Mustafa Umar – Why I Left Islam and How I Came Back
AI: Summary ©
AI: Transcript ©
So this police officer comes and he goes,
I have witness reports
that say you were going, you know, X
amount of miles per hour. You kid, I'm
gonna make sure you go to jail.
I'm gonna make sure that they press charges
and you're going to jail because you should
not be on the street.
Everybody. Welcome to another episode of the Prophetic
Mentality podcast.
Today, we have a very special guest, Southern
California's very own Sheikh Mustafa Umar.
A little bit about Sheikh Mustafa for those
of you that don't know him. Sheikh Mustafa
spent some years studying Islam in the east.
He spent time in Nadut Al Alema in
Lucknow, India, and Nadal Azhar in Cairo, Egypt.
Sheikh Mustafa holds bachelor's degrees in Theology and
Islamic Law from the European Institute of Islamic
Sciences and a Master's of Islamic Studies from
the University of Gloucestershire.
He is the current education director at the
Islamic Institute of Orange County and founder of
the California Islamic University.
As always, links to our guest social media
and about pages are included below in the
description if you're watching on YouTube or in
the podcast description if you're listening to your
favorite podcast app. Now on to the good
stuff. We originally scheduled with the sheikh about
1 hour to discuss the topic of masculinity
in Islam.
However, we ended up recording for almost 4
hours with the sheikh.
Honestly, the time just flew by. So since
the recording was so long, we decided to
split up this episode into 2 parts. In
part 1, what you're listening to or watching
right now, we go into the sheikh's personal
story on how he ended up on the
path of knowledge. And let me tell you
now, it's a pretty crazy story. And sheikh
Mustafa is an amazing storyteller.
He had me engage in cracking up the
whole time.
In part 2, we get into the topic
of masculinity in Islam and we discuss some
relevant legislation that has currently gone into effect
in California.
And that's all I'm going to say because
you're gonna have to watch this one for
yourselves. Recording this episode was delightful in every
way, so I hope you too enjoy listening
to it as well.
And on with the show.
Welcome to another episode of the prophetic mentality
podcast. Today, I'm joined by my co host,
Munir, and we are joined by a very
special guest, Sheikh Mostafa Omar from, Orange County.
Salam alaykum Sheikh.
How
are you doing today? Doing excellent. Alhamdulillah.
Today, we wanted to have you on to
discuss,
the certain topic of masculinity
in in Islam.
Inshallah, we wanna get into that a little
bit later. But, first, I wanted to kind
of touch base on your
kind of your journey
getting where you are now.
I know your journey to Islam
and being a sheikh is probably not as
linear as most would think.
So can we probably get into that a
little bit first? Sure. Where should we start?
High school. High school.
Alright.
So high school, yeah, I went to public
school. I went to Tustin High School. Okay.
You know, kind of my mentality
was,
the way that I was raised, kind of
semi culturally
practicing Muslim.
We probably never prayed outside Jummah prayer. Okay.
When it was convenient.
Right? Because I'm in school, so obviously not
not happening that much. We go for Eid
prayer.
So not really much Islam.
So like Eid Muslims? Kinda like Eid Muslims
but maybe like one notch above sometimes Jummah
Muslims like you know so so yeah so
a little little bit one notch. We're not
we're not that bad.
And, so that basically meant that,
most of my friends were non Muslims.
Okay. So my Muslim friends were only pretty
much like at parties.
Either I'd have like a Hindu friend or
a Muslim friend because my parents socialize with
with those people. Mhmm. Other than that I
really wouldn't see anyone else. So almost all
my friends are non Muslims.
All my,
you know, things that I do and people
I hang out with, everything else is pretty
much influenced by not non Muslim. So that's
kind of what high school was for me.
And then,
what happened was in high school, probably somewhere
around junior year,
we went on a family trip to Mecca.
And when I came back from Mecca that
was like a huge thing for me because
I've never seen Mecca before. It was like
a huge cultural shock, you know, as on
5 times a day this and that you're
going to the masjid.
So I actually became kind of interested in
Islam a little bit,
after doing Umrah and visiting Makkah for the
first time. So I came back and I
started like you know, I want to take
this Islam thing you know seriously. Mhmm. So
I started
I started praying a little bit more. Mhmm.
I started, you know, telling my friends, you
know, Islam is this, Islam is correct, and
Islam is an awesome religion, but it was
kind of like,
my own version of Islam. Whatever you kind
of perceive from the culture that you kind
of No. Not only that. So the thing
is I didn't really like the culture. So
I was kind of a I was kind
of a very anti culture,
kind of guy. Okay. So for me, if
I if I'm gonna practice Islam, it's gotta
make sense to me. So I got a
Quran translation,
and anything that kind of made sense to
me, I'd be like, yeah, this is what
Islam says. If it didn't make sense to
me, I'd be like, I don't I don't
want it. So it's an individual education? Very
individualized,
to the point where I'm like, you know,
it doesn't make sense we're gonna pray in
Arabic. Right? Because I don't know what I'm
saying. Mhmm. So I'm just gonna pray in
English. So I started praying in English. You
know, if I'm late for school, you know,
I used to drive to school junior,
I'm like, you know, oh, it's okay. I'll
I'll understand. I'm just gonna pray while I'm
driving to school, you know, but in English.
So so it's just kind of like this
custom made version of Islam that I kind
of got into initially.
Eventually it led to, like, rejecting hadith too.
So I'm like, oh, these these hadith don't
make sense. So Quran only Muslim. So Quran
only English
prayer
type of Muslim.
That's where it got to, like, around high
school. I mean, that's where people are nowadays
most of the time. That's where people yes.
You're you're an OG. So for for me,
it's like You are ahead of the curve
actually. Exactly. I'm like, you you guys are
doing something like that's way back in the
days, man. Like, been there, done that, you
know. So so for me, it's like, you
know, you guys aren't doing anything original.
So
so so that was high school, right? Okay.
And then from high school, basically,
I go into college and then in my
1st year in college, I attend this class
on philosophy
and
this class basically breaks down my entire world
view. Of course.
And
I basically
stopped believing in God and I end up
being coming in Was it like just an
intro to philosophy course? It was an intro
to philosophy course. It was a critical thinking
course specifically. I still remember the book. The
book was called
how to think about weird things
and it got like some quotes from like
Aristotle and talk it talks about like it's
a very modern
like
analysis of American society.
So that's the thing that really got to
me. It's like I used to be I
was always very skeptical about,
you know, people always making claims Jin, you
know, everything is Jin related, everything is spiritual
related. Mhmm. You know, people believe in all
sorts of things and they always attribute those
things to something else. Mhmm. So I've been,
you know, generally
raised with like a type of skepticism.
So when the teacher started talking
about, you know, this many Americans still believe
in Santa Claus. And I was just like,
they really believe in this. It's stupid, you
know? And then they said then they started
talking about, oh, they still they believe in
the tooth fairy. And, like, for me, it's
like almost like a trauma. It's like, you
know, why was I lied to that, you
know, there's a truth there's a tooth fairy?
Like, I don't I I don't do this.
I don't wanna do this to my own
kids. Right? Yeah. Like this idea of, you
know, look at the tooth fairy and all
of a sudden, oh, yeah. Well, by the
way, we just made that up to, you
know, to make you feel good. But then
you're like, wait a minute. If my parents
lied to me about these things, what other
things did they lie to me about? So
it creates a sense of skepticism
or maybe that's just my personality. No. That's
I think that's the that goes well with
kids because they're they're very easily
they're very, they they'll perceive these things and
they'll take it on as a reality Yeah.
Easily. Exactly. You know, they'll just believe it
because they have that fitra. Exactly. Exactly. And
then when you break it And once you
break the trust, right, and you've you've they've
trusted you, right, you break that trust when
they find it out, they start thinking, wait
a minute, is this the only thing that
they have lied to me about? Mhmm. And
then you start questioning and when they've lied
to you about a lot of things, it
just it caused a lot of problems, you
know. So you said this philosophy class really
hit you hard and I hear that a
lot. You know, a lot of kids they
go to a quote unquote philosophy class and
it breaks them down. What? So I we
never I don't think we went to a
philosophy course our freshman year or anything. And
I'm always skeptical, like, what could they possibly
tell you that breaks down a man to,
like, oh, this is all is it just
so much confusion or they slip in the
ideas with, oh, people who live in Santa
Claus, tooth fairy and God, and it's all
in the same conversation. That's that's exactly what
happened. So basically, it was in the exact
same conversation. I remember it very closely. They
slip it in. They slip it in. So
they're like, you know, the people still believe
in the tooth fairy. Oh, people still believe
in,
fairies. And they they put the statistics, so
it looks very scientific. It's like this many
people
serve some survey somewhere. This many percentage of
Americans believe in fairies. I'm like, come on.
They believe in, like, little fairies, like, from
Peter Pan or something like that. And then
they go, and this people believe in angels.
So I'm kinda like That's the next step.
Is the next step. So I'm kind of
like Yeah. Shaky. I'm like, well, kind well,
I am I am believing in Islam. I
guess we kinda do believe in angels, but
then the way they're portrayed in society,
do they really look like that? Maybe it's
overdone. So you start to get to that
level and then they go and then this
many percentage of people still look at the
word. Still. Still believe in God. Oh, thanks.
Right? So so I'm hearing that still believe
in God
and I'm just I'm in a state of
confusion now. I'm like, wait a minute. So
what do you mean still?
I I go in there, my perception, you
know, 1990 late nineties or early 2000
is
people in America believe in God. Like, that's
my understanding. Right? My Yeah. I assumed that
even my non Muslim friends,
whatever religion they are, they still believe in
God. They believe in something. They believe in
yeah. They believe in some kind of higher
power or something like that. So I go
in there. So the teacher is kind of
like hinting and he obviously is pretty clear
he's an atheist, but I didn't know that,
right? So most people don't know what their
religious persuasions of their own teachers are. So
I go in there, this guy is definitely
an atheist, but I don't recognize that. So
then he goes and he asked this question,
he goes how many of
you still believe in God?
Right? So he goes, just raise your hand.
How many of you still believe in God?
So this is what broke everything for me
because
I was the I'm I'm putting my hand
up and there's only one guy in the
whole class who puts his hand up. And
that guy
is like
the
super
annoying
missionary guy who knocks on your door on
a Sunday morning that no one wants to
associate with. He's like that the most annoying
guy in the world, the guy who's like
the bible thumper, right? Yeah. And I'm just
looking I'm like wait a minute,
something is wrong here.
It's am I like that guy? And that
that that was just like You wanna be
cool? That just that that just messed up
everything for me. And then from there, it
was just a down down trajectory. Yeah.
So it started in college. Freshman freshman year
in college. Freshman. Yeah. That's kind of
and what kind of do were you involved
with or where'd you go to school for
a sec? I should ask. College? College. College?
I went to UCI. UCI. Irvine. UCI.
Okay. And did you join the MSA at
all during that time? It's interesting story about
MSA. So this is happening in freshman year.
Yeah. I'm living on campus. Even though my
parents live in Tustin, I'm, like, living in
Irvine on campus. That's I yeah. That's very
common actually. A lot of 1st years they
just end up living on campus. So, yeah.
I I insisted. I'm like, I need to
live on campus, you know. So I I
want my freedom from parents and, you know,
I wanna be independent and all that stuff.
So I'm living on campus. I don't know
a single Muslim, right? There's there's I don't
know Single Muslim on
campus. All of my friends in the dorms
are all non Muslims which is Yeah. Direct
trajectory of where I was in high school
anyways. And for the listeners, actually, UCI, there's
a huge Muslim MSA population. Yes. Yes. There's
a big big number of Yes. People there.
Yes. It's not a small time school. Yes.
Exactly. Yes. There's a lot of Muslims, but
I was not affiliated with them at all.
So I'm not cultural either. So I'm not
affiliated with like the Pakistani student association or
whatever, is there or any of these cultural
clubs. So then all of a sudden I'm
walking down campus one day and someone kind
of notices me and they're like,
hey, what's your name? I'm like, yeah, Mustafa,
you know.
And he's like, hey, are you Muslim?
I'm like,
yeah. -I'm Saiz. -Like, yeah.
At that time, I was just like,
you kind of. You should join the you
should join the MSA. I'm like, what are
you talking about? You know, it's like the
Muslim Students Association. So at that time, I
was just like, I don't want to have
anything to do with you guys, right. So
they like, someone saw me, they tried to
recruit me and I was just like, look
not interested. And the guy like really, you
know, tried to He really pushed me. Eagerly,
he's like come on, you know, you've been
really good, you're gonna make new friends and
this and that. I'm like, I don't know,
no I'm not I'm not interested in that
stuff you know. Mhmm. So
that was my one experience of trying to
get recruited so I was not part of
MSA at all. And the second thing was
that I was walking by one day and
there was like
a protest for Palestine taking place. Of course.
Alright, and the guys were like you know
yelling and you know free Palestine and this
and that and I'm walking by and someone
kind of sees me and they're like hey,
you look like you look kind of like
you're Muslim or something you know,
Come over here and join us you know.
And there's like basically there's Zionists on this
side, there's like Palestine, MSA on this side.
So like come on this side join us.
You know, so I'm just like,
like what? What's going on? And I had
been to Jerusalem before right? So I know
you know what it's like, but I didn't
really know much about the issue outside like
from a religious perspective. I just know the
political perspective.
So I'm just like, no you guys you
know you guys seem to be like yelling
and screaming and like you don't seem to
be very objective, you know. So I just
like, I'm like, no, I don't wanna really
join you guys. Like, if you guys if
you guys are a little bit more quiet,
like, I know I've been to Jerusalem, but
it's like what you guys are doing, like,
no man, I'm not interested. And then so
It's a bad look for me. I already
got filled in with the missionary guy. I
can't I can't.
Yeah. Because because again, like, one of the
things about philosophy, right,
it's like the ideal the ideal Socrates type
philosopher. Was that your major by the way?
No. That was not my major. It was
just like a kind of like a interest
and a passion. Comp sci, didn't you? I
did comp sci. Yeah. Computer science. Yeah. Yeah.
Computer science. But, so I'm very very intellect
science science and this and that. So
so they kind of overlap hard sciences and
stuff like that. So for me, it was
like, you know, the the ideal
thinker objective person who's not being biased. I'm
I'm against this bias that kind of I
grew up with a cultural bias. People are
religious bias, this and that. So it's like
you should be very calm and poised and
relaxed and explain your argument rather than, you
know, emotionally, you know, yelling or screaming. That
was my mentality at the time. So I
went through and I still think there's some
validity to that sometimes depending on where you
are. But I walked through it, I'm like,
you know, I don't wanna I don't wanna
be any part of this. And that those
are my two experiences With them. With Muslims
on campus
for like my entire freshman year. Wow. That's
that's it. I've never encountered anyone else outside
of that. And do you ever go back
to that or do you ever join the
MSA at all throughout the year? Oh, yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. Oh, okay. So, yeah, when I
come back to Islam so the the irony
is when I join MSA, I I join
kind of I join MSA and the same
guy who is recruiting me, there's 2 guys.
Yeah. Same guy who's recruiting me, they become
my close friends. They're also in computer science
and then I end up becoming their teacher.
So that's the irony. So I'm teaching a
class and there's students in my class. And
they're like, remember 2 years ago when we
tried to recruit you and you're like, just
get away from me. He's like, can you
imagine like like this would have happened? Like,
you end up becoming our teacher and you're
giving the chutba on campus and we're, like,
we're sitting in front of you. Like, we
could have never imagined that, like, we thought
we're, like, the Muslim guys. We're trying to
recruit this guy. This guy's running away from
us. And now, like, the whole situation flipped.
It's like, this is how Allah changes, you
know, things.
Yes. So what kind of guides you back?
I mean, it you seem like you're pretty
adamant at this point. A lot of people
don't really bounce back Mhmm. From that, you
know, unless there's some
experience they go through or some sort of
something happens to mortality.
Yep. Something.
Yeah. So that played a role. Although, I
don't like to say that like I don't
like to say this is the specific thing.
Right? It's everything is a process in Correct.
My understanding. It's a process of going away
from Islam. It's a process of coming towards
Islam. It's not like just one thing just
triggers all of a sudden. Mhmm. But, you
know, the process was kind of brewed brewing
in me,
in terms of, like, the lifestyle that I
was living. You know, I started going to,
like, you know, night clubs. I actually got
into, like, I got into like electronica music.
Oh, that was that's big in the early
2000. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. You know? So I
had like a friend who was like Did
you shuffle?
No. No? You couldn't. No. No.
But,
I I had,
an Armenian friend who pretty much got me
into this and he's a DJ now. So
he was computer science, switched to music and
now he's like a professional DJ. We're still
in touch.
So he got me into this music. He's
like this is the most intellectual
music guy used to listen to also. At
that time, I was listening to like
like alternative, listening to like rock, stuff like
that. Before that, I had listened to, you
know, rap. When I was younger, I listened
to like,
what else? Like dance and, you know, kiss
FM type of stuff and all that. So
at that phase, I was like at rock
Basically alternative rock things like that. And he's
like no, no, you're you're in the wrong
genre, man. You need to, you know, you
seem like a pretty smart guy. You know,
you seem like a guy who values like
intellectual, all that stuff. The most intellectual music
is is is, electronica, like, you know,
trance.
Thiesto?
I don't know Thiesto. Oh, yeah. No. Is
he big in the 2000s? Okay. But he's
yeah. Yeah. Like EDM essentially. Right? Electronic dance
music. Electronic dance music with all its variations,
you know. Like Goa trance
to like happy hardcore
to like everything. All the way to like
gabber. You were you were I don't even
know what you're talking about. Yeah. I
know what you're talking about. So since you're
into like a recording and stuff, so it's
like it goes by beats per minute. Right?
Okay. So it's like it depends if you're
getting to, like, 140, you're at a certain
type, like, happy hardcore. Once it gets to
180, you're, like, at what's called hardcore or
gabber. And then you get to 220, it's
just like it's noise basically. I see. You're
just crazy. You're just like crazy. Yeah. Exactly.
So I have a look. So what happens,
it's it's kind of like I started this,
you know, progression getting into all of this
stuff. And I thought I'd say, oh, it's
more intellectual and stuff like that. So I
get into this music and that obviously leads
me to, like, going to raves.
So I started going into raves,
and then go By the way, those at
that time, they're not like what you see
today. They're like in the underground.
Right? No. They're I mean Were they
They they were yeah. There's desert raves and
stuff like that. Yeah. The underground, like, they're
kind of outside, but they're not that much
different. I I don't I don't think I
don't think it's changed that much actually. Okay.
But yeah.
So I started going to raves and stuff
like that primarily for the music, but obviously
there's an entire culture that comes with that.
Yeah. You know, so I started hanging around
with some people who are doing that, you
know, doing that and I just I wasn't
feeling comfortable because at the same time I'm
still struggling internally. I'm like, you know what?
I'm not gonna I'm still not gonna drink
alcohol,
alright? So I'm not gonna drink alcohol
not because I'm Muslim anymore, but just it's
gonna impair my intellect, right? So I have
this idea of like, you know, I don't
want to mess up my mind, right? And
I don't want to be
I don't want to be doing like, you
know, a bunch of drugs or something like
that,
because that's gonna mess up my mind too.
So I saw some of these guys who
were like raving
like they're really messed up. You know? Because
they've been even dropping, you know,
doing ecstasy basically.
And
I'm concerned about that because I'm like I
I I value my mind, I value like
computer science, and like this guy can't even
program anymore.
Seriously, like, we because I had a I
had a Oh, like after he was high
he he just messed himself up. Yeah, he
messed himself. Oh, long term. So I Oh.
Made a professor at UC Irvine, computer science
department. I'll tell you his name was doctor.
Klevstat, okay? This guy, half of his class,
he just talked about drugs. He would he
would promote drugs.
Like this is a weird it's a weird
guy basically. He's tenured, I'm sure. Yeah. He's
definitely, yeah, he's tenured, right? He's still there.
I I checked I looked him up recently.
You know, ironic. Still functioning brain cells? This
guy this guy would just promote. He's like,
you know, and there's legal ways to do
it. You could buy ephedra, you know. And
it's it's like buying speed and it's really
good. It helps you program and, you know,
I don't know why people talk bad about
drugs. And this is like in the early
2000s when before this whole marijuana,
you know, recreational discussions going on. This guy
was like,
he was the coolest teacher, but he was
the most ineffective teacher because he wouldn't teach
us anything except about drugs.
Right? So he's talking to some of these
students
who are basically dropping at at raves regularly.
And they're like, yeah. And and they're like,
yeah, you know, I've been doing it. And
he's like, yeah, you know, but you you
gotta be you gotta be really careful because
if you do it too much, it will
mess up your memory and it's gonna mess
up your mind. And then the guy's like,
yeah, you know, I think I think I
can't remember things and I have this problem.
He's like, oh, it looked like you already
overdid it. You know, like, you know, you
should have been careful. So I'm listening to
this and I'm like, woah, I don't wanna,
you know, I like the music but I
don't wanna end up like this guy. This
guy can't even remember anything, you know. Wow.
This guy was, like, dropping, like, every weekend.
Right? Mhmm. Dropping meaning, like, taking ecstasy. Right?
Yeah. So rolling, whatever it is. Did they
call it rolling? Yeah. Roll yeah. Rolling.
Yeah. Yeah. Rolling. Dropping would be like LSD
or something like that. Drop acid. Yeah. So
drop acid. So this, you know, this
so that's kinda where I am. Is that
a computer science thing? Because I knew some
computer science people back in school. They're also
Muslim too. And, you know, they drop acid
and take shrooms. I don't think it's a
computer science thing. I think computer science people
generally
tend to be more isolated
a little bit like stick to themselves. Mhmm.
You know, because they're on the computer kind
of by themselves. So they their social life
is a little bit less and that kind
of inclines them more towards this kind of
culture because it's more of an individualistic culture.
Got it. You know, you're not in a
rave dancing with someone else like you would
be like in a nightclub, right? You're in
a rave basically dancing by yourself
primarily listening to the music. Got it. You
may end up with someone else because you
know you're high or something, but it's it's
more of an individualistic type thing. Okay. Yeah.
That that's my theory. That that makes sense.
Yeah. So so yeah, I'm doing this and
then, I'm kind
of I'm kind of debating back and forth
between, you know, should I continue this? Something
is not right with this lifestyle.
I'm becoming very materialistic. So this is an
internal struggle going on. It's hard to, you
know, recon you know, recollect all the thoughts
that were going through my mind. But there
was definitely some sort of like you could
say it's like agitation.
Yeah. It was agitation. I'm like is this
is this what life is about? You know,
like is
is is this, you know, is this what
I'm supposed to be doing? Yeah. So,
kind of those thoughts are going through. Sometimes
I just think this is dumb. The people
I'm hanging out with, they're making dumb jokes
and I'm just laughing at it. I'm like,
this is just
this we're just being we're being dumb. Empty
conversation. Empty conversation. It's just there's no real
purpose behind. There's no there's no substance behind
it. Yeah. Right? So that's kind of getting
to me and bothering me a little bit.
And then,
I got into street racing.
What? Street racing.
So simultaneously
I get into street racing basically.
So I know it's kind of, a You're
really trying to preserve your intellect.
So it's the company that you keep, right?
So somehow the company that I was keeping,
they got me into street racing, right? Okay.
And, in a really,
in a very dangerous fashion, right? So like
street racing on the freeway, right? Which is
a That that sounds ridiculous. It's ridiculous. It's
really dumb and it's really dangerous, but again
it's like set peer pressure, you know. Okay.
So,
I get a brand new car Lexus IS
300 like the same month it came out.
It was like a really big thing.
My parents get that for me and,
you know, I start racing,
and I'm learning, you know, what to do
and this and that. So, yeah, I mean
long story short, what ends up happening is
I'm racing regularly
and one day I'm I'm investing in the
stock market with money that my parents gave
me,
I'm just getting frustrated with school, I'm getting
frustrated with this culture, and then one day
I just wake up and I decide, you
know what, I remember that day was a
Friday morning. That day, I'm just like, you
know what,
I'm just really I'm just pissed off. I'm
just really upset. I'm sick and tired of
all of this, and I just wanna live
my own life. I'm I'm I'm at home
for that day for some reason. I came
back from the dorm,
and I wake up and I opened the
I opened e trade, and I look and
I'm like my investment of Juniper network that
I had invested during the the the dotcom
Yeah. You know, bubble,
it it like went down 50%.
Okay. It's like a stock market crash. Yeah.
So I was just like
furious man. I was just like I just
lost a ton of money and I was
trading on margin on top of that. Like
the one day I trade on margin, it's
like I get killed. Yeah. So I'm gonna
get a margin call now, lost all this
money in the stock market.
I'm just really upset and then my parents
are telling me, my mom calls me like
downstairs, we live in a big house. She
calls me downstairs and she's like, 'I want
you to take out the trash.' I'm just
like, oh
now like now I'm just at another level,
right? I'm just like, look my whole life
I've never taken out the trash, right? Like
I just we didn't really have many chores
to do. So now all of a sudden
she decides like on the day that the
stock market crashes,
somehow
somehow I'm gonna like I'm gonna manifest
my authority as a parent and tell my
college age son that you need to go
take out the trash, okay? So she has
a tafsir class happening at her house. So
it's like the first time she's asking me
to go take out the trash because all
these women are gonna come and do a
tafsir class at her house. Right? So
I get up and I'm like, you know
what, man, just forget this. I'm I'm done
with this.
I start like I put some clothes in
my backpack,
I check my accounts and everything, and I'm
like I'm running away from home. Like I'm
never coming back and I'm leaving.
So I I go,
jump in my car. You take out the
trash? I didn't take out the trash. No.
I did. I did not take out the
trash.
So I jump in my car and I'm
like, okay, I'm ready to go, man. You
know, turn it on and I'm like, I'm
just gonna zoom out of here
and done. And all of a sudden I
start reversing and I realize one of these
aunties like parked right behind my car. I
can't even get out. So I was just
like even more frustrated. So I go in
the middle of the tafsir class and I
remember, like, shouting at Some aunties. At at
these aunties and the Quran teacher
who who's who's, sister Maha who still teaches
around, you know Oh, wow. Tafsir and stuff.
So she's at my she's at my mom's
she's at my house basically.
And those aunties, they come back and they
remind me that we remember the day that
you came and yelled at us. I was
like, SubhanAllah, you know. And now they're like
attending my Khutbas and they're like they're my
students and stuff, you know. So that day
I came and I yelled and I'm like
you know you know someone needs to move
their car because they parked behind me, right?
So one of the aunties like oh yeah,
I didn't realize it was behind. I'll move
the car. So she goes and moves the
car. I get out, I'm still frustrated, I'm
upset. I just I go and I start
driving and I started driving, taking the 5
south.
So I'm going down and I'm just kind
of like heading towards San Diego, Mexico. Right?
And I'm like, I'm not coming back. I'm
done. No family ever again. It's gonna be
like a free independent person. I'll do whatever
I want. So I'm driving down all of
a sudden.
It's 300ZX
twin turbo
comes and cuts me off and gives me
the racing signal, right? And I'm just like,
you know, today, you know, to today of
all days, today is the day you wanna
do this, right? And I was driving normal.
I was just I wasn't speeding or anything.
I was just driving kind of normal. And
all of a sudden, this guy just kinda
cuts me off and just gives me the
signal, right, which is the emergency lights. Right?
What color was the car? Do you remember?
It was a white, yeah. It was white.
Yeah. A white white 100 z x it
wasn't you, was it? No. I have a
friend who drives a yellow one. I was
like, maybe it was. Yeah. Yeah.
So I'm going and I'm about
near near Oceanside
by that time.
And I had to work You're a ways
away. That's like an hour drive. Yeah. It's
about an hour drive. Yes. I've been going
for quite a while. I'm almost there and
I'm just I'm heading I haven't even made
a plan where I'm gonna go. Either I'm
gonna get a hotel in San Diego Or
you're gonna or I'm gonna cross the border
and just be in Mexico. Right? So I'm
on my way. I'm like, I'll figure this
out later. Music is blasting. Right? I got
like Blink 182 on and just like the
the most the the songs that kind of
spur your anger, you know, even more. Change
angst to the extreme.
Exactly, you know. So I'm going and I'm
and all of a sudden this guy comes
in and I'm just like, oh man, today
of all days you really want to pull
this one. So I go, okay fine, you
know. So,
I
I'm like okay, I accept the challenge. So
we start and we're going and the thing
is that it was stupid of me too
because the 5 south, I just I don't
know why my brain was not working properly.
5 south doesn't mean it's gonna be straight,
right? There's obviously curves in freeways.
So I'm just thinking 5 south all all
the way, this is gonna be a straight
straight drive through.
So I disable traction control,
Right? And that this is what you do
when you rate. I'm not gonna give, like,
racing advice. Yeah. Please don't. I don't want
that. I don't wanna set a bad example
for other people. Let me tell you this.
In retrospect, never
ever disable traction control. It's there for a
reason, and so are all the other, you
know, things that are there. So this is
The other things that he disables. Yeah. Exactly.
And I I think it was actually raining
a little bit, that day too. So it
was the the streets were a little wet.
Yeah. That's definitely not smart. Definitely not smart,
right? So basically, I'm like, okay. This guy,
I don't even care. This guy, I'm gonna
take this guy out no matter what. Now
if you know cars, right, a 300ZX
twin turbo is a sports car. Mhmm. It's
got a sports suspension. It's designed to be
sporty. Yeah.
An IS 300 Lexus is is a luxury
car. It's not a sport car. It
has a It has a car. A strong
engine, but It has a strong engine, but
it doesn't have a sports suspension. Yeah. It
has a very,
luxury suspension. It's designed to be like that.
So what happens, it starts to wobble when
you get over a certain speed. And I
won't mention what that speed is, right? So
things you shouldn't be going that fast in
the first place. So this day, I'm just
like, you know, this this work I'm going
100%,
right? -Oh, okay. -This guy is,
you know, this guy is gonna go down
basically. And there's a bunch of traffic, so
there's still traffic during that time. So I'm
going, we're cutting between cars and we're just
racing and everything. And all of a sudden
keeps on going for a while.
And then it gets to a point where
there's gonna be this giant turn coming in.
And I'm like, no, this guy is not
gonna beat me at this turn. So I
try and take him at this turn and
when I go, I end up shifting like
2 lanes and my car basically ends up
doing a u-turn on the freeway
at a very very fast speed, which I
don't mention for like legal reasons, right? So
you lose tracks in the back wheels and
you spin out. Exactly. Okay. And it's rear
wheel drive, right? So you spin out. Exactly.
So I spin out, I hit the center
divider and I hit like 3 other cars.
Oh my god. Okay. So Relative. So yeah.
So that and so that incident that happened
kind of
kind of got me to a point where,
I started thinking about you know what's gonna
happen. So what really bothered me was not
so much the accident. What bothered me was
2 things. Number 1, I walked out of
there and I didn't have a scratch on
me.
So people came and started telling me, you
know, some of those aunties that used to
come and they're like, you know what? Allah,
you know, Allah saved you son, Allah saved
you. I'm like, I don't even believe in
Allah man, what are you talking about? You
know, I'm telling you Allah has saved you
for a reason and there's a purpose and
this and that. I'm like, you know, I
don't really believe in that stuff but You
just got lucky. It just yeah, exactly. But
it kinda it kinda stayed in the back
of my mind, right? Is that, you know,
going that fast, there was an aspect of,
you know, you know, I I got really,
really lucky. I got saved. So what ends
up happening,
I kind of pretend like I'm injured. Okay.
Because ambulance came, this and that. And I'm
like, I realize I'm in big trouble. So
you you don't wanna be caught racing? You
don't you don't wanna be I don't wanna
be caught racing. You can get charged with
manslaughter in California. That's what was hap that's
what was happening. Right? So so police shows
up and I'm getting scared. So I'm like,
oh, yeah. My back is hurting and this
and that. So I end up going
to the emergency room, and I'm like they're
like yeah, they did some x rays and
stuff like that. I'm actually perfectly fine, nothing
is wrong with me. But I was just
like I don't know how to process this,
I need to think about what I'm supposed
to be doing. Like my whole plan of
running away from home is destroyed. Like everything
is destroyed, my car is destroyed, everything is
is gonna be messed up now. So this
police officer comes and he goes,
I know how fast you were going. I
have witness reports
that say you were going, you know, x
amount of miles per hour, right? And I'm
like, no, that's ridiculous, you know, that's not
true. And actually it was true, but I'm
like, no, that's not true. And he's like,
look, I know you punk, he's like, look
at a teenager, punk kid, like you kid,
I'm gonna make sure you go to jail.
Okay, I'm gonna make sure that they press
charges and you're going to jail because you
should not be on the street. So that's
when I get released, I go home and
I'm just like,
if I go to jail Life's over. Life's
over. Right? I was like 19 or something,
19 or 20. Yeah. So for me, this
is, like,
everything. So no more raves.
No more No more intellectual music. No more
intellectual music.
No more I mean, everything going through my
mind, all the movies I watch, well, what
if I drop the soap? What's gonna what's
gonna happen to me? Like, you can imagine
everything is going through my mind right now
and I'm just like, I'm done, like, I'm
finished. I don't even know what this means.
Is this life in prison? Like, what does
this mean?
So, and he said, yeah, this is attempted
manslaughter, you're going to jail. I'll make sure
that you have charges pressed against you. Thank
goodness he didn't clock you. Yeah. That's
what he had. But he wasn't there. Yeah.
He wasn't there. So that's what I'm just
like, you know, when he said, yeah, I
know how fast you're going. I'm like, how
could you possibly know? But the irony was
the number he put was exactly the number
I was going, right? Wow. So I was
like, how in the world did this guy
figure it out? So he figured out basically
probably what the maximum speed was with the
speed limitation on the car and figured out
how fast you can go. So maybe that's
how he got it, but he got pretty
You just gave away how fast you were
going. I did. I did. But that's only
if somebody goes and looks up looks up
how how I'm a rewind. What model was
it, Max? Okay. Model now. Okay. See that.
It's digital speed. At least I didn't The
Sheikh was fast. I was about to remove
the digital speed,
limit as well. You can do that? You
can do that and you can hack it,
you know, computer science. But, but you don't
wanna do that. That's very, very dangerous. That's
even more dangerous. I'm both engines. Yeah. Yeah.
You know, yeah. That too. So
anyway, so then I'm sitting there in my
room and I'm just like, what am I
gonna do? That's what started changing me. So
I'm like, nobody can get me out of
this situation.
My dad, no matter how much money he
spends, he can't help me. My mom can't
help me. None of my friends,
there's nobody there for me.
So that's when I decide you know what
I'm done the only option I have left
-Pray to God. -is to pray to God.
That's it. So I made it to God
and I'm just like you know what okay
God I don't even know if you exist
but you know if you do,
like help me. And I basically said, I
said, if you get me out of this
situation
then I promise
I will and I remember this very clearly,
I was very cautious, very skeptical. I'm like,
I promise you
that I
will at least put in a real effort
to search for whether you exist or not.
Wow. Like that was my that is the
most minimum.
That was like like conditional draw. I'm like,
hey. And I I really promise that if
you help me with this, I will I
will really put in effort to figure out
if this is true or not true, if
you're if you're real or not real, right?
So that was that was my job. It
wasn't real.
No, but but the irony was that's what
changed that changed my life, right? Because
when I found out that there's no charges
against me, nothing happened at all. They just
insurance. It's just insurance. I I didn't even
know. I was a spoiled kid. Right? So
my parents are paying the insurance. I don't
even know what that looks like. Yeah. I
got a point or 2 points or something
that had to go to traffic school or
something like that. No one pressed charges at
PIPPA. No one pressed charges, nothing. Everything else
was fine, right? So after I realized that
that's what happened, I was just like,
this is I didn't say Alhamdulillah but I
was just like, this is excellent.
This is this is the best thing that
could ever happen.
And now I have this internal struggle about
you know what? I made a promise. I
made a promise.
Was this promise
just like a state of weakness that you
know people who are religious they just make
when they get emotional and stuff. Just like
the Quran says about when you're on the
boat and you know people even the idol
worshipers they call out to Allah. So like
I think I might have encountered that story
at some point or the same mentality comes
in it's like you know what, did I
just make that promise in a in a
set in a state of weakness,
emotional weakness because I didn't know what else
to do? Or did I actually make that
as a real promise? So this is internal
like debate comes into me. I'm thinking like,
you know what? Is this a real promise
or it's not a real promise? And then
I start analyzing and I'm like, you know
what? What kind of person am I if
either I'm an extremely weak person that I
just give into the emotion, I hope I
consider myself to be intellectually strong person.
I hope to be, right?
Versus,
you know, if I'm making promise, I'm just
gonna keep breaking them.
What kind of integrity is that? So that's
Yeah. That's that's the internal debate. And I'm
like, you know no. I'm like, you know
what? No. I analyze it, but that was
a real sincere
reaction that I had. And I meant what
I said, and I should stick with what
I'm saying. So that was my decision. That
changed my life. I said I'm gonna stick
with what I'm saying, and I'm gonna start
searching. Now I don't know what where to
search, I don't know where to go, I
don't know who to ask, I don't know
anything.
So all I do was I go to
the UCI library
and I say, you know what, I'm gonna
and I wasn't looking into Islam. I was
only looking into God.
So God, okay. God specifically just whether there's
a creator or not. So I go into
the philosophy section again, the same section that
got me away from Islam in the first
place. And I started going and reading books
on God, You know? Like with like Kalam
cosmological
argument or not even there? No. Not not.
Not not. Not even there. Christian argument.
Just like just any books I can find
on God. So yeah. Okay. Most of them
come up are Christian arguments.
And I and I start going and reading
the atheist argument. So what I start doing
is I start reading the atheist argument saying,
hey, can
I can I see the weakness in any
of these arguments or not? And then I
start reading the response to them eventually, and
I start comparing the 2. Right? And that's
kinda that is the road that kind of
brought me
on the direction back towards Islam.
So I was reading those arguments actually. And
you were like, oh, this is actually they
have a say. They have they have a
weighty argument. Exactly. It's reading the arguments that
kind of first brought me back and that
was the first step. And then I started
reading other ones. So some arguments didn't make
sense. And again, I'm I'm like 19 or
20. So philosophy was
is I'm not a philosophy major. And I
think at that time, a lot of the
the the so called big four, I don't
think were the big four back like The
neo atheists and stuff. Yeah. Hawkins and Dawkins
and
or whatever. I'm sorry. Dawkins and Yeah. Hawking.
Stephen Hawking. Steven Hawking. Steven. Dawkins.
What's his name? He's the biggest one out
of them now.
The most famous one. There's only one around
that's left. Krauss and other ones. I don't
know. Krauss is a, Ben Maher.
No. The other, You know what I'm talking
about. The guy who comes on Joe Rogan.
Joe Rogan. Joe Rogan loves him.
Is the last guy. He's, like, very
He's very arrogant. He's arrogant, but he's, like,
soft spoken. Hold on. I'm just gonna look
it. I'm just gonna look it up. Alright.
Shit. While he's looking that up, I wanna
go back because, you know, it's very it's
it's a story, but there's a lesson behind
it.
And Sam Harris. Wait. Sam Harris. Oh. Thank
you. Yeah.
Yeah. May I all guide him? Alright.
The I wanna go back to a point
that you made and I think this is
important for people who are dealing with skepticism.
They're dealing with this lost of identity and
faith.
And you you had a part in your
story, which I think is very common theme.
I've seen a lot of these kind of
I left this time, came back to some
story is at some point, some person didn't
believe in god, sits there and makes a
drop. They make a prayer to God and
they say, God, if you exist, x y
z.
And what's amazing, I think your story, what's
funny is how much setup there was. I
I know divine setup we can call or
whatever it is for a sincere prayer.
And I and I've told some students, and
I've told some kids, like, okay. If you're
because you don't know the state of the
people in your crowd. Right? You think, okay.
You're in a Muslim event. You must be
Muslim. And assume you're doing fine. But, hypothetically
Mhmm. You're not doing well. Your your faith
is kinda shaky.
Are you think is this real is this
real? I'm living in the US. Things are
falling apart around me. I have told some
students that look at if you're really
you're doubting anything,
wake up 3 AM. No one's gonna know
you woke up at 3 AM. Go throw
some cold water on your face. Don't make
yeah. You know what the list? Just throw
some cold water on your face because I
want this to be as sincere as possible.
Go put your head on the ground and
say, god, if you exist, x y z.
Fight help me guide me. If not, don't
guide me. Because let's say, he doesn't guide
you. This is a sincere sincere no one's
ever gonna know you made this prayer. Right.
You woke up in the middle of the
night. There's, like, so many factors that this
is as sincere as you're ever gonna get
in your life.
Yep. If he doesn't answer you hypothetically Yeah.
You can have a case against him on
the day of judgment. Allah made Dua'i didn't
answer me for your I wanted guidance.
No one's gonna have a case against the
law on the day of judgment. Right? So
that's that's the point. Right. And if you
ask it sincerely, he will guide you. Yeah.
Right? So I think that's, something to pull
out of this story. It's not just for
entertainment value, but, you know, you made a
dua and, oh, these dua's aren't they're not
for free. Then you don't just say things.
Right? And say, like, oh, does he exist,
not exist? Like, when you when you ask
something sincerely, it's gonna be answered. Exactly. If
it's, you know, if it's best for you,
especially for guidance, and that's answered. Exactly.
Yep. That's a good point. You got Sam
Harris. Yeah. You figured it out already. Oh,
yeah. Sam Harris. Yeah. We got Sam
where were you before the
that So that means 2. He's looking at
the 2 arguments. Oh, the God philosophy. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And those the the the
current day arguments are very, I would say
they're not as sophisticated
as the older They're they're they're not, you
know. They have a lot more, like,
data,
quote unquote, like, scientific data and stuff that
they're using. They use a lot more rhetoric
because again, these Sophistry.
They use sophistry. Exactly. It's it's more for
public consumption Mhmm. Than it is as an
actual intellectual argument. A lot a lot of
these people who follow these guys are now
feeling empty.
And that's why Sam Harris has to put
out books on, like, the importance of meditation
Exactly. And reflection. Exactly. And you're just, like,
this is pretty much this is religion. This
is a new
religious circle. Yeah. Yeah. And that's why when
Jordan Peterson comes around, they all flock to
him. Like, what? So smart. He's religious. Yada
yada yada. So that's
but, you know, you had to kinda find
that
on your own just Yeah. Which is very,
I mean, so after that, you kind of
go towards Islam. Right? You kind of you
you your inclination is now okay. It it
gets there. Yeah. It's still a long process,
but, yeah, it gets there. Yeah. That that's
the starting point. Right? So where where does
that put you next? Do you start praying?
Do you start having trying to hang out
with the NSA? Or is this still, like,
a offshoot? Oh, immediately saying what what comes
next, you know. What's next? Basically, is, you
know, once I get to the point of
okay, believing, okay, there's a good case for
the existence of God, I start searching into
other religions particularly religion. Oh, so you're not
even you're not even on the Islam path?
No. No. I'm not
on Islam
You're just God exists. God exists. That's it.
Oh, perennials, brother.
Almost there. Almost there. Yeah. Divine wisdom. Eternal
wisdom.
Yeah. Yeah. So I'm almost I'm looking into
all the other religions as well and,
like Like every religion or just like the
Every religion that I can I can come
across? You know, I remember when I was
in high school, I went for a debate
competition in England
and for some reason we went to a
bookshop
and
I just had this fascination with religion during
that period of time. So I bought a
dictionary of religions and I still had that
book with me. So I opened that book
and I start going through basically
every single religion in existence about kind of
what,
you know, what do they basically teach or
what do they believe. Now it was a
it was a not a very deep analysis,
but it's looking at all these,
you know,
animist religions and stuff like that in different
parts of the world. It says kind of
what population
are the people, how many are there, and
kind of what are their some of their
basic beliefs. So I'm just going through the
list and I'm just like oh they believe
in like shamans and stuff like that. Like
I cross that one off, they cross that
one off. So the vast majority, there's like
I don't know, there's like 5,000 religions or
something in there. I'm just going through and
I'm like if something's really really small, I'm
like probably you can just cross that one
off. You know, just going through and kind
of understanding all of these. And most of
them like, you know, this is why I
became atheist in the 1st place. Like all
of these things, something is wrong with
a lot of these religions, you know. I
think that's one of the reasons why a
lot of people become very skeptical is they're
like, oh, well there's so many bad religions
out there. I'm like, yeah
that doesn't mean that there isn't one right
one though. There's also a lot of bad
science but you still There's a lot of
bad I mean You still believe to be
living science. There's a lot of bad cars
out there, you know, there's a good car
out there as well. Like there's bad everything
out there, you know.
So that's, I I start doing that and
then I go back to the library and,
my library is pretty much my only reference
because I don't have anyone to talk to
that I kind of respect.
Intellectually.
Intellectually that, you know, I don't have a
family member I can go and talk to
and be like, oh, you know. I remember
one time one of my uncles,
he came, he's not very practicing but he
kind of started debating me, he's like, you
know, why back when I was when I
was still Muslim like in high school and
he's like, you reject hadith?
My dad called him over, he's like, you
know, this guy doesn't even believe in hadith.
He's like, oh I'm gonna convince him, no
worries. So this guy's trying to convince me
to like, you know, believe in hadith. And
I'm just seeing like the arguments are not
very strong and I'm just like, you know,
I'm debating back and forth with him. So
I don't really have anyone I can go
to Yeah. Like to talk to. Going to
like Khutbas growing up, the Khutbas that I
went to like,
you know For wheat sauce. Yeah. This is
They're they're extremely boring, okay. Like they didn't
appeal to me, okay. With all due respect
to the Khatib,
they weren't relevant to me. And you know,
in all honesty, we used to probably go
5, 10 minutes before the salah begins anyway.
So we're not even getting most of the
chutba. If you ask me what what chutba
do I remember
for the first,
you know,
19 years of my life, the only one
statement I remember during 1 khutba
was something that made me laugh. It's basically
me and my brother were sitting there, we're
outside,
and the hadib goes, you know what and
it's it's a it's a sunnah
to take a shower at least once a
week. At least on Friday you should take
a shower. And we're just looking at each
other like, oh man this is gross.
What the heck? Is that why some of
these people smell bad?
That's the only thing I remember from any
chutba like before the age of 19. Like
I can't remember a single thing besides that,
right? So that's that's kind of my background.
So I think he meant to say hosur,
right? That's Yeah. Yeah. He meant Hossa basically.
Yeah. Yeah. So he said at least once
a week. You're just like, woah. Did people
go shower? What's going on in your area?
So so that's that's my recollection. So who
am I gonna go to? I'm not gonna
go to that imam. I'm not gonna go
to my local imam. I'm not gonna go
to anyone, right? So I don't have any
connection with any person I can I feel
comfortable Yeah? Asking religious questions to.
So eventually,
you know,
I tell my dad, you know, he didn't
know anything what was happening, but I tell
him like, you know, I'm kind of interested,
I might join you for you know a
Friday prayer or something like that. So I'm
just reading by myself in the library but
then I'm like you know what maybe I
should go and attend this Friday prayer thing
again, I should start this up again. So
I start attending Friday prayer
and one of the people who was giving
the chuppah,
he
was kind of like a guy, he's like
he's the son of an imam.
Those of you who know Maulana Mater, he's
a Cyprus Masjid old time imam. His son
was basically Cal State Fullerton doing his master's
degree in business management, and he used to
read up on philosophy too. So one day,
I'm just like sitting in the khutbah and
I'm listening to him, and he mentioned something
about like like something intellectual.
And I was just like, oh, this guy's
like this guy's kind of smart. Like this
is this is not normal. Like
he's like a Muslim guy and he's giving
the chutba and he's kind of like intellectual.
He goes, he mentioned something. So I'm like,
this is interesting. So I told my dad,
I'm like, you know, I wanna you know
like
just talk to this guy for a few
minutes afterwards. So I used to go and
just ask him very superficial questions just to
test him, to see if I was gonna
I wouldn't ask him the deep question, I
was asking him something a little bit more
superficial and just kind of like I'm like
I just want to stand next to you
while you're talking to other people just to
see what you're saying. So people would ask
him questions, you know, how long should your
beard be? And you know he would answer
fit questions and this and that. And
one day
I'm just sitting there listening to him and
he mentions something about,
he goes, someone asked him something about,
philosophy
or something about philosophy.
And then he goes, you know, oh, Imam
Ghazali, he refuted the philosophers.
I'm just like, woah, philosophers
refute? That sounds interesting,
like what's this who's this Ghazali guy like,
you know? And he's like yeah, yeah, Imam
Ghazali he wrote this book against the philosophers,
you know, responding to their arguments.
I'm like what kind of argument? Arguments about
like God and stuff like that too? He
goes yeah, he responded to all that too.
I'm like Woah, there's like a -A Muslim
guy is like a Muslim imam guy from
like 100 of years ago who like wrote
this stuff? And he's like, Yeah, yeah there's
a book there, but but you should read
it. I'm like, Why not? He's like, No,
no it's a very advanced book, it's not
a book you should read. So for me
I'm just like, I'm kind of that person,
someone's like, you know what, no you can't
do it. Oh really? I'm just I'm gonna
do it then, I'm gonna do the exact
opposite. So he's like, no, it's way beyond
your level, you shouldn't do it. So all
of a sudden I go online,
Amazon was just like picking up at that
time. Yeah. So I'm like, you know what?
Okay, I got the name, Ghazal Ali. I'm
gonna look this guy up. So I go
and buy this guy's books, I buy all
the books I can find from him, and
then Amazon had the recommendations. So the moment
you buy this it gives you recommendation on
the same topic. -Yeah. -I'm like, that looks
really interesting. So there's another book. I bought
Iheal al Medin,
Revival of the Religious Sciences. Then I see
this other recommendation,
it's Reconstruction
of Religious Thought in Islam by Muhammad Iqbal.
It's like a philosophy book as well. So
I look at them like,
that's interesting. That's a modern. It's modern. ITS,
right? Islamic
something? I don't know if ITS published it,
but it's
this this one was, published in Pakistan or
something. Oh, okay. Okay. Because that name sounds
very familiar. Mohammed Adbal is a he's the
intellectual founder of Pakistan.
He's a very, very, very important guy. He's
he's I'm gonna edit that out. I feel
very I feel very ignorant now. He's he's
It's okay. Yeah. Not everyone. He's he's Sorry.
I didn't know. Yeah. Yeah. No. It's okay.
He's a poet he's a poet philosopher, basically.
So he he this is a guy who's
very educated. Okay. His field is philosophy too.
Mean he's he's considered to be a very,
very advanced in that field. So anyway, I
buy his book
and I get it, and I just open
the beginning and he's talking about like Immanuel
Kant, and he's talking about like, you know,
Kant refuted Aristotle. And I'm just like, woah,
this is this is some interesting stuff. This
is right up your alley at this point.
Exactly. So I'm just like this is so
that what it did was it introduced me
to this idea that hey, there's actually some
smart Muslims that exist. Because my experience and
my understanding was
Muslims are just a bunch of anti intellectual
people and that automatically reflects on their religion.
Islam is like anti intellectual, something's going on
here, and now when I get exposed to
like thinkers like Ghazali,
thinkers like Muhammad Iqbal,
then I'm just like, and then he also
recommended this other imam, he recommended Sheikh Abul
Hasan al Nadawi some of his books. So
I started reading this, I'm like, this guy
like, this guy actually seems like pretty intelligent,
he seems to know what he's talking about.
And the reality is I've never read any
books on Islam prior to this. So I
can't even I'm not even I'm not even
supposed to make this judgment. I had not
actually read any books at all.
Honestly, before It's just your preconceived notion of
what they would be if you had read
them. Exactly. I never actually read an entire
book I think in my entire life SubhanAllah.
Before before college. So like my entire even
the books we're supposed to read in high
school, I just read the cliff notes, you
know. Yeah. Yeah. I didn't even read the
whole cliff note because that would take a
lot of effort too. So I just but
I still got A's in classes, right. So
that's the problem with our school system, but
I had not read any of these books.
I was not a reader, right. I read
comic books, but I don't read actual books.
Catcher in the Rye. Didn't read that. I
read the cliff notes on it. The cliff
what was it? The prayer for Owen Meadey.
I've read, you know, Little Women Lord of
the Clouds. Lord of the Clouds. Pride and
Prejudice. Pride and Prejudice.
So, Shaikh, this is a good, and I
wanna summarize another point that I think a
lot of people miss, especially young people
because they're not exposed to it just like
you. They don't think a stem has had
very deep thinkers that thought of all the
questions you've ever had, all the questions someone
might have. Yep. It blows people's mind sometimes
that someone a 1000 years ago actually already
thought about this and answered it. Not just
answered it. Such a good answer. Like, the
question is done and dead if you just
knew where to look. Yep. So I think
that's something people who are dealing with these
doubts and skepticism.
Just because you haven't seen an answer to
it, does it mean someone in the Islamic
history didn't already answer it? I mean, it's
1400 years later. Do you really think you
have a philosophical question that was not addressed?
Right. Well, see the problem, the root cause
of the problem is we are taught in
our society
that we're the most advanced people. Right? In
terms of technology, we are. But we're the
most advanced people, we're the most intelligent people,
and we look back at everything else, the
medieval ages, the dark ages, these people don't
understand anything about the world. There's just a
bunch of people who believe the earth is
flat, they don't know, you know, just they
don't know what electricity is. Therefore, they don't
know anything about the world. So if that's
the assumption,
why would I grew up thinking that Yep.
They would have answered something for me that's
relevant for the first 1300 years, you know,
in Islam. And that's the what's amazing is
modernity is the opposite of Islamic thought in
that regard. Exactly. Modernity says today's the best.
Islam says, pop generation is the best generation.
No one after that. No one after that.
Exactly. And it only gets worse. The further
away from, you know, prophethood you get. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. And I think that has to
do with what you learn in public school,
what what you, what they teach there. It's
because, you know, you kind of, like, if
when you learn about world history,
you learn about, you know, Mesopotamia.
That's where civilization started. Then you get into,
like,
Greece, Rome.
And then, after that, that's, like, you know,
the height of thought at the time. Then
you just have Go to the next white
nation. Yeah. You know, you have death, the
medieval period, the the plague, whatever. But during
this time, and all the Europe is essentially
dark, you have, you know, the whole, you
know, the Muslim region that's, you know, that's
that's lit up. Right? There's intellectual stuff going
on. It's it's great but none of that
stuff is covered. Nope. When you say medieval
scholar in Islam, that's actually that's probably a
big shot when you said medieval because Exactly.
Because that's a time period. Yeah. Not not
you know, Sheikh Haskar got in trouble, I
guess, for using the word medieval for a
scholar. Right? Oh, really? Yeah. Interesting. Okay. Because
they understand that it's a time period. Right.
Yeah. But it has negative connotation. Negative connotation
today, but for us, it's like, yeah, he
was an amazing guy. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And
it wasn't until the the enlightenment
then everything turned around Exactly. Thought and science
and that that's
I think that that has to, And exact
and I think our school system has changed
a little bit. So they they incorporate, like,
a week or 2 of, like, hey, there
is stuff going on in the rest of
the world,
you know. But, again, that doesn't balance the
narrative. The Silk Road, papyrus, gunpowder, and someone
someone made paper somewhere. Exactly. What's going on
what's going on in Chinese? You know, make
it a word. Exactly. I mean, your philosophy
thought this I mean, this is when you
name all the philosophers you can name, how
many of them are not white? Exactly. I
mean, you you tell me there's no other
philosophers? Where are all the Indian philosophers, the
Chinese philosophers, the Muslims philosophers? They're missing until
today, there's there's there's some missing. African philosophers.
They're not relevant
because they weren't seen in that western philosophy
tradition. So some of them, what they'll do
is they'll define
this is the western or European philosophical tradition.
Yeah. They it's now Judeo Christian. Or That
that's the that's the That's another term that
they use. Yeah. Yeah. That's like the more,
conservative right turn now. But the problem is
that every time, you know, science is being
presented, any subject is being presented, it's it's
being presented as if we are people who
are connected now with the rest of the
world. Therefore when we present something it is
an objective
universal view of the entire world, but it's
not. It's not and it's not defined that
way and that's a huge problem,
huge problem. Got it, definitely.
So you eventually make your way back to
Islam. Eventually get back to Islam. You find
you you probably
make it, you know, get your list down
a few religions and then you and back
to square 1. Right? That's,
okay. Exactly. But a different
appreciation and understanding of Islam. Right? Because you
you get to it yourself now. I get
to it myself and also, yeah, to do
this, by the way, people are like, well,
how do you do this in your spare
time? I dropped out of school, actually. So
Oh. Yeah. I I dropped out of school.
You stopped the comp sci thing. I I
stopped the comp sci. What happens in UCI?
I was about to I was I'm like,
I'm done with school. I I don't wanna
I don't wanna I don't need a university
education. I need to figure this out for
my life first. But what happened when I
went to the office, I was like, I'm
dropping out. The lady's like, well, here's my
suggestion, you know, you can just put your
admission on hold for up to 1 year,
and if you change your mind 11 and
a half months later, you can automatically enroll
without having to re register.
So I'm like, yeah, right. That's fine. I
already I know I'm not coming back, but
you know Just in case. Just in case,
go ahead go ahead and do that whatever
that is. My parents happy, they're like, oh
good, he's got 12 months to do whatever
the heck he wants, you know? So I
do that, so in that period I'm sitting
there reading, studying, going, reading, you know, these
books, talking, start talking to
a few people that I can talk to,
pretty much only this one guy who you
know I kind of have some confidence in,
and it brings me eventually kind of back
towards Islam to the point where I'm like
yeah I want to be Muslim now, I
I
didn't have the terminology back then, right? I'm
getting into that. But, yeah, I'm Muslim now,
but I still have a ton of questions.
And I want those questions resolved
and I want answers to them so I
need to study Islam more in-depth. So that's
kind of where I was, you know. So
I tell my parents, I'm like look, I
need to go study Islam
and, because
the books that I got was by Sheikh
Abdul Hasan Nadwi, I'm like well I've looked
around and the only place I can really
learn Islam
is in India at the school of Nadwah.
Like this is where I need to go.
My parents are like, yeah right, you're gonna
go to India and there's over our dead
bodies that you're gonna we're gonna let you
go to India. It's not gonna happen. Mhmm.
So, they sent me to like these local
Islamic schools over here
and just horrible experience, you know. If you
want me to get into it, I can
get into it. Yeah. Say some stuff. So
I mean, at the time there's no IOK.
No. There's no CIU. There's
So I don't even know about IOK, right?
I I I think IOK was happening in
like someone's house. Yeah. It was. It was.
Right. That's So what was happening is basically
again, I'm at a point where I'm still
not associated with any Muslims.
I still don't have any Muslim friends.
There's no network, I'm not part of MSA,
I'm not part of anything. So I'm just
kind of doing this on the side,
and then when I kind of become Muslim,
I'm still going to the library even though
I'm not enrolled in UCI, I'm going to
UCI every single day and I'm sitting in
the library and I'm reading. So I'm like
well now that I'm Muslim, I wanna start
praying.
Okay, well technically I'm supposed to be praying
in a group.
Okay,
I found these Muslims who are praying on
campus. So the way I joined MSA quote
unquote was just by praying with them. So
I take a break, I go and pray
with them, and then I
leave. And they're like, you know, you should
stay. I'm like, no I got a lot
of reading to do and I would leave.
So that was like my experience at the
time. And then I tell my parents, I'm
like, I need to go to this Islamic
school. I need to go and like continue
learning this thing, it's really important for me.
And they're like,
no you're not gonna travel to like a
random country like India. Like we fled that
country to come to America for the American
dream and you're going back to the place
where we ran away from? Like this makes
no sense at all. This is never gonna
happen. This is this is the the dumbest
idea we've ever heard. Like from their perspective,
like this makes no sense. People are dying
to come to America and you're like trying
to die to go back to where we
where we fled from in the first place.
It doesn't make sense. So they said no
you're not doing that but we talked to
some random people for you, we found out
that there's an Islamic school in San Diego.
So you go in that school in San
Diego and you're gonna get the exact same
thing. So I'm thinking okay, well what is
it? It's a madrassa, right? So I'm like
I don't even know what a madrassa is,
but the only thing that I've read was
I'm reading the books of Imam Khazali, I'm
like well, Imam Khazali was teaching at madrassa
nirghamih,
right? So I'm like oh well, it's one
of those madrassa, so I'm gonna have I'm
gonna have like a bunch of Imam Ghazali
as my teacher so I can this is
gonna be awesome. I'm gonna like discuss
like these deep philosophical
aqidah theological discussions with them. This is gonna
be great, I'm ready, sign me up. So
my parents are like okay great, you know,
we're very happy, you know, we know about
the motherissa system. I'm like yeah, I had
no idea that you even knew about this,
you know. Like you knew about You've been
holding this back for me. Exactly, you've been
holding this back like I'd never even heard
of, like, Madrasa Nilayamiyah.
This is gonna be, like, one of those
things I didn't even know. They're like, yo,
we know about Madrasas, of course. We know
about Madrasas, you know.
So I'm just like, oh man. This is
great.
So
I I they they're like, you're sure? I'm
like, yeah, I'm sure. I go to San
Diego, pack up my bags, everything, go in
there,
live inside the masjid in San Diego, okay?
So With the tabligis? Tabligi? Tabligi? Tabligi.
So I go there and the first thing,
right? The first thing I go and I
meet the principal of the school and he's
like w guy, you know, full beard and
stuff and I'm like, this guy like must
be one of the Imam Khosali type guys.
So this is pretty cool. I could ask
him questions and stuff. So he's just telling
me what school's gonna be like. So he
he hears my he he hears what's going
on and my dad tells him, you know,
he dropped out of UCI and this and
that. She's like, no, you know, son, this
is this is very bad. You should go
back into UCI and you should finish your
computer science degree.
She's like, what? Like what is it? Like
dude, I just came from atheism, right? I'm
coming to an Islamic school to like learn
about Islam and you're telling me I should
go back to school, like to do my
career? Like something something's not clicking. So like
something is just not feeling right, I'm not
understanding what's going on.
And then he's like, okay, I tell you
what, if you're gonna come and enroll in
our school at least part time go to
like community college and do a profession because
it's really important to be balanced.
I'm like, what are you talking about? Like
being I don't understand what this whole being
balanced means because I'm coming from a very
like secular perspective here. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So
I'm coming in and they're like, okay, well
but the guy thinks, okay fine, you're Someone
has to pay for the operation, that's the
Yeah. Exactly,
exactly. So he comes in and, you know,
I come in, I'm like, you know, I'm
I'm I wanna I wanna
do the
Islamic program. I don't even know what that
is, right? Yeah. Do the Islamic program. They're
like, oh good, we're we're just launching a
new cohort, it's gonna be perfect. We have
this other teacher who just came from Pakistan.
He's so interesting. He's like, he's like a
Thailand guy. He's a convert to Islam. He
studied Pakistan.
He speaks Urdu, speaks Arabic.
And I'm like, I don't really care about
the Urdu, but yeah okay the Arabic that's
that's that's good, he knows Arabic, that's important.
So he goes, okay you're gonna really enjoy
him. I'm like, okay this is good. So
we're living on campus,
first of all classes start 1 week late,
so I'm like you know, wait a minute,
punctuality,
I was reading about like some punctuality stuff
and okay that's not happening so I'm kind
of getting disappointed.
Then these students these are like
these are like, forget high school dropout, these
are like middle school dropout kids who are
put in the madrassa, okay? They're memorizing Quran,
they have like very little education, they're not
there for studying Islam, they're not serious at
all.
And then I find out, you know, I
go into the bathroom, okay. The bathroom
again, I'm coming from like,
upper middle class, you know, standards. So I
go into the bathroom, I'm gonna brush it.
It's the hole in the wall, toilet,
and
above it is the shower. And everything is
wet, right? It's just everything is wet, dirty,
just disgusting, you know. And I'm just like,
okay I'm gonna have to shower
on top of the toilet, right? So I'm
gonna do both. So I'm like I was
just like, okay this is very difficult, it's
dirty,
something's not feeling right. I'm like, you know
what it's okay man. If I can get
the answers to my questions, this is worth
it, you know. So
I put up with all that, class begins.
The class was just, it was miserable.
It was
Arabic grammar,
right? This is why people are like, you
know, why don't you teach Arabic grammar in
the beginning? I'm like, Chris, understand where I'm
coming from. I'm trying to learn Islam and
I'm trying to learn Arabic grammar. You don't
wanna drop out early. Exactly. You drop out
early is what's gonna happen. So I'm I'm
studying Arabic grammar,
right, and
I am translating
for the guy into because the guy didn't
speak English. So I'm like translating
-He only speaks 2 languages. -He speaks Arabic
in Urdu. -That's it. -Thailand
or whatever, Cambodian or something, whatever it was.
So I'm he's like, well, since you seem
to be kind of the smart like most
intelligent kids in the class, you're gonna somehow
translate what I'm saying to the rest of
the kids so that they can understand what's
going on. It was like this translation thing,
we're trying to learn Arabic grammar, and then
we're going and learning a book called Beishti
Zaywar, which is like a fit book on
Islamic law, basic Hadafi fit book.
For me, I'm like, I didn't even know
I'm going into like a Islamic law program.
Okay, I'm going in there to learn Islam,
whatever that means.
So I'm exposed to, okay, well, you know,
if you have a mouse
and the mouse falls into
your jar of clarified butter,
how much of the butter do you have
to scoop out before that butter is considered
pure?
And I'm just looking at this like what
the * is this? Like, what is this?
And if a donkey falls into a well,
right, how much of the water do you
have to scoop out before your wudu will
be valid? And we're sitting there the whole
like, the whole month we're sitting there and
I'm just like These are the messiahs. The
same the same the same the same Imam
Ghazali, man. Like, is this and, you know,
I I I don't know. Yeah. Imam Ghazali
wrote about this stuff too. He's got flipbooks
addressing all these issues. But again, I I
don't have a a a conceptually a holistic
view of this thing, and I'm not coming
in there for this reason. Then when I
find out
the majority of the students in class, the
majority of my classmates,
during break time, they're always leaving and they're
going in the back and I don't know
what they're doing. I find out that they're
smoking weed in the back. Oh, this is
weird. So I'm just like, okay man. So
Been there, done that. I'm
just like what is first of all, none
of these guys wanna be here. Yeah. None
of them are very educated, they're definitely not
intellectual.
And then they're out in the back smoking
weed like is this is this what I
like left everything behind for? So I'm very
very disappointed.
So I'm like I wanna get out of
here. So,
my parents find out, they're like oh well,
you know, we have some inside information.
One of the teachers who used to be
in San Diego, he knew there were problems
in San Diego.
So he actually started his own school in
Cerritos.
So you can
transfer into his school and you are not
gonna have any of these problems. I'm like
okay great. So let's do that. So I
transfer over to his school, it turns out
to be ex military.
You know, he's very like just a very
rough style, he's a nice guy and all
that, you know, deep down, but so I
go into his school and we start studying
the same thing. It's again, it's Arabic grammar
primarily and it's Islamic law. That's the madrasa
system. That's the madrasa system, but again I'm
You just think madrasa and I'm not a
Muslim.
Yeah. You know, this is middle age
height golden period of Islam where people are
getting this comprehensive awesome education and all that.
So I'm going in there and I'm studying
this stuff and the same problem happens, right?
Living you know in the facilities, I was
driving back and forth but people are living
on campus in the masjid basically.
None of these students want to be there,
right? Some you know, I still know some
of my classmates, none of them want to
be there,
they're not serious, they're not doing their homework,
and what I'm studying is not
what I originally came for, right? So it
was very hardcore like you know, if you
make one mistake in Arabic grammar, you will
do 20 push ups, and then you'll stay
in push up position until he calls on
everyone else. And then it's your turn again.
And if you make a mistake in 1,
conjugation of a verb, you do another 20
push ups. If you get it right, you
can get out of push up positions. You'll
stay in plank basically until you go around.
So the cool thing about the class was
You're gonna be fit. You're either you're gonna
learn Arabic really well or you're gonna be
really fit, you know. So you win either
way, you know.
So so for me I was the guy
who's doing this homework and this and that,
and the thing is they were not progressing,
they were not moving forward with the classes.
So I'm just like and
and just the whole mentality of the thing
I'm like what is, you know, what is
going on? And then I started to I
began to understand
why everyone who's looking at me and I'm
telling them I want to go learn Islam
they're like you know, son you're such a
smart kid, why would you want to go
learn Islam? Like why would you want to
go to like an Islamic school?
Like you're smart,
that's for like dumb people, like why would
you do that? And I began to understand
the mentality
only later because what I'm what's happening is
2 things are simultaneously happening. I'm in this
curriculum doing this stuff and I'm like this
is not what I really want to do,
but I'm continuing to read all the books
on the side. So while I'm reading all
these books on the side, I'm reading Abul
Hasan and Nadwi, I'm reading about Western civilization,
Islam and Muslims, how the Muslim world in
the 20th century has the effects of colonization,
the effects of decolonization.
I'm beginning to understand that
I'm piecing together this narrative of something has
gone wrong, right? And this is the manifestation
of it in front of you. Exactly. So
now I'm beginning to understand this is exactly
what has happened, this is the thing that
has gone wrong. Yeah. So I still have
in my mind this mentality
that
you know, there's got to be some golden
age you know, Islamic school out there that
I can find, and it's going to be
like the place for me.
So that's what I do, I leave that
school, and then I joined the pre IOK
before it was IOK. So IOK was there.
So I meet I meet Sheikh Naman,
Farhan was my classmate, Sheikh Farhan was my
classmate in UC Irvine. So I go and
I join IOK and I'm like okay
well this is much nicer in the sense
that
you know sheikh Naman
is an intellectual guy, he's a business professional,
you know he was a tech as well.
He's nice, he has good character, good akhlaq.
So for me like on the akhlaq part
I'm like this is perfect, at least a
lot better than what I was experiencing.
So what they're trying to do is they
were trying to like revise the madras system
and make it like nice, make it like
more compatible with like our cultural values.
But when it comes to the curriculum
at that time at least it was almost
the same thing.
It was taught in a nicer manner, but
again, the focus is either on law and
the focus is on,
you know, Arabic grammar and stuff like that.
So I'm like, you know what, okay, I
can put up with this for a while,
as long as I'm progressing. What ended up
happening was is that again, it was in
its infancy
stages.
The other students who were there, they were
a lot more serious than the previous ones,
but they weren't serious enough to be doing
their homework completely. So for me, I'm like,
look, this is
my entire life mission. Like I left my
school, I left everything behind, this is my
100% occupation, nothing else matters to me except
this thing. So I'm doing all my homework,
I'm advancing this and that, and what keeps
happening is students are not really doing their
work and this and that, so they end
up going and repeating. They say, oh, we're
gonna repeat the same material again. Oh boy.
So I'm like, look, this is, that's not
fair, you know, because like I did my
homework, why do I have to go through
the same class again? And then it happens
like a second time, and a third time,
and I'm just like, no this is too
much now, you know. So I'm
trying to find a private teacher,
who can just kind of like teach me
on the side or something like that. I
can't find anyone who's gonna dedicate full time
for me. Obviously, doesn't make sense like you
know, who's gonna dedicate the entire day to
just keep teaching me the whole time? So
that doesn't work, so I'm like look I
need to go somewhere, I need to get
out of here, there's gotta be a solution
for me. So I tell my parents, I'm
like, look I have to go. They're like,
you're not going at all, but what we'll
do is we'll make a deal with you.
Here's the deal, because you're not finding what
you want in California over here. So here's
what we're gonna do, you finish your degree
at UCI, go reenroll, finish your degree. The
moment you finish your degree, we're gonna let
you go to India where you want it
to go. So I'm like They thought you
would give up. Yeah. Yeah. They they did
hoping. Right? So like he's gonna get the
comp sci degree, get a job at Google,
and forget forget any of this ever happened.
Exactly. That's what their expectation was, right? So
I go back in, I re enroll before
12 months are up, I'm back in. And
but I'm back in but something is totally
different about me because now I'm Muslim.
I'm still reading, but now I have this
value for knowledge, right? So like I care
about the idea of
learning, not so much learning computer science as
a career, but just learning in general, right?
I just have a different perspective because when
you read those books on Islamic thought and
everything,
there's this importance of knowledge in general which
helps you through life. So now I'm just
not coming in there like I just got
to finish a degree. I do value the
knowledge, but at the same time I want
to get this degree quickly done and I
want to get to my real knowledge that
I need. So you're you're like laser focused
now? You're you're no Exactly. Yeah. Exactly. So
now I go take a full load of
classes
and I end up making up the entire
year that I missed by just taking a
full load of class. So I finished graduated
in like 3 years. Masha'Allah. Right? So and
and, you know, it it can be done
actually less than that. Yeah. So she put
UCI computer side guys? Yeah. They do it
every year. Yeah. So sheikh Mudeeb, he's you
know, someone else in our community. So I
when he was joining UCI I told him
I'm like look, I'm a latecomer
to like valuing knowledge. You grew up in
like a very intellectual family, you're an educated
guy, you are you know you're intelligent,
you're doing computer science at UCI, I guarantee
you if I did it in 3 years
I'm telling you could do it in 2
years.
And he's like, that's not possible. I'm telling
you you can do it. He's taking, like,
20 30 units a quarter or semester? Just
you handle you handle and including summer. Right?
Just do summer as well. Yeah. So he
kinda disappointed me. He did it in 2
years and one quarter.
But, but he could have easily if he
just put a little bit more effort he
could have easily done in 2 years, right?
The thing is you could do all these
classes in 2 years. So I come in
there just different mentality, right? So I go
in there finish all my classes at the
same time, I'm still reading and studying.
I continue with I okay before it was
I okay. You have excellent time management skills,
Marshall. I don't have nothing else going on.
Nothing
else happening. Right? If you don't mind me
pausing the narrative, if because you made a
jump here. So you took a year off.
Yes. And I wanted to ask you about
that. Do you so you obviously had a
rougher time doing it, but nowadays,
there so when I was in Texas, there
were a lot of kids at Qalam and
the Khanum Institute is in, Texas with Sheikh
Abdul Nasr Jenga, Sheikh Hussain Khimani. Yeah. Very
great institute, and they do, like, a 1
year anime program,
and they have longer ones as well. But
what's your perspective now that we have kind
of established ins institutions here in the US?
Some student, he's in college. He's he's 2
years in, maybe less, maybe more. He says,
I wanna take a year off to go
kinda study my dean, so to speak. Just
for a year. Do you think that
do you encourage those kind of things where
you say, like, finish your degree first, don't
fall behind, so to speak, on your No.
Progress or should you do that come back?
I absolutely encourage studying your dean first because
here's what's gonna happen.
Any program of university program pretty much,
across the country,
it's gonna have a liberal arts, you know,
curriculum. So you're gonna have to study either
philosophy, anthropology, sociology,
psychology.
You're gonna have to study something
that has,
a non technical aspect which is gonna affect
your understanding of Your worldview. It's gonna affect
your worldview completely. Yeah. Is it better to
have a strong Islamic foundation when going in
or to go in and then go and
try and fix whatever
little brainwashing has taken place. Right?
I'm definitely a proponent of the first one.
Between high school and college? Is that probably
ideal? Ideal
is between high school and college. And if
it's even possible, have a good strong high
school curriculum while going through. But, yeah, outside
of that, right after high school, I'm
curriculum while going through. But yeah, outside of
that, right after high school, I recommend getting
accepted, deferring your enrollment for a year. I
mean Mormons do it, you know, the the
LDS church, everyone has to And then they
go on their mission. They go on their
missionary, they have to finance it themselves.
I mean, I can talk more about that
in detail, but they have to work in
high school to finance themselves to go make
missionary work around the world somewhere before they
jump into college. And they're still getting into
great colleges, they get into a good career,
like it's very doable. It's not that it's
not doable. So yeah, my advice is right
after high school, take a year off and
go straight into like some Islamic studies program,
solidify yourself, now 2 things are gonna be
accomplished. Number 1, you get into university,
you're gonna be protected. Mhmm. Protected, you're gonna
not only protected, but you're gonna be able
to filter the information that you have and
actually contribute
to
the discussion in a completely different way. So
it's not just about protecting yourself like living
in a bubble, it's about being able to
contribute to the knowledge discussion that's taking place,
number 1. Number 2, your experience in like
a Muslim Student Association
is gonna be totally different. You can actually
contribute to the MSA. So now you're a
producer rather than just a consumer hoping that
if my MSA is strong, they're gonna make
me strong. Now you can actually Yeah. We
know. Help make your MSA stronger.
You guys know that experience. Exactly.
So cap quality slow. Right?
It's better now. It's better now. It's better
now. It's better now. It's better now. It's
better now. So, yeah, I mean, I definitely
yeah. I would I would recommend that that's
ideal. That that that should be the standard
for us. I think nowadays, it's even more
important.
Over the past half decade or so, things
have gotten really out of control Absolutely. In
the university.
So this is, I mean, you have to
what's funny is you're saying to undo the
brainwashing that happens in college. A lot of
it's happening now, middle school, high school. Yeah.
Yeah. So by the time you get to
your Islamic thing between high school and college,
you're like, what? Yep. Exactly. Exactly. And then
you're gonna go to college. Hopefully, you've kind
of laid some foundations. Yeah. Exactly. So what
if, hypothetically,
there's no institution around you? Do you know
any institutions that someone could study through online?
Yeah. Good question.
Yeah. So that's where I This is time
for the plug. This is the plug. Right?
There you go. So so that's why I
started California Islamic University. Right? So that's the
that's what, a kind of a curriculum,
kind of more balanced curriculum that I wanted
for myself,
that's structured, it's professional, it's organized, and you
could do it potentially online. So you're living
in Alabama somewhere and you're like okay, you
have a family like mine that's like you're
not traveling anywhere, you're gonna stay right here.
Well, what do you do? You got 2
options, either take off 1 year or if
you're jumping into college or even if your
senior year of high school, you simultaneously do
an Islamic curriculum online
while you're doing your regular school as well.
And that's gonna really
give you a solid foundation
to protect you and to make you someone
who can actually learn,
be it contributing you know Muslim on campus.
So I highly highly recommend people do that
you know. Ideally, if you could take off
the entire year, that's great. If you take
off 2 years, that's even better. You know,
I mean, again, it's this is not about
people becoming scholars.
This is about this is the cost of
living. Yeah. That's all you gotta know. It's
the cost of living in western society.
Right?
You know, a lot of immigrant parents are
not understanding
that this is not back home. You can't
just leave the kid and all of a
sudden he's gonna naturally just grow into the
same way he would have like in Syria
or Palestine or Where are the hands playing
5 times a day. Exactly, exactly. It doesn't
matter how religious you are. That took a
village to do that, we don't have that
village. Exactly.
And also even in those places, that's changing.
Then we, you know, with globalization,
the influence that's coming into those places, that
was a generation ago. Yeah. Right? It's changed,
right? And even if that was your minimum
standard, which it shouldn't be cause there's a
lot of weird practices you know that are
going on there. Even if that was the
minimum standard you're not even gonna reach that
minimum standard. That's the cost here, you have
to invest extra time. People need to wake
up to that, wake up to the reality.
So now there's alternatives that are there. So
Cal Islamic is is an option for an
alternative, and there's a lot more alternatives out
there, which is awesome, you know. Alhamdulillah. Alhamdulillah.
Alhamdulillah. Can we go let's go back to
the narrative though. We wanna we wanna make
it. We wanna make it to your eventual,
like, where you're sitting now. So,
how do you we were we were at
the
he's he's contributing back to his MSA. He's
Oh, you're a contributor back to his MSA.
I reenrolled in college. You reenrolled in college.
You finish it real quick. Full time Full
time schedule, I'm reading on the side. Yeah.
And what's happening is because I'm reading, so
I'm not really part of MSA technically at
this point in time. Too busy. No, not
so much too busy. So here's what's happening.
It's like,
you know, and I fault myself for this,
but I'm telling you what my mentality was
at the time. Okay? I'm not telling you
what I believe about MSA now, okay? So
what's happening is I'm reading all this stuff,
and I'm coming in and I'm praying with
the MSA people because we pray together as
Muslims, I get that part. But then when
I look at my MSA or MSU for
UCI, right?
They
you know
even though MSU
at UCI even in my day was one
of the more active MSAs
in the country,
From my perspective,
I'm going and reading and I'm coming in
here and I'm realizing
it's more of a social club. Yeah. Right?
And people are socializing and a lot of
them don't know very much about Islam.
And they don't take Islamic studies
as seriously as I'm taking it, right? So
for me I'm coming in a totally different,
you know, perspective. So I'm going in there
and they're like, come on man, you know,
socialize with us. I'm like, socialize with you?
Like I'm I gotta go read, like I'm
supposed to I'm here to learn about Islam,
you guys wanna come and like read with
me? Do you wanna you know, start learning
Arabic with me? Do you wanna, hey you
wanna read some of these books? And they're
like, no, no, let's just hang out, you
know, we're just gonna have like a hangout
thing. So for me I was very, I
was not into this whole hangout culture, right.
And I understand now Some people need it.
That's what I'm saying, some people need it.
This is a very important value that it
plays. But during my experience at that time
I'm just like look, it's not for you.
I don't need this, right? Like that's good,
it would be nice and fun and all
that. But first of all keep in mind
like with all due respect, you know I
love my Muslim brothers and sisters but like
I'm coming from a non Muslim friendship culture,
right?
So what do I have in common with
most of these Muslims? Like it's just the
Islam part, right? So for me it's it's
hard for me to even socialize with them
because I've been socializing with like non Muslims
my whole life That the type of things
that we do, we talk about and all
that, I'm still in a transition phase. Yeah.
And,
you know, it's it's hard for me to
even socialize with them because I'm not used
to that. They're not like, if I had
a 100 people to choose from, I wouldn't
just choose the Muslim if I had you
know anyone to socialize with. So for me
the socializing part is not important for me.
It's the knowledge component, the knowledge part that's
really important for me. And I felt like
there was almost like a pushback
against me at the time like this guy's
just people kept saying you know, this guy's
too serious, you know, somebody's you gotta be
more chill, like you know, why are you
so serious all the time? You come in
here and you know, and I would I
thought that I wouldn't smile, I wouldn't talk
to people, but people just had this issue
that you know, this guy's just too serious,
you know, so he doesn't wanna hang out,
he doesn't wanna socialize for a long period
of time. So that was an issue that
I had.
And then things would start late and I'm
like, where's the where's the revival? Like, you
know, I was reading about Islamic revival in
like different countries. Wrong part of Exactly. So
I started a project called project revival, basically
revival of Islam. I posted up notes like,
you know, on the MSA wall like, you
know, we're gonna start all activities on time,
prayer will start on time, you know, we
should never make commitments unless we're gonna keep
them. I got had these references on the
side and everything. I'm like, you know, who's
really dedicated, who's gonna sign up, you know,
to do this? I was getting frustrated, like,
a lot of the leadership, they're not waking
up for Fudger. I'm like, dude, we need
Fudger network, wake up network. We need to
get this in progress. And people are like,
man, why are you being so serious, man?
You're bringing like this seriousness aspect into MSC.
It's funny because your seriousness is like the
base level of this now. Exactly, exactly. So
for me that's kind of weird and now
all of a sudden the way I get
recruited into MSA or MSU
is basically they realize, hey, this guy is
not really into this whole socializing thing but
this guy seems to be like more knowledgeable
than we are, why don't you come and
teach us? So I'm like, oh okay, you
want me to like teach a class? But
like I don't even know anything like I'm
a brand new Muslim. They're like, no no
you know a lot more than we know
so I read a few books right? So
they're like, teach us. So I'm like okay,
I'll teach you. So I start a class,
I start like an Islam 101 class, then
I start a Sira class. Then I'm learning
Arabic, so I taught you I start an
Arabic class. So I started getting students. I
don't even know Arabic completely. I don't like
I know, like, I'm on chapter 10, so
I start teaching from chapter 1. Right? So
and then some some people come and they're
like, you know, they're Arabs and they're like,
man, you know Oh, yeah. They're definitely like
this Pakistani man. Look at this Pakistani man.
This dude don't even know Arabic and he's
gotta teach an Arabic class? I'm like, look,
I'm doing this because no one else is
teaching. Why don't you teach an Arabic class?
Oh, no. I gotta teach an Arabic class
and this and that. You know, Arabs know
their Arabic and blah blah blah and we're
getting into debates on grammar.
Yeah, just, you know, hey, a big misconception,
you know. This guy knew his Arabic by
the way. Some people, they know their Arabic
because they come from Arabic country, they go
through Arabic medium, their grammar is good, everything.
They have no passion to teach. So they're
not gonna teach,
They're not gonna do anything. So I'm teaching
all these classes. That's how I kind of
got
sucked into MSA, I say, in a sense,
right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm doing that
and then, yeah, and then I start to
socialize with people. There's an importance Dawa related
element it and all that. That was pretty
much my experience with MSA and MSU and
then they start making me do khutbas, you
know? So now all of a sudden I
start doing khutbas, I'm like, well, how did
this happen? I'm like the latest guy, I'm
like the latest addition to Islam here out
of all of you, why would I be
the one giving Khutbah? And it's just basically
the simple thing, it's like if anyone who
can read like 3 books on Islam is
basically the most knowledgeable person in the entire
MSA. Like if you just take 1 person
like in an average MSA across the entire
country, okay, if If you just take one
person, you take them out for 1 week,
and you educate him, he'll come back the
most knowledgeable person in the entire MSA probably
or maybe number 2. Right? And that's just
the reality of, like No. This is this
is a great point. And you were talking
about how you could assimilate I'm a lot
of this but it's it's true. With the
Muslims versus non Muslims. What's funny is so
I went when I went to college,
I wasn't like a big big part of
the MSA. I knew, like, Ahmed from freshman
year. Right? So I knew the MSA members
but I was living with non Muslims for
the first four years.
What's funny is the deepest conversation I had
philosophical,
intellectual, whatever, those conversations I had with non
Muslims. Because those guys, they read books, and
I read books. So we could have, like,
actual conversations about something that's not what you
eat, what you go to, what is this
halal, not halal? Like, you know, there's there's,
like, a real substance to a conversation. I
know it's I mean, it's really sad that
It is sad. Yeah. I didn't read. So
I I Yeah. We were talking about stupid
stuff. Yeah. But see, here's the thing. So
one, we need to encourage that. I think
what you're saying is a good point. We
need to encourage that. And number 2, we
need to
we need to facilitate that for people who
are interested in those things. So what's happening
is even though, you know, you may meet
a lot of people, you don't know who's
interested
in this stuff and who reads and who
doesn't read. It's very hard. So what happens
is you're so used to like, oh, well,
what's, the latest kebab shop that just opened,
man? They have the best kebabs. So you
you get into that socializing mode and you
think everyone's like that and you don't realize,
hey, this guy I could have actually talked
to him about something way deeper,
but we end up talking about like the
kebab shop or something like that. Right? So
we need to change this narrative. We need
to facilitate
like some kind of spaces. A book club?
A book club or
a discussion club or something like that where
people
who
are a little bit more well read are
gonna be attracted to come there. And you
know, not necessarily the incentive is to have
a good discussion. Yeah. You know, you don't
even need to have like the best coffee
or something like that. So I think we're
we're focusing too much on the superficial aspect
of like, you know, and your coffee was
great by the way, but like we're focusing
on like
Thanks to my wife. That's the Yeah, that's
the masculinity
part of it.
You know, but the thing is like when
we're talking about like we're gonna develop this
Muslim coffee shop,
the idea is, oh, the coffee's gonna be
like this and the design's gonna be like
this and it's gonna look like this. Well,
where's the- The coffee. No, where's the substance
of it, right? Where's
the intellectual discussion? What are you trying to
foster here, right? Is it,
I wanna say superficial,
socialization, but just kind of like
recreational socialization
Yeah. Or some kind of like It's like
the 9 to 5 social. When you go
to work, these guys talk about nothing. I
just Nothing of real substance to be like,
oh, we connect about something. I don't know.
I mean, I I know that MSAs, they
they do tend to be more social clubs
but coming from someone who definitely needed that,
I know a lot of people also needed
that too. That's why I'm saying That,
you know, that within itself stopped someone from
going to a party, stopped someone from seeing
their girlfriend Yes. That night. And that
might have been enough. I I I agree.
I agree. That's why I say in retrospect,
when I look back, I'm like that was
extremely valuable. Like that. Everyone's not gonna fall
into that, but I'll I'd say most people
need the socializing
as a priority Yeah. And the knowledge stuff
is like second for them. It's funny if
you wanna summarize all Muslim youth problem, like
a really superficial summarization. Yeah. They had a
bad bad friend group.
At the end of the day, they were
the wrong crowd at the wrong time of
their life. If they have been with a
good crowd, if I was with a crew
younger, who's praying 5 times, like, yo, I'm
gonna need to go to the masjid. You're
just gonna do what the guys tell you
to do. That's the peer pressure is to
go to the masjid and rehavon. That's what
the peer pressure is gonna tell you to
do. Yeah. Exactly. The most religious guy in
our MSA was the guy who prayed 5
times a day. Yeah. Yeah. So they showed
up and said, woah, this guy prays 5
times a day. I was like, and you
didn't? Like, what what is, you know, what
is what is so, we had one guy
who showed up and gave like a khaterah
one time and we're like, oh, mashaAllah, this
guy is like really knowledgeable. But then he
ended up leaving and saying we weren't serious
enough about Islam. Mhmm. Turned out he was
Ahmadiyyah.
Twist.
And we didn't even know what that was
until, like, wait. So I told him tell
you told us Jesus already came back. We're
like We were oh, yeah. We found out
at an MSA function, like a MSA one
on 1. Interfaith. Interfaith.
And then they're talking about different groups believing
in Jesus and then what our guy was
like, oh, yeah. We believe Jesus is gonna
come back and and then this guy raised
his hand and he's like, oh, well, I'm
Muslim, but Jesus already came back. And we're
like, the whole room just kinda goes silent.
So that guy was more knowledgeable than everyone
else. SubhanAllah.
But you eventually
you eventually graduate? I eventually graduate. And you
go overseas? I I I go straight to
my parents and I tell them, I say,
you know what? Promise is a promise, right?
I kept my promise to Allah, you know,
in my capacity and you're obviously gonna keep
your promise. And they're like,
no.
No. No. That's not gonna happen. Like, you
know, you were this this fad of Islam
was supposed to dissipate by now. Like, what's
wrong with you? Like, it's been, like, 2
years. You should have liked this Islam thing.
You should have been out of your system
by now. So,
like, no. You're not going anywhere. Like, you
know, you need to go go get a
job. Like like, no. Go get a job
and then go get married and settle down
and I'm like, no. I really wanna go.
They're like, well,
get a job and then we'll talk. Oh
my god. Come on. This is this is
not fair, you know? Yeah.
So I said, okay. Fine. I got no
money now. So I lost the all the
stock market, remember?
Never never got,
since that margin call came in, the margin
from my father was cut off as well.
So all that because he knew what was
happening, right. So he once he found out
I was running away,
all my accounts are completely cut, right. So
I have zero money. Yeah. I'm completely dependent
on parents now. Whatever little amount of independence
or trust they had in me was completely
just fizzled. Yeah. Pulled out from from under
me. So now I'm
now I'm done. I have no money, graduated,
parents paid for tuition so I don't have
loans which is good. You know most people
today have like loans and stuff. Hamdulillah. Hamdulillah.
So
I start applying, get a job.
So I get a job and I'm sitting
there doing really good,
you know, my mentality also has changed, right?
So I'm like you know very punctual,
very hardworking. So I'm reading in these books,
a Muslim is supposed to do all these
things. So they're like man, this guy's like
star employee. You know, it's like to the
point where my boss is telling
me that like
you know, you need to just slow down
in terms of working. This is this is
a problem because you're working so fast, we
don't have projects anymore to give you because
you keep finishing them. So the next time
I tell you that a project is supposed
to take a week, it better not be
done in one day. Did you work for
the government or something? No. No. I worked
for a tech.
Silicon Valley would love you today. Yeah. What
is going on? What is it like? So
I'm waiting for a tech company. It's like
a company called Aqueduct.
And, you know, they're they're telling me, like,
okay, you know, we brought you in this
position. You're doing great, but you just you
need You need to slow down. You need
to slow down because it's making It's so
serious too. You're
done. And it's like you need to chill
out. I'm like, alright, fine. So after a
few months, I'm making, you know, pretty decent
money and everything. I'm living at home, so
all the money is going into my account.
And then as soon as I just have
just enough like 3 months or something, I'm
like, you know what, I have to come
and tell my parents. I'm like, you know
what, do you want do you want me
to go you want to send me India
now? They're like, no, keep working. I'm like,
well now you can't stop because now I
just reached a threshold where I have enough
money to go and pay
myself, I can go on my own and
I'll figure out the rest later. They're like,
oh this is this is a big problem
now, right? Like this guy is actually financially
independent now, he's got enough money and he's
really gonna do it. So what can we
do? Like the last
the last, you know arrow in their quiver
or the last thing in their arsenal is
okay, I tell you what, there's this dream
you've always had. You've had that Ferrari Testarossa
poster on your wall when you were a
kid, you remember that car? I'm like, yes
I remember that car. So we know you
you like that car right? I said yes
I like that car.
So if you don't go,
we're gonna go to the dealership and we're
gonna buy you that Ferrari.
Don't go. A Ferrari? Ferrari,
right? So and my parents are very well
off, you know. Mashallah. So alhamdulillah.
So
and because just think about their mentality. They're
so
afraid of what can happen to me. Here
is dunya. This is this is dunya, but
again,
in retrospect They're giving it to you. You.
They're no. In retrospect No. They're afraid of
what they're doing. Yeah. They're afraid. In retrospect,
they're afraid. That's how and that's sad because
that's how afraid they are. That's how scared
they are. Right? You know? That's And in
a way in a way, actually, they had
some legitimate concerns. Okay. Like, again, they are
living they are coming from Pakistan, technically. Even
though my dad was born in India, they
don't know anyone in India. Right? So if
they would if they would've if I would've
chosen Pakistan, maybe they would've been a little
bit more comfortable, perhaps. Yeah. Pre 911 especially.
Right?
But this is post 911 anyways. Yeah. So
they're they would have been a little bit
more comfortable, but this is India. They don't
know a single person in the whole country.
There's no connection to this land at all.
Got it. So a foreign country,
their perception of, you know, madrasas are already
not a good perception. Maybe the perception of
India itself is not Perception of India against
Muslims is a problem in and of itself.
Yeah.
You got,
this Orange County kid, how the heck is
he gonna live in India? So He couldn't
take the the He couldn't take the peeing,
the pooping hole in San Diego. He's not
gonna He didn't want the shower on the
on the hole in the wall toilet. This
guy's gonna, you know, live in India.
And then and then he's an American on
top of that. Right? So walk around with
an American passport,
and he's gonna be spotted immediately. Now I
don't understand these things until I get there.
Like, people can see you from a mile
away. I don't I don't get that, but
they know that. They're like, you know, they
can they will tell that you're an American
from a mile away. From a mile away.
Mhmm. And I'm just like, I don't know.
I don't know why that why that would
be. So they have a legitimate concern. In
retrospect, I understand their concern. So if some,
you know, some kids are like, yeah, my
my parents are doing the same thing to
me. I'm like, you know what? They they
have some legitimacy
in what they're saying, you know.
So but anyway, so I'm adamant. I'm like,
no. This is the place. This is the
only school that I think is gonna have,
the Imam Ghazali type that I'm looking for.
Like Yeah. Say Abul Hasan Naddawi is gonna
be my teacher or something like that. Based
upon what I've read on their website, based
upon the books that I've read from him,
based upon some other books. So we go,
we visited the school and this and that,
my dad went with me and, he he
saw that people are kinda nice, you know,
things are comfortable. I tell him, I said
I am going. So their last option was
look here, I'm gonna buy you this dunya
and
don't go. You can still go to a
local Islamic school here, we're not gonna stop
you, but you don't go over there and
you get this car and you enjoy and
you can drive up and they're like once
you become an imam you're gonna be the
coolest imam. You're gonna drive up in a
Ferrari and you'll be like the Ferrari. The
imam Ferrari. You'll be the Ferrari imam, right?
Like don't you want that? And then like
some of my other friends are like, yeah
dude that would be really cool man, you
know. So I'm just like,
you know, I'm like that doesn't fulfill
what I'm trying to get, right? Because I'm
not finding here what I'm trying to get.
Yeah. So I'm like, no mom, dad, it's
not gonna happen. I'm I'm going whether you
like it or not. So I make a
decision, I tell them I'm going. So all
of a sudden they back off and they're
like, okay, you know what? Since you're going,
you know what? We actually are supporting you.
So they wanted to like, they switched their
position. They're like, yeah, yeah, we will pay
your ticket and everything like that. So in
the end, they end up supporting me like
right before I'm leaving. And they're like, yeah,
you know, we're gonna we don't really like
what you're doing, but if this is what
you want, you do it.
So I end up in India.
And you spend that's where you Islamic studies
No. No. No. No. So I it starts.
It's it starts in India, but then the
struggle, like you said, it's not linear,
you know, it's not a linear process.
So my coming
back to Islam was not a linear process.
My studying Islam was not a linear process.
So so I go into India.
I get there,
you know,
just summarizing some of
the things. I get there and and This
is the same address that you visited with
your father? Same yes. But let me explain
something. They put on the facade when you
when you visit? When you visit a place,
right, it's like like this university researcher coming
from like Harvard
going into like some random desert land, right?
And they come in with all their supplies
and stuff and they walk in and they
see all the people they're like, this is
so interesting. You know, these these people live
a primitive lifestyle
and and, you know, oh, look look at
the type of food that they eat. They'll
sit down like have a meal, oh, this
is very interesting food. And so but but
at the end of the day, you're just
gonna go and live back in your hotel
and you're gonna fly back and that's it.
It's totally different lifestyle for you. So that's
what my visit was. Like, oh, this looks
pretty nice. Everything looks Exotic. Look exotic. Yeah,
exactly. So like a romanticized version of like
everything looks pretty cool. You sit on the
floor during classes. This is gonna be really
interesting. But when you get there, it's just
totally different. When you have to live in
that environment, it's just totally different, especially if
you're coming from Orange County.
Right? So Yeah. Orange County is a very
nice suburb here in SoCal. Yes. So that's,
yeah. Yeah. I have a cousin in in
England. They're like, oh, there was a show,
called Orange County. Is it true that you
guys pay, like, $10 for a bottle of
water in, like, Newport Beach or some of
that? I'm like, no, that that's a little
bit exaggerated. $6. It's Newport Beach or something?
I'm, like, no. That that's a little bit
exaggerated. $6. It's
it's it's about $6. Exactly.
So the thing is people even know now
about the because of the show, they know
about this Orange County. You know, it's pretty,
like, a nice posh area. It's supposed to
be a good area. Yeah. So I'm coming
from that's my whole life is spent here.
Yeah. So born and raised here, grew up
here. I visited different parts of the world,
but, you know You didn't live it like
that. You live in a 4 star, 5
star hotel. Yeah. Right? I had visited India.
When we visited India, we literally stayed in
the hotel that used to be a palace
converted into a hotel. Right? So that's where
we're staying. So you live in there, like
Jaipur. It's like this used to be like
the Palace of the Prince or Pasha or
whatever. And then we turned it into like
a 5 star hotel. So if you're living
there, but then you go to the village
like in the day and you're like, wow,
this is really interesting how these people eat
like their lentils and their rice and let's
join them for a meal. Like, yeah, I've
experienced India. No, you have not experienced India
until you live there. Like you're living with
the people and you like you're there.
So I get there, I arrive
and,
my dad is very worried, he's concerned, what's
gonna happen in this and that. So he
calls in one of his contacts, a contact
of a contact and says, hey, somebody knows
someone in that school,
identify, hey, there's an American student coming, please
give him some special attention. So they're like,
okay, we're gonna take care of this guy.
We're gonna give him special treatment.
So here's the special treatment, okay?
And see, for them, no, no, for them,
it's not like what you're thinking maybe. It's
for them, it's special treatment from their perspective.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Special treatment from their perspective
is this. I go in and they're like,
we're gonna keep you in the guest house.
Nobody besides like VIPs stay in the guest
house, okay? So I'm like in the I'm
like, wow, I'm in the guest house? This
is cool. Like in the VIP guest house.
The VIP guest house was like this. The
first night I arrive, okay? I get there,
there's like
12 or 16 beds across in one room
and one light stays on and I just,
I go under my blanket,
I go to sleep, I wake up and
I wake up throughout the night, there's mosquitoes
just literally biting me throughout the entire night,
right? My face is puffed up completely and
there's like just this line of just mosquitoes
and they're not attacking anyone else, they're only
attacking me. They know that I'm American, right?
So they go Fresh blood, fresh blood. Exactly.
So they're like just right above me, they
only hover above me, they don't go to
anyone else. So I'm like, okay, this is
the worst night of my life. I'm like,
this is horrible. And they're like, don't worry,
don't worry, you're staying in the VIP room,
we don't want to move you to your
dorm room yet, we want you to enjoy.
I'm just like, if this is enjoyment,
okay, there's a problem, right? So I'm sitting
there living in the guest house, your room
is not ready yet, we're gonna give you
a special room. There's normally 6 people to
a room.
I'm getting 1 with 2 people to a
room, special VIP room. I'm like, okay, great.
So I'm living there, going,
1 week passes, I'm inside the guest house.
People told me be very careful of your
diet, watch what you eat, and this and
that. I went to REI.
I bought
military grade,
water purification.
Iodine stuff. Yeah. Like, no. No. Iodine is
like primitive. We're talking like top top of
the line. It like,
you you like zap the water or something
like that. It can even kill some type
of, you know You can get water off
the ground. You can get water off the
ground. You mix it in there. You you
get you purify your water. So I'm like,
this is awesome. So
one guy told me, I'm I'm like, I'm
I'm taking care of. He goes, no, no.
We're gonna get you some bottled water because
you know, you're a foreigner, you're an American,
we'll take care of it for you. I'm
like, okay. I appreciate that. You know, here
here's the money, water I need.
So brings me bottles of water,
a 6 pack of giant 1 liter bottles
of water. I come in there, first time
I try and drink it, it just stinks,
it reeks, right? And I'm just like, what
the heck this water, this smells so bad.
It's like you've been using a plastic bottle
for like a year, and you know that
it starts to smell, it's that smell.
So I'm like,
well
it's bottled water, it's brand new, it's gotta
be okay. And I just keep on drinking
and I'm just like almost vomiting. And I
tell this guy, I'm like, you know, something
doesn't feel right about this water. And the
guy goes and smells it and he's like,
oh my God. He's like, the guy ripped
us off. You know, sometimes this happens in
stores
where they just use old bottles and they
repackage them with normal water. So you can
drink What the *? So the first day
I arrived, I've been ripped off with the
water that I got. I got water that
has been bottles that have been used for
like years repackaged with normal water. So I
got gypped day 1. I got mosquito bite,
you know, on the same day 1.
So I'm sitting there, sitting in the guest
house, very miserable. K. One one week passes
by. K. I think I arrived on a
Friday so I didn't have to pray Jumma
that day because I was traveling.
And then 1 week passes by, I haven't
showered yet. I'm thinking about that sermon that
I
and I'm like, you know, that sermon I
need to I need to shower. And I'm
a guy like, I need my shower every
day. I can't function. Maybe that's a -Yeah,
that's how it is. That's how it is
in America, right? -That's how it is in
America, right? -You shower in the morning. You
shower in the evening. And I need a
shower, I feel horrible. So I'm sitting there
and I'm sweating and I'm like, you know,
and it's wintertime, it's freezing, there is no
heater. VIP house, there is no heater. Heater
doesn't exist. You have walls, that's the VIP
house. That's the VIP house, exactly. So I
go in there and I'm like, okay, I
go in the shower, I'm like, it's too
cold man to take off my clothes. This
is like freezing
And then the shower is a bucket shower.
So you're gonna put water, it's gonna go
into a bucket.
I don't even know how to use a
bucket shower, right? What
do you do exactly? Like yeah, you scoop
up the water and you kind of like
pour it on yourself. I'm like okay, I
can do that. So I'm waiting every time
I go, I'm like, it's too cold, it's
too cold. Few days before Jummah I walk
in there
and I see this, I'm very
At that time I was very scared of
roaches and spiders, 2 things I don't like.
So I walk in there, I see this
giant spider, it's like this big, and it's
like right next to the handle. And I'm
like, oh * no, man, this no, this
is not happening. So I walk out. Finally
Jummah comes and I'm like, all right, I
haven't showered in a week, it's been 7
days, I haven't showered, I'm stinking, I'm sweating.
It's Jummah, I have to shower now, I
have to do something. So I'm going in
there, I don't care, I'm gonna face that
spider, I'm gonna get this guy. So I
go in there, got my clothes, everything's ready,
go in the shower, I go in there,
I see the spider, kind of chase him
off, he's still there waiting for me. He
waited the whole week for me, by the
way, you know? So go in there, chase
him off, I go to turn on the
water,
there's no water.
Water's
done. I'm like, what the heck?
Why why is the water done? So I
asked the people, they're like, it's Juman, man.
Don't you know? If you want water on
Juman's day, usually the water is done by
around 8 AM. You're like, you're late to
the game, it's like 9 or 10 am,
water gets done, you should have showered early
like before Fajr or after Fajr, otherwise the
water is finished, you have to wait till
tomorrow. So I'm just like, I've been one
whole week without a shower, I go for
Jum'ah without a shower. And I'm like, this
is what life is gonna be like, Like
this is
what I'm experiencing.
I get into my dorm room, I have
I brought a bunch of granola bars with
me, people said you have to accustom yourself
to the food. So I bring I've been
eating granola bars for an entire week, okay.
I have all the trash saved up in
my suitcase.
I'm collecting it in a bag. So I'm
like I got all this trash you know,
I'm looking around the campus. There's no there's
no trash can. There's no trash can. So
I'm just trying to figure out I'm like
you know,
where do they keep the trash cans?
So finally I have a roommate, my roommate
starts explaining to me how like life works
over here because he's Indian and I'm like,
you know, by the way I have a
question about, you know, where do I throw
my trash? He goes,
the trash, you just store it outside, it's
outside.
And I'm like, I didn't see any trash
can. No, no, it's just outside.
I'm like, what do you mean outside? No,
just store it outside and it'll be taken
care of. People don't explain very much, they
don't explain in detail. So I'm like, what
does it mean it's gonna be taken care
of? Well someone's gonna come and he's gonna
take care of it.
Oh, I got it, you have a trash
collecting service. So you leave it outside on
a certain day and the guy's gonna come
and collect it for you. He goes, Yeah,
yeah, just throw it outside. I said, Okay,
I throw it outside. I throw it outside,
finally I thought I'm like, the trash is
sitting outside. Every day we walk out, the
trash is all trash,
plastic, everything just sitting outside. We have to
walk by this trash every day. I'm like,
where's the trash guy? You know, you said
the trash guy is coming. We're like, we're
walking in trash, right? This is the outside
the school,
the whole street, every street is lined literally
up to this table in trash.
That's the way the city is. Okay? It's
Islamic school. That's the city. That's the city.
And in this Islamic school, I'm like, but
we gotta be better than this. I'm like,
there's no way. This is Islamic school. This
is not gonna happen, right? So we're walking
by the trash and he goes, no, no,
it's because school hasn't started yet. So you
know what? The trash guy's not here yet.
So he's late, he's a little bit late,
he's a few days late. I said, okay,
fine. So then finally,
I find out, oh, the trash guy's here.
My god, hamdulillah. I knew it, man. I
knew it. Hamdulillah.
Trash guy arrived. He's gonna pick up the
trash. Man, this guy's like days late. We've
been walking in trash.
He comes up.
He lights a fire.
I'm burning it. He lights the trash on
fire
in front of the room,
all the plastic, everything,
and he leaves.
And it just burns.
So the whole day, the trash is just
burning inside in in front of my room,
and it's it's plastic burning. I mean, it's
very That is not entirely
extremely unhealthy.
And and Forget for the environment, we are
inhaling all these fumes. Right? And I'm just
like The trash. Gotta be kidding me, man.
Like, you know He's an arsonist. You know,
this is I'm like, this is his job?
Like, you pay him for this? I could've
done this. I could've lit it myself, man.
So I was just like I'm like, for
me, this is like massive culture shock. Right?
So I'm just getting to the point I'm
like look man,
look
I need
to like
recalibrate myself, okay.
Last time I visited this school things were
looking good. I saw the English library, awesome
books on Islamic studies across the board. So
let me just go to the library, I'm
gonna chill out. Go to the library, English
section.
English section?
Oh that's not open for students, it's only
for researchers and professors.
I'm like why? I read English. Oh these
English books are very expensive, right? So because
it's a poor country. So I don't have
any access to English books. My Arabic is
not fluent enough to read the Arabic books.
So I'm sitting there, I'm going through this
curriculum, culture shock going on. It's to the
point where school starts,
I start to learn almost the same subjects,
Grammar,
Islamic law,
the students who are there, they're not interested
in being there.
And most of them are not very serious.
Now again, in the higher levels, there's a
lot more seriousness. But I'm sitting in the
lower levels, right? I'm sitting there, I'm trying
to study,
getting my food, just so many things I'm
going through. Like my food, you know, I
have too many stories to share, right? There's
a lot of stuff going on and it
just makes life very, very difficult for me.
Teachers don't show up on time, some teachers
don't even show up for the entire year.
I had one one for the whole year.
Wait, what? The whole year. Who taught you?
So
on that subject, this this guy, he showed
up,
Actually, in my year, he showed up a
little bit more. In the 3rd year, 3rd
year students, the guy shows up for 1
week,
doesn't show up for the rest of the
year, and shows up for the last week.
He shows up for the 1st week and
the last week of school.
So and
you have to be in class for attendance.
Who's taking it? Like, the TA? There's a
TA. There's, like, a TA or some or,
yeah, a student is appointed as TA. So
everyone has gotta go to class. Can you
take more tea? Yeah. I'll take some more
tea. So student goes everyone goes to class.
You're gonna get marked that you're present.
You're gonna sit there, wait for the teacher.
He's not gonna come. You're gonna chill out,
socialize with the guy, and you're gonna leave.
Just like
this is not Madras Anil Hamia. Right? Again,
my thing is like Yeah. How can what's
going on with these standards? So
this is this is bothering me, right?
The, you know, the food is bothering me.
I mean the food is
conceptually everything's looking good. Sheikh Abdul Hasan al
Nadawi
he made a new policy where food is
gonna be sent to your room, delivered to
you so that you can keep on studying.
He wants these students to be like top
notch. Right? What happened was Ndwa used to
be a really top elite school in like
the sixties.
Then enrollment expanded tremendously and the kind of
the standards went down, right? But it's still
a very good school in terms of the
research, but I'm not at the research level.
I'm sitting at the very basic level. So
food comes in and guess what you get
for food? Every day you get the same
food. Rota.
You get, a naan, you know, the naan
bread, you get dal, which is lentils,
you get rice,
and you're supposed to get some meat because
I have an upgraded food schedule which we
paid extra for, a food, like food plan.
And what actually happens is all of that
meat never makes it to you because during
Zohar prayer is when they start dishing out
the food. So all the students go
to the prayer, because obviously we're supposed to
be praying, we're an Islamic university.
While we're in prayer,
the servants or whatever, the people serving the
food, they go and put the food inside
the thing. So about
maybe 20% or 30% or more of the
students they skip the Zohar prayer To go
get the meat. They go to the food
guys and they kind of like pressure them
or threaten them or pay them off or
whatever it means, all the meat's gonna come
into our things. All the meat is done,
we get like the bone that's left over.
Right? So I'm getting this bone, I'm getting
my rice, I'm getting my lentils, I'm getting
it's enough to survive, right? But it's but
what bothers me what bothers me is not
so much the food. It's the fact that
you paid for something, you're supposed to get
it. It's It's not even it's not even
that. It's the fact that, you know, again,
I'm coming from in I'm at that time,
I'm coming from, hey, people gotta be serious
in Islamic school. Right? So I'm like, these
people are supposed to be here and they're
skipping prayer
to go and get the meat? Like you
know, that's it's just it's bothering you. For
me, again, you have to keep in mind
Integrity of it. In my mind I have
like this idealistic
version of the what the ummah is supposed
to be like. At least
what the Islamic university is supposed to be
like. Now in retrospect I understand all of
this, you know, I look at it from
a very different angle. In retrospect I'm like
look, you know a lot of not everyone
goes to school because they wanna be there,
right? That's every field, every career, Islamic school
is no different. But that's what I'm going
through, so it's becoming stressful for me, it's
it's bothering me. The type of, you know,
they're switching curriculums,
people are not that interested,
and then you know, one day one of
our teachers makes a mistake in
some basic map on inheritance.
And I'm getting frustrated, I'm like man, look,
like
you messed up on the fractions like
you know, I'm computer science major right? Like
I my math is pretty decent like you
didn't do this problem correctly. And he just
you know, kind of like waved it off.
He's like, no no, you don't know what
you're talking about. I'm like, look
I don't know my Islamic studies but I
know my math, right?
You messed up on the math, right? And
he just kind of played it off. So
I'm just like, you know, you know, again
everything is affecting me, right? So
some of the teachers, you know, explanations
is affecting me. Some of the teachers are
amazing.
Some of the things are bothering me, right?
So I get a private teacher, he's teaching
me, I go at night time,
to his house. While I'm on my way,
all of a sudden there's
a like a moose,
a moose or an ox or something like
that on campus
that basically like intercepts me and like blocks
my path. I'm just like, what the heck
is this? What the heck is going on?
Like, I can't get to my teacher's house
who lives on campus,
okay, because I've been intercepted
by this, like, ox. By a beast of
burden. By a beast of burden.
At nighttime,
the lights are not functioning properly, and I
didn't
I didn't know what it was in the
beginning. So it it makes this noise sound
right. I'm surprised you just didn't like, you
haven't quit. I'm about to. I'm about to.
I'm about to. I'm about to. I'm gonna
tell you. I'm about to quit. Right? So
I get it. It. It sounded like this
crazy it made this crazy sound. I've never
I've you know, I didn't live on a
farm. Right? So it made this crazy I
thought it was I'm thought, oh, dude. I
believe in jinn now 100%.
Like, this is a jinn, and the jinn
is following me. And and I found out,
like, it was an animal and it was
literally obstructing my path exactly to get to
my teacher's house. And I would try to
move around it and it would go around.
And I'm just like, what the heck? What
the heck is going on, man? So, like,
I literally, like, had to, like, outsmart it,
run that way, and then I sprinted the
other way, got to my teacher's class, and
I'm like, what the heck was that? Oh,
yeah. That's like a a bison or something
like that. I'm like, bison. Hold on.
Why is there a bison on campus
at nighttime
outside of your house?
Why is that there? They're like, oh, yeah.
You know,
they keep them in the back, you know,
in the kitchen. So probably one just escaped
and, you know, it just happened to, you
know, it somehow it just it caught you.
Like, you know, it liked you for some
reason. I'm just like, you know, and I'm
looking out the window. I'm like, I'm not
going back down there. Like, you you need
to get this thing out of here before
it's gonna attack me. So just like weird
stories like that. I'm just dealing with this
on a regular basis. So it gets to
a point where I'm just like, you know
what?
I can't
handle this anymore. I don't want to do
this anymore. So I'm like I'm quitting. So
I leave,
I come back to America and I'm like
my parents are like, see we told you
so, told you so.
All the told you so's in the world
are like there and I'm just sitting there
like kind of in like semi depression.
I rejoined the pre IOK what it used
to be and I'm like I'm doing that
but again still their classes are not up
to that level. So one of my friends
from Nadwa in India convinces me.
He's like look, you need to come back.
Like, you're not you're not doing anything. You're
not doing anything with your life. You're not,
you know, you're not progressing.
Either you give this up completely or you
come back because there's no other place you're
gonna go. You can't just be in limbo
like that's Yeah. Exactly. I can't. Right? Yeah.
So while I'm doing that, I'm doing a
bunch of things. I'm I'm doing some Islamic
classes with like the pre IOK before IOK
was there,
and then I get a job as
an
Islamic,
high school
Muslim high school teacher, so on the side
a few hours.
And then I'm just studying all day by
myself, so I resumed the curriculum. I'm like,
okay, you know what? I will continue. So
I keep studying the curriculum, I'm in touch
with some of the people over there, I'm
like, where are we in the curriculum? But
eventually I'm gonna come back someday. I'm like,
I just, I need a break right now,
but I'm gonna come back.
A few months later, I'm keeping the curriculum,
I'm like going into massive depression.
And I'm like, you know, I can't do
that, I'm going back. So I get my
ticket, I fly back there again.
I still enrolled in the school technically, I
just I had left in the middle. So
I come back, I'm where everyone else is
and I'm just like, wait a minute, you
know, what I had studied on my own,
I'm kind of like more advanced than some
of the students here. I'm like, what's going
on here? They're like, you know, just finish
the curriculum, my friends are telling me just
do it. So number of things happen. Number
1,
there's this guy, one of the teachers on
campus,
he calls me, it's it's a very tribal
society, right? So he calls me in and
he's like, you know, you need to come
visit me and I wanna talk to you
about some things. So some students warn me
and they're like, he's trying to recruit you
into his little
gang. And what's gonna happen is he's gonna
basically it's like politics. He's gonna control you,
then he's gonna you're gonna become like his
murid, like his, his Uh-oh. Uh-oh. His follower.
Cultish thing. Right? You're gonna become his follower.
Spiritual abuse. Exactly. Right? So it's like you're
gonna have to come in here and he's
gonna own you then. So he's
I'm like, what should I do? He's like,
well, you have a big dilemma because if
one of these guys invites you,
for tea in his private gathering, he doesn't
invite people normally. So if you refuse, you've
just made an enemy. And if you accept,
you've just like joined the gang basically. Like
you've taken your first step. So I'm like
this is so ridiculous man. Like I came
in here to do Islamic studies not to
like play these politics games. And I'm like
in my hardcore phase, like very hardcore.
Everything is little things are bothering me like
I go in there, you know, the principal,
everyone stands up when the principal walks in
the room and I'm like the pseudo Salafi
kind of guy walking in there like, you
know what, man, I ain't standing for anyone.
So I'm like the guy who just sits
there, everyone else stands up and I'm like,
I ain't standing up, I got a hadith
to back it up, you know. I'm not
getting up, you know. I'm in that really
hardcore phase, right? So again, that's partly my
problem. Not everyone's gonna experience this, right?
So I tell this guy I'm like, you
know what, no thanks for the invite but
I'm not coming. So now this guy becomes
my enemy. So now and he's one of
the teachers and one of the senior teachers,
a very powerful teacher. So I'm like this
is so ridiculous like this kind of politics
has to go on. So now this guy
starts to get some of his
people
like to cause a problem for me. And
they're like, look, they're gonna cause a problem
for you. I'm like this is I'm just
here to study man. This is like high
school all over. This is like exactly, this
is like high school, like what is this?
You know, like little kid stuff, you know.
So now What What are you gonna do,
take my meat from my lunch? It's too
late. It's already gone. It's already gone. It's
already gone, exactly. So what ends up happening
is one of their guys
puts an accusation and spreads a rumor that
I am an American spy,
right? They go, why is he an American
spy? Because he's visited India 3 times.
Once the first time he came to visit,
second time he comes, and then he leaves,
goes and reports information to whoever, and then
comes back for the 3rd time. I'm like,
this is such a, you know, this is
the dumbest thing I've ever heard. First of
all, what am I going to spy on
exactly? Like, what is what is there to
spy on? Number 2, like, look at my
background, man. Like, do I look like a
do I fit like the profile of a
spy? Like, you know, so Couldn't just send
an email? I had to go back? Yeah,
seriously, you know. Like, I had to fly
back to the people. Exactly. So I'm like,
so now I got a problem with some
of the students going and spreading a rumor
that I'm an American spy. This is really
bothering me. I'm like, this is so stupid.
Wait, number 1. Number 2,
number 2 is the biggest thing. So I
go the second time I go there I
start eating out with like my friends. School
is on lockdown, you can only leave a
few times, or you can only leave half
a day, once a week. So I we
figured out a way to kind of bribe
the guards,
because like students know what to do. So
you buy 2 biryani's, you know what biryani
is? Yeah. So you buy 2 biryani's and
that covers you for a whole month, you
know. For the security guards you can get
out whenever you want, you can come back
whenever. For a whole month? Whole month, yes.
That's
cheap that's a cheap ride. The cheap standard
of living, you know. So 2 brianis cover
you for the whole month. So I start
going out and eating at all these different
restaurants.
And one of these restaurants,
I meet this guy who is kind of
like a semi gangster but had joined the
joined the school as well. He hated the
school, always complaining about the school, and I
just kinda clicked with I'm like, I like
this guy, dude. Like, you know, anyone complains
about the school,
I wanna socialize with you, like, I'm I'm
down with you. So we get together, it
turns out this guy's like a little bit
too much of a little too aggressive, you
know, he's been getting in fights at school
and stuff. So he takes me out to
a place, we get some food and then
he goes to the guy, the chef in
the back
and he takes like, I think he had
a toothpick or some kind of metal toothpick
and he puts it against the guy's back
and he's like, you see my friend over
there? He's from America.
You're gonna make this food
up to proper standards,
right? So I'm just like, man, you don't
do that to a guy. Like you could
do whatever you want. So
so he makes his food
and my suspicion, okay, I can't prove this.
My suspicion is that guy
did something to the food, okay? Because right
after that,
I get typhoid. Okay.
I
get typhoid. And the thing is typhoid is
if you don't know what typhoid is, it's
a type of like it's a type of
food poisoning.
Your basically, your temperature goes to 104 degrees
and it stays there. And you have no
appetite. So you you don't want to eat
anything, you don't want to drink anything. So
I'm sitting in my room, okay, I'm by
my room. Very treatable but not in your
Not
over there. Not over there. Yeah.
And the thing is, so I'm sitting there,
I'm just literally I have a fever 104
degrees non stop, I'm taking Tylenol, goes down
comes right back up 104.
This continues for several days, I'm not going
to class, I'm sitting under the blanket,
I'm not drinking water, I'm not eating food
because I don't feel like it. I'm just
drinking green tea, my friend is making green
tea for me and that's it.
So finally I get to a point they're
like, you know, you should, you know, you
should try and get out, get some air.
I'm like, look I'm like I'm dying here,
like this is really really bad.
So my friend, you know, he's like, you
know, you should do something. Finally after a
few days I'm like, look, you know what?
Just
I'm done man, I think I'm gonna like,
I'm gonna die here, you know? Just call
911 and
we'll
get out of here. And he just starts
laughing at me. I'm like, dude, I'm I'm
like messed up, why are you laughing? He's
like, man, you still don't under this is
a guy from England, by the way. This
is Sheikh Uweis Namazi, by the way. So
this was my this was a guy who
really, you know, helped me a lot, took
care of me, I'll never forget everything he's
done for me. So he's a guy who's
coming from a western country so I can
relate to him he's helping take care of
me. So he laughs at me and he's
like, you don't understand where you are.
There is no 911
over here. You don't just call an emergency
and like an ambulance is gonna show up
man, like you are not in America anymore,
you're in a different part of the world.
So I'm like, well what happens to people
when they're like this sick and they're like
on the bed?
He's like I remember this exactly how he
told me, he's totally serious. He's like, they
die.
I was just like, they just they just
died? Like, it's like yeah, it's not such
a big deal, it's like, this is not
America. It's like you're on your bed and
you die. And
people will do janaza and they'll make duas
for you. And I'm just kidding. You just
need an IV and something?
I'm like freaking out. I'm like, what what
in the world? Like, did you just die?
I'm like, he's like, yeah. I'm just thinking
this is what's gonna happen to me. I'm
like, this
is complete failure of a mission. Like, I
have not got my Arabic up to par.
I have not gotten most of my answer
questions answered. I'm like, this is gonna be
the the the dumbest
use most useless, pointless death, like, ever.
So
so that's what I'm going through. So then
I I said, there's gotta be something you
can do, man. Like, can you, like, save
me somehow? He's like, you know, I can
call one of the sheiks and he's got
a connection and we can get you to
like a nice hospital. But he's like, I'm
telling you what's gonna happen in that hospital.
It's the hospital
may be worse for you than like you
just kind of, you know, being here. They
might reuse the needle like they reuse the
body. Yeah, exactly. So and he's like, you
don't wanna do you don't want I don't
know if you wanna do that. I'm like,
at this point, man, just do anything. I
I need to get out of here. So
they send me a taxi, take me to,
like, the top hospital of that area, which
is not very top. So I go in
there, they put a needle, they couldn't even
find my vein, then they're like, they they
like take it out, like blood is squirting
all over the the sheet. So like I'm
sitting there with like blood like blood on
my bed sheets, right? And then they the
first thing they come in there and they're
like, oh, what kind of room would you
like? I'm like, what do you mean? A
VIP. That's the so you know what it
is? Would you like a regular room,
a fan room, or an air conditioning room?
So I'm like, what? That that these are
the options. So my friend Owais, you know,
he's he's like a half joker. So he
comes in there. He's like, man, look, I'm
gonna be visiting you the most to add
we're going with AC. I'll pay half of
it, man. Like, because there's no AC on
campus. Right? Yeah. So he's like I'm paying
half of it, we're getting the AC room.
I'm like all right fine, he's like trust
me it's gonna be better for you. So
we get the AC room sitting in their
hospital,
all they do is pump you with IV.
That's their entire treatment, there's nothing else to
do. I got blood like on my bed
sheets not being cleaned, it's just sitting there,
right? I'm just sitting on an IV for
like I don't know how many days, right?
And I'm going through like depression.
This is this is this is like the
sacrifice, this is what I get, you know.
So
because of these reasons, you know, long story
short,
I'm like it's time for me to leave.
So I leave India
and I come back to America
in a state of semi depression,
get a job again as in computer science.
And while I'm sitting in that job, I'm
like, you know what? I can't I can't
do this. I'm not supposed to be here.
So I end up leaving that job again,
right, for the another job,
and I end up going for Hajj. From
Hajj, I go to Egypt, spend a year
in Egypt. From Egypt, I end up going
to France for 3 years, and then I
end up coming back. And that's how I
finished my studies.
How many years is that total? So that
was 5. 5 years. 5, and then I
went again to England afterwards, got master's degree.
So Okay. And it's
you're
pretty, like, what was the degree in? Like,
just Islamic studies or No. Sharia.
Islamic law and theology. Sharia. Sharia. So Sheikha,
I wanna another pull another lesson out of
this and this is something I've seen in
a lot of teachers when I talk to
them about their overseas studies Yeah.
Is it's not fancy and there's no glory
in it. It's not as you say, you're
romanticized. Yep. Right? Yep. So I find a
lot of people when they go overseas,
even when we my wife and I, we
did an Arabic studies program. Very short. 9
months. It was in Texas. It's in America.
Cockroach infested apartment
for 6 out of the 9 months. I
lost Internet at the last 3 months.
Like, you know, every little mini struggle that
a lot could throw at us. Right? And
then they're not that big a deal in
the grand scheme of things, but I find
that when people, when they go and study
this deen for Islam, a lot doesn't make
it necessarily
easy on you. It's not like, life's good.
Now I'm just gonna study a full time
and everyone's gonna love me and I'll come
back to this glorious,
life or whatever it is. Yep.
And I think there's something in that. Maybe
you can comment on it. Why why do
you think there's a a struggle aspect with
setting a law scene? Shouldn't he make it
easy for us so to speak? Yeah. I
think there's 2 aspects. You know, one aspect
is
there's gotta be a struggle because if you're
supposed to get all this reward, you're supposed
to get all this benefit of, you know,
having a deep understanding of the religion,
you know, people who go and seek knowledge
are on the path towards paradise, Allah will
make the path towards paradise easy, all those
ahadith and verses about
the greatness and excellence of knowledge,
it's not gonna come for free.
There's gonna be a price. So in the
past, people like Imam Bukhari, all these people,
they used to travel months, their life was
in danger while they're going through deserts, you
know, there'd be Imam Ghazali himself was, attacked,
you know, in a caravan
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. All his
notes were taken away. So that challenge has
gotta be there. So this idea that you're
not gonna encounter challenges
just because and that's the notion a lot
of people have, the notion that I had.
Since I made that one step, right, of
like, okay, I wanna be
a committed Muslim. Once I made that one
step, now everything should just be smooth sailing
downhill from here. That notion is wrong. That
notion is very, very wrong.
It's not that there's not gonna be progress,
but a lot of it is you
have to make sacrifices, you have to be
ready to struggle. So that's number 1. Number
2 is that people,
oftentimes
will glamorize
these other countries.
Muslim country,
Islamic University,
even some teachers will do that, you know?
So some of them will put it down
and they'll criticize, you know, that's kind of
more of my style just to give people
a reality check. And other ones will just
kind of be like, no, no, let's not
tell them the bad things. Otherwise, they can
then not be motivated enough to go there.
So there's kind of like a marketing
of, you know, oh, Medina
University, it's in Medina. And, you know, Darulom
Dioband, it's a 200 year old institution or
Al Azhar University, it's like this.
And what's gonna happen is when you glamorize
that too much, people's expectations
have kind of been lifted and they get
broken. I think that's very dangerous, right?
And it depends where you're coming from. So
if you're someone who's coming from, I keep
saying Orange County, like if you're someone who's
coming from a very,
middle class American lifestyle and you're not used
to that. Yeah, exactly.
You have, you grew up with air conditioning
and heating,
You grew up with running water,
okay, and,
you're gonna have a very
difficult time adapting to any circumstance. If you
went there to study medicine, okay, and you're
in medical school, you would have a difficult
time. Yeah. So that's just the nature of
this cultural shift and that needs to be
pointed out to people. And you need to
understand,
you learn who you are when you when
you're put into circumstances like that. So what
what I do say though in retrospect is,
again,
my mentality for people is number 1, if
you're someone like me who was just trying
to learn Islam,
right,
oftentimes
you need to have
a it's good to have a good understanding
of Islam to be able to deal with
the challenges that you're gonna be facing. So
this is my problem is when people are
only teaching Arabic, like, let's say someone goes
to learn Arabic. Yeah. You're only learning Arabic
and let's say you have very little knowledge
of Islam and you go through the challenges
that I have. You're stuck with typhoid, for
example. You get sick, you get in the
hospital.
What what did you learn in the last
6 months that's gonna help you get through
the struggle of the health issue that you're
going through? Nothing. Because what are you gonna
do, conjugate verbs, Arabic verbs? Be like, you
know, I'm gonna I'm gonna console myself by
doing some conjugations. That's not gonna help you.
But had you taken let's say a class
on
spirituality or tazkiyah,
talk about the importance of having patience, you
have all these verses you have explained to
you. You have all these hadith that are
explained to you. Now you're like, okay, I
know kind of how to react, how at
least theoretically how I'm supposed to react. Yeah.
Right? So so that's why kinda like for
me the curriculum should That's where the Islam
is learned. It's where the Islam is learned.
So the Islam part is the key, the
specialization part can be like the Arabic and
all that other stuff. That's why for my
curriculum that I made, the Islam part is
in there in the beginning because you need
that. Because if you go through struggles, you're
gonna have to, you need some knowledge to
help you process through those struggles. If you
don't have that, it's just gonna be another
problem. So I mean, that's one thing that
people need to understand,
before going in. And if they're already there,
they already got that, they're like they're ready
for the struggle, they understand what they're gonna
go through, they understand that it's not an
ideal golden age Islamic society, you're not walking
into mother sunn I thawamiya, you're not gonna
have you know Fakhruddin al Razi and Imam
Ghazali and ibn Rush as your teachers,
okay, then you know, maybe you're prepared for
that. But one last thing I'd say is,
is that the idea of Islamic studies,
now you don't have to travel,
you can do a lot of this in
America, right?
I still think there's a valuable component for
that life experience.
Honestly, when I look back, my experience in
India was one of the most
important experiences of my life.
It was a very difficult experience.
I wouldn't wanna go in there without knowing,
you know, without knowing that I'm there for
life experience. But if someone understands that this
life experience is gonna shape you as a
person and they can
understands that this life experience is gonna shape
you as a person, and they can go
in knowing that it's gonna be like this
is gonna be tough, here's some examples of
what can happen, I think that life experience
sets people apart, those who just
academically study Islam
versus those who study Islam and have this
life experience.
Right? So I don't regret any of that
when I look back. When I'm living through
it, I'm like this is the worst experience
in my life. But that's the way life
is, you know? You always look back and
you see that there's an immense wisdom that
Allah Subhanahu And it makes you a stronger
person. Much stronger person. And that's why you
know a lot of times people are like
you know, you're one of the few imams
who like wants to be an imam or
like hasn't just keep changing jobs all the
time. Because you already saw the tough part.
I have a very high tolerance level. Yeah.
They're like how do you deal with these
masjid boards? I'm like, yo, masjid boards, man.
I had a guy trying to recruit me
to become his mood, put a rumor on
me. I had a guy who, you know,
is threatening another cook, giving me typhoid. I
mean, I the stuff that I dealt with,
I'm like, these uncles are annoying,
but they're not that they're not as like
I can't not that I can't handle them,
man. Yeah. You know? So so it's kinda
nice when you when you when you when
you look at those things in that perspective.
Definitely.
I know we didn't really get a chance
to go into our main topic. Are you
still okay for staying or are you? I'm
good. Let's extend, shawl. You're good? We can
extend?
Part 2.
You have to tune into the next episode.
Alhamdulillah. I'll split it, inshallah. Yeah.
So,
yeah, I guess we can we can do
that because, I mean, this has been 2
hours now. This is gonna be our longest
podcast.
Things are going good.