PrintTaleef Collective: An Amazing Project
Ta’Leef Collective Video from Mustafa Davis on Vimeo.
Promo video scripted, shot and edited for Ta’Leef Collective (a non-profit) organization dedicated to assisting new Muslims and emerging young adult Muslims.
MISSION STATEMENT: Ta’leef provides the space, content, and companionship necessary for a healthy understanding, embrace and realization of Islam. 
Ta’leef Collective began as Zaytuna Institute’s Outreach program in 2002 and was born into an independent organization in 2005 per the request of Zaytuna’s leadership. Ta’leef Collective provides the space, content and companionship necessary for a healthy understanding, embrace and realization of Islam. Ta’leef Collective primarily serves seekers actively interested in Islam and converts to the faith, assisting them in realizing a sustainable conversion to and practice of Islam, and a healthy, gradual integration into our greater Muslim community. Ta’leef Collective also strives to reengage the growing number of disenfranchised and often marginalized Muslim young adults.
Because we recognize the import of these groups, and the intersection between them, Ta’leef Collective offers a model tailored specifically for them. By providing alternative social and sacred space, culturally relevant programming and positive companionship, we assist our beneficiaries in holistically practicing Islam in a way that is reconcilable with their social context. We are a collective of teachers, volunteers, and peers who understand firsthand the challenge of living as Muslims in the west and we strive to provide the necessary means to facilitate that reality. 
Taleef Collective (www.taleefcollective.org)
BISMILLAH…
Assalamo-Aleykum to all readers!
By Allah SW T’s special Mercy, I was able to help 5 people take Shahadah in the past few years. However, it is very important for the readers to know that I am often telling my friends and whoever would lend me an ear about Islam and defending it wherever the situation warrants, amazingly enough, I hadn’t done MUCH to educate those five individual about the Islam! As the saying goes, I was just in the right place at the right time! For example, the first kid that I helped in converting or perhaps the right term is reverting back to Islam, was one of my son’s high-school friends. After one of the Jumah prayer, as I walked toward the men’s section of the Masjid to pick up my son, I found him sitting with one of his friend. My son told me that his friend Obrum has been coming to the Masjid for a while and has been listening to the Khutba’s regularly and was pretty-much ready to embrace Islam today after the Friday salat, but first the Imam was surrounded by a lot of people and we couldn’t get to him and and later, they couldn’t locate him and guessed that perhaps he left the mosque from a different door; my son was telling his friend that hopefully he’ll get the imam sahib next Friday…but I said to my son (in my native language) that we are not going to wait for the next Friday, anything can happen in a weeks’ time—the devil can get to your friends’ heart and create doubts about Islam and he may not feel this strong urge to be on the right path and then when the next Friday comes he may delay it to the next month which may turn into eternity etc. etc. after all, it’s a very big step for anybody to embrace a new philosophy of life let alone for an 18 year old. I told my son that we need to help Obrum say the Shahadah right now and not delay it any longer… Long story short, today, that boy Obrum is Masha ‘Allah a Muslim!!!
Although, I don’t get to meet him much often, may be on some Fridays or during the Eid prayers, I understand his need to have contacts with Muslim friends and have offered him to come to our home anytime, for a lunch or dinner but he hasn’t accepted our invitation yet.
The stories of the other four conversions are also as amazing & miraculous as the first one if not more! Alhamdol-Lillah, I am getting a little better at offering & providing the on-going support to the newbies but sometimes I meet with resistance and thus I don’t push my invitations to come to our home, or borrow a book or CD or DVD from me. But I know for sure in my heart, that all of the new Muslim friends and acquaintances know that they the doors of my home and heart are open for them anytime.
Through this post, I am sharing my experiences of helping individuals convert to Islam because I want the tell the visitors of this website and the readers of this post that when they see and meet people who show interest in Islam, then they need to encourage them to take the next BIG STEP and come on board the ship of Islam. When I meet individuals professing to be interested in Islam and want to learn more, I ask them what is their impression about Islam so far; if their answer indicates affinity for Islam then I tell them that they need to take Shahadah as soon as possible and that they can do the rest of their learning about Islam for the rest of their lives—just like I am still learning more about Islam every week, every month although I was born in a Muslim family…
In my limited experience of helping individuals take the Shahadah, I discovered that some people specially Christians think that the conversion-ceremony is a big and complicated process… perhaps like the baptism ceremony, where one needs to be in the church with a priest and have to have access to the special holy water…and when I tell them that the process of taking Shahadah is very simple and does not require any complicated or pompous ceremony (except may be presence of two witnesses) and I truly think that too is not mandatory because in the end Allah’s and His angels’ witness is enough. When i tell friends that they can be a Muslim in the next 60 seconds, if they wish, they are mostly incredulous and speechless, sometimes crying like a baby with tears pouring down their faces like the last conversion on 9th of Zulhajj in 2009. :)) :)) ALHAMDO_LILLAH !!!