Voice #8 - A Father, A Brother, and Amina: "From Crisis to Compassion: We Chose Love and Boundaries While Learning How to Heal"

A single sentence can anchor a life: “You will always be my sister.” 

Our season finale gathers Amina, her father, and her brother for a rare, vulnerable conversation about love with boundaries, faith under pressure, and what it takes to heal without rewriting what you believe. We walk through the “watershed” road trip and surgery plan that split the family’s memories, hear a father name the all-night flights, the frantic calls, and the imam’s simple counsel, and watch a brother draw a firm line — no endorsement of what he can’t accept — while keeping his door, and his heart, wide open.

Across the episode, a few themes keep returning. Dua, istikhara, and tawbah as the three tools that actually sustain families when certainty disappears.  Accountability without cruelty — owning parental failures, apologizing for absences, and protecting the marriage and the other children who are catching the fallout. Most of all, loving the child you have rather than the ideal one you imagined. 

These and other relevant themes are discussed in this episode, which is highly recommended for parents, friends, and family members of individuals experiencing same-sex attractions or gender dysphoria.

The conversation offers a final image worth keeping: be the gentle breeze — kind, careful, steady — so the door stays open for growth and healing.

Amina's story from A Way Beyond the Rainbow - Episode 26

Episodes discussing sexual abuse from A Way Beyond the Rainbow - Episode 60 and Episode 61

Chapters

• 0:00 Opening And Season Finale Setup
• 3:27 Intros: Amina, Dad, And Brother
• 6:12 Family Backstory And Conversions
• 15:20 The Road Trip And The Shoulder Surgery Clash
• 25:40 Dad’s Perspective: Risk, Panic, And Protection
• 36:20 Amina’s View: Impact, Memory, And Loyalty
• 45:50 Brother’s Role And Sibling Bond
• 54:10 Aftermath: Distance, Letters, And Gradual Return
• 1:03:40 Boundaries, Privacy, And Not Snooping
• 1:12:20 Advice For Families: Dua, Istikhara, Tawbah
• 1:21:10 Abuse, Accountability, And Empathy
• 1:30:10 Growth Lessons: Narcissism, BPD, And Self-Work
• 1:38:50 Community Outreach And Changing Minds
• 1:46:30 What We Wish We’d Said
• 1:52:40 Final Guidance And Closing CTA

Transcript

Waheed: 2:27

Assalamu alaikom warahmatullahi wabarakatuh, and welcome to a new episode of Voices from Beyond the Rainbow. I'm your host, Waheed Jensen, and thank you for joining me in today's episode. Today's episode is the last episode of the season, and I have three special guests with me today. Joining me today from the United States is Amina, her father, as well as her brother, in a sort of an online family reunion. I'm sure many of you are familiar with Amina's story from A Way Beyond the Rainbow. If you haven't listened to it yet, I would recommend you start with that episode first and then listen to our episode here, as that puts things in proper context. You will find a link to Amina's story in the episode show notes. In today's episode, we talk about different perspectives. We see things from a father's point of view, from a brother's point of view, and from a daughter's point of view. We laugh together, we grieve together, and we share lessons and triumphs along the way. We talk about personal and familial growth, forgiveness, and helping each other heal from past wounds. Amina's father and brother also offer their unique insights as family members, so this is a highly recommended episode for parents, friends, and family members within our communities. Today's episode is a full house, and I am very excited to share it with you. I hope you enjoy it, inshaAllah. 

Assalamu alaikom everyone. Welcome to Voices from Beyond the Rainbow. It's good to have you all here.

Amina: 4:55

Wa alaikom assalam.

Amina's Brother: 4:57

Dad, you should go next. Wa alaikom assalam by the way!

Abu Amina: 5:03

Wa alaikom assalam warahmatullahi wabarakatuh, it's good to be here.

Waheed: 5:07

It's good to have you. Thank you very much. I'm very excited about today's episode. We have so many things to cover. So I'm gonna skip Amina because everyone knows who she is and her story basically. But we're gonna go to Abu Amina. How should I call you? Abu Amina is fine, inshaAllah?

Abu Amina: 5:26

Yes, that's just fine.

Waheed: 5:28

Excellent, all right. So Abu Amina, would you like to introduce yourself?

Abu Amina: 5:32

Sure. I mean I'm Amina's father, obviously. I was born and raised in the West. I was not raised in a Muslim household. I reverted to Islam many years ago. I think Amina was about four years old at the time when I reverted. And yeah, here we are.

Waheed: 5:59

All right, wonderful. And Amina's brother, what should I call you for this episode?

Amina's Brother: 6:05

Amina's brother works great. She's the star.

Waheed: 6:08

Wonderful.

Amina's Brother: 6:09

Alhamdulillah, sholatu rasulillah. I'm Amina's brother, obviously. I do feel like it's integral to her story and our story to explain. So father and mother, they met in school, met in medical school, they got married, and they had her and I. When I was like two years older than Amina, when she was about four, when I was like six or seven, that's when my dad converted to Islam. And he can speak to the full story if he wishes to, but basically kind of a medical miracle. Mom was Catholic, dad was pretty much against organized religion, comes from a Quaker background of all things, and didn't like organized religion, and wasn't really sure if God existed or not But basically his mother had this brain tumor, and the brain tumor is of a particular type that he said, like I've watched patients bleed out on the operating table from the attempt to remove it. It's just so highly vascularized, right? And he basically made the prayer of the atheist, like, okay, God, if you save my mother, I'll try and find a way to worship you. Long story short, his mother was saved. It's interesting how Allah sends people signs that they recognize, right? The doctors for his mother were trying to convince them that there's a good chance we're gonna be able to operate. She has a good prognosis. But I mean, basically, my father and mother took a look at the situation, it looks pretty grim. Anyways, the way my dad says it is that he remembered his promise to Allah some years later and started investigating, researched a bunch of religions. Islam was the last on the list, and he became Muslim. Our mom is kind of ticked off. She's like, Okay, you know, if you're gonna become anything, just become Christian. So make it easier on me and the kids. But she starts noticing things like he threw away all the alcohol. There's a lot less pee around the toilet in the bathroom. And so she decides to read the Quran kind of like to kind of just try to debunk it. And then a year after he became Muslim, she became Muslim. Alhamdulillah. And then like a year later, they divorced. They had their differences, but Alhamdulillah, like if anybody doubted like that, if anybody thought that our mother converted to Islam because of my father, no, they both remained Muslim after the divorce, they both remarried other Muslims. So, anyways, why I'm telling all this and introducing myself is that basically I probably have the same experience as maybe a lot of a lot of your listeners. Like, I basically just grew up Muslim. You know, when you're growing up from the age of six or seven, you're just Muslim because your parents are Muslim. So I'm going through the motions throughout my whole life, praying, fasting, but not really knowing why I'm doing it. Then when we get to like late teens, early twenties, that's when I start dating a girl. And I probably had gotten the memo about dating. I must have gotten the memo, the memo about dating being haram, but of course I chose to ignore it. It was a very interesting period because like this woman we had actually, I think it was you Amina that we connected over. Like she called me about your birthday or something, and she wanted to get in touch with you. And then we wound up clicking because we had been to the same high school and we went out on a date and we just immediately clicked, and our personalities were so similar. We both said, she was Catholic, I was Muslim, obviously, and we both just said no sex before marriage, and alhamdulillah, Allah helped us to keep that pledge. Extremely dangerous. I'm not saying this as any recommendation, don't try this at home, kids. I wish I had not done this, but so Allah helped us to keep that pledge, and basically we were so similar. It became very obvious to me very quickly that, like, okay, I could see myself marrying this woman. But hey, there's this one fundamental difference between the two of us. I'm Muslim, she's Catholic. And so it got me into this whole thing of like, okay, why am I Muslim? Like, okay, when I really ask myself that question of why am I Muslim, the answer to that is well, it's because my parents are Muslim and they raised me as a Muslim. And so I'm just like, that doesn't really make any sense. That's not a good enough reason, right? Like we read how Allah talks about prophets and messengers being sent to people and ask the people why they are Muslim, and they will respond, we don't wish to leave the religion of our forefathers, right? And it's just like, okay how am I doing anything any differently from them? And so I need a real reason for being Muslim. And this woman was the spark for that. And so I started researching, looking into things. And eventually I just became convinced that like, okay, I need a logical intellectual reason for being Muslim. And I started researching. I became convinced that Islam was the truth, and we were having discussions, and it became clear that we weren't going to be able to come to an agreement on this. And I was just thinking to myself, okay, when we have kids and stuff like that, like what are we gonna do? We're gonna celebrate Christmas, celebrate Eid, it just doesn't make sense. Anyways, I'm going on and on. Eventually we had to break it off. It was very hard, it was very difficult, but Alhamdulillah Allah gave me something so much better in my wife today. And I guess why I'm telling all this as part of my introduction, I know I'm going on and on, and I'm not trying to make it all about me. I guess what I'm trying to say is because I know that a lot of people, obviously, who are listening, are in their struggle with SSA like searching for love and searching for romantic partnerships. And I can just say that from my own experience which I know it's very different, but I can just say from my own experience that when you leave something for the sake of Allah, like he will he will replace it with something far better for you. What form will that take? Allah knows best. But yeah, like today, the woman I'm married to, I have the same experience. Her personality is just so extremely similar to mine. And we click in every way, it's everything that I had before except that she is Muslim. And that completes it. And I wish the best for this, I wish the best for my ex. I ask Allah to guide her and her husband to Islam. And yeah, anyways, I've talked long enough.

Waheed: 13:24

Well, thank you for that beautiful introduction, jazakallah khair. So Abu Amina, I was thinking, are you kind of maybe do you want to reintroduce yourself after Amina's brother's introduction, or is that okay with you?

Amina's Brother: 13:41

I think you should, Dad. I think you should totally talk about your conversion story. I think it's an integral part of you, you and our family. I mean, you are the means by which Islam entered our family.

Waheed: 13:52

Definitely no pressure though. Yeah.

Amina's Brother: 13:55

I'm just the MC hyping up dad. Yeah.

Waheed: 14:00

All right.

Abu Amina: 14:01

Well, Bismillah Alhamdulillah. No, I don't have that much to add. You've inserted some really interesting twists into my story. I was trying to recognize this guy, but anyway, yeah, I think just the bottom line is you know, there are details to everyone's conversion story, obviously, and that's very important to us. But you know, I don't really have much to add because the truth is that you know it's just by the mercy of Allah that anyone comes to Islam, that anyone stays in Islam, that anyone avoids the various pitfalls along the way and so on and so forth. So I think that's about all I have to say about that. Of course, I find my son's perspective certainly interesting. 

Waheed: 14:57

Alhamdulillah. Well, thank you for that, jazakallah khair.

Amina's Brother: 15:01

I mean, I can add stuff, I know stuff from what he said, what my mom said. So if you want me to add stuff about my dad, I'm happy to.

Waheed: 15:09

I mean, the sky's the limit. Whatever you guys want to talk about, I'm here for it. So but no pressure. Amina’s like I cannot deal with this right now.

Amina: 15:19

I mean, just to make it about me, real quick. I just want to point out that obviously to my brother, that I introduced you to your very first girlfriend, and then I kind of led you to Islam because you started really researching it more after that. No, I'm just kidding, though.

Amina's Brother: 15:40

Totally.

Abu Amina: 15:40

But wow, this is really getting to be one twist after another. Personally, I really I'm not too interested in talking about you know my road to Islam in this venue. I mean it was quite a while ago, and then my son and my daughter were both quite young at the time.

Waheed: 16:08

Oh yeah, absolutely. And I guess it's quite a personal journey, subhanAllah, and, you know, there's a lot of things to talk about when it comes to one's kind of discovery of Islam and and what led them to that. And as you said, you know, this is not the place for it, and I respect that. But I think, inshaAllah, what we would like to talk about is basically your perspectives when it comes to SSA and Amina's story and all of that. So going back, I think it was five years ago, subhanAllah, how time flies, when Amina's story was first published on A Way Beyond the Rainbow, and it's one of actually one of the most popular episodes of the entire podcast. A lot of people have you know been touched by it, it's resonated with so many people across the world, men and women alike, and a lot of parents as well, you know, who have reached out to me, who have reached out to Amina and have benefited so much from you know a lot of the resources she had to offer as well. And who have spoken to you Abu Amina, about Amina as well. And I'm not sure Amina's brother, if anyone's spoken to you, but I'm guessing maybe that's also possible. I think maybe we can start off by examining your kind of individual perspectives on Amina's story, you know, obviously you you've known her story before the episode, but you know, listening to that, you know, compacted almost two hours kind of recollection of what she has been through and her own personal perspectives on on the matters. How did you both interact with that? How did that resonate with you? Especially kind of just to give you an idea that you know Amina's brother has been, you know, people have been rooting for him ever since they listened to the episode. Whereas Amina's father, you know, Abu Amina, is not a very shiny character in that story. So I want to give you both the chance to kind of maybe elaborate on that and and you know give us your own personal perspectives on that. So bismillah, let's start with Abu Amina, inshaAllah.

Abu Amina: 18:13

Sure. What I found, I guess one thing I found interesting about that segment was the focus on that one particular visit. So I've had the opportunity to talk with Amina in some detail about that and to kind of lay out the background to that particular visit. But of course, there'd been many many times together before that, and there have been times together after that. And so I guess it would be really complex to go into the background of that particular trip. So you know, basically I guess I'll say this. Amina's mother and her husband contacted me literally, you know, basically in a panic and basically were explaining that I had to do something that basically Amina was in peril by what she was planning to do, which I agree from what I know of it. And so I did what I could to try to intercept that process without going into detail there. And as I basically expected, it wouldn't be successful because I like to think I know my daughter a little bit and I was quite certain that I was not gonna be successful in swaying her decision making. But I had a go at it. So the fallback position was that if unsuccessful and if she survived then I you know it was left pretty open as to where things would go from there. Possibly she would be having some surgery and recovering with us. But it was really very hard to know where things were gonna go. Yeah, I mean I guess I could go into more detail about my thinking and my advice to parents, family members and so on.

Waheed: 20:49

Yeah, we can get to that, but I just want to give some context to the listeners. So this was the incident that you were talking about when Amina had to undergo shoulder surgery, and she needed some time to recover after that surgery at your home. Correct me Amina, if you want to maybe shed light on that.

Amina: 21:06

Yeah, basically it was when I was 18 and the plan was I was going to get shoulder surgery done where my dad was living, and I was going to recover at his place for you know however long that recovery was going to be, but it could be anywhere up to up to six months. And so the event that my dad was referring to is what I had talked about in the previous episode. For me, that was kind of the climax of everything. But I do agree with my dad that there were things leading up to that. But the event was that I drove cross-country to stay at my dad’s before the shoulder surgery, and I was doing that drive with my girlfriend at the time. It was my very first girlfriend, and the plan was not to have my girlfriend show up with me at my dad's door. I wasn't that dumb. I was pretty dumb, but like not that dumb. So she had flown back from I believe it was Boston or something before arriving at my dad's house. But obviously, everybody knew I was taking this trip with this girl. Nobody had explicitly asked me, is that your girlfriend or are you traveling with your girlfriend or anything like that. But it was just pretty obvious that there was something between us. And so what my dad was referring to, which I actually didn't even remember, is he actually flew out to me the day before, I believe it was the day before, I can't remember exactly, but I think it was the day before that I was supposed to take that trip. And he tried to convince me not to go on this trip with my girlfriend. Even at that time, he actually showed up with my brother as well. And at that time, he didn't say, Hey, please don't take this trip with your girlfriend or anything like that. He was basically just trying to tell me not to take this trip. And he actually had arranged for me to fly back with him that same day. He showed up at my work to ask me this. And of course, me being 18, I have just planned out this trip with my girlfriend for the next two weeks. This fun and exciting trip to go on a road trip. And my personality, there was no way that I was flying back with my dad that day. And I will give him credit where credit is due. He did try. What I didn't know that my dad and I had talked about recently was that my mom had contacted him previously and basically told him, Hey, you have to stop this. Or maybe, I do remember that now that he said it, that was a thing. But it is just kind of interesting, just like my dad is talking about, you know, he's questioning why this event was such a main focus of the episode. And I think this is just one of those things that depending on the person, something might be very impactful for you. And then it sort of is irrelevant to somebody else. So for my dad, maybe this me taking this road trip and then me not being able to stay at his house, that wasn't his climax of this whole journey. You know, his climax might have been something else of this whole journey of SSA for me, right? And there were so many events leading up to that, and there were things after that. But for me, that was kind of the pinnacle of my journey with SSA in terms of how things were gonna go forward. And I knew right then and there where people really stood in terms of my SSA. I knew where my dad stood, even if he didn't have to voice it. I knew from the fact that I wasn't gonna be able to stay there. I knew where my brother stood, I knew where my mom stood when I got back. When I drove back and met with her. So yeah, just one of those situations where it's kind of like you never know the impact, right? And I talk to my brother about this all the time. My brother doesn't even remember. He remembers driving back with me, but he doesn't remember half of the things that he told me. You know, for me, I get emotional even just talking about it. Because for me, I remember him clearly saying, you know, you will still always be my sister. We are blood, we are family, and nothing will ever change that. And so for me, I get emotional thinking about it. And then when I talked to my brother about this, he's like, Yeah, I don't even remember saying that. But it's just one of those things that had such a huge impact on me. But for him, you know, it just wasn't impactful for him, I'm sure, in some way when he was saying it, it was. And but so I think that's you know, for my dad, I I think that you know, you're free to talk about other events or things that were leading up to that moment that you think are more substantial from your perspective, or things that happened afterwards, or whatever it is, because that was just my perspective, and it might have just been because I was 18. And this was, you know, I still talk about the road trip to this day. Even now that I'm 36, and I still talk about that, and I still remember that road trip because it's just such a big moment for me, not even in terms of you know, the SSA part, it was just a fun trip for me. So, but obviously that's a different experience than what my family experienced.

Amina's Brother: 26:51

Oh my god, you thought that was fun. Oh man.

Amina: 26:55

Yeah, being 18. Yeah, I guess.

Abu Amina: 27:01

Thank you. Thank you son.

Amina's Brother: 27:03

No, I mean, like it's so funny. Like, by the way, Waheed, I don't know if you want us to like interject or if you want to.

Waheed: 27:09

Oh yes, please, please go ahead. I'm all here for it.

Amina's Brother: 27:13

I kind of wanted to jump in when Amina was talking about dad and coming out, and I was like, Yeah, I remember that. And actually, I think it was probably because post-divorce, like my dad and mom weren't like just best buds, they weren't like just you know yacking away on the phone every day. Usually, like it was me or Amina if something needed to be communicated, we were like the messengers between the two of them, and so I think I remember mom like having me call up dad and be like, yo, you need to get out here. And so I think I might have also played a role in dad coming out and doing that intervention style.

Waheed: 27:54

And just for me, just for us to understand, the main reason why dad was against the whole road trip is because Amina was traveling with her girlfriend at the time, or was it because she was taking cross-country road trips? What was happening?

Amina: 28:09

Yeah, I would really love to know that too because that was always the weird part for me, is nobody ever just asked me. I don't remember anyone, I don't remember my brother ever just coming to me and saying, Hey, are you dating this girl? By the way, everybody, I was already moved out at this time. I moved out on my 18th birthday. So I was already moved out. I, you know, wasn't living with my brother or my mom or my dad or anything like that. So there was obviously a lot of talk going on about me, I'm sure, that I just wasn't privy to. But nobody ever just asked. Everybody knew I was really close to this girl that was very outwardly, she looked pretty masculine. So, you know, not to make any assumptions or anything, but people were making assumptions that she most likely was homosexual or had SSA or whatever. And then I'm spending a lot of time with her. So just by assumption, people are going to assume that we are together, but nobody ever asked me. And I always told myself that if somebody just asked me, I would just tell them the truth, which I think is another reason why that event when I drove cross country and I arrived at my dad's house. I remember it being the first time somebody in my family, not really my family, but my dad's wife, just asked me point blank, are you dating that person that you traveled with? And I said, Yes. Because I wasn't going to lie. So I'm very curious, like the day before the trip or whenever it was the day before, two days before, when you guys were talking about it or planning it, it was never brought up, hey, I think Amina is dating this woman, please put a stop to it. Or, you know, how did that go?

Abu Amina: 29:59

Sure. So from my perspective, I mean, I am the reason I said what I said about this, the focus of the podcast, and it is interesting. I mean, no, there's no doubt. I mean, different people's perspectives, what stands out in the memory for one person versus others, et cetera, et cetera. But the reason it was very different for me is because for me, this was just one data point along the way on this long voyage. So, but I mean, obviously, sort of how would you know in a sense? I mean, what I was aware of, what I wasn't aware of. So you know, I don't. I don't know if it's really useful to go into all these details, but hopefully it will be useful to somebody. But so first off, I had concerns basically about your sexuality and about the manner of what I viewed as being too permissive in the way that you were raised. Now, I'm not by the way, I mean right, wrong, or indifferent. I could be wrong about that, right about that, just whatever. But I had also expressed those concerns to those who were primarily responsible for raising you. And those concerns were rebuked basically or just tossed out. So again, right, wrong, or indifferent, not saying that that was incorrect or not, but I had had concerns for quite some time. I'd had concerns about other issues. So at any rate, and as far as this particular, I don't know if you remember, but I'd actually visited with you after you had moved out from your mom, and I knew the circumstances you were living in, and I saw what I saw, and I it just basically confirmed what I had kind of gathered all along. It's true, I didn't say anything. I thought in a way it was pretty obvious. It would be pretty obvious to me what was going on, that it would be pretty obvious to you that okay, I mean, you're basically non-verbally showing me where you're at. So and then what happened was I got this frantic call. And I don't remember your brother being on the call. I think that it was definitely your mother and her husband. And basically the picture they put in extremely straightforward terms was basically that you were about to embark on this trip with her and there was no question that it was a romantic relationship. I mean, I was fully aware of that before I flew out to see you. that this was all set up for me in very explicit terms. At the same time it's not like it was that huge a surprise because I say I had for many years had concerns. Probably the most alarming thing to me was that, and I trust the opinion of the people who were giving me this opinion, was that there was good reason to believe that this woman's a sociopath at a minimum, at a minimum, maybe further down the dark side of the spectrum than that. The folks who were conveying this to me had looked into it quite a bit. And it was every reason to believe from what was communicated to me that yeah, this person was dangerous. So I guess what I'm trying to emphasize here is first of all, my concern had gone back years. They've basically been confirmed significantly before you were taking this trip. I mean, nonverbally, I knew. And I agreed with your mother and husband based on what they were telling me. There was a serious question just how you would fare with this, with this road trip. Now, the next thing I'll say is, you know, and I I think important to know about background-wise is from your standpoint is that you know, I've been on the receiving end of calls in which I'm listening to your mother weeping, just weeping, explaining that so many times she went to bed at night not knowing if she would ever see you alive again or if she would see you in the morning. I've been on the receiving end of those calls for some time before this whole incident. So maybe it would help to understand that this was kind of a one data point on a long list. And and and also remember that I would see you from time to time and what I saw confirmed for me your mother's concerns. There was also just this psychological component that you and I have discussed recently within the last month or so, that I'm not saying that this is ideal, but hey, we're human, right? There was undoubtedly some psychological component to me that okay, so hang on. I've expressed concerns for years, they've been dismissed, I don't really have any control over that situation, and now all of a sudden I'm expected to just take care of things that have gone off the rails. And so now I'm supposed to fix everything. So my reaction to that was of course that it's irritating on one level or another, but hey, you're my daughter, and that comes first. I mean so it's just like okay, I'm gonna take my shot at it. So I'm up all night making these arrangements. I literally call off of work from the airport in the morning and come out to you. And I knew that probably this wasn't gonna work, but I had to take the shot. Now you survived, thank God. And I really think there was reason to wonder whether that was gonna happen. But pretty much as soon as I got back, I consulted with people and consulted with one very trusted imam about this situation and I sought his advice and you know I communicated in a very straightforward manner what was going on. What should I do? What's your advice? And he in a very straightforward manner answered with what do you think should do? You're gonna make the trip, then just see if there's any way to kind of leave the door open and that's it. And I don't recall everything else. But I think the main point of this is that it was not as if anybody discovered on this particular trip that you were engaged in same-sex relations. That had been strongly suspected or known on one level or another to me for quite some time. Furthermore, I gave my wife a heads up before your trip. So I explained to her the situation, etc. etcetera. She was sympathetic to my concerns, she was for me emotionally, but sympathetic for her so far as her concerns about your welfare. And of course, she had known you for something like 10 years at that point, maybe a little bit more. And from childhood she'd been with you intermittently here and there, always making dua for you and so on. So she knew before she sat down with you, whatever you know, when she asked you what she asked, that was merely confirming just what she already knew, what I had already told her. So I guess she was just doing her due diligence there. So the main point of all this is that from my standpoint is that this was nothing new in terms of kind of knowing where you were going. I had concerns other than SSA for years. I don't mean it in a pejorative sense or whatever, but it's just if I had to describe it, it was this awful feeling that you know my dear daughter just was off the rails and had been for some time. And basically, a lot of people I think had just been hanging on for a long time. Myself, your mother, your mother's emotions, of course, were more intense. She's the mother, and she's also living with you, and she's winding up in the emergency room from time to time with stress-induced chest pain. I'm hearing about, you know, I'm hearing her weeping, and I know that that was just from deep, deep down inside. So of course I was concerned. I just hadn't known for a couple of years if she's gonna survive or more than that. And the feelings, of course, are more intense for your mother, and of course, it was just heart-wrenching on one level or another for me to hear that expressed from her. I'd also, you know, been there on the journey for your brother. I mean, he'd experienced a certain amount of blowback from the community. Somehow people seemed to think that he was responsible or he could quote unquote straighten you out, or et cetera, which of course I thought was ridiculous. And I assured him of that and told him not to listen. It's you know that you're not his responsibility, and so you're both kids. So I've been there on that portion of the journey for years.

Waheed: 40:47

I think maybe I can just jump in and say, first of all, jazakallah khair. for sharing all of this. I can imagine how difficult that must have been to air it out, but I also think that it is quite cathartic to kind of let all of this out and just be vulnerable with us at this moment. So Jazakallah Khair for doing that, and I'm not a father myself, I can only imagine how that must have been for you, you know, 18 years ago.

Abu Amina: 41:16

I know that it was harder for the mother. I mean, she's the mother. So I'm not trying to make it sound like, but yeah, whatever I went through, whatever my wife went through was a fraction, but my wife also had been struggling for years. So but yeah, so I guess that's one thing I'm just trying to say is it was nothing new, it was just this feeling for me of just hanging on, trying to hang on for years, yeah, before and then after, also. Yeah, although things interestingly enough improved after that trip. And I think I felt I saw I think I became a little less concerned about survival. I felt like it's more likely that somehow I felt like my daughter was a little bit on the other side of that danger at that level.

Amina's Brother: 42:32

Hey Dad, when you say survival, what do you mean by survival? You mean like physical survival, spiritual survival?

Abu Amina: 42:42

Physical survival is what I was speaking about. I really in terms of spirituality, I never had a direct conversation as I recall, but I just doubted that your sister identified as a Muslim or was practicing in a way in which I would consider practicing. So in terms of the five pillars and so on. So yeah, I mean spiritual, I think basically my hope for years was that she would survive physically in order, inshaAllah, to maybe return spiritually, but you gotta survive physically first, in a way.

Waheed: 43:37

Got it, got it. So many things to talk about, subhanAllah. I've been taking notes, but, if I may just jump to Amina and I want to ask you how do you feel about everything that dad just said? I don't know if parts of this might have been new to you, but kind of having that, you know, the entire perspective on how he was managing things at the time, what do you think of what he said?

Amina: 44:07

Yeah, I've talked to my mom a lot about this over the years. I have talked to my dad periodically too briefly over the years. I mean it never feels good, right? Just like my dad is saying that, you know, he was obviously going through a very hard time with me. He didn't know if I was gonna survive or not. And then he keeps saying that, you know, for my mom, it was probably a lot worse. And I think it was definitely not to minimize what my dad was feeling either. But I think it's just tougher when the person that has given birth to you and such, and that has lived with you primarily for the majority of the time, because since the divorce, you know, I lived with my mom primarily, me and my brother did. But you know, my mom, you know, what my dad is saying is very real. Like my mom told me, she told me that years later. She said, Yeah, I just really didn't know if you were going to live to the next day, because SSA wasn't the only thing I was doing. Like I wouldn't, I wouldn't even equate SSA to the other things that I was doing, which I just won't even get into. But you know, she just yeah, she would always tell me that she didn't know if I was gonna live to the next day. And I think it got really real for me because when I left, I went overseas when I was young, probably like 18 and a half, 19, something like that. I spent a lot of time overseas back and forth. And my mom told me that to get through those times because I wouldn't really talk to her, and she just had no idea what I was doing, what was going on, she just had zero clue, really, is she told me that she had to, she had convinced herself that I was already dead, and that was the only way that she could feel at peace because worrying about me every single day was just too much for her. And so, like obviously hearing that doesn't make you feel good, right? When you know that you're the stem of so many problems, like what my dad was talking about, the self-induced chest pain from the anxiety, my mom was ending up in the ER from self-induced chest pain from worrying about me. Like, you don't want to hear those things. I don't ever want to make… I should have actually prefaced all of this that I never want to make my dad hurt, I never want to make my mom hurt, I never want to make my brother hurt, I don't ever want to be the cause of any stress or hurt for my family. And at the end of the day, you know, it took a lot of growth for me because I was always just so angry. But at the end of the day, I have always come to the conclusion that no matter what, my my mom and dad are my parents, even if we don't agree on everything or whatever, it doesn't matter because through Allah, Allah gave them, you know, Allah created them, and through that they gave me life. And so that has been the greatest gift. They've given me my life. So at the end of the day, even if I don't agree with them about certain things or whatever, they owe me literally nothing after that. They really, they really don't. I'm not entitled to anything more, and I actually owe my parents everything because what more can I give them that equates to life, right? So I obviously am not the best example of that through my actions to my mom. I've said some super hateful things to my mom throughout the years that I'm just not proud of. I've said hateful things to my dad. I've, you know, like walked out on my brother super angry, blah, blah, blah, but at the end of the day, I do recognize that yeah, that they've just they've given me my life. There's nothing more. Like they don't even owe me love at this point, you know, they just really don't. Like if they wanted to have me and then walk out, like that that's that's fine. Like I will find my own way, right? And I still owe them everything after that. So yeah, I don't ever want to hurt my dad, basically.

Abu Amina: 48:50

I mean, can I jump in?

Amina: 48:52

Yeah.

Abu Amina: 48:52

So a couple of things that I would just emphasize. One is that I was aware that there were things, there were things I was a lot more concerned about than SSA. I knew what was going on with SSA. I mean, as I said, I visited with you, that just sort of confirmed it because you had moved out, like five minutes after you turned 18. And I saw the circumstance you're living in, so I got it. But that was not actually the biggest concern for me. So, and I think you alluded to some other things that were going on in your life that were maybe more dangerous, whatever. I don't know the details of that, and I don't want to know, I have no need to know but I'm just all I want to say about that is that I I knew, you know, I knew that. I knew that there was stuff. I mean, obviously anything wrong is wrong. I mean, to act upon SSA, to act illegally upon OSA. I mean, you know, there's probably a lot more of that in our community than committing sins or acting upon SSA. It's probably more sins being committed by acting upon illicit OSA impulses. But the point is that I knew there was other stuff going on that was worse in a way. I mean that I am just for lack of better terms. So that's point one. Point two, there was never any question about love. We all find ways to cope as best as possible, but with so it yeah, I think your mother may have even told me that or something or at one time or another about how there was kind of the way she could get peace. But regardless of how somebody handles that, I mean, it's just not a question of love. We always loved you. I mean, otherwise we wouldn't be feeling we wouldn't be concerned, right? And we wouldn't feel numb or devastated or just hanging on or and and so on. So that's just not just not the issue. One person could be doing A, B, and C that are supposedly horrible things, and then you turn around and that person, that same person tomorrow could be ahead of the very people who were well certainly the very people who if they were made the mistake of looking down upon that person, certainly be ahead of that person. It's just you know, overnight, and so on. So it's just not a question of any of that. And then there was never any question about just not loving or saying, okay, just done, or whatever. I mean, that just was never the case.

Amina: 52:11

Yeah, I don't think so either. Like I've never just thought that you know, me and my dad have talked about this recently. I've never just thought, oh, he just didn't love me. I never really felt that, or from my mom or my brother, even when my mom had to convince herself that I was dead, I actually viewed it as oh, she loves me so much that she literally can't survive just thinking of me.

Abu Amina: 52:41

Right, exactly. That was just a coping mechanism, that's the way she got through the night.

Amina: 52:45

Exactly.

Waheed: 52:46

I just wanted to say that I'm very grateful for this conversation because I feel like even though you're talking about that particular incident, which to Amina is quite let's call it a quote unquote watershed moment. But you know, for a lot of the listeners, particularly people who struggle with same-sex attraction and gender dysphoria, when we're at the beginning of our journeys and we're dealing with a lot of you know shame and pain and all of that, we tend to live a lot in our own heads. And you know, we kind of have a particular perspective around with regards to the world around us and how people treat us. A lot of a lot of things are skewed based on our own perceptions and interpretations of things, and so you know, it helps to kind of take this as an example to see, okay, well, Amina had this perspective of that incident, and now her brother and her father are kind of pitching in. Well, we're gonna get to you, bro, in a bit, but dad has been talking a lot about his own perspective, and we could see the issues he was facing leading up to that moment, you know, for years and years and years, and he was trying to you know balance things out when it comes to being concerned about his own daughter, but also having a family of his own and being on the receiving end of so many calls, and and you know, his ex-wife, I mean Amina’s mother, who was really kind of in a very bad shape and very concerned about her own daughter, and trying to balance that with his own religious obligations, and how do I do that? And so I can only imagine again, as I was saying, I can only imagine as a father how that must have been like. But alhamdulillah, I feel like alhamdulillah, you have been through so much and so much has happened since then, and we'll get to that, inshaAllah, during this episode. But I want to jump to let me call you bro and dad because that's easier than calling you Abu Amina and Amina's brother. So, bro, maybe you can pitch in and tell us a little bit about your own perspective when it comes to all of that, inshaAllah.

Amina's Brother: 54:41

I like that. Bro and dad. Yeah, I mean I can see what dad is talking about. This was just one thing in a long string of things. I was a problematic child in many ways too. I mean I can, I mean I can testify to that. But I think the two of us caused a lot of stress for my mom. I think of the two of us, definitely Amina caused more stress.

Amina: 55:10

I won. 

Amina’s Brother: 55:11

Yeah, you won. Yeah. Yeah. That's the positive spin on it. I like it. Not a great thing to compete in, but you know, whatever. Yeah, I definitely agree, like with what my dad is saying. That there was a yeah, I don't want to like to get in, I don't want to get into it because I would let her speak to it herself with whatever she's comfortable with. I would just say that I think Amina had a habit of it didn't matter where she was, she could find the bad people and she could find a way to get in trouble. That's like my personal, that's just the way I saw it looking back. And bad people lead you to bad things whatever those things are. And so there was a lot of concern, a lot of stress. I remember my mom being stressed out. And you know, I'm sure there's things I could have done better, like my poor sister, she just wanted to hang out a lot of time, like with me, and like especially when I was in middle school, high school. I remember actually, I think both my dad and mom telling me about how she would look up to me so much as a kid, and that seemed to continue a little bit as we got older. But all I wanted to do was just sit in the room and play video games all day long. I was like a genuine video game addict, and like that's all I wanted to do. I never wanted to go outside, never wanted to do anything. And so like she and I didn't have a whole lot of relationship. And like, you know, if I had spent more time with her, could that have helped like keep her out of bad company? Probably. I also think they know like I understand looking back, like why my father and mother divorced. I very much have a lot of my father's personality, and I can still see looking at my mom like some of the disagreements that I have with my mom, like why they divorced. But even despite the fact that the divorce, like you know, I look back, I wonder, like, you know, if dad had been in the same household or closer in physical proximity, like living in the same area as we were, would that have led to both Amina and I not doing some of the things that we wound up doing in our lives? Yeah, I think so. Like there's a mom can't be a dad, right? A mom like she can't be the enforcer like a father can. Kids don't listen to their mom like they do a father. Anyways, I'm going on and on. But yeah, I can definitely see what my father's talking about in that this was like one thing on top of a long list of concerns. And yeah, I can understand what he's saying. 

Abu Amina: 58:06

While you're thinking of that, I just want to jump in on two points. One is that there's a flip side to what you said about if I had been there and the dad can kind of enforce it. There is a flip side. I don't recall what Amina and I were talking about. We were texting, and I don't remember what it was about, what she was relating to me from way back when. I am thinking about my words before I say them. But this was one case where this thought went through my mind in reaction to what she said, and I just decided I'm just gonna say it right out. So I either said or texted it, if I had been there, one or both of us would not have survived. And that's the flip side, and I think it's very important. Maybe we can talk about it down the road as far as kind of advice to those other parents or siblings or whatever. But yes, one could make the theoretical argument in favor of what you were saying, son. But there is a flip side, and that is that yeah, sometimes a parent or uncle or whoever usually of the male variety, usually the father or the uncle has to put himself or a sibling for that matter. Again, usually the male siblings have to put themselves in a timeout. Alhamdulillah who protected us from all that he protected us from. That was my immediate reaction to what my daughter said. I just don't, it doesn't even matter what it was. It was you know if I'd been there one or both of us would not have survived. I could easily see myself overamping, just overamping and just having a heart attack right there. Or in a way, worse yet, acting out just being so outraged by A, B, or C or whatever. So that's just a point that I want to get in there. The second thing is I really don't want this to degenerate into a sort of guilt session because that's just not the way I see it at all. That's what tawbahs all about. I mean my advice to any parent, anybody struggling with SSA, anybody who's living with somebody who's struggling it's all the same. It's always the same. You have three tools at your disposal: you have dua istakhar at every major decision point. And then so you're gonna get everything right I mean are you gonna get it all right because you made dua and you prayed no of course not so you're gonna make mistakes as a parent or sibling or a child or just whatever you're gonna make mistakes right and left so that's what tawbah is all about. So you make tawbah and that's it. I mean and I'm speaking from having gone through the whole guilt thing of what kind of father am I? What kind of father what how could I possibly blah blah blah fill in the blank but you know what I mean I guess that's an advantage of just getting older and being being through it is eventually it's just you know what is right I mean that's what was Allah decreed and he does what he wills right and if you pray and a certain situation develops and you're mystified as to well how come I'm not there or just whatever what kind of guy am I? But guess what? I mean Allah may have saved one or more people from some just total disaster. So I yeah I just don't want to get into the whole oh I was so awful this or so awful that I mean because that's just not the case.

Waheed: 1:02:21

Not at all not at all. I think what you have shared the three of you is very important because it gives closure to this time point. And I guess we can all learn from it. It's not about guilt or shame, it's about closure. And I think this is a good time to achieve that if I were to ask you know if you were to go back in time let's start with Amina if you were to go back in time you know knowing everything now that you know about yourself about your own development about your own tra as and having been through the healing and recovery journey and and have understood a lot of your own personal issues and shadows and whatnot if you're if you were to go back and and let's say have any kind of hit the reset button and start over how how would things be different growing up you know in relation to your own father your own mother dealing with that particular watershed moment how how would things be different for you. 

Amina: 1:04:03

Yeah I think that's always a really tough question because people they always ask you know what is the the n ber one thing you regret or if you could have done things any differently what would you change and it's interesting because I always have the type of personality that I have and such I always just lived my life just sometimes carelessly but pretty just free and I just really do live it with no regrets. But when I really think about it you know obviously number one like I've said before I just I don't know what it is but I just really had zero care about my parents' feelings and I think that's a little bit different from what a lot of people in our community experience because talking to a lot of people they always talk about how they're not ready to you know tell their parents about their SSA and not that I would ever tell anybody to do that. I actually think that a lot of people have definitely asked me over the years whether I should tell my parents about my SSA, should I tell my family, should I tell my friends and I actually always tell them you know maybe not like maybe don't because I always expect the worst that can happen. And but for me I didn't really care too much about that because I wasn't very caring about my parents' feelings so even if they didn't accept me then I was just gonna move on from that. I just wasn't so attached to how they felt about me. So I wish that somehow I could have cared more about my parents' feelings because then maybe I wouldn't have you know said a whole bunch of nasty things to my mom. I would have just been a better daughter in general but I think one thing that I've noticed about me if I could go back and change somehow is to not have to have instant gratification. I think because I've always lived my life with no regrets and I'm always all about having fun in the moment and doing everything that I want like I literally can't really think about something that I just wanted that I didn't just do. Anything that I wanted to do I just would do and I've got used to that where it's just this instant gratification that if I want something I'll just do it. Whether that's to do with people, things, buying things, living places, whatever it is if I want to go somewhere I'll just go so I think that learning how to delay gratification that probably could have saved me a whole lot of heartache and also secondary it could have saved my family a whole lot of heartache if I had really learned that. If that makes sense yeah I don't think I ever really started understanding that until recently that this life really isn't about just having fun. Now I don't necessarily believe in the flip side right because I do meet some very steadfast Muslims that they say okay well this life is all about punishment and just you know just getting through it to get to the other side and to get to heaven. I don't necessarily believe it like that. Now whether that's true or not I don't know right Allah knows best but I do think that this world isn't meant for me to just be able to do whatever I want and then also go to heaven you know I like getting everything I want that will be in heaven but there are certain certain things that I have to do here or not do to get there. So something I'm working on to be honest.

Waheed: 1:07:59

Yeah beautifully said thanks for sharing dad what do you think I mean now having had a lot of insights throughout the past couple of years and having learned so much and having had access to resources and having spoken to other parents and you know I would say having had your own personal growth in so many different ways how would you you know reflecting back on Amina's journey what are the things you could have done differently or maybe now that you have more insights how would you approach certain things that you think maybe in the past you didn't approach them in the right way?

Abu Amina: 1:08:37

You know I just talking you know together with Waheed before about some of this so this may sound familiar but at this point at any rate I don't really think like that. And it's bilateral so I don't think like that for Amina. So for example she was saying people ask what's your regret etc you're based single regret what would you do differently and my response from my standpoint for her is well you know you couldn't I mean that was your life at that time that was you and it's just what's going to happen from here that's all and no you couldn't have done anything differently because that's the way it was and I think I've certainly gone through this whole thing of I mean just beating myself up over this or that or regretting or second guessing or so and I guess finally I realized that you know if you stare in the rear view mirror too long I mean guess what you crash right so let's just not do that. Certainly we want to learn from our mistakes but I think that often it becomes more of a beating oneself up or beating someone else up or guilting someone else or something for this that and the other and you know no way I mean I just I no doubt I mean everybody suffered, Amina suffered her mother suffered I suffered her brother suffered my wife suffered siblings suffered I'm only just learning more recently. I mean about how really I mean I just didn't understand how some people were suffering or the ramifications it had for them and so on so no doubt okay but that's that I couldn't go back and change anything I mean that's just the way I see it. I mean that and that song by Frank Sinatra, I think Elvis sang the song also I mean regrets I have you know my way doing it my way regrets I have a few but too few to mention I mean. I that's so cringy for me because yeah I mean tons of regrets I have tons of regrets but I guess I'm just kind of past I hope dwelling on that I mean if one it just keeps getting back to well that's what Tawbahs for you know so make dua and pray isthakhara at every significant decision point and the rest is tawbah and it's not tawbah in the sense of just beating oneself up it's it's okay I goofed you know now what how to do it differently going forward or what do I learn from this or how can I grow from this okay I have no idea but you know what I think something's coming down the pike that will be the answer to that I'll see how I'm gonna grow from this or I'll see how positives are gonna come from this and in the case of the this I certainly have I have and then if one says okay so why couldn't you do that without going through all this because that's not the way that's not the way it was that's not the way it was written right does it make any sense oh yeah absolutely absolutely so basically learn from yeah I mean I that's just that would be my advice to me it'd be my advice to those struggling with SSA it would be my advice to those living with those struggling with SSA it would be my advice to folks in any situation any test any trial anything that they're struggling with.

Amina's Brother: 1:13:37

Yeah no I mean I feel like it's only worth because I remember listening to that episode and it's just like wow you know I sound really cool yeah but I agree it's so funny like how memory works like I remember the drive back I remember going with her all across the country I remember I think like I think there was like we would stop at gas stations, rest areas, prayer breaks. I think I remember like one time she topped off the gas in the car and she topped it off too much and it started leaking and I remember like it was this old beat up ratty integra and like there were holes in the exhaust.

Amina: 1:13:53

Don't talk about my Integra like that. That’s my first car.

Amina's Brother: 1:13:57

Oh man it was it was old it was beat up it was green the paint's falling off like there's rust everywhere the muffler the exhaust it has holes in it so it's just like I actually remember like thinking like man maybe I should be wearing earplugs because we're just like all the way across the United States from Virginia back to Seattle, Washington. I think there were times where my ears hurt. It was just so loud. I remember like there were stretches of highway where I'm like falling asleep at the wheel because we're constantly switching. I remember there being stretches of highway where there were tons of dead deer along the side of the highway and I'm like man I'm here I am falling asleep at the wheel maybe I should wake up Amina and have her drive but I didn't remember why we drove all the way across the United States. And I'm like when she was telling me that was the reason when she was telling me that was the reason I was like well yeah that makes sense like because that was so 100% not my personality like I mean I can testify to this like I was like the nerdiest not wanting to do anything adventurous person whatsoever. And like it is, it's really strange how my memory works. Like I can remember all sorts of little tidbits. But like something that was so foundational for her like she remembers very clearly why we did this like I didn't remember that was the reason. And I totally believe her. I'm not trying to take away from that and I actually remember us talking about like I do have dim memories of us talking about on the trip not the entire trip but during portions of the trip talking about her SSA talking about you remember there was a I think towards the like when we got into Washington state I mean like there was a a boy who called you and I think you were you were talking about him we were talking about one of our old mutual friends who you know they I think they've just made like a childish childhood pledge hey if we get to a certain age we're not married we're gonna marry each other and I remember us talking about that anyways I'm going on and on. I just remember what I'm trying to say is that it was such a foundational pivotal moment for her. And like it's really strange how my memory works. Like my memory has blocked out like why we did it. But it totally makes sense because it just like that was not my personality whatsoever at that time. There must have been something really big that happened that caused me to be like yeah sure we're we're doing this so yeah that's a little bit about the trip from my perspective it might be might be might be depressing to some because I think people like hyped me up as a big hero but like yeah that was just like I guess it must have been very obvious to me at that time like what should be that yeah we're definitely going to do this.

Waheed: 1:16:52

Anyways well that in and of itself is a heroic act for someone as you mentioned you know you're not used to adventure but you stood by your sister and you did what's right at the moment and that to me is courage and something that is very heroic. So kudos to you. It doesn't really negate anything that we had about and I mean the impression that we had about you still stands may Allah accept may Allah accept I mean I mean and by the way Dad we love you too so I I think I think this helps clear up a lot of these misconceptions about you mashaAllah you are such a sweet soul may Allah bless you and increase you we are very honored to to speak with you and to learn from you so just wanted to…

Abu Amina: 1:17:39

I love you too thank you well I communicated that to you years ago in an email. And I know you must hear that a lot.

Waheed: 1:17:45

Well that is very sweet. Well it's nice to hear it again and again so I appreciate it.

Amina's Brother: 1:17:52

Waheed probably gets everybody's love, just everybody from the people struggling with SSA the family members of those struggling with SSA I'm sure you get a lot of love.

Waheed: 1:18:04

Alhamdulillah well may Allah accept as you said so inshaAllah we're very honored Alhamdulillah so yeah just to circle back to that so just wanted to get briefly kind of your overview before we jump into the other topics inshaAllah kind of if maybe bro and dad can kind of share with me how things have how you got closer with Amina after you found out about her divorce about the fact that she chose you know to go back to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and all of that I'm sure that you know with dad because Islam is a very important aspect of of his life and for bro as well but you know the thing that you mentioned as a father that you were concerned about her not being involved with the deen and and that same sex relationship that she had and all of that kind of created a kind of dissonance and and and was always kind of a an issue but the fact that she alhamdulillah that Allah guided her and you know she was embarking on that kind of life changing journey towards Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala that must have changed your dynamic or your perception or any of that. So I'd love to hear from the both of you.

Abu Amina: 1:19:25

So yeah to you know I would emphasize I guess the same way similar being that it's a gradual process right so I mean in the same way that I mean there just been so much stuff for so many years including and I gotta I'm gonna tell this yeah from the first from the get-go with my wife from the first visit on in some ways it was amusing and Amina would just go after her sorry Amina would go after and then in the evening I would come into the room where we were all bedding down together and I would see Amina stuffed up against my wife just plastered against her fast asleep. And I'd look at my wife sort of like what?

Waheed 1:20:25

That's your current wife correct, yeah?

Abu Amina 1:20:26

That's correct and so mashaAllah and and she would just look at me and sort of shrug like yeah she goes after me all day long and then but at night it's any port in a storm.So it's just been this long trip and of course actually that was your advice part of your advice to me years ago when I reached out to you and you were saying just be there for her on her journey well you know that's that's like from birth right so as far as over the last years I mean one thing that happened was Amina was reaching out to me more often and she was opening up about certain things like in her relationship this with the whole issue of borderline personality disorder in her well what she would call wife and so she was just opening up about this and that we had more communication and she was just filling me in on what she was doing here and there and the other.

Waheed: 1:21:41

Do just to clarify for the listeners it wasn't like you were disconnected completely from your daughter like even when she was married you were in contact still correct?

Abu Amina 1:21:49

Oh yeah we were never well I mean from my perspective we were never disconnected there was certainly times of greater distance and less frequent communication and ups and downs that way but there was an an increase in communication from her side which obviously I found pleasing there she was communicating more about some of the challenges she was facing etc etc then there were these long letters that were some some of which contained just outright love bombing dad which obviously I was all for it that was wonderful. I remember some of those letters and I kept them to this day and I remember some of the phrases she would use and so on.So that was wonderful. I don't know what to say then it was just this very gradual process. I mean I couldn't even identify the moment that I somehow became less concerned about physical survival. And then I would learn some of the things that she was doing and I was admiring of those and just thought it was wonderful some of the things that she was doing and some of the areas of the world that she was in. And things just you know went from there. Obviously when she forwarded me the the link to this talk that you participated in, I just thought subhanAllah I mean my daughter sent me this I mean I listened to your talk I was familiar with the other speakers on the program not you I listened to your talk and I was wondering wow, Amina sent me this I mean the same young lady who was doing Pride marches right and left so and it just went from there.

Waheed: 1:23:57

Well thank you for sharing that bro you want to pitch in.

Amina's Brother: 1:23:58

Yeah it's been beautiful I mean I'm sure my dad's gonna talk about this later but like man one of the things that definitely comes out of it is dua dua dua because there were a lot of people probably including myself like where this was like a far-fetched notion that Amina would even like be at this point right now I mean and of course I don't want to sometimes we put people so high up on a pedestal and like we don't give them a chance to like be human and struggle and fall like you know regardless of what happens in the future and it applies to anybody right like so regardless of what happens in the future where to where she chooses to go down the path in the future not that I've received any indication from her that like she's changing her mind about anything but I'm just saying like I'm just throwing out this disclaimer because like sometimes we attach so much to individuals in any in any community right and then like you know just to give an example like if an Islamic scholar a big time Islamic scholar does something wrong like people like have their Iman shaken it's just like your Iman should not be shaken by people right the actions of people anyway so like it was very far fetched to a lot of people that like probably including myself that she would even be at the point where she is right now and so butAllah is above all and he's all powerful and he has power over all of his creation. And so like I like I'm hopeful that it was the du'as of her family members or friends that some or all of our du'as were accepted and her herself as well that she even got to this point and it's amazing and I'm sure she'll have struggles and but may Allah always may Allah always keep her on the path to him and his pleasure and anytime she strays or trips and falls she picks herself may Allah give her tawfeeq of picking herself back up and all of us as well.

Waheed: 1:26:11

I mean beautiful duas. Amina what do you think of all of that?

Amina: 1:26:17

Yeah I I definitely think it it has been a 180 so I can see how they're both really surprised because I was also very surprised in myself and yeah my dad's correct you know I think I went to every Pride Parade every year probably since I was 18 or so and even before then even when I wasn’t truly accepting of myself and who I who I am who I was.

Amina’s brother 1:26:46

Did you invite me to any of those?

Amina 1:26:47

Probably you know really I don't remember you ever going.

Amina’s Brother 1:26:55

Me neither me neither there's a lot of them there's a lot of them in the area In the world I live in. 

Amina 1:27:03

Yeah you’re probably not missing much so it's okay.

Amina’s Brother 1:27:05:

Good to know.

Amina 1:27:09

But yeah I think that you know me and my brother we've always been pretty have had a strong relationship even throughout when I was married to my ex-wife it's never really faltered I think that he is really good at setting boundaries and so he's always been really clear even from the beginning you know even on that car ride that he doesn't remember he you know was he said you know I don't agree with what you're doing but that doesn't change this fact that we're family and such and so even there's been periods that happened throughout my marriage you know say my wedding for example I invited him to my wedding and he was just clear he said hey I can't go to your wedding to your wife right this is when I was getting married to my wife because I can't do this act that's going to celebrate you know homosexuality we didn't call it SSA back then but he basically said I can't I can't attend something that is in celebration of this because it goes against Islam and what I believe. But that does not mean that you can't come over he said you're always welcome in my house you and your wife are always welcome in my house she can come over we would love to have you all for dinner I just can't go to this celebration of it basically but I will never disclude you is that even a word I don't know I will never yeah I will never exclude you from any events or just out of you out of my life and such. So I've always appreciated that my brother has always just been so ride or die for me and it's not even that, there were other events that have occurred that he really has just stepped up and he's always chosen me.

Amina's Brother: 1:29:04

Feel free to tell them all no I'm just kidding I'm just kidding.

Amina: 1:29:06

Yeah yeah so he's always chosen me at the end of the day even if when we were kids okay so what I do remember that you know I was very active I was I talked about this in my previous episode but very the quote unquote tomboy so I always wanted to go outside and play and so I was very much outdoorsy and so I'd always wanted to go outside with me but that just wasn't his personality but even besides him not doing that that didn't matter because he was always very ride or die for me for the stuff that did matter. So I think our relationship has sort of just stayed the same in a sense that it's just grown from there. And so it's just I think it can always be better right I don't think we're like we're not even close in a sense that a lot of families are close where you know we're not getting together every week or we don't live in the same state, right? Or we don't even call each other every day, but we don't need to, in a sense, we're okay with just the communication that we have. And then the same with my dad, you know, when I say that me and my dad's relationship is so much better now. Part of me, you know, some people would look at our relationship and say, Oh, you think that's close? Like, seems like you guys are pretty estranged in a sense where, you know, me and my dad are not talking every day. We're not talking every week, even maybe not sometimes not even once a month, you know. But I think what makes a relationship better is I know that he's more at peace with me. I know that he's more content with how my life is and such. And I don't feel like there's any shame or anything like that going on. And the conversations are just easier between us, right? And I think what was actually really eye-opening to me that I think this community needs to hear, because I think a lot of people in this community do things that they're not proud of in terms of SSA, and I think that they get really ashamed, and I'm not promoting, obviously, to go and engage in your SSA and just go do whatever you want. But he said something that I never thought about, and he said, last week or a couple weeks ago? He asked me, Have you noticed that I don't ever ask you if you have fallen back into that lifestyle or anything like that? And he said, Because there are two very different, you know, I'm gonna paraphrase, but he just said basically, there are very two different groups of people, and there are the people that are engaging in this lifestyle that are very progressive about it, and they're basically saying, hey, the Quran is wrong, and all of these teachings are wrong about SSA, and that this is actually allowed, and they're promoting that rhetoric. And then he said there are people that have SSA and they might slip up, make a mistake, and engage in those actions, but they know fundamentally it is wrong, and they don't want to be doing that. And I said, That's so great to hear from my dad, not like he's giving me the green light or anything like that, but it was just so refreshing to hear. And I thought about that and I said, Yeah, it is so different, like that we have to give ourselves some grace sometimes if we make mistakes or anything like that. And it doesn't even have to be in terms of SSA, it's just give yourself some grace because I talked to so many people in this community that are in those situations and they have so much shame surrounding their what we call SSEs, same-sex engagements, right? Or encounters, and they don't know how to pull themselves out of it because they're living in this guilt. And it's like if you're feeling guilty about it, then you're already one step closer on the right path because something's making you feel guilty about it, and just give yourself some grace, right?

Waheed: 1:33:12

Right.

Amina: 1:33:12

So it's just been a nice experience these last five years, just growing the relationship with my family, and I hope that it continues as it does, and we'll see where it goes.

Waheed: 1:33:30

Alhamdulillah. Well, thank you for sharing this.

Abu Amina: 1:33:33

I would just jump in if I could yeah, I mean, that's right. We had this conversation. Well, one thing I would say is that was talking about, you know, it's good that you feel that way, etc. But I would just emphasize that, yeah, I mean, feeling shame, feeling guilt over this, over that, it's good that one feels that way, but then at the same time, can't let it drag you down. Can't let you prevent you from just having another go at getting things right to her, you know. Yeah that’s that.

Waheed: 1:34:06

Beautiful, beautiful.

Abu Amina: 1:34:08

And then one advice I would have for family members of those struggling with SSA is I think there's some kind of maybe impulse to sort of snoop, and I just so strongly advise against that. It's none of my business. You know it just isn't. So just to be there and to give advice when it's welcome, yeah, but never to yeah, be intrusive. It's just not right. I mean that in itself I think a violation to one degree or another of our religious teachings.

Waheed: 1:34:53

So we can jump straight into the next section we wanted to talk about, which is the advice that you would give to family members and parents who reach out to you, and a lot have reached out to you. So Dad, you already mentioned the idea of making lots of duas, istikhara, and tawbah, and then the issue with privacy. What other pieces of advice would you give to any parents or family members listening to you or reaching out to you and telling you, you know, my son or daughter are dealing with this, we don't know what to do. You know, what stuff would you share with them?

Abu Amina: 1:35:28

Right. So, I think you know, there's just multiple duties that one has. I mean one is to protect, you know, is to protect the one who is struggling as best as possible. And that may include at times seeking to protect that individual from other family members. It may include at times protecting that individual from yourself. I think sometimes people have to recognize that need for them, as I mentioned earlier, to put themselves in timeout. You have the duty to protect the family member who is struggling or worse yet, not struggling, or not struggling with that saying that's even that's way harder to deal with, but you still have the duty to protect them as best you can without of course putting yourself in significant harm's way. So yeah, the duty to protect, the duty to be there if they do want help when they want help to protect others, to protect others who may be suffering in silence, the consequences of again, for lack of a better term, one or another person being somewhat off the rails at this point or that point in their life. So nobody said it would be easy, but yeah, at each point someone has to balance the whole equation, which of course they're not gonna get right. But you just take your best shot at it. The greatest good for the most number of people at any particular point. Trying to balance, yeah, life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness on an individual basis, but so far as I can tell. 

Amina’s brother: 1:37:47

Very patriotic of you, Dad. Yeah. Spoken like a true American!

Amina’s Father: 1:37:48

Yeah, you know there's evidence that that line was lifted from one of the Islamic texts on Maqasid Al-Sharia.

Amina's Brother: 1:38:04

I have no idea.

Abu Amina: 1:38:06

Yeah, and Thomas Jefferson didn't know that, but he took it from Locke. Locke and Isaac Newton were classmates, right? And they shared a professor who was really enamored with some works by Islamic scholars, one of them by Ibn Tufayl, right? One of the mentors and teachers of Ibn Rushd. And so anyway, Locke and Isaac Newton actually were really profoundly influenced, and then Thomas Jefferson, I think, didn't have a clue where he was getting this from, but yeah, there is some evidence that that, but see, that's the thing is in the maqasid sharia, it's whenever it comes down to life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness for the individual versus life liberty and pursuit of happiness or existence or whatever for the community at large, the family at large in general. I mean, it's gonna come down on the side of the family at large or the community at large, right? So nobody said it would be easy, but somebody's gotta make that calculation and praise God and make those decisions each step of the way as best they can. So, yeah, that would be part of my advice. I think that also you just have to have a heads up. You're gonna be vilified. I mean, the Muslim suffering from SSA or struggling with SSA is going to be vilified. And the family members are often gonna be vilified. And it's not just with regard to SSA, but it could be a whole host of other issues. They're also gonna be villainized by maybe the progressive Muslim community who's like, no, no, really, you don't understand, it's okay, etc. Right. And they're gonna be villainized by Western society. So it's a test of basically sticking with the Islamic values. It is a test of one's Iman. And I would just warn people about that up front. They're also, and I've only discovered this recently, as I mentioned earlier, there's gonna be suffering. It's easy to get kind of distracted, it's the wrong word. I mean, it's perfectly natural to focus on the one who you perceive to be in trouble or what have you, or in need of whatever assistance necessary for correction or blah blah blah but there are gonna be other people who are suffering silently, who maybe are religiously observant, who are not struggling with these issues, but they're suffering consequences. And I think parents need to be aware of that and look for it and need to attend to it as best they can. So those would be, you know, those would be just some of the issues that I would mention.

Waheed: 1:41:02

Yeah, these are very powerful pieces of advice, and definitely we parents have to take them into account, just like Allah. What about bro? What are some pieces of advice that you would like to share for family members and parents who are dealing with this?

Amina's Brother: 1:41:17

So definitely the thing that my father talked about, dua, istakhara, and tawbah. Yeah, I mean, again, like it was very far-fetched to a lot of us that my sister would be at the point that she's at, and for Allah it’s not even that all doors are open for Allah, it's that there are no doors, right? Like we perceive these things as just closed, like that there's no way that this is gonna happen, but there are just simply no doors for Allah. So we don't have anyone to call in for help other than him. And you know it's these kinds of situations that just drive it home. So call upon him. Other pieces of advice have empathy. I don't think it's that difficult. It's as simple as just imagining that you are struggling with this yourself. And like I feel like at least anecdotally, my experience is that a lot of the Muslims who are struggling with SSA, and even actually non-Muslims struggling with SSA, it's like they don't they would rather not deal with this. They would rather be, you know, have OSA. They would rather it's even for the non-Muslims who are struggling with SSA, it's like it's not like they're widely accepted even in much of the Western world, right? They would much rather just be heterosexual and go, life would be a whole lot easier for them. And what my father's talking about the villainization, like so okay, so first thing or the second thing I'm saying is have empathy. It's not difficult to imagine yourself in their shoes, and I think it's just naturally going to cause you to deal with this matter with a lot more rahma, a lot more mercy. The third thing is that there's a tendency amongst Muslims, I feel like, just to elevate whole homosexuality to a status that it's not, right? It's not kufr. It's not the worst sin possible. You know, I'm not gonna get into how it ranks or where it ranks or anything like that, but like, okay, it's not kufr. Stop treating it as if it's just the worst thing imaginable. It's not. And every single sin can be repented for, even if you know your loved one, whether it's a friend, a family member, is living this lifestyle, is fully embracing it. It's not the worst sin possible. Don't treat it as such. And actually, there's two other things to say. I'll try and wrap it up. Know your dean. Know Islam. If the only way you have been instilling Islam in like your loved ones is through like fear, or it's just like, you know, if your kids come up to you and be like, why does Islam, why do we have to do this as Muslims, or why can't we do that as Muslims? And the only thing that you can say to them is, Well, it's because I told you so. You know, you failed. Alhamdulillah, that's something I'd say about my father and mother, our father and mother. That was not the case. Like I could bring a question to them, I don't know what I mean. But I could bring a question to them and they would always be like, Well, especially my dad. He'll always be like, Well, son, it's because Allah said so, or his Rasulallahu alaihi wasallam said so. And I'd be like, Yeah, dad, but what's the real reason? I remember this happening one time. This always stuck with me. I said, Yeah, dad, but what's the real reason? He's like, son, I want you to know that is the real reason. That's why. And like, here's where they said it. I know you're looking for the logical reason, and I'll tell you a logical reason, but I want you to know that's the real reason. And like having that ability it's not just instilling Islam like through fear, like that's just yeah, it's just powerful. So I mean if you're if that's how you've been instilling Islam in your loved ones, it's like just through like, oh, because I told you so, I mean, that's that's just not gonna fly. Especially, for young Muslims living in the West, right? It's different when you're growing up in a society where it's like everyone around you is Muslim. It's very different in a society where the vast majority of people around you are non-Muslim. God and religion are openly mocked in the media, in academia. It's just not gonna fly. And the last thing I would say is that it's along the lines of what my dad's talking about with tawbah is that you know, apologize for your loved ones, like apologize where you have failed. Like if there are any failures that you feel like have contributed to this, like and I mean like one example I would give is I know I'm talking a bit talking a lot and I'm trying to prevent myself from talking about it.

Waheed: 1:46:16

Not at all. This is amazing. Let's keep going.

Amina's Brother: 1:46:18

Okay, good. Yeah, because I dislike monologuing, unfortunately, it's a habit I'm trying to break. But like one of the things I see in among anecdot again, this is anecdotal, and you all would have more would have a better touch on it than me, but like anecdotally, I think all of the people that I know who are dealing with SSA, they have an instance of sexual abuse in their life, oftentimes from a very young age, right? and if you as a parent weren't able to prevent that, explore that, have a conversation with your child, for instance, and apologize for not being able to stop it. I'm not and I'm not here talking about my father and sister. I mean, I think they've already had these conversations.I don't know if Amina has talked about this or feels comfortable talking about it, but I mean, like, yeah, she's also a person who has suffered sexual abuse. And I know there's this debate about whether there's a connection and stuff like that. I suspect that a lot of the people who are struggling with SSA have some cases of abuse in their lives. And whether or not like it's a matter of that it contributes, increases the chances of SSA coming on, or it just happens to be that people who struggle with SSA are more likely to suffer abuse in their life you know, whole correlation, not cause not causation thing. If it does increase the chances or something like that, or even regardless of whether it increases the chances, go like have a conversation with them about it. If you don't know whether something like that happened in their lives, go have a conversation with them about it. Acknowledge if you were a part of if you failed to protect them at all. And yeah, I'm going on and on. That's just something that comes to my mind because my limited experience is just that so many of them struggle with it. So many of the people who are dealing with SSA, Muslim community and outside of it, they have some dramatic sexual abuse in their, especially childhood history.

Waheed: 1:48:20

One more reason to love you, bro. Like I'm running out of reasons, honestly, but mashaAllah, one more reason to add, just like Allah. Just to kind of correct this notion that not everyone in the SSE community or anyone who experiences same-sex attractions has been sexually abused as a child, but there is a very high percentage. So Amina talked about this in her own episodes. She did share that. And with me, for example, I was sexually abused multiple times as a kid, and I'm very vocal about it because I try to demystify the topic, remove the stigma from it, and allow other people to share their stories because there's a lot of healing that can come out of it. But as you said, you know, there's correlation, not causation. There is a high percentage of people with SSA who have been sexually abused as kids, and there are lots of people who have been sexually abused as kids who don't develop same-sex attractions. It is a quote unquote risk factor, of course. And we can talk more about this, but we've delved deep into that and a way beyond the rainbow, so inshaAllah. I'll add links in the episode show notes for those episodes in case anyone is interested in diving deep into this topic, inshaAllah, because we've dissected it from multiple angles. But yeah, I think what you mentioned with regards to you know having a conversation, having open communication with your, let's say, if it’s your son or your brother or your sibling, whoever it may be, and just being open to discussing sensitive topics, this is very, very important. And I wholeheartedly agree with that, that you know, something that is missing in our families is the ability to feel safe enough to talk about uncomfortable subjects. You know, for us to reach that point, it means that the whole dynamic within the family has to change. So yeah, please.

Amina's Brother: 1:50:00

Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I mean it's just like I didn't. I hope Amina doesn't mind me sharing this. And if not, if she doesn’t, you can edit it out. But like I remember I don't I wasn't there when she was abused, like I was around, but like I wasn't there for the abuse. But basically it was a family friend, a teenage boy, a teenage man who was in our house for some reason. I can't remember why and unknowingly to all of us, he was abusing her. And I remember fairly vividly, it's weird again how memory works. There's some things that are just standard memory and other things that completely disappear. Like I remember seeing my dad standing there and throwing the boy out with his father, like, and the father was looking, the man was looking very sheepish, this teenage man, and the father was looking extremely embarrassed and very uncomfortable. And I remember my father throwing him out, telling him to never come around here again. So I remember that happened. I must have been like eight or nine years old. and Amina is two years younger than me, so yeah, six or seven years old. And I remember Amina told me that she has a very vivid memory where our father spanked her and basically physically disciplined her that this happened. and you know, I'm not blaming my father. Like he was working with the tools that he had at the time, didn't know, like that's probably knowing my father, that's not how he would handle the situation today, right? He was just doing things with what he could do at the time. But I remember Amina saying that like I had a memory where it's just like okay, boys bad. Boys are bad. And so I could easily see that happening to people struggling with SSA. Regardless of whether they're being , you know, even if just the attacker is the opposite sex, right? So, anyways, I think I've said enough about that.

Amina: 1:52:02

Yeah, I think I actually did talk about this in the first episode, so I think that's fine. And then yeah, I think I had talked about too like another time of sexual abuse, and that was another time that my brother really stuck up for me. I think he was like 12 years old. I don't remember if I talked about that one in my first episode, but he was the only one out of you know, it was my mom and my mom's second husband at the time. They had a very different reaction to it.

Amina’s Brother 1:52:31

This was Malaysia?

Amina 1:52:32

Yeah. It was Malaysia. And then my brother was 12 and I was 10. And I remember specifically my mom's second husband telling me, well, that's what you get for being out there, like just a total standard victim blaming kind of thing. Obviously, I didn't know what victim blaming was at the time, right? But like now, when I look back on it, I said, wow, that is literally the textbook answer, the textbook statement that they tell you not to say. And I was honestly, I was actually at a mosque, so it just didn't even make any sense. I was actually where I was supposed to be. But the fact I was just there alone, I was like waiting for my brother. But my brother, I remember it, it was really I'm laughing because maybe that's just my response, but it was funny because my mom's second husband had that reaction, and then my mom was just in shambles, just crying, so didn't really know how to support. But my brother, I remember him specifically asking me, he said, do you remember if you saw this guy outside, would you remember what he looks like? And I said, Yeah, I remember. And he said, Well, then let's go out there and let's go find him. And obviously, me being 10 and my brother being 12, we're not about to go beat up some grown man, but it was just the fact that he was willing to do that, and that's what he wanted to do, and that was just his response. That meant more to me than anything else, right? So I think it's just showing support for people. Yeah, it's just it's just another one of those times that I felt supported, right? 

Amina's Brother: 1:54:09

Yeah, I think my whole point in saying all this is just that like it we should like we as loved ones should acknowledge where any of our failures may have contributed to the very problem we're stigmatizing and vilifying our loved ones for, right?

Waheed: 1:54:27

Beautifully said, beautifully said, and whether it's sexual views or anything else. I mean, a lot of parents who come to me and tell me about this, I always tell them, you know, love your child or your sibling no matter what, and educate yourself on this topic. And it starts with reading books, understanding where SSA comes from, understanding the dynamics that have been running in the family. And I think a lot of guilt and shame starts to surface once the parents figure things out. And they figure out, for example, the father was either absent or was very controlling and narcissisting and blowing up all the time, or the mother was very domineering, whatever it may be. Honestly, different families have different dynamics. But once they flesh things out and they face themselves in the mirror and realize, oh my God, you know, we did things, but I think there's a lot of healing that comes from just openly communicating and apologizing to one another and realizing, you know what, we did the best that we could at the time. We didn't know any better, just like you said. But you know, there's a lot of healing that can come when we come together as a family, when we sit down and just apologize to one another and hug each other out and talk about things and not shy away from things that are very uncomfortable. There's a lot of healing that comes out of that, and and and we need that. We all need that subhanAllah.

Amina: 1:55:51

Yeah, for sure. Definitely. I was just going to say or I do want to say, or or dad, you want to speak first?

Abu Amina: 1:55:59

No, you go ahead.

Amina: 1:56:00

Oh, I just wanted to because some family members do come talk to me, and you know, I have a few parents in mind when I say this, but they really have actually made them feel almost overly guilty. And that I would definitely think is not very productive, right? Where in a sense where you're just beating yourself up over all the things that you could have done differently. You know, I'm sure my dad has done that, my brother has done that, my mom has done that. And to a certain extent, it just isn't healthy, right? To the point where my mom has to convince herself that I'm dead, you know, to get through the day now because she just feels so bad about things that are happening. So I would say definitely just do it to a healthy extent. But to a certain degree, I think that sometimes you just have to let people go. You know, I wasn't even mad at my mom for just distancing herself in a way, distancing herself emotionally, physically, whatever it was, to just let me figure my things out. So that's kind of my advice to parents and family members is I agree with Waheed in a sense where you love the family member no matter what, of course, but you still have a right to set your boundaries, you know, you have a right to set healthy boundaries, whatever that looks like for you. You know, for my brother, it was, hey, you can still come over with your soon-to-be wife. And if that's the boundary that you want to have, that you're okay with that as a parent, then let that happen. But if that's not something you're okay with, if you don't feel comfortable having these, , you know, your son or daughter or family member with their significant other in your house, that is a boundary that you are allowed to set if it's going to just hurt you so much, right? Like you, as family members, your feelings matter too. It is a lot about the person with SSA, but it's also a lot about everybody else that's going through it, right? But I think the things that have stuck out for me as a person with SSA and having family members, you know, react differently or act differently in all these different ways, right? The things that have stuck out to me are people like my brother, where it was very clear that no matter what, I love you, no matter what, you are my family. And these are just certain things that go against my values and my beliefs, that these are my non-negotiables, but there is room to negotiate on everything else. And what will not change is the fact that I love you and I will never exclude you from anything. So I think it's very important to remember that.

Waheed: 1:59:00

Thank you for sharing. Absolutely important. Yeah, yeah. Loving the person no matter what, but also setting healthy boundaries is absolutely crucial, you know, for everyone involved. Alhamdulillah. Yeah, I couldn't agree more.

Abu Amina: 1:59:13

Oh, if I could add a couple of things. As far as advice parents, and of course I agree very much with what my older children said here. The one thing I would recommend back on the subject of the obligation to protect, that I would just advise family too, you know, that you need to protect yourself, you need to protect yourself in terms of your iman, in terms of your emotional health, etc. And you need to protect your marriage. For those who are married, I mean that marriage is very important. And any test can put a strain on the marriage. So I just think that it's really important for parents to recognize that and to seek to protect their marriage as well as those who are catching strays essentially. The second thing I would say as far as advice is that it's an opportunity for growth. If a family member is not acting out on SSA and is not struggling, then it's an opportunity for you to ask yourself if, well, are there things that I'm not struggling with that I should be struggling with, if they're struggling, then same thing. I mean that okay, well, are there things that I should be working on with myself more? And then really there is a growth opportunity that comes along. So on the subject of parenting and such, one thing that was very helpful for me was because of Amina's relationship with a woman diagnosed with borderline personality disorder, I kind of took a deep dive deep dive into that. At one point or another, I guess I just wound up learning about narcissistic personality disorder. And I was working out of town at the time, and so I was able to do a lot of this. And basically, when I came to narcissistic personality disorder, I realized, oh, wait a minute. I mean, there seems to be something going on here. And I literally came home to the rest of my family and said, you know, that there's something going on here with me. I mean, I have, you know, fortunately, inshaAllah, don't I'm not I don't have the full-blown disorder, but I've definitely got some some issues here, there, and the other. And obviously that's a long process, but the point is that it really is an opportunity for growth and for one's own development. So one family member may be struggling with one thing. Investigate, take a look, see if there are things that maybe you should be struggling with or identify that that you haven't or are not aware of. So I'll mention that. And yeah, obviously I regret things that happened on my watch and the things I mismanaged with Amina and with her brother. Yeah, I mean that would go without saying. But yeah, I did want to take the opportunity to mention those two things, protect everybody as best you can, and then see the opportunity for growing yourself and hopefully changing in a positive way there.

Waheed: 2:03:14

One of the themes that you wanted to talk about, which is the positive things that have come out of this entire journey with Amina and learning about same-sex attractions and her own healing journey and the things that you have discovered in your own personal lives. So if I were to start with Amina and ask you, what are some positive things that have come out from all of this individually and as a family for you personally?

Amina: 2:03:42

I think just like how my dad was talking about learning about narcissism and he was noticing some of the characteristics in himself and such, which I don't believe my dad is a narcissist, but I think…

Amina’s Brother 2:04:01

Me neither.

Amina 2:04:03

Yeah, yeah, but I just love that so much because there is so much to learn about yourself, and that's what I have felt through this process in the last five years since my first episode aired. And for me, I feel so behind in Islam in a sense where I'm just trying to do the basics correctly, you know, where it's like I just want to make my five prayers a day. Like, let me just get that down and make sure I can do those on time, or you know, things like that, and just constantly trying to work on myself, and you know, like I've done so much work in therapy, I've been in and out of therapy over the years, just trying to grow like my dad has, where he's noticing these things about himself, and I notice these things about myself. And you know, there was a time I was even thinking, wait, do I have BPD? You know, though you know, I'm looking at all these characteristics and I'm able to emotionally detach from people really easily. And am I manipulative and all of these things? And so I'm always just trying to learn more about myself, and right now I'm able to do that in this state of more peace and contentment, in a sense, where it doesn't feel like I don't feel like I'm crawling out of my skin anymore. Like that was a very constant feeling where I just felt like I just wanted to rip my skin off and just crawl out. Like it just felt like there was something in me that just needed to get out, and so it's hard when you're feeling that type of feeling to really progress anywhere and like get deeper in yourself. So in the last five years or so, I have felt more at peace where I can just explore these other things and just look deeper in myself. So that's been a real positive. I'm still working on a lot of things. Like I'm very, you know, I think my brother, well, my brother and dad might not be able to attest to it. Well, my brother probably can, but my mom can really attest to it, right? Like I'm very quick to irritate, I get irritable really quickly. I kind of have a short fuse. So it's just just these things that I'm able to work on now, right? Where I couldn't work on before because there's so many other bigger issues happening. So that's been nice.

Waheed: 2:06:40

Alhamdulillah. That's beautiful. That's nice to hear. I'm glad. May Allah give you strength as you move forward, inshaAllah. That's wonderful. Thank you. Yeah. What about dad? What are some positives that have come up, come out of all of this from your perspective?

Abu Amina: 2:06:58

Sure. One has been, you know, I think that we mouth a lot of things, but kind of live it as different. So I think through this whole experience I've learned more than with any other single experience to hate the sin of the sinner. Another is what I already mentioned is to grow in some greater awareness of myself, of some of my characteristics, failings. Another is this community, to be part of this community. That's been a huge plus for me. I really value being part of this community, part of Straight Struggle for the last few years. I think I've already mentioned some of the things that have been positive, seeing myself change in certain ways that I consider beneficial. I don't think I have too much to add beyond that.

Waheed: 2:08:00

Okay. All right, fair enough. Well, thank you for sharing that. Bro, your turn.

Amina's Brother: 2:08:07

Yeah, I don't think I have a ton to add beyond what Amina and Abu Amina have already said. It's just nice that we're all struggling together on the path to Allah.

Waheed: 2:08:20

Right. Right. Well said. Beautifully said. And yeah, I just wanted to say on behalf of the Straight Struggle community, I know that Amina has been very active in helping members out, men and women alike, and and Amina has also been very kind of active and helping a lot of members, including parents and family members who've reached out, such as Jazak Allahu Khayran, and a lot of a lot of the members actually appreciate all of your input. Alhamdulillah. I've heard a lot of great feedback, so may Allah reward you immensely. Amina, if I were to ask you, so you know, for the listeners who have listened to your episode and you know it's been five years, subhanAllah. So, what updates do you have? So what has happened to you over the past five years?

Amina: 2:09:12

Well, yeah, I guess I kind of hit on it a little bit, but it's been pretty steady state for me. Just been really active in the straight struggle group since then. I'll go through periods where sometimes I won't be as active, but I always, I want everybody to know, I always, always, always respond to DMs. And so you can always reach out to me. And I've always appreciated everybody reaching out to me. And I try to help people as much as possible, but I've also just loved the fan mail of when people just reach out to me and they say, Oh, I was so touched by your episode. And that has just made everything worth it. So when I, you know, throughout the last five years, obviously I've been, what's it called, challenged. And, you know, it's not like all of a sudden I just have shed all of my SSA and I never want to engage in SSA ever again or anything like that. The attractions haven’t just died away. But I always think about that, like when I'm tested, is you know what a difference I have made and just the positivity that has come from it. And I think about everybody else that has always just been so much stronger than me in our community that you know, have never, I'm always surprised. I'm still always surprised when I meet people that have SSA but have never engaged in it. And I'm like, wow, I just can't imagine what that life would have been like for me if I just had never gone down that path. And then here they are reaching out to me, you know, just like admiring me. And I'm like, no, I admire you, right? And so I just remember all of these people when I'm constantly being tested every day, and that you know, I just want to continue to help the community and be helped by the community. So I love that, and then I've really started talking to people about SSA, like Muslims about SSA, with this new perspective, right? Because obviously it's very different from when I was going to Pride Parades six years ago, right? And then I stopped going to pride parades five years ago, and so I'm engaging with more traditional Muslims now, and that's been an interesting experience trying to present this perspective to them. And I think I'm in this position to do so because I'm still openly out, and so I think a lot of times people in this community, they're not openly out. So they feel like if they start talking about this topic at all in terms of SSA, that they will be outed themselves. So I just take it upon myself that you know. When I talk to Muslims, I'm always still kind of surprised, and I don't know why I am, but you know, they always just come up with the same things that, oh, well, that's just haram, it's forbidden, and da-da-da. And I'm like, okay, well, let's break it down. You know, I can say that I don't, I don't want to be this way. I don't want to have these attractions, but I just know that I do. But I'm telling you right now, if I could just have purely opposite sex attraction, I would definitely do that. It's kind of what my brother was saying earlier. I don't think a lot of people with SSA would just choose to have SSA, right? That they just love it so much and they just love not being really accepted by their communities and you know, things like that. So it's been interesting because I have gotten to this point where I will talk to these very traditional conservative Muslims and their perspective does change, and I've never seen that before. And it's something that I'm able to do now because I'm not coming from the perspective, I'm not talking to them and saying, hey, well, your idea is all wrong. The way that you've interpreted the Quran is wrong, and the way da-da-da-da is wrong. And now I'm coming at them with this perspective that we promote where it's you know, the SSE is wrong, but the SSA is not. But really getting down to that and kind of touching on what my brother talked about with empathy is I make them basically put themselves in my shoes, but with something else that they're struggling with, whatever it is. And so I think that's been really helpful, just trying to inform people that there's this other, there's this other perspective, right? So I've been doing that, and then just like I said, really focusing on the basics of my foundational Islam because MashaAllah, there's a lot of people on here, right, that are just so far advanced in it, and I'm always just trying to do the basics of like, let me get these prayers down straight, let me make these on time, let me, you know, start adding in extras. Okay, let me do the duas daily and dhikr and all of that. And that has provided me with a lot of peace to grow and such. Yeah, so it's just it's been a good time. I wanted to say something that my dad actually told me, I think this was a couple of weeks ago. And this might fall more into the advice category, but he said that he learned to tell people to love the child that you have, don't love a child that you wanted, right? Which sounds bad on the surface, but I knew what he was trying to say. It was like if you have a child, basically don’t expect your child to be something that you wanted. Don't expect your child to be this doctor if you always wanted him to be a doctor. Don't expect your child to be straight if you just imagined this child was gonna be straight. Love that child no matter what, whether they turn out that they have SSA, whether they turn out to be, you know, an alcoholic, whether it turns out to be struggling with whatever it is, love that child. Don't love him, but with all these expectations that, oh, this is not what you wanted. You wanted something else for your child, right? And I thought that was so powerful that he said that.

Waheed: 2:15:41

Oh yeah. So, in other words, love them unconditionally.

Amina: 2:15:44

Yeah, love them unconditionally. Yeah, and it's been great. It's been great having these hard conversations, right? Like how we talked earlier about having hard conversations with your family, with your friends, with your community. Because I do agree. I don't think it's something that we do, even kind of what I was hinting at earlier is nobody just asked me. Nobody, and I don't know if it would have changed anything or whatever, but nobody in my family just flat out just said, Hey, are you gay? Are you lesbian? Are you bisexual? Are you having sex with women? Everybody knew, everybody knew something was happening, but nobody just asked me. And like I said, I don't know if that would have changed anything, but maybe it would open the door for a conversation if I had just said yes at that time. Just like I did, I told my dad's wife yes when she asked me finally at this you know pinnacle event of to ask me, and then I think things did start to change after that because now the door is open for to have a conversation about it, whereas before it's kind of all just hidden and clouded in the shadows, right? And now I wouldn't say this works in every family, right? It's not like, and I wouldn't even advise every person with SSA to just be so outright forthcoming. But my situation was very different. I was living on my own. I was 18, I had already moved out of the house, I was working, you know, I didn't rely, I wasn't so dependent on my parents emotionally, financially, that kind of thing. So it just worked for me. But if you think the situation can be helped with these conversations, then sometimes it's just good to just ask and talk about it and see what happens.

Waheed: 2:17:58

In this case, my guests, what is something they wish they could have told another person had they ever had the chance for that, but that they've never actually told them. So if I were to ask each and every one of you, so Abu Amina, what is something you wish you could have told Amina, but you never had the chance to do so.

Abu Amina: 2:18:22

I just feel that I have been fortunate this way in having been able to have had the opportunity to say things I wanted to say to people. Obviously I want everybody that I've wronged to forgive me and ask everybody's forgiveness, whether it's you know, just yeah, I mean just everybody that I've wronged, whether it's just the one the people closest to me, proximity-wise geographically right now, Amina, her older brother. But you know, my other children, my wife, but you know, aside from that, I can't really think of anything. And I would just echo what I've said earlier, what Amina said, as far as being where you are right now, that everything that I've done, et cetera, has led to this.

Amina's Brother: 2:19:30

Yeah, yeah.

Waheed: 2:19:32

Okay, well, that's wonderful in and of itself. So thank you for sharing that. Bro, make me proud. 

Amina's Brother: 2:19:46

Are you accusing me of being an imperfect human being? I guess one thing, I don't know if I've ever actually apologized for this, Amina, but like you know, I've acknowledged plenty of times about how nerdy I was and just how I never wanted to hang out with you when we were younger or do anything together other than just play video games. So I'm sorry for that. It was a genuine addiction, and it definitely caused not just my academic life to suffer, my social life, but also my family life. So I apologize for that. I was definitely very absent in my younger years.

Amina: 2:20:19

That's okay, you made up for it.

Waheed: 2:20:22

Alhamdullilah. You made up for it in beautiful ways, mashaAllah. I mean it stood out for you in ways that mashaAllah, you know, very commendable, very heroic.

Amina's Brother: 2:20:31

So I mean, if she wants to, she can talk about it, but it was bad. Like I just didn't want to do anything else. It was a genuine addiction. May Allah forgive me.

Amina: 2:20:43

Which is crazy because that's when computers first came out. Like they weren't even that great. There wasn't even that much to do there.

Amina's Brother: 2:20:51

Dude, I remember dad bringing in the like we were super young, like bringing in the Super Nintendo, like Super Mario Super Mario World, and then like pilot wings, and then like and then they got a computer. They were well off. I mean, they were both doctors.

Abu Amina: 2:21:10

I mean they were well off, and like it was dad's fault if you notice.

Waheed: 2:21:15

Yeah, basically everything's full of everything's dad's fault.

Amina's Brother: 2:21:19

No, no, definitely not, definitely not. I mean, like I said, he is the means by which Islam entered our family, man. Yeah. So speaking of making up for your things, but yeah, anyways, I don't want to go on and on, but yeah, that's why I'm apologizing to her because it was a genuine addiction. That's all I ever wanted to do.

Waheed: 2:21:42

Well, you all coped in different ways, but alhamdulillah came a long way, which we can attest to, mashaAllah.

Amina: 2:21:48

Amina just letting myself know that hey, everything's gonna be okay, you don't have to have it all figured out all the time, and yeah, that it would be okay. I also think I I never told my dad like how much I think because he lived kind of far away, and I remember these times in my life, like since the divorce, and I'm sure my dad remembers it too, but he would come and visit, and I would just be in like absolute tears when he would leave, and it was like so heart-wrenching.

Abu Amina: 2:22:32

Yeah, I definitely remember I remember each and every one of those episodes and I remember when the two of you would be leaving on a visit with us and I would just be crying on my wife's shoulder. And then at the time actually when she was crying on my shoulder thing. Yeah, I remember every one of those.

Amina: 2:23:07

Yeah, so I never I never know, you know, if we didn't if we didn't have to live so far away and things. If we just had, you know, some of these we just lived in close proximity, we could see each other every weekend or every other weekend, how it would be any different. If just things, not even in terms of SSA, but just I don't know.

Abu Amina: 2:23:33

Right.

Waheed: 2:23:51

So bless you, all of you. This has been a wonderful, wonderful episode. It felt like a group therapy or a family therapy session. I hope that you have all enjoyed it, inshaAllah. So, one last question to all of you. I mean, you've shared a lot of messages of hope, you've shared a lot of pieces of advice, a lot of gems. If you were to give maybe last pieces of advice or last take-home messages or messages to the Muslim community in general, whatever you want to share from the three of you, what would you like to say? So let's start with Dad first.

Abu Amina: 2:24:25

I just think that I mean the best one-word advice I know of is, I guess, the people who have actually counted this. I mean, they identify the center word, the middle word of the Quran as being Wal yatalattaf. And my understanding is there's just so much, so many shades of meaning. Be kind, be aware, be subtle. You know, be careful, take care. Be yeah, be careful. and I feel like this one shift he always includes as a standard advice, be the breeze, you know, be this gentle wind. obviously. I felt that a lot of times. But yeah, to seek to be this gentle breeze in life that just sort of brings good and cleanses and so that would be it for me.

Waheed: 2:25:34

That is a beautiful piece of advice, and maybe we all embody that inshaAllah. Thank you very much, jazakhallah khair. Amina.

Amina: 2:25:43

Just be cognizant that there's there's people there's Muslims with SSA that don't want to have SSA, and I think just understanding that allows the community to be more open because that's what I've noticed is talking to the very traditional conservative Muslims, is they don't even really recognize that there's a group out there that exists, and so they're very closed-minded to the idea. And you know, my brother, he actually gave a khutbah about SSA, and when I think about it, I just think, you know, how many khutbas do we know out there that are about SSA? There's not many, so I think leaders in the community can start talking about this because there's probably people within the communities that you know they're experiencing SSA themselves or they know of people, and if they hear a leader talking about it in a way that, hey, there's there's other things that you can do besides just becoming a progressive Muslim or whatever, adopting this lifestyle, they can help these people with SSA or the family members or whoever show them this path. But we have to start talking about it for that to even happen. Because there's so many people on the straight struggle that you know, I've talked to a lot of people that they say that they didn't even they knew that something was different about them, but they didn't even have a word for it because they're living in you know, countries that are not in the West, like America or wherever, and they don't even have a word for it because nobody's even talking about it. So the first time that they're able to even acknowledge what's going on with them is because they have found the straight struggle and then they realize something clicks, like, oh, this is me, you know? And yeah, because they're so censored or whatever it is that they just don't have any outlet for it. So yeah, just creating a space that people can talk about it like that.

Waheed: 2:27:55

Absolutely. Yeah, that's wonderful. Thank you very much for sharing that.

Amina's Brother: 2:28:03

I mean, that just seems so crazy coming from like living in the West for so long or all of our lives that like I mean it's just don't even have a word for it. I mean it definitely exists, right?

Waheed: 2:28:15

I mean it's like I can imagine Yeah.

Amina's Brother: 2:28:16

Right, right. Yeah. Yeah, so I think I'm just thinking about advice to like we already talked about advice to families and loved ones of those struggling with SSA.

Waheed: 2:28:32

And I mean I think it's fitting for like I don't want to interrupt you, but please carry on. But maybe you can also touch upon the khutba that you gave, just briefly, like the main themes, because that would be very interesting. But anyway, carry on.

Amina's Brother: 2:28:40

Right, I'm supposed to send that to you. Basically the main themes, so it was to an audience of mainly university students. And so there was a you know it's continuously being discussed amongst like the younger Muslims, like about what well ex Muslims of all age groups, but especially like the younger college-age Muslims about like, okay, where what is the stance on SSA and SSE? And so basically the three topics were one, here's what Allah has to say, and his results always have to say it's explicit in the Quran. There's no getting around it or it takes too much, it's illogical to try to recontextualize it or you know to revise it basically. And then the second part, actually, it's more of just two parts. The second part of the hope though is about okay, so where does that leave us practically? And encouraging to draw this line of okay, it's forbidden. That doesn't mean we go around basically for lack of a better term, gay bashing. Acknowledge the fact that there are Muslims that are struggling with this issue and have empathy. That's it in a nutshell about that.

Waheed: 2:30:00

MashaAllah, that's beautiful.

Amina's Brother: 2:30:01

MashaAllah, I will remember to send it to your way. I'll write it down.

Waheed: 2:30:05

I'd love to listen to that.

Abu Amina: 2:30:12

And also, also you know, you made the point that and I apologize, maybe you just said this right now, but I didn't feel like I heard it. You did an excellent job of yeah, I mean basically establishing okay, hang on. I mean this is it's very clear that this is forbidden, but then at the end of things, clarifying in a very straightforward way that so many Muslims seem to equate this with kafir, and that's just yeah. So it was basically, I mean, I always felt you struck an excellent balance there with those two points. And I think till this day I have not heard a khutbah making those points so clearly and just you know concisely, succinctly, and very straightforward manner.

Amina's Brother: 2:31:05

Alhamdulillah. May Allah accept it for me. 

Waheed: 2:31:10

So did you want to add anything else or was that it?

Amina's Brother: 2:31:17

Yeah, no, like I've been thinking about advice to give to probably the most important people in the audience, which is like the Muslims who are struggling with SSAs, because we've already given advice to like the loved ones and stuff like that. So props, first I mean like props that you're even at this point, right? That like you're listening to a podcast from the straight struggle, and like it's it deserves kudos, right? I mean, because like it's so the easiest thing and humans love easiness, right? And like the easiest thing in the world is like, well, whatever, let's just go, you know, with what the progressive Muslims say, or let's just go with whatever. You know, why do you even have this discussion at all? Why even bother having this struggle, right? Just a lot of people, sad to say, you know, they'll just toss Islam by the wayside and just go off. So props to you for props to them for even making it to this point. Whatever it is that you do in the future, props to you right now. The second thing I would say is that… I think this applies to everybody. But I think something that makes it really easy or easier to submit to Allah is knowing why you are Muslim and asking yourself the question, and starts with asking yourself the question, why am I Muslim? And if you're like me all those years ago, when I asked myself that question, why am I Muslim? The best I could come up with was I'm Muslim because my parents are Muslim, right? That's not a really great answer. And what because there's so many things in Islam, like, okay, Allah commands this or He forbids that. And you can ask the question continuously, why does Allah command this? Why does Allah forbid that? I want to do this, I want to do that why do why is it this way? You'll just I mean it unless once you answer the question once you answer that question, why am I Muslim? Is Islam the the is Islam the truth or not? The submission becomes a lot easier. I'm not saying it's going to be easy, like Islam means submission. Nobody thinks submission is easy, right? It's oxymoronic, but it becomes easier. I think I can't promise people like what that would look like, what that's gonna be like how you're going to arrive at that conclusion. But you should start if you're not. If you don't have a good answer for that, why am I Muslim right now, I think it's good to get started on it and like pray about it, ask Allah for help. If and if you don't, if you're not sure whether Allah exists or not, you can make the same dua that my father made, the du'a of the atheist. Oh Allah, if you exist, you know, guide me to the path that is most pleasing to you. And you know, because I'm a big believer in that, like, okay, our obligation is to our obligation is to the truth wherever it is. You know, if Islam, if the truth is with Islam, we should be following Islam. If the truth is elsewhere, we should be following that. And to be clear, I'm convinced that Islam is the truth. But like, you know, theoretically, if it's just because I was born with this,I was raised in this religion, and I'm you know, I have a psychological bias towards it, that's not proof that this is the truth. And I should be I should be a truth seeker. I should be trying to find the truth. I've reached the conclusion that Islam is the truth. I don't promise to everybody like what that's gonna look like for them. For me, it was like an intellectual, logical exercise. There's plenty of Muslims who receive dreams, like where it's just clear one of my coworkers, like he just saw himself praying salah and he's like, Okay, that's it. Like, I'm converting. Like, I've been studying this religion already. I saw myself praying salah and I could feel the peace I felt in this dream, and you know, they convert to some. yeah, I mean, like other people, it's something else. I guess the point I'm just trying to drive home is that like until you answer your for yourself that question, you're always going to be questioning it's it could be about SSA, it could be about why do we have to pray five times a day, by it could be about why why we can't do X, whatever X is. And yeah, that's it.

Waheed: 2:35:31

All right, beautiful. Honestly, this is a very nice and beautiful place. A high note to kind of end this episode on. So I want to sincerely thank the three of you for joining me in today's episode. Jazak Allah Khairan, Barakallahik. I've learned so much from you today, and I'm sure the listeners have also learned and benefited alhamdulillah from the wonderful gems that you've had to share. So, Jazak Allah Khair for being valuable guests. I'm very honored to have you with me. And yeah, Amina, thank you for being a you know a recurring guest. You've been on A Way Beyond the Rainbow for a couple of episodes, and now here again on Voices from Beyond the Rainbow. So thank you again for facilitating this. I really appreciate it.

Amina: 2:36:12

Thanks for having me, as always.

Waheed: 2:36:16

And with that, we come to the end of our season finale. I hope you have enjoyed today's episode and the first season of Voices from Beyond the Rainbow, and I hope that you have found value in the content. If you have enjoyed the podcast so far, please make sure to give us a good rating, as that helps make the podcast more visible for people. And if you or anyone you know would like to be a guest on the podcast, roll over the link in the episode show notes and fill out the form. And if you have any questions or comments or suggestions, feel free to email me anytime on voicesfrombeyondtherainbow@proton.me. This has been Waheed Jensen in Voices from Beyond the Rainbow, assalamu alaikom warahmatullahi wabarakatuh.