It has been a little over a year since I moved to the Bay Area. Many of you reading this might not fully know what I do in the Bay Area. I want to take this opportunity to share some of the things I do locally, so hopefully you can benefit from the different programming I am able to provide because of MAS Bay Area.
The first question that I usually get is who do I work for? I have been working with the Bay Area chapter of the Muslim American Society (MAS) since February of 2022. From February until July I was the visiting lecturer of MAS Bay Area while residing in Seattle. I moved to the Bay Area in July of last year, and my role became the Resident Scholar of MAS Bay Area.
So what do I do as the Resident Scholar of MAS Bay Area? Before I answer that question, it would benefit us to understand what exactly MAS Bay Area does. MAS Bay Area’s main goal is to develop people who will be able to impact the community through activism, Islamic education, and spiritual refinement. I know this might seem like an empty slogan but if you were to take a look at all the programs MAS Bay Area offers, you will be able to see that the purpose of them is to reach this lofty goal that we should aspire to achieve. From the many different halaqahs for middle-high schoolers, to the social events, to Seerah Quest and Quran Quest that you know us for, the intended outcome is that, through these programs, Muslims in the Bay Area will be able to equip themselves with beneficial knowledge which will lead to spiritual refinement which will then translate to action. If we are able to reach this goal of creating activists and agents of change, we will be able to create a vibrant American Muslim community striving for a just and virtuous society. This is the vision for not just MAS Bay Area, but for every single chapter of Muslim American Society across the United States.
Where do I fit into this grand plan of transforming first the Bay Area and then society at large? My main focus for the past year has been to be a vehicle for knowledge and learning in the Bay Area. In that time, we have provided talks and programs covering many different subjects at many different Islamic Centers in the Bay Area. For those that live in the Peninsula, I have been providing class every Saturday at Yaseen Foundation in Belmont on different topics. We spent a few months covering the Seerah of our messenger ﷺ as well as a five week series on the Major Legal Maxims. Currently at Yaseen Foundation we are covering the manners and etiquettes of a muslim every Saturday between Maghrib and Isha. For those in South Bay we are exploring the lives of the companions every Thursday between Maghrib and Isha at Muslim Community Association (MCA). Before that we covered the Seerah of our Messenger. Additionally, we have started a two year program at MCA every Saturday from 10 am to 11:30 where we will be studying three books of Hadith. I also had a tafsir class at WVMA on Sundays after Asr.
Another program that is intended to elevate the knowledge of the community is Sharh Sunday. Sharh is the Arabic word that means to expand or to clarify, and Sunday refers to the day that the program takes place. The purpose of the program is to educate people in different fields of Islamic Sciences so that a person can have the foundational knowledge required in every field. We pick classical text and spend an hour going over the explanation of the text. So far we have covered a work on Usul ul Fiqh, Usul ul Hadith, Fiqh of Prayer, Fiqh of Fasting as well as beginning the study of Matn abi Shuja which is a classical fiqh primer that equips a person with all the required information to be able to worship Allah ﷻ properly. The study of Matn Abi Shuja will most likely conclude towards the beginning of November. The recordings of it can be found on MAS Bay Area’s youtube channel.
Besides these different educational programs, you can find me on the mimbar at the following masajids on a regular basis. MCA the first khutbah of the month, Yaseen Foundation the second khutbah of the month. WVMA during the last khutbah of the month. Why don’t you leave a comment down below of what khutbah topics you would like to hear the next time you see me on the mimbar? Let us know where you attend the khutbah so that the topic that you have chosen will not be delivered at a different Islamic Center that you did not intend.