What is the Jami’ Initiative?

The Jami’ Initiative is a Shadhiliyya Sufi Communities program which facilitates healing and reconciliation for the entire community of students of Sidi Muhammad Sa’id al-Jamal ar-Rifa’i ash-Shadhili, may God preserve his secret. The overall goals of the initiative are to teach vital heart-centered communication skills. to facilitate difficult conversations, and to enable all community members to have a voice and be heard. Toward these ends, we offer free ongoing classes, mediation services, and facilitated community dialogues (sohbets).

Before it began, this Initiative was presented to the entire community on three different occasions, as well as to the leadership of each region. Support for the Initiative was overwhelmingly positive, as reflected by the SSC Board’s approval of the initiative. Review the presentations given to the entire community.

Our Classes

The teachings we offer are focused on helping people restore heart-centered connection within relationships. The first series of classes are considered the cornerstones of heart-centered communication and will be repeated over time to help us absorb the wisdom and understanding of how to put them into practice. As we integrate the cornerstones, we refine ways of being with one another, and our practice deepens over time. Insha’allah, we begin to discover the quality of our relationships improve and life becomes more fulfilling.

Cornerstones of the Heart: July – Nov 2024

The 6 topics in the Cornerstones of Heart Centered Communication series include:

Listening with Empathy
The Power of Observation
Emotions as a Doorway to Deeper Connection
Nourishing Life-Affirming Needs
Compassionate Self-Empathy
Making Clear Requests

These classes will take place during the fourth week of every month, with the exception of the winter holidays. The first two classes during the week are educational and will cover the same topic in both classes. The third class on Saturday is a practice and integration session. You are encouraged to attend as many classes as you can on each topic, insha’allah. Repetition is purposefully built into the program to support your complete integration of the material.

To attend classes and receive the Zoom Access information, please join our mailing list. General programming emails will be sent out periodically and reminder emails will be sent out 1 hour before each class, insha’allah. All classes will be recorded and are available to stream on this page.

Class Schedule

The Power of Observation

with Nura Lora Laird

We human beings have many veils, 70,000 of them according to the Qur’an. Sidi says in the first station of the nafs in Music of the Soul (p 47), “This word (nafs) contains all the things that come from your self – your perception, your hearing, your feeling, the voices in your mind, and the desires of your heart.” In other words, our nafs is influenced by many veils, leading to distorted perceptions of what’s happening to us and misunderstandings in our conversations. These distortions are called “interpretations.”

In this class we discover the crucial difference between observations, which are objective perceptions of what happened, and our interpretations or our stories about what happened. These are often vastly different, leading to misunderstandings and breakdowns in relationships. Shifting from interpretations to observations helps all parties to clarify what happened and to get on the same page, re-establishing their connection and love, insha’allah.

Tue, Aug 27, 2024
4:00 pm – 5:30 pm PT / 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm ET
Thu, Aug 29, 2024
1:00 pm – 2:30 pm PT / 4:00 pm – 5:30 pm ET
Practice & Integration
Sat, Aug 31, 2024
8:00 am – 9:30 am PT / 11:00 am – 12:30 pm ET

Emotions as a Doorway to Deeper Connection

with Ruhayyah Andrea Ferrante

Emotions are an aspect of our humanity created by Allah, and they have purpose and meaning as does all of creation. Join us as we explore the gifts and responsibilities of our capacity to feel. We will identify the range and literacy of emotion, as well as how to discern thinking from feeling. As we become conscious and aware of our emotional nature, we are more able to know and understand our inner experience, and from there help others to know and understand us. Uncovering how emotions serve connection, as well as understanding how they operate in human relationships is powerful, especially when we link our emotions to our deeper, life-serving needs and values. Join us in celebration as we explore the beauty and depth Allah creates in our lives through the stream of emotion, and what can shift as we establish our ability to witness and respond to life consciously.

Tue, Sep 24, 2024
4:00 pm – 5:30 pm PT / 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm ET
Thu, Sep 26, 2024
1:00 pm – 2:30 pm PT / 4:00 pm – 5:30 pm ET
Practice & Integration
Sat, Sep 28, 2024
8:00 am – 9:30 am PT / 11:00 am – 12:30 pm ET

Nourishing Life Affirming Needs

with Mahabbah Young

The experience of being human includes having needs, longings, and aspirations arise within that are wanting our attention. They are natural, like emotions, and almost all of them are intrinsic, or intangible. Food and water are basic needs for survival; however, beyond that a need may be for meaning, choice, learning, inclusion, honesty, etc. In this series of classes we will explore the vast world of needs and how we can become more aware of them in our own selves and in others. We will also notice what may support nourishment or fulfillment of needs and the connection of living needs to our relationship with God.

Tue, Oct 22, 2024
4:00 pm – 5:30 pm PT / 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm ET
Thu, Oct 24, 2024
1:00 pm – 2:30 pm PT / 4:00 pm – 5:30 pm ET
Practice & Integration
Sat, Oct 26, 2024
8:00 am – 9:30 am PT / 11:00 am – 12:30 pm ET

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Integration and Practice of Empathy, Observation, Emotions, and Needs

with Mahabbah Young, Ruhayyah Ferrante, and Nura Laird

Allah created humans with a capacity for deep empathy and presence, to be observers of life , to feel and to need. As we come to know ourselves and one another, we come to know our Lord. Please join Nura Laird, Mahabbah Young and Ruhayyah Ferrante for an overview and opportunity for integration of the heart-centered restorative skills that have been taught to date. There will be time for review, practice, questions, and discussion on how to apply these skills. Our practice time will focus on listening and reflecting what we hear in order to open our connection, understanding, and be more present.

Note: This class will be 2 hours to allow time for discussion and questions after we practice. This will be the only class in November.

Tue, Nov 26, 2024
4:00 pm – 6:00 pm PT / 7:00 pm – 9:00 pm ET

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Compassionate Self-Empathy

with Ruhayyah Ferrante

One of the main blessings we come to know on the Sufi path is the blessing of coming to know ourselves. In our way, Allah asks us to come to know ourselves so that we can know our Creator more deeply. In this class on self empathy, we pull together many of the practices in this series we have learned so far and dive inward to accompany our own being through life experiences.

Whether Allah is creating ease or difficulty it serves our being to be present to what is moving within at any time in life. We are the ones who are always present to the life we are given. If we can bring this presence to an experience and let it unfold within, unpacking the thinking, the emotions, and the needs/longings and aspirations, we are much more connected to the One who is sending the experience to us.

If you tend to be hard on yourself, the basis of the practice is empathy as we witness what arises for ourselves with curiosity, wonder, and friendship.

Come explore and discover what is behind and behind and under the layers of experience. Notice what stops forward movement and what supports forward movement. Notice what is living within us in a more conscious, caring, and responsive way. Come to understand more deeply or recognize more meaning that Allah is making for you through the experience.

Much like self healings, self-empathy is a pathway for connecting with The Real and receiving next steps or resolving something we have yet to resolve on our own. Both within and beyond our own interpretations, judgements, emotion, and needs we are transported to new discovery and meaning within our relationship; with God, others, and ourselves.

If you are looking for more self care, love, empathy and compassion this may be a practice you want in your toolbox.

Tue, Dec 10, 2024
4:00 pm – 5:30 pm PT / 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm ET
Thu, Dec 12, 2024
1:00 pm – 2:30 pm PT / 4:00 pm – 5:30 pm ET
Practice & Integration
Sat, Dec 14, 2024
8:00 am – 9:30 am PT / 11:00 am – 12:30 pm ET

Handouts

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Making Clear Requests

with Nura Laird

Insha’allah, we intend to examine making requests both in how we are in relationship with Allah and how we are in relationship with the world. In our lives with Allah, we pray with different intentions, but mostly we pray because we’re asking Allah for something that we desire or wish for. What’s really going on in these prayers? Are we requesting something of Allah, or are we demanding something of Allah? Behind our prayers we are often demanding Allah to do what we want. What is the nature of our relationship with Allah? Is it transactional? And where is our surrender in that? The last thing we want is to make demands of Allah.

In our everyday lives we are often preoccupied with what we want or don’t want to happen. How do these desires live inside us? Are they requests or demands? One thing that causes difficulty in our lives is the common tendency to demand that things be the way we want.

When we make requests, we’re prepared to accept a “yes” or “no” response from another person. We’re ok with any response. For example, you ask someone, “Would you be willing to save the last piece of cake for me?” If yes, you’re pleased; if no, you’re still ok, and your relationship with that person is unchanged.

Demands are wishes or desires in which we don’t accept “no.” “Would you be willing to save the last piece of cake for me?” We expect “yes;” the answer has to be “yes.” There’s no space for a “no.”

It can be difficult to distinguish between a request and a demand. However, the difference is significant and consequential. They usually sound different, they’re rooted in different intentions, and they usually have different outcomes. Demands often lead to challenge, push back, conflict; requests often lead to a positive response or at least open the door for discussion with another.

We often aren’t conscious that we’re making a demand. We think we’re being polite. It depends on the intention of the person speaking. For example, “I need you to be quiet; I’m trying to concentrate.” This could be a polite request, satisfied with a “no.” Usually, however, this statement is a demand; the other person is expected to be quiet, and if not, it affects the interaction inn that moment and even can affect the relationship.

We Sufis often talk about “being in the polite.” What does this really mean? Generally, requests are polite and demands often are not. Some requests are really demands in disguise.

Join us as we explore the significant difference between requests and demands, and what is likely to happen when we make requests or when we make demands. Learn how to transform your demands into requests. This switch could significantly alter all your relationships, including your relationship with Allah.

Tue, Jan 28, 2025
4:00 pm – 5:30 pm PT / 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm ET
Thu, Jan 30, 2025
1:00 pm – 2:30 pm PT / 4:00 pm – 5:30 pm ET
Practice & Integration
Sat, Feb 1, 2025
8:00 am – 9:30 am PT / 11:00 am – 12:30 pm ET