Midnight Club: T-DOT

I just came back from a road trip to Toronto, CA with about 25 young Somali brothers from the Twin Cities.

It was great. I’m not a journalist so I’m going to avoid giving you a point-by-point breakdown of what all happened. Instead, I’ll show you what I felt & learned.

First, I learned the importance of sacrificing personal comfort for the communal good. Taking responsibility for your fellow brothers in Islam is an underrated concept. After all, the foundation of this religion is working together for the sake of Allah. It’s about community, Ummah. It’s about being just and fair to all, regardless of your personal feelings. It’s about biting your tongue when the devil tempts you to speak out of anger. It’s about bonding, about love, about growth.

There was this one night, after we all left a chicken wing and pizza spot on the West End. We were driving onto the freeway on ramp and I was accelerating aggressively in our mini van to catch up with the pace of traffic. The rest of Toronto was pretty flat, but where we were had hills like mountains with housing complexes stacked atop them. It reminded me of Mecca, in hindsight.

Anyway, my window was open and I heard the sound of super cars speeding, exhaust pipes spitting flames as they shifted gears. There was at least 6 of them, pushing hard like a jockey on the reins. I looked over and felt like it was a cut scene from that video game Midnight Club. One of the brothers in the back was like “catch up to them!” I laughed and said, in a hopelessly high-pitched voice: “I’m trying!” We dying laughing because Dodge Caravans weren’t meant to race against supercars. But it didn’t stop us from having a good time.

Toronto is a city that seldom sleeps. It’s wide and spread out – everything is a smooth 30 minutes away. The food is amazing, the cultures are eclectic and they all mash together like some crazy experimental art piece. It’s a juxtaposition. It’s a culture clash in the best of ways. You could see a group of niqabis walking one second and some teens singing Turkish folk songs out the roof of an SUV the next. It’s a place that made less sense the longer we were there.

As some hard-bred Americans, we were in awe of the freedom of that place. America espouses a lot of so-called free ideals, but they are rarely seen in practice. There was a certain, unplaceable freedom in that city. There was the sense that you could be anything you wanted to be. And all we wanted to be was God-fearing young people who were escaping their realities back home on a trip of shared values, brotherhood and good food.

I’m not gonna lie – tempers often flared, because being surrounded by a group of people in stressful circumstances will push anybody to their limits. But we all did our best to be patient with each other’s humanity. We did our best to enjoy our trip and benefit from it.

And we went for several reasons. One was a vacation and fellowship/bonding trip. The other was to learn some new things from a religious knowledge standpoint. Our beloved Sheikh Abdullahi Bihi was giving some lectures at Khalid Bin Walid Masjid and we came through to learn what we could. He helped us learn a lot on the trip, and not just in the knowledge sense.

I often think of him as a prime example of what a good Muslim should strive to be. We all have our shortcomings, but I’ve been around him long enough to know that they are few and far in between; he is a fountain of knowledge with a heart of gold. And, ultimately, it matters not what you know if your heart doesn’t match your intellect. I’d take a good-hearted fool any day of the week over a cold-hearted genius. I’m thankful for our Sheikh who patiently guide so many of us in this community to try and be better than what we are.

I always say that I learned a lot when I go on trips but this one was different. I learned the real meaning of personal sacrifice. To sacrifice your time, energy and sleep for the sake of brothers you may have only just met is the definition of what it means to be Muslim. And we know that no person is a true Muslim until he wants for his brother what he wants for himself, if not more.

I strive to overcome my weaknesses every day. I try to be a better person than I was yesterday. I try not to fall into comparison games and traps of the ego. I try, because to be human is to try, and to err, and to make up for mistakes along the way. Most of my life has been spent looking at things from a “me against the world” perspective. Nowadays, I’m starting to appreciate the value of community. No man is an island. No island is built without a foundation under it. And most islands are formed only after hot lava cools and coalesces on the ocean’s surface. It takes heat, pressure and struggle for that island to be built.

As a good friend of mine recently said, no relationship worth having is gained without fighting for it. It takes tough conversations to reach the next level of closeness between people. I’m trying to live a more communal way of life and leave my isolating ways behind. Honestly, isolation has served very little to help me find peace within. And I guess it makes sense that I want to distance myself from others for fear of them seeing the worst sides of me. But we’re all human and we have bad sides – bad moods, bad days, bad ways of thinking.

If someone cares about you, they accept your badness along with your good. They help you overcome or minimize it, and they are patient with you as you grow. They guide you with words and with heart. They are there for you and ask that you do the same for them. And that is what community means to me. That’s what being Muslim means to me. Growth through brotherhood & selflessness for the sake of Allah. And to Allah we shall all return, without a doubt. Let’s help each other get there in one piece, spiritually speaking.