Thugs and Gangsters

			Bismillah Alhamdulillah Salaam Alaikum. Peace be with you. I'm your host. You're watching the deen
show. And today we're going to be bringing out chick Kamala McKee. And he's gonna help us sing this
song. So you want to be a gangster smoking all that dope, disrespecting people and all the folk.
That's what you think is about man. You think that is what makes you successful being a punk, a
thug? Well, the sheer and utter my milkshake, he's got something else to tell you. So if your
parents brought you down, to watch the de show, sit tight, because we'll have some fun, but we're
gonna be serious. Don't go nowhere. We'll be right back.
		

			I know where you got that song from blue. You know what, it covers our topic nicely. I think you
know what, way back. I used to be in Javelin. And I learned so much. And I think the creator of that
has heard that he guided me. And I used to listen to the hip hop. Right. And you know what? You're
sitting there thinking about all sorts of stuff, disrespect to the parents. disrespect to yourself.
disrespect to you, teachers disrespected the woman. And now the youth as I was, I thought it was
cool to disrespect people. Because then people, and this is what happens in the high school and in
the colleges and whatnot. The more disrespectful you are, the more you're, you know, the cool guy,
		

			people be dissing each other, we discern each other, right. You know, most people say that you're
black, you know that, right? Most people, what's the danger? They say?
		

			Well, you know what? They see that, you know, what were we talking about here?
		

			But here's the thing, here's the thing, you know, we try to keep it real, we tried to to connect
with the youth, because we are in a real world. And I was living that life. And I see that's the
wrong direction to go. So now, I feel is requires discipline to hold back when you're angry. To not
throw a punch, you have to stay calm, be patient is what Islam teaches. It's easy to to let out
profanity. It's easy to be a thug. So that's what we want to talk to. Why do you think more people
are inclined to that? Cz, but this takes some discipline, and they kind of go towards the easier
right? Let's discuss this very important. Fantastic. Let me begin by saying Bismillah Alhamdulillah
		

			wa salatu salam ala. For those who don't know that means In the name of Allah, and All praise is due
to Allah and he extolled and send blessings of peace, find his phone, messenger Muhammad, and
obviously upon all the profits that he sent before. Now, take a note just just just I'm sorry to cut
you up. You said a lot. And again, there's a lot of Muslims, they tune in, they hear a law, they
think in God, they think a black box and desert we gotta say about that. It's just how you said God
in Arabic. You know, you go to, if you go to an Arab country, right Arab country, and you go into a
church, the Bible says or learn Arabic, if you go to a synagogue, for example, Morocco, Yemen, there
		

			are many Jews or Arabs who speak Arabic. And their Bible says Allah as well. So it's proof that it's
the same God not a different guy. But that's all we're saying. Okay, good. I'm sorry. Please
continue. Now, what I loved about how you began is that you actually said Howdy, because the
prophets of Allah what it says and said, Lisa, Shani, do the surah. He said that the strong person
isn't the one who wrestles people. Because, or lose your temper or use profanity. That's easy.
Anybody could do that. The strong person is one who contains his anger. No, who keeps his cool,
keeps his temper down. That's a strong person. Because you agree that's, that's harder to contain
		

			yourself than it is to erupt. Anybody can erupt, use bad words. You know, use sign language.
Anybody?
		

			speak French. Yeah. So people, you know, they communicate these ways, and they think they're, and
then they come and boast about these things. They boast about how they went off on this guy. And
then I said this to him, but that's easy. How do you boast about something that's easy. You boast
about something that's difficult. So if someone really got up in your face, as they say, and you
know, was rude and disrespectful and you could contain yourself, that's something that you can boast
about. Not that you just cursed them back. Anybody can do that. But what is going on now with people
even even you find sometimes practicing Muslims, I can use that term. And they still have that thug
		

			thing going on. You know, that mentality. They don't want to smile and shake your hand. They just
give you the cold salams of what's going on.
		

			Oh, hard and stuff. What's with this hard thing? You know, it's it's pushed too much.
		

			I mean, obviously, and you've interviewed rappers before. And they all said that it's an image,
right? It's not hard all the time. And these don't wake up hard. Yeah, it's an image thing. But then
these young people, they see it on television, and then they believe it. That's how you have to be.
One group did this kind of a study, if you want to call it. And they just started to interview kids
at high schools, and they would ask them, What is the math, and everything that youth would say back
into the camera was violent, or aggressive. And they felt that them and they would use words like a
man is powerful, who is aggressive? You know, he's a good fighter. He takes you know, matters to his
		

			own hands. He does. Everything they were mentioning was aggressive, because that is the media
definition that you get from the mainstream media of what a man is, you know, the man is violent.
And the man takes care of issues not not by diplomacy and speaking, that's for weaklings. The nerds
will finish the half will solve their disputes that way, you know, the man, he jumps out of his car,
takes off his coat, glasses off.
		

			fisticuffs punch people out, knock people up? Where did they get this from? So this violence thing
is going overboard. And it's all from the movies that glorifies the, you know, the fighting the
aggressive behavior, and from,
		

			like, you know, the stuff that we were quoting earlier that the rap music and talking about violence
and how tough they are, how many times you have to listen to a song about how tough a guy is, and in
reality is not tough. He's got a pool boy, he's got a mansion. And, you know, he's living the easy
life. But he talks about how tough he is in the studio all the time. And then people fall for that.
Yeah.
		

			One interesting thing. I really love this in the Quran, when Lockman was was righteous, wise man in
the past, and he was advising his son. So one of the he was giving a lot of advice, with manners,
with life with staying away from worshiping things besides Allah with being good to the parents. And
then one of the things he tells him when he's starting to gives him starts to give him advice on
being humble, and having humility. So he tells him what to say.
		

			And do not just air your cheek people do not turn your cheek to people. Sad, is a disease that
afflicts camels and when it afflicts them, their neck turns, and their face turns to the side. Isn't
it weird that he that arrogant people in the thugs, they don't walk straight, there was walked to
the side like this, you see a guy walking like this.
		

			Just like the Quran describes the alternative space. So he was advising, he says, Don't turn your
face to the people meaning don't become arrogant. Be humble, in how you carry yourself, be humble in
how you deal with people. TLG Have you heard of that? No. What is that? TLG. And I feel that people
just today are just followers. 10
		

			laundry, and Jim, have you heard that? Never. I guess I'm not a hippie. So you watch these reality
shows. And these people who are out there glorifying this lifestyle, just more about the body more
about, you know, physical appearances. And they forget, they forget about purifying the soul, they
forget about the reality of death, they forget about returning to their Creator. So these things, it
seems like, you know, we focus more on the physical, our appearances. And then at the same time, you
know, we don't watch our behavior. And again, it just seems again, from early on, from the high
schools, public schools, it just seems like the whole culture is making it easy. So how does someone
		

			who has been programmed for so many years? How did they get out of this?
		

			And of course, as usual, any improvement that you can make any self improvement, if it wasn't
possible, Allah wouldn't ask you to do it. So if you couldn't change yourself to become more humble,
and have more humility than Allah wouldn't ask you or require that of you. So the truth is, and the
good news is that you can improve and you can change from you know, being arrogant, to being in a
state of humility. You know, the Prophet sallallahu Sallam said in a hadith man for a while by the
law, he should have a deeper meaning. whoever humbles himself for the sake of Allah, Allah will
raise him and rank. You imagine it's the opposite. You know, you have to be arrogant, and then you
		

			get better status with people, but it's actually the opposite. you humble yourself for the sake of
Allah. And Allah subhanaw taala will raise you in rank. And by the way, you know, a lot of people
think, you know, if you're being humble, that means again, you're weak, you're letting people step
on you. And it has nothing to do with that. Humility is just the opposite of arrogance, you know,
and it's interesting how arrogance itself, the arrogant people, Allah says in the Quran in the
Levine a strict Verona a basmati said hello, Johanna Mata Hari, those who were too arrogant to
worship me unless sang in the Koran. Those who were too arrogant to worship me they get a punishment
		

			that the opposite. They were enter the Hellfire in a state of humility.
		

			Also the person described that the people were like really arrogant, got their nose in the air. They
think they're all that, as they say, these people out of out of embarrassment, punishment alone will
raise them on the Day of Resurrection, the size of little ants, and people will not see them. And
there'll be fun not to let people step over them. we humble ourselves. Absolutely. Let's take a
break, we'll be right back. And it's simple to understand, I wouldn't know what the sky looked 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 is 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 you ever recorded.
		

			Back here on the day show with shake him out with Mickey, we're talking about serious business.
We're talking about things that are very important. It's not just about getting 10, doing the
laundry, the clothes getting ready for the nightclub on the weekend, hitting the bench press, that's
all you focused on, you're not thinking about anything else, because you got to go get your honey,
you got to go to fill your lesson desires, and the woman she demands on the hunt, and the woman is
just acquiring as many phone numbers as she can. So she can have her phone blowing up ringing and it
becomes a whole game, we get caught up into this whole system. And if we forget about our purpose in
		

			life, why we been created, and we start doing things that are displeasing to the one who created us.
		

			Why is this? Again, I keep asking the million dollar question. Why are people more inclined to this?
nowadays? Right. And obviously, you know, if I were to take the easier route, I'll just say, you
know, it's it's lack of Eman, a lack of, you know, belief, the belief is weakened people's hearts, a
lack of knowledge. When the dunya becomes the new meaning this material world becomes great in
people's hearts, you know, and because the dunya is great in people's hearts, people envy them, each
other, hate each other because of things of the material world, like, you know, even a good person
will see someone with a nice vehicle and they'll envy that and they'll be jealous of him. You're
		

			only jealous because a couple of things. One, this material world is great in your heart, otherwise,
it's just a piece of metal, it wouldn't have mattered to you that the material world has become
great people's hearts. The other thing, also you find people you know, their work code, meaning
their trust and their reliance in the last week. You know, Allah owns everything in the heavens and
the earth. If a guy has a Ferrari, Allah gave it to him, he could give it to you. So don't worry
about it. Or maybe he's not giving it to you for a good reason. So don't worry about it. But because
material things have become so great in our hearts, that that we want to express who we are through
		

			our material possessions. And so you find even some, you find some very hollow people who will they
won't even have a car, but they'll have a Mercedes Benz keychain, although just twirl it around like
this as they talk to girls and stuff. Yeah, but you gotta see the Benz symbol. Hmm. You know, the
three point star right? Yeah, trying to show that I got a Benz of the guy's taking the city bus, you
know? Yeah. So because the world has become so great in people's minds and hearts, that they always
try to express who they are through their belongings and through their possessions. Some cities, I'm
not gonna say which cities but in certain cities where most people don't drive, I think I gave it
		

			away. People try to express who they are through what they're wearing. So they try to wear the
flashiest outfit. Other states, for example, where you know, it's not really about what you wear,
it's about the car that you drive. So people will put everything into that car. I remember one time
I dropped off. Some people at a homeless shelter, they were staying there. And there was a guy with
a brand new Lexus living at the homeless shelter. So for the moments when he's out of the homeless
shelter, driving the Lexus, everybody will look up to him like, Oh, he's got money, but he doesn't
even have a house. The guy's homeless, and he's broken, is unemployed. But he put everything into
		

			this car so he can live that fake image, you know, and also it brings to mind the Hadith of the
Prophet Allah mentioning. And he said some people in the worst position or the worst of people, one
of them is either Mr. COVID, like someone who is poor, yet he's arrogant. What are you being
arrogant about the guy's poor, he's got no money, but he's still being arrogant. So you'll find the
guy who's homeless. He puts everything that he has into a car, then he will drive it looking all
arrogant, like he's, he's living the life. So this is this the easy way. This is easy to be a thug,
to act that align, to go and lift some weights. He there's nothing wrong with lifting weights.
		

			There's nothing wrong with being clean doing your laundry and all this stuff. But now, it takes some
discipline to control yourself. To stay away from evil. This requires some effort and work but isn't
the outcome better than just
		

			living according to your lesson desires, absolutely. I mean, the prophet Selim even promised us
that, you know, those who are humbled and don't have that attitude and all that and, and think to
themselves, the process, lm said mantova de la Hakata. So the Prophet Selim said, whoever humbles
himself to a lot like this, then he turns his hand downwards, and he lowers it all the way down near
to the ground, the narrator says, then he's when he turns it over a lot or a low, raise him get fala
hakodesh. Then he turns his hand to a lower raising like this, and he starts raising his hand up, up
higher, not until he went as high as he could go. So you humble yourself a low res, whether it means
		

			as what people think of you in the community, your position, your actual rank, your status, or your
rank with Allah subhanaw taala as well, to Allah would raise you from acting humble, not from being
like a thug. Now, someone might be watching the show now. And they'll argue, well, we see all these
people who act arrogant and act like thugs, and people look up to them. Yes, it's not the opposite
of what you're saying. Well, in the end, people look up to them, what kinds of people look up to
them? Yeah, most of the you, you will see that they're worthless people who look up to them, because
Allah describes this in the Quran describing for the home Pharaoh, he said, Christopher, como,
		

			como, Yanni. It means he belittled his people. So they respected him. He they respected him when he
treated them like dirt, which means they have no self worth, they don't have self respect. Because
no one would self respect. If you treat him like dirt. They say, look, I want to deal with this
person anymore. But the person will respect you, if you if you treat them like dirt, themselves, low
low, the individual. So if we're if you're telling me these rappers that act like arrogant and they
act like thugs, and they get respect from people, they're getting respect from people who have no
self respect, that's number one. And the second thing they respect is limited to what they have and
		

			to their status, you know, any of these
		

			for any of these rappers or what have you, they become less popular, nobody remembers them anymore.
You know, if one rapper steps out of the limelight, the next day, the next guy is, is popular, and
nobody remembers him anymore. Yeah, I don't think we need to mention any names. Right? So tell us
why do you think many of the youth they join gangs?
		

			a number of things sense of belonging, you know, also to feel important. Human beings. psychologists
say they're social beings. So they want to belong, right. And people also need to want to feel
important. Everybody loves loves themselves, you know, if anyone tells you they don't love
themselves, hit him on the face and see what they can defend themselves, because they love
themselves. Yeah, of course, don't do that. But the idea is people love themselves, right. And they
tell you that, you know, everybody loves their name, even the letter of your name, if you see it,
		

			you know, under studies, they'll see that your brain would light up more when they see the letter of
your name, you know, so if you see an E, your brain would light up more than a B, if I see a K, my
brain would light up more. So everybody loves themselves. When you look at the class photo, the
first thing you look, you look for yourself, you're like, what, where's Jimmy, you look for
yourself, right? So people love themselves, they want to feel important, and they want to feel
needed as well. And they want to feel part of a group. And so a lot of youth, then instead of going
to the right group, instead of going to their Mosque, the message to the community, you know, to the
		

			shift to the righteous people, it might get lost a little bit and then look for a sense of belonging
with that kind of group. And it's amazing the kinds of things people will do to become accepted by a
certain group of individuals. Like they'll go to the point, you know, you've heard about hazing. Of
course, hazing actually has a lot of psychology in it. When when someone does something ridiculous
related to hazing, like don't make someone you know, dressed in his underwear in the winter and run
across, you know, in front of people. They actually because they're doing something so ridiculous,
they convince themselves that I really want to be part of this group. That's why I'm willing to go
		

			as far as doing something so ridiculous, and humiliate myself, because I want to be part of this
group. Human beings have that need to belong. And gangs offer that unfortunately, they offer that
yeah. So we're going to continue more asking some more questions here in addition or nowhere. It's
like, when did you think that you had no purpose?
		

			Are you worth
		

			the value comes from purpose.
		

			Your purpose in life is to worship the Creator, not worship, you design yourself, not worship,
social pressure, the celebrity culture, or worship the thing that's much higher and transcendent,
above and beyond by worshiping God and seeking His pleasure, you get pleased. So you have double
pleasure.
		

			We're here on the D show. Thank you for joining us, and we're talking about, it's easy to be a thug.
It's easy to follow your lesson desires, but it takes a little more effort on doing the good things
that the creator's told us to do.
		

			And I think that's the cool thing. People feel that that's not cool. But how can we again, bring it
home? where that is not the cool thing, being disrespectful to your parents, being disrespectful to
your teachers, being disrespectful to your classmates, being disrespectful to your peers, that's not
cool. What's cool is being respectful, being dignified, showing humility, bringing home shit. You
know, I love blaming the media. What's wrong with that?
		

			And I studied, I studied media production, I studied communication. So we studied the theory behind
television, the theory behind radio, all kinds of things related to that. And one of the things is
that, you know, this is, you know, the media, they claim that it doesn't affect people's behavior,
but it will affect what's in the forefront of your mind. Right? So if a young person sees that the
proper way is the respectful guy, as you're saying, the humble guy is always presented as the square
the nerd you know, you always see the proper guy who uses proper language and has a shirt tucked in
Where's his glasses, is always like socially inept is always the nerd and the clown. Even in
		

			sitcoms, even children's sitcoms, you know, this Disney Channel, they have these early sitcoms for
kids, they always show the cool guy is kind of disrespectful and kind of, you know, carefree and
what have you. And then the proper guy is always uncool. So then they get this image, you know,
being proper and right and written good in language and respect and manage your uncool. You know,
you're socially inept, you're a nerd, and it was dressing up weird with bow ties and stuff like
that. Yeah. But then the guy who is got Batman, it's got a little bit of attitude. He cracks, the
funny jokes and everything in front in class. He's the cool guy. So then it remains, and then they
		

			want to act out the certain scenes in the classroom, fun. A lot of kids now disrespecting the
teacher trying to be funny trying to disrespect this disruptive class, because they've learned
that's what it is to be cool. But of course, Google is uncool on the Day of Judgment, right?
Whatever school here, if whatever is wrong, and that people make is cool, it's uncool on the Day of
Judgment, that's my next that leads me to my next question, the day of judgment, and before that, to
help people realize the seriousness of this matter, that def is approaching. And can you just
explain emphasize what will happen in the grave when you die? And that Angel medical note, Angel
		

			death comes to take you so?
		

			Well, you know,
		

			everyone thinks they have time to repent, or it's not going to happen to me. And they told you also,
this is one of the things that happens in the minds of youth, they always think the accident will
happen to the other guy, not to me. So we always think that death will come to me in my deathbed,
when I have my family around me, but I'm not I'm not the guy who's going to be killed in the street
suddenly going to work going to school. But the truth is, it will happen. And it does happen to
people, young and old. And so when you die, you have to be prepared for it. When the Angel of Death
comes to you, you can't repent anymore. And when you're put in your grave, you're going to be asked
		

			three questions. Now, even if you studied these questions in school, you can't answer it unless
you're a believer, who's your Lord? And only believer can answer that someone who read a book about
Islam didn't become Muslim canons, believer who's a believer, one who worships the one God,
absolutely without any partners, not his creation, and the lives in his messenger in his messenger.
That would include all the preceding messengers, Jesus, Moses, Abraham, all Absolutely. And all the
books and all the angels, you have that belief of a Muslim, and then doing all the good that God
Almighty supposed to do and staying away from the evil because it's not enough. It's not good enough
		

			to just know that there is a God is God to do its work? Absolutely. So you can answer these
questions in the grave. Who's your Lord, who's your prophet? What is your religion? So that's why
you have to become Muslim. You have to repent, you have to abide by the rules and forget what's in
the media, okay? And a Muslim is simply one who submits this great that's what it means not to
mention the monkey was created. That's it, and you get rewards for just tell us briefly now you get
rewards that if you want to be a thug, you want to act out of control, but you contain yourself, do
you get rewards for leaving off the evil and doing good to motivate them to do more good rather than
		

			evil acts on the creator? Absolutely. Anybody who lives February 3 gets the reward for living that
inshallah. And you get the good deeds. Absolutely. You get the good deeds and some, some scholars
say even whatever bad deeds you have, when you repent can be converted into good deeds, and
nothing's better than not great. This is great. Thank you again for being my pleasure.
		

			Thank you, and you got to get some good advice. Don't be a thug. be someone who is doing good, being
good and calling others to good because you got one shot, you got one life to live. So you can go
ahead and keep following your lesson desires and die in a bad state, or you can worship the one God,
not his creation followed the last and final message that was sent to mankind.
		

			Muhammad peace be upon them. And then you can be in a constant state of self development striving to
be the best human being that you can be and then at the end result is paradise. And that's what
we're striving for. We'll see you next time. God willing peace to you.