Said Rageah – Growing Up With Shaykh
AI: Summary ©
The speaker discusses their experiences in Toronto and the language used in their cooking, including black people and their belief in Jesus. They emphasize the importance of practicing Islam in attracting tourists and attracting young people to Islam, as it is not about race or sex. They also emphasize the need for practice and dedication in order to achieve success in Islam, and for individuals to be independent and not afraid of others. They end with a recap of their experiences and mention upcoming events.
AI: Summary ©
Bismillah salat wa salam ala rasulillah hamdulillah salat wa salam. Welcome to slam dunk. Journey faith 2009 Our guest today is Chef Syed Rajasthan American chef.
Long day for you right? long weekend long. Yeah, sir. If you can just start off by telling us a little brief explanation about yourself, your background, what your what do you what are you an expert and what what do you consider more than concentrate more on religion?
I was born in Somalia.
And I was raised in Saudi.
Then I came to the States. Then it came to Canada. Here I am.
How long? You live in Toronto, or? i? Yeah, I've been through Toronto for quite a while. But this is this was this is what happened. I came to Canada. And I didn't like Toronto. It was wintertime. So what I did, I went, I said, Let me move. So I moved to a small city called Welland, Ontario,
like, three hours from here, I can remember correctly. And
apparently, I was the only black person that no one else really. And the people used to come in the lunchtime. We at least had five minutes to after 1200 students. And lunchtime. My table was like, packed as we're here. And they were like,
anything coming off him? You know, I think it was just, it was fun. And then he says I'm from someone with some money. So I
have to explain to them. But it was fun. I really enjoyed it. I'm sure very friendly people. They were very nice. I still remember except the basketball coach.
The the whole whole
the coach, the system coach, the team, all of them were Italian.
So it is a different experience experience for us. What do you what what do you like more about Islam? What we're really attracted to Islam the most? You know, I want to tell you something that never, ever I never mentioned this to anyone
is really when I came to Canada,
I went to church cross church people came, and they took me to the church. And I listened and they listened and they listened. And it didn't make any sense.
Okay.
Then I went to Catholic school, all my high school went to Catholic school. So every other week on Mondays mass downstairs, we have to go on to people have to eat the bread on, you know, civil, so Jesus is.
And you know, I will not participate, I will sit and listen, but I will not participate.
And then I start taking classes about Christianity and all this.
And I used to sit in the class and the priests will come on teach, or at least address the issue because the teacher could not answer the question that the students themselves had at that time.
And shortly after that, I realized all this people, young people, they really don't believe in Jesus. They don't believe us being Son of God. They just say, Well, this is where my parents are. I will say what they say I will go to the church because for Christmas, I'll go for wedding. I'll go. But really, I was not. If it's up to me, I will I will not even go there. So before I even address the issue, I even say anything. This students, Catholic students with grill, the Father, the Godfather in the world, just grill. How could this be passed out? Wow. They only knew about it. So they're just following. So it's like they're blind and somebody is holding their hand and don't know
where they're going. But that he would like to know. Okay, we can No, it doesn't make any sense. Now, you told us a few years back, eating meat on Friday is prohibited. You cannot eat meat. Now you're telling us It's okay. Right? Where's Jesus died, his chest came down to you and told you this is okay. You tell us nuns have to work, you know certain now they don't. So what is the problem? How could he be say this is my religion. This is the religion the original god this is and you keep changing.
Unless Jesus is with you, with all the change that you make, it doesn't make sense.
So and then they themselves what they used to do. They used to go on research, about Christianity, the history of the Bible.
And how many times Bible change and that Jesus never said, I'm God? And there's no nothing, no such thing called Christian, I'm sorry, Christmas, there's no such thing called, you know, all they themselves will like. And I was like, I can't say anything. I mean, they do a better job than I can even imagine me doing. So when I went to this school, initially, I was like, No, I was born Muslim.
No, I don't know anything else. Maybe I should go out and explore other things. Go to the church, that didn't make any sense. Go to Catholic school, it didn't make any sense. And then say, Okay, what should I do? And the teacher remember the teacher asking me, she says, say,
why don't you prove to me from the Koran, that Jesus is the Son of God.
So I took a bus from Welland and came all the way to Toronto to mess
with Jeremy Thomas.
And I went to the masjid. And I went to the bookstore. And
I said, I, this is what I'm writing about you, this is what I want to do. What do you How could you help me? And they gave me this book book, titled, Jesus, Jesus, in the whole on something like this is not on, I think that was the title of the book. So I took this book, and I went in this out, you know, taking information from here, taking this information. So not only am I wrong, and then I submit the paper, I she was impressed. From that day, she would not even bother me trying to, you know, sell Christianity to me. And then when I started, when I started doing this as a wait a second,
every other weekend, over the weekend going to mass every other day or the weekend, I'm sorry, this Sunday, I'm going to the church. What about my religion? What about my Islam? You know, let me this is this is the was the thing. I didn't want to follow Islam blindly. I want to see some very practical, you know, keep in mind, I was raising in Saudi, you know, you just, I used to get 4950 in Iraq. If I do that, it was 45. Studies, right, you know, all, so I knew this. But it was like the users tell us memorize it now and understand later. And then you memorize the material, and you put it on the piece of paper, and you walk away at the end of the day. So when I came here, that really,
it help, but he really did not answer my questions. So I said, Well, let me do my own research. Let me read about Islam more, and compare that to Christianity. And then I came to the conclusion, there's no comparison, because Islam is that is a religion, that you can really take it to the lab and say, Okay, this is your plan. Let me prove you wrong. Or let me prove you This is from the Quran. And then I start reading the miracles of the Quran. That guy talked about mountains before or any of the scholars came and said, Well, this is what the premise of the mountain got talked about, you know, the water, the sea water that will never meet. God talked about the clouds as the weather
talks about the human embryology, in the Quran. All of this was just discovered recently, right? And we had a 1400 years ago. And we didn't even think about translating the material to the non Muslims say, wait a second, instead of you coming and wasting 15 years of your life. So I did all this experiments I did all this study is right here, right? In our book, book right here. We didn't do this. So when that came from a catheter say, this is how we'll even development stations. Let me let us show you, and then the people like no, you guys just doing what goes right and what people don't understand out there. You need to know the scientific lab to know that, like, for example, the water
that will never meet in the same sea, and the Prophet, peace be upon him. Mohammed Al Assad was from back then didn't have calculators didn't have nothing. So how can you deny if the proof is there? Allah says in the Quran, bring your proof. And the proof is there is proof is there. There was a lady I don't know if you heard she, she read the Hadith
that the Prophet sent his body. The Prophet said, if a fly lands on your drink,
and you have no other you still want to drink that drink. For some reason. Maybe this is the only thing you have, you know. He said, Don't just grab the fly and throw it away. But dibben now common says wait a second, it's filled the fly. Why would I even do it in my drink and then say, Oh, now I can drink, you know. And then he explained, and he said,
the two wings of the fly one cares all the germs and carries the cure of that disease. So when the fire is dying, it makes sure that it saves the wing that occurs all the time.
You're so in depth,
the wing that has the disease. So if you want to drink, what do you got to do the other wing to cancel that American leader she said that is, you know, Bs, as they say, doesn't make any sense. For me, I she wanted the love, she said that she wanted the lava, she did everything. And she came back out of that lab saying I should do a la la la la.
Because it's straightforward, plain and simple. This is what Islam is. This is how we should be practicing. And the unique thing about Islam, the most sophisticated person, Earth can practice. And the man who lives under a tree, you know, symbol man who doesn't know anything, but the sun rises from the east and goes from the west. And if you go down or can eat and you know, nothing else of civilization, both of them can practice Islam exactly the same. So it's not only for certain groups, when I used to go to the church, the guy who was giving me doubt, he was telling me I'm sorry, there's no black church here. And I was like, so what I didn't understand because it's like,
mystery, whether you're black or white, or green, or purple, or you know, whatever. You want to pray this Milan for two foot shoulder to shoulder you know, as a matter of fact, make sure that we you know, if either touching on toes are touching and touching, and I want to feel you I want to feel that brotherhood. But here's like, you're black, you're white, you go to this church, and you go to this church,
here in the
slums, that you know
how righteous you are.
And if you're righteous, then you're closer to your Creator. If you're a wicked person, evil person.
So in Islam, just just just people understand the view that we have no racism in Islam, more faith you have, the more you are closer to God. Of course, God likes you more. That's how you're a better person. If you're black, white, purple, green, we have there is no difference between you and anybody else because we are all descendants of Adam Allah. So that was that, um, there is no difference between anybody else. Chef, I just want to ask you, I see a lot of youth are coming to Islam now. They're, they're hungry, they're hungry for knowledge that their Islam is attraction. What can we do to bring him more to Islam, to attract more tourists now?
See, nowadays,
live is nothing but entertainment.
You just can go to a young man and say, you know,
let us sit down and read
and explain to you what sort of Bukhara means.
He may say out of respect, but 1015 minutes, he's not with you. Because he's used to flipping the channels, you know, in between the commercials you know what he's going everywhere, you know, driving you crazy, can't even watch TV. Where are the kids sitting? You don't expect that he will give you attention. So for him for you to explain what Islam are on all the Sundays.
The best way to attract the CMP is career activities. Sports activity,
speech competition, that will contest
anything that the you know, the D can do, but at the same time allows them to be decent proximity.
One of the best brothers in the City of Calgary and if you ask brothers like Hamza Sharif Mohammed perfectly if you ask by those who want to Calgary they will tell you about the brothers in cabinet.
You know, how do we get them we got them through basketball. Okay, let's get a basketball court bring the ball let's play no lectures no you doing Harlem you know drop your girlfriend stop smoking, let's play ball
play ball, you know when the other end comes from the seller come laqua is done. You stop the ball they still playing. But when they see you doing that once or twice, I guarantee you the third time you know they will have respect and stop the ball until you finished praying all which is 75% it will join you
Now look, you enjoyed yourself enjoy themselves. You know you didn't have to explain to them what Islam is just simple thing. Therefore if we just have more activities for the youth, and let us stop you know.
No disrespect, but the cams and massage do is pointless.
It's just a babysitting program for the weekend. You go on then, you know you just waste your time and you sit around the fire a little bit. That's different. See when we came up with the program and
we started two years ago
Myself and brother. Yes Liggins, who is from the Marin from Maryland. How many of you guys from Maryland?
And we came, we I call him his old friend of mine, called him and said, Listen, you know, old tradition cam is not gonna cut, it's not gonna work. So let us do something unique. So what should we do, I say, let us do Leadership Program.
But it's not about reading, it's not about, you know, reading about leadership is actually living the situation and the environment. So we state the environment, we create the environment, and we say,
solve the problem. So by applying by applying, they learn teamwork, they learn how to manage their time, they learn, they learn how to deal with other people, they learn how to be leaders, you know, user responsibility is this, you know, make sure the whole group on board with you. So they learn. And at the same time, we give them from the sun, from the Sahaba, from the hora from the aroma of the of the of the oma so they learn,
they learn so while we practicing this way, we're doing the actual act, we said what I saw was a little long it was lm did this Rasul Allah came to Ronnie he wrestled. Now let us see what do you can do? You know, as soon as I saw the law, it was setting them you, we just go. And we do everything based on the sun. There is an extreme way that is the orders.
But of course it doesn't. So you want to you want to show them how it's done. And with a little bit little spices, though, a little more fun, right? They're more fun. And they I guarantee you that guys when they when they come back only for the buzz, unfortunately, right. And this is the third year as a matter for we third year in Calgary and the first year in Toronto, so much of the board is organizing this this year. And all the people will sign up with people from from Toronto, people from North America to form they can come and join us is the first second weekend of August. And it's beautiful. And I guarantee you that the brothers and sisters, the brothers would enjoy it and
just brothers. Before we close, what would what would be your advice to the youth these days, especially in a western country where we live right now.
in this society,
you know, we have to be part of the society.
We understand we were born some of you were born here sometimes we're raised here, we have to be part of the society.
But
people like to see something unique.
if everybody's wearing jeans, and he can be worse than normal passes, like all as unique, right? He's no longer unique. In Saudi, if you go where everybody's wearing
white though, most of the time, summertime when you start wearing red, though, now that says.
So here, you should not try to follow these people, especially, you know, his folks and gangsters. And you know, it should not follow them. This should stand out saying well, you know, you guys go in that direction, I'm going this direction to follow
is the the attribute. And we'll call the attitude of failures. Losers to lead is what we asking them. So if everybody going left, you go right.
And this is what most being Muslim youth is all about. So these young people have to understand, when you dress like them, they will respect when you talk like them, they will respect you, because there are literally millions of you. But the moment that he said, This is my coffee's not far but I love it. And it's a sign of Islam. You know, my this, and there's all his different baseball carries who's wearing a COVID what do you do, right? And then these guys, they really lost, you know, five people accepted Islam here today. All of them are young, I'm talking about 1819 2170 the young
and they coming back from coming from dark darkness and they come into the light of Islam and our youth, some of them because lack of education, knowledge, the thing on it's so dark must be something you know, excited Let me go. But it's nothing but you know, help forward. So they have to be independent. If you as the last panel with Allison, one elbow, ankle, Yehuda Sol,
they will never be pleased with you until you follow and then you follow their religion. So be different than out, be who you are. And don't be Don't be afraid of any one on anything. Don't do nothing. But I must
say I want to thank you for taking the time to join us slam dunk, and it's a pleasure to see you inshallah, we'll see you next year at sem rush.
Well, our viewers, thank you for tuning in to a slam dunk a journey of faith. 2009 and my last words to you as salaam aleikum wa rahmatullah wa barakato.
So, when I went to this school, initially, I was like, No, I was born Muslim. No, I don't know anything else. Maybe I should go out and explore other things. Go to the church, that didn't make any sense. Go to Catholic school, it didn't make any sense. And then say, Okay, what should I do? And the teacher remember the teacher asking me, she says, say,
why don't you prove to me from the Quran, that Jesus is the Son of God.
So I took a bus from Welland and came all the way to Toronto to messin
with Jeremy Thomas.
And they went to the masjid. And I went to the bookstore. And
I said, this is what I'm writing about you, this is what I want to do. What do you How can you help me? And they gave me this book book, titled, Jesus, Jesus in the horn on something like this is not on, I think that was the title of the book. So I took this book, and I went in this out, you know, taking information from here, taking this visual information on solid ground. And then I submit the paper I she was impressed. From that day, she would not even bother me trying to, you know, sell Christianity to me. And then when I started when I started doing this as a wait a second,
every other weekend, over the weekend going to mass every other day or the weekend, I'm sorry, this Sunday, I'm going to the church. What about my religion? What about my Islam? You know, let me this is this is the was the thing. I didn't want to follow Islam blindly. I want to see some that is practical. You know, keep in mind, I was raised in Saudi, you know, you just, I used to get 4950. In artificiality, if I do that, it was 45. Cities, right, you know, all, so I knew this. But it was like the users tell us memorize it now and understand later. And then you memorize the material, and you put on the piece of paper, and you walk away at the end of the day. So when I came here, that
really in help, but he really did not answer my questions. So I said, Well, let me do my own research. Let me read about it some more. And compare that to Christianity. And then I came to the conclusion, there's no comparison, because Islam is that is a religion, that you can really take it to the lab and say, Okay, this is your plan. Let me prove you wrong. Or let me prove you This is from the Quran. And then I start reading the miracles of the Quran, that God talked about mountains before or any of these scholars came and said, Well, this is what the purpose of the mountain got talked about, you know, the water, the sea water that will never meet. God talked about the clouds
of the weather, it talks about the human embryology in the Quran. All of this was just discovered recently, right? And we had a 1400 years ago. And we did not even think about translating the material to the non Muslims say, wait a second, instead of you coming and wasting 15 years of your life is all I did all this experiments I did all this thing is right here, right in our book, book right here. We didn't do this. So when that came from a cafe to say, this is our human development stages. Let me let us show you and then the people like no, you guys just doing with
what people don't understand out there. You need near the scientific lab to know that like, for example, the water there will never meet in the same sea. And the Prophet, peace be upon him. Mohammed Al Assad was from back then didn't have calculators didn't have nothing. So how can you deny if the proof is there? Allah says in the Quran, bring your proof. And the proof is there is proof is there? There was a lady I don't know if you are she, she read the Hadith
that the Prophet sent his body. The Prophet said, if a fly lands on your drink,
and you have no idea you still want to drink that drink for some reason. Maybe this is the only thing you have, you know. He said don't just grab the fly and throw it away. But Debian now common says a wait a second it's filled the fly well what I did but in my drink and then say Oh, now I can drink, you know. And then he explained and he said
the two wings of the fly one cares all the germs and carries the cure of that disease. So when the fire is dying, it makes sure that it sees the wing that occurs all the cure. So it dips. The wing that has the
disease. So if you want to drink what you got to do the other wing to cancel that American lady she said, you know, be ssdc doesn't make any sense. For me. As she went to the lab, she said that she wanted a llama, she did everything. And she came back out of that lab saying I should do a La Ilaha lower sugar No.
Because it's straightforward, plain and simple. This is what Islam is. This is how we should be practicing. And the unique thing about Islam, the most sophisticated person on earth can practice. And the man who lives under a tree, you know, symbol man who doesn't know anything, but the sun rises from the east and goes from the west. And if you go down or can eat and you know, nothing else of civilization, both of them can practice Islam exactly the same. So it's not only for certain groups, when I used to go to the church, the guy who was giving me down, he was telling me I'm sorry, there's no black church here. And I was like, so Well, I didn't understand because it's like,
nested whether you're black or white, or green on purple, you know, whatever. You want to pray this Milan, for shoulder to shoulder, you know, as a matter of fact, make sure that we you know, if either touching on the toes, touching and touching, and I want to feel you I want to feel that brotherhood, but here's like, you're black, you're white, you go to this church, and you go to this church.
Islam is that you know,
how righteous you are.
And if you're righteous, then you're closer to your Creator. If you're a wicked person, evil person.
So in Islam, just just people understand the view that we have no racism in Islam, more faith you have, the more you are closer to God. Of course, God likes you more. That's how you're a better person. If you're black, white, purple, green, we have there is no difference between you and anybody else. Because we are all descendants of Adam at a select list them. There is no difference between anybody else. Chef, I just want to ask you, I see a lot of youth are coming to Islam now. They're they're hungry, they're hungry for knowledge that their Islam is attraction. What can we do to bring him more to Islam, to attract them more to Islam?
See, nowadays,
live is nothing but entertainment.
You just can go to a young man and say, you know,
let us sit down and read
and explain to you what sort of Bukhara means
he may sit out of respect, but 1015 minutes he's not with you. Because he's used to flipping channels, you know, between the commercials you know what he's going everywhere, you know, driving you crazy, can't even watch TV. What are the kids sitting? You don't expect that he will give you attention. So for him for you to explain what Islam are on all the Sundays.
The best way to attract the CMP is career activities, sports activities, speech contest
anything that the you know, the deacon do it, but at the same time allows him to be decent proxies.
One of the best brothers in the City of Calgary and if you ask brothers like Mohammed Al Sharif, Mohammed perfectly if you ask the brothers who wants to Calgary they will tell you about the brothers in cabinet.
You know, how do we get them we got them through basketball. Okay, let's get a basketball court. Bring the ball and witness play no lectures no you doing Harlem you drop your girlfriend stop smoking, let's play ball.
You play ball, you know when the other end comes on the silicom law Aqua is done. You stop the ball they still playing. But when they see you doing that once or twice, I guarantee you the third time you know they will have respect and stop the ball until you finished praying or which is 75% it will join you
Now look, you enjoyed yourself enjoy themselves. You know you didn't have to explain to them what Islam is just simple thing. Therefore if we just have more activities for the youth and let us stop you know.
No disrespect but the cams and massage do is pointless.
It's just a babysitting program for the weekend. You go on then, you know you just waste your time and you sit around the fire a little bit different. See when we came up with the program and
we started two years ago.
Myself and brother yes ligands
was from the Maryland from Maryland. How did you guys from Maryland
and we came we I called him his old friend of mine called him and said, Listen, you know, old tradition cam is not gonna cut, it's not gonna work. So let us do something unique. So he said, what should we do, I say let us do Leadership Program.
But it's not about reading, it's not about you know, reading about leadership is actually living the situation and the environment. So, we stay the environment, we create the environment, and we say,
solve the problem. So, by applying by applying, they learn teamwork, they learn how to manage their time, they learn, they learn how to deal with other people, they learn how to be leaders, you know, user responsibility is this, you know, make sure that whole group on board with you. So they learn and at the same time, we give them from the sun, from the Sahaba from the, from the aroma of the of the of the oma so they learn,
they learn so while we practicing this, we were doing the actual act, we said what I saw was a little longer it was Selim did this Rasul Allah came to Ronnie he wrestled Now let us see what do you can do? You know, as soon as I saw the law, it was seldom you, we just go. And we do everything based on the sun. So that is an extreme way that is all there is.
But, of course, so you want to you want to show them how it's done. And with little bit little spices, though, a little more fun, right? They're more fun. And I guarantee you that guys when they when they come back only for the buzz, unfortunately, right. And this is the third year, as a matter of we third year in Calgary on the first year in Toronto, so much of the world is organizing this this year. And over the people will sign up with people from from Toronto, people from North America to the forum, they can come and join us is the first second weekend of August. And it's beautiful. And I guarantee you that the brothers and sisters, the brothers would enjoy
this brother, before we close what would what would be your your advice to the youth these days, especially in a western country where we live right now.
in this society,
you know, we have to be part of the society.
We understand we were born some of you were born here, sometimes we're raised here, we have to be part of the society.
But
people like to see something unique.
if everybody's wearing jeans, and it can be worse than normal passes, like all as unique, right? He's no longer unique. In Saudi, if you go where everybody's wearing
white though, most of the time, summertime when you start wearing red, though, now that says.
So here, you should not try to follow these people, especially, you know, his folks and gangsters. And you know, this should not follow them. This should stand out saying well, you know, you guys go in that direction, I'm going this direction to follow
is the, the attribute. And we'll call the attitude of failures. Losers to lead is what we asking them. So if everybody going left, you go, right.
And this is what most being Muslim youth is all about. So these young people have to understand, when you dress like them, they will respect when you talk like them, they will respect you, because there are literally millions of you. But the moment that he said, This is my coffee is not for but I love it. And it's a sign of Islam, you know, my this and there's all his different baseball he carries who's wearing COVID what do you do? Right, you know, and then these guys they really lost you know, five people accepted Islam here today. All of them are young, I'm talking about 1819 2170 the young
and they coming back from coming from dark darkness and they come to the light of Islam and our youth, some of them because lack of education and knowledge. The thing on it's so dark must be something you know, excited let me go but it's nothing but you know, help forward. So they have to be independent. If you as the last panel with Allison one on turbine can do to solve.
They will never be pleased with you until you follow and then you follow their religion. So be different than out. Be who you are. And don't be Don't be afraid of any one on anything. Don't read nothing but I must
say I want to thank you for taking the time to join us slam dunk, and it's a pleasure to see you inshallah we'll see you next year.
Our viewers, thank you for tuning in to Islam Naga.
Faith 2009 and my last words to you salaam aleikum wa rahmatullah wa barakato.