MCC East Bay

Al Ghazali for Children | A Six-Part Virtual Series for Families
2020-11-25 18:00 - 19:00 (America/Los_Angeles)
Author Aisha Gray Henry, founder of the Ghazali’s Children Project talks to our children about the timeless teachings of Al Ghazali over six free virtual sessions:

Nov. 11: Ghazali’s Basic Foundational Principles
Nov. 18: Purification (Wadu)
Nov. 25: Prayer (Salah)
Dec. 2: Fasting (Sawm) & Charity (Zakat)
Dec. 9: Pilgrimage (Hajj)
Dec. 16: Belief (Iman)

Wednesdays | 6 p.m. to 7 p.m. | Free | RSVP at https://mcceastbay.org/ghazali
Sponsored by Fons Vitae and MCC.
Sister Aisha will join our virtual room at 5:30 p.m. PST to engage with the children and parents before the session begins promptly at 6 p.m. Parents in the live session are encouraged to change their Zoom profile name to their child(ren) so Sr. Aisha can interact with them.

More Sister Virginia Gray Henry: https://mcceastbay.org/aisha

Parents are encouraged to join with their children. Children of any age may join. The sessions are especially recommended for children 6 to 9. Sr. Aisha also highly encourages parents to have “The Book of Knowledge for Children” on hand during these sessions. Purchase the series here.
Shaykh Hamza Yusuf says about this book: “This work can help our Muslim children have a more humane and universal understanding of the ethics and teachings of Islam through Imam al-Ghazali. I believe the work is highly relevant and very likely life-altering for those who will be exposed to it early.”

Watch Sister Aisha’s recent visit to the MCC Sunday School here.

About the Author
Aisha Gray-Henry is the Founder and Director of the charitable foundation and publishing company Fons Vitae. Fons Vitae is currently engaged in the monumental task of bringing out Ghazali’s Ihya in readable English for parents and teachers as well as adapting it to accommodate children’s workbooks, school curricula, and an instructional DVD. The Book of Knowledge and The Principles of the Creed educational sets are available and in use internationally with Purity and Prayer nearing completion. Included is a children’s interactive website www.GhazaliChildren.org, a pilot school project and prison program. Translations into Urdu, Arabic, and Malay are underway. The Fons Vitae Ghazali Project has been launched with great acclaim in Morocco, Canada, Indonesia, England, and the USA so far.
About the Project
One of the most important projects of our time for children and families is the Ghazali Children’s Project published by Fons Vitae in collaboration with Shaykh Hamza Yusuf.
One of the key components of the project that is included in the tour will be the launch of the Al Ghazali for Children project championed by publishers Fons Vitae (USA).
The Ghazali Project is an adaptation of Imam Ghazali’s Ihya for children in story form, published as a series of books with an interactive website. It aims to support Muslim parents, teachers, and children in realising how to live by and embody the noble Prophetic character through self-observation and self-correction.
The series aims to provide authentic, quality guidance through Ghazali’s systematic approach for developing virtuous character. He provides the entire family with a clear and simple map for living correctly – according to one’s fitrah, one’s innate, pure, true nature.
Learn more about this project at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xv020hASS5U
Who is Al Ghazali?
An alchemist is a person who can create gold from base metals. It is a quest as old as legend. The truth is that alchemy exists, but not of base metals, but of the human heart.
Imam al-Ghazali (1058-1111 CE) is probably one of the greatest alchemists of all time. And in an epoch where the human condition is in its direst straits, never more has there been a need for the chemistry of Imam al-Ghazali.
A theologian, jurist, philosopher, mystic and polymath, Abu Hamid Muhammad ibn Muhammad al-Ghazali is not only ranked amongst Islam’s finest scholars, but is one of mankind’s finest students of the human condition. Known as Algazel to the mediaeval world, he was born in Tus, the Khorasan province of ancient Persia.
When he had the academic world at his feet in his early thirties, he spurned fame and fortune to go into a mode of self-denial and spiritual seclusion that lasted for many years.
Already an acknowledged master of Holy Law, he re-entered society a practiced Sufi – a true gnostic. A genius, Imam al-Ghazali was fully proficient in Greek and Roman philosophy, and he debunked its central tenets, proving that Revelation was always going to be superior to human reason. Human thinking could never evolve, he wrote, in an existential vacuum.
It was all of this that prompted him to write his magnus-opus, the Ihya ‘Ulumad-Din (the Revival of the Religious Sciences). It is today regarded as one of the classic works on the human psyche. In the Ihya the author explains step-by-step how to turn one’s base instincts and desires into the golden ideal.
Today’s modern world – devolved of spirituality and fraught with destructive ills such as materialism, multi-national greed and violence – is in need of people like Imam al-Ghazali. This is because Imam al-Ghazali teaches a way to balance the body and the soul, thus allowing us to reconcile modernity with spirituality in its very broadest, and most universal, sense. (Source: Dome Publishers)
Questions? events@mcceastbay.org

Hallmark Traits of the Righteous: Acquiring Virtue in a Time of Vice | Sidi Shahryar Abbasi
2020-11-25 20:00 - 21:00
We are living in a time filled with corruption, hate, and rudeness. Everyone seems to be out for themselves and every week we learn about more jaw-dropping, immoral behavior at the highest levels of society. As Muslims, the most important thing that we can focus on in these times is to acquire good traits.
In this new virtual series, we discuss the traits of the Believers as described in the Qur’an and that are exemplified by Allah’s friends, who are His most favorite servants.
8 p.m. to 9 p.m. | Wednesdays | Sept. 16 to Dec. 16 | Free, no registration | Watch at https://mcceastbay.org/live or watch past recordings in this series: https://mcceastbay.org/hallmark
Each Wednesday evening, we cover one new trait like patience, trust (tawakul) or standing up for justice, provide examples of great people that have embodied that quality, and discuss practical steps for how we can cultivate these virtues and reshape our character to be pleasing to our Creator and His Messenger.

Watch “Traits of the Righteous” Series: https://mcceastbay.org/hallmark
More Sidi Shahryar: https://mcceastbay.org/shahryar
Sidi Shahryar’s Past Real Talk Series: https://mcceastbay.org/real-talk

Questions? events@mcceastbay.org
