What the Fiqh – Ep 09
Date:
Channel: Boonaa Mohammed
Series: Boonaa Mohammed - What the Fiqh
File Size: 54.00MB
Episode Notes
Ft. Sh. Ammar AlShukry
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AI Generated Summary ©
The "monster" of the city, police, Muslim community, and media are all charged with past experiences with writing, learning, and working in media. The course is designed to provide a brief overview of the concept and its effects, while addressing challenges such as loss of love and trust. The "monster" of the media includes distraction, busy lifestyles, and a new program called "ma'am" that promotes a lifestyle change. The speakers encourage listeners to subscribe to various programs and take action towards their goals.AI Generated Transcript ©
Bismillah Alhamdulillah wa salatu salam ala rasulillah Assalamu alaykum warahmatullahi wabarakatuhu. Welcome back to another great episode of what the fifth? I'm your host bodum Hemet and I'm joined with an imitation version of me the the, the American version of one of the maiden in North East African version meeting the African version of China made in the African region of China. The the No, I don't owe you money version.
If I owe you money, this brother is the one that asked
me as well, but our model shipping Mashallah.
Amar, always good to see you. And you look more like me every day. Really? Yeah, I'm getting older.
You're getting fatter as people start mistaking me for you more.
First of all, this isn't going to be a useless podcast. Let me tell you from the beginning, this is gonna be a useless podcast
for me, and one that just ends up being
laughter. I mean, I don't think anyone takes me serious anyway. So that's fine.
Do I still get what? Do you still get me the most offensive time that I got? You was in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Okay. Yeah. And if there is a place in this world, what do
we do black people who leave Minneapolis. They sold us out. And again, the message says to me, you
look past the chocolate.
Chocolate. I don't get it that much. You don't get it that much. Now that you've grown up, now you have your own identity your chef now that's why when you were just a poet. It was we're all the same. I think it's just you know,
that they're waiting on the new Buddha, Mohammed. So
now you have before you didn't have, then you were like me?
Just as mosquitoes me.
Amar, you have a very interesting journey. Yeah, man. Do you remember the first time you met? Yes.
No, I don't. I know, I remember the first time we met. But I remember
hearing about you before that. And I always tell people, there's a lot of people that I've given birth to. Yes. A lot. You know, I've had people in my stomach for many, many, many moons. That's why they call you though. That's why they call me the movie, right? Nobody calls me the woman but somebody does they that's a new nickname. I could call myself that. That's not bad.
I gave birth to Las Vegas. And he knows this. He knows us on the podcast. When I told him I gave birth. I gave birth to many, many people. How much older you know how much older? Yes, Columbus, Columbus, another brother I gave birth to Okay, it's big brother. So it was it was a long pregnancy. But humbling. So he's out now. Okay.
You I remember. I remember you sent me a message. Yes, I did. On Facebook. Yes. And you were I messaged you. Yeah. Because you had recorded your for the love. Yeah. Okay. And so I had been dabbling with poetry.
But I never thought of putting it out.
Just locally, doing some use the right way. But I'd written some stuff, but I've never wanted to put it out. And then I wanted to put it out. And I was like, I don't want to like, I don't want to I don't want anybody to think that I am copying or Oh, yeah. I just, I just meant to happen. Anyways, I just messaged and I said, Man, what do you think? We were like, yeah, just go for it.
No, birth was much more intensive than that. I do encourage you, you're down on yourself. You're like, I don't know if I have bars. People are gonna think I look funny. too short.
too dark. And then I was like, look at you. Oh, great, brother. Okay, this is this is revisionist history now.
This is fake news.
I know you are you are genuinely I remember, this is what I remember. Okay. You were genuinely I think you were more. I don't know if you have stage fright, but it was more like nervous about
stuff. I mean, I always tell people it's like when you write. When you create art, like you, you show people your art. You're basically saying this is, you know, my thoughts. And for some people, it's very daunting. It's very private, especially if your art is if it's authentic, and if the realer it gets the more private and the more protective of it. You may be so it was definitely something to get over. So you have some some anxiety and yeah, yeah, I have some anxiety as and there's also the notion of Who am I
Right, like Who am I to I remember creating a public page for myself, you know, and it was actually the city who said, you know, you got to make a public page. And I remember, I don't know if that experience was for you. But for me, it was literally like, I had to put my head under my desk, like an ostrich. Like putting my head in the sand when I was pressing, because I'm just like, this is a shame. Oh, so ashamed. Like, what are my friends gonna think? You're gonna cuz, like, everybody's gonna think like, you're trying to be somebody like, Who are you trying to be like, but you are somebody and why is that? Not when I was making it? Oh, you know, say like, you got to start
somewhere. You got to basically take a plunge. Right? And, and then think that I should take that one is it that you didn't necessarily believe in yourself? I believed in myself, but I didn't believe that I, I needed to be that person. Like, you. You always think there's somebody else who can do what you're doing, or shouldn't be doing what you're doing, especially if it's Islamic. You're just like, Oh, so you thought you were like, under qualified? Yeah. Yeah. It's like, Yeah, but it's so strange to me. Because I like you know, actually, yourself. There's a few brothers who, like I was always really happy to either support or how many gigs that I send your way over the
years. Oh, man, so many a lot like, and you know, I think after a while,
there was a while when I didn't like going to the US because it was just like too much of a headache at any time. They hit me up and be like, Yo, I have a brother. That's perfect for you guys. And I'm just sending me your way. I don't know if they still do it because I stopped recommending now I got I got my I got my stuff together. So I need your help. Yes, it can be smaller than through the El Chapo tunnels. Going in underground. Now you're in big suitcases that say, you know, I'm saying I found a way in.
But I was excited to see someone like yourself. Another brother, like you said Koroma, people that I genuinely respected and I thought they had a good head on their shoulders. I was excited to say, yo, these are the people we should be pushing and promoting. So even when you hit me up, I was kind of like, what I knew he was a student of knowledge. I knew you were it takes a while to get there. Right? So it takes a while for everybody to like now I see that I'm like, okay, like, I'm so excited about people's art. Like, we need more of that. We need more poets, we need more film directors, we need more painters and people making comic strips and this every aspect of which people consume
media, we media we need, we need all of that. But again, it's just daunting when you're the one putting yourself out there. Yeah, at least it was for me and I you know, for some other people, some people it's just, you know, they got it like that myself.
Maybe, you know, maybe it was because I think I came from more of like a hip hop background. And you know, hip hop is like when you come with a hip hop mindset. It's like Yo, I'm the man Yeah, that's all hip hop is anyways a bunch of bravado it's a bunch of you know, beating yourself up like you believe you think you're better than what you actually are right? And I think you are Mashallah much more like kind of grounded in the sense of like understanding Okay, there's a greater purpose as a dow Yeah, no, so you took it from that perspective, I think it from the general perspective so for me, it was much easier so for you us transforming into the the Dow perspective, it was already I
already promoted myself beforehand, and I had no shame doing it then. Now I'm doing it for the sake of a lost title title. Why should I feel shy? Yeah. easier. It makes it easier. It's a very easy transition. It's like, you know, the people who they're nervous praying in public. Yeah, I always think to myself, you know, people are not shy like making out in public. Like you'll see a guy that goes on the street corner making out and says a society we don't say anything by we're just out there doing them. Yeah. Then why should I feel shocked to pray? I have a poem on that exact topic. Is it 100%? Are you going? Is it you coming from the UK when you talk about Mike? What was it? What
do you what do you reckon about what what what are you bringing to me my as a friend of mine, we were downtown Manhattan and he was photographic. And he's just completely lost in photography. He's bending over railings and he was
like, just impeding traffic and everything nice. And then it came time for a salon. I'm like, he's not he's not Muslim. I'm like, I gotta pray. He's like, So pray is not that simple. And I'm like, I gotta like find a corner. I gotta find a meeting. Like I gotta find like, you know, I got almost got to keep six make sure nobody comes up
behind the tree.
So then that form came out and said, I see photographers get on their knees to capture an angle, and painters lay on their back to complete a canvas. A lover gets on one knee with the ring and heart and hat and a farmer bounces back as he tilts the land so why is it then considered strange for Matt fauna? prostration of you playing a ball in the middle of streets, you know, is he not an artist or a lover with seeds too, so a lot? Oh, it's not Maha.
They don't know what that is. Are you gonna be cultured today Jose, you gotta know about no Ba ba ba ba. Ba. But you know what? I think your journey and I find you fascinating as an artist.
Because I've seen you kind of, you know, similar to like use of Chrome as well, I also did have a chance to get on the podcast. I see you kind of straddle different worlds. Yeah. Now becoming more of a prospective student of knowledge now your chef Omar, I knew you and your brother Amar. You know, that's, that's the transition right there you go from brother to erstad. And then you become you can sometimes just jump to email you can even be member for brother sometimes sometimes you could be hunting for a law that's a title only few can have, you know, say only few people can be the FIFA or
give us a different salary. That's it, right. But now I see you Mashallah, people are much more
engaged with you in the lack of the incapacity. Right. Talk to me about that transition, was it something that you saw yourself going down like these now, people, you know, you're taking you just taught a course this weekend in Toronto, you're, you know, getting hooked up in the you're involved in different conferences and stuff, but not necessarily as a performer, which would have been in the past. Now, it's more of a ship of sort of knowledge. So
knowledge is always my, my passion. So I would always, that was always something that I was very much invested in. And even beyond the poetry and before the poetry and while the poetry that's, that's the world that I enjoyed poetry, even until now, I don't really write that much like, I don't
like that when it comes to comes. But I don't I don't invest nearly as much time as I should probably in it. And to be honest, I've even had people telling me before and they said, even in your performing,
you don't completely let go in your performances, because you still have that kind of reservation. So up higher, I get
you have you completely performed, right. Whereas for me, I still have that reservation, and it's probably affects like my ability to perform properly. I mean, I don't think that's true. I mean, thank you. But the, at the very least, that part of me has always been constantly there. This is this notion of, of, you know, loving to teach and loving to study and things like that. The poetry for me has always been like, I can't write about on a sonic poetry. I don't have the I don't know how, I don't know, people have asked me before they talk to me. And they say, like, how do I write Islamic poetry like you? And I say to them, Well, what do you write about? Like, why I write about
social justice and things like that? I'm like, Okay, well then write about that. Like, write about what you find yourself writing about, I don't set out writing about Sonic poetry. I just write about what you know, your what, yeah, what I know, or what I care to write about, or what my pen flows with. And that's that.
Sometimes I'll think to myself, well, why don't I write about something that's more? I guess, mainstream stream? Yeah. But my pen never works that way. So that's a broken pipe. You knew what I was saying. But you know, I think it's it's natural. I mean, you write about what you know, I think it would actually be unnatural to do the opposite of that. 100%. Right. Which is if like, you came out and you started talking about,
like, oh, celestial bodies, and that are like, fashion. I know how to dress like I'm a really well put together person like people would know automatically like that. Wow. First of all, they would believe it. 100% like this guy. They'd be like, when did this for the change, man. junk? We know, he's wearing this UConn shirt. You know, the 1881 is that when you graduated?
there.
So you're actually a graduate of UConn, though I do go to UConn. But born and raised in born in New York, were raised in the Orient in Sudan, Sudan.
In my little village and my grandfather's house, a lot been raised in New York. He was born by the river in a little tent. Are you gonna auto tune this? Because if you're gonna auto tune this later, I'm gonna put I'm gonna put something.
Yeah, let me calm down and
enjoy yourself.
But so born in Sudan, when did you move to the US? I moved to the US at two and two. So you're basically American. See, that's what people always ask me that. They're like, so like, So where were you born? I can see that. When did you move to Okay, then I'm like, Oh, yeah, I mean, you don't really get that, you know? Real like full African. You're like a super African. No, I'm super African. When I'm in Sudan. You know what people think what? They think I'm from America.
Well, this is because they think you have money. This guy must be American. He's got he's got that blue passport.
The accent right away. There's just like, come on, man. No, you're Sudanese Arabic is not like, yeah, you know what? It's not that it's off. Like, like, Oh, he's coming from America, but it's often that they're like,
you're coming from like, so.
Okay, because when you're living amongst so many people here next year have a little bit funny. Yeah, you pick up a little addition because Syrian Sudanese Arabic is also very distinctive.
If you are a lot to them, it's like yeah, and just like a little bit of a phrase difference though, I felt like okay, this guy's been living outside this week that seems a little bit but still have like roots they're still you visit it up all throughout your life. He was going back and forth.
Because I lived in China for a couple of years growing up Oh, is it okay? Is it is that why do I say that as a country? That's the type of stuff it's like you know, what you hear from from Gavin you say is it they're like okay, this guy's this guy's been traveling. I am been a few summers I was spending in the UK and they just been brainwashing me. Oh, my days. I mean, actually, there's a lot of similarities between like, Toronto slang and UK slang. Okay, so we find that there's a lot of overlap really just Caribbean slang anyway, so a lot of like, even the slang that we use on the streets a lot of the same. So I find myself wanting one logline. Yeah, you say that one bad, man.
Yeah, kind of. You're kind of pulling off. I mean, I was trying to pull up. Oh, okay. You could be like, an extra top boy. I don't know what that is. You don't know. My shell last protect the company.
That's very good. Good thing I like to hit.
You never heard a tomboy ever? Good. It's a very, very inappropriate television show. Okay, Netflix. Yeah, on Netflix. But for the sake of my podcasts, it's completely fine. Okay. Yeah. People are watching me there. They're already out there. Yeah, they're watching you in because the in between episodes, pretty much. No, I'm on, like in the background, like, while they're watching that I'm there. So they feel like less guilty, I guess. But it's all connected. It's all the same thing. So studying in the United States setting Islamic United States.
Because that's where the vast majority of your life, you know, formal Islamic education occur. Yeah. Right. You didn't really study much in Sudan, did you? Not at all. I mean, Sudan, the most important thing that I learned there was Arabic. Okay. So just, I did I from the time I was eight to 12.
So that's actually a long time. Four years, four years. Wow. So that I mean, that came back to America as a fall again. Yes, I came back and I was like, I'm here for my
so how was that the transition back? You must have been a while I agree. I was I when I came back. Oh, so you left when you were like 356? I left in four? I left in fourth. Or at least I got to Sudan in fourth. second, and third I did in Kenya. Oh, yeah. You are you. You definitely are like a farm. You're a real African. I'm African.
African son recognize all right. All right. Are you in you in that argument? By the second or third grade and Kenya, fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh and Sudan and then I came here for eight. And so being now we always someone who's like islamically inclined we always want
to be known man like Biggie lyrics and stuff. I'm like, this guy is crazy. Oh, man. And you're also from New York. So I mean, that's probably like this kind of water and you can escape hip hop in there. Yeah. So Biggie, Tupac Halford. Fortunately in LA. Sometimes I'll watch like search you. Like there's this Moroccan chef. Say that committee. His name is this. This guy is like an ocean of Arabic poetry.
every circumstance, I'm thinking to myself, this man's been memorizing all these poems since he was like five years old. Like there was no, like, everything that he's ever learned. And it's not like we haven't learned incredible amount of lyrics. And
I'm waiting for the day someone stands up and gives a clip and says it was all a dream. I used to read when I read word up magazine, that would be the sickest Look, I wouldn't be but unfortunately, all the lyrics that we've memorized capitalism useless. Yeah, completely. Yeah. But so so you're in New York, hip hop head, I'm assuming just by virtue of being in New York, you probably have in public school, you don't really have a choice you don't get.
And then I remember in high school,
I started having to go to Sunday school, actually. And Sunday school happened in that there was a family who were really close family friends with who moved back to New York, from like a 1012 year absence, and all of their kids were our age. And so it's like one of those like family competitions. So they put their kids in Sunday school. So all of a sudden my parents were like, yo, y'all gotta go to Sunday school and Saturday.
We hang out to Sunday school at all that entire period like why why is that we got to go to the masjid like, half hour away walk and just so we went and you know, you you
Why I really believe that like, you never know when you can benefit somebody because I was a teenager 1516 we're sitting there and this brothers hella, you know, this uncle does all of it. And he was just trying to teach us whatever he can teach us. And we're, they're not caring. And then like year two, finally, he mentioned something that just stuck with me. Like, finally, we had a topic that I I really connected with was the job.
I was interested from there. You want a conspiracy theorist a man all of a sudden?
Like, is it a gel here?
Is he teaching us about himself?
I just, I just became, like, obsessed. Oh, yeah.
I feel like that world does bring in a lot of people. Of course, there are a lot of people who kind of get into that whole conspiracy thing. Yeah, do a map Do
you know, the Illuminati somehow it all gets mixed together row their assumption of who talked just about this stuff, and you won't come across them. But if you actually go on their YouTube videos, you'll find like, crazy amount of use, like you're talking quarter million 400. And they're just famous, but they're just famous in this field, which is enough to make them very well view. But it's funny how that topic like, Oh, you know, the end of times in the lobby, somehow it gets brought into somehow secret societies, whatever. And then that is a gateway for people to kind of question like, Oh, my God, like, who's really running the show here? Yeah. They follow it, they get super excited
about it. They, there's so much like symbolism and 911 gets drawn into it all the time. Everything gets drawn into it. And it's universal, like it's weather. And so Pamela is also not restricted to a particular like, economic class or educational class or their everybody, everyone.
But being in New York, especially during that time, how old were you when 911 happened? 911 happened? We were the country that time? Yeah, I was in the country. And I remember, like 911 for me, obviously, like you were very,
very,
like calling home.
I remember my sister was in college, and she was like, they could see the skyline. Wow. But growing up in New York after 911 was what was very intense. Yeah. Very intense. Yeah, like until now.
It's just, I think New Yorkers are paranoid. And a lot of that because of what the Muslim community experienced after 911 it was just very aggressive. You mean the Muslim Americans and Muslim New Yorkers? Yeah, there are no some New Yorkers are very apparently because of the way law enforcement interactive almost assuredly after 911. Yes, it was, you know, people getting arrested if you have people getting arrested and everybody being harassed. So to be young and Muslim in New York after 911. Like there's some communities that might have gotten hard hit, kind of, or similarly, as hard as New York, only DC comes to mind. Yeah, but New York was just just you know how crazy I can only
imagine because literally the ripple effect of that like I went to a madrasa
in Toronto here. And the weekend after 911 our madrasa shut down. Like pyramid permanent.
Who's playing basketball? Kareem Abdul Jabbar Hello.
I'm telling you
this closed shop
out of service.
You come back next week.
just completely like just pretended like we didn't know each other.
Like you were my Teacher, teacher.
Know you, like I'm telling you that was the ripple effect.
Like September like 15 or no, whatever week it was, like 10 or alar. Sorry, the following week, like the nights
were Muslim anymore. It was done. Like that's how paranoid and scared we were in Canada. I can only imagine like in New York or New York. I don't remember any places shutting down. Maybe maybe some places shut down.
But I just remember, like, and it wasn't even like it was immediate.
It took a while for like these institutions to kind of really get it together with regards to how they want it to
patrol the Muslim community like 234 or five years later, that period of like 2002 to maybe 2008 was just really right around the war in Iraq, right when they started made it just really aggressive. Yeah, like you're talking about, you know,
just being very cautious of everybody who approaches you had a message like anybody can blast you two questions. Colossus live, okay. I don't want to talk to you anymore. Yeah. Like, where do you live? And what do you do? It's like, no,
that's it. That's dumb. You're in a wire, you have to get away from me. And but there was a lot of that actually, like it didn't came out afterwards. There was a report, I think recently, they spoke about, like, the amount of resources that were put into surveilling Muslims in New York, and how much money was wasted because nothing ever came out. I don't think ever came out of it. But I had for example, I had a time where a friend of mine for a year like talking about a guy who every single day was hanging out with me
was actually undercover. He was on our undercover NYPD Are you serious? How your year and he was your boy, my boy. Every single day every day we go out and stuff
at the masjid and he was Muslim. Like my knee. Okay, Muslim from Muslim country. Oh, wow. And we'd hang out. He was a cool guy. Like they did a they did a great job as far as like,
every single day. And somehow you learn later that, like there's some things that you could have. Like, if you were looking for him, like there were some signs that you never you sell out people to stay at his house ever. Okay. You know, it's like, okay, one time I saw his his license, because we got pulled over by some cops. He has his license in the US everybody's license has their address their home address on it. All right. He had a peel box number on his Oh, I'm like, man, how'd you get a peel box number on your on your license? Like, that's amazing. I know somebody. Okay. Yeah. You know, somebody can use the man.
I was like, Man, that's amazing. How did you get a peel box to handle? So he was used for like a year. And then he ended up not finding anything like hanging out what have you guys know? Okay. Let's
talk about like, well, I got to get married.
Like you guys are. There he left and
so how did you find out that he was we found out because some other guys got arrested? Yeah, some other guys got arrested or something like low low hanging fruit like okay to just talk crazy and stuff. Yeah. So he ended up hanging out with them. And also he just ditched you guys one on to them? Yeah. Did you ever feel like Oh, why does he want to be our friend? Yeah, I did. And I remember I actually actually talked to him. Like, one time I saw him just random. Like he went from coming to the message every day to that one time just walking by the message. Like I didn't even see him.
Like, he doesn't even stop by the message anymore. And so I remember seeing him once. And I just because those guys were talking kind of, you know, reckless, yeah, those two, or whoever they were. I remember telling him like, I was trying to warn him of them. That's what happened. I was telling him to get him down. Yeah, I'm so like, you know, don't hang out those guys like, and I told him, You know, I was afraid of him like being attracted to so I told him, I said, I try to make sure that what you learn comes from authentic scholarship.
Left, look, Okay, the next thing we know those guys got arrested. The arresting officer was an undercover NYPD. Wow. So you're gonna see him after that? No, of course not. You have relocated.
But you can imagine you can imagine the damage also that that did to everybody. All of the youth were at the message who were looking up to him, and we're friends with him. And you know, we're chilling with him and stuff like that. So yeah, I mean, it did a lot of damage. He did a lot of that some, some kids never came back.
Or it took them a very, very long time to come. But how does he justify that? Or maybe in his head, he's thinking, well, I really am looking for people that are you know, trying to do harm.
But
that's a strange though.
I mean, what there was a lot of that in in. I know, for example, in like in DC as well, like you were mentioning, like a lot of communities, especially in the kind of whole DMV area experienced something similar to that law. Yeah. DMV is probably the community that got hit as hard as New York equally, or
maybe even more. Actually, I don't think more but equally, you have the same issue, which is a lot of agencies. Oh, yeah. A lot of agencies all this. But New York has NYPD which is extra, your NYPD so you have all the national agencies
But you also have a very, very large police department that is trying to prove that they can do this on their own and protect the city on them on their own. So it's just hard, there's no, there's no real place that you can go as far as developing relationships, you're not going to develop relationships with every single agency. So even when, when I left New York, I found that other cities have actually positive, like relationships with law enforcement and like the cops, you know, I'm saying is like, and and the other agencies as well, like, the, like, they actually developed positive relations, kind of like that. Yeah, like Houston. And you know, they've got lots of other
cities also, like they have good good relationships with some of these offices, and trusting relationships. But New York just isn't like that. That sounds like a very dysfunctional relationship.
Like it's so how did you maintain like your zeal towards Islam, because obviously, that setting can be I mean, that's a lot to make people crack. That's a lot of pressure. But it's also the passion of youth, man.
It's very powerful. Like you're very, it doesn't matter who's against you, like, this is what I believe. And there's no pressure, there's no oppressor, there's nothing that's going to
going to break my feet. And if you're fortunate enough to have friends, and you know, good people around you as well, then, you know, the passion of youth is very, very strong. You know, what's crazy is like, I remember for myself after, so I was in grade nine, when I 911 happened on like, my first day of high school. Right? And so that was already like a crazy introduction to like, oh, you're that's his mom. And oh, you're only with them, right? Because I wasn't really practicing anyways. And then to become the spokesperson for the whole Oman was like, a lot of pressure. Yeah, I'm saying. But I think for me, my personality was such that it made me almost have like a chip on
my shoulder. Like, I wanted to prove to people that know Islam is not like what you think it is, right? So I used to remember, I used to get these, like, I'm a D that, you know, you sell DVDs and stuff like that I used to listen to all that stuff, just so I could refute those other people, right, come up with points or whatever, just so you could say something that makes them feel dumb. It didn't come up with sincere place of like, I want to learn about a loss town town, it was more like how do I make these people look dumb, right. But, you know, that was a blessing in disguise because that journey of trying to refute people or trying to you know, make people look dumb was
basically the the initial steps for me to really try and take learning seriously. What was your initial kind of you mentioned your experience in Sunday school or whatever, what after that what what experience Did you have Is there any particular mustard or chef or anything that kind of drew you in
no particular message or chef at that particular time, but overall, I just started being more inclined towards learning. I also think that I, I heard like, I have had some life changing moments at that period of time. One of them was young Muslims. You know that organization I am you I am. So why am I
Why am gave me friendships. Jamaica, Jamaica, the Muslim neighbor Now, if you're from Queens, right, yeah. So that was my local neighbor. Now, I made some friends there. And I started to go to the weekly neighbor net. And then what we did was we went to we went to a dean intensive camp
and the dean intensive camp was life changing. It was cuz I met chef there.
Oh, yes. Monitor from from upstate New York. And I still and we met Chef equitymaster buddy, who was there who is also the was the Mufti of a messy the Luxor right, he was there. And he taught a few sessions and doctors thought it Shah was the president of Iran at that time. So to be honest, it was amazing in the level of attention and scholarship that was teaching some 14 1516 year olds, like it was just unbelievable. And the sessions that they were teaching and the fact that we were staying all together for a week, and we created an incredible friendships. That that was really, that really powered me through my last year of high school. And it was very important because it was at a
crucial time, which was going from high school to college, and high school to college. I mean, if you're, if you're going out of state for college, and you don't have like Islam in your heart, then it's gonna be a wild. That's *load front door. Come on in. Come on, come on. Yeah. So I remember not being practicing. And at 15 or 14, or, like whatever I had, like a thought. And I was like, You know what, let me let me start to pray. Because if I started to pray, my parents will let me go out of state for college.
Are you asleep? Do you really are you kidding me?
Hey,
guys. So Paolo ended up happening was that I prayed and the prayer life.
We're having that bottle like, conniving. That slick balls like I'm gonna pray so that my friends can trust me. Yeah, I
got you, bro I got you. Oh, that's nice. That's beautiful. So then going out of state you went to UConn in Connecticut? Yes. Right? Went to UConn Connecticut. And that was a different experience to a lot of Muslims on campus. Not really. That was the difference experience to go from like, that was the first time that I met people who are white wash. I mean, I never had that before.
kids growing up in Connecticut, it's like, like only kid in yours school around kid in your eyebrows kid in the entire call like, yeah.
Our accounting. Exactly. It's all just like, Wow, so I met some massive kids. But I also met Amazing, amazing people that you've made some really good friends. And you know, college is really interesting and sad because you can I mean, the friends that you make in college, usually, I think even more than high school are friends that you keep forever. Yeah, you're kind of turning into the person that you're going to be sure the rest of your life in college. Are you friends with anyone from high school still? No. Yeah, I can't say I'm really close to them. My friends have all come from the university stuff. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, University. I got I got a lot of people but yeah,
and so then I
feel like I'm superpowers in my mind when I hear a lot of the same stuff. Oh, man. I'm gonna say president brother. Oh, so you kind of I remember this, like orientation. I walked up to the MSA
knocking on the door. Like as soon as I get there, I'm like,
trying to establish it.
I'm knocking on the door. And it was like the weekend there was nobody there like me. So I think I might have walked up to the door that we get every salon every day. Gotcha everything. And there's nobody there. But then eventually like, okay, on Monday, people showed up. Okay, you guys take the weekend.
Yeah, but that was me. That was in New York. And I was like the Yeah, I was just like, what's going on? But
yeah, I got involved with MSA and
eventually became the president. What did you study in? marketing? Oh, yeah. I've got lots of time I came in. Hey, I came up with that for that mistake. Like all the engineering kids don't have time. Mike. Come on, man. You can. You can afford one seat for the MSA. Come on. I have one essay this entire year, I got tons of time. Marking LD is a real degree. You know what, because it changes so rapidly what you like and honestly, it's not real. I can honestly say the things that I learned in college I use 0% of it, not 100% zero. It's one of those fields that it changes by the time you're out what you learn the first year doesn't apply to you. There's nothing that I learned. Yeah, but
you have a marketing degree. Nice. You can come and check with that. Yeah, exactly. I had a I had a friend of mine in college, you know, and he was actually surprised. He was like a Lebanese kid from overseas, but he had came for for he had just moved to the US or what have you, but
he was a pharmacy degree. He used to tell me say business. What are you studying business for? You don't need to know business. Yeah.
He's got a point, though, to be honest, he was right. Like if you're gonna go to school, learn something that is technical, which I wouldn't learn otherwise, that you would have otherwise.
But at least you were praying and your parents.
They knew you're up to good now, as long as I'm spraying my five. So now finishing your studies coming came back to New York or Yeah, I came back to New York, I came back to New York and
started working in a sales company in Manhattan, which was a lot of that's when I learned to tie a tie my first time. Okay.
That's official, like suit and tie Fifth Avenue, like the whole.
I did that for a while. But even then, I was just always involved in now, like, by that time philosophy, just like this is this. I might work a nine to five, but everything else that I'm doing is some sort of that works programs, that message that hope. It's classes. It's all of that. And so then eventually, I got involved with a master's in Jersey City, which is a little bit outside. I mean, it's like a hour and a half commute from New York, but I would do that commute. And, you know, developed a lot of great relationships in that community in Jersey City as well. And then after that, I've actually moved to Houston
and I'm still in New York.
Now you were crowned with the chef's title. Not really crowning, because we know who gave we know gave you that title? Was it? We know? Who knows?
No, it wasn't me.
It wasn't me.
As I started teaching with a mother, I mean, I graduated through college. So I would.
I probably missed a big part of the timeline. But I was a student within 10 years as soon
as they made it in New York, we were the most amazing problem in the history of and during that period. Okay. I'll let you have I don't have any code below my pride. So okay, so I'm not gonna debate it. I know these people are watching like,
there was some London orgasm crazy. Why did you get like London?
British? I know, I know. I don't know where that came from elsewhere in the house, assuming Malaysia would be upset about that. Really? Yeah, the weather to do that to quiet the protest? Write a comment.
Okay. So
you graduated with your motive degree was always doing my own studies as well. That's something that a lot of people don't take advantage of, I feel they don't take advantage of studying locally with shoe. Like,
people just assume that it has to be official class, or a lot of times people ask me, and they'd be like, are you taking private classes. And so I want to have to be a private class. Like, if you have a chef who's preparing material, and a lot of them do like this, they teach their halaqaat every single week, and they spend four or five, six hours preparing that material. Not including, like the years and years and years that they put into studying to master to be up on that level. And so if you, if you go in, and you just sit down, and you're leaning against the wall, all the way to the corner, yes, guys, yeah, if you're one of those guys, obviously, you're not going to walk out, like
having benefited that much. Right? Maybe you'll get any man, right, you get the bulk of sitting there. But you can go to the same exact class, take notes and
memorize the material, go out and teach that material. And over time, you would have ascended much higher than somebody who's not so good. It doesn't have to be, you know, a lot of these, Misha Stephen who study overseas, and they're like, this person is a shell, this person is a student of shell. This person is a student of shin. I mean, what were they doing? They were attending their dental classes, they were teaching and then he couldn't even been that guy in the corner of
the wall. But because he was there, he was a good guy. But I'm just saying the people who are lightweight,
high quality. Yeah, at the end of the day, they're sitting there attending their classes, they're, you know, taking notes, asking them questions, engaging with the material at a higher level. And you know, there's even higher levels than that. So, you know, I had one gentleman.
He told me, for example, that he never attempted the class of a shift.
until he's read that shifts material on that class. Like, if he's gonna go study a book with a jet. He's like, I'll have read the shifter book. Before I go.
He's like, I just don't I don't see why, obviously, have you gonna go just here for the first time? Like, why would you do that such a waste? Go? Study the material on your own? Then go to him so that you can engage him? Yeah, like, you know, you've already your thoughts have already been, you know, developed. He's ahead of the game. He that's what he is basically, just being a good student as being a good student no matter what, when, you know, I mean, in university, you have the same type of people. Yeah, we aren't that.
Well, you studied marketing. So clearly, you have ambitions to be that type of person. Who will be like, wait, there's a quiz today. I was like, I have a quarter the class is hanging on the wall. What does this thing finish
today? He said it started last week.
So but I think that's a I think what you've done is very unique in the sense that it's almost like a different approach to the classical sense of studying, right, as opposed to many people who typically go overseas to study, they will spend years in a in an institution and a foreign language in a foreign country, you know, you kind of have the basic tools, it seemed like you had Arabic and you have you know, that that knowledge to begin with, and you were able to then engage with the local shoe and falafel and that is the classical. So what I'm doing is the classical, the institutional is the new. And so, I mean, I don't I don't know if I've done anything, it's just the
journey that I'm on. So I mean, it's still continuing. It's nothing. Something that I finished, I think you're pretty much done. Now. I think you've reached the knot here on this podcast. I mean, if I made it to this podcast, obviously it accomplished something but this is the crescendo This is after this. It's all downhill after this spike. After you
We get our three comments on this podcast. No, six, we're lucky because Malaysians finally tune in and sing along well, they get the Google Translate going, we get a lot of trouble, brother. A lot of records that I call installations, we know you speak English. I don't know what's happening here. Now the front sometimes they don't speak English, but we know they do. They do. They do. But no, I mean, it's unique in the sense of in the western
approach, the western approach to seeking knowledge has always been classically send people away. Yeah, for sure. Right. I mean, I would have if I had an opportunity to just that my, my own personal circumstances didn't allow for it. Because it's definitely, it's definitely easier, in a sense, and it's shorter, in a sense, you just go, you're in a bubble. And there's also something else really important that I've been told by a lot of times, and to be honest, it's true. You know, once Johann told me, he said, Listen, you can do whatever you want in the US, or get back that authentic. Like, you know what I mean? until you go overseas, that doesn't matter where you real, it doesn't matter
where you go overseas, no, meaning you don't get that credibility. It's like, like street cred, right? There's like a shift credit. Okay, that shift credit is basically
he said, you go overseas, it doesn't matter what country he studied in Morocco. That's all people will say he studied in India, in India, in Italy, is that?
What were you studying?
In a Polish Islamic seminary, insert whatever Muslim country that you want, and people don't ask any questions further, it's just like you said.
But Isn't it ironic that you are obviously teaching in the US. So like, your educational background, is still embedded in the culture and the society to you that you live in? I think a lot of times what may happen is that people study abroad, and they lose the context of where they're going to bring that knowledge back to they're not still embedded in the community, maybe the issues that are happening locally. They're not as in touch with, absolutely. So it's, it's both Right, so the person who's studying in the US, they might, they're never separated from the context. And but at the same time, the actual learning the Islamic basics of the Islamic, you know, that foundation might be more
difficult for them to actually acquire context is always there, but that formidable Islamic or that structured Islamic learning is not there yet.
Java in the future, and that's what some, you know, organizations and institutions have done already. They're trying to really resolve this. But there's a tool out there, it's just not at Seminary in America, you know, shameless plugs.
This is also sponsored by Tim Hortons. Tim Hortons. We're actually sponsored by Mr. Martin sponsors. Oh, yeah. That's that's how it was by roots, athletic roots Canada. Yeah, go ahead. And iPhones as well.
This is we're in an office in purple back here.
Sign up ilme brush infest zoom are still exist.
For zoom summit, and?
Yeah, all the rooms. Yeah. So you have that. But then at the same time, if you go overseas, then you've got these institutions, and you've got hundreds of shields teaching you and all of these sciences and things like that. And then you come back. And for a lot of people, the context is the challenge they have, it becomes a challenge for them to, to sift through what they've learned overseas that is relevant to them here. Now, look, I know we've been speaking for a while I have a lot more things I want to talk about. I don't know how we started talking about this. I'm not in any rush. Okay. All we have to say, okay, there's two things I want to talk about. One is about your new
among a course, which unfortunately, I didn't get a chance to attend. But it is, I think, a very interesting topic. Yes. Which I would love to if you can give me like a five minute summary of the entire class first. spark No. Can I get sound effects on this podcast? I mean, what do you want? I'll add it right now. lion's roar.
just happened. Perfect. Yeah. So basically, I want like, whenever I go like this for a lot of lions, what got you because we're gonna be talking about and then like flames on special effects, per se. It sounds like okay, I can do the sound. Just do the motion when it's I can test it.
We got it.
Okay, so up and down.
I might mix it up sometimes, but that's cool. Either way. Some people are listening, whether it's a roar, or whether it's a flame either way, that's authentically me.
So two things.
The amount of seminar that I'm teaching is called the venom in the serum. And it's a study of sin. Just that we just said, You know what? Let's talk about SIDS. Because this this is just becoming so simple. Just Just
sin that's the name of
a snake.
No, I mean, but sins are a child.
And one of the things that is being normalized, more and more is just, you know, everyday sense, like things that we talked about shame, like a something that a person will be ashamed of, like 1015 years ago, people are just okay with them. Like, just the top, you know, the type of TV shows that people are watching the type of oil. So I don't know what type of oil is, what the reading is, is it migrated? Oh, it's rated? What's the worst thing? Like? Probably like x x x? It's
not like that.
Okay, so. But yeah, so I'm just the things that people talk about, and theory of addressing the public nature of all discourse, and how there's no filters with regards to all of that. So this course is to dress it we talked about, and it's based on a book by an author named William was asked by a person and he said to him, what do the scholars of Islam have to say about a person who's immersed in a sin and the more they try to get out of it, the more immersed they become, and they know it's going to destroy they're doing it? Like they can't get out of it. So he wrote that because there's not so we don't cover the book cover to cover, nor do we completely. Keith all the topics in
the book, because obviously, you're not paying off the book A long time ago, we have our own challenges. But there's a lot of benefit that we take from the book, including the effects of sin, people don't know what the effects of sins are. Give me the four MINUTE SUMMARY the entire course. That was it. I literally just oh, no, no, give me the point. So there's 12 there was the 12 sins, right? No, no, there's not 12 sins. But if I give you a four minute summary, I think I saw a poster of yours that said, Yeah, 12 sins? Yeah, that's
okay. But if not, then begins talking about hope. Because anytime a person's coming with anything that you want to give them hope, we want to inspire them with a wrestler that has mercy, then boom, after that, he hits him with fear. Like don't don't think that Allah loves you just because like, of who you are, like, there's some work that you have to put in otherwise a lot punishes people, a lot of people throws people into the Hellfire, like, Who are you and who am I. And so we always have to work towards a loss of love and hope in a large paradigm. But at the same time, fear is punishment, you have to have both of them, you can't just work with one or two. And then he talks about the
effects of sets of the effects of sins is the loss of knowledge of the effects of citizens, the loss of this, of the effects of sins of that person's lifespan become short, a lot of different effects of sense. And then he starts talking about types of citizen so we're going to talk about, like Xena, and like just a wide variety of different sins, shape, of course, and murder and all of these, you know, major majors insert the command, then boom, we come to the end of the course, where we talk about,
you know, one of the most important principles of, you know, salvation for us in our religion socially, which is commanding good and forbidding evil, bringing back the Haram police. Oh, glad to bring them back as our pressing charges are given out ticket. That's it, you got to be on it, and bring them back in a healthy way, because, and I'm just using the term but it's it's not the hell on police. But it's just this notion of you know, what, if I see something wrong, that I can't just say, Oh, you know, I'm not engaged at all, we're commanded to engage evil. I mean, even advising people I feel like has become a lost art. It's a lost art. And it's something that people feel like,
they have to walk on eggshells. Like, I don't want to come off as bad on police, but maybe kind of that super hot thing that you're doing online. For retweets. Maybe you should, you know, scale that back. That's it. You know, I'll be honest with you, I have trouble sometimes. I'm being honest. I have trouble accepting criticism online. Never in real life.
Because you don't know who these people I don't know them. Exactly. I also and I also feel like you know, if you're, I'm making myself vulnerable, you know, my name, you know, my face. You know, me, when you're able to see things behind, like veneer or behind the screen, you gain superpowers, right? Yeah, your people aren't some reckless things, though. They shouldn't be reckless. I mean, that's a huge part of
advising people is kindness. And that's why the scholars they say, let your let your commanding of good be with goodness. And let your prohibition of evil not be evil. Like, just because someone's doing how long does it mean that you sit there and be like, You're an idiot, and you're ugly. And you're like, that's not how
you talk to a person like you would talk to them in person. Yeah. But I also think that one unique thing that has happened is that especially with you know, social media, like I for many years, and I still most of my YouTube videos, for example, they don't have comments. I disable the comments, because I feel like people don't know how to have proper discourse. And if anything, I feel like the last part for me has also been like privately advising people like absolutely
Like without cameras without reason for likes, right? And I know for myself like the times that people you know, messaged me, brother, Oh, you know what, why did you do this? Or I you know, I heard something. I can never be upset at them. Yeah, I'm like, you genuinely must care about me if you've taken the time to write this, and no one's gonna know about except me. And you know, right. But the people who use your public platform to shame you or like curse you or whatever, it just is to me, I can't take it serious. Right? Make a Mikko watsu called a review video or something. Oh, Matt reviews. Yeah, response. That's the big thing. response videos. So we're probably gonna get a
few of us army. So, especially about your clothing selection.
I mean, this isn't going to be on any merch store, if that's what they're gonna be asking. Yeah, no, no, there's not gonna be a shop. No, people are gonna ask like, why didn't you get him clothes before he came in? I'll be looking at what are you wearing? So fresh, I'm wearing I'm matching my cup. Okay, we can't get fresher than that is 100%. So we talk about sincerity. We talk because I agree. 100% like I've had people in my life were very strict, very strict. And they would, you know, they caught me slipping at any point in time. So phone call to message, it's just, but they were always coming from a place of sincerity. I always knew that these people like, these are people that
I knew, like people I grew up with the people who are. So I do think that to some level, advising people on social media is useless. Because there's no rapport like report is such an important ingredient. And if you're messaging somebody, you have to figure out a way to build rapport even within that message. So we talked about sincerity. We talk about kindness, and we do talk about privacy, because even mama Shafi said, he wrote versus a forgery, basically saying, you know, when you advise me advise me prophet privately, and spare me from public recommendations. And if you don't listen to me, don't be mad if you made the same equation. No, he didn't say like, you just run
that bar. Oh, come on. Don't play games with me.
Hold on a second. Let me tell you something. For those of you who don't know, I've translated a lot of your mama Chavez poetry. And so you got even up chef a lot. I got him on bars. Yes, I got him. You just quoted him in a rhyme do that. I actually shortened it. They are like this. It says, What did you say? He says, advise me privately and spare me from public recommendations for public censure is a type of criticism. That's not my persuasion, a law. So if you defy my words, then don't be mad if you meet the same equation.
Was the flames Well, you didn't
get
the lion's roar? Yeah, well, so. Okay, so So I mean, this is important, I think the crux of
advising people and you know, enjoying good and forbidding evil, it's a lost art. There's another aspect. What is it just as important is when do you actually hide something since we're living in a time of expos. Ah, oh, yeah. Everybody expose this Everybody knows that. But actually, the default with regards to just a person says that they're being privately not the baby exposes that they'd be absolutely concealed. The prophets of Allah is that when people came to him who confessed about committing Zina, and he would turn away from them and he would say cellulitis and then perhaps you just kissed her perhaps he was like he uses fillers making excuses for him and then you know if that
person continuously confess in the province lesson and punch that person he would look at the person next thing will broaden and be like, why didn't you conceal them with your vitamins? Like Why'd you bring them to me? right and so this notion of high a person's hidden fault not we're not talking about a person who's being predatory or but we're just talking about the person who made a mistake or is making mistakes that are private that was hurting them hurting them just conceal it you don't need to expose people's faults you know you don't need to just because also when you and you don't need to spy on people that's another thing like a law forbade spying the profits of someone first
way is by because something really profound that he said cellulitis in them is that when you if you were to spy on people, you will actually corrupt them. You're corrupting them by spying.
It's like this. If some if I I'm 14 years old, 15 years old. I've got something that I'm struggling with. I'm handling your thoughts private. Like I've had friends of mine who I've had known for years never knew that they smoked cigarettes. Hmm. I'm talking about traveling with staying over like in places with the undercover me
because it does allow you to nobody. But I'm talking about like being hit it so well. That I just had no idea until years later. He mentioned that he was smart. Wow. But like so when when you have someone who's struggling with something and then you find out not because they
Were messy, or they were doing it publicly or anything but because you were spying, right parents or children or whoever it is, and then you see them through that lens. And you start, you know, accusing them of being, you know, bad or what have you. And they're like, Okay, well, if I'm going to be, if I'm going to be positioned to be the villain, it was like a self fulfilling prophecy, then let me play the part. Like, if you're, if you're going to accuse me of something like this, and if I'm going to be known as this, then you know what I might as well just be.
I mean, it's real people do that all the time. Be like, Okay,
I'm going to be seen as this then. I might as well do it. Do you think this is random is off top my head? Do you think that
the definitely certain sins are treated differently in the public eye and even different people, their sins are equated differently. Like, for example, I'm just thinking about, like, you know, college aged young guys, whatever. Like when young girl, young girls and guys, you know, they might fool around, you know, like, you have a boyfriend and girlfriends, this is a big thing, right? I didn't know about that. Okay, Michelle was particularly very good. Michelle. I know what a boyfriend or girlfriend and these are.
It's a weird in between phase that a lot of young Muslim, you know, youth, teenagers, college age kids, they find themselves in where like, they are. They want to marry this person. That's the long term goal. Right? But in the middle, they're just dating. Okay. Right. So it's like that long process of building up to a serious relationship.
I feel like and this is a fact like, you know, when the girls are to be found out, it's so much worse than if the boys aren't to be. Yeah, right. Oh, the boys are expected or he's a young boy. And and so what they think about is what they do. But the girl I stopped for a lot. How could she? Yeah, right. But I think that's always what it's with all women, whether they're Muslim or not. All women have that experience that when
that their corruption is, in that sense, is much more severe. And the guys, but I know also, like in families, for example, a lot of times, I don't know, if it's, you know, maybe it's an African culture or whatever, but, like, the girl sins are magnified all of her, all of her sins, like she has to be like, you know, like Angel, like a step below an angel, where the sun can be like a step below ship on and he's given the green light. Yeah, as long as he's, you know, still alive. hamdulillah he doesn't eat halal meat. hamdulillah we can say that, you know, it seems like even within our society, the sins people commit are not viewed even the same. Yeah, and, you know, with
regards to girls, I mean, you see them
because of that, you see them actually, so much more responsible, so much more mature, just you're advocating for that. You think that's a good thing? I'm just saying that look at that. Like, I mean, girls carry burdens. No, I'm not advocating necessarily that there be the discrepancy? You know, you just said you did. So I mean, I have that on video. So you know, so I'm going to do this part out what you should do is you should put a line draw over that part. Okay, that's fine. Whatever. Now, the point is, is that the guys, I mean, there should be that level of strictness. Where even with regards to the guys, I mean, I don't think the solution is Is that okay? To make things less for the
girls, we have to focus on making sure that it's like I went said
to one of my favorite lines that I wrote it says, you know, they say boys will be boys but we're running out of men
so deep line that I wrote once
I even remember the moment that I I really, I really look up to you sometimes. Like us barn Yeah, we could play a clip of me saying that one right there that actually we can play a clip of the moment you wrote it.
Like The Truman Show, I don't remember writing it I remember hearing it was enough for me to nice kind of absorbed it. Just we'll just round it off. What exactly just round it off is the same thing. But you know, I think that that's a boys will be boys, but we're running out of men. That's kind of the way that Yeah, I like saying ours are running out to sin while they
were the part before our Yeah, exactly. Isn't that line? The line that say you you're you can draw bars from like, 1995 you got to store it up, man. Just hit it. Unfortunately. I wish it was like pre janky Arabic poetry or something.
It's just yeah, just useless. No, it's still beneficial. I mean, how many Bone Thugs and harmony song Can I quote? That's that's the real trick. You know.
That's the real problem that we should be focusing on.
Shout out to Cleveland Ohio.
Ohio people out there so yeah, I do for the culture. Sometimes I you know, just guy who's gonna drop it, you know? But it's okay. Let's wrap up in Sharla.
Where are we going? Man? We still got so much to talk about No, cuz I got one more project to talk about.
This is the secret to become your podcast.
I gotta give you the footage. After
Words that you got
like midnight right now we're recording so the least we can do this
faith essential shout out yo, what's what's what's what is faith essential faith essentials
is a project of a modern Institute.
It's the lion's roar, talking to lots of fire. Sorry. And it is a project where we have
basically, we've been teaching seminars, fast. 15 years 120 seminars a year. See we'd like it was you? Yes. But it was really it was everybody. It was like everyone, including yourself, it was mainly just putting yourself out there. It's a family.
That's 1000s of seminars. 1000s 1000s of people have about 150,000 doing
so. But one of the consistent problems that we've been trying to solve is people basically saying, You're telling me that I got to take checkups a lot. But it's not scheduled to come to my city, ever. So it's like,
figure it out on your own. Exactly. It's like once a seminar comes in doesn't repeat to a CD for five years on average. So what are people supposed to do? Realistically, they want to learn? They want to learn theology they want to learn and so what we did was we created faith essentials and faith essentials is a portal if you go to faith essentials.com
I'm sorry, please
give us a second chance
at everything and you can
never happen.
I just have a bookmark that's like somebody's phone number. what's the what's on I don't know I just have it on my phone.
I'm pretty sure speaker central.com if we didn't get it's done online, there you go. essentials dot online dot Why did we get.com who has that we got an
angels dot online faith essentials dot online because we know you've been to the website.
So faith essentials dot online. And basically you can go and find courses, okay.
Short modules by all of your favorite instructors, including yours as a body shop, I'm gonna say a man when he was union,
federal visa, everybody basically teaching seminars on their specialties. But it's essential meaning that it's not all of the detailed discussions that they have or any of that it's basically just particular.
You know,
what every Muslim needs to know on a particular topic, what you need to know about Salah what you need to know about what you need to know about purification, what you need to know about Zika and so you can you can actually
complete a module very, very, very fast and what classes you teach? Whether it's a faith essential Yeah, I don't teach any of the classes really none of the modules, but I interact with the students and answer their questions. I'll show you like, all my ta kind of thing. Yeah, yeah. What was that like that disrespectful term? Or what? Is that? What they're
not?
Okay. I mean, not like so you're, you're they're answering students questions, whatever it is like a TA. Exactly. Okay, so here's your talk, basically.
Okay, so what I've noticed about the trends now is that people are finding we forget the weekly halaqaat out the window for most people right to attend a weekly session we'll forget even that like I have, you know, an auntie called me last week and she's like, I live in like random city Illinois.
Where can I make kids learn about it's not and I'm like how far Chicago from you she's like five hour drive away. Okay, so like, when you're just like a family or two or you know, yeah, you're right, the message or whatever, maybe they might not even notice I'm new school. So where can they learn about Islam? This is a program for them. No, what I'm saying like even the adults forget the kids like kids. Okay, sure. We can send the Sunday school, but for adults, where do they learn Islam? Right?
It looks
like I mean, this guy is just this is no man, we were professionals. Here we go. Don't just go to Africans and one thing now they gotta stop judging us anything. We can't hold our focus. Okay, we a long way from back home
All right, we made it here.
As far as Let's stay here, let's stay here, okay? Because that wall comes up Trump says wiling out, bro that's it we know I'm here so he can't touch me but
I noticed that people's attention spans for and like in the classical sense even within our communities you know attending a weekly session whether that's out the window weekend classes even I'm we're finding it much more difficult right people's even before when it first came out it was a weekend seminar. It was double weekend. That double weekend. Yeah. And that was I mean, I remember double weekend and people loved it. It was fantastic. Yeah, yeah. But now that has been compressed. Now we went to one weekend. Yeah. And even when we can modules, you know, people's time has become more constricted and what have you so is it that we're just too distracted? I think it is to be
honest. Have you asked me? Yeah, I don't understand how people are more busy now than they were five, six years ago. I don't think they're more busy. I think they're just more distracted. I think the Wi Fi is faster. That's why Well, that's true, too. But, I mean, people have the same amount of you know, hours in a day. I don't see hours at work. Yeah.
I don't know it's changed but
you know, people have become more distracted and perhaps there's there's more to happen in the city which is a good thing. There might be more programs happening and definitely not what's happening Okay, yeah, just shut that down right now I still you know, you have hustle a lot of the people that's good, but that's not the case now. Just we got that Netflix subscription. Things are
going downhill from that
what is it top boy top boy No, I don't advocate top boy. We've given them more credit than we have.
So phase essentials is amazing. Check it out.
I'll put a description and I'll put a link to that in the description.
So people can find out more and if people want to find out more about yourself How did they get in touch with how do they ask you random questions? What's your phone number? How do they WhatsApp you go to my website which is called law law a wonderful website there was a lot on updating it lol oh man I wish it hasn't been updated since like 2018 I still got my my blackplanet profile a lot linked to the faith essential space
now the website definitely isn't inactive but you don't have a website view I do not have a website let's just have a dead Instagram ID which I will be flashing throughout the program always I usually do that so thank you people are gonna know your ID accounts make sure it's the correct thank you yeah, I'll double check Sharma is it I am? No, it's my alma mater. I'm not on shipping shipping. Although I don't remember to know for the others I'll go for you.
And people can follow you on Instagram they can you have a lot of different programs available online as well. Yeah, but Yo, I will tell everyone in my life that maybe some people listening haven't heard you before. I will tell you go online and search one poem of yours I think is like like a genuine classic tell them
see now you
know what I mean? All right now it's gonna send some nice work for you and I think it's gonna wrap up
your for the love peace was just for the love. I was a lot lighter back though. You were asking me to do that. That's what I meant.
Okay, I was a lot lighter back then. I was hungry. Yeah, you're hungry.
well fed your peace. Is it until I see him until I see you until I see you. Yes, I see. Right so on to the
process of I remember genuinely hearing that and like tearing up.
So and I don't see that most people I mean, that was understood. Yeah. Because I'm a hater by trade you know? So you know, I'm saying for me to like you say hater by trade. What does that mean? It means that I I'm genuinely, especially when it comes to Islamic poetry.
And I'm sure people follow them. The default is it's wack. Like there isn't enough and people who have been watching or listening to this podcast they know by now I said 1000 times. Just like when we do like the competitions and stuff. You remember that when we were judging the Yes, yeah, I'm just harsh man.
You know, my biggest pet peeve is when people random words just to rhyme. As my biggest pet peeve. I got a lot of pet peeves. That's at least my concerns. If they did that. I wouldn't be as worried when a person says like
and we must defeat shape on
on each other.
No, it's not even like because we must defeat shape on because he is not sweet. It's like, Okay. Are you the only reason this whole suite concept isn't here?
Yeah, I think there's a lot of unnatural. Yeah, just me. I've gone on so many rants that I feel like, people are gonna think that's what this podcast is about. It's really not about all of the poetry. Yeah, no, it's about a lot of things. But that's definitely a huge component of it, to be honest. But I think that your work it you're one of the few Muslim folks that I actually do respect.
If you get that effect, right, I think there's a delay there. Okay, at that time, that fire, okay. And I think that, you know, you're one of the few people that I also really respect for infusing knowledge into your work and look up to that, which is, I think we're the same height so I don't I wouldn't say that per se. But I think that is you know, yeah, for people to actually have a dosage of
entertainment, which has a purpose in his educational and I think there's a way of coming closer to last panels and I think if there's a few artists that are capable of doing that, I think you're one of them Mashallah. Good luck, so they call that edutainment. edutainment. Yeah, they call it edutainment. But I also think that you have a lot of work like you did I think you did the 40 How do you think mom normally as well write a poem about that? You did? You did one on the names of a lot. Oh, no, wait, that was me. Yeah.
Can we do like a split screen where it's like it's like half your face and half mine?
No, then they'll just think it's the same screen
two pictures
long wearing a goofy one without a coupon like we make we make we make fun of this but it's actually like I don't get it like I don't get how people confuse us. I can definitely see it. No, man I don't see any of it. Right.
They usually come I'm gonna give that's that's weird if he's in Houston
and he's the mama clearly Islamic center. And so he gives the whole plot and I'd be in the crowd and he'd be wearing a bright purple coat and I'd be wearing a bright white coat and then I'd be outside in the parking lot people walk up
and you change really quickly
because you guys look nothing alike don't look anything alike. I mean you kind of look alike but that's I mean that's a couple more feet so I was gonna say yeah that's good. Anyways nothing left for giving me your time I know you're busy I know you're tired not busy at all man I got that I thought we were gonna do like one of those two and a half hour podcast on I got time for that. Yeah, I gotta go to but I'm glad everyone listened this far. If you've just tuned in nor an alley we did a great job pitching beta central so you don't have to worry about that online yet online. Everyone else inshallah make sure you stay tuned, subscribe, and hopefully inshallah we'll catch you again
next time because I've left here make sure you subscribe by pressing this button right here on notice. I mean nothing. I don't got money for that kind of graphics. Just now your fingers literally just in the screen.
You try it again. Let me see if it works or not didn't work that time. Anyways, we'll see you guys next time. Take care. So I like my friends. A lot of people are cancer.