First American To Teach in Prophet’s Masjid

In terms of teaching in the message nubbly, which is a great honor from Allah subhanaw taala. In 2012, to sometime in the spring,

I got a text message in Arabic. And it said noble shape, you have been as a leader to shape into militia you have been selected or nominated, if you will, to teach and the prophets message, you need to respond within a day, or something like that. So, I'll be honest with you, I thought that it was the wrong number. And I usually don't respond, like, you know, to text messages, I don't know where it's coming from, I was busy, too, I was very busy. I was in the heat of trying to work out my proposal for my doctorate. And I was like, I really don't have time for this. I said, but this message is important. And they sent it to the wrong numbers. So they need to, I need to make sure

that they know that the person that the letter is intended for is not just not responding, you know, because they were like, you have a day to respond type of thing. So I was like, Man, this is important that this person needs to be able to know. So I called the number because I was going to tell the person, look, I think you got the wrong number you should contact, you know, whoever This message is supposed to be for. So when I call the number, the person on the other line said, shake pie.

And then it hit me that this message was for me because the person answered it like that. And I was like cinema Aiko and the first one. I said, I'm off to LA. Yes. So you got the message. And I was like, Yes, I got the message. But it still had resonated yet because it was like, I still did not think the message was for me. So then at that point, they said, Okay, look, you know, you need to send your CV to the Medina show in Italian, which is the head of teaching affairs for the profit semester.

So I did that there was a brief interview. So they do like their initial screening or whatever like that. From there, I guess about three weeks to a month went by. And then there were a group of us who have been nominated to or selected to teach in the prophets message, a group of us meaning from different representing different languages, and many of them were my colleagues and classmates. So there were two Indonesians who were classmates of mine. During the doctorate program. It was a Nigerian brother was a classmate of mine when I was doing the postgraduate diploma in dalla, and another brother, Pakistani brother, at the basket, like father, who's got his doctorate now, but we

actually, we actually started the mind together in 1996. And in some kind of law, so there were, I don't know, maybe seven or eight of us who were going for this interview. At the agency, they call it the agency that represents the shownotes domain and collective affairs of the domain. So it's like the official agency. And you go in, there's a room there, there are three people, I've never met any of them before. They were all, you know,

all representatives of the hot domain. And that was it was intense. You go and it really felt like an interrogation room when you go and it was like one light bulb, there was this chair. And they were sitting on sofas and the indig, literally sitting on this chair. And it really did feel like like interrogation room. And I think they did that on purpose. And they ask you a series of questions. Some of the questions were, you know, academic, but a lot of the questions were more about how you handle disturbances and disruptions and you know, people asking you crazy questions, and how would you respond to this? What would you say about that? And so after that, there was a

period of about six months, we didn't hear anything.

And then that was so that took us to about november of 2012, which is when the decree came down, then I guess at least five of those other brothers who interview with me at least, were also appointed to teach in the mess of the Prophet. It is a lot from Sudan.

But again, that was like a six month process because it goes through. First it goes through the local police and then it goes through what they call the DGI, which is like the Saudi version of the FBI. So they doing all types of background checks and checking, basically checking you out and goes through whatever process they have in

The Ministry of the Interior, I'm not sure where it goes after that. And then that's when you get official, that's when you become official. So that started that was November 2012. I taught my first class in April, I believe, of 2013. I started by teaching 40 Hadeeth of an amendment. No, we, and that was at the suggestion of

one of my closest Shake, shake. I'm not exactly happy, though. lousiana.

Yes, up until this point, I've been the only one that has been appointed to teach in the English language. You know, I want to share this. I got a call. Maybe around that same time, I don't know it was sometime in the beginning of 2013. I got a call from shake up the rizek. And I bet but have you the law. And he said to me, he said a shake kuranda gave me the good news and feel and this is my Indonesian classmate who was also at the same time appointed to teach in the prophets mentioned he since he since left Medina and going back to Indonesia, got his got his doctorate asset on humbly line, I was just, you know, grateful to Allah Subhana data. So the sheikh said, Listen, I have some

advice for you. He said,

You have to prepare well, for each and every class.

You have to prepare well for each and every class. And that was interesting, because I have spoken to a number of, of my machines and things like that. And he was the only one that said that. And it was great advice. And he said, he said I remember is what he was telling me. He said I remember when some of the older man had been appointed to teach in the profit semester. He says shakin bass told them

prepare well, for each and every class. He said, and I'm just passing that advice on to you. He said the knees were great scholars, he said, some of them were my, you know, teachers personally. And even with that being the case, the shake, told them to prepare for each and every class. And I noticed that that has been the same path of shake up the rezac himself, you can tell that he prepares for each and every class. And I took that advice to heart. And, you know, it was great advice. And I thank him for that.

Let me, you know, I'll say this to every politician to anybody that's going to give a hook by ever, or a class or anything else. Make sure that you're doing it for a loss.

If your intention is sincere, and I need to do it for loss of data, you can block out the noise. No doubt. I mean, no doubt that that platform. I mean, it's it's it's a tremendous honor. And I mean, at that point, you know, I'm not I was i'm not i'm four years removed from it now. But at that point, it was like it. And it still is still an honor every day to be able to teach the people to deal with loss of Hannah Montana is a blessing in the do it in the measure of the profit it is. So lots of cinemas is an even greater blessing. And at that time, I can honestly say that, I think that I was nervous going into it. But once I sat down, and you start by saying in the Hamdulillah, this

is not about me. This is not about me trying to impress anybody. This is about conveying the deen of a lost parent. And if you're confident that what you're teaching people is the religion of a lost parents, Allah then it has nothing to be scared about. There's nothing to be nervous about. So I think I was more nervous, just trying to picture myself teaching in the message of the prophet Isaiah, so glad to see them. And also knowing that there's a different type of preparation as required, because you're not necessarily teaching your people if you know what I mean, like the majority of the people that you're teaching are not Americans.

There is a cultural gap, sometimes an idiomatic gap, you might use phrases that people don't understand if you don't, you know, prepare for that. And so,

you know, that that first day was sublime. It was it was sublime. And it took a lot of self reflection and just trying to make sure that what I was doing was sincere for last paradigm. And then you know that that set the path for every other time on humbly law