Rethinking Charitable Giving | Mufti Azeemuddin Ahmed

Opening & Blessings Upon the Prophet

As-salamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuhu. Bismillah ar-Rahman ar-Rahim. Alhamdulillah wa kafa.

As-salatu wa s-salamu ala Rasulillah.

InshaAllah, tonight being the last night of Jum'ah of Ramadan, I ask Allah to allow myself and all of us to make the most use of it.

Yes, it's not an odd night per se, but subhanAllah, nonetheless it's a night of Jum'ah, and every night of Jum'ah is valuable. This is when the salawat sent upon the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم are presented. This is a night which is regarded the most auspicious day of the week.

The Fajr Salat of Friday is the most auspicious Salat of the entire week. And hence, all of us should take some time out — minimum between now and Maghrib — to do a thousand salutations upon the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم, something as simple as:

If you can all make a commitment inshaAllah to make tasbih of صَلَّى اللهُ عَلَى مُحَمَّدٍ صَلَّى اللهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ, this would be inshaAllah extremely beneficial for ourselves in this world and the next.

The Virtues of Friday & Sadaqah

InshaAllah as I'm making the announcements, kindly pass the donation boxes as well, from the left to the right. And the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم also said, whatever sadaqa is given on Friday — which has already begun, obviously — then this is the most virtuous sadaqa of the entire week. So mashaAllah, the most virtuous Fajr, most virtuous sadaqa, most virtuous night, most virtuous day. And also the du'a — there is a sa'atul ijabah when du'a is most definitely accepted on a Friday.

There are different opinions about what time that is. There's an opinion of it being before Fajr, tahajjud time of course. There's one opinion during Jum'ah, between the adhan and the iqamah, or when the khatib sits down. As well as after Jum'ah salah. And also a very strong opinion of it being between Asr and Maghrib on Friday. So I encourage everyone to join us here, at the very least between Asr and Maghrib tomorrow.

Program Announcements

Tomorrow we also have a guest speaker who is inshaAllah going to be joining us — Mawlana Ghazi Puri from Lucknow, Nadwatul Ulama. He will be inshaAllah giving a lecture in Urdu, which will also be translated. So we request you inshaAllah to join us for this beautiful occasion of Asr on Friday. We'll also have salawat upon the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم. We'll read it collectively after Asr. We'll go through Shaykh Zakariya's book. And individually we can do as much as we can.

Sadaqatul Fitr

There are a few other announcements for Eid and so forth. Sadaqatul Fitr must be paid on behalf of every member of the household, even the children. We try to ideally give it out before Eid salah to the needy. So alhamdulillah, if we give it out on the way, as we're entering the masjid on the day of Eid — which unfortunately happens many times — there's no way this can reach the families before Eid. So we request everyone not to wait till we're walking into Eid to pay for it. Pay it now; the amounts are there.

The minimum is $8 if you calculate it based on wheat. And the most virtuous is if you calculate it on the calculation of dates — in that case it will be $52 per person. And you can pay by cash; that would be the best thing so that there's no credit card cost. If someone is paying by credit card, naturally you should add a few dollars extra to that.

Khatm al-Qur'an

Khatm al-Qur'an du'a inshaAllah will be tomorrow evening. Same time — 8:45 will be Salat al-Isha. And then we'll have our program inshaAllah after that. So please join us. Our last odd night is going to be tomorrow night. So we want to make sure we're here for the Khatm al-Qur'an du'a. We're here for the odd night. And we're here inshaAllah to participate with thousands of people. Hopefully we have our largest attendance of the entire year inshaAllah tomorrow.

Parking & Logistics

For that, there are going to be loads of people who naturally come — new people who haven't been here throughout Ramadan, maybe coming from different areas. We want to make sure that we accommodate everyone. So I ask you to give me a couple of minutes here for just a few announcements regarding how to accommodate everyone.

Usually we have 100 or 200 cars for Isha, something like that, throughout the year. But Khatm al-Qur'an night, we expect around 1,600 cars — 1,600 cars, about 4,000 people. So in order to accommodate that, all of us have to make a little bit of space. We just have to be mindful. MashaAllah, this is the house of Allah. Who am I to stop anyone from coming to the house of Allah? People are coming here broken-hearted, wanting to get their sins forgiven. Let's try to please make some way.

We will be double and triple parking cars tomorrow. Okay, so we're announcing it — you can share with everyone. There will be double and triple parking. However, our program is not lasting till 1:30 or 2 o'clock. It will definitely be much earlier than when Ramadan was in the summer, in the peak of summer.

We encourage everyone to please carpool and arrive early to ease congestion. If you want to get into the masjid, we encourage you to be here by 8:15 so you can park your car and be able to make it to the main hall. If there's no need to drop off family members, please park wherever space is available. Please avoid unnecessary drop-offs. Please use the Swift lot first — as you arrive, park in the first lot on Swift instead of driving directly to the main lot. Fill up that parking lot first.

Volunteers are here to help. They are just like you. They fasted all day. They're going to do their own taraweeh. They have their own wife and little kids. They are working — most of them, I think none of them, are off from work. They're working a full shift at work and then coming and serving. So please let's not be rough with them. If someone gets upset because a volunteer is directing traffic and raising his voice at the cars — honestly, just let it go. Because if you want to get an idea of what they go through, join them. Get out of the car and stand for 10 minutes and you'll see how frustrating it is. Similarly, it's easy to judge a volunteer who's standing there — subhanAllah — he had to deal with his crying kids at home, his wife is upset, all sorts of things, the typical stuff that happens at anyone's house. And then subhanAllah, if he says, "Brother, please make it right," or "Brother, take it easy" — he's there, he's lost his voice, subhanAllah, directing traffic. Let's not be harsh with them. Instead, make du'a for them that Allah reward them for the sacrifice they made throughout 29 nights of the entire Ramadan.

If you do need to drop off your wife on the sisters' side or family on the sisters' side, then please turn on your hazards before entering. The volunteers will guide you to which lot you need to go to. We also request that right after salah, everyone leaves at the time after the du'a. If you want to come back for the candlelight conversation at 1 AM on Friday night, by all means you can do so. But if we're triple parked, we should not be staying. Everyone should leave, go drop their family back at home, and then come back. We don't want any sisters or brothers stuck in the parking lot because we're alhamdulillah enjoying the sweets.

At the same time — tell your family and friends, come. Because a lot of times the fear is spread: "Oh, I'll get stuck." Don't worry about it. Come. If someone has to leave early, there's always Uber or Lyft. It might cost $10 to go home in the worst case scenario. I want you to spread the word, because this might be the time when our du'as inshaAllah are accepted and our needs are fulfilled. So I ask everyone to please spread the word for our khatam inshaAllah.

Eid al-Fitr

Eid al-Fitr will be either Sunday or Monday, depending on whenever it is announced by the Chicago Hilal. The first Eid salah: Fajr iqama at 6:00 AM, Eid address starting at 6:30, and Eid salah sharp at 7:00 AM. We encourage you to pray Fajr at the masjid, even if you're praying Eid anywhere else later on. The second Eid salah will be at 9:30 AM — the first led by Mufti Bin Hajruddin, and the second by Imam al-Ahsan inshaAllah. And we encourage everyone to ensure that we pay our fitrah before that.

Summer Programs

These are the quick summer programs: if you want your children to attend the summer camp, it runs from June 25th to July 17th inshaAllah, Monday through Thursday, for children ages 6 through 13. And the tarbiyah for tots, ages 4 to 5, is also June 25th to July 17th. Our summer intensive for adults — men and women, college students, high school students, and working adults — begins June 25th. And the one-year program inshaAllah starts August 11th.

Please take pictures of this if you need to and encourage your family members inshaAllah to benefit from these programs. Alhamdulillah we're motivated, we're enjoying taraweeh every night. And we want to understand by next year what Allah is saying in the Qur'an. So I encourage you to take part in one of these programs happening over the summer. We also have an online program called ta'lim — that's a year-round online program. You can learn more details about that on the website.

Things to Do on the Night of Power

Tomorrow, plan out time for du'a, istighfar, nawafil, tahajjud, sadaqah, salawat, and tilawah. InshaAllah, for those who would like to do Salatul Tasbih, this is a great way to also perform it at least once in the month of Ramadan. I would highly encourage all of us to do that. Amongst the many narrations about forgiveness of sins, this is a great way to help build concentration in our salat — you do a slow ruku', extended sajda, extended qiyam, extended qa'da, and so forth.

Rethinking Charitable Giving

Last but not least, I want to take a few minutes, and I will ask all of you to inshaAllah pay attention to our executive director, brother Uthman Chaudhry. You've seen him up here many times throughout Ramadan. Every night he's making announcements, encouraging, taking care of parking, doing everything else alhamdulillah over here. May Allah reward and bless him. MashaAllah, he's from New York. Just like many of you who are in i'tikaf, he joined us about 7–8 years ago for i'tikaf, and mashaAllah ever since then, alhamdulillah, he's moved from New York and moved here with his wife and his kids. He serves here alhamdulillah as executive director, taking care of all the operations and tens of things that we know of and hundreds of things that we don't know of. He's an attorney, and alhamdulillah he's our in-house attorney who is always helping us with various things.

Today he'll be doing a short presentation on how to rethink charitable giving. Yesterday we had a fundraiser for our monthly expenses. Tomorrow we'll have one inshaAllah ta'ala — our khatam night annual fundraiser. What we need to think about is: how do we run an institution? Is it through our hundred dollars or hundred thousand dollars? How is a Muslim supposed to think?

Honestly, we should have been thinking about this for decades. But right now, when we are at a really interesting crossroads — a very challenging time for Muslims and institutions across the entire country — it is extremely important that all of us pay attention to this presentation. We all have to think not for tomorrow, brothers. We cannot think for today or tomorrow. We have to think for the next hundred years. We have to think about these beautiful masajid we have all around the country. How are they going to run? How are they going to be populated? How are our seminaries and institutions going to run?

For that, we have to put our thinking cap on and look back to what our elders — from the time of Umar رضي الله عنه, all the way to the Ottomans — did. And now tonight, the presentation: how can we ensure that our masajid, our seminaries, our institutions — amongst them Darussalam — how can we plan for their longevity, and for the successful running of these institutions hundreds of years inshaAllah after you and I are gone?

For that, I'll invite brother Uthman inshaAllah to share some words. JazakumAllah khairan.

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Three Ways to Maximize Charitable Giving

Presented by Brother Uthman Chaudhry, Executive Director

As-salamu alaykum. I'll keep this brief inshaAllah. So this is part of a larger presentation. I'm just going to go over three things that we all can do to kind of help charitable giving. There are maybe ten other things that we can do, but we'll just go over three today inshaAllah.

1. Donating Stocks

We've all been in a fundraiser, right? Where everyone is giving money — people are giving $100K, $50K, $25K, $5K, $10K. But unfortunately, some of us are just sitting there. We want to give, we have the niyyah to give, but maybe we just don't have the cash on hand. Maybe our bank account is low. Maybe it's tied up in other places.

One of those places where a lot of people have their money tied up is the stock market. They have a huge investment portfolio. They might have gotten a lot of stocks from their company — from options, vested options and so forth. So one way that we can help the masajid is by donating stocks. And these are things that you could do for any charitable organization, any school that you support, any masjid, any food pantry, any charitable organization.

You have two options. A lot of people might think, "Okay, I'll just sell the stock." But if you sell the stock — say you have a $50,000 stock that you bought at $30,000 — you're going to end up paying capital gains tax of about $5,000. So the masjid only gets about $45,000. Instead, if you donate the stock directly — transfer it directly to the masjid — the masjid will get the full $50,000, the complete value of that stock.

And a lot of us have these stocks. Most of us are not going to sell them because if we do, there's going to be that capital gains tax we'll have to pay. So a lot of people just hold on to their stocks until they pass away, and then it transfers to their children and heirs. This is an easy way, a quick way. You don't lose out on any cash — you don't feel that pinch because it's not any cash being depleted from your bank account — and it just helps all the charitable organizations. And you also get a charitable deduction when you donate it.

2. Employer Matching — Free Money

The second thing I want to talk about is what I call free money — getting free money to the masajid, schools, and charities. A lot of us work for big corporations: Microsoft, Cisco, McDonald's, pharmaceutical companies. A lot of these companies have an employer match program where if you donate money to a charity, they will match it up to a certain amount — sometimes $500, sometimes $2,000, sometimes $15,000 or more. It just depends on each company.

So essentially, these companies are now supporting Darussalam. They are supporting the charitable organizations. They are funding the masjid. And you are getting the reward for that. Some of the corporations we have already received matched donations from include: United Healthcare, Google, Apple, Microsoft, Abbott, T-Mobile, Walgreens, AT&T, Dell, and McDonald's. Pretty much all the major corporations have these programs.

So there's just one exercise you could do right now — take out your phone, scan the QR code, and it will take you to a website where you can check if the company you work at will do a match. It will have steps on how to ensure that the donations you have made during this Ramadan can be matched. And the great thing is, if you donate $2,000 and it's matched, that becomes $4,000 to the masjid — essentially doubling it, and sometimes even tripling it.

3. Estate Planning & Legacy Donations

The final thing is estate planning. Mufti Azeemuddin was talking about ensuring long-term planning for the masajid. One way is: we are all going to pass away one day, and that money isn't going to help us. Whatever is in our bank accounts, whatever stocks we have, whatever property we have, cars — that's not going to help us in the next life. That's going to go, if we don't plan for it, to our kids, our spouse, whoever our heirs are.

Alhamdulillah, our children are well off these days. They have their own jobs — alhamdulillah they're doctors, engineers, they have their own businesses. So one thing we could do: according to Islamic law, up to one-third of your estate, you can donate to a charity. The important thing is to start writing our wills, and we can put charities in there. You can say, "Up to one-third of my estate, I am going to donate to Darussalam, or XYZ Masjid, or school."

If there are any questions, you can reach out via email at office@masjids.org, or give us a phone call or text us at our office number inshaAllah. JazakAllah khair.

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Closing Remarks

JazakAllah khair to brother Uthman inshaAllah for sharing those beautiful ways that we can make the most of our giving. Alhamdulillah, I hope that was a good quick introduction. Definitely you can follow up with him, or myself, or any of us here inshaAllah for further details.

What we call legacy donations — the last part, the estate planning — is something subhanAllah we hear stories about. These massive universities that have been established 400 years ago in this country are running not just from tuition. They have these massive legacy donations that, alhamdulillah, alumni and donors and businessmen dedicated to them years ago. And because of that, they have huge budgets that are able to accomplish all kinds of things.

So Darussalam inshaAllah — we have lots of plans. We've shared some with you yesterday, we shared some on the 21st night, the American Muslim Fund. There are so many things that we want to do. We want to make sure alhamdulillah that we are able to continue to do that and serve you and your generation's needs, bi-idhnillahi ta'ala, with your support.

So I ask you to spread this word as well. Do reach out to people and talk about the legacy donations, talk about including Darussalam in their endowments and funds. If we don't do that, many times, unfortunately, that money gets caught up in taxes or, unfortunately, gets used in ways that are not halal. And that really breaks our heart to see those types of things. So we can speak about this after Ramadan, or if you have questions in i'tikaf, by all means inshaAllah, reach out to us.

Last but not least, this year we're also accepting donations in cryptocurrency. You can email the office or text message the office number that was shared if someone would like to donate stock or crypto as well inshaAllah.

JazakumAllah khairan. As-salamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuhu.