Youth Halaqa with Mufti Azeemuddin Ahmed 5/3/2024

Opening & Welcome

As-salamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuhu. How are all of you doing? Alhamdulillah, I was here — what — three months ago? Taqriban? About three, two and a half months ago, alhamdulillah. It's nice to be back again.

Last time we had our session, of course, in the conference room with a box of donuts, if you remember. So now, alhamdulillah, we have a larger group and we're having it in the masjid. In the name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful.

I ask Allah Almighty that on this blessed time between Asr and Maghrib — the most blessed day of Jum'ah, the most blessed time of Jum'ah — we're sitting in the most blessed place, the house of Allah. And there is a sa'at al-ijabah, a time when du'as are accepted every Friday. From Thursday night to Friday night, 24 hours is a time when du'as are accepted.

There are many differing opinions about what that time is. But a very strong opinion is that that time is between Asr and Maghrib, which you and I are sitting in right now. And we're sitting in the very best place.

So this is a gathering of remembrance of Allah. It's a gathering of knowledge. And insha'Allah we're surrounded by angels. We should feel really lucky and blessed that we're here in His house gathered at this occasion. And I pray that whatever you have come here to learn at the masjid today, that you go back finding answers to your problems, finding solutions to your issues. And I pray that you go back rejuvenated in your iman.

I pray that you go back having really found this gathering to be extremely eye-opening and beneficial, insha'Allah. If you and I are sincere in our du'a and in our prayers, then we will find everything we're asking for right here. Allah — He is the one who has solutions to all of our problems. And when we turn to Him, we will find the answers to that.

So I want to make sure that we keep all of you as engaged as much as possible. I want to definitely share things, but I would love to hear things from you all as well. I would like to make it a guided discussion where you are all having a share in how we speak and what we talk about. The topic itself was the hidden hand of AI, artificial intelligence, and social media. But let me know what you all want to talk about.

On Civil Disobedience

Civil disobedience — that's a deep question. This is a very hot topic and a very deep question, and I feel I'm not in the right position at the moment to answer with all the finer details and the different aspects of it. However, the basic thing is that a person should definitely stand up for justice — and that's what this whole movement is about. But in the process of standing up for justice, we should not be oppressing anyone. We should not be causing harm to anyone, causing harm to innocent people. That goes completely against the whole idea of standing up for justice — that you are trying to establish justice, and you do that by harming innocent bystanders. That would not be permissible.

So if a person is doing something whereby the people in authority realize that you're upset over the fact that your rights are not being fulfilled or someone else's rights are not being fulfilled, and there's some level of protest in which cars are not burnt, houses are not broken, money is not usurped — then that's completely fine. However, if it leads to that type of material damage to people — whether they're Muslim or not Muslim, it doesn't make a difference — then in that case, what we're doing is not permissible.

So we have to make sure that in the process of protesting we still remain sincere. It's very easy to get caught up emotionally and for people to start doing things... You started off with a good intention, but you end up becoming a group of hooligans and gangsters, which is very commonly what happens, unfortunately. So that's why the deen of Islam teaches us to be just, to be honest, to be truthful, and not to be oppressive — no matter who you are, no matter what the circumstances may be. Any type of protest in which you can share your frustration and your anger in a proper manner without causing harm to innocent people — that would be permissible.

Life as a Test

Allah has placed you and I in this world very specifically as a test. That's what a Muslim's approach to life is. Why am I here? I'm here being tested by Allah.

When a person enters an exam hall and there is a piece of paper, a few sheets of paper and a pencil — you know what you came for. You came here to write the exam. Obviously there's going to be some easy questions, some tough questions. You're going to be tested on your knowledge of the subject. But you know whatever you write on here, it's going to reflect on the grade that you're going to get. So the mindset that you have while you're sitting in that exam hall is different as opposed to, let's say, all of us sitting over here very relaxed. You can fall asleep, you can eat, you can walk out, do whatever you want.

A Muslim understands that 24/7, the cameras of Allah are on him. Every movement of his tongue, his eyes, his hands and feet is being recorded. But even every beating of his heart is recorded. And every thought that goes through his mind is recorded. Yes, Allah Himself says:

Whatever whispers you have in your heart, Allah is aware of it.

Allah knows the secret — وَأَخْفَى — and that which is more hidden than the secret.

Allah says: I am closer to you than your jugular vein. Closer to you than the vein — if it were to be cut, you'd die. Allah says: I am closer to you than that.

So every aspect of ours, Allah is watching. Including:

Allah knows the treachery of the eye. A person is walking — are you looking at the billboard? Are you looking at the person in front of you? Are you looking at the person next to you? And who are you looking at, with what intention you're looking? Allah knows that.

Say you're walking with your parents. Your parents are looking towards the road, but you're looking at some random guy or some random girl. No one knows that. Who knows that? Allah knows that. He Himself says: يَعْلَمُ خَائِنَةَ الْأَعْيُنِ — I know where your eyes are focusing. وَمَا تُخْفِي الصُّدُورُ — And then after your eyes focus on something, what thoughts go through your mind — Allah says: I know that as well.

Now, who knows that besides Allah? No one. No one knows that. You could be standing next to someone, you could be holding hands next to someone — he or she will not know what you're looking at, with what intention you're looking. No one knows that besides Allah and yourself. That's the complete knowledge of Allah.

Everything on Earth is a Test

This entire world is a test to see how we respond to various types of attractive things that come our way. When you try to get a motorcycle license or a truck license or whatever, you have to obviously take a driver's license course and go through a practical test and exam. Sometimes they have an obstacle course — cones set up and you have to navigate and drive around them. All the racing games in the arcades are about avoiding all the obstacles on the road. You can go 125 miles per hour in your Lamborghini, but if you hit something, you lose points. You have to avoid everything and arrive safely at your destination.

So Allah has created so many things on this world as a fitnah, as a test. You all know — on Fridays we're supposed to read Surat Al-Kahf, right? This is on the first page of Surat Al-Kahf:

Indeed, We have made whatever is on the earth as an adornment for it — لِنَبْلُوَهُمْ — to test them — أَيُّهُمْ أَحْسَنُ عَمَلًا — who has the best of deeds. Remember: it's not about who has the most deeds, it's about who has the best. And indeed, eventually, every single thing on this earth will be turned into dust. صَعِيدًا جُرُزًا — it's when you have a plain field, and after the harvest, what's left over is an empty wasteland. This is what the whole earth will become.

So every single day of ours, we're getting tested. And if we are successful in this test by guarding our ears, our eyes, our mind, our heart from indulging in that which Allah does not want us to — alhamdulillah, we come out of the exam hall thumbs up. But if a person ends up tripping and falling and failing, he's gone.

The Heart — The Master of the Body

Now, the heart is the actual thing right here. The Prophet ﷺ said:

(Sahih al-Bukhari, Hadith 52; Sahih Muslim, Hadith 1599)

Indeed, there is a piece of flesh in your body. When that comes right, the entire body will come right. And when that is corrupted, the entire body becomes corrupted. Listen — that piece of flesh is the heart. So the essence of everything is the heart. When the heart comes right, everything comes right. Otherwise we're in big trouble.

Now Imam Ghazali (rahimahullah) gives the example that the heart is like a pond — like a reservoir of water. This pond has got four small little creeks, little tributaries of water coming into it. Based on the quality of the water that comes in, that's going to be the quality of the lake. It's not possible you have four creeks bringing in sewage water and the pond to be clean. Not possible. And if you have crystal clean natural spring water coming in, well then that pond is going to be nice.

He said the heart is that pond. And the four streams are: number one, your eyes. Number two, your ears. Number three, your mind. Number four, your tongue. These lead to the heart. Whatever you look at, whatever you listen to, whatever you think, whatever you speak — this will lead to either a pure heart or a dirty heart.

You are what you eat — but it's not just that. You are what you watch. You are what you listen to. You are what you think. You are what you speak. If a person speaks dirty, thinks dirty, looks at dirty things, listens to dirty things — it is not possible for his heart to be clean. And when the heart becomes infected and dirty, then the entire body will become corrupt.

Think about a bulldozer. A bulldozer is very beneficial. This masjid was built through a bulldozer. Your home where you live was built through a bulldozer — you excavate and build on top of it a building. But that same bulldozer is what is being used to destroy homes in Palestine and in India and other parts of the world. This bulldozer, which is powerful and strong — if it is being led by a person who is not good, then instead of benefiting, massive harm can be done. It can destroy the masjid within, astaghfirullah, an hour. It takes you four, five years to build. It can be finished within a few hours.

It's a powerful tool, but it depends on who is sitting in the driver's seat. This human body of ours is a very powerful tool, but it depends who is sitting in the driver's seat. The driver's seat is the heart. If the heart is in good shape, then the body will do amazing things. If the heart is in bad shape, then what will come out of the body will be horrible things.

So dear beloved students, our discussion is about how we can ensure our heart remains clean. We are in high school, or in college, or middle school. We are educating ourselves in so many different ways. But what you do not learn in school, in college, or in any post-graduate program of any sort — no PhD program of any sort — do they teach you how to clean your heart. That's not the realm of school education here in this day and age. A person can hate his teacher. A person can swear at his teacher but still graduate with top honors. A person can be corrupt and want to use his degree to cheat and rip off the world with his MBA — that's fine, he can still graduate with a top-notch degree from a top-notch university.

So the educational system that you and I are part of does not focus on the cleansing of our heart. That you have to worry about yourself. You can achieve that if you start at least planning for it. The first step is to make sure that these four rivers are providing clean water to the heart.

The Fitnah of the Phone & Social Media

From amongst the tons of fitnahs around us, one of the biggest is right there. Everyone's got one in their pocket — it's sitting there right now. What is that? Our phones. So the phones are an avenue for us to watch, for us to listen, for us to speak to someone, and for us to be thinking. Once you've spoken something, once you have watched something, once you have heard something — it will make you start thinking in a certain manner.

So our biggest test for our age group in this day and age — not just your age group, any age group for that matter — is the phone. And with that phone, we're not just talking about making phone calls and text messages. We're talking about the world of social media. We're talking about a whole parallel universe that is so enticing that a person cannot seem to survive without being on it every few minutes. Watching who's posting what, checking in wherever we go, posting up pictures of wherever we are, and commenting on those things.

We live in a very vibrant social media world. Various apps that youth use — that adults may not use — but it's something we're all most definitely connected with. But what does a social media app do for us? It's supposed to be for communication. That's what it's supposed to be. And people use those things to communicate. But we realize that the communication is happening to a certain degree, while the amount of harm that people are being afflicted with is unbelievable. And the sad part is that harm we don't even realize.

For example, every single thing in this world has some benefit — almost everything has some benefit. Something as unanimously haram as liquor, wine, alcohol. We know it's haram. Gambling, haram. But the Qur'an says:

They ask you about liquor and wine — وَالْمَيْسِرِ — they ask you about gambling. Allah says: قُلْ فِيهِمَا إِثْمٌ كَبِيرٌ — there's a lot of harm, a lot of sin in gambling, a lot of sin in liquor and alcohol. وَمَنَافِعُ لِلنَّاسِ — but there is some benefit for the people. Allah is saying there's benefit for the people. But إِثْمُهُمَا أَكْبَرُ مِن نَّفْعِهِمَا — their harm is greater than their benefit. That doesn't make it halal. There's some benefit in it, but there is a lot more harm.

So when we start using social media uncontrollably — not for promoting your business, but just for chit-chat — it starts off innocently, but what happens is that it leads to a major source of problems. And so my discussion here today is: I want you to recognize and realize that this is a double-edged sword. When we are dealing with these things, we're not realizing how it's sucking our soul out.

The Attention Crisis

A big problem we have in schools — if we didn't collect the phones, no one would be listening. Even now it's very hard to get attention. What has happened with these phones is we've become so accustomed to sensory overload where you have to constantly see movement, otherwise you get bored. It's very hard for people to listen to talks today. Very hard.

I regularly go to high schools and colleges. It's very hard for people to concentrate. And most of the high schools — actually all high schools except for a few — everyone's got phones. So I'm giving a talk to the students. Everyone's on their phone. And those who are not on their phone, they're looking around. And we're having a talk. That's where we're at right now.

So subhanAllah, how are we going to get anywhere? We're talking about the fitnah while we're involved in the fitnah. We're talking about problems while we're in them. It's like we're having a talk on drugs while everyone's high. We're talking about, "Hey, we gotta stay away from drugs." Who's going to understand the talk if everyone's high? That's what it is. Right now, most people are so intoxicated with the cell phone their mind is fried. You give them Instagram, they'll sit there for two, three, four hours binge watching random stuff, TikTok shorts. But you take that away from them, they're zombies. They can't focus. They have no idea what's going on.

Honestly, you're not like that. Allah gave you all amazing intelligence. You're born with intelligence. You're born with a beautiful clean heart. We are destroying ourselves by polluting our minds and hearts. This is the reality — because you're not the first group I speak to. I speak every single day to youth. And it's such a hard time communicating, connecting. People are not in the zone. They're zoned out. Why are they zoned out? It's the after-effects of constantly being on the phone. It is very hard to focus once you're off of it.

Will it be like this for the rest of your life? No. You have to simply wean yourself off of the drug. Social media has created an entire generation of addicts. The vast majority of people today across the globe have honestly become either social media addicts or cell phone addicts, one way or the other.

A Story from India

I was in India visiting this past summer after a long time. I had my taxi driver stop to pray Maghrib and grab a bite at a rest area in the middle of nowhere. Some random small little store. After I finished eating and praying my Maghrib, I was about to get back into the taxi. This very old bus rolled in — two buses. They had their windows all down because there's no AC. No seat belts, no reclining, no bathrooms, nothing. Those of you from India or Pakistan might have seen them — what we call the "circus buses," with all different colors all around them. A dirt cheap method of transportation for the average person.

So these families are getting off and I saw two girls come off the bus — maybe 14, 15 years old — going with their family because they obviously cannot afford a private taxi. What shocked me is that these two girls, as soon as they come out, they both pulled out their smartphones. And they both took a picture of the rest stop and posted it. I could see it, right? And I was like — game over.

We're sitting in this small village on a random road rest area in India. And yet these two girls, who cannot afford proper transportation, both of them have their own smartphones. And they're both on social media. And they're both posting some random place. What is it? It's a response led by an addiction — that no matter who I am, where I am, I have to do this. Because that's what I'm expected to do. So now you have an entire generation that is thinking and acting in a manner very differently from any previous generation — almost like a group of people who've lost their ability to make conscientious, proper decisions. Instead, their decisions are being led primarily by what they watch and what they see online.

The type of drinks they'll have, the type of food they'll eat, the type of shoes they'll wear, the type of clothing they'll dress in, the type of things they will listen to, the way they will communicate with their mom and dad — all of those things, who decides that? Who influences them? It's what they watch and listen to online. So we have taken a clean, beautiful mind and heart and submitted to a whole group of people online who are using various methods to make us think in a certain manner. That's what social media does.

Social Media and the Erosion of Respect & Modesty

Let's talk about the relationship with parents. In the social media world, respect for parents is not something absolutely worthy of mention or worthy of emulation. Quite contrary to that — I have seen trending threads on Twitter where people have talked about letting your mom call you and hanging up. I saw this last year. And it's like your heart sinks and you start losing hope in humanity — to read all the retweets and all the thousands of people responding with a thumbs up and a heart, saying, "Yeah, this is so cool. This is amazing." Creating a trend. Disobedience to mother. Disobedience to father. Disobedience to authority.

There are actual videos posted online of different schools — with thousands of likes — of kids literally physically beating their teacher. Short, petite — and she says, "Put your cell phone away," and that's it. He goes on a rant, beats her up, astaghfirullah. We're trying to teach the world how to act like human beings. We've lost our own selves. We've lost all humanity, all decency, astaghfirullah. There's no respect for parents. There's no respect for authority. There's no respect for teachers. Rather, the more you speak against authority, the more popular you get.

I saw a New Jersey superintendent — packed high school, in front of all his staff — coming to announce a new dress code. Now there's a high school girl who stands up in the assembly — someone's filming this — and she starts calling the superintendent sexist. And she says some of the most vile things in front of a room packed with at least a thousand people. And then what happens? There's a whole round of applause. For a young girl to not only promote indecency but to do so in such a blatant manner in front of a huge crowd — what we would call an absolute lack of haya — they call that being self-confident. They call that being honest, frank, being true to yourself.

And we say: إِذَا لَمْ تَسْتَحِ فَافْعَلْ مَا شِئْتَ — when you lose your sense of modesty and decency, do whatever you want, because there is no way you're going to stop anywhere. This is not even the limit. You're going to go below the ground. And so that's what we're seeing today — boys and girls literally going below the ground with the type of indecent things that are happening. What is leading to this indecency across the globe? Most definitely, social media.

The COVID Shift — A Case Study from Turkey

I visited Turkey this past summer. I spent about 12 or 13 days there with my ustad and my sheikh, my murabbi, Sheikh Abdullah. We were in the most conservative part of Istanbul, known as the Fatih district. It's a practicing, very conservative part of Istanbul. While I was there, I felt so shy going out with my ustad because everywhere the clothing was absolutely so, so indecent. Unbelievable. Like you could imagine a Florida campus in the summer — that's exactly how it was. You want to go buy bread? You want to go get milk? You can't avoid it.

Then one of my colleagues, Sheikh Tahseen Khan — mashaAllah, I'm honored to have him as a colleague at Darussalam — he has written one of the most outstanding, groundbreaking books on evolution. He spent three years researching and two years writing. It's an outstanding book, available on Amazon for those of you interested in science and Islam.

He went to present a paper in Turkey and was there for five or six days. When he came back, we started discussing our trips. And he told me something. He said he spoke to some of the elders and professors in Istanbul. And they said Istanbul and Turkey was not like this a few years ago. This level of indecent dressing was not how it was. Recently a big change came. Anyone want to take a guess when? COVID. Exactly.

So what happened with COVID? Everyone was stuck inside. And when everyone was stuck inside, everyone went on their devices. All those people who were not on their phones started getting phones. They started downloading different things — including TikTok. And they said within COVID time, literally an entire generational shift took place where indecency became so much more acceptable and common. When the COVID restrictions ended and people came out of their houses — subhanAllah.

I read an article in the New York Times about how literally there's been a noticeable shift in this country as well — how people would dress at home or inside their bedroom, they now don't mind taking that out into the public. It wasn't like this before. So COVID brought in an addiction to social media unlike anything else we've seen before. And the rush of imagery, videos, and social media of people dressed in a certain manner flooded the country — including Muslim Turkey — and people naturally started emulating it.

I don't know if you read that during COVID time the internet traffic increased so much that internet speed fell in major metropolitan cities including London. They had to add new undersea data cables to open up lanes for traffic. What was causing the greatest push towards internet traffic? Unfortunately, it was the visiting of haram websites. This is what the data tells us. They became the top visited websites in the world. It's like the floodgates opened — like a dam broke — and all that sewage just covered the world. Post-COVID, we haven't recovered.

Look at the grades of college students and high school students coming out of COVID. All the statistics show they took a massive hit. Because what happened? It created a new generation of people, unfortunately, who are very, very addicted to social media and more so towards watching haram. It's so strange how this COVID pandemic worked hand in hand to destroy our moral fabric. You thought COVID — alhamdulillah, we're away from the fitnah outside, we're inside our home. You thought this would be good. But in reality, it had a complete opposite effect.

There's a lot of hadith on the virtues of khalwah, of staying in seclusion. Lots of different narrations about the benefits of seclusion — that's what i'tikaf is in the masjid, where you seclude yourself. But remember, boys and girls, that seclusion is if you are without your phone. If you are in the masjid or in the Haram or anywhere else with your phone, that is not called khalwah. That's actually the worst possible thing you could do — to be alone with your phone. It's better you be in a crowd like this.

The Consequences: Depression, Suicide, and Addiction

I told you it affects the heart. Whatever you watch, whatever you see, whatever you hear, whatever you think, whatever you speak — this has led to massive levels of depression. Now, suicide. I was last week at one masjid. After my late night Isha talk, the imam said, "Can I sit with you? I want to talk with you." What happened? A young brother — 21 years old — in Ramadan. He went after Isha, climbed a tall building in the city, and he jumped off of it. Killed himself. And the mom is out of her mind. The mom and dad have lost their minds. The amount of people who are attempting suicide, who are becoming depressed, who are droopy-faced, unhappy, lethargic, lazy, with no purpose, no vision, no mission — suicidal ideation — there has been a huge increase in that in the past three to four years since COVID came in.

What happened during COVID? People became more focused on their devices. Social interactions dropped. Meeting with people, having fun with one another, enjoying each other's company, going for nature walks — all of those things dropped. If you try to book a psychiatrist or a psychotherapist today, your waiting time might be six to nine months. Most of my friends I refer people to have nine months waiting time — because they are so booked out with the number of people falling into these problems. Where is that coming from? Also from excessive, excessive use of social media and watching haram.

As they say — tick-tocking away your modesty. It has taken away the human element from us. Dear students, it's a drug. Once a person goes down that lane, it's very hard to come back. A person has to put a stop to it as soon as possible. Otherwise, you'll go into a never-ending hole. And thousands and thousands of youth today — both men and women — have unfortunately fallen into this problem.

The Hidden Hand of Artificial Intelligence

Then you have the aspect of AI being used in it. Where artificial intelligence is monitoring your usage of your social media accounts, your website usage, what things you're interested in — bringing together all the things your mom and dad purchase, all the things you purchase — and targeting you with specific ads.

Last week I had a brother who was driving me from one masjid to another. He's a data analyst. I said, "What do you do for a job?" He said, "I work for CVS and I analyze data for them — trillions of lines of data." I said, "Give me an example." He said, "We analyze your purchasing at CVS. Every single person who's purchasing — all that data from across the entire globe — is being brought into these computers. And these AI machines are working on it, analyzing and separating it, figuring out habits of each person." What amount of what thing do you buy, at what time of the month? And based on that, they target you with coupons. They see you seem to buy children's medicine — so you obviously have sick kids. So now every now and then, they throw in 50% off Tylenol for children to get you into the store. And when you get into the store, you end up buying something else too.

What was very interesting — he said they target people they call "coupon abusers." I said, "What in the world is a coupon abuser?" He said, "People who use too many coupons. We don't like them. So we find those people and legally suppress the amount of coupons they get — via email, via text, via mail. Because this person uses too many coupons."

So nothing that you are doing, dear boys and girls, is going unnoticed. Every single movement of ours is being noticed. Every single tap on our phone. Every single website we visit. And based on that, you're going to get hit with ads. How many of you were sitting with your friend, talking about something, and then you looked at your phone and within a minute saw an ad about that exact thing? The mic is listening. The FBI director — I think about two or three years ago — was interviewed in his office. They took a picture of him sitting in front of his computer. What was very unique about that picture? He had put tape and covered up his camera. That's what they focused on. The FBI director is covering up his camera. What does that tell you?

Every single camera on your phone — front and back — is accessible. Wherever you go, you have a listening device. Wherever you go, you have a watching device. Whoever wants to watch, whoever wants to listen — Allah knows best who they are. But that data is all going somewhere.

Even to the extent that right now for Umrah — if any of you went recently — you know you have to download an app. You have to keep your location on, otherwise it won't even work. You cannot get into the Haram without having location turned on. So every single movement of yours throughout your Hajj and Umrah is traced. That's the world we're living in. Metadata — every single thing is being watched. What AI is doing is taking all that data, putting it together, coming up with a profile for you, and then attacking you in a certain manner — knowing what your weakness is, what your weak points are, what your sensitivities are — and getting you on that.

So social media is not anymore just an innocent place to communicate. Rather, it is a method for someone who you don't even know to literally control your mind and your heart.

AI as a Weapon of Mass Manipulation

I was reading some interesting articles on artificial intelligence because our retreat is coming up next week in Chicago on Islam and AI. The policy makers — those who make policies for the country, the think tanks — they are saying that moving forward, engaging in war through drones, through tanks, through fighter jets, through navy amphibious ships, is very expensive. Killing lives is very expensive. The alternative method? AI. AI-controlled propaganda. This is from a policy paper — not just a news report. Saying that moving forward, we need to use AI-controlled propaganda machines and social media to be able to control masses and groups of people without ever sending one missile, one drone, one bullet. It's much cheaper. You don't have to kill people.

What you do is use your AI-controlled social media to make people think in the manner that you want them to think. The power of propaganda is real. Just think about this — you have an Instagrammer who's very famous, an influencer. He shows up to your pizza store and says it's great, and posts it. Wait for 24 hours, you will have a line to the stoplight. Why? You passed the store every single day, you never went in. You actually went there last weekend and didn't even like it. Why is everyone going there now? Because some famous influencer on Instagram said it's good — so it must be good. He's being paid for it. It doesn't make a difference. So the way we already respond is 100% based on what people on social media want to influence us with.

You see the hate towards Muslims right now? As much as we're speaking about Palestine, people don't understand. 40,000 dead innocent people. How can you call this equal stakes? You just saw what happened at UCLA, right? Those supporting Palestine — who were in the encampment — they got attacked by people who weren't even students. And where was the police? The police was there. They watched and did not intervene. They got beaten up and the police just sat there and watched. Even the governor spoke up saying that the response of the police was inappropriate — because they literally watched as the pro-Palestinian protesters got beaten up. Mace in their eyes. Bear spray in their eyes. Horrible things. And they just sat there, watching — while people in the encampment were begging, screaming for help.

Why is this happening? This is the power of propaganda — that you oppress people and then make the oppressed one seem like he's the oppressor. You beat someone up and then make the person you beat up seem like he's the aggressor. Allahu Akbar. So what we are seeing now — the future of AI — they're saying it very clearly: this is the easiest way. Use artificial intelligence to control social media narratives. And that's how you control the masses. Without firing a single shot, the people will look at the world with the worldview that you want them to have. They will understand and process news events the way you want them to. Dear boys and girls — that's game over. We're done.

Practical Steps: Reclaiming Your Heart

So we started off our conversation today from this: everything on this earth is a fitnah. Allah Himself says إِنَّا جَعَلْنَا مَا عَلَى الْأَرْضِ زِينَةً لَّهَا لِنَبْلُوَهُمْ أَيُّهُمْ أَحْسَنُ عَمَلًا — every single thing on this earth is a fitnah. And from amongst those things that Allah has created as a test is our phones. The four things affected by our phones are our eyes, our ears, our mind, and our tongue — and all four lead to the heart. If what we see is wrong, then our heart will become corrupted. And once our heart becomes corrupted, our whole life and our whole body become corrupted.

This is a real, genuine jihad and a test for all of us. So we have to now learn how to use our cell phones and social media in a responsible manner. Not to say you can't use it — but you have to use it in a responsible manner. That requires self-discipline. That requires self-control.

Say, Allah forbid, someone is an alcoholic, and he's in the airport at 11 o'clock at night, his flight is delayed, and the only thing open is a bar. The bar also serves orange juice. If you have an alcoholic who goes to get his orange juice and as soon as he sees it's 11 o'clock at night, he's alone, and there's unlimited alcohol — what's going to happen? More than likely he's going to trip and fall. Now alhamdulillah, for any one of us just going to get orange juice, that's not going to be a problem. But those who have already become social media addicts — it's very hard to say, "Keep your phone in front of you and don't use it." It's like telling an alcoholic, "Go to the bar, just look at the orange juice." You have to create a distance between yourself and addiction.

What do psychologists and addiction experts say? About six weeks of time — six weeks where you go cold turkey and leave those things. After which, you kind of become yourself again. And now you can insha'Allah make a conscientious decision of how you go about using this.

So what are some practical ways we can help ourselves?

Number one — find a spiritual buddy. Find a friend, your sibling, your cousin who you want to work with and say, "We heard this talk, it was eye-opening, we need to work on ourselves. How about we partner up together?" Like at the gym, people spot for one another — you have to similarly spot one another for the phone.

Number two — use detox apps. There are many apps — some mashallah created by practicing Christians — that you can download to keep your browser clean and restrict access to harmful things. You have someone else type in the password for you. There's even a website called "kosher phones" — phones that have been made with limited apps. Navigation, data, text, phone, world clock — basic things. And the internet on them will not allow you to go to harmful places. We're now seeing a resurgence of people purchasing simpler phones — Caterpillar has a phone, Samsung Lite 2 — and they are actually selling out. Because many non-Muslims are also realizing: this life is just too addictive, we've lost the fun of real life.

Number three — a social media diet. Use social media for maybe one hour a day, half an hour, 25 minutes — cut it down. Slowly wean it off. Within 40 days, work towards being able to go three or four days without looking at social media.

Number four — cold turkey, if needed. Some people say, "Brother, that's not going to work for me. I need to sit there straight up, delete it." And that's what the psychiatrist says too. Just go cold turkey. Put your foot down. It's all about willpower. That's it. "I'm done with this. I can talk to people in person. Let me call them. Let me text them. Let me meet them at the masjid, at my home. Let's go out for a walk." When you make that conscientious decision, you will set yourself free.

I've met brothers sitting in crowds who say, "Sheikh, I did the one-year program at Darussalam seven or eight years ago. When I entered the program, I got off of social media. And I've had such a productive life." It really is just the decision a person has to make. I travel so much, I'm involved in so many different things with youth and young adults across the country, alhamdulillah — and I'm not on social media myself. I don't have any personal presence on there. And I think I can function properly without it. I can't imagine how I would function if I was sitting there reading what this person is doing, what that person is doing. It's a big drain. It drains your brain. It takes a lot of toll on your mental stability.

Helping Others: Bring Them to the Light

How do you help someone who's already knee deep in this stuff? All of us probably have a sibling, a cousin, or know someone who is. When it comes to people, you have to realize — and I'm not taking this word lightly — it is an addiction. You can't just yank it out of someone's hands and say, "Stop it, you fool." He's an actual addict. He's going to cry, he's going to scream in anger. If he's younger than you, he's going to start crying. If he's bigger than you, he's going to scream and swear at you. Because it's a drug.

So what we need to do is slowly make them realize what's happening to their life. If you snatch it from them, it's not going to work. The general rule I have with people trying to help friends or others going through spiritual or addictive problems — I tell them: bring them to a place of nur and light, and the darkness will remove itself. When you turn on the light, the darkness is gone. You don't have to take a bat and hit the darkness. You turn on the light and the darkness goes by itself. When you bring someone who's got these problems to a beautiful environment of deen — two hours in, five hours in — automatically, the person will start realizing, "Man, I've got problems. I gotta work on myself." If you speak to him at home, he will become angry and rebellious. But you let the scholar or whoever is speaking do the work, in a nice spiritually uplifting environment, and he or she will find themselves figuring out that they've got some issues.

In a nutshell — bring them to Islamic environments. Don't go after their mistakes. They won't like it. Just bring them towards goodness, and in the environment of goodness, insha'Allah, their eyes will awaken and they'll realize their mistakes.

Degrees of Harm in Different Platforms

Is there a specific type of social media that's less harmful? Some of them are outright haram, some of them are just destructive, and others are at the very least a waste of time. And that itself for a Muslim is horrible because life is the most important capital that we have — more than money.

For example, Twitter. Twitter has lots of Islamic information, outstanding different things. But once in a while someone sends me a tweet and I press it and I end up going to Twitter to read it — and within minutes, I'm scrolling. It might be gems from Imam Shafi'i or something else — just snippets, random snippets. But before you know it, you're just reading random, disconnected information that has nothing to do with what's due for me tomorrow. It's interesting, it's nice — but for all I care, this is not actually the best use of my time to be reading random stuff. So even if it's Islamic, we end up wasting a lot of time.

On the other hand, I meet sometimes some shuyukh who know I'm not on social media and they tell me, "Sheikh, oh my God, I'm going through so many problems." Because when you're on social media, it's like a whole different virtual reality. It's a war zone. There's 24/7 fighting going on between this Sheikh and that Sheikh, between this opinion and that opinion, between this camp and that camp. And what happens? On the ground, it has no ramification. It will not help you improve the quality of your Maghrib salah. It will not help improve the quality of your relationship with your mom, your wife, your dad, your husband. But we're sitting there so caught up on this random stuff online, thinking it has some long-term effect, but it doesn't.

A much better thing is to cuddle up with a book and read it cover to cover. That good old way — where you actually take a pencil, make notes, highlight, and ask the Sheikh, "What book should I read next?" And you go through book after book with little sticky notes. So there are different degrees of harm. At the very least, most social media is a waste of time. If you have a promotion of your business or a specific utility, that's a different thing. But just to check out what's happening — that's never going to end.

The Story of the Medical Student

One medical student, mashallah — I saw him with a simple phone in the masjid, and I asked him about it. He said, "Yeah, I just changed my phone." He's a medical student who actually competed in debate competitions all the way in Germany — a very eloquent, articulate young man. So I asked him to come speak to my students. And he gave a five-minute presentation. Someone asked him, "Does your phone have a camera?" He said, "No." So how do you function without a camera? His response was: "Honestly, my life has changed. It's like I'm getting to know my mom and dad for the first time. I've had many multi-hour conversations with my parents and my siblings, which I never had before. All of a sudden, my relationships have become so much more meaningful — I don't need a camera because instead I actually enjoy sitting and talking to a living human being." Which is something most kids honestly don't even know what that means anymore.

Reconnecting with Nature

We have to relearn what we have forgotten — how to enjoy nature, how to enjoy nature hikes, a trip to the botanical garden. I took my kids. My wife was like, "The kids are not going to enjoy this." I said, "I don't care. They have to learn how to enjoy this." We went to a botanical garden right next to our house. Gorgeous, beautiful. The jasmine flowers smelling so nice. Allahu Akbar. It's just an amazing time. So whatever you give exposure to kids, that's what they will learn.

It's our responsibility as parents to say, "Son, daughter — I'm going to teach you the alternative. We're going to go out hiking, or I'll take you to a place where there's no phone signal. We're going to spend a couple of days there." I was traveling back from Cleveland once and I met a non-Muslim brother from Denver on the plane — an engineer — who had a non-smart phone. I'm like, "Wow, what are you doing with this?" He said, "I hate smartphones. We don't waste our time with that." I said, "Where are you getting this from?" He said, "My group of friends — none of us have smartphones. We're not on social media. Growing up from day one, we're outdoors people. Every week we would go biking, mountain biking, camping, hiking. And almost all the time we ended up in a place with no reception. So we've learned to enjoy each other's company in person and we simply don't enjoy social media. We love meeting up in person." And I was like, subhanAllah — I wish you could come to our masjid and give a talk on this. The fact that even non-Muslims who are on their fitrah realize the harms of this.

When you get connected with nature, you will not enjoy these types of things. We need to honestly replace our cell phones with more meaningful in-person interactions with humans as well as nature. Whether it's golfing, tennis, a walk on the beach, a trip to the zoo, or camping — we need to make that replacement.

Netflix and the War on Sleep

The CEO of Netflix — about ten years ago — was interviewed and was asked, "What is your competition? Is it Disney, Hulu, any of these other streaming websites?" Netflix CEO responded: "I have no competition with Hulu, no competition with Disney, no competition with any other company. We are far ahead of all of them. My only competition is sleep. If human beings did not have a biological need for sleep, they would literally be binge watching on Netflix for days and weeks. The only thing that comes between me and having them in complete control is the biological need of sleep."

Look at the sinister, shameless statement of the CEO. What is Netflix? It's a drug. He's acknowledging it's a drug. "We want you hooked on it for life, and we're going to try our best to keep you on it." That's what binge watching is. Non-stop, six hours, eight hours, ten hours, twelve hours.

I had a ten-year-old boy come to me right after Isha. His mom told him to come speak to me. He wasn't from my masjid. His father came in too and explained — on Saturday when dad's at work, they found him playing video games. He started playing at 8 a.m. and went all the way till 8 p.m. And then from 8 p.m. all the way until 4 a.m. — 20 hours straight, he was playing video games. And he'd been doing this for weeks. He's ten years old. That tells you how addictive these things are.

Similarly, another major addiction is anime series. I met a 14 or 15-year-old who was doing very well in school, then became addicted — lost his grades, lost everything. He confessed to me that in the past two weeks, he had watched 500 episodes of anime, each one 20 minutes long. Do the math. He was obviously watching in the shower, in the bathroom, while eating cereal. The only time he wasn't watching was while sleeping. He told me this himself. So what I'm trying to tell you is that this is not human — what we've been made into. It's like a drug.

What we need to understand is: when we tell people about the horrors of social media and cell phone addiction, we're not trying to make their life miserable — we're trying to help their quality of life improve. They need to understand that. And the statistics and the data — that's what you've got to share with them.

Closing Remarks & Invitation to the Retreat

All of us probably have a sibling, if not ourselves, or a cousin who is knee deep in this stuff. And when a person is that deep in it, you have to realize — I mean this word — it is an addiction. They need sympathy. They need empathy. And that's what all of our social media addicts need. They need sympathy and empathy. SubhanAllah.

Yes, you need to acknowledge that it is an actual addiction. You can't just say, "What's wrong with you? Why don't you listen to me?" The person is an addict. If someone's a crack cocaine addict and you scream at him, it's not going to help. He's an addict. He needs intervention. He needs help.

Insha'Allah, we have our adult program going to start in a little bit. If you guys want to stay — we have a completely different topic after Maghrib: we're going to be speaking about black magic, the evil eye, and hasad — jealousy, the myths about it and the reality about it, and the ways to protect ourselves from it, insha'Allah.

Right now, we'd like all of you insha'Allah to join us next weekend. Brother Mohsin here is leading, alhamdulillah, the group from this masjid. We have the masjid organizing a bus for youth — boys and girls — and their families as well. Whether they're going on the bus or going in a car, we're going to the annual Darussalam retreat, five hours away from here. It's going to be held at Masjid Darussalam, and this year's topic is Islam and Artificial Intelligence. It's a two-day retreat — 48 hours — and it will be insha'Allah a very life-changing experience. You're going to be exposed to a whole different culture, a whole different dynamic of etiquette of the masjid, and you'll be sitting around talking to people of your age from different ethnicities and different parts of the world.

The retreat starts next Friday at Asr, 6 p.m., and ends Sunday at 6 p.m. It's for boys, girls, men, and women. The program is being offered to you for free — the masjid is taking care of the cost of transportation and food. So there's a no-brainer. This is a five-hour road trip. Please ensure that you sign up with Brother Mohsin and get your moms and dads on board. Come with your parents if possible — or send your parents in a different car and you come with Brother Mohsin. Please try your best, insha'Allah, to come. You can get more details at the booth outside. There are flyers for the retreat.

Go get some of your friends — and create some halal social media pressure to come, insha'Allah.