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amina_mccloud/A Conversation-Dr_ Aminah McCloud and Dr_ Abdullah_kYusYGhdpi0&pp=ygUVQW1pbmFoIE1jQ2xvdWQgIGlzbGFt_1742898307.opus
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"strengthening families and communities. And so we'd like to welcome all of you from wherever you have come from for attending, for tuning in. And we hope to start this conference with a short conversation with one of our elders Dr. Amina McLeod who is the professor of religious studies and director of Islamic world studies at DePaul University.",
"contributed in the past and last year to the conference, and in other ways she's contributed greatly to our efforts. So we're very appreciative and grateful for all of her contributions. And we definitely appreciate her wisdom when it comes to trying to frame the conversations that we hope to have during this particular weekend insha'Allah. So Dr McLeod I'd like to welcome you.",
"important for us to be very concerned about insensitive to what sort of questions you think are important to have answered or to be asked, etc. Etc. So the floor is yours and I'll try to interject whenever I feel that's necessary. I have looked at the schedule and I think it's a wonderful set",
"of workshops and I don't know small conversations. And it seems to me that they fall in three categories. One is our concerns we have with family, marriage and divorce. The other is a set of concerns we",
"And another set really regards our, I don't want to call it interfaith dialogue because it's not just faiths that are interacting. But they are people from different faiths bringing values, interacting on social issues, social concerns, whether they be domestic or foreign. So I kind of see those three categories.",
"uh there may be more but i think that they are very very um interesting um and we've talked about this before islam in america is just coming so to speak um and that we're not",
"parts of other cultures. We have a unique set of experiences here which add to that wonderful rich tapestry of Islam in the world and as we call through sources, whether we're calling",
"from other schools of Islamic learning around the world. That what we have to do now is see what of that philosophically and ideologically, we can use for the 21st century where we are. Right. And by we exactly who would you mean when you say that we have these things? I think that any Muslim has access they got to a little work but",
"but i think that the those who have chosen to do islamic studies have got to turn their their research their eye toward okay it's nice that i learned about al-ghazali but you know hey that's nice but algos ali is not living in 21st century chicago you know uh and what about the woman that taught him but that's a different issue you know just",
"you know, just side issues. But what of what he said? Whether he's being the right hand of the king or he's been the philosopher kind of in retreat, one of what is it can I use to piece together a guidance for the 21st century? I don't think that our learning audience knows",
"that tafasir is why and that the men and women engaging in it are doing the best they can but they're still within their own context. I mean we're going to do it and are doing it as we attempt to understand the Quran and move, well we gotta see what we're doing. So that's",
"family lives, I think it is very critical to realize we have embarked on something very interesting. In that in other times we would have married for example men and women our families knew, met at college this, that and the other but now we have some more requirements one of which is they be Muslim",
"that we don't really know them in this strange situation. And to ask people to come to know each other after they've made a legal contract is even stranger, you know? So we have to take all of that into consideration and realize that we're kind of walking a hybrid. We have a Western notion of love and compassion",
"and then there's the other world understanding of status, economic support. So we're kind of bridging two worlds. Yes right yeah so what it sounds like to me is that there are multiple challenges in any given conversation naturally",
"spoken and relate to of course power relationships between people they can be based upon our sexual differences, based upon economic disparities or class differences. Yes. And if those particular issues are not sort of fleshed out then we technically I guess you would say",
"hope that we can create a lasting peace or a lasting harmony. Would you say that's the good way? You mean inside of the family? Well, inside of The Family, right? Inside of the community, all of that, yes. What I'm saying is that you gotta work at it in different ways. Early in African American history, it was understood that African American women had a greater chance of being educated and employed than African American men.",
"American men. So you had women who were teachers marrying men who were pipefitters or plumbers at this time, but those men didn't understand that as power disparity or contention. Good point. Yes. Right? So now we're in an even more strange situation where African-American",
"city across this nation are being carted off to jail you know is and i mean at even younger and younger ages so what is happening in an interesting for me kind of genocide it is that the women have got to regroup so what are we going to now use as the balance yes right",
"year we actually had a panel related to um incarcerating or sort of re-entry uh formerly incarcerated muslims back into the community um of course that itself is going to remain a major i guess you say concern in our conferences this year we don't have that people panel because we wanted to expand the theme make it a bit broader and hopefully deal with some issues in such a way that",
"such a way that eventually they may address this particular crisis that does exist with regards to incarceration. But at any rate, there is definitely I guess the couple of panels related to marriage one panel is on the topic polygyny another panel related to just the general reasons why individuals should get married or generally do get married and perhaps suggestions",
"of reasons why they rather should get married, rather than objectifying one another. And we've seen a rise in tension between men and women not just among African American community or Black American community but even in our world now because of feminism and other things like that where it seems there's a lot of competition",
"It hasn't really been that serious of a challenge for the Black community when it comes to feminism. But what we do see developing is, although maybe a fringe concern but there are a number of sisters who have attempted started to talk about the importance of men being men and part of that is men actually taking on their proper financial responsibilities which usually",
"as a result of having better education and better opportunity, perhaps in being a bit more creative about how they actually earn their money. And so issues that come up in relationships like, you know, oh, your mom doesn't obey me. So the suggestion becomes, okay, well it will be easier for me to obey you if you actually did your job as a man or if you'd actually heard acting as a",
"problems in terms of educational disparity between Black men and Black women, and especially nowadays is probably even much more significant. It is. How do we approach that particular conversation? Well, I think it's going to require, first of all, a lot of work. But as long as the law lets us open our eyes every day, we can go to work on it. Yeah, exactly. But I think that you're right. You're absolutely right.",
"absolutely right and one of the uh reasons being given for polygyny is that they're not enough available men but there are available men, but if you only look in your backyard you're probably going to come up with weeds. But that's the definition um I think that we have communities where",
"portion of our community have taken over the center of our Community and those who acquire skills and education don't want to hang out so you don't see them yes you know they show up to give zakat you know or an edelfetzer you know but you don t see them short of that Juma",
"The other part is that we are, we can't forget there were a subjugated community. Yes. And the subjugation was deliberate and by design. Can't give in to within reasonable limits of what does acting like a man mean? You have the best man on the planet who has God fearing and as a great job and as an accident",
"an accident that's right you know does that mean you chuck him out the window because he has an accident he no longer has a job and trump took away the darn uh medical insurance you see what i'm saying you gotta look at a long term because you're not always gonna be young getting married so big older",
"like she did when i married her yes no she put on 30 pounds you know he's his face dropped you know i mean all of these things come into play people's sexuality changes their eating habits change you know what they're interested in changes so you've got to look at marriage as a long-term investment",
"However, one set of things. How we navigate the economic disparities? How we talk about in future conversations because they are serious and they're only going to get worse. Right. How do we learn how to be compassionate with another? That might you know as the old saying that might be your test it doesn't mean that you supposed to have every test",
"but you know, you still have to learn how to be compassionate. I think the thing you said first, I'm thinking it was first, how we think about navigating that whole big thing. I've been involved in a number of court cases recently",
"Where One of the things has to be is we have to own up to who we are If you're gonna be Muslim be muscle, yes I'm not saying that you have to change your name But then it's to be a legal name when show up at the masjid. That's the name you use Mm-hmm You know if you have a preferred and they put it as your middle name but if something happens to you Of the masjed and whatever family you've created need to be",
"Need to be able. To access your stuff. To assess you. To assist with your burial. Whatever. That was one of the things I read. You know he's Mohammed in L.A. And he's Akbar in Atlanta. And something else in Detroit. Well who is he? Nobody really knows. And we have to stop that in our community. We have to make our communities",
"our community responsible and accountable places right right right yes i agree that'll help a little bit people can't show up i'm not saying you know for mothers and fathers who've got kids waiting to be married i would suggest you do a background check but because you don't want your child marrying someone who's unsavory",
"presents in one way, but is actually someone else. Yes, right. And is using the Muslim community to hide it. So we have some issues about which we just need to have conversations. We haven't had those conversations. Right. You know, while I was listening to you talk, another thought came to my mind and this... It's not something that actually is on the agenda",
"agenda or on the program itself. But it has, it's a growing concern I guess that I have and it relates to the idea one, the idea that many Black Muslims seem to believe that authentic blackness is defined by poverty you're not being educated in the academy for instance",
"instance, or in other ways. And there is somewhat of a rift I guess you would say between Muslim leaders who actually are identified with the academy or identify with being like, of course they go on amongst these so-called scholars quote unquote and a lot of people who may see themselves as real black people right?",
"i'm sorry you know that was my point to get my point but again that's that's what i my sense is that that's where people sort of feel that those particular type of muslims or people black people in general see themselves that way i mean you have any thoughts on that well you know any community irrespective of its ethnicity has people at all levels of life it can't come",
"can't come it can't work with everybody at the same level communities just don't work like that what communities have to fight to do is i think respect people in their at their various levels unless it's unsavory yes right um i was just real blank for you folks this doesn't gonna stick in my head forever um but i think that there is an abiding",
"kind of unrealistic jealousy it's always uh been there um and that's unfortunate but that too is normal um but you have to to move to protect your soul you know if you open your soul",
"to let all of those negative influences rule you, and you might as well hang it up and convert to Buddhism. Yeah. You know, because the nafs are an interesting set of whatever they are. Mm-hmm. And I think that a part of being Muslim is to be aware of them. Mm hmm. See them so to speak",
"so to speak, when they're creeping around the edges and say, hey, how you doing? See you later. You know, kind of stuff because that's what's going on with these issues with well he went to school so therefore he thinks he's better than I am. Well he went",
"learn this skill over here to do something for me i can't call abdullah ali to fix my pipes you see what i'm saying right and if i did it would be like me fixing them you know i need the expert one that's at a different level not another level a different of expertise to do that over there and i need to be able to trust him he needs to be honest",
"I think it's that kind of reciprocal control that is absent in the larger society, which is why it's so hard for us to find a mirror. That is important but one of the things most important we don't talk about often is how do we protect our souls? Yes, right.",
"know people think of the large aggressive physical incursions like what happened in new zealand but it's that inner you know protection and accountability and responsibility that is equally if not more so important yeah and i'm very glad really glad that you mentioned this part because um",
"I've said certain things about our community, or I would say attempting to get members of our community to accept some sense of self-responsibility for their plights at certain times rather than constantly saying something. Just tell them that Amena said it and I'm repeating her. They know me for saying it. Yeah, well you legit. You're down.",
"So yes, yeah. Yeah, you know and I understand it does mean a lot You know for your foot for certain people like who says it? It does quite a means a lot, you Know and you know And and and I don't like to tell people about my past you see me so and I think perhaps because I don' t tell people About my past they always get this impression of always I was born with this, you silver spoon in my mouth And I just always where I am, you now there's some people I think that way. Yeah",
"Yeah, I worked hard. I did work hard. But the point I'm trying to make here is this, is that like for instance if you look at the Nation of Islam, like Louis Farrakhan and then you look of course Malcolm and others they were able to do this is that they themselves found it easy to both be critical of white people in the system and also be critical",
"they themselves were traitors to their own race, right? And I'm just wondering why is it so difficult for non-members of the nation and others like that to do the same. What is it that we could potentially do to actually have similar type of appeal without having to make our people feel completely as if all of their problems are a result of something above them, right you see? Some of those problems are there's no doubt about it but not all of",
"times we have fought so hard to master Arabic, to master the sources. And in that world it flows off your tongue and what it does is it glazes people over. It separates you from them. Yes. And that's not what you want",
"well it's been a number of years ago now uh dedicated well we weren't dedicated we were asked to work with minister farrakhan on quranic knowledge you know now his job for his audience is to translate what we've taught him but in the process we had to learn to translate",
"got to do. Yes. You know, is to talk about those things, hit people where they are and with what they know like their life's breath. Yes, right. And you know, and they will speak along with you about whatever the issue is. Black folks know that they're responsible for half the crap that happens to them. You",
"around killing each other once your hands drop down to their knees you have to see what my call the police but that's a different issue um they have gotten their own parents so scared that they will not turn them in because now there is no longer",
"age they're buying them the flat screen tvs and keeping the lights on in the water and the people are sitting back saying my social security won't cover it i'm not gonna live right yeah if they don't bring that money in here well you know we have solutions but they have to be worked upon and that's where uh frederick my husband belongs to this african-american muslim vets group",
"And one of the things they're talking about, I said, you know, I mean, well, I didn't say he said, You know we went to war man fighting people that we didn't even know. Tell me we can get our grandchildren in order here. So it has to come from within. Yes, might require and hopefully lampposts have many sensitive",
"sensitive conversations in the future. And people may not like, folks do not like to be called on their stuff. Yes, right. You know? That's the newest thing now. I'm not responsible for anything. Somebody did it to me. It's like reparations. And if you ask people, after you get your check in the mail, what are you going to spend it on? They're talking about a pot somewhere they can put all these checks and build something that's sustainable",
"sustainable. The shoes they saw the pocketbook, I can get a car. You know? I mean it's what we've been reduced to without guidance. Yes right yeah. So I have one last question before we leave today. This relates to trying to bridge the divide between the Black community and what we generally like to refer to as the immigrant",
"of them don't like to be called the immigrant community. Last year we had a panel on that divide and all panelists were Black Americans. This year, we have a special panel and mixed it up a bit so we actually have one Arab, one Indian, one of Arab descent, one white American brother as well. We plan to have a conversation",
"a conversation to sort of, to hear, to have the audience hear from them their particular perspectives about the relationship between our various communities and what they believe to be the things that actually are making it difficult for us to communicate uh our messages clearly to one another. Right so um just some final thoughts about what you think about that particular panel",
"It's going to be a sensitive conversation if it's an honest one. I think the term immigrant has come to be pejorative, meaning you don't know nothing, whether it's real or false, true or not. And what African Americans are saying is that you don' t know the history of this country. But immigrants typically don't",
"survive. And if they learn the history of the country, it's either by accident or some personal design. We have chafed at their use of the civil rights lingo and said how dare you? You don't even know what this was about. If it wasn't for me and the 1964 Civil Rights Act, you wouldn't be here. It's that",
"you haven't said thank you. You know, the whole thing South Africa was about. Own up to who helped you do X, Y and Z. On the other side, immigrants don't see African Americans taking advantage of this place. They can't see redlining the stuff about credit and the design. That is not obvious.",
"Yes. Okay? It's something that they kind of have to be shown, and then their thing would be, look, why can't you figure a way around this? Why haven't you figured a way round this? So you have people looking at the same thing from two very different points of view. I think challenges to get them to be honest. They see our boys and girls.",
"girls acting like they're pole dancers in the street. You see their kids taking off the scarves and everything else, like what is his name? Adnan Saeed and smoking pot during Ramadan talking about I'm going to put this joint out so I can go break fast. People are seeing the underbelly of each side but still trying to present",
"and they have to have a ser no, they can't do that in that panel. But what you can do is lay out the contours and make a commitment to have future conversations right? Which perhaps we can do in a webinar. Inshallah, inshallah. You know I really do appreciate all of your wisdom and your direction and it's unfortunate that we can't have you there again. And well, I want to try my best next time around too.",
"inshallah give all this life and shall not to make it you know so that that you can be there as a matter of fact, you know we I'm sorry. You should show this recording to your board. Yes. I will I would definitely they're going to see it and And so really really shall are looking forward to continuing to work with you So dr. Amina McLeod appreciate the time in and may Allah grant you she pop",
"uh you know we're in cure to make you even make you stronger physically stronger you know and if not you know just leave you know this of course you know keep us in your prayers and looking forward to working with you in the future tell that bad boy of yours"
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amina_mccloud/Aminah McCloud and Nadeem Siddiqi _ MAS ICNA 2014_ke6KpqWVx1w&pp=ygUVQW1pbmFoIE1jQ2xvdWQgIGlzbGFt_1742897661.opus
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"بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم الحمد لله رب العالمين الصلاة والسلام على أشرف الأنبياء والمرسلين السلام عليكم",
"So we have changed the format of this session as we came on stage and Dr. McCloud had these great ideas like, hey you know what instead of these static speeches We'll do a couple introductory words but let's have a real conversation and let's get everybody involved so As we're doing his introductory remarks and as we are having this conversation right now",
"We encourage each and every one of you to think of questions, something that's on your mind. And we're told there are folks with cards that are walking around. Write your question down. And should be able to collect that real time and discuss it on stage right away. So we hope to have a real conversation with the audience rather than just having a straight talk. Just to give you some time, a couple introductory remarks here so that we're all on the same page.",
"This issue of justice, you know, is this something a side issue that we do because it's nice to do? Or is this the same thing or is this what is central to our faith? Something that is core to your Iman without which your IMAN would be incomplete. Allah SWT reminds us in Surah An-Nisa where He says",
"O you who believe, stand out firmly for justice as witnesses to Allah even as against yourselves or your parents or your kin. Justice is not a side issue. You have to stand up for justice everywhere, for everyone.",
"even if it's against yourselves or your parents. Can you imagine? You have to be just. And Allah SWT goes even beyond that, where He tells us in Surah Al-Ma'idah, where he says,",
"Believers, be upright bearers of witness to Allah and do not let the enmity of any people move you to deviate from justice. Act justly. That is nearer to God-fearing. And fear Allah. Surely Allah is well aware of what you do. So in this second verse, Allah SWT is expanding that you have to be just even for your enemies. You cannot mistreat your enemies",
"mistreat, if you are unjust to your enemies. You will be answerable for that on the day of judgment.\" When the Prophet started his mission and throughout his mission he said these are the downtrodden, these are folks who are oppressed. Did he say oh these are my Muslim brothers and sisters? These are people from my village, these",
"He stood for justice, for every single person in the community. Just stop and pause and think about that for a second. You know when the issues happened overseas? When the bombardment of Gaza took place? It broke our hearts! We had marches on the streets! And it was very good. It was awesome.",
"I hope we have more of those. We've been working very hard for the issue of Syria, for many different issues but when Ferguson happened, when the grand jury in New York came out and said yeah we're not going to do anything, when a 12 year old in Cleveland was shot down",
"I ask you, I ask us are we participating in those? Is this still our issue or is this somebody else's issue? Is justice my issue as a Muslim or is justice now well it kind of depends right if the guy has",
"comes from a certain background, if I have all of these preconditions and then it will be my issue. Be very, very honest. Be Very, very Honest because you know what? It is much better for us to ask this question today rather than standing before Allah tomorrow and have to answer that same question and perhaps we may not have the best of answers",
"answers something to reflect on just a few thoughts so let this conversation going inshallah Salam alaikum I think that since we decided to have a conversation that we should do our best to put everything on an even keel and I think one of the questions",
"not things changed, perhaps in the black community. With regard to a persistent and ever-present police existence where young black kids meet the police just as they do in Gaza and another places all day every day. We've not had the fundamentals of a conversation honestly so we can see",
"we can see where communities stand. And in listening to some of the younger than I among you, I have heard lots of confusions, lots of how do I support for those who want to support and what is going on? And I think a part of our conversation today has",
"systematic repression of peoples around the world. Injustices, be they in Ferguson or New York or Cleveland or Berkeley or somewhere else are no different than the injustices that go on in the occupied territories but what this system does is it divides and conquers",
"and say no we see all of the oppressions some we can do something about others we can't so I remembered reading an article let me see if I can pull it up for you this works I can't see to be to the AV desk",
"PowerPoint on the screen in front so the doctors can see. Thank you. If you look, who's in the front lines here? There are certainly Palestinians and other Arabs, African Americans,",
"going on here. It's not single instances of violence. We've been everywhere, but everybody is not as informed perhaps as they should be. So these were pictures that a young photographer and I don't know where Shireen is in here took and they're just wonderful pictures,",
"show how some of us are getting around. All of us need to get around. So in that, I started thinking about what has happened here? If anything in the modern era, the occupied territories serve as teachers for young blacks",
"in the United States. And there are things that are done, I can't see the screen. There are things they're done to destroy those constitutional freedoms that we all think we have and that will live forever. What's the first one? One of the things that was done as spoken about by Samuel",
"in our introduction was this invoking of a terrifying enemy within and without. After 9-11, that was done and it continues to be done. Every time we think we can breathe something else happens. And it is ratcheted up to the point where we find no escape.",
"Homeland Security until after 9-11. People have always put the word homeland and security with Nazi Germany, and we may just be becoming that but that's where it is. What does this say? We have to create gulags. Gulags have been created all over the occupied territories",
"in the United States. For those of you here in Chicago, it's the south side of Chicago. It's many small suburban communities. It is not that people don't want to come out of them they are not free to do so because what happens when they come out is we then create...",
"thugs masquerading as policemen, sometimes they are policemen. Sometimes there's SWAT teams other times there's private security firms who come and keep the people inside of their particular gulag. There is a gulags in every city and town in the United States. Most of the time we think that it",
"think that if we put the proper protocols on our cell phones and computers, and we put up all of the securities on our Facebook pages and Instagram pages, that we're protecting ourselves. We have to think about that things are available at all to surveil you. You're given a semblance",
"not a real protection and security. The best way to surveil any group of people today is to use their cell phones. We have lights on poles, cameras on poles etc. What does this say?",
"a most recent victim of this, of the campaign to harass citizens groups. It is to make you scared to give to support the work of Mass ICHNA or CARE or ISNA or whatever by being fearful that you'll be put on some list somewhere. Trust me, you're already",
"But we have to begin to strike back at those campaigns against us. There is an ongoing engagement in detention and release. In certain communities, there've been some battles fought and people released in other cases they've been detained and deported.",
"still have men who are in and suffering through renditions. We still have people detained, we still haven't closed Guantanamo and a part of the reason why we have not is because we have also seen ourselves as Muslim citizens in this place demanding what is right.",
"ways are targeting of key individuals. Barack Obama has in some instances tried to play a fair card and has gotten angst back. We have others inside our communities who stand up, they should never stand alone. One of the other things that has come front",
"front and center since 9-11 is that dissent now equals treason. There are certainly sedition laws on the books in the United States, but dissent is a hallmark of both the free press and the freedom of speech. And if there all, there loads of us saying hands up don't shoot we can't breathe they",
"they can't arrest all of us. If it's a few, they get to isolate and then arrest. So think about it. And it's also true that all of are not supposed to be on the front lines. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala gave us all gifts. Some of us have the gifts like Mr. Offendum",
"others do, soup kitchens deploy all of our gifts toward what we know is right and just. The Quran created us differently so that we would be challenged to come and know one another. All of us—well put it like this—none of us do that on a regular basis because",
"to do. We have so many of our own personal issues to handle, never thinking that we may get some insight from someone else. So let me just open it up so that we can get to our conversation and we have some questions. Thank you.",
"So a number of you have been writing questions down on all kinds of things ranging from receipts to small scraps of paper. I have them here, we are collecting them. Our hope is to get through every single one of them but of course there are going to be repeats so if you don't hear your question please know that we did try to include it or that we have at least incorporated it in another question. What's gonna happen for the next 25-30 minutes is I will be asking the questions that you've asked and they will",
"of one another and hopefully teaching you. And yes, please keep the questions coming. We're going to spend about two to three minutes per question so we can get through as many as we can. The first question is a very general one. I think it's a very good introductory question. How do you protest or raise awareness in a predominantly white or Republican society?",
"So there's an assumption in the question. The question again was how do you protest or raise awareness in a predominantly Republican or white society? You've made an assumption that the society is predominantly white or Republican. Is society predominantly",
"predominantly white or Republican? And when you say white, it's a very general class of people. There are a lot of good people who are whites, who care for justice and there are people as Dr. McLeod just mentioned from the Muslim community itself who claim to be Muslims and yet the amount of damage that they do is far greater so I think we need",
"by a simple color code, but recognize that there is some institutionalized level of control and racism that's at play. And who are the players who make that happen? You may find that a lot of them are Caucasians, white background, but we will also find they're people from the African American background. They're people form the South Asian background, people from Arab backgrounds, people",
"immigrant backgrounds who came in knowingly or unknowingly have become part of the system and are actively suppressing others. We have to open our eyes to that, and not say well it's just the whites I gotta worry about. No! We need to know how we're being suppressed, who are the players who are suppressing, and then be able to take appropriate action. Knowing",
"We have to have some level of a free mind, a free spirit. We have recognize that we are servants of Allah. Are we fearful of the day when we will stand before Allah or are we fearful Of the day that we have to stand before somebody else on this planet? When the Prophet stood up for justice",
"And he was ridiculed and he was attacked in Mecca. And people went to war because of what? Essentially a cause for justice. He was boycotted and his whole family for three whole years as we know in the valley. For what, three whole year did he stop? Who do we fear? So when we say even if the whole world was oppressive,",
"Do we really fear Allah SWT? If so, then we have to be ready to act. I really don't care what other people will say or think. I have to stand before Allah and say, Ya Rabb, I did everything within my power. If all within my",
"to write, I knew how to draw. I wrote articles, I drew cartoons, I brought people's attention to the issue as a teacher, as an educator. I educated the next generation on the systematic process of institutionalized racism that exists. I did it. Are we doing all of that is the question that we have to answer. We don't have to worry about who's majority or whose minority. Can we stand before Allah and say",
"before Allah and said I did everything I could. Okay so you guys have actually been bringing a lot of questions, so now we don't think we can get through all of them but we will do our best to address the ones that yeah okay so here are a few questions I'll ask these two questions together. The first is as an attorney and this may require some background providing",
"both recent instances, and we're referring to Mike Brown's case and Eric Garner's case for those who are unfamiliar had grand juries who decided against the charges. Is this not better than trial by media? After all, we have been victims of this too. This is one question. And the second question I will ask is this individual says he or she wholeheartedly agrees that Palestine and Ferguson are extremely similar issues. However many seem to have voiced the opinion",
"both of the issues are ineffective because they demand unrealistic goals. And then they point to the civil rights movement and its very realistic and seemingly tangible goals, what do you think about this? Do you agree?",
"Grand juries don't charge people as whoever the attorney was who wrote the question. Grand jury's refer a case to a jury trial and in both of these instances, well in several there have been quite a few since the initial ones back in the summer,",
"There have been some claims made about the fact that prosecutors and grand juries work very closely together, and that is true. What didn't happen immediately after the grand jury which is handing no indictment was a global or national or local uproar that could not be denied.",
"Let me try to impart a little history, although I'm hesitant to do this in this forum. Protests look like a lot of people being angry in a diffuse sort of way.",
"several decades ago when black folks decided they had enough of hopping off the streets and crossing over the streets, when white people walked down the street. They got tired of not being able to eat in restaurants just because the restaurant was there. The mounting protests—one set of them—was a civil rights protest. Did they go somewhere? Well absolutely!",
"Well, absolutely. They opened the doors of immigration so that lots of you sitting in the audience could come here. They passed a Voter's Rights Act. The tentacles that come from protests which roll on down a slope gathering speed and people and ideas about what a just and good society to look like are enormous.",
"So just protesting at the moment, it's not a thing of getting the police out of communities. It is getting to police to act by their mandate which is to protect and serve, not call and kill. Two very different things. Thank you.",
"A quick add to what Dr. McLeod said, when you think of these things as being ineffective if somebody thinks that many people point to the uprisings in Gaza over time and Palestine as being effective and you ask yourself after 10 15 20 years was it ineffective or has it brought so much attention to the cause that has actually become extremely effective little kids on",
"at full grown adults with fully automatic machine guns. You'd think that's nuts, should we do it? Was it effective? People question the BDS movement, divestment boycott sanctions, boycott divestments sanctions, BDS movements that has been going on in campuses and is picking up a lot of steam",
"Israeli companies or Israeli goods, we're not going to invest over there. People laughed and said hey what's that gonna do? Was it effective? It's so much effective that now Israel has a full-time lobby to make BDS illegal in the United States they're trying to push a law through Congress that if you participate in this you will get in trouble was that effective absolutely don't say going to a protest march going to rally is not effective",
"to another, leads to another. It builds up quite a lot. Wonderful. The next two questions are these. The first is what is the best way for groups like the Muslim Students Association, Students for Justice in Palestine or other similarly socially conscious groups? What is the thing for them to do? And obviously that means regarding showing their solidarity with those in Ferguson and elsewhere.",
"The second question, which was interestingly enough given to us on a closed tag. It's nice that you have that with you. Thank you. I have a hard time connecting Islam and justice. How do I stop seeing Islam as just for worship? And how do I connect it to social justice? What is an apolitical MSA?",
"I've never heard of an apolitical MSA. As soon as they organized, they were political. So I'm not quite sure if they mean that they think they can be silent and graduate. Who asked that question?",
"campus organization is political. So, I'm lost. I don't know what that means. Let me connect these two questions that came together right? The second one was how do I have a hard time connecting Islam and justice? How do I stop seeing Islam as just worship and connected to social justice? And I think the two are connected in some ways if you understand Islam as",
"worshiping Allah as in doing your five prayers, fasting and paying zakat and so forth. You have a partial understanding of Islam. And I say that with all honesty. We really have to explore what Islam is. The Prophet when he started his mission, he started with justice. He didn't start with y'all have to pray now. Everybody has to fast. That came later.",
"The first thing was treat people well. Why are the orphans being mistreated? Why are women being mistreat? Why do these people turn into a slave class? The first that Islam brought was honesty and justice, it is a call for justice. Our whole Islamic understanding and ideology pushes us towards justice.",
"from the Quran where Allah is commanding us to stand for justice. If you don't stand for Justice, the prayers are... You know, you gotta wonder what were you praying for? Allah will ask you, you prayed! Did you act on the prayer? Did you do anything about it? And so when you collect yourself as Muslims,",
"question as Dr. McLeod asked, how are you apolitical? The fact that you are a Muslim automatically means you stand for something. You stand for a cause. You stands for justice for everybody. You Stand for honesty. You Stands for truth. Being a Muslim by definition means you stands for something there's no apolitic thing about it. You have to stand for it if you don't stand",
"I think we need to go back and understand them a little bit better. So these next two questions are the following, what about the race issues in our mosques? It's a very valid question, thank you for asking that. And the second thing is how do we convince or compel the Muslim leaders",
"in our communities to spend financially and work politically to support black Muslim America. So the first question of race within the community, we have to be very honest that's why",
"change this whole conference format of this session and say you know what we want to have a conversation let's be honest real talk honest brutal real talk because when we are six foot under when the angels come down and I start asking those questions it will be straight up real talk when we're standing before Allah SWT it will not be able to play around and answer questions in fancy ways does racism exist within especially",
"the immigrant Muslim community? Absolutely. It astounds me, and I made this in my opening remarks last night. The audacity some people have to look around and say, to use that word, and please don't misunderstand and think these are older people coming from the bilad and they're still using this word. No, these are young people just a couple of days ago",
"of days ago on Facebook you know that you have a whole series of conversations happening young people say yeah so what one Abid died referring to Fergus Ferguson to Mike Brown so what so many people in Gaza died why should I care like seriously that's the mindset we have with that mindset we will be standing before Allah SWT and being",
"When Allah says that the death of one person is equivalent to the death humanity. There's no limit here, you know? You gotta reach a critical mark here. A hundred people have to die before I consider this. Maybe a thousand people have died before I considered it. No, no! One person dies in an unjust fashion we are responsible here. We could've done something about it. Does racism exist within our community? Yes. Do we act on it? Do we stop? No.",
"No. There's a whole tiering. Everybody looks at each other and says, and be very honest, you know, ask yourself some questions, some very serious questions. Here you go. When you think, close your eyes and think of a good, honest person, think of role model. What's the image that comes to your mind?",
"a drug dealer, or a thug? What's the image that comes to your mind?\" And then you ask yourself why. Right and I'm projecting that you may have certain images. When we look at somebody is sitting in the middle of Idaho doesn't understand Islam, doesn't understands Muslims, and that person just listening to Fox and CNN and watching all this and it's very anti-Islam and says all Muslims are terrorists what's",
"Muslims doesn't understand Islam. You know if I can just have this conversation and just be myself, I can explain as soon as that person interacts with the Muslims they will know just who we really are How many African Americans do we seriously interact with on a regular basis or Are these images? Just like those folks get images from Fox and CNN We've all been fed images from somewhere else",
"somewhere else and we're making these generalized statements and saying those people ask does racism exist absolutely do we take the step to go out and reach and try to understand no man I can't go to South Side of Chicago it's dangerous all right maybe not South Side right fine sorry cool go somewhere else but do",
"Where do you get these? Is it some ideas that we have in our mind that's pushing us or are we actively educating ourselves and saying I have to combat this racism that exists within me, and I not somebody else. I have cross the barrier first internally and then I can act on something else.",
"all of them have a deal of, if not racism, intolerance. I think most of the time it's not even conscious. I am most comfortable with those who speak like me look like me and I think who value what I value. What we don't learn however is that there are others in other communities",
"and value what you value. How do we change that? And I think in this instance, everybody has to become an emissary of sorts themselves. If there are some people who you're hanging around with, invite them to the community. Have them over. Have",
"that you have to be best friends, but what it does mean is you will leave knowing something about the other. One of the things that I think brings communities together and one of the thing that disturbs me a great deal is we talk about the occupied territories",
"the border with Turkey, but we don't do anything. And there's some very concrete things we can do in the same way that the Christian churches are taking in the orphan of our children. Our masajid should take in the orphans of our own. We can as a religious group just",
"kids here, whether it's for medical treatment, whether families can be reunified or whatever it is. It is a part of their mission to raise those children as Christians. My question would be why are we choosing to let them do that and not have a stake in the game ourselves?",
"ethnicities together. And that's a fundamental way, you can't say you care and your care only reside inside your own family. Thank you for those answers. The next few questions are addressed individually. The first question is to Dr. McLeod. Many have voiced the phrase or",
"can only be expressed by those of the black community. Is it insensitive to make this issue our own? Supporting is one thing, but co-opting the struggle is another one.\" Can we have your thoughts on that? That's your question and for Dr. Sadiq... Okay, we'll have you answer that question and then we'll get back.",
"attack, but the I can't breathe is when the pressure's on you are far too much for you to bear. In our communities some of the young folk in this room were born right around 9-11. They haven't been able to breathe since they left the womb because we put them in a situation where forces acting outside of our homes and our communities",
"life just unbearable. They can't breathe either. Many of us, because we don't have the needed counseling services and psychological services inside our communities are trying to play pretend nothing is happening. You know—oh I hate to say how old I am but anyway in 1967 when I heard for the first time",
"into Fata probably could not have spelled it but folk were talking about this group over here is coming to take the land and they're killing these people over there we left our college campuses and hit the streets did we know where the occupied territories were some of us did some of them didn't. We went to the streets because",
"adversities, just like they were back then involved in apartheid. We were willing to forego the education to shut it down. You can't say you stand for justice and be willing to sacrifice nothing if he can't breathe I can't breath because we're in the same atmosphere. I've got to move to help him",
"What is at stake if we don't band together? What is that steak our Humanity's at Stake as simple as that Our humanity is at Stakes If you're willing to let somebody else suffer",
"place and my neighbor dies of hunger? If you're okay having nice clothes, and somebody else freezes to death. If you are okay being able to walk on the street and somebody gets harassed every single time and is made to do certain things. I would ask what kind of human beings is that? Where is our humanity? The Prophet repeatedly",
"repeatedly would ask us to do things for our neighbors, for our friends, for other people. He never once said you know be good to your Muslim neighbor. No! Your neighbors have a right upon you. There's no question of what religion or what background they come from. Our humanity is at stake if we don't understand this and come together. I also want to come back to a question that was asked earlier, and I think I may have misunderstood slightly",
"If you don't act on your belief, it's so theoretical. And so you have to act and that action is all about social justice. That is how we frame ourselves, that's how we look at ourselves, and that's what we conduct our lives altogether. What can we do about it? There are several things that we can do about this. The very first thing we can is educate ourselves. Do we recognize this issue? Do we recognise this as a problem?",
"Do I know any of the history? Do I understand what's going on? Even if you're just studying the history of the United States. How many people in the audience have read People's History of the U.S by Howard Zinn? Just raise your hand. People's history of The United States, not too many because again we come through the school system and are fed a specific understanding of history. Write this down.",
"the United States by Howard Zinn, Z-I-N-N. It gives you a very different alternative perspective of history of the United states than what is taught in general schools. We need to educate ourselves. What are the issues at stake here? Second we have to start examining our own biases be very honest this is for our own benefit it's not going to help her it's gonna help him it's going to",
"it. Third, with that knowledge start recognizing the stereotypes that are happening around us. With that knowledge and I see oh wow why is it that 80% of my class in college is made off a certain background? It makes you think, makes you want to act get out of your comfort zones find allies you don't have to do everything yourself so many other people the churches others",
"Don't try to overshadow, but participate and learn. That will lead to another step and inshallah lead to a new step down the path. Thank you for that answer. We have one more question and this is going to be to Dr. Ammon McLeod. And after that we'll ask the two speakers to briefly summarize their points if there's any last minute thoughts they'd like to share with you. But as I was reading through these questions and I did my best to be fair about it,",
"continue to come up and that question was how can we as Muslims even fathom to get involved if really the problem is black on black violence? I'd like Dr. Emma McLeod to address this issue. It's a question it comes up all the time, and one is that you remember the slide I showed you on the gulag",
"done has begun to eat each other. The parents and the grandparents have not ratcheted down the violence, they have not gone onto the streets and grabbed their children back because it's wanton violence. It has become my turf is the width of my two feet next to each other that",
"sure that if you could tweet them something, they would be more than grateful. We have ex-gangbangers coming into communities trying to raise awareness. It's not working. It is too far out of control and this is one of the places where we as Muslims can in our standing for what",
"some additional thoughts. Come in, treat it as your own community. On the south side or west side of Chicago where we have seen corner stores selling drugs letting young people hang out another organization Iman has stepped in to negotiate with the store owners there been lots up the young people who are in this room today",
"there but there needs to be more. When you want to see why a life is not valued, help work a health clinic. Teach people or reteach them about the value of family. Thank you. As-salamu alaykum. All right my last comment, my thought change does not come overnight. You're",
"are going to stay in our hearts, that's okay. But we have to keep working at it. We have to work at it, so don't let it get you down. Are we striving? The bottom line question would be do I care? Am I just? Can I stand before my Lord and answer for my deeds on the day when nothing else will count? Can i?"
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amina_mccloud/Aplikasi Metode Hermeneutika _Penafsiran Amina Wad_yIzxtBp5g1A&pp=ygURQW1pbmEgV2FkdWQgaXNsYW0%3D_1742944643.opus
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[
"Assalamualaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh Saya Karunia Hazimara Mahasiswa ilmu Al-Quran dan Tafsir Disini saya akan menjelaskan mengenai penafsiran Ibu Aminawadud atas Quran Surat Anisa ayat 34 dengan pendekatan Hermenitika Gadamer Menurut Ibu Aminawadod tidak ada penafsyiran atas Al-Kuran yang bersifat definitif sehingga Al-Кuran harus terkait",
"harus terus menerus ditafsirkan. Pada ayat ini kita akan belajar pada kata Arrijalu Kauwamu Na'alan Nisa, itu saja. Ibu Aminah Wadud mengacu pada teori dan langkah-langkah operasional Hermenetika Dialogis Gadamer dia menawarkan tiga langkah penafsiran yang pertama yaitu analisis bahasa",
"Dan yang ketiga yaitu pandangan dunia. Nah, yang pertama yaitulah analisis bahasa. Menurut Ibu Aminawadud bahwa kata Ar-Rijal dan An-Nisa dalam Quran Surat An- Nisa ayat 34, disitu hanya bicara mengenai spesies saja. Dimana disitu Allah mengkaruniakan pada masing-masing Ar- Rijal",
"Hanyalah ketakwaannya saja Langkah yang kedua yaitu analisis konteks Dimana Ibu Aminah Wadud disini Sepakat terhadap pendapat Muhammad Abduh Nah, menurut Muhammad Abдуh Kata akwam itu diartikan kepemimpinan Nah, kepemimpinan yang dimaksud disni Yaitu dalam artian menjaga, melindungi Dan mencukupi kebutuhan Apabila ketiga hal ini dapat dilakukan",
"ini dapat dicukupi atau dapat ditegakkan maka konsekuensinya seseorang itu akan mendapat warisan lebih daripada pihak yang lain nah tetapi perlu digarisbawahi bahwa kepemimpinan yang dimaksud disini yaitu kepemimpinan yang sifatnya demokratis di mana kepemiminan tersebut memberikan kebebasan untuk bertindak menurut aspirasi dan kehendaknya",
"dan kehendaknya sendiri nah itu Ibu Aminah Wadud sepakat atas hal tersebut Nah, Ibu Aamina wadud juga menjelaskan bahwa pada zaman dahulu itu kesadaran perempuan pada saat itu masih sangat rendah dan pekerjaan domestik dianggap adalah itu pekerjanan peremuan yang menempel pada pereumpuan. Yang kedua yaitu laki-laki menganggab dirinya sendiri lebih unggul daripada",
"Disebabkan kekuasaan dan kemampuan mereka mencari nafkah dan menghidupi perempuan yang hidup bersamanya Menurut Ibu Aminah Wadud, mengapa Mufasir Klasik itu mengartikan bahwa Arijenu Kawamuna Al-Nisa itu sebagai laki-laki adalah pemimpin perembuan Karena pada saat itu peremmuan itu tidak memiliki akses sehingga untuk meningkatkan kualitas dirinya pereмuan itu",
"dia tidak terlepas dari konstruk budaya patriarki Terima kasih dan semoga bermanfaat Wassalamualaikum Wr. Wb"
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amina_mccloud/Black Muslim Students Conference_ Dr Aminah Al Dee_x1vR5y2Ona4&pp=ygUVQW1pbmFoIE1jQ2xvdWQgIGlzbGFt_1742896758.opus
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[
"All right, I think we are live.",
"We are. At least I am getting messages that we can be seen by other people, so we will go ahead and get started. Salaam everyone and thank you for your patience with getting workshops running and started for the day. So we are super excited to have Dr Amina Eldeen with us today she is a professor emerita of Islamic studies in the department of religious studies at DePaul University. She's the first and only black woman to start the first undergraduate baccalaureate program in Islamic world",
"and chief of the Journal of Islamic Law and Culture. Her book publications include African American Islam, Questions of Faith, Transnational Muslims in America, Introduction to Islam in the 21st Century, Global Muslims in the 24th Century, History of Arab Americans, Exploring Diverse Roots in Muslim Ethics in the 25th Century. And Dr. Eldeen is a senior Fulbright scholar and advisory board member of the Institute for Social and Policy Understanding,",
"Islamic College Executive Board Member of IMAN, which is the Inner City Muslim Action Network and the American editor for the Muslim minorities in the West series for Brill Publishers. She's also an editor of Anthropology Open Access Journal. So that was just a little bit of a recap for anyone who is not familiar but Dr. Eldeen your list goes on and on and I think there's a lot of wisdom that comes from having any kind",
"someone who has reached your stature in society, whether that is being a published author or being involved in academic studies which I think something that a lot of Black Muslims aspire to do and be in those spaces. But I think we mentioned in our student panel it's not always just the success stories that we see like here are the publications, here are journals, whatever it may be in these spaces so what do you feel was the moment when you felt yes I'm making",
"making something and I'm making it happen that shifted from the struggles and challenges that you had getting to this point? Salam alaikum. That's a big, big question. I was talking with some girlfriends of mine",
"There are different struggles when you want to make a difference. I'll put it like that. So which one do you want me to talk about? Let's talk about making a difference, is that something you aspired to do from the beginning or just happened along the way? It just happened on the way mostly because I didn't know how I could",
"and finishing my dissertation at the same time, and being a little shell shocked at all of it. Trying to figure out how to put all of the things I had learned together for the African American community which I still work on all the time. And it's a struggle.",
"the world of journals. And they are, that knowledge is largely inaccessible until you can get your foot in that door. A lot of very fascinating and thorough African-American writers don't get their foot in",
"forthright and please call me. And let me see how I can help you. But it's also learning one of the things you learn in graduate school is how to take critique. For sure. And for these spaces that you have said that you had to get your foot in the door, how did you do that? How did you find those resources and avenues to even get you at the door?",
"Well, you know, remarkably a lot manifested that while I was writing my dissertation the publishers came to me. How they knew I existed I have no clue but Routledge an editor from Routlage literally glued himself to me and you can write this book",
"And I will help you do everything You ever needed to do And on top of that We will give you some up front money And I'm saying Oh my goodness well that's nice But I'm writing this dissertation And it was oh but you can also write This book So I got a little schizophrenic And began to do two But once the door Is open Others will Notice your work",
"And then you get offers from other publishing companies. The other route is to finish a manuscript and then submit it for review to publishers. It is better to submit it to review from someone who is a mentor of yours first because you want to put your best foot forward. I think that",
"university publishers and other publishers like Routledge or Oxford, people like that. It is better to have your mentor read whatever it is you think you want to publish first but I think the key to all of that is academic writing which is not...I mean if you want",
"writing. That's a different kind of writing, which I don't do. But and then there's also fiction. And what you need is a mentor who does fiction, a mentor, who does biographical writing. So the next question is, you've mentioned that people came to you because of your dissertation. What was it about that people were reaching out to you to get that published? What was that looking like? The topics, themes anything like that?",
"anything like that? Well, I think one of the things in Islamic studies there's very little philosophical methodology. And to get to that while I was studying, I had to dart out and take courses in philosophy, sociology, anthropology which added to an enormous course load but it enabled me to have",
"a way to translate what I wanted to talk about. So publishers initially Routledge was very interested that I was using pieces of and extending the philosophy of people like Michelle Foucault, Derrida and Bourdieu",
"I don't know if you know those names, but extending their philosophy in some senses correcting it and other senses to see how to look at Muslim communities particularly in that book African American Muslim communities. So we've talked a bit about your world in the publication realm of everything, but before you got there What was your life looking like?",
"Like what was your, as we've mentioned the topic of this workshop is your journey in Islam. What did that look like? Or just like your journey to get to that point as well? Well, the program I was in was for me, I'm sure for some others as difficult, but in the program",
"outside of the language we spoke. We had to do Islamic law, Kalam, we had to Islamic philosophy. We have to do a lot of stuff. So for me I was always overwhelmed, always losing my mind just a little bit, quitting every other week saying well I can go into interior design or something that at least",
"least I can look at and it looks nice. One of the things that I found out, and learned to really be grateful for, I had wonderful mentors in undergraduate school while I was a science major. And I had an awesome array of mentors in graduate school from",
"Hussain Nasser to Muhammad Ar-Kul. I mean, just in a way from traditionalist to modernists, from people who were fighting against the stagnation of thought in Islam to people who thought that traditional Arabic studies was the only way and then along the way",
"and some West African Muslim scholars. So they broadened my scope, they made my task very difficult. It was for me coming from science to Islamic studies extremely difficult because humanities in itself was difficult.",
"in the chat about the topics that you study. And then, the question is how do you prioritize the topics you study and write about? Do you write in response to current issues or questions you've always had? I try to do a range fortunately for me and I try extend that fortune. I never have to submit a manuscript and wait for somebody to say okay. So",
"So it has been, people ask me to write texts about this that and the other. I've used articles more so to address issues. The book I'm working on now talks about Muslim healthcare workers in COVID-19 because part of my background is in medicine",
"I was very interested in how Muslim health care workers using Islamic biomedical ethics were handling COVID-19, its patients, its shortcomings, bad media, absence of PPE, all of those things. So sometimes it's topical. Other times it's because I've been asked to write like the book on Arab Americans.",
"was a real struggle because I had to learn about Orthodox Christianity. But it's in a tandem. Absolutely, and with your most recent being about COVID what are you seeing in terms of the Black Muslim community in response to COVID? Either in how it is affecting us or in how doctors are being able to actually inhabit these spaces as of late?",
"Well, two realms. One, there is a dire, dire shortage of Muslim Black, I mean, well, Black African or African American Muslim physicians, nurses, nurse practitioners, physician's assistants. And that kind of shocked me because I thought",
"as something that they could do. On the other hand, there is I want to say a quandary of African-American Muslims show up their African American first Muslim kind of second and the patient and the patients relatives especially if that patient is female have difficulties",
"because they got to get stripped bare. And it's who is watching over me? What are their, and there's nobody there to attend to the spiritual questions which intersect with psychological questions. So it has been difficult. African-American Muslims are part of the larger African American community",
"kind of the same numbers, especially those who don't believe they should wear a mask because Allah will take care of them or it is Allah's decree if I catch COVID, I catch it. And then they bring it home to elderly parents or other relatives who then die. Absolutely and it has been difficult to see. We have witnessed in our own communities",
"just effects of being black in these spaces, not only with COVID but also with things like Black Lives Matter this past summer. And I think a lot of people are trying to find ways to support the communities that we're in and so what do you think is our best effort at supporting the communities who are actively on the front lines for us whether that's in terms of doctors or whether it's in term of the people protesting right now to make sure that black people in general but also black Muslims are prioritized?",
"Oh, girl what did you do? You slept on these questions. Let me think. Black Lives Matter and the protests I was so happy I was almost jumping out of my skin. And it took me back to being a freshman and sophomore in college.",
"I should take my values and really think through protest. And I made some decisions, you know? I see being Muslim as a struggle along the highway. And on that highway sometimes you're in the center lane other times you've drifted over into another lane and you have to auto correct",
"on at the same time. And when I was in college, there was us, Milana Karanga's group running around. There were the Black Panthers. There was the Civil Rights Movement. And the only thing I kind of knew was that I thought, well, I thought I knew, was that the Civil",
"And people are gonna stick dogs on you. And your responses, turn the other cheek. I didn't quite get that. So I joined the Black Panthers because that made more sense to me and it made sense to as a Muslim that justice delayed is no justice at all. But I was also fighting",
"my role as a Muslim. You know, there were some things I was willing to talk about. There were other things I would make allies with and felt that I couldn't be allied with so it was always a negotiation. At the same time you had fraternities and sororityies and people who ignored everything that was happening. This time reminded me",
"so much of that because many of us decided if I can't live, be free and whatever my religious dictates are then there is no sense in living here at all. I will fight until I die. And I saw that with some of the folks but also saw them not learning from my experiences which you have to have parameters",
"You have to have a check on people who are there not to support you, but are there to cause you harm with the looting and taking advantage of a movement. And I remember reading from, I think her last name is Garcia, who was a co-founder of Black Lives Matter, that this is supposed",
"Because change, real change has to happen. And the civil rights legislation, you know, legislation is nice. But if it's never enforced, it doesn't exist. So I mean as a Muslim, I did everything I can. I host a talk show on critical talk called Critical Talk Tuesday through Thursday. I try to bring young people what is the theater doing?",
"theater doing? What should we know in the political room? How should we think about education? And as a slightly older person, I see that as something sitting. I can continue to do by getting voices out there. One of the questions we got was how has your activism influenced your research? A lot when I don't want to write",
"I don't want to write, I write. I learned from Walter Mosley believe it or not that you have to write every day. I write every dead. I wrote throughout the day in pieces because I got so used to having kids all over me that I had to learn to write in pieces and keep a thought train",
"trained in my head. But I write every day. I think it's important that we write because if we don't write, we don' t exist and that led me to make the Islam in America archive at DePaul because there has to be a place for us to research from. We have to have resources",
"find African American Muslim institutions where I could begin to create a depository of writings, you know whether they're biographical, autobiographical pieces because the generations of Muslims in America amongst the African Americans there's no their pieces and they have to be",
"And they have to be brought together because we tend to collect stuff and keep it in our basements, in our attics where one good fire, one good flood, one move and it's gone. But you have to leave a footprint. So you mentioned right then at the end which goes into great next question that we have of having one good move and then it's",
"who are on their journey of figuring out Islam and their relationship to that, whether it is in terms of wanting to do academic studies in the ways that you have or just inhabiting these spaces as well. So what would your advice be for young Muslims who may stumble along the way or may have their one good moment and then start feeling like they're not there anymore and that their faith has shaken?",
"of it, I never speak of converts because that's a Christian term. That really doesn't apply to an Islamic journey and I prefer to think of it as a highway that you hop on, you know some things, you don't know others. There has been an Arabic hegemony so everybody runs off and they try to learn Arabic and learn a lot about dead Arab scholars",
"But that doesn't seat you if you're African American. So on that highway, and I've talked about this in my classes, you know, if you can picture the lanes on a highway, you start off, you're good. Many of us started off taking the Quran to prayer with us because we hadn't memorized anything.",
"We didn't enter into that genderized field because it was who learned what first, who could lead the prayer, for example. And we moved along and then sometimes whether it was a family thing or this, that, and the other, we had people from other cultures telling us, oh, well, if your family's not Muslim, then you got to cut them loose.",
"That is not happening here because I want to inherit something if it's not anything more than a bracelet. You know, no. And then there was a real push to change your name. You're now what I'm saying? Oh my God, how people going to locate you in your family? How are you gonna know your nieces and nephews that all of the, you go to college,",
"And you may get out of that center lane on the highway and dip over to the shoulder. You know, your car has run out of gas and you have to go over to this shoulder. And while you're waiting for some assistance, you explore what's on the shoulder and then you pray. Lots of time people talk about holding the rope and the rope is something that has to be cultivated",
"cultivated. It has strands, something that you can hold on to and people who are welcoming you back. They always have to be there despite your little exit to welcome you back and then take what you have learned and put it in the pot of knowledge. You know,",
"seen Islam become a bit of a turnstile with women saying, oh my God I got brains and I got sense you're putting me in the back of places what is up with that? This is not what Islam is supposed to be isn't it right? I've seen young men get so immersed in one portion",
"one teeny tiny portion of Islamic studies that they lose the sense. I've seen young people teaching for 30 years, I think I've said just about it all folk who say okay my parents came from, I don't know name a country colonial leavings led us to communism or socialism",
"socialism. And now I've decided, I want to get back to the religious portion and there's nowhere to go. I've seen the develop my house was a third space for a while. And I listened, didn't talk, but listen, uh, to young people's, um, conversations over sexuality, over marriage,",
"with my life. Everybody doesn't have to be a professor, everybody doesn't need to be an Islamic scholar. What they do have to do is seat themselves slowly and firmly because if you seat yourself quickly, you're going to hop out of the seat. So seat yourself slowly and firm in Islam. It's very obvious that there's some shaking up going on in these communities where people are questioning certain",
"questioning certain aspects of Islam that are making these communities a challenge for young Muslims to create. Say more about that, what's shaking it up? Of just having people who are having questions of faith right now and having- I'm bothering you. No, no, you're not bothering me at all because I mean, right now we're in the middle of a pandemic. We're seeing everything going on in the world that people are saying why is this happening?",
"I have, you know for some people thinking that they've done everything right and yet we're in the middle of a pandemic and we're In the middle as you know a pull off the hallway an exit that they weren't expecting so how do we as young Muslims get ourselves back on that highway? And also to continue to foster these communities that are on the ground that have built us up That are currently shaken",
"When you read the Quran, one of the things that you read with respect to the prophets is prophets coming to people. People questioning and challenging those prophets. Apparently there are some people that get the message and there are others that don't. But everybody experiences a reckoning. And this pandemic is a reckonic.",
"is a reckoning. It's out of your control. We have prayed in our dua and other prayers for justice, for leveling. And then when God on God's terms provides that we get upset. It is not about your thinking",
"Because that's your thinking. Only Allah knows, but it is also what the pandemic doesn't know race. The pandemic doesn' t know class. The Pandemic doesn't no religion. So if you wanted to think about it one would think about why",
"why do we pray for something and when it comes, we're unable to use the time for reflection. And it is a reflection. Is my Islam superficial or has it really come to sit on my heart? Do I use the vicar to calm myself? You know, how",
"How is this shaping me? So I would say since we are getting close on time, a great question for young Muslims who are working through their path in Islam is what is the best piece of advice that you have received or been given that has sculpted the person you are today and the journey that you've been on.",
"You know, I got to. That is so darn difficult. I'm thinking that the best advice I got was from Dr. Suleiman Yang. He was on my dissertation committee. I didn't go to Howard. But one of the things he told me is that African-Americans have to be African-American.",
"Their history is important. You're not Arabs. You don't need to look like Arabs. And he was very adamant about, don't mimic somebody else's culture. Develop your own African-American Islam. I think that was the best piece of advice I got. And in terms of your academia, what do you feel has been the shifting moment for you?",
"This is where the academia is being, like the advice that you were given then that helped you progress yourself into a renowned author and an incredible professor. I was learning about the various Islamic cultures out there studying Chinese Islam, studying Indonesian Islam, Southeast Asian Islam, West African and East African Islam",
"and looking how Islam settled in culture, and people made Islam their own. Not somebody else's. That kind of shifted me. Yeah? We have a couple more minutes because we had a networking session cut off so I have a few questions for you if you have the time. There was someone in the comments who asked",
"Can you speak on the impact of Islamophobia or anti-Muslim hatred and discrimination on the right to freedom of thought, consciousness of religion or belief? Can you repeat the last part of that again? So the full question was can you speak about the impact in Islamophobia",
"I think Islamophobia is an inappropriate term. It's not a hatred of Islam, it's anti-Muslim bigotry and I think because we have let African American Islam be conflated with immigrant Islam they're conflated on a lot of terms the beheadings in Nice will cause anti-muslim bigoty here",
"as a community done more than say, oh we condemn. That doesn't mean anything. It's the same as people saying I condemn racism and then I go on about being a racist but you know so I mean we have to say what it is that should be. The condemnation alone is not alone. I think freedom of speech",
"have to realize how this country has permitted some things, you know. Freedom of speech and freedom of religion. We're free to practice as Muslims. Trying to force religion into the public space is going to get the same backlash as trying to force Christianity in the public",
"we want religion in schools, it's not going to be Islam. It's going to Christianity. When we want the courts to consider Christianity now we have a majority Catholic Supreme Court. We've not paid attention to federal judges and their personal religious beliefs are going",
"the people need to go to law school. They needs a clerk and they need to become some of those judges. So just continuing on that thought, you just left us on how can young Muslims as minorities combat these institutions and systems that are working against us? I think we need... I'm gonna go back to mentorship which will help in planning.",
"I have seen attempts at our own institutions. One initiative that I like very much is the lamppost educational initiative because it prevents a diversity of thought, but I think since we have chosen to be here,",
"for that self kind of intellectual satisfaction. We have to pair that with seeking some spiritual satisfaction, both for ourselves as individuals and what will help our communities. During this volume on COVID we've realized that we are not in the places we want to be. We've left our caretaking to others which is insane.",
"So this will be the last question just because it's a two-part question, might be a little bit tricky. But what do you see as the biggest issue that Black Muslims are facing right now? And how do you think we solve it? I would say then we haven't developed our own understanding of",
"of the Muslim sources out there. We have accepted only Arab sources as our guide and the Arab world is in chaos so that I don't know if that guidance is all that we need to take from. I think one of the base questions, well one of",
"by others than African Americans. Self-published books will not be in the libraries going forward. They will not need online resources for the kids behind, even your kids when they go, they will find books by others talking about us and there is a master narrative",
"you know, that fits into a larger Black master narrative. So I think the hegemonies of there's been a Protestantation of Islam. We have surely even with the term convert brought and sinned we've brought Christianity to sit at the center of Islam without evaluation",
"in immigrant Islam, which is contentious in and of itself. Because these are colonized people that are not post anything. And I don't know that we want that to be Islamic America. I definitely agree with you on that. Never letting other people dictate the agendas that we're working on.",
"just before we were running into the next workshop. So I would just like to thank you for being here with us today, Dr. Al-Din. I think that anyone here has gained something from your wisdom and your experience and having that be a formulating point in their own personal journey is to finding new ways of discovering Islam whether that is on the African American agenda or whether that's on the realm of academics and general as well so thank you so much for your time and for being",
"Well, thank you for having me. And I would just like to say for those in the audience get a mentor so you can have a plan like yesterday and many, almost all of us speaking are willing and up to the task with the pandemic. We don't we, you know, we have time. Thank you so much.",
"And Dr. Odeen, feel free to join us for the rest of the conference as well. I will. Salaam alaikum. Selaam alaykum."
] |
amina_mccloud/Check out Aminah Beverly McCloud Al Deen_s intervi__1742894418.opus
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[
"Well, all of the communities, unfortunately have their experiences of colonialism, you know, different ways. But those countries which experienced British and French and Portuguese and Dutch colonialism had the European form of racism coming down",
"I remember the first time I was in Pakistan seeing these huge billboards of light and lovely. And really, and so white becomes preferred. And the darker you are, the less your chances are of success."
] |
amina_mccloud/Conversations_ Imam Fredrick alDeen and Dr_ Amina _3taRQjsjLRE&pp=ygUVQW1pbmFoIE1jQ2xvdWQgIGlzbGFt_1742897064.opus
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[
"What's going on with the 2020 presidential election and local elections? Let me first give my salams. But let me say, if anybody can figure that out, that would be great. Anything you can think of is going on. I think we need to start with our incumbent, President Trump. He supports school choice, and most of us like the idea of school choice.",
"If they're good schools. Well, the thing about it is you are talking about public schools where people go to... I mean not the students of course but teachers teach because it's a steady paycheck and has benefits not necessarily because their experts in subject matter which has always been an issue.",
"as far as issues in this election is the amount of money public schools are losing that have been siphoned off and going into private schools. What other issues do you see? No, those are charter schools. Well, charter schools, I call them private schools because they're not really available to the public. What are the issues do",
"I think that as with any sovereign nation, one of the issues becomes immigration. No sovereign nation can have open borders. How he has worked on regulating people coming in that opposes what our Congress has let stand",
"Immigration policy is an interesting situation. It's our Congress that has not redone immigration You know so in the absence of redoing it we're left with these draconian kind of measures, you know ban Muslims Even if they come into visit band H what is it h1h one visas?",
"And then if they sneak through, if the actual person you want to hire sneaks through on an H-1B visa, then you ban his spouse. So you're separating families and destroying families. You know, and it's all because we have put Band-Aids on a really bad immigration policy. We haven't taken down the Statue of Liberty.",
"Whatever else is tired you're poor. You're tired and your poor because we're saying well, we want to go back to 1897 Immigration plot do not come if you're a poor tiger or homeless We do not want you in building America so they even need to rewrite the script under the Statue of Liberty Or they need to Really serious say look we're going to go",
"hands-on and change make an immigration policy that works which includes asylum seekers and refugees I mean because that's important on the other hand still you have those who wish to do the country and its citizens harm sneaking in and they may be relatives of bonafide",
"I have no clue as to how one handles that. However, I think there's a middle path. It was always good to look for the middle path but I can't go without commenting on how difficult it seems in responding to a question of what has Donald Trump done positively? A lot of negativism comes out. I'm trying not to be! I'm really working hard here.",
"on the financial, agricultural and energy sectors and many other sectors. And that was supposed to spur growth because the people working or owning pieces of those sectors said they couldn't grow because there were so many regulations that would cost them money. On the other hand however it puts all of us at risk when there are no regulations. Well the other thing about",
"cuts in economic downturn you know how many farmers have committed suicide since 2018 no but i heard it was a bunch 452. 452 farmers the people who feed us and that's who feeds america our farmers yeah have uh committed suicide why because they just can't make a profit or living off of doing what has been being done in their families for generations any other positives",
"here he wanted to because he wanted votes to spur the coal industry and it is true that the men and women who worked in that industry did not have enough skills to do anything else uh so you don't want them to die on the vine but they were dying anywhere anyway from inhaling cold dust",
"on and pour some money into the coal industry. But, this society is shifting away from coal which is a very old fossil fuel source. It was China and India still consuming it. And that was positive. China and Indian are still consuming very heavily. So you know we've got a situation with politics 2020 where people have talked about some threats to democracy talk",
"change happening Bernie Sanders is offering a revolution and then yeah I think it's not well thought through revolution but when you look at the situation as same politics as usual except for the insertion of the question who is John Galt those of you who read Anne Randall know what the references that I'm making is towards the issue we talk about things being different",
"look at the candidates it's the same old white men and that's unaccepted who said an old man can't think an all-white man came thing that makes a very interesting question but you went from a very in the Democratic side the Republican side has always been wiped but I mean since Trump selection they had some kind of standin Carson",
"But anyway on the Democratic side you had a healthy Diversity Men and women lots of diversity but the American populace and the Muslim populace in particular I mean cares report that came out here",
"on American Islamic Relations came out with a report on 3-5 because they did a survey. And it's a very interesting survey because the American Muslim Voter Database that CARA has was developed by matching state records of registered voters with an extensive list of some 45,000 traditionally Muslim first and last names. I have no clue what",
"I don't know a clue what that means in the United States of America. There were names, common names prevalent across the Muslim world's Muslim majority and ethnic groups were identified and verified by well-informed members. The pool of Muslim voters does not include Muslims when uncommon names are those who do not have traditionally Muslim names.",
"African American, Latino Native American and white American Muslim voters were left out of this survey. But nevertheless the standings were interesting. You had 79% of those who responded to the survey say they cast ballots in this year's Super Tuesday which just happened and as you were mentioning earlier we're going",
"51% of the Muslims are primarily affiliated as Democratic, with 17.5% with the Republican Party. So this is really an immigrant survey. And 24.5 as independent. By age, and this is where it's critical, and I think it shifts a little bit when you add in the indigenous population.",
"58.2 voted for Bernie Sanders 26 for Joe Biden 5.4 for Michael Bloomberg Talk about percentages Right, 5.1 percent voted for Elizabeth Warren and then 1.4 For another candidate Now here's a woman running And what it says Is that this immigrant population is not willing To consider",
"as viable a female candidate. Well that's not unusual and should not be a surprise because people who vote tend to vote their culture, and tend to devote their family traditions. Yeah but I mean you look at India and Pakistan they have had women leaders. Yeah, but over here it's you fit in if you suppress votes for females. We're Americans that's what we do at that level of politics.",
"So as we were speaking earlier about the age, 70% of the Muslim voters between ages 18 and 34 supported Bernie Sanders. 16% supported Joe Biden. They're all in a whisper in age between the two. 42.6% between the ages 65-74 supported Bernie",
"Bernie Sanders while 39.4 supported Joe Biden so we have to ask the question and I think it's important of what is Bernie Sanders putting out there many people have heard free college tuition free health care nothing is free in America by the way free this free that and free the other somebody has",
"can't support 300 and some more, 400 million people's health care and education without taxing those who work 50 to 60 percent of their income. But do you think the voters be they immigrants or Americans? Indigenous, yeah. Indigenous have a clue what the candidate platforms are? No. How could you figure it out?",
"do where are they getting the information if they don't have information where can they go to get it well one place is i looked at um and i hate to say this because i used to tell my students if i saw wikipedia listed as a source i was going to just give you an f straight up but wikopedia did a good job in this sense on political positions of the 2020 democratic party presidential primary candidates 15 at the time",
"the time. Huh? There were 15 of them at the time right so what I did was I asked out all the ones that are no longer running and I looked Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden are very close on many issues you can't have free tuition for public colleges somebody has to pay the teachers there,",
"Teachers who now you're telling them, you're going to get rid of tenure. You're going",
"Because in many of these institutions, students' tuition even though it's low in public institutions, is still pays a large percentage of the cost of running the school. As does research and many other schools are public like UIC, public institution but its",
"So a lot of its funds come from teachers getting class time off to write grants, getting those grants and doing the research you know to keep themselves going, to keep the college going etc. If you've got to flatten something out if you're gonna have free public tuition. Private schools is a different matter. What do you think?",
"the candidates' positions has been revealed by following the layout of the 15 candidates and their positions. Following that, we're seeing nuances changes in the positions and stances as contributor sources change and as issues arise and as the allegations and verbal assaults against personalities",
"it's changed their positions on some issues yeah well biden talks about partial uh where there's more government support and we don't have a situation like we had in illinois where they had difficulty getting money from the government for the pell grants so students weren't holding things they couldn't register for classes you know all of those things that when",
"Federal dollars that come into play or even state dollars because the federal government inevitably is going to shift it on to the states. You know, when I hear people talk about federal dollars and state dollars, I remember my reaction to the commercials that the Army puts out in the Marine Corps. Yeah. At the end of the commercial says paid for by the United States Army. They don't have any money. The federal government doesn't have",
"Yeah. Of course, now the federal government has been known to print more and more money of late, but the basic source of the money that they use to buy these things and make these mistakes with is my hard-earned tax dollars. And we're talking about this election as though it's typical and normal as far as process is concerned. But we know that there's a big, big emphasis this year again, even more so than before on donations, corporate versus public. Joe Biden's a",
"recipient Donald Trump is others were that we're running in the race Bernie Sanders is supposedly a popular lead funded candidate but there's also money of people who have to choose between eating and funding you because they want to participate in the political system like they had this",
"went up to Elizabeth Warren and said I have what was it eight or sixteen dollars, and I want so much for a woman to succeed in this election. I'll give you half. And Elizabeth Warren took it! How do you do that from a student? You put your hand out, you go back. And you walk away right? But the other part of the lack of normalcy",
"intervention that's now possible by outside actors, outside actors in the international setting and influencing who votes and what voters' reactions are to candidates positions like the allegations of Russia and Ukraine. But they've always been there. Not to this extent supposedly though. Yeah but with the I don't want to say, I'll say enhancements",
"rather than improvements because I don't know if they're truly improvements. Young men and women can learn the coding, the this, that, the other, and break in anywhere they want to break in. What is arguably most disheartening",
"aiding and abetting. You know, I mean you can break in but that doesn't mean i have to help you by posting the propaganda on sites and all of that stuff. And Mr Zuckerberg ought to be ashamed of himself he really oughta. I mean that's horrible but it also leads into issues of net neutrality because",
"love free. You put, and you can tell them 9000 times nothing is free. Right? But they still love the idea of free. And the net for the most part was free. Now everything if you're noticing the increase in apps that cost money. They're free for a minute and then they cost money to sample them, sample your looks",
"You gotta go buy it at whatever rate it is because your fingers just walk right over to that app again. That's one thing that has not changed about the American culture, we're still capitalism based. This is a way to make money doing it and redo it. There's an interesting book talking about Google and Amazon and Apple called Surveillance Capitalism. I recommend that viewers who are interested in what's happening every time you send a message with your cell phone or go into an app or visit this site or visit that site",
"Not only are you leaving cookies, but you're leaving habitual behavior behind that people are using to make profits off of your habits. Yeah. And we have some habits because we'll be doing one thing and click over on the app that's running in the margins. Oh my goodness those shoes look delicious. Oh let me check this out over here. As soon as you do that",
"or crawl, whoever it is protection for you. You know and your off and running because you're chasing down some shoes that in the end you don't want anyway. I think the other thing that was really quite interesting was very little of these candidates jibber jabber has said anything about",
"thing about foreign policy. Trump's foreign policy is clear, he wants the United States to go back to an isolationist policy predominantly only with those openings which of course helped",
"worldwide organizations Which if you slash? aid which they're doing this flashing a almost by To countries who have come to depend on those eight that it and it's not like the United States hasn't benefited from plummeting and Pullaging those countries so they oughta give them something back. I think that's just me But you know, I agree with some of that age slashing",
"I mean our assistance to Japan is not really needed anymore. Our assistance to South Korea's not really need it anymore and we have not been getting our return for our dollars that we had contributed to the UN so some of that I don't have any problem with. No, I think you should do the first thing he started with which is force other European countries to pay their fair share Don't pull out, you know and act like a spoiled child",
"A spoiled child when you don't get your you know immediately people figuring out their pennies because they have Issues too, but when it comes to the Middle East South Asia and Southeast Asia We do get stuff all of those things lithium batteries All of those minerals used in all this technology And South Asian lots of",
"ought to do something. I think one of the things we'll be large is health care also and healthcare like a, with we, the mantra is nothing is free in America. The countries that we get compared with Denmark, Sweden have a fraction of the population and a fraction",
"Yes. Right. Oh my God. And nobody is talking, Trump was not being totally truthful when he said he was going to work on the drug cost. What next career? Next four years.",
"So if we have same old, same old white men running for the office of president. And I do mean old. That old is not here for Mr. King. They are old. Given the corporate pro-voting tradition of Joe Biden and Bernie's pro-corporate interest perspective of Joe",
"and uh trump's pro-corporate uh interest and the one guy that is running against um trump you know who you know was running against her anybody know the gop guys running against trump i forgot his name last name as well w e l d i think harold jay will look him up he's hanging in there how much is this platform it's about six feet up off the ground",
"I don't remember exactly. I only found out about it fairly lately, so my question is given that traditional outcome no matter who you vote for as far as who's going to be elected what change can the electorate people in the electorates expect?",
"Who truly could change things probably was Michael Bloomberg He had the money Has the money has the money. I only spent 1 billion out of 62 so yeah In terms of his record in New York is stellar and he didn't take anybody's money to do it in",
"In terms of modifying student loan paybacks, school, I mean across the board. What he's tackled, he's gotten done because that was another question on the care survey was about $15 an hour. That's not a living wage. People cannot, men or women, whoever it is that's supporting your family, even if you're single,",
"Given that rents are rising the cost of food is rising the class of utilities is right you cannot before taxes support a household being in apartment or house on $15 an hour Well, give me what he tried to do in New York. In some cases was able to do New York Why did you think it was?",
"Elizabeth Warren who has a lot of baggage as far as plans. And is hysterical. Joe Biden, his corporate connections and some of the problems he had as Vice President under Obama, the Obama administration which has some problems. Or Bernie Sanders who hasn't passed not one bill. Yeah, the issue is... Congress said no, he will never pass a bill unless he does",
"Because you'll be signing executive orders daily. What can people expect to happen if the op-doc is in play? Well, I think one of the things... And why did they vote like they did? Are they voting for Elizabeth Warren because of her stellar managerial style or Joe Biden because of his stalwart position? Everything is free.",
"I did look into however one thing that is often omitted and that is judges Trump is busy his whole administration is busy nominating people to take over these federal getting them approved and getting them And that is Devastation for the Muslim community and any other living community when I hear that statement that you just made there's going to be devastation",
"People say in this country. We are a nation of laws and not of men Or either on life support How about life support? I won't say it's buried but its own life support And if we don't bring in the respirator and face masks and all these other stuff and antibiotics",
"people are in positions of judges to enforce those laws, what's the harm? What's the fear? Well you know one of the things that the administration has done thus far is not necessarily Donald Trump himself but they've done it in his name. Is they have explored with say for example immigration little pitfalls",
"nobody has ever thought about. One of the things we had talked about in some other venues was the U.S. Patriot Act. Muslims themselves, even though the Patriot act is directed mostly toward them have forgotten it but it is the first really large hammer swung at the rule of law. Yeah and most people haven't read it. Well it's too thick for",
"reading but maybe we'll do a show and pull out the sailing points. But before we go I want to talk about this, We Vote on March 17th here in Chicago so I went looking at judges and here's what i found um currently",
"these people up and their records was for the Illinois Supreme Court was Justice P. Scott Neville, for the Appellate Court Michael Hyman and Sharon O'Johnson. I've tried to look and see because you know stuff is happening nobody knows you get to the voting booth and you say who are these people right so it becomes a thing of you really have",
"go online and look up not just them but what have they done you know what is the incarceration rate how long are these sentences who do they target you know for these long sentences you mentioned the incarceration rates that's one of the new things with this year's election is a number of incarcerated people people were actually in jails",
"are permitted to vote. So they represent a voting problem. Yeah, but you know the Trump administration is going back and trying to repeal all of that. So I think John... What is his name? Not John Legend. The singing artist. A number of folks. John Legend and all of them are ramping up their efforts to prevent",
"Those of you who have, yeah it comes on cable MSNBC. One of the things that I think was done last night is one of the chefs is doing a thing on gerrymandering and voter suppression. And those things we don't have to read anything. We can sit back and listen to them. You mentioned one source for judges. I just want to mention there are others.",
"There are others that are for Democrats as well as Republicans. There's information put up by the Democratic National Committee, the Republican National Committee. The Eagle Women Voters, Fox News, MSNBC, the NAACP and others. And my point is if you want to be a participant in an electorate know what you're doing. The basis of this success of this democracy so far to the degree it has been successful",
"upon people who vote, who know what the heck it is they're doing. So if you're going to vote, know who you're voting for, otherwise you might be harming yourself. And if you work two jobs and don't have time to sit down and search the internet, you can listen to Radio Aslam's podcast called Conversations because eventually we will get to it! And other podcasts on Radio Asalam will get",
"is to push the issues. Oh, this will be the final show on this subject as long as there's time between now and the election we'll be talking about the election 2020 and bringing you hopefully information that's helpful to making you an informed member of the U.S. electorate. Well, we have a couple minutes? We're at 35. Oh yeah, we've got about five minutes. Yeah, a lot of time. So... One thing we haven't mentioned",
"sitting here as big of an hour on the branch. What about the coronavirus and what impact it's going to have on the electorate turnout? Is it a true conspiracy that somebody has set this thing in motion so they keep voters from the polls? Well, I don't know but i think that one of my close friends and I sat down today",
"the sources for information and there's some things we figured out. The CDC cannot afford to be truthful it would set off an awesome panic and when you read... You're saying they can not afford to? They can not afford to be... So, you are saying that there is information out there that we need that we're being deprived of? Well, there's speculative information like how are you gonna know if someone has",
"You know, the flu is rampaging. But most people have gotten themselves and their children vaccinated, right? So even if they catch the flu, they come down with a mild one. There is no vaccine as of yet for the coronavirus which is different if you look at the pictures on it. Johns Hopkins University put out a map to show you where the virus is ramping up.",
"Their little places the BBC is a good source on The news as this France 24 and his own jazzeri 15 bucks an hour. You don't have BBC 15 bucks in our you don't",
"I don't have access. So how do those people know about that? I don' t know. One, I know, I had one suggestion and one answer. They find out because the Muslims as well as other groups of the members of the electorate have been doing a stalwart job putting together town hall meetings and voter information drives around the country. And if you Well, that's kind of getting a little scarce because people have to be six feet apart.",
"until now. They've done a good job. Check the local community and see if you find something that they're doing, you'll see some of their signs posted in libraries and public places and go visit stay six feet away don't shake hands and don't kiss cheek to cheek and go find out what's happening. Well I think the other thing is as Muslims we need",
"I'm sure that there are several ways we can view ourselves in this situation. One of the things is, in societies like ours, we become extremely narcissistic in a sense that we do what concerns us without any care for our fellow man. And that's not what our guidance tells us to do. Wash your hands.",
"wash your hands if you're gonna sneeze sneezing your elbow or wherever or tissue these are minor things and it's only for a short period of time a lot gives us um little snippets of stories about people who were tested far longer than us but we're railing at a little bitty test think all the people where we're screaming because there are no uh face masks",
"on the shelves. Oh my God, they run out of hand sanitizer. Well think about the places in the world where there is no hand sanitizer, never has been any hand sanitizer or clean water or a face mask I think that it's time for us to show what we claim that we have which is compassion by not doing only",
"Only what we have to do that is necessary and also for self-reflection Regarding what is it about your house? You don't like so much that you got to be out of it all the time Even when you don't have to be And then the important thing to remember as muslims that is that we are supposed to be in the earth That's where adam was posted because god said that he's going to put a khalifa in the Earth",
"after Adam was trained and did the Arguments with Iblis in the Shaitan he was posted in there And for me that means he was told hey once you know what you're doing Once you are an informed member of the electorate a citizen like a electorate and a citizen You ought to be in the earth. You oughta be socially engaged civically engaged So the Muslims have been trained by the Quran and the example of the Prophet",
"better people, those Christians who are like us and those Jews who follow the same pattern, are the best people to try to resolve or mediate the issues and conflicts in the world. But how do you do this though when Muslims are under surveillance? And they can't decide because they're completely under stressed out. Well the thing about it is we're going",
"a religious community, under surveillance. Everything is being surveilled. Their kids are being surveillled. Their homes are being surveyed. Their telephones are being serviled. How do you do the social engagement? And there are many ways to do that. Many other communities have been under surveillance... African Americans had the same thing on the COINTELPRO being surveil- Oh we're always under surveillance!...shot and spies put into their organization",
"organization, have done had the same thing happen. What they did was they tried to pursue the programs that they felt were effective for the general public according to the law and as long as they tried do that the court eventually came around says the persecution that we suffered it was unjust and it got cut back. It didn't get limited but it got back. The big thing is do the best thing you know you should be doing try to avoid the crazy things of this culture engenders in you",
"and pray to Allah that He makes it easy for you. Well, I think the other thing we've got to do is our own internal housecleaning. Many of the young men and women who actually engage in rhetoric of ISIS, what is this rhetoric all about? Why is it compelling? What are we not in our various ethnic communities providing",
"that makes such a driving need to look for something else. So I think we can do that in another program or two.",
"that are natural and good like recreational sports, things of that nature. And support them in the good things they're doing. The country is better off when Muslim kids are able to do the good thing that they're trained to do. With that it's been great as usual. Well I hope we got some sense out of it because this has been a very interesting dangerous",
"concerning elections so far. And I told you about the book Surveillance Capitalism, and I'll tell you about another book. Not so much on a positive note, but it's one of two books written by Timothy Snyder. The first book is On Tyranny, and this one is called The Road to Unfreedom. And what it does is answers the question that if you're under surveillance, if you've been oppressed",
"have been done historically to get the monkey off your back. God willing. And we'll review these books in future podcasts. Assalamualaikum. Waalaikumsalam warahmatullahi wabarakatuhu."
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"Good evening. This is Professor Aminah Aldean, and I am just really enjoying the fact that I am joined by three esteemed chaplains who have agreed to have a conversation with me tonight about university chaplaincy. Dr. Aminat Darwish is the Muslim",
"is the Muslim Life Coordinator at Columbia University in New York. She's earned Ijazahs and traditional Islamic studies certifications from the Qualum Seminary in Dallas, and the Critical Loyalty Seminar in Toronto, Ontario guys. She has also studied individually under different scholars from all over the world.",
"and chemical engineering before switching careers. And I love this part, to follow her true passion for community building. Omar Bajwa is the director of Muslim life in the chaplain's office at Yale University. He has engaged in religious service, social activism, interfaith engagement, and educational outreach since 2000.",
"His interests include Islam in the United States, inter-religious engagement, Islamic global media and interactions between culture politics and spirituality. Hajra Sharif last on this list is an Amama chaplain. Hajro Shariff holds a bachelor's degree in philosophy and economics",
"from Wesley College and a master's in Islamic studies with both academic and traditional training. She also studied in and visited various Muslim cultures, including Jordan, Malaysia, Palestine, Turkey, and Indonesia. Oh my goodness, such an esteemed group. I can just go over to the side",
"and let you all roll with it but let me um start out with you know that chaplaincy has a very deep rooted christian heritage and it is only been very recently than others were even considered right and christians of course thought they can mentor to anybody anytime anywhere",
"anywhere, any place. So what I'm going to ask you is how do you understand that history? Have you taken up the ball of that history ministering to anybody anywhere or have you decided to minister to Muslim students? You can all answer at once.",
"take time. Let's start with Amina. It is such an honor to be here with Professor Amina, I think part of it is just going back to the history of our institutions themselves. Colombia is older than the country itself there's a long history there with colonialism, with slavery, with just a lot of the dark parts of American history so just even coming through all of that we were originally",
"And now we are a secular university that is trying to figure itself out. And this is just another layer of us trying to find ourselves as a country, an institution. We do do a lot of interfaith work. I think it's really important to engage with people of other religions partially for our own students to learn about other traditions but also so that we're engaging with the religious tapestry of America.",
"most part and all of our programs are the majority of our program is Muslim specific programs. But the interface space is so rich and interesting, I really love it. Hadira? Can you repeat the question? You know that I'm a very young woman. And I'll forget a question in a minute. Okay. I do have a sense what the question was, so I will just answer that.",
"So you talked about how chaplaincy originated from the history of the Christian tradition. And while I understand that to be true, it has since evolved to include people of all religious and spiritual traditions. So with respect to Islam we see that Muslim chaplain in the United States began in the prisons as a form of law or outreach.",
"that was something that the Nation of Islam was very much into. But more recently, post 9-11 this work has evolved to focus on interfaith between Muslims and non-Muslims. And I actually like to take it a step further by not only engaging in interfaithe but also multicultural dialogue because the difference between the two in my opinion is you know, interfaite kind of focuses",
"differences and finding common ground but multiculturalism, multicultural dialogue also you know acknowledges power differences and centers historically marginalized voices so and that includes Muslim voices. So in some sense there is this shift away from needing to prove",
"religion, which is kind of the approach taken in the early days of post 9-11. So in this new space I found that in particular my work i'm trying to center Muslims a little bit more and I do that by focusing on three things strengthening Muslim identity engaging in multicultural dialogue and contributing to anti-racist work by countering Islamophobia so I hope to expand",
"for both strengthening Muslim identity as well as engaging in soldier-hosted work. Omar, chime in please. Sure. Bismillahirrahmanirrahim everyone. Thank you so much to my colleagues and friends. Just fantastic comments. So many threads to sort of tease out there I'll jump in with two quick points. The first is I definitely appreciate the beginning of the question is that it's very imperative for us to know the history of the genealogy rather than how we got here. So in my reading, I've been at Yale for 12 going on 13 years now",
"years now. My reading of this, Yale also like Columbia is an ancient institution so to speak and so the genealogy is very much out of a liberal protestant framework right? And so where I just to jump into it where I see the intersection with our work is by us a reading or a study of our tradition of our own prophetic tradition from the Nabi ﷺ is that the work of pastoral care is like in the DNA of the ministry of the Prophet ﷺ so to",
"literally just the way everything that he cared for and took care of in the community is that I think it's work. What we're bringing through in all of our respective ministries is an inflection of that, right? And so, and then the second point that I'll briefly make is that you know, we have incredible they're fascinating threads, right, of prison chaplaincy military hospital but we all work in the, were privileged to work in",
"incredibly talented, driven ambitious young Muslims who are going through as Shabba Hadra said issues of exploring their identity and so we're there to sort of in the chaplaincy language walk with them along that journey right? And be there as friends, as interlocutors, as empathetic listeners, as non-anxious presence. And then as when appropriate really being deep dialogue right with them. And which was pretty said before is at same time a flip side of our chaplains work",
"is that we are in many ways the Muslim interlocutor to the broader university community, right? Whether it's about issues of Islam and environmentalism, Islam and human rights, Islam anti-black racism work or anti racist works. So these are privileged positions that we in fact have so. Okay I wanna dig down a little deeper and play the angel's advocate. In this country,",
"supposed to have a kind of wall of separation between church and state. Religious institutions, of course, promote religion. Secular institutions, however, are not supposed to support religion. So let me get a little deeper. I don't care if you're Muslim. If you went to",
"You're supposed to be there learning biochemical engineering, chasing fruit flies, learning something about history. Your feeding your soul is supposed to happen in another space. Talk to me chaplains. I'll just jump in. Thank you very much for the question.",
"I think that mindset or that line of thinking is common, like I've heard it many times. What I would gently sort of redirect, instead of saying pushback, is that I think it's not – it's a little bit short-sighted because we're all complex individuals, right? Race, gender, ethnicity, religious identity, spiritual identity, linguistic identity. We're all made up of different parts.",
"stick, right? That walk into a university that are going to absorb this knowledge and walk out after four years with a BA or six years of the PhD. I think just isn't honest to an experience. And so we have people at this very formative intellectual emotional growth period in their late teens, early twenties they're going through a lot, right. They're processing engaging with the world and spiritual is as important as their ethnic identity, their racial identity.",
"I think the part of a beauty of a liberal arts education is actually engaging that seriously with those ideas, right? Is that people are complex and liberal arts talk about human condition. And this is what asked to be human condition and so. That's great. Adra chime in. Sure. I think that what you were getting at the separation of church and state is actually only relevant to public universities private colleges",
"public universities colleges uh do hire chaplains and um there actually is a way for public uh for people for religious communities to fund their own chaplins at public colleges and universities and i actually encourage muslim community to organize and start funding because you know in this space muslim students you know they don't have a lot of",
"have a lot of administrative support, people who understand the needs of Muslims especially in this climate of Islamophobia and just having an authoritative figure on campus who understands and can advocate for the needs that are most critical for their long-term growth. College years are formative years of identity so not having that support system in place early on can be damaging in the long run for the Muslim community",
"I just hope that we can organize ourselves and start understanding the importance of having a presence on college campuses. But Amina, my God, there are over 1,000 faith traditions. Are we going to have a chaplain for each one? Are we gonna have authority figures advocating for each",
"whole selves to campus in the spirit of inclusion, if there's a large enough group of students they have to be able to have their religious identities just acknowledged. If there is a student that is only eating halal or vegetarian food or kosher food and you don't serve it to them then you're saying you don' t get to eat at the dining hall. How can we do that for tens of thousands",
"afford to do that for every dietary wish, every prayer wish, everything? Do they then get out of the business of teaching subjects for careers and professions and cross that line and get into the business",
"Columbia University who has never in their life engaged with someone that has a different dietary need, has missed part of the learning they should have gotten at a global campus. Has missed part even just understanding and this is even with our interfaith dialogue it isn't about hey I'm going to bring a sanitized version of me no I will bring my whole self tell you exactly how I feel if I can't do that then the university",
"allowing the students to bring their whole selves. The idea of secularism is based on we're not the default religion that was there, and the default religious that was again these white male Episcopal priests. And need to create a space for everyone else to say okay even if we are not choosing one religion we will still acknowledge the existence of different religions I think universities as big as Columbia have at least 15 religious life advisors",
"advisors on campus and I think it's so fascinating. Half of them are different Christian sex, which is also interesting because when we say we're going to do interfaith work with the Christians they're like well which ones? How do we talk about orthodoxy within even the Christian traditions and how do we engage? And it just creates for a richer educational experience I think. Just on that note I want to jump in with a quick thought thank you so much is that sort",
"hear chaplain Amina's words are really in the when we talk about the project of education is that we want to include it in the include in that conversation, the idea of religious literacy. So she said it so beautifully is that if you go through four years at a selective institution and you've never had exposure to difference I mean that I think something it leaves a lot to be desired in what the faculty and the people who design curriculums are doing those institutions because",
"have professional schools, right? You just have vocational schools. I don't mean to knock that out. There's definitely a very important place for that. Then we're not calling it university education, right. That's a very singular track of education where you go and you get sort of a product at the end of it. And I think university education is much more about diversity and inclusion. And then the other thing I just want to add in there to Amina's point is that in our respective institutions",
"institutions like these are were part of the colonial projects in some way right is that yale was modeled off of oxford and cambridge which were part",
"So in 250 years of its history, it was a male only – a white male institution. This is imperative now in the moment that we live and that we reorganize dismantle and redistribute power in these institutions. Okay. We're going to take a few second break here and come back with Hajra to jump into this conversation.",
"Hadira, jump in. Sure I just wanted to make one additional point in the way that you framed your question about well can we accommodate for all of these other religions?",
"Like, why is it such a problem? Accommodating for the needs of marginalized people. Well one reason- Positive. Class if you accommodate everybody's religious day. Right but in terms of dietary restrictions, it's very easy to accommodate that there's not a huge cost to doing something. Well, it looks expensive.",
"I mean, not necessarily. There's not too many dietary restrictions in general. I mean buying halal chicken versus normal. We have vegans. We vegetarians. I don't want to take the mic from you, Hadra. I'm sorry. But we actually have an example at Yale if you don't mind me sharing for the good of the group. So several years ago I was in conversation with Yale Dining",
"with Yale Dining. And long story short, they redid their whole strategic plan and business plan. And alhamdulillah, one of the things was a resource ethically produced produce and ingredients as much as possible in their dining halls. Part of that plan, they actually found halal meat suppliers that met their strategic point. So the point is that at Yale, in all of its 14 residential college dining halls, we actually have halal chicken as a default. Halal chicken and beef on the line,",
"which is actually meets all the criteria for all of the different things that they want to look at. But to the other point, and then I'm sorry, Farajara, for taking the mic from you. Is that we're living in an age now where dining professionals take a lot of this very seriously, where there's every menu item that you go into a dining hall has allergen information, right? If you have shellfish allergy, if you have a peanut allergy,",
"cages to religious groups is that if you're vegan, if you vegetarian, if eat halal, if there's alcohol present in an ingredient most colleges now will actually list that because they care very much about the health and well-being of students. So this I think interacts very well with that but please give the mic back.",
"things that i've heard is from the workers and trying to tend to what they perceive of is the food of foreigners having the cost from students the cost of meal cards and stuff going up because then you have many more vendors than you had originally and for the poor that's exorbitant",
"And while it might be nice for those who can afford it, it is not so nice for many minority students who have to pay higher costs as they serve the desires of others. That's true but having said that part of the struggle is a lot of so at Columbia a lot",
"every incoming freshman is required to be on the dining plan. And if they are on the planning, especially during Ramadan, if they don't get halal food, they're essentially paying for food that they cannot eat. And this is true of a lot of other students and I'm really grateful for the dining staff at Columbia that I think we have four Jane's students that are on a strict vegan diet and they get accommodated those four students because again",
"Because again, it would have been insane to try to make all of it vegan. So instead what they did is these specific students have a relationship with the staff and they essentially give them a heads up before they come into the dining hall. No, I think those things are always accommodated but I'm just thinking about the numbers of students whose meal plans I've paid for because as the meal plans went up",
"went up to accommodate students from other places, they used their meal cards up very quickly and then were hungry. And I think that smacks a little bit of an elitism that smacked off a little but of ethnocentrism that's smacks of a little racism that's not being dealt with here.",
"It's not so nice. I apologize, I didn't mean to cut you off. I think it's a fascinating conversation and dimension to all of this is the economics of higher education which in some ways totally needs to be... We need to have that hard conversation about why are the costs going up across the board in higher education where it's actually becoming unaffordable for the majority of people in this country. And I'm not an economist but I read in The Chronicle of Higher Ed",
"But Hasbro is an economist. Hasbro. Okay, are we going to get to a point where it's literally going to price out the majority of people in the country? Exactly.",
"that they are trying from the conversations I'm privy to, and I'm very mindful of the fact that I am at a ridiculously privileged and elite institution. Like I put that up front, right? Yale is not, it's the 1%, right? It's not most colleges in the country. But what they try to do in many of these places is they want to give a living wage to their workers, right, and so gets into complex issues of you have to raise labor costs go up which at some level has been filtered down",
"et cetera and i look more complex than that um because also in addition to the economics it's back to what all of you have talked about about liberal education you're forcing me an evangelical christian to be mindful of what i serve a muslim or jew or vegan or whatever else",
"serving food. I'm a human being with my own religious proclivities. Hydra, jump in. Well, when you mentioned Christian these public institutions they're not funded by Christians. These are public institutions therefore they need to accommodate for the public it's not about Christians needing",
"non-Christians. But public institutions are funded by many Christian groups. Right, but when you fund a public institution your self interests don't matter at that point. There's never a time when an American's self interest don't manver. Never. I mean it's not supposed to. It is a public",
"the public interest not specifically but most homes are teeny tiny teeny tiny part of it is in public interest to be accommodating to everyone and creating an open society because in the long term this just creates better society you have to look at education they gain in other ways if you're just fixated on this tiny thing about oh giving you know a small accommodation we will miss out",
"of creating a cosmopolitan culture, et cetera. And this is the same line of reasoning that people use whether we should support welfare programs or not. Again it's about the public good and then like the societal benefits, the intangible societal benefit that- Exactly. Amina? I think because Colombia can actually buy food at bulk, it actually becomes cheaper than some of the food in the surrounding area except for of course the halal cart. The halal",
"always standard the cheapest food that you can get. But apart from that, if you want quality food, the assumption is the Muslim students wouldn't be paying for food anyway. In fact, the university is just taking in those dollars their students apart from the freshmen because they expect you to buy a ton of meal plans. Students, a lot of the other students even graduate students opted into the dining plan because it was cheaper for them per meal than it was to just be eating out",
"in a surrounding area that is very pricey. Yeah, well let's move on. What other religious traditions have each of you studied in your role as a chaplain? Could you repeat the question please? What other religions traditions have you studied",
"I mean, I'll just jump in real quick and then I defer to my friend and colleagues here. You know, in my training, I went to Hartford Seminary. I'm a graduate of Hartford seminary. And so it's originally a Christian institution that has much more of an ecumenical approach now. And through my work at Cornell when I was doing a master's in Islamic studies, you know, I took Hebrew Bible New Testament and then obviously I went",
"I've had exposure. And then in work at Yale, we have on staff again because of the nature of how we're very fortunate is I have a colleague that's a Hindu director of Hindu life and a director of Buddhist life. So I have close working relationships with the Buddhist chaplain and the Hindu chaplain so in my dozen plus years on the job, I learned a lot and continue to learn in my work with Hindu and Buddhist communities on campus.",
"I agree. I think there's a certain level of privilege that we have, but most other people don't that we can...I have a friend that is a Hindu chaplain that I can call up at any point and ask about any specific thing. I have the same working relationship with Christian Jewish and Buddhist ministers and all them and just say, Hey, this is what's happening. Before we had a Hindu Chaplin on campus, I had an Indian student come to my office and he's Hindu. And he was like, my Brown parents are really disappointed in me. I'm like so are mine.",
"And he came home and we had this conversation because for a lot of our conversations with students, yes it's somewhat within a religious framework but just as human beings there are certain struggles that are very similar. Yeah. There was no point where he felt like I was trying to push Islam on him nor was he trying to put Hinduism on me but at the same time we were trying to find common ground of how can we have a difficult conversation with our parents? How do we do this? Alhamdulillah my parents have since come around",
"come around and i just it was a fascinating conversation to have with the student alhamdulillah now we do have a hindu chaplain that he can go to but i still have now have a relationship with the students that i don't think i would have otherwise oh yeah so i actually have a background in islamic studies i've studied islam for five plus years um so my concentration obviously",
"you know, in some readings I would not claim myself to be an expert. But I've also read in depth the works of Nasser and other Perennialist writers. And I think that sort of perspective is beneficial as a chaplain because we're supposed to be speaking widely to people from a perspective of shared common, shared values, shared spiritual wisdom, et cetera. And it's not so much still important",
"when it comes to different religions for more of how we can unite under these common values. And so my background in these plenum readings was very helpful in my chaplaincy job also just like others have mentioned learning on the job, interacting with the other chaplains in everyday sense not necessarily informal interfaith events but those everyday conversations that you had with people they really open up windows because",
"you're not going to forget that stuff because it's rooted in words. Whereas if you read something in a book and you don't have anything to root it in, you could easily forget it. So just having that human connection has been instrumental in me gaining a wider perspective and understanding the other religious traditions. I think that's great because a lot of people think that the only thing Muslim chaplains do is Muslim stuff. And it's important for them to hear",
"guys are not told on the walkway. You're in everything and conferring with your colleagues. Now, Omar will take you out of this conversation for a minute. And I'm going to ask the women chaplains. We have serious issues with women because, Omar, of men all over the Muslim world.",
"Now you show up as chaplains with jobs, draw salary, with authority, with responsibility. Talk to me ladies. I think my first week on campus four of the male students asked when we were going to hire a khatib and the first one I just started. The second one was confused.",
"it's gonna be a while. And Alhamdulillah to their credit, those same four students came around and started attending halaqas and became involved in a way that I was very grateful. And they didn't just dismiss me offhand. There are some students that would but at the same time, I feel like it gave me space to have conversation. There're a lot of women that have been disenfranchised from the Muslim community and it put me in a really good position",
"position to try to bring them back in and i remember actually in the last month i think i had three different women of different ages and have different very different experiences that said this was the first time that they have felt that islam could be for them but allah could love them yeah isn't that something all the muslims are men and the women i don't know what they do",
"I studied Islam and I was looking for something to do with it. If I was a man, you could try to be an imam at a mosque or get invited to speak at things. And there's lots of opportunities but for a woman it's so much more difficult. And so this was one of the few outlets for someone like myself.",
"That's something that I had to deal with kind of on the first day. And also just questions about leading prayer and all of these things, it's how do you deal with those questions? What stance you decide to take can have real world consequences, right? You might divide your community but at the same time we need to stand up for social justice in women. So like where is the balance, right. And sometimes you might decide that, you know what,",
"to do this. I'm going to lead this prayer or whatever and even if you disagree with me, you're gonna...I hope that we can create a culture of tolerance because the inconvenience that the majority experiences because they see something new or something new is happening is not even close",
"gain if they go outside of the grain and you know do things that are counter to culture. So yeah, and that's actually why I go by the name imama as well chaplain because you know authority is granted through these titles and so if you don't use these titles you're in some sense diminishing your own authority and i have had just as much training as some of these other people who call themselves Imams or whatever and",
"also this title of imam and i think amina needs that as well my one of my male students actually started the imamana which i thought was hilarious it kind of stuck i love it ladies i'm going to use it and push it out there i think one of the things on many campuses and especially with i'm gonna put this out there and we're gonna take another quick break",
"is the diversity of students. African-American Muslim students have often felt left out as have Chinese Muslims students, as have well not so much white Muslims but Latino Muslims too. So I'm gonna give you a few seconds to think about that and we're going to go to break.",
"i think i beat him in terms of taking a station break but nevertheless your comments what can we do",
"to change this dynamic? I think we have to embed it in our programming. We made a point to make sure that at least one speaker every year that we invited was Black, at least on speaker that we invite every year was Shia, to make the students see themselves represented also in their religious authority. This is our signature program called",
"program was called Ramadan Around the World. And it's the first time that Ramadan is going through the school year and it was so much fun because what we did is we had cultural groups take each taken iftad where they are dressing up, if they want, they are talking about their culture and they're ordering food from that specific, from their specific culture. And again, we had someone to be like, oh yeah of course Columbia has the money to do this. And I'm like look Jollof rice is not more expensive than biryani. It's just not.",
"We are just going out of our way to make sure that different cultures are celebrated. The Black student organization, Muslim and non-Muslim alike, attended all like we had a Somali night, a Senegalese night and an African American night where we ordered soul food. And we're lucky enough to be in New York where you can just order food from everywhere. But students were coming because this was a space where their culture was celebrated in a positive and affirming way.",
"students are talking about their historical traditions regarding the Shi'a. Students did the same thing where we had the Irani night and they were eating kubeda, and we're drinking like saffron tea, like everybody is really enjoying the Iqbal but we heard that she had them for the first time for a lot of the students. We wrote back a little later if you are unfamiliar with these traditions maybe college should be",
"once a year that you see the beautiful tapestry of the American Muslim community in a way that is fun, that is engaging, that just results in really good food. Jump in. I mean, I just want to jump in with what Chapman Amina was saying. She articulated so beautifully with actually concrete examples. What came to my mind to your question was really this is the work of DEI, right? Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.",
"equity and inclusion. And so we need to be deeply engaged, and on the ground in that kind of work with our partners on campuses people that work in cultural centers, people that working student affairs, people who work religious affairs as equal contribution partners interlocutors right saying that we absolutely need to create this space for the Latinx community on campus for the native indigenous community on Campus, the black community on",
"We're blessed if we take our work seriously to have such an incredible, and that word is so beautiful. The tapestry of the beauty of the Muslim world is that we represent the most multicultural and multi-ethnic religious community arguably on a college campus in 2020. In terms like just the kind of engagement we have, the levels of engagement, the diversity within our communities that come... And this has been mentioned before but that's what I think is that",
"our work seriously and i'll be the first one to point at myself as needing to do better is um is that it can be transformative so uh that's what I would kind of thoughts that come to mind to your question. And on the previous question, I very much appreciate how we need to grapple with the gender issues head-on and so I want to listen more than speak. Yeah so I agree you know with everything that was said",
"said and you know I mean what you said about representing different ethnicities in uh different genders in uh you know the speakers that are invited, and i think the MSA has done a great job with that. But what I do specifically as a chaplain because you know what the MSC does is not what Ido necessarily is that I make it a point to reach out to Chia black Muslims or anyone else who may be marginalized in the community. And I spend time talking to them in office hours",
"a support system when they need it. And that just helps make them feel a little bit more welcome and accepted in the Muslim community. I just make it a point to go out of my way, and make sure that they have that personal relationship with me so that if something happens in the MSA or in the greater Muslim body, we can ask someone to turn to and they're not alone. So that's specifically what I do.",
"Okay, I want to turn to the more sensitive side. Oh, Amala gave me that look. Okay, so sex before marriage, pornography, the alphabet crowd, my parents have driven me to my wit's end, I've been bullied and I might commit suicide. How?",
"How are we to deal with these things, which are also a part of that maturation process? Don't everybody jump at once. I mean, I always have a lot to say and I talk too much so I don't want to be the first one to jump in. We know how to shut you up, Omar. Don't worry. Just go for it. No, no, thank you. What I would say is one of the things",
"One of the things that comes to mind, and then I'll hand it over is that really our training equips us or should equip us to listen more than we speak. Right? Especially in the beginning. And part of the essence of what it means to be a chaplain, to be pastoral presence is to be non-anxious, nonjudgmental presence on campus in these students' lives because we're well aware with all the things you mentioned reality of contemporary culture, right? That young people are faced with this onslaught, right,",
"right? And we can unpack that at so many levels. But we want to be ideally inshallah the person in life or the group of people in their life, when they walk through the door, we meet them where they're at, right? That we sit down, we listen, we ask reflective questions, we asked deep questions and do we do deep listening? And so we kind of walk on that journey with",
"helping them come through unpacking these issues themselves. That's what I would lead with and then there are some people you build a longer relationship with, they want to actually help them untangle these kinds of problems and they will be looking for answers so it really depends on the type of student and the type crisis that they're in. Anybody else? I think there is two parts to this but there was a study about more than 50% of Muslim youth",
"youth and Muslim college students have had premarital sex, have tried alcohol. I mean again more than half of our Muslim students in a post 9-11 world were bullied at school, issues of substance abuse. These things exist in the larger Muslim community at very high rates and we have to acknowledge that they are part of our communities as well. There was a beautiful story of a companion at the time of the Prophet's life send him that kept showing up to the masjid of the prophet's life sent them drunk",
"and I can't picture someone showing up to our masjid looking like that because the rest of the Muslim community would just attack them. And there was a, during this time one of the other companions he started speaking ill of this man and the Prophet got angry at him and said he has to fight the shaitan and he has deal with you don't support the shaytan against your brother He's here because he loves Allah and his prophet So the notion that someone that is",
"May Allah protect us from this idea that there's ever going to be a sin that is beyond the mercy of Allah. It's just ridiculous. And it's so unfortunately rampant in this part of the religious crowd of like, okay I didn't commit this sin therefore you how dare you? Yeah.",
"that I have a right to attack someone else and to not try to understand how and why they ended up, what led them to this and how we can help people heal. A lot of the times these are based in maybe unresolved trauma or based in an experience that they still need to understand and process. And it's part of our job, Chaplain Amar's point, to just be that pastoral presence to help them through. Actually there was a point where I had",
"I almost try to communicate to my students. I'm like, you don't confess your sins to me? That's not the point. The point is where have you been so that we can walk along this journey together? Hazra? Yeah, so I would actually echo some of the sentiments that Omer mentioned already in terms of centering listening and making sure to build a relationship with students. Sometimes if you try to give advice prematurely it can backfire",
"That student is, you don't know what their orientation is. There's so much diversity in Islam. They are Muslims who take the position that having a boyfriend or girlfriend before marriage is halal. And so you do need to respect other people's perspectives. And as a chaplain, we're sort of supposed to be more in this neutral space. But at the same time, we are counselors. We give counsel. And being able to strike that balance",
"balance is hard and you just need to have like a really great relationship with that person to know where that balance is. Sometimes, you might feel that okay you can tell this person your opinion of what you think Islam would say because you think they will accept that in Asiha for others you might not be able to and you'd just have to be more respectful and tolerant",
"not interested in your perspective, maybe give them resources on other perspectives that might be aligned with where they're at. You all are so mature in your professions that I would be remiss if I didn't call you back again because some of the things",
"because they're riding these kids like, what's that dude's name on the horse in the Wide Wild West? Trying to protect them from everything. But riding them so hard, they're driving them to stuff. I'm going to give you all the last say because my merciless producers are telling me that I have to go away. So I'm gonna give you a last say and we'll start with Hajra.",
"So just last comments. Yeah, so yeah, the points that I want to reiterate is just you know, I hope that Muslim community understands the importance of chaplaincy to begin with especially on educational spaces there's just so much Islamophobia right now we are a marginalized community",
"sometimes some aspects are at odds with, you know greater cultural norms and just having that a mentor in an authoritative space on campus just would make the biggest difference in students' lives. And so that's number one. Number two I think the Muslim community needs to be open to listening to the perspectives of women",
"leadership positions. Sometimes, you know, there is this fear of like Westernization or, you",
"might see things differently, Muslim woman. It might not be an issue of Westernization this issue of women leadership in religious positions is a challenge that Muslim women who are authentically Muslim are facing and so we should give more space to listen to them. I have to stop you so I can give a minute to each of our other guests.",
"I wanted to say that college is the time in people's lives when for the first time you're away from your parents and it's up to you to either choose Islam for yourself or not. And we see great Muslim leaders, people like Congressman Keith Ellison who is now the Attorney General of Minnesota and really just how important his role is in the current moment that we are experiencing he became a Muslim at college. What we're building is the roots for Muslim Americans",
"And what is incredible about the chaplain space, it actually does include women. It includes black chaplains and really just celebrates the tapestry of the Muslim American community in a way that everybody is part of the Ummah and celebrated and still fighting the same good fight for each other. It's so beautiful. Thank you. Last word, Omar? One minute. I can't follow what they said.",
"I'm simply going to put out there that, you know, from where I'm coming from, I think, you the life of the Prophet. Right? And so how can we in our capacities as chaplains on campuses embody and exemplify, right. That prophetic love and mercy and compassion that he gave not only to the Sahaba but to the world, right, to the Ummah. And so in our Salaf Mal slice that we inhabit on college campuses and inshallah beyond is",
"to nurture hearts and to embody that mercy. And I think that's really at the heart of our work, as my amazing colleagues have already said and demonstrated. It's about relationship building. Thank you. I'm going to end with that I'm bringing all of you back. And what I would like for you to do, and I will chase you down, have no fear. One I would",
"college administrators, and Muslim chaplaincy programs. So if you would think about those things, I will be on your email shortly. This is Critical Talk with Professor Amin Al-Din. I have had a wonderful evening, and I forgot the word already, but to the ladies, I am so glad to see you. Omar,",
"you omar glad to see you again after a while and you all have just been wonderful assalamu alaikum"
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"Good evening. This is Professor Aminah Aldean, and I am just really enjoying the fact that I am joined by three esteemed chaplains who have agreed to have a conversation with me tonight about university chaplaincy. Dr. Aminat Darwish is the Muslim",
"is the Muslim Life Coordinator at Columbia University in New York. She's earned Ijazahs and traditional Islamic studies certifications from the Qualum Seminary in Dallas, and the Critical Loyalty Seminar in Toronto, Ontario guys. She has also studied individually under different scholars from all over the world.",
"and chemical engineering before switching careers. And I love this part, to follow her true passion for community building. Omar Bajwa is the director of Muslim life in the chaplain's office at Yale University. He has engaged in religious service, social activism, interfaith engagement, and educational outreach since 2000.",
"His interests include Islam in the United States, inter-religious engagement, Islamic global media and interactions between culture politics and spirituality. Hajra Sharif last on this list is an Amama chaplain. Hajro Shariff holds a bachelor's degree in philosophy and economics",
"who go from Wesley College and a master's in Islamic studies with both academic and traditional training. She also studied in and visited various Muslim cultures, including Jordan, Malaysia, Palestine, Turkey, and Indonesia. Oh my goodness, such an esteemed group. I can just go over to the side",
"and let you all roll with it. But let me start out with, you know that chaplaincy has a very deep-rooted Christian heritage. And it is only been very recently that others were even considered, right? And Christians of course thought they can mentor to anybody anytime anywhere",
"anywhere, any place. So what I'm going to ask you is how do you understand that history? Have you taken up the ball of that history ministering to anybody anywhere or have you decided to minister to Muslim students? You can all answer at once.",
"take time. Let's start with Amina. It is such an honor to be here with Professor Amina, I think part of it is just going back to the history of our institutions themselves. Colombia is older than the country itself there's a long history there with colonialism, with slavery, with just a lot of the dark parts of American history so just even coming through all of that we were originally a Christian institution",
"And now we are a secular university that is trying to figure itself out. And this is just another layer of us trying to find ourselves as a country, an institution. We do do a lot of interfaith work. I think it's really important to engage with people of other religions partially for our own students to learn about other traditions but also so that we're engaging with the religious tapestry of America.",
"most part and all of our programs are the majority of our program is Muslim specific programs. But the interface space is so rich and interesting, I really love it. Hadira? Can you repeat the question? You know that I'm a very young woman. And I'll forget a question in a minute. Okay. I do have a sense what the question was, so I will just answer that.",
"So you talked about how chaplaincy originated from the history of the Christian tradition. And while I understand that to be true, it has since evolved to include people of all religious and spiritual traditions. So with respect to Islam we see that Muslim chaplain in the United States began in the prisons as a form of law or outreach.",
"that was something that the Nation of Islam was very much into. But more recently, post 9-11 this work has evolved to focus on interfaith between Muslims and non-Muslims. And I actually like to take it a step further by not only engaging in interfaithe but also multicultural dialogue because the difference between the two in my opinion is you know, interfaite kind of focuses",
"differences and finding common ground but multiculturalism, multicultural dialogue also you know acknowledges power differences and centers historically marginalized voices so when that includes Muslim voices. So in some sense there is this shift away from needing to prove",
"religion, which is kind of the approach taken in the early days of post 9-11. So in this new space I found that in particular my work i'm trying to center Muslims a little bit more and I do that by focusing on three things strengthening Muslim identity engaging in multicultural dialogue and contributing to anti-racist work by countering Islamophobia so I hope to expand",
"for both strengthening Muslim identity as well as engaging in soldier-focused work. Omar, chime in please. Sure. Bismillahirrahmanirrahiim everyone. Thank you so much to my colleagues and friends just fantastic comments. So many threads did sort of tease out there I'll jump in with sort of two quick points the first is i definitely appreciate the beginning of the question is that it's very imperative for us to know the history of uh the genealogy rather how we got here so in my reading I've been at Yale for 12 going on 13 years now",
"years now. My reading of this, Yale also like Columbia is an ancient institution so to speak and so the genealogy is very much out of a liberal protestant framework right? And so where I just to jump into it where I see the intersection with our work is by us a reading or a study of our tradition of our own prophetic tradition from the Nabi ﷺ is that the work of pastoral care is like in the DNA of the ministry of the Prophet ﷺ so to",
"literally just the way everything that he cared for and took care of in the community is that I think it's work. What we're bringing through in all of our respective ministries is an inflection of that, right? And so, and then the second point that I'll briefly make is that you know, we have incredible they're fascinating threads, right, of prison chaplaincy military hospital but we all work in the, were privileged to work in",
"incredibly talented, driven ambitious young Muslims who are going through as Shabban Hajra said issues of exploring their identity and so we're there to sort of in the chaplaincy language walk with them along that journey right? And be there as friends, as interlocutors, as empathetic listeners, as non-anxious presence. And then as when appropriate really being deep dialogue right with them. And which was pretty said before is at same time a flip side of our chaplains work",
"is that we are in many ways the Muslim interlocutor to the broader university community, right? Whether it's about issues of Islam and environmentalism, Islam and human rights, Islam anti-black racism work or anti racist works. So these are privileged positions that we in fact have so. Okay I wanna dig down a little deeper and play the angel's advocate. In this country,",
"supposed to have a kind of wall of separation between church and state. Religious institutions, of course, promote religion. Secular institutions, however, are not supposed to support religion. So let me get a little deeper. I don't care if you're Muslim. If you went to",
"You're supposed to be there learning biochemical engineering, chasing fruit flies, learning something about history. Your feeding your soul is supposed to happen in another space. Talk to me chaplains. I'll just jump in. Thank you very much for the question.",
"I think that mindset or that line of thinking is common, like I've heard it many times. What I would gently sort of redirect, instead of saying pushback, is that I think it's not... It's a little bit short-sighted because we're all complex individuals, right? Race, gender, ethnicity, religious identity, spiritual identity, linguistic identity. We're all made up of different parts and to say",
"stick, right? That walk into a university that are going to absorb this knowledge and walk out after four years with a BA or six years of the PhD. I think just isn't honest to experience. And we have people at this very formative intellectual emotional growth period in their late teens early 20s they're going through a lot, right there processing engaging with the world and spiritual is as important as their ethnic identity, their racial identity.",
"I think the part of a beauty of a liberal arts education is actually engaging that seriously with those ideas, right? Is that people are complex and liberal arts talk about human condition. And this is what asked to be human condition and so. That's great. Sure. I think that what you were getting at, the separation of church and state is actually only relevant to public universities, private colleges,",
"public universities colleges uh do hire chaplains and um there actually is a way for public uh for people for religious communities to fund their own chaplins at public colleges and universities and i actually encourage muslim community to organize and start funding because you know in this space muslim students you know they don't have a lot of",
"have a lot of administrative support, people who understand the needs of Muslims especially in this climate of Islamophobia and just having an authoritative figure on campus who understands and can advocate for the needs that are most critical for their long-term growth. College years are formative years of identity so not having that support system in place early on can be damaging in the long run for the Muslim community",
"I just hope that we can organize ourselves and start understanding the importance of having a presence on college campuses. But Amina, my God, there are over 1,000 faith traditions. Are we going to have a chaplain for each one? Are we gonna have authority figures advocating for each",
"whole selves to campus in the spirit of inclusion, if there's a large enough group of students they have to be able to have their religious identities just acknowledged. If there is a student that is only eating halal or vegetarian food or kosher food and you don't serve it to them then you're saying you don' t get to eat at the dining hall. How can we do that for tens of thousands",
"afford to do that for every dietary wish, every prayer wish, everything? Do they then get out of the business of teaching subjects for careers and professions and cross that line and get into the business",
"Columbia University who has never in their life engaged with someone that has a different dietary need, has missed part of the learning they should have gotten at a global campus. Has missed part even just understanding and this is even with our interfaith dialogue it isn't about hey I'm going to bring a sanitized version of me no I will bring my whole self tell you exactly how I feel if I can't do that then the university",
"allowing the students to bring their whole selves. The idea of secularism is based on we're not the default religion that was there, and the default religious that was again these white male Episcopal priests. And need to create a space for everyone else to say okay even if we are not choosing one religion we will still acknowledge the existence of different religions I think universities as big as Columbia have at least 15 religious life advisors",
"advisors on campus and I think it's so fascinating. Half of them are different Christian sex, which is also interesting because when we say we're going to do interfaith work with the Christians they're like well which ones? How do we talk about orthodoxy within even the Christian traditions and how do we engage? And it just creates for a richer educational experience I think. Just on that note I want to jump in with a quick thought thank you so much is that sort of",
"hear chaplain Amina's words are really in the when we talk about the project of education is that we want to include it in the include in that conversation, the idea of religious literacy. So she said it so beautifully is that if you go through four years at a selective institution and you've never had exposure to difference I mean that I think something it leaves a lot to be desired in what the faculty and the people who design curriculums are doing those institutions because",
"have professional schools, right? You just have vocational schools. I don't mean to knock that out. There's definitely a very important place for that. Then we're not calling it university education, right. That's a very singular track of education where you go and you get sort of a product at the end of it. And I think university education is much more about diversity and inclusion. And then the other thing I just want to add in there to Amina's point is that in our respective institutions",
"institutions like these are were part of the colonial projects in some way right is that yale was modeled off of oxford and cambridge which were part",
"So in 250 years of its history, it was a male only, a white male institution. This is imperative now in the moment that we live and that we reorganize, dismantle, and redistribute power in these institutions. Okay. We're going to take a few second break here and come back with Hajra to jump in this conversation.",
"Hadira, jump in. Sure I just wanted to make one additional point in the way that you framed your question about well can we accommodate for all of these other religions?",
"Like, why is it such a problem? Accommodating for the needs of marginalized people. Well one reason- Positive. Couldn't have class if you accommodated everybody's religious holiday. Right but in terms of dietary restrictions, it's very easy to accommodate that there's not a huge cost to doing something like that. Well it's expensive.",
"I mean, not necessarily. There's not too many dietary restrictions in general. I mean buying halal chicken versus normal. We have vegans. We vegetarians. I don't want to take the mic from you, Hadra. I'm sorry. But we actually have an example at Yale if you don't mind me sharing for the good of the group. So several years ago I was in conversation with Yale Dining",
"with Yale Dining. And long story short, they redid their whole strategic plan and business plan. And alhamdulillah, one of the things was a resource ethically produced produce and ingredients as much as possible in their dining halls. Part of that plan, they actually found halal meat suppliers that met their strategic point. So the point is that at Yale, in all of its 14 residential college dining halls, we actually have halal chicken as a default. Halal chicken and beef on the line,",
"which is actually meets all the criteria for all of the different things that they want to look at. But to the other point, and then I'm sorry, Farajara, for taking the mic from you. Is that we're living in an age now where dining professionals take a lot of this very seriously, where there's every menu item that you go into a dining hall has allergen information, right? If you have shellfish allergy, if you have a peanut allergy,",
"cages to religious groups is that if you're vegan, if you vegetarian, if eat halal, if there's alcohol present in an ingredient most colleges now will actually list that because they care very much about the health and well-being of students. So this I think interacts very well with that but please give the mic back.",
"things that I've heard is from the workers and trying to tend to what they perceive of as the food of foreigners. And having the cost from students, the cost of meal cards and stuff going up because then you have many more vendors than you had originally. And for the poor, that's exorbitant.",
"And while it might be nice for those who can afford it, it is not so nice for many minority students who have to pay higher costs as they serve the desires of others. That's true but having said that part of the struggle is a lot of so at Columbia a lot",
"every incoming freshman is required to be on the dining plan. And if they are on the planning, especially during Ramadan, if they don't get halal food, they're essentially paying for food that they cannot eat. And this is true of a lot of other students and I'm really grateful for the dining staff at Columbia that I think we have four Jane students that are on a strict vegan diet and they get accommodated those four students because again",
"Because again, it would have been insane to try to make all of it vegan. So instead what they did is these specific students have a relationship with the staff and they essentially give them a heads up before they come into the dining hall. No, I think those things are always accommodated but I'm just thinking about the numbers of students whose meal plans I've paid for because as the meal plans went up",
"went up to accommodate students from other places, they used their meal cards up very quickly and then were hungry. And I think that smacks a little bit of an elitism that smacked off a little but of ethnocentrism that's smacks of a little racism that's not being dealt with here.",
"It's not so nice. I apologize, I didn't mean to cut you off. I think it's a fascinating conversation and dimension to all of this is the economics of higher education which in some ways totally needs to be... We need to have that hard conversation about why are the costs going up across the board in higher education where it's actually becoming unaffordable for the majority of people in this country? And I'm not an economist but I read in The Chronicle of Higher Ed",
"But Hasbro is an economist. Hasbro. Okay, are we going to get to a point where it's literally going to price out the majority of people in the country? Exactly.",
"that they are trying from the conversations I'm privy to, and I'm very mindful of the fact that I am at a ridiculously privileged and elite institution. Like I put that up front, right? Yale is not, it's the 1%, right? It's not most colleges in the country. But what they try to do in many of these places is they want to give a living wage to their workers, right, and so gets into complex issues of you have to raise labor costs go up which at some level has been filtered down",
"et cetera. And I feel more complex than that because- But it's also, in addition to the economics is back to what all of you have talked about liberal education. You're forcing me an evangelical Christian to be mindful of when I serve a Muslim or Jew or vegan or whatever else it is running around out there. You see what",
"serving food. I'm a human being with my own religious proclivities. Hydra, jump in. Well, when you mentioned Christian these public institutions they're not funded by Christians. These are public institutions therefore they need to accommodate for the public it's not about",
"non-Christians. But public institutions are funded by many Christian groups. Right, but when you fund a public institution your self interests don't matter at that point. There's never a time when an American's self interest don't manver. Never. I mean it's not supposed to. It is a public",
"the public interest not specifically but most homes are teeny tiny teeny tiny part of it is in public interest to be accommodating to everyone and creating an open society because in the long term this just creates better society you have to look at education they gain in other ways if you're just fixated on this tiny thing about oh giving you know a small accommodation we will miss out",
"of creating a cosmopolitan culture, et cetera. And this is the same line of reasoning that people use whether we should support welfare programs or not. Again it's about the public good and then like the societal benefits, the intangible societal benefit. Exactly. Amina? I think because Colombia can actually buy food at bulk, it actually becomes cheaper than some of the food in the surrounding area except for of course the halal cart. The halal",
"always standard the cheapest food that you can get. But apart from that, if you want quality food, the assumption is the Muslim students wouldn't be paying for food anyway. In fact, the university is just taking in those dollars their students apart from the freshmen because they expect you to buy a ton of meal plans. Students, a lot of the other students even graduate students opted into the dining plan because it was cheaper for them per meal than it was to just be eating out",
"in a surrounding area that is very pricey. Yeah, well let's move on. What other religious traditions have each of you studied in your role as a chaplain? Could you repeat the question please? What other religions traditions have you studied",
"I mean, I'll just jump in real quick and then I defer to my friends and colleagues here. You know, in my training, I went to Hartford Seminary. I'm a graduate of Hartford seminary. And so it's originally a Christian institution that has much more of an ecumenical approach now. And through my work at Cornell when I was doing a master's in Islamic studies, you know, I took Hebrew Bible New Testament and then obviously I went",
"I've had exposure. And then in work at Yale, we have on staff again because of the nature of how we're very fortunate is I have a colleague that's a Hindu director of Hindu life and a director of Buddhist life. So I have close working relationships with the Buddhist chaplain and the Hindu chaplain so in my dozen plus years on the job, I learned a lot and continue to learn in my work with Hindu and Buddhist communities on campus.",
"I agree. I think there's a certain level of privilege that we have, but most other people don't that we can...I have a friend that is a Hindu chaplain that I can call up at any point and ask about any specific thing. I have the same working relationship with Christian Jewish and Buddhist ministers and all them and just say, Hey, this is what's happening. Before we had a Hindu Chaplin on campus, I had an Indian student come to my office and he's Hindu and he was like, My brown parents are really disappointed in me. And so are mine.",
"And he came home and we had this conversation because for a lot of our conversations with students, yes it's somewhat within a religious framework but just as human beings there are certain struggles that are very similar. There was no point where he felt like I was trying to push Islam on him nor was he trying to put Hinduism on me but at the same time we were trying to find common ground of how can we have a difficult conversation with our parents? How do we do this? Alhamdulillah my parents have since come around",
"come around and I just it was a fascinating conversation to have with the student alhamdulillah now we do have a Hindu chaplain that he can go to but i still have now have a relationship with the students that I don't think I would have otherwise. Yeah so I actually have a background in Islamic studies, I've studied Islam for five plus years um so my concentration obviously is Islam",
"you know, in some readings I would not claim myself to be an expert. But I've also read in depth the works of Nasser and other Perennialist writers. And I think that sort of perspective is beneficial as a chaplain because we're supposed to be speaking widely to people from a perspective of shared common, shared values, shared spiritual wisdom, et cetera. And it's not so much still important",
"when it comes to different religions for more of how we can unite under these common values. And so my background in these plenum readings was very helpful in my chaplaincy job also just like others have mentioned, learning on the job interacting with the other chaplains in everyday sense not necessarily informal interfaith events but those everyday conversations that you have with people they really open up windows because",
"you're not going to forget that stuff because it's rooted in words whereas if you read something in a book and you don't have anything to root it in, you could easily forget it. So just having that human connection has been instrumental in me gaining a wider perspective and understanding the other religious traditions. I think that's great because a lot of people think that the only thing Muslim chaplains do is Muslim stuff. And it's important for them to hear",
"guys are not told on the walkway you're in everything and conferring with your um colleagues now omar will take you out of this conversation for a minute and i'm gonna ask the women women chaplains i mean you know we have serious issues with women because omar of men all over",
"Now you show up as chaplains with jobs, draw salary, with authority. With responsibility. Talk to me ladies. I think my first week on campus four of the male students asked when we were going to hire a khatib. The first one I just started. The second one was confused.",
"it's gonna be a while. And Alhamdulillah to their credit, those same four students came around and started attending halaqas and became involved in a way that I was very grateful. And they didn't just dismiss me offhand. There are some students that would but at the same time, I feel like it gave me space to have conversation. There're a lot of women that have been disenfranchised from the Muslim community and it put me in a really good position",
"position to try to bring them back in and i remember actually in the last month i think i had three different women of different ages and have different very different experiences that said this was the first time that they have felt that islam could be for them that allah could love them yeah isn't that something all the muslims are men and the women i don't know what they do",
"I studied Islam and I was looking for something to do with it. If I was a man, you could try to be an imam at a mosque or get invited to speak at things. And there's lots of opportunities but for a woman, it's so much more difficult. And so this was one of the few outlets for someone like myself. And of course there are challenges in terms of your legitimacy being questioned",
"That's something that I had to deal with kind of on the first day. And also just questions about leading prayer and all of these things, it's how do you deal with those questions? What stance you decide to take can have real world consequences, right? You might divide your community but at the same time we need to stand up for social justice in women. So like where is the balance, right. And sometimes you might decide that, you know what",
"to do this. I'm going to lead this prayer or whatever and even if you disagree with me, you're gonna...I hope that we can create a culture of tolerance because the inconvenience that the majority experiences because they see something new or something new is happening is not even close",
"gain if they go outside of the grain and do things that are counter to culture. So yeah, and that's actually why I go by the name imama as well chaplain because authority is granted through these titles. And so if you don't use these titles, then sometimes diminishing your own authority. And I have had just as much training as some of these other people who call themselves Imams or whatever.",
"also this title of imam and i think amina needs that as well my one of my male students actually started the imamana which i thought was hilarious it kind of stuck i love it ladies i'm going to use it and push it out there i think one of the things on many campuses and especially with i'm gonna put this out there and we're gonna take another quick break",
"is the diversity of students. African-American Muslim students have often felt left out as have Chinese Muslims students, as have well not so much white Muslims but Latino Muslims too. So I'm gonna give you a few seconds to think about that and we're going to go to break.",
"I think I beat him in terms of taking a station break. But nevertheless, your comments. What can we do?",
"to change this dynamic? I think we have to embed it in our programming. We made a point to make sure that at least one speaker every year that we invited was Black, at least on speaker that we invite every year was Shia, to make the students see themselves represented also in their religious authority. This is our signature program",
"program was called Ramadan Around the World. And it's the first time that Ramadan is going through the school year and it was so much fun because what we did is we had cultural groups take each taken iftad where they are dressing up, if they want, they are talking about their culture and they're ordering food from that specific, from their specific culture. And again, we had someone to be like, oh yeah of course Columbia has the money to do this. And I'm like look Jollof rice is not more expensive than biryani. It's just not.",
"We are just going out of our way to make sure that different cultures are celebrated. The Black student organization, Muslim and non-Muslim alike, attended all like we had a Somali night, a Senegalese night and an African American night where we ordered soul food. And we're lucky enough to be in New York where you can just order food from everywhere. But students were coming because this was a space where their culture was celebrated in a positive and affirming way.",
"students are talking about their historical traditions regarding the Shi'a. Students did the same thing where we had the Irani night and they were eating kubeda, and we're drinking like saffron tea, like everybody is really enjoying the Iqbal but we heard that she had them for the first time for a lot of the students. We wrote a little later if you are unfamiliar with these traditions maybe college should be",
"once a year that you see the beautiful tapestry of the American Muslim community in a way that is fun, that is engaging, that just results in really good food. Jump in. I mean, I just want to jump in with what Chapman Amina was saying. She articulated so beautifully with actually concrete examples. What came to my mind to your question was really this is the work of DEI, right? Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.",
"equity and inclusion. And so we need to be deeply engaged, and on the ground in that kind of work with our partners on campuses people that work in cultural centers, people that working student affairs, people who work religious affairs as equal contribution partners interlocutors right saying that we absolutely need to create this space for the Latinx community on campus for the native indigenous community on Campus, the black community on",
"blessed if we take our work seriously to have like such an incredibly, and that word is so beautiful. The tapestry of the beauty of the Muslim world is that we represent the most multicultural right? And multi ethnic religious community arguably on a college campus in 2020, right? In terms of just the kind of engagement we have, the levels of engagement, the diversity within our communities that come... This has been mentioned before but that's what I think is that",
"our work seriously and I'll be the first one to point at myself as needing to do better is that it can be transformative. So, that's what I would kind of thoughts that come to mind to your question and on the previous question I very much appreciate how we need to grapple with the gender issues head-on and so I want to listen more than speak. Yeah, so I agree you know with everything that was said",
"said and you know I mean what you said about representing different ethnicities in uh different genders in uh you know the speakers that are invited, and i think the MSA has done a great job with that. But what I do specifically as a chaplain because you know what the MSC does is not what Ido necessarily is that I make it a point to reach out to Chia black Muslims or anyone else who may be marginalized in the community. And I spend time talking to them in office hours",
"a support system when they need it. And that just helps make them feel a little bit more welcome and accepted in the Muslim community. I just make it a point to go out of my way, and make sure that they have that personal relationship with me so that if something happens in the MSA or in the greater Muslim body, we can ask someone to turn to and they're not alone. So that's specifically what I do.",
"Okay, I want to turn to the more sensitive side. Oh, Amala gave me that look. Okay, so sex before marriage, pornography, the alphabet crowd, my parents have driven me to my wit's end, I've been bullied and I might commit suicide. How?",
"How are we to deal with these things, which are also a part of that maturation process? Don't everybody jump at once. I mean, I always have a lot to say and I talk too much so I don't want to be the first one to jump in. No, we know how to shut you up, Omar. Don't worry. Just go for it. No no thank you. What I would say is",
"One of the things that comes to mind, and then I'll hand it over is that really our training equips us or should equip us to listen more than we speak. Right? Especially in the beginning. And part of the essence of what it means to be a chaplain, to be pastoral presence is to be non-anxious, nonjudgmental presence on campus in these students' lives because we're well aware with all the things you mentioned reality of contemporary culture, right? That young people are faced with this onslaught, right where",
"right? And we can unpack that at so many levels. But we want to be ideally inshallah the person in life or the group of people in their life, when they walk through the door, we meet them where they're at, right? That we sit down, we listen, we ask reflective questions, we asked deep questions and do we do deep listening? And so we kind of walk on that journey with",
"is helping them come through unpacking these issues themselves. That's what I would lead with, and then there are some people you build a longer relationship with, they want you to actually help them untangle these kinds of problems and be looking for answers. So it really depends on the type of student and the type crisis that they're in. Anybody else? I think there's two parts to this but there was a study about more than 50% of Muslim youth",
"youth and Muslim college students have had premarital sex, have tried alcohol. I mean again more than half of our Muslim students in a post 9-11 world were bullied at school, issues of substance abuse. These things exist in the larger Muslim community at very high rates and we have to acknowledge that they are part of our communities as well. There was a beautiful story of a companion at the time of the Prophet's life send them that kept showing up to the masjid of the prophet's life sent him drunk",
"and I can't picture someone showing up to our masjid looking like that because the rest of the Muslim community would just attack them. And there was a, during this time one of the other companions he started speaking ill of this man and the Prophet got angry at him and he said he has to fight the Shaytan and he has deal with you don't support the Shayta against your brother. He's here because he loves Allah and his prophet so the notion that someone that is",
"May Allah protect us from this idea that there's ever going to be a sin that is beyond the mercy of Allah. It's just ridiculous. And it's so unfortunately rampant in this part of the religious crowd of like, okay I didn't commit this sin therefore you how dare you? Yeah.",
"that I have a right to attack someone else and to not try to understand how and why they ended up, what led them to this and how we can help people heal. A lot of the times these are based in maybe unresolved trauma or based in an experience that they still need to understand and process. And it's part of our job, Chaplain Amar's point, to just be that pastoral presence to help them through. Actually there was a point where I had to put up like almost",
"I almost try to communicate to my students. I'm like, you don't confess your sins to me? That's not the point. The point is where have you been so that we can walk along this journey together? Hazra? Yeah, so I would actually echo some of the sentiments that Omer mentioned already in terms of centering listening and making sure to build a relationship with students. Sometimes if you try to give advice prematurely it can backfire for",
"Where that student is, you don't know what their orientation is. There's so much diversity in Islam. They are Muslims who take the position that having a boyfriend or girlfriend before marriage is halal. And so you do need to respect other people's perspectives. And as a chaplain, we're sort of supposed to be more in this neutral space. But at the same time, we are counselors. We give counsel. And being able to strike that balance",
"balance is hard and you just need to have like a really great relationship with that person to know where that balance is. Sometimes, you might feel that okay you can tell this person your opinion of what you think Islam would say because you think they will accept that in Asiha for others you might not be able to and you'd just have to be more respectful and tolerant",
"not interested in your perspective, maybe give them resources on other perspectives that might be aligned with where they're at. You all are so mature in your professions that I would be remiss if I didn't call you back again because some of the things you're talking about parents need to know also.",
"because they're riding these kids like, what's that dude's name on the horse in the Wide Wild West? Trying to protect them from everything. But riding them so hard, they're driving them to stuff. I'm going to give you all the last say because my merciless producers are telling me that I have to go away. So I'm gonna give you a last say and we'll start with Hajra.",
"So just last comments. Yeah, so yeah, the points that I want to reiterate is just you know, I hope that Muslim community understands the importance of chaplaincy to begin with especially on educational spaces there's just so much Islamophobia right now so many you know we are marginalized community where our",
"Sometimes some aspects are at odds with, you know greater cultural norms and just having that a mentor in an authoritative space on campus just would make the biggest difference in students' lives. And so that's number one. Number two I think the Muslim community needs to be open to listening to the perspectives of women and the challenges they face",
"leadership positions. Sometimes, you know, there is this fear of like Westernization or, you",
"might see things differently, Muslim woman. It might not be an issue of Westernization this issue of women leadership in religious positions is a challenge that Muslim women who are authentically Muslim are facing and so we should give more space to listen to them. I have to stop you so I can give a minute to each of our other guests.",
"I wanted to say that college is the time in people's lives when for the first time you're away from your parents and it's up to you to either choose Islam for yourself or not. And we see great Muslim leaders, people like Congressman Keith Ellison who is now the Attorney General of Minnesota and really just how important his role is in the current moment that we are experiencing he became a Muslim at college. What we're building is the roots for Muslim Americans",
"and what is incredible about the chaplain space, it actually does include women. It includes black chaplains. It really just celebrates the tapestry of the Muslim American community in a way that everybody is part of the Ummah and celebrated and still fighting the same good fight for each other. And I just, it's so beautiful. Thank you. Last word, Omar? One minute.",
"I'm simply going to put out there that, you know, from where I'm coming from, I think, you and so how can we in our capacities as chaplains on campuses embody and exemplify, right? That prophetic love and mercy and compassion that he gave not only to the Sahaba but to the world. Right? To the Ummah. And so in our Salam al-Saleh that we inhabit on college campuses and inshaAllah beyond is",
"to nurture hearts and to embody that mercy. And I think that's really at the heart of our work, as my amazing colleagues have already said and demonstrated. It's about relationship building. Thank you. I'm going to end with that I'm bringing all of you back. And what I would like for you to do, and I will chase you down, have no fear. One I would",
"college administrators, and Muslim chaplaincy programs. So if you would think about those things, I will be on your email shortly. This is Critical Talk with Professor Aminah Aldean. I have had a wonderful evening, and I forgot the word already, but to the ladies, I am so glad to see you. Omar,",
"you omar glad to see you again after a while and you all have just been wonderful assalamu alaikum"
] |
"amina_mccloud/Critical Talk with Prof_ Aminah Al-Deen Ph_D__Aanh1IYjevI&pp=ygUVQW1pbmFoIE1jQ2xvdWQg(...TRUNCATED)
| ["Good afternoon. You are here with Professor Amin Al-Deen in Critical Talk, and I have the esteemed(...TRUNCATED)
|
"amina_mccloud/Critical Talk with Prof_ Aminah Al-Deen Ph_D__ehpVoHWEK1I&pp=ygUVQW1pbmFoIE1jQ2xvdWQg(...TRUNCATED)
| ["Good afternoon. You are here with Professor Amin Al-Deen in Critical Talk, and I have the esteemed(...TRUNCATED)
|
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in Data Studio
Islamic videos dataset.
Videos from major islamic theologians like Hamza Yusuf, jonathan Brown or Omar Suleiman.
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