Brothers In The Deen By Rakin Fetuga Guest

Assalamu alaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh and welcome to this special edition of brothers in the dean. Today we are joined by our special guest all the way from South Africa. He is the first American to graduate from Medina University. And he's visited over 59 countries giving Dawa in the course of Islam. Without further ado, I'd like to introduce to you shake up the hacking quick.

Okay, let's start off with your childhood. Take us through your childhood growing up in America Bismillah R Rahman r Rahim, we're being a stain rabada basically, I was raised in the United States, I was born an American, and my family would be considered African American, that is my culture. Within that there's some variations. on my father's side. His mother was from the red Indian, First Nation, people, but I was raised as an African American, in Boston, Massachusetts, that's the northeast corner of the United States. Alhamdulillah from an early age, I began to question things, you know, as a young person, and I questioned my religion, I questioned my identity, I questioned

what was happening around me. And fortunately, in the area of Boston, and particularly Cambridge, that's from not Cambridge, England, this is Cambridge, Massachusetts, especially in that area. There's a lot of universities and a lot of intellectuals. So although the area where I grew up, you know, was a tough area was the hood. But I was able to leave that, and to go amongst

educated, you know, intellectuals, and get some information, to try to understand what was going on why we were living in such tough conditions, and you know, why the drugs were there, and, you know, the problems and whatnot. So Hamdulillah, it was a very interesting youth that I had there in that society. And it made me think from a very young age,

what were your fondest memories growing up as a teenager, you know, when I grew up in that area,

I was blessed, you know, to be in an area where there were a lot of high achieving people, they achieved in sports they achieved in their lives, you know, and I was very serious about basketball, I was a captain of the basketball team. And also I did well in school at the same time. And

so I had a very good experience in high school, very positive, you know, in terms of, you know, the school itself, and, you know, the people who I associated with, and the general society, I think that that that really is, you know, my my best, you know, times and, you know, being, you know, in the school and playing the sports and doing well and meeting different people and that this really set a stage for me when I was young. Um, during this time, what role did religion play in your life? Well, for me, my mother was very serious, Christian. And I used to go to church all the time with her. We were First

Baptist. Then we went up the ladder a little bit, as they say,

to become Episcopalians. And she was very serious about her faith. My father was very skeptical because he had served as a black American, Afro American, you know, in World War Two. And he had gone he had experienced racism in Europe, actually, he was in the campaign that went to Algeria, and then to Italy and and into Germany, you know, in World War Two. And he actually experienced, you know, a lot of prejudice by being, you know, in the black troops, although they were dying like everybody else. They were not given the same respect as the white troops. And so he was very skeptical of things. And he taught me to critically analyze, you know, and from when when we were

young, we would watch television, and we

we cheer for the Indians, not the Cowboys, you know. So immediately, we we looked at who was the oppressed, and we didn't follow the hype. We didn't follow, you know what we were supposed to follow what we questions.

So that's really what he gave me. But the church itself, you know, gave me a, you know, a sense of the Creator. And I can say, although I was a little confused with the images that were in front of me of Jesus being a European man on a cross, it was hard for me to handle this, that this is the Son of God, Oh, God. And then, with the communion, taking the communions and things like that, but I had a strong sense of the belief in one God, and I used to read the Lord's Prayer, constantly. And that, of course, focuses on the father and the Creator. And even though I left the church, because of, you know, feelings of negativity, and as sort of a youthful rebellion, I never lost my sense of the

belief in God and also respect for Mary, the mother of Jesus. And so they love Jesus, himself, peace be upon him, I never lost my respect for them. And so it was that, that that that consciousness that comes out of worshiping one God, which stayed with me, when I traveled and went to other parts of the United States, and that really, I believe, is what eventually helped me to enter into a slump.

We feel under pressure today.

We feel strange, but the Prophet peace be upon him said in Islam, I better hurry been wasa to hurry been for to bow lil hora ba

the Prophet peace be upon him said Islam began strange, and it will return to being strange, so glad tidings for those who are strange.

And they said, Yato, Sula, LA, Malika raba Who are these strange people. And he told them, I Latina, your slave owner and the facade and NASS,

they are the ones who repair things. When the people have become corrupt, it is law,

repair of society. The same Tell us about your aversion story, I grew up in the 60s. And it's important for people to know that period of time, it was a time of questioning, it was a time of rebellion, it was a time of

Aquarius in the sense that people's minds were open. And so I questioned the very lines of faith, not my belief in God, but how the church was set up the hierarchy, the color in terms of God and the prophets. And so I left the organized church, but I was searching for the real religion, of the belief in one God. At the same time, we were going through the black consciousness movement. So I became very much involved in the black consciousness movement, seeking the rights for African people in the West, and also trying to study my history. So so at an early age, I began to read stories about African history. And then I would read National Geographic. And, you know, I wanted to know

the real reality of what happens, you know, in Africa, and not stories of Tarzan and Jane, and King Kong, and, you know, these wild stories that we learn about the jungle. But, you know, I started to get access to books, to realize there was something else there was empires in West Africa. They were great kings. The pyramids were actually, you know, built by people of color. And so when I realized this, and I had this, this ability to criticize television in the movies, you know, that it started leading me in a direction. And so I checked out different ways of life. I began to read, I began to experience I moved to the west coast. And that was the psychedelic age of San Francisco and Oakland.

And I was going to school in Portland, Oregon, I went to a school called Reed College, which was an experimental school. And

so they're the students who were involved in every drug known to mankind and all types of strange things. I was in the middle of this questioning. And I remember one day as I was walking along with my friends, and we were black revolutionaries. And you know, there was a Pakistani student named Amin. And I looked up in the room, and I saw him standing there.

And he was standing there and that he bowed down, that he stood back up, and then he went down on the ground and we look up at him and say, what's this guy doing, man? Like, What's his problem? And

we questioned him about his lifestyle. He was a little shocked.

But I was interested to know, you know what he was about because he was so calm. And he was so gentle. And you know, he's something deep about him. So that influenced me. In the in the Cambridge area, there was a man by the name of Tyson john Tyson, he was the full back, Afro American fullback for Harvard University, great athlete. And also, he was dabbling into religions. And I became friends with him. And we sat down and he actually started to introduce me also into ideas about Islam. Now, as an African American, we were

under the teachings in the movement of great leaders like Marcus Garvey. And then, of course,

Elijah Muhammad, a Nation of Islam. But these were really nationalist movements, they were really talking about the the exploits of African people and, and fighting against racism and organizing the community. And we respected them the Black Panther Party, also, I was influenced very much, you know, with the Black Panther Party, and I used to teach in their liberation schools. And they were We were basically teaching the the, you know, the children about the heritage and trying to change the wrong understanding that that children, you know, in the black community had. So with with these teachings, and with this nudge, I was being given by brother Tyson, I started to question things,

and the Nation of Islam didn't satisfy me, because in my area, it was predominantly African American. But there are also white Americans that were Spanish. And we used to be all together. And so I couldn't accept the theory of the devil. And, you know, God being a man like, although I love them, the unity of the Nation of Islam, the decency and respect, I couldn't accept this concept. And then as a young man,

in Reed College, we struggled for the Black Studies. And so we took the building. And we struggled with the administration. And we succeeded in getting Black Studies, this was at the same time as a great rebellion, call San Francisco State, so that the great San Francisco State rebellion, we were in the north, and we also

had a major strike at our university. And we seized the administration, and we gained Black Studies, you know, for the African American students who were there.

I was still not satisfied. And so I left and I was searching, I went back to Boston, but when I left the university, then I was drafted. And so that was a major change in my life, because I had an understanding of what was happening in the world. And I couldn't accept the fact that I would be sent overseas to, you know, fight against people who've never done anything to me, when we were suffering

from racism and discrimination in the United States. And my father had suffered in World War Two, he had shown me the racism, you know, that that he had suffered, and, and I was not about to go through that. So I refused to go into the draft. And then I had to leave the United States, and I actually left and I went to Canada, as a war resistor, or a draft Dodger. So that was a big change in my life, because I had to leave my nation in the sense. And so I fled away from, you know, an unjust war. But I was running towards Islam.

Because it was in Canada, in Toronto, while I was living on the streets, so to speak, surviving in the best way that I could, with the people in the streets. And, but I had something different about me, I wanted to know, you know, really about Islam. And they recognize that in me too, and I got a copy of the Quran. And I saw the life of the Prophet Muhammad SAW Solomon, who was very much interested in this. So I can still recall walking in Toronto, and I had $37 in my pocket. And I came to a spice store, and they said room for rent. So I went inside, there was some brothers from Pakistan who owned the apartment, and the rent was $37, the exact amount that was in my pocket. And

so they accepted me and then I told him, I was interested in Islam. And they took me to the masjid, and a great die of Islam, Dr. Ahmed Sokka. He was there with the Muslim Student Association, they were having a conference. And so he personally gave me dour and allow open my heart and I took Shahada at the hands of Dr. Ahmed Sokka from Lebanon is a well known person of dour you know, in the in the United States of the world, actually, English speaking world. So Alhamdulillah I accepted Islam in that community. And immediately I was exposed to people from all

All over the world. And that was a great blessing God, this really is how I came into Islam or is running away from something unjust. And I ran into the oneness of God. What was the reaction from your family when you converted to Islam? Well, my mother was a little upset at first, because of our relationship to the church. And she thought that I was just a rebellious youth. But then when I came back as a Muslim, and I was respecting her, and I was praying and fasting, and so she really fell in love with what I was doing at the time, she couldn't become a Muslim. However, she was glad that I had made this change out of a rebellious type of lifestyle on the streets, and that I was actually,

you know,

culturing a family. And, you know, I had met my wife, you know, who was from Jamaica, originally, and you're living in Canada. And so we established a family. And that was a good reaction in my father wasn't into religion. he respected Muslims, because he had been in Algeria. And he told me that the Algerians, when they looked at him, they thought he think that he was one of them. And so they wanted to embrace him. But he said, he couldn't understand their language. Because Algerians even in Arabic, the Arabic is tough. And so it's a combination of Arabic and Berber and French and whatnot. And so he couldn't understand their language. But he, he used to put out a picture of

Elijah Muhammad, there's this book message to the black men. And he kept it on the shelf in my house. So when I was from when I was young, I used to look at the star and the crescent, and you know, this picture and realize that and so I had this feeling. So so he was glad, also, you know, that I had become a Muslim. So my family was very positive. You know, in terms of my transition into Islam, a

Muslim community in Toronto at that time, 100 law was very much open, and I met some beautiful brothers from Egypt. And they took me in and then from India and Pakistan, and Turkey and Guyana, Trinidad, I had a lot of friends. I traveled with a group called Tablighi Jamaat. I traveled with the Jamaat, Colonel Amira Dean, who was a very famous person in the Jamaat, I became a sidekick, so to speak, and I traveled with them for a period of time. But I was seeking knowledge, I wanted to take things to a higher level. And it was in 1973, that the Saudi Arabian government offered two scholarships to the Canadian Muslim community, for two students to go to Saudi Arabia for a full

scholarship and to study hamdulillah I was one of the two students on the other shikaku Amina Bilal Philips, also. And so are we went together at that time in 1973. At the Saudi Arabia

after event into Islam, what personal changes did you have to make? Well, for me, because of the foundation that I had, in Christianity, my my mother was serious. So I was taught about being a moral person and not lying and cheating and stealing, and, you know, being honest and establishing a good family so that that was not a problem for me, because I already had that. And because of my, you know, connection to the movement, and, you know, my relationship with the Nation of Islam, I had stopped eating pork. I had stopped drinking alcohol before I was a Muslim. And

I was also wearing different clothes I had my African clothes on, because we were in the African Black consciousness movement.

So I was already in a transition. So when I came into Islam, really, for me, it wasn't something totally new. It was really, you know, the icing on the cake. It was the culmination. Now the door was open completely. And hamdulillah I found that all my questions were being answered. My questions about God, the Creator, my questions about race, my questions about economics, about politics, the worldview, everything was being answered by Islam. It was a natural thing for me

to be a Muslim hamdulillah you know, I prayed to Allah from the beginning.

Just as I was making my transition into Islam, I was in a very lowly state.

You know, I was suffering in the society, I was on the streets, you know, the drugs and the lifestyle and you know, almost ready to commit suicide. You know, I just turned to Allah and I said, you know, Allah, if you help me now you guide me, I will be your slave. I will work for you.

Just give me the guidance.

At this point in time, and then it was shortly after that, that you know that I became a Muslim. And so really for me, I have given I have dedicated my life, you know, to Islam, you know, you know to repay Allah subhanaw taala you know, from saving me, you know from that lowly state, you know, in the streets about to commit suicide

you know, Allah save me, you know and so on every breath for me, you know, is is a chance, you know, to to pay back a lot you know, with the hope inshallah, that that would lead me ultimately to do to paradise, Mashallah you fulfill your promises Allah, you've done a lot of additional work.

And they said, Yato, Sula, Malika raba, who are these strange people, and he told them alladhina, your slave owner and the Poseidon ness.

They are the ones who repair things. When the people have become corrupt, it is law,

repair of society. The saying, Tell us about your reversion story. I grew up in the 60s. And it's important for people to know that period of time, it was a time of questioning, it was a time of rebellion, it was a time of

Aquarius in the sense that people's minds were open. And so I questioned the very lines of faith, not my belief in God, but how the church was set up the hierarchy, the color in terms of God and the profits. And so I left the organized church, but I was searching for the real religion, of the belief in one God. At the same time, we were going through the black consciousness movement. So I became very much involved in the black consciousness movement, seeking the rights, you know, for African people in the West, and also trying to study my history. So so at an early age, I began to read stories about African history. And then I would read National Geographic. And, you know, I

wanted to know that the real reality of what happens, you know, in Africa, and not stories of Tarzan and Jane, and King Kong, and you know, these wild stories that we learn about the jungle, but, you know, I started to get access to books, to realize there was something else there was empires in West Africa. They were great kings. The pyramids were actually, you know, built by people of color. And so when I realized this, and I had this, this, this ability to criticize television in the movies, you know, that it started leading me in a direction. And so I checked out different ways of life. I began to read, I began to experience I moved to the west coast. And that was the psychedelic

age of San Francisco and Oakland. And I was going to school in Portland, Oregon, I went to a school called Reed College, which was an experimental school. And

so there, the students were involved in every drug known to mankind and all types of strange things. I was in the middle of this questioning. And I remember one day as I was walking along with my friends, and we were black revolutionaries. And you know, there was a Pakistani student named, I mean, and I looked up in the room, and I saw him standing there.

And he was standing there, and then he bowed down. Then he stood back up. And then he went down on the ground. And we looked up at him and say, what's this guy doing, man? Like, what's the problem? And

we questioned him about his lifestyle. He was a little shy.

But I was interested to know, you know what he was about, because he was so calm. And he was so gentle. And you know, he's something deep about him. So that influenced me. In the in the Cambridge area, there was a man by the name of Tyson john Tyson, he was the fullback, Afro American fullback for Harvard University, great athlete. And also, he was dabbling into religions. And I became friends with him. And we sat down and he actually started to introduce me also into ideas about Islam.

Now, as an African American, we were

under the teachings in the movement of great leaders like Marcus Garvey, and, and then of course,

Elijah Muhammad, the Nation of Islam, but these were really nationalist movements. They were really talking about the the actual

plights of African people and, and fighting against racism and organizing the community. And we respected them the Black Panther Party. Also, I was influenced very much, you know, with the Black Panther Party and I used to teach in their liberation schools. And they were We were basically teaching the you know, that the children about the heritage and trying to change the wrong understanding that that children, you know, in the black community had. So with with these teachings, and with this nudge, I was being given by brother Tyson, I started to question things, and the Nation of Islam didn't satisfy me, because in my area, it was predominantly African

American. But there are also white Americans that were Spanish. And we used to be all together. And so I couldn't accept the theory of the devil. And, you know, God being a man like, although I love them the unity in the Nation of Islam, the decency and respect, I couldn't accept this concept. And then as a young man,

in Reed College, we struggled for the Black Studies. And so we took the building. And we struggled with the administration. And we succeeded in getting Black Studies, this was at the same time as a great rebellion, call San Francisco State, so that the great San Francisco State rebellion, we were in the north, and we also

had a major strike at our university. And we seized the administration, and we gained Black Studies, you know, for the African American students were there.

I was still not satisfied. And so I, I left and I was searching, I went back to Boston, but when I left the university, then I was drafted. And so that was a major change in my life, because I had an understanding what was happening in the world. And I couldn't accept the fact that I would be sent overseas to, you know, fight against people who never did anything to me, when we were suffering

from racism and discrimination in the United States. And my father had suffered in World War Two, he had shown me the racism, you know, that that he had suffered, and, and I was not about to go through that. So I refused to go into the draft. And then I had to leave the United States, and I actually left and I went to Canada, as a war resistor, or a draft Dodger. So that was a big change in my life, because I had to leave my nation in the sense. And so I fled away from, you know, an unjust war. But I was running towards Islam.

Because it was in Canada, in Toronto, I was living on the streets, so to speak, surviving in the best way that I could with the people of the streets. And, but I had something different about me, I wanted to know, you know, really about Islam. And they recognize that in me too, and I got a copy of the Quran. And I saw the life of the Prophet Muhammad SAW Solomon, he was very much interested in this. So I can still recall walking in Toronto, and I had $37 in my pocket. And I came to a spice store, and they said room for rent. So I went inside, there was some brothers from Pakistan who owned the apartment. And the read was $37, the exact amount that was in my pocket. And so they

accepted me. And then I told him, I was interested in Islam. And they took me to the masjid, and a great die of Islam, Dr. Ahmed Sokka, he was there with the Muslim Student Association, they were having a conference. And so he personally gave me dour and allow open my heart and I took Shahada at the hands of Dr. Ahmed Sokka, from Lebanon is a well known person of our, you know, in the in the United States of the world, actually, English speaking world. So Alhamdulillah, I accepted Islam in their community. And immediately I was exposed to people from all over the world. And that was a great blessing God, this really is how I came into Islam. I was running away from something unjust,

and I ran into the oneness of God. What was the reaction from your family when you converted to Islam? Well, my mother was a little upset at first, because of her relationship to the church. And she thought that I was just a rebellious youth. But then when I came back as a Muslim, and I was respecting her, and I was praying and fasting, and so she really fell in love with what I was doing at the time, she couldn't become a Muslim. However, she was glad that I had made this change out of a rebellious type of lifestyle on the streets, and that I was actually, you know,

culturing a family and, you know, I had met my wife, you know, who was from Jamaica originally, and you're living in Canada. And so, we are

stablish the family and that was a good reaction in my father wasn't into religion. he respected Muslims because he had been in Algeria. And he told me that the Algerian czar, when they looked at him, they thought he think that he was one of them. And so they wanted to embrace him. But he said he couldn't understand their language. Because Algeria is even an Arabic, the Arabic is tough. And so it's a combination of Arabic and Berber and French and whatnot. And so he couldn't understand the language. But he, he used to put had a picture of Elijah Muhammad. And there's this book message to the black men. And he kept it on the shelf in my house. So when I was from when I was young, I used

to look at the star and the crescent. And you know, this picture and realize that and so I had this feeling. So so he was glad, also, you know, that I had become a Muslim. So my family was very positive. You know, in terms of my transition into Islam,

Muslim community in Toronto at that time, the law was very much open, and I met some beautiful brothers from Egypt. And they took me in and then from India and Pakistan, and Turkey and Guyana, Trinidad, I had a lot of friends. I traveled with a group called Tablighi Jamaat. I traveled with the Jamaat, Colonel Amira Dean, who was a very famous person in the Jamaat, I became a sidekick, so to speak, and I traveled with them for a period of time. But I was seeking knowledge, I wanted to take things to a higher level. And it was in 1973, that the Saudi Arabian government offered two scholarships to the Canadian Muslim community, for two students to go to Saudi Arabia for a full

scholarship and to study hamdulillah I was one of the two students on the other Sheikh Abu Amina Bilal Philips, also. And so we went together at that time in 1973. to Saudi Arabia

after event into Islam, what personal changes did you have to make? Well, for me, because of the foundation that I had, in Christianity, my mother was serious. So I was taught about being a moral person and not lying and cheating and stealing and, you know, being honest and establishing a good family so that that was not a problem for me, because I already had that. And and because of my, you know, connection to the movement, and, you know, my relationship with the Nation of Islam, I had stopped eating pork. I had stopped drinking alcohol before I wasn't Muslim. And

I was also wearing different clothes I had my African clothes on, because we were in the African Black consciousness movement. So I was already in a transition. So when I came into Islam, really, for me, it wasn't something totally new. It was really, you know, the icing on the cake, it was the culmination. Now the door was open completely. And hamdulillah I found that all my questions were being answered my questions about

the Creator, my questions about race, my questions about economics, about politics, the worldview, everything was being answered by Islam. It was a natural thing for me

to be a Muslim hamdulillah you know, I prayed to Allah from the beginning.

Just as I was making my transition into Islam, I was in a very lowly state.

You know, I was suffering in the society, I was on the streets, you know, the drugs and the lifestyle and you know, almost ready to commit suicide, you know, and I just turned to Allah and I said, you know, Allah, if you help me now, you guide me, I will be your slave. I will work for you.

Just give me the guidance at this point in time. And then it was shortly after that, that you know, that I became a Muslim. And so really, for me, I have given I have dedicated my life, you know, to Islam, you know, you know, to repay Allah subhanaw taala you know, from saving me, you know, from that lowly state, you know, in the streets about to commit suicide

you know, Allah save me, you know, and so, every breath for me, you know, is a chance, you know, to to pay back a lot, you know, with the hope inshallah, that that would lead me ultimately to to to paradise, Mashallah, you fulfilled your promise. Sharla you've done a lot of additional work.