Sincerely, Yours
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Sincerely, Mohammad Elshinawy
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Transcript
This transcript was auto-generated using AI and may contain misspellings. Jazakumullahu khair for joining us for another episode of Sincerely Yours. This is your host Ibrahim Hindi. You may be wondering where's my co-host Sheikh Abdullah Duru. He's having some technical problems. Inshallah, he'll be joining in a few minutes along with our guest, inshallah. But as always, this is, you know, our time together every week. We get to connect with you and we get to connect to you with our guests, where you get to interact with us, send us your questions live, and we get to have our guests answer and discuss those questions of yours live, inshallah. So give us your salam from where you're at. I see Hidayat Ubari from New Jersey. As-salamu alaykum. Jazakumullahu khair for joining us and for watching. I love to get salam from everyone. I love to have that connection with all of you and to at least spread salam. You know, the Prophet ﷺ taught us, afshu salam, spread peace, spread salam to each other. So as Muslims, even though we may not see each other in person, even though we may just be virtual, we want to hear from all of you. So give us your salam. Let us know where you're coming to us from, bi-idhnillah. We have a great guest here today. And inshallah, I think all of you are going to benefit from his wisdom and from his thoughts. But as always, we do have a link in the description of the video for you to give us feedback. If there's any feedback you want to give us, any speakers you want us to invite, or guests you'd like us to have on this show, let us know who they are so that we can reach out and hopefully be able to book them and you can be able to ask them your questions live, inshallah, here on the program. I see clearly, as-salamu alaykum, from Ohio. Masha'Allah, we get people from all over the States, but all over the world, alhamdulillah, who join us on Sincerely Yours. As-salamu alaykum, EZ from Dallas, Texas. Masha'Allah, the home of yaqeen.
It's great to see all of you joining us, joining in, bi-idhnillah. So give us your salam, connect with us, let us know where you're coming to us from. And throughout this talk, let us know what your questions are. Let us know what you would like for us to share with our guests, inshallah. That's the hope. As-salamu alaykum, Shaykh Abdullah. Oh, audio is not working there, Shaykh. So the technical issues continue. Shaykh Abdullah, get that sorted out, inshallah. As-salamu alaykum, Sister Rahma from Nigeria. That's amazing, masha'Allah. We get people constantly from Nigeria, from Ghana, from Malaysia, Singapore. Those are countries I always remember people giving us salam from those places. Give us your salam, let us know where you're coming to us from, inshallah. All right, I'm going to introduce our guest for this week. And hopefully we'll be able to get him and Shaykh Abdullah both to jump on at the same time. We have Shaykh Muhammad al-Shinnawi, who I'm sure many of you are very, very familiar with. He is the Associate Director of Systematic Theology at Yaqeen Institute. He's produced some amazing work here at Yaqeen. I'm sure many of you have seen the proofs of prophethood that Shaykh Muhammad has put together. Shaykh Muhammad al-Shinnawi is a graduate of English literature at Brooklyn College, New York City. He studied at College of Hadith at the Islamic University of Medina, and is a graduate and instructor of Islamic studies at the Mishgahi University. He has translated major works for the International Islamic Publishing House, and the Assembly of Muslim Jurists, and Mishgahi University. So join me, inshallah, in welcoming Shaykh Abdullah. Sorry, Shaykh Muhammad. Shaykh Muhammad, how are you doing? Alhamdulillah, I'm well. JazakAllah khair, Shaykh Muhammad al-Shinnawi.
Pleasure to be with you, Israel. Alhamdulillah, it's great to have you as well. So Shaykh, you know, it's great being with you. Of course, you know, we're hoping Shaykh Abdullah is going to jump in any minute and join us. But really, you know, these sessions are about connecting with you on a personal level. I think sometimes, you know, we hear the Shaykh or the speaker give a talk, give a lecture, give a khutbah, write an article. But we want to get to know the person on a human level, right? And so, you know, we were talking a little bit behind stage. I don't know how to say that. I'm tripping all of my words all of a sudden, Shaykh. Backstage, we were talking about, you know, yourself and, you know, you were born and raised in New York, mashallah, New York City, Big Apple. Shaykh, when did you decide to pursue knowledge? When was that something that came, you know, came across your heart? Bismillah. I actually didn't decide. It was decided for me. And I guess there might be a lesson there for someone seeking it. Mashallah. Who decided it for you? Oh, my God, we got to give Shaykh Abdullah a second to hear the story of my insincerity. Shaykh Abdullah? No, we can't hear you. He's practicing sign language. He's from Valley Ranch Islamic Center. I love it. Really inclusive, mashallah. SubhanAllah. So, yeah, Bismillah, Sultana Rasool Allah. When I, it was about the year 2000, roughly, or shortly before that.
There was the first Muslim youth center opened up in Brooklyn, New York City. And I was, you know, drawn there by, you know, like similar age Muslim youth, primarily that were into basketball, to be honest. So we used to play basketball behind the youth center, and they'd like pull us in for like circles, study circles and whatnot, halakat. And it was just a very welcoming environment. It was really nice. And then that youth center was not paid off yet. And so in Ramadan, they had their annual fundraiser and they wanted to show the work they were, in fact, putting in us and their investment in the youth. And so one of them basically drafted for me or helped me draft like a one pager. And I memorized it word for word. And then at the fundraiser, they present me as like, you know, an example of our protégés or the youth that we're developing. And so, yeah, I recall that the talk from memory wasn't long. It was like I said, maybe two minutes max. And the crowd goes wild. I'm dramatizing it, of course. And they raise good money that night. And so they take me from masjid to masjid with the same, you know, spiel. And I share this, you know, motivational statement and people are very moved by it. And then and that was actually 2002, 2003. It was two, three years into the youth center. And at that point, I'm graduating high school. I'm getting into college before my first day on campus. The MSA Khatib reaches out to me and says, listen, you have the khutbah. I was like, khutbah, what's a khutbah? I know what a khutbah is, but I got to put one together. At the time, I didn't even know just Amma. I didn't, you know, I could hardly understand Arabic.
I was just getting around to, you know, understanding an Arabic lecture from, you know, scholars. And so I just had to learn on the job and nobody wants to humiliate themselves. And so that's why I decided to seek knowledge, to be very honest. I scrambled and I gave my first khutbah on do you long for Jannah? What was the topic? And then week in, week out, I'm forced to prepare to deliver. And it becomes necessary for me to learn more and more and more and more. Fast forward, you know, I graduated college. It's really like seven or eight years total of da'wah now. I'm finally accepted into the Islamic University of Medina. And, you know, as some of my teachers later said to me, like, kun ma'al qadr, he basically said that to me. He was visiting the United States one time and he saw sort of like the crowds and, you know, people resonating with my English or whatnot. And he said, be with Allah's qadr. Allah puts you here, live up to it. This is either going to take you to the heights of Jannah. Or may Allah forbid, you're going to be the worst of them all because you know better than them all. So I've ever since then, I've been just trying to play catch up, trying to not prevent my learning on the job from preventing me from hiccuping in my learning, because I'm always, you know, learning for others, as they say, when you learn for yourself, a little bit is enough, which when you're learning for everyone else, a lot is not enough. So it's a constant struggle to be diligent, to try to be competent. And even more difficult than the accumulation on the intellectual level, of course, is the collecting of your intentions, right? As an afterthought, to be very honest. May Allah rectify our intentions and yours. Sheikh Abdullah, we can hear you. We can hear you.
Can you hear me? No, no, we can hear you. You can hear me? Yeah, it was just cutting a little bit. Okay, so you can hear me now? We can hear you, yeah. Yes, okay, Alhamdulillah. Can you hear me well? Yes, Alhamdulillah. Okay, great. Mashallah to Barak Allah. A little better than the drive-thru lady. A little better than the drive-thru? Mashallah. How are you, Mashallah? Alhamdulillah, how's everything going? Alhamdulillah, very well. I miss you, man. Likewise, likewise. Sheikh, I saw that you were smiling on your loss in the basketball championship, if I'm not mistaken. Mashallah. Hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on. Wait, wait, wait. We're going to do this. Okay, hold on. I didn't sign off on this. Look, I figured you put it on social media, so it's fair game. Yeah, I did it to myself. Let's just let everybody know what we're talking about. So I was able to upload it here, so that everyone can see. Mashallah, look at that smile, Iman. On the court even, man. Mashallah. You just told us, subhanAllah, you got into da'wah from playing basketball at the masjid, right? Yeah, I was so bad at basketball that I got into deen. It was a superior alternative. I love the smile on your face here. Let me join the two, look at that. No quit. Oh, man. Mashallah. How was the childhood, man? I mean, even before, you know, the talib, you said you were kind of, lack of better words, put into or forced into the talib, right? But, you know, Muhammad al-Shinawi growing up in Borough Park. Was it in Borough Park that you grew up in Brooklyn? Yes, sir. So how was it, man?
I mean, how was it just growing up, you know, a young kid in Brooklyn, you know, when you, you know, me from the south here in Brooklyn, you know, it's like different. I'm thinking automatically hip-hop, right? That's kind of the background I came from as a convert. So how was that environment? Was it when you walked out of your house? Was it just all in your face? What was the environment like? Was it the household firstly and then the community? Okay, so the house, alhamdulillah, my parents are people who's deen and diyana. Their religiosity, their degree of commitment is something I continue to admire to this day. And, you know, whenever we're told to measure up our knowledge against our practice, I always think of my parents who may not have had the chance to study as much as I have over the past 20 years. But subhanAllah, you know, the flame inside them was a raging one. May Allah have mercy on my father and preserve my mother. So it was a practicing family. They were always involved or attending the masjids. My father was very involved in the establishment of masajid and Islamic schools and otherwise. And for a while he was the maintainer of sort of the graves that the masjid owned and would, you know, sell plots out to people. He also was the principal of the Sunday school for a long time. And so that was certainly a blessing in terms of the atmosphere I was raised in for sure. And my mother, especially, she has and has such a deep, deep, deep passion for deen. And it's an interesting story, maybe for a later time, but like she put on hijab later in her life. And, you know, there was a time in the 50s and 60s when, you know, the socialist communist era and its imprint even on Egypt was still, you know, waning. It was not fully gone. There was a time people may not know this. And sometimes maybe it's good to mention we get bogged down with a lot of bad news, like things are getting worse and worse and worse and so on and so forth.
No, I mean, as the Prophet ﷺ said to the sahaba, وَلَكِنَّكُمْ فِى سْتَعْجِدُونَ We are being a little bit impatient. There was a time in the 60s when the wives of the scholars of Al-Azhar, you know, would wear long trench coats, but they wouldn't wear hijab, you know, and not even all of them. You know, it was that that whole nostalgic British look, right? The British classical look with wigs and, you know, like knee high skirts and otherwise. They were all like this. But now, alhamdulillah, yes, with the political mayhem and yes, it's so painful to watch the turmoil in our countries, the Muslim majority countries and otherwise. But forget hijab, like you can't count the khimar and jilbabs and, you know, the niqabs and otherwise out there. In any case, so my mother sort of became more outwardly practicing, though she had a deep love for deen. Her father also was a religious leader of sorts in his local masjid. That added to her the vibrancy and the value, the gratitude she had for being religious. Interestingly, though, my father's involvement, Sheikh Ibrahim, I don't know if you can relate, put a lot of pressure on me growing up. And I would assume that that was part of the reason why I drifted away a little bit from the masjid, to be honest, from praying altogether until I circled back to that whole youth center environment in early high school. And that was such a ni'mah from Allah on me that, you know, the too high of expectations and maybe the, you know, the excessive strictness of my father having pushed me away. I came back now that I think of it in retrospect, right before 9-11. And I always wonder, like, what would have happened after 9-11? Or I now think about it, if it would have happened after 9-11, would it have ever happened? You know, because 9-11, the pressure was was ramped up on us. There was no more hiding or social perks for being Muslim. And so you either really believed in this stuff or else, you know, things got complicated.
There were people that were Hindu that were attacked, taxi cab drivers in New York City under the presumption that they were Muslim. Right. Hold on one second. Can you contextualize it just real quick? So where is how far were you from the Twin Towers? Because people are all over the world are listening. So 9-11, how far were you? I mean, Brooklyn from the Twin Towers. Yeah, I think it was 12 miles, 10 miles. I mean, the soot, the soot, the ash that fell from the collapse of those buildings covered our apartment. What? Yeah, because we're not that far from downtown Brooklyn, which is right across the bridge and tunnel from downtown Manhattan. And so, yeah, it was on our dresser, on our nightstands, our beds, our cooking ware. So that's contextualization for you. That's how close he was, ladies and gentlemen, to that event. You mentioned you mentioned something here that, you know, other in this position and all of us right now, Mashallah, we're involved with our communities and. Let's make it a point. I meet a sheikh or a dais father. I literally pull aside. No joke. I pull him to the side and I tell him we'll see me like, for example, shake up the agenda. Right there in Arlington, Texas, a little south of us. I went to the Juma there one day. Sheikh Abdul Nasser was giving the khutbah and then his dad up and, you know, Mashallah, he's very, very active, very vibrant. May Allah bless him. I found it. That was his father. I said, please, can you give me a couple of minutes? You didn't even know who I was. Anything. I said, my name is Abdullah. Please give me some advice. So what advice would you give? Because I know that there was probably that pressure from the community. You're the sheikh's son. So we had how would you do this? Was that there? You know, someone that's involves son. Was that pressure there from the community?
I don't I didn't feel it from the community. I felt it from my father. And that could have been secondhand pressure. It could have been the expectation in the community. I'm going to turn down this adhan a little bit. It's into my office. So Gabriel, your father was involved in the community as well. So you are the same. Yeah. So, SubhanAllah, it's interesting to see how many of us have a similar like we were speaking sheikh jihad and his father is also in da'wah. We had that interview with Sheikh Suleiman Hani and his father was involved in da'wah. So it's interesting to see, you know, so many people have that a similar story. Yes. Yeah. And I don't have any advice. I mean, I'm horrified of parenting. Parenting to me is like it's like playing chess. You know, if you play chess permissible. See, I have a theory because a lot of people will say like, oh, look at this sheikh's son. So and his child is this and his child is that. And it's kind of like a common story of the child of the sheikh going the wrong direction sometimes. And my theory is that, number one, a lot of the imams are so busy with their community, so busy that they don't have time for their own families. That's one issue. The other issue is like Sheikh Abdullah was saying, like sometimes it's like the community is like, oh, how could you do this when you're the sheikh's son? Right. And so and even like sometimes their own parents, like their mother and their father, will be like, you're my child. You have to set the best example. And so instead of the child being connected to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, don't do this because Allah doesn't want you to do this. They're constantly being told don't do this because of other people, which is not the right way we want to teach Islam. That's just something I see in myself the opposite. I find myself maybe underestimating my children sometimes because I'm so afraid to set an expectation
that unconsciously is because of me being how will I be perceived. I'm actually so paranoid about that. That's like, you know, maybe I should have pressed a little more. Maybe I should have, you know, raised the bar a little higher, but I'm so afraid of, you know, it backfiring. We are all reactions and products of our own upbringing and this could be part of it as well. At the end of the day, we try our best and we have nothing but dua. We really... Yeah, subhanAllah. Do you make it a point to say, look, I don't want you to live in my shadow. I want you to live in my... I want you to be your own person. You know, do you make it a point to tell them that or do you just... I don't, but I also don't see a reason to. Like I... My kid dresses in a way that I would never dress. And I just... I don't say like enough hoodies or don't do this, that or the third or just, you know, I have to be honest here. His culture is not my culture. And that is fine. So long as the parameters are set, because when you try to set a red line where there is no red line and then you lose that fight, you lose a lot more than that fight because of, you know, I haven't met the standard anyway. Right. And that is a common flaw we all make. When you need to learn how to pick your battles, you need to know where you stand. You need to know what our priorities, what is necessary and what isn't. Alhamdulillah, I don't think I need to. Shaykh Ibrahim, what do you think? See, my older kids are my daughters, so I don't think I have that thought in mind about telling them, like, you could do your own thing. My son is a bit younger. So I think that would be where you start wondering, like, am I forcing him to be like a replica of me or am I giving him freedom to, you know, be his own person?
But, you know, with your daughters, I don't think I think about it too much. Just because, I mean, they're girls. They're different than me to begin with. So I don't feel like there's that pressure for them to follow me. But I understand where you're coming from. I think every father, you kind of want your son to be kind of like you. But it's unhealthy to force it. Yes. It's going to happen more than you realize. It may not happen 100%, but you're seeing nothing, no alignment. And there will eventually be 70 or 60 or 80% alignment. Yeah. But I do stuff with my fingers. I do stuff with my eyes. Just like, oh, snap. That's Bob. 40 years later. That's sort of a reassurance. I try to channel that and saying, you know what? Don't panic. Your son will, you know. Yeah. If it over soon enough. That's beautiful. Beautiful. So Sheikh Mohammed, you mentioned. It was the do you remember the day or maybe the week of the event that took place that made you say, you know what, I want to, for lack of better words, try this religion out or because you mentioned I think you got back into prayer. Was there a point where you weren't praying? Yeah, I would say sixth, seventh, eighth grade. I used to do the dumbest thing in the world. Like my parents would always be on top of me with prayers. I'd go lock myself in a room, look at the clock, make sure it's at least four or five minutes and then come out and say I pray. And then it was like, man, you're such a fool. Like you're in there anyway. There's no TV. You might as well just pray. It was so odd. Sheikhan plays games with us all sometimes. But yeah, it was about three or four years where I totally quit on praying even. What do you think the motivation behind that was? I think I was too much of a coward to rebel against my dad who used to box and stuff and to break my mom's heart because she has never upset me.
She's never yelled at me her whole life. But that's because I was a great kid, though. She said she didn't know she was pregnant until like six months into it. So I'll take all the credit for that. I can't tell it to you. No. So, yeah, I never really rebelled openly, like confrontation. I never did this. But in terms of sort of checking out the religious practice that happened. And then sort of I guess the youth center was a big part of it. And I always admit that give credit where credit is due. And I started catching on also to a lot of the audio started coming out. And there was a few different preachers, stories of the prophets and hereafter stories and otherwise. Those really drew me in. And, you know, I often hear Telva stories, like someone who changed overnight. And I was like, I wish I had to tell the story. I wish I had a meltdown moment, but I never really had one. I never did. And it was so slow that it was unnoticeable for me. I remember something about praying all my prayers at the end of the night. I'd leave them all till before I went to sleep. And then before that, I'd either be super tired. I do like three out of five. I'd be like, tomorrow I'll try again and eventually got to five at night. And then I started putting them into probably was a Ramadan or something. That really put them into their prescribed times. But it happened so slow and so subtle. And I try to I used to always give myself sort of some sort of solace that I never had like a phenomenal blockbuster story. Maybe Allah knows that if I would have had a firm, amazing U-turn, I would have become conceited, right? It would have jeopardized, sabotaged my journey to begin with. So sometimes Allah Azawajal hides from you the brighter parts of your life so that you don't trip over yourself. Yes, I miss me. Think of the name of Latif, because you said it was slow and subtle. You know, SubhanAllah. But what was it?
Was it friends that you had around you that made you consistent? Because I mean, to move from three to five at night and then, you know, Fajr to move to the Zuhur in the middle of the day. I mean, how old were you at this time when this was going on? These subtleties? Ninth and tenth grade high school. So you're talking about 14 and 15 years old. And yes, it was friends. We used to bike ride, you know, what, maybe four or five miles to a Masjid that had a bookstore next door that we used to buy tapes with. We'd hear the tapes, audio cassette to and from the bookstores. We'd usually stay there for like Maghrib and Isha. It was the only at the time, Halal Chinese we knew of in Brooklyn would have Halal Chinese food in between. So it was it was the camaraderie. It was the brotherhood. Then we got our licenses eventually and we used to pick each other up for Fajr one day, one day, one day, one day in the Masjid. Beautiful years. SubhanAllah. SubhanAllah. And then from there was just continuous, you know, Mashallah, hanging around there, hanging around the brothers and through high school, you know, you're going to that. So what what? Because you said you decided to study. What was it what was the catalyst for you to say, you know what? I want to continue on studying the religion of Islam. It I knew I had to because of the the Dawa work I was involved in and the gravity of speaking on behalf of Allah and his being without knowledge. And it just the tug of war of how much is how much of this is for me versus how much of this is for the people is an ongoing negotiation I'm having with myself. But that to happen gradually and subtly, I went to study eight years into the Dawa, seven years into the Dawa, like when I went to Medina, a lot of the brothers sort of knew who I am, knew who I was, knew that I sort of had content floating around the Internet and other places and things like this. So
that was why I felt my utter need. And and only after you start studying, by the way, it's an important lesson for anyone that's about to study or started studying, you will not know how ignorant you are until you start studying. They say the first the first level is arrogance. And then, you know, you start developing some humility and then you start being cognizant of your ignorance. That's level three. And really, I mean, Allah really broke me and I'm so grateful. So I hope it was reforming me in a better direction when I went to Medina. Emotionally, it was very difficult on me because I had left my one year old child, Abed, who had pneumonia at the time. And, you know, I struggled with a lot emotionally. They wouldn't give them visas. They had shut that down for those few months that I was there. And and then knowledge wise, I'm learning and I'm realizing, oh, my God, you've committed crimes against Allah's Deen in the first eight years of your da'wah, you've spoken about anything and everything. You've spoken about things, as they say, that the Sahaba would be afraid to speak on without, you know, calling a tribunal or a council of 12 of them, the senior, most of them and otherwise. May Allah forgive us and allow us to do better with what's left. I mean, I mean, what year was this when you went to Al-Madinah? 2011, because I remember when I was a baby, I think I was when I came to visit, I remember when I was coming to visit you when I first met you in 2009. So I'm like 10, yeah, maybe. You don't forget that, subhanAllah, masha'Allah, that's beautiful, that's beautiful, and you were trying to get on Madinah. I think you just you you were in college, you just finished college and a degree in English, isn't that correct? Correct. Mashallah, and you were translating for Amjad. Yeah, it was Amjad initially. And if it's our job, I'm doing it.
So when you get to Al-Madinah, 2011, you said, what was this again? 2011, you get to Al-Madinah, you get off the plane, same situation. I mean, our brothers leaving their family was very, very, very hard for us with another brother from Houston, and it was hard for him to leave his family in those first couple of months, the first couple of months, actually. When you get off the plane, what was like the airport? Then getting to the actual Jamia, what was it like? What was that experience like? Alhamdulillah, Allah sends for me some beautiful brothers such as Sheikh Ahmed Al-Kurdi from IOK now and others that they were there in the airport. They received me. They taught me the ropes. They carried me through. They assisted me in the transitional period. They oriented me on so much. May Allah reward them immensely. One of the cool things when I went to Madinah, the student housing had actually been there was no room left for students, and so they rented some buildings on the easternmost tip of Madinah. It's a place called Al-Hirwa Sharqiyah, which literally means the eastern lava fields. It's in the middle of nowhere. And that place is probably inhabited by jinn. And it was all like excavations and construction sites and everything. And it was nuts. Even most of the buildings were empty, and there was no busing to the Haram. There was no stores to buy food. There was one gas station at the end of the block, which is about a mile away. And sometimes we were so exhausted that we just would skip dinner that night. I remember many nights I had like the hot dog bun filled with like mayo and ketchup.
Good times. I lost 40 pounds in six months because of the lifestyle. But also, we were trying to save money. There wasn't transportation. So we'd go to school in the morning. In Madinah, we study from morning to dhuhr. Then it's up to you whether you want to add on that in the Haram, in the Prophet's mosque, alayhi salatu wasalam. So we would go straight to the Haram and just basically live off of Zamzam and the dates that people that feed the fasting people would give out. And because we didn't want to miss any prayers in the Haram, from dhuhr to isha, we're there, then we'd hitchhike a ride home or split a cab or something with people. And we would just be too tired or too broke or whatever to buy food, go to a gas station and buy some tuna. Oh, subhanAllah. So how long was its duration? How long was this? Well, thank you for allowing me to say that. People think I graduated from Madinah or I studied like deeply in Madinah. Alhamdulillah, I did skip the Arabic seminary and I went straight to the college of Hadith. But I only spent one semester really in Madinah because that was January to June. And then in the summertime, I came back to the States. And my father, rahimahullah, had his third stroke at that point. So it really debilitated him and it started a very slow three year deterioration process that culminated with his death, rahimahullah. And so I came back that summer. He had the stroke. I went to Madinah for two weeks just to fill out the paperwork, to defer my studies and take a break so I can go take care of him. But that was the end of it. And I went back after that. SubhanAllah. Yeah, subhanAllah. Kind of the same situation with myself. That's why I have my dad. I had to take care of him after his second stroke. You know, so subhanAllah. I don't think you ever told me that, subhanAllah. Yeah, I wasn't Muslim. This is when I wasn't Muslim. I had to take care of him and take him to and fro to physical therapy, bathe him, everything. But that's what interrupted some of your studies, you're saying? No, this is before I even became Muslim.
Oh, yeah. But just understanding the situation with the father and taking care of them. SubhanAllah. You become Muslim with your hasanat, brother. InshaAllah. InshaAllah. So upon going back, so did you get to meet Sheikh Muhammad Muttalib Zahrani? I did. No. Tadween al-Sunnah. He's the one that we did his book. Exactly. We did Tadween al-Sunnah, the history of the compilation of the Sunnah. That was curriculum. We finished the book, but we didn't meet him. Rahimahullah. He passed, right? Yeah, he passed. Yeah. SubhanAllah. He was thorough, Sheikh. He was thorough. MashaAllah. Yeah, I'm a Shadid study with him. Abu Duhair study with him, and I'm the brother of his study. MashaAllah. So we're coming back from Al Medina. Yeah, you're coming back. SubhanAllah. It was a sorrowful moment. What is on your mind then? I mean, what was going through your mind? What were you planning to do at that moment? I didn't know. I didn't know because I didn't know if my father's illness was he was going to recover from it. If so, how considerably because it was his third. And so I was in limbo. To be honest, I remember being like, should I get an apartment or not get an apartment? Should I get a job or not get a job? And so I continued with translation for a while for as long as I could. And I joined Mishka University. Dr. Had him reward him. He said, just do it. Time flies. Life will fly you by. Once you stop studying, it's hard to resume. Jump in, take a few classes a semester, do what you can. And I did. And SubhanAllah, I never got a chance to go back to Medina.
But slowly but surely, three kids later, four total now, seven, eight years. It took. I eventually finished Mishka. And so that's also some advice I would extend to everybody. Love for you guys what I love for myself. Don't sell yourself short. Just study something. You know, that's the only thing, as we all know, that Allah told the Prophet to request an increase of knowledge. Right. MashaAllah. MashaAllah. So go ahead, Sheikh Ibrahim. You got a question? No, not really. I know you had one. Five years later, so four and a half years later, my father passed. Five years later, I was sort of speaking, were invited and doing what I could to study for myself and for the Da'wah. I moved to become the religious director here at Allentown, Pennsylvania. I left New York City for my kids more than anything. But there was a community that I was visiting for four years. Once a month to do their family nights, help build out some momentum in the community. And then when my father passed, they respectfully waited six months and said to me, you were always saying your dad, your dad. Now there's no reason. Come over and be a staple of the community. I didn't want to. But Dr. Hatem Al-Hajj, who's my Sheikh and my teacher and my mentor, one of the greatest scholars of the West in many respects and all of you know him, he said to me, you need to take this job. And I said, no, Sheikh, I wanted to meet Allah having never been an Imam. That was my need. Just to continue to do this on a voluntary basis. That was like my dream.
And he said to me, and this is like so profound. He said to me, you may think that's for Allah. That is your dream and your desire. And you think that your desire is to do something for Allah. But what's more pleasing to Allah is what's actually for Allah, not what's more pleasing to you. For you to live up to that Nia of yours, you would only be able to give the hour your free time, which is eight hours a week or a month. So don't look at it like you're virtuous because you're giving your extra time to the Masjid. Look at it that you're refusing to give the Masjid 160 hours a month because you just want to keep this rule or promise to yourself that I don't want a salary. He said, Allah knows your intention. Do what's more pleasing to him. Go and lock yourself in a Masjid because you will never be able to leave an imprint on a community and learn the skills to lead a community in less than ten years. This is combining a few conversations he had with me about this. And so he forced me to take the job. So I took the job. And in fact, it is very different than just hopping from place to place. Because at the end of the day, a lecture in a city somewhere will never change anyone's life. Right. That's one of the points he was trying to drill home. I think I eventually submitted to it. It may convince someone to want to change their life, but it's really about Tarbiyah. It's really about mentorship and grooming and shepherding people and understanding them on a personal level and gaining their trust to have access to their hearts, to hand you their children. Right. That commitment on both sides is what will allow you to leave a true imprint on people. And so I accepted and I realized that he was right in more ways than he had told me.
And that I probably benefited even learning and developing more so than I may have benefited others. That wouldn't have happened. City hopping. That wouldn't have happened on a lecture circuit. And that needs to be done. And all the Mashaikh that are doing that are building great awareness and inspiring souls back into a wakeful state. But the Masjid orientation, local da'wah, my message to all the people that would ever consider being an imam or are currently imams and challenged by whatever obstacles. There's nothing like it. Yeah. That's very interesting. Dr. Hatim, he's one of the ones that inspired me to be an imam in Houston a long time ago, like 2009. Yeah. When he came to Houston and he gave a lecture at the Masjid of the Prophet. And he gave a lecture at the Masjid of the Prophet. Farooq, I never met him before. And I was like, this is a jurist. Like the way, because I just came back from Medina. And the way he would answer questions and I had my little litmus test. I asked him about a certain issue. And I was like, yeah, this is a jurist. And his adab, the most important thing was his khuluq, MashaAllah, Tabaraka Allah. That was really the main thing for me. And I remember outside the Masjid. Because, you know, he's a physician, he's a pediatrician, if I'm not mistaken. So I said, Sheikh, you're a pediatrician. MashaAllah, you work in Mishka giving da'wah. I'm thinking of going back and working in the OR. Because I used to be a surgical tech. He was like, Sheikh, the ummah needs imams. He's Chinese and he was very, you know, as you know, MashaAllah, his technique is like, they need imams. And I was like, Sheikh, but I said, but you know, MashaAllah, you're giving da'wah. And he went like this, I'll never forget. He was like, please. We did that? You know what I'm talking about. I can't speak too much because if I know I know I know I know. I know. I know. From this episode and she's like, Sheikh, my life is over. Or else I would have like hours to talk about right now. I love his technique.
Better than what we assume and I mean, yeah, when he did that, I was like, okay, I trust him. And that's when I went on to be an imam at a Masjid here in Houston. You know, I'm a, you know, jewels, jewels, MashaAllah. I love that Sheikh about like, like being in the community, how important that is. We know the saying, manfaba tanabat, right? Like just being there is where that's where you get the fruits out of it. SubhanAllah, it's so true. We think it's like the big talk. And like you said, like, SubhanAllah, it's so much easier, even within your city. You got to translate your aphorisms and your idioms and everything. That's what pet peeve I have as a translator. Like who basically, I mean, I'm not, I'm not the translating expert here, but whoever is whatever is stable is there is in rooted. That's where the fruits will come out of it. So Alhamdulillah, by being in one place, you take root. Exactly. You got to anchor yourself early blossom for sure. Yeah. I love that, like even like I was speaking to another Sheikh and he was saying, you know, I can come to your masjid and give the best khutba in the world. And he's like, and you can come to my masjid and give the best khutba in the world. He's like, what's hardest to give the khutba in the same masjid over and over and over again, right? Because when I come to your masjid, he's like, I'm going to pick one of my top five khutbas and I'm going to give it there. Right. So it'll be people will leave that masjid, they'll be like, that was an amazing khutba. And if you come to my masjid, you're going to do the same. And being in the same masjid, seeing the same people week after week after week for duroos, for halaqat, they hear all your, you know, corny jokes and they've heard it all before. But that's what's difficult because then you're really knowing the people and you're doing that tadbiyah, right?
You know those people and then you're spending that time and that energy in them and telling them what they need to hear even if they don't want to hear it. He's like, that's way more difficult, way more difficult than just going around and giving talks. SubhanAllah when he said that I really liked it. Dale Carnegie's famous, you know, theory, not his, I know, but he's the most well known on it, you know, in the English language, how to win friends and influence people. The whole thesis of the book is people are trying to be interesting. Like think about the concept of giving a, you know, a phenomenal khutba. People are trying to be interesting. He goes, actually, if you want to win people over, you have to be interested in them, not interesting. So I used to come to my masjid for four years straight giving khutba and night program and I would get so much, you know, like gratitude and praise and things like this. It was until I actually showed up and learned people's names, right? Took four to six months. Now people are coming to me and telling me I'm struggling with this substance abuse issue. You know, I'm, you know, not even able to pray my five. I have this, you know, bad habits behind closed doors. You build trust and rapport and you cannot do that, you know, in passing or passing through no matter who you are. And there are people that have only come to me, you know, admitting to me things directly or indirectly presumptions they have about me. Three years into my tenure at the masjid, I was like, I don't know how we come off thinking we own enough territory in people's hearts to actually, you know, positive, positively influence them without being invested in them. Right. So panel, I'm sorry if I just push the, what kind of presumptions, like, for example, for example, I don't want to put you on the spot, but I guess I do. A board member from my masjid, our masjid burned down and I'm going to try to be ambiguous here.
A board member from my masjid, the whole board brought me over to another location and they wanted sort of my buy-in. They were resolute about buying this new location, which we're in now, but it was a bit farther from the original location. They wanted to get a feel. And I just told them, you know, like it has pros and cons. It is farther from our, you know, constituents or some of them at least, and some of our main volunteers, but it's a no brainer in terms of capacity. And the building is just leaps and bounds more conducive to work, to services. It's like 10X. The difference. And so they're like, okay, so should we take it? And I'm just like, that's not my decision to make. And you know, Alhamdulillah, that's your decision, not mine. And then they're like, no, but should we take it? We need to hear it from you. I was like, no, you go hear it from your leading volunteers. If they're willing to make the commute because they feel like it's worthwhile, or you felt they were important enough to even ask their opinion. They're like, but you, you're not going to like, and they're trying to say, start a problem, like divide the community. Are you going to sort of start a, you know, a revolt? That's what he was beating around the bush about. And I only realized that when I said, listen, this is your decision. And I'm a team player. And he sort of grabbed me and tried to kiss me on my head. And if you're an Arab, you know what that means, right? No, I of course, I didn't let him. But walking away from that said, Oh, my God, he was afraid of my rebellion. Like he thought I'm going to be one of those sheikhs that flips the table. That's his presumption of religious leadership, right? That we're going to pull the David and Goliath, right? And like romanticize the fight between the imam and the boards. And I couldn't believe it's a great brother. But were it not for real life moments and like opportunities to show that we can disagree and still commit, you know, to the to the union, to the collective, you will not be able to build that trust and rapport that can actually take us for the long haul, take
us in directions that can actually do right by the generations to come. I was blown away by it. I was like, Oh, my God, he's afraid of me, you know. But I mean, that kind of shows the level of the influence that over over the, you know, the period of time of you being imam and serving the community, because the best leaders are the best followers, right? The ones that understand the reality of the follower, therefore, they're able to appropriately accommodate for the graduality of the community, whether individually or collectively. So from from there, because I mean, I'm almost sure there's a number of people watching that they're students of knowledge, opportunities to be imams in their community. I didn't want to be an imam either, you know, subhanAllah. But you know, those young guys and you know, they have the opportunity to teach or the young sisters, they have the opportunity to go and teach in their localities and they're hesitant to teach for you as an imam. And finding the time to be an imam to be interested in the people and then having an opportunity to work with, you know, such as Yaqeen, you know. How do you mitigate between those two, you know, between being an imam, dealing with persons you know, as an imam, you have a lot of hats on and you can find people that can appropriately, you know, take off some of the responsibilities. But then other responsibilities are coming your way, such as Yaqeen. And then you have Abad and you know, and the tribe, mashAllah, to make sure you're giving them quality time, right? So what advice? How have you how have you dealt with it? How are you dealing with it in that regard? You're gonna make me cry. Because I'm, I always have this, you know, perspective of myself that I'm not doing a good job of juggling. And I'm trying to work through that and to reconcile that. And I think it's a work in progress.
I know that the imam as a position, especially in the diaspora, where we're here as religious minorities, is still in its formative years. And I think we can shorten our learning curve from sort of sampling the pastoral experience. There's a lot to be learned there, in terms of setting boundaries and otherwise, but like, the stuff I had to learn through the school of hard knocks, as they say, with the cuts and bruises that I have to prove it, as they say, is that you need to, I mean, part of this is knowledge, right, to know what is the most imminent obligations that I need to tend to what is fardu kifaya versus fardu ayn, your individual obligations that nobody can do but you and then fardu kifaya, what are the communal obligations that we collectively just have to make sure they get done. And then collectively have to get done within our capacity, knowing your own capacity is also very important. You're not going to help anyone by burning out, you need to set your own boundaries and know your own limitations, not just in knowledge, but in energy and focus and otherwise. We would tell people don't feel guilty in taking care of yourself, don't feel guilty in setting boundaries. Because you know, the same Prophet ﷺ who said, you know, man ihtajab ayn hajat al-nas, don't you dare sort of bar yourself from the needs of the people, he was he was exhorting or questioning the leadership, whoever veils themselves, we need to find a better word, but from the keeps himself in the needs of the people. Allah will keep away his needs from him, Allah will not take care of him. He said that, but he also said, no, la darar wa la darar, there should be no harm, self-harm included right, no reciprocation of harm on you. And so we want to tell people take it easy. And one of the things I said, I learned it the hard ways, when it overflows, and you realize you can't handle it all anyway, you start feeling a little bit less guilty that
you're not handling it all like a superman. That was an epiphany I had at some point, you know, when it's just manageable, even though you're not sleeping and not thinking and not eating and not smiling. And right, you still have this gray area thing, like maybe it's still my duty, because technically, it's still humanly possible, even if I'm a zombie right now. Once it the watershed moment happens, and the floodgates rip open, just boom, you start fumbling stuff. It was okay, alhamdulillah, now I'm reassured that it's totally not my duty, because it's literally not possible. I know you got Maghrib coming up in your location, we don't want you to miss it or anything. So we'll try to keep it short, inshallah. We usually do, you know, a short rapid fire questions, and we take some questions from the audience. Maybe we'll do a short rapid fire question segment. And then we'll just take two questions inshallah, to make sure that we don't go too long. So my first rapid fire question, which is going to be a difficult one. What kind of basketball player are you? What is your NBA comparison? Who's the most injury prone basketball player in the league right now? I'm that guy. AD maybe? Anthony Davis? I'm not going to say anything. You watch basketball? I haven't watched a basketball game in well over 10 years. But like the nine minute highlights, maybe on Twitter. Sometimes. Okay, second question. Easy ones, chocolate or vanilla? Chocolate. Milk. Not hard. Milk, chocolate. Okay. Shea or coffee? Coffee. Good coffee. Okay, now the hard question.
Egyptian mulukhiyah or all of the rest? I actually don't know any others. I'm that tribalistic. You've never had non-Egyptian mulukhiyah? No, I actually have like a spectrum of Egyptian mulukhiyah in my head. Like my mom versus my mother-in-law's. No, like you should go get Syrian mulukhiyah just for you to see what it is. And then make tawbah. And then make tawbah. Oh, wow. I'm joking. I love Syrian food, Mashallah. No, no, no, no, no. You gotta check. You gotta like not just the Syrians, Lebanese and all, everyone in the shem. The mulukhiyah they have versus the mulukhiyah we have. You need to try them so that you come back and say, this is a good question. I feel bad for now having asked that. Mountains or oceans? Does the mountain have a waterfall? No. Mountains. Mountains. All right. Your favorite city, but you can't pick Mecca or Medina or Al-Quds. It's tough. I don't know. I don't have one. Really? I thought you were going to say. I'm one of those. You have to be, you know, I'll say Brooklyn just to sound like loyal to my homies. That's what I thought you were going to say. Okay, we'll wrap it up there. Usually we ask more, but just to inshallah get some of the questions that we have. A couple of good ones here. So this is from one of the brothers says, any advice for converts in college? I feel very out of place as one of the few Muslims here and I'm in the Islamic studies program at night. How do I stay sincere in my intentions and away from fitnah?
Converts in college. That sounds very much like up your alley. No, no. I'm the last thing. Go ahead. This one. Say it again. When did you take your Shahada after high school? Right? 97. Yeah. 99. Yes. After high school. That's you. I'm not sure. I'm you in Brooklyn, man. You probably dealt with a lot of converts. MashaAllah. Given a lot of advice. I mean, all I would say is find them wherever they are. You know, think of the Ghoraba Hadith. Though the Ghoraba Hadith is the Hayy of the strangers, right? There are many times in history when Islam becomes strange, whether times or places, but Islam, you know, those who adhere to Islam can be counted on the fingers of a single hand. And so do not underestimate the most influential force in all of our lives, which is environment, which is atmosphere. Get to a space where you can worship Allah with people physically, if not, an online community is your second best option. But if your interactions, your exposures to people with an un-Islamic lifestyle, even if they were Muslim, prolongs, the un-Islamic mindset sets in, and then the anti-Islamic or averse to Islamic mindset is not far behind. And so the Prophet ﷺ said to us, you know, alaykum bil jama'ah, stick to the community because the wolf only eats the sheep that strays. And he's trying to get us to realize that shaytan is the wolf of humanity. If you stray from the flock, that's the one shaytan attacks.
And he said, he even, the beginning of that hadith is actually very basic of a quorum that he mentions. He says, there are no three people in a city or in a town that don't pray together, illa wastahwad alayhim us shaytan, except that shaytan is going to be able to entrap them. So that would be the number one advice. Alhamdulillah, you're in Islamic Studies program at night. So you're having, you know, daily or weekly exposure to the voice of the messenger, as they say, salallahu alayhi wasalam. You're hearing Allah's words. You're hearing the Prophet ﷺ speaking to you through the hadith night in and night out. And that is phenomenal. But the power, we are creatures that are so impressionable, so much more than we realize. Culture is king, custom is king, norms are king. Place yourself in an incubator, if I can use that word, where loving Allah is normal, where seeking Allah is normal, where competing for Allah's pleasure is normal. May Allah ﷻ guard your heart and ours. Another question I thought was good. Shaykh, you wrote a book about the Prophet ﷺ. And speaking about raising children slash kids, how do you personally show or display your love for the Prophet ﷺ to increase their love? That's a little bit invasive, but simply tying what we do as often as we can to the Prophet ﷺ is one of the most impactful communications of love. Like why do we move our finger like this, right? Why do I keep my beard like that? Why do I explain this in this way or speak to her in that way?
Because the Prophet ﷺ said so. He taught us this. There's only one way to Jannah. There's only, and it's in his footsteps, alayhis salatu wassalam. So living up to his example is a lived love of him ﷺ. And sometimes it may go over their heads and so you just want to reiterate or communicate or identify for them, by the way, why did this or why did that? The common placeness of the word sunnah in your home is of the ways to love him ﷺ. To read bedtime stories to our children about the Prophet ﷺ. I've done a better job with some of my kids and others in terms of just being non-negotiable in managing that time, the story time. Kids, you know, they just soak up. It's amazing. I heard this funny story about a young child that was told that the Prophet ﷺ, his mother said to him, the Prophet ﷺ said, whoever says, qul huwa allahu ahad, ten times, Allah builds for him a palace in Jannah. And so he just jumped up and said, Mommy, Mommy, don't say it. She said, don't say what? She said, don't say qul huwa allahu ahad. He said, why? She said, because you're going to live with me. In my palace. Like, just, you know, they say, al ilmu filsighar kan naqshifil hajar. Wal ilmu filsighar kan naqshifil hajar. That just teaching them in the most basic ways. I'm not trying to think of anything, you know. Yes, alhamdulillah, one of my brightest moments in COVID is that after iftar, we read the shama'il together. We finished it in 30 nights, you know. The perfect characteristics and the beauty of the Prophet ﷺ physically and in character. The famous book of al-Tirmidhi, rahimahullah. But just basics, right? Like he said, we love him.
We want to be with him. Hopefully we can, you know, hearing us make dua of that or with that. These are all ways to inculcate organically the love of the Prophet ﷺ into their lives. Just shameless plug, mashallah, sheikh has a book series, if not, it's called the Proofs of Prophethood, correct? That's what they would do to sheikhs. Yeah. Proofs of Prophethood, mashallah. Yeah, absolutely. If you Google it, Proofs of Prophethood, there's books the sheikh has produced, videos he has produced, articles he has produced, papers, all of that, inshallah, infographics that are out there. So a lot, inshallah, for you to rely on and to use, inshallah, for you to be able to teach your family to love the Prophet ﷺ. Sheikh, jazakallah khair for your time. And also, I mean, mashallah, all three imams, so what's the website for your, or the YouTube channel that they can see some of your content? Is it what, Jesus Son of Mary Mosque? Is that what they would type on YouTube? There's several of them, but the one that has a lot of thumbnails with my khutbahs on it, that one, I guess. That sounds so bad. Sunnah Station. I think it's Sunnah Station as well. It is Sunnah Station. They just rebranded it, and so it is the Jesus Son of Mary Mosque PA. That's Pennsylvania. So it's the green and white logo. Jazakallah khair. Jazakallah khair, sheikh. We appreciate your time. Insha'Allah, make du'a for us when we're praying Maghrib. Jazakallah khair. Jazakallah khair, sheikh. Jazakallah khair.
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