Assalamu alaikum,
My Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Legacy Learning Center is calling you for the ultimate duty towards our community to strengthen our students and children to preserve their identities. With it they can think, value and act proudly for their belonging to our ummah. 

 Teaching is known to be an ideal approach and is symbolized in:

1. Knowledgeable teacher with proper ethics and principles;
2. The humble learner with modesty and loyalty;
3. The effective texture (textbook) useful in this life and thereafter;
4. Practical teaching method that is successful and represents the true knowledge.

This ideal approach poses a number of fundamental questions that formulate the essence of our Islamic education: Who we teach? Who is the one to teach? What is it that we teach?  Where we teach it? 

Our prophet Muhammad P.B.U.H. said: “To guide someone to the right path is better for you than what the sun and the moon can shade upon.

This is the mission of knowledge, information, awareness, education, reminding and guiding each other, and strengthening our commitment during the childhood, adulthood, and throughout our lifetime, both male and female. In its turn, this mission requires modern educational institutions that can compete with the time, challenge the present and most of all can operate with acumen. It is our mission and responsibility to generate individuals who can control their desire and carry out their duties towards their Lord, society, and their life.

Such individuals strive to seek knowledge from the genuine source and believe in it unconditionally and whenever necessary defend it with determination and courage. Again, these very individuals believe in the fact that they are created for the sole purpose of answering the calls of their Lord and not for the purposes of satisfying their worldly desires. 

Allah S.W.T. said in the surah of Muhammad: “Here you are – those invited to spend in the cause of Allah – but among you are those who withhold [out of greed]. And whoever withholds only withholds [benefit] from himself; and Allah is the Free of need, while you are the needy. And if you turn away, He will replace you with another people; then they will not be the likes of you."(38)

Hence, spending in the cause of constructing safe private schools and strengthening the existing ones are considered the best “Sadaqah Jariah" one could do in the present time. Hence, striving in the path of Allah is aimed at preserving our identity from any spiritual, ideological, and moral decline. We do so by constantly teaching, learning, educating, preserving and strengthening our understanding.

Donate your Zakat and the Zakat of your accumulated wealth to build and strengthen the principles of your children in particular and the Muslim children in general. According to our scholars, giving your Zakat money to  schools funds is the best type of investment you could ever make for the cause of Allah, especially in such countries as the United States.  

Please transfer your interest surplus, especially high interest rates, to Legacy Learning Center and do not leave them off to banks to be used in unknown causes. Please do not allow the interest surpluses to go away from LLC.  It is considered “unlawful" for the account holder to use this benefit surplus for his own good, but nonetheless it is “HALAL" and permissible for any project aimed at advancing community interests. Nevertheless, you as an account holder will be rewarded for two reasons:

1. You abstained from using the “haram" money for yourself out of fear to Allah and rather used it for a different purpose seeking Allah’s satisfaction.
2. You have acted as a mediator for a good cause by delivering this surplus money for good purpose. Allah SWT said: “He whoever does a small good will reap its benefit in the sight of Allah."

This and I would like to remember my dear brothers and sisters that the Zakat money is Allah’s share in your wealth. Zakat won’t be void regardless of time, death, and poverty (meaning after you have become poor after leading a wealthy life). No one can free himself of Zakat as long as it has not been paid. It will remain upon your shoulders until you pay it off. Zakat payment does not distinguish between the ruler and the ruled and it remains obligatory until it is settled. It is Allah SWT who made it an obligation and one of the five pillars of Islam and no creature can ever put it off or ever void it. Allah SWT ordered us to hasten and compete in helping people and doing good deeds whenever necessary.

Sheikh Tewfik Choukri
Dean, Legacy Learning Center