Haleh Banani – Mindful Ramadan – A Teen Convert to Islamic Finance Guru with Sheikh Joe Bradford
AI: Summary ©
The speakers discuss the importance of learning about one's faith and history to become a good Muslim, as well as the challenges of maintaining one's culture and avoiding negative emotions. They stress the need for individuals to create a purpose for their money, pursue their spirituality, and be intentional and flexible in relationships. They also emphasize the importance of developing a sense of self esteem and confidence to avoid giving up on one's past. The speakers stress the need for individuals to set boundaries and create a purpose for their money, as well as the importance of treating oneself at times and setting boundaries for one's life.AI: Transcript ©
Brother.
Sister Hale, how are you? How's your Ramadan
going? Alhamdulillah.
Beautifully. Beautifully. And each one of these interviews
are just it's just so
enlightening,
and I just feel so blessed that we
have had this opportunity
to interview these amazing people.
And today we have a really
special guest,
fascinating guest, I would say,
Sheikh Joe Bradford,
and he is in Sharia Finance. And this
is a way of handling money,
banking, loans, investments, all of these things, and
people get so confused about it. And money,
I know from the counseling I do, causes
a lot of
causes a lot of fights and problems and
issues, so we need to hear from his
wisdom, Insha'Allah.
Yeah. And, you know, our discussion about how
to become more and not just do more,
And in that search for becoming a better
version of ourself and achieving
the purpose of fasting, which is mindfulness of
Allah, taqwa, consciousness awareness of Allah, How can
we do that if we if our entire
relationship with our business or our work or
our money or finances is upside down. You
know, we have to have this sense of
and god consciousness in our relationship with money.
So that's why I'm really excited
to do this interview, Incela. I am too.
It will really complete what we're talking about,
being mindful, intentional
in everything that we do and finance is
a big part of it and his story
about how he became a Muslim
at the age of 15.
This is just amazing. It reminds me of
Chris's story.
Yes. Yes.
No. It's amazing. Like, 14 year old looking
out for, like, the faith and starting to
read.
Fascinating story, and let's get into it.
I I can't wait. And
welcome
to a mindful Ramadan
transformed by the light inspiring stories of converts.
Welcome to another episode of Mindful Ramadan.
Today, we've got a really fascinating guest. Shaykh
Joe Bradford is here with us. He's an
expert in something that a lot of people
have heard about, but not many people fully
understand, and that is Sharia Finance.
Sheikh Roberts.
How are you?
Very good. Your friendship with my husband Abdul
Mejib
goes back 25
years back in Houston, and he's always respected
your journey to Islam and your knowledge. And
I remember having you in our first apartment
many, many years ago, and we also
visited you in Medina,
when you were studying there. Yes. That's right.
Yeah. I'm so happy to have you. Yes.
And we have brother Wadhud Hassan here with
us as well.
Sister Hale. It's an honor to be here.
It's so good to have you. Now,
Sheikh Joe Bradford actually has
2 masters.
Is that correct? In
in Islamic judiciary
process and another one in Islamic Capital Market.
And there's just so much that we wanna
learn from you, so welcome.
I appreciate that, Giselle. Of
course. Of course.
So tell us a bit about your your
conversion to Islam. I know that it was
a profound
personal transformation.
Could you share
a pivotal moment or just a key teaching
from the Quran or Hadith that resonated deeply
with you?
So I was, churchgoing
before I became a son.
Uh-huh. So kind of in my
late adolescence,
teens,
tweens kind of time,
I accepted Islam at the age of 15.
So before that, I was going to vacation
bible school with my neighbors and was baptized,
I think, at the age of 10.
Wow.
My family was not particularly religious, but
they were not particularly opposed to me going
to church with the neighbors. I was a
latchkey kid, and I kind of went went
had to have something to do. I had
a profound interest in in faith and in
history and in in the Bible and things
like that.
And
when I when I first learned about Islam
at the age of 14,
I was intrigued,
and that was because of what I knew
from the Bible. There were
prophecy
was always a process. There was always someone
coming after.
Mhmm. And there were things that indicated that
someone was to come after Jesus. Now
most churches just say that's Paul and kind
of chalk it up to that. Others say
no.
Something someone or something else coming. I kind
of had, grown disenchanted with the church, so
I can't really say that there was a
that there was, like, a pivotal thing that
I read about Islam because I actually didn't
have much exposure to Islamic texts before becoming
Muslim. Like, I didn't I didn't read the
Quran till a year after I became Muslim.
Oh,
I I was given
to learn how to read.
I thought that was the.
Oh,
Wasn't it that you there was interesting,
I did a little research and found that
it was actually your sister handing a magazine
to you.
Yes. That's correct. You went through it, there
was someone who had converted to Islam,
and Yeah. That piqued your interest. Yeah. And
I've never found out who that sister was.
She wrote an article into a a girl's
magazine,
like a reader's article about
tell us about something amazing from your life,
and she said she talked about how she
became Muslim.
But, ma'am, may Allah may
Allah reward her greatly. Amazing. That was kind
of that was the catalyst.
That was the catalyst for me to kind
of, like, look and read and say, wow.
There's something else out there. Maybe I should
look into this. And I think it was
at a time there wasn't Internet.
You had to work really hard to get
information, and there wasn't a Masjid close to
you. Correct? Yeah. Masjid close as Masjid turned
out to be, like, 2 hours away.
Wow.
Yeah. You this is the age before the
Internet. So I literally had to home library,
school library, public library,
bookstore,
kind of hustle and find
information. But it wasn't it wasn't until, like,
that year after I finally got a an
actual copy of the Quran.
Mhmm. So I I thought I just said
Aruth was the Quran. I was like, this
is amazing. Like, what is this so smart?
Like, he teaches you how to read in
the beginning, and the surahs are at the
end. That was the I literally seen that
in the sunlight. We were, like, we were,
like, sitting around contemplating about Islam, and I
said that, and he turned to me. He
was like, what?
Because, brother, do you actually have a Quran?
I was like, yeah. I keep it wrapped
in a in a cloth, and it's really
special. And he was like, no. No. No.
Hold on. Bring this to me. Bring it
to me. Let me see it. Oh my
goodness.
Busted out into laughter when
he saw what I had. And it was
the Yasun Khan from Qazi Publications.
Wow.
So he gave me a copy of Yusuf
Ali translation, and I remember reading in one
of the first verses that caught my eye
is
believe in
And indeed, we have written in the Psalms
after
the revelation of the Torah
that the earth will be inherited by the
righteous.
Mhmm. And so this is this is directly
found in the Psalms today, and then then
it's paraphrased by Jesus in Matthew 5.
So when I read that, I said, wow.
That's
like,
that was kind of, like, the click moment.
It is all connected. You know?
Then there's another there's a hadith that I
read later on in Bukhari
where,
you know, the prophet,
he says Mhmm. Have you have you ever
considered a home
where the builders were building this home,
and
they they saw a a a they saw
a stone that was odd in shape, so
they threw it behind themselves, not thinking much
of it,
and it turned out to be the stone
that completed the building. Mhmm. Right? I am
that stone, and I am the seal of
all prophets.
And so this is this is reminiscent to
another story in the gospels where Jesus is
walking with his disciples,
and he says he gives them couple of
different parables, parable of fig trees, another parable
I can't remember, and then the parable of
the homes. And he says, have you ever
seen a home that's under construction?
People strive to make it the best,
and they found an odd
shaped stone. They threw it behind them, not
thinking much of it,
and that stone turns out to be the
completion
of the building,
this revelation
taken from you, oh children of Israel, and
given to those like
you. So love. Reading that that that hadith
after having known that story in the gospel,
I was like, yeah. This is
like, my mom thought I'm, like, this up
in the 1st year. We're I'm I'm sticking
to this.
So
is that continuation. You saw you read about
the prophecies,
and then you saw that the stories you're
reading in the Psalm was matching what you
had read, and it's just like it just
came together.
Brother Waddud, would you like to reflect on
this? Unbelievable. We actually were just talking about
this renovation last,
Yeah. Last webinar that me and sister Holly
had. This renovation and analogy of the home
and completing that home. Renovating your character.
Yeah. You're renovating in your character and doing
that now. Jake, this is a fascinating story.
Like, 14 year old. Like, I've got, like,
2 that are about to turn 14.
So when does a 14 year old go
looking for a Quran at the libraries, and
what type of world did you live in?
It's really interesting your story, you know, at
that age.
So I'm I'm very indebted to my mother.
So my mother was not the most avid
reader
of
of general knowledge.
I mean, she read a lot of fiction,
but she always encouraged
reading.
And so growing up, we had 2 encyclopedias
at home.
You know? We always had a dictionary. We
always had reference books.
And her I and her
idea behind that was
education is key. Education is the key to
a better life, and reading is the key
to an education.
And so since I was maybe 2 years
old,
she was buying me books, and, you know,
I had the sweet pickles bus, you know,
books. So even though we lived in in
in my in my childhood, we we we
lived
yeah. We were struggling in my childhood financially,
but she still made it a point to
take us to the library,
you know, buy books when she could. So
I really have to credit her for that
Bless you, love. That interest and that, you
know, in the the the love of reading
being inculcated.
How did she react to your conversion?
Oh, she thought I've gone crazy. She thought
I
exploring new things. So she became concerned about
you, Sheikh Joe. Tell us about that. Yeah.
So, I mean, she was concerned and rightfully
so. You know? Her son is, like, you
know, bumping his head on the floor and
chanting in tongues and,
you know, she doesn't know what to do.
So, you know, she she has no way
of
of of contextualizing
that. Right? Sure.
Even even my even my grandmother, you know,
she was very like, hey. Your mom told
me you joined the cult. You know, you
need to give me all the books. VET
everything.
Wow. My grandmother,
she vetted every I shared your you can
vet everything, and she was okay with it
after that.
Subhanahu. But what really made the difference is
we went to the psychiatrist, and it turns
out
that the psychiatrist
was very good friends with a Muslim.
Oh. And so knew a lot about Islam
and said, listen.
You know, I think your mom's
concerns are warranted as a parent Mhmm.
But can be allayed with, you know, information
and education. So, you know, as soon as
we can meet altogether,
then I'll explain things to her and your
dad. And and, you know, after that, things
got, you know,
sequentially
better.
Yeah. What a blessing that he had that
exposure. Can you imagine if she had just
if, he had just reaffirmed
your mother's concern? So Well, it was a
she. Was a You you you was a
she. Was a she. Yeah. Yeah. And the
interesting was is the Muslim that she knew
was her children's
kindergarten teacher.
Oh, okay.
And the and and it turns out I
knew that kindergarten teacher as well at the
mosque, one of the very first people that
I met at the mosque that came there.
You know, and this goes back to what
we were talking about brother would do last
week. You mentioned the renovation.
You know, we need to renovate our
character.
And everyone that we know has,
anyone who is converted,
has been
the
on the psychiatrist
and it's all connected. You never know how
your good character is going to maybe save
someone's life.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah. Shaykh Jo, there is, I was reading
your story, and, you know, I I I
dipped in your money master class because, you
know, as a fellow instructor on productive Muslim,
I could come in and out of all
the other teachers' classes. So Yeah. I came
into your course, and I saw all these
amazing information. We'll talk a little bit about
this whole thing about money, right, and spirituality
of money.
But this story that you're talking about
at
and your Convergent story, I I was reading
about this beautiful article you wrote about your
name.
Mhmm. And I I read through that article.
It it really resonated with me, and you're
talking about how your mom really didn't like
you changing your name. Right? Like, a lot
of people are pressuring you about it. Tell
tell us tell us about that.
Yeah. So so I I had been Muslim
for about a year, year and a half.
And, you know, the imam of the masjid
was a very forward thinking person,
and he did not insist
on what he saw as nonpriorities.
And he actually kind of set a reading
list for me to in addition to the
basics of Islam, a kind of Islamic thought.
You know? Mhmm. So, like, you know, I
had to read a couple of different books.
One of them was a book called the
FIP of Priorities.
Mhmm. And he very much operated according to
to to that principle.
Right? So, you know,
he he his idea was
well,
you know, I I'm not going to involve
involve you in something,
which is beyond where you are mentally and
educationally to deal with.
And so, you know, based on that,
I I mean, I credit him a lot
for kind of having an anchor. I think
it was a I think it was a
generally irate youth at one time, but I
I credit him a lot for for for
being an anchor, you know, for me.
And he he was very much opposed to
the idea of changing the name.
So guys in the community were like, how
are you Muslim for a year and a
half, and your name is still Joe? This
is unacceptable.
And, you know, Imam Zafakhar was just like,
no. That's completely fine. He does not need
to change his name, and I'm not going
to put pressure on him to do that.
Mhmm. He said, certainly, if you want to,
you can,
but I don't think that it's necessary.
And then everybody was like, change. Change. Change.
Mhmm. So, you know, I was pressure. Yeah.
Pressure. I knew you as, brother Hud. Hud.
That's right. Yeah. I tell I said I
said that's only nineties kids. No.
Nineties kids. Right. Yeah.
So what made you actually
go into studying,
in in Medina? What was that turning point?
It goes it goes a lot into
the my background. Right? So, you know, I
had I had like I said, I had
gone to, like, vacation bible school a couple
of times, was active in the church. I
always had this idea, like, if I could,
I would learn
the language that Jesus spoke and then read
the read the Bible in the real language.
And then you learn later, you're like, okay.
Well, the Bible is a compilation.
Most of the original texts are lost, if
not all of them,
and they want you to go and read
Greek and Latin instead of
learning Aramaic and Hebrew.
Mhmm. And so when I found out that
the Quran was written in the original language
it was revealed in, I said, well, I
have to learn how to read. So
where I joined Sunday school.
Go you know, I I learned to read
and write in about, I would say, about
6 months.
And then Arabic. You learned Arabic in 6
months. Well, to read and write. Yeah. Conversation,
you know, and words take a little longer.
Sure. But my my my interest in learning
is what, you know, people started saying to
me, well, you know, you seem to be
interested in in learning. You have a knack
for picking it up, and maybe you should
go overseas
and learn. There was a older brother by
the name of
Curtis Shabazz, may Allah have mercy on him,
and he was very instrumental
in encouraging me to go study. You know?
He said, look. You know, we're you know,
we became Muslim in the I think he
became Muslim, like, in the fifties.
Right? And he said, you know, we had
only certain resources available to us, but what
we had, we brought back when we taught.
And I want you to go out and
learn as much as you can and come
back and teach.
And so may Allah have mercy on him.
He passed away from cancer. He's one of
the very he's the very first that I
ever prayed over.
Uh-huh.
But he, you know, he was a very
he was a very kind
and soft and eloquent person. Mhmm. So I've
had benefit a lot sitting with him, and
most of all was his encouragement to to
to learn. He said because, you know, you're
you have to you know, as as someone
who is accepting Islam in the United States,
you have to become responsible for your own
faith.
You cannot
place the responsibility of being a good Muslim
on anyone else, and you could only become
a good Muslim by knowing more about Islam
and learning. And so I want you to
do that. So, have mercy on him and
reward him. Amen. And who was it again?
His name is Curtis Shabazz.
Yeah. Okay. I actually wrote I actually wrote
about some of our conversations together. I think
I called it something like lessons in the
front seat or something like that because
It is so he he was so weak
from the cancer. His wife
would drive him. They would come to the
Masjid.
She was a Sunday school teacher. She was
one of my, like, surrogate Muslim moms at
the Masjid. Mhmm. That's true. Was a Sunday
school teacher, and and he would be so
weak that he couldn't
exit the car by the time they got
to the house. So he would just sit
in the car.
And so I would go and he would
be in the passenger seat. I would go
and sit in the driver's seat, and Yeah.
We just chat because he didn't have any
anyone else out there, and I learned a
lot from him. May Allah have mercy on
him. You met someone else very critical in
1995.
Right?
Was that bin
bin bin Baz? Is it am I saying
it correct? I made Hajj in 1995.
Okay. And I met Sheikh Abdul Aziz Bimbas
in his house in the Azizia in Mecca.
Yeah. Okay.
I How did that impact you?
It was you know, it's still still etched
into my mind. I can remember almost every
single detail
that we were there. You know? Wow.
I remember I was at the point where
I could
understand Arabic and speak it, you know,
rudimentally.
You know, I introduced myself as Khulid from
America, and and he said, you know, you
know,
You know? The name from the names of
the prophets. You know? And Aw. And then
he, you know, asked me, you know, asked
me about myself and and, know, what I
was doing, what I wanted to do. I
told him that I wanted to go and
study, and so he he wrote a recommendation
letter for me and took my paperwork.
You know? Now
that happened, but then, like, he's that was
sent in, and then the university lost my
paperwork.
Oh, no.
Subtana line. I didn't get in because of
that, but I got in a few years
later
after that. But, yeah, I mean, you know,
in that sitting,
there was a Mufti from Russia.
The Mufti of Moscow came that was and
there was a delegation from China, one of
the very first delegations from China for Hajj
in decades.
Wow. Okay. The Mufti from Russia was applauded.
And so when the the moment Sheikh Abdul
Aziz heard he was applauded, he said, you
have to recite something for us.
Oh. And this guy had, like, this big,
rosy, chubby, you know, cheeks, and Uh-huh. And
he's just like this
unit of a man. I mean, how he's
just he
just like a giant, and he started
reciting it just like, feel the whole
message.
And and, you know, Shahabadi started the started
the cry,
and then he is the person next to
him, who I believe is
Muhammad al Mu Muhammad al Musa, the the
sheikh's personal scribes,
he started crying. He was wiping the tears
away from his eyes, and I distinctly
remember him saying, he said, we are Arabs,
and we can't even recite the Quran like
this.
Oh. Yeah. And then and then, you know,
the the the, you know, the other delegations
came through and things like that. So
it wasn't quite the experience.
It's that's amazing. That's amazing when you see
someone embracing Islam and then taking on, like,
what you did as far as leaving behind
everything that was familiar to you, going to
a foreign land, learning a foreign language, and
just
having that the dedication.
I I've been inspired by converts because I'm
a born Muslim,
and I wasn't practicing
until I saw a group of converts who
were dedicating their life to learning Arabic and
memorizing Quran. And I thought to myself, I
have a lot of work to do. So
it's it's always
impressive. I think people who convert to Islam,
they hold on to it much more strongly,
and they don't take it for granted
the way a lot of born Muslims do.
Well, I think, you know, you make an
important point.
You know, that, obviously, we're gonna see different
difference of, you know, different levels of dedication,
and I think that sometimes
that bring that brings up a point of
gratitude
for our you know, somebody who's a who's
a parent now and has children that are
Muslim. And I think that
it's important that we instill in our children,
like, the hard part's been done for you.
Right. Right. Because getting over that hump of
actually becoming Muslim is, for many, is a
very, very huge hurdle, but there's a reminder
that's necessary for converts as well.
And that is that you you can't convert
to Islam
with the
conviction that it's the truth
and then keep on living the type of
life that you were living.
Absolutely. And, you know, the prophet
said in the hadith, it's in the Sahih
Muslim
that, you know, that whoever accepts Islam
and doesn't leave off the evils that they
were doing
in, you know, before Islam,
that they will be tell holding held accountable
for what was before and after. Oh, wow.
So Islam
Islam forgives the sins that came before
as long as you don't continue with them.
Mhmm. But if you continue in those sins,
then you're you're you're kinda thin you know,
skinny what it? Skating on thin ice is
the Yes. Yes.
So it's important that everyone who has a
dedication to their faith take the faith seriously
regardless of whether they are from an Muslim
family or have converted.
Very strong point. Thank you for bringing that
up. Brother Waddud?
Really great point. And, Sheikh, I'm just gonna
take it full circle. Like, you've gone you've
become Joe, and then it's amazing that you
had access to that imam that understood how
to be mindful of your background and your
roots and your family and keep that name,
but then you became hood. And you went
on and met all these amazing people, went
through studies. But then you came back, and
you mentioned
in one of your writings that you went
back to Saudi. You're wearing your suit, and
you're wearing your tie, and then you're introducing
yourself as Joe.
And the imams asked more about you, and
then they said something very profound. I'm gonna
read it from here. He said that I
appreciate that you have preserved your culture,
your dress, your name. It is completely contradictory
that we say Islam is the universal religion
and then tell people to choose Arabic names,
eat Arabic food, and dress like Arabs.
Sure. We have regulations for dress, but that
that the how to wear, not the what
to wear,
be you.
That is the best example you can be.
You'll do more for Islam that way. Mhmm.
And this is such a powerful thing that
I'm thinking about. Like, we're talking about me
and sister Holly are talking about mindful Ramadan,
how to cultivate our best self, the visualization
of our best self. And if we're not
mindful of
how our deen
impacts the way that we show up, who
we truly are, and also our families. Like
you said, it really pained your dad. He
said, you know, a a religion that forces
you to change your name, I'm I I
I'm not I'll not have anything to do
with it. Right? And it makes so much
sense. That wasn't
my dad. That was my friend's said that.
Oh, friend's dad. Okay. It was my friend's
dad that said that. Yeah. He was he
was really hurt years later because I really
I think I really could have given a
lot of dollars to my father, but I
was given this impression that I had to
change my name. You know? Yes. My mom
was very irate about the name change.
My father, who I'm named after, thought it
was hilarious.
He
we were having coffee one time,
and it just randomly, he looked around, and
there's a brand of ice cream called
Hood ice
cream. And he goes you know, he's like,
starting to change the sis or something.
So he he thought it was hilarious.
But then again, he was, I think, a
little bit more exposed to Muslims being that
he grew up in Detroit. But regardless, yeah,
I mean, it's important that
new Muslims are not given impressions.
A lot of times, what we do is
we we try to instill in new Muslims
our own fears, apprehensions, and hopes about Islam
Mhmm. Instead
of instead of giving them the principles that
they can actualize
for their step.
And that's,
you know, that that's that that can be
a very dangerous thing when many of those
fears, anxieties, aspirations, and hopes
are cultural or baseless
or maybe just misunderstood.
Right.
And maintaining and preserving your culture is so
important. And, brother, you brought that up so
beautifully because if you feel like you have
to give up everything
that you are, then it's really going to
frighten your family and your friends because they
they feel like they're losing you. Right? They
feel like we don't know him anymore. But
maintaining and I remember we had a, I
would do halakas in in Egypt.
And one lady, she was Venezuelan, she brought
her mother for the for the
who was a non Muslim. She was a
Catholic.
And so I dedicated the halakah to talking
about mothers in Islam and just honoring her
and talking about it. And everyone gave her
so much love that she said,
all of you make me feel like God
is hugging me. It was very it was
a very sweet gesture.
And I invited her over once, and we're
sitting by the pool, and we're talking and
talking about everything except the slum just to
make her feel relaxed.
And then
she ended up taking her shahada. And one
of the things that we did, I we
made cupcakes. We always had, like, shahada parties.
And then we put she was because she
was Venezuelan, we put the little
flags of Venezuela.
And we we wanted to say and we
did the cake, you know, we said it
like
like in Spanish. That is like, you are
you are you. You're gonna stay you, and
it's just embracing
the religion. So I think that's such an
important point that, you know, that you brought
up in preserving our identity as we change
or embrace Islam. Yeah. I mean, I think
anyone who's Muslim for a while will develop
a very deep appreciation
for
the
the diversity of our community.
Mhmm.
I think when someone asked me this recently
of what was my impression of Muslims after
I became Muslim.
And as an and it you know, talking
it up you know, looking at as an
outsider looking in, not saying that I'm not
Muslim, but saying that looking at someone who
is kinda brand new and looking at the
impression that you get from everyone,
everyone thinks that their culture is indicative of
Islam and no one else's is. And in
reality,
their cultures are informed by Islam but are
not
the sum total of Islam. And I think
for that, that's a very
important distinction because what can happen
is you know, and you talk about this,
like, renovation. Like, Islam is a renovation of
the faiths that came prior to it. It
it it got rid of the yokes and
the chains that had been upon me. Was
Allah says
So these yokes and chains
of false beliefs and false practices Mhmm. Societal
evils and personal evils, Sam comes to get
rid of.
The conundrum that many
converts find themselves in is to say, well
Mhmm. Sure. I'm ready to give that up,
but I see so many Muslims who have
horrible social skills
and are not willing to get that up,
and
and and why? And and the reason why
is because
the culture has become synonymous in the minds
of those people with the religion.
So even when you are
of a different
background,
Right? And you don't even have to be,
like, of a far off ethnic background. Right?
It's just they they don't have it in
mind of, like,
how can a person who is, you
know,
everyday lower middle class white American become Muslim.
Right? Mhmm. You mean there, like, there are
Muslims in China. Right? Like, I had a
friend I have a friend from he's Chinese
ethically Chinese from Saudi Arabia, Mohammed Sui. Like
chop Sui. Okay. Okay.
And he said you know, back in the
eighties, he was studying in in in NYU.
And he finds this mosque, and he goes
in.
And he said, you know,
the the the he goes to the door
and this little boy sees him. Obviously, he
sees this Chinese guy walking in,
and and
the boy says, sorry, sir. This is a
Muslim church.
Oh,
Not realizing.
He walks in and he said it's obviously
a Turkish community.
Uh-huh. And is before I could even, you
know,
pray,
these, you know, like, council of old men
are sitting in the court, and they beckon
me over.
And they're asking me all kinds of questions,
like, recite of Fatiha. Like, you know, you
know, they're they're asking me in, you know,
broken lip Uh-huh. You know, and
and recite of Fatiha and do this and
do that and do this. And then finally,
one of them, he, like, has his epiphany,
and he's like, oh,
I know what's going on.
He's Turkish.
Oh, that's a fun on my And then
everybody was like kids are. Like, yeah. He's
Turkish. He just doesn't know the language. Please,
brother, go play go pray.
So the thing that happens with a lot
of converts is it's like, okay. I see
like, I'm willing to make I'm willing to
make almost any change that's expected of me.
But if I don't find that willingness from
other people,
it can Yeah. It can create a crisis
of faith at times. And my message to
the language is always
Islam is a
individual faith. It's a faith in the individual
that is supported and bolstered by the community,
but it is Mhmm. It is not maintained
by the community.
Mhmm. And that's an important distinction because Ibrahim
alaihis salaam
can't. He was a nation on himself.
So you you don't you don't just because
other people are not doing
what's expected or what's right doesn't mean that
you have to resent them because that does
happen a lot with Right. Converts,
nor does it mean that you have to
doubt your own faith or the the that
you're
That's a very powerful point. Definitely.
And
what would be your advice to
people who interact with Converse? Because I know
every Converse friend I have has a story
about, you know, some
unfortunate
experience that happens at the masjid or with
Muslims, and and it takes a lot of
resilience not to be impacted by that and
not to make you leave it altogether
because of how like, sometimes it's just ignorance
ignorance
and and their prejudice.
So what would be your advice to people?
My my advice I mean, my advice would
be
to,
you know, understand the reason why you became
Muslim. Mhmm. It was probably a you know,
it was a personal choice.
That personal choice
does not need to be
changed because of the, you know, the bad
attitude with someone else. If I make a
personal choice to go see a movie
Mhmm.
And the person at the concession stand is
rude to me, that doesn't mean I can't
enjoy the movie.
Right.
Okay. So understanding
the best advice that I got the very
first day I accepted Islam was
no one is a 100% Muslim except the
prophet Muhammad Islam. Right. So you you should
expect failure from people that are not 100%,
and don't allow
their faults
to make you fault the faith.
And for me, that that helped a lot.
You know, I remember, you know, as a
teenager when I became, like, overzealous at 13
to, like, grow my beard and do random
stuff and think that that's how I was
gonna define, you know, like, my
converts, but it's Muslims that find you know,
they're finding that zeal, that ability to try
to go closer to god. How do you
define that journey in a way? I think
this is universally applicable to anyone that's trying
to go into the journey that not forgetting
who you really are, your culture, your family,
and being mindful of that. But, Chek Joe,
please go ahead. You know, how do you
not forget who you are? I I think
that the biggest thing is to develop
a sense of self esteem
and and a confidence.
Right?
Mhmm.
You know, understanding that the Quranic
address
was to mankind as a whole
Mhmm. And not to
any particular
race or ethnicity or background
and that you're part of that human address.
You're you're part of those who are targeted
by the Quran. So your faith is no
less valid
than anyone else's.
And while you want to be open to
learning from others
and
improving,
you also don't want to kind of give
away your your your your mind
to
blindly follow whatever anybody is going to tell
you. Right? It's kind of what, you know,
a a a temper an act of tempering.
You know, who I am as a person,
being realistic about who I am in my
kind of social proclivities and emotional,
you know, stability and outbursts and likes and
dislikes,
and then not realizing realizing that as I
am a human being, so are they, and
humans as in general are the topic or
the subject of address for the Quran,
so let me do what I can to
do the best.
And
although I am brothers with this person, I
don't have to be friends with them. You
know, when you're kind of new and zealous
in faith, you're like, you know, everybody.
You know, you're
everybody you're giving salam to and everybody, you
know, you're trying to accommodate,
and life just doesn't work like that.
And so, you know, you can be brothers
with them, give them salaam, give them their
rights of Islam, but that doesn't mean that
you have to
tolerate
abuse,
rudeness,
uncouth behavior,
or sometimes you just don't have you just
don't have to be friends because you just
don't vibe. You know? So Mhmm. Yeah. The
vibes are important.
Very important. The vibes.
The energy. You know, check your energy.
Yeah. This is a really beautiful, beautiful,
advice here because
choosing a key few key friends in your
journey to becoming the best version of yourself
that keeps you grounded
in a way that you still have a
beautiful relationship with your parents, with your family,
while your character
shines
with that content of a Muslim
that is not afraid of practicing the good
of your culture and your roots and your
name. And at the same time, you're able
to balance that character with the spirituality and
this god centeredness. It's more about your
relationship with god and and how it shows
up in your character
than all these other superficial things that people
randomly sometimes impose on you. And having those
type of friends around can really confuse you,
and it confused, I think, a lot of
us that went through that initial phase of
journey to Islam and then eventually came back
realizing, you know, those are just people's cultural
interpretation of what Islam is, and we have
to go back to the real reason we're
we're we're doing Islam and being mindful of
that. You know, one thing about
friendships is that you'll will be very affected
by the people that you're around the most.
Mhmm. And so having
having good friends
and then also knowing that, yeah, somebody can
be a Muslim and be a bad person
is a specific it's an important distinction.
It is. It is.
So one of the things that I put
a lot of emphasis on is gaining congruence.
Right? As far as being psychologically
healthy, is having congruence between your beliefs and
your actions.
Now you're in Sharia finance.
Correct? And you find that
many people
will
be very faithful.
They have a lot of connection to the
deen, but they live their life
not in accordance to that Sharia. So that
dissonance, how do you think that impacts
a person as far as their
spirituality,
as far as, their personal
relationships when they are not adhering
to the principles
in the way that they are living their
life and the and and they're not complying
to the Sharia. It's almost it's almost like
this. Like, a person can appear to be
healthy
Mhmm.
And they can be functional, highly functional,
but they have, like, this small
pinhole
infection
in their body
that just throws them off from time to
time.
And they don't realize why. It's hard for
them to put their finger on the on
the subject.
Like, why is it that I if I
get sick, I get horribly sick? Right? When
I wanna recover, it takes so long to
recover.
And a lot of times, it's because of
those sins that are done
privately.
It's those sins that are done
without a sense of consciousness.
You know? Sometimes we sin, and we're very
conscious that we're sinning.
Mhmm. The problem is is what sin becomes
normalized
to the point where it doesn't matter. I
don't need to worry about this.
That's where it's a
very, very dangerous
equation or or or or situation for someone
to be in. And I think that, you
know, when especially with our money and our
finance, right, and the way that we do
business,
it is
you know, it can endanger
our spiritual journey. Prophet
said there was a man who traveled far
and wide. He was dusty and disheveled. He
raised his hands to the sky saying, you're
up. You're up. Oh, lord. Oh, lord. His
food was haram. His drink was haram. His
his wealth was haram. He was nourished by
the haram. So how can he be answered?
So,
you know, holistically,
being a holistic
Muslim, holistic human being, holistic person
of faith, as a Muslim is extremely important
that we that we not
compartmentalize
and think that the spiritual
wrongs that we do against ourself will not
have
real physical and spiritual consequences.
I see.
It's beautiful. Beautiful. Shaykh, I was just gonna
say that we're talking about taqwa, that how
to be more mindful, how to have more
focus, how to not get distracted,
live our life on autopilot and be more
aware. Right? And that awareness and consciousness usually
is the first step when you become aware
when you realize you missed the exit.
And then you've gotta figure out, like, how
do I make the u-turn? Unless and if
you think that you're heading the right direction
and you haven't lost your way, then you
keep going until you're really, really far away.
Right? Mhmm. And so just coming back to
the awareness of money, and we've been talking
about mindfulness in terms of character, mindfulness with
our food, you know, halal and tayeb.
And what does mean? Is not just, you
know, like, yeah. It's halal certified. That's why
I'm gonna have all these, you know, all
these biryani on this plastic plate, not knowing
how the chicken was raised, how the meat
came, where the plates came from, how I'm
impacting the environment. As a human being, as
a Muslim, how do we become that elevated
level of awareness consciousness
thinking about what is
most god conscious and most most god centered
in everything we do. How do we have
this takwa with our money, with our finances?
Yeah. I mean,
how do we have tough with our money
and finances? I think that
it's it it really starts with budgeting.
Mhmm.
Most people
spend horribly.
They are wasteful.
They are
in debt, and they have problems because
they you know, the idea of budgeting is
the most rudimentary
function of the financial world.
I need to know how much I I
own, how much I owe, how much I
have coming in, how much I have going
out.
And when you don't know that, it's more
than likely that you will not have a
purpose for any of that.
But, chef Joe, a lot of women are
allergic to the word budgeting.
They are allergic to it. I mean, this
comes up in marriage counseling. This is a
big issue. Right? That Yeah. I mean, I
can I can I I I I know
exactly what you're talking about, you know, and
that in my in my practice, you know,
that's it's it's a quite Like, some stuff?
Thing. Yeah.
Yeah. So what would be your advice to
someone who struggles with that? Or maybe one
spouse is on they wanna be very mindful,
but the other spouse is more heat like,
heedless
and
not as motivated.
Yeah. So I think I think, you know,
to tie that in with what Wadhud was
asking
about the idea of Tuqua, to me, it
goes back to, like, every line item in
your budget having a purpose.
And in in in having a purpose, it
needs to it needs to be righteous. It
needs to be intentional. And when you can
get a couple to agree
that the way that we spend our money
and the way that we earn our money,
it needs to be righteous and it needs
to be intentional. Mhmm.
Then
you can ask the person,
are you going to be able to fulfill
both of these
Mhmm. Or not?
No. No. No. No. I can be intentional
with that, but I'm not the person to
make that decision. I can make the decision,
but I'm not the one to take track
of that.
Right? Or I can do both if I'm
doing it with you.
Mhmm. Unmet expectations and unspoken
expectations and needs, I think, for couples with
their money is very important. With individuals, I
think it's very important for a person to
really ask them ask themselves,
what am I looking for in life as
higher goals,
my faith, my community,
my career,
my creativity,
my, you know, my spirituality and my and
my my friendships,
and then say, okay. Well, how does how
does each of those
relate back to my money? Like, I had
a client couple years ago. She would go
on very nice vacation
and then feel horrible afterwards.
And I used to say, well, why do
you feel that way? I feel like I'm
wasting my money. I'm not, you know, doing
it.
I'm not, you know, I'm not I'm not
using it for the best purposes,
so on and so
forth.
Mhmm. And my message to her was
that if you can focus on kind of
the broad purposes that you have in life,
now your challenge is connecting that broader purpose
to the specific line item of your Mhmm.
So you want to say, oh, well, I'm
I'm a person who is very appreciative of
art.
Mhmm. I said, okay. So you travel. You'll
go to a country and go to museums.
Yes. Okay.
So
that creativity
of appreciating
art
should translate down to, well, when I save
for my vacation, I'm doing so because
I want to I want to appreciate Allah's
creation. I wanna appreciate Allah's
place in in other creation. I want to
see the natural the beauty of nature when
I travel.
I want you know, maybe I have an
idea of community. Well, I have this global
Mhmm. Idea of the Ummah, and I want
to travel to a place
where I'm gonna spend my money and it's
going to benefit other Muslims. So maybe instead
of going to,
you know, this place, I'm not gonna go
to the south of France. I'm gonna go
to the north of Morocco, something like that.
Right?
And through
making that sort of intention out intentionality
Mhmm.
Really transform
your ideas instead of every all the money
that I'm making, I'm undeserving and I should
feel guilty about to
I deserve the best, and I'm doing the
best with it. And that's what the law
wants from me
to not squander my money.
Mhmm. I'm either through
excessive
spending and excessive donation
nor through excessive neglect and
excessive disregard.
Creating that balance.
Creating the balance, being mindful, being intentional.
If you were to give,
you know, the Muslims tuning in right now
advice on, like, finances, like, what they need
to do, what would be, like, let's say,
three advice
that you have seen your clients all, like,
maybe be oblivious
to,
and you would say, just do these three
things,
and that would be a good start to
get on the right track.
I would say,
number 1 is create a budget.
Okay. And do it by hand,
paper and pen
Mhmm. For a minimum of 2 weeks, if
not 6 weeks.
Okay.
Because when you put pen to paper and
you are actually collating all of this information,
you will start to say to yourself, hold
on.
Something missing.
I didn't I spent something, but it's not
here. And when you when you move to,
say, using a spreadsheet or an app, that
becomes even more apparent. So budgeting and understanding
your budget is very important.
I think getting in the habit
of
saving and putting money away for yourself first
is very important.
Mhmm. Not making and then number 3 is
keeping everything simple.
People have the idea that money is complicated.
Money is not complicated.
Money is actually mathematical.
What is complicated is human emotion.
And the more that you allow your emotion
to get in the way of your money,
you'll have less money and more emotion.
K.
So when when you when you say to
yourself, you know what? I'm gonna keep this
as simple as possible, as easy as possible,
as predictable as possible.
And then once I'm comfortable,
I will revisit and improve.
Okay. That's better than
chasing down a dream of becoming this financial
master
and never doing anything because you're always bouncing
between different systems and and Mhmm. Advice and
investments. And, you know, you you you wanna
invest for your retirement, but you're you're playing
with stocks on Robinhood thinking that's investment when
it really is trading and it's wasteful trading
at that.
So,
you know, starting a budget, consistency in savings,
and keeping assist a a very simple system
of how much do I have coming in,
how much do I have going out, and
doing that, like, in blocks. Like, do it
for 3 months and then reevaluate or 6
months and then reevaluate.
You will actually end up
with more savings, more more more financial security
than you will if you spend that whole
6 months studying all this stuff and never
taking it.
Very valuable advice. So is that and brother
would do would you like to Maybe. So
are you are you saying that, you know,
like, our random like, we were out last
night and we were out shopping, and then
all of a sudden we're like, there's really
nice iftar buffet just 5 minutes from here.
And then we didn't even see, you know,
how much the buffet cost. So we just
all went in
and we realized, okay, this was an expensive
Ithar buffet.
We experienced it once, but, we'll think about
it twice. But emotions get the better of
you. Right? Yeah. Yeah. Emotions get the better
of you. It's not wrong to splurge or
to treat yourself at times.
Right? I mean, the prophet he
said, you know,
he
It's enough
for a man to take a few bites
of food that keeps his back strong. But
if he has no choice, then he should
have a third for his food, a third
for his drink, and a third for his
for his breath.
But there are other times where, for example,
he had Abu Hurayrah
call a bunch of people over to his
home. He served them milk. Milk was miraculously
multiplied. Abu Hurairah at the end, you know,
was told to drink, and he the prophet
kept telling him to drink until he he
said, I don't find I don't find any
more space for it. Right?
And, and then the prophet
said, in in that case, fine. And he
took the milk, and he drank it, and
they were done. So from this,
drinking your absolute fill and really treating yourself
at times is not a bad thing. Right?
But it should be an intentional thing,
and this is a thing that people don't
realize.
Right?
We're talking now about food. We're talking about
drink. We're talking about money.
Only thing we have to Shopping.
Shopping. We gotta add that in there. We're
we're we're talking about all the things we're
abstaining from,
you know, other than other than spouse relations.
Right? Oh, you're talking about fasting. Okay. Yes.
We're fasting now, but just, you know, to
for the for for for the viewers, we're
not trying to mess with you guys as
a. I'm saying we're we're mentioning all these
things because
you have to be intentional. Like, even even
studies in relationships
have shown
that
couples that are intentional about their money and
actually plan their vacations and their joy joyous
times together are happier.
Couples that don't wait on spontaneity,
but they have relations
eat
a scheduled planned way, enjoy it more. They
have greater greater pleasure and and success
in the relationship as a whole
because they're intentional about everything. They're intentional about
eating together.
They're intentional about spending together, Intentional about sleeping
together. They're intentional about being apart from each
other.
Mhmm. And so this is why the idea
of Nia and being intentional in all our
things is so huge in our faith because
it really is the key to life transformation.
That's beautiful. I'm gonna use that with my
counseling sessions. When I'm doing marriage counseling,
I'm gonna quote you.
That was excellent.
And we can't end this without
talking about Palestine and what is going on
there. You know, it's
it is it's heartbreaking
to watch. It is,
just it's earth shattering.
Every time it keeps getting worse and worse
what we are
what we're seeing our brothers and sisters in
Palestine
cope with. And, you know, many people see
it as a source of this, like, it's
just darkness and hopelessness,
but they have shown
such resilience. And I'm just wondering how have
you been impacted
by the resilience of the Palestinians,
and what do you think is the
objective,
like, the the wisdom in us witnessing this
and and how
they are handling this trial?
Yeah. So I think that I think that
words kind of fail to describe the resilience,
what our brothers and sisters in Palestine have
been experiencing.
I think that the best person to speak
about the resilience would be someone who's Palestinian
from first yeah. But I'm certainly inspired by
that. But I can I can say from,
you know, from looking at the situation and
the reactions to the situation
that there's, like, 3 divine wisdom that I
see happening, like, live on the ground?
And number 1
is
a, you know, setting the stage for the
future.
Oh. And and I, you know, I talked
about this in a in a hookah a
few weeks ago
that, you know, the prophet
talked to his companion about things happen at
the end of times, things that would happen
with this benefit after his death.
Why? Because he wanted to inculcate in them
the idea of the long arc of history.
Mhmm. And that that, you
know, A day for your lord is like
a 1,000 of those that you count. Yeah.
So when we change our perspective about what's
happening now to what Mhmm. It's eventually going
to happen, it makes it
easier to see the big picture. And I
think there's 2 main big pictures that are
happening right now. Number 1 is as Allah
says,
right, to take from
Some people are blessed
in that the
their lives are not defined by
the limited time that they have here on
Earth, but by the expansiveness of Allah's grace
and mercy that he gives them as martyrs
in the next
life, the the the people of Gaza have
certainly been chosen
for that.
Secondly is
that what we are seeing now,
I think, is becoming one of the most
defining issues of our age.
Mhmm. No the the the the moral hypocrisy
of
the liberal
democratic
capitalistic order
Right. Is has been thrown in disarray.
The The veils have been lifted. Right? The
veils have been lifted.
The e you know, the the evil,
bigoted,
racist
and the
the the adjectives allude me. The
evil of of the the Zionist system
has been has been exposed
so much now
that you have people who are generally extremely
far
right wing,
right,
who are now saying,
this is too much.
Mhmm. You have people that are extremely far
left wing that are saying,
this is too much. Like, we have to
reevaluate
everything.
Everything that we knew about who the good
people were and who the bad people were
has been completely thrown in disarray.
Right? The hypocrisy of systems that
tell you that they are built upon equity
and fairness,
but in reality, work to
destroy entire swaths of people,
you know, have all been exposed. And so
I think that is a huge benefit
because people will now realize that maybe there
is something greater than themselves and greater than
what they thought was ultimate in their lives.
That's very deep wisdom behind it. Brother Wadhud,
would you like to reflect on that?
No. I think those are really beautiful wisdom.
May Allah bless you, Shekjo. Really honored to
have you here. I think it's great to
always look for those wisdom. Just be mindful
and just taking some time to reflect
and connect with Allah and asking Allah from
our heart, open the wisdom for us. Allah
can always open the ways, open the path
when we come back to that taqwa, you
know,
Allah grants you that wisdom when you reflect.
So it's beautiful that you have this reflection
to go with in terms of those three
divine wisdom. I just wanted to say, just
going back to the the the money aspect
of things that Shik Joe mentioned, in my
mind, I just had so many light bulb
moments going because he's talking about reflecting. We
in mind in mindfulness, we talked about this
concept of
or sitting and reflecting on god and sitting
and reflect and this reflection about where I'm
gonna spend my life and my time and
my money and that reflection
and then the important of we talked about
how Allah gave us intention as micro moments
of meditation before every action we do to
turn into worship.
And Shikdu talked about the intention beef behind
every do in terms of how we our
relationship with money. And then the concept of
mohasaba
that where we are and how can we
build our best selves just, you know, in
terms of our money. So
we talked about
is not just about all of these to
to do list and things you do in
Ramadan, but your relationship with Allah in terms
of your
your relationship, your character.
And now I think this is really completed,
sister Holly Howard. That's true. That
Now finances.
Yeah. Transform your relationship to finance your money,
which is such an important thing in your
life. So beautiful Dzalek Alakha and you and
you,
in enhanced our analogy of the renovation. Just
like a lock
love.
Ship. Could you make some for us, for
the viewers?
Sure.
Oh, Allah,
have mercy upon us through your divine mercy.
Oh, Allah, have mercy upon us through your
divine mercy. Oh, Allah, make this for amongst
those
that their fast and their prayers are accepted
this Ramadan. May Allah, make this for amongst
those that renovate our souls and renovate our
minds and renovate our actions to be those
that are in line
with their your book and the sunnah of
your prophet. Oh, Allah, make us from amongst
those that hear the best of what is
said and follow the best indeed action.
Oh, Allah, make us from amongst those who
do the best that we can to be
as intentional
and to be from amongst those
that give victory to Islam at everything that
we do from the smallest of our actions
to the support that we lend to our
brothers and sisters around the world.
That was so insightful, comprehensive. We really appreciate
your time. I'm glad we were able to
make this happen.
Thank you so much. I look forward to
seeing you all again.
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