Shadee Elmasry – Alliances and Coalitions – NBF 362
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AI: Transcript ©
Welcome everybody to the Safina Society. Nothing
but facts livestream
on a cold, believe it or not.
First of all, it's cold because the guys
who hung out here yesterday left their condition
on. I don't know what to do with
them. I'm finding them from here on in.
Like, this is simple remote control, and all
you have to do is hit the off
button when you leave. It's happened when you
have single guys. They don't know these things.
They don't know how to shut lights. They
don't know how to clean up. They don't
know how to shut the air condition off.
Like, why is it that guys and I
guess I was one of them too. But
they're just like bums,
even the best of them. Right? But girls
always have their ducks in a row.
Like, 50% of them, I would say. They
shut the light off. They tidy up.
They got it together at a younger age
than guys. Guys who just stay bums. Right?
But then they carry huge loads as men,
if that. Right?
But that's how it has to be. Anyway,
I'm just messing around, but they gotta shut
the air condition off.
It's driving me nuts. Yeah. Because they're not
paying for it. That's why.
They're not paying for it. That's why,
now you start sounding like your parents. Right?
You know that insurance commercial? Stop sounding like
your parents.
Shut the lights off. Lock the doors.
What was what what insurance company is that?
There's an insurance commercial that has that. Okay.
Masha'Allah, these guys, they don't watch TV.
Should Muslims have alliances or not? And,
I've always been against any alliances.
There happens mainly, maybe, possibly
there are overlaps
in one issue maybe.
But you know what else is funny? I
think
who the heck wants to align with Muslim?
They're so weak.
You're you're you're just imagining.
When people talk about the Muslims aligned with
the left,
Muslims aligned with the right,
I tend to think it's mostly an imagination
because you don't have what what are you
offering?
Neither do we have a massive voting block,
let's say, here in America. England. Yeah. Right?
Neither do we have a lot of money.
So is this alliance
in your head?
Is it just, like, something you talk about?
And and the reach is one way. The
discussion is one way.
No no one on that side is catering
and trying to have an alliance with
with with our community.
So when we talk about this, I really
respect an article written by Sheikh Mateen Khan.
Sheikh Mateen Khan is one of our,
neighbors in the area. He lives in piss
he lives in the the town,
next door, and he teaches Hanafi Fikh, and
him and I do programs.
We we've spoken at many programs. We've,
have the same teachers in the past, like
Sheikh Amin
Mohammed is one of our common teachers in
Akhida.
And Sheikh Mateen and,
Sheikh Mateen go way back. Sheikh Amin and
Sheikh Mateen, I mean. So he says, Islam
and Muslims have a long history in America
and are very much part of the legacy
of the United States. Muslims and non Muslims
have worked together, lived together, played together. We
have constructed institutions of peace and have even
fought wars together.
Right?
I would say Muslims have been involved in
these things more so than
done it all together, like, as if we're,
a significant social and political body, which I
don't think that we are in the United
States, at least. In England, yeah, maybe.
This involves collaboration
who's who's with groups whose values and teachings
may be in direct opposition to Islamic
ethics, morality code, Sharia, etcetera.
So this article attempts to guide Muslim leaders
at all levels and the general Muslim public
at large in a direction with which benefits
the national interest
and protects
Islam.
Alright. Let's take a look at the.
In general, Muslims and their leaders in particular
need to be thinkers by assessing and reassessing
individual situations.
So the first thing, there are conditions in
Islam, but ultimately
the subject matter is.
When do I make a deal with another
group of people?
If the deal
entails,
something forbidden in Islam, then we don't need
a discussion. We know that that's unlawful. Right?
But if it doesn't,
but I'm getting cozy with a group that
does other bad things
or un Islamic things,
that's an itchy heady matter. You're really just
weighing
right and wrong, and you may have ultimately
at the the worst case scenario is you
believe that person is upon a misguided error,
not sinful.
Right? You take it to this is an
error of of judgment, and it could lead
to harms in the future.
Speculation.
That's all speculation.
Right?
So he says here that
we cannot be swept up in the euphoria
of nationalism
or anti establishment rhetoric
by simply following the masses
or the words of a dynamic speaker.
After the prophet's migration,
jurisprudence and state legislation were unified under his
guidance and the guidance of several Khalifa.
However, since this time, the 2 have been
separated. Islamic scholarship is has been engaged in
a process of risk management and the defense
of Islam.
Our main priority as Muslims is to be
able to live, worship, and live our lives
in a way pleasing to Allah.
Alright.
And every Muslim by necessity believes that Allah
has guided us solely for our benefit.
Alright. So the role of Islamic scholarship and
leadership has been and continues to be charting
a course that defends normative Islam through constant
harm benefit analysis.
And it's been a long time that the
leaders of the of of of nations
and Islamic Scholarships who care about the Quran
have been separate.
Right? Somebody once asked me recently,
why is it that all the operate
by calculation
if there is, but yet all the,
all the all the Islamic
seminaries,
they all uphold moon sighting.
Like, by the book,
the argument
it it moonsighting is the default,
and these other ideas are fatawa.
Right?
And many, many, many scholars deem these fatawa
to be
false fatawa, incorrect fatawa.
It's a, but it's it could be right
and wrong, and they deem it to be
wrong.
Well, the answer is that Masijid aren't even
run by even the Masijid are not run
by scholars. It's crazy.
Like, their executive power of the the scholarly
class in the Ummah has shrunk
so much
that they do not even run the anymore.
They may run their Zawiya
or their institutions
or their Madadis.
They don't even run the Masajid.
Right? And even in Islamic countries, when they
do, it's with orders.
So
whenever Masajid are now run by predominantly run
by admins administrators.
They run Masajid, not,
scholars may have more or less input
in Masajid, and Sheikh Amin runs his from
top to bottom.
I mean, Mohammed in Atlantic City.
Hamdullah, MBIC gives me a lot of space,
but, ultimately, the vast majority of
Masajid are just run by admins.
An admin, you can't expect him to know
the difference between a Fethullah and a ruling
and what what is the dominant opinion of
the scholars about.
They're not gonna know that. They they're not
can't be expected to know that.
It's like if I ran a hospital.
Right?
If I ran a hospital, I've never been
through and through in the with doctors in
the field of medicine in a way that
would
satisfy another doctor. So I'm gonna make decisions
that,
just make sense to me personally,
and that will send a lot of doc
it's gonna be pragmatics.
Docs would be going crazy.
So whenever
collaboration with another group is suggested, you have
to judge
the harm and the benefit.
Alright.
The if there is some formal agreement, that
formal agreement cannot possess anything forbidden in it.
I would go even further than that, and
I would say that it's extremely
you gotta be extremely cautious even about,
I'd be extremely cautious even about sentiment
with these groups.
Showing favorable sentiment
to the right or the left or some
other group.
If you're a scholar, if you're a leader,
your one favorable sentiment is gonna sway a
lot of people. Right?
And
then they start to soften towards
those ideas.
And I think most people, generally, people in
general tend to be sort of like one
group.
Like, they'll take the whole thing or leave
the whole thing. Very few people can
etch out. Yeah. I agree with this, but
not this. I like what he says here,
but I'm not like most people don't do
this. They either accept him or reject.
So that you gotta keep in mind that
mentality of of of the people you're talking
to as well.
Well. So he says for this, we turn
to the legal maxim,
The prevention of harm precedes the attainment of
benefits.
This particular maxim is extrapolated among other things
from the prophetic hadith. If I forbid you
to do something, then keep away from it.
If I order you to do something, do
as much of it as you can.
It is based on this maxim, for example,
that Muslims are not permitted to to make
beneficial changes to their property that might cause
harm to their neighbor.
Some benefits me, but harms my neighbor. For
example, another example of those, I can't lower
my prices so much
in order to benefit the community
in a manner that would put my neighbor
out of business.
And then, for example, in the old days,
you used to have,
all the juicers in one area, all the
butchers that makes life easy for everybody if
they could compare all the meat or they
compare all the clothes in one area. So
it's actually
we're taught in
that you're not allowed to lower your prices
even to benefit society the the people
if that would cause your neighbor to go
out of business
even if you just wanna be charitable. So
that's a halal thing that you're doing that
looks good on the outside, but it harms
somebody else.
Even if it benefits,
a 100 people in their single transaction of
buying the meat, but it destroys another person's
full livelihood and livelihood is over a transaction.
Right? Livelihood is more important. So
we don't judge in Islam
you you're a a thing just by the
intent
nor by the immediate image of what it
is. It's also judged
by the clear,
result that it's having.
Now if the result is speculative and
we don't know, then that's different but
it's always good to review this and to
to to look at these of Elm.
Alright. So he says we may find
in the form of oppression
through biases,
Alright.
A, which is to place a thing where
it doesn't belong. That's a definition of Bulim
in the Sharia. It is to place a
thing where it doesn't belong.
It will be to give one something that
isn't his or her right. That will be.
And Allah says in
the why
is? Because it's giving an idol
or a person or the sun or the
moon
a a right, which is Allah's right.
So it's putting something where it doesn't belong.
Alright.
He says oppression,
this is what's strictly and severely forbidden. The
prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam narrates a hadith could
see, which means the meaning is from Allah.
The wording is from the prophet
memorize that. Hadith could see though
meaning is from Allah, but the wording is
from the prophet, peace be upon him. That's
why Hadith Qudsi sounds a little bit different
from,
hadith which sounds a little bit different from
had no. Quran. We're very different from Quran.
My servants, I have made oppression unlawful for
me and unlawful for you, so do not
commit oppression against one another.
So Allah has forbade oppression upon himself. And
what is oppression? Oppression is not inequality. Remember,
the law of this world
is Allah creates
things with different proportions
with the wisdom. That's the law of
this
world.
If I got that right. It's a saying,
which means when Allah gives,
he gives,
everyone in different proportion.
You're taller than this person. You're wider than
this person. You're smarter than this person. You
had better parents than this person. You got
a different,
you're born in a different country. You're born
in a different era.
You have this kind of nose, then that's
gonna affect your life, these things. Each one
of these little things affects your life. We
can't deny that.
You're born to a parent who knows how
to parent well. You're born to a parent
who doesn't know how to parent well. You're
born with no siblings. You're born with 5
siblings.
You got 4 brothers. You're gonna lot know
a lot more than a guy with no
brothers. Right?
So
so on and so forth. You're the last
child of the family, so you get away
with murder. You're the first child of family.
If you don't make your bed, you get
slaughtered.
Isn't that how it is? Right?
So
at
ata of Allah should not be confused with
justice.
Justice means you don't do anything good
without getting a reward. Either reward with love,
that's for the believers, or compensation
in this world with no love. Compensation is
no. Let you pay a plumber.
That's it. We're not friends. You came, you
fix the toilet, I give you $90. That's
it. You leave. We don't see you again.
You don't text me hello. I don't text
you hello. We have no relationship beyond this
transaction. This is how Allah compensates non believers.
What did you do? I fed a 1000000
people. Okay. We will we will compensate you
the value of feeding a 1000000 people as
a kafir.
Right? Yeah. We'll put statues, they'll name libraries
after you, they'll name streets after you, and
they'll name elementary schools after you, etcetera.
That's your reward.
Another one is.
He gives Allah his rights. He gets his
reward in this life and or the next.
That's love. So,
also, no one oppresses anybody in this world,
not even animals, except that there's redress. That's
the second portion of justice. There has to
be redress.
The redress even the prophet said if a
goat hits another goat but one had one
horn, one had two horns. So that's oppression.
Even though
animals have no moral,
they have no moral, there's no morality for
animals. There's no right and wrong. There's no
bad animal, good animal.
But, nonetheless,
the result was an unfair fight between the
rims. And you know when these rams hit
each other
is the mate during mating season, which is
2 weeks
of mating with
all the female you.
But who gets that flock?
They're gonna ram each other,
and whoever
is in get loses leaves.
So if during the year, your flock, you
got a flock and you lost a a
a a a horn for some reason.
Next year comes around, a nice young
ram is gonna come in and smash you.
You're gonna lose. You lost your flock. That
wasn't fair for you. So Allah Ta'ada recreates
them in the opposite, and he says ram
one another in the opposite.
So
even the animals who have no morality to
them, there's no wicked and mean animal or
bad animal.
Even them, everything has to be even.
Speaking of justice, did you water all 3
plants?
Good.
Some are volunteers. I gotta put them to
work.
Anything else that needs to be done here?
Any
odd jobs that we don't wanna do?
We'll think of something.
Keep these kids sweating.
Mhmm.
Next,
he says, in collaborating, we may benefit in
the form of increased security, peace, well-being,
freedom to practice our religion. This is the
number 1. Maslaha in the Islamic terminology refers
to what provides benefit and is consistent with
the objectives of the Sharia.
These objectives are extracted
from the totality of the Quran and the
sunnah and referred to in order of importance,
protection of one's
Islam, life, intellect, progeny, and property.
The 5
purposes that Sharia comes to preserve.
Number 1 is belief, iman. Number 2 is
life. Number 2 is your personal property.
Number 3 is your intellect, actually, before that.
And number 5 is your progeny
so that every child has the right to
be born to a mom and dad, and
he knows who they are, and they were
born in marriage. They
they they had the child through marriage.
That's his hock. And we need to know
in society whose kid is who.
We have to know this. Whose kid is
who?
Who's gonna take care of them? Right? We
need to know whose kid is who. That's
why friends don't need to get married. Friends
never get married.
It's because nothing will come out of us
that needs to be taken care of financially.
But what happens if me and you open
a business?
We have to have a contract.
Right? We can't wing it.
Me and you, let's start,
growing oranges and selling orange juice. No contract.
Can't do that. Gotta have an agreement. Could
be oral, have to have witnesses, should be
written,
but you have to have a contract. So
once there is a financial gain or loss,
right, now we need to have a a
contract.
So, likewise, marriage has to have a contract.
Right? Because when a man and woman come
together, you're gonna produce something that society needs
to that needs to be taken care of.
Society needs to know. That's one of the
many wisdoms
of having marriage contracts.
So the left,
because they spew this ant their their their
this
sexual deviance,
They're extremely light with criminals.
They're
totally permissive about drugs, and they wanna make
lawful all these drugs.
Right?
And they've stunk up the city. Seriously, you
go to New York these days, you just
can't even walk. Did you go recently?
No. But, sometimes
the one to the Literally, what did you
guys do to New York City? This place
stinks.
Right? Even people who smoke weed think it
stinks. Right? Everyone thinks it stinks. Do you
have a question? Yeah. I've been, like, an
article saying that because of the smoke weed
Everyone thinks it stinks. Do you have a
question? Yeah. I read, like, an article saying
that because of the smoke or something, when
you walk in New York City, it's, like,
7 times worse than actually smoking. It's terrible.
Secondhand smoke probably is worse. Who knows?
But because the left are into that and
their generally appearance is very odd, the now
the more woke they get with their
just their appearance is just not fitly related.
Blue air, multiple
or, piercings everywhere, tattoos everywhere, and people just
tend not to
if you're if you're a Muslim with a
family, you tend not to go that route.
So that's sorta obvious. Yet again, on the
flip side, they're the biggest
the progress the more progressive, the more pro
Palestine, and the more bold they are in
breaking up the American Israeli alliance. Right? Now
you go to the other side,
they are the biggest Zionist, the biggest Israelis,
and there was a brother who published a
list of
anti Zionist,
right right wing,
individuals.
The the dissident right, they call it.
Yeah. They're anti Zionist, but I think both
the the the right
and the and the far right dissidents,
all of them
have equal views towards Islam.
So how am I gaining?
Right. How am I gaining? They are tend
to be pro family and they're pro Christian,
but the pro Christian element of it
and the pro European and white element of
it is gonna render them
fully against Muslims. So I don't this sort
of an imagination that there may be a
potential that some of people on the right
have a lukewarm spot for Islam and Muslims.
I I personally don't see it.
So we end up being, as the Quran
says,
between blood and and and feces,
like in the stomach of the the the
utter
of the cow
is between where the blood is and where
the feces are.
Pure milk comes out of that. So we're
sorta like that. We're between
2 groups that
each one of them may have something that
we
agree with
and a whole bunch of things that we
don't. So I don't see there where there's
any alliance to either side. Sheikh Abdullah bin
Hamid Adi will disagree with that. He holds
that the right there is potential of alliance
with the right.
I didn't see how he would respond to
those,
to what I just said about the right,
but,
I'm sure he has an educated opinion. He's
a very smart person
if you ask me.
I'm sure he has his opinion on that.
But, nonetheless,
I don't see, especially after October 7th, any
any,
bridge building
with how Zionist the right has become. And
the the dissident right, the Nick Fuentes types,
do you think that he wants Muslims around?
Right? This season, like, these are ideologues.
It's fun to watch them attack the the
left. That, I enjoy.
Right? I enjoy them attacking the left and
the and the Wilks, but it stops there.
He says here now he his
next step is after you ensure that the
sharia has not violated in any agreement that
you make, you have to check the collaboration.
The intent as Muslims is Allah's pleasure today
in America where they were non Muslims while
fulfilling the rights suits them as neighbors,
etcetera.
And the prophet
had the pact of the virtuous. He
was sit in a situation where people were
being oppressed,
and the prophet, salaihi salam,
said he would have joined this pact,
in which,
while reminiscing one day, the prophet spoke of.
He praised the pact and announced that had
the same situation, an agreement
in joining a common
shared with non Muslims. Come up today, he
would join it readily. Notice, he said he
would join the pact, not the people.
He would sign that pact. He didn't say
I would ally with the.
I would sign that pact, a pact that,
no person can come and trade with us
and get ripped off. He said he signed
the pact, not ally with those people. Keep
that in mind. It's a big difference.
Not only is there no issue with Muslims
joining non Muslims for shared causes,
such as eradicating poverty or safe havens for
abused women, it may be recommended or communal
obligation based on the situation.
The contention lies when due to our small
numbers, weakness, and other deficiencies,
most of Americans often find themselves in need
of collaborating with other groups who may hold
ideas antithetical to Islamic morality.
Groups may exist primarily to further another belief
or lifestyle
considered sinful. Not only that, let's talk about
when the left is supporting Palestine, they're supporting
it on a nationalistic basis.
Right? So, yeah, the the not killing, we
all agree on. That's fine. That's good. But,
like, what is what would their vision be?
Like, it's a purely nationalistic vision. Had nothing
to do with
at that point, we haven't we have no
commonality. They would support a secular liberal
Palestine Palestinian state. So aside from Zionists gotta
stop what they're doing,
right after that, there's a fork in the
road.
And that fork would they would be completely
antithetical
to what
Islam and what Muslims would hold,
for the for that land and the Palestinians
themselves.
Palestinians themselves
are mostly very religious
people,
although their political parties,
they did have in the past very secular
political parties.
They had in the past very secular,
22 secular groups.
And then the there was an Islamic group,
and then there is now Hamas.
Can we collaborate with such people? What are
the conditions? Before we get into this discussion
further, behooves us to first review
the Islamic injunction against helping another
in disobedience.
Near the end of Surah Al Mah, the
2nd ayah of Al Mah'ida, Allah says,
Help one another towards virtue and towards fear
of Allah and do not help one one
another in sins and in aggression.
From the first part of the quoted line,
we may work with people to assist in
virtuousness,
but the latter part strongly warns against assisting
people in sins.
Cannot do this.
You cannot even increase the popularity of somebody
who calls to these things. It's called.
You have to be careful of this.
So you may
inadvertently
or intentionally
give some lend someone some support or some
favorable
or just silence
would be enough
for which is the idea of increasing their
popularity.
You're not allowed to do this. So one
example of that is if there is a
a type of person who's
calling to something sinful and unlawful in our
religion
and you're cozying up with them, you didn't
say anything. You didn't come up, but you're
hanging out with
them. Right? You're
the common person might say, oh, he has
that view to him, then they must be
good.
And and therefore, their popularity increases. You helped
boost them.
Can't do this. It's forbidden to do this.
I'm gonna read really quickly because we have
a special guest today, folks.
We have a very special guest in the
house today
who is
a man who's made many films,
many successful
documentary movies. We're gonna interview him today.
Very quickly. The prophet peace be upon him.
The one who directs towards sin is just
as the one who commits it, the prophet
peace be upon him said,
right?
The one who directs towards evil is as
one who commits it. Same thing.
Where are,
Allah on the day of judgment, a caller
will cry, says the prophet. Where are those
who disobeyed Allah? Where are those who followed
them? Where are those who assisted them?
And then pen and ink is there to
document everything. So keep this very,
close to your heart when you're thinking about
this.
And then he gives examples of where Muslims
did have collaboration with non Muslims.
Okay.
And we'll read those later words today. But
first, we will
turn to our guests.
We ready,
Omar? Yes, sir. We are. Alright.
Bismillah, Rahman Rahim, we have a
guest today
who has a very special place in our
Islamic community.
Very, very few people have done what he's
done. He has produced
a number a number of documentary films
and spread them across the country.
He's produced The Sultan and Saint. He's produced
Nadia's Ramadan, enemy of the Reich, my fellow
American.
Inside Islam, What a Billion Muslims Really Think.
Talking Through Walls, Prince Among Slaves was one
of the most successful films that were produced.
City of Light, The Rise and Fall of
Islamic Spain, and one of the most popular
ones that made it to PBS, Muhammad,
legacy
of a prophet. These are all UPF,
productions, and our guest today is Alex Kronemer
out of Virginia.
Welcome to the nothing but facts livestream.
Thanks for having me. It's our pleasure to
have you, and let's,
get straight into this. When you came in
to Islam as a convert, there was nothing
close
to any kind of production that you could
show
your family, for example,
or that you could show your neighbor, or
that you would be generally proud of to
watch yourself.
Can you talk talk to us a little
bit at that time when you came into
Islam? What was the vibe like? What was
the scene like,
at that time?
Yeah. Well, that's a very interesting question, and
it's a long story. But,
the short version of the story is,
I did you know, I didn't,
I was relatively indifferent to Islam before I
was exposed to it. I didn't think about
it really one way or the other.
If I had any
impression of Islam at all, it was through
the Iranian hostage crisis. That was so it
was kind of like I just had a
sense of vibe of of it being sort
of an anti American,
you know, burn the flame kind of, kind
of thing, but didn't have much,
other feelings about it or, or sense of
how Islam was perceived in America.
When, when I became a Muslim,
I was surprised
to encounter so much hostility to my conversion,
from family
and, and friends and, and strangers.
And it kind of all came to a
head after, I was married and,
was leaving the mosque with my 1 year
old son
in a stroller,
and a car rolls slowly by,
and a,
this guy looks out white guy like me
looks out the window, and and I think
he wants directions or something. And he just
yells, go back to where you come from.
Drives
off, which,
was puzzling.
But,
but I think in part, because I had
my son, this baby with me, it really
hit me hard
of how much
antipathy there was towards Muslims.
And,
you know, rewinding back to what I just
said earlier,
If I was being honest with myself, I
could have been that guy in the car.
Mhmm.
And and I and I recognize that
what we call there's not like
anti Islamic feelings are not baked into the
DNA of America as they are in some
European countries,
but they're not
in America. What the what the issue was
and still is to a large degree
is,
ignorance. People just not knowing,
what who Muslims are, what Islam really is,
etcetera, etcetera.
And so that was when I first started
doing this work, where initially it was I
was doing lectures as a public speaker.
And that
work took me to,
an event in Saudi Arabia.
Mhmm. And when I returned from the event,
when I was on an airplane flying back,
I was sitting next to this other white
guy who turns out to be a Muslim
too, which was, like, like, shocking because I
thought I was the only white Muslim in
the entire world.
And,
turns out his name is Michael Wolf, and
he had written a book,
recently about the Hajj, 1 American Muslims pilgrimage
to Mecca. Mhmm. And he shared so many
things in common in terms of
the reaction people had
to our becoming Muslim, the
our desire to try to,
inform people who Islam,
who Muslims are, and what Islam is.
And that was when we
kind of bonded together
to start to make documentaries
that could reach mass audiences.
When I did my public speaking, I might
speak to a 100, 200, 300 people. Mhmm.
My books might be read by a few
1,000, but it felt like there wasn't gonna
be change,
on that scale. If we're really gonna provide
information and understanding,
we had to do it on a massive
scale, and that's how,
the film work began.
So you're from Virginia. Are you from the
southern part of Virginia? Or No. I'm not
from Virginia, actually. I'm rich originally from Pennsylvania.
Pennsylvania. Okay. Which part?
Near Pittsburgh.
Okay. So that's the Kentucky part of it.
Right? That's the Kentucky part of it. Yeah.
So for those list
for those listening from England, pens Pennsylvania,
is, a neighbor state to New Jersey, but
it's huge,
and it goes out west. And once you
pass
Philadelphia
is,
I would say, sort of cosmopolitan.
Right? But then after outside of Philadelphia,
it does get into the rural parts of
the country, which is very pretty and the
people are really nice, but they also as
any rural area in any country,
when they don't see a lot of,
other people, they tend to have judgments,
and there's no,
kickback against those judgments. Like, if you go
to Egypt and you go to the, the
the farmlands of Egypt, it's the same thing.
People who don't mix,
they're easily form
negative attitudes towards people.
And there's no reaction to that because they
don't mingle with those people. So it's not
that those people are bad. It's that the
it's just that,
they never have a give and take.
So their opinions are what people are not
refined. I mean, I would add that it's
I don't think you even develop negative feelings.
You just don't think about other people.
I mean, you you you think I mean,
it's very interesting because
in my town, there were,
great religious
divisions in my town. Mhmm. They weren't
Christian, Muslim, Christian, Jewish. They were Christian, Christian.
Mhmm. They were the orthodox
and,
commute there's a lot of Orthodox churches in
my area.
Yeah. Then there were the Catholic churches in
my area. Then there was, at that time,
what we now call evangelical,
but that was just sort of beginning beginning
to heat up. So there's evangelical Protestants who
rejected both of them. Yeah. So I actually
we talked about the clash of civilization. I
kind of grew up in a clash of
civilizations, but it wasn't
between Muslims and others. It was it was
within the Christian community. I never even thought
about Muslims
or Hindus
or just name any religion. That was never
even on my radar. Yeah. So it isn't
I I it isn't just these more rural
or provincial areas breed
hostility. They just breed ignorance. Mhmm.
And what about,
if I can ask you a personal question?
So if you're from that environment,
how did you even cross paths with Islam?
We're talking an era that's
well ahead of the Internet
interaction with different cultures and ideas.
It, it doesn't happen automatically the way it
does today. And if you want it to
happen, it's not easy
the way it is today.
So how did you end up even crossing
paths with this story?
So that story begins basically my early childhood.
My mother
was Christian. My father was Jewish.
And
they
thought about my earliest memories of life of
them fighting about religion. Was I gonna be
raised Jewish or raised Christian?
And due to that and other reasons, they
got divorced when I was only 4 or
5.
I had been raised Jewish or was intended
to be raised Jewish
up until that period. And then after that,
I was I can remember being, you know,
6 or 7 whereas babies are baptized, I
was then baptized,
and then was in a Christian
environment.
So from an early age, I had this
sense of,
kind of the randomness in a way of
how you end up one religion or the
other. And then in this Christian
mindset,
encountering, as I said, this sort of Christian
hostility to one another
made an impression on me. And so by
the time I got to college,
I was done with religion entirely. In fact,
I I became
I would call an evangelical
atheist. I was I was,
very hostile to religious belief and and religious
people.
And that was that that marked my intellectual
life
through college, but my emotional life was still
very much connected to,
for lack of a better word, a desire
to be to draw close to the divine,
however that was gonna be defined.
I was not a good atheist
because my heart wasn't in it. My head
was in it, but my heart wasn't in
it. So by the time I was out
of call
ending college,
I just decided that I needed to
I would study economics, international relations, but I
needed to stop for a moment
and really explore this rigorously.
And so I went to Harvard Divinity School
to study comparative religion, which is what I
was doing.
When
I
did very early on, I just realized, you
know,
great. I'm studying these things,
through books. I'm having these interesting conversations with
people.
But, again, it's the heart thing. And I
started going to various
places of worship,
churches
and synagogues,
even,
I went to a Hare Krishna center once,
but I hadn't gone to any any,
mosque.
And, again, as I said, my impressions of
Islam have been formed by
the Iranian hostage crisis. And so I felt
like,
you know, going into a mosque, I would
be greeted with a great deal of hostility.
But,
I kinda convinced myself that I should
try
and just, you know, see what happens. And
so I I went,
and,
this is in Boston.
There's a lot of mosques in Boston now,
but at least at that time, we're talking
about 40 years ago at this point.
The only one that I knew of, the
only one I think there was actually was
in that little town outside of Boston called
Quincy Quincy, Massachusetts.
So I took a bus there. It was
Ramadan. I I I know that.
And,
I always remember I when I got to
the door, I was really scared. And when
I got to the door and I sort
of,
you know, straightened my shoulders and went to
go straight in the sky, immediately stops me.
He tells me to take off my shoes.
Mhmm. My first thought was, oh my god.
I'm being rocked right here.
From. But, anyway, I took my shoes,
went in, and I found this deep dark
corner to hide in. And I slid it
down and I just
was there feeling very uptight
and thinking, okay,
noticing things that seem strange to me, like
there's nowhere to sit, people are on the
floor, that seemed really odd to me.
And this was like sort of before the
break of the fast. So people were coming
in and doing some of the prayer and
and and I was just watching it. And
I remember thinking, okay, I gotta stay for
about 30 minutes, and then I'll I could
say I've been in a mosque, and I've
done that. Check that off.
And I was watching our clock, and it
did the, you know, the minute hand was
drawing near to 30 minutes when suddenly his
door opens up
inside the mosque. This guy comes out. I
hear the call for prayer at Huakbar, and
he's this this guy coming out, and he's
I my first thought is looks like he
has a Xerox box,
top. And my first thought was that he's
collecting the Muslim ID cards. And I was
like, oh god. You know? So I kinda
slumped a little more deeply into that corner.
And,
of course,
he wasn't collecting ID cards. He was handing
out dates.
And I I had no idea what this
was. And I was doing such a good
job of hiding that he passed me right
by. He didn't see me.
But after he had gone and gave him
dates to a man about 5 feet from
me, I was trying to say what was
it that was in this guy's hand. And
I always remember this guy
met my eyes, saw that I was pointed
to his two dates,
and I saw his eyes point to my
hands, which were empty. He took one date,
and he handed it to me.
And
I was really that gesture really stunned me
because, I mean, here's a guy this is,
you know,
Ramadan's in the summer. You know? This is
a hot day. He's not eaten or drank
anything all day.
He's just given me one of his two
dates because I had none.
I'm not anyone he knows, I'm not even
Muslim.
And I realized at that point that there
was a spirit of generosity in Islam that
I had no idea was there.
And it made me
want to suddenly
know what is this religion.
And I went after
the the the
prayer was over,
which I watched,
went back, and I got a Quran. And
keeping in mind, my my Jewish father,
it was a great kind of hostility when
the when the divorce finally happened. And I
remember one of the things my father and
I never really saw my father after the
divorce.
And I remember one of the things that
my father said was and he kinda kinda
like pointed his finger in his my face,
and he was like,
you can believe
in Abraham and Noah
and Moses, but not Jesus. Of course, my
Christian mother wanted me to believe in Jesus.
And that was one of the divisions that
I had inside my heart. Mhmm. I opened
up the Quran and, oh my god, there's
Abraham and there's Moses. There's Noah. All the
things my father had mentioned. And then I
turned to a chapter and see here's Mary
and there's Jesus, right? And suddenly, you know,
we are often as Muslims say, Islam means
peace.
But for me, it was real. It was
like the first time I felt internally at
peace
that here was a religion that brought together
these two faiths.
And,
and also from my atheistic period,
appeal to me too. I mean, like, god
wasn't a guy with a beard, you know,
was more you know, couldn't define god and
all that, which was a much more appealing,
unbelievable idea to me,
than what I had been fed as a
as a child.
So
that was it.
After after not very much
more time, maybe a month or 2,
I decided that I was gonna become a
Muslim. So I went back to the mosque
and I did my Shahada.
And,
and I really, you know, I really hadn't
I really didn't know much about Islam yet.
I mean, I just knew the basics, but
it was enough.
And I guess you might say, spiritually or
emotionally, I was a bit of a drowning
man at that point. So,
all I knew was there had been a
life preserver thrown in my direction. I just
grabbed onto it. It's a problem.
And,
but I'll tell you a funny story.
Or maybe it's not so funny, but something
that's like a
cautionary tale that I like to mention them
to particularly when I'm doing a talk in
in mosques and so forth, where everyone always
celebrates, oh, you know, we've had 3 people,
you know, embrace Islam this month and all
this kind of stuff.
The problem is
there's not support for
young
for Muslim converts.
At least there wasn't for me.
And and, you know, you you you do
this and you
you you immediately have
family who's against what you're doing. You you
immediately experience a lot of negativity, and
you experience negativity for other Muslims. Mhmm. And
I remember
back in Quincy mosque,
my you know, after becoming a Muslim,
my first Friday prayer,
and I barely knew how to pray.
And when it was over,
this guy grabbed me from behind, turned me
around,
and started telling me all the ways that
I invalidated my prayer because I looked this
way and I'd done all this. And then
and then and then I, I said, well,
you know, I've just become a Muslim thinking
that that would make him
back off or or at least be happy.
Mhmm. But it it made him more aggravated.
And
he he himself out. You know, have you
have you how much of the Quran have
you memorized and how much of this and
where's your Kufi cap and where's it this
and what's your name? And it really was,
it it's it frightened me, to be honest
with you. It frightened me not from the
point of view of like, wow, I really
don't know anything.
And I didn't go back to a mosque
for another year or 2. Wow.
And and at least in my case,
I I was still
I that initial grasping on held me to
the faith.
So
as I
pursued learning and understanding and all that and
grew more confident, I finally could go back
to a mosque and interact with Muslims and
feel good about that. Yeah. But I know
I know of others
for whom,
similar experiences,
they they left Islam almost immediately.
So everyone's celebrating, oh, we got new Muslims,
but if you're not protecting them and not
not not just protecting them from the hostility
that they might get from family and friends,
but also protecting them from other Muslims who
might start to put, and this happens with,
women who convert to Islam all the time,
right? Immediately, you gotta wear hijab. You gotta
do this. You gotta do that. You know,
forgetting,
in my opinion, the essential message of of
Islam and how it came to the prophet
Muhammad peace be upon him was gradualism. Right?
The Quran didn't come all at once. It
came in pieces. The rules didn't come all
at once. They came as people could take
on the next one, could come full of
that. And one of the one of the
smartest things that
is one of the wisest things,
that I heard when,
I was just becoming a Muslim, And I
was I I remember talking to a very
a very wise imam
and to give me advice. And he said,
just start with doing one prayer a day.
And once you're once you once you've got
that down, once you're good at doing 1
prayer a day for a couple, then go
to the second prayer. Do that.
And, you know, and he said, like, a
lot of new Muslims will burn themselves up
by trying to do too much all at
once, and then they just they get overwhelmed.
Mhmm. And I thought
and I did that. I followed that advice,
and that really made a big difference to
me too. And also kinda calm me down
the gee. I didn't have to have the
whole Quran memorized before I walked into a
mosque, and I didn't have to have my
clothing a certain way. I you know, it
it, was a good thing. Anyway,
that's more than what you asked me. But
No. It's a great story. And, you know,
it reminds you of that,
recently,
a lot of Muslims think that if you
have
a convert group,
it should that should be a great support
system. But
increasingly, I'm finding that that's not even the
case because
that's assuming all converts have the same culture.
Right? Yeah. And America is so diverse. It's
not like a convert group in Japan.
You have all mostly, it's gonna be Japanese
people because their
society is not as diverse as ours. Yeah.
And when we have a lot of comfort
gatherings,
they would have been uncomfortable
if they were both non Muslim. Right?
Yeah. They don't they don't relate.
So,
even that is a hurdle.
You need to bring all converts. They have
total different backgrounds. Their parents have different ethnicities,
different politics, different
socioeconomic backgrounds.
So it's really hard, you know, to put
this together. I think the only solution is
a genuine friendship
irrespective of whether that's per second person is
a convert or not. Right. That one single
genuine friend
who you really click with,
I, that's what I found,
is the best scenario.
Yeah. Yeah. I I I agree. I I,
sort of well, anyway, just to say that,
that's how I became Muslim.
And and one of the things that I've
I've come to recognize
for most people, if not I would almost
say all people who've ever converted to,
Islam,
it it it starts with interaction with another
Muslim.
I mean, one of the I think one
of the things that makes
Islam
is both like a great opportunity, but also
a burden on Muslims is the
Islam is a faith that's judged Mhmm. By
how Muslims behave.
Mhmm.
More than more so than really any other
faith. Mhmm. And I always say that you
could take a bible.
You could drop it in a in a
village that never heard of Christianity. Yeah. And
and if you read that Bible, you would
understand Christianity.
Right? Mhmm. Because it's stories that lays out
the theology. But if you drop a Quran,
you really probably wouldn't understand it at all.
You need a Muslim
who's living it
to really make you understand
what their faith is all about. Mhmm. And
and and whether you're living it in a
in a way that's attractive, on a way
that's negative,
then colors people's opinions about what Islam really
is. Yeah. And so I think we're all
accountable for that, ultimately,
is how,
others, how people we've interacted with,
you know, have ultimately judged Islam by how
we've behaved
and and interacted with them.
Yeah. It's it's it's funny that a lot
of people from my generation, their 2nd generation,
they grew up
maybe knowing 5 Muslim families. That's it. And
everything else was public schools, TV,
your soccer team, your everything was with non
Muslims.
Then you have your parents
and a lot of those that generation,
there's they were soaked in Islamic culture but
never studied Islam nor took it very seriously.
And
when that second generation comes and starts learning
and starts reading books,
their experiences are total opposites. Like, one's experience
is solely from
living with Muslim people, even they knew scholars.
Right? Right. Lived with them but never studied.
The other group only studies and hasn't lived.
And it's so funny to see that,
you know, they would look and say, that's
not right. Like, the way you're doing things,
there's no way it's right. I guarantee you
it's not right, but they can't tell you
why. Right? Yeah. And it's just because they've
lived with the people who've done it without
studying. 2nd group studies
hasn't lived with the people.
Right. Yeah. That's a good point. Yeah. And
it's why the that's basically the companions. Right?
Why we have a prophet in the first
place is to show us how it's lived.
Yes. And that's the key. And that's where,
you know, like, their the Islam is the
one religion that its reputation
and its actual reality are so,
opposed to each other.
And as you experience it,
it takes only a very small interaction
to flip or to break a lot of
the stuff that's being said about it
Yeah.
Is a very good lead to your,
organization.
UPF dot TV, everyone, is the organization. And
if you're listening on Instagram,
hop over to the Safina Sadie YouTube channel
to see the full screen because Instagram still
gives us a small screen.
But
we're
interviewing Alex Kronemer who entered Islam. He's from
the Pittsburgh area,
entered Islam in Boston,
and eventually came to forming this,
organization with Michael Wolf, who is a writer.
But was your background in film?
No. Not at all. Yeah.
I mean, that's the that's the other neither
was Michael's, actually. I mean,
the the naivete of a beginner Mhmm. Really,
really was
I think if I had known what I
know now,
about filmmaking, I would never have tried to
make a film about the Wow.
But it's because I knew nothing
It's a problem. That made me,
naively say, well, yeah. Sure. Well, let's do
this. I mean, what happened
really was, and there's 2 parts to that
story, one of which related to something you
were just saying a minute ago, but,
I had,
after
divinity school, I had returned to my plans
of working
in economics and international relations and was actually
working in the state department,
which put me into contact with, a number
of Saudi Arabian,
diplomats.
And through that, I was invited. They knew
I was Muslim. I was invited
to go,
on Hajj,
with the Ministry of Information in Saudi Arabia,
and they're registering articles about it. That's all
they wanted me and 70 other people from
around the world that they brought. It was
the first time they opened up the Hajj
to journalists. And, so that was my first
time in,
actually, it wasn't my first time in Saudi,
but it was my first time obviously doing
the Hajj. And, and while I was there,
I happened well, I was reading a biography,
by I'm I'm blaming on his name. Martin,
Do you know who I mean? Martin
can't think his name right now.
Anyway, I was reading about the prophet at
the time, which was, like, really very detailed.
Martin Lings, maybe. Martin Lings. Thank you very
much.
And I happened to meet a,
sort of the swashbuckling
Saudi archaeologist who
befriended me and took me on a bit
of a tour
outside of Mecca
at places where all these various historical events
and the founding of Islam happened. And so
I could really
and finally, I ended up working with the
CNN crew that was there,
covering the Hajj for the first time.
And so in that experience, I was sort
of, like, both
exposed to filmmaking
and the and I saw the power of
film.
I was exposed to,
you know, I I was seeing the story,
like, it was taken to places where I
can imagine,
how we could,
do the story in a film. And,
I was reading this book, which my conclusion
at the end of it was,
wow. This is like, this is like a
great American story, the story of the prophet
Mohammed. I mean, he's like the archetype of
the American hero. Right? He's I mean, if
you think of the old western hero, this
this person who's virtuous and good, going into
a bad town, you know,
cleaning it up,
confronted, tempted, but never, you know, never failing
in his in his mission and in his
goal. And when it's all it rides out,
you know, at sunset.
And and that's kind of like the that's
really kind of the arc of the prophet
Mohammed's store piece. Sunset.
So so I came back from that saying,
we're gonna I wanna make a film.
And I I had met Michael,
Wolf,
as I told the story just,
maybe maybe 2 years earlier. And so I
called him up very excited and said, hey.
You know, what do you think? And he
was for it.
And so,
we began
again, naively,
how are we gonna, you know, coming up
with an idea of how we're gonna do
this.
And
this is back in the day, you know,
when there's not, computers where you can, you
know, zip make a word document and make
it look fancy and zip it off. I
remember we I typed up a a brochure,
a 3 column brochure, took it to a
Kinko's, you know, that
that place where you could get,
copies made,
older than threes, and Michael had a bunch,
and I had a bunch. And Michael happened
to be having dinner one evening with a
group of,
kinda wealthy people,
who,
Muslims, who were interested in Michael's work, and
one of them asked him what he was
up to. And he had one of his
brochures. He handed it out. And suddenly
around that table, the first, you know, few
$100,000 to make this film
we had. And so suddenly we were, boom,
moving forward. And and I ended up quitting
my job,
and,
we started, you know, slowly slowly accumulating,
you know, permissions to do this, permissions to
do that. But our biggest challenge
was, well, how are we telling the story?
It's a story of a person you can't
show for an American audience. Right? Yeah.
And,
we were,
we we're having a scholars meeting,
and we were discussing this.
And and discussing themes, we might explore them.
It was lunchtime,
And one of the one of the scholars,
who was a woman, was,
just talking about her son
and how he was learning,
Quran, Koranic recitation.
And she said it was like and she
made this comment like, wow, this is so
interesting because
I saw him sitting a certain way while
he was reciting, she said. And he was
sitting that way because his teacher sat, sits
that way. And his teacher sits that way
because his teacher sat that way. And there
was a chain going all the way back
to the life of prophet Mohammed. Right.
And I remember just thinking, oh my goodness,
this is what makes, this is one of
the things that makes you Islam so unique
is that,
people consciously
are trying to imitate
the manners, the habits,
the
opinions of the prophet Mohammed.
And that's how we tell this story. We
tell a story through Muslims who are alive
today, who in some way or another, they,
through their lives, are reenacting
the prophet Mohammed. And that gets back to
what I'm saying how Muslims
are the ones that really reflect the religion.
And so that
became the way we made that film. Mhmm.
And we're making that film when 911 happened
in the middle of it. But,
we continued,
to make it seem more important than it
ever was before.
And
and when it was eventually broadcast a year
after 9:11, by the way,
a month after Jerry Falwell, the the, fundamentalist
feature had gone on 60 minutes and called
Mohammed
a terrorist.
Our film aired to about 10,000,000 people,
and it gave
an a a
still shaken American public, not only a a
picture of who the prophet was, but also
a picture of who their American Muslim neighbors,
colleagues
Yeah. Were.
And
something you said way back in the beginning
of our conversation about, you know, there weren't
any films,
when when I became a Muslim that I
could share.
We began
hearing about people who were using,
the film. And I remember 1 young woman
writing and thanking us
because she was a Muslim woman and she
in college,
and she had used the film to really,
to gather her her roommates and
her floor mates to watch it Yep. So
that they would know who she was and
how it really had had a remarkable impact.
And so that's where we started. So we
make films, but we also do a lot
of
outreach work. We develop,
all kinds of ways to interact
with various groups based on the film, whether
it's civic engagement or interfaith work or policy
work or whatever it is, because we realize
that that the film is
just the starting point. And and till now,
I mean, we have films that are 20
years old that are still being used,
around not not only around the country, but
around the world in peace building and education
and so forth,
which I think speaks to
what Islam really is when
it is presented
in a way that people can connect with.
That film was one of the first times
that
Muslims were presenting themselves
Yes.
To in the mainstream because it was on
the publicly broadcast,
the public broadcast service, which is PBS.
Essentially, it's like
what is it? 50%
supported by just just public
funds? It's not like a a W. NBC
or ABC.
Yeah. So And and we consciously
wanted to be I mean, we
we were looking at 1 I forget what
know. There were some commercial television station that
was very interested,
but we quickly learned that, you know, we
were gonna have to fit their format, and
we were blah blah blah, and and we
just felt like, no. Yeah. We we really
wanna tell the story.
You know, we wanted to tell the story
independently
Yeah. And not and not be locked into
some kind of, you know,
format. Yeah. PBS is, for those who don't
know, it's a it's a nonprofit
TV station
that's that was plugged in to every cable
network.
It was basically part of free TV. So
if you had a TV and you just
plugged it in and you stuck your antenna
back in the day, you got 13 free
channels.
You had to pay for cable to get
all the other channels, but you had 13
free channels. It's basically default TV that was
all for free,
that you got. Well, you were better than
me. I had when my children were we
only had 4. Four channels. Wow. That's crazy.
That's crazy.
So
and also you have to people have to
realize that there was no such thing as,
you know, everyone telling their story. And, no,
it wasn't like that. Your story was told
by whoever told it, and you just had
to live with that. So when finally someone,
especially after 911,
was known, like, known faces. People people had
we all had met in Masjid.
We're on PBS
telling the story of the prophet, peace be
upon him. We gave Muslims for the first
time a a a a view of what
it feels like
to tell your own story to the public.
I think that was a huge catapult. So
that was like an amazing launch for UPF.
Yeah. Right? And you've been sorta it seems
like you never looked back because you have
now 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7,
8, 9,
10, 11,
12. Since 2001 to 2024, you have 12
productions.
12 national broadcast. We also have 2 theatrical
releases. Mhmm.
We also have probably,
I would say, 200 small films.
Like, as I said, we do these educational
work around the film, so we make sometimes
small films
that support that work.
And we also do work in in Hollywood.
In where? In Hollywood. Oh, in Hollywood. Okay.
Like what? Well,
we, you know, it's very interesting because we
came
and come at this work as, not as
Muslims, but as film producers. Right? And as
a result of that, we're, you know, we're
often,
you know, at award ceremonies and different things
like that.
And,
early on, we encountered I was sitting at
a table with a group of other producers
and and, oh, what do you do? What
do you do? What do you do? And
when I said what I did,
one of them said, oh my god. I
wish I knew you a year ago. We
were and it was some popular television show.
I forget what it was now, but saying
we were writing this and we were gonna
make the neighbors Muslim, but we
we just didn't know enough about Islam and
Muslims to do that. So we ended up
making them Hispanic, blah blah blah. Mhmm. And
I thought, wow. What a lost opportunity
that is.
And, and again, getting back to the fact
that there's not necessarily inbred hostility. There's just
like a lack of understanding and knowledge. Mhmm.
And so
around that time then, we're talking about 15,
16 years ago, we,
developed this program, which we call MOST, standing
for Muslims on Screen and Television. Mhmm.
And,
where we provide basically support and information for
producers and writers,
to be telling Muslim
stories,
developing positive Muslim characters,
and so forth,
for their for their various television shows. And
so we've now
we've worked with on shows of many very
popular television for, like the Simpsons,
Law and Order, Grey's Anatomy,
things that are not on TV anymore, but
something called the good doctor. There was one
I don't know. There's at least 20 or
25 different shows that we've directly
impacted and probably 25
and 50 more that have indirectly been impacted
by the law.
Recently, there was not recently, maybe about 5
10 5 5 years ago maybe.
There was news spread about a guy who
was from the military,
went into a mosque,
and wanted to essentially, he wanted to blow
up the mosque
in, the rural part of the country. I
think it was Indiana.
He steps in, and the president of the
mosque happened to be there.
And he says we're he he welcomes him
in.
Gives him a little tour. I think he
gave him some water or coffee or something.
They and the guy was just totally shocked.
He was there to do a recon of
what the mess would look like so he
could actually blow it up.
This is an,
former soldier.
Was that your production?
No. It wasn't. But, I I know the
people who made that film. It's a 15
minute film Yeah.
That we've been trying to promote. It's a
really it's a really nice film,
and the story is really yeah. You you
summarized the story perfectly. And and, again, it's
sort of like my story.
You know, I went in. This person gave
me a date. Right?
I mean, if you think about
12 major films,
100,000,000 people
having seen the films, the work we do
in Hollywood, all that stuff, it began with
some guy giving me a date.
Right? That's crazy. So cool, mama. Right? And
and that's the story of this gentleman too.
I mean, he was he was kinda like
a PSTD person. He was,
he had been in in, like, I I
in one of the wars, god knows which
one it was, but he came back,
just mentally messed up.
And, yes, that's what he was gonna do,
but he was befriended
and welcomed that he needed that so much.
And he became a Muslim, by the way.
Subhadma.
Subhadma. So, I forget the name of the
story, though. But, anyway, yeah, it's a very
good one.
When you say short films, are they available
on UPF's YouTube channel?
Yes. Okay. Well, yes, but and also through
our website. So if you go to our
website, upf.tv
Yeah.
Most of the materials that we've developed for
use in this dialogues and education
are available on our website. Okay. Nice. Nice.
What was your favorite movie to make?
Oh, gosh. You know, that's such a hard
question because each one is so different.
I mean, we consciously,
are always trying to tell different stories,
that can appeal to different audiences.
I mean, usually,
what feels like my favorite movie is the
one I'm working on now. Yeah.
So we're working on now one that we're
tentatively calling Islam's Greatest Love Stories.
Mhmm.
And and,
again, it's, you know, it's one that
we're trying to present
Islam to a and Muslims
Mhmm. To an audience who
largely don't associate Islam and love as being
connected in any way. Yeah.
And we're not talking about romantic love in
this in this film. It's it's love in
a bigger sense. Mhmm.
So, anyway,
it was certainly the sultan and saint was
certainly, I I was my directorial debut, let's
say.
And that was a great film to make.
You know, it was literally a cast of
100
as we recreated,
the crusades and and,
the middle ages and so forth. That was
that it was a very challenging film.
Enemy of the Reich is a great film
of the heroic,
Muslim woman fighting the Nazis in World War
2.
Prince Among Slaves, as you mentioned, probably
our most popular film
in our backlist career, another great film. But,
I mean, they're all
it's hard to say. They're all great. I
mean, in terms of to my heart, they're
all great. As I look at the title
this year, some of them are documentaries, and
some of them are actually movies.
Yeah. Right? Full on movies. No documentaries at
all. Like, Prince of Monsters We made an
animated film.
Excuse me. We made an animated film called
Lamia's Pope, which
to your audience, they should look for. We're
trying to promote it this year. It was
a film that was a bit of a
COVID casualty,
because it was supposed to have it to
the at score release and then COVID came
in. Mhmm. And then but it's an it's
an animated film about a 12 year old
Syrian girl who's fleeing Syria,
and she's given a book of Rumi's poetry.
How do you It becomes a magical gateway
where she meets Rumi when he was a
boy
fleeing the violence of his time, and she
helps him write the poem that 800 years
later saves her life. Ajib. Ajib.
Omar, why don't you go to Lemia's,
go to the trailer for that.
And why don't you load it up and
we'll show the audience right now what the
the trailer.
It shows on YouTube. Right?
Yeah. So why do while he loads it
up, I'm gonna ask you another question and
take him a second to load it up.
Most of these, you can I get an
idea? Enemy of the Reich, you get an
idea what it is.
Rise and fall of Spain. Islamic Spain. Yeah.
I got it.
What a 1,000,000,000 Muslims thinks.
What I what doesn't does require a little
bit of a question is on a wing
and a prayer. While we load up,
this this for this trailer, can you tell
us what what is that about? Is there
something happened on a plane or what? Yeah.
So that was a film that became something
different than what we thought it was gonna
be. So Mhmm. A lot of our films
are, historical
explorations. So there's a fixed history and but
there's also a style of filmmaking which are
which some of our films have been as
well, which is called very tough, which is
basically
you don't know what's gonna happen. You're following
a person or a couple or something as
a on some kind of journey. So we
were approached,
oh, well, this is a few years after
911
about this gentleman who wanted to get his,
flying license, airplane license.
And and the FBI showed up.
And and True story. It's true story. Yeah.
Okay. And,
he was gonna continue to get his flying
flying license, but, you know, he didn't know
what was gonna happen. And, basically, he wanted
us to document it because what if he
ended up, you know, arrested?
Nice. Okay. So that was the original idea.
So originally, I felt like, oh, this is
gonna be a, you know, a hard inning.
Well, it turned out to be the exact
opposite. It turned out to be, I would
say, our most
comedic
of of our films. Oh, that's great. Because
it turns out that the FBI was not
involved at all in our period of fall
of flying. It turns out that learning how
to fly is really kinda hard. Mhmm. And
and,
his wife,
and
they were kind of like a mismatched couple
in a way. Mhmm. And so just their
banter back and forth, and she thinks he's
kind of crazy for doing this and this
and that and the other thing.
And so it's it's it's pursuing the mission
by really getting
helping audience get to know,
kind of a goofy,
but endearing guy
and his family as he's trying to learn
how to fly an airplane.
And people can watch this on where can
people watch this? On your website?
Again, go to our website, the starting place.
I don't know all the play like, our
films are
you can find some of them on Amazon,
some of them on,
other streaming platforms, but start with our website.
Okay. Great. But that's a great film, by
the way. It's it's a it's, as I
said, it's a very,
you smile a lot watching that. Nice. Nice.
Let me tell everybody before we watch this
trailer. Again, Lemia's poem,
It's got a Narnia esque,
a little bit of a Christopher Nolan touch
to it where
a girl is 12 years old. She's a
refugee.
And these Syrian refugees, they're had a really
rough time in the past decade.
She's fleeing violence in her country. And, you
know, that's this age when you're have any
upheaval, it really shakes up your whole life
when you're 12 years old, 13 years old.
So somebody
she comes upon a book of Jalal Adina
Rumi.
And as she reads the book, a magical
and mystical gateway opens up and she goes
back
to Afghanistan. She goes into Afghanistan where where
wherever Rumi was from at the time,
and he is suffering the same exact thing.
He's a refugee.
She meets him as a boy.
She helps him out.
He ends up being inspired by her, writes
a poem.
The magical gateway closes up again,
and she benefits
from that poem, which he wrote because of
her. So that's the Christopher Nolan time loop
thing where Yeah. You know? But it's a
Narnia Gateway thing. So it it's a really
interesting,
story. So let's take a look at this.
Hey. Am I gonna be able to hear,
Omar? Okay. Good. Let's take a look at
this trailer.
The world is full of signs that we
often do not see.
Lamia.
Lamia. Oh, thank god.
You're leaving? I brought you a new one.
Do you know who Rumi is?
This
book?
It's special.
My name's Lemia. Oh, Jalaluddin.
But you can call me Jalal. Jalaluddin?
Rumi?
Try to look beyond this moment. You were
made a writer because someone, somewhere
needs your words.
It is not our eyes that are blind.
It is our hearts.
This is really good to,
I think I have an audience for this
in our community to actually show this to
them because it looks really interesting. And who
helped you write this story? Did you write
it yourself or was it Yeah. I wrote
it. Yeah. Masha'Allah.
What is, what's the length of this movie?
It's an hour and 30 minutes. Oh, it's
a lot of work. So so the animation
and it's a full these are full animations
now.
So that's,
some how do you how do you launch
these when you have a
movie like this?
In the movie world, there's always, I don't
know, a cinema that picks it up and
puts it out there or,
on Netflix. So how do you launch? Yeah.
So
the main way you launch is,
at film festivals, major film festivals where people
buy it in essence.
And as I said, our launch happened
in the middle of COVID.
And there was we actually there actually was
screened at this film And,
you know, even till now theaters are not
are struggling. Yeah. It is And, you know,
even till now theaters are not are struggling.
Yeah. It is available to stream.
But,
having that that initial theatrical bump is important.
So what we are doing this year
is we are promoting screenings of the film
ourselves.
Mhmm.
Tying it to,
refugee
month,
tying it to, well, many things.
And so so, you know, we've had several
dozen screenings,
some very big, some, you know,
only 30 people, and we're gonna continue pushing
that
this year. That's great. So how can we
sign up for a screening at our community
center?
Oh, easy.
Just
just let the powers let one of us
know that you wanna do it. We'll be
happy to organize that for you. Okay. That's
great. So that'll be a nice,
screening at the start of the school year,
and it'll pull out a lot of families,
and we have a big gym. We can
see it about a 100 or so. And
the other thing that's very interesting about the
film, I didn't I I wasn't thinking about
it at the time.
You know, I mean, the film has, you
know, it's has scary scenes. There's war. There's
monsters in it and so forth. And I
kind of was thinking, oh, this is not
really for kids. You know? It doesn't have
any talking donkeys. And
but I have found that little kids love
this film. Mhmm. And I realized inadvertently,
they love it because it has the Disney
arc, which is,
a mother if you think of most Disney
movies, the mother is lost or gone. Mhmm.
And then all these because, you know, sort
of like for in the little kid's mind,
as far as a mother present, nothing bad
can happen. So Yeah. Adventure begins when the
mother's gone. Right? Yeah. And and her story
is same way. But at the very end,
there's her her mother comes back.
And if you think of every Disney movie,
you know, beast dies and suddenly he's resurrected.
Wally's
got the his computer's broken, but suddenly he's
Wally again. You know, there's that moment of,
you know, of loss and then return. Yeah.
And at the end of this film, the
mother comes back. And I think that that's
where the kid the kids just love.
They're on this scary adventure. Lamia does okay,
but then she finds her mother at the
end. Yeah. So it's good for kids. It
also has the the animation looks like some
of the,
Disney movies that they're watching. So the animation
is really sharp. Yeah.
No. There's a thing about animation too is
I I Mhmm. In terms of things I
didn't know.
Every second
of film, in an animated film, is 24
drawings.
Say again.
Every one second.
Yeah. Is 24
different drawings. That's insane. It is insane. Yeah.
We had 70 70 people. Some of it
70 animators
worked on this film. So 60 times 24.
What's the math on that? Some of you
guys are,
into math. A 120,
right, plus more.
No. No. I mean, 1,200
and more. Yeah.
So let's say 1500
a minute
times 90.
Yeah.
Yeah.
1,420.
1,420
times 90.
Just do it times a 100. Might as
well. Call it a day. 14,000 images.
Right?
Yeah.
14,000
drawings. That's insane.
Oh, wait. Here's a question that's controversial in
the art world.
Do you plan to use AI?
No. We don't
plan to use AI.
And it it's, yeah, it is a it's
I I don't know if it's controversial. It's
it's, highly charged.
Yeah. As AI threatens to put a lot
of artists out of work. Right? Exactly. Yeah.
Yeah. And,
at the same time, I can understand why
it's irresistible to a lot of people because
it's Yeah. It's cheap.
Yeah. But but,
no. We don't plan. And and and you
might find interesting that
PBS doesn't accept any
any, any AI in their in their submissions.
Are there
actors and guilds now that have conditions like
that? Like, we're not gonna work with you
Oh, yeah. Well, that was part of the
big act actor strike. That was part of
what that was all about. Yeah.
You know, that their images were taken and
now they were gonna be used,
introduced in, by AI to act out things.
And and less for for stars, but for
background actors,
there's a you know, you you you know,
people have careers in in this business
without being stars. Yeah. They're they're they're just,
you know, they're they're always being hired to
be in the cloud scene, this, that, and
everything. So they have, you know, a whole
career in Hollywood
Yeah. Doing that kind of work. And if
suddenly
you don't need them anymore, or you're, you
know, you're kind of 90% of the, act
working actors.
Yeah. Most people think about Hollywood stars. They
think of the Hollywood actors. They think of
the star, but then there's a lot of,
you know, non star faces in every movie
you see. There has to be. You can't
have a handsome mailman, for example. You can't
have there's gotta be a regular dude. Yeah.
You know, at a cash register or something
like that in those scenes. So those guys
are usually taken, we're we're not thinking about
them.
I wanna ask you about a couple more
stories,
Great Muslim American road trip.
Alright. What what is that all about? Okay.
That's a film that your audience should really
watch. It's a 3 part film. It was
on PBS, not this last summer, but the
sum not summer before.
Mhmm.
It's,
a story. It's,
some of your audience may know Mona Hyder,
the rap singer.
Okay. I'm familiar with the name, but I
can't remember who she is. Yeah. Yeah. She's
Syrian,
American. She's,
she's produced a number of Muslim oriented rap
songs.
Okay. And her and her husband, Sebastian Robbins,
who's a convert. Okay. They they take a,
trip along
Route 66.
Like
cars? The car. Yeah. Car trip. Yeah. And
they find the American Muslim story
along that most American of routes. You wouldn't
think
that on this iconic
American route, there'd be anything to do with
Islam. Yeah. But just about every mile, there's
something
related to Muslims,
that they discover. That's an example of a
very tough film, by the way. There's a
lot of discovery that happens.
Over those,
everything
from blues, you know, the origins of the
blues and jazz,
to
a Muslim who
40 years after Columbus
Mhmm. Was the first person
to lead a group,
across the southwest
and map out that thing Wow. In the
area *. Including
a Muslim who
was responsible for mapping out the last 2
two
two, states of Route 66. Route 66 itself
owes itself to a Muslim. Wow. So that's
like the discovery over and over in this
film. And it's it's got music in it.
It's very upbeat.
We made it to appeal to a younger
audience.
So it's it's a very good film. So
when you do those,
you just gotta be ready to improvise because
you never know what's gonna happen. Right? And
I remember
one documentary
about a guy
who was
charged with murder.
And then
in the middle of the documentary,
there was a mic left on him
accidentally on,
and he's talking to himself.
And
in the talking to himself, he says to
himself, well, what if they ask you if
you did it? He said, just tell him
I did it. Actually, no. You can't say
I did it. And he's talking to himself.
So these guys are putting the movie together,
and his mic is left on, like, weeks
later because the post production takes a long
time.
The guy admitted
to doing it. And that was used in
court,
used against him. So talk about these types
of
on the go improvising. You never know what
you're gonna come upon. You can come upon
something totally crazy.
Right? And that just takes the movie through
the roof.
Oh, yeah. I mean, that's,
that's a big part of it. And also
just,
you know, I mean, if you think about
it, we on that particular film, we traveled
3,000 miles. Wow.
So think of all the things that can
happen on a 3,000 mile trip. Yeah.
When you have cameras and people and, you
know,
so and so forth and Batteries and all
that. Yeah. Getting set up and Mhmm. Breaking
down and getting getting to a place at
a reasonable hour to get a, you know,
a night's sleep before you Yeah. Early next
morning on your road again. Did you actually
go with them too? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
That's right.
Route 66,
where does it start again? It's in Chicago.
Okay. And goes to Los Angeles.
So it's
diagonal like this. It go yeah. It goes
down,
cuts across the Texas Panhandle,
and then and then begins to move up
until it hits LA. Oh, so it actually
goes very steep south first and then it
goes across. Yes. Yes. Okay. So that's why
in cars, he ends up in that New
Mexico area.
Yes. Yes. Okay. Good. Well, ladies and gentlemen,
try it. You can get a filming of
Lemia's poem.
Go to UPF dot TV.
This was Alex Kronemer, the founder
co founder his
partner is,
Michael Wolf. Maybe that's someone else we should
have on.
But Michael Wolf is a writer. Alex Kronemer
is,
a cofounder of this, former journalist, now turned
into filmmaker.
These are some of them are documentaries you
see here, and some of them are actual
full fledged movies. And now you have an
animated production.
So always exciting stuff coming out of UPF,
but always top quality.
And we really thank you for coming on.
And It's gonna be
We're gonna have
a showing of Lemmy's poem,
here in New Jersey, and we'll announce that
and people could come through to that.
So, thank you, God, for coming on.
Thank you. You're welcome.
Thanks a lot.
There you have it, folks. You know, we're
always into the arts. I'm always into the
arts, and I'm always into health and fitness
and these types of things. And
this this organization
is
probably,
I would say, the best in
film production because they've been consistent too. There's
a lot of people come out with 1
or 2 things,
and then they they stop.
But,
UPF is very consistent,
and it's consistent because it has leadership. That's
why.
Committed leadership.
So let's take a look at,
let's take a look at some of the
comments and questions here.
Farhan never heard the name Lemya before. That's
pretty it's a pretty popular name
between Morocco and Shem.
Alright. We can take some general questions for
a few minutes, and then we're gonna bounce
and we'll be back.
Today's Thursday. Right, Owen? Oh, Jake. Getting a
kid. Lost track of the daisies.
How do I respect my parents?
They're I always forget. Well,
when a person
is good on their prayer,
then Allah
reminds them and he sends them
reminders. So I would say,
be good with your prayer
and Allah will send you reminders of everything.
But, ultimately, why don't you study it too?
Why don't you get a book?
There's a book
called The Rights of Parents.
Let's take let's get another photo, Omar. That
photo's a bit
no good. Let's get another one.
Omar's making the thumbnail as you all know,
and I get to watch him make the
thumbnail.
I gotta make sure I look good in
these thumbnails. At least decent. At least decent.
The go back?
Yeah. That not close. Click around 10 seconds
before or after that.
The other angle. Do the other angle
Facing the other side. Yeah. There that facing
that side is better.
Yeah. I I guess that's my good side.
Or the front is fine too.
Yeah. It works. That's good. Where is this
shawl from?
It was a gift.
But if you want shawls,
Yemeni threads is your place to go.
Go to ww.yemanythreads.com.
Is there a spiritual treatment for anxiety? Allah
Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala says
verily by the remembrance of Allah, hearts find
tranquility. What's the greatest remembrance of Allah? Tawba.
Tawba from sins. What's the next greatest remembrance
of Allah? Equal to that
is salah.
100%. There's no discussion. No doubt about it.
The prayer.
You gotta observe a salah.
The topical
face products need to be the if
they have animal products? No. Because
will have occurred there.
Complete transformation of the essence. So you don't
have to worry about that.
Should Bangladesh be considered a Hanafa?
When will Arcview registrations
reopen?
Maybe 2 weeks.
What is the minimum standard someone to be
practicing? What's praying 5 times a day,
not doing sins in public like having a
liquor store or working in an industry that's
forbidden,
and your external,
the first thing we that
requires from us is the external, the actions
of your body.
And then we work on the internal.
Allah states
Allah does not charge a soul more than
they can bear.
Okay.
Because the Sahaba asked Allah
not to charge them with what
they cannot bear
and what is that meaning?
The the meaning of
that is that in the beginning,
Allah says
If you
do something or you hide it in your
heart, Allah takes you account for it. So
the Sahaba said, oh, Allah, we can't control
our hearts. Sometimes our hearts, we say to
ourselves terrible things. Bad thoughts cross our mind
all the time.
So then the Sahaba
prayed
Oh, Allah, don't take us to account on
something we can't control.
You can't control,
your thoughts.
So then Allah, subhanahu wa ta'ala,
remove that that charge,
that charge that he would take you to
account for your thoughts, that's been removed.
Allah does not take us to account for
merely for our thoughts.
Except if you dwell upon them and it's
a filthy thought, that's discouraged.
However, dwelling upon a thought oftentimes
will produce an action. It will become an
action. So you have to be careful with
that. That. Joseph David says, what is the
position in in
extreme territories?
You fought you're gonna pray
according to the most,
nearest city that prays normal prayers.
So let's say you go to the what
do they call it? The polar night, I
believe,
in Norway
where the sun sets and doesn't rise until
3 months later.
So what do they do? They they have
artificial clocks, obviously. They have clocks. They have
phones.
And so it'll be, like, 2 in the
afternoon, and it's, like, pitch black.
So if you're a Muslim and you live
there, you're gonna
pray according to the next nearest city that
prays.
So I guess maybe you would go to
Oslo or something where they pray all 5
prayers,
and you go according to that. And some
have said you go according to Mecca, whatever
it is.
You you calculate it artificially, and you pray
on time.
My daughter is in HIF school.
She turns 16 next month.
What is the next move after she is
done in 2 years?
Well, in terms of the hips,
you still are gonna do the the the
do you do a second hips or a
review, whatever you wanna however you wanna do
it. Some people do a full second hips.
In other words, they start over and do
it again, or they just do a review.
Every other day, recite a to the or
half a.
That's actually more important
than actually the
just doing the hips because otherwise, you can
really lose it quick.
What if someone is confused about different Islamic
schools? Each has its own evidence. Each so
certainty is hard. Belief can't just be about
picking what you like. Right? So
for this for Abdul Latif or Ihabid El
Lotfi, sorry,
the answer to that is that a common
Muslim is not bound or charged
to know these things. All you have to
know is that
Allah, you obviously believe in Allah and his
messenger and there is none like unto Allah,
and he's the creator of all things and
these basic fundamentals. Now if you are curious
and you're someone who wants to know the
answer and I need to know this, then
you don't study issue by issue. You studied
the the scholars
until you determine which scholar is most worthy
of following.
And then you you start to learn from
them. And we can talk about living and,
more importantly, the debt.
So if it was madhhabs of Islamic law,
you're not gonna study the Maliki rulings and
the Hanafi rulings and the Shafi'i rulings. That's
not how it works. You're gonna study
Imam Abu Hanifa,
his biography
and his methodology.
Malik, his biography and his methodology. Shafi'i and
Ahmed. And then you're gonna decide. Why do
we cap it off at those 4? Those
are the only 4 whose
schools are still alive with a tradition of
people
still teaching it and preserving and making sure
that they're transmitting what in fact that said
in methodology and in,
the actual rulings.
So so you do the same in.
And in Akida,
you may study,
the the the major theologian theologians of the
school. You may study
his life and his methodology.
And say, yes. He's worthy of following. You
may study.
There's not much about his biography,
but when it comes to his his works,
there's plenty to study and plenty to read.
And so,
to me, imam in Noahi
is almost like
in in right after the 4 imams from
the most agreed upon,
safest,
most accurate
scholars, simplest to read,
but also copious in or or I should
say,
the amount of output
prolific, I should say.
Right? Prolific,
but yet simple
and accurate and connected to the sources as,
and yet he came later. So he is
exposed to other.
He's exposed to a lot of issues.
It's Imam An Nawawi. Hasharha Muslim, he wrote
when he was
very early on,
very early on.
Don't rely upon his
Sharha Muslim for their.
They rely on his fitbooks for the.
So if you see Shafi
opinions there, you're better off double checking it
in, the Shafi'i fiq
manuals. That and he wrote the one. He
wrote the book
in Shafaifik,
this big. His shahar have Muslim is this
big and shahar have Muslim, his first source
was the Madaki scholar, Kaja Ayat, in in
he he took from him first.
And he always says. He
wrote that when he was very young,
and he never had to retract anything or
take anything back. Just goes to show how
accurate he was from his youth and how
prolific he was from his youth.
He was beyond gifted. He was like genius
level.
He never married. He died very young. I
think he died at 45, believe it or
not. He had no no
family.
So day night, he taught at his school,
and he wrote
day night. And he died at 45. He
has an output of work.
People, if they live 90 years, won't produce
that.
How are the Suras' names, says Helena Akhtar?
Good question.
The Suras were named by the prophet
or
by,
the next generation.
Or they have come to him in news
from,
I guess, main Jibril.
For example, how did the prophet know about
the reward of reciting
and Al Imran come in the form
of birds?
Giving you shade on the day of judgment
and but also pointing you in the right
direction.
Clearly,
told him that. Right?
Do you know Sheikh Abu Bakr Mosselliar, I
believe of Kerala, India. I believe I met
him once he came here.
What is the Islamic view of law of
attraction and manifestation?
There's only one thing that they say that
I believe is actually
just
good human advice, which is just to be
constantly optimistic
and persistent in seeking your goals.
Beyond that,
we
we don't,
charge ourselves
with having to attract anything. We have a
faster route to that. They'll make you not
have to worry, which is,
through Dua.
The law of attraction is extremely stressful.
You gotta constantly meditate about the thing, constantly
think about the thing, and imagine yourself as
some power that's attracting. We don't really do
this. We're our methodology is yeah. In terms
of
the doctrine of taking the means,
al akhdubil asbab, taking the means.
Common sensically, I can't take the means if
I'm not thinking about it. Right?
If I'm not emotionally
attached
to something and connected
to something, I'm not gonna work hard for
it. So that's sort of also a commonsensical
observation that we would agree is you have
to be emotionally involved with something
in order for you to
to to keep going,
to keep working at it, and to leave
no stone unturned.
But other than that, the main portion that
we have to separate from is we don't
rely upon ourselves. And this is makes us
relax.
I gotta work. I gotta do the work.
I gotta want it. But
and take the place
of 1,000 of hours of
me imagining and meditating and I'm attracting and
I'm manifesting. This is all magical thinking
that comes upon a people when their economy
sticks.
This is a fact.
When the economy of a people starts collapsing,
they fall into racial tensions and magical thinking.
Racial tension because they gotta blame somebody.
And magical thinking because there's no actual
work being done anymore.
Right?
Show me this nonsense and then in the
fifties, sixties, seventies, eighties. No. The people worked.
You had opportunities.
And magical thinking.
Right? I gotta meditate my way to money.
Not gonna work. You're gonna work your way
to money. But I I again, I do
recognize the and they don't always say that.
They do say that you gotta work. But
point being is that,
aside from 1 or 2 things
that that are sound observations,
we don't need any much of it beyond
that.
Hassan Farhan Al Maliki. What's your opinion? Never
heard of him.
Never heard of him. Hasan Farhan Al Maliki.
Never heard of him.
That doesn't mean anything because if I haven't
heard of him, but we could look him
up. Which why are you asking for?
Why is he asking about Hassan Farhan and
Mariki? Let's see. Maybe he has some good
videos, good books on Mariki Fakk.
Bismillah.
Hassan
Farhan.
Oh,
Hassan Farhan and Madik is a Saudi religious
reformist thinker who was
arrested, put on
trial, arrested for a number of reasons. His
opinion about the veracity of certain sayings attributed
to the prophet
He was his criticism
of 7th century Islamic figures, which are what?
Sahaba?
Insulting the country's rulers
and describing them as extremists,
supporters of ISIS.
He praises
Hezbollah. This has nothing to do with.
It's just his name.
I'm sitting there, like, wondering if he's, they're
gonna benefit from him. No. I have nothing
to do with this stuff.
Yeah. No. I'm sitting here thinking,
And, man, if you like, yes,
Yeah. I mean, it has nothing to do
with.
What's the way of getting rid of laziness
and was was?
Well, start picturing,
goals that you want. Reward.
What does the Quran move us? How does
the Quran move us? Reward
and harms. Benefit and harms. So you have
to and this is one thing they're good
at these law of attraction types is visualization.
Yeah. And what is that's that's a natural
thing. So some of the things they're saying
are just natural observations.
The more you visualize a reward, the more
you'll be happy. You'll work for it. You
get excited for it. That you need to
visualize yourself some rewards.
If I pray,
does it have to be out loud? You
gotta pray the the
exactly
how you,
how you missed it.
So if it's if you're doing of Aisha,
you do it out loud even if you're
doing it in the middle of the day.
What is Jamati Islam? No clue. I think
it's a group from Pakistan, but I don't
know much about them, to be honest with
you. It's Abu Allah and Maududi's group. ICNA,
basically.
It's their version of that today, but I
don't know much about them, to tell you
the truth.
Someone in the mosque was telling me about,
Jamaatullah Islam. He was saying, basically,
is, people at the mosque would just follow
what the mosque does.
What?
No. Jamati Islami is a is a massive,
massive group.
It's,
led by the,
you know, may Allah have mercy upon him.
And he had a lot of books, and
there those books are found in the Masjid
all the time.
And their group today is. They
do a lot of good work. Good people.
Here's an exam a question. What's your advice
if someone allows or tolerates or participates
in social activities with openly sinful,
disobedient Muslim family, they openly drink smoke
and want kids to be close to that
family?
No. Not if they're doing that stuff. If
you openly do that stuff in your house,
then sorry.
We're not coming to those gatherings.
Sorry to sorry to break it to you.
But if you're openly
drinking,
I have to cut you off.
By the way, the saying about
or
or.
And no, a Muslim doesn't leave his Muslim
brother for 3 days. These are all you
don't abandon your Muslim brother for 3 days
if
if, and
Alright, that's nice.
Colorful.
Really colorful, bro.
That's if you're not allowed to abandon your
brother, Muslim brother for 3 days
on matters of the dunya.
But if it's matters of Dean
right? You guys gotta go? Good.
If it's matters of deen, yes, you can
abandon them.
You can and invitations.
The question about invitations. Muslim cannot,
it must answer the invitation of another Muslim.
Even I've even Mas'ud was invited to wedding
that had a lot of sinfulness in it
and he didn't go and someone asked him
about that hadith. He said, not these. We
weren't commanded to attend these gatherings.
If there's no harm.
But if there's harm and your kids are
now hey,
if you're if there's no harm and your
kids are now exposed to alcohol
no. No.
Go to the colorful one, Omar.
Just free mixing, though. Free mixing. It's AI,
bro.
None of blur it. Just blur it. There's
also a big mosque on the stage. So
how does that make sense? But, anyway, put
that. I like that picture.
It's a mess, but you're gonna blur it
anyway. Right? No. I can't. I don't because
it it
Okay. Yeah.
But we need some that other the other
one was fine too, but it's it's it's,
not colorful.
What what age do you advise
children to be taught to read Arabic by
looking
as soon as they can really?
The the earlier, the better with these things.
Earlier, the better on these things.
What's a how do you find a 1
on 1 hip program for adults on the
northeast?
Are you asking for 1 on 1 online?
That we can find probably, but 1 on
1 in person, that's tough.
Is it permissible to not marry? You can
actually probably ask your local imams and if
they'll come to your home, but you're gonna
have to give them a
a good sum.
Is it permissible to not marry for achieving
some great goal like to be like?
I wouldn't do that in this day and
age. Just too much fitna in this day
and age.
Can I work as a spy in a
non Muslim country?
If they're the enemy, they don't enemies don't
have the same rights. Right?
But
it's a good question. I can't answer that
right away.
You're gonna have to have, you're gonna there
has to be you have to see what
the shitty * says, and I'm sure that
there is some,
there is some kind of,
role for that. Hey. That's a great
thumbnail, Omar.
But take that that
19 twenties
film thingy out of there. Yeah. That doesn't
that doesn't belong there. Yeah.
If the imam of the prayer does a
mistake,
do the people follow him? Yes. They do
accept one mistake,
which is
going up for another raka.
That they don't do. They you stay seated
and you say.
Which one is the lesser evil in politics,
the right or the left?
Pick an STD.
That's the answer to that question.
1
alright. They'll be tolerant of hijab. They'll be
pro some of them pro Palestine, not all
of them.
Some of them pro Palestine.
But the more pro Palestine they are, the
more pro what they are? Like, ridicule.
So where are we gonna go with this?
Right? We can't get too close to this
either.
Right?
I still I'm laughing about allying with these
groups. Are you allying with them in your
imagination?
Like, what do you Muslims have to offer
that's so oh, the Muslims are coming. We
gotta prepare. Right?
No.
It's not like this. It's like
taking crumbs from the table.
Seriously. Maybe in the in the future, Muslim
numbers will be much bigger and there'll be,
you know, a reason,
some kind of a purpose.
Right, or some negotiations that we could do.
No. Is that the final picture, Omar?
No. I like that picture, but why am
I looking sideways like that?
Let's that's good. Is there another option?
Woman says she doesn't ever want her husband
to tell her what to do or where,
and she wants to
do whatever she wants.
Well,
is this in theory or is this actually
has already happened?
Because it says her husband's, meaning her future
husband
or
is this in her in theory?
Well, she has to do what Allah says.
And the husband has to tell her what
Allah says and the husband has to insist
upon
the obligations and prohibitions.
Right? So the husband will only insist upon
what you already know. Right?
That what is halal and haram in in
in whatever she's talking about here. What to
do or where. Right? And if there's a
judgment call, then you have to discuss that.
Alright.
So
the permission to work to work as a
car dealer,
They sell cars on interest
in general. You're allowed to sell something
if they're going to pay for it in
cash or, or by interest. That's not your
business.
What's the Akidah of Imam Malik? Imam Malik
was severe against
the Muqtadia
in Akidah.
Severe.
And he studied with
he had a teacher that he had for
over 30 years that he used to go
to
for 30 years. And that teacher
was a specialist in matters related to,
the heretical groups.
So Maddik was severe against
any
bad feelings,
let alone
bad words against the companions.
Right? Severe against
the emerging, yeah, Tizali,
Kalami,
Martezili
thought
that contradicted clear verses and hadiths.
And he was severe against those who delved
into the Mutashabi hat
as the one who asked Allah to ask
him what is the meaning of his on
the throne.
Right? And he said about it. It's not
Makur.
It's not even something that you're that is
even can be discussed.
So
he just he was very and that's why
as Suptki says,
of all the med hubs,
each med hub did have a small group
of their scholars in their history
go astray on something. So there were Hanafi
and Hanbali Mujassima
and Mushab Beha.
But he says you find none of that
with the Marikis.
They're extremely strict on all these things.
What's the go to fetch book in medici
fit. It's the first one is Khalil and
then the, the after that
Hashe to the Suki.
It's the Suki upon
the upon
Khalil.
Akhtari is one of the beginner books. Yeah.
The beginner books are 3. Ashmaawiya in Egypt
only, they studied that. The west, they don't
know that. In the Maghreb, they don't know
that. But Ashmaawiya,
Akhdari,
Ebna Asher. Those are 3 very popular
beginners books. There's but
it's not as popular as the other 3.
Then after that, you go to but you
have to read with
Asharah
such as Nafrawi.
Why? Because ibn Abi Zaid,
it's the most blessed book in the method.
No doubt about that. Reseda to ibn Abi
Zaid. Some many, many say about it. It's
the most blessed book.
And they but they do say about it
that he does have some things in there
that is contrary to the.
So you need to read it with Nafrawi's
commentary or other
commentary
on it.
And then after that, you read Akram Masedik
by Sir Ahmadid Dardir which consists probably about
75,000
Masayid.
Then you go to Khalil which is about
300,000
messaels.
Then you go to the shuruhat of Khalil
and Sharhil Kabir
is Dardir's Sharhan Khalil.
Shar Hissavir is his Sharhan, his own book,
Akar bin Masalik.
And then you have Hasheeta Dasuki
upon Dardir, upon Khalil. And that that's in
Shirkit and Algeria.
They study Khalil
Hasidasuuli,
and that's their go to.
Can a woman have ever been married without
her consent?
Yeah. It would be valid.
It would be a valid marriage if a
dad did that.
That's a matter of order and custom.
Right? Yeah. I know that's gonna
surprise a lot of people, but if the
parents, they know what's best for their daughter.
But that's a matter of Orf. I don't
think that would ever happen today.
So Orf is is the custom of those
Muslims.
I haven't heard I've I haven't heard of
that ever happening today, but if he did
that, it would be a valid
contract.
Any chance you can come to the Netherlands?
Is there something to do in the Netherlands?
No.
I'll come if there's people to teach.
Yeah. If there's if there's a decent
it doesn't have to be a big group,
but,
you know, every summer, I like to go
somewhere.
Maybe it can be Malaysia this year, maybe
South whatever
upstanding
and competent organization, I'd love to go and
see these, basically, just to see our ummah,
connect with our ummah.
Vancouver.
Okay, ask him what's out there, Vancouver.
Maliki in musical instruments and Maliki method, all
of it's haram except for the weddings by
women.
For me, the the go to book immediately
is Nafrawi and Risaleh.
Of course, Akhir al Masali because what I'm
studying now with my sheikh, Mohammed Shabib.
Someone has a question that you're saying. What
is it? Say I'm having suicidal thoughts, everything
fell apart. Tawodullah.
My health, my mental, my emotional, I need
advice, I keep thinking what if this didn't
happen, I would have been good.
No. You need to talk to somebody, but
don't do that. Don't go back. And what
if this happened? What if that didn't happen?
Don't do that.
But you need to talk to somebody. But
and you need to have somebody reassure you
about everything.
Okay.
What's the best Akita book for beginners and
intermediates? Let me get you the exact
there Johar to Tohi, do you know it's
translated?
And let me get you exact
title of the book.
Here, Johara at Tawhid, English commentary by Ali
Kalfi
or
Khalaf maybe.
I don't know what it is.
Okay. It's called Joe Harut at Tohid by
Ali is spelled a l l I e,
and that covers a lot.
Covers a lot.
K.
Ali spelled a l l I e, Khalfe,
khalfe.
Couple more questions, then we then we wrap
up.
In my medics view on trimming the beard,
go to Malachi fit QA and you'll see
that answer there.
Malachi fitqway.com.
And that's it. Again, we took that from
Nafrawi
and Kadeya and others.
Yeah. He allows you to trim your beard.
You get have to have a beard, though.
Mohammed Hassan,
go to somebody quick.
Go seek help from an imam and counseling
and and and mentorship,
and you'll get on the right track inshallah.
If someone sees the prophet in a dream,
does that mean he's safe in matters of
belief in?
Is your mic on? No. Can I see
your mic on? Like, even some non Muslims
have seen process on it. There's many stories
I'm sure you've heard. Like, there's one of
the Lebanese Christian girl, Musiah, and then she
turned Muslim. So things like that. Hopefully that
the future is good. We can say that.
Hopefully the future of that person is good,
but doesn't mean at that moment he's perfect.
Right? Personally, like this is anecdotal kind of,
I understand, but I know many people that
have seen the Prophet and
like they're not exactly like scholars or half
the time they don't even know what they're
like.
Hopefully that means that person has a good
future
but you cannot ever have jazm about anybody,
Yeah. Speak. Question. If
someone's from the prophet's family, someone's telling me
that there's no, like, nowadays, like, if they're
from the cross family, like,
because he's like, there's no way that they
can end up in No. It's not true.
I never heard anything like that.
I never heard that. Hold on. I don't
know.
Sri Lankan here.
Are you a or a Malalaya?
What?
What? I'm neither, bro.
I guarantee you I'm neither.
I need your Lankans here to know what
the heck he's talking about.
No. I don't know what you're talking about,
and I'm not either one of those things.
Don't call me that.
Yeah.
No, no, he's asking someone else. I'm second
somebody else, okay.
I'm not that and don't call me one
of those. No. No. He's he's talking to
someone else. Okay.
In the medical school, go to safinaside.org/sadl.
What else can we read about?
Who are some other Medici scholars that the
younger generation might not know about?
Well, I think there's a lot, but,
we just talked about,
but keep in mind, he was not his
world was not fit. It was Hadith and
Aqid and Tasawwuf.
Well, we can do a lot of different,
I would say
his thing is scholars, their biographies, or it's
their works really that matter more than their
biographies.
Okay. Ladies and gentlemen,
we will wrap up here.
Does the Quran
give us a flat earth or a round
earth?
And, I would say there is no
explicit statement
that the earth
is flat or round because, yes, Allah said
that he
or used the word
but that is true because you look out
and you see a flat,
plain of grass that you can build on,
right, or lay down on. So that's that
could be the meaning of that. Doesn't mean
the whole thing is flat.
And we have,
the taqwir, the verses of taqwir of the
earth or of the sun around the earth
or of the sun.
So taqwir
is
the
it points to roundedness.
Is an explicit statement? No.
Also,
what about
our own eyes? Does not the Quran uphold
a
observable knowledge? Allah upholds observable knowledge. Right? And
we clearly see pictures of around earth, and
we are not a people who deny
observable knowledge. Otherwise, you become
like Christian scientists or something like that. They
deny observable and demonstrable knowledge.
So Christian scientists. Yeah. They, they deny
observable and demonstrable knowledge.
Yeah. And we're not,
transmission is not the only source of knowledge
in Islam.
Allah commands us to,
these other sources of knowledge
provided that they don't contradict. A a a
proper observation of nature will not contradict the
book
because the authors are the same.
Ladies and gentlemen,
we're wrapping up here.