Ridealong – How to Be Unawkwardly Muslim with Belal Khan

Do you want to start this off? Recording? Yes, we are recording live or not live, but on the go. So we're on the way to Corpus Christi, Texas for a helping hand event. And it's it gets it gets pretty redneck out here, I wouldn't call them pretty rednecks.

Like there was a guy with a pickup truck. And it was just like four dogs on the pickup truck. And he parked it into a gas station. And the dogs

like they couldn't they look like they could just jump off and run up on you at any second. There was nothing to stop them. But anyway, I was just telling, beloved that I you know, I was

I was on a flight a

couple of weeks back, actually, it was on the way to mist. And

a lady was sitting next to me. She was an older lady, but she you know, she was very friendly. This is from Texas, southern hospitality type thing.

And she was asking me like, What do you do and

where are you going? And so in those moments, like I had, like a split second hesitation, like do you?

Do you tell her?

We got to retake it. Why? Because you're not responding at all. Like it's Oh, I'm making it a conversation, or you're listening to me like a lecture.

We're gonna keep this rolling. Oh, man. No, but I mean, here's the thing. I mean, my typical response is that we have to restart the whole thing. Why we're doing it. Let's keep it wrong. Oh, do it this hour. Don't get me wrong. Just trust me on this. Trust me. We started here, just all listening. Like listen mode. Alright, so anyway,

you know, my, my response would be typically, and maybe this is just, I don't know if it's my own insecurity or just out of habit. But so Aman was going to the mist tournament to do some performance and stuff, which is

Muslim interscholastic tournament. So when the lady asked him where you go, and now if I were asked that question, I'd be like, I'm just going to a high school interscholastic tournament. Yeah, like that's the thing that you're, you know, you kind of think about, it's like, do I mentioned the fact that it's Muslim? Or do I just kind of leave that alone? What about her own judgment or what have you? And so right away? Like I had that thought, and then I said to her, like, I'm going to a Muslim interscholastic tournaments. You have your fulfill? Yeah. Well, I guess you can't really get away from that. No, because you don't know. Like, sometimes people don't even connect that when I told

her that. And I told her, she was like, what do you do? And you know, again, some people they give very vague responses, right? It's like, oh, I'm

an artist. Oh, um, you know, I'm a marketing person. Oh, I'm a this some of that. You know, they just play it all. I'm a professor. What?

No, but whatever. I just whatever. I told her. She was like,

she didn't bat an eye. Like, she's an older lady. She didn't bat an eye. She's just like, that's incredible. That's amazing. I in fact, just came back from Iran. She was his geography teacher. Turns out she's a retired geography teacher. She's like, I just came back from Iran. And did you say what she was doing? She was doing some sort of tour like she, she's conducting or taking notes. She was doing some sort of tour. She was, I guess, learning about Iranian culture. She loves going and traveling all over the world and miserable. She's like one of those people who's very passionate about geography. Okay. And so it was she was like, it was hot. And I'm over there. And it was wild.

I was like, Yeah, believe it.

Or whatever. When I was, when I was younger. I visited India one time. Yeah, one of my uncle's was asking me, Hey, do you guys celebrate Muharram in America? And I'm like, celebrating the huddle.

What does that mean?

Like we fasted Ramadan.

We mix it up the month is like, no, no, you know, the swords and stuff.

But they didn't know what they're doing will know. Yeah, you have actual, actual present day. So all of that nobody did. Does she describe what that was?

But she was she was more asking me about me. And so you know, she was like, you know, you're from Sudan. That's great. I'd love to be able to, you know, when she was started giving me all of these different connections, these different professors that she wanted me to meet and all that. And so I was just thinking to myself, you know, subhanAllah there's so many people. You know, they say that the majority of Americans say that they've never met a Muslim. Right. But how many people may have met a Muslim and they just didn't know. And so the question then becomes, you know, is it appropriate that we, you know, we kind of play that or that we out or shut that down or shy away, or

we, you know, we hide it.

And even better than that is, you know, do we have the right to do that.

I guess the other question also comes into play. I think sometimes we're taken to the further extreme. Where, I mean, it's like you showcase

You're a Muslim this everywhere. Well, I see we have on both sides expect, right? You have people who like showcase their Muslim on the on one extreme, where they'll always be walking like the white though and Kofi and like, like the kind of like, awkwardly or not awkwardly, but

annoyingly Yeah. And then you have the other extreme where it's like, they don't want to, like I don't know these guys.

No, I hear you. I remember I had one time a very beloved

very passionate high school kid wanted to wear soap to a public school. And he wanted to like you know, make it a big deal and go to his like, you know, principle and assert that this is his right and religious freedom and I want to wear a tube and all that. So I was I remember telling him like, Listen, man, it it's not an obligation on YouTube. So you don't have to like push those types of boundaries and imagine unless you're a straight up FOB. Even just straight up off. It's not it's not fun upon you to wear it, though. So don't. So don't you have to pick your battles. Because imagine if the the high school had pushed back and said, Okay, you know what, we're banning all religious

clothing.

Or we're just not allowing to keep it unified so that we don't get a headache, we're gonna ban all religious clothing. So now, because of your, you know, impressing upon them that you need to wear. So, you know, you've then blocked your sisters from wearing hijab.

So it's, it's definitely something that people you know, it's an it's an art, it's something that's,

you know, you kind of have to gauge you have to measure. Here's another thing. As young professionals, I think one of the bigger challenges for them

is I think they're more shy

to showcase their Muslim identity. Like in the corporate worker, yeah, the corporate worker, I think, because here's the thing, there's two scenarios

where this stuff is going to always come about, right. So scenario number one, is for those people who actually make it out to drama.

And make it clear that no me doesn't matter if there's a meeting or whatever. They're gonna go for Friday prayer services. Yeah. And the other scenario is Ramadan.

You know, like, where people are not fasting? Because I mean, here's the here's the reality some people might be drinking or whatever but

and they might have been enjoying the happy hour stuff.

Happy Hour culture, yeah, the whole Happy Hour culture. But if but most Muslims

if they I at least internally identify with the whole idea that you know, they are Muslim, and they're gonna adhere to at least the five pillars as best as possible. In terms of what they deem to be their best effort. They will at least go for Gemma. Yeah, they will fasten and I thought, What are your thoughts? Have you ever been in a situation where you felt like you had to hold back on your own?

Outward Muslim this