This past weekend I had the opportunity to head back to one of my most favorite places in my heart– the MMYC Spring Conference.

MMYC is the Michigan Muslim Youth Council and it was founded back in my hayday of ‘99.  I was a freshman in high school when all the Michigan area youth groups decided to come together and form one umbrella organization.  It’s purpose was to better connect the youth of all the distinct communities in Southeast Michigan.

MMYC started off by putting on day seminars and activities in different communities.  I guess the hope of MMYC was by sticking its name on a flier (as opposed to just the name of the host community) kids from all over Michigan would want to attend.  It didn’t make any sense to me, but it worked.  Muslim high schoolers would flock to MMYC events in hopes of seeing friendly faces from afar every now and then.

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Yesterday I was eating lunch with my cousin and we got to talking about weddings and jewelry. We came to a problem that a lot of girls in our communities today are facing: to pay zakaat or not to pay zakaat, that is the question.

It seems like there is a lot confusion about whether or not jewelry that is not being used is part of wealth that needs to have zakaat paid on it. It is unclear what type of wealth it is categorized under: is unworn jewelry part of a regular collection that just isn’t worn often, or it is part of wealth that we hoard for its value?

I told my cousin I thought that if someone has a lot of jewelry, and she just doesn’t have any oppurtunities to wear it, and she does wear it as much as possible, I don’t think she has to pay zakaat on it. But my cousin thought that a lot girls are told by their parents or family members that well after you’re done wearing your jewelry, you should keep it around because it’s a good investment. So in this case, it is kept as a treasure.

Well then, I had a question: why do all these girls have so much jewelry in the first place?

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Today my family and I hopped in the car and drove to the masjid for a seminar entitled The Final Journey.  The program included how to take care of the sick, what to do when approaching death, what to do at the time of death, how to perform ghusl on the deceased, how to wrap the body, how to pray salaatul Janazah, how to bury the deceased, and how to deal with grief.  It was really informative, and well organized.  The turn out was amazing, masha’Allah.  May Allah reward the organizers.

On the way back home, my family and I had an interesting discussion.  My sister and I were telling my mom and dad that the only part of the program we thought was unnecessary was the 20 minutes spent on being patient after death.  It was something worth mentioning, but I was convinced that people already *knew* all that, so what was the point on saying it over and over again?  Abu countered my statement with:

(51:55) And remind, for indeed, the reminder benefits the believers

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