Punk Rock Music band to ISLAM

Bismillah Alhamdulillah Peace be with you. Those are greetings of peace, the best Greetings, and we are greeting you with it and our next guest from punk rock I'm talking about you know, that's that stuff that you get a guitar and you Bob your head and you just you know, lose your mind. This guy went from punk rock to this way of life that brings peace, happiness, contentment, you live in the purpose of life. You know why you're here? You know, when you're going when you die? We're going to hear his story here on the D show, so don't go nowhere.

Salam alikoum. While he was set out to LA greetings of peace, Zack, how are you? Thank you very much for your interview. But I'm asking how are you recruited to have as an earth I find I tell the people you won't find a group of people who are more

ecstatic about praising God is that you asked him was he gonna have the worst day in his life? He's like 100 in law, exactly. To the Creator. Exactly. Is that right? That's absolutely true. Amen.

So you have a very interesting story said i do i do i graduated from Medina. I recently graduated about a year ago. graduate from the University of Medina. Yes. Yeah. Now I know we don't go into we dread a lot of the things from our past. But a lot of times we speak about it to relate to the people so we can say look, I've been there done that. That doesn't bring happiness. It brings misery. Yeah, I used to be in a punk rock band used to love music. Did you wake up to it? Yeah, I think I did. to it. Yeah, definitely stuck to it. That was like the shakedowns crown right? Definitely. about it. What happened? Okay, before I tell you, before I say anything, I've actually

never really told this story publicly. So if you're watching this, you're the first time the first time I'm telling you public only on the Dean's show. So you get in here only on the day.

Okay, so basically my story, like it's very similar to a lot of kids who grew up in America went to public school, in high school, basically just afford to high school. I started a band.

It's a punk rock band, like punk rock music. You're the lead singer. I was the I don't know if you'd call it singing punk rock. So you know, it's not really singing. But yeah, I did. I did lead vocals, guitar. No, not really, okay. Just just lead vocals, did lead vocals. My band was you know, it's pretty political. So I kind of in the back of my mind, I felt like I was doing something good. Because it was political. And I spoke about real issues and stuff like that, as opposed to like pop music and stuff like that. For me. It was like, you don't speak about political issues. People were oppressed and stuff like that. So I felt like I'm doing something good.

So yeah, that's where it started. I was in a punk rock band lasted throughout high school. When I went to college. That's when things began to change for me. When I went to college, I had a couple experiences in my life, people started asking me my brother started asking me about life. And it's the first time I actually began to question what my life was about.

So I began thinking about the purpose of my life, what it's all for. And it's actually one experience I had.

This was at the beginning of college. So I'd say about 18 years 1718 around that age, it's it's been a while. So now 18 you're thinking about purpose of life? Yeah. So the thing with me was, I would write lyrics for the band. I was I, I thought of myself as somebody who was spiritual to begin with. I try to think deeper. Because, you know, if you're a poet or lyricist, you know, you tend to think deeply about stuff. So even when writing lyrics and stuff like that, I tried to stay away from the cliches and you know, write about real issues. So I would always I had kind of had that spiritual side, but I never took it all the way were actually asked myself like, what's the purpose of my

life? And it's only when people started asked me and question me listen to his muscles making data to me. By the way, I don't even really consider myself Muslim before I started practicing Islam because I didn't pray. I never really even thought about God. So I'm not even sure if I really believed in God, do your parents bring you up as a Muslim? I was brought up as a Muslim I was in a Muslim household but you know the way my parents were they never really forced religion upon us with a practicing prank fight

cultural it was it was more cultural. Nobody was really that practicing the first persons are practicing Islam was actually my brother

and in the rituals that they did you know how a lot of times you know, Muslims will come up they don't even know what they're saying. They don't know the meaning behind it was kind of like it was actually like that, you know, I would say I said I want a comb. I'll say inshallah, I

don't even know if I said inshallah.

To be honest, yeah. Now like think about it. It's just something you say this is very common, isn't it? Yeah, it is pretty common. It is pretty common. I remember. I pray on aid. Pray Juma Muslim, yeah, Ramadan, you fast, but you kind of like to something you do. Right. Like you don't know really why you're doing it. But just, I think most people think it's part of their culture. It's part of culture, it's something you do. So that's how it was, for me, I just didn't really even think about it. It wasn't like, you know, I didn't want to be Muslim or anything like that. I just did. I didn't think about it. I didn't care. You know, just too busy in trying to get the most out of this life.

And that's what really caught me is when people started asking me or my brother, actually, he's first persons are practicing my house. And he had asked me, he'd asked me these deep questions that I really needed to think about, like, what what are these deep, like, for example, what's gonna happen after you die? Right? And the average person doesn't think about death. And I remember till now, I was making data to this after I started practicing a friend of mine. From before I started practicing. And I asked him, I said, I said, Do you think about death? Like, what's gonna happen? I asked him the same question. What's gonna happen after you die? It's like, Listen, don't talk about

death is too morbid. Like, I don't want to think about this stuff. I just wanna enjoy life and have fun. And that's how I was to, you know, I was like, Listen, I don't I still remember who asked me, I'd be like, Listen, I don't want to do my thing. You know, I want to have fun. Enjoy life. You're running the hide now? Yeah, yeah, exactly. The problem was I at that point, I did believe that this life did contain everything. Right. And it's only when I came to the realization that this life does not contain anything. And that for me happened at a particular moment.

It happened at a time that I went to a concert.

Yeah, and I'll tell you about that. You went to a concert, I went to a concert. And something happened there. Which was I would say that that one of the turning points for me now before we go to break, tell us, so were you contempt. Were you happy? From a young age? Now you're going to public school went to public school and public school? No, you went to high school? Yeah. And your friends, they were just doing the same thing. Obviously, me trying to fit in with a popular guy or you were looking up to someone you were trying to be? Who are you identifying with? Okay, so here's the thing, in in middle school, I wasn't that popular. And when I went to high school, I began to find a

little bit of an identity. I read The Autobiography of Malcolm X. And I was like, You know what, there's something to this Islam thing. And I began to build an identity as like, you know, I was proud. Like, like, I was proud to be rebellious. And like, I wrote that in my music, you know, and that kind of that did make me popular, you know, and then being in a band that helped my popularity. What, but it stopped there. I used it for the means of just being popular and you know, having a good time instead of taking it a step further. What why punk is punk rock, it's, well, it's rock. It's rock, rock and punk rock. There's different types of rock. There's just heavy metal, punk rock.

You know, there's soft rock, there's classic rock, did you also get into a little r&b hip hop? And usually I wasn't really into r&b? No, not not really the only thing that I listened to I listened to a little bit of underground rap, because it was political. Yeah. They were talking about real issues, social issues. So a little bit of underground rap. I don't want to throw out some names. This really takes over your mind your life music. Yeah, pretty much. I mean, at that point, I had a bumper sticker on my car. That said, I love music. Right. So basically, I wanted people to know that if you don't know me, the one thing you can know about me is that I love music. It becomes like a

way of religion. It really is. You know, celebrities. Yeah, these these are the people that you're mimicking. Like I remember the people that I used to look up to like the person that I want to be where people who were celebrities, you know, people who celebrities are music, they're musicians, they're rock stars, or punk rock stars. Okay, we got more to talk about here in a dish of the concert. Yeah, savor the concert. Somebody celebrities here on the deen show from punk rock, to true purpose purpose in life. We'll be right back. And it's simple to understand. I wouldn't know what the sky look like what the trees look like. I would have never seen the faces of my beautiful

children. If I didn't have the ability to see how blessed we are by Allah and obedience was born out of gratitude. So thank him call upon him. establish a relationship with him. Forget about the past. Take it out of being a ritual and make it a spiritual experience. Islam is not something dubious, unclear hazy. It's really straightforward. He said it changed his life.

He said he saw every single episode that we had ever recorded.

Back here on the deen show was shake sad and you are presently also a instructor with elevated yeah what are the um the latest instructor for the moment of Institute we're gonna get into that a little bit later but now people want to know like celebrities okay most of the people today they have a favorite celebrity yeah you know if that celebrity cuts their hair a certain way they cut their hair certain way that they you know the raise up to skirt dissuade they do the same thing. Yeah. Did you have certain pop stars rock stars that you were emulating?

Would you scream?

Like, I mean, if there's someone that you met or if you wanted to meet that you just go crazy for. I mean, I wasn't into pop stars. I was ridiculous now. It's not like I wasn't the pop stars. I wouldn't scream like that. Aerosmith. I don't know, if you met down Jovi.

That was before my day before my day.

old guys at that time, I'll tell you about one of my favorite bands. And like I said, this is exclusively for you. I haven't really told anyone about this radius and machine. I know you've probably heard of them, rage against them Rage Against the Machine. They're one of my favorite bands, because they were political. They talked about real issues. And I felt like this is the type of music that can make a difference, you know, so I felt like there was substance use. I didn't like pop music because I felt like there's no substance to it. Right. So I enjoyed punk rock. And you know, a lot of punk rock bands in rock bands. They do talk about political social issues. Yeah,

raising this machine was one of those bands. And yeah, I did look up to them. You know, the lead singer, I would say was one of the people that I really look up to. Yeah, you were there. You've been there, done that. Now you're at this concert? Yeah. This is I would say one of the turning points in my life. Because people asked me like, was there was there one moment that really stands that this is a moment, I would say, although it did take time. But this was the one moment that that really stood out. I went to a concert. And at this concert, I remember till this day, there was floor seating, and there was like balcony seating in the back. So people on the balcony, they could

look down on the crowd, and the band. And I was sitting on the floor seating the ground seating, and the band came on, everybody started playing the band started playing everybody was having fun. everybody's having a good time. And I just paused for a moment. And I have this feeling. And I don't want to say it's an outer body experience. Right? I just want to say that I could feel like it's almost like I could look down upon what's happening. I could look down on the situation. So it's almost like I was sitting up on the balcony. I'm sitting on the balcony. And I looked down. And I see myself I see everyone there. Everybody just like dancing, rocking out to the music. And I'm

like, Is this it? Like, is this my life? like is

that is that the purpose of my life is just to try to maximize my fun. Now people here are the scene if we can paint the picture, the visual people are bobbing their heads from side to side. It's like a drunk. Yeah, people are

like zombies now. It's like zombies people. Now you you're actually having a peson. You know, you're having a moment. You're just like, it was like it was a moment of clarity. Is that is that one moment of clarity that I had where through all this? all this chaos? chaos? Yeah, you're thinking serious? Yeah, it became serious at that moment. I can look down I can see it. And that really affected me to the point where my friend sitting next to me.

She says to me, she said she Yeah, she was she trying to pass you something? No, no, she wasn't passing me anything. She wasn't passing anything. But she says to me, she noticed she said, is everything. Okay? Like she saw I mean, the color my face shades like, obviously it affected me.

And I was like, Yeah, I'm fine. And I was like, Listen, I just I gotta go, like, I can't be here right now. Like, I know, this is not good for me. I left

my car and I drove that nightmare. I drove for hours, just thinking about life. And one of the things I asked myself was, where am I headed? So I plotted out my life. And I said, let's say everything in my life goes as planned. Right? which never happens anyway, right? Like, you don't always get what you want. But I said, let's say best case scenario, I get what I want.

My band, we got a record deal, which not many bands don't really get record deals. It's really, really rare that a band gets a record deal, but that was that was your dream. Yeah, that's the dream, right? Sounds like my band gets a record deal. We get signed, we tour become rich and famous. Right? I spend my life doing what I like doing doing music, playing music. And then I'm like, I fast forward. I'm like, Okay, let me fast forward a couple years, five years, 10 years, 20 years, 30 years, then I'm like, then what? Right? Then I'm like, Okay, now I'm sitting on my deathbed. Then what what did I just spend my life doing? Right? There's gotta be more to life than this. Fun.

Right? And then the other thing I was 18 or 19, I'm a little bit older, older. It's been a year or two after that. You're fairly young. Yeah, I am young. And that's, you know, I was pretty mature for my age. Like I said, I did write and I wrote poetry. I wrote lyrics for the band. So I did think about these other things. So at that, at that time, I thought to myself, even this life, even the lifetime chasing, I know it's not perfect, because I've been to concerts, I've been to parties have I've had the fun that you can have. And it just didn't. It wasn't fulfilling, right? So I was like, I find if I spend my whole life doing this, it's not going to all of a sudden become fulfilling.

Right.

So that I look back at my life. And I'm like, is that a wasted life? And it seemed like a wasted life. And I said, You know what, I need to figure out what my life is really about. Because it's not definitely not this is definitely not chasing this life and just trying to have fun. That can't be the purpose of my life. And that's why I started my journey. Now the journey begins. Yeah, the journey began hero's journey, that's when I became serious. That's what I was like, you know what I know, happiness does not lie and chasing the dunya that I had figured out at that point. So what happens from here? From there, I began looking at religions and spirituality. And you know, one of

the things about as a young person, you tend to rebel against those things that are around you. So I rebelled against the religion of my family, because it's not something like obviously, that can't be the truth. So that's the last place I look for the truth. Yeah. So you started, did you get into Christianity? Yeah, I looked into Hindu.

I looked at it looked into not Hinduism. But Buddhism. Christianity at a Jewish friend talked to him. For a moment there. I was like, maybe you just have to be spiritual, right? And that didn't make sense. And I remember, I would always have these questions, right? Because I was like, if I'm going to change my life, it has to be logical. It has to make sense. And I have to be completely comfortable with it. And I remember talking to like, my Christian friends and talking to my Jewish friends, talking Buddhists, even talking to people were just like, Listen, you just gotta be a good person doesn't matter, you know, just just be good. And I realized that I always had issues like it

was never I always had questions that they couldn't answer. Right. And obviously with with other religions, sorry about the questions like when it comes to Christian Christianity, for example, the whole Trinity business and all that, like, it never made sense to me. And coming from the outside.

It really didn't make sense to me. Like I just wasn't convinced. And nothing convinced me until I finally finally went to my brother. And I'm like, Okay, tell me about Islam. Let's do this. I have questions for you. Let's see if you can answer what were some of these questions. Some of these questions were some of the questions were about.

Why do I have to worship God to make it make it to paradise? Right? Things like that. Questions of predestination, for example, like if God has decided everything ahead of time, God knows what's gonna happen. And what's the point of me doing anything? I'm sorry? Questions like that, which I didn't know back then. But now I know, there's clear answers in Islam. Islam didn't provide you in the ambiguous Yeah, there's nothing ambiguous. Everything may even like you take the most taboo subjects, right. And take polygamy you take, you know, cutting people's hands off when they steal and stuff like that. If you look at it in context, if you look at if you look at the, the spirit of

Islam, you'll see it's the most just way. Right. And that is at that point, when I when those questions were answered for me. There came a point where I was like, I don't have any more questions was everything explained to me understanding now that look a young adult such as yourself? Yeah, it was clear it was lucid purpose of life, the purpose of art, you know, when you die? Yeah, what you need to be doing here every night was explaining the evidence, because look, many people say, look, exactly. Religion is a personal choice. You just have to have faith, he's got to believe you just got to believe was one of those. It wasn't. That's it? That's what I heard from other religions. And

when it came to Islam, my brother didn't tell me or even other people that I was talking to, they didn't tell me Listen, I can't explain this to you. You just got to believe because that's a no, no, for me at that point. I'm like, peace out. I don't have nothing to do with this. Right? When it came to Islam, they would answer my questions. And they would explain it to you. And it would make sense. So there came a point in my life at that point where I was, I said to myself, I remember clearly I said to myself, if I do not become Muslim right now, it's because I'm rejecting the truth, because I know it to be true. And my heart is comfortable with it, because that's the thing about tohave. But

worshiping Eliza alone, is that your heart is comfortable with that concept, because that's part of our fitness part of our nature is to accept to hate. So at that moment, I realized that my heart accepts is it's it's, it's pure. And if I still don't do it, is because I'm rejecting the truth. And then that point is a matter of is like people outside it seemed like a single day that I changed. It wasn't a single day. But it was a single day that I made that decision to say, you know what, I think it's time to submit you have peace now. Are you happy? Yeah. handler someone wrote you a check right now that said, you know, here's a million dollars contract, come and be the lead singer for

this bad band. Would you take it? I wouldn't do it. I wouldn't do it. You know why I wouldn't do it. Because I know it's empty life. I know, it's an empty life. And I know, I mean, a lot of times the problem the youth is they don't understand that money. And, and, and fame and that kind of stuff. It's not fulfilling. It's not right. And one of the problems is, a lot of kids, they don't have it, they just see all the people who have it, and they see them on TV, and they see them on the internet and stuff like this and they look at their lives and they assume it looks like their lives are amazing.

lives are not amazing how many rock stars have committed suicide. One of my favorite rock stars, Kurt Cobain from Nirvana Nirvana. I was just thinking that he committed suicide. I couldn't I couldn't believe it. That's right right there. We're gonna take a break. We're gonna pick up right there. Suicide celebrities, why they doing it, they have all the money to fame. We'll be right back here on today's show.

This is my family

has always been stubborn.

He started having his problems, activity fights, one night policemen for me.

Father, come on, get him from the station. He's locked up.

One fight here, another fight there. His physical being was great for his ego, but it left him empty. If someone who Eddie and his youth they would predict that he'll be there.

In the outside people looking in today, this is the man everybody knew it. At any given moment. You could have 70 women that are running around the club looking at why

I have to get out of this total.

right near the end there were there was just a boy. It was a constant struggle. There. his inner soul was broken at that moment. There was an emptiness in his eyes. It was a bigger emptiness that I think have ever really seen in his eyes.

I'm running here running there. And mainly I'm running that.

It was Dr. Jekyll, Mr. Hyde. And he was struggling with it. But the effort was there. There was a conscious effort to make that switch. He started talking about his back Look at him. He's trying to be a good guy.

This was the reality. It was bad.

was wanting to start on this line and spread it to the anonymous. People didn't know who I was. So what why are we doing this?

You're living a dream. People are just stubbornly resistant. And I started looking at you like you're, you know from outer space.

I have to be out there and trying to convince people to be on the show. Love that

show aired. I think that's when you saw the full coronation comments to help. disguise change what's going on? Is the machine see someone change? The sees their character changes to see positive changes in their life. It's a sign of God.

Back here on the deen show, from lead singer in a punk rock band to peace and purpose, living the way the creator wants you to live. And at the end, nothing less than paradise, avoiding the hellfire. And this is something that all the messengers of God they brought and taught they gave the good news Didn't they obey God and you're going to get Jenna paradise disobeyed God, live according to your whims and desires and your fancies? You're going to go to hell fire on the Day of Judgment. Yeah. And now Islam provided all the rational logical evidence for we get into that. Tell us now. suicide. These people are all the money Whitney Houston. Yeah. And many of these people continue.

You mentioned the person that was dear to you. What's his name? Nirvana. Kurt Cobain, Kurt Cobain? When I got the money, fame, money, fame, and he wasn't doing something. Look, that's the thing. He wasn't doing who isn't doing this unfulfilling music wasn't a pop star. Yeah, he was a grunge rock musician. Like he was making that he was playing the music that he wanted to play. And he's still committed suicide. You can't that void there. You can't You can't fill it only entered into the night thing. Nothing. Nothing will fill that void. Except submitting to the one who created you. That's the void you had? Yeah, that's the void I hadn't. Is it still there have a lot of what is not

there anymore? Not?

How could I mean? I'm sure it looked at 17 year olds 16 year an adult now right? Yeah, you're accountable in Islam? At what age now? puberty. Yeah, you're, you're an adult, you have to make these decisions. So for those young adults that are out there, and they're just their minds are warped with music, they wake up to it, they go to sleep to it, you know, marijuana drugs drinking fitting in. They can relate now, you know, you speak the language of the times you're living that. Yeah. What advice do you have for him? Look, one of the things that I often talk about is being real, and opening your eyes and thinking about the big questions. And that's one of the issues. I

think, with being young, we tend to ignore the big questions, right? We don't want to think about death. We don't want to think about the fact that this may be our last moment to live. I may not make it home today. This may be my last interview, right? This may be your last interview, that's the reality of life, even a non Muslim or deny the fact that he doesn't know when he's gonna die. Even atheist, somebody who rejects God doesn't deny that fact. Those are the big questions, and our Islam encouraged us to think about those big questions.

He said a little bit of victory has him under that moat. He said increase in remembering the destroyer of desires, death. Right? That's the big question. So if we think about those things, it'll bring us back to reality. Right? I don't think I don't think young kids deny the fact that we're gonna die. They just don't think about it.

They don't, they don't Yeah, they don't think about it. So the idea is, you know, bringing that, bring the real questions, you're asking yourself the real questions. And that's what did it for me? Now tell us before people have to go all the way around the world and accumulate all these bad deeds, you know, black in their heart, and all the trauma and everything. Now, how can people be sure how could they know that this way of life that we're talking about Islam submission to the will of God is indeed from the creator? Is not man made? Right? How can they be sure? What would you encourage them to do? Listen, the thing about Islam is a handler, we don't have to do a lot of work,

right? So hey, there's such a simple concept. How would you translate the pure monotheism pure, I would translate to hate as worshiping the one who created you and gave you life It can take your life away. Beautiful, simple as that. Because he is the one who created us. He gave us life, He gives us sustenance he provides for us. He's in charge of all affairs. He is the only one who deserves our worship and devotion. That is to hate right there. It's so simple, nothing and create not Jesus, exactly how much I mean networking to them, of course, messengers, of course. And that's one thing I found a lot. I remember now, when thinking about Christianity and Islam and those

things. I was like, my fifth thought told me, I said, why Jesus? Like why do I have to go through somebody? To get to God? Right? If God cares if he's the one who created me, why do I need people? Why don't need intercessors? Right? And it's unfortunate that in this day and age, we have Muslims that code intercessors, right? When we have 100 now we have a pure religion, no intercepts, no interest, no middleman, no secretary, exactly. We got only Eliza and this is a power that a Muslim has to have a connection with their Lord, right other 100 Muslim knows this. And this is why when we go into such that we know we're close to Allah Zoda and we call out sincerely to Eliza so can you

before we cut out? Can we say that's the start right now? You're at home watching this? Yeah, you know, there's a voice start asking the creator alone guidance. Exactly. That's, that's one of the things I did actually, I sincerely I said, God, if you're out there, guide me, guide me just guide me and it wasn't, it wasn't a matter of a day. I just purely wanted to I had that was like, Just show me what the truth is. And if you put down those barriers, right, I don't care what your religion is your Jew or Christian, atheist. If you're a Muslim who doesn't practice, you put down all your preconceived notions, all your barriers, you put them down, and you sincerely make the art

to Allah to God, and say, Oh, God, guide me to the truth. Allah will never leave you facilitate away He will make away Simple as that. Yeah, we're out of time. Tell us we have a special class that I'm teaching a class for Muslim. It's called the effect of chilling. It's basically the Islamic perspective on entertainment and recreation. Okay, the point of this class is to find that balance in your life because obviously as Muslims, we submit to Allah azza wa jal, our goal is the hereafter at the same time, we don't abandon the dunya altogether right? as Muslims Our goal is to lead a balanced life and in that balance, we find comfort, right where religion which is away from

extremism, right extremism meaning going too far, or not going far enough or not doing anything at all so for example, you somebody who showers 20 times a day that's extreme because he showers too much somebody doesn't shower at all. That's the other extreme the balances in the middle. So the point of this class is to find that balance in your life in terms of entertainment and recreation so you so you lead a fulfilled life at the same time you don't feel like oh, I'm Muslim so everything's around now Yeah, you know to find that balance in your life people can look you up at where Yeah, I'm on Facebook. I'm on Twitter at SATA slim look me up and yeah, my God Almighty, the Creator of

the heavens and earth and every we say Allah Jesus said Allah ha, that's the one God He rewards you Thank you.

We'll see you next time inshallah. So I can think of something and there you have it, another person's story, who was living this life the wrong way. And then he came to the right way, which was based on proven evidence is filling the void that was in his heart that was missing, it was missing and Islam pride provided him with that peace, that contentment and satisfaction. Jesus brought Islam Moses brought Islam Mohammed elastan final messenger he brought Islam submission to the will of God, not to your fantasies, your desires, not worshipping a man, a monkey and elephant, nothing in creation, but worshiping the one create tour and we have the living miracle today, the verbatim Word

of God the car and you can pick it up for free one 806 is to Islam and start asking, start asking because you know, Money can't buy happiness. Nothing in his world can fill that void except you turn into the creator and him guiding you. So ask for the guidance. Ask for the guidance. And when you get it you will see that your whole life

will turn around and you'll truly be happy you truly have success. And at the end when you die, you have paradise. That's right and you'll avoid hellfire. We'll see you next time peace BMT. You