Mustafa Umar – An Interview Shaykh Muslim Minds
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The current President of California Islamic University discusses their past experiences with Islam and their belief in God, as well as their past experiences with a car accident and a recent accident. They emphasize the importance of understanding Islam and mental and physical health to overcome negative emotions. The speakers also discuss the pros and cons of cultural groups in America and the benefits of educating parents on harms of social media and the importance of following the role model of the prophets and the prophet. They stress the importance of respect for people and not elevating anyone above their position of authority, as well as following the role model of the prophets and the prophet, peace be upon them, and not elevating anyone above their position of authority.
AI: Summary ©
My name is, Mustafa Omar
and currently I am the president of California
Islamic University
and I'm the education director at the Islamic
Institute of Orange County, which is kind of
like being an imam,
of a mosque or a religious director of
a mosque as well.
I have a bachelor's degree in computer science
from UC Irvine
and then I switched careers
and, I did a bachelor's degree,
in Sharia, which is in Islamic law and
theology
from, an institute in France called the European
Institute of Human Sciences. It's basically an Islamic
university.
I also have a master's degree in Islamic
Studies,
from the UK,
University of Gloucestershire,
and,
I have traveled to different countries. I've studied
in India. I've studied in Egypt,
and just studied privately with Muslim scholars. I
was in Egypt for a year. I was
in India for a year.
I visited a few other countries, Sharjah,
which is UAE, visited, Jordan, and then I
spent another 3 years in France.
So I wasn't a very practicing Muslim growing
up. I didn't really grow up in a
very practicing family, but I did consider myself
to be Muslim.
What happened was,
when my freshman year of college, I took
a class on philosophy
and,
that really
made me very skeptical
about a lot of religious questions
and my teacher was like a militant atheist
and he had a big effect on me.
And, another philosophy class that I took, my
TA
was a militant atheist
and he also had a very big effect
on me. So
that coupled with
just not really having a deep understanding of
Islam
and kind of thinking that a lot of
cultural practices represent what Islam really is and
negative experiences growing up in the masjid and
in the Muslim community
really just shattered my faith and, that's really
why I left Islam. I just I stopped
believing in God completely. So I was never
attached to Islam very much in the first
place, but not believing in God was just
like another step.
What brought me back was
I was involved in a car accident, a
major car accident. So I was street racing
one day and running away from home at
the same time, and I got into a
major car accident and
that just got me thinking about
taking life more seriously.
And I made a prayer as well. Even
I said, I, God, I don't even believe
in you. I'm not even sure if I
believe in you, but I was about to
go to prison. And I said, if you
can get me out of this jam, you
know, if you exist, then
I will put some effort into finding out
if, like, atheism is the right thing or
if you really exist or not. So
I tried to keep my promise and I
started studying,
I started researching, I started
reading a lot of books, and eventually that
really helped bring me back to Islam.
Yeah, I mean those people who are going
through doubts,
but they kind of have some understanding of
Islam,
I think they need to put some
effort into
educating themselves about what Islam really is. Because
oftentimes,
the doubts about Islam are due to a
lack of,
understanding what Islam really teaches on that subject.
And sometimes you can ask 1 Sheikh or
ask 1 person or read something online
and that's not really necessarily representative of what
Islam teaches. Or maybe there's actually a difference
of opinion and that's the wrong opinion that
you're reading, you know. So I would say
focus on that aspect. And then the second
is focus on a holistic understanding of Islam
because oftentimes
there is,
there is a perceived notion about what Islam
is that we have
and if we have generally
a negative perception of Muslim scholarship
or the Muslim community in general, even though
we may love Islam in theory,
that
negative perception
of Islamic scholarship
can actually
prevent you from finding the right answer. And
the third thing I would advise is just
take care of your own mental and physical
health because what ends up happening is sometimes
a lot of emotional or stressful, you know,
life experiences that you have
doesn't matter whether you find the intellectual answer
in Islam or not, those emotional states will
somehow override your perception of what the the
actual intellectual answer is. It's very important to
take care of your own self when it
comes to your mental health and your physical
health as well.
So,
when it comes to the question about,
why did Allah create,
people who are bad. Right? The thing is
people
did not
end up being bad
because God forced them to be bad. It's
very important to understand even when it came
to Iblis,
the story of Iblis and Adam is very
clear that Iblis chose the path
that he chose.
Right? So it's not something that was forced
upon him. The same thing with Firaoun, the
pharaoh. The same thing with Abu Lahab. The
same thing with all people who choose to
do evil. It's not that they were forced
to do that. They actually had the ability
to make a decision to do something good
or do something bad and they chose that.
Right? So it's very important to understand that,
you know, when we say Allah is in
control of everything and Allah knows everything and
he decides everything, it does not negate or
take away the fact that people have free
will and they're able to choose
their own life decisions within a, you know,
within a within a limited capacity of what
human beings can choose.
So, yeah, that's very interesting. So I spent
quite a bit of time in in England
and, in Britain,
and, I've been in and out probably almost
every other year, you know, throughout my life
because I have family there as well. So
what the way I would, compare and contrast
them is
it seems like Muslims in in Britain,
they have a longer
established history of being there,
but they also have,
they also tend to
preserve their culture very much from whichever community
they're coming from, primarily the Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi
community. So what ends up happening is they're
like cultural enclaves. So when it comes to
having halal restaurants,
when it comes to having lots of masjids,
when it comes to having imams in their
masjids,
they're they're way advanced compared to the American
population which is very,
dispersed.
So it doesn't have those kind of that
community built up
because of this reason. Muslims are very spread
out in America,
but there's the the difference another difference between
them is that American Muslims tend to be,
more educated
than Muslims in England on a whole
and
that education has its pros and cons. The
pros that it brings is that,
American Muslims are probably much more well off
than the Muslims in in England.
They're they're less just working class. There's a
lot more professionals.
They'll make they have higher income,
and they have higher education. So that affects
their
institutional
development and in their perception and their practice
of Islam. Another reason could also be because
they're more diverse. So American Muslims are probably
a lot more diverse than the Muslims in
England.
Although they're also very diverse, but I would
say that they're more in America. And the
institutions that they developed, they've developed a lot
more
diverse institutions which actually represent
different
ways of manifesting Islam or different movements or
different kind of,
ways of looking at Islam, and whereas it's
more homogeneous
when it comes to,
Islam in in Britain. So I would say
these are some of the, pros and cons
and some of the similarities and some of
the differences there.
Well, it's not so much,
just the female role models that we have
in America. It's actually even the American Muslim
speakers when it comes to Hamza Yusuf, Sheikh
Hamza Yusuf, Imam Siraj Wahaj, Sheikh Yasir Khadi,
you generally don't have
that dynamic in England.
And some people will say it's because the
American accent and the British love the accent
and we love the British accent. Maybe that's
part of it, but I don't think that's
the real reason. I I think it comes
back down to
the
the way probably the education.
Like I said, the the education background of
people and also the fact that perhaps there's
actually more converts,
in America
or at least the converts are coming from,
or maybe that maybe the converts and this
is a theory, but maybe the converts actually
had access
to institutions and to resources that they did
not have in the British Muslim community at
the time. Therefore, they became more prominent.
So that's probably it and also just
that America is much larger.
It's more it's more diverse.
So that I think just America being different,
America's political,
role as well plays a major factor. The
fact that people are more interested around the
whole world in imitating America,
because of Hollywood, because American shows, the American
lifestyle,
you know, American export of its own culture
is very different from England. It doesn't have
the same international status,
that it used to have, you know, in
the past. So all I think all of
that plays a role and a factor. So
when it comes to the Muslim women,
you know, that you mentioned,
that's a role. When it comes to even
the men that, you know, that that I
mentioned before, that also plays a role. So
I think it's it's a whole dynamic,
and that's really what makes the American community
very diverse and very unique.
Yeah. Right. Yeah. So I mean this is
a a big tragedy because
when someone,
who's in a position of authority and leadership
and is looked up as a,
looked upon as a role model by people,
they, you know, they have a huge responsibility.
Sometimes they don't want to be in that
position and they just want to be like
a normal person because everybody makes mistakes, you
know. Everyone has faults and and these type
of things can happen to everyone, unfortunately.
But when someone does have when someone is
in the limelight,
they have a greater responsibility
and,
that can potentially become a fitna or a
trial for the their followers and that's something
that's very concerning. So if someone was a
student of that person or if someone,
really looked up to that person and used
to follow them and and viewed them as
a role model, the things I would advise
is first of all always remember that everyone
is a human being. Everyone is,
everyone is fallible. You know? Everyone
makes mistakes. Some people make bigger mistakes. Some
people make smaller mistakes. So
realize that the person's a human being and
they're not perfect. And that's why we should
be very careful of we should respect
people but we should not idolize them thinking
that, you know, they're immune from ever making
mistakes or they're the perfect role model. The
prophet, hamans rasulam, our peace be upon him,
he's our perfect role model. So we should
never elevate anyone above him. He's the only
one who's gonna be perfect.
Everyone else can make mistakes. Everyone else is
potentially dispensable. Right? But we need to follow
the role model of the prophets and the
prophet, peace be upon him. That's the first
thing. The second thing is that if that
person makes a mistake,
right, that doesn't mean that we should somehow
assume that all of their teachings
should just be wiped away. Like, every benefit
that you gain from that person, if that
all the lectures that you benefited from when
that person when that person talked about patience
or that person talked about taqwa or that
person talked about, you know, coming to the
masjid for prayer or whatever it may be.
That doesn't negate, like, all of the the
good things that you benefited from that person.
So you may go ahead and say, you
know what? This person was not the ideal
role model. This person succumb to the temptations
and kind of fell from
succumb to the temptations and
kind of fell from grace in the sense.
Like, is not was what could not follow
his or her own advice,
which is sad. Right? But that doesn't mean
that it's hopeless. It doesn't mean that we
don't benefit from what what the things that
they said, and it doesn't mean that it's,
like, hopeless. Some people say, like, well, if
that person who was so great was preaching
all these things, if they couldn't control themselves,
then who am I? I'm never gonna be
able to do it. No one can follow
these teachings. That's not true, actually. Not everyone
who can deliver a good message is necessarily
the best role model of that message. They
should be, but it's not always the case.
So I would just say, you know,
don't put your trust
in just one person. If you're gonna put
your trust in 1 person, put it that
your trust in Allah and put your trust
in the messenger of Allah. That's the top.
And then when we look at these other
people, try to have more than 1 teacher.
So it's good to have 1 teacher but
it's good to have more than 1 teacher
sometimes. If one of them
does something really bad or turns out to
not be a very good teacher, you at
least have other people to help balance you
out, and that's something that I highly advise
people to do.
Yeah. So I mean social media is a
tool that is
very beneficial if used in the right manner.
Unfortunately, many people
abuse it or they actually become addicted to
it, and there's a lot of harms from
social media. So let's talk about some of
the benefits of social media first. The benefits
of social media is you're able to actually
communicate and remain in communication
with people who you would not be able
to communicate with otherwise. You can talk to
friends. You can talk to family. You know,
you can stay in touch with people
that you would have
not been able to do had you not
had this technology. So that's an amazing thing
and it's a quick way to communicate with
people. It's a quick way to share ideas,
share thoughts,
but the harms of social media is that
it's very addictive
and when people become addicted to it, they
end up wasting their entire life away on
social media just liking things.
So that's one harm. Addiction is a major
harm. A second harm is that people start
to
become,
become, like,
dependent
upon other people's,
what's the right word, other people's validation of
their thoughts.
So if you post something and you don't
get at least 20 likes, you go into
depression. You say, oh my god, no one
liked this post. What's wrong with me? And
you start challenging yourself, you start thinking and
and that's very dangerous. That's very unhealthy for
for the psyche. You know, another, problem with
social media is you start to,
disconnect from reality and having real relationships with
people. So sometimes you prefer these virtual relationships
but they're not the same as having real
relationships
and people can actually become lonely because they've
cut off their real relationships that they have.
So that's another harm. Another harm is when
you look at people doing great things on
social media, you start to become jealous of
them and you start thinking, oh, I wish
I had that life. And the thing is
that's,
that's almost like propaganda. It's like what newspapers
and media does. They're just giving you one
side of the story and if you judge
that reality is that way, it could really
mess you up. So it's very important that
people,
learn the harms of social media
before they use it so they can actually,
understand what they're getting themselves into. When it
comes to parents, I would say the same
thing. They should understand
what the harms of social media are, look
at some of the research on it, and
make sure to educate their kids on this.
This should be something like there should be
it should be like a driver's ed class
that you should have driver's education before you
can drive. This is so potentially addicting that
there should even be like,
mandatory education that people need before engaging with
a substance like this because it's very addicting,
actually, and has many other harms as well.
Okay. So I would say a book on,
the life of the prophet, peace be upon
him, would be great. Like, Tariq Ramadan's book
is great.
Outside of that, I would say,
the autobiography of Malcolm X. Yeah.
Yeah. Star Wars.
Sheikh Hamza Yousef.
Malcolm X.
Imam Khazali.
UK in three words.
Cold,
subway,
and
halal food.
Diverse.
Let's see.
Powerful
opportunity.
Favorite 0 book?
Favorite favorite 0 book.
Taarik Ramadan.
Sheikh Abdulwadud Hanif.
Chicken Tikka Masala.
Malaysia.
Getting a black belt in jujitsu.
The prophet salaam,
he said,
He said that there's 2 blessings
which many people are cheated out of. He
said,
good health
and free time. And this is an authentic
hadith and I think
a lot of people,
they
they have good health and they have a
lot of free time,
and the prophet said that they're cheated out
of it. And if you think about who's
cheating you out of it,
the only people we can blame is ourselves.
So So it's very important to use our
help and use our time in a way
which is pleasing to Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.