Anti-Muslim rhetoric in Texas politics

You know, despite the fact that Muslims make up significantly

less than two percent of all Texans. This has really become the sort of political football of this election season, and we're seeing it really begin to move from rhetoric into action as we see elected officials using their power to create, you know, political caucuses around this, take legal action, talk about filing legislation, begin to file bills on the federal level aimed at this issue that they really have dragged the to the center of the political conversation.

a lot of slamophobia. My father used to own a jewelry store and I used to work there, and there was a lot of people that came in and said, you're not an American, go back to your country. I'm not going to buy a jewelry from you. And they would go across them all and buy it from and code and quote American business and then show us a receipt and say, hey, we are going to give our business to Americans only, and you should go. But again,

I was, you know, a teenager. I didn't, you know, understand what was going on and didn't wasn't politically involved, right, So that was the first time I saw like my family being affected, and my father's business was sort of basically collapsed on the verge of bankruptcy almost And that's when I found myself working at gas stations and mopping floors for six bucks an hour, working three min one

way job. That's where I met my wife, literally while mopping floors, and and and then eventually I worked hard, saved every penny to buy my own gas station and live the American dream and you know, make paychecks and sport of the econ me. I still own the gas station that I bought in two thousand and three, and it's an artic and actually it's in our district and I'm really proud that we have that, and my father helped me run that, as I have other endeavors that

I have right now. But the second time I saw Islamophobia was when I decided to run for office, or even actually before that in twenty sixteen, when we elected our current president first time around, and he was speeing a lot of hateful speech about Muslims and people that you know are sort of different immigrants, and I felt like, this is how this person leader great nation when he's viewing such hateful rhetoric against people like me, people that

pray like me, and so in our community there's always like a dialogue. Always Trump going to be helpful to us, so hurtful as business owners. Some people may think that, you know, one way or the other, but they were complaining a lot about the policies, right, the Muslim ban and the hateful rhetoric. And so I just felt like, I want to be the change that you want to see in the world, like Mahatma Gandhi said, as opposed

to just complain about it. And so I was serving on the park board in my city of Ulyss upon insistence of actually Representativeangaea. When I became an attorney, I used to work at Haines and Moon. I started at Haines and Moon and he told me, as attorneys, it behoves us to give back to a community, so you should, you know, join a border commission in New York City.

I was, okay, that's not you know, politics. You know, I don't want to get involved in politics, but I'm okay and sort of, you know, giving back my time and value to the city I love so much. And twenty sixteen happened and we elected as president, I felt like we need to do something about it. So that's when I put my name in the hat and ran for city council again. So well liked incumbent and saw a lot of Islamophobia at that time. I did not

win my first election. As it turns out, a lot of people, you know, face defeat, and I think because I would experience failure, next victory was even more you know, very good taste in my mind, you know when I did when in twenty eighteen. In twenty eighteen that there

was a lot of slamphobia. In fact, if you may remember, former state Representator John Jonathan Stickland attacked me for being Muslim, for being an attorney, for being you know, just having boy scouts come in from my troop and say the Quran, reside the Quran as an invocation in the Ulus City Council.

That really brought a lot of good people actually out and people from mckinni and Princeton, Texas and so many random cities came out and said, hey, this is not the America that we know, right, you know, you cannot and this is a sitting state representative, elected official from

our district. That's viewing such hateful speech, and so I knocked on even more doors and got a lot of great support, and you know, I won by only thirty seven votes and made history by being the first minority ever elected in the history of the city of Ulus. And that gave me a lot of like enthusiasm that

Texas is not what people claim it to be. And it's sort of poetic justice that today I'm sitting in the same place where Jonathan Stickland sat and attacked me for being Muslim in that so you know, God has its way of you know, giving back or the karma that people do, right, So it's poetic justice where I'm sitting here. So I think, you know, eventually, I feel like the islamphobia is there, but it's very limited. That's

not the Texas that we know. It's just sort of a fringe, loud minority of voices that bring all the hate.

But I felt like it's easier for people to give hate online, right like on Facebook, sitting there like how Jonathan Sticklan did you know he posted on like a big post on right on the early early voting day, the first day of early voting, and that had like twenty thousand likes, And I was like, wow, like it's easy to do that. But then as I sat or stood outside the library greeting every single voter that came

in and saying, my name is al Mambo Johanni. I'm wanting to run for you a city council and would love your support. And they'd be like one person rolled up in a wheelchair and said, you know, what kind of pork do you eat? I'm telling you about city council. I'm like, hey, I'll be an attorney. You know, I've got little kids. You know, the way the city council right now is that there's no one that has little kids that use the library in the park. And he's

asking about what kind of pork do I eat? I'm like excuse me, sir, like, what does that have to do with city council? And he said, well, I mean if you don't you know, this is really important to me. I need you to answer this question. I was like, well, I didn't know there are different kinds of pork, but I don't need any kind of pork. And he said, well, if you don't eat pork, then you don't have my vote, sort of signaling that there has to be a religious

test for you to be an elected office. People came in and I remember distinct there was a former professor from Texas A and M and him and his wife came out to board and I was, you know, having really intimate conversations with him, and I felt like this is great, right because I want to reason with people that are at a more intellectual level. And so I have a good conversation in a few minutes. And he's like, so,

what do you think about shir Ya law? And I'm like, well, I mean shir yallow is is religious moral code and you know Muslims follow it. You know, it's very personal. It guides my principle of what I want to do in my life, not what you know other people should do in their own life. And he's like, well, I'm concerned you'll you'll bring shari Ya law on uless Like I just told you. It's a personal moral code, just like how Jewish community has it, Christians have it, a

lot of religious communities have it. And then he says, what do you think about people, you know, women wearing hijab? Like, I mean again, people choose to do what they want to choose, right, it's about And I asked him, like, what do you think about people wearing boots and tex I mean, is this a bad thing to do or good thing to know? It just people do what they

want to do, right, I mean we can't. That's the beauty of this country that we can choose to wear or do whatever we want to do, so long as it doesn't interfere some with someone else. So if a Muslim woman is wearing a job, what issue do you see? And he's like, no, no, no, I feel like you'll make less women wear a job. I can't do that. I mean, look at my wife's standing right here next to me.

She's not wearing a job. But not that there's anything wrong with that, but I mean it's just like that's what made me feel like it's trickling down to normal people that are coming out and voting in a city election where there's no Republican or Democrat like on the ballot, right, And that's what I loved about city politics that, you know, So I saw a lot of that. But then when I got elected, it was really amazing eleanor Matthew that out of seven city council members, I'm the only Democrat

on there, I am the only minority on there. Six of my Republican colleagues in twenty twenty elected me as a mayor of protesi for the city of Ulyss and I was just amazed, Like that is what Texas is about. It's coming together. No one party has all the monopoly of all the solutions. So when you come together and say, hey, our potholes are not democratic, our library is not Republican.

We need to come together and solve problems for everyday Texans with kitchen table issues as opposed to polarized issues.

And we have this like we strategized, you know, in our office, you know, and we came up with what

is our one goal? If you had to put in one sentence, what is our goal as the office of the state representa famam Borjani and everybody wrote on the in their book as a facilitator, was was you know, sort of strategizing this that we want Our goal is to improve the quality of life of every Texan starting with our constituents and quality of life, our the kitchen table, issues like improving health care, high color, quality, education, our economy,

you know, religious freedom, technology all that and is not

really partisan neither it's for based on one religion. I mean, that's the reason why I even started the Religous Freedom Caucus, because it's not a you know, a fight against Islamophobia caucus, right, It's it's just this is our religious liberty is a central issue for all parties, for all our community because it's enshrined in our constitution, and so I feel like it's important to discuss those things and not just talk about one faith because an attack on one faith is an attack on everybody.

They're like over eight thousand doctors and nurses of Pakistani origin. There are Muslims in North Texas alone. Think about how many are more probably in all over the state of Texas. So it's likely that I tell my colleagues on the house that it's likely that one of you know, your doctors may be a Muslim. And so it's just we are contributing the citizens of the United States of Texas and it's a it's a very diverse community. We are. All we want to do is live, work and play,

pray in peace in the state of Texas. And with so much you know, economy and the business vibe that the Texas Texas has, I feel like we should allow that and that is something a foundational principle of being able to associate, being able to belong and not treated like an outsider. And that's what I think our community is feeling right now that we are treated as an outsider. We're looked as there's a cloud of suspicion on the

Muslim community. So there's not a day that goes by without me getting a text from a Muslim community member in Houston, San Antonio, Austin, anywhere in Texas that says, hey, you know, my daughter or wife was walking with the h job and she got targeted and there were people yelling you know, epithet, you know, and islamophobic speech at them. Or you know UTD students praying in a park and there's someone that comes in with a loud speaker and

says islamophobic things to do them while they're praying. Or the Muslim woman if you may have heard of this in Uless, where she was sitting by her pool side with two little kids and there's a Caucasian woman that comes in and tries to drown the two kids because the woman was speaking to them in Arabic and she's you know, targeted for hate crime and all that. So

there's a lot of that happening right now. It's really trickling down from the elected officials all the way down to normal constituents and Texans that should not be going through this. I mean, there's so much more things that we should focus on than them we're doing right now, and it's coming from elected officials, which is very concerning to me because what we say is held to a higher standard when we say we have a fan following, and so who knows what somebody looks at a tweet

and goes out and actually takes an action. And I saw that firsthand, like in my family, you know, last summer, as you know, I broke orum and one of the Terran County Republican party chairs was was giving me a lot of hate for doing that and sort of docks my personal ad, my home address, my parents' home address, my social media like kids social media platforms, and they were unmarked cars following my family around while I was in Chicago, and you know, the people are coming to

our doorsteps and trying to figure out or where's representa Bojani and all that like every time, and I'm feeling really you know, sad, and I'm trying to figure out how do I protect my family sitting in Chicago remotely when all this is going on Texas they know full

well where I'm at. I'm posting on social media that I'm in Chicago and all that, and I literally, you know, after resultation with other Democratic colleagues, I had to hire twenty four to seven security private security, so that way I could take care of my family while I was in Chicago. So it's actually a really real threat that

we experienced. And you've seen what happens what happened in Minnesota to Democratic elected officials, So I take that a lot to me personally, And actually we had a big conversation with my family as whether I should run for office again, because if something happens to my family while I'm helping people that I don't sometimes you even know, it's not going to be fair for me and for

my family. But ultimately I decided to continue to run for office because I feel like there is such a huge need for somebody that has my perspective being born in a different country, having a different faith, and how do I defend against the Christian nationalism that's going on, or you know, the violation blatant violations of religious freedom rights instead of Texas.

We've had UH schools Muslim schools kept out of the voucher program when other religious schools, including Christian Injewish schools being allowed to participate. You have Dan Patrick declaring, uh, you know, combating Charia law as a uh interim charge, you know, something he has asked the Senate to study in the lead up to the next legislative session. You have had the fights and pushback in legal actions against the development in North Texas around a mosque, the what's

known as been known as the Epic City development. And then you've had just kind of in the the races, the primaries, right, you know, candidates really making what they would describe as fighting Islam a key tenet of their campaigns. Someone who really comes to mind here being Bo French, who is running for Railroad Commissioner, a position that you know regulates the oil and gas industry, not something you would really expect that to be a big plank of

the candidate. You talked a little bit earlier about how, you know, there's always been something of an undercurrent You've always sort of faced this kind of you know, I mean, frankly discrimination throughout your career. Do you feel like right now the climate is particularly hot and heated, or does it feel to you more like this is just kind of what it's always been like for you in your community, in you know, the political it.

I mean you look at every congress member on the far right that that is saying, oh you know, do you do you you know our dog's bad or you know your Muslim's bad? Right, and just both frends you talked about him, I mean, he's he has this infatuation with me somehow, just like how Jonathan Stickland did. But he's also saying the same thing, you know, And I think when he tweeted or did a post saying that

our Muslims worse or you know, Jewish community worse. I think he got a lot of backlash from lieutenant governor and other elected officials by saying, you know, we do not want anti Semitic behavior in our state. So I see our elected officials really quick to fight against, you know, any discrimination on one faith but not on the other. And that's the danger. The double standard is the danger

that I see, and that's what's amplifying the volume. And that's why it's so important to fall back and protect the religious freedom for all faith communities. This is not something that I'm only fighting for the Muslim community, even though Muslim community is being targeted significantly more. They're being scapegoaded. And I think the the playbook hasn't changed. The actors

in that playbook has changed. Right before, if you you know, look at a few years ago with more immigrants that are coming from South America and they're criminals and they're going to invade the border and they're coming to Texas, and so we need to build a five billion dollar wall, we need to have troops going and so it's exactly the same fear mongering tactic because it's difficult to sow the seeds of because it takes a little bit more time.

It's easier to so hate. So that way, hate gets people turned on neighbor to neighbor pretty quickly, right, And that's what I saw as well. I'm a neighbor and I'm doing so many great things for the state and for the for my city. As soon as I run for the office elected office, now I'm you know, turned into an outsider. And so but I think if you look at it, it's a mccarthy'sm with the Texas accent. Right. So when McCarthy they he didn't need proof that someone

was a communist. He just labeled it, and that label itself became proof that, Hey, you can destroy the careers, you can take passports, you can blacklist entire organization. So that's what Governor, our governor did, right, he said, Okay, here's care. I just lost three lawsuits, right, that's what he's saying. I lost three lawsuits back in October twenty twenty five against Care on blatant violations. Courts have told governor, you've blatantly violated our First Amendment. And what is this

knee jerk reaction? Okay, let's label that organization as a terrorist organization without any substantive fact, without any kind of you know, view process, and then building a layer on top of that. So every brick that's left put level on top of that is based on basis foundation. So

then you talk about Epic City bill. By the way, a side note, when that bill was what twenty forty two eleven HP forty to eleven was being filed and gone through the process and expedited through the process, by the by the way, and I'm sure you all know that there was no mention of shir Yah law. There

was no mention. This is a bill that says, hey, if you were twenty five acres or more real estate development, instead of you have to people have to buy the home, actually not buy a membership interest in a company that owns land. That's what it is about. It's not there to bantury a lot, even though it was touted later on, I in fact voted no for it because of that. And I'm a real stair attorney, you know, like I have seen so many developlopment's just based on the same

epicicity model. In North Texas here there's like ten acres twenty five acres fifteen acres where they say, we're going to dedicate some portion of land to mosque and we want, you know, to make this development for everybody, but most likely who will come those people that want, like their parents or their kids to be able to walk to the mosque. Right, so they're going to live close by. Like I said, they just want to live, work and pray in peace. And that's so many developments have happened.

I think Epic City did a great job of marketing where you know, their neighbors in Josephine, Texas found this and said, how is this happening in my backyard? Not in my backyard. I don't want to slammify the state and things like that. So that's what and they prompted the governor Abbott and other elected officials to say, hey, you have to do something about it. And that's why this targeting is happening. But it's the same sort of

building block on that and then they say the schools right. Oh. In another side note, when the private school voucher bill was being discussed in the legislature last session, a lot of Republicans came to me in my office or on the side and said, hey, you're Muslim. Don't you want your Muslim private schools to get this private school vouchers? I was like, if it passed, but I don't want to.

I really don't want to. As a state representative, our job is to fully fund one like our public schools, right, one level of education, not like coming up with like multiple and private schools. So but it was sold to me as hey, your Muslim schools will also get money. And now they're completely violating so you know, we have elected officials right now, they're violating the intent of the legislature by you know, not just excluding some of the schools.

And it had to be a lawsuit before they could come in and accept some of the schools.

you know, from you know, some politicians. Not everyone, of course, but some politicians publicly right now.

I don't know what, like what does that means? I always say, like in their minds, maybe when they think of a Muslim they think of Uslamb and Laden's image. Maybe they think of somebody with a turbine and a beard and so, and I you know, they're very like respectful to me, like I've not had a legislator or doesn't matter where they sit on the political political spectrum

being disuspectful of me. In fact, you know, I've had I do this if star at the capital every session where the first session I had fifty five or so state reps and senators that come they came in, and this time I had sixty plus state reps that came in and this is happening in the month of March and April. So think about like, you know, when all this legislation about Epic City is brewing and these people are coming privately, and I mean it's it's sort of private,

but it's also like showing of support. And I try to do everything in English so that way everybody understands what's going on. It's and I tell them, hey, it's important to break bread together sometimes, right just in a in an interfaith way, in non partisan way, to say, let's come together. We have so much more in common.

You know, when when I talk to Christian lawmakers, I say, hey, you know, the God that you pray to is the same God that we pray It's the same Abrahamic faith tradition, and so you know, I think when they talk to me in one on one it's a lot more respectful and is not that negative rhetoric as you see on public platforms. But I think they may be tempted to feel that their constituents want them to do certain things.

Like for example, yesterday Attorney General Ken Paxson did this lawsuit and had to press release on the Islamic Tribune know right, and it's again he's going through a primary runoff, right, So it's just a race to be more Islamophobic. Right. So I would have never thought that Senator Cornyn would do something, Sureia free something in the US Congress. But he's doing that because he has to be more islam

phobic than his opponent. Otherwise in the Republican primary, he's not going to get the support and the votes that he needs because if you look at I think what eight to ten percent of Texans come out in the Republican primary, and so he needs to win over the four point one or a five point one percent of Texans, and those are so far right Maga Republicans that they've fallen off the charts of the political spectrum. And so that's what they're trying to woo, and that they need

to be more solamphobic than someone else. I mean, by the way I looked at this Islamic Tribunal website, I mean it clearly says they're not you know, they follow the law of the land, they follow the Texas Constitution, the United States Constitution, and this is just religious context. They're they're not binding, uh, you know, agreements or whatever the jurisdiction that they live in. So it's fear mongering at its best, sort of serving the red meat to their constituents.

some of our elected officials speak out against. But then this,

you know, Muslims are treated very differently. A couple months ear last month was at the Faith Angle Forum in sort of this gathering of journalists and religious thinkers, and they were had this great author or scholar osma Udin who wrote this book like When Islam Is Not a Religion about how Islam is often treated within our religious liberty context as like an entirely different thing, more of a political system or a political effort than a religion.

And they're talking about this idea, right that like civil liberties, religious liberties are for losers. Like you don't need religious liberty or civil or your civil liberties to be protected when you are in the position of power, right, you need them when you are not in the position of power, and when you need sort of safety net to protect your rights. And I think certainly, just in terms of the elected officials we have in Texas, we have a

lot of Christians and elected positions. We have very few Muslims. As we've discussed, we have very few Jewish elected officials. I mean, what is your sense of sort of when you hear elect officials talk about religious liberty, you know, let's say Republican elect officials talking about religious liberty versus you know, you're starting this religious liberty Caucus. Do you see overlap there? I mean, are you guys using the term the same now?

a shield to protect one the other one right. So I feel we have had multiple laws in the ninety Lestive session that said Christian nationalism or Christianity is sort of a more predominant religion and we're going to protect that more than any other right. So protecting the right of every Texan or Christian Texan to have Bible study or Bible prayer time. And what the issue with that was that besides just having taking one faith and saying

Bible is sort of in the code as well. It removed one thing that I think a lot of Republicans didn't even know. When I was talking to Republicans said, it takes out the word encourage. I don't know if y'all caught that. A lot of people, like I said, even including Republicans, didn't catch that. So there was a prohibition on encouraging school teachers and principles and administrators encouraging religion.

So they literally striped out that bill, struck out the word encourage, prohibition on encouraging, which means now you could encourage a school teacher can encourage and say these kids and say you should become a Catholic or Christian or this or that, and so I made it a coin

in the front mind. As this bill was being discussed on the house floor, I went up and I said, well, I could say this where what if there's a Muslim teacher that comes up and says, hey, you know, if those of you who pray five times a day today and read the Quran, there's a test tomorrow, math test tomorrow. I'll give everybody that does that and shows me a proof, I'll give them a five bonus points on that. And that's completely legal under this bill now, right, And I said, nobody,

including myself on the house floor wants that. I don't even want that. And or a Muslim teacher goes up and says, you know, it's sprayer time right now. I'm in math class or whatever class, but it's prayer time. I'm going to just start praying right now. And this is the direction of the Kaba, and I'm going to start and you should join me in praying, right And

that is completely legal now. And so that is just eroding on the religious freedom because I think there's two sides to the religious freedom coin, and we just look at one side where sometimes and that even that is eroded, but that you can practice your faith without any discrimination

or government interference. On the other side is the state cannot mandate of faith because there are atheist community members, they are agnostic community members as well, that we need to respect and that they also have the same constition rights.

And so that's where I want to hold the line on start, you know, because of this Freedom Caucus, and try to make sure that we celebrate, protect and you know, just make sure that there are these all these religious traditions have rights in the state of Texas well.

But then, you know, like you said, I think that the end result of that of saying, oh, there's not you know, maybe we don't have to honor the separation of church and state, is you know, is everyone thinking and that should apply to everyone equally. You know, Muslim should be allowed to you know, you know, I think to your point, the point you've made you make on the house floor, a lot like no one is sort of thinking that in their mind that that's how that

should go. They're really going the Judeo Christian only model.

does it mean thou shalt not commit adultery? Can you explain that to me? What does adultery mean? And I tell my colleagues, do you want a kindergarten teacher to explain to a five year old Let's say your kid what adultery means? Or is that left better for the parents to be teaching that concept? Right, It's just they don't want to talk about these you know, woke culture and all that. But then at the end, like they're

putting things out there to muddy the waters. And so that's where, like I've always hesitant to, this is a place where you're invite in the public. This is a place where you're inviting curiosity amongst the most young, more vulnerable Texans. Let this be free from religion, Let this be free from any kind of one side it, you know, politics, right, and I'm saying for both parties. I think that that's

why we should make it. Because of the level kids can ask questions and feel comfortable even though there may be a board. As kid, we don't want them to feel left out because they don't see their faith on the board.

a quick example. So during Bedrow's race, I think in twenty eighteen, they were I think he lost by a few hundred thousand votes, right, And somebody who was telling me there were two hundred and fifty thousand Muslims that did not vote in that election, So Muslims in that election could have completely turned and changed the outcome of that election, now, you know, I mean, I feel like some numbers indicate that we have like two percent of

Texans are Muslims, so about six hundred thousand or maybe more. And so that's a sizable number where if we can come out and influence elections. So I feel like there will be somewhat of a shifting of this vetic and I hope so again, like I said, I'm very hopeful. That's what keeps me coming back to the Texas Legislature despite the kind of setback that we had last session where I felt, you know, the people across the aisle

were not giving me the benefit of the doubt. Everything that I filed or talked about was looked at it a little bit at this with the suspicion that, oh, this must be some woke ideology or some Muslim thing that you're trying to slide that by. Because I do work a lot on religious freedom, right, I mean, I

had the religious freedom as a freshman. I had a religious freedom press conference, making sure that we have state option holidays, the marriage parody of Muslim in moms and Hindu pundits and sick grunties and Buddhist monks could also officiate weddings. And then also no star tests on the religious festivals, which I did get to pass, but I didn't put anything of any religion. I just said any

religion that is recognized by the federal government. If they have any religious festivals, the kids should be able to make make up for star tests. And I think there's so much hate against star tests that that's probably foul. Why it passed not because of the religious freedom aspect of it. I feel like there will be a resetting and I feel that these elections midim elections will be

quite telling. I see a lot of momentum. I see, for the first time in what twenty plus years, there's been more momentum on the Democratic side, more Democrats about it in the Democratic primary than the Republics in the Republican primary. So I feel that's something that's going to shift the weight. And my first session was actually an amazing session. Despite being in the minority. I got a lot of things done and you reduced the effect negative effects on a lot of different bills. And there were

sixty eight Democrats and eighty two Republicans. This past session, a lot of really good friends of mine on both sides of the aisle were unseated, and especially fifteen Republicans. There were modern Republicans that were unseated because of private school voucher issue. In IFL now we had sixty two Democrats and eighty eight Republicans. It was really sort of

my way or the highway legislation. And I hope that the momentum sort of continues because again between now and November, there's a lot of time right, and people are have a really short term memory, and so I hope that this continues to excite them to say, we need to come out and vote with people that resonate with us, that fight for us, regardless of party politics. Like I said,

there's no one party that has all the solutions. I feel biased that one party has a lot of good solutions, but you know, it's just we need to come together in a bipartisan manner because their religious freedom issue is not a partisan issue. It's something that it's the sort

of core value that we have. And I'm you know, one thing I'll tell you is huplic sharia law or sharia that one word is so misunderstood, and I feel and I hope that people take the time to learn more about that there's a lot of misconception on there. So I'm actually working with my staff to produce a video to just break it down in very simple context, that there's a lot of this vehtic. Oh, we want to ban sharia law? Okay, what is sharia law? Let's

let's take it down, right, is it? It's basically loved neighbor, That's what sharia law is. Do you want to take that down? Do you want to ban that? Like, it's just people don't understand, you know, these these nuances, and they just get on the bandwagon. The word sharia in Arabic literally means a path, a righteous path, right that that you want to follow. It's a personal moral guiding principle that we have as Muslims. And we don't all

believe in the same exact thing. Like there's one aspect of it that you know, interest, right, you should not give interest or take interest. Not all Muslims believe in that, but a lot of them do. And so it's just a way that you sort of figure out, how do we have sharia compliant way of financing a home right, so that way somebody can buy the American dream and make sure that you know they have that. So it's just I hope that people take the time to learn more about that.