i was raised orthodox christian uh i'm
serbian so here muslims will come and
congregate five times a day he's like
you know we believe in jesus right and i
was like
what see what we have in common and to
see where the differences are has been
very good to the christian faith at
first it kind of surprised me i thought
i was going to walk into the mushrooms
like only you know brown and arabs and
yeah absolutely we had a great time at
the mosque i would invite anybody to
come but then i seen a lot of white
people and a lot of black people and i'm
like oh mcc is the most diverse masjid
in the city you'll find everybody here
for work he's pretty tall isn't he i
thought i was talking
eddie
i testified i testified that there's
nothing worthy
this is
[Music]
we're here at mcc to meet the community
come with me
muslim community center of chicago all
right everybody i'm going to take you
through a tour
of one of the oldest and largest
masjids mosques in chicago all right so
go ahead if you're not yet muslim a
non-muslim and you're in the area you
want to stop by or even if you're a
muslim you're new to the city this is
where you want to be come on with me all
right so you'll come in here and you'll
be welcomed there's an office to the
right all right there's another area
let's go see over here they're usually
having they got a little banquet area
here a lot a lot of times they'll have
people groups they'll come in from
universities from schools from churches
people want to learn about islam well
thank you thank you for the thank you
know how did you guys enjoy the session
you guys recommend more people comments
yes
over here what you'll have is this is
the
area the funeral area when somebody
passes away and all of us are going to
go
and this is where the family will come
to go ahead and they'll wash the body
prepare the body this is another one of
the team here at mcc please introduce
yourself
uh this is yusuf umar i'm the manager
here at mcc
uh glad to have you brother eddie as
always
masha'allah
didn't show i think it's very famous
they are doing great job i wish
them and brother had it the best
reward him for the hard work and then
that's his
uh all over the united states as a
matter of fact people
out the country they are watching as
well
because
and so you guys got to meet the manager
here at mcc so make sure you stop by
tell me you saw him and you're here to
visit we are here to have serving
shadows come come here any time and
we'll be happy to help you beautiful
thank you this is what it's all about
here this is this is the most important
place because this is the masjid this is
the prayer area the thing that
captivates people here is the serenity
you know that's found the piece if you
look up at the walls you don't see any
statues icons you don't see any saints
people come here to
connect with their creator without any
intermediaries directly to the one up
above the one who created creation god
almighty and arabic allah so if you're
not yet muslim and you want to connect
with your creator what better place than
to come and learn about islam from the
muslim community here at mcc
and you'll see muslims continuing the
same way as jesus as moses as abraham
and the last and final messenger prophet
muhammad peace and blessings be upon him
praying to one and only one god the
creator not the creation here muslims
will come and congregate five times a
day for the five daily prayers but this
is it this is the mcc this is the main
area pretty soon this will fill up
there'll be a packed house here on jumaa
on friday so if you're in the area make
sure you come and visit the muslims at
mcc
the oldest and largest muslim community
center here in chicago salaam alaikum
i'm here with yusuf yusuf tell us your
role here at mcc
bismillah
for everybody i am here as a volunteer
whatever they ask me to do i will do for
the sake of allah then for the sake of
serving our community alhamdulillah how
has mcc been serving the ummah serving
the community
when you're talking about mcc you're
talking about something big and the huge
significance in the eyes of allah in the
eyes of his prophet muhammed and in the
eyes of their community mcc considered
to be almost one of the oldest massages
in chicagoland mcc i can call it myself
the mother of so many
islamic centers and massages in the
areas that we are living in mcc serve
the community from step one to until
somebody pass away from in the month
ramadan especially the charities for the
arab community so many and other
non-arab community for the widows for
the divorce for the single mothers for
the new immigrants just name it as you
wish whenever we refer somebody we refer
it go to mcc you're gonna find your way
through mcc inshallah not only that look
at ramadan masha allah in every day very
unique masjid in the chicagoland there
are so many messages doing the
assignment too but mcc is very unique
they are feeding at least 500 600
brothers and sisters fasting every day
what a beautiful
job they are doing and serving our
community not only that i want to talk
also about when somebody dies i approach
mcc so many times
it through the the coronavirus covered
19 and so on when a family does not have
enough money mcc step in
bring him and we take care of that with
tears masha allah with happiness
then we have here the russell uh for the
uh muslim foreign services harun
ferdowsi and salman ferdowsi and their
teams that's very unique you can see
that in every masjid that's a service
for the alive community members also for
the dead ones subhanallah mcc even you
cannot describe how mcc in north south
chicago serving our community
how are you doing my brother how you
been good alhamdulillah tell us your
name for the audience and your role here
at mcc my name is ali bilal i'm a board
member and co-chair of the building
building committee here at mcc
how has mcc been serving the uma at
large with the diversity here and all
the different from african americans
arabs how they've been inclusive with
welcoming everybody mcc is the most
diverse masjid in the city you will find
everybody here and all the groups will
be here and we all pray here together
all five prayers will open all five
prayers 365 days a year
and everyone gets along here and there's
no
fitting at all here so we our message is
working it works well in the city that's
the kind of message you need in the city
and it's large and it's uh it's always
clean so like this is open every single
365 days a year you're also a convert to
islam you accepted islam how far back
well actually i'm not a convert i was
born in the nation of islam i was in war
the muhammad community for many years so
i wasn't officially a convert so um i
learned many things before i came to mcc
i just came here because i live here and
my kids are biracial and we live in this
area so my wife is moroccan so we we
there's some rocking communities so we
want to be around a lot of moroccan
people to raise the children
you have people who go to different
houses of worship and you have like the
greek church you'll have here this uh
this uh church it's all you know one
color one nationality but here it's
different like some people might be
surprised you got people from all walks
of life white black yellow you know
everybody's welcome is that right you
know you should you if you come here on
the last 10 days of ramadan it'll be the
closest thing you'll find to umrah
because you will find everybody in the
last 10 days
staying and being here you won't there's
no major nationality here at all
this message was found about daisy indo
pax but this message is a firm message
and they always were very welcoming to
everybody
like any place there's problems but
there's not major problems as far as
that's concerned the diversity of mcc is
the key this is the most diverse mission
that i've seen in the city at all so
this is also for the not yet muslims
people who have heard a lot of hype on
in the media you know if they want to
come here they're not yet muslim
non-muslim they want to learn about
islam they want to meet their muslim
neighbors what do you say to them this
would be the best place to do that
because everyone here speaks very good
english and you have very calm
leadership here in other words people
can answer your questions they grew up
here most of the people and
administration of this message were born
in america and they know what it's all
they lived here for quite a long time so
they know all the questions you would
have because they live those experiences
they're not they're not from another
they're from another country but they've
lived here for a long enough time so
they know what is in the american mind
this would be a good place to start uh
if you decide to go smart for other
reasons but mcc will be the best place
to start for a new convert we have a
guest who just came into mcc how's been
your experience here at mcc over the
years very good very good it's always
been very
hospitable and great to have dialogue
and to see what we have in common and to
see where the differences are has been
very good to the christian faith and to
the
people that we are training at our camp
beautiful thanks for stopping by here at
mcc nice seeing you again would you
recommend for for more people to come
and
learn from the muslims to come here to
visit amasi uh absolutely absolutely
it's important to change misconceptions
so the only way to do that is by
learning more about it would you invite
people to come visit a moscow yeah
absolutely we had a great time at the
mosque i would invite anybody to come
and check it out and it's fascinating
and enjoyable thank you so much i really
enjoyed it i actually been thinking
about myself
converting over to islam
not because of the fashion or because of
my friends but because i want to be
closer to god so
the school principal whose hard work and
dedication has impressed students and
staff alike and recently his work had
caught has caught attention of national
education leaders habib khadri is one of
chicago's very own salaam alaikum
salaam
how are you doing can you go ahead and
let us know you're the principal of the
mec what is the vision and mission of
your school and where do you want to see
your students after going through your
education system
uh so the mcc academy are if you had to
break it down into a small like a motto
we call it building character and
developing minds and why character
because one of the big things we want
our students especially our young ones
to have our focus on is that character
or morality is not how what people think
morality is our human beings think what
morality is but what god thinks morality
is what allah thinks morality is so it's
so important for us to make sure that
the kids have an understanding
foundation so we want them to have that
great character that that behavior so
they could be successful in this world
and successful in the hereafter but we
need to develop their minds to say hey
what does god say the rules and
regulations so we could get closer to
god to be awareness of god so this is
why through
you know the quran the islamic studies
the arabic class but also the academia
which allah makes sure that we want our
kids to understand that we want to be
the best in this world and the best in
the hereafter so it's so important for
our kids that we want them to do is be
successful in their schoolwork in their
dean and as their graduate they could
know how to take care of their families
their communities but also
a masjid like this are the schools
because you need support are two
programs that
like
eddie's dean show that you know who's
here today doing some programs so
everyone has certain things that we want
to make sure that they understand and
they kind of go ahead and implement and
so hopefully they'll be successful in
this world and the hereafter and
hopefully they could also be aware and
be good american muslim citizens
reward you for your wonderful work he's
pretty tall isn't he i thought i was
talking i'm going to reward his brother
for all the work he has done and also on
the side note for any individuals please
make sure you keep supporting the
programs that they are doing which are
trying to make awareness of our deen for
not just our own muslim community but
all of america and the world at large
that there's nothing worthy of worship
worthy abortion
and i bear witness
is the messenger
brothers and sisters now we're at the
mec
with the former president please
introduce yourself
my name is muhammad kaiser den i've been
with mcc since 1973 alhamdulillah
subhanallah so how would you evaluate
now all the progress that's been made
since its inception
it's been tremendous progress and i've
been very closely associated with mcc i
was the president of mcc for a total of
eight years and and school committee
chairman
sunday school principal and so on so i
have seen the progress of the community
center from 1973 up until now
so in 1973 we had one building that
could accommodate only about 200 people
for um friday prayers
now alhamdulillah we have three
buildings and that could totally
accommodate about five thousand people
and so alhamdulillah the progress has
been tremendous and the community has
grown and community
is very interactive with each other and
and the support of each other
i just had a brother introduce himself
he's serbia and his name is marco he
just took his shahadah
and what fascinated him is when he
walked into the mosque the masjid
usually when he would go to the church
at his time when he was christian
orthodox christian he'll see all
serbians one nationality or he'll go to
this church and he'll see this color of
people but he was amazed he thought he
was going to come in here and just see
you know a certain group of people
looking a certain way but he was just
amazed to see the diversity
mcc is very much blessed in that regard
you know because of the location over
here there's not just one type of ethnic
muslim community here there are muslims
from south asia of course india and
pakistan there are muslims from the
middle east palestine and egypt and
sudan and and so on and of africa and
also people from indonesia and malaysia
they're all here and the alhamdulillah
they all come to mcc and
take it as their home
what would you say for the not yet
muslims they've been watching a lot of
the hype up there and the media every
muslim is a terrorist period right now
i don't want to hear
[Music]
sharing the message
and they are curious they want to know
and they live in the area
is the door open for them to come in and
ask questions mcc door has always been
open and lately we are making it a point
to open it up for people and inviting
people both in the elston location and
here in morton grove location we are
inviting the neighbors to come in here
and talk to us
enjoy some of our snacks that we you
know ethnic
worldwide ethnic
snacks and learn about islam and the
people do some
fun things for them ask them
to write their names in arabic and we
write their names in arabic and give it
to them as a nameplate that they can put
and do some henna on their hands and so
on so the people really enjoy of course
they listen to the talk about islam
and they
say okay we didn't know islam about this
way so
what islam is presented in the media is
completely wrong completely different
what true islam is so when they come to
our home then they know what islam is i
got an amazing surprise for you brother
came and approached me marco how are you
salaam alaikum good how are you how are
you doing
i'm doing well so marco just accepted
islam
and tell us about
this journey that you took that you're
here today that we met at the mosque
um well it started i was raised orthodox
christian
i'm serbian so you know the tensions
have always been high and i haven't
really known anything about islam for
like a long time
so
just about two months ago maybe i met a
saudi arabian girl and she was just
telling me about islam and
and i was like shocked she was like you
know we believe in jesus right i was
like
what you know because it's surprising
when you don't know anything about islam
and uh so she was just teaching me stuff
about the quran and the prophet peace be
upon him and you know stuff like that
and then i started watching youtube
videos i found the dean show i started
just watching videos and trying to learn
as much as possible
um and i just prayed and for the first
time i didn't pray to jesus i just said
god whoever you are
can you just guide me to your way and
that same night i like just started
crying but it was like tears of joy
and uh
that it was thursday night and i was
ready to convert the next day and as you
know friday is joomla so it was perfect
and i just converted the next day
and you took your shahada the testimony
of faith declaring that there's nothing
worthy of worship except the creator
that has an earth and then muhammad is
the messenger just like jesus is the
master abraham he's just the last the
final messenger it makes sense
worshiping the creator not the creation
and you took your shahada here at the
mec masjid subhanallah
he said i just accepted islam ten days
ago i think i'm not mistakenly
because of a video that i watched 10
reasons why i think it's with the usher
evidence i'm not mistaken 10 reasons why
jesus is not god
imagine that
yeah how was the community in welcoming
you it was actually
very
accepting and loving and uh the guy i
sat next to he actually i think he moved
his own son and he told me to sit next
to him instead of the sun so it was very
accepting and
i appreciate you know everyone
welcoming me into the community and it's
been nice so do you see the diversity
here when you walk in you see black
white you you're serbian on bosnia you
could see people from all different
walks of life nationality not separating
us but all of us coming together under
the worship of one god and living a
morally upright life how has that had an
effect on you
it's been very surprising because you
know when i go to church it's like
only serbians there's a couple greeks
maybe you know couple
bosnians maybe you know a little bit of
diversity but i i haven't seen one black
person one you know middle eastern
person nothing so at first it kind of
surprised me i thought i was going to
walk into the mushroom it's like only
you know brown and arabs and yeah but
then i seen a lot of white people and a
lot of black people and i'm like oh okay
you know i'm not the only one here
that's you know the only white guy so it
was nice to have a little bit of you
know sense of community as well but um
it's been very
nice
and i think
very accepting to me so congratulations
brother thank you welcome to islam thank
you may allah keep you firm and
steadfast assalamualaikum my name is
masoud bijapuri i'm currently the
president of the muslim community center
in chicago and we have three campuses
here we're here right now in modern
grove campus we have one in the chicago
which is the first one and we also have
a new one in skokie which is our school
full-time school also how is the mission
and vision being fulfilled
under your leadership okay well thank
you for that uh we're currently uh as
you can see mcc is growing you know and
this year alhamdulillah you know we had
this is my first year at mcc
and we i just completed six uh six
months with mcc so it's a short period
of time under my leadership currently
but alhamdulillah we're seeing the mcc
is growing because we have more and more
people now coming to mcc we have many
programs that are happening under both
religious affairs as you can see every
friday we have a different topics on the
religious affairs committee
we also do community services uh you
know the zakat services at mcc we have
funeral services at mcc so we are also
doing many many services beside the
religious part we do the community
service and as you see we have two
facilities
that provide education you know we have
mcc full-time school here and also
skokie full-time school so we're growing
every year more and more children are
you know are enrolling in the programs
for the sunday school and the full-time
school so that we're continuously mcc is
growing our vision is to provide the
services
both through religious services the
community services and the education
services so we can make sure that the
community is happy with mcc
and also mcc is the first masjid that we
you know was in chicago so we considered
the mother of the organization many of
the centers that you see around mcc
came after the mcc so we just celebrated
50 years in 2019 so alhamdulillah mcc is
always looking forward to other centers
today we are very happy and welcome dean
center team they are here subhan allah
you know brother eddie that i know him
for almost like you know good 17 years
and allah has chosen him allah to do the
work that he is doing but we should be
grateful to them for helping us to
fulfill this obligation that allah has
chosen us to be the best nation to serve
the humanity and subhanallah he is doing
it for on his behalf and behalf of many
other people also inshaallah so they are
here i would really urge you to
inshaallah to support him and to help
him shay can you tell me what role has
mcc played from a religious perspective
to develop such a vibrant and inclusive
community
alhamdulillah mcc since its inception
for almost like five decades ago
uh 1969 was the time that you know this
organization was set up it has um been
since then developing the community our
focus is on the development of the
community in different segments
including our youth and seniors and
women and whatsoever and beside these
basic religious needs that we fulfill
performing the salah and aid and all
other lectures and talks and halakhas we
pay special attention to encourage them
for their civic engagement so one some
some of our community members mashallah
i'm very happy and glad to tell you that
they are on the
board of trustees toba village mashallah
here to the libraries the public
libraries and they are also playing
multiple roles in different capacities
in the civic uh
organization and institutions and we
also work very closely with all the
other uh communities that are here and
then including our centers both our
centers mashallah now we have three
centers in three different locations one
in chicago one is modern grove one is in
skokie and we are also the voting
centers when the time comes in so we
have been working and we have outreach
and our activities and interfaith
activities in which like for example of
open masjid uh open mosque day open
masjid day as well as um
you know malcolm x day and you know
muhammad ali muhammad these days so
these are the institutions where we are
inviting people getting these
opportunities to grow with us and then
we provide complete uh services you know
from child birth subhanallah in the
comes up we have the rental places that
they come and rent and they celebrate
their akika and their bismillah and
their quran when they start we have the
school as they grow up subhanallah
full-time school saturday school and
sunday school for the religious
education as well as the academic
education because this is from preschool
to the high school uh we have a
full-time school alhamdulillah then as
they grow up we have the weekly
helicopter program we have yearly
youth camping activities and then when
they grow up mashallah they are ready
you also have the nikah registration
ceremonies right here alhamdulillah
almost like about 50 nikkas happen a
yearly and then same thing um when
mashallah they have their own babies
this whole cycle comes in so this is the
third generation martial and in 50 years
alhamdulillah that we have seen the
community has developed and grown and it
has created their impact in almost every
walk of the life mcc really helped
shaped like my core
uh identity as a young muslim
um
and was my education my growth my
spirituality and it helped shape my
values um and so i was here from pre-k
to eighth grade
and by the time i left i felt really
really secure in my dean
and i think that was like the most
important thing that i took away from
mcc because i was able to like hold on
to that even though
i didn't go back to an islamic
institution after graduating
so my name is ammar siddiqui i actually
came to this community about 10 years
ago
and right away the biggest impact that
was done on my life especially because
of me entering high school
was the impact of the youth group here
at mbc the young muslim school that they
had here
and because of that i feel like that
made a huge impact in the way i am as a
muslim my muslim identity especially
going through high school in these those
four years it shaped me a lot but
outside of that there's also a lot of
you know youth groups for the sisters as
well ym is more of a brothers group is a
sisters group um for high school only
there's also a middle school group for
sisters in the middle school group for
brothers um and there's also youth of
nbc which actually combines you know
allows brothers and sisters to be in a
gathering together um where there are
different events they have different
activities outdoors indoors different
hadas led by amazing speaker i mean
amazing speakers
um and because of that i mean this led
to you know msc's own community where
people even outside of these different
organizations and activities we have
things in the masjid just you know
spontaneously because we've been
connected to the masjid so alhamdulillah
because of that we've had the
opportunity to meet a lot of new people
and it's built a relationship not only
with each other and you know the
community here but also with the masjid
and it's led a lot of people to come to
the masjid and then attend regularly
assalamu alaikum my name is dr saba khan
and i'm the vice president of muslim
community center chicago which is one of
the largest muslim organization here at
the land of chicago
this organization is more than 50 years
old and this is one of the trailblazer
when it comes to these kind of
organization the women here at this
masjid and the school system that we
have are very active and mashallah
you'll see the representation of women
not only at the board level where the
administrative decisions are made but
also at the school level at com
committee levels at different programs
that we do when it comes to religious
affairs social events educational events
youth events you'll see the
participation of women who are so
actively involved in this community and
the masjid all right
thank you guys again for visiting us
thank you
peace peace be with you
i cannot leave without giving you a gift
if you're not yet muslim and you're
tuning in to see what these muslims are
talking about and you like a free copy
of the quran go and visit the
deenshow.com we'll take care of the
postage and everything and get it
delivered to you and if you still have
some questions
about islam call us at
1-800-662-4752 we'll see you next time
until then peace be with you assalamu
alaikum this is your brother hamza
andreas
and i want every single one of you to
support eddie from the dean show
financially and otherwise but in what
way
i want you to support his new project
the dean center it's going to be a
transformative experience this center
why because it's going to be a masjid
it's going to be a place of worship it's
also going to have fitness facilities
and it's also going to be a taoist
center to call people back to allah
muslims and non-muslims and we trust
eddie completely i for one will take a
thousand bullets for eddie he has a
vision he has more than 15 years of
experience in the tower he's had a huge
success with the dean show and he has
the support of many duat and preachers
and scholars from all around the world
it's going to be an amazing project for
everybody go to thedeance.org donate now
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