Johari Abdul-Malik – Millionaire Manners in Islam Part 1. Interview Hosted

I'm

so happy

to have my dear brother almost like really

like a nephew to me. I can't say

son. Like nephew to me,

here talking about your book, really continuing a

legacy,

that was begun by your parents who I

went to college with at Howard University,

and who often I was mistaken for your

father, Hamal Malik, Hodari Ali,

but he was always doing something good.

So whenever people saw me, they thought I

was him, Johari Hodari.

Yeah. You know, it it always brought some

benefit,

to me, and I pray that, maybe

mistaken identity with me brought him some benefits.

Oh, yeah. But today, we're talking about your

book that's gonna bring benefit, I believe, to

many, many people, especially young people, Millionaire Manners,

the men's and boys guide

to social grace in the new age. What

motivated you to write this book? Alhamdulillah. First

off, jazakAllah for having me. I'm I'm really,

really happy to be here, and I appreciate

always the, the kind words and sentiment,

and

for my for my late father, Rahimullah.

But the the the motivation was, was was

pretty simple on a couple of fronts. You

know, I have a background in corporate America,

before before I launched my training organization, which

we'll get into and before I wrote the

book. I always found myself mentoring young people

and giving them tips

and advice on how to get through life

and navigate different situations. So, you know, Masha'Allah

decided to incorporate all of that advice into

one book

and hopefully, it will it will serve some

benefit to those.

You know, I read this

this book. I was I was captivated. I

don't really know. But

but not only captivated, but what I found

really great is

that when I saw the title and I

saw the name Sadiq Ali,

the first person that I thought about and

you you you mentioned your father,

and your grandmother, I think, in this,

but I thought about the prophet Muhammad

shalayhi wasalam.

And I think a lot of people don't

think of the prophet Muhammad as having

millionaire manners.

But when I read through the book,

even though

it doesn't really mention that it talks about

the creator and it talks about,

good deeds.

Why did why did you choose to

to write it in this way?

I don't believe that. Because I because

Islam is all over the book. Absolutely.

But but for those who know Mhmm. But

why did you write

it kind of it's a stuff of it's

a stuff of a kind of written book.

Well, you I number 1, I wanted, you

know, everyone to be able to benefit, you

know, from the material that's in that book.

I didn't want anyone to think that, oh,

this is a strictly Islamic sort of erudite

written text.

It is none of those things. I'm by

far not a scholar.

I'm a regular husband, father, inshallah, all around

good guy. But, I I didn't, you know,

I I specifically stayed away from certain verbiage,

etcetera, but

absolutely the book was inspired by our dean.

Absolutely anyone from any faith can still benefit

from it because we know our book,

the last message of Allah,

I mean, the holy Quran is very clearly

written as a guide for mankind.

So in the realm of Not just Muslim

kind. Not just Muslim kind. Absolutely not.

So in in the context of writing a

book like Millionaire Manners, I wanted it to

be able to appeal to as many folks

as possible.

And, and the other key point is the

fact that

the beauty of what we know as Muslims

is the fact that, throughout all the all

the faiths that the world has and has

ever known, especially our our Abrahamic,

triumvirate

of of religions and spirituality.

They all have a basis

in morality.

Before the religious and our and the rituals

come into play, there has always been a

strong basis in morality. Scholar.

Right? Did they talk about the prophet Muhammad,

alayhi, alayhi, said that before he was a

prophet, people called him Ahmed. SubhanAllah. That he

was known to have the best manners. In

fact, how could someone believe that he's a

prophet

if he has bad manners? He comes and

says, I'm a prophet. And people say, man,

yesterday, you you you were behaving like this.

That the inheritors of the prophets

are those who follow their examples. Absolutely. And

so you have really but you also said

something. You said the the,

that this is, the Quran is a guidance

for all mankind.

What you meant humankind, but in this book,

you really are talking about men. Why why

are you talking about men in this book,

Sadik? I think that's also a simple a

pretty simple answer in a sense that

men primarily are the leaders

of society.

Men are primarily the leaders of their households.

Men are the imans of their households.

And

especially from a young man's standpoint, which is

why I wanted to make sure that I

included

information in the book for young men, who

are coming of age and in the process

of becoming readers inshallah.

I wanna start it for me because,

you know, we have a problem now in

society where people would take issue with what

you just said. Mhmm. Then all the leaders

and the and then okay. Statistically I said

foremost,

primarily.

Primarily.

But there there is a tremendous

movement now,

as a result of of couple of decades

of title 9,

to really promote girls. Lean in. Girls have

to get together, and we're gonna move girls

forward because the society and its discrimination against

women has left them so far behind.

But your book,

you're trying to put

men to come forward. Can you talk a

little bit about

is is there some

crisis that you're responding to?

Oh, I just last evening,

I had the, had the pleasure of doing

a radio interview on Morgan's radio station, WEAA

88.9.

And just last evening, the host of that

radio show, Anthony McCarthy, he asked me a

question. He says

he asked me basically, I want to paraphrase,

why now? You know, why why is this

book needed now? Mhmm. And really it's a

twofold answer. So I'll answer your question by

telling you what I how I answered, Anthony

McCarthy's question.

I think there's 2 issues.

I think number 1, there's the issue of

gentlemen

and manhood.

And then there's the issue of good manners,

good adapt in general, which are supposed to

be embraced by men and women alike.

So, you know, the issue of Title 9,

etcetera, there's really no issue.

Let women do additional things, as they should,

as they're able within the confines of our

of our book, our example of Rasool Allah

SWAMI, that that's there's no issue with that.

On the front of gentlemen and manhood, I

think there is a crisis

on our hands, or at least that we

have the beginnings of a crisis.

And I don't think that is anyone's particular

fault. What I told Anthony last night is

the fact that I I believe that,

and which is why partly I titled the

book, Social Grace and the New Age. The

New Age refers to the fact that because

of technology, just because of, the bombardment that

we have of information of all different types,

there is we are more distracted now than

ever before.

So it is not that we necessarily value

good manners and some of these principles any

less than we might have in the past.

Mhmm. It is a fact that we've gone

away from teaching them and emphasizing them as

a way to not only be successful,

as we know in this life, but also

successful in the next.

You know, I'm

we're gonna close.

I highly, recommend this book. I've been been

fascinated

by by reading it,

and I'm going to use

my pulpit

while you use your social media network

to get people

on point with improving,

what what we call in the Islamic terminology.

Mhmm. The best character, the best behavior.

And we know that the prophet

he was the best example.

In every way, he had good manners.

It opened doors.

It opened kingdoms. It opened hearts.

And so

I would invite you to get people from

your pulpit.

You have a Twitter,

or We do. We do. We're actually in

all the social media. Alhamdulillah.

So on Twitter, our Twitter account,

I'm I'm guessing it'll flash in the bottom

here, Insha Allah. But our Twitter

account is mllnremanners.

So short for millionaire manners.

That's at mllnremanners.

On Twitter, on Instagram, it's at millionaire manners.

And on Facebook as well it is, Millionaire

Manners Academy,

which is our training organization where we teach

these, these skills that are in the book

to, non profit organizations, alternative schools,

and also reentry programs. So when we have

folks coming back home from being incarcerated,

they have we're teaching them skills to be

productive in society. And we're gonna we're gonna

we're gonna talk about,

your program later.

We ask Allah

to continue to bless you and your work

and that you'll help all of us

in this life

and to get to the best place in

the next by having millionaire manners.