our next
masha allah motivational speaker
inshallah tala i’m sister nahila morales
who i’ve known for masha’allah
over a decade alhamdulillah and
mashallah she was
um she was one of the main sources
mashallah of getting me to come and be
part of
islam
islam
the ropes that tugged me masha’allah to
come to finally by islam
along with sister wendy and others
alhamdulillah um sister nahila morales
is a convert immigrant mexican-american
humanitarian award-winning um
activist international public speaker
and a single mother of an amazing young
man alhamdulillah who have had the
experience to go on many dawah
expeditions with israel alhamdulillah as
a public speaker she has
had the opportunity to speak in
countries like sweden colombia brazil
and especially her native mexico she has
represented a variety of oppressed
demographics
through her years as an activist and
humanitarian she is also a co-founder of
embrace and currently serves as their
marketing director and doing an amazing
job
with our cover brothers and sisters in
dallas and other locations that they
have opened up inshallah
sister the floor is yours insha’allah to
share with us
my shout out your beautiful motivational
stories
thank you for that and indeed we’ve
traveled
the world together masha’allah um
subhanallah
um so where do i even begin subhanallah
why islam is so dear to my heart uh
so much so that i continue
uh to what they say is that once a day
or once you
are in this field always adaia and
subhanallah i never leave home without
my yslam pamphlets
and i’ll show you this is my little
purse
and i normally carry english and spanish
and
the reason is because i’m bilingual so i
wanna um i wanna start
by telling you a little bit about my
story and how
i came to islam so my my
story began with actually 9 11 that was
my introduction to this
beautiful faith and when this happened
it actually happened three months prior
i actually moved from california three
months prior to new york city
and so my birthday is 9 12.
and um that morning of 9 11
i was supposed to go into the city and i
was supposed to actually take a train
that went under the twin towers but i
fell asleep
and then when i woke up the second tower
was being
um hit and so
it was it was very impactful to me
that i could have been there but i
wasn’t it was almost like
allah giving me a second chance even
though i didn’t see it
that way then i see it now and
um so fast forward um
you know i i went and bought a quran
because
one of the things that really captivated
my attention was
uh the two words allahu akbar i didn’t
know what it meant
uh but i kept hearing it and it was just
it was so repetitive that i i needed to
find out what this meant
and sure enough i went to buy a quran
which was very difficult
at the time i didn’t know why islam
existed
and obviously if i would have it would
have been so much easier to just call
877y islam and get one for free
um so i started reading the quran and
prior to this my journey my spiritual
journey began at a very young age
i always question the trinity i come
from a catholic background
and it never made sense to me i mean
three and one
going into a confession booth which was
extremely scary
um sometimes you don’t have sins to go
and confess
and yet you have to come up with things
because you have to go in there
um so i remember
i had to i moved from new york to new
jersey um
and short after that my son was born
and that’s really when my quest began
subhanallah i visited
a mosque for the first time which was a
very very
frightening experience i didn’t know
what to expect
and um obviously it was
it was very intimidating um so the
the story just is so long i’m trying to
summarize it for you all
but um i finally go to north hudson
islamic educational center which became
my second home
and um there was no one that spoke
english unfortunately
if i would have known why islam was
there that story would
be completely different um i was kind of
disappointed
but the gentleman that was there told me
in his broken english to come back that
there was a class that day and i did
and so subhanallah i met sheikh
very compassionate one of my very first
teachers
who immediately made me feel comfortable
and at home
and i remember him pulling out all kinds
of material and
within that material obviously there was
some wise and pamphlets mashallah
and so i went home i started um reading
i
started um you know educating myself
even further
and eventually actually ramadan is the
time of year that i embraced islam
and not too long ago i found out that i
was born in ramadan
actually when you go back and look
through muslim pro
you’re able to see when you were born in
the islamic calendar so i was born on
the 6th of ramadan
and i converted the last day of ramadan
of that year subhanallah
full circle and so
i decided to wear my hijab very soon
after converting
and it was it was a test within a test
and another test and obviously allah was
was building me to who i am today
and soon after i embraced islam and i
embraced my hijab i actually got fired
and my son
was very very young so
it was very frightening times for me i
remember making
a specific dua and i wasn’t able to find
work for approximately two years
and i made a dua i raised my hands and i
asked allah subhanahu dala
to provide me with not any job i wanted
a job where i can serve him
where i can serve his creation where i
can wear my hijab
and where i could pray with of any
problem
and subhanallah i still remember this
was around
october november-ish more or less
and why islam was doing fundraising that
night
in in the masjid and the president at
the time
overheard me speaking spanish and he
said
we’re looking for someone like you and i
said well i think you’re my duo being
answered
and he kind of didn’t understand what i
was saying he gave me the email before
you knew it i was emailing my resume and
i was calling constantly like so am i
hired am i hired when do i start
and subhanallah i made a lot of dua and
everything that i prayed for came true
with this job that would last
several years for me and i became the
national
hispanic daoa coordinator for many many
years
and throughout this position i have been
able to travel around the world
and it has been not only very fruitful
but it has been very beneficial to
myself
my family and everybody that i encounter
with
because you see my beloved brothers and
sisters
islam is not just a religion like any
other religion
islam is a way of life as many of you
know so islam
is from the minute that we wake up until
we go to sleep
and so working with white islam i’ve
learned that
any opportunity that we have um
it can be you know i mean i i have
i have so many stories we went to the
world cup with um
with why islam and actually brother abu
samaya
went with us along with many other
wonderful
brothers and sisters from all around the
world um
i remember we did so many social
experience experiments
and people are so ready and so hungry
for
this message it’s just a matter of time
and obviously we need
we need your donations in order to
continue these efforts
and so i remember and i’ll tell you this
story because i think it’s
it’s imperative for all of us to
understand how dawah works
and how why islam connects hearts so
during this world cup um trip which was
about three weeks
and we had you know public figures like
uh brother bunham muhammad on this trip
along with so many others um that came
and so i remember that our driver we had
a designated driver
and mashallah he um he
he was he was so kind but we also showed
that kindness through action right so we
were always taking care of
don carlo and we were always asking him
if he was hungry
if he was okay if he needed water and i
remember um we went to the favela which
is the slumps of brazil
to give dawa um and that was such
a unique experience um
that we went to the slumps where there’s
no
authority the authority is the gang
leaders
and so the gang leader was knocking door
to door with us
giving dao a subhanallah just imagine
that anyway
during this trip and we decided to give
out um
uh food packages uh so uh helping han
which is one of our sister organizations
uh embarked on this trip as well and we
gave these packages
and i remember uh don carlo our our
driver mashallah
he um he was looking for the cheapest
packages for us to give out
and he was adamant about it and he was
looking and
and mashallah we were so excited and you
know people
asked about islam and people wanted to
know who we were
where we came from and i remember that
day don carlos said you know today is a
day
and i didn’t understand what he meant
and he says you know what
i’m ready to be one like you and
obviously we all got teary
and he said i can’t believe that you
came from so far to help my people
and show your faith through action
and here i am not doing anything so
i want to be one like you and
he embraced islam subhanallah and um
again we have tons and tons of stories i
mean throughout mexico
and one of the things that we have to
remember is that we are here
um to convey the message like the
brother pryor said you know
our goal is never shahadas because
shahadas are
a huge responsibility upon us and so
we got to make sure that we’re taking
care of those shahadas as well
um another um another
story that i have to share with you all
is that many of you may not know this
but my mother actually took shahada on
the y islam hotline
subhanallah and this was several years
ago
and so um it was it was pretty um
amazing because uh she saw me i did i
think a television show about islam on a
spanish channel
and she saw me and she said um you know
why are you wearing that in your head
are you muslim there was a soap opera at
the time i remember
um for my spanish-speaking audience el
clone was on
which was a soap opera and
so it had tendencies islamic tendencies
but obviously it was more cultural it
was the moroccan culture
and uh and so i remember her asking me
but i was
so scared to to share with her i don’t
know why
i decided to prepare a box for her and i
send her pamphlets
and brochures and books and a
quran in spanish everything in spanish
and hamdulillah she was able to read it
she decided to call one night and the
representative that she got
i guess they had a very very fruitful
relate uh conversation
um and so she decided to take shahada i
remember that day i was very busy she
called me i guess to tell me but i
didn’t pick up i said i’ll call her
uh later and later became another day
and before you knew it i was back at
work on monday and i had so many emails
congratulating me i didn’t know why
they were congratulating me and it was
because my mother had embraced islam
uh through the white islam hotline
subhanallah
and so that’s that’s the other point i
want to make that
we have we have the spanish language as
i showed you here i have both pamphlets
in english and spanish always in my
purse right
uh for those of you that know when you
travel
to any uh spanish-speaking country
islam is seen as something very foreign
foreign
and but it’s not looked down upon people
are so ready to receive this message
and this is why it is so important for
us
to contribute um both to
uh the why islam project and the porque
islam
and here’s why so for i don’t know
i mean i’ve been with igna for over 10
years and
for that long i’ve been traveling all
over the world giving dawah
helping um you know establish different
masjids and we actually build a masjid
in chiapas mexico with our
indigenous muslims and so
um when you travel overseas
and you’re speaking spanish your own
language to your people
sometimes they don’t they can’t
comprehend or they can’t separate the
head wrap
versus what’s coming out until you’re
able to provide
something tangible right like this like
this pamphlet
so it is so important for us to continue
this work and to be able to have the
resources
such as these brochures these flyers
these pamphlets whatever you want to
call them
and spanish qurans in hand this work
needs to continue because each and every
one of us
is responsible on the day of judgment
allah
does tells us that there is no
compulsion in religion but
each and every one of us is responsible
to convey this message
and so as converts as rivers and new
muslims we’re so excited
upon embracing islam mashallah to
to convey this message and so if we
don’t have these research
resources we won’t be able to do so
so i want to invite everyone to
invest in your achara because whatever
you do here
you will take with you and again this is
this is ongoing
charity right so it’s so important for
each and one of us each and every one of
us
to actually take that upon ourselves
to to actually whatever it is one dollar
five
it doesn’t matter allah subhanahu wa
tala wants
consistency from us for us to be
always um inshallah that we
we we make it habitual we we we always
are giving for his sake
because just like he gives he can take
it away from us
right so let’s make sure that these last
10 nights
we put our blessings
uh give them back to to to these
projects
because it’s so important for us to
insha allah contribute uh to
why islam and islam
and so um the last point i want to talk
about today
is my journey as far as
my relationship with why islam why islam
is like i said at the beginning
will always be very dear to my heart you
know i have been able to witness
many shahadas and even though that has
never been
my key point i don’t leave my house and
say today
i plan on five shahadas absolutely not
obviously
like the brother prior to me said
hidayah
you know comes from allah
so keeping that in mind your intention
should always be
to convey the message whether it’s with
a pamphlet or
with the best manners and who had the
best manners
our beloved prophet sallallahu alaihi
wasallam peace be upon him
so let’s make sure that we
are always on our toes with our behavior
with our manners
uh for us sisters if you do um absorb
the
hijab let’s make sure that you know
hijab is not only
uh the the the piece of cloth that we
wear on our head
it’s also the way we carry ourselves
whatever comes out of our mouth
whatever we’re looking at whatever we’re
listening to so it’s very important for
us to make sure that we’re representing
each other
well and so i want to make sure that
everybody
understands that we all have a job in
this dunya
and our job is to our purpose in life
is to worship allah subhanahu wa and
when we worship him by
conveying and sharing this beautiful
message of islam
we we are really doing the best that we
can and we are following our beloved
prophet
muhammad peace be upon him footsteps and
that’s what we should be
um you know uh copying or
emulating inshallah so with that i just
want to
invite every single one of you of you to
once again
uh please invest in your there’s nothing
more beautiful
than to know that you know your hard
work
uh you know there is there’s someone
actually benefiting from
your contributions by continuing this
work
to take place um even after
we leave this life so jazakallah hair
thank you so much and again go to why
islam.org
slash donate donate donate for the sake
of allah
brazil subhanallah um one of the most
amazing things
which we have been talking about and how
this can um
inspire and motivate people right this
work that’s being done as brother
mustafa mentioned
that you know sometimes you end up
inspiring and motivating people
and guiding them that when we went to
brazil we got two amazing individuals
who were motivated and inspired right
brother fayette and his wife who came
along they joined along with us for
about 20 days they would come out with
us they would get down with us right
subhanallah they were like
inspired and then they themselves turned
into dao machines subhanallah they
created their own org
we were using the pamphlets that we gave
masha’allah and they went out there and
they’ve been given dawah
and inviting people to islam and giving
shahada and this
all happened because marshall that we
went on that trip mashaallah the world
cup
and we destroyed we distributed i think
like ten twenty thousand
ten to twenty thousand pamphlets just
within those twenty days at the world
cup subhanallah
and what was most transfer as well they
were um
they were translated to portuguese
portuguese yes
even in the language of the people which
allah tells us that he created us
into nations and tribes to get to know
one another so the language wasn’t a
barrier
you know because the smile is its own
language so
we were able to obrigado
and one of the most amazing things like
we said when we’re given that was
especially in these other countries it’s
about to show why islam is not national
but it’s become internet it was internet
it’s international as well that
these individuals we would give out a
pamphlet to one person i remember
on the train or the bus whatever it was
and we gave out a pamphlet to one person
everybody’s looking at you like
you
and some people would just stop right
where they were they would kind of put
their foot up against the building and
they would start to read these pamphlets
subhanallah and engage within those
pamphlets that why islam put out during
that time muhammad
and we continue to put out now inshallah
so jazakillah al-qaeda sister nahila for
all of your hard work all of your
contribution may allah
you