Johari Abdul-Malik – Millionaire Manners in Islam Part 3. Interview Hosted
AI: Summary ©
AI: Transcript ©
I'm here with,
Sidi Ghali, and I'm really blessed to be
in your company always.
Because
I I benefit a great deal from
maybe not the wisdom of young people.
Maybe people think wisdom is something you reserve
for, like, older people,
but your insights and your perspectives,
particularly young people who have looked critically
at the circumstances that they're living in and
then attempt
from their foundation,
from their family and their faith
to move forward
in a way that that's productive and progressive.
And so I try to to grow and
to benefit
from that. People talk about,
every time a teacher teaches, they learn.
Absolutely. And so
as I'm interacting with you,
I'm trying to learn as much as I
can.
You have written this book, Millionaire Banners,
particularly at a time when
we know that there are many young men
who are in a malaise.
They they have a kind of, delayed
maturity.
If you look at,
college enrollment, say, at historically black universities and
colleges or community colleges, you'll see,
and colleges or community colleges, you'll see the
majority of students are females. If you look,
in in religious groups, not just mosques, but
even in churches, you'll see the majority of
students are female. If you look, in in
religious groups, not just mosques, but even in
churches, you'll see the majority of students are
female. If you look, in in religious groups,
not just
mosques, but even in churches,
you'll see that the majority
of the active young people are women.
My my issue to you today is,
what kind of manners are these? These are
kind of,
gentlemanly,
manners
that that,
you know, might be able to help young
men who think.
And, you you we mentioned, off camera,
the problem that the NFL has with domestic
violence. There are many young men who think
that the idea of manhood is,
being an athlete
so you could bust up people
or you could be a rapper and you
could shoot up people or you could go
in the military
and whatever. You could become a jihadist.
Right? And you're gonna go and and fight,
when
most of those guys
are losers
in the regulars.
People don't look up to them
here, so they wanna become some one of
these other modern day gladiators.
How does millionaire matters help with that?
You said a lot, Emmanuel Harry. You said
quite a bit just now. It's your turn
now.
I think I think the very first thing,
one of my favorite quotes
never sure I need to research who who
this is attributed to, inshallah.
But the man with goals,
everything helps him.
The man with no goals,
nothing helps him. It's a problem.
That is the first thought that comes to
mind in the sense that
manners
and treating people well,
at a very practical level
will get you that closer to your goal.
I think that's the first thing. Mhmm. The
second thing that comes to mind is the
fact that as you talk about attitude
and confidence
and being in a situation where you believe
in yourself
Mhmm. That you can achieve greater things than
your circumstances,
then, again, a book like this is exactly
for you.
Many, many young people,
they end
up attaching themselves to causes that they might
not even fully understand because they don't think
they're capable of
change or being a changed agent Most most
definitely. In their own skin. In the most
definitely.
But how? Give me the nitty gritty.
I'm a young man.
I don't have much money.
I don't have, much education.
I don't have a high powered job.
You know,
maybe I'm I'm right in the middle. I
might even be, I might
be a a tech guy. I'm making money.
But when I look around the world and
I see the suffering of Muslims, I can't
how do I make how do I make
change,
right, and be a
man? How how do how do how do
you do that?
It all starts How do you approach that
thing? It all starts with thought process.
It all starts with thought process. It all
starts with thought process. That's why the book
begins with attitude.
That's why I've written this book to first
look at the internal workings
of our mind, how we form our beliefs,
which turn to thoughts, which turn to actions,
which eventually turn into our results,
our circumstances in life. Can you say that
again?
Our beliefs turn into our thoughts. Our thoughts
turn into our actions. Our actions lead to
our results, AKA our circumstances in life. Right.
So so a guy who is
taking in
certain kinds
of information that affects his attitude
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
It goes further.
Who do you surround yourself with? I talk
a lot about that in the book.
As we form new habits,
we have to have
habits to replace those ones with. Friends are
right on the borderline. Sometimes when you replace
friends, you don't necessarily have to replace
that old friend with a new friend. Sometimes
it's addition by subtraction, as they say.
So,
you know, it's a deep concept, but, again,
at first, it starts with our internal workings.
Assess you you have you have better circumstances
by dumping some of your
liabilities. Sad but true. Sad but true. A
friend of mine, Tarek Nelson, he said, If
you have 9 friends who are broke,
guess it's going to be number 10.
Again, it's inevitable. It's inevitable.
So when you talk about
those some of those scenarios, some of those
situations where our young people, our young men
in particular,
are looking to, again, attach themselves to causes,
groups, etcetera, that may or may not have
their best interests in mind,
it is important that, again, we ask ourselves,
number 1, what are our goals? If I
don't have any goals, I had better get
some goals.
As I get goals,
I then will will look to change my
thought process.
And as I change my thought process, the
world then then opens up
to me. The prophet, alayhis salatu wa sallam,
he said,
you have
the deen,
the way
of life
of your
friends.
Young people sometimes, you know, your mother tells
you, don't
those boys smoke.
Don't go with me. You said, well, I
don't smoke. He says, yeah. But if you
go with them yeah. You probably gonna start
smoking.
You know, I I think sometimes when I
was, an undergraduate student,
one at Howard, one of the things that,
and and your dad, I think, graduated Magna
* Laude, I believe. That sounds about right.
I know my dad. Yeah, yeah. So you
you and,
and was,
in my day, he was the, editor of
the campus newspaper. He wasn't just a writer.
Mhmm. He was the editor of the campus
newspaper. And I remember that environment
saying,
Don't hang around people
who do less than you.
Hang around the people who are doing better
than you. The student who's getting the better
grades, try to join, try to join that
group.
Right?
If you see the successful people, look at
what they do.
And we have that in the example of
Prophet alaihis salam. Right? Pray as you see
me pray. Right? If you want to be
successful in your prayer, look at how he
does it and then do what he did.
In this context,
sometimes young people
have difficulties
finding
that
mentor.
I know you talk a little bit about
mentoring in here. Can you say a little
bit more? Because sometimes the person who's lost
don't know they lost. Maybe they come from
a they don't come from a family like
yours. They they come from a dysfunctional
family.
What what what
tell us about about
your mentoring scheme and the use of of
this wonderful book. Absolutely. I think the first
thing to note is that all of our
families are dysfunctional at a certain level. I
and I'm a keep that. Where where there's
love, there's an opportunity. Always an opportunity. Something.
But as we talk about,
you know, mentoring and surrounding ourselves, that's another
one of my favorite sayings is that you're
always the smartest person everywhere you go, then
you need to go into a bigger room.
Yeah.
So in the context of mentoring, I have
several pointers and tips and tricks in the
book about networking.
Networking is one of the key skills, one
of it truly is an art of getting
out and meeting new people.
So that way, as you subtract some of
those friends we just spoke about, now you
have a method of, sha Allah, potentially replacing
some of those. You also have the opportunity
to have conversations
with those who are wiser.
You know, if doesn't mind me sharing me.
But just last week, I had the opportunity
to to sit with Imam Johari off the
camera, and we just had a wonderful conversation.
I just enjoyed listening
to Nadia. And that's wisdom. And and, you
know, that's the other thing too is that
this gray hair he has is, it did
not come alone. It actually did come with
some wisdom.
But it's important that that the youth that
we take the opportunity to go and sit.
But again, it starts with getting over the
fear of going out and shaking a hand
and meeting a new person. That is a
fear
piece, but we also, again, have to bring
it back to our goals. If my goals
are to impact and have and and have
impact and to change things, then I have
to be able to overcome the fear of
rejection. I have to be able to overcome
the fear of meeting new
people, on the way to,
to achieving my goals. But I need to
go first.
Well, I'm gonna leave it there today, but
I
do wanna say that
if you're not mentoring
a young person,
but you want to, you don't know what
to do, this is a great is a
great place to start.
It gives you a guide
to social change,
in a way that I hope,
that this book won't only be effective,
in America.
But when we we talk about this book
in the next edition, it it'll be in
Arabic and I saw a lot. And Chinese
and other languages
so that people can learn about the power.
We forget sometimes that when the prophet returned
to Mecca
after being made a refugee,
when he returns to Mecca at Fatimaka,
and he says to the people that anyone
who doesn't fight us is safe.
There are some people who wonder because in
the Arabian Peninsula, the standard was you kick
somebody out when they come back.
Right? They make slaves out of the women
the men.
They make concubines out of the women, and
the children become their servants. That's how it
worked. The prophet
comes and says,
anyone
who doesn't resist
and doesn't fight, we're here to make peace
on this peninsula,
and you will be safe if you stay
in your homes.
There are people who said, you know what?
We always knew
he was right.
Some people said, can we trust him? He
said,
he's Alamein.
He's he's always been trustworthy. He always had
the best manners. He was always better than
us. He had millionaire aire manners then.
Such that people said, okay.
I think that the time for violence and
conflict is over
because we can trust
his character
and his manner.
With that,
I wanna thank you. And again, encourage people
to go to www.millionairedashmanners.com.
Pick up a copy of this book because
this is not,
a nonprofit
stuff. I think it is 17.95.
That's probably the best $18,
you'll spend.
It's a very practical guide, and it's something
that you can give to people of any
faith, any conviction,
as long as they are people of conscience.
Absolutely. So, Saddiq, thank you so much for
your time. My pleasure. It's been my pleasure.