President’s Address on Eid Ul Fitr 2023

Assalamu-Alaykum (Peace Be Upon You)

On behalf of Muslim Association of Puget Sound, I extend to all of you a very warm Eid Greetings! Eid Mubarak. TaqabaAllah Minna Wa Minkum. May Allah swt accept this month of fasting, worship, charity from all of us!

Imam Hajr (RA) mentions that the sign of an accepted Ramadan has two components:

Feeling: A feeling of missing out. One who’s pleased with the departure of Ramadan or the one who’s distressed at the arrival of Ramadan, that’s a sign that Ramadan isn’t accepted. Hence, the feeling should be a bit sad at its departure and happiness at its arrival. It has to do with allowing Ramadan and its spirit to penetrate our hearts. I hope that we as a community are saying goodbye to Ramadan with a feeling of sadness and are making dua to experience this opportunity again next year inshaAllah (God Willing). It does not mean at all that we do not celebrate Eid, we should fully do so.

Effect: The second component is the effect of all the good deeds, worships, charity, habits we developed and the lifestyle we adopted in Ramadan. The sign of an accepted Ramadan is that we continue and build upon the good changes we made in Ramadan to keep the effect of Ramadan alive post Ramadan.

I would like to spend a few minutes to describe how MAPS at all our three locations (MAPS-Redmond, MAPS-Seattle, and MAPS-Snohomish County), help individuals and families with Imam Hajr’s two components of an accepted Ramadan.

Feeling of Ramadan

Ramadan Food Drive:
At the start of Ramadan, 1400 Food boxes were distributed to needy families. Each box contained rice, flour, sugar, oil, dates etc., sufficient for a family of 5 for the entire month of Ramadan. This is about sharing the feeling of joy and ease during Ramadan with the less fortunate among us.

Jummah/Taraweeh/Qiyam/Itikaf:
We have seen tremendous growth in the number of attendees this year. We now operate:

  • Multiple jummahs across our three locations
  • Taraweeh/Qiyaam across three locations, where in some of the nights we, unfortunately had to turn people away due to lack of space and fire safety regulations
  • Itekaf program, where we had to close registration early as we reached capacity.

Iftars:
All three locations have had Iftars for the community. Some even had potluck iftaars, catered iftaars, etc. These iftaars provide a wonderful opportunity for community bonding and togetherness. On one of the nights in Redmond, we broke all attendance records with over 2,000 people joining for Iftar.

Interfaith Iftars:
Redmond: Over 450 people, 250 of whom were non-Muslims, attended our Interfaith Iftar. This year we focused on inviting educators. Hence, we hosted 100+ educators and teachers from LWSD, BSD, ISD, NSD, etc.
Snohomish County: Our newest location hosted an interfaith iftar on their very first year.

Volunteers:
To be able to host 1000+ people every night at the masajid, we had a large group of dedicated volunteers helping. They sacrificed their personal time to serve the community so that the rest of us could eat a warm meal at iftar time and pray with tranquility at night.

Quran Competition: We held our annual Qura’n competition where over 200 kids across several age groups memorized surah’s and recited in front of judges. The event was beautiful as always and we presented gifts to the best reciters.

Sharing Eid:
We shared the end of Ramadan and Eid celebration with the wider community around us, e.g.

  • Refugee Kids: We prepared and delivered Eid gifts/goodie bags to some 1000 Muslim children in the refugee community.
  • Seattle Children’s Hospital: Our community donated 400+ toys that we gifted to children of all faith backgrounds at two Seattle Children’s location (Seattle and Odessa Brown)
  • Zakatul Fitr: We have disbursed over $150,000 of Zakat-ul-Fitr money to about 1,000+ families. It is important that we internalized this effort – MAPS through your donations helped over 1000 local Muslim families celebrate a better Eid today.

All the above create an atmosphere of celebrating Ramadan and its spirit at the community level. This is where that feeling of joy and happiness come in, which will inshaAllah make it an accepted Ramadan for all of us.

Effects of Ramadan

According to Imam Hajr again, the effects of Ramadan must stay with us at an individual level, family level and community level beyond this month. Our three MAPS locations, as Masajid, as houses of Allah and Islamic centers, provide the perfect forum through which we can all continue the effects of Ramadan after Ramadan. I encourage and invite all of you to visit a MAPS location on a daily, weekly, monthly, or even on a yearly basis and to participate in some of the many activities we offer. We have something to offer to each member of the family. Let me give you a few examples of our programs that can help us continue the effects of Ramadan:

Faith & Islamic Education:
As I shared in my annual banquet note, and as part of our MAPS Vision 3.0, we are bringing faith and Islamic education front and center. The enrollment across our various education programs now stands at nearly 2200! In addition to our Islamic classes on weekends and evenings, our Hifz class, our Arabic class, and our Shuyukh classes, we also offer classes across a number of disciplines of interest. This summer, we have many community members teaching camps ranging from basket-weaving to creative writing to Lego building. If you are good at something, continue the effect of Ramadan by teaching it at MAPS.

Special Focus on Youth & Young Professionals:
As part of MAPS Vision 3.0 again, we are placing special emphasis on developing the next generation of leaders. We have implemented many programs to give our youth and young professionals opportunities to grow. Our Youth Seminary Scholarship program sends a handful of highly skilled youths to Qalam Institute for a full year of learning. These youths then come back and benefit our community. We have set up a Summer Internship program at MAPS that would give a few interns an understanding of the inner workings of the masjid. And, we have launched a Mentorship program that matches an experienced mentor with a junior mentee. If you can act as a mentor or a leader across any these programs, please dedicate your time to help shape the next generation.

Volunteerism and Community Service:
In 2022, we spent $1.6M in Community Services. Masha-Allah, we are now among the local organizations with the largest budgets to do good right here in our community. Our Community Services, through MAPS-MCRC and MAPS-AsSadaqah, range from operating a free medical clinic, a free legal clinic, and a shelter for women, alleviating homelessness and hunger, providing emergency financial assistance, extending elderly care, assimilating refugees, providing mediation and counseling services, offering funeral assistance and much more. We have hundreds of volunteers who daily dispense these services. The needs are always growing and we can always use the help of more people. I encourage you all to choose one activity and volunteer a few hours every month in it.

Advocacy:
MAPS has established a very strong advocacy arm lead by Sr Aneelah. We continue to be very impactful across the state. Last year, we played a key role in resettling refugees from Afghanistan. Just to give you one example, MAPS-AMEN led a coalition to advocate for and secure over $30M in state funding to help the refugee cause. We continue to expose and combat Islamophobia, racism, colorism and xenophobia. We have advocated for gun safety and are promoting bills and measures in legislative bodies locally and federally to combat hate. In our engagements with leaders in office and the government, we have raised the plight of Muslims not only locally but also in India, Afghanistan, Palestine, Syria, Uyghurs, Yemen, etc. I know that some of you are passionate about making the world a better place through activism – I encourage you to participate in these activities.

Small Business Network:
Do you know that MAPS last year worked with over 170 small business owners and managers to help them establish and grow their business? Our MAPS-SBRN arm hosts annual fairs and helps small business with accounting, bookkeeping, marketing and consultation services. If you are passionate about setting up and growing businesses, MAPS-SBRN is a channel for continuing effects of good.

The above are only a few highlights of the many ways you can all contribute to doing good after Ramadan. I encourage you to download and read our annual report that explains these and many more activities at MAPS in much more detail.

As the Qur’an tells us in multiple places, the duty of the Muslim is one of “al-amr bi-l-maʿrūf wa-n-nahy ʿani-l-munkar”, i.e. enjoining what is good and forbidding what is bad. These activities at MAPS implement this divine decree.

I pray to Allah SWT that He accepts our Ramadan, that He answers our prayers, that He cleans our hearts, that He blesses our families, and that He forgive our sins.

Please accept, on my family’s behalf, my sincere wishes for a very joyful Eid. Eid Mubarak and Assalamu Alaykum Wa-Rahmat-ullah.