As salaamu alaikum my fellow Muslim brothers and sisters at Rutgers University.  When it comes to Islamic knowledge, I am definitely not the scholar (nor do I claim to be the scholar), but permit me to express my advice to all the Muslims and also to myself.  This nation as a whole is going through a lot nowadays.  We look around and all we see is oppression, suffering, hatred, violence, and ignorance.  I’m sure we all think to ourselves, “what can I do about this?”  What can we do about this?

Upon reading the Quran one day (in the order of revelation), I read the first line stopped and thought to myself: I just said a mouthful.  “Read! In the name of your Lord who has created [all things]” (Al-‘Alaq 1).  Allah (s.w.t.) has commanded us very clearly in his very first commandment to the Prophet (s.a.w.) to read and increase our knowledge.  This is what we can do at times like this.  We need to read, learn, and once we have done that we need to educate those who have not read, or cannot read.  However, we must read in the name of Allah (s.w.t.).   I would like to encourage all of you to read, gather a diverse amount of reading material, and just read.  Take a break from your usual books of computer science or computer engineering or whatever it may be.  Then pick up a book about the Deen, or another deen, or one that has no deen at all.  Learn to be diverse in your reading--perhaps an essay by Henry David Thoreau or Ralph Waldo Emerson, maybe a scientific journal, maybe the Shahnamah of Firdausi or the Analects of Confucius.  But whatever it is that you read make sure you focus and try to understand what is behind these writings.  I definitely encourage all of you, and above all myself, to read, learn, and then educate.  Knowledge is all around us and can be found in any sort of writing whether Islamic or un-Islamic.  The Prophet (s.a.w.) has commanded us to pursue knowledge even if me must travel to China to attain it.  I believe that this was a huge key for our ancestors when they built so beautiful an Islamic nation that was premier in science, mathematics, art, and literature.  This, unquestionably, can be a huge key for us now.  This is my advice. Thank you all for taking time to read.