Bilal Philips – Dr. Beginning of a Legacy

			Millions of Muslims around the world don't have access to Islamic higher education. Many of us don't
have the means to travel and learn at a prestigious Islamic University. Many of us can afford the
fees. So what options do we have as regular Muslims to study formal Islamic higher education, one
man decided to change that, so that when they come, I'm Dr. Bill Phillips, he founded the
International Open University which has educated hundreds of 1000s of Muslims around the world. It's
completely online, extremely affordable, and provides completely accredited degrees. That is my
vision. Today, I meet the man himself to find out how it all began in
		

			education. If the third world gets educated, like the first world in terms of access to education,
etc, then they will potentially surpass what happened is that the opportunity to set up a university
in India arose after the peace conferences of Dr. Zakir Naik, I felt it wouldn't be more beneficial
if it was put into an institution. And Hamdulillah we launched it. But when difficulty government
figuring out what we were about, tries to sabotage the doors closed, I had to come back to Qatar.
And then that point, I decided to launch the IOU online. As we began with just Islamic studies this
which is why we named the university, the Islamic online university, we decided to focus on a simple
		

			setup, really just a matter of preparing the material. If the material was put online students would
read the material etc. There would be some tests given and you know, it's fairly simple. There is a
demand for more modern subjects. So naturally, Dr. Bilal Philips decides to expand when the Sharia
or Islamic Studies curriculum was set, I had decided to add it to the various disciplines which
graduates from Islamic Studies usually were not trained in, but they actually needed it when they
came back to the communities they were tasked with needing community became the head of the
community, the mom, the chef, they were tasked by the community with solving their problems,
		

			counseling and administration had rising. So I added these courses to the overall syllabus, because
these courses were taught by Muslims who had a concern. They were committed to teach their subjects
from an Islamic perspective. What were those moments where you just have 100? laughs Thank God I did
this. Thank God, I used all my resources. Thank God I dedicated I sacrificed everything to get here.
What were those moments were there any Yeah, course of all was said. To me, the goal was worth
sacrifice for when my savings ran out. Others came along and helped out to keep it going. So a loss
seemed to open doors whenever they were needed. From the first that we launched it, people are just
		

			pouring in. And then from there, it has just been moving forward, increasing as time passes, we came
up with the idea of the 1 million scholarships
		

			to provide scholarships for African youth, since they had the lowest percentage of graduates from
high school, meaning accepted into universities finding Indonesia is 36%. And Africa as a continent,
less than 6%. We found that the students didn't have computers that other people were given
scholarships in the Gambia, where our headquarters for the university was chosen. They were also
asking for electricity. In fact, the internet and data was even more expensive than the fees that we
were charging for those who were study online. So we set up learning centers in close to 20
different locations across Africa, focusing on the English speaking countries. So they finally make
		

			it they finally reach global impact. And here Dr. Bill Phillips discovers the significance of what
he started. He sees the impact of all the different communities, but he never imagined he would. The
world doesn't have a choice here.
		

			The future of education is going to be online. It's proven itself as a necessity. hamdulillah the
Muslim world is massive. And if we can take care of this niche, and there are so many other niches
that Muslims can contribute to overall educational upliftment of Alma, they say the sky's the limit,
		

			educating the Ummah, it's not something we can do by ourselves. It's something we must do together.
Dr. Bill Phillips is just one example of what someone can do. If you will have a big enough dream
and a big enough vision. The question is, are you ready to dream big and leave a legacy behind