Abdur Rahman ibn Yusuf Mangera – Opens up about Syria

Abdur Rahman ibn Yusuf Mangera
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The speakers discuss various cultural and political culture topics, including the use of burial culture and filtration mechanisms, the impact of filtration mechanisms on political events, and the use of words and measurements. They stress the importance of learning to be successful and finding regular presence in various fields, as well as the need for regular practice and learning from past mistakes before making a decision. They also touch on issues related to Islam, including the removal of certain groups and the use of media and communication to inform people about rights. The speakers emphasize the importance of practicing Islam and regular presence in various fields, as well as finding regular presence and regular learning from past mistakes before making a decision.

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			Actually, getting used to the Shami dialect was
		
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			another thing.
		
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			It's proper Punjabi.
		
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			It was a proper police state.
		
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			You couldn't say anything.
		
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			These guys were evil, man.
		
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			This is something I've not discussed before.
		
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			I don't know if you want to share
		
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			this.
		
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			As-salamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh, Sheikh.
		
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			Wa alaykum as-salam wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh.
		
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			Absolute honor to have you.
		
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			So look, we're going to jump straight into
		
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			it.
		
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			This is the quickfire round.
		
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			We'll try and make it quickfire at least
		
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			anyway, Sheikh.
		
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			What's your favorite book in Islamic jurisprudence?
		
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			In Islamic jurisprudence, my favorite book is probably
		
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			the Lubab, Al-Lubab Fi Sharhi Al-Kitab.
		
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			Okay.
		
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			Oh, that one?
		
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			It's actually a commentary of Quduri.
		
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			It's by the student of one of our
		
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			main jurists, Ibn Abidin.
		
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			It's his student, rahimahullah.
		
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			But for most people, they can access this
		
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			book.
		
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			I would have otherwise said something higher than
		
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			that, which is Raddu Al-Muhtar of his
		
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			teacher, but then that's more for specialists and
		
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			so on, whereas Lubab is just so intuitive,
		
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			the way he's actually presented the Masai, the
		
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			way he explains things.
		
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			You know, in fiqh, what's really important is
		
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			that after the ruling, you need to know
		
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			that what they call the illa, the ratiocination
		
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			as such, the cause, the reason, and he
		
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			does that for everything.
		
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			And I have to tell that some things
		
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			are obvious.
		
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			I have to tell the students, look, don't
		
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			worry about this.
		
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			It's not saying anything more than what you
		
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			know.
		
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			It's just that he's very particular about mentioning
		
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			ilal, which means ratiocinations, which really helps.
		
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			Because what I tell the students to do
		
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			is make sure that you focus on the
		
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			ilal, because that is what's going to give
		
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			you the juristic insight.
		
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			You have to develop a juristic insight while
		
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			you're reading this, because by the end of
		
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			it, then you'll be able to judge Masai
		
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			and rulings much better.
		
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			That's the real purpose of it.
		
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			So that was just what came up first
		
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			as I mentioned that.
		
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			And traditionally, ilal is one of the hardest
		
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			things, wasn't it, for scholars to be able
		
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			to define?
		
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			To define the ilal is usually the difficulty.
		
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			Obviously, now these are all the processed ones
		
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			that we already know about.
		
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			He's not dealing with modern Masai where we
		
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			have to find ilal, but it helps you
		
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			because once you've recognised ilal in many, many
		
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			Masai, you get the trend, you get the
		
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			understanding, and it helps a lot.
		
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			Excellent.
		
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			Okay.
		
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			Which past scholar do you wish you could
		
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			meet and why?
		
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			I wish I could meet a lot of
		
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			them.
		
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			I sometimes can't deal with these, like which
		
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			one in particular, because there's just so many.
		
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			But yeah, I would say there's two, one
		
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			from closer time.
		
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			One is Hakeem ul-Ummah.
		
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			They call him Hakeem ul-Ummah.
		
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			I love him to bits.
		
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			And the other one is Imam Ghazali, before
		
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			that.
		
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			So I would say it's those two, because
		
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			they were just phenomenal in terms of just
		
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			their insight into how to deal with things.
		
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			And again, just the profundity.
		
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			That was amazing.
		
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			Hakeem ul-Ummah, I've read quite a few
		
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			of his books, and he just deals with
		
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			matters on a very profound level.
		
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			So it's complex, but he's not as difficult
		
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			as some of the earlier, some others who
		
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			are very, very deep in their understanding.
		
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			For example, Qasim Nanot, he was supposed to
		
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			be much deeper.
		
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			His stuff is very difficult to understand.
		
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			He's on another level.
		
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			Whereas Hakeem ul-Ummah, he's a lot more
		
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			easier to understand.
		
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			It is still difficult.
		
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			We've worked on one of his books, and
		
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			we're working on another one of his books,
		
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			but I just enjoy him.
		
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			And Imam Ghazali, I mean, I don't think
		
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			I need to explain that because he is
		
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			one of the greatest.
		
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			Again, I remember when writing an article about
		
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			him at university, where was his influence most?
		
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			Was it in the realm of philosophy or
		
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			spirituality?
		
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			And I think we're like, okay, maybe it
		
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			was philosophy, because these were the contributions to
		
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			philosophy, and then there's the spiritual aspect.
		
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			And I think I would probably have to
		
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			say it's spirituality, because that's benefited everybody, essentially.
		
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			Because spirituality as such, it was kind of
		
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			arcane before that, you could say, before his
		
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			time, it was kind of arcane.
		
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			And then after that, he kind of made
		
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			it mainstream.
		
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			So he simplified it, made it mainstream.
		
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			And he did take a lot of the,
		
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			he was very critical.
		
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			So he was very critical of the people
		
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			of his time, the rulers of his time,
		
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			and so on and so forth.
		
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			So all of that put together, yes, there
		
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			are some of his books, which are a
		
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			lot more complicated, they're a bit difficult to
		
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			understand, but most of his stuff is very,
		
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			very good.
		
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			So those two would probably be that come
		
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			to mind.
		
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			Amazing, Mashallah.
		
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			Okay.
		
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			What's the most misunderstood aspect of the Hanafi
		
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			school in the West?
		
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			I'm not sure, to be honest, because I,
		
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			yeah, that's a that's a difficult question.
		
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			I'm not sure what the most misunderstood aspect
		
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			of it is.
		
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			Well, maybe when you think about when people
		
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			from other schools or no schools, that maybe
		
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			they try and ally an understanding to the
		
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			Hanafi school, maybe that might be an easier
		
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			way of looking at it.
		
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			Yeah, I don't know about the most misunderstood,
		
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			but there's quite a few misunderstood things.
		
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			I remember once I got a call from
		
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			somebody from Muslim country, who I know, and
		
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			consulted me, he said that they found one
		
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			of the scholars there drinking beer.
		
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			And he said, while they're all Shafi'i
		
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			in that country, he said that this particular
		
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			scholar, he tried to justify by saying that
		
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			it's okay in the Hanafi school to drink
		
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			beer.
		
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			And then I understood where he was coming
		
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			from that.
		
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			Nabeeth.
		
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			Well, Nabeeth and the non-grape or date
		
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			alcohol.
		
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			But that's, that's not beer.
		
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			It's because beer is usually you drink beer
		
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			for relaxation or to have a have a
		
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			pint or whatever, as they say.
		
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			They've only allowed non-grape or date alcohol
		
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			for the purpose of either medicine, or for
		
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			the purpose of some strengthening, but that's at
		
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			very small levels and not to the level
		
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			of intoxication.
		
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			It's a very particular, so I think he
		
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			was misusing that or misunderstanding that.
		
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			So I don't know how many other people
		
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			misunderstand that.
		
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			But yeah, that would be one aspect.
		
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			But again, I'm not sure, I can't think
		
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			of any others.
		
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			That's good enough.
		
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			Thanks for clarifying.
		
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			Alhamdulillah, Shaykh.
		
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			Okay.
		
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			What's your go-to du'a in moments
		
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			of difficulty?
		
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			I think it's a series of names of
		
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			Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
		
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			That's what I found to be very, very
		
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			useful.
		
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			So there are, of course, du'as, there's
		
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			multiple du'as, like La ilaha illa Allah
		
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			al-Azim al-Haleem, La ilaha illa Allah
		
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			Rabb al-Arsh al-Azim, La ilaha illa
		
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			Allah Rabb al-Samawati al-Sabi'i wa
		
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			Rabb al-Arsh al-Azim.
		
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			So that's the larger one.
		
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			And then difficulties, so there's Allahumma la sahla
		
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			illa ma ja'altahu sahlan wa anta taj
		
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			'alil hazana sahlan idha shi'ta.
		
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			But then I usually find that just continuously
		
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			calling onto Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is
		
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			one of the relevant names, I think is
		
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			very beneficial.
		
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			So the series that I have, and again,
		
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			people can find any other name that they
		
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			think is relevant, but Ya Ghaffar, Ya Fattah,
		
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			Ya Sattar, Ya Hafidh, Ya Salam, Ya Latif,
		
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			Ya Dhul-Jalali wa'l-Ikram.
		
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			And there's a reason for all of those,
		
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			right?
		
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			Should I explain?
		
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			Yeah, please.
		
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			So Ya Fattah or Opener, right?
		
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			So Ya Fattah, then Ya Ghaffar, or Ya
		
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			Ghaffar Ya Fattah, Ya Ghaffar or Forgiver.
		
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			So because a lot of the time difficulties
		
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			could come because of some sin or because
		
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			of some wrong deed we've done.
		
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			So we ask Allah for forgiveness, we invoke
		
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			the Ghaffar.
		
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			Then Fattah or Opener.
		
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			So Ya Fattah, Ya Ghaffar, Ya Fattah, Ya
		
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			Sattar, Ya Sattar or Concealer.
		
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			Conceal me, you know, don't let my wrongs
		
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			be exposed, etc.
		
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			My defects, etc.
		
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			So Ya Fattah, Ya Ghaffar, Ya Fattah, Ya
		
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			Sattar, Ya Hafidh or Protector, Ya Salam or
		
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			One from whom all peace comes.
		
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			And then Ya Latif or One who deals
		
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			with everything in a very subtle way So
		
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			Latif or Lutf has two meanings.
		
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			One is being compassionate and the other one
		
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			is being elaborate and sophisticated and subtle and
		
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			very nuanced.
		
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			So Ya Latif, especially if it's a difficult
		
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			matter, Ya Latif.
		
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			And then Ya Dhul-Jalali wa-l-Ikram,
		
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			O Possessor of Majesty and Benevolence.
		
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			And many ulama, that is one of the
		
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			greatest names after Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
		
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			because he's talking about the One in Majesty,
		
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			who literally owns everything.
		
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			And then you have Ya Dhul-Jalali wa
		
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			-l-Ikram or One with Benevolence, which means
		
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			the One who's kind and is willing to
		
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			spend on you.
		
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			So these are some of the ones that
		
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			I can think of right now anyway.
		
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			Who has been your greatest influence in your
		
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			scholarly journey?
		
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			Masha'Allah, this is not about Syria.
		
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			This is a quick round, quick fire round.
		
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			Okay, all right, that's fine.
		
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			I think scholarly journey, I would probably say
		
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			that after I started and entered the Darul
		
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			Ulum Seminary, Darul Umberi, I think my greatest
		
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			influence was Sheikh Salim Dorat from Leicester.
		
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			He was a teacher there at the time,
		
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			we're related as well.
		
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			And I used to just find him fascinating.
		
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			I still do.
		
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			I find him fascinating, Masha'Allah.
		
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			And I just remember some of the talks
		
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			that he gave there.
		
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			And then when I, so I did my
		
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			memorization of the Quran, which took a few
		
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			years, he was there then, but I didn't
		
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			study with him because he wasn't teaching the
		
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			Hifz program.
		
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			When I got into the Alim program, as
		
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			such, the first year he taught us for
		
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			half a year, then his father passed away,
		
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			Rahimullah, and then he left.
		
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			So I thought that was a big loss.
		
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			But I don't know.
		
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			He's just amazing, Masha'Allah.
		
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			And he's obviously had a lot of influence
		
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			on a lot of people.
		
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			So he was probably, if I just single
		
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			out one person, and then after that, the
		
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			second person on similar level is Sheikh Yusuf
		
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			Muttada.
		
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			Masha'Allah.
		
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			Giants.
		
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			Giants, Masha'Allah.
		
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			Our principal, our Sheikh, I mean, he was
		
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			just, but he was much more low-key.
		
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			Okay.
		
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			He's done so much, but he's just very
		
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			low-key.
		
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			He wouldn't even like to give public speeches.
		
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			Just wants to get the job done.
		
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			Right.
		
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			And, you know, he's got multiple madrasas to
		
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			his name and offshoots, but he just didn't
		
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			even want, he would go to give a
		
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			lecture and then kind of just walk out,
		
00:10:15 --> 00:10:17
			even if it's his own program.
		
00:10:17 --> 00:10:17
			Yeah.
		
00:10:17 --> 00:10:20
			Just really, really low-key in that sense.
		
00:10:20 --> 00:10:21
			Allah bless them.
		
00:10:21 --> 00:10:22
			Allah bless him.
		
00:10:24 --> 00:10:26
			What's your favorite place to study or reflect?
		
00:10:27 --> 00:10:29
			Favorite place to study or reflect?
		
00:10:40 --> 00:10:45
			I don't know, maybe Whitechapel.
		
00:10:46 --> 00:10:47
			Whitechapel, exactly.
		
00:10:48 --> 00:10:49
			I just can't think.
		
00:10:50 --> 00:10:52
			I don't have a dedicated space to reflect
		
00:10:52 --> 00:10:53
			and think.
		
00:10:54 --> 00:10:55
			I think I'm just thinking all the time,
		
00:10:56 --> 00:10:57
			so there's not like, okay, I need to
		
00:10:57 --> 00:10:58
			think.
		
00:10:58 --> 00:10:59
			Yes, we need to think, but it could
		
00:10:59 --> 00:10:59
			be anywhere.
		
00:11:00 --> 00:11:02
			I don't have a dedicated space for thinking.
		
00:11:02 --> 00:11:02
			Okay, good.
		
00:11:03 --> 00:11:04
			Yeah, I don't think so anyway.
		
00:11:05 --> 00:11:06
			I've never thought about that.
		
00:11:07 --> 00:11:08
			It's all about thinking.
		
00:11:08 --> 00:11:08
			Yeah.
		
00:11:09 --> 00:11:09
			All right, Shaykh.
		
00:11:11 --> 00:11:13
			If you could master another discipline of Islamic
		
00:11:13 --> 00:11:15
			studies, which one would it be?
		
00:11:15 --> 00:11:18
			Yeah, so there's, alhamdulillah, whatever I try to
		
00:11:18 --> 00:11:20
			study, I try to study it thoroughly.
		
00:11:20 --> 00:11:23
			However, there's a few things which I could
		
00:11:23 --> 00:11:25
			have done more advanced studies in that one.
		
00:11:25 --> 00:11:26
			One of them would have been logic.
		
00:11:26 --> 00:11:29
			Another one would have been Islamic cosmology.
		
00:11:29 --> 00:11:30
			I didn't do too much of that.
		
00:11:30 --> 00:11:30
			Okay.
		
00:11:30 --> 00:11:31
			But they used to refer to it as
		
00:11:31 --> 00:11:32
			hikmah.
		
00:11:32 --> 00:11:36
			So there's a book by, called Hidayatul Hikmah,
		
00:11:36 --> 00:11:38
			and then the commentary by Mabley.
		
00:11:38 --> 00:11:39
			Okay.
		
00:11:39 --> 00:11:39
			Some amazing stuff.
		
00:11:40 --> 00:11:44
			Quite old now, and there's probably some modern
		
00:11:44 --> 00:11:45
			aspects of that now.
		
00:11:45 --> 00:11:49
			And then there's one discipline that I actually
		
00:11:49 --> 00:11:51
			did, what in our language, or in the
		
00:11:51 --> 00:11:54
			nomenclature of madrasa students, you would call tabarrukan.
		
00:11:55 --> 00:11:55
			Okay.
		
00:11:55 --> 00:11:57
			Which means that you just attend for the
		
00:11:57 --> 00:11:58
			barakah kind of thing, right?
		
00:11:58 --> 00:12:00
			I have an ijazah in it as well.
		
00:12:00 --> 00:12:01
			And I knew it at one time, but
		
00:12:01 --> 00:12:03
			I don't, and I would have loved to
		
00:12:03 --> 00:12:03
			have gone.
		
00:12:03 --> 00:12:04
			That's the 10 qiraat.
		
00:12:06 --> 00:12:09
			So I'm, you know, I've got the Hafs
		
00:12:09 --> 00:12:12
			and Asim, but the other seven qiraat absolutely
		
00:12:12 --> 00:12:12
			fascinates me.
		
00:12:13 --> 00:12:14
			If I work on it, I can read
		
00:12:14 --> 00:12:16
			it and use it.
		
00:12:16 --> 00:12:19
			But it's not something that I would really
		
00:12:19 --> 00:12:21
			love to have more confidence with that maybe
		
00:12:21 --> 00:12:22
			one day, inshallah.
		
00:12:23 --> 00:12:23
			So that's one thing.
		
00:12:24 --> 00:12:25
			And then the other one would be the
		
00:12:25 --> 00:12:26
			sufism.
		
00:12:27 --> 00:12:29
			We're trying with that, but I wish I
		
00:12:29 --> 00:12:30
			could actually get into that.
		
00:12:31 --> 00:12:31
			Excellent.
		
00:12:32 --> 00:12:33
			Okay, last couple of questions, Sheikh.
		
00:12:34 --> 00:12:37
			What's the most memorable advice that you've received
		
00:12:37 --> 00:12:38
			from a teacher or mentor?
		
00:12:39 --> 00:12:43
			Yeah, I think that would be that there's
		
00:12:43 --> 00:12:44
			one or two that really helped me, and
		
00:12:44 --> 00:12:46
			I've told others, and they've said that it's
		
00:12:46 --> 00:12:47
			benefited.
		
00:12:47 --> 00:12:48
			One of them is that whenever you're studying,
		
00:12:48 --> 00:12:50
			always aim for that, aim for the highest.
		
00:12:50 --> 00:12:52
			So from the perspective of the madrasa system,
		
00:12:52 --> 00:12:56
			when you start studying, aim to teach Bukhari
		
00:12:56 --> 00:12:56
			one day.
		
00:12:57 --> 00:12:58
			Don't tell anybody, they might make fun of
		
00:12:58 --> 00:12:59
			you, right?
		
00:12:59 --> 00:13:01
			Because not everybody gets to teach Sahih Bukhari,
		
00:13:01 --> 00:13:03
			but at least have that aim.
		
00:13:03 --> 00:13:05
			And that means your whole ethos, your whole
		
00:13:05 --> 00:13:08
			procedure, your whole methodology is going to be
		
00:13:08 --> 00:13:11
			enhanced to get there.
		
00:13:11 --> 00:13:12
			And okay, you might not get there, so
		
00:13:12 --> 00:13:13
			you at least get halfway.
		
00:13:14 --> 00:13:17
			But if you're interested in only teaching some
		
00:13:17 --> 00:13:19
			children quran, which is a wonderful thing, right?
		
00:13:20 --> 00:13:22
			But then you may not even get there.
		
00:13:22 --> 00:13:24
			So I think aim really, really high.
		
00:13:24 --> 00:13:25
			That's really benefited me hugely.
		
00:13:26 --> 00:13:29
			And number two, there was a one of
		
00:13:29 --> 00:13:33
			the students of Hakeem ul-Umar, who I
		
00:13:33 --> 00:13:38
			actually met, Sheikh Masihullah in Jalalabad, in UP.
		
00:13:38 --> 00:13:40
			So I met him about four months before
		
00:13:40 --> 00:13:41
			he passed away.
		
00:13:42 --> 00:13:44
			And he said, when you study, study as
		
00:13:44 --> 00:13:46
			though you have to teach the lesson tomorrow,
		
00:13:46 --> 00:13:47
			even though you're the student.
		
00:13:47 --> 00:13:49
			But study as though you are going to
		
00:13:49 --> 00:13:50
			be teaching the lesson tomorrow.
		
00:13:51 --> 00:13:55
			That means you leave nothing no page unturned.
		
00:13:55 --> 00:13:56
			So what it is, is that sometimes you
		
00:13:56 --> 00:13:58
			get to a difficult, oh, that's not going
		
00:13:58 --> 00:13:58
			to come in exam.
		
00:14:00 --> 00:14:01
			Teacher won't ask about that.
		
00:14:01 --> 00:14:02
			Let me know.
		
00:14:02 --> 00:14:04
			But no, try to understand everything, get to
		
00:14:04 --> 00:14:05
			the bottom of everything.
		
00:14:06 --> 00:14:07
			Of course, I didn't manage to do that
		
00:14:07 --> 00:14:08
			in everything.
		
00:14:08 --> 00:14:10
			But that was an amazing piece of advice.
		
00:14:10 --> 00:14:11
			So those two have always stayed with me.
		
00:14:12 --> 00:14:13
			And that's what I tell my students as
		
00:14:13 --> 00:14:13
			well.
		
00:14:14 --> 00:14:16
			And these are the main advice that you
		
00:14:16 --> 00:14:17
			give your students as well?
		
00:14:17 --> 00:14:18
			Well, it's part of them.
		
00:14:20 --> 00:14:21
			Okay, Alhamdulillah.
		
00:14:22 --> 00:14:23
			And now something completely different.
		
00:14:23 --> 00:14:25
			Sheikh Masihullah, we were speaking earlier, and you're
		
00:14:25 --> 00:14:27
			telling us about the different travel that you
		
00:14:27 --> 00:14:30
			do from extreme east to extreme west.
		
00:14:31 --> 00:14:32
			How do you deal with jet lag?
		
00:14:35 --> 00:14:37
			So firstly, I had to learn how to
		
00:14:37 --> 00:14:38
			sleep on a flight.
		
00:14:38 --> 00:14:40
			I couldn't sleep on a flight, especially with
		
00:14:40 --> 00:14:42
			the size and one of those economy class
		
00:14:42 --> 00:14:44
			seats, which is usually the case.
		
00:14:44 --> 00:14:46
			Very, very difficult to sleep.
		
00:14:46 --> 00:14:49
			And then, yeah, I couldn't sleep for a
		
00:14:49 --> 00:14:50
			number of years.
		
00:14:50 --> 00:14:51
			And then I said, I have to sleep.
		
00:14:51 --> 00:14:54
			Otherwise, you'll really, really suffer.
		
00:14:54 --> 00:14:55
			So I found a way to get to
		
00:14:55 --> 00:14:56
			sleep.
		
00:14:56 --> 00:14:57
			So I always take the window seat.
		
00:14:57 --> 00:14:57
			Yeah.
		
00:14:58 --> 00:15:01
			Because then you're not disturbed, especially if you're
		
00:15:01 --> 00:15:03
			kind of large, you're sitting in the aisle
		
00:15:03 --> 00:15:05
			seat, that's better for getting in and out.
		
00:15:05 --> 00:15:08
			But everybody's going past and jogging you, you
		
00:15:08 --> 00:15:09
			try to sleep where you're going to sleep,
		
00:15:09 --> 00:15:10
			you know.
		
00:15:10 --> 00:15:12
			And the middle seat, obviously, that's not the
		
00:15:12 --> 00:15:13
			right place to be.
		
00:15:13 --> 00:15:15
			So it's difficult being in the window seat,
		
00:15:16 --> 00:15:19
			because then you have to ask your companions,
		
00:15:20 --> 00:15:23
			neighbors to, but Alhamdulillah, that's get a nice
		
00:15:23 --> 00:15:27
			pillow, neck pillow, but you know, get a
		
00:15:27 --> 00:15:27
			specific one.
		
00:15:28 --> 00:15:30
			And a lumbar support is very, very important.
		
00:15:31 --> 00:15:33
			So you get a, I usually, if they
		
00:15:33 --> 00:15:35
			don't have pillows or whatever, you get a
		
00:15:35 --> 00:15:36
			shawl or something that I usually carry with
		
00:15:36 --> 00:15:37
			me, I put it behind me.
		
00:15:37 --> 00:15:39
			What that does is that helps your back
		
00:15:39 --> 00:15:40
			to keep straight.
		
00:15:40 --> 00:15:41
			Okay, right.
		
00:15:41 --> 00:15:42
			It helps your back when you when you're
		
00:15:42 --> 00:15:43
			when you're inclined.
		
00:15:43 --> 00:15:44
			Yeah.
		
00:15:44 --> 00:15:45
			Omar doesn't need this information.
		
00:15:46 --> 00:15:47
			He travels business class.
		
00:15:48 --> 00:15:50
			Everyone else like me.
		
00:15:53 --> 00:15:54
			Defamation.
		
00:15:55 --> 00:15:56
			I'm with you, Sheikh.
		
00:15:56 --> 00:15:58
			The window seat, eye masks.
		
00:15:58 --> 00:15:59
			Yeah.
		
00:15:59 --> 00:16:00
			Eye mask, important.
		
00:16:01 --> 00:16:02
			And then earplugs.
		
00:16:03 --> 00:16:03
			Okay.
		
00:16:03 --> 00:16:05
			The sound, it really helps him to get
		
00:16:05 --> 00:16:06
			that dead sound.
		
00:16:06 --> 00:16:09
			I don't have those special.
		
00:16:09 --> 00:16:11
			I use noise cancelling earplugs.
		
00:16:12 --> 00:16:14
			I mean, I haven't really used those.
		
00:16:14 --> 00:16:15
			Okay, I should maybe invest in that.
		
00:16:15 --> 00:16:16
			But usually, I just put the plugs in.
		
00:16:18 --> 00:16:20
			And that helps you find that.
		
00:16:20 --> 00:16:20
			Oh, yeah.
		
00:16:21 --> 00:16:22
			It creates that white sound in there.
		
00:16:22 --> 00:16:24
			It's like less of the hum.
		
00:16:24 --> 00:16:26
			And then not when people are talking doesn't
		
00:16:27 --> 00:16:29
			jostle you in any way.
		
00:16:29 --> 00:16:30
			Okay, I think it helps.
		
00:16:30 --> 00:16:32
			So I've learned to sleep.
		
00:16:32 --> 00:16:34
			I mean, it doesn't always work.
		
00:16:34 --> 00:16:35
			Yeah, 100%.
		
00:16:35 --> 00:16:37
			Some people, Mashallah, I've traveled people as soon
		
00:16:37 --> 00:16:38
			as they get into the seat, they put
		
00:16:38 --> 00:16:39
			everything and then they go to sleep.
		
00:16:39 --> 00:16:39
			Yeah.
		
00:16:39 --> 00:16:41
			And they wake up when it lands.
		
00:16:41 --> 00:16:41
			I was like, SubhanAllah.
		
00:16:42 --> 00:16:42
			Yeah.
		
00:16:43 --> 00:16:44
			So it does take a bit of time.
		
00:16:44 --> 00:16:46
			But Alhamdulillah, I would love to do work.
		
00:16:47 --> 00:16:48
			But then the problem is that with the
		
00:16:48 --> 00:16:51
			laptop and the economy is just sometimes difficult.
		
00:16:52 --> 00:16:54
			I'm trying to find the right iPads are
		
00:16:54 --> 00:16:55
			useless for that because they don't have Microsoft
		
00:16:55 --> 00:16:56
			Word proper.
		
00:16:56 --> 00:16:57
			Yeah.
		
00:16:57 --> 00:17:00
			So I want a nice PC system.
		
00:17:00 --> 00:17:02
			I'm looking into that maybe a surface type
		
00:17:02 --> 00:17:02
			or something.
		
00:17:03 --> 00:17:04
			Laptops are too big to get some work
		
00:17:04 --> 00:17:05
			done when you're not sleeping.
		
00:17:06 --> 00:17:07
			Anytime goes or read a book.
		
00:17:08 --> 00:17:08
			Alhamdulillah.
		
00:17:08 --> 00:17:10
			Two pieces of advice I was given about
		
00:17:10 --> 00:17:10
			jet lag.
		
00:17:10 --> 00:17:12
			One was somebody said that I haven't tried
		
00:17:12 --> 00:17:14
			it is don't eat at all on the
		
00:17:14 --> 00:17:14
			flight.
		
00:17:14 --> 00:17:15
			Yeah.
		
00:17:17 --> 00:17:19
			And the other one is that when you
		
00:17:19 --> 00:17:22
			land, try and get the natural sunlight on
		
00:17:22 --> 00:17:23
			the back of your neck.
		
00:17:23 --> 00:17:23
			Okay.
		
00:17:24 --> 00:17:26
			My son looked into all of this stuff.
		
00:17:27 --> 00:17:27
			Yeah.
		
00:17:27 --> 00:17:29
			What I what I do do when I
		
00:17:29 --> 00:17:31
			get there, I try to just acclimate.
		
00:17:31 --> 00:17:31
			Yeah.
		
00:17:31 --> 00:17:33
			To the Alhamdulillah.
		
00:17:33 --> 00:17:34
			Last few times I've been to Canada.
		
00:17:35 --> 00:17:36
			And while it's been middle of the night
		
00:17:36 --> 00:17:37
			for me, as long as I've had a
		
00:17:37 --> 00:17:40
			little nap, because I'm I leave from here
		
00:17:40 --> 00:17:41
			at 12 one o'clock, you get there
		
00:17:41 --> 00:17:42
			about two o'clock.
		
00:17:42 --> 00:17:42
			Yeah.
		
00:17:43 --> 00:17:43
			Same day.
		
00:17:43 --> 00:17:44
			Right.
		
00:17:44 --> 00:17:45
			You've got the whole day ahead of you,
		
00:17:45 --> 00:17:47
			but it's going to be nighttime and you're
		
00:17:47 --> 00:17:47
			giving a lecture.
		
00:17:47 --> 00:17:48
			So try to get a little nap in.
		
00:17:48 --> 00:17:51
			And I try to literally force myself to
		
00:17:51 --> 00:17:53
			get into their time mode that really, really
		
00:17:53 --> 00:17:53
			helps.
		
00:17:53 --> 00:17:54
			Yeah.
		
00:17:54 --> 00:17:54
			Excellent.
		
00:17:56 --> 00:17:56
			Great.
		
00:17:56 --> 00:17:57
			Mashallah.
		
00:17:58 --> 00:17:59
			Quickfire done.
		
00:17:59 --> 00:18:00
			Yeah, it took 24 minutes.
		
00:18:07 --> 00:18:10
			Like you alluded to earlier, the main the
		
00:18:10 --> 00:18:12
			main reason we want to speak to today
		
00:18:12 --> 00:18:14
			was and we did a few we did
		
00:18:14 --> 00:18:15
			a live stream a few weeks ago.
		
00:18:16 --> 00:18:18
			And you joined us, Mashallah, many different organizations,
		
00:18:19 --> 00:18:20
			many different Masha'ikh and activists and so
		
00:18:20 --> 00:18:23
			forth about you know, Syria, what's happening in
		
00:18:23 --> 00:18:24
			Syria, the liberation of Syria.
		
00:18:25 --> 00:18:27
			And you were saying that, you know, you
		
00:18:27 --> 00:18:29
			live there and you have lots of fond
		
00:18:29 --> 00:18:32
			memories of Syria and lots of, you know,
		
00:18:32 --> 00:18:34
			lots of stuff to talk about when it
		
00:18:34 --> 00:18:34
			when it comes to Syria.
		
00:18:35 --> 00:18:36
			So we thought, no, we have to we
		
00:18:36 --> 00:18:37
			have to, you know, schedule this in.
		
00:18:37 --> 00:18:39
			So I guess I'll just start by asking,
		
00:18:40 --> 00:18:42
			what was your reaction when you know, you
		
00:18:42 --> 00:18:43
			woke up that morning and you turn on
		
00:18:43 --> 00:18:45
			the TV or you check your social media
		
00:18:45 --> 00:18:46
			and you and you saw the fall of
		
00:18:46 --> 00:18:47
			Assad?
		
00:18:48 --> 00:18:48
			What was your reaction?
		
00:18:48 --> 00:18:50
			When it was coming down?
		
00:18:51 --> 00:18:52
			And you know, they took Hama and they
		
00:18:52 --> 00:18:55
			took Halab and they've taken Idlib already and
		
00:18:55 --> 00:18:55
			so on.
		
00:18:55 --> 00:18:58
			I was like, they're gonna get pushed back.
		
00:18:58 --> 00:19:00
			Because that's what happened last time as well.
		
00:19:00 --> 00:19:01
			They did take quite a bit and then
		
00:19:01 --> 00:19:02
			they got pushed back.
		
00:19:02 --> 00:19:03
			But then when it fell, I was like,
		
00:19:03 --> 00:19:04
			wow, I had mixed feelings.
		
00:19:04 --> 00:19:06
			Like, okay, how did it happen?
		
00:19:06 --> 00:19:07
			Unfortunately, we live in a conspiracy world.
		
00:19:08 --> 00:19:09
			So I did have those feelings.
		
00:19:09 --> 00:19:11
			But I was so happy and so excited.
		
00:19:12 --> 00:19:13
			I think at least two or three nights,
		
00:19:13 --> 00:19:14
			I couldn't sleep on time.
		
00:19:15 --> 00:19:16
			I was just so happy for everybody.
		
00:19:17 --> 00:19:18
			Because the people are wonderful.
		
00:19:18 --> 00:19:20
			They're just amazing people.
		
00:19:20 --> 00:19:21
			The Syrians are amazing people.
		
00:19:22 --> 00:19:22
			Right.
		
00:19:22 --> 00:19:24
			And I haven't been to Yemen yet.
		
00:19:24 --> 00:19:26
			But there's a dua for Yemen and Syria,
		
00:19:26 --> 00:19:26
			right?
		
00:19:27 --> 00:19:29
			Allahumma barik lana fee yamanina wa fee shamina.
		
00:19:29 --> 00:19:31
			So I've seen it in action in Sham.
		
00:19:31 --> 00:19:32
			But I haven't seen it in Yemen.
		
00:19:33 --> 00:19:35
			Although I've seen some Yemeni people and Mashallah.
		
00:19:35 --> 00:19:38
			So having that I was just so happy
		
00:19:38 --> 00:19:40
			for them that after 50 years of I
		
00:19:40 --> 00:19:41
			mean, for some people, it was their whole
		
00:19:41 --> 00:19:42
			life.
		
00:19:42 --> 00:19:44
			50 years of this kind of get on
		
00:19:44 --> 00:19:45
			with your work.
		
00:19:46 --> 00:19:50
			I remember broaching the subject of politics or
		
00:19:50 --> 00:19:51
			anything related a few times.
		
00:19:52 --> 00:19:53
			I knew not to, to be honest.
		
00:19:53 --> 00:19:54
			Some people told us.
		
00:19:54 --> 00:19:55
			What year were you there?
		
00:19:55 --> 00:19:56
			I was there in 98.
		
00:19:56 --> 00:19:57
			98.
		
00:19:57 --> 00:19:59
			So that was at the farthest time.
		
00:20:01 --> 00:20:03
			Sheikh Bouti was alive then.
		
00:20:03 --> 00:20:04
			And well, he was alive for quite a
		
00:20:04 --> 00:20:05
			while afterwards as well.
		
00:20:10 --> 00:20:11
			Sheikh Bouti was alive.
		
00:20:11 --> 00:20:12
			And there were less restrictions, I think, on
		
00:20:12 --> 00:20:13
			foreigners.
		
00:20:13 --> 00:20:15
			I think later, lots of others, colleagues and
		
00:20:15 --> 00:20:17
			others who also went, but then they started
		
00:20:17 --> 00:20:19
			having more restrictions for some reason.
		
00:20:19 --> 00:20:21
			So for foreigners, you would go in there
		
00:20:21 --> 00:20:24
			and to get a visa or a stay
		
00:20:24 --> 00:20:25
			permit, you got a visa.
		
00:20:26 --> 00:20:27
			But then that was, you had to then,
		
00:20:27 --> 00:20:29
			you had to go and register.
		
00:20:30 --> 00:20:32
			Now the way to stay there is to
		
00:20:32 --> 00:20:33
			get a stay permit.
		
00:20:33 --> 00:20:35
			And the easiest way to get a stay
		
00:20:35 --> 00:20:37
			permit was join Damascus University.
		
00:20:37 --> 00:20:37
			Okay.
		
00:20:38 --> 00:20:38
			Right.
		
00:20:38 --> 00:20:41
			Now Damascus University, I mean, that's a university
		
00:20:41 --> 00:20:42
			you don't just go in and join for
		
00:20:42 --> 00:20:44
			a one-year course or if I, it's,
		
00:20:44 --> 00:20:45
			they had the Ma'ahad Ta'aleem Al
		
00:20:45 --> 00:20:48
			-Lughat Al-Arabiyya for foreigners, lil ajanib.
		
00:20:48 --> 00:20:48
			Okay.
		
00:20:48 --> 00:20:50
			So many of us at that time would
		
00:20:50 --> 00:20:51
			just join that.
		
00:20:51 --> 00:20:53
			Secular university or Islamic university?
		
00:20:53 --> 00:20:53
			No, secular, no.
		
00:20:54 --> 00:20:54
			Okay.
		
00:20:54 --> 00:20:55
			I mean, just a normal university.
		
00:20:56 --> 00:20:56
			Right.
		
00:20:56 --> 00:20:58
			Interestingly, in the, in the grounds of the
		
00:20:58 --> 00:21:00
			Damascus University, do you know who's buried there?
		
00:21:00 --> 00:21:04
			Ibn Taymiyyah, rahim Allah, and Ibn Kathir next
		
00:21:04 --> 00:21:04
			to him.
		
00:21:04 --> 00:21:07
			It's like a little, a little mound in
		
00:21:07 --> 00:21:09
			the grounds of the university and they're buried
		
00:21:09 --> 00:21:09
			there.
		
00:21:09 --> 00:21:10
			It was kind of really interesting.
		
00:21:11 --> 00:21:12
			I was surprised by the number of people,
		
00:21:12 --> 00:21:14
			you know, who are buried in and around
		
00:21:15 --> 00:21:15
			Damascus.
		
00:21:16 --> 00:21:18
			So, no, it was just a regular university.
		
00:21:19 --> 00:21:19
			They taught everything there.
		
00:21:20 --> 00:21:21
			It wasn't a Muslim, oh, it's a Muslim
		
00:21:21 --> 00:21:24
			university, but it's not like Islam.
		
00:21:24 --> 00:21:25
			Yeah, exactly.
		
00:21:25 --> 00:21:25
			Okay.
		
00:21:25 --> 00:21:27
			They've got other places like that, but on
		
00:21:27 --> 00:21:29
			a smaller scale, this was just a standard
		
00:21:29 --> 00:21:30
			university.
		
00:21:30 --> 00:21:33
			So you would go and join and a
		
00:21:33 --> 00:21:35
			lot of foreigners and they were non-Muslims
		
00:21:35 --> 00:21:37
			in Germany, many other countries would come to
		
00:21:37 --> 00:21:39
			study Arabic and they would join that.
		
00:21:39 --> 00:21:41
			It was very cheap to, to, to, to
		
00:21:41 --> 00:21:41
			attend.
		
00:21:42 --> 00:21:44
			So, alhamdulillah, because we'd already studied Arabic, I
		
00:21:44 --> 00:21:46
			got into the level four or level five
		
00:21:46 --> 00:21:48
			and I remember this Ustad Muhammad, he was
		
00:21:48 --> 00:21:50
			over 30 years old and he was teaching
		
00:21:50 --> 00:21:51
			us and I benefited, I think, because it
		
00:21:51 --> 00:21:54
			was an advanced level of Arabic taught from
		
00:21:54 --> 00:21:55
			another perspective.
		
00:21:55 --> 00:21:57
			Poor guy was 30 years old, but he
		
00:21:57 --> 00:21:57
			couldn't get married.
		
00:21:57 --> 00:21:59
			I still remember that discussion with him that
		
00:21:59 --> 00:22:00
			he says, no, because I have to have
		
00:22:00 --> 00:22:01
			a house, I have to have this until
		
00:22:01 --> 00:22:02
			I get married.
		
00:22:02 --> 00:22:03
			I felt sorry for him.
		
00:22:03 --> 00:22:04
			Allah bless him.
		
00:22:04 --> 00:22:05
			I don't know where he is right now.
		
00:22:05 --> 00:22:07
			So that's where I joined that.
		
00:22:07 --> 00:22:08
			So we'd have to go there a few
		
00:22:08 --> 00:22:10
			days a week, about an hour or two
		
00:22:10 --> 00:22:10
			hours.
		
00:22:10 --> 00:22:11
			And then after that, I would go and
		
00:22:11 --> 00:22:13
			study with the Mashaikh what I was really
		
00:22:13 --> 00:22:13
			there for.
		
00:22:13 --> 00:22:17
			So that, that's, that's essentially how the whole
		
00:22:17 --> 00:22:18
			process at that time worked.
		
00:22:18 --> 00:22:19
			A lot of people would do it that
		
00:22:19 --> 00:22:20
			way.
		
00:22:20 --> 00:22:21
			And then I don't know, they would probably
		
00:22:21 --> 00:22:22
			find some other ways to just survive there.
		
00:22:23 --> 00:22:25
			The study with the Mashaikh was private study?
		
00:22:25 --> 00:22:26
			Mine was private study.
		
00:22:27 --> 00:22:28
			Mine was private study.
		
00:22:28 --> 00:22:29
			I didn't join an institution or anything.
		
00:22:30 --> 00:22:33
			So mine was primarily with two, primarily with
		
00:22:33 --> 00:22:33
			two people.
		
00:22:34 --> 00:22:37
			One of them was with Sheikh Abdul Razzaq
		
00:22:37 --> 00:22:41
			Al-Halabi, he was actually situated and was
		
00:22:41 --> 00:22:43
			the Sheikh of the Umayyad Mosque.
		
00:22:43 --> 00:22:45
			So I would go there every day after
		
00:22:45 --> 00:22:45
			Asr.
		
00:22:45 --> 00:22:47
			So my time to go there was between
		
00:22:47 --> 00:22:47
			Asr and Maghrib.
		
00:22:48 --> 00:22:50
			He was, Mashallah, he was one of the
		
00:22:50 --> 00:22:53
			great Hanafi sheikhs and on in a number
		
00:22:53 --> 00:22:54
			of other disciplines as well.
		
00:22:54 --> 00:22:56
			But after Asr, he would sit and listen
		
00:22:56 --> 00:23:00
			to Quran, Hidh and Qiraat.
		
00:23:00 --> 00:23:04
			So in the subcontinent where I'd, you know,
		
00:23:04 --> 00:23:06
			in, in which tradition I'd memorise the Quran,
		
00:23:06 --> 00:23:08
			there's no ijazah that goes back.
		
00:23:08 --> 00:23:09
			Yes.
		
00:23:09 --> 00:23:11
			I mean, there's probably more hufadh in the
		
00:23:11 --> 00:23:13
			Indian subcontinent than there are in the Middle
		
00:23:13 --> 00:23:14
			East, right, put together.
		
00:23:15 --> 00:23:17
			They only started recently, to be honest, relatively,
		
00:23:17 --> 00:23:18
			even in Saudi, can you believe it?
		
00:23:18 --> 00:23:19
			Yeah.
		
00:23:19 --> 00:23:21
			They only started more recently.
		
00:23:22 --> 00:23:23
			And again, that was because, from what I
		
00:23:23 --> 00:23:25
			understand, it was from some Dehlawi people actually
		
00:23:25 --> 00:23:26
			pushed it and got it, got it going,
		
00:23:27 --> 00:23:28
			right, for whatever reason.
		
00:23:28 --> 00:23:28
			That's, that's different.
		
00:23:29 --> 00:23:29
			Yeah.
		
00:23:29 --> 00:23:31
			So he had the ijazah.
		
00:23:31 --> 00:23:32
			So I went and told him, because he
		
00:23:32 --> 00:23:34
			usually only allows, because there's lots of people
		
00:23:34 --> 00:23:36
			coming, he only allows people to read a
		
00:23:36 --> 00:23:38
			page a day of those 15 line mushafs.
		
00:23:39 --> 00:23:39
			Yeah.
		
00:23:39 --> 00:23:40
			So I told him, look, I might not
		
00:23:40 --> 00:23:41
			be here for very long.
		
00:23:41 --> 00:23:41
			Can I read more?
		
00:23:41 --> 00:23:42
			I've already memorised.
		
00:23:42 --> 00:23:43
			Mashallah, he took a liking to me and
		
00:23:43 --> 00:23:45
			said, okay, you can read half a juz'.
		
00:23:45 --> 00:23:47
			So I'd go in there and read half
		
00:23:47 --> 00:23:48
			a juz' each time, and the students around,
		
00:23:48 --> 00:23:50
			they're like, you know, what are you doing?
		
00:23:50 --> 00:23:52
			I remember, I used to mark my mistakes
		
00:23:52 --> 00:23:53
			with pencil in the mushaf.
		
00:23:54 --> 00:23:56
			Now, some of those students around me, they
		
00:23:56 --> 00:23:56
			said, like, what are you doing?
		
00:23:57 --> 00:23:57
			You can't write in the mushaf.
		
00:23:58 --> 00:23:59
			The sheikh, no, no, he's doing it for
		
00:23:59 --> 00:23:59
			mistakes.
		
00:23:59 --> 00:24:01
			So he, he validated that.
		
00:24:01 --> 00:24:02
			I don't, I don't believe in marking with
		
00:24:02 --> 00:24:02
			pen.
		
00:24:02 --> 00:24:04
			Some people do that and they graffiti the
		
00:24:04 --> 00:24:04
			Quran.
		
00:24:04 --> 00:24:05
			That's, that's completely wrong.
		
00:24:06 --> 00:24:07
			Some hifz class teachers.
		
00:24:07 --> 00:24:09
			So alhamdulillah, I managed to finish it.
		
00:24:09 --> 00:24:11
			He gave me this big ijazah, right, which
		
00:24:11 --> 00:24:13
			I value, because there's only a few people,
		
00:24:13 --> 00:24:15
			I think, in this country who have that.
		
00:24:15 --> 00:24:17
			So I value that a lot.
		
00:24:17 --> 00:24:19
			So that was what I did with him.
		
00:24:19 --> 00:24:22
			Now, after Maghrib, after Asr, if I stayed
		
00:24:22 --> 00:24:25
			there, after Maghrib, then he would teach Raddu
		
00:24:25 --> 00:24:25
			al-Muhtar.
		
00:24:26 --> 00:24:29
			Now, Raddu al-Muhtar, as you probably know,
		
00:24:29 --> 00:24:31
			it's in the old copies, it's seven volumes,
		
00:24:31 --> 00:24:33
			and in the newer copies, it's like 20
		
00:24:33 --> 00:24:34
			something volumes.
		
00:24:34 --> 00:24:36
			It would take about six to seven years
		
00:24:36 --> 00:24:36
			to complete it.
		
00:24:37 --> 00:24:39
			Now, what I saw in Sham, which is
		
00:24:39 --> 00:24:40
			very different from any other place I've been
		
00:24:40 --> 00:24:42
			to, and that really inspired me to do
		
00:24:42 --> 00:24:45
			things like that here, is that the people
		
00:24:45 --> 00:24:47
			that would come and study with him were
		
00:24:47 --> 00:24:49
			not just normal tullab or normal students.
		
00:24:49 --> 00:24:51
			They were actually the scholars of the city
		
00:24:51 --> 00:24:53
			who had their own teaching going on.
		
00:24:53 --> 00:24:55
			And then in the evening, they would come
		
00:24:55 --> 00:24:56
			and they would study with him.
		
00:24:56 --> 00:24:58
			So this Sheikh Fawaz, who is the Sheikh
		
00:24:58 --> 00:25:01
			of the Umayyad now, you're seeing these videos
		
00:25:01 --> 00:25:01
			come out.
		
00:25:01 --> 00:25:02
			He was a student at that time.
		
00:25:03 --> 00:25:03
			Okay.
		
00:25:03 --> 00:25:05
			It was him, Sheikh Jumu'ah.
		
00:25:05 --> 00:25:06
			He was a really nice guy.
		
00:25:06 --> 00:25:06
			I don't know, but he was a very
		
00:25:06 --> 00:25:07
			low key.
		
00:25:07 --> 00:25:09
			Sheikh Fawaz was more extroverted, and Sheikh Jumu
		
00:25:09 --> 00:25:12
			'ah, he was more introverted.
		
00:25:12 --> 00:25:14
			I want to go and find him, subhanAllah.
		
00:25:14 --> 00:25:15
			He was such a blessing.
		
00:25:15 --> 00:25:16
			I used to ask him questions and consult
		
00:25:16 --> 00:25:17
			with him.
		
00:25:17 --> 00:25:18
			And then there were others that used to
		
00:25:18 --> 00:25:18
			come.
		
00:25:19 --> 00:25:19
			I didn't know everybody.
		
00:25:19 --> 00:25:21
			I used to join in that sometimes, right?
		
00:25:21 --> 00:25:23
			So it's a seven-year cycle that used
		
00:25:23 --> 00:25:23
			to be.
		
00:25:24 --> 00:25:26
			I didn't obviously get much of it, because
		
00:25:26 --> 00:25:27
			I left afterwards.
		
00:25:27 --> 00:25:30
			So that is, as you get into the
		
00:25:30 --> 00:25:33
			Umayyad mosque, so the eastern minaret, the one
		
00:25:33 --> 00:25:35
			that's been prophesied in the Hadith, that's in
		
00:25:35 --> 00:25:38
			the eastern side, or the left-hand corner
		
00:25:38 --> 00:25:39
			in front, right?
		
00:25:39 --> 00:25:40
			That's the eastern one.
		
00:25:40 --> 00:25:41
			That's locked, right?
		
00:25:42 --> 00:25:44
			I was on the right-hand side one.
		
00:25:46 --> 00:25:48
			So it's not in the minaret, but that's
		
00:25:48 --> 00:25:49
			the minaret, I believe, they used to do
		
00:25:49 --> 00:25:50
			Adhan from.
		
00:25:50 --> 00:25:52
			And the Adhan of the Umayyad is very,
		
00:25:52 --> 00:25:52
			very different.
		
00:25:52 --> 00:25:55
			Actually, multiple people do it at once.
		
00:25:56 --> 00:25:56
			Oh, really?
		
00:25:56 --> 00:25:57
			Yeah, yeah, yeah.
		
00:25:57 --> 00:26:00
			It's the first time I've heard that style,
		
00:26:01 --> 00:26:02
			them doing Adhan.
		
00:26:02 --> 00:26:04
			I actually saw a clip recently of them,
		
00:26:04 --> 00:26:06
			somebody put out.
		
00:26:08 --> 00:26:08
			Synchronized?
		
00:26:08 --> 00:26:09
			I can't remember.
		
00:26:09 --> 00:26:11
			I definitely, there was something that was synchronized.
		
00:26:11 --> 00:26:12
			Yes, for sure.
		
00:26:12 --> 00:26:13
			There were three or four people.
		
00:26:13 --> 00:26:14
			In fact, even in that video that I
		
00:26:14 --> 00:26:15
			saw recently, there were three or four people.
		
00:26:17 --> 00:26:19
			Even with microphones and speakers and stuff?
		
00:26:19 --> 00:26:19
			Yeah, yeah.
		
00:26:19 --> 00:26:20
			I don't know.
		
00:26:20 --> 00:26:21
			They used to just do it that way.
		
00:26:22 --> 00:26:24
			And what's interesting, I mean, I'm jumping, but
		
00:26:24 --> 00:26:26
			I used to live in another area called
		
00:26:26 --> 00:26:29
			Sheikh Mohiuddin, or Sheikh Ruknuddin.
		
00:26:30 --> 00:26:32
			That's where the Mujamma'a bin Noor was.
		
00:26:32 --> 00:26:33
			That was run by the Mufti of the
		
00:26:33 --> 00:26:35
			time, Sheikh Ahmed Kaftaroo.
		
00:26:35 --> 00:26:39
			Now, in his place, they actually had an
		
00:26:39 --> 00:26:41
			Adhan playing on the speaker all the time,
		
00:26:42 --> 00:26:43
			which is really strange.
		
00:26:43 --> 00:26:45
			I did ask around about that.
		
00:26:45 --> 00:26:49
			And what I heard was that the Shuyuk
		
00:26:49 --> 00:26:51
			had given a fatwa that that's not right.
		
00:26:51 --> 00:26:54
			But because I think maybe the Mu'adhins
		
00:26:54 --> 00:26:58
			were government appointed through whichever way, sometimes it's
		
00:26:58 --> 00:26:59
			just really bad.
		
00:26:59 --> 00:27:00
			I don't think that would be the case
		
00:27:00 --> 00:27:01
			in that particular place.
		
00:27:01 --> 00:27:03
			But in some masjids, if they couldn't do
		
00:27:03 --> 00:27:06
			a good Adhan, rather than turn people away,
		
00:27:07 --> 00:27:08
			they would let them do it inside because
		
00:27:08 --> 00:27:10
			that live Adhan then is taking place inside.
		
00:27:10 --> 00:27:12
			And then they put that out there.
		
00:27:12 --> 00:27:14
			There's actually some, Tunisia used to do that
		
00:27:14 --> 00:27:14
			as well.
		
00:27:15 --> 00:27:16
			Sheikh Abbas Mufti Shabbir went to Tunisia.
		
00:27:17 --> 00:27:19
			Every masjid, they're doing the exact same Adhan.
		
00:27:19 --> 00:27:21
			I thought, do they have an Adhan school
		
00:27:21 --> 00:27:22
			that exactly the same?
		
00:27:23 --> 00:27:23
			Yeah.
		
00:27:23 --> 00:27:24
			And then he discovered that it's actually just
		
00:27:24 --> 00:27:25
			a recording.
		
00:27:25 --> 00:27:26
			Unfortunately, that's what they do.
		
00:27:26 --> 00:27:27
			I mean, that's not allowed.
		
00:27:27 --> 00:27:28
			Really, you have to have a live Adhan.
		
00:27:28 --> 00:27:29
			They just put this up there as an
		
00:27:29 --> 00:27:30
			announcement that might be okay.
		
00:27:30 --> 00:27:32
			I noticed that in Turkey as well.
		
00:27:32 --> 00:27:33
			At the same places.
		
00:27:33 --> 00:27:33
			Yeah.
		
00:27:33 --> 00:27:34
			Okay.
		
00:27:34 --> 00:27:34
			Well, maybe.
		
00:27:34 --> 00:27:36
			Maybe like in certain areas.
		
00:27:36 --> 00:27:37
			Maybe they don't have a good Mu'adhin.
		
00:27:37 --> 00:27:38
			So then they just want a nice Adhan.
		
00:27:39 --> 00:27:40
			So they put a recording up.
		
00:27:41 --> 00:27:43
			So that's where he had the zawi.
		
00:27:43 --> 00:27:44
			He had his room there.
		
00:27:44 --> 00:27:45
			That's where we used to go and read.
		
00:27:45 --> 00:27:47
			But the lesson of Radul Muhtar used to
		
00:27:47 --> 00:27:48
			take place outside.
		
00:27:48 --> 00:27:49
			We used to go inside the room.
		
00:27:50 --> 00:27:52
			I was just so diligent with it that
		
00:27:52 --> 00:27:55
			he said, five, six days a week.
		
00:27:55 --> 00:27:57
			That was minus Friday.
		
00:27:57 --> 00:27:58
			One day, I turned up on Friday.
		
00:27:59 --> 00:28:00
			I was like, can I read?
		
00:28:00 --> 00:28:01
			He said, Mavi Utla.
		
00:28:02 --> 00:28:05
			The Shami way is just Mavi Utla.
		
00:28:05 --> 00:28:06
			Like, there's no holidays.
		
00:28:07 --> 00:28:09
			But I think, you know, I did that
		
00:28:09 --> 00:28:09
			a few times.
		
00:28:10 --> 00:28:10
			I did that with him.
		
00:28:10 --> 00:28:11
			And I did that with my other Sheikh,
		
00:28:11 --> 00:28:12
			Sheikh Adeeb Kallas.
		
00:28:12 --> 00:28:14
			I just turned up on a day that
		
00:28:14 --> 00:28:16
			wasn't my day.
		
00:28:17 --> 00:28:18
			And I know he got a bit upset.
		
00:28:18 --> 00:28:20
			But I think he forgave me, obviously.
		
00:28:20 --> 00:28:22
			But then I think he realizes that there's
		
00:28:22 --> 00:28:23
			a lot of diligence.
		
00:28:23 --> 00:28:25
			So I was just kind of really pushy.
		
00:28:25 --> 00:28:26
			And that was wrong for me to push.
		
00:28:26 --> 00:28:28
			Now I know when people trying to impose
		
00:28:28 --> 00:28:29
			themselves on you.
		
00:28:29 --> 00:28:30
			So I used to have to walk through
		
00:28:30 --> 00:28:31
			the Souk Hamidiyah.
		
00:28:32 --> 00:28:32
			Yep.
		
00:28:33 --> 00:28:33
			Right.
		
00:28:33 --> 00:28:36
			The Souk Hamidiyah is a place to go.
		
00:28:36 --> 00:28:36
			Right.
		
00:28:36 --> 00:28:37
			Okay.
		
00:28:37 --> 00:28:39
			So I had to get, and it was
		
00:28:39 --> 00:28:42
			so cheap at that time, like, two lira.
		
00:28:42 --> 00:28:45
			It was 80 liras to a pound.
		
00:28:45 --> 00:28:48
			And two lira from north of Damascus to
		
00:28:48 --> 00:28:49
			the central area.
		
00:28:49 --> 00:28:51
			That's what it cost me to travel in
		
00:28:51 --> 00:28:52
			a micro bus.
		
00:28:52 --> 00:28:54
			Okay, they call it a micro, which is
		
00:28:54 --> 00:28:57
			essentially one of those vans that have multiple
		
00:28:57 --> 00:28:57
			seats.
		
00:28:58 --> 00:28:58
			Yeah.
		
00:28:58 --> 00:29:01
			So I would, a Duwara Shimali probably still
		
00:29:01 --> 00:29:02
			runs, I want to go back and check
		
00:29:02 --> 00:29:02
			it out.
		
00:29:02 --> 00:29:04
			So I would get on to that and
		
00:29:04 --> 00:29:05
			go downtown.
		
00:29:06 --> 00:29:10
			And there's a, and then walk through the
		
00:29:10 --> 00:29:11
			Souk Hamidiyah and just try to ignore the
		
00:29:11 --> 00:29:12
			shopping.
		
00:29:12 --> 00:29:13
			Right?
		
00:29:13 --> 00:29:14
			Yeah, maybe read the market Dua if it's
		
00:29:14 --> 00:29:16
			possible, and then get into the Jami ul
		
00:29:16 --> 00:29:16
			Umawi.
		
00:29:17 --> 00:29:19
			There's lots of, the Jami ul Umawi is
		
00:29:19 --> 00:29:19
			very interesting.
		
00:29:19 --> 00:29:21
			It's kind of Roman ruins and everything around
		
00:29:21 --> 00:29:21
			it.
		
00:29:21 --> 00:29:22
			And then you get into the Masjid.
		
00:29:23 --> 00:29:24
			It's just very impressive.
		
00:29:24 --> 00:29:26
			And then and then attend the Dars and
		
00:29:26 --> 00:29:27
			then and then come back.
		
00:29:28 --> 00:29:31
			So that that's that that's where I finished
		
00:29:31 --> 00:29:32
			Alhamdulillah the Quran.
		
00:29:32 --> 00:29:35
			Then one of the students, there'd be some
		
00:29:35 --> 00:29:37
			really interesting students who would come to read
		
00:29:37 --> 00:29:38
			to the Shaykh.
		
00:29:40 --> 00:29:44
			And there was some interesting interactions with those
		
00:29:44 --> 00:29:45
			students because they're from different.
		
00:29:46 --> 00:29:47
			So after a month, I went there.
		
00:29:47 --> 00:29:49
			One of my purposes of going there was
		
00:29:49 --> 00:29:51
			that to practice my Arabic.
		
00:29:51 --> 00:29:54
			So I'd learned Arabic in terms of literature
		
00:29:54 --> 00:29:55
			and reading.
		
00:29:55 --> 00:29:57
			I could understand it very well, but hadn't
		
00:29:57 --> 00:29:58
			had any practice of speaking.
		
00:29:58 --> 00:30:00
			So I was actually going to go to
		
00:30:00 --> 00:30:02
			Egypt for a BA on BA degree, along
		
00:30:02 --> 00:30:05
			with to Azhar, along with practicing the Arabic.
		
00:30:06 --> 00:30:08
			But then it turned out that when we
		
00:30:08 --> 00:30:10
			were graduating from here, I'd have to wait
		
00:30:10 --> 00:30:12
			six more months, because they started.
		
00:30:12 --> 00:30:14
			Yeah, then somebody came in and said, Why
		
00:30:14 --> 00:30:15
			don't you go to Syria?
		
00:30:15 --> 00:30:17
			Like Syria, there's people are going there, I
		
00:30:17 --> 00:30:18
			think they just started going there like a
		
00:30:18 --> 00:30:20
			few a year ago, a year and a
		
00:30:20 --> 00:30:20
			half ago.
		
00:30:21 --> 00:30:22
			So that sounds good.
		
00:30:22 --> 00:30:24
			So Alhamdulillah, I went to Syria.
		
00:30:25 --> 00:30:29
			And so that's one place that I studied.
		
00:30:29 --> 00:30:31
			The other place that I studied was with
		
00:30:31 --> 00:30:32
			Shaykh Adeeb Kallas.
		
00:30:33 --> 00:30:35
			Both of these were older scholars.
		
00:30:36 --> 00:30:37
			And they both had large beards.
		
00:30:38 --> 00:30:39
			Okay, why do I say that?
		
00:30:39 --> 00:30:41
			Yeah, because in Sham, most scholars would have
		
00:30:41 --> 00:30:42
			smaller beards.
		
00:30:43 --> 00:30:45
			Most scholars would have smaller beards at the
		
00:30:45 --> 00:30:45
			time.
		
00:30:46 --> 00:30:47
			Why?
		
00:30:47 --> 00:30:49
			There's multiple reasons.
		
00:30:49 --> 00:30:50
			And this is going into a bit of
		
00:30:50 --> 00:30:52
			a so for example, in this country, there's
		
00:30:52 --> 00:30:54
			just scholars can't talk about certain things except
		
00:30:54 --> 00:30:56
			very diplomatically.
		
00:30:56 --> 00:30:56
			Yes.
		
00:30:56 --> 00:30:58
			Because otherwise, you just you could get in
		
00:30:58 --> 00:30:59
			trouble, or there's a fear of getting in
		
00:30:59 --> 00:30:59
			trouble.
		
00:31:00 --> 00:31:01
			Yeah, you have to be careful around certain
		
00:31:01 --> 00:31:01
			subjects.
		
00:31:02 --> 00:31:03
			Now, what happens is that it may not
		
00:31:03 --> 00:31:05
			be illegal in some of these countries.
		
00:31:05 --> 00:31:06
			And I've experienced this in Egypt as well,
		
00:31:06 --> 00:31:07
			it may not be illegal to have a
		
00:31:07 --> 00:31:08
			long beard.
		
00:31:09 --> 00:31:10
			But if you have one, you're going to
		
00:31:10 --> 00:31:11
			be troubled.
		
00:31:11 --> 00:31:12
			Okay, you're going to be harassed.
		
00:31:12 --> 00:31:12
			Yeah.
		
00:31:13 --> 00:31:13
			Right.
		
00:31:13 --> 00:31:14
			You're going to be harassed everywhere when you
		
00:31:14 --> 00:31:16
			go to do and there's lots of bureaucracy
		
00:31:16 --> 00:31:17
			and paperwork.
		
00:31:17 --> 00:31:17
			Yeah.
		
00:31:17 --> 00:31:18
			And you're going to be hassled.
		
00:31:19 --> 00:31:20
			But I think when you get older to
		
00:31:20 --> 00:31:21
			that level, then they kind of let you
		
00:31:21 --> 00:31:23
			off that, okay, this guy's just some Sufi
		
00:31:23 --> 00:31:23
			or some Madhub.
		
00:31:24 --> 00:31:24
			He's not going to do anything.
		
00:31:24 --> 00:31:25
			He's on his way out or whatever.
		
00:31:26 --> 00:31:28
			So they both had larger beards.
		
00:31:28 --> 00:31:29
			Okay, the younger ones didn't.
		
00:31:29 --> 00:31:31
			Now, what's what was really interesting is you
		
00:31:31 --> 00:31:32
			can see the trajectory of this.
		
00:31:33 --> 00:31:36
			In Damascus, on, you know, as you're walking,
		
00:31:36 --> 00:31:38
			there were street vendors.
		
00:31:38 --> 00:31:40
			Now, these street vendors would be selling posters
		
00:31:40 --> 00:31:42
			that you could put up in your house
		
00:31:42 --> 00:31:45
			of Masjid al-Aqsa, Umawi, different places.
		
00:31:45 --> 00:31:46
			One of the posters was of the Ulema
		
00:31:46 --> 00:31:47
			of Sham.
		
00:31:47 --> 00:31:48
			Okay.
		
00:31:48 --> 00:31:48
			Right.
		
00:31:48 --> 00:31:51
			Which meant that they had the profiles, the
		
00:31:51 --> 00:31:53
			pictures of all the Ulema of Sham since
		
00:31:53 --> 00:31:55
			photography started or whatever in the last 100,
		
00:31:55 --> 00:31:56
			150 years.
		
00:31:56 --> 00:31:58
			So all the guys at the top, halfway
		
00:31:58 --> 00:32:01
			down, all bearded, and then suddenly you get
		
00:32:01 --> 00:32:01
			the smaller beards afterwards.
		
00:32:02 --> 00:32:03
			It's just so obvious.
		
00:32:03 --> 00:32:06
			You can tell that it's obviously, there's an
		
00:32:06 --> 00:32:08
			influence.
		
00:32:09 --> 00:32:10
			That's essentially what it is.
		
00:32:10 --> 00:32:10
			Right.
		
00:32:10 --> 00:32:13
			I'm not making justification for anybody, but it's
		
00:32:13 --> 00:32:14
			tough for a lot of them.
		
00:32:14 --> 00:32:16
			And they have to then decide.
		
00:32:16 --> 00:32:18
			And then you find fatwas to justify it.
		
00:32:18 --> 00:32:21
			And that's how these things go, usually.
		
00:32:21 --> 00:32:21
			Right.
		
00:32:21 --> 00:32:23
			When I look at my life and when
		
00:32:23 --> 00:32:24
			we look at things in this country, you
		
00:32:24 --> 00:32:25
			try to find ways out.
		
00:32:26 --> 00:32:27
			God forgive us.
		
00:32:27 --> 00:32:28
			I mean, one of the things that I've
		
00:32:28 --> 00:32:31
			been thinking was, you know, we've seen like
		
00:32:31 --> 00:32:35
			with every prison that's been opened and people
		
00:32:35 --> 00:32:37
			coming out, people have been, you know, they
		
00:32:37 --> 00:32:39
			were saying that there was spies in every
		
00:32:39 --> 00:32:42
			Masjid and people get locked up.
		
00:32:42 --> 00:32:43
			I heard every house, every family.
		
00:32:44 --> 00:32:46
			And people were getting locked up.
		
00:32:46 --> 00:32:48
			They had like actual official charges, like you
		
00:32:48 --> 00:32:49
			went to the Masjid al-Fajr too much
		
00:32:49 --> 00:32:49
			or something.
		
00:32:50 --> 00:32:51
			I think that was a later thing.
		
00:32:51 --> 00:32:53
			I think that I have a feeling that's
		
00:32:53 --> 00:32:54
			a later thing.
		
00:32:54 --> 00:32:54
			Yeah.
		
00:32:54 --> 00:32:57
			I don't recall anybody telling me that while
		
00:32:57 --> 00:32:57
			I was there.
		
00:32:57 --> 00:32:58
			Okay.
		
00:32:58 --> 00:32:58
			Right.
		
00:32:59 --> 00:33:01
			I think that because Mashallah, you know, what
		
00:33:01 --> 00:33:02
			I liked about Syria is that there was
		
00:33:02 --> 00:33:05
			a Dars in so many Masjids when I
		
00:33:05 --> 00:33:05
			went.
		
00:33:05 --> 00:33:05
			Yeah.
		
00:33:05 --> 00:33:07
			So on one day, Sheikh Wahba Zuhaili, I
		
00:33:07 --> 00:33:09
			used to attend his, Rahimahullah, his Dars.
		
00:33:09 --> 00:33:11
			Sheikh Bouti would be in another place.
		
00:33:11 --> 00:33:12
			There'd be other Dars.
		
00:33:12 --> 00:33:14
			So they were quite free in that sense
		
00:33:14 --> 00:33:15
			compared to a lot of the other countries
		
00:33:15 --> 00:33:16
			I've been to.
		
00:33:17 --> 00:33:19
			So I think that became much more tighter
		
00:33:19 --> 00:33:20
			later, much more stringent later.
		
00:33:21 --> 00:33:23
			What era would that be?
		
00:33:24 --> 00:33:27
			That would probably be after Assad and it
		
00:33:27 --> 00:33:29
			might have been after the revolution.
		
00:33:30 --> 00:33:31
			After Hafez al-Assad.
		
00:33:31 --> 00:33:32
			After he died, but I think it's still
		
00:33:32 --> 00:33:33
			been okay.
		
00:33:33 --> 00:33:35
			And again, I'm not sure, right?
		
00:33:35 --> 00:33:37
			But I don't recall hearing about any of
		
00:33:37 --> 00:33:39
			that with the neighbours and everybody else I
		
00:33:39 --> 00:33:40
			used to talk to.
		
00:33:40 --> 00:33:41
			Because they were going to the Masjids, they
		
00:33:41 --> 00:33:43
			were going for Durs, they were becoming Hafiz,
		
00:33:43 --> 00:33:45
			they were memorising the Qur'an, they were
		
00:33:45 --> 00:33:47
			doing studies, they were joining these, nothing.
		
00:33:47 --> 00:33:47
			There was no problem.
		
00:33:48 --> 00:33:48
			Right?
		
00:33:48 --> 00:33:51
			So I think that was probably after the
		
00:33:51 --> 00:33:52
			revolution.
		
00:33:52 --> 00:33:55
			You mentioned that you tried to broach the
		
00:33:55 --> 00:33:56
			topic of politics and what happened.
		
00:33:56 --> 00:33:57
			Right.
		
00:33:57 --> 00:34:00
			So when I did broach that subject, immediately,
		
00:34:00 --> 00:34:04
			it was like, this matter doesn't concern us.
		
00:34:04 --> 00:34:05
			And I get the point.
		
00:34:05 --> 00:34:07
			I mean, I did once or twice try
		
00:34:07 --> 00:34:07
			to like, push it.
		
00:34:08 --> 00:34:09
			And they were very nice about it.
		
00:34:09 --> 00:34:12
			Did they think you were a spy?
		
00:34:12 --> 00:34:13
			I don't know.
		
00:34:13 --> 00:34:15
			That kind of police state, kind of people
		
00:34:15 --> 00:34:18
			are distrustful of each other and that they're
		
00:34:18 --> 00:34:19
			self-policed and self-centred.
		
00:34:20 --> 00:34:24
			So this was a really interesting incident, actually.
		
00:34:24 --> 00:34:26
			I went with the family.
		
00:34:26 --> 00:34:27
			So that was my wife and my son
		
00:34:27 --> 00:34:30
			was only about nine months old or something
		
00:34:30 --> 00:34:30
			at the time.
		
00:34:30 --> 00:34:32
			So I used to have a stroller, a
		
00:34:32 --> 00:34:33
			pushchair.
		
00:34:34 --> 00:34:36
			Usually in Damascus, we used to pay two
		
00:34:36 --> 00:34:37
			liras.
		
00:34:37 --> 00:34:38
			And I'm a student at that time.
		
00:34:38 --> 00:34:40
			So it was a very tight budget.
		
00:34:40 --> 00:34:43
			So you're frugal with your money.
		
00:34:43 --> 00:34:44
			You don't just splash out.
		
00:34:44 --> 00:34:46
			Sometimes you take a taxi itself, but other
		
00:34:46 --> 00:34:47
			times you could just...
		
00:34:47 --> 00:34:48
			So they would not charge for the stroller.
		
00:34:49 --> 00:34:53
			They would put it behind the driver's seat.
		
00:34:53 --> 00:34:53
			There was a little space.
		
00:34:54 --> 00:34:54
			They would just put it there.
		
00:34:55 --> 00:34:57
			Now we go to Hama.
		
00:34:58 --> 00:35:01
			Now Hama is a historical town and where
		
00:35:01 --> 00:35:03
			20 something thousand people were killed in like
		
00:35:03 --> 00:35:04
			a few days or something.
		
00:35:04 --> 00:35:05
			Right.
		
00:35:05 --> 00:35:06
			So I really wanted to go there because
		
00:35:06 --> 00:35:08
			there's a river there and I wanted to
		
00:35:08 --> 00:35:10
			see the people and just the city because
		
00:35:10 --> 00:35:12
			that's one of the ancient cities, you could
		
00:35:12 --> 00:35:13
			say one of the old cities.
		
00:35:14 --> 00:35:17
			So we got there on a coach or
		
00:35:17 --> 00:35:19
			something from Damascus and I only had a
		
00:35:19 --> 00:35:21
			few hours there and I need to get
		
00:35:21 --> 00:35:22
			back for class the next morning.
		
00:35:24 --> 00:35:25
			I tried to get a micro bus to
		
00:35:25 --> 00:35:28
			the centre of town and along with me,
		
00:35:28 --> 00:35:32
			there was another local who just started talking
		
00:35:32 --> 00:35:34
			to me while waiting for the micro bus
		
00:35:34 --> 00:35:35
			as they call it.
		
00:35:35 --> 00:35:36
			Then we got on.
		
00:35:36 --> 00:35:38
			The guy tried to charge me for the
		
00:35:38 --> 00:35:39
			stroller as well.
		
00:35:40 --> 00:35:40
			Right.
		
00:35:41 --> 00:35:41
			Okay.
		
00:35:41 --> 00:35:43
			So he charged me for myself and my
		
00:35:43 --> 00:35:45
			wife, but then he charged me for this.
		
00:35:45 --> 00:35:46
			He wants to charge me for a stroller.
		
00:35:46 --> 00:35:48
			This guy gets really, really angry.
		
00:35:49 --> 00:35:49
			He says, no, no, no.
		
00:35:49 --> 00:35:50
			How can you charge him?
		
00:35:51 --> 00:35:51
			This is wrong.
		
00:35:51 --> 00:35:53
			These guys are from Switzerland.
		
00:35:53 --> 00:35:54
			He thought I was from Switzerland for some
		
00:35:54 --> 00:35:55
			reason.
		
00:35:55 --> 00:35:56
			Haram, Eib.
		
00:35:56 --> 00:35:58
			They would say all of that and he
		
00:35:58 --> 00:35:58
			had a big...
		
00:35:58 --> 00:36:00
			And then he said, he said to me,
		
00:36:00 --> 00:36:01
			come on, let's get out.
		
00:36:02 --> 00:36:02
			Right.
		
00:36:02 --> 00:36:03
			So we got out.
		
00:36:03 --> 00:36:04
			I don't know where he was.
		
00:36:05 --> 00:36:06
			We got out.
		
00:36:07 --> 00:36:09
			He goes to the taxi rank, the proper
		
00:36:09 --> 00:36:10
			big taxis and he takes a taxi.
		
00:36:10 --> 00:36:12
			That must have cost him five times the
		
00:36:12 --> 00:36:12
			amount.
		
00:36:13 --> 00:36:15
			So that probably, this was probably two real
		
00:36:15 --> 00:36:16
			liras.
		
00:36:16 --> 00:36:16
			Yeah.
		
00:36:16 --> 00:36:17
			That was probably about 25.
		
00:36:18 --> 00:36:20
			He paid that for us and he takes
		
00:36:20 --> 00:36:20
			us home.
		
00:36:21 --> 00:36:22
			We just kind of like, okay, let's see
		
00:36:22 --> 00:36:23
			where he's taking us.
		
00:36:23 --> 00:36:25
			And we just went with him.
		
00:36:25 --> 00:36:27
			We got home and now he's not letting
		
00:36:27 --> 00:36:27
			me go.
		
00:36:29 --> 00:36:29
			Okay.
		
00:36:29 --> 00:36:31
			This is amazing Arab hospitality.
		
00:36:32 --> 00:36:33
			He's not letting me go.
		
00:36:33 --> 00:36:35
			So I'm like, what's going on?
		
00:36:35 --> 00:36:36
			He brings a friend over and we're talking
		
00:36:36 --> 00:36:37
			and he says, no, no, you have to
		
00:36:37 --> 00:36:38
			go tomorrow.
		
00:36:38 --> 00:36:39
			I'll show you all of these things.
		
00:36:39 --> 00:36:40
			You can't go now.
		
00:36:40 --> 00:36:41
			The buses have gone.
		
00:36:41 --> 00:36:42
			This time I said, no, no, please call
		
00:36:42 --> 00:36:43
			the buses.
		
00:36:43 --> 00:36:44
			I need to take the last bus.
		
00:36:44 --> 00:36:45
			I need to get home tomorrow.
		
00:36:45 --> 00:36:48
			Then I'm worried about my wife because they're
		
00:36:48 --> 00:36:49
			very modest people, these people are.
		
00:36:49 --> 00:36:50
			So the wife's in another room.
		
00:36:51 --> 00:36:51
			So then I said, okay, let me talk
		
00:36:51 --> 00:36:52
			to my wife.
		
00:36:52 --> 00:36:54
			So I went, he got my wife out
		
00:36:54 --> 00:36:55
			and talked to my wife.
		
00:36:55 --> 00:36:56
			She said, no, everything's fine here.
		
00:36:57 --> 00:36:58
			You know, they're cool.
		
00:36:58 --> 00:36:59
			It's fine.
		
00:37:00 --> 00:37:02
			Part of you worry that am I being
		
00:37:02 --> 00:37:02
			kidnapped right now?
		
00:37:03 --> 00:37:05
			Not fully, not fully there, but it's just
		
00:37:05 --> 00:37:06
			always, you have to be cautious.
		
00:37:06 --> 00:37:07
			You just have to be cautious that, okay,
		
00:37:07 --> 00:37:09
			I just want to see that she's comfortable
		
00:37:09 --> 00:37:10
			as well because I know what's going on.
		
00:37:10 --> 00:37:11
			You can't barge in.
		
00:37:11 --> 00:37:13
			Syrians are very particular of their brother, sister.
		
00:37:14 --> 00:37:16
			So then, then after that, I don't know
		
00:37:16 --> 00:37:17
			what it was.
		
00:37:17 --> 00:37:19
			He got a friend to talk to me
		
00:37:19 --> 00:37:19
			and everything.
		
00:37:19 --> 00:37:21
			Then I said, okay, fine, I'll stay.
		
00:37:22 --> 00:37:23
			Because you haven't eaten yet.
		
00:37:24 --> 00:37:26
			I'll show you the Na'urat and the
		
00:37:26 --> 00:37:26
			river Asi.
		
00:37:27 --> 00:37:29
			The river Asi is essentially one of the
		
00:37:29 --> 00:37:32
			few rivers in the world that go opposing
		
00:37:32 --> 00:37:34
			way to the way they're supposed to run.
		
00:37:34 --> 00:37:36
			That's why they call it the Asi, means
		
00:37:36 --> 00:37:37
			the disobedient river.
		
00:37:38 --> 00:37:39
			And it has some Na'urat on there,
		
00:37:40 --> 00:37:43
			which are these water wheels that carry water.
		
00:37:43 --> 00:37:46
			So they keep turning and they carry water
		
00:37:46 --> 00:37:48
			for whatever.
		
00:37:48 --> 00:37:48
			And they're very old.
		
00:37:49 --> 00:37:50
			So I was interested in seeing that as
		
00:37:50 --> 00:37:50
			well.
		
00:37:51 --> 00:37:52
			And some of the other, I remember his
		
00:37:52 --> 00:37:54
			name actually, Omar Al-Shami, his name was.
		
00:37:55 --> 00:37:57
			He was in front of the Masjid Hayaya.
		
00:37:57 --> 00:37:59
			If he's listening, somebody knows him, give him
		
00:37:59 --> 00:37:59
			my salam.
		
00:37:59 --> 00:38:01
			I don't know if he's still alive, but
		
00:38:01 --> 00:38:02
			I really want to go back and thank
		
00:38:02 --> 00:38:02
			him.
		
00:38:02 --> 00:38:03
			He was such an amazing guy.
		
00:38:03 --> 00:38:06
			So then they fed us and then they
		
00:38:06 --> 00:38:07
			made a place for us to sleep.
		
00:38:07 --> 00:38:08
			They took us out.
		
00:38:08 --> 00:38:10
			The next morning now he takes us out.
		
00:38:10 --> 00:38:13
			He's going through the market to all the
		
00:38:13 --> 00:38:15
			vendors and he's saying, these are my guests
		
00:38:15 --> 00:38:16
			from Switzerland.
		
00:38:17 --> 00:38:21
			He was telling everybody with such pride.
		
00:38:22 --> 00:38:22
			These are my guests.
		
00:38:22 --> 00:38:23
			These are my guests.
		
00:38:23 --> 00:38:24
			These are my guests.
		
00:38:24 --> 00:38:25
			It's absolutely amazing.
		
00:38:25 --> 00:38:27
			You know, like he really wants guests and
		
00:38:27 --> 00:38:28
			he's so proud of it.
		
00:38:29 --> 00:38:33
			So that was an amazing experience.
		
00:38:33 --> 00:38:34
			And I've always made dua for him.
		
00:38:34 --> 00:38:35
			Allah bless him.
		
00:38:36 --> 00:38:38
			That was that occasion.
		
00:38:38 --> 00:38:40
			He was one, because we had a long
		
00:38:40 --> 00:38:40
			conversation.
		
00:38:41 --> 00:38:43
			So I did try to broach the subject
		
00:38:43 --> 00:38:44
			to him.
		
00:38:44 --> 00:38:48
			And again, I still remember his face actually.
		
00:38:49 --> 00:38:51
			I think they've done it so much that
		
00:38:51 --> 00:38:54
			they just diffuse the matter so easily.
		
00:38:55 --> 00:38:57
			I think the only time, I think I
		
00:38:57 --> 00:38:59
			was going to exchange some money once in
		
00:38:59 --> 00:39:02
			the Souk Hamidiyah, because you go, there's all
		
00:39:02 --> 00:39:03
			these little shops here and there.
		
00:39:04 --> 00:39:05
			And I remember I went to one and
		
00:39:05 --> 00:39:08
			kind of grabbed me and took me out.
		
00:39:08 --> 00:39:09
			And then I said, what's happening?
		
00:39:10 --> 00:39:10
			I've never had that kind of experience.
		
00:39:11 --> 00:39:11
			It's a mukhabarat.
		
00:39:12 --> 00:39:15
			But again, I didn't really interpret it.
		
00:39:15 --> 00:39:17
			That's their spies or that's the government people
		
00:39:17 --> 00:39:17
			or whatever.
		
00:39:17 --> 00:39:19
			So I'm not sure exactly what was going
		
00:39:19 --> 00:39:20
			on, but I never had any trouble, Alhamdulillah.
		
00:39:21 --> 00:39:21
			As I said at that time, it was
		
00:39:21 --> 00:39:22
			a lot calmer.
		
00:39:23 --> 00:39:25
			Even amongst the other students, the foreign students,
		
00:39:25 --> 00:39:26
			was there a discussion?
		
00:39:27 --> 00:39:29
			There was, but they know the status quo.
		
00:39:30 --> 00:39:32
			So we would discuss.
		
00:39:32 --> 00:39:33
			It wasn't like we couldn't discuss.
		
00:39:33 --> 00:39:35
			We would discuss whatever we wanted to discuss.
		
00:39:36 --> 00:39:38
			What I did was after being there for
		
00:39:38 --> 00:39:40
			a month, I realized that I'm not really
		
00:39:40 --> 00:39:41
			getting much out of it because I'm sticking
		
00:39:41 --> 00:39:42
			with the foreign students.
		
00:39:42 --> 00:39:43
			So we're speaking in English.
		
00:39:44 --> 00:39:46
			You know the basic, you know, all of
		
00:39:46 --> 00:39:46
			that stuff.
		
00:39:47 --> 00:39:51
			So then I started going and hanging out
		
00:39:51 --> 00:39:53
			with Arab students and debating with them.
		
00:39:54 --> 00:39:55
			There was lots of things to debate, by
		
00:39:55 --> 00:39:57
			the way, because there was a lot of
		
00:39:57 --> 00:40:00
			things there that actually gave me appreciation for
		
00:40:00 --> 00:40:01
			the manhaj I followed.
		
00:40:02 --> 00:40:02
			Okay.
		
00:40:02 --> 00:40:03
			I was going to ask this, actually.
		
00:40:04 --> 00:40:04
			Connected to this, Sheikh.
		
00:40:05 --> 00:40:08
			What was the prevailing kind of understanding or
		
00:40:08 --> 00:40:11
			practice of the Muslims in Syria from Madhhab
		
00:40:11 --> 00:40:12
			and other?
		
00:40:12 --> 00:40:12
			Yeah, yeah.
		
00:40:12 --> 00:40:14
			The practice in Kuwait is very simple.
		
00:40:14 --> 00:40:18
			I would say Damascus is 40% Hanafi,
		
00:40:18 --> 00:40:19
			probably 60% Shafi'i.
		
00:40:19 --> 00:40:20
			Okay.
		
00:40:20 --> 00:40:21
			So it's more Shafi'i there.
		
00:40:21 --> 00:40:21
			Yeah.
		
00:40:21 --> 00:40:22
			Hanafi.
		
00:40:22 --> 00:40:24
			But they're very strong in Madhhab and they
		
00:40:24 --> 00:40:25
			were very anti-Salafi.
		
00:40:25 --> 00:40:26
			Okay.
		
00:40:26 --> 00:40:27
			They were very anti-Salafi.
		
00:40:27 --> 00:40:29
			They were Salafi students that I used to
		
00:40:29 --> 00:40:31
			meet and they would come there to study
		
00:40:31 --> 00:40:33
			Arabic or whatever the case is, but they
		
00:40:33 --> 00:40:36
			were very anti-Salafi and I think maybe
		
00:40:36 --> 00:40:38
			even through the government that was an issue
		
00:40:38 --> 00:40:39
			and so on.
		
00:40:39 --> 00:40:42
			Because I guess the Sheikh Bouti was close
		
00:40:42 --> 00:40:43
			to the government and so on and so
		
00:40:43 --> 00:40:43
			forth.
		
00:40:44 --> 00:40:47
			And that time Salafi, it was in its
		
00:40:47 --> 00:40:48
			heyday nearly, you could say.
		
00:40:48 --> 00:40:48
			Right.
		
00:40:48 --> 00:40:50
			So that was the issue.
		
00:40:50 --> 00:40:51
			Very Sufi inclined.
		
00:40:52 --> 00:40:54
			So I remember the first time, I must
		
00:40:54 --> 00:40:56
			have reached there about two, three o'clock
		
00:40:56 --> 00:40:57
			at night.
		
00:40:59 --> 00:41:01
			And it's before Fajr, we've got a taxi
		
00:41:01 --> 00:41:03
			and we're getting to our residence.
		
00:41:03 --> 00:41:04
			There was a guy called Amjad.
		
00:41:05 --> 00:41:06
			He's now Sheikh Amjad.
		
00:41:08 --> 00:41:09
			I forget his surname.
		
00:41:10 --> 00:41:10
			Allah bless him.
		
00:41:11 --> 00:41:11
			He was there from before.
		
00:41:12 --> 00:41:14
			So a friend had connected with him to
		
00:41:14 --> 00:41:15
			find us a place.
		
00:41:15 --> 00:41:18
			So he secured a place for us and
		
00:41:18 --> 00:41:18
			he met us there.
		
00:41:19 --> 00:41:20
			So as you're going through town, it's before
		
00:41:20 --> 00:41:22
			Fajr, like about an hour before Fajr, maybe
		
00:41:22 --> 00:41:23
			Tahajjud time.
		
00:41:23 --> 00:41:25
			They've got these nasheeds playing or praise of
		
00:41:25 --> 00:41:26
			the Prophet ï·º.
		
00:41:27 --> 00:41:28
			It's really interesting.
		
00:41:28 --> 00:41:31
			There's just this light about the whole situation,
		
00:41:31 --> 00:41:32
			these green minarets.
		
00:41:32 --> 00:41:33
			So all the minarets are in green.
		
00:41:33 --> 00:41:35
			They have green lights actually, green lights.
		
00:41:35 --> 00:41:36
			I still remember that and they've got all
		
00:41:36 --> 00:41:38
			these nasheeds playing, which is really interesting.
		
00:41:38 --> 00:41:39
			What's going on?
		
00:41:39 --> 00:41:40
			Is it Adhan or what is it?
		
00:41:40 --> 00:41:42
			The other thing is that after every Adhan,
		
00:41:43 --> 00:41:47
			they used to actually have, they finished the
		
00:41:47 --> 00:41:47
			Adhan.
		
00:41:47 --> 00:41:48
			As soon as the Mu'adhin finishes, he
		
00:41:48 --> 00:41:52
			says, As-salatu was-salamu alayka ya Rasool
		
00:41:52 --> 00:41:52
			Allah.
		
00:41:53 --> 00:41:54
			I said, where did that come from?
		
00:41:55 --> 00:41:56
			Because you know, I'm a student.
		
00:41:56 --> 00:41:58
			I'm wondering where all of this is coming
		
00:41:58 --> 00:41:58
			from.
		
00:41:58 --> 00:42:00
			So they said, oh, this is Sheikh Salahuddin
		
00:42:00 --> 00:42:02
			started this off.
		
00:42:03 --> 00:42:05
			There's lots of explanations for it.
		
00:42:05 --> 00:42:07
			Now what's really interesting is that there's this
		
00:42:07 --> 00:42:08
			Sheikh Abdul Razzaq Al Mahdi.
		
00:42:08 --> 00:42:09
			You've probably heard of him.
		
00:42:09 --> 00:42:12
			He is, you could say, the face, the
		
00:42:12 --> 00:42:13
			scholar of the revolution right now.
		
00:42:14 --> 00:42:14
			Right.
		
00:42:15 --> 00:42:16
			He was in Idlib.
		
00:42:16 --> 00:42:17
			So he escaped from Damascus and he was
		
00:42:17 --> 00:42:18
			in Idlib.
		
00:42:18 --> 00:42:20
			He's just been brought into Damascus.
		
00:42:20 --> 00:42:21
			Now he's got this big beard, his white
		
00:42:21 --> 00:42:22
			hair and everything.
		
00:42:23 --> 00:42:24
			You'll see him.
		
00:42:24 --> 00:42:26
			There was a certain book in Aqidah that
		
00:42:26 --> 00:42:28
			I wanted to study and I couldn't find
		
00:42:28 --> 00:42:29
			anyone to teach it for me.
		
00:42:29 --> 00:42:30
			Somebody told me, why don't you go to
		
00:42:30 --> 00:42:31
			Sheikh Abdul Razzaq Al Mahdi?
		
00:42:32 --> 00:42:34
			Now I knew him because he had actually,
		
00:42:34 --> 00:42:35
			he was an editor of one of the
		
00:42:35 --> 00:42:38
			earlier editions of Al Lubab Fi Sharhi Al
		
00:42:38 --> 00:42:38
			Kitab.
		
00:42:38 --> 00:42:39
			So I knew that name.
		
00:42:40 --> 00:42:41
			I went to study with him.
		
00:42:41 --> 00:42:42
			I studied with him for a day or
		
00:42:42 --> 00:42:43
			two and then I don't think he could
		
00:42:43 --> 00:42:44
			manage it because it was a bit distant
		
00:42:44 --> 00:42:45
			and so on.
		
00:42:45 --> 00:42:47
			I remember asking him about that question.
		
00:42:49 --> 00:42:52
			So he was actually quite happy that I
		
00:42:52 --> 00:42:53
			asked him that question because...
		
00:42:53 --> 00:42:53
			Which question?
		
00:42:54 --> 00:42:56
			Why is there Salat and Salam loudly?
		
00:42:58 --> 00:42:59
			Now look, there is the Hadith.
		
00:42:59 --> 00:43:01
			It's very clear that Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam
		
00:43:01 --> 00:43:03
			said, when you hear the Adhan, send blessings
		
00:43:03 --> 00:43:04
			on me then do the Dua.
		
00:43:06 --> 00:43:08
			They've just made it loud, right?
		
00:43:08 --> 00:43:09
			Now that for a lot of people would
		
00:43:09 --> 00:43:10
			be bid'ah, right?
		
00:43:11 --> 00:43:13
			And the Salafis would definitely call that bid
		
00:43:13 --> 00:43:13
			'ah.
		
00:43:13 --> 00:43:15
			Now there were some Hanafis as well.
		
00:43:15 --> 00:43:15
			He's a Hanafi.
		
00:43:16 --> 00:43:18
			He said, look, this is a tradition from
		
00:43:18 --> 00:43:18
			here.
		
00:43:18 --> 00:43:20
			I'm not sure if he was actually supporting
		
00:43:20 --> 00:43:22
			it or whatever, but this actually happens in
		
00:43:22 --> 00:43:24
			Lebanon, happens in a lot of these countries.
		
00:43:24 --> 00:43:26
			I think it's a heritage from...
		
00:43:26 --> 00:43:28
			And Azhar has explained it, that it's just
		
00:43:28 --> 00:43:30
			the Mu'adhin, but they've given some rules
		
00:43:30 --> 00:43:30
			for it.
		
00:43:30 --> 00:43:32
			That the Mu'adhin should not make it
		
00:43:32 --> 00:43:33
			sound like it's part of the Adhan.
		
00:43:33 --> 00:43:35
			So they finish the Adhan, have a little
		
00:43:35 --> 00:43:37
			pause and then they say, and as a
		
00:43:37 --> 00:43:38
			reminder maybe to people.
		
00:43:38 --> 00:43:40
			But I guess that everybody doesn't listen to
		
00:43:40 --> 00:43:40
			that.
		
00:43:40 --> 00:43:42
			That was, I can remember one of these
		
00:43:42 --> 00:43:42
			things.
		
00:43:43 --> 00:43:45
			There were the concepts of Tawassul and Istighaf
		
00:43:45 --> 00:43:46
			that I had to get to the bottom
		
00:43:46 --> 00:43:47
			of.
		
00:43:49 --> 00:43:52
			I managed to get an understanding of that
		
00:43:52 --> 00:43:54
			later or during that time.
		
00:43:55 --> 00:43:58
			Thereafter that, they build on the graves there.
		
00:43:59 --> 00:44:01
			And that's not even Hanafi, right?
		
00:44:01 --> 00:44:02
			So they build on it for whatever.
		
00:44:02 --> 00:44:03
			I think they say it's out of respect.
		
00:44:03 --> 00:44:05
			Some of them have justified it that they
		
00:44:05 --> 00:44:07
			only do this to scholars and others.
		
00:44:08 --> 00:44:09
			So that's the Ijtihad on that.
		
00:44:09 --> 00:44:11
			So these were kind of strange things that
		
00:44:11 --> 00:44:12
			I found that I had to get used
		
00:44:12 --> 00:44:14
			to and come to some kind of terms
		
00:44:14 --> 00:44:15
			with.
		
00:44:15 --> 00:44:17
			Otherwise, most of it was the same.
		
00:44:18 --> 00:44:22
			However, I do remember one masjid where the
		
00:44:22 --> 00:44:24
			imam, and these are little fiqhi issues.
		
00:44:24 --> 00:44:26
			I don't know if I'm boring the readers
		
00:44:26 --> 00:44:27
			with this or the viewers with this, but
		
00:44:27 --> 00:44:29
			he was our local masjid.
		
00:44:29 --> 00:44:31
			So I used to pray in a very
		
00:44:31 --> 00:44:32
			old masjid called Jami' Hanabilah.
		
00:44:35 --> 00:44:35
			Okay.
		
00:44:35 --> 00:44:37
			You know whose masjid this was?
		
00:44:37 --> 00:44:38
			Did you say Ameen out loud?
		
00:44:39 --> 00:44:39
			Sorry?
		
00:44:39 --> 00:44:40
			Did you say Ameen out loud?
		
00:44:41 --> 00:44:41
			No, no, no.
		
00:44:41 --> 00:44:42
			So there's a Hanafi imam.
		
00:44:43 --> 00:44:45
			But it's called Jami' Hanabilah because that's where
		
00:44:45 --> 00:44:48
			those Hanbali Maqdisi scholars used to, that was
		
00:44:48 --> 00:44:49
			their masjid.
		
00:44:49 --> 00:44:51
			Those that were from Maqdis like, who was
		
00:44:51 --> 00:44:52
			it?
		
00:44:52 --> 00:44:53
			Ibn Qutama.
		
00:44:53 --> 00:44:54
			Ibn Qutama.
		
00:44:54 --> 00:44:56
			All of these people, the Hanbalis of Damascus
		
00:44:56 --> 00:44:57
			would come over here.
		
00:44:57 --> 00:44:58
			Apparently, this was, I used to live right
		
00:44:58 --> 00:45:00
			opposite that, right?
		
00:45:00 --> 00:45:02
			In the area of Sheikh Mohyuddin.
		
00:45:02 --> 00:45:04
			Now Sheikh Mohyuddin, why it's called Sheikh Mohyuddin
		
00:45:04 --> 00:45:07
			is because Sheikh Mohyuddin, the Sheikh Al-Akbar,
		
00:45:07 --> 00:45:10
			as they say, the Andalusian one, he's actually
		
00:45:10 --> 00:45:12
			buried in that area in a masjid there.
		
00:45:12 --> 00:45:14
			He's carrying a bit more and then there's
		
00:45:14 --> 00:45:15
			a bazaar there.
		
00:45:15 --> 00:45:17
			And then he's, that's why it's called Sheikh
		
00:45:17 --> 00:45:17
			Mohyuddin.
		
00:45:18 --> 00:45:19
			That area is called Sheikh Mohyuddin.
		
00:45:19 --> 00:45:21
			And it's at the foot of Jabal Qasiyun,
		
00:45:22 --> 00:45:25
			the famous, well-known mountain of Jabal Qasiyun.
		
00:45:25 --> 00:45:26
			So we, I used to live on the
		
00:45:26 --> 00:45:27
			foot of that.
		
00:45:28 --> 00:45:31
			So, so he used to put his hands
		
00:45:31 --> 00:45:34
			up or I think he used to put
		
00:45:34 --> 00:45:36
			his hands up for the dua ul-qunoot.
		
00:45:36 --> 00:45:37
			I never used to.
		
00:45:37 --> 00:45:38
			So one of the locals is like, why
		
00:45:38 --> 00:45:39
			don't you put your hand up?
		
00:45:39 --> 00:45:40
			I said, I'm Hanafi.
		
00:45:40 --> 00:45:41
			He said, the Imam's Hanafi as well.
		
00:45:42 --> 00:45:43
			These little banters.
		
00:45:44 --> 00:45:46
			I remember trying my Arabic on him.
		
00:45:46 --> 00:45:51
			I said, because the word in the hadith
		
00:45:51 --> 00:45:52
			was for lane.
		
00:45:54 --> 00:45:56
			He's like, well, why is sikka?
		
00:45:56 --> 00:45:57
			Sikka is used for something else.
		
00:45:57 --> 00:45:59
			This is a sajjad or something.
		
00:45:59 --> 00:46:00
			They use other words.
		
00:46:01 --> 00:46:03
			So it was getting used to words that
		
00:46:03 --> 00:46:03
			I use.
		
00:46:03 --> 00:46:05
			Actually getting used to the Shami dialect was
		
00:46:05 --> 00:46:05
			another thing.
		
00:46:06 --> 00:46:06
			It's proper Punjabi.
		
00:46:08 --> 00:46:10
			You know, I remember going to the market,
		
00:46:10 --> 00:46:11
			buying something.
		
00:46:11 --> 00:46:15
			I was like, what is he saying?
		
00:46:17 --> 00:46:19
			And they do that stretching, you know, like
		
00:46:19 --> 00:46:21
			some Punjabis do.
		
00:46:22 --> 00:46:23
			So what does that mean?
		
00:46:23 --> 00:46:28
			And finally, somebody says, what thing is the
		
00:46:28 --> 00:46:28
			right of this?
		
00:46:29 --> 00:46:29
			Which means how much is it?
		
00:46:30 --> 00:46:31
			Instead of become.
		
00:46:31 --> 00:46:32
			Yeah, right.
		
00:46:32 --> 00:46:33
			But everything is slow.
		
00:46:33 --> 00:46:40
			You know, it's just so beautiful.
		
00:46:40 --> 00:46:41
			Got used to it.
		
00:46:41 --> 00:46:42
			I finally got used to it.
		
00:46:42 --> 00:46:44
			But the Arabic is kind of really interesting.
		
00:46:45 --> 00:46:47
			You know, this actually, sorry, I'm just going
		
00:46:47 --> 00:46:49
			to do this like, prior to this, your
		
00:46:49 --> 00:46:52
			kind of studies in the Hanafi madhab had
		
00:46:52 --> 00:46:54
			mainly been, if I can say from Indian
		
00:46:54 --> 00:46:55
			subcontinent scholars.
		
00:46:55 --> 00:46:56
			Yeah, that's right.
		
00:46:56 --> 00:47:01
			Now you're exposed to the Hanafi from the
		
00:47:01 --> 00:47:02
			Middle East, from Sham specifically.
		
00:47:03 --> 00:47:06
			Was it kind of a real shift or
		
00:47:06 --> 00:47:09
			was it just kind of a gradual enhancement,
		
00:47:09 --> 00:47:09
			would you say?
		
00:47:09 --> 00:47:11
			I would say it's a minor.
		
00:47:11 --> 00:47:12
			I would say it's a minor difference.
		
00:47:12 --> 00:47:14
			So I can mention some of the difference
		
00:47:14 --> 00:47:15
			in actually the Hanafi.
		
00:47:15 --> 00:47:16
			Otherwise, most of it is the same.
		
00:47:16 --> 00:47:17
			It's pretty much the same.
		
00:47:17 --> 00:47:19
			It's just they've given maybe tarjiha to some
		
00:47:19 --> 00:47:22
			views, which in the subcontinent get to something
		
00:47:22 --> 00:47:22
			else.
		
00:47:23 --> 00:47:27
			For example, you know, when you say, so
		
00:47:27 --> 00:47:29
			what happens is we, when you get to
		
00:47:31 --> 00:47:34
			and then we say, and then we keep
		
00:47:34 --> 00:47:36
			it like that until the end in the
		
00:47:36 --> 00:47:38
			last sentence, they would make it flat again.
		
00:47:39 --> 00:47:39
			Okay.
		
00:47:40 --> 00:47:40
			Right.
		
00:47:40 --> 00:47:41
			So that is another view in the madhab.
		
00:47:41 --> 00:47:43
			There's actually multiple views in the madhab.
		
00:47:43 --> 00:47:45
			They would take that, whereas the subcontinent all
		
00:47:45 --> 00:47:46
			keep it like that.
		
00:47:46 --> 00:47:47
			Yeah, I guess I can see it in
		
00:47:47 --> 00:47:47
			the camera.
		
00:47:47 --> 00:47:47
			Yes.
		
00:47:47 --> 00:47:48
			Yeah.
		
00:47:48 --> 00:47:49
			So they drop the finger.
		
00:47:50 --> 00:47:51
			Some people drop it.
		
00:47:51 --> 00:47:52
			Some people keep it up a bit.
		
00:47:53 --> 00:47:55
			That's both fine, but they would make it
		
00:47:55 --> 00:47:56
			flat again.
		
00:47:56 --> 00:47:56
			Okay.
		
00:47:56 --> 00:48:00
			After they've done this, and then make it
		
00:48:00 --> 00:48:00
			flat again.
		
00:48:00 --> 00:48:01
			I found that a bit surprising.
		
00:48:02 --> 00:48:04
			Then I hadn't been looking at it before
		
00:48:04 --> 00:48:05
			when I went to check, okay, that is
		
00:48:05 --> 00:48:06
			another view.
		
00:48:06 --> 00:48:08
			So there were minor things like that.
		
00:48:08 --> 00:48:09
			Otherwise, it's mostly the same.
		
00:48:09 --> 00:48:10
			Okay.
		
00:48:10 --> 00:48:12
			Then even in the same kind of formulaic
		
00:48:12 --> 00:48:16
			way that we've kept, you know, the distances,
		
00:48:16 --> 00:48:17
			for traveling.
		
00:48:19 --> 00:48:21
			I can't remember what their view was.
		
00:48:21 --> 00:48:24
			Now, in terms of measurements and things, there's
		
00:48:24 --> 00:48:25
			lots of difference of opinion, but I don't
		
00:48:25 --> 00:48:26
			think that's to do with anything sham and
		
00:48:26 --> 00:48:29
			subcontinent, because even in subcontinent, there's differences.
		
00:48:29 --> 00:48:29
			Yeah.
		
00:48:30 --> 00:48:32
			Because we're trying to interpret what a qafeez
		
00:48:32 --> 00:48:34
			is and what a sa is and so
		
00:48:34 --> 00:48:34
			on.
		
00:48:35 --> 00:48:36
			There's some difference of opinion.
		
00:48:36 --> 00:48:38
			There's about, I would say, I did some
		
00:48:38 --> 00:48:40
			work, it's not published or anything, on trying
		
00:48:40 --> 00:48:43
			to compile all the various views, and there's
		
00:48:43 --> 00:48:45
			about eight or nine views, not in every
		
00:48:45 --> 00:48:46
			issue.
		
00:48:46 --> 00:48:49
			So I don't think that's a shami subcontinent
		
00:48:49 --> 00:48:50
			difference, really.
		
00:48:50 --> 00:48:52
			That just depends on the muhaqqiq who's doing
		
00:48:52 --> 00:48:52
			the work.
		
00:48:52 --> 00:48:53
			Okay, brilliant.
		
00:48:53 --> 00:48:54
			Alhamdulillah.
		
00:48:55 --> 00:48:59
			So, I mean, I was thinking that when
		
00:48:59 --> 00:49:01
			looking at these, you know, the news coming
		
00:49:01 --> 00:49:05
			out of Syria now, that surely there must
		
00:49:05 --> 00:49:10
			have been some kind of filtration mechanism or
		
00:49:10 --> 00:49:14
			impact on the discourse, the Islamic discourse and
		
00:49:14 --> 00:49:17
			teaching that must be allowed to be, that's
		
00:49:17 --> 00:49:18
			allowed to be.
		
00:49:18 --> 00:49:21
			Yeah, because Shaykh Bouti, they were obviously with
		
00:49:21 --> 00:49:23
			the government, and there probably was an awqaf
		
00:49:23 --> 00:49:24
			system.
		
00:49:24 --> 00:49:25
			I never had to deal with any of
		
00:49:25 --> 00:49:25
			this.
		
00:49:25 --> 00:49:26
			So they probably, in terms of who could
		
00:49:26 --> 00:49:29
			probably speak, meaning who could probably give a
		
00:49:29 --> 00:49:31
			dars and so on, I'm sure there was
		
00:49:31 --> 00:49:31
			a filtration.
		
00:49:31 --> 00:49:34
			How do you think that impacted the teaching
		
00:49:34 --> 00:49:34
			of Islam?
		
00:49:35 --> 00:49:37
			And how do you think it would be
		
00:49:37 --> 00:49:39
			different now going forward after liberation?
		
00:49:39 --> 00:49:45
			Yeah, so I think at the time, I
		
00:49:45 --> 00:49:49
			don't recall anything that was taboo, except politics,
		
00:49:49 --> 00:49:51
			probably, because you could study any chapter of
		
00:49:51 --> 00:49:53
			fiqh, right?
		
00:49:53 --> 00:49:54
			So I don't think there was anything restricted
		
00:49:54 --> 00:49:56
			in that sense, in terms of actually teaching
		
00:49:56 --> 00:49:57
			the book, because when I used to go
		
00:49:57 --> 00:50:00
			to Shaykh Adeeb Gallas, Rahimahullah, his system was
		
00:50:00 --> 00:50:01
			different.
		
00:50:01 --> 00:50:02
			So I would actually go to study with
		
00:50:02 --> 00:50:02
			him.
		
00:50:02 --> 00:50:04
			I actually studied Mullah Ali al-Qari's commentary
		
00:50:04 --> 00:50:06
			of Imam Abu Hanifa's fiqh al-Akbar.
		
00:50:06 --> 00:50:11
			Yeah, I think I've got your translation.
		
00:50:11 --> 00:50:13
			Yeah, that was done after that.
		
00:50:13 --> 00:50:15
			It's a commentary on it in English now.
		
00:50:15 --> 00:50:19
			So I would go with the book, he'd
		
00:50:19 --> 00:50:20
			give me about 10 minutes, and then others
		
00:50:20 --> 00:50:21
			would kind of join in.
		
00:50:22 --> 00:50:23
			And then there would be somebody else, there
		
00:50:23 --> 00:50:25
			would be multiple people sitting there, he'd give
		
00:50:25 --> 00:50:26
			everybody 10 minutes or so, and they would
		
00:50:26 --> 00:50:27
			read whichever book.
		
00:50:27 --> 00:50:29
			I remember Shaykh Jihad Hashim, his name was
		
00:50:29 --> 00:50:31
			from America, he was actually doing one of
		
00:50:31 --> 00:50:34
			the volumes of Tafsir al-Kabir of Razi.
		
00:50:35 --> 00:50:37
			Then there was somebody else doing something else
		
00:50:37 --> 00:50:37
			and so on.
		
00:50:38 --> 00:50:39
			So everybody would come with their own books,
		
00:50:39 --> 00:50:40
			and they would just study a bit.
		
00:50:41 --> 00:50:42
			And there was like three days a week
		
00:50:42 --> 00:50:43
			or something like that.
		
00:50:43 --> 00:50:46
			There were some days where he had dedicated
		
00:50:46 --> 00:50:50
			to the descendants of Ibn Abidin, Rahimahullah, that
		
00:50:50 --> 00:50:51
			they would come and study with him.
		
00:50:52 --> 00:50:53
			Just a beautiful man.
		
00:50:53 --> 00:50:54
			He was just a beautiful man.
		
00:50:54 --> 00:50:56
			MashaAllah, Allah bless him.
		
00:50:56 --> 00:50:57
			Just such a simple, he was older than
		
00:50:57 --> 00:50:59
			Shaykh Abdul Razzaq al-Halabi.
		
00:50:59 --> 00:51:01
			But when he sat in front of Shaykh
		
00:51:01 --> 00:51:03
			Abdul Razzaq al-Halabi, because Shaykh Abdul Razzaq
		
00:51:03 --> 00:51:05
			had the greater position, he would act like
		
00:51:05 --> 00:51:06
			a student in front of him.
		
00:51:06 --> 00:51:07
			He was just so humble.
		
00:51:08 --> 00:51:10
			Amazing man he was, amazing man he was.
		
00:51:10 --> 00:51:12
			We had to climb up the side of
		
00:51:12 --> 00:51:13
			a hill to get to his house.
		
00:51:14 --> 00:51:15
			He used to live in Muhajireen, which is
		
00:51:16 --> 00:51:18
			quite a large hill.
		
00:51:18 --> 00:51:19
			So there were two ways to get there.
		
00:51:19 --> 00:51:22
			Either get to the bottom where every taxi
		
00:51:22 --> 00:51:23
			could get you, and then you walk up
		
00:51:23 --> 00:51:26
			these steps, about 100 and something steps, and
		
00:51:26 --> 00:51:27
			it's a good workout.
		
00:51:27 --> 00:51:29
			Or you take a taxi that can go
		
00:51:29 --> 00:51:29
			up.
		
00:51:30 --> 00:51:31
			They were all old taxis.
		
00:51:32 --> 00:51:33
			Some taxis couldn't make it up there.
		
00:51:34 --> 00:51:36
			They were all like old taxis.
		
00:51:36 --> 00:51:38
			So it was one of these two ways.
		
00:51:38 --> 00:51:40
			So that's where I studied with him.
		
00:51:42 --> 00:51:43
			How do you think it will change?
		
00:51:44 --> 00:51:46
			How it will change, I don't know.
		
00:51:46 --> 00:51:48
			I haven't really looked at, because it looks
		
00:51:48 --> 00:51:54
			like the new authorities as such, they might
		
00:51:54 --> 00:51:56
			come from a slightly Salafi perspective.
		
00:51:56 --> 00:51:57
			I'm not sure.
		
00:51:57 --> 00:51:58
			So let's see what happens.
		
00:51:59 --> 00:52:01
			They've shown deference to one another right now.
		
00:52:01 --> 00:52:03
			They've allowed the Sheikhs to continue.
		
00:52:04 --> 00:52:06
			I hope it doesn't upset the balance.
		
00:52:06 --> 00:52:08
			And Alhamdulillah, most of our Salafi brothers, they're
		
00:52:08 --> 00:52:09
			a lot calmer now anyway.
		
00:52:09 --> 00:52:10
			We work together now.
		
00:52:11 --> 00:52:14
			25 years of problems, Alhamdulillah, subsided in most
		
00:52:14 --> 00:52:15
			places at least.
		
00:52:16 --> 00:52:19
			So Inshallah, I pray that it works well
		
00:52:19 --> 00:52:20
			for them.
		
00:52:20 --> 00:52:22
			You know at the beginning of the uprising
		
00:52:22 --> 00:52:26
			we're talking about, and in the early days,
		
00:52:26 --> 00:52:29
			I remember Sheikh Hamid Al-Yaqoubi, he was
		
00:52:29 --> 00:52:33
			giving khutbah and durs and it started to
		
00:52:33 --> 00:52:34
			become really tense.
		
00:52:35 --> 00:52:37
			Was he seen as an outlier?
		
00:52:38 --> 00:52:41
			Was khutbahs from the Minbar outspoken or were
		
00:52:41 --> 00:52:42
			they all kind of toeing the line?
		
00:52:42 --> 00:52:44
			I think you had to, I think, I'm
		
00:52:44 --> 00:52:45
			not sure.
		
00:52:46 --> 00:52:47
			From what I recall, I don't think there
		
00:52:47 --> 00:52:49
			was a national khutbah that was sent around
		
00:52:49 --> 00:52:51
			as they do in some countries.
		
00:52:51 --> 00:52:53
			I think they probably just knew what to
		
00:52:53 --> 00:52:55
			speak about because I remember one of the
		
00:52:55 --> 00:52:58
			points that came up after the revolution is
		
00:52:58 --> 00:53:01
			that they found a book that literally showed
		
00:53:01 --> 00:53:04
			that it had somebody in every masjid taking
		
00:53:04 --> 00:53:06
			notes of what khutbah they did.
		
00:53:07 --> 00:53:08
			I think there were two, I think the
		
00:53:08 --> 00:53:09
			people would be too careful.
		
00:53:10 --> 00:53:10
			Yes.
		
00:53:10 --> 00:53:12
			They won't mess around because it was a
		
00:53:12 --> 00:53:14
			proper place that you didn't get, you couldn't
		
00:53:14 --> 00:53:15
			say anything.
		
00:53:16 --> 00:53:19
			I can't remember Sheikh Yaqoubi's, may Allah bless
		
00:53:19 --> 00:53:21
			him, I can't remember his exact reason for
		
00:53:21 --> 00:53:23
			him having to leave but I think it
		
00:53:23 --> 00:53:24
			might have had something to do, there was
		
00:53:24 --> 00:53:27
			a controversy by the Mufti of the time,
		
00:53:27 --> 00:53:28
			Sheikh Hassoun, his name was.
		
00:53:28 --> 00:53:31
			He said something about human rights or something
		
00:53:31 --> 00:53:34
			and he said something like, even if the
		
00:53:34 --> 00:53:37
			Prophet ï·º told me to not do this
		
00:53:37 --> 00:53:39
			or go against this, then I would say
		
00:53:39 --> 00:53:40
			you're not the Prophet.
		
00:53:40 --> 00:53:42
			He said it hypothetically.
		
00:53:43 --> 00:53:43
			Just rhetorically.
		
00:53:44 --> 00:53:46
			As a rhetorical kind of statement but that's
		
00:53:46 --> 00:53:48
			a very bad statement to make.
		
00:53:48 --> 00:53:49
			I'm not sure if that was the case
		
00:53:49 --> 00:53:52
			for Sheikh Yaqoubi to speak against him or
		
00:53:52 --> 00:53:53
			speak against something.
		
00:53:53 --> 00:53:54
			Oh no, it was actually after, I think
		
00:53:54 --> 00:53:55
			that might have been diffused.
		
00:53:55 --> 00:53:57
			It was actually with the rebellion, isn't it?
		
00:53:57 --> 00:53:57
			Yes, yes, that's right.
		
00:53:58 --> 00:53:59
			And then he left.
		
00:53:59 --> 00:54:01
			I met him a few times after that
		
00:54:01 --> 00:54:02
			and then he was in Morocco, I think
		
00:54:02 --> 00:54:03
			he was.
		
00:54:03 --> 00:54:05
			Okay, alright, subhanAllah.
		
00:54:05 --> 00:54:08
			Because there were, I mean, Sheikh Buti, obviously,
		
00:54:08 --> 00:54:12
			his position was known but there were also
		
00:54:12 --> 00:54:15
			many other mashayikh that would even kind of
		
00:54:15 --> 00:54:18
			lead their own battalions even, I heard that.
		
00:54:19 --> 00:54:21
			Yeah, but they would probably not be within
		
00:54:21 --> 00:54:25
			the realms of the Syrians that they controlled.
		
00:54:26 --> 00:54:31
			Do you think they controlled, what do you
		
00:54:31 --> 00:54:33
			mean, geographically?
		
00:54:33 --> 00:54:33
			Yeah, geographically.
		
00:54:34 --> 00:54:36
			I mean, there's lots that moved to, I
		
00:54:36 --> 00:54:37
			met a lot in Istanbul.
		
00:54:38 --> 00:54:40
			So there's lots that moved there, they got
		
00:54:40 --> 00:54:41
			citizenship, everything.
		
00:54:41 --> 00:54:43
			Those who stayed here, so for example, there's
		
00:54:43 --> 00:54:45
			the Farfour family.
		
00:54:46 --> 00:54:49
			Their father was Sheikh Salih al-Farfour, who
		
00:54:49 --> 00:54:50
			is the teacher of Sheikh Adib and Sheikh
		
00:54:50 --> 00:54:52
			Abdul Razzaq and Sheikh Abdul Qadir al-Annaout
		
00:54:52 --> 00:54:53
			and all of these.
		
00:54:54 --> 00:54:56
			Sheikh Shoaib al-Annaout, I met him in
		
00:54:56 --> 00:54:57
			Jordan, I remember at the time.
		
00:54:57 --> 00:54:58
			May Allah bless him.
		
00:54:59 --> 00:55:03
			So he has several children, they're all mashayikh.
		
00:55:03 --> 00:55:06
			Some had stayed and others I met, one
		
00:55:06 --> 00:55:09
			was in Sweden, one was maybe somebody else.
		
00:55:09 --> 00:55:10
			So I think it just depends, if you
		
00:55:10 --> 00:55:12
			want to carry on with your work, you
		
00:55:12 --> 00:55:13
			carry on, just don't talk about politics.
		
00:55:14 --> 00:55:15
			If you want to speak about it, you
		
00:55:15 --> 00:55:17
			better leave, otherwise you're going to probably mess
		
00:55:17 --> 00:55:17
			your family.
		
00:55:17 --> 00:55:18
			Again, I don't know too much because I
		
00:55:18 --> 00:55:19
			didn't go back.
		
00:55:19 --> 00:55:20
			This is just stuff that I know.
		
00:55:21 --> 00:55:24
			Sheikh Yaqub, he's from a very, very good
		
00:55:24 --> 00:55:24
			family.
		
00:55:24 --> 00:55:27
			His father was the sheikh and so on
		
00:55:27 --> 00:55:27
			before him.
		
00:55:27 --> 00:55:29
			So I don't think he could just probably
		
00:55:29 --> 00:55:33
			handle seeing something wrong and not saying anything
		
00:55:33 --> 00:55:33
			about it.
		
00:55:34 --> 00:55:35
			So he did what he did and he
		
00:55:35 --> 00:55:36
			had to leave, I guess.
		
00:55:38 --> 00:55:41
			I remember when the various, there was the
		
00:55:41 --> 00:55:43
			Arab Spring and everyone was kind of looking
		
00:55:43 --> 00:55:45
			at the different countries, but they said, look,
		
00:55:45 --> 00:55:47
			everyone says Syria is not like the other
		
00:55:47 --> 00:55:48
			countries.
		
00:55:49 --> 00:55:52
			Hafizah said that Syria is not going to
		
00:55:52 --> 00:55:54
			take it the way, because there are a
		
00:55:54 --> 00:55:55
			number of countries that fell, I think Tunisia,
		
00:55:55 --> 00:55:57
			then it was Egypt at that time.
		
00:55:57 --> 00:55:59
			They said Syria was always treated differently.
		
00:56:00 --> 00:56:01
			Where was that coming from?
		
00:56:02 --> 00:56:04
			I mean, we know that, to be honest,
		
00:56:04 --> 00:56:06
			none of the, I guess, Middle Eastern dictators
		
00:56:06 --> 00:56:07
			covered themselves in glory.
		
00:56:08 --> 00:56:10
			But was there anything specific that you kind
		
00:56:10 --> 00:56:11
			of heard about them?
		
00:56:11 --> 00:56:12
			I think they already tried.
		
00:56:13 --> 00:56:18
			The Ikhwan already tried in 1980 something or
		
00:56:18 --> 00:56:18
			1990.
		
00:56:19 --> 00:56:20
			That was the Hama massacre.
		
00:56:20 --> 00:56:23
			They went and killed about 20 something thousand
		
00:56:23 --> 00:56:23
			people.
		
00:56:24 --> 00:56:25
			So are people going to rise after that?
		
00:56:25 --> 00:56:26
			I don't think so.
		
00:56:26 --> 00:56:27
			Not so easily anyway.
		
00:56:28 --> 00:56:30
			So when I went to Hama, he took
		
00:56:30 --> 00:56:31
			me to the central mosque.
		
00:56:32 --> 00:56:35
			And what's really interesting, these guys were evil,
		
00:56:35 --> 00:56:35
			man.
		
00:56:36 --> 00:56:38
			The front, they've rebuilt the mosque obviously since
		
00:56:38 --> 00:56:40
			then, they'd rebuilt the mosque at that time.
		
00:56:40 --> 00:56:44
			The front, the lower half of the front
		
00:56:44 --> 00:56:47
			wall was pockmarked with bullets.
		
00:56:48 --> 00:56:51
			They'd actually kept that there to remind people.
		
00:56:52 --> 00:56:54
			My host pointed out and said, that is
		
00:56:54 --> 00:56:58
			all of the marks from the massacre at
		
00:56:58 --> 00:56:58
			the time.
		
00:56:59 --> 00:57:00
			They were really evil.
		
00:57:01 --> 00:57:04
			So it was probably more difficult for them
		
00:57:04 --> 00:57:05
			to rise.
		
00:57:07 --> 00:57:07
			Yeah.
		
00:57:09 --> 00:57:13
			As a percentage of the, because Alawis is
		
00:57:13 --> 00:57:15
			kind of the main, what percentage?
		
00:57:15 --> 00:57:17
			I still don't understand that.
		
00:57:17 --> 00:57:18
			That's just so weird.
		
00:57:19 --> 00:57:21
			They're like a minority and how are they
		
00:57:21 --> 00:57:21
			the rulers?
		
00:57:21 --> 00:57:23
			I think it was the French that heard
		
00:57:23 --> 00:57:24
			it.
		
00:57:24 --> 00:57:26
			I think it was probably by design just
		
00:57:26 --> 00:57:28
			to make sure that they can, because they're
		
00:57:28 --> 00:57:29
			very liberal.
		
00:57:29 --> 00:57:31
			They don't have much to go on the
		
00:57:31 --> 00:57:32
			theology, et cetera.
		
00:57:32 --> 00:57:33
			Yeah.
		
00:57:33 --> 00:57:36
			I think that even Ithna Ashariya called them
		
00:57:36 --> 00:57:37
			out of the way or whatever.
		
00:57:39 --> 00:57:40
			That's just weird.
		
00:57:41 --> 00:57:41
			Yeah.
		
00:57:41 --> 00:57:46
			It was an outlier.
		
00:57:46 --> 00:57:48
			I was thinking how they came in and
		
00:57:48 --> 00:57:49
			for such a small...
		
00:57:49 --> 00:57:49
			I don't know that history.
		
00:57:50 --> 00:57:50
			Yeah.
		
00:57:50 --> 00:57:54
			I think Sheikh Asqadi did a video, like
		
00:57:54 --> 00:57:56
			a lecture on the history of the Alawites.
		
00:57:57 --> 00:58:00
			I think someone mentioned it in terms of
		
00:58:00 --> 00:58:01
			recent colonization.
		
00:58:02 --> 00:58:06
			The French, they kind of empowered them and
		
00:58:06 --> 00:58:09
			put them in positions of leadership and then
		
00:58:09 --> 00:58:11
			they did a coup and a counter coup
		
00:58:11 --> 00:58:12
			against them and kicked them out and then
		
00:58:12 --> 00:58:13
			they kept themselves in power.
		
00:58:15 --> 00:58:18
			But yeah, right now they've been given amnesty
		
00:58:18 --> 00:58:22
			and that kind of stuff in terms of
		
00:58:22 --> 00:58:25
			the Alawites, not necessarily the people that were
		
00:58:25 --> 00:58:25
			kind of...
		
00:58:25 --> 00:58:27
			How were those people to deal with?
		
00:58:28 --> 00:58:28
			I never dealt with it.
		
00:58:29 --> 00:58:29
			Okay, you never...
		
00:58:29 --> 00:58:34
			It's difficult to discover who's what because you
		
00:58:34 --> 00:58:35
			couldn't really go into that.
		
00:58:36 --> 00:58:36
			There was not much.
		
00:58:36 --> 00:58:38
			I mean, if there was a Shia that
		
00:58:38 --> 00:58:40
			I saw, I wouldn't even know maybe.
		
00:58:40 --> 00:58:42
			Because you were like busy and just studying.
		
00:58:43 --> 00:58:44
			I didn't have time to go in.
		
00:58:44 --> 00:58:45
			I wasn't political.
		
00:58:45 --> 00:58:46
			I wasn't into all of that.
		
00:58:46 --> 00:58:48
			We used to go to...
		
00:58:48 --> 00:58:49
			We went once or twice to see those
		
00:58:49 --> 00:58:51
			shrines that they'd built and everything and lots
		
00:58:51 --> 00:58:53
			of Iranians just come at the time.
		
00:58:53 --> 00:58:55
			You knew because their women were dressed differently.
		
00:58:55 --> 00:58:56
			Yes, they would come.
		
00:58:56 --> 00:58:58
			In fact, a lot of Indians would come
		
00:58:58 --> 00:58:59
			as well from Bombay and that.
		
00:58:59 --> 00:59:00
			These...
		
00:59:00 --> 00:59:04
			So that's what I remember seeing.
		
00:59:04 --> 00:59:05
			But I wasn't really there.
		
00:59:06 --> 00:59:07
			I just didn't have time, to be honest,
		
00:59:07 --> 00:59:09
			to look into all of that and then
		
00:59:09 --> 00:59:10
			where would I go and get back?
		
00:59:10 --> 00:59:14
			Do you think there's a subtle, maybe unknown,
		
00:59:15 --> 00:59:21
			undetectable impact that these types of climates have
		
00:59:21 --> 00:59:22
			on our discourse and teaching?
		
00:59:23 --> 00:59:25
			You know, just saying that this...
		
00:59:25 --> 00:59:27
			When just a student hearing that, oh, this
		
00:59:27 --> 00:59:29
			matter doesn't concern us, that's gonna...
		
00:59:30 --> 00:59:33
			without us realizing, gonna change the type of
		
00:59:33 --> 00:59:35
			Islam we learn and teach and discuss.
		
00:59:35 --> 00:59:35
			There's no doubt.
		
00:59:36 --> 00:59:37
			There's no doubt because if everybody's saying the
		
00:59:37 --> 00:59:39
			same thing, then you're gonna know your boundaries
		
00:59:39 --> 00:59:40
			that don't get into that.
		
00:59:40 --> 00:59:41
			You're gonna have to be careful.
		
00:59:42 --> 00:59:44
			So I definitely feel that that definitely has
		
00:59:44 --> 00:59:44
			an impact.
		
00:59:44 --> 00:59:46
			It's the same in Egypt, by the way.
		
00:59:46 --> 00:59:49
			In fact, a large beard is seen as
		
00:59:49 --> 00:59:52
			Salafia and not just Salafia, but in multiple
		
00:59:52 --> 00:59:55
			countries have they thought I'm an extreme Salafi
		
00:59:55 --> 00:59:56
			and they're surprised.
		
00:59:57 --> 00:59:59
			Actually, when I say Salafi, sorry, I don't
		
00:59:59 --> 01:00:01
			mean Salafi like an ISIS almost.
		
01:00:01 --> 01:00:03
			For example, I go to Mauritania.
		
01:00:04 --> 01:00:08
			So we're coming out of Nawakshot because next
		
01:00:08 --> 01:00:10
			door in Niger, there's lots of issues.
		
01:00:11 --> 01:00:14
			So they're very careful in to not make
		
01:00:14 --> 01:00:16
			this, let this be a place, a passageway.
		
01:00:16 --> 01:00:18
			So they're very careful about who comes in.
		
01:00:18 --> 01:00:18
			It's easy.
		
01:00:18 --> 01:00:19
			They're not that bad.
		
01:00:19 --> 01:00:22
			And at that time, the airport was like
		
01:00:22 --> 01:00:23
			a small train station.
		
01:00:24 --> 01:00:27
			So when you go out of the cabins
		
01:00:27 --> 01:00:30
			in Nawakshot, there's always a gendarmerie there, which
		
01:00:30 --> 01:00:32
			is one of those security police.
		
01:00:33 --> 01:00:34
			And it takes a while.
		
01:00:35 --> 01:00:37
			So my host, Alhamdulillah, he had made passport
		
01:00:37 --> 01:00:38
			copies and everything and give it to them.
		
01:00:39 --> 01:00:41
			We were going to visit the Sheikh about
		
01:00:41 --> 01:00:44
			hours down, who's seen as a not some
		
01:00:44 --> 01:00:46
			extreme Sufi, but just a Sufi Sheikh of
		
01:00:46 --> 01:00:46
			some sort.
		
01:00:47 --> 01:00:50
			Now, the police is surprised that we're going
		
01:00:50 --> 01:00:50
			to visit him.
		
01:00:51 --> 01:00:52
			I had two other brothers with me also
		
01:00:52 --> 01:00:53
			with beards.
		
01:00:53 --> 01:00:57
			It's like, why are these going to the
		
01:00:57 --> 01:00:58
			Sufi?
		
01:00:58 --> 01:00:59
			They're not Salafis.
		
01:00:59 --> 01:01:00
			He wouldn't believe me.
		
01:01:01 --> 01:01:01
			Right.
		
01:01:01 --> 01:01:02
			Alhamdulillah, then it passed.
		
01:01:03 --> 01:01:04
			I go over the border.
		
01:01:04 --> 01:01:06
			We're at the border of the next country.
		
01:01:06 --> 01:01:07
			What is it?
		
01:01:08 --> 01:01:08
			Dakar.
		
01:01:10 --> 01:01:14
			Oh, let's see.
		
01:01:15 --> 01:01:15
			What's it called?
		
01:01:15 --> 01:01:16
			Senegal.
		
01:01:16 --> 01:01:16
			Senegal.
		
01:01:17 --> 01:01:17
			Mashallah.
		
01:01:17 --> 01:01:18
			Senegal.
		
01:01:18 --> 01:01:19
			They're fine.
		
01:01:19 --> 01:01:20
			They're not doing anything.
		
01:01:20 --> 01:01:22
			But they think I'm Salafi again, because of
		
01:01:22 --> 01:01:22
			the beard.
		
01:01:23 --> 01:01:26
			In Egypt, in the Khan Khalili Souk, this
		
01:01:26 --> 01:01:28
			guy starts criticizing Ibn Taymiyyah in front of
		
01:01:28 --> 01:01:30
			me.
		
01:01:31 --> 01:01:33
			I need to join in.
		
01:01:36 --> 01:01:38
			I'm thinking this guy thinks I'm a Salafi.
		
01:01:42 --> 01:01:44
			You're like, dude, I agree with you.
		
01:01:44 --> 01:01:46
			Well, I don't agree with everything he says.
		
01:01:46 --> 01:01:48
			And then I pulled out a tasbih from
		
01:01:48 --> 01:01:49
			my pocket.
		
01:01:49 --> 01:01:51
			And I said, I'm a Sufi.
		
01:01:52 --> 01:01:55
			I think he was just dumbstruck.
		
01:01:55 --> 01:01:57
			What's happened, unfortunately, in the world, right?
		
01:01:57 --> 01:01:59
			This is something I've not discussed before.
		
01:01:59 --> 01:01:59
			Yeah.
		
01:02:00 --> 01:02:03
			Unfortunately, a lot of Sufis outside of the
		
01:02:03 --> 01:02:05
			subcontinent, they feel that they need to have
		
01:02:05 --> 01:02:06
			small beards.
		
01:02:07 --> 01:02:08
			I don't want to make this as a
		
01:02:08 --> 01:02:08
			beard issue.
		
01:02:09 --> 01:02:11
			But it's become that you have to be
		
01:02:11 --> 01:02:11
			really cool.
		
01:02:11 --> 01:02:12
			You have to be casual.
		
01:02:13 --> 01:02:14
			A friend of mine who's got a large
		
01:02:14 --> 01:02:15
			beard, his wife had a niqab.
		
01:02:15 --> 01:02:19
			And he went to Tunisia after the fall
		
01:02:19 --> 01:02:20
			of the old regime.
		
01:02:20 --> 01:02:21
			They sent him back.
		
01:02:22 --> 01:02:25
			In a conference, where there were some members
		
01:02:25 --> 01:02:27
			of the Awqaf from Tunisia, I got talking
		
01:02:27 --> 01:02:28
			to them.
		
01:02:28 --> 01:02:29
			And I said, how come this happened?
		
01:02:30 --> 01:02:36
			So he said, before the fall or after?
		
01:02:36 --> 01:02:36
			I said, after.
		
01:02:36 --> 01:02:37
			He goes, no.
		
01:02:37 --> 01:02:40
			Then he said, okay, was his wife a
		
01:02:40 --> 01:02:40
			munaqaba?
		
01:02:40 --> 01:02:41
			I said, yeah.
		
01:02:41 --> 01:02:42
			He said, we're against the niqab.
		
01:02:43 --> 01:02:46
			So it looks like there's this issue between
		
01:02:46 --> 01:02:47
			niqab and the large beard.
		
01:02:48 --> 01:02:50
			In another place I was there, the next
		
01:02:50 --> 01:02:51
			day we had a visit.
		
01:02:51 --> 01:02:52
			So the person who was with me, he
		
01:02:52 --> 01:02:54
			said, you can't just visit him with a
		
01:02:54 --> 01:02:54
			normal thawbun.
		
01:02:55 --> 01:02:56
			You're going to have to wear one of
		
01:02:56 --> 01:03:00
			those Arab bishts or you're going to have
		
01:03:00 --> 01:03:01
			to have one of these jubbas or something.
		
01:03:02 --> 01:03:04
			So I didn't have anything like that at
		
01:03:04 --> 01:03:04
			the time.
		
01:03:04 --> 01:03:05
			I said, what's wrong with that?
		
01:03:05 --> 01:03:05
			He said, no, no, no.
		
01:03:06 --> 01:03:08
			He said, so the next day he orders
		
01:03:08 --> 01:03:09
			me one of those bishts, you know, like
		
01:03:09 --> 01:03:11
			the Saudis wear, the imams wear.
		
01:03:11 --> 01:03:12
			It was very long.
		
01:03:12 --> 01:03:13
			I said, I'm not wearing this.
		
01:03:13 --> 01:03:13
			This is too long.
		
01:03:14 --> 01:03:15
			I need it up to my ankles.
		
01:03:16 --> 01:03:17
			So he's very, very compassionate.
		
01:03:18 --> 01:03:19
			He said, you already got a big beard.
		
01:03:19 --> 01:03:20
			Now you want that to be up there.
		
01:03:20 --> 01:03:22
			People are going to think you're Salafi.
		
01:03:22 --> 01:03:24
			SubhanAllah, why is that a Salafi thing?
		
01:03:24 --> 01:03:25
			And what's wrong with that?
		
01:03:26 --> 01:03:28
			Unfortunately, what's happened is that the beard, the
		
01:03:28 --> 01:03:31
			trousers dangling below has become like a sign
		
01:03:31 --> 01:03:32
			of wrong.
		
01:03:32 --> 01:03:33
			Whereas it's a sunnah of the Prophet.
		
01:03:33 --> 01:03:35
			So I've had these occasions.
		
01:03:36 --> 01:03:36
			Okay.
		
01:03:36 --> 01:03:39
			Mention one more right in Egypt.
		
01:03:39 --> 01:03:42
			So there's the book fair, the international book
		
01:03:42 --> 01:03:43
			fair.
		
01:03:43 --> 01:03:43
			It's very, very popular.
		
01:03:44 --> 01:03:44
			Lots of people go there.
		
01:03:44 --> 01:03:45
			It happens in January.
		
01:03:45 --> 01:03:49
			So I get there before a day before
		
01:03:49 --> 01:03:50
			my brother.
		
01:03:50 --> 01:03:51
			So it's myself and my cousin.
		
01:03:51 --> 01:03:53
			He's a lawyer, a solicitor, but he has
		
01:03:53 --> 01:03:54
			a decent beard as well.
		
01:03:55 --> 01:03:57
			We were told to book into this Fundoq
		
01:03:57 --> 01:04:01
			Al Hussain near the Hussain Masjid mosque, which
		
01:04:01 --> 01:04:01
			is near Azhar.
		
01:04:02 --> 01:04:02
			Why?
		
01:04:02 --> 01:04:03
			Because it's a good location.
		
01:04:03 --> 01:04:05
			Hotel is like a one or two star,
		
01:04:06 --> 01:04:12
			but a decent location for the Azhar and
		
01:04:12 --> 01:04:12
			all the bookstores.
		
01:04:13 --> 01:04:14
			Because the purpose of my brother was running
		
01:04:14 --> 01:04:16
			Azhar Academy at that time.
		
01:04:16 --> 01:04:19
			So he took me along to help with
		
01:04:19 --> 01:04:19
			the books and so on.
		
01:04:19 --> 01:04:20
			He was coming the next day.
		
01:04:21 --> 01:04:23
			So the hotel was not that great.
		
01:04:24 --> 01:04:27
			And he said that, let's get a better
		
01:04:27 --> 01:04:27
			hotel tomorrow.
		
01:04:28 --> 01:04:30
			So a friend, an Egyptian friend, his mother
		
01:04:30 --> 01:04:33
			booked us into this five star hotel in,
		
01:04:33 --> 01:04:35
			I think, Misr Jadida.
		
01:04:35 --> 01:04:38
			That's what they call the new part of
		
01:04:38 --> 01:04:38
			Cairo.
		
01:04:39 --> 01:04:41
			They gave us a booking.
		
01:04:41 --> 01:04:42
			And I didn't know at the time, but
		
01:04:42 --> 01:04:44
			it's run by the army.
		
01:04:44 --> 01:04:48
			So the army, I believe, has about 20
		
01:04:48 --> 01:04:52
			% ownership of every industry or 20%
		
01:04:52 --> 01:04:52
			of the economy there.
		
01:04:53 --> 01:04:55
			I didn't know any of this stuff.
		
01:04:55 --> 01:04:58
			So my brother comes the next day.
		
01:04:58 --> 01:05:01
			We checked out in the evening after doing
		
01:05:01 --> 01:05:02
			everything.
		
01:05:02 --> 01:05:04
			We checked out and we reached there about
		
01:05:04 --> 01:05:05
			10 something.
		
01:05:06 --> 01:05:09
			And we're trying to get some keys for
		
01:05:09 --> 01:05:09
			the room.
		
01:05:10 --> 01:05:12
			So he's making the keys for us.
		
01:05:12 --> 01:05:14
			And then suddenly there's a call on the
		
01:05:14 --> 01:05:14
			phone.
		
01:05:15 --> 01:05:17
			So he goes and attends to the call
		
01:05:17 --> 01:05:19
			and suddenly comes back, his face has changed.
		
01:05:19 --> 01:05:21
			He said, I'm really sorry, you can't stay
		
01:05:21 --> 01:05:21
			here.
		
01:05:23 --> 01:05:24
			You can't stay here.
		
01:05:24 --> 01:05:24
			I said, why?
		
01:05:24 --> 01:05:25
			What's the issue?
		
01:05:25 --> 01:05:26
			We've got a booking.
		
01:05:26 --> 01:05:28
			No, no, no, that's not the issue.
		
01:05:28 --> 01:05:29
			This is a military establishment.
		
01:05:29 --> 01:05:30
			And if you have a long beard, you
		
01:05:30 --> 01:05:31
			can't stay here.
		
01:05:32 --> 01:05:32
			That's a rule.
		
01:05:33 --> 01:05:35
			Did someone just see the CCTV and said,
		
01:05:35 --> 01:05:36
			no, the beard is too long.
		
01:05:36 --> 01:05:37
			Yeah, exactly.
		
01:05:37 --> 01:05:40
			So we, you know, playing the British card,
		
01:05:40 --> 01:05:42
			like, you know, why not?
		
01:05:42 --> 01:05:43
			This is our right.
		
01:05:43 --> 01:05:44
			None of that.
		
01:05:44 --> 01:05:45
			He took me aside.
		
01:05:45 --> 01:05:46
			He said, look, if I wasn't working, I'd
		
01:05:46 --> 01:05:47
			probably have a beard as well.
		
01:05:47 --> 01:05:49
			I go call the guy down, the security
		
01:05:49 --> 01:05:49
			guy.
		
01:05:49 --> 01:05:51
			I was very bold at that time.
		
01:05:51 --> 01:05:52
			I said, call the guy down.
		
01:05:52 --> 01:05:54
			He said, no, no, no, don't, don't waste
		
01:05:54 --> 01:05:54
			your time.
		
01:05:54 --> 01:05:55
			And he was getting to about half 10.
		
01:05:56 --> 01:05:57
			So I thought we might get another booking
		
01:05:57 --> 01:05:58
			somewhere else.
		
01:05:58 --> 01:05:58
			So we left.
		
01:05:59 --> 01:06:00
			There's a Fondok Al Beirut.
		
01:06:01 --> 01:06:02
			I still remember it.
		
01:06:02 --> 01:06:03
			That was right near there.
		
01:06:03 --> 01:06:05
			So we took, it has a nightclub next
		
01:06:05 --> 01:06:06
			to it.
		
01:06:06 --> 01:06:08
			But we took a booking in there.
		
01:06:08 --> 01:06:09
			Alhamdulillah, we stayed there.
		
01:06:10 --> 01:06:12
			Then the next day, friends of my brother
		
01:06:12 --> 01:06:15
			found a booking for us in one of
		
01:06:15 --> 01:06:17
			the top hotels of the whole of Cairo,
		
01:06:17 --> 01:06:18
			the Conrad Hilton.
		
01:06:18 --> 01:06:20
			Oh, on the Corniche, right?
		
01:06:20 --> 01:06:21
			Omar knows it well.
		
01:06:22 --> 01:06:23
			I read about it.
		
01:06:23 --> 01:06:23
			It's very nice.
		
01:06:23 --> 01:06:25
			It's an amazing, and what excited me about
		
01:06:25 --> 01:06:27
			it is that it's actually in Bulak.
		
01:06:27 --> 01:06:28
			Okay.
		
01:06:28 --> 01:06:29
			You don't know what Bulak is.
		
01:06:29 --> 01:06:30
			Bulak is a rundown area.
		
01:06:31 --> 01:06:35
			But Bulak, one of the first publishing setups
		
01:06:35 --> 01:06:37
			were in Egypt.
		
01:06:38 --> 01:06:40
			The Mustafa, Babi al-Halabi and others were
		
01:06:40 --> 01:06:41
			all in Bulak at the time.
		
01:06:42 --> 01:06:42
			Okay.
		
01:06:42 --> 01:06:42
			Right.
		
01:06:42 --> 01:06:43
			So for me, I'd heard that name.
		
01:06:44 --> 01:06:48
			But anyway, my friend's mother, Egyptian, she says,
		
01:06:48 --> 01:06:49
			look, the Muslims didn't keep you.
		
01:06:50 --> 01:06:51
			But the Christians did.
		
01:06:51 --> 01:06:52
			Why did she say that?
		
01:06:53 --> 01:06:54
			Because that hotel is owned by one of
		
01:06:54 --> 01:06:58
			the big Christian wealthy guys called Saweris.
		
01:06:58 --> 01:07:00
			He owned a mobile company, Mobinil.
		
01:07:00 --> 01:07:01
			He owned this.
		
01:07:01 --> 01:07:03
			The Christians keep you, the Muslims don't keep
		
01:07:03 --> 01:07:03
			you.
		
01:07:03 --> 01:07:05
			These are experiences.
		
01:07:05 --> 01:07:07
			I mean, I was probably very naive.
		
01:07:07 --> 01:07:09
			I used to think, you know, being born
		
01:07:09 --> 01:07:11
			in the West, we think of Muslim countries
		
01:07:11 --> 01:07:13
			being some kind of utopia.
		
01:07:13 --> 01:07:15
			I remember the first Muslim country I probably
		
01:07:15 --> 01:07:17
			went to was Morocco.
		
01:07:18 --> 01:07:19
			And I went from Spain on a ferry.
		
01:07:21 --> 01:07:26
			And there's a book on Morocco in the
		
01:07:26 --> 01:07:26
			ferry.
		
01:07:26 --> 01:07:27
			So I pick it up.
		
01:07:28 --> 01:07:29
			And there's a belly dancer in there.
		
01:07:30 --> 01:07:31
			I was horrified.
		
01:07:31 --> 01:07:32
			I said, what's going on here?
		
01:07:33 --> 01:07:34
			I'm like, is this Moroccan?
		
01:07:34 --> 01:07:35
			This is a Muslim country.
		
01:07:37 --> 01:07:39
			I think it's not a Salafi or Sufi
		
01:07:39 --> 01:07:39
			thing.
		
01:07:39 --> 01:07:41
			It's a desi and non-desi thing.
		
01:07:41 --> 01:07:43
			The desis are the only ones that are
		
01:07:43 --> 01:07:45
			stuck to the Sunnah.
		
01:07:45 --> 01:07:46
			No, I think it's just a religion.
		
01:07:46 --> 01:07:48
			I know that was more like, you just
		
01:07:48 --> 01:07:49
			think a Muslim country is going to be
		
01:07:49 --> 01:07:50
			something different.
		
01:07:50 --> 01:07:50
			We live in the West.
		
01:07:51 --> 01:07:51
			I don't know.
		
01:07:51 --> 01:07:53
			We can understand that in the West.
		
01:07:53 --> 01:07:55
			So these are just experiences.
		
01:07:55 --> 01:07:58
			From your travels, would you say there's any
		
01:08:00 --> 01:08:03
			any Muslim country that comes anywhere near as
		
01:08:03 --> 01:08:04
			close as good as Pakistan?
		
01:08:06 --> 01:08:08
			Pakistan is actually amazing, to be honest.
		
01:08:08 --> 01:08:09
			Pakistan is amazing.
		
01:08:09 --> 01:08:11
			And I wonder why people go away.
		
01:08:11 --> 01:08:12
			If you've got money, especially if you've got
		
01:08:12 --> 01:08:15
			money in Pakistan, you live like a king,
		
01:08:15 --> 01:08:15
			right?
		
01:08:16 --> 01:08:18
			There's a lot of good countries, to be
		
01:08:18 --> 01:08:18
			honest.
		
01:08:20 --> 01:08:22
			Jordan's kept it very, it's expensive, but they've
		
01:08:22 --> 01:08:23
			kept it very stable.
		
01:08:24 --> 01:08:25
			Syria was good.
		
01:08:25 --> 01:08:27
			At the time in Syria, there was no
		
01:08:27 --> 01:08:27
			mobile phones.
		
01:08:27 --> 01:08:31
			When I went in 98, next door in
		
01:08:31 --> 01:08:34
			Lebanon, there was, but not here.
		
01:08:34 --> 01:08:36
			There was no Coca-Cola, no McDonald's.
		
01:08:36 --> 01:08:38
			The only foreign brand that you could find
		
01:08:38 --> 01:08:40
			anywhere was Canada Dry for some reason.
		
01:08:40 --> 01:08:41
			I still remember that.
		
01:08:41 --> 01:08:42
			No Coca-Cola, nothing.
		
01:08:44 --> 01:08:47
			Or Ginger Ale.
		
01:08:48 --> 01:08:51
			Post-Cold War kind of things opened up.
		
01:08:51 --> 01:08:51
			Probably pro-Russian.
		
01:08:52 --> 01:08:53
			I'm not sure what the issue was.
		
01:08:53 --> 01:08:55
			You could find these kind of foreign brands,
		
01:08:55 --> 01:08:57
			but they would be on these little tables
		
01:08:57 --> 01:09:00
			smuggled in from Jordan.
		
01:09:01 --> 01:09:03
			No, from Beirut.
		
01:09:04 --> 01:09:06
			Now, there were some Syrian scholars like Sheikh
		
01:09:06 --> 01:09:10
			Abdul Razak, Sheikh Abdul Fattah Abu Ghudda, and
		
01:09:10 --> 01:09:13
			a few others whose books were banned in
		
01:09:13 --> 01:09:13
			Syria.
		
01:09:13 --> 01:09:14
			Really?
		
01:09:14 --> 01:09:17
			Yeah, because they were part of the Ikhwan.
		
01:09:17 --> 01:09:18
			There's multiple types of Ikhwan.
		
01:09:19 --> 01:09:20
			These were the Hanafi Ikhwan.
		
01:09:21 --> 01:09:23
			So in political outlook, they were Ikhwan, but
		
01:09:23 --> 01:09:24
			they were very strong Hanafis.
		
01:09:24 --> 01:09:27
			There was a Sheikh from Hama who wrote
		
01:09:29 --> 01:09:30
			multiple sheikhs like that.
		
01:09:31 --> 01:09:32
			So his books were banned.
		
01:09:33 --> 01:09:36
			So we used to go to Jordan and
		
01:09:36 --> 01:09:36
			Beirut.
		
01:09:37 --> 01:09:38
			How do you smuggle them back in?
		
01:09:40 --> 01:09:43
			So if your taxi driver was already smuggling
		
01:09:43 --> 01:09:47
			something in, Coca-Cola in his boot, then
		
01:09:47 --> 01:09:48
			it's cool.
		
01:09:49 --> 01:09:50
			Then it's all right.
		
01:09:50 --> 01:09:52
			He's going to sort them out, and you
		
01:09:52 --> 01:09:52
			just get through.
		
01:09:53 --> 01:09:55
			I just hide your Islamic books under all
		
01:09:55 --> 01:09:55
			these drugs.
		
01:09:56 --> 01:09:58
			I would keep it next to me, and
		
01:09:58 --> 01:09:59
			hopefully nobody checks them.
		
01:10:00 --> 01:10:02
			Alhamdulillah, it never was checked, but it's just
		
01:10:02 --> 01:10:03
			among the foreigners, that was the thing.
		
01:10:04 --> 01:10:07
			I remember once we're coming back into Syria
		
01:10:07 --> 01:10:11
			from Jordan, and it's the land border.
		
01:10:12 --> 01:10:14
			So they don't have their timing.
		
01:10:14 --> 01:10:16
			It's just like they suddenly decided to close
		
01:10:16 --> 01:10:17
			and go for a cup of tea.
		
01:10:17 --> 01:10:18
			And I was next, and they've gone for
		
01:10:18 --> 01:10:21
			a So I'm listening, and they're talking about
		
01:10:21 --> 01:10:22
			poetry.
		
01:10:24 --> 01:10:26
			So I'm knocked on the window, and I
		
01:10:26 --> 01:10:28
			said a line or two from Imre al
		
01:10:28 --> 01:10:28
			-Qais.
		
01:10:29 --> 01:10:33
			It's kind of a bit of a graphic
		
01:10:33 --> 01:10:33
			line.
		
01:10:38 --> 01:10:40
			The guy got so excited.
		
01:10:42 --> 01:10:44
			It's describing a woman, essentially.
		
01:10:45 --> 01:10:48
			So he comes over, and he says, OK,
		
01:10:48 --> 01:10:49
			give me your passport.
		
01:10:50 --> 01:10:51
			Alhamdulillah.
		
01:10:52 --> 01:10:55
			It's just, they're just really simple kind of
		
01:10:55 --> 01:10:55
			people.
		
01:10:56 --> 01:10:57
			They're just simple kind of people.
		
01:11:01 --> 01:11:03
			We decided, let's go to Nowa.
		
01:11:04 --> 01:11:06
			So that's south, that's in the Hawran district,
		
01:11:07 --> 01:11:07
			south of Damascus.
		
01:11:08 --> 01:11:12
			So we got there, and Imam Nowa's grave
		
01:11:12 --> 01:11:13
			has this tree coming out of it.
		
01:11:15 --> 01:11:16
			At that time, I think it was blown
		
01:11:16 --> 01:11:19
			up by the ISIS afterwards, or something like
		
01:11:19 --> 01:11:19
			that.
		
01:11:20 --> 01:11:21
			But that's Imam Nowi, because he was from
		
01:11:21 --> 01:11:22
			that southern region.
		
01:11:23 --> 01:11:25
			That's also prophesied in the Hadith that the
		
01:11:25 --> 01:11:31
			necks of the camels of Busra will be
		
01:11:31 --> 01:11:33
			illuminated by the fire in Medina Munawwara.
		
01:11:34 --> 01:11:35
			So for me, that was quite a distance.
		
01:11:35 --> 01:11:36
			I was just thinking of all of this.
		
01:11:37 --> 01:11:40
			One day, I'm sitting in a masjid, Jamil
		
01:11:40 --> 01:11:46
			Umawi, and these Pakistanis come along from Pakistan.
		
01:11:46 --> 01:11:48
			And I thought they were Pakistanis, Shalwar Kameez.
		
01:11:49 --> 01:11:51
			That was not a normal sight, right?
		
01:11:52 --> 01:11:56
			So Shalwar Kameez, we're from Iran.
		
01:11:57 --> 01:11:58
			We're from Iran.
		
01:12:00 --> 01:12:03
			And I thought, OK, maybe Shia, because loads
		
01:12:03 --> 01:12:04
			of Iranian Shia used to come.
		
01:12:04 --> 01:12:06
			We're looking for the grave of Muawiyah r
		
01:12:06 --> 01:12:08
			.a. I was like, oh, no.
		
01:12:08 --> 01:12:09
			He said, no, no, we're Sunni.
		
01:12:09 --> 01:12:11
			They're from that area of Iran that are
		
01:12:11 --> 01:12:12
			Sunni.
		
01:12:12 --> 01:12:14
			And they look, yeah, the Baloch area, that
		
01:12:14 --> 01:12:15
			area.
		
01:12:15 --> 01:12:17
			And then he explained, I didn't know.
		
01:12:18 --> 01:12:19
			That's why they did look different.
		
01:12:19 --> 01:12:20
			They were dressed differently.
		
01:12:20 --> 01:12:21
			They look like Balochis, essentially.
		
01:12:23 --> 01:12:24
			I can imagine it's like one surprise after
		
01:12:24 --> 01:12:25
			another for you.
		
01:12:25 --> 01:12:26
			There was lots of surprises.
		
01:12:26 --> 01:12:28
			I think I was 20.
		
01:12:29 --> 01:12:29
			How old was I then?
		
01:12:29 --> 01:12:32
			I was 24.
		
01:12:33 --> 01:12:34
			I was 24 at the time.
		
01:12:35 --> 01:12:37
			So I thought, Muawiyah is buried there?
		
01:12:37 --> 01:12:38
			Oh, yes, of course.
		
01:12:39 --> 01:12:43
			The Umayyads who established Damascus as their headquarters.
		
01:12:43 --> 01:12:43
			I was like, come on, man.
		
01:12:44 --> 01:12:46
			I was just totally oblivious of that history.
		
01:12:46 --> 01:12:48
			And I hadn't thought about it.
		
01:12:48 --> 01:12:49
			So I said, OK, let's go and find
		
01:12:49 --> 01:12:49
			it.
		
01:12:49 --> 01:12:50
			I said, I've never thought about it.
		
01:12:50 --> 01:12:52
			Because I used to try to find out
		
01:12:52 --> 01:12:52
			where everything was.
		
01:12:53 --> 01:12:53
			We knew the main ones.
		
01:12:54 --> 01:12:55
			But for some reason, Muawiyah r.a's grave
		
01:12:55 --> 01:12:56
			was not on the radar.
		
01:12:57 --> 01:12:58
			So I thought, that's it.
		
01:12:58 --> 01:12:58
			Let's find out.
		
01:12:59 --> 01:13:00
			They don't know Arabic.
		
01:13:00 --> 01:13:01
			So now I'm going around with them.
		
01:13:02 --> 01:13:04
			So remember, what were you speaking with them?
		
01:13:05 --> 01:13:06
			I think, Urdu.
		
01:13:07 --> 01:13:08
			I can't remember now.
		
01:13:08 --> 01:13:09
			I think it might have been a bit
		
01:13:09 --> 01:13:09
			of Urdu.
		
01:13:10 --> 01:13:10
			I'm not sure.
		
01:13:10 --> 01:13:11
			Did you speak any Farsi?
		
01:13:12 --> 01:13:12
			A bit.
		
01:13:12 --> 01:13:13
			A small amount.
		
01:13:13 --> 01:13:15
			I don't think it was in Farsi, though.
		
01:13:15 --> 01:13:17
			It might have been peppered with Farsi or
		
01:13:17 --> 01:13:17
			something.
		
01:13:18 --> 01:13:20
			So apparently, we went around.
		
01:13:20 --> 01:13:21
			Nobody wanted to tell us.
		
01:13:22 --> 01:13:23
			Yeah, nobody wanted to tell us.
		
01:13:24 --> 01:13:25
			They're like, very vague.
		
01:13:25 --> 01:13:27
			Otherwise, Syrians are very helpful.
		
01:13:27 --> 01:13:28
			Yeah, go this way.
		
01:13:28 --> 01:13:28
			Go that way.
		
01:13:28 --> 01:13:28
			Tell us.
		
01:13:29 --> 01:13:30
			They were like, oh, we don't know.
		
01:13:30 --> 01:13:30
			We don't know.
		
01:13:30 --> 01:13:31
			I'm like, come on, you must know.
		
01:13:32 --> 01:13:33
			Muawiyah r.a, you don't know where he's
		
01:13:33 --> 01:13:33
			buried?
		
01:13:34 --> 01:13:35
			He's the biggest Sahabi here.
		
01:13:36 --> 01:13:38
			There's Bilal r.a and a number of
		
01:13:38 --> 01:13:39
			other Ahlul Bayt as well.
		
01:13:40 --> 01:13:43
			But Alhamdulillah, people eventually, we got to a
		
01:13:43 --> 01:13:44
			place that said, OK, this is behind this
		
01:13:44 --> 01:13:45
			wall.
		
01:13:45 --> 01:13:46
			It wasn't an open.
		
01:13:47 --> 01:13:47
			It wasn't open.
		
01:13:48 --> 01:13:49
			They had to put it behind the wall
		
01:13:49 --> 01:13:52
			because the Shiites would come and desecrate it.
		
01:13:52 --> 01:13:55
			I think it's now been opened, or it
		
01:13:55 --> 01:13:56
			may have been open since then.
		
01:13:56 --> 01:13:56
			I'm not sure.
		
01:13:57 --> 01:13:58
			But at that time, it was behind the
		
01:13:58 --> 01:13:58
			wall.
		
01:13:58 --> 01:13:59
			It said, it's behind this wall.
		
01:14:01 --> 01:14:01
			SubhanAllah.
		
01:14:01 --> 01:14:03
			And those people who weren't telling you, is
		
01:14:03 --> 01:14:04
			it because they were...
		
01:14:04 --> 01:14:05
			They thought we might be Shia.
		
01:14:05 --> 01:14:05
			Oh, they thought you might be Shia.
		
01:14:05 --> 01:14:07
			They might have thought that we...
		
01:14:07 --> 01:14:08
			Maybe it's a thing.
		
01:14:08 --> 01:14:08
			I'm not sure.
		
01:14:08 --> 01:14:09
			I didn't get around to it.
		
01:14:09 --> 01:14:11
			But somebody did tell me it's probably because
		
01:14:11 --> 01:14:12
			they thought you were Shia that you might
		
01:14:12 --> 01:14:13
			want to do something wrong there or something.
		
01:14:13 --> 01:14:14
			Wallahu a'lam.
		
01:14:15 --> 01:14:15
			SubhanAllah.
		
01:14:16 --> 01:14:19
			So in terms of the, like, we're talking
		
01:14:19 --> 01:14:22
			about the subtle impact that these things have
		
01:14:22 --> 01:14:24
			on our discourse, how we talk about Islam,
		
01:14:25 --> 01:14:28
			how do you think it might have, that
		
01:14:28 --> 01:14:31
			kind of environment would have affected, you know,
		
01:14:32 --> 01:14:33
			the discussing of Islam?
		
01:14:33 --> 01:14:35
			Because I was thinking about sometimes even my
		
01:14:35 --> 01:14:36
			own kids when I talk about stuff and
		
01:14:36 --> 01:14:40
			how much the kind of baggage am I
		
01:14:40 --> 01:14:42
			bringing when...
		
01:14:42 --> 01:14:44
			Like one time, I don't know, just an
		
01:14:44 --> 01:14:44
			example.
		
01:14:44 --> 01:14:48
			One time someone kind of did that thing
		
01:14:48 --> 01:14:50
			where we're in the Salah and someone came
		
01:14:50 --> 01:14:53
			like a bit late and we're in Ruku
		
01:14:53 --> 01:14:55
			and he just kind of, he went to
		
01:14:55 --> 01:14:57
			Ruku and then he started stepping a bit
		
01:14:57 --> 01:14:58
			forward.
		
01:14:59 --> 01:15:00
			And I was thinking, you know, should I
		
01:15:00 --> 01:15:03
			say something to him later or, you know,
		
01:15:04 --> 01:15:05
			it's technically not...
		
01:15:05 --> 01:15:06
			How long back was it?
		
01:15:06 --> 01:15:06
			Yeah, I don't know.
		
01:15:07 --> 01:15:10
			I mean, I was like, my peripheral vision.
		
01:15:10 --> 01:15:12
			So then I was like, you know, technically
		
01:15:12 --> 01:15:12
			it's not correct.
		
01:15:12 --> 01:15:17
			But then I was thinking, just a minor
		
01:15:17 --> 01:15:20
			thing, but sometimes we look at Ahkam as
		
01:15:20 --> 01:15:23
			though, because the way we're taught them, because
		
01:15:23 --> 01:15:24
			you have to be taught in some way,
		
01:15:24 --> 01:15:26
			the way we're taught them is like, it's
		
01:15:26 --> 01:15:28
			invalid unless, you know, it has to be
		
01:15:28 --> 01:15:28
			this, this and that.
		
01:15:28 --> 01:15:30
			So we end up kind of having this
		
01:15:30 --> 01:15:34
			kind of perception of Allah that He's just
		
01:15:34 --> 01:15:35
			waiting for you to slip up so He
		
01:15:35 --> 01:15:37
			can nullify your things.
		
01:15:38 --> 01:15:39
			But I was thinking it's probably like the
		
01:15:39 --> 01:15:39
			opposite.
		
01:15:40 --> 01:15:42
			Like Allah is, you know, just wanting any
		
01:15:42 --> 01:15:45
			excuse to forgive you, to show you His
		
01:15:45 --> 01:15:46
			Karam and stuff.
		
01:15:47 --> 01:15:50
			And I'm thinking like certain things that just
		
01:15:50 --> 01:15:52
			the way we're taught, maybe it gives us
		
01:15:52 --> 01:15:52
			a...
		
01:15:52 --> 01:15:54
			Yeah, but I'm not sure how that plays
		
01:15:54 --> 01:15:55
			out in the example you gave you.
		
01:15:55 --> 01:15:58
			Because that's more about, am I confident enough
		
01:15:58 --> 01:15:58
			to tell somebody?
		
01:15:58 --> 01:16:01
			I see somebody fidgeting next to me in
		
01:16:01 --> 01:16:02
			such a way that it's what we call
		
01:16:02 --> 01:16:03
			Amal Kathir.
		
01:16:03 --> 01:16:04
			And his Salat is probably broken.
		
01:16:05 --> 01:16:06
			On some occasions, I've told him.
		
01:16:06 --> 01:16:09
			On other occasions, I've either forgotten, or he
		
01:16:09 --> 01:16:11
			ran away before I finished or something.
		
01:16:11 --> 01:16:13
			So it just depends on how bold you
		
01:16:13 --> 01:16:14
			are and how you want to tell.
		
01:16:14 --> 01:16:15
			But that's something different, I think.
		
01:16:16 --> 01:16:20
			I mean, maybe the example is the wrong
		
01:16:20 --> 01:16:20
			one.
		
01:16:20 --> 01:16:23
			But I'm just thinking of things that like,
		
01:16:24 --> 01:16:26
			like the complete removal of what we might
		
01:16:26 --> 01:16:30
			call today politics from our Islamic discourse, for
		
01:16:30 --> 01:16:31
			example.
		
01:16:31 --> 01:16:34
			Or even look, the war on terror, post
		
01:16:34 --> 01:16:35
			9-11.
		
01:16:36 --> 01:16:37
			I mean, I think some of us are
		
01:16:37 --> 01:16:40
			still suffering from kind of PTSD from that.
		
01:16:40 --> 01:16:43
			And we know you kind of self-policing
		
01:16:43 --> 01:16:45
			the discourse, you wouldn't say certain things, how
		
01:16:45 --> 01:16:48
			we say it, how we frame it.
		
01:16:48 --> 01:16:49
			It became really intense.
		
01:16:50 --> 01:16:54
			Especially LGBTQ issues for Islamic schools, what they
		
01:16:54 --> 01:16:55
			have to teach, they shouldn't have to respond
		
01:16:55 --> 01:16:57
			to the Ofsted inspectors.
		
01:16:57 --> 01:16:59
			There's clearly influence everywhere.
		
01:16:59 --> 01:17:01
			I think even if you didn't have...
		
01:17:01 --> 01:17:03
			I'm not sure if Pakistan even has some...
		
01:17:03 --> 01:17:05
			I mean, look, there's some things where you
		
01:17:05 --> 01:17:09
			have to blindside things because there's boundaries set
		
01:17:09 --> 01:17:10
			up by somebody.
		
01:17:10 --> 01:17:12
			But I think beyond that, even in Pakistan,
		
01:17:12 --> 01:17:14
			I don't think there's any of that, from
		
01:17:14 --> 01:17:15
			what I understand.
		
01:17:15 --> 01:17:17
			I think it's probably the freest country in
		
01:17:17 --> 01:17:17
			that sense.
		
01:17:18 --> 01:17:20
			But I don't think there's any tradition that,
		
01:17:21 --> 01:17:25
			unless it's a very scholarly tradition with a
		
01:17:25 --> 01:17:28
			lot of influence, that you could actually take
		
01:17:28 --> 01:17:29
			into consideration everything.
		
01:17:30 --> 01:17:33
			I think every tradition will have some things
		
01:17:33 --> 01:17:34
			that...
		
01:17:34 --> 01:17:34
			Has rules.
		
01:17:35 --> 01:17:37
			No, meaning there'll be something that it is
		
01:17:37 --> 01:17:39
			a bit blindsided by, if that's the right
		
01:17:39 --> 01:17:39
			word.
		
01:17:39 --> 01:17:41
			Some things they're not focusing on.
		
01:17:41 --> 01:17:43
			Because we're humans, we make mistakes, we have
		
01:17:43 --> 01:17:44
			weaknesses.
		
01:17:45 --> 01:17:50
			We're not so exhaustively comprehensive in everything.
		
01:17:50 --> 01:17:51
			But it'll be for a different reason.
		
01:17:51 --> 01:17:53
			It'll just be that, okay, I don't really
		
01:17:53 --> 01:17:55
			talk about that as much because maybe it's
		
01:17:55 --> 01:17:56
			not been on our radar.
		
01:17:56 --> 01:17:58
			It's not something that we're thinking about.
		
01:17:58 --> 01:17:59
			It's not come to the fore.
		
01:18:00 --> 01:18:01
			Maybe it's something like that.
		
01:18:01 --> 01:18:05
			Whereas in political issues, it's more that it's
		
01:18:05 --> 01:18:05
			set up.
		
01:18:05 --> 01:18:07
			And in England and in other places, it's
		
01:18:07 --> 01:18:08
			more about, okay, you can't talk about jihad
		
01:18:09 --> 01:18:12
			unless it's in a very specific way.
		
01:18:13 --> 01:18:15
			And then the LGBTQ issues, although it's calmed
		
01:18:15 --> 01:18:16
			down, hopefully, a bit.
		
01:18:16 --> 01:18:19
			I think people have understood where things are
		
01:18:19 --> 01:18:20
			going.
		
01:18:21 --> 01:18:22
			So I think there's always going to be
		
01:18:22 --> 01:18:25
			some of that for either imposed on you
		
01:18:25 --> 01:18:27
			or just because we're humans and we don't
		
01:18:27 --> 01:18:27
			have that.
		
01:18:27 --> 01:18:29
			I'm not sure if I've answered the question.
		
01:18:30 --> 01:18:30
			But I just can't...
		
01:18:30 --> 01:18:31
			Is it something you think about?
		
01:18:31 --> 01:18:33
			Is there something you think about that...
		
01:18:33 --> 01:18:34
			Definitely, definitely.
		
01:18:34 --> 01:18:36
			Something I need to be aware of my
		
01:18:36 --> 01:18:37
			blind spots.
		
01:18:38 --> 01:18:38
			Definitely.
		
01:18:39 --> 01:18:41
			In fact, we've had this discussion with ulama
		
01:18:41 --> 01:18:43
			that, okay, we're not speaking about this issue
		
01:18:43 --> 01:18:43
			enough.
		
01:18:44 --> 01:18:45
			People aren't speaking about this anymore.
		
01:18:46 --> 01:18:49
			Because either those issues become cliched or they
		
01:18:49 --> 01:18:49
			make you...
		
01:18:49 --> 01:18:51
			Or it might be women related issues.
		
01:18:51 --> 01:18:55
			So men speaking doesn't sound right for some
		
01:18:55 --> 01:18:55
			people.
		
01:18:55 --> 01:18:55
			I want to get cancelled.
		
01:18:56 --> 01:18:56
			Right.
		
01:18:56 --> 01:18:57
			Yeah, exactly.
		
01:18:57 --> 01:18:58
			Or something like that.
		
01:18:59 --> 01:19:02
			Or, for example, I mean, I know the
		
01:19:02 --> 01:19:04
			beard featured quite a bit in my discourse,
		
01:19:04 --> 01:19:06
			but that's only because it has caused so
		
01:19:06 --> 01:19:07
			many issues for me.
		
01:19:07 --> 01:19:09
			But otherwise, sometimes some people don't want to
		
01:19:09 --> 01:19:10
			bring that up.
		
01:19:10 --> 01:19:12
			So there are some of these issues like
		
01:19:12 --> 01:19:13
			that, I think.
		
01:19:13 --> 01:19:15
			So sometimes they're just natural, or it's because
		
01:19:15 --> 01:19:19
			it's a social construct, a social issue, and
		
01:19:19 --> 01:19:20
			sometimes a political issue.
		
01:19:21 --> 01:19:24
			I can't even think how the Syrian people
		
01:19:24 --> 01:19:26
			managed to survive.
		
01:19:27 --> 01:19:28
			They clearly did.
		
01:19:28 --> 01:19:30
			But what that did for their brain, maybe
		
01:19:30 --> 01:19:32
			some research can be done on them now,
		
01:19:32 --> 01:19:35
			50 years under that kind of subjugation.
		
01:19:36 --> 01:19:41
			That's the thing with police states and totalitarianism
		
01:19:41 --> 01:19:42
			is kind of...
		
01:19:42 --> 01:19:46
			And power in our day and age, it's
		
01:19:46 --> 01:19:48
			what some call a disciplining type of power.
		
01:19:48 --> 01:19:51
			Before the pharaohs or tyrants or whatever, they
		
01:19:51 --> 01:19:57
			would be able to grab your physical embodiment
		
01:19:57 --> 01:20:00
			and kill you or imprison you or whatever.
		
01:20:00 --> 01:20:02
			But now the tentacles of power are even
		
01:20:02 --> 01:20:06
			involved in our thinking and our language, what
		
01:20:06 --> 01:20:07
			we think we can say or not say,
		
01:20:07 --> 01:20:09
			and surveillance and everything like that.
		
01:20:09 --> 01:20:12
			It's all because of media, social media and
		
01:20:12 --> 01:20:13
			communication.
		
01:20:13 --> 01:20:17
			Because before, if something happened to somebody, few
		
01:20:17 --> 01:20:18
			people would have found out, but not the
		
01:20:18 --> 01:20:19
			whole...
		
01:20:19 --> 01:20:22
			How are they gonna let everybody know?
		
01:20:22 --> 01:20:23
			There would be rudimentary ways of doing that,
		
01:20:23 --> 01:20:24
			obviously.
		
01:20:24 --> 01:20:27
			But I think with what we have, there's
		
01:20:27 --> 01:20:29
			one country where the Muslims are being persecuted
		
01:20:29 --> 01:20:30
			to a certain degree.
		
01:20:31 --> 01:20:33
			There's pogroms against Muslims and so on.
		
01:20:33 --> 01:20:35
			But the problem is that they're not organized.
		
01:20:36 --> 01:20:37
			They're not organized.
		
01:20:37 --> 01:20:40
			And they believe in a lot of hearsay.
		
01:20:40 --> 01:20:44
			They believe in a lot of conspiracy theories
		
01:20:44 --> 01:20:46
			or how powerful somebody is or how powerful
		
01:20:46 --> 01:20:46
			somebody is not.
		
01:20:47 --> 01:20:50
			That is another, probably a reason of why
		
01:20:50 --> 01:20:52
			people then do some things in certain ways.
		
01:20:53 --> 01:20:53
			Yeah.
		
01:20:55 --> 01:20:56
			Yeah.
		
01:20:56 --> 01:20:58
			I mean, I was just thinking the other
		
01:20:58 --> 01:21:01
			day, and I tell people this sometimes like
		
01:21:01 --> 01:21:04
			in whatever khutba or whatever, you know, imagine,
		
01:21:04 --> 01:21:07
			close your eyes, imagine you're watching TV and
		
01:21:07 --> 01:21:10
			it's the news and they've got like a
		
01:21:10 --> 01:21:13
			quote-unquote Islamic person, Islamic-looking person, Mawlana
		
01:21:13 --> 01:21:15
			Sahib or something, with a beard and hat
		
01:21:15 --> 01:21:17
			and that kind of stuff, or a sister
		
01:21:17 --> 01:21:18
			in a or something.
		
01:21:19 --> 01:21:20
			And, you know, they're putting a mic in
		
01:21:20 --> 01:21:22
			front of them.
		
01:21:22 --> 01:21:24
			What is that person talking about?
		
01:21:25 --> 01:21:25
			You know, on the news?
		
01:21:26 --> 01:21:28
			And everyone's be like, you know, yeah, they're
		
01:21:28 --> 01:21:30
			probably talking about halal meat or, you know,
		
01:21:31 --> 01:21:32
			Islamic schools or something.
		
01:21:32 --> 01:21:34
			Or maybe I push anti-terrorism laws or
		
01:21:34 --> 01:21:34
			something.
		
01:21:35 --> 01:21:38
			But we don't think that maybe they're talking
		
01:21:38 --> 01:21:41
			about the NHS or policing or, you know,
		
01:21:41 --> 01:21:43
			the bins not being collected on time or
		
01:21:43 --> 01:21:46
			just general kind of real life.
		
01:21:46 --> 01:21:50
			They're like Mawlana Ibrahim Moghra who comes on
		
01:21:50 --> 01:21:51
			with a big turban and mashallah, you know.
		
01:21:52 --> 01:21:53
			We do have a few, but I think
		
01:21:53 --> 01:21:54
			we need a lot more.
		
01:21:54 --> 01:21:57
			But even them, they're like, I don't want
		
01:21:57 --> 01:22:01
			to kind of gun any individual here, but
		
01:22:01 --> 01:22:04
			like they always wheeled out for a particular
		
01:22:04 --> 01:22:05
			purpose, right?
		
01:22:06 --> 01:22:08
			Like, okay, let's talk about quote-unquote Islamic
		
01:22:08 --> 01:22:12
			issues or Muslim-related issues, not general, you
		
01:22:12 --> 01:22:16
			know, running almost as though they're Islamic people.
		
01:22:16 --> 01:22:18
			Okay, you can have your little box here
		
01:22:18 --> 01:22:20
			that you talk about these things, but let
		
01:22:20 --> 01:22:24
			us talk about the real life, you know,
		
01:22:24 --> 01:22:27
			about the economy, about this, about that.
		
01:22:27 --> 01:22:28
			I think it happened naturally though.
		
01:22:29 --> 01:22:29
			Eventually, I think.
		
01:22:29 --> 01:22:32
			I did, I was really, I was watching
		
01:22:32 --> 01:22:35
			this documentary, I don't know what it was,
		
01:22:35 --> 01:22:39
			a program about Lidl and just how it's
		
01:22:39 --> 01:22:40
			fascinating how it works.
		
01:22:41 --> 01:22:43
			And there was a sister there and it
		
01:22:43 --> 01:22:45
			was like an Islamic name, whatever, Fatima or
		
01:22:45 --> 01:22:46
			something.
		
01:22:46 --> 01:22:48
			I was like, wow, she's just like just
		
01:22:48 --> 01:22:51
			a Muslim talking about some business thing about
		
01:22:51 --> 01:22:53
			Lidl or whatever, some expert.
		
01:22:53 --> 01:22:56
			I thought, wow, that's actually a good step
		
01:22:56 --> 01:22:57
			in the right direction.
		
01:22:57 --> 01:23:00
			But like, do you get what I'm saying
		
01:23:00 --> 01:23:00
			here?
		
01:23:00 --> 01:23:06
			It's like Islamic, people who discourse Islam, Muslim
		
01:23:06 --> 01:23:10
			kind of activists.
		
01:23:10 --> 01:23:12
			I think we need to get out of
		
01:23:12 --> 01:23:18
			our constraints and kind of push our community
		
01:23:18 --> 01:23:21
			to be fully Islamic and practicing.
		
01:23:22 --> 01:23:25
			But, you know, like the Sahaba, the Prophet,
		
01:23:25 --> 01:23:28
			the senior Sahaba, they were politicians, they were
		
01:23:28 --> 01:23:30
			businessmen, they were traders, they were Mujahideen.
		
01:23:30 --> 01:23:36
			I think our Sheikh Yusuf Muttara, he took
		
01:23:36 --> 01:23:41
			a decision, I think around 2005 or 2006,
		
01:23:41 --> 01:23:43
			to start sending the ulama to university.
		
01:23:44 --> 01:23:45
			See, it's quite strange.
		
01:23:45 --> 01:23:47
			I particularly, when I first heard it, I
		
01:23:47 --> 01:23:48
			found it a bit strange.
		
01:23:49 --> 01:23:51
			That may have been his idea that, number
		
01:23:51 --> 01:23:53
			one, I don't think ulama are all going
		
01:23:53 --> 01:23:54
			to be able to be imams because there's
		
01:23:54 --> 01:23:56
			not enough masjids and so on.
		
01:23:56 --> 01:23:58
			And there's obviously ways to earn a living.
		
01:23:58 --> 01:23:59
			Yeah.
		
01:23:59 --> 01:23:59
			They've got this.
		
01:24:00 --> 01:24:01
			And I think the third one was so
		
01:24:01 --> 01:24:05
			that we have Muslim representation in multiple fields.
		
01:24:06 --> 01:24:06
			Yeah.
		
01:24:06 --> 01:24:08
			So, alhamdulillah, there are fields they've gone into,
		
01:24:09 --> 01:24:10
			but I guess we're still a minority, a
		
01:24:10 --> 01:24:12
			huge, very strong one.
		
01:24:12 --> 01:24:13
			So we're not going to be seen yet.
		
01:24:13 --> 01:24:15
			But I think we also not just ulama
		
01:24:15 --> 01:24:18
			and alimat, but we actually just need regular,
		
01:24:18 --> 01:24:20
			decent, practicing Muslims.
		
01:24:20 --> 01:24:20
			Yes, agreed.
		
01:24:21 --> 01:24:25
			To just go up there with their Islamic
		
01:24:25 --> 01:24:27
			look as such, whether that be a hijab
		
01:24:27 --> 01:24:28
			or the beard and so on.
		
01:24:29 --> 01:24:32
			And for some reason, there's not enough.
		
01:24:32 --> 01:24:36
			Is it because practicing people kind of shy
		
01:24:36 --> 01:24:37
			away from those positions?
		
01:24:38 --> 01:24:40
			Or when they get there, they shave their
		
01:24:40 --> 01:24:40
			beards.
		
01:24:41 --> 01:24:45
			I think, honestly, it will happen naturally because
		
01:24:45 --> 01:24:47
			we're looking at this is probably the first,
		
01:24:48 --> 01:24:51
			second generation now where you've got entire people
		
01:24:51 --> 01:24:53
			have gone through the entire system.
		
01:24:53 --> 01:24:54
			Exactly, second generation.
		
01:24:54 --> 01:24:55
			So they understand the system.
		
01:24:56 --> 01:24:56
			But that's here, isn't it?
		
01:24:57 --> 01:24:57
			That's here.
		
01:24:57 --> 01:24:57
			Yeah.
		
01:24:58 --> 01:25:00
			But this is also relevant for Syria.
		
01:25:00 --> 01:25:03
			Now, look, they're looking for people to rebuild
		
01:25:03 --> 01:25:06
			Syria, to be in the new governments in
		
01:25:06 --> 01:25:07
			a few months' time.
		
01:25:08 --> 01:25:12
			Where are there ulama that are ready to...
		
01:25:12 --> 01:25:13
			But does it have to be ulama?
		
01:25:13 --> 01:25:14
			This is the other thing.
		
01:25:14 --> 01:25:17
			Ulama to give the guidance, give the fatawa,
		
01:25:18 --> 01:25:20
			give the cutting edge kind of Ijtihad that's
		
01:25:20 --> 01:25:21
			required for today.
		
01:25:21 --> 01:25:21
			I think they do.
		
01:25:22 --> 01:25:23
			They have some.
		
01:25:23 --> 01:25:26
			Those who are part of the northern areas,
		
01:25:27 --> 01:25:29
			I heard that they really upped their game
		
01:25:29 --> 01:25:30
			and they were...
		
01:25:30 --> 01:25:32
			Because that's how they were able to kind
		
01:25:32 --> 01:25:34
			of smoothly transition this.
		
01:25:34 --> 01:25:36
			So what I've heard from people in that
		
01:25:36 --> 01:25:38
			area who mentioned certain things that in the
		
01:25:38 --> 01:25:41
			last year or two, they've been really preparing
		
01:25:41 --> 01:25:44
			those civic kind of responsibility rather than just
		
01:25:44 --> 01:25:45
			focusing on fighting.
		
01:25:46 --> 01:25:50
			They were literally focusing on building the industry
		
01:25:50 --> 01:25:53
			and building the infrastructure and so on.
		
01:25:53 --> 01:25:55
			So hopefully they've got enough, obviously.
		
01:25:56 --> 01:25:58
			The team, I was speaking to the team
		
01:25:58 --> 01:25:59
			earlier, the Assam Tunisia team, and they were
		
01:25:59 --> 01:26:02
			saying that one of the things they wanted
		
01:26:02 --> 01:26:03
			to ask you is what is the role
		
01:26:03 --> 01:26:07
			of scholars in now rebuilding Syria and what
		
01:26:07 --> 01:26:11
			are the kind of lessons from this that
		
01:26:11 --> 01:26:14
			other Muslim-majority countries and ulema there can
		
01:26:14 --> 01:26:16
			take as well in terms of...
		
01:26:16 --> 01:26:19
			Like, I don't want to mention kind of
		
01:26:19 --> 01:26:21
			individual country names, but there was one country
		
01:26:21 --> 01:26:24
			where there was a, for a period of
		
01:26:24 --> 01:26:29
			time, there was a leader who was kind
		
01:26:29 --> 01:26:32
			of elected who was a bit more pro
		
01:26:32 --> 01:26:33
			-Islam and stuff.
		
01:26:33 --> 01:26:36
			And he went to the ulema and the
		
01:26:36 --> 01:26:40
			Islamic universities and madrasas heads and said, look,
		
01:26:40 --> 01:26:44
			I want you to give us guidance.
		
01:26:44 --> 01:26:46
			How do we make our economy more Islamic?
		
01:26:46 --> 01:26:48
			How do we make this more Islamic?
		
01:26:49 --> 01:26:52
			And what I heard was they weren't prepared
		
01:26:52 --> 01:26:56
			to, or there wasn't enough appetite to engage
		
01:26:56 --> 01:26:57
			on that level.
		
01:26:57 --> 01:26:59
			At least try to bring the system a
		
01:26:59 --> 01:27:00
			bit more towards...
		
01:27:01 --> 01:27:02
			Yeah, there's Bangladesh right now.
		
01:27:02 --> 01:27:03
			I'm sure the ulema, they would be more
		
01:27:03 --> 01:27:05
			than happy to contribute.
		
01:27:05 --> 01:27:07
			They're just raring to go.
		
01:27:07 --> 01:27:08
			And I don't think this is my subject,
		
01:27:08 --> 01:27:09
			to be honest.
		
01:27:09 --> 01:27:11
			But even, I don't think there's anything, I
		
01:27:11 --> 01:27:14
			mean, I see, when we think about it
		
01:27:14 --> 01:27:16
			in a kind of an Islamic quote-unquote
		
01:27:16 --> 01:27:19
			state or a country, you're going to have
		
01:27:19 --> 01:27:20
			experts in different fields.
		
01:27:20 --> 01:27:21
			And they should be.
		
01:27:21 --> 01:27:23
			You have experts around urban planning, experts in
		
01:27:23 --> 01:27:29
			hospitals, experts in education, and experts in the
		
01:27:29 --> 01:27:31
			Islamic side as well, in terms of understanding
		
01:27:31 --> 01:27:31
			people.
		
01:27:32 --> 01:27:33
			And you refer to them.
		
01:27:33 --> 01:27:35
			I think one country that's doing it is
		
01:27:35 --> 01:27:36
			probably Afghanistan.
		
01:27:36 --> 01:27:37
			Yeah.
		
01:27:37 --> 01:27:37
			Right?
		
01:27:37 --> 01:27:40
			That's probably the model that they're probably doing
		
01:27:40 --> 01:27:41
			it best in terms of...
		
01:27:42 --> 01:27:45
			I think most of their ministers are probably
		
01:27:45 --> 01:27:46
			ulema at some level.
		
01:27:47 --> 01:27:47
			That's interesting.
		
01:27:47 --> 01:27:48
			Not all of them, maybe.
		
01:27:48 --> 01:27:49
			Yeah.
		
01:27:49 --> 01:27:51
			The ones that, yeah, they're probably ulema.
		
01:27:52 --> 01:27:55
			And definitely the big Sheikh signs of everything,
		
01:27:55 --> 01:27:58
			the Amir al-Mumineen, he signs of everything.
		
01:27:59 --> 01:28:01
			So that's probably one way to follow.
		
01:28:01 --> 01:28:02
			But I don't know if every place can
		
01:28:02 --> 01:28:02
			do that.
		
01:28:03 --> 01:28:05
			Because they're very tribal, traditional.
		
01:28:06 --> 01:28:07
			They've got that system in place.
		
01:28:07 --> 01:28:08
			Yeah.
		
01:28:09 --> 01:28:10
			Whereas in other places, you're going to have
		
01:28:10 --> 01:28:12
			to invite other people and so on.
		
01:28:13 --> 01:28:15
			I mean, you need the right person, the
		
01:28:15 --> 01:28:17
			right seat for everything, like you said.
		
01:28:18 --> 01:28:20
			But I mean, the ulema, they need to
		
01:28:20 --> 01:28:23
			be there for guiding, giving the...
		
01:28:24 --> 01:28:29
			What does fiqh say about our fiqh tradition?
		
01:28:29 --> 01:28:32
			What does it say about building a state
		
01:28:32 --> 01:28:32
			now?
		
01:28:33 --> 01:28:36
			There must be some guidance.
		
01:28:36 --> 01:28:38
			I mean, Mashallah, the Afghanis have done a
		
01:28:38 --> 01:28:39
			good job on that.
		
01:28:39 --> 01:28:40
			They've got a number of books.
		
01:28:40 --> 01:28:41
			Yeah.
		
01:28:41 --> 01:28:42
			They've got a number of books on that
		
01:28:42 --> 01:28:44
			subject.
		
01:28:44 --> 01:28:46
			I guess because they had to do it.
		
01:28:46 --> 01:28:47
			So they've done it.
		
01:28:47 --> 01:28:48
			Yeah.
		
01:28:48 --> 01:28:49
			We're thinking like, what...
		
01:28:49 --> 01:28:51
			And it's real though, isn't it, Sheikh?
		
01:28:51 --> 01:28:52
			Like, you know, it's very different when you're,
		
01:28:52 --> 01:28:54
			as you're saying, kind of thinking about things
		
01:28:54 --> 01:28:55
			theoretically.
		
01:28:55 --> 01:28:57
			Like, you know, say dealing finance.
		
01:28:57 --> 01:28:59
			Sometimes I have discussions with the mashaikh and
		
01:28:59 --> 01:29:00
			they're like, oh, why didn't you just do
		
01:29:00 --> 01:29:00
			this?
		
01:29:00 --> 01:29:01
			Yeah, it's not that simple.
		
01:29:01 --> 01:29:02
			It's not as simple as that.
		
01:29:02 --> 01:29:04
			When you're dealing with regulation and you're dealing
		
01:29:04 --> 01:29:05
			with...
		
01:29:05 --> 01:29:07
			One of the things, for example, I remember
		
01:29:07 --> 01:29:10
			speaking with Pakistan, with the finance minister a
		
01:29:10 --> 01:29:11
			few years ago.
		
01:29:11 --> 01:29:13
			And they had this fatwa that they wanted
		
01:29:13 --> 01:29:15
			to make Pakistan riba free, ribas outlawed in
		
01:29:15 --> 01:29:17
			Pakistan a number of years ago.
		
01:29:17 --> 01:29:18
			But it's not the case.
		
01:29:18 --> 01:29:20
			And there was actual discussions about how do
		
01:29:20 --> 01:29:20
			you do it?
		
01:29:20 --> 01:29:22
			And I said, well, look, one of the
		
01:29:22 --> 01:29:25
			things is that your external obligations, you have
		
01:29:25 --> 01:29:27
			to leave them as they are because...
		
01:29:27 --> 01:29:30
			And then deal with the internal first, having
		
01:29:30 --> 01:29:31
			a system internally.
		
01:29:31 --> 01:29:33
			Because as soon as you start saying we're
		
01:29:33 --> 01:29:36
			not going to pay external interest, you're going
		
01:29:36 --> 01:29:37
			to invite...
		
01:29:37 --> 01:29:38
			That's how you get invaded.
		
01:29:39 --> 01:29:41
			Yeah, a foreign invasion, effectively.
		
01:29:41 --> 01:29:42
			So there's certain things you've got to look
		
01:29:42 --> 01:29:42
			at.
		
01:29:42 --> 01:29:44
			But you say that some people say, oh,
		
01:29:45 --> 01:29:47
			so ribas allowed and you're picking and choosing.
		
01:29:48 --> 01:29:50
			It's not the actual navigation within the system
		
01:29:50 --> 01:29:53
			or when you're dealing with real world scenarios
		
01:29:53 --> 01:29:55
			or you're dealing with finite resources and you've
		
01:29:55 --> 01:30:00
			got to talk about actually helping certain patients
		
01:30:00 --> 01:30:03
			over others and all of these things like
		
01:30:03 --> 01:30:05
			real world fiqh.
		
01:30:05 --> 01:30:07
			So Pakistan, for example, that's a good example
		
01:30:07 --> 01:30:09
			because they can do things.
		
01:30:09 --> 01:30:09
			Yeah.
		
01:30:09 --> 01:30:15
			So you've got Mufti Taqi Osmani, he does
		
01:30:15 --> 01:30:16
			his finance things.
		
01:30:16 --> 01:30:19
			Then you've got another madrasa they call Jami
		
01:30:19 --> 01:30:19
			'at al-Rashid.
		
01:30:20 --> 01:30:22
			Now, they have taken a completely different role.
		
01:30:23 --> 01:30:26
			They've become very close to the army and
		
01:30:26 --> 01:30:28
			so on to such a degree that others
		
01:30:28 --> 01:30:29
			are criticising them.
		
01:30:30 --> 01:30:34
			And they are trying to produce ulama, they've
		
01:30:34 --> 01:30:38
			got a university separate to this, multiple projects
		
01:30:38 --> 01:30:40
			to try to actually produce people to go
		
01:30:40 --> 01:30:41
			into all of these fields.
		
01:30:42 --> 01:30:43
			They have that grand plan.
		
01:30:44 --> 01:30:46
			So there are people who are doing it,
		
01:30:46 --> 01:30:47
			but I don't think that would be the
		
01:30:47 --> 01:30:50
			first scope because who's going to hire you
		
01:30:50 --> 01:30:51
			if we did that in different countries?
		
01:30:51 --> 01:30:54
			Obviously, Syria will need that and hopefully the
		
01:30:54 --> 01:30:55
			ulama will now do it.
		
01:30:55 --> 01:30:56
			They've not had a scope to do that
		
01:30:56 --> 01:30:57
			until now.
		
01:30:57 --> 01:30:58
			They couldn't, right?
		
01:30:58 --> 01:31:00
			So now hopefully they will produce that kind
		
01:31:00 --> 01:31:00
			of thing.
		
01:31:02 --> 01:31:04
			Masha'Allah, in Jordan, for example, they do
		
01:31:04 --> 01:31:09
			have ulama that are involved in different areas.
		
01:31:10 --> 01:31:12
			They have the mufti of the armed forces.
		
01:31:13 --> 01:31:14
			So that's a special position.
		
01:31:15 --> 01:31:17
			And there's a consultation that happens.
		
01:31:18 --> 01:31:19
			So there are some countries that do better
		
01:31:19 --> 01:31:20
			than others.
		
01:31:20 --> 01:31:22
			There are no absolute police states.
		
01:31:24 --> 01:31:26
			We've taken a lot of your time, Sheikh.
		
01:31:26 --> 01:31:28
			It was really, really appreciative.
		
01:31:29 --> 01:31:31
			We've got, let's just wrap it up with
		
01:31:31 --> 01:31:31
			one final question.
		
01:31:32 --> 01:31:33
			One, no, there's two.
		
01:31:33 --> 01:31:34
			Yeah, you have some more?
		
01:31:34 --> 01:31:35
			I have two, just two.
		
01:31:35 --> 01:31:37
			One was around the Christian quarter.
		
01:31:37 --> 01:31:38
			Let's see, you can choose your favourite.
		
01:31:39 --> 01:31:40
			You can choose.
		
01:31:40 --> 01:31:41
			One was around the Christian quarter and the
		
01:31:41 --> 01:31:44
			other one was around the significance of Syria
		
01:31:44 --> 01:31:46
			from an end of time perspective.
		
01:31:47 --> 01:31:51
			So what's really interesting is that once I
		
01:31:51 --> 01:31:54
			went for a tour around the masjid, it's
		
01:31:54 --> 01:31:56
			a huge masjid, and then it's got communities
		
01:31:56 --> 01:31:58
			that spring off there.
		
01:31:58 --> 01:32:00
			So it's not easy to just walk around
		
01:32:00 --> 01:32:02
			the masjid or the outer boundary and periphery
		
01:32:02 --> 01:32:03
			of the masjid.
		
01:32:06 --> 01:32:08
			So what was really interesting is that we
		
01:32:08 --> 01:32:14
			walked and took a right, so went from
		
01:32:14 --> 01:32:16
			the right-hand side, if we're facing the
		
01:32:16 --> 01:32:19
			Qibla, and then behind the front Qibla wall.
		
01:32:19 --> 01:32:21
			And when you get to the edge where
		
01:32:21 --> 01:32:24
			the eastern minaret is, very interestingly, that is
		
01:32:24 --> 01:32:26
			the Christian quarter of Damascus.
		
01:32:27 --> 01:32:28
			All right, behind the minaret?
		
01:32:28 --> 01:32:30
			Yes, in that area.
		
01:32:30 --> 01:32:34
			I used to come in from the right
		
01:32:34 --> 01:32:35
			-hand side of the masjid.
		
01:32:35 --> 01:32:36
			That's where Souk Hamidiyah is.
		
01:32:37 --> 01:32:39
			Then there's lots of other small bazaars.
		
01:32:40 --> 01:32:43
			Then after that, there's some residences, different areas.
		
01:32:43 --> 01:32:44
			It's a huge land.
		
01:32:44 --> 01:32:45
			It's huge.
		
01:32:45 --> 01:32:46
			Imagine Masjid al-Nabawi.
		
01:32:46 --> 01:32:49
			And then the homes are much smaller, so
		
01:32:49 --> 01:32:50
			they're not like Masjid al-Nabawi where they
		
01:32:50 --> 01:32:51
			have big hotels, right?
		
01:32:51 --> 01:32:54
			These are small streets, and lots of people
		
01:32:54 --> 01:32:55
			live around those areas.
		
01:32:55 --> 01:32:56
			So that's the Christian quarter.
		
01:32:57 --> 01:32:59
			What I found interesting was that that's where
		
01:32:59 --> 01:33:00
			Isa A.S. is going to descend, and
		
01:33:00 --> 01:33:02
			the Christian quarter is right behind it.
		
01:33:03 --> 01:33:04
			Because remember, that's where Isa A.S. is
		
01:33:04 --> 01:33:05
			going to descend.
		
01:33:05 --> 01:33:07
			The Prophet S.A.W. made this prophecy
		
01:33:07 --> 01:33:09
			while this masjid did not even exist at
		
01:33:09 --> 01:33:09
			the time.
		
01:33:09 --> 01:33:10
			Right?
		
01:33:11 --> 01:33:13
			And the Christians, the story, as mentioned, Al
		
01:33:13 --> 01:33:15
			-Isha'a fi Ashraat al-Sa'a by
		
01:33:15 --> 01:33:17
			Barzanji, I think.
		
01:33:17 --> 01:33:19
			He mentions that the Muslims will be there,
		
01:33:19 --> 01:33:21
			and the Christians will be there waiting for
		
01:33:21 --> 01:33:22
			Jesus, peace be upon him.
		
01:33:22 --> 01:33:23
			And he will come down there.
		
01:33:23 --> 01:33:25
			So I find it really interesting that the
		
01:33:25 --> 01:33:26
			Christian quarter is right there.
		
01:33:27 --> 01:33:28
			I don't know what significance that holds, but
		
01:33:28 --> 01:33:30
			that was really interesting, right?
		
01:33:31 --> 01:33:32
			Now, in terms of end of time, yes,
		
01:33:32 --> 01:33:34
			that is where the Muslims, there'll be huge
		
01:33:34 --> 01:33:36
			trouble around, and some of that trouble will
		
01:33:36 --> 01:33:38
			be represented in Damascus itself.
		
01:33:38 --> 01:33:40
			There's some weak narrations and other narrations that
		
01:33:40 --> 01:33:41
			talk about various different events.
		
01:33:42 --> 01:33:43
			I'm not going to go into that, but
		
01:33:43 --> 01:33:45
			I've got this whole series on that.
		
01:33:46 --> 01:33:46
			Okay.
		
01:33:46 --> 01:33:48
			It's called Signs of the Day of Judgment
		
01:33:48 --> 01:33:50
			on Al-Zamzam Academy, right?
		
01:33:50 --> 01:33:51
			That goes right from the time of Prophet
		
01:33:51 --> 01:33:52
			S.A.W. with some of the signs,
		
01:33:52 --> 01:33:55
			early signs, intermediate signs, latest signs.
		
01:33:56 --> 01:33:57
			And then after that, everybody's going to be
		
01:33:57 --> 01:33:59
			waiting for Isa A.S. Mahdi, may Allah
		
01:33:59 --> 01:34:00
			be pleased with him, who is there.
		
01:34:00 --> 01:34:01
			So they say that's going to happen in
		
01:34:01 --> 01:34:01
			Jamia al-Umawi.
		
01:34:02 --> 01:34:06
			And then when Isa A.S. descends on
		
01:34:06 --> 01:34:08
			the angels, then what's going to happen is
		
01:34:08 --> 01:34:13
			the famous narration that Mahdi, may Allah be
		
01:34:13 --> 01:34:14
			pleased with him, is going to tell him,
		
01:34:14 --> 01:34:16
			why don't you go and lead the prayer?
		
01:34:16 --> 01:34:18
			And he says, no, you carry on.
		
01:34:18 --> 01:34:19
			So he leads the prayer.
		
01:34:20 --> 01:34:21
			After that, you don't actually hear much about
		
01:34:21 --> 01:34:22
			Mahdi, may Allah be pleased with him.
		
01:34:22 --> 01:34:23
			It looks like Isa A.S. takes over.
		
01:34:24 --> 01:34:26
			Then he goes from there to Damascus, and
		
01:34:26 --> 01:34:27
			that's where he kills the Dajjal.
		
01:34:27 --> 01:34:30
			So that's why Syria, there's multiple other narrations
		
01:34:30 --> 01:34:33
			about the safety of Syria, which are very
		
01:34:33 --> 01:34:35
			interesting, about the safety of Syria.
		
01:34:35 --> 01:34:40
			There's also many, many Awliya that are in
		
01:34:40 --> 01:34:40
			Syria.
		
01:34:40 --> 01:34:42
			If you go into the kind of Awliya
		
01:34:42 --> 01:34:45
			hierarchy, which I don't want to confuse people
		
01:34:45 --> 01:34:47
			with the Qutub and the Abdal and so
		
01:34:47 --> 01:34:49
			on, they're talking about Mount Qasiyun.
		
01:34:49 --> 01:34:50
			And I did go up there, and there's
		
01:34:50 --> 01:34:51
			a little masjid up there.
		
01:34:51 --> 01:34:55
			They've got like 40 inscriptions on the wall
		
01:34:55 --> 01:34:59
			for the 40 Abdal of Damascus.
		
01:34:59 --> 01:35:03
			So there's a very strong Sufi kind of
		
01:35:03 --> 01:35:07
			significance to Damascus as well.
		
01:35:13 --> 01:35:16
			My last question would be, if you could
		
01:35:16 --> 01:35:20
			deliver one message directly to the new Syrian
		
01:35:20 --> 01:35:21
			leadership, what would it be?
		
01:35:22 --> 01:35:26
			New Syrian leadership, don't make mistakes that other
		
01:35:26 --> 01:35:27
			places have made.
		
01:35:28 --> 01:35:31
			Be careful of various different influences.
		
01:35:31 --> 01:35:33
			Everybody wants to be influenced, because it's just
		
01:35:33 --> 01:35:35
			a very critical realm.
		
01:35:35 --> 01:35:36
			That's a very critical area.
		
01:35:37 --> 01:35:39
			And try to do well for the people
		
01:35:39 --> 01:35:41
			and make sure it doesn't go back, as
		
01:35:41 --> 01:35:43
			some countries have gone back into the whole
		
01:35:43 --> 01:35:45
			repressive regime, unfortunately.
		
01:35:45 --> 01:35:47
			I feel so happy for the Syrian people.
		
01:35:47 --> 01:35:49
			So we don't know what's going to happen.
		
01:35:49 --> 01:35:51
			We don't know what's going on really in
		
01:35:51 --> 01:35:52
			terms of what meets the eye.
		
01:35:52 --> 01:35:54
			But I'm very, very happy that at least
		
01:35:54 --> 01:35:55
			they're out of that, they're out of the
		
01:35:55 --> 01:35:55
			prisons.
		
01:35:57 --> 01:35:59
			And optimistically, cautiously, I want to say that
		
01:35:59 --> 01:36:01
			may Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala make it
		
01:36:01 --> 01:36:01
			wonderful for them.
		
01:36:02 --> 01:36:03
			Just try to make the place a good
		
01:36:03 --> 01:36:04
			place.
		
01:36:04 --> 01:36:07
			Learn from other places that have stabilized the
		
01:36:07 --> 01:36:08
			economy and did things.
		
01:36:09 --> 01:36:10
			I mean, Afghanistan is a good example, to
		
01:36:10 --> 01:36:11
			be honest.
		
01:36:11 --> 01:36:12
			They just stayed silent.
		
01:36:12 --> 01:36:13
			They cut off from the rest of the
		
01:36:13 --> 01:36:14
			world.
		
01:36:14 --> 01:36:15
			But they've got stability.
		
01:36:16 --> 01:36:17
			They did not implode.
		
01:36:17 --> 01:36:20
			I think everybody probably thought that within a
		
01:36:20 --> 01:36:21
			year or two, they're going to implode.
		
01:36:21 --> 01:36:22
			They were just critical.
		
01:36:22 --> 01:36:23
			The West was very critical of Afghanistan.
		
01:36:24 --> 01:36:26
			And they've stabilized themselves.
		
01:36:26 --> 01:36:28
			Their currency is quite strong now.
		
01:36:29 --> 01:36:30
			They've got contracts in place.
		
01:36:30 --> 01:36:32
			Unfortunately, they've got this little thing going on
		
01:36:32 --> 01:36:33
			in Pakistan now, unfortunately.
		
01:36:33 --> 01:36:34
			Yeah, it's just so silly.
		
01:36:35 --> 01:36:37
			Yeah, Allah, Allah, relieve them of that issue.
		
01:36:37 --> 01:36:38
			But yeah, maybe just learn.
		
01:36:38 --> 01:36:40
			We've got lots of examples, lots of examples.
		
01:36:41 --> 01:36:43
			And maybe the Taliban also learn from their
		
01:36:43 --> 01:36:47
			previous mistakes and their previous experiences, even before
		
01:36:47 --> 01:36:49
			the Taliban, where they started fighting with one
		
01:36:49 --> 01:36:49
			another.
		
01:36:50 --> 01:36:52
			They said, no, we have to stay together.
		
01:36:53 --> 01:36:54
			We have to stay together.
		
01:36:54 --> 01:36:55
			Unity.
		
01:36:55 --> 01:36:56
			I would just say, keep it unified.
		
01:36:57 --> 01:36:58
			MashaAllah, MashaAllah.
		
01:36:58 --> 01:36:59
			Okay, JazakAllah Khair, Sheikh.
		
01:37:00 --> 01:37:01
			JazakAllah Khair, Omar, for joining.
		
01:37:02 --> 01:37:03
			And JazakAllah Khair to you at home for
		
01:37:03 --> 01:37:04
			watching.
		
01:37:04 --> 01:37:05
			If you like this podcast, as usual, give
		
01:37:05 --> 01:37:06
			a like and a share.
		
01:37:06 --> 01:37:08
			Let us know in the comments if you
		
01:37:08 --> 01:37:11
			have any other questions you'd like us to
		
01:37:11 --> 01:37:13
			put to Sheikh Mufti Sahib.
		
01:37:13 --> 01:37:15
			And we'll call him back, inshaAllah, in a
		
01:37:15 --> 01:37:15
			future episode.
		
01:37:15 --> 01:37:18
			Until next time, Asalaamu Alaikum Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuh.