S02E06 – Working In Community Projects – Adel Mohammed [Interview]

00:00:00--> 00:00:02

Season Two, Episode Six.

00:00:04--> 00:00:15

Welcome to the Muslim life hackers podcast, the weekly podcast providing you the knowledge, tools and connections to help you get ahead in life. And now, your hosts Mithra maroof and mahane Malik

00:00:24--> 00:01:06

Assalamu alaikum. And welcome back Muslim life to another episode of the podcast. This is your host, Malik here bringing you another great interview with people doing remarkable things. Today's guest on the show is Otto Mohamad from Penn zeal here on the show, we don't just want to give you the know how on how to hack your life, but also inspire you as well and share the stories of others who are doing incredible things. Otto is one of those super cool guys who happens to be a lawyer by day and alongside his team, a rat tends to occur on my stroke by night, I catch up with a deal on how he got involved in the community work that he's doing. Now, we really get into tons of detail, which is a

00:01:06--> 00:01:43

huge online credit memorization platform, where they help students from all around the world, interact, connect and really understand the Quran, alongside qualified teachers who are there with students every step of the way. Other gives us the rundown on how it all started. What are the challenges when it comes to working with others in this community kind of field, and how to keep such a big project continuously afloat, not to mention juggling teachers and students from all around the world. And a nine to five job on the side. This hook was quite humbling for me, online, it was really interesting hearing from audio and how it all got started. And with that being said,

00:01:43--> 00:02:25

let's get right into the conversation. Assalamu alaikum Muslim life hackers, Today we've got a special guest on the show today. Adam Mohamad with us. So thank you so much for joining us on the show all it costs a lot more to learn. Thank you for having me. It's a great pleasure to be with you and all of your listeners. Thank you so much. So just for our listeners who don't know about you, give us some background on yourself. Okay, so I've just gone over 30. So I'm starting to feel old these days. Basically, I live in Melbourne, Australia, I went to school in university here studied science and law at university find some law, that's a cool combination. Yeah, well, as probably

00:02:25--> 00:03:02

confused at the start. And that's what I wanted to do. So I do the work as a lawyer at the moment and my real job, but the job that I love doing the work that I do with unzila. So together with your job, like your nine to five job as a lawyer, you also got these side projects as well. And one of them is called tensile. Now, when did this all started, could you give us some background on the project that you've got going and see where it all started from is quite interesting, because I just joined a community development organization, it there wasn't really that much to do, but they felt they needed someone in my skill set. So one day they will talk talking about you know, we need more

00:03:02--> 00:03:42

people to run some of our projects, etc, etc. So I put up my hand and I said, Look, I have I have capacity, and I'm keen. So give me something to do. And they actually selected for me to run a Quran project for them. hamdulillah Well, you could say it's kind like the opposite of what you're working on at the time. Exactly, exactly. When but Allah has amazing ways of working in the I mean, he just gave me the opportunity. So have the law, he started on that it was supposed to be an onsite program. So we were working with various massage service, some schools and things like that to try and set up some classes. So after a while, we sort of decided, Okay, we needed to put a stop to this

00:03:42--> 00:04:05

because it wasn't really working period of about two years, we were really trying and thinking and yes, we hadn't given up on the idea. But something wasn't gelling, for us to give us something that would actually work eventually. And this is amazing is a very amazing story in the way I work. One of our members of the team had a chance meeting with a random individual from Egypt on Skype.

00:04:06--> 00:04:35

This day can really explain how that came about. But they had this discussion found out that this individual, he's got a PhD in Arabic and very passionate about teaching online, etc. So we just worked with him and started off and it's grown from there. So that's the beginning of time Zealand I think I always say to people that it just Allah fulfilling his promise to protect his book The way that things came about. It's not because of anything that we've done.

00:04:37--> 00:04:56

It's Yeah, he just you know, brought the right people together at the right time. And I just want to get like more into like, what it is that you do like what is unique about them Do you know online platform that you guys are have launched? So is it purely online? Yes, it is purely online. We work with teachers based out of Egypt. And

00:04:57--> 00:04:59

yeah, so to me, that's an amazing thing as well.

00:05:00--> 00:05:31

Because, and these teachers aren't necessarily in the big Metropolitan kind of areas of Egypt of Alexandria, Cairo, but they were in a village about two hours out of Cairo. So to me, it's amazing that Allah has given these individuals the opportunity to enter the living rooms of people around the world, like we have students from Australia, from the UK, from Canada, India, all over the world. So it's just amazing. I just find it really amazing how Allah has taken individuals who

00:05:33--> 00:06:12

would otherwise not really have any connection with, you know, the outside world, really. And he's given them the skill set of the Quran, and he's given them the ability to connect with people through the internet. So that's what I guess what we're really about is to try to maximize the skills that are out there within the oma and bring it to the people that that probably don't have access to it creating access to teachers who help you memorize the Quran and understand the Quran. Yes, yes. And one of our key focuses, you mentioned the right word is understanding. Because, you know, as our slogan goes, connect with the Quran, so it's part of the culture, or it's just become

00:06:12--> 00:06:48

the way that people started the crime. In general, were, the focus is always on memorizing or reading. But the understanding component of it isn't as given as much importance, but something that we want to do it and zeal and this is a, this is an ongoing struggle for us. And we'll keep struggling until we really cracked the code is to get our teachers to a level where they're able to assist students day to day with the understanding of the Quran as well as it sounds like it's like, you know, scattered pieces that all came together to that make the project that is concealed. How did you connect with all of these, like, you know, how you said that you've got teachers who are in

00:06:48--> 00:07:21

villages that are, you know, two, three hours away from Cairo, which is the center? How did you guys get in touch with those teachers and bring them into your project, it just happened that the individual that we started to work with who's managing our center, basically, he's from that area. So he were the people that he knew teachers and things to sort of bring the one line with us. So going more into, like the project itself. And, you know, you must have faced many, many challenges along the way. One of them was, you know, at first, the students just weren't interested. So that was like, one of the, one of the challenges that you had second was like, the teachers that you

00:07:21--> 00:07:32

needed to source out. And third, you know, transferring it over into, like this online platform. How did you manage to do all of this? I mean, it's, it really was a lot of passion, a lot of hard work, a lot of

00:07:33--> 00:08:14

heartache, gela, we, we all it's very clear to us what we need to do to make this happen. Not the concern, I guess the concern is finding the time finding the team, finding the individuals, finding the resources, funds and people to, to put things together. So Al Hamdulillah, we we just met God, Allah allows us to continue. So what would you say was like your biggest door at the time like that you will making, the biggest one that I was making then and that I'm making now is that Allah brings us the right people at the right time. Because people are such a big component, like you can't do things without your team, like collaborating with you in a effective way. And like when you have

00:08:14--> 00:08:53

people that, you know, they just don't really get the vision of what your project is about, it just kind of collapses around you. So how did you manage to find your people that you've got right now? Yeah, so one of the tricks that I have up my sleeve is, I try to take people to Egypt with me. And when they come with me, I find that they're often that they don't, when they want to do things to make this project grow. So one of my friends, who's from Canada, it took me one whole year of Skype conversations with him to convince him that he needed to come with me to Egypt and hamdulillah he did, and now he's been heading, our teacher training, development and all the work around the

00:08:53--> 00:09:30

curriculum, etc, etc, it's things that I really couldn't do. So the last trip that I went on, we took five people with us. So inshallah hamdulillah. I'm hoping that we'll get similar output from all of them as well, to get them hooked with like a trip to well, when you go there, and you see the potential of it all. It's amazing. And like I say to people, like people look at the project sometimes and they like wow, but I got these teachers, you got this website, etc, etc. I say to people, really, we're just at the tip of the iceberg in terms of what we can achieve. There's so many people in a in a place like Egypt, martial arts, bless. It's blessed with the Quran that we

00:09:30--> 00:10:00

need to try and maximize that for the rest of them. So we're really, really like in terms of what we want to achieve. I would say we're at about 25%. So we need more people on board inshallah, to help us keep progressing. Fantastic. Well, thank you for sharing that with us. And I just want to touch on your travels for a second that you've done a lot of traveling, especially for the seal project and memorization, and you must have met some incredible people along the way. And it hasn't been any that stuck with you. And I would say I mean, I think

00:10:00--> 00:10:40

I've met many amazing people handled a lot. But really, I can't really go past our teachers. Absolutely amazing, Mashallah. I mean, we've demanded of them that they actually learn the English language so that they can communicate with people like yourself and myself. And, and and they've done it like, I can't see myself learning Arabic the way they've managed to pick up the English language. So I think that they are amazing. But I mean, some of the one of the stories I'll probably share with the listeners here is this time when we went to Egypt, we were there and we saw a baby's sort of caught in the center. And we're wondering what was going on and turned out that a teacher

00:10:40--> 00:10:55

had had a baby just a week ago, and she was keen to be come back and start teaching, it was just no way. That's commitment. I mean, I was blessed me with a son two and a half years ago, and I know the struggle, it was on me as the Father, let alone be the mother,

00:10:56--> 00:11:11

after you have as a child, and I just find that totally, totally amazing. So, and each of the teachers have their own personal stories, which would blow us all away. And I don't think we have the time in this podcast to say how like,

00:11:12--> 00:11:50

connects people to the CRAN. And like, projects that really make it happen. It just, it's just amazing the ways that he works and how it just comes about just leaves you astonished. Yeah, I mean, something that I do say to people, and to my team, as well is that we're just blessed to be given this opportunity. And it can be taken away from us as well, just as fast. So we need to be conscious of that when we're looking at something like benzene, because it is an absolute honor to be able to try and you know, bring the Quran alive? Absolutely. Well, I'm just like, amazed at the sheer amount of work that's gone into here, like you've got around almost 200 students around the world. You're

00:11:50--> 00:12:30

coordinating like an international team, you have to travel to Egypt now and again, to like, check up on how things are going, how do you manage it all? Like what are the processes that are going on behind the scenes that are helping conceal stay, I'm talking about how I manage my time and things like that, to sort of make these things happen. I would say number one secret is to make the use of your mornings. I mean, you know, there is the Hadith of the Prophet SAW somewhere, he has said that there is the blessing in the morning. And I vouch for this 100% like I sometimes I'm really tired and want to sleep, but I push myself to wake up and to do the work a because I can do it in peace

00:12:30--> 00:12:31

without my son

00:12:32--> 00:13:09

screaming and yelling. But be because I get twice as much done this make the use of the mornings. And really, I think people need to do what they really passionate about and then it doesn't feel like a job. as such. It's I'm having fun. Every minute I do tend to work. Maybe I'm being a bit selfish, but for me, it's it's just what I love doing. There's a good way to spend my time. Thank you. So the mornings and then you'll be able to double the work and just do what you find fun and you're passionate about. Exactly. Okay. Well, thank you so much for joining us in the show. That's all we've got time for. For our listeners who want to connect with you. Where can we find you on the

00:13:09--> 00:13:51

web? Oh, website is www.ta NWEL dot o RG please come check us out. Okay guys, please check out some feelin adults website. And they're doing amazing stuff connecting people all around the world with the Quran. Once again, thank you so much for joining us. And we look forward to talking with you again. Now one more after law. All right. So that's the end of the interview with Adil inshallah it was beneficial and inspiring and you learn something new, and do check out tensile [email protected] As usual, you can find out more on this episode. plus all the links and references mentioned in the show our previous episodes and interviews all of it over at our website,

00:13:51--> 00:14:27

Muslim life hackers.com All right, so let's get serious now. Have you been enjoying the show? If so, please share the love by leaving us a review on iTunes, go to Muslim life hackers.com forward slash iTunes and drop us a line on there and give us a rating. It really really helps us tremendously with reaching more and more listeners and keeping the podcast visible. Muslim life hackers.com forward slash iTunes, we would really appreciate it. So that's all I've got for you guys today. Until next time, aim high take action and be awesome

00:14:31--> 00:14:32

baby boo

00:14:35--> 00:14:37

sees the baby