19 – The Baba Ali Interview
Date:
Channel: The Baba Ali Show
File Size: 33.92MB
Episode Notes
The tables get turned as Baba Ali answers questions on the Greed for Ilm podcast. Check out the season finale of the Baba Ali Show.
AI Generated Transcript ©
Assalamu alaikum welcome to episode number 19 of the Bubba Lee show hamdulillah we've done 18 episodes it has been amazing cool guests unique topics, but this is the season finale inshallah I hope to be back after Ramadan. But for this episode, I want to do something unique. We're gonna turn the tables and this time I'm going to be the one being interviewed. This is a rebroadcast of an episode where I was a guest on the greed for ill podcast. If you haven't checked out that podcast, make sure to go check it out. If you don't know what the link is, you can go to Greek for elm.com or you can go to abolish show I have a link right there in the show notes. And without any further ado,
here we go check it out.
Cultural Muslims have confused the masses and speakers are forced to be politically correct.
voice changed everything.
Man, why y'all serious? This is just a podcast.
Salam Alaikum. Everyone you're listening to Episode 122 of the greed for L podcast. If you're on Facebook or Twitter, you can follow us at greed for lm. If you would like to listen to more episodes, you can go to greed for m.com. Or you can subscribe to us via iTunes or Stitcher. Now, if you do have an iTunes account, ask your favor, head on over there and rate and review this podcast I would truly appreciate that. Not only does it help out with the search rankings within iTunes, to help us get out to more people like yourself. But it gives me that motivational push to keep on doing what I'm doing. Well truly appreciate that. This episode, I have Bubba Lee joining us if you
are not familiar with his work, he is a comedian. He's a game developer. He's a businessman, actor, founder of half our deen.com. But he's more famous for his YouTube channel. Back in 2006. He started he was actually the first Muslim YouTuber.
And so far he has over 75,000 subscribers with over 16 million views. So that that's absolutely amazing. And most recently, he stepped into the podcasting world. He started his own podcast called the Bubba Ellis Show. I'm very very happy to have him on this podcast to talk about everything from half our Deen to his podcast as background. So after today's episode, if you don't know about Baba Lee, because for some reason you're living in a cave or your old school, you don't even know what YouTube is. You're going to know a lot about this man. So without further ado,
Baba Ali, Salaam Alaikum. Thank you so much, man for taking the time out of your busy schedule to come on the podcast.
Welcome to LA. I'm excited to be here. It's interesting to be one podcaster to another. So I get to be on the other side of the table this time. Yeah, man. Yeah, I, I'm, I get the jitters. You know, when I see a new podcast, that's a Muslim podcast that isn't solely like a huddle podcast or some type of like, Tajweed program or not to knock them. But just a regular, you know, everyday podcast and I saw your martial art starting yours. I think you're on episode one, nine or 10? Yeah, inshallah, we're already on episode nine. We just started right. I'm still a newbie in this big pond. And those small fish a big pharma? Sure, you're like 120 plus episodes, or you're like,
the big the big fish the whale in this big
size. It's very, actually very motivating to see other brothers succeed at this. And you're hopefully hamdulillah you said like one of the pioneers in this. So it's a show of other future podcasters are listening is something very inspirational. You know, we we actually spoke for listeners out there, we actually spoke briefly last week, just to kind of schedule things and this and that. And, you know, I'm very excited that, you know, when I first started this podcast, when I when I was doing my episode eight and nine and 10 I was like, you know, I never thought I'd be past episode 25. You know, but we mentioned, you know, back last week that you do get that positive, you
know, you get that email here and there. You know, you get to tweet and this and that people saying you're doing a good job. And not only people from you know, United States, let's say where I'm from DC but Italy and Palestine and all these other countries around the world. And that's just a motivation to keep on going. So I'm actually very, very happy that you're doing what you're doing. And it's your podcast. It's called the Baba Alicia, and is on iTunes and it's so far doing awesome. So good work with that, man. He's so close.
But let's let's take a step back like Back to the Future. Let's go
back.
I want you to talk about how'd you get not only enter the whole podcasting, I will talk about that later, but into the whole YouTube because you're the initial Muslim YouTuber. When I think of a Muslim YouTuber, I think of you. I mean, now they're there. And now they have like, trucy tube and all these other people. But
personally, I think that debatable in terms of like, how far do you go to make people laugh and to get followers and this and that, I mean, there's that line that's drawn, and I, I have never ever covered my daughter's ear or, you know, told my wife nor whatever, when it comes to listen to your your content, you know, ever I mean, that's what I love. I love that feeling of, Okay, we're gonna watch something and it's wholesome is funny, and it hits, it hits a very sensitive topic, you know, and an important topic. So how did you get started with that was interesting is that when I first started with the whole YouTube videos, I couldn't, I couldn't look, I couldn't find anyone that's
doing it. So I actually searched for two days, looking for one person who's blogging, and I couldn't find one Muslim video blogger out there. After a while I discovered, I think I'm the first one. So I don't know who to copy or what to do, what not to do. I didn't even have format, I didn't know what to do. So I sat down, and I was playing around with different things, I saw what other non Muslim youtubers were doing. And at the very end, I came up with this interesting way of moving around in my chair. But that's not what I think what made the video successful, it was the fact that talking about issues that everyone was thinking about, but no one was necessarily talking about. And I think
that kind of struck a chord with a lot of people, I initially told my wife that a lot of people are going to hate me. So get ready for this. And she's like, Why, because I'm going to talk about these issues that are taboo in the Muslim community. And I don't think it's gonna come across very well. And some people did hate me initially.
But humbled, I was very, very surprised by the number of people who actually supported it is kind of like, I was the voice of the voiceless. And like, hey, say, brother, john.
So I was very interesting to, to do that. And as you said, it spreads around the world and like you, yourself and your daughter, it reaches people I've never met before, we get a chance to check out like,
the thoughts of my head, which I always thought was only by myself, but it looks like a lot of people had similar feelings about these issues. Now, when you say that people were they were haters, quote, unquote, you know, haters in the beginning, would you? How would they contact you by comments? Like, how did you know that they were haters? Oh, they will. They will say things that just doesn't really make sense. Like, you know, at the beginning, initially, when I had my YouTube videos, I had this, it would say, all my films I go to do all my films I didn't. I'm not a musician. I didn't make instruments or anything like that. But I had this sound at the beginning. It wasn't I
don't think it was even really music. But nevertheless, brother will contact me this brother, this is music. This is music. And they're like, Oh, no, I don't think I like to discuss music. So what is he talking about? And I click on his profile, and his profile has Shakira dancing.
So I'm like, What
about another guy will say the music thing. Like what are these guys? Like one guy said, you're half our dean. Melody, even though it's only two new sheet artists. I mean, this is done by two, two guys called no beats necessary. I mean, they don't do any music whatsoever. But it says it sounds so good. It sounds like music. So therefore it counts as music, and therefore music is wrong. And your stuff is wrong. Like, what? I love that logic. Yeah. Oh, yeah. The logic. What are you guys talking about? Like, I don't think I've never I don't think discuss even though I've done nearly 100 videos. I never touched music. One. I don't touch normal subjects that everyone already talks about. I mean,
I barely discuss. I barely brought up Hello, meeting me down. We brought it up in in the Muslim extremist video where there was a sister that I found out that drives two and a half hours to go check and verify if the meat is really helpful or not. Oh,
yeah. She goes to the meat market. And she says you meet her law. And the guy says yes. She says, I don't believe you.
Yeah, they say, Oh, he's hour and a half away, or two and a half hours away, are half hour and a half back. So she's actually drive and When interviewed the guy who stars in meat, what background what country? are you from? All this stuff? I'm like, this is ridiculous. Do we do the same thing for our other issues? Yeah, I mean, are we just extreme? That's why I call it muslim extremists. You're extreme into one, one issue. So anyways, these are one of many, many topics I felt that we need to talk about in the Muslim community, how we take certain issues and we completely ignore other ones. And again, it struck a chord with a lot of Muslims because I do this is the same thing I
feel and I wish someone verbalize it. You're doing it
So I'll support you and now I'll share your videos and and even though I only have like 6878, I think 1000 subscribers, it's 14 million video views, which tells me the people who are subscribing are passing it along. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah, that's the whole cherry picking of your religion as
it's a sad fact in the Muslim community that's
so hollow. But just to go back to because I can't get this out of my head. But this lady who would go to the halaal
ask this guy. Now this guy who's selling the meat, he's Muslim, right? Yes. Is that Hello, meat story? Oh my god. So it's like, You're, you're doubting the guy who's a Muslim, you're you're pretty much calling him a liar. You're like, No, I'm gonna go verify that's not right. And I know there's a lot of stuff that's not right that we do. I mean, there's people who waste time being the Huron police of the internet. And yeah, I got my fair share of that. I mean, I have one guy as a contacted me saying that we're part of a beard committee. And we measure your beard, from video to video. And
yeah, my first thing that I didn't know there was a beard committee. Are they joking or not? They're I think the guys are being serious. And we get together as a group, and we measured beards on the internet, I guess. So we've been measuring your beard, from video to video. And we are concerned guests, they sent a report to me. And my first response to them was that I wish I had as much free time as you guys do. Well, because I don't have time to go and sit there and count the flaws and others. And I'm not saying I'm perfect. I have flaws, as many things I need to correct among myself. But since you're correcting everybody else's flaws, are you perfect yourself yet? Do you have time
to make a beard committee? Where's the job committee? And where is the this committee and that committee? I'm like, Oh, you guys have way too much free time. So again, is extreme in a different way. And I feel like sometimes these people who do these type of stuff are having things missing in themselves in their lives, that they try to make up by contrast, to compensate. It's kind of two people who are bullies, people. Oftentimes, they're, they have something that's missing inside of them. They probably have low self esteem. They feel bad about certain things have happened to them. Their dad's probably kicking their butt at home. Exactly. They don't so they try and please others.
It makes them feel like I want others to suffer like I have. So I don't let these people get to me. I additionally I start making my videos. A lot of people are making antibody videos. Yeah. Am I supposed to say Hey, are you gonna respond to this guy? I'm like, no. Why should I respond to a Why give that visibility, credibility? I guess what all those guys disappeared. All of them disappeared, which was
it was a good experience. So this is what like when people came after me. When they asked me for advice. I give them my two cents. And that's why I try to do it. And just let everyone know who's listening right now. You know, the grief. podcast is not just a podcast, but the brother behind it. Brother Walid I actually contacted him about a week ago, and I asked him via his contact form, I am new to podcasting. Can I get some advice from you? And you call your contact me back? We spoke on the phone, you answer all my questions. And there are really good Muslim Brothers out there as much as I criticize some of the people within the Muslim Ummah, there are people out there still good
within the soma. Um, doba. Thank you, man. Thank you.
So out of all the numerous videos that you've done, are there any topics or issues when you're talking to all these actually get more plays or downloads and the other ones?
funny you say that because the marriage topic? Oh, really? Okay. Oh, yeah. Whenever you talk about marriage, wow, the views jump. Whenever you're talking about I have nine, nine podcasts that have been posted recently. And some of the most popular ones are one regarding intimacy and Islam. The one regarding the diary bubble, again, something related to marriage. The recent one I just posted is about the Muslims and infidelity. Again, related to marriage. You know, I'm surprised. It continues and it continues to be the big hot subject, even with my YouTube videos, the marriage ones regarding the marriage interviews, or dealing with the parents or the $25,000 wedding. These guys,
these videos got quite a number of hits. And I guess the Muslim community marriage is always a hot topic is either before marriage, or after marriage. They want to know what they want to hear those topics.
Yeah, marriage is a whole different world, man. It's like, I mean, I was born here in the US, both my parents from Afghanistan, you know, so the, that's the background there. But, you know, even my uncles and everybody's here, and it's like, as soon as you hit, you know, after high school by 18, you know, and you get 1920 days or Tom bought like, okay, when you're gonna get married, you know? And then you get you get married, then it's like when you're gonna have a kid. You have kids like When, when, when are you gonna have the other kids it just keeps us in a cycle. You know? It's
It's like people are looking for numbers rather than, I guess what is it like quantity over quality? You know, what your kids I mean, there's only so much you can, so many kids you can have and at the same time, divide your, you know, parental attention, you know, to each one and this and that, you know, so there's issues. So it becomes a challenge, because when you have too many kids, it's like, how do I give make sure each one gets their attention, and that my concern isn't regarding the financial side of it, because that comes from Allah subhanaw taala absolute to make sure I give the proper attention, each child needs to raise them properly. And in our time that we live in,
depending on our job situation, sometimes, it's really hard. Depending on if your relatives don't live close to if your wife is solely dependent on you. It's a lot of different factors involved. Sometimes grandparents just want to get a large count like followers on Twitter.
It doesn't work that way.
If you have to provide for every follower and give attention and raise each one correctly, you don't want 2 million followers.
Yeah, no, I agree. I agree. I remember reading the Koran where the pagan errs used to be, they used to boast like and how many kids they had, you know, and how big their clan was, or whatever. And a lot of saying how that really doesn't matter. You know, next life boasting because you end up in the grave by yourself. You know, you'd be judged by yourself. And I was like, you know, people actually brag about having kids and stuff, you know, but they do. You know, they, you know, I've seen even in my own family, like some families are like, you know, I got seven, you got five, he's like, so what, you know, like, you got a basketball team, I got a football.
Table tennis.
You go on ping pong, like the Asians or whatever. Yeah, I know. I
do so so since marriage was the hot topic in your YouTube videos, is that how half our Deen came about? Yeah, interesting story with half ideas that 13 years ago, I was looking for my other half. And I wasn't sure how I was gonna find my other half. Because locally, there is no marriage program. I mean, you can't really go to the masjid and look for a sister because she's praying in the sister you're in, you're in the brother area, you can't be picking the sister area, they're gonna say who's a creepy guy in the corner. So he's like, they really have really good programs. I mean, once in a while you hear about a singles event. But that's kind of speed dating, that doesn't work. So it was
like, like, there's no option out there, especially if you're a convert. Now, of course, if you have parents that are Muslim and practicing, that's a whole different thing. And the reason you say practicing and Muslim, because Muslim is not enough. There's many parents who are Muslim, but they're not necessarily very religious. So the people they have in mind for you are very superficial way either, because the way she looks or the amount of money he makes, but a practicing Muslim parent who really believes in Allah subhanaw taala, who really fears Allah subhanaw taala is going to try to try to choose the right person for you. Even though sometimes the what the people will say
kind of thing. It would be contradict what their decision is. So with me as being a convert,
it wasn't, I couldn't go to my parents. So I did the unthinkable. I went online, and I wasn't sure which website worked. So I tried all of them. And basically, I put my profile exactly what I was looking for, and told everything about myself exactly what I'm going to be like, in a very, very detailed profile. And I copy and paste it onto a bunch of different websites. And then I waited. And 17 people responded to me. And right there, I realized that this whole system is flawed because I'm so specific on what I'm looking for. I'm only expecting one response. So when 17 people responded, I was like, okay, something's wrong with the system. I need to make up my own system to overlap this.
So I need to find out who's telling me the truth, who's Tell me what I want to hear. So I sent a series of questions to all 17 sisters. And these questions have one thing in common, they didn't have a right or wrong answer. For example, do you think the world is more fair? Or more forgiving?
Or I'm sorry, do you? Are you more fair or more forgiving? Or do you think the world needs more justice or mercy? So I asked questions to really figure out how they thought how that what the person type was really like that was quote unquote, politically correct. And all these people start contacting me with those answers. All 17 people 16 of them answered a one way one answered it in the way I was looking for. And that's the one I married 13 years ago. No, I until today, I still feel like a newlywed. So my friends asked me, Ali, where are these questions? First word? First thing I hear every time I tell the story, and I gave those questions to my friend. He used them he got
married has two children lives in Southern California. Feels like a newlywed. So the next guy, where are these people?
After a while they people are getting married left to right. And I'm like, this is only gonna go around with this Microsoft Word document how far Am I gonna reach it? Maybe I want to help a lot of people out. So I did is I built a website called half rd. And what I basically did the formula is this do exact opposite with everybody else's doing. So that wasn't for you though, cuz I was so frustrated these other websites. So I said the first thing first it says height, height, eye color, hair color, all that kind of questions, we still have those. But this focus on questions that you would actually ask a sister or brother when you face it face to face across from them, and your
parents are there. And so we set up those kind of questions. And we want to make sure those questions don't have right or wrong answers just like the way Baba Ali did it when he was looking for his wife and what his friends did. And that was an X part of the formula. And did the whole website start coming together? And I use another part of the system we added was this filter out people that don't match with you. And what that means is put questions on your profile that you want people to answer that if people say no to or yes to those are deal breaker questions. For example, would you consider a sister over the age of 29? Would you consider a brother who's divorced? Would
you consider Would you be willing to relocate to the UK? So all these questions you want everyone to answer? And those are very, very important. What do you think about spending each weekend with with your in laws or living with your?
These are very important questions are just basically Yeah, these are things I won't compromise on. So when people answer these questions, no matter how beautiful or no matter how successful the guy is, if he answers a question that those don't fit with what you're looking for, you don't waste time getting emotionally involved with these people. So instead of talking to 15, or 17, people like I did I filter down to one person, I didn't have to talk to 70 people fly to each city talked about No, I don't have to do any of that. I don't have to deal with one person. I spoke to her. I married her, give it to my friend. Here's what he did. Before he got those questions. He didn't know how to
filter the sisters out. So it's the whole idea is to stop getting emotionally involved with people because that's what really kills the whole marriage thing. A lot of people they start looking to get married. And after a while they just I feel I want to give up. And why because I try so many times every time I try it, it just fails. Well, what if we avoid that? What if we eliminate that by using a filtering system? So it's okay then how do I know they're telling the truth? will ask questions don't have right or wrong answers. Like when you get mad. How do you communicate? Or are you more simple or more stylish when it comes to clothes? Do you like in other words, do you set your own
style? Or do you try stay in style? You don't I mean, some guys are looking for a girl who's very stylish. And some guys are like I'm very stylish, more materialistic, but that doesn't mean she's materialistic. That's the way he views it. So everyone has a different perception, different view about different things. So all I try to do is match to people who connect with one another, like even religiously, like a hardcore Sufi, and a hardcore Salafi. They're both considered consider themselves religious, but they will match in a very row.
Yeah, like a Sufi and Staffie may be both ready to fill up with a big beard, but they have one guy spitting and listen to music and other ones like Rama, Rama RAM, so like, Dude, this is not gonna work, right? So what we do is we try to figure out how the even view religion, like what is your understanding of Islam, that I'm not gonna correct you on the website. That's not my job. You know, that's other websites of scholars. To do that. I just wanna see how you view or understand Islam, how you view, understand your family, how you view and understand these different things, and then match you with someone that connects and matches with you. So we started this website back in 2010.
And since then, we have about 770 success stories, including, we have many people, I guess, popular or famous Muslims who actually use the website. We have very
people that like I guess one guy was probably like a CEO of a Fortune 500 company. We have a lot of people but no one knows who these people are. And what I mean by that is a lot of people who come and get married on the website. They don't tell us.
You know why? why is that because the reason why they chose half our Deen is because it's private. Because I can get in. No one knows no one can see my profile unless they're a member. And as soon as I find someone, I disabled my account, I'm gone. I come in, like in the night under the radar, like a ninja and I disappears. And I could be like a director of a big organization. I could be a CEO, I could be a famous Muslim celebrity. And I've had all of those type of things come, I believe, to our website. And there's many people who've actually found the other half on the website, and they haven't even told us and we don't count them as a part of the 770 success stories. I'll tell you one
story I was in a Turkish festival.
It was local here in Southern California. And I'm setting a line for food. And this guy walks up to me say, Hey, are you guys that Baba guy? I'm like, yeah, so I automatically assume he wants take a picture because of the whole Baba at least stand up comedy. He's like, Hey, man, I use your website. Like, okay, my wife made on your website. like, Okay, wow. But don't tell anybody. What his wife walks up. Did you tell? Yeah, I did. Let's go. Let's go. I've never seen the guy ever in my life again. Wow.
I have a very close friend, very close friend, who use the website, got married, and lives on the other side of the United States. I asked him Can I use? Can I use your success story? No. Can you tell us? Are you can I tell people you met on the website? No. Can I get an audio recording of it? No. Can I get a written, written statement of what you thought about the website? No. Just don't tell anybody.
Oh, yeah, but I just put it anonymous. I don't put your name. No. I don't want anyone to actually find out. I've been on a matchmaking website. So that's who we attract. We attract everybody who tried all these other websites, it didn't work. And I don't want anyone to ever know. I'm using a website. That's what it is really, when you join the website, when you go to half our deen.com. And you look to see what profiles are there, you don't see anything. You don't see anything until you become a member. This filters out all the nosy aunties and uncles and relatives and co workers are browsing the internet, so they don't accidentally find you. Once you become a member and you join
in. Now you can see people but you can only see the opposite gender.
Why? Because if there's two sisters that are best friends, and they're on the website, either we should know that they're looking or using this service, because it's not their business, the only people should know that you're looking to get married, are people looking to get married? That's the opposite gender. So that's the desktop. That's the whole thing. I initially thought honestly, that people are going to join the website because of the price nine bucks a month or $5 a month depending on what program you sign up for. How do you maintain that? I mean, that's pretty cheap compared to other it's not even a it's a fraction is not even close to the other people. Like we went in and
checked out the depressed size websites with between 29 to $44 a month, plus the advertised on the website. We had I think 10 million pageviews last year, and nearly a million visitors. We have no ads on our website, we still for five years, I think we've gotten close to I would guess around 40 million 40 million, I would have to estimate if I'm guesstimating right here on top of my head 40 million pageviews. A few million visitors, at least till today we've never had ads. The question is, or the statement is just because you can put ads on your website doesn't mean you should just because I can charge $20 a month and still be the cheapest among my big competition doesn't mean I
should but what's what's the what's the point behind that? Like not accepting ads? Because I wanted the Muslims to have a different experience when it comes to quality. I always felt like when we deal with Muslim products, it's always like, Okay, brother inshallah this will, you know, is good brother is good. You know? Why does all our products have to be like joke, you know, why is it if we work for a non Muslim, we would have a higher quality in doing things right? But since it comes to the masjid, or the Muslims is okay, Bismillah put some duct tape on it. inshallah. It's the
way we run our basketball tournaments, the way we do things is why is it like that? Why can we have the highest quality? And it's like, people we don't look, I don't know what it is, I don't know if it's part of our culture, or what and I said I'm tired of us. Why does it like every time we we asked him whether Muslim for help, we don't feel comfortable to pay them. Or we expect them to do their service for free if the guy's a mechanic, or the brother does moving, or the guy does whatever service but as soon as it's not most we have no problem paying him at all. But for a Muslim we're expecting to do it for free because oh, you my Muslim brother. Here's my Muslim card. Here. I got to
show you here's my ID and this please do for free for me. And it's like Dude, that's not cool. The one that Muslims don't want to work with Muslims. For me Believe it or not every single person who works for half our Deen is paid. And we don't try to lowball them. We asked them before they work with us. What pay works for you? And they say we say either we can do it or we can't do it. We're not gonna say Oh, how much we charge. Oh, but they will pay you one fourth of that or what half of that or $5 less than that. We're not going to lowball you either. This is what we pay. And this is how much you get. Some of them have been quite surprised. He's quite surprised like Julius is way
more than garimella job.
So they don't quit. But a lot but if you don't have any as in the only the only source of income is the people who sign up. Right? independence. So through that money or to that those funds, you pay people who would work for half our Deen? Yes. So they say how do you make it as a very good question. So if you go to Google, or you go to Facebook, a type in the word Muslim marriage site, Muslim
on your site, you'll notice a lot of ads will come on the right side. And on the very top, you'll notice none of those ads, say half rd. The reason why is because half our Dean doesn't really advertise all the money that the other matchmaking websites are funding to marketing. They add that that costs on top of sort of members pay for it, we can reduce his costs by doing no ads, and just getting people to join the website without any advertisements. So that comes. So that's another question. Well, how do you get people to join the website? If you're not mass advertising, and flooding them with ads and text ads, and email ads and all kinds of ads? How do you do it? Well, the
idea was that if you have a website or a product that works, everyone will tell everyone about it. Absolutely. That's how we do it. That was that was that's our magic secret ingredient. We have a website that actually works. And you can put all the fancy as you want, and pay one page ads everywhere and put Facebook and put $1,000 budget each month for Google. But your website's garbage. And it's a joke, and it doesn't work is flooded and you get spam. And you can advertise, eventually people will leave Yeah, you'll get some people to click on your ad and join it with with the idea that they hope that maybe this is the one website that actually works. And then the comes the other
one that your best friend tells you dude, I met on my website, me and my wife went on this. We had a, my wife had a friend come and visit us. I've met her friend, her friend came to visit. And she brought a friend with her. And that friend that came with her had seven people that she knew that they don't have Friday. Wow. And my wife didn't know who this girl was. I mean, I guess she was just she just meant the system. And she herself met on a Friday.
Honestly, I don't think any of those seven people are a part of our seven or 617 success stories. And it probably didn't tell us. And you all obviously don't know when if people get married from your website, do you? Do we they tell us that I found that match house, I've done a lot for the service. I'm going to do what you're saying with that I'm gonna I'm pursuing marriage with this person. Gotcha. Gotcha. Yes. That's what does now do I follow up and say how long does the marriage goal? Are you happy in your marriage? That's not my job. You don't know. Of course, yeah. figure is I'm looking for a brother who's looking to get married, his sister's looking to get married and what
their needs are. And then see if I could find somebody, you're attracted to someone who fit for you. And once you guys have that philosophy, it's up to you guys to figure it out. That is where we need the next level of our Ouma where we are family counselors, our marriage counselors are our scholars, our moms, to help us teach us to how to stay married, because getting married is once challenged. Staying married is a whole different one.
I'm on your website right now half our deen.com. And I must say I mean it is very, very professional looking. Now you you have an IT background, don't you? I do but I didn't do the website. So we have a team of individuals that work with us. We have a programming team. We have a marketing team. We have an offline team. We have a social media team, and everyone is paid, by the way. Wow. So I'll take a look. If you look at the very top right side, you'll see right under the icon of f which is for Facebook, about in 2013, October of 2013, which is about I guess 16 months ago, there was only 40,000 likes on our Facebook page. We have almost we're almost about we're about I guess 27,000 away
from a quarter million. So this two or three 840 Yeah, so we jumped hamdulillah since that time, nearly 200,000. Since in the last 1516 months. These are people liking face, our half our Deen project if you go to the Facebook on half our Deen all we constantly try to do is give people marriage tips on staying married. It's not about if you look at it, look how many ads we have about hey Jordan Harbinger and half are getting versus how many tips we have about marriage related things to help you stay married tips that people share to stay married because the goal with this project isn't just to get you married, but we want to eventually make use make sure you stay married.
That's why I make my YouTube videos I made about 13 of them. called the half our Deen series. It's on YouTube as well. And you can watch and listen and learn hopefully short for those who are already married and those who are looking for marriage, even if you don't meet on half our Deen on how to stay married talks about how men and women are different, how we communicate differently, how we fight when you get married, how you make up when you get married, people that you don't hear the stuff in the clinic buzz and I think it's important for us to learn these things because again, if you don't meet on my website, I want you to stay married inshallah. Absolutely, absolutely. Yeah,
that's one of the biggest things that shaitan is out to divorces, you know, split the families. So I know what you're doing is commendable. Man, I really, really appreciate that and I commend you. I'm actually on your website and you have a beautiful portion towards the bottom middle where it says half our Deen verse. The rest
And that's that says it right there. You know, like in terms of price and no add policy and you know, privacy. So amazing man. Yep, that's, you know, people know, sometimes people look at me and they'll criticize me for that. They'll say, bro, why don't you charge more like you've seen the price versus everybody knows, you can still charge like double and still be like way lower than everybody else. And like I tell that Brother, you know why our problem is like, it's because we have hella meat, why does it have to be more expensive? Why can't we just make it less expensive. So people who are battling with xebia meat or Hello meet, it makes it easier for them rather than
trying to push people over. You imagine like we live in a society that Haram is already super easy. Our parents make the Hello hard, especially like for those who are looking to get married, you know? Oh, you know, if you want to get married, make sure it's from anyone you want anyone you want. As long as the different this country, this city, yes block and this house.
That's my cousin. No problem.
Oh, by the way, make sure they're the feature engineering degree that make sure they get their doctor's degree they get this degree that to get in make sure you get this, this this. And by time that is over, you're already like in your late 30s. And it's like, you know, it's like, I don't remember parents. Hey, you guys were young ones. And it's not easy being single. And you were single back home, where there's no billboard ads, and there's no TV ads, you don't have a relationship, peer pressures. And all sex is now being sold to you left to right every day. And you're never alone until you're 39. Your mom got married when you're 18 and 19. Right. So you guys been married for
2030 years that you want us to go through all these things? Yeah, but because we don't want you guys to go through difficulty like we did. And difficulties right now, bro, I'm going
on yoga pants.
And the person is talking to me. And this girl is talking to me. This guy's talking to all these people talking.
You know, you don't understand we're living in a completely different world right now. And it's better for our youth to get married, of course within the Holloway so we can stay away from the harangue. Our parents, sometimes they don't understand because they don't. They were never raised here. They don't know have any idea what pressures we go through both male and female, not just the brothers? Absolutely. Wow. You don't have to have her do you think it was just part one of the projects, we have something called Muslim personality. It's something we're adding to half hardiness shala it's already its own separate project, but we'll be combining them together, where you take a
personality test. And we find what kind of personality type you have. And soon inshallah on half Friday, and hopefully I'm hoping by like, May June, you'll get to go on someone's profile. And you'll get to see Oh, this girl is like this type of personality and uses your this personality. These are the types of things you possibly will really enjoy in your marriage. These are things you're possibly will argue about. And this is a typical two paragraph summary of what marriage life will be like, and what to expect. Oh, wow. It's like, What does even eHarmony do this? Yeah, I was thinking I was thinking of your eHarmony. But that Yeah, as soon as you said the last part of the
day, don't do that, that for $9 a month or $5. You raise the prices, no one doesn't even close to that. And you get all this information about this person. And that's just a personality tab. We want to add all these modules to the website, where you can learn so much about this person before you initiate contact. And the reason for this, again, is to remove that emotional piece of it because when people start talking, and and then you have to break it off. It feels really weird. You know, our parents did something that we don't do right now. You know, it's not a surprise that our parents relationships lasts most parents lasted between 2030 years plus, right? Our youth today if the last
more than a couple years. That's a success because a lot of people are getting divorced after the second year. So we think we know so much more. With all our technology, all our internet, all our research, all the things we think we know everything and look at our marriages versus our parents generation marriages and what did they do? Their parents, our parents were set by their parents. They kind of do like, Look, my daughter's kind of quick tempered. So we do find a real patient guy to match with her. Our son is more like this. He's out of focus. So we need a good sister who's gonna put him in his place and make sure he stays focused. He's very creative, but he needs to stay
focused, right sounds like my wife and I exactly so like you read it, but it is a woman who's more focused again, stay in focus. balance each other. Yeah. Our parents knew us better than knew we knew ourselves. But now we are our own matchmakers. So we go out there and we're choosing Okay, height, color. income, nationality. Okay. Which wife Oh, she looks pretty good. Or he looks pretty good. Okay, let me marry him and then you last for two years. It doesn't work out. Right. So our parents knew us present ourselves. So as we do with half our Deen, we're trying to do it in a way so we can give you lots of layers.
Not just a personality type, we want to know, okay, what did they think about family? What did you think about this? What's your view about religion? What's your view about their character? What's their view about their personality? Let's even yourself, you have questions, you want to filter people out, using all these different tools to finally decide, okay, let me contact these three people. And this is one of the reason why the low ar, ar things have been so successful. And I just came back this past weekend, we had a half party, offline event. And our offline events are similar to our online, where we want people to meet in person. And it's basically members of the website,
they come to meet a person, we go to different cities. And we don't do speed dating.
So people like you don't do any speed dating? No. So what are we supposed to do with the event?
Ever? Like, well, why does it have to be speed dating speed dating doesn't work? Let me explain to you what speed dating is, again, was simply copied on Muslims. We just copy base and we expect this to currently work like are ours, lobbies, Muslim matchmaking websites, their dating websites, right height, eye color, hair color, that stuff is dating, because all you know, is some surface level stuff. So you can spend a three hour relationship with somebody, right? People are going to match.com and eHarmony. They don't they say okay, as soon as I click on this person, my goal is to marry them. Now they're planning to go on a whole bunch of dates with them, they plan to do certain
things and haraam stuff until they finally decide they're gonna marry that person. But most of we don't follow that. So this is this is a workout for us. So for us, we didn't know a lot more about the person before we actually initiate contact. So with half rd, offline, we said, you know, speed dating, you just sit there with three minutes with the person just to get see if you're somewhat attractive, and see if you have enough in common with each other to spend a three hour relationship at dinner in a movie after that you're not committed anymore, right? So that's that worked for someone who wants to for the rest of your life with you.
Imagine three minutes you're sitting across from somebody. And that means you have a minute and a half. She has a bit and a half to ask as much stuff as you want. That this person. Yeah. So like, why are you doing fantastic, wonderful, great. It's not like a guy who's like lower minutes on his cell phone. And he hasn't tried as many questions as possible. It's so awkward. They're being interviewed, you're being interviewed at the exact same time. And imagine yourself in a job interview. That's not you. That's you dressing uncomfortable clothes, be as awkward questions from a person you just met 10 seconds ago, and you're on the spot and you're doing this for three hours is
exhausting. You want to get out of there as soon as possible. That's why people don't want to go to these events because they don't work and it sucks. So what I have for you now fine. So let's do something completely different. This is pretend spaghetti never existed? How would we get a bunch of people in a room and see if we can match them together? So we said First things first, let's only invite people that we think are going to fit for this event. So everyone who wants to go to a half free offline event has to fill out a survey even members, even people who are already part of half our Dean had to fill out a survey and answer all the our deal breaker questions. Our deal breaker
questions are basically questions that will you very simple. Who's a convert? Will you marry someone who has a child marry? Would you marry someone like this? Would you marry? would you would you marry someone outside your own ethnicity? We all the deal breaker questions we've learned through how far you come. There are about like 20 of them. After you ask you these questions, we will compare your answers with everybody else's. And after that, we'll decide if we should invite you or not. So just because you invited you were you applied for event January got in, you may not get into the next event, which is in April, because the people who signed up for April are not looking for someone
like you. But in January they are is all depends with the opposite gender answer of what they're looking for. Now, obviously what you answered, this is a lot of work. But since about 60% I think of the people that don't get in it is a very it's a system doesn't really work for a lot of Muslim organizations, which I will say on record, which I feel they're they're into for the money. And the reason I say on the record is because I've actually went approach many of these many organizations and said listen, your system, you may charge $100 per person, you get a 200 people to go in, you make $20,000 that weekend, my system, we're only charging $75 per person, but we're only accepting a
certain number of people to get in. And even then an equal number of men and women. So if we have 100 people apply only 40 brothers apply. I'm not going to get advice 60 sisters for 40 Brothers, I want you to buy 40 brothers and 40 sisters, so it's balanced. Which means if what about all the sisters you get money from? Well, I'm not gonna take their money and I'm not gonna waste their time either. I'm only going to be invited equal number people if I have a choice of people inviting I would invite them based on those deal breaker questions. So if this is you said, Oh no, I don't marry any Arabs or I don't marry a Pakistani I don't marry this and that and most of the people that
are Indian Pakistani, I'm not gonna invite you. Why take your money. Other organizers have no problem taking your money because they're not even filtering out the people. All they do is announce the location, the time the place showing up and
Bring cash with you, or pay for it on the spot, we'll gladly take you and then you come there is a disaster because your speed dating whatever, whatever. So our event, we filter you out, when you get to the event, we already know who's coming. Because we know who's coming, we know where you're sitting. Because we know where you're sitting, we set you up, we try to set you up with someone at your table, which we think is going to match with you. So we're already like playing auntie and uncle or mom or dad in this situation, right? So when you get to the event, we say, okay, no speed dating. So what are we gonna do? We're gonna do activities, what kind of activities fun activities
that let you know about this person in a natural way. First thing we do, we take a personality test. We think a personality test requires you to talk to nobody, because when you first get to the event, you don't really want to talk to anybody anyways. So we'll give you a little sticker you put on your name, badge. And then now we know what kind of person type you have. So before you say something of Asia, we know he has very outgoing, she's very social, she's very talkative. And these are her strengths. And these are her weaknesses. He says, savica Fatima Foster was more reserved, she's more loyal. She's more quiet. It takes time to get to know her. You know, Karima crema is more like this,
or like this, or you know all these things about the sisters before I even say Salaam to them. And vice versa for the brothers. And this is the first activity that we do an activity where a guy and girl are on one team versus another guy growing our team. You're a time sensitive puzzle solving situation. And if you resolve the puzzle you're gonna resolve against other teams, you can quickly find out is this guy competitive? Is she cooperative? Is does she have a temper? Is he cheating? Even though it's just a game? He says it's just for fun. So cheating. I want to learn a lot about your character just the way you are. I mean, for a lot of us are brothers. We play basketball with
them. their true colors come out. I don't know anything about you guys. Your basketball career they would
fall foul. She bought you saw hit the like, Yo, I don't care is the three Yeah, exactly. cursing, showboating. Right. The people who are very arrogant, like, you see very looks very pious, true colors come out on the tests you. Yeah, right. Yeah. So we want to see where your true colors come out. And there's some good and some bad, sometimes your red flags come out as well. And that helps a lot of people filter once again. So you're asking, okay, well, we're great. We're having fun. We're doing activities. Well, how do I get to know the deeper questions like how old you are that kind of stuff, if you're divorced, if you're married, I mean,
that kind of stuff. So every single person who comes to the event has a six digit ID number under their name.
That six digit ID number tells us everything about you.
That because all I have to do is type in those six digit number on my phone, or go home on my computer, and your profile pops up on my computer. And I can learn all this stuff about you. And if I want to contact you after the event, all I have to do is send you a message that says our backup Sister, I met you at the event. I was very interesting. Unfortunately, to get time too much to talk because of soluble event. I like to contact your parents to ask permission to pursue this because I want to learn more about you for the sake of marriage, etc, etc, etc. Right? How would you do that at a typical Muslim matchmaking event? I mean, you're going to go approach a sister or brother,
especially a sister, she's not going to approach her brother at all, chooses his science the guy the guy's not gonna see it. Because guys are blind to this stuff. Guy, I tell you that. So the girls that can ask a guy for his information, right? So guys, hopefully to do it. The guy's clueless. He doesn't know the girl even that has any interest in him. Sometimes they know they're interested, but they're too shy. So he, he he becomes like a turtle and puts himself in the shell and runs out pretend he has a phone call, but he doesn't. And he never sees people again. And then the organizers. You don't want to be involved in all this hot mess because what happens when the sister
says Okay, tell him give him my number. But ask him if he likes me that likes likes me but likes me.
So yeah, tell the guy What did she say? She said you like like her like her?
Like to like like her? Oh, tell her? I'll give her my number. But I wonder where she is with the marriage. Okay, she wants kids or not? Oh, let me find out Oregon's ago that you want kids or not? Well, I don't want to talk about kids yet. Ask him what do you do for a living? How much he makes
a waste? Like I don't want to do all this for 5060 people, you know? And then why do you get my number I used to give my number I said if he likes likes me give my number. So we're gonna give this stuff right. What you should do is give them the medium to contact each other. And if it works out is between those two people. If it doesn't work out, which is the other other element of this whole thing. Imagine a brother is interested in his sister. He approaches her sound like him sister. I was wondering No way. Oh, okay. He walks back, right. So you could get rejected in a full room of people. And that's really awkward because what do you do for the next half hour for the rest of the
event? So it's hard to deal with the stuff and we don't want people to give their
phone numbers are the private emails out. Because how do you make someone forget your private email address or add them to your Facebook and they're judging you how all your friends are posting weird stuff on your wall. So I don't want this person into my life yet because I haven't decided if I would pursue marriage 100%, which I just need to know more about you. So by using half our Deen as the medium of connecting to each other after the event, it allows you to connect content, you just disconnect from each other because you can block this person or completely disable your profile. And then you're not committed to this person at all. Until you decide to become committed to this person
by saying, Listen, this pursuit is for marriage. And this is the privacy element that I don't think a lot of organizations value. They think that we're gonna hold a three hour event. And so people get married off of it. And that's a joke. So there are Muslim matrimonial site. I mean, that's nice. But but but complexes and stuff like that, maybe? Well, there is many. I didn't know that. Yeah, there's many you go to so there's a matrimonial thing. And so you go to a lot of Islamic conferences, they have matrimonial things, by the way, I tell them about this. And I said, Listen, I will give you my entire process for free.
We don't want it. I have spoken to board members of big organizations, we don't want it. I don't think they even like the fact that we're out there. We are a a financial threat, I think to these organizations, because we are working. I mean, the program works people get married off of this thing. So if it's working, and you guys are charging less, and you're only invited people who match, and when you come there, there's an equal number of men and women. And it's fun privacy, and as a private, easier. The private aspect of is this. We say for example, it's in Washington, DC. It's at 7pm. It's on Sunday, April 6. So you're like, Okay, but where is it? You don't know where it is? All
you need to know is in Washington DC is on this date this date, if you're available applied for it. If you're not, you're not. Now the people who get in, they get sent to exact location. Therefore you don't have some Hey, bro, what are you doing here? You know, your friends. They randomly See you at the event. It's very private. Because again, it's the same model we follow online. The only people that should know that you're looking to get married, are people looking to get married? And of course they have already staff because if we're not there, who's gonna run the event? So? Absolutely, yeah. Yeah. That's amazing. That's also how, okay, this half our Dean offline, was it
the first time y'all met up or did this event? What happened? I performed my stand up comedy routine outside of mass Los Angeles one day, I was walking, I guess to my car, and this guy in the lobby stops me said, Hey, bro, can you help me get married? Um, say I have a website? He's not I want to be somebody here in Los Angeles. So why don't they have single events? And I think he said they don't work or guess the same complaint and I'm like, Huh, okay, I never. Okay, maybe I'll look into that. So I got chance under law to visit two single events. They want me to speak at both single events. So they said verbally come down. Help us like break the ice. Break the tension. And by the
way, I've done stand up comedy at nearly 200 events, not necessarily single events, and the single events are the most awkward laughters I get, because people are so nervous. It's like nervous laughter like,
Wow, this is so weird. I feel actually weird doing this. And I actually try to do stuff that sounds funny. Like I say, okay, a lot of people are wondering what I'm doing at the singles event. My wife is wondering the same thing. I they're like, laughing
like, Oh, yeah, they're probably focused on you know, oh, yeah. Does that girl yeah, yeah. And then what happens is like, I'll slip because I'm invited to sit this event and speak then I get a chance to sit down and watch it as like a fly on the wall. And whenever I went to the guy was wearing shorts. And they were like, they look like like runners shorts. like soccer shorts. Like like short shorts, but he was wearing a polo top on top of that. Okay, and then like isn't like a guy wearing boxers coming to the event? I think
yeah, this is a marriage of it.
As these are all dressed up and a guy who like whatever some guys like Dude, did you lose an iron? You know, iron.
You sleep in that outfit? Because it has wrinkles everywhere. Like you're about to meet possibly your future wife. And this is the way you are like they don't really care. And the girls like they really care. Oh, of course. So I seems like such an imbalanced situation. So I go there and watch this. And they put 20 guys on one side and 20 girls on their side. And I couldn't make this stuff up. The guys that guys. I saw that Come sister. No, no, not you the one next to you. The one behind you doing a great job. The prettier one? Yeah, the prettier one. What's your name? Maryam. Okay, thank you. Like what? Oh my god. Why guys do this. Oh, because we don't want men and women to mix.
Well Why do you cry?
To room across from each other way far away from each other, and why they're groups of 2020? How does anyone know who they're talking to. And then they rotate the men and women in groups of 2020. I guess this is musical chairs, speed dating, but super speed dating. And then what happens is as soon as these people are done, they walk up and they go into the lobby, they talk normally.
Guys, this is such a weird situation. And I think you have to do it within the hollow boundaries. But there's a way to do it, the rules are a little bit different. When you are looking to get married, like, normally, you're not allowed to, like look at it at the opposite gender. But when you are you don't have to lower your you have to lower your gaze. But when you're looking to get married, you'll have to lower your gaze that same rules because you're looking to get married. Does that make sense? So they don't understand. Like, when you set the setup for this, you don't have to sit across the room from each other to talk, you know, it is I think with their parents is, by the
way, the chaperones are still there, too. And they say get across is weird way. I think
our parents even did this, okay, you sit in this room, and you go in the bathroom.
We're watching all of this, like, What are you talking about through I'm supposed to talk in the bathroom, okay, but it's like, come on, man. You guys making up some cultural weird stuff didn't even do at the time of the Prophet service on we're doing this now. It was like, the bitter, bitter, bitter, bitter times 10 for marriage events. So I saw this, and then another event, I came down. And that was another weird situation, I keep seeing these weird stuff. So I stuck it on half, Friday night flying.
I'm gonna do a completely different, again, we'll do everything everyone else is doing. We'll do the exact opposite. We make sure it's public, private, we'll make it affordable. We'll set a price that the men won't flake. And this is the biggest problem we have at matchmaking events, both ours and everybody else's. And initially, we had it at $40, the men would just put pay, and they would not show up. Why? Because they get cold feet.
So what we did is we said, okay, we charge $75. And we never change the price after that. And so if I was to show up,
I do I spent money, at least I show and the guys like, oh, how do I show that it was gonna be like this? Yeah. You know, I didn't know it was gonna be like this. Wow, I had one guy who showed up I think he was he was helping out at one of our events. And you like, you never know who's gonna show up. And I asked a guy, I think, I think he was a senior. He was a CEO of a company. And I think he was making 20 million a year.
Wow, you would never think this guy would be at a matchmaking event like you can get married. He's definitely getting married. And he wouldn't tell people what he's making or how much you make your diet because you don't want anyone to. I mean, Joe was helping us with our offline event. And he's like, Man, I wish I knew you guys event was like this, I would join this thing. Well, I just here as a volunteer to help out. But I would never knew that you guys are doing such an event like this. So I've learned a lot of people out there. You never never judge a book by its cover. And I'm hoping that people don't judge me on my projects by the cover. And you know what, even the offline people
like yesterday, they were surprised when I told him listen, most of you are assuming that Bobby Lee's gonna host this guest is hosting this half party offline success. I mean, half are the success stories. Is is running offline events are offline events are run by a half party success story. A real couple who use half rd got married, who's been in your shoes, and now they are running the event, rather than some two Auntie's who didn't ever use our system to get married, telling you about how you should use this system to get married. How many offline events have you had so far? I think about 15. If the second edition is held in just Los Angeles,
in Southern California, Los Angeles, Southern California, and then people start inviting us. So they say oh, can you come to Northern California? Sure. Hey, can you come to Chicago? Okay. Tampa, New York. Yep, yep, Boston. Yep. We are traveling around the United States to these events. I'm like, why don't you guys? Why don't you guys hold the same events in your local areas? Why are you guys and when we hope we have one in Northern California. I was just asking around where you're from Seattle. What about you? I'm from Atlanta. What about you? I'm from New York. I'm from Chicago. All you guys flew down? Who's from California? Why are we beholding?
I'm surprised. I'm like, I thought $75 would be the deal breaker but they're paying for their flights or hotels, their car rentals also come down and realizing that you know, a lot most of our start to realize that first paying $30,000 or $20,000. A wedding $75 is nothing to do with opportunity opportunity to possibly meet someone that I wouldn't be getting married to each other. And that's, that's that's it. I mean, people think it's the money thing. I'll tell you something that a lot of people don't know, every single offline event that right now we're doing. I don't get a penny from it. The $75 is being paid goes straight to the couple who is organizing this event.
It's a lot of work to do it. But half our team does not get anything out of it.
It's all goes to alter to the couple to do after all fine events, why? It takes a lot of time and effort to filter out hundreds of people who are applying for every event to make sure they're at the right tables to make sure that the program and activities are fresh and new egg works. And to host it to get a venue to work with marketing to to work with the local organizations, which aren't aren't always easy to deal with all the drama. And to put these events together. I wish more organizations copied our system. Unfortunately, they don't. I would love it because I don't think we can hold enough events for the entire United States. I mean, we can only be one place at a time. You
know, we need events in New York, Boston, Chicago, if it's not by half party, but you need to follow a system that works. You're going to come to DC. Yeah, we're hoping that's one of the places we've actually been talking about. I think DC and I think placement Virginia as well. I mean, Virginia.
But
I wish people followed it, unfortunately don't. Wow, it doesn't make money sense. You make a lot less money doing the hard way. But the our priority isn't money, our priority is success. If our priority is money, then our our system will work and we have to spend a lot of money on advertising.
People won't fly into something that doesn't work, bro, they won't fly. It says the reality of it, people wouldn't recommend to their friends sub it doesn't work. They don't get they don't get $1 from it, there's no referral fee. So when someone tells you Hey, do go check out this website, you should join it it works is because they actually do truly care about you. Because they really do think it works because they've used it. I can't buy that no matter how much I pay people or how fancy my advertising is. I can't pay for that. That has to come from a system that works. Because you really do you think this person is gonna benefit from it?
Wow, man, hopefully
in I believe he does with a lot bless you for all these marriages that you that you connect people, you know, whether it's offline or online, sprinkle you with some blessings here and there. That's all you can, you know, you can ask for I mean, you know, if forget the money, who cares about the money? You know what, there's nothing wrong with making money off of either half it is profitable. That's how I'm able to pay for my employees. But what I'm saying is, our priority should be making sure we do things the right way, not our price shouldn't be just getting rich off of it. And we don't get we don't get anything. On the other side. In terms of the work that you do in terms of,
you know, you're saying that, yes, you do make some profit. That's how you pay the people to keep the machine going. You know, what it's not like they'll ever see you cruising on a road in a freaking Lambo or something, you know, like, you know, the same place since I started half our Dean till now. It's I think I drive the same car since I started half our dean. So now, if a lot of people who use the website, they'll tell you that, yeah, you can charge more. I'll pay more. But I don't, I don't want money to ever be the reason that someone doesn't join half our dean. I don't want ads to be the reason. Choice half ID. I just want to do things different. I mean, the way I see
look, even my YouTube videos, I used to get criticized for them. It's a brother, just so many millions of views. How come you know, become a YouTube partner and YouTube actually contacted me numerous times, initially to become a YouTube partner. What does that mean YouTube partner? A long time ago, when YouTube before was bought up by Google, it wasn't the biggest thing. I mean, it was big. But it had a lot of competition. There's Mehta cafe, there's all these other websites when Google bought it, they really, really took it to the next level. Now, YouTube has become like the word Google, right? I only watch on YouTube, you're gonna watch a video you watch on YouTube,
there's no other. There's no other competition. It's kind of Google. When you search for something. 90% of people search on Google, they don't use Yahoo, or some of these other websites anymore, right? So Google has very smart and how they did that. But when I was part of
when I first started, it was back in 2006. I think that's around the time, Google had just purchased it was about to purchase it. So it wasn't that big yet. And so when I was getting like hundreds and 1000s of views, this is a really big deal, especially when I hit a very niche market. So they contact me of becoming a partner of making revenue off of this and I'm gonna be advertising all of my videos. My concern was that I don't know what you can advertise. And if I'm going to be making money off of something that's maybe Haram, that you're advertising, of course I would, they don't know what harm is, but I don't want any of that because my money won't have buttock on it. So I
rather take no money at all. And then just keep providing content on YouTube. And you guys can do whatever they don't make money I don't make money. So that was aspect of it. So did you want to just run by all the links and places where people can find you online? Well, you can find me on our the stand up or Muslim comedian if they want to book me to come to a live event. If they're coming to check out the half our Deen website you go to a half our deen.com
calm. The website is there. If you want to go to a live half fardeen event, you have to remember that protein, but you can go check out our next city that we're going to. And that's h od offline.com
Muslim personality or a Muslim personality.com. I mean, I have 1000 legs, I have an app called cute Arabic alphabet, which teaches children how to write in Arabic, and it corrects you when you're wrong is taught by a five year old is really, really cool. It's only 99 cents. You just type in the word cute Arabic alphabet is an app. It's really cool. Check it out. It's on iPad, it's on the iPhone, my hamdulillah. Every year we work out the brand new project. Last year's project was I was co starred in a film called American sherea type into American sherea. And YouTube, you can watch the movie trailer has Julia Roberts, brother in it, which is he's also played in the Batman Returns
movie. So it's actually a real film that's sold out in most of the showings, especially during the UK currently right now. So every year, I try to work on something new. And hopefully, I will keep in touch with you guys. But the main way to also keep in contact with me what I'm currently doing right now is very similar to what you agreed for Elm is doing it as a podcast. Of course, it's different type of content. So it's good to make sure you still subscribe to grieve for own podcasts. But it's a we cover a different type of cover social issues mostly. So come and check it out, make sure you subscribe to both of them. And it's called Baba Ali show.com. Or you can check through your iPhone
or through your Samsung podcast apps and type into Word Baba the show it pops right up, listen to it. Hopefully we get some feedback for you guys, too. And I just want to give a big shout out to for this greed for podcasts. hamdulillah. I wish we had more brothers like yourself while you're doing this. And I hope your work inspires others to do it. Because just like I was that pioneer on YouTube, as you mentioned, back in 2006 and hamdulillah A lot of people have followed those footsteps. You are now one of the first pioneers on podcasting and hamdulillah you've established yourself very unique guests, very unique subjects. I have now become a fan as well, since I
discovered it. So hopefully, inshallah, I'm hoping that to bring you on my podcast, so my listeners will be able to discover it as well. inshallah. Absolutely, yeah. I mean, I'd love to come on. And first of all, thank you, thank you so much. And I, you know, when we initially spoke last week, I think it was a week and a half ago that, you know, you your requirement for people coming on your, on your show is to bring a topic that they're passionate speak about, you know, and and I've been thinking about that, over the over the, you know, till today, I've been thinking about it. And I really think that what you just mentioned earlier is that we have to get the youth, the Muslim youth
into this type of medium podcasting specifically, you know, because they are tech savvy, you know, there's not a kid that that I know, that doesn't know how to break in, you know, make iOS app or or do this or that. But you know, they can reach so many people through podcasting, and we need more, we need more. And these young minds when they come up with things I'm like, I never never even thought about that. You know. So I would love to come on in. And we talk about all things podcasting. And before I go, one thing I have to mention, and maybe while it yourself may have mentioned it, but it's fair to even for myself to mention, because I know what it feels like and how
challenging it is, you know, you have so many views and so many subscribers. But one of the most important things is this is so important in Charlotte for all the listeners who are listening, if you really like the greed for podcasts, and you've been listening to it, and you really appreciate it, I want to support it, the best thing to do and this really means a lot. You go to the grief for calm you search for it on your iPhone or through your iTunes and you leave a rating. And I know you're like okay, I'll do it later. Don't try to do it right now. I know you listen to right now this this podcast episode is about to end. If you leave that thing that lives it makes it such a big
impact. And you're probably wondering, why is that such a big deal is because a lot of people who are searching and they're trying to figure out what podcasts to add because they just recently discovered the whole podcast thing. It's having the word Muslim Islam and this type of stuff. And you see a bunch of will come up and you see a bunch of them have like five star five star five star This one has like only a couple of people who've reviewed it. So you assume this is probably not that great or it's not that popular, while in fact 1000s of people are listening to it. And because we need more Muslims to support Muslims, it's not necessarily always by donation. The bit sometimes
the best support you can do is by giving it a rating by giving it a positive review. So other people who are looking for it will discover it and hopefully inshallah you get Baraka you get reward for the people that you helped discover this and who benefit from this series. So this is not while he has not done I asked me to do this, but I'm saying it out of my own self. Try to do that.
Probably means a lot to him. And especially he sees that ratings number jump after this episode. So go go to the ratings. Make sure again to do it right after this episode. And hopefully let's just jump those numbers really high. So everyone will be able to discover each other. appreciate them. And I really appreciate that. And it does come down to even when you go to Amazon and you're searching for something, if something if a product that you're buying has low reviews, or like one star, two star, you don't buy it. Yeah, you just you skip on and you look at something. And that also applies for iTunes or any other media search engine. You know, that could be a great app or a
great product on Amazon. But nobody went Oh, no, yeah, yeah, exactly. And so you discovered it already, please, it makes a huge impact. Because, you know, it's not like, I'm getting paid for this podcast, I was cash flow coming in. Check. 1000 is a lot of time to go and look for guests to get people on the podcast to record them to edit. This is a lot of work. And if it was easy, everyone would be doing it, but very few people are doing it. So the best way you can support it, if you want this to continue is to motivate him and myself and others who are doing it and leave ratings as shallow because that really does mean a lot. And it's free. Exactly. only takes about 30 seconds of
your time. Yeah, you probably spent hours probably going to edit this podcast of time and all the stuff involved in communicating with me. And already we've been on this thing for nearly over an hour. Yeah. But hopefully inshallah you'll be able to these people can spend 30 seconds of their time to show that they appreciate your efforts. Well, Mr. Lee, thank you so much. And I'm looking forward to coming on yours. Does aka a Buddha inshallah very soon. Absolutely. Well, thank you so much, man. No promise. So
there you go, everybody. That was Bob Marley. Hope you enjoyed this episode, like you said, head on over to iTunes and rate and review this podcast, I would truly appreciate that. To find out more about the links and things that we talked about during this episode, head on over to greed for lm.com for slash Episode 120 to one to two, and all the links and stuff you'll see right there. This man is doing an amazing job with half our dean. I mean, I had just a little knowledge in terms of being like a dating I mean, I'm Muslim, matrimonial website etc. I didn't know the extent of what he what he's doing. So I mean, after this episode, I'm really in awe of what he's doing absolutely
amazing. If you're single, you're interested in head on over to half our deen.com try it out. I mean at the price you'd be a fool not to do it. That's my thing. So
that's all for this episode. Thank you so much for listening. I really really appreciate that. I will hopefully inshallah be appearing on Baba Elise podcast is called Baba Li de Baba Li show. You can find out more about that. Go to iTunes rate and review that listen to a couple episodes rate and review it. I mean, that's the only way we can better ourselves and refine and tweak what we do for you all. So I truly appreciate if you can do that.
Thank you so much again for listening to this podcast until the next one, take care and Assalamu alaikum