Shadee Elmasry – eam Big & Trust in Allah Life Lessons from a New York Titan
AI: Summary ©
AI: Transcript ©
brand new our here of America live. Welcome everyone. I'm Megan
Kelly. Ever heard of a man named Sharif l Jamal, you have now? Roll
it
over him and hamdulillah wa Salatu was Salam ala Rasulillah they were
sabio Manuela. We're here in New York City, Alex and I came into
the city this evening and
we're in Midtown. And we're sitting here at a nice big table
with some glass walls and wooden floors and nice plants with
someone who was actually the first person that I ever the first place
I ever taught first person who gave me my first job as a as a
teacher of Dean and religious sciences. That is Sharif and
welcome to the program. Sadam Ali Kamara Hamilton law, he'll walk
inside himself. celebrar Tila so what it is absolutely an honor and
a privilege to be on your podcast this evening. Subhanallah shake
shady it is.
I'm just so honored. I'm so honored. I
am so happy and honored. Well, it's, it's an honor for us. And
it's a pleasure.
So the first way that I actually came to know Sharif is that after
a year, working full time at Yale took me three years to get the
full time spot, doing Dog Days in basements and after hours,
tutorials and recitations, with the column in the Arabic
department. So I did that for three years, toiling and laboring,
and finally got the full time spot, which was like getting a
spot and it's like getting a citizenship, when you get it that
the amount of perks that come along with it. So it's actually
more valuable probably than citizenship of some countries, the
perks that you get out of it, but after a year, realize there's a
glass ceiling. So I abruptly at the end of the year, I just said,
Forget this, I'm not going back. My whole family thought I was
crazy. But I said, Well, I'm not going back. And I had to come up
with an alternative. Real quick. So when you leave something like
yeah, you have to come up with an alternative real fast. So all I
did that night, it was looked at who the tri state area, driving
distance from New Haven, Connecticut,
you know, has any money. And you at that time kept coming up in the
media. And me and my wife were actually fan clubs of this whole
story, right, of how this Egyptian guy is at the forefront of this
park 51. And she's she's the first one to read me the story. And then
she was laughing. He sees like this guy's complete Egyptian He's
so stubborn.
He won't budge. And every time they attack him, he gets even more
stubborn. He's a real Egyptian. So what's your half Egyptian, right?
So eventually, That search led me to my CV being on the desk of your
partner, Nora, who was no longer here in Saudi now. But eventually
that led to one thing to the other, and I ended up
giving the hook but that one day on the spot, which was amazing,
because my dad was you're having heart surgery Subhanallah when
you're on a roll, call me on my cell phone, or sent an email or
something and he said, Can you come for the football? It was
literally 30 minutes before Juma Sao Paulo and I happen to be in
Manhattan because my dad was having heart surgery at
Presbyterian. Right. So everything is from Allah's will. Went down
there. A lot of people thought it was crazy to take the job because
it was so controversial at the time, if you remember Park, Park
51, or really Ground Zero mosque was the idea. But anyway, let's so
that's how I know Sharif.
And that was 90 Almost a decade ago. Right? Yeah, maybe less a
little less than a decade, a little less than a decade. So
let's go back to you. So you're born in Alexandria. Now born in
Brooklyn, born in Brooklyn. Your dad is a banker to his banker and
he was working here in New York was working in New I never knew
your border birth what you're wanting Egypt now now. And then
you came Brooklyn. Okay? Don't be rich. No Park Slope. Okay. I'm
Sharla Methodist Hospital. Okay, so fun fact about me. My father in
law was also born in Methodist Hospital on the same day that I
was born on December 23. Well, 20 years apart. That's crazy. Fun
fact. That's crazy. That's crazy. Your father in law 20 years apart.
20 years apart? Well, he's 20 years older than me. So now you
you're born in Brooklyn. Tell us exactly your main thing is real
estate. If I haven't introduced it properly, he's a real estate
mogul. I guess if you're made this book that's sitting in front of us
here this real estate book called The real deal. I guess we can say
you're a bonafide mogul Is that Is that right? I think we're a mogul
has to have white hair. What how does it work? The subtitle of the
book is the titans of New York real estate titans in New York
real estate. So you're a real a big, big shot in the big leagues
of real estate in the world. So I shall
take
Because from basic first of all I'm absolutely nobody I'm just
just a human being trying to figure out how to make it happen
well should if I'm tell the tell the listeners one of the big
things about him is that he even though he's a big shot in a world
of of jerks and dogs and killers, he is very humble with Darla and
he always makes it a
makes it clear makes it a point to be humble and serviceable to the
automa. And to the sila, Han and to the Muslims. So that's a huge
thing. Coming from someone who has to live in a world of dogs killers
and gangsters and, and conniving greedy power hungry well that's
the truth of it right? Real Estate the earth there's not so much
earth right? The land is not so much so in order to have some of
that land you got to fight. So that's why they're become like
that. Right? So and in New York City, that is almost non existent
almost non existent. There's no land in here. There's no land so.
So you're fighting for a finite? Remember we talked earlier about
why is it that real estate developers are such gangsters and
killers and why it's the hardest, you said it's the toughest
business to get into? Well, the common sensical or philosophical
is that you're fighting over something very finite, right. 100%
so rare. 100%. Right. 100%. So I was just showing a book that had
the top real estate Don's right in the city, how many top 30? That
book covers the top 30 Every year top 50. So this is basically like
the Emmys or something or the all star team of real estate Dream
Team. Okay. And, and in your actually in the book of number two
in the book was Donald Trump before he became president? Yes.
So I asked you I said, all right. He met you. You ever dealt with
this guy? You dealt with him twice? He said, I'd tell him
twice. All right. Tell me about him. I'm interested. So the, the
time that I dealt with him physically was I met him at the US
Open, okay. And when I met him at the US Open, I have this habit of
taking my daughters who both play tennis. Sarah and Jana, to the
open. And we were seated close to him, and obviously had he had
better seats. He had a security, he had a security, he had his
bodyguard with him. I went up and I said hello to him. And he looked
at me and he remembered me right away.
And he looks at me and he goes, You know how you doing? And
some pleasantries and formalities. But then he really looked at me
and he looked at my daughters, and he said, your father's a winner.
And it was a short interaction. And just he made, he made a
statement. But really, the first time that he came into my life was
during one of the, the most
interesting times of my life when,
when a simple project that I had commenced had garnered the
attention of the world for an extended duration of time. And
during that time, you know, Donald Trump is is one of the masters of
publicity, of media of positioning of branding. And yes, there are
many strokes of genius that that he admits and that's how God
created him. Whether he's good, whether he's bad, whether he's
evil, or, or whatever he is, God has created him or yes, there are
strokes of genius that come out of him. And he is, I believe, what we
would call a minimum on screen. He is somebody who is old, as old as
months old. Okay, now, that doesn't mean he's good, or he's
bad. It's just, it's a quality that I believe he has been given.
Okay. Now he could be minimal on screen but he's extremely evil,
right. And the decisions and the things that he does are evil, so
much sort of just he wins in the world. They sense he's, he's a
winner. God has created him as a winner he is He's unstoppable.
When you look in when you think that he's out here, not only is he
not out but he's emerged in a stronger position and
we don't know what he does in his off time or is he happy is he
unhappy but but he is minimum serene? And there is this this
beautiful scholar that I am so honored to be sitting with this
evening and, and one of my introductions into, into my
practice that you know, that I that I polish myself with every
day is reciting it would have the Latif critical and it's an I've
had so many incredible openings from the citation of unworthy
Latif and, and part of the world is asking a
La subhanaw taala for the protection of the month serene,
right, there is a part of that world where you ask Allah to
protect you for certain people. And he's one of them on screen.
But when he first came into my life,
he decided to jump to jump on the bandwagon of everybody else that
was giving their opinion about, you know, whether we should do it.
Is this right? Is this not right? And he ended up coming up and
giving me an offer in writing to buy the buildings from us. So to
give people a background, the building you're talking about is
when you decided to make a masjid or community center. We just
started up as a masjid. Right. And the the piece of property that you
found was like three blocks from World Trade Center from ground
zero. So they started calling it the Ground Zero Mosque. That's
what you're talking about. Exactly. And it was a big
hullabaloo that was started by Pamela Geller, who was like
disappeared, if you noticed, right? She's May Allah give her
who they may log in, that's a positive spin on, that's a good
answer. But he jumped on that. And he said, I'll buy it from you,
which is probably a publicity just just to get 100% of publicity. So
he has to get part of the pie. And so he sent us a formal offer. And
when he sent us the formal offer, he send it to, you know, I think
he sent it to the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal at the
same time. And that, in his offer, he said, Listen, you know, I want
to buy the building from you, I want to give you 25% More than
what you paid for it. And in the event that you accept my offer,
you have to agree that you will not build your mosque within a
specific radius of the World Trade Center. So I immediately,
you know, was was obviously reacting, I was reacting to so
many different things that were happening so quickly, and,
and we weren't prepared for what was coming at us. And what I ended
up doing is I picked up the phone, and I called him and I got him on
the phone. And obviously there was a certain level of respect for who
Donald Trump is. Right? In our business. He's,
you know, he's one of the most accomplished
real estate players, whether you like him or don't like him, he has
accomplished, you know, tremendous success in his career in his
business career, whether he did it right, or whether he did it wrong.
He's accomplished it right. And so there was obviously a level of
humility when I picked up the phone, and I called him and, and I
said, you know, immediately, Mr. Trump, thank you for the offer
that you sent me. But I have a couple of you know, I have a
couple of questions and things that I want to discuss with you.
Because obviously, part of doing businesses is never
is never not entertaining something or never not letting
something flush out. You always want to drill a little deeper, you
want to be curious, you want to you want to investigate things
when they come on your door. And so part of what
what I did immediately, as I said, you know, first, you know, thank
you for sending the offer. And
you know, why only 25% I said the building. And this was, by the
way, one of the best real estate deals that I've ever done in my
career. Okay, the building was appraised for 10 times what I had
bought it for by CBRE. So I immediately said to him, and CBRE
is one of the most
recognized
appraisal firms in the world, right? They're probably top three
in our business globally recognized globally as one of the
top three and they appraise the building for almost 10 times what
we had paid for it. And so
his first remark was one of what was one of anger and puzzlement.
Why did you only pay that much for it? If it was worth 10 times what
this appraisal from CBRE and I immediately said to him, I said,
What difference does it make? How many good deals have you done in
your life? You know, we were talking about deals a few minutes
ago, what makes a good deal, right? And so obviously a good
deal. The first part of making a good deal is on the acquisition,
right? When you acquire something, you have to have bought it right?
In order for it to be a good deal. That's the first criteria of a
good deal is on the acquisition. And so
he you know, he started clamping down and now he was he was angry.
How did you get this for for this value? And it's being you know,
said here, and very candidly, at that moment in time
If there wasn't a price that you could have given me to sell that
real estate, if you had come up to me and offered me $100 million,
I don't think I would have sold the real estate. And only Allah
knows what my intention was. But you know, looking back now, I
don't know, maybe I should have sold it for 100 million.
But what it would look like you gave up, because you can't put a
price tag on winning and losing battles. And that's a publicity
battle that, you know, everyone sees that you want, right? So you
can't buy those types of wins and losses. That's why when you say I
can't put a price tag on it, it's not the building it the building
symbolizes a struggle, and a fight. Like in this and in this
field with you look like you're someone who gives up easily and
just capitulates. Right, you're not gonna get so far. 100% Yeah.
So the conversation would just ended at you. I don't want to I
don't want to sell this or Oh, no, no, no. So so that was the first
part of the conversation. But then I and then and then I asked him a
question after I told him what the valuation by CBRE was, I said, you
know, Mr. Trump, I want to ask you a question. I said to him, I said,
Are you ethnically an American Indian? Or are you
the son of immigrants? Like I am the son of immigrants? I said, did
your parents come from Scotland or Ireland? or did somebody come from
somewhere? Or are you an American Indian,
and he got all flustered at this point, because he didn't see this
one coming. Right? He didn't see this one coming. I said to him,
your second part of your proposal to me, has asked me to essentially
establish the first Muslim free zone in the United States of
America. If I accept your offer right now, you're saying to me
that you want me to be responsible for subjecting my children to
carry a heavier backpack? Okay, everyday that they go to school
that their father agreed to establish a Muslim, a Muslim free
zone. Okay. Are you
in American Indian history?
At this point,
he started stuttering. He literally started stuttering on
the phone. And I said at the end of it, I said to him, I said Mr.
Trump before, before we end, I know that you just signed a Gucci
lease on Fifth Avenue. And he had just on this monster lease where
he had leased in the base of the building that he lives on on Fifth
Avenue and 56th street. He did it he did a monster deal with Gucci.
I said to him, Mr. Trump, how much do you want for that lease,
because I'll pay you cash and I won't waste your time. He at that
point, hung up the phone.
She had it recorded that he at that point hung up the phone at
me. And he literally went out and started going on the morning talk
shows and this is all you could you could Google this YouTube this
Okay, is it still okay?
Give us a little history, what you wanted to do and where it is now?
Well, there's tremendous Bedlam and tremendous angst going on
downtown Manhattan. I mean, you see people 1000s and 1000s of
people and they're literally close to rioting. It's really a terrible
thing that's happening. And I'm a very big believer in freedom of
religion. And I think people should have the right to build
mosques, or temples or churches or whatever they want to build. But
this is in the shadow of the World Trade Center. It's one block from
the World Trade Center. And people are really visibly shaken by it.
And I read an article about three or four days ago, where the
developers bragging about what a great deal he made. This is the
developer and he's saying What an unbelievable deal, etcetera,
etcetera, and is worth $18 million, or $20 million, and he
paid 4.8 million. So I said, you know, this sounds more like a real
estate transaction. And with all this trouble, maybe what I'll do
is call up all from a nice profit by it. I don't even want it. I
don't even like the location. It's not a great location, as far as
I'm concerned. So I called him and he started bragging to me about
what a great deal he made. I said, Well, why don't you sell it? I'll
give you your money back. I'll give you a small time developer,
I'll give you your money back. I'll give you a 25% increase. I'll
pay your costs. I'll pay everything. And we'll end this
whole fiasco. And he said, No, no, no, I wouldn't do that. This is
worth 18 or 20 million. I said, Well, are the people that sold it
stupid, because I know the people that sold it, and they're not
stupid. I said, You mean the real estate market in less than a year
is four or five times what you paid? Well, they didn't know what
they were doing. Oh, that's really that's great. So the bottom line
is I view it more as a real estate transaction for this guy than a
mosque. Frankly, where does it stand right now? Well,
he at least tells me that he thinks it's worth much more than
he paid for it. I don't believe it is worth much more than he paid
for it. I offered him a 25% profit and in order to end
There's not an order to buy this piece of real estate, which I need
like a hole in the head, I offered him a 25% profit. I guess he
turned it down. But something should be done, because I'll tell
you what, it's only going to get worse. He literally started going
on the morning talk shows. And as he was going on the morning talk
shows, he literally started calling me a sleazy developer that
was greedy, and that he made me a fair offer. And that I refuse to
take it. Because he literally, you know, first of all, it bothered me
one, because this was somebody that I looked up to in my career,
right?
I have a history of, you know, early in my career, I met his son,
okay. And I had a relationship with his oldest son, Don Jr, who
now has become a major pundit and face of the Republican National
Party is become this conservative voice where he is, you know,
regularly showcased on all media outlets, and he's essentially
reinvented his personality into, you know, into a sidekick for his
father and away him, you know, and it's brilliant. Listen, I've got
to, I've got to pay, you know, absolute credence to the way that
he raised his children and, and, you know, all of them are almost
married. I know that his
Tiffany's getting engaged this weekend at Mar a Lago I know,
you know, all the kids are married, they're all they all have
kids. He's done an incredible job raising his kids, you know, in a
certain aspect and, and when I met Don, Jr, I met Don Jr. Early in my
career, okay. And I was probably in the beginning of my career and
Don, and there was this Persian investor. And when I started my
career in the real estate business, I was a broker. And I
didn't control. You know, being a broker, you had to be careful who
you shared information with, because if you gave out the
information, it was easy for you to get circumvented. And for
somebody to go around your back and ended up doing good deal. And
then, you know, because brokers at the end of the day, you know,
they're like, transactional parasites, right? They're part of
the transaction, they pick up some crumbs, but
But you could get it, you could chew them away if you want to,
right. So there was this Persian guy, and he didn't give me
obviously, what's called an exclusive listing in our built in
our business. He gave me a listing, he gave me an
opportunity. He said, If you have somebody bring him bring him by.
And somebody said, Oh, I know Don, Jr. I know Donald Trump's Kim, I
was like, great, bring him. And so when I first met him, the building
was literally on Madison in 27th. Street, okay. And when I first met
him,
I didn't tell him where the building was. And I remember in
the beginning of my career, I was very careful how I shared
information with people. So I had the staple clipboard, and I had a
confidentiality agreement, okay. And I told him to meet me on a
corner. And I didn't tell him where the building was, I said,
we're going to meet on this on the northeast corner of 2017, Madison,
he was there. And then he goes, Hi, we introduce one another, and
he says, Where's the building? I go, well, first of all, you have
to sign my confidentiality agreement. Okay. And he looks at
me, and he goes, Don't you know who I am? Okay.
And I said to my son, I don't care who you are signed a
confidentiality agreement, or there's, I'm not showing you
anything. Okay. And so he signed the confidentiality agreement. And
that was my introduction into meeting Don Jr, who I built a
friendship with.
And, and also a little look into how the Trump organization does
their business, right. And it was also a tremendous learning
experience for me in my career, during those interactions that we
had, but when his dad started going and pounding me essentially
every day for, you know, multiple times during the day and really
getting a lot of steam from that offer that he gave me. I called up
Don and I said, Don, I go, What the * is your father doing?
Okay, you've not you've known me for 10 years. Okay? Peep, why is
he trashing me on the news every day, right? And the kid up and
done, apologize to me. He goes, Listen, I'm sorry. He sometimes
goes on tangents, okay. And but I'm going to talk to him. Okay,
I'm going to tell him that I know you and to kind of lay off you.
So the following day and the interviews out there because it's
still recorded the following day. He goes on one of the talk shows,
and he says nice things about me. So he literally flipped the
switch, like literally the next day and then Dan called me and
said, Listen, he's he's not going to talk negatively about you
anymore. And and so that was that was my experience with done with
our president.
This is literally how he
still behave? Yeah. So tell us exactly what exactly got you into
this field from being a kid from Brooklyn, which you jumped around
to you lived in Africa, you lived in Alexandria, how exactly did you
get into real estate?
Simply, you know, through the blessings of Allah subhanaw,
taala, through his through through his guidance and through my
destiny.
You know, I, I was,
I was lost, I was lost, and I didn't know what I wanted to do
with my life. And
I was in my I was in my early 20s.
And I realized that I was stuck in a cycle that I needed to get out
of. And being stuck in that cycle. I knew that I had certain gifts
that had been bestowed upon me as a human being. And I just didn't
know how to fully unlock those gifts. And one day, I was with a
friend of mine,
who was
quite wealthy. And he wrote a check out to somebody for $30,000.
And I looked at him and I said, what did that person do for you to
get that check of $30,000? And he said, Oh, he's a broker. He just
leased out a couple of my loft in Tribeca. And
I said, No way. You just give him $30,000. And you just leased some
lofts for you introduce me to I want to meet this guy. And this
guy was
was
where I hope is, I hope he's still alive. His name is Duff pullback.
And he was from a real estate dynasty in Crown Heights, the
pullback family, they're one of the largest multifamily owners of
multifamily residential buildings in Crown Heights that they own.
And dove was went out on his own and started a brokerage business.
And I convinced him almost immediately to take me on as a
partner.
I realized that I didn't want to work for somebody. And when I got
into real estate, since I've been in this business, I've never
worked for anyone, I've been very, very blessed that
I've been able to
maintain my own destiny and and,
you know, I never worked for anyone I never
had to tie, you know, I learned all the time, but ended up working
with Jeff kolpak and and started this business with him and kind of
picked it up immediately.
Now, a broker is someone who just knows a bunch of people on both
ends of the deal. Right? A broker is someone who just knows buyers
and sellers, right? That's your middleman between the two. You're
You're a middleman. Yes, but a broker, you know, it's also an
art, right? There's a lot of qualities that go into being a
broker. And obviously, when I got started in the business, the
business and and our world was very different. We didn't have
computers, we didn't really have real cell phones yet. We had we
had cell phones, cell phones, we're just getting started at a
different level. The technology, the sharing of information that
exists today, did not exist back then. And so
when I got started,
you know, the way that I would go and find my listings in the
beginning was I essentially would canvass the classified sections of
the New York Times and of the Wall Street Journal, I would classify,
to find listings. And I would scout buildings for sale, and what
have you. And so the start of my career in real estate was
essentially being
being a broker. And through that journey, I started out by renting
apartments. My focus was renting apartments. And I knew that I
wanted to do something bigger. I knew that I wanted to figure out
how to get to the next level of the real estate business. And so
the next thing that I did was, I started selling buildings. I
literally within eight months of getting into the business of
getting into the real estate business. I sold my first building
for $10 million.
And
when I sold that first building is when I made my first real check. I
made a huge commission on that deal I made close to $600,000 as
my first commission on that deal, and that was about a year of
getting into the business.
What's interesting, though, when, during that first year, there's
this really,
you know, important experience. And I think that one of the things
and one of the
characteristics that I've been able to continuously evolve and
develop on is that characteristic of being curious. And I feel that
no matter what you do in life, you have to maintain that curiosity
within yourself. And so in the beginning, as you're getting
started, and you're competing against all these brand name,
brokerage houses, and you know, what's your edge, what, what gives
you that? What gives you that edge over others where people want to
give you their listing or want to give you their business, right?
Because there's a certain trust, it's not simple, it's not a simple
business. Every aspect of real estate is difficult. And, you
know, 1000s of people try to get into the business even on the on
the simplest scale of being a broker. Okay, because it's very
meritocratic. So you don't have to have a skill set. Right? You don't
have to have an education. I'm a college dropout. Oh, I see what
you're saying. Yeah. So again, it's based on what you put into it
is what it's going to give you right. And so when I started in
the business, immediately, I opened up my eyes. And one of the
things that one of the things that I did is, I started cutting a lot
of the sandbags that existed in my life that were holding me back
from achieving my potential as a human being, like, can't get into
those details. No, I thought they were talking about something like
not believing in myself, or those types. Oh, no, no, no, no, I think
it was it was escape running away from your potential from your
potential, I am convinced 100% that we as human beings, are
either responsible for our success, or we are responsible for
our lack of success in the fields and the professions that we choose
to partake in. And, you know, one of the one of the the instances in
real estate and obviously, the first thing is curiosity that I've
been, you know, been gifted with one of one of the most important
qualities that I believe that every human being must maintain
throughout their life is maintaining this curiosity is that
I remember one day, I was walking by a building, and I saw this for
lease by owner sign, okay. And I called the number and I got a
recorded message saying, we have open houses Monday through
Thursday, from five to seven, please come. Okay. So I came
because part of the part of being a broker is that you need to find
a listing, right, you need to find a listing that you can then go and
find customers to show them that listing. So I went to this open
open house from five to seven. And I went in and I said, Who's the
broker here and there was no broker and I just saw super
walking around and opening apartment doors in a building and
just walking around and people are all walking around kind of doing
their own thing. And they don't have a seller. There was no
broker, there was no representative. Okay.
What you said for sale by owner? Yeah. For No, no, it was by a
broker. It was an invitation by the broker, but the broker never
showed up, okay. And I ended up walking in, and the super.
I then went up to the super night and I said to the super, please
give me your number. Okay. The next morning at around seven
o'clock in the morning, I called him up in a gruff voice. And I
said to him, you know, I said, Are you the supervison? listener? And
he goes, Yes, I'm the super. And I go, make me bake bake me copies of
all the keys for all the vacant apartments right now. I'm gonna
meet you at 830. And he goes, who are you? I said, Well, I didn't
even give him a chance to question my authority on the phone call.
Within an hour, I ended up meeting the super and he hands me this
brown paper bag, okay, with about 40 keys labeled for all these
buildings, not only for the building, and I remember this.
It's kind of crazy. 372 East 10th street, but he gave me keys for
two buildings on 25th Street. He gave me keys for three buildings
on east on what's the 11th Street on the water on the West Side
Highway. And he gave me all these keys and he showed them to me, I
said, thank you. I said make sure that you clean the buildings this
morning and the guy ran away all nervous. Okay. Now I figured out
the first part of the puzzle, my curiosity, okay. And my desire and
my persistence gave me this bag of keys of about 40 keys. And so now
I realized one of the things about brokerage is customer service,
right?
You have to be available when the customer wants to be available,
not through the five to seven come in and walk around and look at the
apartments right so
Uh, I started leasing up these apartments, okay. And this woman
that was the broker was a little surprised because I would like
call her every two weeks and say, You know what, I have a customer
that wants to lease an apartment. We're good can you prepare the
lease? We're gonna sign it and what she's the broker on the shoe
is the broker owner. So I'm the owner side, okay. And she was a
little confused how I continued to lease these apartments so quickly,
okay. I probably ended up within a span of three months, doing 20
Plus steals in the in this guy's buildings, okay. And finally, at
like the last lease, like I knew this guy whose portfolio
she ends up looking at me and she was just frustrated. She said, You
know what, go to the owner of the building and have him sign the
lease. Okay. Which by the way, you never do if you're a broker, she
she kind of cut herself out by herself. Why, but
I don't know. Okay. Part of my destiny, right? Yeah. And so I
remember going up to the owner,
his name, I don't know where he is in this world. But his name was
Mike was Michael Walton. And I remember
meeting Michael Waldman, in one of his penthouses, and I walk in and
he goes, he goes, Are you the guy leasing all the apartments? And I
go, Yeah, and he goes, How are you doing it? Well, like you filled up
the whole building. You've filled up all the buildings, how did you
do it? And so I told him the story. I said, you know, about
three months ago, I called your super. And I told him to make me
copies of all the keys so that way, you don't have an eight for
the I didn't want to wait for the five to seven o'clock appointment
when they open up. So he started laughing. And he looks at me and
he says, you want to get coffee tomorrow morning. You want to grab
a cup of coffee with me in the morning? I Oh, absolutely. I go
where it goes, well, I like to have coffee at six o'clock in the
morning.
Join me, you know, here at this cafe in the West Village, and
we'll have a cup of coffee. And we'll chat that but thank you and
signed off. So the other thing that obviously I started learning
as as I got further into business is the people that succeed in
business are the ones that wake up early. Right. And you know, it's
also son of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam Aloma. So Lucinda
Malaika, how do you be able to sort of lock
that the ones that wake up early are usually the ones that win the
day, that's when your that's when your risk is defined for you.
That's when you're probably your provisions are being given to you
in that early hour of the day. And I was blessed that I had to learn
that in the beginning.
So one of the things again, going back to my curiosity, and you
know, the minute that I got into this business, I knew I was going
to be successful. And, and I knew that I didn't know where it was
going to take me and where I where I was going to end up. You know,
when I started in this business, and
I remember
that I went to a Barnes and Noble section, the night before the
meeting, and I went to the real estate section of Barnes and
Nobles in Union Square, and I sat there in that library till they
closed. And I picked up books on managing buildings on UNbuilding
maintenance and what have you. And because I figured that the I got
to do something with this guy, it's at six o'clock in the
morning, what am I going to do? Just be unprepared? Right, which
is another thing about business is that you need to be prepared, be
here before you go and sit and meet with anybody.
And so I ended up
you know, sitting down with him, and you know, we talked for a
little bit and then I looked at him, I said, Michael, who's
managing your buildings for you. And he goes, and the brokers name
her name is Carol caught Quattrone. He was Carolyn, she's
managing the Millers. I say, Michael, I just leased up your
whole portfolio. Give me the buildings to manage. Okay. And I
promise you, I will reduce your operating expenses, I will
increase the net income that goes into your into your pocket, I will
find efficiencies in your whole portfolio by the way, this was
from not sleeping the night before. And just figuring out you
know, some terminology that I knew nothing about.
I knew absolutely nothing about it. You know, talk about the
phrase fake it until you make it right, fake it until you make it
but just do right just do and don't be afraid and believe in
yourself. If you believe in yourself. Magic happens and the
things that you that you haven't even dreamed about, potentially
can happen in your life. So I got the gig. The guy fired Carol
and here within about what took a little bit of time to get the
transition going. But within span of a month, he gave me 400
apartments to manage now this is my first year in the real estate
business. And he gave me control of his bank accounts close to $2
million. Okay. And here I am now I started by renting apartments. I
sold a building I sold my first building and
And now as I'm almost celebrating my one year anniversary in the
business, I just got a portfolio of buildings to manage. So the
next year of my business in the real estate business, I became a
manager, I became a building manager for a third party owner.
Okay. And really, I learned one thing that doing that you're
essentially a glorified superintendent. Okay. And I
realized that, you know, I should just stick to selling the
buildings because the Commission's are so much greater than just
managing them and managing them as a as like an hourly salary or
what, no, you get a percentage of the revenue percentage, based on
the income that you collect on a on an annual basis. So if you're
collecting, you know, $2 million,
you try to get 6% of that, you know, and that's what you get paid
for yourself. So works out to like, $10,000 a month. It's not.
It's, it's for a business that, you know, can be extremely
lucrative. This is a business where you could win lotto
legitimately regularly. Okay.
It wasn't enticing. But it was extremely important for my
development. For my holistic development in the business, I
didn't know, obviously, what was ahead, what was, you know, ahead
in my future, and I'm, you know, I've been in the business now,
close to 20 years.
So this was in the beginning of my career, in the beginning of my
real estate career. But what's interesting and why I'm going to
focus on this story is because after managing these buildings for
about a year, okay, I ended up achieving what I had set out to
do. I established efficiencies in his in his portfolio, I reduced
expenses that he had, and one day we were sitting in a taxi
together, okay. And he, you know, he enjoyed my company, I enjoyed
him it was, was an interesting relationship, and he puts his arm
around me, okay, we're sitting in a cab, and he puts his arm around
me. And he says, Sharif, us Jews need to stick together.
And oh, my God, my face goes beet red.
Oh, my gosh, I don't even know what to say.
I've never been in a situation like that before. Okay. And I
didn't say anything. I didn't know what to say. And I walked away
from that experience. And
for about two weeks, I couldn't sleep at night. I didn't identify
who I was, okay, Sharif, Mohammed, Yama, he thought I was Jewish, or
ignorant or what? He thought I was Jewish, okay, from the medina
drives, I mean.
And so then what do you thinks you're an Arab Jew or Persian
Jews? Now he just thought I was Jewish is your mom is? My mom was
Polish. So she's Christian. She was she was Christian. So finally,
after two weeks, I'm like, I gotta go say something to this guy. I
can't you know, this guy literally thinks I'm Jewish. So I remember I
walk up to him. And I go, Michael, I gotta talk to you. Is it all
meant by them? Now? He was, he's probably my age today, you know,
when you were okay. So it was young. He was still he was still
climbing the ladder to you. He inherited the portfolio. Okay, so
he was part of that, you know,
second generation, he was a second generation, we have a word for it,
but I'm not gonna use it on your pod. What is marketing is on your
podcast.
To be appropriate, okay. And so, you know, he was a second
generation
real estate owner. So I went up to him, and I said to him, Michael,
I'm Muslim.
And his face went beet red.
And the next day, he fired me. Wow, he fired me. And he took the
whole portfolio back. And it was one of the best things that
happened to me, obviously, because I'm not a quitter. Okay. Part of
being in business and doing what we do is you can't quit. Okay. So
well, the manager gig in the first place was just a learning if you
are going to be a manager for it, right. But again, I wasn't going
to quit, like I didn't see myself if I didn't get fired. Okay, I
probably wouldn't close. I might have kept going for a long time
managing these guys. You know, again, it was It wasn't who knows
where my career would have taken or what have you, but he ended up
firing me. And I remember my office at the time was on Prince
Street in Soho, okay, it was on. It was on Prince Street. My office
was at 159 Prince Street and my apartment was at 157 Prince
Street, look at the convenience. So I had a storefront on Prince
Street between West Broadway and Thompson. And I lived right next
door and I remember after he fired me
I did something obviously I was
I was
raised as a Muslim, but I wasn't a practicing Muslim. Okay, I was
more a Muslim by name. Up until this point in my life. When I got
into real estate, I started cutting sandbags, really, you
know, inappropriate things that I was doing as a human being. Okay.
And I call those you know,
time you know, I call it we'll call those the BC years of my
life, okay. But at that particular moment, I got nervous. And I
realized that I was in business and I didn't know what was going
on. And I realized that I need to turn to Allah subhanaw taala. And
I remember I went to my apartment, and I did my ablutions, I did my
window. And I prayed to it, because and I haven't done that in
a long time. And I asked Allah to guide me with what I should be
doing.
And that's when I started going to salata. Joma. Okay.
And that was also right around.
That was also right around when 911 happened, okay. It was
literally like a convergence of events was happening right around
that time. So at that time, you weren't really an owner of
properties, you were more of a manager of properties. I was a, I
was a broker. I was a broker. And, and my ownership of properties did
not start until 2005. Okay, so I have a question, actually, as a
broker, where would you get your customers? Like? Like, what's the
technique in Manhattan to get your customers, I have a great story
for you. You know, I again, I once was, was walking down Broadway,
walking down Broadway in in Soho. And what I would do in the
beginning of the business is that I would cut out,
you know, how people would follow baseball cards or football cards
or what have you. I started cutting clippings of people in my
business, okay, so that if I ever saw them on the street, I would
recognize them immediately respond, okay. And I started
almost having a playbook, I would voraciously digest information at
the end of the day, on my business. And I would study
extensively, who the players are, what the transactions are, what
the sub markets are, I was consuming anything that I could
get my hands on real estate related.
And so part of also, you know, one of one of my absolute beliefs
based on experiences at the streets of New York are paved with
gold. They are absolutely paved with gold. And I was walking down
Broadway. And I remember seeing this man with a couple of other
guys, and they kept looking at buildings and pointing up at
buildings and what have you. And I realized that that guy was the
decision maker. Okay. And in him being the decision maker.
I went up to him. And I remember I said to him, I said, are you
looking at buildings? And he kind of was distraught for a second and
he said, Yes. Who are you? And I go, Well, I'm a real estate
broker. And he goes, Okay, I would never buy a building off somebody
that I just met on the street. Okay. And, and I said, Well, do
you own anything? Okay. And he goes, Yeah, you know, I just
bought two buildings on Mercer Street. 113 115 Mercer Street, and
I go, Oh, you bought that? On the flip from Charlie Jasco. Okay.
And I had sold those buildings. A year and a half ago, I sold them
for 10 million. And he bought them for 16 million. So if he had known
the guy that came up to him on the street, he could have bought them
for 10 million. So when I said that to him, I got his attention.
Turned out to be a very prominent Pakistani Muslim investor, by the
name of Suraj dato. Boy, okay. And absolute beautiful soul, okay.
He's based in London right now.
He had he originally was from London, and, and Suraj. I ended up
selling him
close to $70 million worth of real estate. Okay. And this was a guy
that I picked up off the streets of New York. So talking about
finding your customers. I think that luck has a way of finding you
right luck has a way of finding you. I'll give you another. Luck
is I believe,
searches for P
Pull that put in the effort and put in the hard work there, they
just become lucky. And I believe that there, there are formulas.
And there are reasons for why things happen things, if you
understand the formula of things, your life becomes easier. And
there's certain formulas and certain things that you have to do
in order to attract that energy. And that luck, essentially what we
call a Baraka, right, which is a jungle haffi, the invisible
soldier of Baraka, right, which is something very prominent in our
faith and, and something and one of the tools that has been given
to us in our toolbox. And so I'm such a believer of this. You know,
I'll share with you a funny story about two years ago,
just on this line, about two years ago, I was I had gotten invited to
the future Investment Initiative which is hosted by,
by Yes, Romanian and obviously the patronage. The patron of the event
is his is His Royal Highness the Crown Prince
Mohammed Bin Bin Salman MBs, as he's known, right. And I was at
the event and one night, I got invited to the dinner at the ex
home of the chairman at the ex chairman of Aramco is home, Kelly,
the fella, okay. And I got invited to this dinner with candidate
fella with a lot of other businessmen. And there was this
lady from Texas, okay, that is an investor, her family is invested
some money with us. And she kept calling me, okay to go and have
dinner at somebody else's house. And I was in the car and I was
debating it, you know, to go to Kenny, that fella House House.
This lady just keeps a beautiful, beautiful sister. Her name is
Zuleika. And she's like, Sharif, you've got to go to this guy's
house, you've got to go to this guy's house. I said you know what,
I'm gonna go to this guy's house. There's something interesting
about this phone call that I'm getting from Texas while I'm in
Riyadh telling me to go to this guy's house on this night. Right.
And I ended up going to Ali Joe Ross his house. Okay. And for for,
for for those of you who are, you know, that that have experienced
Saudi Arabian hospitality is beautiful. Okay, it's a very
special. And I think that there's so much that we as a community
here in the United States should apply from their familial
relationships. Different homes have doing as and they open up
their home in their community, get everybody has a different night,
depending on your status in society, where you just open up
your house, it's open for the members of the community come in,
sit down, there's dates, there's coffee, there's tea, there's a
samba and immediate Saba, whether it's about business or problem
solving. So sometimes, depending on the night, they'll serve
dinner, or they'll just be coffee and tea, and you're sitting in a
DNA, it's a beautiful thing. And I wish that that would be one thing
that we would take from their culture, right, those those things
are semi public, it's a semi public place. And they're private
conversations at the head. Right? And then sometimes he addresses
every 100 There's a little side conversation. 100% Okay, you know,
they're exporting a lot of bad things from us right now.
Unfortunately, they're taking some of the the worst things that
they're really, you know, I don't know, what is their attraction to
the things that they're exporting. But I really think we should take
that from them, and bring it unto our Muslim community here. But
even let's take it a notch further, and open it up to the
whole community that you live in your house is open during this
night and let it be a night known that you as a Muslim, are hosting
that your home is open every Wednesday night or every Friday
night. You're having tea and coffee, and you're asking the
neighborhood to come in. It's actually it just sparked an idea
as I was having this conversation with you. But I ended up walking
into now. I do an A Yeah, I've ever seen before. It was the size
of a football field. Okay.
And I walk into this mansion with a DNA of the size of the football
field. And there's four guys playing blocked in the middle of
the room and it's empty. Okay.
And I'm sitting there and I can't believe that I took this
invitation. Right? I'm sitting in dystonia, the size of a football
field. Finally, a soldier walks in, okay. Obviously, he's dressed
in the traditional thug and what have you. By the way, every time I
go there, I wear a robe like them and I kind of figured that out
quickly.
And I'm sitting down next to the soldier, okay.
And I tried to be interested in talking about birds. My cell phone
stops working. I'm like, what kind of decision that I just make. I
ended up in this
to an AI. I don't know what to do here. I don't even know how to
leave. I don't know who the host is. What am I doing here? Okay, I
just came up at dinner with the, with the coat with the time he was
the chairman of Aramco, the largest oil company in the world.
And I'm sitting in this, you know,
I'm sitting in this man's house, finally, people start trickling
in. Okay.
And, you know, you make the best of the current circumstances that
you're in. But I was kind of trapped. I couldn't leave because
it's the rudest thing to do is just to get up and leave
somebody's house.
Fast forward.
An American guy walks in, who's another real estate guy by the
name of Ron Dickerman. Okay. Very, very prominent New York City
investor.
Jewish, New York City investor, like Ron, what do you do and get
the odd how did you end up here? Okay. And he's like, srif What is
that though?
And so I ended up sitting down now with Ron Dickerman. And talking
shop for, you know, the next couple of hours, I kind of forget
whose house I bought. I'm just more curious. Now. I found a
colleague, and now we're talking about real estate and, you know,
strategies and buildings. And, and,
and just, you know, Mark is talking about one of my passions
in life. And
the end of the night, there was an incredible dinner, okay, I met the
host beautiful man, you know, I met some good people. But then at
the end of the night, I look at Ron, and I see that he's got this
car waiting for him outside and I say to him, Listen, can I catch a
ride with you? Because my phone isn't working. I can't get an
Uber. Can I just get in the car with you? And he goes, Sure goes,
but I'm getting dropped off. First. I said, No problem. And so
he gets dropped off at his hotel, okay. And the minute that he gets
dropped off his hotel, I run to the front seat, and I sit down
next to the driver and I tell him all right, I start speaking to him
in Arabic, and I say to him, alright, what's the story? Who's
giving this guy money right now? What family are you working for?
Okay. So, he turns around, and he says, Listen, we I work for shifts
what? Amen. Okay, so I managed to lay man, which is the largest
infrastructure builder in all the kingdom, okay? builds all the
roads, all the bridges, etc, the number one,
you know, infrastructure builder in the whole kingdom. I'm looking
at the driver and I'm like, Listen, you got to introduce me to
your boss. I'm here for a couple more days. Get me a meeting, you
know, what have you. I give him my business card. I give him a whole
bunch of books.
And he drops me off at my hotel. I hear nothing of it. Okay, I never
hear anything. And fast forward.
Two months later, I'm in New York in my office here where I am
working late on a Saturday night. Okay.
I have a little bit of a work problem, a little bit of a
workaholic. Okay, I'm working late on a Saturday night. And I call my
wife and I say, Honey, I'm coming home for dinner. She goes, Sharif,
we already had dinner, we went so and so you're stuck. I go, come
on. I go. You know what? I'm going to find somebody to have dinner
within the city. I'm not coming home tonight. I mean, I'll be home
later. But so I call up one of my good friends. And I say to him,
What are you doing? He's like, I'm right here and like, great. Let's
let's hook up. And we ended up going to this restaurant. And we
ended up going to this. This French restaurant and the two of
us sit down.
A table of four comes and sits down next to us, okay, that are
Arabs. And they all start speaking Arabic. Now, typically, you know,
I now I'm just curious. I'm eavesdropping on their
conversation, right? I kind of figure out right away. The two of
them are Saudi. Two of them are Kuwaiti and they all went to
school together at Boston. Okay, they're a little bit younger than
me.
And nothing interesting. So I'm just like, I'm not even gonna say
hello. There's really nothing here for me. Then one of the young lady
says the word Wafra. And Wafra is one of the largest asset
allocators out of Kuwait, okay, they they invest all the pension
fund money and Social Security money for the whole Government of
Kuwait on a global basis and the Kuwaitis, just for everybody are
probably one of the they were the first people that really
discovered oil. So they're considered the most sophisticated
investors in the Middle East. They traditionally have been always a
first market mover, and they're one of the most sophisticated
investors. So she says the word Wafra. And I immediately like
instinctually, I just want to start talking to them in Arabic.
They get shocked at this point, because they can't believe that
I've been eavesdropping to their conversation. For the last hour. I
start speaking to them now fully in Arabic. And
I ended up
introducing myself and what I do, and then the gentleman sitting
right across from me, looks at me
was, Are you sure if he got mad? And I go, Yes, I am. And he goes,
You are with my driver last few months ago, okay? You are with my
driver two months ago, he gave me your card. I'm sorry, we didn't
call you bla bla bla bla bla bla, the subsequent month, I was
meeting with the father of the organization, okay? And they took
me to Medina, okay. And
they showed me in sha Allah, I have an ambition. One of my dreams
and one of my goals is to end my career and my life in the city of
the prophets, Allah Allahu Allah, he was a liberal, and maybe Allah
whom I mean, you're a bit odd. I mean, and this family owns one of
the most important pieces of real estate, literally, outside of the
right outside of the hotels. And, and I've had several meetings with
the Father, okay, about potentially joint venturing with
him. And Soho properties, building, the building for them,
bringing our expertise, knowledge, know how to help them build it.
But the story again, you were talking about finding, you know,
how this all started, is I gave you just two examples of,
irrespective of where I am on the food chain of real estate, right?
It's luck finds you, right? If you are putting in the hours if you're
putting in the effort, if you're making it happen, and you're doing
it diligently with integrity with sincerity, right, luck ends up
finding you. It's like Gollum, I say that when the fisherman puts
the net in the water, that doesn't create fish a lot it creates and
provides that risk. But if you don't put your net in, you're not
catching them regardless. So you have to have your net and then
inshallah the political reach SubhanAllah. Now, before we go on,
I have a question. At what level is real estate actually more of a
negative, you know, a loss that brings, you know, benefit
than a positive. So for example, I talked one time to a real estate
agent, he said, if you're talking about one or two, or three
apartments, or even homes, that's actually a negative, you're
expending a lot of effort, you've spent a lot of money to buy them,
and you're gonna get very little back. So what I'm asking you is
what what point is real estate sort of a negative? At what point
does it become a positive? He said to me, I don't know if you're
gonna agree with this philosophy. He said, real estate has to be
big, or it's nothing. What do you think about that? I completely
disagree with that. First and foremost, that was not a
sophisticated person. Respectfully, with the utmost of
respect, this was not a sophisticated person. I think that
when you think about it, anything in anything, and everything that
you do happens on real estate, okay? We don't live in caves
anymore. There's real estate, and you either own it, or you're
renting it. And so the first thing that I would tell you is buy one,
and when you buy one, figure out how to buy two. And if you could
buy three, God bless you keep going, but if you've been just
have one,
you've established ownership, okay, you've cemented your
existence, you've established something that will only
appreciate during during time, obviously, you know, locate, it's
all about, you know, investing in real estate is very, very simple.
It's about location, location, location. It's about timing, okay.
And it's about executing a business plan. You have to know
what is your business plan, even if it's one asset? What are you
executing? How long is it going to take you? How much money do you
need, and you have to forecast these things and budget for them,
and be diligent about whatever is the project, but there's no such
thing as having one. You know, if you if you don't have anything,
then shame on you. You know, okay, apartments, condos, homes,
buildings, all of the above all of the above, it's just a function
of,
you know, I wish our community was more diligent in in the
acquisition of real estate.
And if you don't have the capacity to do one, figure out how to go
find two or three of your friends to go by that one. And let's
figure out how to pull our money. You know, we need economic
strength, we need economic power. And that only comes through
working together or figuring out how to pull your resources and
what have you.
And that's really been
one of the criteria of really establishing wealth for yourself.
Question another question. A lot of people are hesitant about
investors, and you all have your deals now at this level. They're
like what 5789 investors alongside with you, right? They're gonna
have a smaller portion you will have the control of the deal, but
is it investors
Aren't isn't it a huge risk? So how would you navigate that risk?
What was the first time you had one? Right? So maybe we should
actually jump from when you became manager to owner? And then when
you went to owner, did you have investors with you? And then how
did that work out? How did you manage that headache?
Again,
my investor pool, it's much more than five or six, I have, you
know, 30 and 50. And we have Lord, we have multiple, multiple
investors that come into our deals we're doing, you know, really
through through the blessings of God, where we're doing substantial
transactions. So that's today, go back to two when I started. Yeah.
When I started, I started by again, realizing my start of the,
of getting into the ownership side of the business, you know, came at
a at a very specific point. Remember that guy that I told you
Suraj, stata boy that I that I met on the street. So as I sold him
multiple buildings, I started asking him how else I could help
him grow his business, again, customer service, trying to see
leveraging that same point, when I went with Michael Waldman, when I
leased up his apartment, I said, what was the next thing that I
could do with him? So now I've been selling these buildings to,
to Suraj, I went to him and I said, How can I help you? And and
that's always a question that you want to not just help yourself,
but how can I help you grow? And so he said to me, sir, we always
look for investors. And I said to him, Well, I can help you find
investors. Again, fake it till you make it I never.
And, and I, and he ended up giving me
access now to the to, you know, how the sausage is made? Right?
How was the deal put together, and he gave me his book on the deal.
And in that book, I saw that, you know, wow, this guy doesn't really
put, he just raises money from other people and buys the
building. I go, wow, I didn't even know that. Okay.
So then, slowly, I started understanding more about his
business. And at that, and there was a very pivotable moment, there
was a building that we were pitching for now, at this point in
my brokerage career, I started right, by getting open listings,
where I didn't have the exclusive, you know, Donald Trump Jr, meeting
him on the corner and having him sign a non circumvent on the
corner of 2017 Madison now, I had become smarter and I understood
more about the business. So I wanted to get control of a
listing. So I was pitching for my first $400 million listing, which
mean you'd be the selling broker, I would be the seller, I'd be the
exclusive selling broker and if you could find the buyer himself,
then you take both commissions then you take both commissions
and
I ended up pitching for a building on William Street. And it was a
$400 million pitch and I remember that we work tirelessly for weeks
putting together the presentation material and and and and you know,
figure the buyers not out to get the assignment Oh, to get the
list. We wanted to get the listing and the assignment so the the
sellers were interviewing multiple brokers and we made it to the
interview process. And I remember the the seller, Jeff ravage
ended up looking at me after interviewing us for several weeks
and says to me,
you know, says to me, Sharif, I'm sorry, but we're not going to hire
you. Even though I know that you're the best guy for the job. I
know. We're not going to hire you but we got to go with with Darcy
stay calm, okay. And Darcy is considered the queen of
skyscrapers. She's, she is the person or it's, it's a woman.
Okay, I thought it's a company company that sounds like to last
name.
She's
She's one of the most prolific sellers of skyscraper, she's
called the queen of skyscrapers in New York. She is maybe the number
one broker in Manhattan, she probably makes for herself in
excess of 15 to $20 million dollars a year in commissions,
selling, selling, just selling skyscrapers. And ravage said
shimmy. You know, listen, we got to give it to Darcy. And I
remember, I walked back into the office and I said to the team, I
came back to the office. I said, Guys, I'm not a broker anymore.
I'm done.
I want to start buying these buildings. I'm done. I lost that
assignment. And it was one of the best things that happened. And I
ended up
buying my first building at 431 Broome Street.
I bought it for I think $4 million.
And I ended up selling it for like 6 million and I just that was
really my first acquisition then how did you make that acquisition?
Did you come up with a team like of investor I did that one per
Do you watch myself? Okay, I did that my that first acquisition I
did myself and it was a flip right away. It was a flip right away. I
ended up tying it up and making some cash. I understand, you know,
listen, you understand the business. And then what I ended up
segwaying into is I had been sitting down with the head of
Louis Dreyfus, a gentleman by the name of justice Jeffrey Sussman.
And I remember I was sitting in his office and he rolled up these
maps, okay, of Upper Manhattan. And he said to me, said, Sharif,
Columbia University is about to start expanding into a
Manhattanville campus. And they're going to start buying all these
buildings here, to start expanding the Columbia campus. We want to
start buying all the buildings around Columbia, and we want you
to help us. Okay. So I walked in out of that meeting, obviously, I
it was a preset meeting, I had already made up my mind what I
wanted to do for for the evolution of my business, and my brand
quitting brokerage. Yeah, I didn't want to start. I didn't want to
broker any but you went to this meeting, as a broker, I want to
sign a residual meeting. It was exactly. And so I ended up walking
in and I said, Holy cow, I literally just got like, the
biggest one of the biggest leads of my careers. I mean, now that
is, again, you're talking about, you know, we were talking about
this market, how it's a very small market, that you have to gain the
trust of the market to find the opportunities, right. But here you
are, you're about to basically steal his strategy. Yes, yes. I
mean, he gave it away. I mean, I didn't really steal anything. He
was just sharing information. And yeah, it wasn't.
You know, it was essentially what I started doing. And and so I
started buying buildings, multifamily buildings up in
Washington Heights, and Harlem. And that was when I started into
bringing in investors into our deals.
So I now I took the merger of all the different strategies that I
have learned how to rent apartments, how to manage
apartments, right? So the two things that I learned in the
beginning of my career, I was able to merge both of them giving me
the confidence now of executing,
you know, an ownership strategy for those multifamily buildings.
And
and that's essentially how I got started on the investor side.
You know, fast forward.
You know, we've been involved in close to 30 transactions in New
York City.
And
we're an asset agnostic investor developer, which means that we are
that there's no asset class that we focus on as an investor we are,
we're more an investor developer looking to figure out how to
execute different strategies for different types of returns. This
is one of those benefits.
Home home's fit business locations, if two offices if it's
so the asset classes that we have, so homes are no we don't we will
not chase a single family home. That's not in our short buy homes,
like apartments, condos, yeah. Well, so there's multifamily.
Okay, multifamily, which are apartment buildings, there's
office buildings, there's retail buildings, there's land, there's
industrial buildings. Those are our assets. Okay, and there's
obviously land banking and vacant land. But that doesn't exist here
in Manhattan. So we started out by doing multifamily. We transitioned
into Office buying office buildings. This was a building
that we we owned at one time. You get rid of this, I sold this.
Well
it's so funny, you know, this building, for example, this is
your favorite. This is your baby. This is one of my babies. Right?
You know, I'll give you an example. And why that person who
said don't buy one, okay doesn't really wasn't sophisticated enough
to, to,
you know, that somebody who just scratched the surface and didn't
go into the next level of the game.
You know, this particular building, I sold it.
I had acquired it
for $45 million. And I sold it in two and a half years for $65
million. Okay. The current owner called me up about a month ago,
and he's a friend of mine. And he said, Sharif, listen, I know, you
know, I don't know, but I just want to let you know that we just
signed Equinox downstairs is the retail tenant. And I'm going to
sell the building right now for $175 million.
And so
so this is a very, very special business. Yeah. I mean, those are
numbers that that's an abnormal jump, though. It's not what
happens. It's not it's not abnormal. When you assess New York
with respect
to other global gateway cities, so when I'm looking at London, if I'm
looking at Paris, if I'm looking at Tokyo, if I'm looking at Hong
Kong, if I'm looking at Mumbai, if I'm looking at other global
gateway cities, and if I compare the pricing of New York as an
asset class and remember the parable when I said that the
trades that happened in in this little island of Manhattan, are
equivalent to the whole country of Canada. Yeah. Right. So it'll be
45 to 65. Fine. 65 to 175. Like what happened? There was a couple
there was a couple of jumps in between. Okay, so from 60. Past,
yeah, about a decade net? Well, not even a decade, seven years.
Did he do a lot of improvements? No, did listen, it's the it's the
value of the stock market went up, the value of the stock market went
up the sales market, what do you mean by that? So there are
different sub markets within the greater market of Manhattan. So
this is
this is
considered the Midtown South office sub market. And to give you
an example, just a statistic,
if you were, you know, there's a macro statistic that you would
look at, in, in, in measuring a market called a vacancy rate, what
is the vacancy rate? In a sub market? What is the percentage of
vacancy in a sub market? So, for example, residential in Manhattan,
if you had to guess what's the vacancy rate of residential and
then oh, I couldn't even tell you anything. One of the lowest in the
world in the world for residential, residential, low
single digits, a life the Holic life.
He knows what he does, he really does. Masha Allah, Allahu Akbar,
Allah Wa, my era my kids at home, if they need an odd word or
something, they always asked me, could you text Alex?
So the vacancy rate, the vacancy rate in in Manhattan is hovers
between one to 2%. On the residential side, this office
market of midtown south has become the most desired office market,
okay, in Manhattan,
due to the characteristics of the buildings and what have you.
And
so the vacancy rate here for an office, okay, is about four to 5%.
When you look traditionally at other markets or other sub
markets, it's somewhere between 12 to 18%. Right? So when you have
that demand, you're able to charge that, and then the investment
becomes more desirable. And what really separates Manhattan from
other parts of the world, is that real estate traditionally, is an
illiquid investment. And so what does that mean? That you're not
able to,
you're not able to, to liquidate and get the liquidity quickly,
right. Like if you if you own a stock or if you own a bond, or if
you own something in a market, you're able to redeem it, and call
up and say dispose of it. I want to redemption right now and all
our money in 24 hours, you're able to do that in other markets. But
in real estate traditionally, is a very illiquid market, you have to
wait many months, even years in certain localities in order to
guard to get your liquidity. But what is unique about New York, is
that real estate is a liquid market within 30 to 60 days, you
can access liquidity, which is unusual sell it off. Yes. Because
there's a buyer ready, willing and able to transact with you because
they want to be a part of this market. Yeah, see, wait, see how
and where we live in the suburbs? I mean, to get rid of a property
and sell it, that's three, four months. So if you're lucky, if
you're lucky, like a home or something like that this is a
headache. Sometimes it's two years Oh, actually, right now the
housing market it's if you're not under contract in three weeks, you
probably need to take it off and do so. Because it's not gonna so
it's very, it's very, it's moving. It's moving much more quickly.
Now. listeners to this episode are probably like, What the heck are
they talking? There's not a verse incited. Act but I'm just
interested in this world that you're in everything that Sharif
is saying is returned to exactly what we're taught in our deen
right. Yeah. So, like for instance,
when you were saying about this stuff, where you present yourself
you put yourself in the position and you know the baraka reaches
you.
Similarly, you had you mentioned so far two incidents, which are a
negative, right, you got fired from one job, you lost the
opportunity to get another job, but in both in these thoughts,
to the meeting, because you did it out of, you know, you made this
meeting, you're going to keep your promise and you're gonna show up.
In both of those instances, it was good for you. Right. And this is a
core principle and understanding our laws way of dealing with us,
which is you might think it's bad for you, but it's actually good.
SubhanAllah. So we're doing it people should read between the
lines to show our investors, it's always a shady thing, right? And,
and people who like control over things are very nervous around the
idea of sharing or doing something together, right? Because
especially if you have a relationship with people you don't
want so what is your rule of thumb? On investors? Like? Is it
for example, never invest with a friend? Do you have rules of thumb
never invest with family? You have rules of thumb like that. Now,
now.
I think it's, maybe maybe I wouldn't probably want to take
money from my father in law, my mother in law.
Fight? I don't I don't think, listen, I think it's, it's about
finding, I'm very blessed. I have some incredible investors that CO
invest with us. And they,
they give me incredible trust and latitude. And and
they're sophisticated investors, they are not, you know, these are
these are very well established individuals who,
you know, who understand the risks that are associated, and there,
and we will all collectively, you know,
achieve the rewards. You know, the projects that we're executing are
not,
we're the only Muslim developer today in New York City. Well, and
last year, you know, we just finished 2019, we put up two
skyscrapers in the skyline of New York City, we topped off a 700
foot tower in Tribeca. And we, we topped off a 34 storey building in
Time Square, to incredible sub markets that we
you know, that each one of them has,
has an incredible story behind it. And, you know, even though I'm a
college dropout, I know that I have several PhDs in real estate.
And, and the, the most important thing really is about finding,
you know, people
people are looking for,
are looking for opportunities that we have, and they just don't know
how to find them. Now, we're talking to you here at a time
where 100 things are going good for your company, your office
remake you like you redid this whole office, it looks gorgeous.
But when I came to know you, you are at a time of complete upheaval
and layoffs in your company, you had all these spots here, were
just empty desks, right? And you're basically had to expend all
your money on something that you you never did before, which is PR,
which was a lot of it was damage control. So you were basically
back against the wall. And could have been Buck could have buckled
and completely folded this whole operation on legal fees or PR
fees, or no one wants to touch you. Right? And no one would want
to come near you to do a deal with you. So what I'm talking about if
the listeners don't know, especially those Australia or
England is the what everyone's definitely heard of in the world.
Some people say is one of the most famous mosques that never was
built is the Ground Zero Mosque so called. And in this case, we
started off with that how Trump got on you and he tried to you
know, get a piece of the attention which he always gets a you know,
people like that always want a piece of the attention by jumping
all over you trying to buy it from you. But you you end up in a
period of your life that you wanted to build a message that you
found a sort of a hole in the or an inefficiency of a masjid or
community center that was run really well and you wanted to do
it yourself. Okay, accidentally was three blocks from the World
Trade Center.
Tell me about the day that you discovered that the media exploded
on this subject like there must have been not rumblings but there
might have been rumblings but there must have been a day where
this thing changed your life completely.
So I absolutely remember that day. And
I remember you know, wholeheartedly. It was you know,
there was there was a point right after it started into like
a trickle effect like literally like building
a snowball. Okay. It started with two little ads,
two little editorial pieces in the New York Post and in the Daily
News, that were essentially our
our
for acceptance by the community board, the Community Board had
voted unanimously and acceptance of the project. But the pivotal
moment that was really when it when everything around opted at a
whole different scale was when we took one of the buildings into
landmarks. Okay, one of the things that we had to do was get one of
the buildings out of landmarks. Okay? So there's a landmark,
there's a, there's a
Landmarks Preservation Commission in Manhattan, that has given
historic designation under specific buildings and
neighborhoods and Mark and sub markets, again, within Manhattan
that are completely historic and landmark, oh, that type of
landmark. And so you have to go to the Landmarks Commission, in order
to make any alteration or changes to those buildings. So one of the
buildings that we had acquired, had
a calendar hearing in front of landmarks to potentially designate
it as a landmark. And what we had done was that we went in to
challenge landmarks, reading of the designation of that building,
and we wanted it removed from the oversight of the landmark
commission. And so that was literally the that was one of the
peaks within what ended up happening.
And I remember I went to the Landmarks Preservation Commission,
and
but there were several moments where I realized that this project
is a must. Okay, I realized that this project is a must. And it's
something that we have to do. Because people don't understand
who we are. People don't understand our practice. They
don't have they don't know our prophets, Allah, Allahu Allah, he
was.
They don't know, you know, the mercy that came
to our community, but for all of mankind, the Prophet sallallahu
alayhi wa salam came as a mercy to all of mankind, and we, as Muslims
have a responsibility, okay, to share the knowledge of our Prophet
and his message with humanity, we individually have that
responsibility, each and every one of us that was blessed to be
endowed, or reborn, or converting into this practice and into this
way of life has a has a fiduciary responsibility to go out and let
people know what this is, okay? I don't care who you are. I don't
care if you're a student, or if you're an employee, or if you're a
business owner. If you're a parking attendant, and this is
your practice, we have an obligation to let people know who
we are. And so
what had happened was one day
I remember, we were we were going through the large community board
hearing, okay. And I had invited my wife and my daughters at the
time, we're still very young, okay, two and three years old. And
I said, please bring the girls down. I want them to see what
their papi has been working on, you know, late. I was very proud.
I was going in presenting to my first community board, and I walk
into this community board and there was about 10 of us, okay,
that I invited about 10 people. And I got there a few minutes
late, and my wife is coming out and she's bawling. She's just
crying. And I go, what happened? And she goes, Sharif, I can't stay
here. And I said, what happened? And she said, there's a whole
bunch of protesters inside and they thought that I was coming to
protest your project. And so they gave me they wanted me to take
these signs, and they were starting to coach me on how to
protest. Okay, and what I need to say
ended up
the Landmarks Commission, voted unanimously at the building
shouldn't be landmarked. So you want the case, oh, I want the
case. And I realized that I have we have to build this project.
There's no turning back from building this project. And
ended up walking out of there. And for the first time, there must
have been 100 cameras in front of me with microphones like, never
seen anything like that before in my life. At this point. Did you
know who orchestrated this protests? No, no, you had no clue
was totally shocked. That was much more than I mean, this was
*, right? Yeah. The next day, my phones were ringing off
the hook in my office. Okay. And I had in excess of 800 interview
requests. Okay. I had 800 interview requests. And I remember
Seth, okay, who you know, yeah.
I was in the office. He's like, Sharif, you can go on any TV show
that you want tonight.
Where do you want to go? And I said, Why don't you call Jon
Stewart he was hosting Comedy Central. See if he'll take me. And
I ended up setting that up calling Comedy Central. And they said,
Yeah, we would love to have Sharif just he could, he could come on
tonight. We'll give him you know, 20 to 30 minutes, he'll be the
prime slot. Please have him come down. And when when Seth hung up
the phone on that, I realized I had a problem. It wasn't like I
was basking in the moment or anything. I just realized I had a
major problem and I didn't know what I was going to do.
But subsequent to that, I took my first interview, okay that I'd
never done a TV interview before and
and I've kind of personally had a moratorium you're the first time
that I've spoken to in years and it's been on purpose and I'm so
honored to be here on your podcast. I'm a huge fan I listened
to it regularly. I can't wait for the new ones. And Masha Allah,
Masha Allah, masha Allah may Allah subhanaw taala increase you and
all the people that are that are bringing this incredible
programming, okay, to the community at large at a global
level. You know, one of the things that that I absolutely adore about
you is that you are a seeker of the best you don't settle or
compromise from all aspects from whether it's branding to
communication to the thoughtfulness or to the in depth
study of the curriculum that you provide. It's just a world class
you are a gem for the community. And we are so blessed to have you
here where we need more scholars Masha Allah, Masha Allah, Masha,
Masha, Allah Azza wa. And
it's it's really incredible.
And so, I agreed to do one interview on CNN, okay, just on my
own, I figured I'd test it. I don't know why I picked this lady.
But this lady ended up coming into my office
with her camera crew, and I had never done an interview before. I
didn't know. You know, I wasn't sure what my messaging was. And I
didn't know you know, I just kind of did it. Right. I just kind of
said, Yeah, sure. I'll take I'll let's try one of them. And so this
lady ends up coming into my office. And
really, you know, I'm very blessed. I'm I, I'm a strategic
thinker, and just about everything that I do, and I'm very methodical
and very deliberate and, and very intentional. That's just how God
created me. And so this lady came in this, this pretty prominent
newscaster came in to interview me. And she started by trying to
cornered into getting into a debate about Israel and Hamas.
And, and she just wouldn't let it go. It's pretty cheap, though. For
CNN, they usually that's New York Post or something.
And literally, this this lady just was coming in and trying to go,
and I realized, okay, that number one, I funded her off, like I
played, I played mental jujitsu with her, right? Because I wasn't
going to go into her traps, okay. And I kept staying focused on what
I wanted to communicate with her. But then after that interview, and
after what happened the night before about all these halls, I
realized that I had a problem. I realized that literally, I had a
problem. It's a new game. It was it was something I never even
thought about in a million years here is a new it's a new
battlefields. Did you ever go to Comedy Central or no? You can't do
that. And I didn't go. I didn't go to Comedy Central. I think we we
did that one CNN interview. Okay. And then what I did is I reached
out.
I reached out to,
to a friend of mine
who I was friendly at the time with Russell Simmons. Okay.
And, you know, Russell ended up
I ended up going up to his office, and he said, Boy, what did you do,
man? You're like, everywhere. Everybody's talking about this
project right now. Yeah. And I'm like, yeah, so I'm here to talk to
you. I need some guidance. I know you do a lot of TV. I know you do
a lot of interviews. What do you recommend? He goes, he goes,
Sharif, you need a Jew right now.
He needed you right now. What do you mean he goes you need a PR guy
right now guys, and and so
I ended up
I ended up going and
meeting with several very prominent
Um, PR people, and I met with this incredible, incredible man by the
name of Ken sunshine. Okay, who's probably just really,
for PR sunshine and sacks. He's one of the biggest PR agencies in
the country because his name makes you feel good to begin with.
Right? It's true, right? So Subhan Allah, just an incredible soul
him. And another gentleman by the name of Larry Kopp from the task
group who's who's today yet an absolute mega servant of our
community. Okay. Larry Kopp has kind of specialized and he has a
whole bunch of Muslims in his office, and it's really been
helping our assignment organizations. But what they ended
up doing is they ended up saying to me,
that
they ended up saying to me, that, listen, you know, Ken came in and
he wanted to see who I was, right? He he was, he was curious. He was
curious he wanted to I was he wanted to know that I was real,
that this was something authentic, that this was something sincere
that I was trying to do. Because he didn't want to get involved.
Obviously, he didn't know what is what is going on here. Like, who's
this guy causing all this noise? And so after sitting down with me
for a couple of hours, him and
him and one of his associates, he said, You know what? sure if I'm
going to help you, he said, I'm going to help you.
But you got to do it my way. He said, If you don't listen to me,
okay, I'm out of here. It was almost like Satan. Right?
Well, that's, that's how you know you have a master when he says,
You just do what I don't just got to do what I tell you. Okay. He
goes, We're gonna get you on 60 minutes. Okay. We're gonna get you
on 60 minutes in September. We're then going to roll you out on the
Today Show. We're gonna get you. You know, we'll try to get you out
to Charlie Rose, we'll get you on to, you know, Fareed Zakaria. He's
a broker. He's a broker. Right? Yeah, he's a hello, message. Yes,
he's a broker a messaging, absolute mastery of the space,
immediately goes to 60 minutes. And he says, Sharif, if you don't
follow this plan, nobody's going to take you. But if you follow the
plan, you will be able to get your message out, you'll get your
platform out, people hear directly what it is that you're trying to
do. And you got to listen to me. What's the plan? And so what I
mean, the plan, first of all, was to dispel the, you know, dispel
what this project is this project, essentially, we were, we were
building a sanctuary for Muslims. Okay, three blocks from the World
Trade Center.
which today has evolved into not just a sanctuary, but we're also
building a museum. Okay, so we're building the first Islamic Museum
in New York City. Okay. And by the way, we're still in the same
location Sheikh shed, the foundations are done.
What do you what do you do on the 40th? floor so well, that's the
condo tower next door, but the but the foundations of the inshallah
the mascot or dialogue? Okay. Looks great. And it's, did he tell
you don't answer this answer that don't use this word use now?
Absolutely. I mean, there was there was a training that ended up
coming into place, there was profit, but there was also
training from the other side he wanted and he brokered a deal. So
they weren't, they were supposed to stay on a specific message,
that if they wanted me, they needed to stay on that message.
And they're gonna listen to him because he's a broker that brings
in people absolutely, he delivers. Right. Again, it's another
community, right? It's another community that we need to figure
out how to get to be a greater part of one of the strategies that
we need to execute as a Muslim community is how do we start
getting more involved in PR and in media, and in these various
outlets? Okay. So agreed, shook hands started off the road. What's
interesting during that time period, now
there was this newscaster Okay, from Fox News by the name of
Charles leaf, okay. And trolls leaf started
harassing me at a level that I've never experienced before in my
life, okay. And literally, it was it was hard because the paparazzi
was following me around the street trying to get me to talk because I
had shot down. So now that everybody else is talking but the
the servant of the project, you know, the the guy who's who's
building the project, he's not speaking like he's not he's not
going out there and speaking, but what's the story here? And and
there was a lot of confusion and everybody was throwing in their
two cents. You know, everybody from
everybody like it was it was incredible before you get into
Charles leave. I'll tell you also, why for the listeners that
there was all this confusion, and there was all this publicity, and
this might be sensitive for you, but we asked you if there's
anything off limits, you didn't say Yes, right. But you had any
man at that time? Who really came across as
As if it was his project in the newspapers. Is that a?
What's the price of
the roof when I read about it in The New York Times from my house
in Maryland, and I remember this very well, the these evenings
because they were like winter evenings, and there was really not
a lot going on. And my wife are oftentimes read from New York
Times, and she said, Oh, there's this project going on. It's led by
this Imam by slab, the roof, you know, Egyptian Imam. And we're
reading in this reading this thing. And I was actually confused
when I read about what you said. And then I read this, I was like,
who's in charge of this project, right? Is it his project, the
Cordoba house operation, and then it was a bit fluffy. I didn't
really like it, to be honest with you was very multifaith, we're
gonna have a corner for different religions here, there and the
other, which I don't do that type of thing to begin with. So that
was your other problem, you had an external problem that you are
surrounded, you had an external problem with the Pamela Geller and
those Slama phobic groups. And you had an internal problem, because
the messaging was criss crossed, and who was leading no one knew.
Right? So
she was talking, her husband's talking, and then they're chasing
you to talk. Right. But then when actually push comes to shove,
they're not attacking Faisal a daisy, they're attacking you. So,
you know, tell us about that whole situation, how you navigated being
attacked on both sides? wasn't easy. It was not easy at all. It
was but I have characterized it correctly. Right? Yes, he wasn't
it turned on trial. 100% 100%. Listen, I think there was there
was a disconnect, unfortunately, behind what was the objective of
the project? And listen, I'm with you, I think that, you know,
interfaith is is is,
is confusion. Very simply, I think that interfaith creates confusion,
I think it's important to have absolute openness and dialogue
with all faith leaders, and with all faith, community
relationships, and relationships and an open policies and
communication. But there's no such thing as I don't understand what
interfaith is sorry, I just, I don't get it, I just call it
relations have have good relations. And by the way, I would
have good relations with a Hindu if he's down the road, and I have
to live with the same town 100%. And that's part of our humanity.
God created us different God created Hindus, God created
atheists, God created all types of people. And it's not for us to
mistreat or not, or not treat different people. But that process
happens. So if they're already they're already not Muslim. What
else?
Yeah, I mean, you and you're when you live in with people, you got
to have relationships with them. And that's really where it should
be. But question for you is, that must have been really awkward.
He's your elder. He you look up to him, he views you as almost like,
a pupil almost in some sense. At the same time, though, you're on
you're working, and he he's working for you, right. So there's
a very awkward relationship in that. And on top of that, he or
Egyptian, he's an older Egyptian. So there's like, a relationship
and Uncle SAAB is I would put, I mean, I'll ask him, he'll as if
you're Desi.
There's like an uncle relationship at the same time. So all these
three things are happening, and now it's hitting the fan in the
media. So tell me how awkward that must have been. It was very
challenging. It was extremely challenging. It was it was
definitely extremely challenging. Listen, I, I have a tremendous
amount of respect for him on Facebook. I think he's a laser.
But
I think he's in Malaysia right now. So I know that he spends his
time between Malaysia and the United States. And I think that,
you know, I think that I know that at the core, there is
a true servitude that he does provide. I think that there was
an unfortunate set of circumstances that ended up
transpiring internally. And it was a tremendous learning lesson for
everybody involved. However,
however, the project
at the end of the day, has always maintained its core identity and
its core mission of servitude. I mean, you, you being a part of it
in those early days can attest to what we're doing and really
through the blessings of God first and last fund Lucara Minh Allah
subhanaw taala.
Till this day, we are still providing the service of Salafi
Joma. While we're building out our space, we rent out a hall at the
Hilton Hotel, overlooking the overlooking the World Trade
Center. Every Friday you go to the website, you know, there's there's
information on the foot bus that we provide. We haven't stopped
providing the service that we wanted to ultimately provide from
the beginning.
By the way,
The biggest lesson out of all this is that we've got a lot to learn
and a lot to do.
Changing, essentially, what is our biggest problem? Okay, as a global
community, which is one of public relations, our biggest problem,
okay, we have the best product in the world. Okay. But the messaging
and the public relations are a disaster. Okay, because we are
negative and and that is the problem that we have within our
community and within let's go back to the juicy story of this guy,
Thomas leaf, whatever you said is no Charles leaf, Charles leaf.
He's after you. Sir. Charles leaf is after me, man. Okay. And he is
relentless. And he is literally threatening me if I don't go on
his show. Okay, threatening me
saying every night he's doing a little bit of an expose a on me.
Okay. You know, 15 minute expose every night on his show. I don't
know how they gave him the format. And one day, at around six o'clock
in the morning I had woken up in my car was parked on the street.
And there was alternate side of the street parking. And I walked
out without my glasses. And I was still kind of in my pajamas. I was
just moving going down down the street to move my car. Okay. And
there is Charles leaf standing in my building. Okay. He kicks me in
my shins. Okay, and he's like, he's got the camera guys all
looking at me and he kicks me with with steel tipped boots. Okay.
Kicking in my shins. He's like, come on, Sharif. Punch me. Punch
me, Cherie. Okay, we want to get this on film, punch me Come on,
and he's kicking me and follow me around. And I'm just smiling. I'm
doing the opposite. I'm smiling. I got my head down. And I'm just
kind of lost now in my building. Okay, like I ended up walking into
the garbage alley in my building. I'm dressed in my pajamas. And
they're filming me right now walking around in my building.
Okay. As I'm going around, and he ends up looking at me and
following me and doesn't get anything.
But ends up running like a minute of this clip every night.
Five years ago, this man was waiting tables in Manhattan. Today
he is spending millions in cash on New York real estate, including on
the building where this mosque will go. Charles leaf has a must
see report from our fox affiliate WNY W in New York. Where have you
raised the money in Israel?
Where's all the money come from? Sharif al Jamal, why don't you
talk to sir Why are you running? Where are you running? We have
legitimate questions for you, sir. Why don't you answer any of them?
While Imam Feisal Abdul Rao who has dominated headlines this man
37 year old developer Sharif El Gamal is actually the central
figure behind the Ground Zero Mosque. Yeah, just a few years
ago, El Gamal was waiting tables in Manhattan restaurants. He was
an awesome guys really real, real hustler. And a real go getter.
Naturally, we wanted to meet Sharif El Gamal. We wanted to
learn more about the man and his plants. But apparently he didn't
want to meet with us. We made repeated requests for a sit down
interview with him, left him multiple voice messages. And he
never returned any of our calls. We even went to his office and
talk to some of his colleagues, but we returned away. So we were
left with no choice but to go find him. Sharif al Jamal. Hi, I'm
Charles Lee, from Fox five news. I would like to ask you a couple of
questions. El Gamal immediately tried to get away from us refusing
to answer my questions. More on our meeting in a minute. But
first, who is Sharif El Gamal? And so finally one day, you know, he
threatened me he threatened threatens me to a point where he's
like, you know, if you don't come on tonight, we're going to do bla
bla bla bla bla, and I was driving with my wife and my kids and I
literally thought I was gonna get into a car accident. And I pulled
over to the side of the road and I just started crying to Allah and I
said, Allah, I can't do this anymore. I can't bear the beam
anymore. I can't, I can't. And
it was it was a very critical moment for me personally, as a
human being, because I couldn't withstand the pressure anymore.
And I remember going that night to sleep and I was just I was torn
up. I was just torn up going to sleep and I was like, I don't know
what this guy wants to do to me. But I'm holding firm. I'm not
going on a show. I'm not you know, I'm not communicating
Within
the next morning I wake up and I'm in the shower and I'm taking a
shower and my wife is like, Come on, get out, get out, get on the
TV look at what's going on on the TV.
For the fox five reporter Charles leaf was convicted today of
sexually assaulting a four year old girl at his home and Wycoff
New Jersey, a jury found him guilty of all charges including
child endangerment, possession of child *, and tampering
with evidence. The abuse was first reported back in October of 2010.
When the girl told her babysitter she had been touched in a sexual
manner. Lee faces up to 20 years in prison when he is sentenced on
June the sixth. In other developments today. It's about
it's about right. He got he got he got arrested for child *.
It's Unbeliev okay. And
he's sitting in jail today. Wow. He's he sat in jail. He got that
his own real he got literally
a 30 year sentence that is okay. And that was the end of Charles
Lee Subhan Allah Subhanallah SubhanAllah. You remember and
that's it.
This makes me feel very good. Because by the time you get to the
kicking you with boots, so I was like, somebody needs to take this
guy out completely. Like I was, I was burning up inside.
That's a good internet guy story. That's insane. Mashallah. And for
the people around you must have really believed like, this is the
power of in in inaction right in front of us 100% of
Fox News laid off me at that point, would you think that was a
turning point, that was definitely a turning point. So they laid off,
they refuse to talk about, they refuse to talk about me at that
point. This is what happens when somebody turns to a line, real
desperation.
answers those, he really does at Hunt.
I am proof of the answering of those dots. And and I could
recount dozens of instance, instances of circumstances and
situations where I dreamt big, and I got to a certain level of this
game of life. And I just leave the rest to Allah subhanaw taala. And
stay on the course, I don't waver from the course that I set. And
that's always it's part of my brand. And part of my identity is
that once I decide that I'm going after something, I don't care how
long it's going to take, but I'm going to figure out how to problem
solve along the way. And you can continuously go back to the source
of all the solutions, the problems, Allah subhanaw taala
and, and serve the shoe, serve the masajid and figure out how to just
be a
be nobody, nobody that just wants to leave a mark on this
opportunity that we have all been bestowed with life. Who does not
want to be average, who wants to set a higher bar for himself for
his children, for the people that work around him.
And that's all due to having the continuous ability to go to the
ultimate source of all the solutions. Allah subhanaw taala
that was a turning point where things started to cool down in
terms of the media
a little bit, I mean, it was still extremely I'll tell you what you
did have though, you actually got good with the city. And the
certain parts of the city the more tolerant and diversity elements of
the city are we had the whole set you had that but how the whole
city they they they knocked out Pamela Geller out of the seat.
Right. So I'll tell you what you didn't have yet. A lot of the
broader Muslim community didn't have the broader muscle. They were
embarrassed I don't even know who the border Muslim community was.
They felt embarrassed by the whole project. I didn't even know who
the broker was. At the time fury yeah fury at I respectfully I
didn't even know who they were. Yeah, I was just
I was just simple guy in New York who is who's a businessman who
just wanted to do something who didn't realize what was the
protocol? Or what were the people that you you know, which hands to
go kiss which rings to go
which doors to knock which doors to knock on? I'll tell you what
what was happening was that you solve that problem with the with
your internal issue with him about the roof he left. Then the the
diversity elements of the city pushed out the Geller and the Fox
News.
elements, you then went, you didn't have to buy it from the
Muslim community who was so embarrassed by the whole fiasco.
That's how they viewed it. And I know I was talking to people all
the time, in Connecticut, and elsewhere, too, and my contacts
elsewhere.
You then had one more stumble, that puts you back another couple
steps, which is that there was this crazy misunderstanding with
another imam who was beloved, of the lead heavy. What happened to
him? By the way, he's very sick. And he hardly comes out of his
house. He just writes books, I believe, I have no idea.
I think he lives in New York. That's the last place he was
living. Can we find his address? I would love to go visit him. Well,
that so that was some time. Yeah. Now, that was something that was
really, I guess, out of your hands. So the short of it is that
you brought him on board to teach. He gets harassed by Fox News.
And then he thinks that, you know, you guys didn't stop it. So it's
your fault. So I left. And now his story to people will shed more
negative light to your operation.
That's when I came around that I was almost just sort of in need of
a job, right. And we happen to cross paths at the same time that
you kept having blunder after blunder with, with people with
mache, basically. And I just needed something, I just needed to
get my foot in the door somehow. And that's why I excel, I would
have accepted anything. If they're paying with dollars, we really
feel special.
Like when you're trying to get into a space, right? When you're
trying to get into a space, you take anything, right? You want to
take now I want I wanted to get to show that I could actually do
this, this work with Muslims, and teaching, I wanted to do it full
time. I don't want to do it any more Sundays in the masjid, which
as that's what I was doing in the past, and sometimes in the
summers. So I needed to just get anything in the tri state area
that I could hit. And there was only one option, right? So but I'm
telling you, your spot at that time was the least desirable of
all spots. But someday that's going to change when you actually
have your operation, you'll be fine people knocking at the door,
right? But at the time, the public perception in the Muslim circles
was very negative, like this guy embarrassed us. Why do you need to
build a building? They're like, why would we need to draw
attention? Right? That just the fact that 911 and ground zero was
attached to a masjid, I was from the opposite side, like I was on
the side of people who like to stick their noses into something.
And who went pushed, don't push back, they push back. Not when
they're pushed, they turn the other cheek. So I was always on
that side of things. And that actually got me and some people
that didn't really like it and Connecticut, right? Some people
who are when I would talk about this publicly, they're like, this
is an embarrassing thing. Now you remember, we went to Israel
together.
You went to Israel in hand to get support? Nobody would talk to us.
Remember when we went to Imam Suraj his big fundraiser at the
Hilton in Manhattan? Right? Or whatever Hyatt or something,
right? Nobody wanted. We were not it was not a popular operation. No
one wanted to touch it. Right. But slowly these things are going to
change. That was a moment of cowardice in the Muslim community.
They were scared. They they didn't know what was going to happen. And
they basically wanted you to take Donald Trump's offer. I don't
know muscles around ground zero, please. Yeah, we want to respect
your church. I'm telling you, and this is also I'm telling you it's
a geo geographic thing. It's a geographic thing that people who
are accustomed to you know, regular, nice relations actually
don't realize that there are some conflicts that you need to be
involved in. Yeah, they're good for you. Like I just put a post up
and you saw this that we don't need conflicts, needless conflicts
with other Muslims. Right? You don't need to go hurting another
Muslim. But that doesn't mean conflict averse. There are some
conflicts that improve you. Whenever you have a conflict with
your enemy you improve you get better your morale your team, your
group morale, your almost morale, your your the believers morale, is
it it comes together? Because you're having to just cause right?
This was one of those things that yeah, it looked embarrassing on
the outside. But if you'd like to look at who you were up against,
a victory against that in this field will be huge. Right? So a
lot of people saw this as a type of conflict that they wanted to
stay away from. I thought it was a conflict that we want to get
involved in. It's one of the two things that you absolutely are not
allowed to walk away from. Yeah, people fighting you because of
your religion. Yeah. And the other one is trying to drive you from
your home. Exactly. There's two things you can't walk away for
example, allowed to, who was the driving force was really filthy
people like Geller filthy people.
You can't lose it. You can't you can't negotiate with these types.
Yeah. No, I listen, I think that there has been obviously an
awakening that happened within our community due to our project on a
national you think so? I don't, I don't I don't think we're
stronger. I think the boat, I'm not saying that we're stronger.
I'm not saying that we're stronger yet. We're not even conflict
ready. I we're still conflict averse. I say that with love to
the OMA with it with love to the community. I agree with you. I
agree with you on that. However,
you know, I think that there has been an awakening and that today,
okay. It has helped
Unlock and open and bring together the national community at a level
that they had never been
unified at a level like that before. Okay. Now, again,
respectfully, there were many members of the community, that
selflessly came up, and many heads of many large organizations, okay,
for example, you know, to head out from care, okay. May Allah
subhanaw taala, protect, increase and elevate him with everything
that he does. Okay. He has built today one of the most important
civil American civil rights organizations, okay, that has,
you know, emerged today, as I believe one of the most important
organizations that we have in the country.
It cannot, okay, it cannot, was of the Magnus Assura of New York
City.
The the the amount of
community support, okay, putting aside, whatever is your
perspective on the the support of the Muslim community, or the lack
of the support of the Muslim community, which I wholeheartedly
agree was not done,
was not done in the way that it should have been done again, but
that was due to our lack of experience and our lack of
understanding of the depth
and the gravitas of our community on a national level. Okay. And,
you know, as, as we, you know, as we go forward, there is going to
be a lot more thoughtfulness in what we're doing and what we're
building.
But
we want you one that's we want, the result at the end of the day,
is that today, we own the land, okay, we have our foundations
finished for the sanctuary that we're building, we have an
incredible project that is going to be a gift to humanity, it is
not just a gift to the Muslims, it's a gift to humanity, it is
going to be our it's going to be a contribution of a landmark
institution. Okay, two blocks away from where our identity was stolen
from us. Okay, if you look at the the ramifications of those
horrific events of that day, okay. And if you fast forward till
today, and look at who was affected by it, and it was us as a
Muslim community. So we have an opportunity here to, again, open
our house, to the community,
to the global community. Okay, when you look at 80 plus million
tourists that come into New York City, what do we know that we have
close to 20 20 million tourists that are coming down to the World
Trade Center, and we have this opportunity here, okay, to open up
our doors and open up our community in a way of servitude,
in a way of, of sharing
our identity and the truth of our identity without compromising or
watering anything down. Okay? And building a pride point, a jewel
box for our children
a place where a presidential candidate could come in and get
the endorsement of our community, okay, in a proper way, in one of
our houses, and that's a little bit of an inside joke, guys.
Right? Okay. And having
you know, having that ability of us being able to offer that. So,
you know, at the end of the day
the most important thing about this project is that first and
foremost, it's executed with loss and sincerity for Allah subhanaw
taala. That's the first and foremost mission of all the
servants of this project, is that we want to build a place that
Allah
Hello Tala is pleased with and we want to provide a platform that
our Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam is pleased with, you know
what? If you're going around pleasing people, okay, then you
ain't doing something, right. Okay? Because this isn't about
going around and trying to please people and win people over.
There's, there's a reason that there are doers. And there's a
reason that there are talkers, right? And we just want to do we
want to build and let the let the work speak for itself. Well, we
kept you guys so long. It's unbelievable. It's like, past
midnight, and we both got one hour drive ahead of us. So just cycle
Okay, any final words?
I, you know, I want to thank you for having me on your podcast. And
I'm so honored to be here, I just ask
the listeners to dream big.
And to execute on their dreams when they when they find the right
dreams and to never ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,
ever, ever, ever give up.
Never give up, when you've decided that you're going to do something
and believe that it will happen. We all go through trials. And if
you're not going through a trial, then you're doing something wrong.
Okay?
We all go through trials, we all go through tests. And I can tell
you that
we are so blessed to be Americans, we are so blessed to be Americans
and to be in this country. Okay. And each and every one of us has
an obligation to make sure that we do our part no matter how big or
how small it is in ensuring that we share our practice our profit
and our identity with our community at large. And please
keep me in your tuat Please keep Schiff shady and Alex in your dot
and
for the record
I would love to be your first sponsor I don't know if you have
sponsors on your podcast but Soho properties would love to be a
sponsor of your podcast
so I don't know if your we do you do have sponsors would you have
sponsors you announce the sponsors are we yes or no we get a clip
either of your blurb that you give us or you want to record it
yourself okay if you want to give us copy where we give us copy,
we'll read it. You read it with your voice whatever you wear it
and every single one Okay, well, I would like to I haven't heard any
of the sponsors yet. Maybe I'm not listening No. We have a
sponsorship program but we actually never even advertised it
we have the whole program in place okay we just never actually
advertise it okay but very early on we did we were doing that thing
with elegant we had elegance beard Mecca books wants to be a sponsor,
but we never just got off with talks with them but if you bring
it up I mean although infrastructure for to do it and
set it up as though I'd like to be a sponsor. Okay.
Then I'll email you. So thank you for having me. My pleasure. And
may Allah bless you and reward you and your families and thank you
for being here this evening.
Can we close with a lot actually and let's do it smoothed out on on
that to him and him to learn more Rabbil Alameen Allahumma salli
ala Sayyidina Muhammad wa early he was somebody who was so limited
slim and Kathy and and Pavan Mubarak and fie Allahumma salli
ala Sayyidina Muhammad Al Fattah Halima opened up well, to me the
most about Canossa that how can you how people hide the mystery in
one early country he will not allow the alarm hadn't been in an
email and was a Yahoo via Colombina and Makara lnl CO for
our for Zuckerberg ASEAN Allahu manana Celica Hogback were hooked
by Manu Hedberg. coleambally new kabuna Illa have been a big
sallallahu alayhi wa sallam en la la Medina Anwar and you have to do
and I've been a nurse and Allahumma is not gonna hit a hit
meta sunitinib. ecostyle Allah, Allah Allah, Allah who
could them and the Sunnah Tierra Zuleika
Robin Allah to Zulu been about it her date and will have learned me
Linden Kurama. In Nick Antilla herb, we ask Allah to Allah to
guide us to the straight path and keep us steadfast upon it. We ask
Allah to Allah to make a servants of his messenger sallallahu alayhi
wa sallam and adherence of his sunnah. We ask Allah to Allah to
make us lights that can guide people to have some sort of Allah.
We ask Allah to make us love a man and make it sweet in our hearts
and make disbelief and deviation bitter and distasteful in our
hearts. ask Allah to Allah for all the children of this home
Make their future bright and even. They keep away from them the as
soon as those
companions have bad influence, and we ask Allah to Allah to surround
them with people of good influence, and to make them love
the people of knowledge and to make them love the people of
piety, we ask Allah to Allah to always tie our hearts to the
masajid and always tie our hearts to the football and always tie our
hearts to the automa and always tie our hearts to servitude to his
ummah and to the to the Muslims and to the Sunnah of the messenger
Salallahu Alaihe Salam, we ask Allah to Allah for all our parents
that he guide them to the straight path and make the best of their
days their last days and then to them Jana without he said, and
open their graves and make their graves abodes, apparently forgive
all of their or their their shortcomings for having raised We
ask Allah subhana wa Tada for all of our everyone involved in this
OMA, everyone doing Dawa everyone serving everyone benefiting from
the services anyone contributing with their wealth, contributing
with their dua contributing with their bodies, with their tongues
with their minds that Allah to Allah make it all shahada for
them, and make them all die as martyrs and intergender. Without a
sub with some of the lava let's say dinner. Sayyidina Muhammad,
while earlier was Abu Salam just Lima and specifically, before we
close, we ask Allah to Allah for our hosts tonight in his office,
should he fit government may Allah to Allah, strengthen him and his
family and make him a servant of this deen and make him an imam to
them jump in and make him one of those like say northmen and Ahmed,
who served with their wealth and with their strength, and may Allah
to Allah always purify his gut, his instinct is in his mind and
his heart and Allah to Allah continue to draw him nearer to the
Allama and make him a give strength to the Alma and give
support to the Ummah and ask Allah to Allah for his project, that it
be a shining light for, that the angels looked down upon and are
amazed by We ask Allah to Allah to make it a shining light that the
OMA gets strength by and get some confidence from. We ask Allah to
Allah to bring it to fruition better than what he's imagined.
And to remove away from it all of the problems that are in its path
and all those enemies trying to stop it. We ask Allah to Allah to
make it a guiding light for the city, for the country and for the
people in the entire ummah. SallAllahu ala Sayidina Muhammad
settlement hamdulillah