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Tawfique Chowdhury – Success In The Deen & Dunya
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vision for the Omar Mohamed Salah Salem is to see a world where every believer can live faithfully to this belief, building an exemplary Islamic community that benefits humanity.
Alhamdulillah wa salatu salam ala Rasulillah Salam Assalamu alaykum Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuh and welcome back to beyond the mibr podcast. I am your host Muhammad Basa Eid, and today Allahumma Baddeck. I am very blessed to have with me a guest who has not been here for quite some time at GLM that is, and it's an absolute pleasure and blessing to host him on the on the minbar for the first time. I'm joined with Chef Tawfeeq Choudry Santa Monica was located well, because celebrity chef, how are you? I'm doing really well. Thank you Allama Burdick, it's been quite a long time since you've been at GLM. And I think it's been 10 years. Wow, it's been it's been a very long time. Thank
you for having me back. No, it's absolute blessing. You know what other brothers were told me telling me that you were coming today. And I know we've had a very jam packed day for you jam packed schedule for you today. But I'm hoping we can make a few the podcast is sha Allah Insha Allah, Allah bless you. So check. Um, you know, I had a series of questions that I wanted to ask you and a couple of the brothers, you know, they were advising me, you know, because I wasn't here 10 years ago, you know, I was in Scotland, when hamdulillah I've seen a lot of the work that you've done. Allama Baddeck. And the first question I want to ask you is you graduated a long back from Medina
University, and you're also a qualified doctor. So you pursued medicine as well. Now, what inspired you to do both? Because many of times, people who may go down just one route, just becoming a student knowledge or having a profession as a Muslim. I mean, so you done both Olam? evatik What inspired you to do that?
Was Mila I think,
you know, what, inspired me was literally Allah SCADA. Really, I mean, sometimes we don't plan but Allah plans and he's the best of planners in this way, you know, trust Allah subhanaw taala. Now, Medina was definitely not on the cards. But then I had this great desire to learn Islamic knowledge. And then I just had this great desire that I would try to learn Arabic language. I tried everything I tried to learn from an Arabic professor and the local Masjid didn't work. I tried
learning Arabic at the local university as an international deployment, modern languages didn't work.
I tried even marrying an Arab lady. My wife and Musa have ended up teaching her Arabic. So then I said, Okay, hello. That's it. By hook or crook. I've got to learn Arabic because there's no other way. Right? There's only one option. And though don't give up until I win, so I said, Okay.
I'm gonna go to Medina. And I kept on trying to get an interview. Finally, they came over and they interviewed me. They told me I wouldn't get accepted to my face. Because they came to Australia to get white white Australians and I'm not white. So
so I tried very hard to go there. I used to send my application document to Medina every single week, you know, so allow a couple so they when they when they accepted me, I knew the guy who always add pages every every week. So yes, I'm the same guys. And thank God you accepted me otherwise, I would have kept on sending
Subhanallah so that was very big mercy from Allah that opened up the door of knowledge for me,
gave me access to our lemma. And then when I was there in Medina, I learned about how some of the greatest scholars or lemma greatest scholars Islam wanted to learn about medicine or Shafia Rahim Allah in his deathbed. He said, I wasted half my life. I said, What do you mean? They said, Well, I didn't learn medicine. And then and then
your mama know your Rahimullah much more. He says a scholar or lemma which means that the best and the most beneficial of people are the dilemma of Islam and after bad doctors. I love the heart and the body. So I sent him Imagine if I could join between the two. So that's what I tried to do. And Masha Allah, Allah Mubarak, he successfully did that. hamdulillah Allah bless me to do so. I'm de la la Mubarak's amazing. Now, I'm based on your experience, mashallah vast experience and efforts in the dour?
What advice could you give to students? And this this question is kind of like, towards those who are wanting to be students of knowledge and also those who are maybe seeking a profession? Whether that being you know, being doctors you know, or
dentistry, whatever it may be, what advice do you have for them?
So, these are people who your question is regarding people who are seeking secular knowledge, both secular and and Islamic field as well, because you've done both, you know, I see Yeah. Look, my my, my advice to all people is Allah subhanaw taala is a Lord of all knowledge. Both
Whether you call it secular Islamic and there is nothing called secular everything is Islamic knowledge all from Allah azza wa jal well alumna husana Atta LeBeau Silla completo Hasina, camembert Seco verhaal anthem Shakira when we talk about aristata salaam how to mend the metal in order to make weapons of war. And are you thankful for that knowledge Allah says it's verhalen to Shakira. So now all that is good is from Allah azza wa jal, nothing because secular,
but at the same time, you want to also focus on the de Neilan knowledge at the same time as you get the knowledge of the dunya as well. So you need both, you need both, you can't have just one. And that's why I see Musharraf today. For example, those who only have Islamic knowledge, they're under the thumb of the Masjid. Masjid committee tells them go left, they have to go left to speak here, don't speak there, they can't speak. That's why they have no independence. And therefore, if you have no independence, you can't trust you know, when we have a, when we have a research report written by a doctor, they have to write about whether they're affiliated to any of the medical
companies that they are going to talk about the medicines. They have to say I'm not affiliated, I don't have shares and blah, blah, blah, right? You have to disclose. Imagine now you're already part of the of this particular masjid or that particular association and you're paid by them, you can't be independent. And that's why you know, I speak my mind. I don't fear anybody except Allah azza wa jal Hamdulillah. I have no, you know, my,
I don't worry about where my income is going to come from, because I can just do that medicine. I put up a sign say Dr. Choudry. Patients are just coming, right. So so so that's very important. That's why you know, it's really important for anyone who's studying some acknowledge, become independent. At the same time, those who are studying secular knowledge. You got to realize that this is never going to help you. You're McLemore only on its own. You've got to realize that, you know, just being a cardiologist, a doctor, a top doctor, that is not enough for you to save yourself in Africa. Are you going to come jamoke Yama and say, for 70 years I was ignorant about this all I
did know how to pray how to fast how to give zakat. Allah is gonna say look, you can give that excuse normally, but for 70 years you didn't have the time 70 years gonna give that excuse you can't that's why it will even take me Rahimullah. He said, he said ignorance will never save you from Jahannam isn't what he said. He said ignorance will not save you from Jahannam
it will not save you from Jahannam it might save you from from being a bad hokum put upon you on that particular issue because you know, alcohol was haram or pork was haram you didn't know that. So call us okay. Now you have ailments don't do it again. But you can't claim that for 70 years I didn't know alcohol was haram Hey, hello. What happened to you? Couldn't you Google it couldn't you sit with a scholar? Couldn't you learn? Yeah, yeah. So lack of knowledge will never This is why everybody should seek a path to ailment knowledge and all knowledge is good hair inshallah. But in specially in particular, the knowledge of the Agora of Allah and His deen and Aqeedah. And Philip,
this is the most critical element knowledge that will save you Yamapi Emma inshallah. And then, and then the dunya knowledge will give you independence, to use your Elmy knowledge and the knowledge to talk without fear of anybody
that complications from now, I'm aware, obviously, you were very active. In the past the brothers were talking about the CDs, they used to have your talks, you know, Mashallah. So, there was a transition that you made from being more the face of Dawa and being giving out the lectures to taking a more can I say, strategic strategic approach and being looking at the data needs and managing the data needs? Tell me describe that transition. So in 2015, Hamdulillah, I was already
I started my Dawa when I think when I first came to UK would have been perhaps 2001 2002, around that time. And then hamdulillah since that time till now, I've been fairly active in 2015, I saw the world taking a bad turn. And I thought that just over reliance on charity is not the best way. Plus, we are a billion people. We can't simply keep on new projects, we just fundraise in the masjid people get tired of you this huge donor fatigue. And there's a faster way of launching infrastructure projects or big projects that the woman needs schools, hospitals, etc. By working with businesses, rather than with individual client donors. And when I noticed huge donor fatigue,
and my vision was getting bigger and bigger. And I saw that there was a disconnect between strategy. So I had to change my strategy from what we call a b2c, which is business to customer, individual retail, into business business to business, which is AI as a business. For example. Let's say I have a hospital operator school operator, right? Yeah. And I
I can then go to a asset manager who owns hospitals who likes to buy hospitals who like to set up hospitals and say, Listen, why don't you set up a hospital I'll rent it for me. Instead of me going to my local masjid and says, guys a really great idea, it's called a hospital. And then you can't even raise 100,000 pounds for your masjid, how you're going to raise 100,000 for hospital and you need not 100,000 You need 100 million for hospital, do you know what I mean? So you needed to talk in a different circle. So that meant that I needed to change my style. And my focus on the people that I was working with, and hamdullah that allowed me very recently hamdulillah was able to launch
my first hospital Hamdulillah I also sold my first hospital so that was good. So now I'm able to now focus on the on these things, you know, and that showed me and validated my strategy, that that is the way and then Hamdulillah this is what I hope that other machines out there you know, they're all busy busy trying to launch their own small mass Jades and and that was centers etc. And normal must be the small I mean, you know what I mean in size? Yeah. But my set my suggestion is to think differently inshallah and and get better results by focusing on bringing in a business thinking into this not so that it becomes a business No, no, no. But so that you know, the asset can be owned by
somebody and then the operating business that runs the runs the show of this, for example, this studio, or runs the, the operating school or the hospital can actually be run by you. And in that way, inshallah you can explode and accelerate your growth in sha Allah, Allah Mubarak,
what may have triggered that, you know, that when you see in the world, how do you notice that the world was making a change in 2015. So what I noticed was some of the Duat like, you know, some of the well known to I don't want to mention the names, but they were being they were being targeted by, you know, by
unscrupulous individuals, lobby groups,
and some security agencies. That was primarily because, you know, there were so loud and they just promoted their own brand a lot. And that's why you know, I don't even I'm not on Tik Tok these days, I'm not even on. I don't know, the last time I posted on Twitter. I don't even know not even on Facebook. And, you know, people ask me Sure, what are you doing? I said,
I'm doing exactly what I meant to trust me. You just don't know what I'm doing. So yeah, so.
So when I noticed that there was a change in the way that these machines were being targeted.
Then I realized that centralizing everything under one name, one brand is bad. And what if I become bad? Then my charities and my work falls? So that's why I decided that look, guys, you all have to make yourself successful without Autofix name being attached to anything. So most people don't know I'm involved in anything.
Hamdulillah I like it that way.
And that tooth, so that I'm not doing anything so that people can thank me for it in this dunya you know what I mean? Yeah. So that I can get thanks from Allah azza wa jal, that's what we want. Now. So it's very important that we keep our names hidden, not for anything except for our own hearts and our minds. Otherwise, it's very, very easy for us in our hearts to be to be corrupted.
Zack, okay,
now, I want to ask you about
obviously, that
thinking in that way, you know, having that kind of thought process and state of mind requires someone who is has a high aspirations. And my question is now, how do Muslims not only like have get, like, inspire themselves to have high aspirations, you know, encourage themselves to train themselves even maybe, but also how do they maintain high aspirations and how the two they tackle the inhabiting,
inhibiting sorry factors that may prevent them from having high aspirations. So look, high aspirations is it's in our deen, you know, while immediately Dalek affiliate and alpha cinematography soon for the example of the heavens and the earth of the competition begin at the competitors compete you know, one one Hakuna or whatever Muslimeen so that I'm from the first of the believers call in Nanos, in.
In the Salah, T one also Qiyamah Yama, Mati de la hora, Bill Alameen. Right, Salama life and my daily living and my death. I mean, you look at the way Allah is teaching us is inspiring us. Look at how Allah says
in the lush terminal meaning and Fusa Hawala home be Anala halogen.
Look at the way Allah says, you know in Surah Toba Verily Allah has purchased from the believers, their lives and their wealth. And in return Allah will give them Jana you know, I mean, so big, big, big verses, I mean, where are we from? These verses and these tiny small
Thinking and the small type of doors that we're making any Allah is Able to do everything. Why do we make such a small tiny door to the one who's able to do everything and it's, it's unbecoming. You know what I mean? And when you go to the king, you ask for something small you ask for something big. Yeah. And is the king of the universe, you could ask him for something bigger than the Earth.
And our and our doors don't even go beyond our own family sometimes. So we have to think big. And we see that our, our Prophet SAW Salem before he passed away, he set up your lum lum as the mecca for Yemen. And he set up that or aircon as the makeup for the people of Iraq and jofa for the people of Sham Hello, hello. There was no Muslims in Sham, there was no Muslims in Yemen, there was not Muslims in in Iraq, there was Persians. So that shows you that he's a man of vision. He had great aspirations he was giving the Sahaba an edge saying that's what you focus next. is Islam there Islam there Islam there, right. So this is how you have vision. You We are the followers of a visionary
Prophet, they will not be a house of brick or mortar or clay except that there will be a Muslim in it. What's he trying to say? He's trying to say you make sure all my brothers who are going to be my followers, you want to be the agora, then you follow my vision and achieve it for me because Allah wants to see me now. I've got to leave now. I'm 63. And Allah has given me a short life. But with the hope that he will, you will, that we leave behind brothers who will take that mission and that vision forward. So that's what gives you vision and purpose. So we have a brother, his name was Mohammed Salim. And he passed away too early. But he left a huge dream behind. And it's incumbent
upon us to achieve that for him. Right. And that's what gives me purpose today. So that's what given me gives me that. And for anyone else out there who is confused and worried and worried about all the roadblocks. The biggest roadblock is the why the question, sorry, the question, how, right how am I going to do it? What do you mean check the feet you're gonna say, we know we're going to launch a school or 10 schools haha was out, you know, hubris. That's so proud. That's so arrogant. You know, you think you can launch that many? You know? How. So you know, my point has always believed the How to Allah. Leave the How to Allah, you focus on the why. So if you can really focus on the
why, and you can keep on telling people why the How will come together. I'll give you a simple example. Okay. And this is very critical. Let's say you're marooned on an island. You want to get off the island, right? Just like Robinson Crusoe. And the castaway. Right? You're Tom Hanks, you're on the island. You want to get off the island, how the * you're gonna get off the island. There's two ways. So you've got people with you. And you can see okay, you have the man, you collect all the wood. And you you go get some fish because we weren't getting hungry. And you guys go get all the ropes and you tap on the ropes. And then this is how you build a battleship. And you know you draw
the ship on the ground, give them some ideas. And then people go and build a ship what would happen when you do this? After the first wave comes and crashes down upon the breaks the ship or breaks the raft or whatever you're building? That's it. They give up. But what if you do it my way? This is how I do it. Hey, when you miss about UK any myths about Birmingham? All Birmingham is is Coventry road. It's it's brother. It's a beautiful food as nice restaurants is Greenland Masjid. It's my mom's house. It's cooking. It's correct. Teeth die. It's Do you understand? Yeah, it's my wife. It's a hot shower. It's my kids. It's my car. It's my brothers. It's my friends. It's the soccer match. It's
the Do you understand? Yeah, you drive them wild with why I'm telling you they will figure it out they will figure it out. They will figure it out one of the ones they look I saw this in one of the things another one says look I'm going to get this done even if 10 times the raft breaks they're going to keep trying to live with time because they miss Birmingham you got it yeah and that's what you got to do. That's what we don't do enough. We do too little of oh guys we need a school it's already understood why we need a school now let's tell you about how we're going to do it. Hello, hello hello. Forget about
everything else, focus only on one thing, focus only one thing and that thing is simply why we need a school.
That's like completely different way of looking at something when you want to get something done. You know the most of the time we figure out the steps how will we do this you know in the planning stages instead of the why are we doing this is like a locker
now
as a Muslim society, we we all have roles. Now my question
To you nourish Allah is to ask you,
how do we how do how do what's the importance of the importance of the role of the sisters, especially in Western society where we living in the West? How and what is their role? And
what should their role be? In this society, okay, for my experience, sisters are very focused individuals, and they mature a bit more faster than us, you know, we have our maturity when we are like, 3040 we all get there, we both get there. Right. But we take a little bit time to enjoy, you know, we need our bikes, we need
gawa you know what I mean to enjoy a life. So we take our time.
But sister somebody, like get the earlier. And they are they cannot, we cannot rub Every sister or brush every sister with the same brush.
This sister at the age of 20 is different from age of 30, at age of 40. By the age of 40. She's already had her kids, for example, in especially in a Muslim context, divided children, children are growing up hamdulillah the perhaps in university, what is she doing with her life? She's now at the prime of her life. She's at 40. Right now, of course, also sure, or perhaps even her sexual desire has gone down. So now she doesn't have to spend that much time with her husband. So she should be involved in the community a lot more at that age. She should become a teacher. In fact, I would say every sister should become a teacher. Because in every, you know, our typical Muslim family, three
to four kids, in 10 Muslim families, you already have a classroom. Right? Yeah. And a classroom needs three or four teachers because you got different subjects. So that means at least half of our sisters need to be teachers. And they need to be teachers, they need to focus on that. And I would suggest Every sister, every sister focus on education, that's what I would say, okay, that's the biggest hurdle for us right now. Is enough education is not there. Far too many. Not Yet Muslims, who are teaching right now, we need to have our sisters with our tarbiyah that have our buying that have been mothers as well. So they understand how many school teachers today have no children they
actually have never raised so they actually don't understand. Yeah, yeah. So and I've noticed in my own school, when I used to learn the mother, teachers used to be better teachers, because they understood kids a lot more and they had more safety and well being for the kids, they understand when a child is actually not understanding something else is going on in their home, you know, so they had the sixth sense, the mother sense. So I would suggest to all sisters to become teachers seriously in maths and maths. And at the same time, I would suggest that all sisters focus on raising their kids initially whilst they're young. Until about university schooling age, at that
point, get into education, get into schooling become principals become head teachers become, headmaster's etc become school teachers and classroom teachers. So that inshallah you can teach the next generation. And,
and I would suggest that our brothers and our husbands understand that they should not keep their wives only in the homes. Because today we're in a unique situation where there's so much need, and there's not enough good people to do it. So because I know the type of people that will listen to a podcast as well are people practicing with more interesting, yeah, so my suggestion is enmasse, enter into education. And and I'm the Lead education as well funded, you will have money you will have a salary. So you're not going to do work for free. Also, it has lots of holidays, you will have time for holidays as well.
Insha Allah, and teaching makes a good leader. And hamdulillah by through teaching, you can also raise your children a lot better as well. That's my suggestion to all the sisters. Allah knows best alphabetically. Other question I have is for primarily the youth now growing up and in this time and age, especially living in the likes of UK, America, or maybe even Australia.
What is what kind of future should we be
preparing for the for the youth? Or what? How should we prepare the youth for the future? That makes sense? I see. Yes. Look, the youth are our exceptional individuals. They are the future and the future is right now. Hamdulillah we are blessed in the Omaha Salem source we have the largest amount of youth of any nation, any culture, any tribe, any race, any religion. hamdulillah mashallah, and our country's Muslim countries like Pakistan, Bangladesh and others. We have the largest amount of youth martial law case. So we have a huge, huge blessing. I mean, Europe would would, you know, give their arm and leg in order to have what we have, right? Because they are imploding, you know, in
terms of population whereas we're exploding in population.
But the youth are, they have certain qualities number one
They are easily distractible, and impressionable.
So they are not critical. They don't critically think they tend to trust whatever they see in front of the eyes. Like Instagram, they see a picture and they trust it like, come on. This is a fake. Do you know that? Everyone is smiling on Instagram? But that's because you know, the other half when they're crying, they don't take a picture when they're crying. Do you understand? These are all Snapchat filters that you're seeing? You know, and you see that when you meet a person, hey, look, look more prettier in your iPhone picture. That's because of the phenomenal, you know, and the other day I saw a tick tock AI app that makes you look so handsome and so beautiful, like, wow. So youth
tend to trust what they see. And they're not critical. They need to be critical. I mean, when you see Coca Cola advert, what do you see? You see this man with amazing beach body that's glistening with sweat drinking down coke down, right? But the truth is, when you drink Coke, you get fat. So So you are not thinking critically, you understand what I'm saying? Yeah, and they need to be a bit more critical. When they when they act a bit more critical, they will realize that the idols that they follow actually are not real, really real idols. Yeah, and they're not meant to be followed. Actually, they are very much human, sometimes you are in a better situation than them. So with with
youth, I would encourage them to be a bit more critical. That's number one. Number two, with the youth.
I would suggest that mashallah there is no longer any barrier between age and success. We find 18 year olds and 20 year olds becoming multimillionaires as well as you know, 16 year olds finishing the university degree age is not a not an issue anymore. And we're in a land of opportunity. If you want any political knowledge, knowledge is already available. If you want to make money money's already available at whatever age. Crypto is a perfect example how through crypto, some youth have become multimillionaires and billionaires, you know, we have jumped on the bandwagon early. So the point I'm trying to make here is we live in a very different time from our parents and our parents,
they had to go through the through the through the,
you know, through the mill, they had to go through their schooling that they had to go through university, and then they had to work for 10 years, and then they had to buy their homes. We don't have to do the same things. I own a hospital, I don't own my own house.
Because I don't have to own a house. Why should I own a house, a house would tie me down now that I don't own a house, I can live a few years in Malaysia, next I can move to Dubai, then I can move to London, if I wish, then I can go to Toronto, finally retire in Medina, I could do what I want with my life, you understand what I'm saying? And with the money that I didn't focus on buying my house with, that I could actually spend on building my hospital, my idea, my vision that I had, as long as I had the courage to do so. So this is the new age, it's the age of the new of the new rich, the new rich are those who make money in the west and spend it in the east, those who live in a in one
particular jurisdiction, but they earn in another jurisdiction, right. And we see that today. You could, you could live in Bali, for example. You could live in Bali, but earn your income as a digital nomad, from London, for example. So this is the new age. And so I encourage the youth to experiment with these new ideas of becoming free, and, and explore ideas of thinking really big. And with youth, you don't have to tell them they all want to fix the world. They all want a better world. So the new generation Zed, you know these guys, they all want to change the world, all 97% of them want to change the world. That's that's the research. So we have to tell them, we just have to
liberate them from going through the same route that everyone else is taking. And that's how I ended up doing everything opposite in everyone said do do your medicine first. No, I did Medina first then I came back to medicine afterwards. You know, everyone says, Oh, I work as a doctor work as a doctor. I said no, I'm going to own a hospital rather than run a hospital rather than work in a hospital. Do you understand what I'm saying? Yeah, if you think different inshallah you will, you will have different results. And I think the youth must experiment with opportunities given to us in the 21st century.
And gain as much knowledge as they can gain different knowledge from the typical knowledge that they gain and learn how to excel in this world. Insha Allah, it's entirely possible right now, exciting times we live in among very, you know, sure, from what I'm talking to you, I get
the feeling of
we should we should really start looking at the world in a different way. And start thinking in outside the box, if you will, right. What do you think stops people from thinking that way? Because if this what we're discussing now, something that everyone was doing, the world would be a different place, of course, but what is it that stopping people from having this mentality, it's the way that we've been raised
Delphi, you know, it's all we have just been lectured to lecture lecture lecture talk, talk, talk, talk, talk. That's not the way to learn, there's many ways to learn, there is experimenting, there is traveling, there is reading. And that's why I tell the youth and the new generation, if you just learn by only one style, which is being told, you're being told class teachers coming in, and he's telling you about the history lesson, rather than you coming and learning yourself, and then the question coming from the teacher and the class questioning what what you've already learned. So there is a different way of learning. And the different way of learning allows you to not have
preconceived ideas. If your didactic learning, which is lecturing, then they drill down ideas and thoughts into your head. And as a result, you start to think within those brackets already. And that's what I guess is the biggest hurdle. Because hurdle is you think that you can't change because you need to use whatever tools you have knowledge you have money you have in order to do it. Let me give a simple example to illustrate. In in Stanford University, one of the MBA professors did an experiment he taught he told all the 500 class Class groups, you're all into groups of five. Everyone look under your table, you got $100 You got one month, in groups of five you got one month
to make as much money as you can. Right? All I'm giving you is $100. Go away. ever went away. The winners came back. The the last one made 10,000 The third one the third, they've got the third prize make $10,000 from the 100. The second one made 17,000. Right, masha Allah from the 100. Amazing how much did the first one make the one who won? They made 3.4 million in one month.
Right? How did that happen? Right? Okay, so everyone got them together? This is so important. Listen to this. Okay. And
the most important question was, how did you do it? How did you do it? What what did you do? What was idea? Listen to what they said. They said as soon as we opened the envelope and saw $100 We realize that's a distraction.
That's a distraction. The first thing we did we tore up the envelope, we tore up the $100 put into the trash.
Subhanallah Okay. SubhanAllah. So we said, No, that's a distraction. Because if only we think that we only have 100. And we're going to think only with 100. That means you're not going to we're going to have small ideas, small thinking, that's gonna restrict us. rather throw the money away, say we have no money at all now. And now all we have is our name, our brand, our links, our contacts, and whatever knowledge we have, right? And then now let's think about how to make money. That's when we use our leverage. We leverage our context, our links and our and our resources, right? Yeah, without using any cash, using our name and our brand and our networks and links and context. That's how we
made money. Like, oh my God, that's what you got to do. You got to stop thinking, This is why when someone starts in business, I usually tell them give all your money away to Allah, even in South Africa. Because the money that you have is actually too little. Okay, for your ideas, what you only have 10,000 pounds in your account. That's not enough to build even a you know, you know, you can't do I mean, this is why everyone is trying to launch a kebab shop. When you say business, kebab shop, why? Because they only have 10,000 accounts, they can only literally lend a kebab shop and, and do a little bit of fit out here and then somehow launch it right yeah. But that's why it's this is not
how you think. First give your money to Allah so Allah in your hands are better than my hands. or Allah teach me or Allah guide me, Allah give me the links in context inspire me. That's how I got started. I gave my sadaqa my money away. And so the carniceria Allah have got nothing now. Now, if you keep me poor, then I one of the slaves who poverty does not help you. I need to be strong and wealthy. So you make me strong and wealthy, I'm gonna help you deal. And then the first thing Allah inspired me is to go and speak to people who are very wealthy billionaires. So when I spoke to I think, 17 billionaires, Mashallah. I said, No, I'm not gonna speak to millionaires, because they're
stingy people. I'm going to speak to mil billionaires, because they're, they're wealthy. And there's so much while they can easily write your check for 10 million, it wouldn't hurt them, right? Yeah. Yeah. And so when I spoke to billionaires, I realized, and I put a criteria, the criteria is the billionaires who made money from zero. They were not like, you know, wealthy.
inheritance, no, no, nothing like that. Then I realized there are individuals like you and me. They weren't particularly educated. Some of them I was more educated than them. I knew more Quran than them. I knew more Hadith than them. I knew more Islam than them. I knew more medicine than them. I was more eloquent than them. I was prettier than them. I was like, what?
But how are you so rich and wealthy? Then I realized that they have the following now
Number one is to have an edge, an edge one thing and one thing only, that they know how to do very well. Okay, number two. The second thing that they have is that they realize how to do that one thing very quickly. repeat it as many times as possible, not just one. But Repeat. Repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat. Let me see, for example, right now I'm a doctor, for example, I know that I can charge 30 pounds for a patient, for example, if I was doing a private service, right, okay. Now, how can I do as many patients as I can? Legally, possibly, within the time that I have? Yeah. Can I do 50 patients? can I do 60 patients? Can you save the patient? Of course, I can't do that much.
Obviously, there's a limit. But my point is, they have figured out how to do that one thing that gives them that small 5% profit 10% profit 10,000 5000. But how to do it so many times as fast as possible.
That's how they made money, but they figured out one edge. And that's how I realized as well, people who trade on the stock market, people who buy shares and are profitable traders, they only have one clear strategy, you just need one thing, okay? You just need one thing. You don't need 50 You need one idea, but you got to figure out how to do it infinitely,
you know, recurring number of times, you know, you understand, yeah, that's what you got to do. That's what you got to do.
That's how you become wealthy. Right? That's how you become wealthy. Right? But figure out that one thing, and figure out how to do it more and more and more and more times?
Shall I hope I haven't distracted too much original question.
No, it's good, a little better. Because in and of itself, you know, talking about how we're educated, that we're more lecture to you. And I think I had a quote not too long ago, it was that we were our children were were educated or teaching them to a world that doesn't exist anymore. You know, our parents, they taught us the word that they knew. And we're teaching them that we were taught by our parents. Now that word does not exist anymore. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, very different world. And that's why I mean, there is some some truth in the statement that says that we have to raise our kids in a different way than our parents raised us. Yes or no, in some things we
shouldn't change. Yeah, you know, our, our attachment to our values, yes. You know, better validate the focus on excellence that our parents drilled into us. Yes, that is all so valuable. Okay. That's one of the main reasons why I am here today. Hamdulillah. But one thing definitely is for sure, the way they did it, the way they did it, Dad did it through engineering. And he, you know, he launched his own business, or he worked, you know, somewhere, I don't have to do it necessarily that way, I could do it a different way. Yeah. And that's what makes me more successful in that. I benefited from both. Yeah, I benefited in my values from my parents. But in my strategy, I benefited from how
the modern people have achieved things.
Been thinking about something that when we have a discussion prior to the, to the podcast, the brothers were talking, and that is the Muslim identity, and the suffering of inferior inferiority complex, where we, you know, we don't see ourselves in.
And I think this covers almost also what we're talking about aspirations, you know, and being, you know, proud of your deen and that pride in your religion, leading to, of course, wanting to do great things and, you know, quote, unquote, change the world. You know, how do we get here? And how do we fix this? It's easy, it's easy. You can see one of the biggest problems is that, you know, we are
starting off looking at Mount Everest, I mean, look at the small hill first, meaning.
One of the ways that we destroy our desires to achieve greatness and do big is sometimes we think that we need to get to we need to climb Mount Everest tomorrow. You with me? Yeah, it doesn't have to be tomorrow. We have a great vision. That's audacious goal. Correct? Absolutely critical. So you must have a vision like Mount Everest or a vision that beacons to you just like Mount Everest to every climber, right? You must have such an audacious goal, no doubt. That is what will make sure that you have great impact and great effort that you put in.
It will create a bit of stress in your life, which is you stress, which is the good quality stress that will increase your impact and increase your efficiency without creating harm. And
that is not time restricted to tomorrow. It could be in 10 years or five years, or 15 years from now you with me? Yes. But where we need to win is we need to have small wins. I call it quick wins. Yeah. So that's what will help you
validate your vision. So I always tell people, or anybody I'm helping with in order in the vision, okay? First work on the quick wins that you can get, let's say you want to lose weight, you want to lose 50 kilos, because you're very overweight, 50 kilos very difficult to lose. And that the amount of trials that you had, it will put you off, rather than try to just fix one thing. What is that one thing? Let's try and achieve 10,000 Steps not even wait, don't even completely focus on, you know, focus away from weight, focus on 10,000 steps. Let's do 10,000 steps today. And we're going to counter we know that if you walk enough steps, you will eventually lose weight. Yes. So when he
completely focus on something else on something more achievable. Suddenly, you've got this dopamine hit in your brain that says you know what, you can do it. You are self motivating on your own, because you've achieved small steps. And that's very critical. Okay. My suggestion is get the small steps done, get the small goals done. That will be your own motivation, your own dopamine hit that will be slowly pile up until you will then start to dream big. I didn't have a big vision from day one. I started to do small things. But when I started to win in the small things, I lost a lot as well. But when I started to win and those small things that gave me the impetus to think very big.
I
thank you for coming. It's been absolutely inspirational. And I want you to shut up to conclude with this last question. And that is for the Muslim ummah at the moment with everything that's happening in the world. What is your vision for the next 510 years since we were talking about vision? What do you see this OMA What would you like to see the OMA in five to 10 years? Well, my ultimate vision for the Omar Mohamed Salah Salem is to see a world where every believer can live faithfully to his belief, building an exemplary Islamic community that benefits humanity. That's my ultimate vision.
In I would say in five to 10 years time, I would love
that this Omar Mohamed Salah Salem, especially we're talking in the UK context, right?
In UK, that we have new challenges that we focus on that we have developed deep roots in society where Islam is seen as part and parcel of England. We have deep patrons of the arts, we have patrons in politics, we have lobby groups, we have politicians that have entered and
and taken on major posts, number of massages are
over five to 10,000 We have over 1000 schools.
We have a number of Muslim hospitals that are private hospitals with Islamic ethos. I would like to see at least 10 hospitals in the next 10 years.
I'd like to see that Muslims have at least at least I would say 50 unicorns, unicorn is a 50 million pound organization. I'd like to see 50 fast moving unicorn organizations where Muslims are pioneered this, you know, and Muslims have entered and formed
associations like Muslim chambers of commerce that have power in us and strength, where the Prime Minister of England attends our annual event not because he needs our blessings. Otherwise, you know what, we are too powerful economically. That's where the strength is.
And I'd like to see that the universities and the Isaac's are extremely effective organizations, extremely effective organizations.
I want people to see Islam as an alternative way of life and form of thought, not simply the liberal, the liberal liberalism that we are engrossed in today, I'd like to see Islam to be
the in thing insha Allah that will be that will be what I would hope for. And finally, I would hope that the Imams
become next level Imams that no longer are they normal Imams. A typical Imam is not something that you send your weakest son or your weakest child to you send your best to become ima because they are well paid well educated well looked after as aspirational individuals, visionary people, you attend one hot burn the hair on the back of your back of your shoulder rises up from fear of God and you feel like that's it. I'm charged. I'm gonna I'm gonna do so much more for Allah. You know what I mean? Those are the Imams that I'd like like to see occupy our members
and and I'd love to see UK being at the forefront are the Muslims and UK at the forefront of guiding the rest of the Muslim minorities in
their progression towards a strong Mashallah.
May Allah make it or, you know, come before while death I mean, you know, I mean, she has been an absolute pleasure and honor to have you know, on this podcast Thank you for having me honors on my and I hope I get to have you soon I know you travel a lot and we're not, you know, as close as as you were to in terms of you know the parts of the world that we live in.
But mashallah things are online now, but it'll be amazing to have you back on the actual podcast that
give you a lot of success and I hope everyone benefits and really
stops being afraid right now there's fear out you know, and the fear of fear is worse than the fear itself. And insha Allah have a big dream and Allah will achieve it for you.
And with that, inshallah we end this episode has been an absolute pleasure. I thank Allah subhanaw taala first and foremost, for allowing us to be here and to have this discussion. And then, of course, I think our chefs are coming and enlightening us with beautiful conversation and beautiful benefit. For those who are watching. Remember to Like, Share, Subscribe and leave in the comments section. What you benefited from what you'd like to hear from us here at beyond the member. Until next time, I've been hammered by eat here with Chef toffee Jody Subhanak alone will be having the cash flow to woolich Assalamu Alaikum Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuh