200 people embraced Islam directly through the program and then assisted them in that process, developed a database. And Zaytuna was very much like a learning institution, kind of comparable to like a madrasa where people would come and learn.
And so we attempted to create a space within that context that was most suitable for the folks who were coming, whether those were people from other faith communities or people that had recently embraced Islam, and try to create a space that was proper for them.
The Birth of Tatlif Collective
In 2005, as Zaytuna Institute moved toward what is now Zaytuna College, the leadership of the organization looked critically at what would be the most effective way to focus in on developing the college while also not doing away with the programs that already existed. So I was asked to essentially start an independent nonprofit that focused on those same areas. And I, again, reluctantly, but I tried to rise to the challenge. So in 2005, Tatlif was born as an independent nonprofit, focusing specifically on
caring for people that were either interested in or had recently embraced Islam, trying to engage Muslim youth, particularly from the emerging adult population.
But we kind of were faced with a difficult question about the whole prison outreach. And as you all know, especially those of you who work with IMAN or are familiar with the work that IMAN does, prison work, both chaplaincy and reentry work, is a huge, huge monster. We were faced with the difficult decision that it needs an independent organization that will focus specifically on that. So we unfortunately weren't able to maintain that as part of what we do.
So Tatlif Collective provides the space, content, and companionship needed for a healthy understanding, embrace, and realization of Islam. That's kind of the mission statement. What that means in simple English is that we are attempting to make conversion or recommitment to, and then the practice of Islam, a more sustainable reality in this context, focusing on those aforementioned groups of people.
And like you talked about, we live in a difficult situation. I do think, with all due respect to my beloved brother Omar, I think that the idea of living in a non-Muslim country, again, is not quite nuanced enough when we're really talking about what our situation is. I think it has a lot to do with just living in a globalized society. And many of you who hail from historically Muslim countries know that when you go home, there are very real challenges, a lot of times the same exact ones we face here in those so-called Muslim countries. So it's not just as simple as living in a non-Muslim country.
I think it's just we live in a really, really complex age. What that means for American Muslims and the reality that American Muslims face, according to the most, I would say, authoritative statistics, somewhere around 10 percent, and I think that's a pretty generous number, but according to Bagby's study, Pew Research's data, somewhere around 10 percent of Muslims regularly attend mosque services. That's according to, you know, those can be argued, but again, that's Bagby's data, that's the Pew and other people's, the study that CARE has done and other people, that's what the numbers suggest.
Let's say it's 50 percent, let's say it's 40, whatever. A significant number of Muslims are not directly engaged, are not regularly attending mosque services. So when we talk about Muslims and what's going on with Muslims, you talk about the challenges with organizations at a university level, why people aren't there, where people are at, a lot of times that is because when we talk about our community, we're really talking about a very small sliver of that community.
We're not looking at the entirety of the community and the issues and problems and challenges that that community faces. And what that does is a lot of times we begin to speak in language that is not actually accurate, and we tend to over-Muslimify our problems. What do I mean? There are shifting trends regarding religiosity across the space spectrum in America. It's not like Muslims are the only people that are challenged with this. There are, you know, tendencies toward a total, what they're calling, you know, like a self-branded religion, like the book Congregation of One, that people kind of want their own version. You all know about the trend towards spirituality and away from quote-unquote religion, that people are spiritual but they're not religious.
These are challenges that people through all different faith communities are faced with. Point in case, Muslims are not being totally engaged. There are simultaneously somewhere between 20,000 and 60,000, again it's stats, there's no way to really determine exactly how many, somewhere between 20,000 and 60,000 people who convert to Islam annually in the United States of America. Some would suggest it's as high as 80,000 if you put Canada and Mexico in the mix. Again, let's say it's 10,000, let's say it's 5,000, let's say it's 100,000. Either way, there are a lot of people converting to Islam.
And so, Tatlif Collective, we're very much of the opinion that the experience of people born Muslim in America, particularly from second generation or people who are children of people who hail from historically Muslim countries, that the experience that they have and the challenge that they face are very similar. In a lot of ways, I don't want to say identical, but very similar to the challenges that an American faces when they decide to convert to Islam. Especially just growing up here and what people deal with.
So Tatlif tries to create, we've tried to provide a model that speaks to both of those needs simultaneously. There's been challenges in that, but I think Alhamdulillah, there's been a lot of successes along the way.
Creating Alternative Sacred Spaces
So, the way we have attempted to kind of address the challenges that we've talked about is one, providing a model that meets those needs at a local level. And I think that's really, really important. And we do that through a facility that we like to call an alternative sacred space. I really appreciated how you put up on the entry to the prayer area. This is a sacred space. And it wasn't like, no shoes! Or like one of those big red signs. I was in a mosque recently and there was one of those flyers and it was like, in mosque, can't talk.
And there's all these really, and I've actually begun an album on my phone of just really strange signs in different mosques around the country. Let alone the typos, we won't get into that. But I just appreciate this is a sacred space. Please remove your shoes, right? So we're beginning to develop language as a community that's more consistent with our environment. Like it's not like, take your shoes off or else. It's just like, this is a sacred space, please remove your shoes.
Beautiful language. So part of what we try to do at Tatlif is provide a space that we like to say is sacred enough to be meaningful but welcoming enough not to be threatening. And this is a new idea for the Muslims in an American context. It's not new for the Muslims historically. But this idea that there's what Ray Oldenburg calls a third space. A good book to read is A Great Good Place by Ray Oldenburg.
He's a sociologist that argues that informal social space in America is being lost. That there's just what you know at the center of communities there used to be these informal social spaces. In his book he talks about the tavern and the pub and what have you. But he also talks about the coffee shop. Which as you all know is part of the legacy that the Muslims have given to the world. That's very much a Muslim legacy as is the coffee bean.
But you don't want to get me talking about coffee. But yeah, so a space that is sacred enough to be meaningful but is welcoming enough not to be threatening. And our read on the example of our beloved
Prophet Muhammad is that he did this wherever he went. That the spaces that were around him were welcoming and that they were not threatening. And you find all kinds of examples of that.
Examples from the Prophet's Life
Because you know this is a person who's dealing with desert Arabs who would have been very much you could say kind of like comparable to like the pre-modern hoodlums. You know what I mean? No seriously a lot of these guys they were real rough around the edges. And the Prophet peace be upon him engages those people. One of them comes and he says Oh Muhammad give me from the wealth of God not from the wealth of your mother or father. And many of the companions wanted to respond violently to this man because they're like how are you going to come talk to the Prophet like that? The Prophet said leave him alone. Had a conversation. Gave him.
He said do you see all of these sheep? You see all these big like if I said to you there's a parking lot full of Bentleys or something right? Like do you see all of these sheep in this valley? A huge herd. And the man said yeah the Prophet said that's all a gift for you. He's like don't mess with me. The Prophet's like I don't joke around about stuff like that. Right? That's what he said. I'm not kidding. That's all a gift for you. And then the man took it he said did I give you enough? He said not yet. He gave him more. He said did I give you enough? He said yeah now you hooked me up. We family you are right. That's what it means in Arabic. Yeah. You know. And then he said could you go talk to my companions because they kind of got feelings about what you said and I want you to...right? Like they're still bothered by what you said.
So the man goes out and clarifies. Look he hooked me up. Right? I got what I wanted and I'm on my way. Then he goes to his people and he says:
He said, oh my people, embrace Islam because Muhammad gives the gift of a person who doesn't fear poverty. Peace and blessings of Allah be upon him.
So you find confrontational situations that the Prophet was able to diffuse. You all know the famous story, and you've heard me narrate this hadith a number of times, where a Bedouin man comes into the mosque of the Prophet peace be upon him, and he begins to urinate. Now just imagine, and this is, it's in an authentic narration, it's not fabricated, it's a good narration, and it literally says that the man was urinating in the mosque, and the companions were intent on addressing the situation.
the companions were going to address the situation. And the Prophet, it's interesting because he said don't interrupt his urination. It's not really, because it has medical, it's like there's a medical sensitivity there. He didn't just say don't interrupt him, he said do not interrupt his urination. Because it would affect him, you can't just go, and then after the man finished, and this is in the mosque of the Prophet Muhammad, this isn't just in some mosque, then the Prophet himself goes and talks to him, and he says, you're not supposed to do that, it's a mosque. Because the tone doesn't come through in the narration.
You know (هَذِهِ مَساجِدْ لَا تَصْلُّحْ لِشَيْءٍ مِنْ هَذَا - hadhihi masajid la tasluh li shay'in min hadha). These mosques are not appropriate for any of that, they're places of prayer and of purity, like man, come on man. But the beautiful thing, again, is the response that this creates.
Because the man says, (اللَّهُمَّ ارْحَمْنِي وَارْحَمْ مُحَمَّدًا وَلَا تَرْحَمْ مَعَنَا أَحَدًا - Allahumma arhamni warham Muhammadan wa la tarham ma'ana ahada). He says, Allah have mercy on me and Muhammad and nobody else. What does that mean? It's like, I love this dude so much, I just want to be alone with him in paradise. In other words, the way he spoke to me was so beautiful, was so gentle, that I love him. I love him. So what did the Prophet say? How did he diffuse that situation? And again, if someone came into one of our sacred spaces and began to urinate, how would we address that? So the Prophet created these type of spaces.
When the Christians come to his mosque, and he allows them to pray in his mosque, he created spaces that were engaging, again, for people that are confrontational, and for people who had questions and were in the process of attempting to appreciate, understand, and ultimately embrace his prophecy, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him.
The Three Programs of Tatlif
So the space, you know, there's simultaneously this alternative social space, and then, I'm sorry, sacred space, and what we're attempting to develop, by way of what's currently about a 3,000 square foot warehouse, is like an alternative social space. Through having, again, I don't want to get into the whole coffee thing, but like quality level coffee, cool living room kind of setting, right? And inshallah, when you come visit the facility, hopefully you'll be able to see that in completion.
But what we're attempting to do is to create a space where Muslims can remember that while they're in their sacred mode, that they should maintain some social relevance, and while they're in their social mode, they shouldn't forget their sacred duties. And to create a space where that process can kind of be tested. And so that's part of the vision in terms of the space.
Have I gone over time already? No. Huh? I haven't? Okay. Okay, okay.
Yeah, and then in terms of the content, we have three programs. One program is what we call the Convert Continuum of Care, which is our attempt to address this reality that the question of people embracing Islam in America is not one of simply getting them to say the shahadah or formally embrace the faith, but it's really the bread is really buttered and the rubber really meets the road with what happens after that. Like what happens after people embrace Islam?
So that program is dedicated to educating but also having one-on-one meaningful sessions with people to talk about the different struggles that they go through and provide financial assistance for those who need it, etc., etc. And there's been all kind of really cool stories. I could tell you guys stories until the cows come home about that one. The most recent one that has been really fun is this kid Jason who converted to Islam back in 2009 in our facility.
And he's been one of the poster boys for the whole earring tattoo question. Do you guys follow the 30 Mosques, 30 Days thing? How many of you all followed that blog? So yeah, we were day four. We didn't know how it was going to end up, so don't take me to account for whatever happened to the end of the whole thing.
But they were there day four. And if you read the blog, there's talking about Tatlif and how there's people with tattoos and there's people with earrings. So great, whatever. But Jason is one of the people featured in that article. And he's had a really interesting experience. He's on our video. You can hear him talk. But Jason, he wouldn't mind me talking about this. So Jason converted to Islam, had a lot of personal struggles, whatever.
Was talking to a Muslim girl after he embraced Islam for some time from a Muslim family. And you can imagine how that whole thing went. Because, you know, he's a white American convert with tattoos. And she's from a strong Muslim background. So he went through that whole can I marry your daughter experience. And we won't talk about that right now.
But then he meets this girl at work. And he starts bringing her around Tatlif. And she's not Muslim. And they're talking, you know, whatever. And you can tell that they got a thing going on. But the point is, can he comfortably bring her? Do Muslims welcome that conversation? Or would we just rather, you know what I mean, put on blinders and pretend like that stuff's not happening.
So Jason, he's a member of our community. And I think Tatlif is probably his primary place of worship. But this is the same guy who goes to the mosque and got told, Brother, you shouldn't be half a Muslim because he has tattoos. You know, Brother, what's your Muslim name? He said, My Muslim name is Jason. These are realities that he's experiencing, right?
So Jason brings his girlfriend. He's like, Dude, she's asking all kinds of questions I don't really know. I can't really answer them. So can you talk to her? He's like, Yeah, no problem. Sit down. She's a stone cold atheist. She's like, There's no God. And I'm like, Well, why do you believe that? It wasn't even theological. I said, Why not? She said, Because of all the stuff I went through growing up. She's like, How could there be a God? My mother's been through what she's been through. And I've suffered the way I've suffered.
Do you all hear the question? In other words, it's not really about God. It's about her very difficult lived experience. So I told her, Don't worry, Jackie, it'll be alright.
So we're talking. Then Jackie starts like hanging out. She puts on hijab before she's even Muslim. And she said, It's the first time in my life. She said, I went with some Muslims. And then I rode BART, which is like, What do you all call the train here? CTA.
It's like our version of that. And she said, It's the first time in my life. I didn't feel sexually objectified. So she said, I just really appreciate it. You know what I mean? So she kept it on. She's still wearing it now.
One night in Ramadan. And they write about this on the blog. We're leaving the parking lot. And my wife goes, Did Jason marry Jackie yet? And I'm like, I don't know. It's 12 o'clock at night. Wife and kids in the
car. And that's a struggle in and of itself. Just the kids screaming, whatever. And I was like, I don't know.
So my wife's like, Why don't you ask him? So I pull over, get out of the car. I was like, Jason, come here, bro. I was like, Dude, what's good? Are you going to marry her or not, bro? And he's like, I can't marry her. I was like, Why? Because she's not Muslim. I was like, Bro, just ask her if she wants to become Muslim. She's praying. She's fasting. She's wearing hijab. Just ask her.
He's like, Dude, I don't know if I can say this. I was like, Tell her I asked. So he goes over to the car. And they're talking for like five minutes. And he goes, It's all good. It's all good. Right? So we go inside. And I was like, Jackie, are you ready to become Muslim? And she's like, Yeah. She's like, I believe in God. And I believe this is real. So she went from being a stone-cold atheist to wanting to accept Islam. She embraced Islam.
And then they got married. You know? Alhamdulillah. It was like a Muslim version of Las Vegas. It was real easy. You know what I'm saying? It didn't have to make it difficult. You know? But seeing that process happen. You know? Like watching people go. Not just the Shahada. But what happens to people after they say their Shahada? After they go from being that mysterious new brother or new sister.
And then they go face their social realities and their families. And try to reconcile Islam with their family. And explain to their family this new religion. Like, you know what it's like for me to explain to my father why I had water all over the bathroom? You guys are laughing. But seriously, my dad's like, Son, what are you doing? What are you doing? There's water on the ceiling. Like, what? You know, because you're trying to make wudu. You don't know how to make wudu yet. You remember when you first convert to Islam. You can't sit on the ground and kneel like that.
Y'all are laughing. But you realize this is difficult for people. It's difficult. You convert to Islam. Then you're squatting on your knees. And your ankles feel like they're going to snap. And you're trying to make it eat with your hand. You know what I mean? So, this is a reality people face. It's not to mention people are coming to Islam expecting Islam to address their trauma. Expecting Islam to address the social lived realities that they have.
So, we can't render it just a religious conversation. I'll make dua for you brothers. I'll pray for you. Well, pray for me. But what else are you going to do? So, the Convert Continuum of Care, you can ask more questions about that. You can read about it on the website.
The other one, the other program is called Project Recollect. And that's headed by a young man named Masood Rahimi. Who I would strongly encourage you all to get in touch with. He, after observing a Friday night program that we had. That, it really kind of became the talk of the town. Because it started out 20, 30 kids. At one point there was probably 300, 400 people coming every Friday night. The magical, feed them pizza and they will come principle.
You guys know about that. Right? So, feed them pizza, short talk. And all of these kids. But the other thing is they had, I mean, how lucky they had Imam Suhaib one week. Imam Hamza one week. Imam Zaid one
Question and Answer Session
So like we said, we have now a little bit over an hour for question and answer, and we really want discussion, and I'm sure people have a lot of different things to bring out. I'm going to also ask, we were blessed to have Ubaidullah Evans, the scholar in residence from IMAN, here with us. So I'm going to ask him to come up here and also participate in the Q&A. I'll participate. He asked you to just sit. I asked you to sit. I told you before. Who's older? Are you older? He's older. Yes, I am older. He has to do what you said.
So, but mashallah, we know Ubaidullah Evans is, alhamdulillah, from Chicago. And a student of Islamic law at Al-Azhar. So me and him argue about these issues all the time, so I want to have him on the panel. Argue is a strong word. Discuss in an Irish way. Have spirited discussions. So go ahead.
Who has a question? I did a great job. Can you search the author of Great Good Place? Yeah, Oldenburg? Yeah, if you just Google search Third Place, the Wikipedia page will take you. The third, yeah.
No, no, the book is called The Great Good Place, but Oldenburg is kind of like the flagship scholar of like the idea of a third place in American context. I didn't get to go into that as much as I would like to have, but yeah. His basic premise is that healthy societies have always been kind of on a tripod, where there was like home, the office, and then this other third place, and that we oftentimes are like on a bipod in the American context where it's between home and work, and that we don't have sufficient third places where we can go.
And to leave, we're beginning to really work with this idea as almost a fourth place, like almost like, in other words, like there's homework, the mosque, and then there's this other place that's complementary to those. Like borders before it shut down was a third place for a lot of people. I don't know if you guys have, you're right? Yeah, so a lot of the borders in the Bay Area shut down. People just go there, drink coffee, read, meet people, et cetera. And again, the coffee house is the legacy of the Muslims, and we intend on going back to leading that legacy, inshallah. Inshallah.
Question About Non-Muslims Visiting
Do you find that other Christians who may not be even associated with Muslims come there on their own? Totally. And that's one of the measurements of success for us. When you talk about a safe space, for us, those moments of like, yes, in other words, alhamdulillah, or when people are like, I feel comfortable here, it smells good.
No, really, no, really. I mean, the Prophet, peace be upon him, said, burn incense in your sacred spaces, burn incense in your mosques. You know what I mean? Like it's part of our tradition to make our spaces fragrant, make them exceptionally clean, make them exceptionally inclusive.
So when people say that, and for us, when folks, especially from other faith communities come and can say that they feel safe, say that it feels good, it's meaningful, for us, that's not a means to an end, it's an end in and of itself. In other words, it's not like, okay, now that you feel safe, now we're going to, you know what I'm saying? Because when folks are able to come, really, and they can sense it, like, oh, there's no, this isn't like leading up to something. You know, like pyramid schemes, where like, hey, you're like, your friend's like, I've gotten involved with this thing, you're not going to believe it.
You're going to be a millionaire in a month, and you're just like, dude, like, I just want you to come to this meeting at my house for dinner. And then you get there, and there's like all these people that you don't know. You know what I mean? I'm not trying to bash on pyramid schemes, I'm just saying.
But you know what I'm saying? Like, it's not leading up, it's not like, because people have to come on their own accord, right? For me, one of the beautiful successes has been my Auntie Sharon, who was the first person to ever take me to church before I was Muslim. Auntie Sharon just drops into Tatlif, you know, and she's like the quintessential crazy black auntie, you know. Like, really, if you met Auntie Sharon, she's completely uninhibited.
She's one of the most uninhibited persons you have ever met. And Auntie Sharon loves Tatlif. Like, she'll just walk, show up sometimes, you know, bring my family members. And again, like the scholars say, when Muslims went to a place historically, they first became accepted, and then they were desired, and eventually, they were, the society could not do, they were indispensable. The society could not do without them, right?
So I think a big measure of success for us is not just, you know, what we're saying to one another, but what we're saying to folks outside the immediate bounds of our community and what they're saying about us. Yeah, was that related to your question? Yeah, absolutely.
Question About Practical Advice for Campus
Can you give some, like, practical advice, like simple things that we can do on campus to help create that open space? I was thinking about that. There was a couple points that I thought might, maybe is guiding principles because I think something that Abdul-Malik said that's really important for us to remember is that every campus, every context demands its own particulars.
You know what I mean? Like you can't, I don't think there's, like, a cookie cutter model that necessarily entirely works in every context. You have to be sensitive to the unique nature of a given place, but as perhaps guiding principles, one is embracing the pluralism inherent to Islam and Islamic law, and when I say pluralism, I mean the breadth of interpretation, the breadth of understanding and difference of opinion within Islamic law itself without even really having to go outside of that, but just embracing the fact that there's different ways to do things that are completely and totally entirely Sharia compliant that do not have to be inconsistent with or somehow treacherous toward Islamic law.
And you all know the famous Hadith of Bani Qurayza where the Prophet, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, sent his companions and he told them (لَا تُصَلُّوا الْعَصْرَ إِلَّا فِي بَنِي قُرَيْظَةَ - Reference: Sahih al-
Bukhari Hadith 946
Some of them, on the way Asr is about to go out, stopped and prayed. Others waited until they actually arrived, delayed the prayer and arrived to the place and then prayed, and when they came back to the Prophet, peace be upon him, he didn't censure any of them. In other words, you can do, the Prophet said one thing and they did two completely opposite interpretations of that and fulfilled it in a way and the Prophet didn't rebuke them.
So understanding that difference of opinion in our religion is a mercy and if you look at a lot of the polemical kind of arguments that Muslims have a lot of times, it's about things that the scholars of old solved a really long time ago and it's cool if like you're trying to feel deep and like you want to sound really profound because you can quote this and quote that, but can we talk about things that we actually need to solve and not things that have already been kind of decided for us?
You know what I mean? In other words, there's multiple opinions about this and I don't mean, when I say difference of opinion, I don't mean Zayd's opinion and Amr's opinion. I mean proper difference of opinion from reputable, rightly guided, God-fearing scholars of Islam where you can do things a different way so we can get beyond the petty stuff. We can get beyond moons and meat as a community, right? Where all we talk about is meat and moons.
You guys know what I mean by meat and moons? No. You don't? Halal and hilal. Yeah, and I'm not making light of those things, right? Whether or not you either be halal or not, and whether or not you follow moonsight or not. Follow, study it, research it, and go for what you know. So I think that's really, really important. I understand that this is not an MSA, if I'm not mistaken.
But MSA, for example, is an organization that is supposed to be inclusive of different... Is it? I mean, it depends how you mean that. We don't call ourselves MSA, but we are a Muslim Students Association. We call ourselves UMMA. We don't call it the default MSA. We call ourselves UMMA. Whether that has significance or not is probably a long discussion. Okay. So that aside... I'm not trying to diss MSA. Yeah, well, like MSA is not supposed to be representative of one interpretation amongst the interpretations of Islam, but to be inclusive of all of them.
I think that's really important. The second thing is just tolerance, man. People just need... I remember a sister when I was in college 500 years ago, and there was these two groups of Muslims, right? There was the activist, super dedicated MSA Muslims, and then there was the other people.
And one day, this brother was walking into the area where we used to hang out, and he said to the other folks who were just kind of in the quad hanging out, one of them was a DJ, used to throw parties and stuff. And he said to one of the sisters, he said, when are you going to come hang out with the real Muslims? And like, you're not allowed to say that. You're actually not allowed to think that.
But we know that people actually behave that way. And there are folks that experience their entire experiences like based on those fake, ridiculous lines. Interestingly, the brother who was like the bad guy,
you know, the DJ, he became like Maulvi Sahib later on. He became like totally religious. No, seriously. He said the bad guy, the DJ. No, he was like... You guys understand what I mean here, right?
He reoriented himself later and became a very dedicated Muslim. And the other guy had his struggles, you know. And the Prophet, peace be upon him, said,
- Reference: Quran 49:11
none of you, no one will mock their brother, and obviously understood her their sister, because of a fault that they have, except that they will commit that same fault before they die. So when you mock people, Imam Ali said, I fear that if I mocked a pregnant woman, I'd become pregnant. Imam Ali cannot become pregnant. What does he mean? You really shouldn't mock people.
So when we talk about tolerance, okay, fine. You know, this Muslim is doing X, Y, or Z. So how do you really deal with that? And how did the Prophet, peace be upon him, deal with those things? You have all heard me, not all of you, some of you have heard me reference a hadith in Sahih Muslim, where the Prophet, a young man comes to the Prophet, and he says (يَا رَسُولَ اللهِ انْذَنْ لِي فِي الزِّنَا - Reference: Sahih
Muslim Hadith 2338
This is in Sahih Muslim, in front of the companions. And the companions,
So the companions stood up and said, Stop, stop, be quiet. You're in front of the Prophet of God. He walked and said, Look, let me fornicate.
Stop, like were companions the And
Don't say that. And what did the Prophet say?
. Come here.
That's the whole piece right there? It's all in what? Come here. Come here. And he said it,
It means come near. It doesn't just mean sit down at the table. Sit down. It means come here, come close.
What did he say? Do you have a mother? He said yes. And he said
He said, Yes, O Messenger of Allah. May Allah make me your ransom.
The conversation is already very loving. Like, I love you. Right? And I know you're a Prophet. And I know I just asked a really crazy question. But I love you. Seriously.
Do you have a mother? He said yes. Would you like that for your mother? He said no. The Prophet said, People don't like that for their mothers. He said, Do you have a daughter? He said yes. He said, Would you like that for your daughter? He said no. He said, People don't like that for their daughters.
Do you have a sister? Yes. Would you like that for your sister? No. People don't like it for their sister. Do you have an aunt? And that goes on. And then the beautiful part, the Prophet put his hand on him. He put his hand on him. No. He didn't push him away. He said,
Allah purify his heart and forgive his sins and protect his privates. And the boy never inclined toward it after that. So where are we with that? Can people come up and be like, Look, I got issues, man. If someone walked in here and I said, Usama, Give me a effect without I can smoke blunts.
Closing
The session concluded with extensive discussion about creating welcoming spaces for Muslims of all backgrounds, dealing with contemporary challenges facing Muslim communities, and the importance of tolerance, understanding, and practical wisdom in building inclusive Islamic communities in America.