Hamza Tzortzis – Mistakes I Made With My Father As A Revert

			You know, because I actually want to make this like a like as a journey. So your life is a revert
you said in the beginning, you're not happy with some of the things and some of the things you may
have done.
		

			Of course, for the sake of benefit, maybe there's some reverse this thing right now. Yeah,
absolutely. And they index applies to any human being. So like, what kind of mistakes Did you feel
like you made? Well, I think the biggest thing was, is more fundamentally not really learning about
Islam. What it truly is, I mean, for the first few years of being a Muslim, I had no no real idea
why alows worthy of worship? which is our most fundamental question, or at least, it's the most
fundamental thing that we have to understand, because it's our raison d'etre is our reason for being
is a reason for existence. Why is along with your worship?
		

			So that really disconnected me away from true spiritual practice, which is, you know, you know,
being being connected with Allah subhanho wa Taala. Another thing was, you know, not seeing his son
holistically and seeing a very kind of ideological sense. Yeah, like, you know, and that creates a
hard heart. And, you know, my dad was a hero for me. So when I become Muslim, what do I do? Does he
remain a hero? So I had this binary thinking, so he can't be any more because he's not Muslim. Yeah.
Which is stupid. Because we know the purpose of some of them would praise non Muslims for some
virtuous things that they did, or some of the virtues. And Allah says, In the Quran, in Surah, Al
		

			imraan, verse woman, three people are not the same. The upright people from, you know, like, the
Christians and the Jews, and, you know, we don't have this kind of binary thinking is far more
nuanced. Anyway, the point is, I had to now break my idol, if you like, or break down my hero. So I
made my father, which is really bad. It's just ego, really, I made my father
		

			think that he was like, worthless, like, you know, anything he did good, didn't exist. And the fact
and, and I made all of his kind of negative things or mistakes, I just, I just highlighted them and
zoomed in on them and said, Look, this is why, you know, worthy of respect. This is why, you know,
where the, you know, to be honored and valued, which is totally an Islamic. And I remember, once
we're having such a big argument,
		

			because my dad had, you know, a wrong interpretation of Islam before his son was very external, the
beard and the clothes, which is not the case, we have a very powerful, you know, in a spiritual
tradition, but it's my fault. Maybe I didn't show that to him. And maybe the Muslim community didn't
show that to you. So and I was having a debate about this. And then I just went to the, for my
remember, I just want to rip into him. And I made him really, really, really bad to the point, he
ran out into the garden. And he was so upset, he was smoking. And he was basically this how Islam
teaches you to treat your father. I mean, that that's powerful stuff. You can't treat your dad like
		

			that. Right? So what happened was, is I remember even telling my mother, like, you know, my dad's
dead for me, in my head, you know, these are this evil, nasty stuff. I mean, it's vonleh. If I, if I
could meet myself, you know, then, as I am now, I probably give myself a couple of snaps at least
Yeah. But this is the journey of life, Bernice, the ego, because it was the ego that made me have
these interpretations, right. So what happened is I went to this kind of psychology, existential
life coaching 3d thing. I think it was around three days, and it made me realize that I need to take
back control of my relationship, I need to understand things properly. Well, they teach you to try
		

			and do breakthroughs, that you take the blame for your failed relationships, right? So because the
relationship between two people, it's, it's not binary, someone, not one person holds all the power
in with regards to the relationship is more fluid, right? So they teach you that will take control
enrolled people in your behavior, if you want love at home, then you'll be loving. If you want
certainty, then you become scared to make the change. If you want compassion, you to make the change
yourself. So you enroll people in your behavior. And also they make you realize that, you know, some
of your interpretations are just false. And that based on your dramas I mentioned earlier, and they
		

			try to break down your ego and try to show you that actually, this is all based on your ego because
what is the ego is that you always want to be right, you never want to be wrong. You always want to
impose you never want to be imposed upon. You always want to look good, you never want to look bad,
excessively to the extent where you give up being true to yourself, because what's important is not
being right is being true to yourself. What's important is not looking good. It's being true to
yourself. What's important is not imposing and preventing anyone imposing on you it's actually being
true to yourself. Because if you're true to yourself, sometimes you just have to admit I was wrong.
		

			Sometimes you have to not look good, like admit your mistakes and say yes, this is a failure need to
improve. So being true to yourself is far more important. But what the ego does it prevent you from
being true to yourself because he always wants to be right. He never wants to be wrong. He always
wants to impose and nobody wants to be imposed upon
		

			He always wants to always wants to look good, never wants to look bad. So it makes you realize,
well, this is your knifes, right? And this is actually Islamic, right? Because shaytaan, right? He's
our teacher, because he teaches us how not to be. He teaches us how not to be. And this is exactly
what she done was like he had that Eagle, right that kibber. Yes. And that's why he went to bat on
to Adam. So from that point of view, when I realized that I had to have a breakthrough, so I called
my father. Yeah, well, what happened was the Sunday was it was quite emotional. I picked up the
phone, I said, Dad, I want to speak to you. And he was, he was nursing my granddad, who I loved so
		

			much. And I still love I mean, he passed away, I loved him so much. And he was nursing my
grandfather back two or three years in Greece. And that was something that I thought my dad couldn't
really wouldn't be able to do, because he's a bit squeamish, doesn't like hospitals and cleaning
staff, and blah, and all that stuff. But his love really transcended his shortcomings from that
point of view. So that was an inspiration as well. So what happened was, is I've just picked up the
phone and said, I want to speak to you and he's like, Whoa, he never speaks to me. I'm not I'm not a
phone person. Right.
		

			And I would highly speak to my father when he was away anyway, which is a very bad thing to do. So I
called him and I just really apologized and I said, Dad, you know, I'm really sorry. You know, it's
all my fault. I made you feel like this, but you're still my hero, even though you don't believe in
why I believe in, you know, you're the best father, your great grandfather. I said all these amazing
things. And I started crying over his son, he was crying. And when he seen my dad only cry a few
times in his life. And you know, he spoke to my mom. I think that evening, he said that he was ready
now to pass away he felt complete as a father. You know, something interesting about that
		

			breakthrough. It really helped our