Identify Who are the stakeholders (OC MAS leadership, Usra members, local muslim community, regional MAS, national MAS, larger community i.e. including non-muslims etc.)
Decide on what should we have achieved by the end of this meeting, meaning we should have defined in more or less concrete terms what we are trying to achieve:
- Ambitions, identify/classify/categorize (spiritual, social, activism, intra-org, inter-org, national, wider muslim community, intra-religious, inter-religious...)
- Review current state of affairs
- Assets we have (classify as strong, medium, need developing)
- Deficiencies/shortcomings (/risks?) - e.g. we ignore a large population of economically poorer african american muslims, communication with masjids' leadership etc.
- Areas to focus on
- Action plan on each focus area (next 3 mos, next 6 mos, 1 yr, 5yrs)
- Focus area spirituality - Connection with Allah, State of rememberance, remembering Allah in every action, humility, discipline, collective spirituality, need for brotherhood, why we can't be by ourselves being good and nice and remembering Allah?
- What is our approach to Quran and Sunnah, how is the universe (kitab alManshur) related to Quran and Sunnah, what is our approach to understanding/applying the same, what is the problem with literalists, traditionalists, liberalists etc.
- Social
- How to get out of minority/victim mentality, are we permanently in adaptation mode, when do we become adapted?
- Problems of the society, how do we contribute in making it better (social, economic, inequality, lack of justice - elaborate on the economic order)
- What is our position in the US, is it dar-ul-islam, dar-ul-harb, dar-ul-ahd (contract means you are the second party, not part of the first party)
- What is our culture (parents?, american?, fusion?)
- Assign responsibilities (say why that person is best (/best available) for the job
- Curriculum - Cover spiritual, congregational, concept of Ummah, concept of citizenship, is there a conflict? Devote much time to this, go over in detail, discuss what we achieve from discussing a particular category, then each topic in the category etc. What can we add/subtract on our own etc.
- Support/Encourage/Prod closer bonding among members (intra-usra and inter-usra) (attitude-wise, activities-wise)
- Identify/suggest activities (create a compendium? take the one from the tarbiya website - mastarbiya.org) - suggest actual ones and put a tentative plan and date esp. for inter-usra
- Guest speakers , List, Suggest topics that can be covered
- Financial, why we need finances, how to work the logistics, give the collections to MAS or keep it with ourselves?
- Training for Usra leaders (once a month sufficient?), Usra leaders themselves need Tarbiya
- Put a plan for Usra leaders growth and development (spiritual, discipline, speaking ability, persuasiveness etc.).
- Why is it that within our group things make sense but when we are out of it, its so much harder to explain the same ideas (e.g., Why we cannot always take literal meaning of Quran/Hadith, Womens issues) One time this guy said, I am already being put to test with women outside, why do I have to face the same test in the masjid, why should women even be allowed in a masjid, try explaining that in one sentence!
- Preventing ghetto mentality
- Identify various muslim groups, what our similarities are, what differences are, how to talk to them - Its important because we deal with them in masjids, as family, as friends, so our Usra members need to know how to interact in the best possible way, showing love, respect and doing islah at the same time
- Design thinking - Things to be done in a manner that becomes transparent, seamless, people don't even realize they are developing something within themselves by doing something etc.?
Rules:
- Purify intentions
- Come prepared
- No thoughts/question are stupid/irrelevant, want everything expressed without reservation
- To balance the above, Allah created time! Plan for lesser time than we actually have
- Give other people chance to speak
- Everyone should be alloted some time, if they need extra they need to ask for others to yield to them
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