Iman Cave
5 / 25
Husain Abdullah's Sajdah that Broke the NFL | Iman Cave
Courage not only builds honor and resilience, but it also has the ability to strengthen our iman. How do we embody courage as Muslim men? Former NFL player Husain Abdullah describes what happened when he set his nerves aside to perform sujood at the end zone, and the incredible events that transpired following it.
Transcript
This transcript was auto-generated using AI and may contain misspellings. And it happened on a guy intercepting a pass, running it back, and praising Allah in the end zone. That was your... When I broke on the ball and I intercepted it, the immediate thought was, Allah did his part, now you gotta do your part. My DB coach, Emmett Thomas, Hall of Famer, he says, 39, because that's what E.T. calls it, 39. He said, whenever you pray, I want you to use my room. He said, I need that in here. Too much temptation everywhere. It's too much temptation everywhere, man. It comes at you, you don't even have to go looking for it. It's attacking you. You act in spite of fear, good things happen. Exactly, man. That's what it is. But those are those moments, again, that build you as a man. As-salamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh. How's everyone doing? I'm Abdullah Oduro, and welcome to the Iman Cave, where we discuss issues of male excellence while being grounded in faith. You know, the Prophet, salallahu alayhi wa sallam, peace and blessings be upon him, all of us know of the encounter that he had when he traveled from Mecca to Medina. And traveling is a light word. I mean, he immigrated from Mecca to Medina. He went there because of religious persecution. Because he was someone that believed in Allah, subhanahu wa ta'ala, the creator of the heavens and the earth. And for that reason, he went to Medina. And it was, as we know, as the Hijrah, which marks the beginning of the Islamic calendar. But there was one moment, as all of us may know, when he was in the cave with Abu Bakr, may Allah be pleased with him, and the Meccans, the polytheists, were looking for him to kill him. And they almost encountered him while Abu Bakr and Muhammad, salallahu alayhi wa sallam, may Allah be pleased with him, they were below them, and Allah, subhanahu wa ta'ala, revealed to the Prophet, salallahu alayhi wa sallam, saying, Because Abu Bakr was nervous. He was scared.
He asked the Prophet, salallahu alayhi wa sallam, what if they see us? The Prophet, salallahu alayhi wa sallam, responded, Which is what Allah, subhanahu wa ta'ala, revealed to him. But what we want to talk about today is a characteristic that the Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him, possessed. That Abu Bakr, may Allah be pleased with him, possessed. When he was the one that stood up for Zakat after the death of the Prophet, salallahu alayhi wa sallam, for people to pay their yearly alms or charity if they were the people that were eligible. And that is courage. It is important for a man, a young man, to have this characteristic. To have this characteristic of being brave. Courage. Standing up at times where no one may stand. But standing up for what's right. Today I have, masha'Allah, our co-host, brother Murad Awad. Masha'Allah, Tabarik Allah. Masha'Allah. Speaking of courage, he's been in the MMA for, what is it? 200? No, 15 years, masha'Allah. Been a fighter, fighting, knocking people out. Masha'Allah, Tabarik Allah. May Allah bless him. And masha'Allah, we've had him here before. Beautiful, beautiful brother. Beautiful guest. Giving us beautiful insights. And we have someone that has walked the walk, being the hijra. We're going to talk about him walking the walk in two different ways. And we're going to find out shortly. We have brother Hussain Abdullah. Masha'Allah. May Allah bless you. Welcome, man. Welcome. Alhamdulillah. Alhamdulillah. So, let's get right into it. This issue of courage. I mean, I'm just going to be totally honest. I mean, you know, they probably said it about us when we were younger. You know, back in my day, our father would say, y'all don't have this, y'all don't have that. Now I see, you know, a lot of the youth, may Allah bless and protect them, the issue of not being risk averse, not, you know, being bold and, you know, having that element of courage, that characteristic to go forward and not being afraid to fail, you know, while all of the odds are against you.
You know, subhanAllah, what have you seen in regards to, you know, courage with Muslims and how that's important for a young man or a man in general to have this characteristic? If I were to say that Iman is synonymous to a word throughout the seerah, the meaning of Iman throughout the seerah of the Messenger of Allah, it would be courage. Because there isn't a single companion that Islam was founded with. You mean the first 13 years of the whole Meccan period. Every single person who came to Islam needed this one characteristic. Like there wasn't a non-courageous Muslim for the 13 years, right? If we think about it, there wasn't anyone. Every single one of them had to have courage in order to become a believer. And this is what really strikes me. When you said, and you started with the hijrah of the Prophet, that was the utmost demonstration, manifestation of that courage, right? Because, you know, he traveled from Mecca to Medina on his feet while being wanted, alive or dead, right? With barely any weapons, if he had any. I don't know if Brother Hussain had... I don't know. I know you did it recently. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know the walk. That's the first walk, man. So, yeah, tell us about that walk, man. Tell us about the walk. So, Brother Hussain Abdullah, outside of him being an ex-NFL player, masha'Allah, safety, and I don't know if it's prime to go. It's corner. Corner, yeah. Defensive backs, yeah. He was a corner? He was a corner. He played some safety. He was a corner. Yeah. Is he the GOAT? Yeah. Yes. It's not close. It's not even close. It's not close. I saw your run back. If you talk about Hussain Abdullah, H-U-S-A-I-N, masha'Allah, Abdullah, known for prostrating in the end zone. We're going to talk about that. Alhamdulillah, and his run backs, masha'Allah, epic. Masha'Allah, Tabarik Allah. But the first walk that he walked, recently, masha'Allah, Tabarik Allah,
he walked from Mecca to Medina, reenactment of the hijra. How was that, man? Firstly, what went through your mind? How was it proposed to you? And then what went through your mind to make you just say, you know what, I'm going to do this? Yeah, so alhamdulillah, I've been blessed to go for umrah multiple times. Masha'Allah. Typically, I go during Ramadan because it's the best, right? Imam Dawood Yassin called me in October, and he said, hey, I'm going for umrah in December. I said, okay, alhamdulillah, that's good. Alhamdulillah, like so. And he said, but I'm going to walk the hijra, and I want you to do it with me. Masha'Allah. And tears in my eyes as I'm driving, I said, I'm in. I said, I don't know what I have to move around, but I'm in, because to engage with the sira, to engage with the Quran, to learn, have a deeper appreciation and love for the Prophet, that's what I want. I wanted to go and transform, because one of the things about manhood is being able to look at yourself in the mirror and say, I'm not there yet. You have to recognize where you're inadequate, and then you've got to work to fill it. The best of all mankind is the Prophet, peace be upon him. So I wanted to go get closer to that. I wanted to go chase that. I wanted to go understand that. He didn't travel from Mecca to Medina. He was hunted from Mecca to Medina. Big difference. Big difference, man. Big difference. I like how you said, you know, when looking in the mirror, because it takes courage to be honest to yourself about yourself, because sometimes even when you're alone, it's that fine line between confidence and arrogance and being delusional. Yep. You know what I mean?
So, I mean, from you walking, while you're walking in the desert, man. That must have been hard. Yeah. Yeah, it was, you know, the terrain, it's interesting, because the terrain is, it is unforgiving. There's desert. There's sand. There's rocks just all over the place. It's rough. It's Mecca. It's not a stroll in the park. And when you realize that, you know, the Prophet, peace be upon him, and Abu Bakr, peace be upon him, they were being hunted, and even thinking about that, like Abu Bakr and you guys would be able to explain it better than me. When the Prophet, peace be upon him, came to say, I got the message. We can go. We can leave Medina. Abu Bakr was crying with joy that I'm going to be traveling with the Prophet, peace be upon him, even though he's a marked man, right? A hundred camels on his head, right? So he's about to be hunted, but I get to join the message of Allah, peace be upon him. I get to row with him. And so the courage to even risk everything, his reputation, his family, his business, his everything, his life, for the sake of Allah, for the sake of guarding and protecting the Prophet, peace be upon him, he was ready to risk it all. That takes courage. Yeah, that takes courage. And that's deep. Yeah, it's very deep, Allah. You know what I was thinking of, Sheikh, the verse that you recited in the beginning, Allah revealed it when he was in the cave, right? But he didn't say, La tahzan means don't be sad. But he didn't say don't be scared because Abu Bakr wasn't scared. And that's, I think, it's kind of one of the deep ma'ani behind this. Abu Bakr was just sad that his people are setting, are trying to kill the best person in the Qabila and in the world, the Prophet, peace be upon him.
So he was very sad, right? That his people are doing this. These are his cousins. These are his uncles. These are his relatives that are coming to do this. So he was sad because of that. But he wasn't scared at all, subhanAllah. That just shows us how Allah is trying to allude to the fact that, you know, courage was never absent, even in the most crucial moments. And what's an interesting point is, I mean, even with that, there's no fault. And I know you were meaning this. There's no fault because Musa himself, when he mentioned about Fir'aun, verily I fear that they will transgress the bounds. He'll transgress the bounds or be oppressive. Allah told him and Aaron, don't have any fear for verily I hear and I see. You know, but subhanAllah, that Musa was even scared. But the issue is here that if that fear is there, you don't allow it to stop you in doing the right thing. You know what I'm saying? I think that's important that, you know, as a man, you're going to have fear. There's going to be times where you're going to be scared, but you don't allow it to make you stop and not to progress. You have to learn how to act in spite of fear. Act in spite of fear. Exactly. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. It can be as simple as raising your hand in class. You might be, I might be afraid. It might be an auditorium-style classroom. I mean, what if I get it wrong? Just do it. Even if you get it wrong, so what? You are courageous enough to act in spite of fear. In any places where we are nervous or we are afraid, man, call on Allah, put your trust in Allah, and then lean into it. Because on the other side is your growth as a man. It's not about whether you get it right or wrong. The other side is your growth as a man.
So that acting in spite of fear, that's courage. How long was the trip, man? How long was the walk? So the trip was, it was 11 days. So the Prophet, it took him 16 days. So three days in Ghar-ul-Thor, nine days in between Thor and Kuba. He stopped in Kuba for four days and then proceeded into Medina. So we couldn't really camp at Ghar-ul-Thor, so we only did one day. I only climbed it. And then in Kuba, we didn't do four, we did one. So 11 in total. So we did nine. So it was definitely a life-altering experience and just searching for different moments to fill those holes of inadequacy. Because, again, I wanted self-transformation. I'm 38 years old. I'm coming into 40. 40 is manhood. No more games. You can't keep lying to yourself. And typically, the first lie that we tell is to ourselves. Like I said, so being able to look at yourself in the mirror and say, hey, I'm not so good at X. I need to improve. I can't keep trying to lower the bar so that I can get over it. This is the standard. This is what it means to be a Muslim man. I need to get up. And so whatever that may be, man, you've got to challenge yourself and you've got to lean into those fears because that's where growth is at. That's the first walk. Wait, there was a second one? There's a second walk. I said he walked the walk twice. Oh, he walked twice. I mean, there's many walks of life that I'm almost sure you went through, that all of us went through, but there's two I want to capitalize on here. The second of them being, which was in your previous life, I guess we could say, or was earlier in your life, right, of playing in the NFL. You can call it a previous life. You know, life is all about transitions. Okay.
And the ultimate transition is from life to death. Yes, sir. And so as long as you understand that there is going to be a hereafter, you work for it. So you can call it a previous life. I'm cool with that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Take us back to when you ran the ball back and then your decision to prostrate Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. So it's very interesting. So that year, just internally, personally, extremely difficult. You go back 2014, I was ranked like one of the top safeties in the league, my best year in my NFL career, but internally, just struggling with a lot. A lot going on, family, life, this, that, and it was difficult. And so for me, it was like it was difficult to a place where I was pushed into a place where it was just only like me and a lot. It's like I just got to hold on. I just got to put my trust in a lot in everything that I do. Unpack that. The reason I'm asking you to unpack that, I think it's important because as you, I mean, being in the MMA as well, Muslim athletes, man, there's a lot of pressure. They may be the only one on the team. They're in the locker room. Boys will be boys. We know, people know what that means. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's too much temptation everywhere. It's too much temptation everywhere, man. It comes at you. You don't even got to go looking for it. It's attacking you. Hold on. We want to protect us all, man. So that environment is rough. So Muslim athletes out there, they come to me, too. They ask for advice, and some of them say, shake, shake, shake. It's so rough, man. It's so hard to hold on. Can you unpack that, please? Yeah, so this is after Hajj. So I went for Hajj earlier in my career. I stopped. I got to focus. I got to make sure I lost first. So I stopped playing ball after four years in Minnesota. I went for Hajj in 2012. Okay.
So then I said, if Allah blesses me to go back to the league, I will. If not, so be it. I'm putting my trust in Allah. Then I came back, still had the fire. So then 2013, got signed with KC. So now I'm back in the league. So 2013, KC. 2014, I'm back in the starting row. I'm balling. I'm playing well. But again, like, the environment is here it comes again, right? Everything, just whether it's, you know, family stuff, things going on in the world, the expectation of a Muslim athlete because you got to understand that when you're a person of influence, we live in this era where everybody wants to be an influencer. You got to understand you can't influence people towards evil. Because if you do, that's your sins on the Day of Judgment. So you got to be really, really mindful how you carry yourself. And when you're the only representative that people see as a Muslim, you're held to a completely different standard. And so you got to own it. And so like in that, I mean, where do you get a recharge when I can't, when I don't know Sheikh Abdullah Odurah, when I don't know this person or that person. So it really forced me inward. And so it really was just, it was me and Allah. And I remember that week, two of my teammates, Eric Berry and Justin Houston, inshallah, both of them, Hall of Famers, inshallah, a lot of guys, both of them. Good people, man. Really, really beautiful people. I remember I was saying something in the locker room. And then they said, you got to speak it into existence. You got to speak it into existence. And so I remember going, this is, Allah is my witness. I remember going back to my apartment and I said, Allah, you blessed me to score this week. I'm making sajdah. And in my apartment, I kid you not, I'm trying to figure out how am I going to go down in prayer? Am I going to stand up, beat on my chest, then go do a sajdah? Am I going to go around and do a sajdah? Whatever it's going to be.
And so, you know, Monday night football comes around. We needed the game. Sellout crowd, arrowhead. We set the noise record, still the Guinness World Record today. Loudest stadium in the outdoor stadium. Casey? Casey. Okay. And it happened on a guy intercepting the pass, running it back, and praising Allah, sajdah, and endzone. That was your, subhanAllah. Wow. And it's still in Guinness World Record. It's still in Guinness World Record. It's unforgettable. SubhanAllah. The loudest roar recorded in world history is people cheering on a Muslim, praising Allah. Wow. That's beautiful. That's beautiful. Wow. And it's one of those things where you just got to be courageous, man. You just have to do it. And Alhamdulillah, you know, a lot of people talk about the flag. Alhamdulillah, it didn't get fined. I remember when my agent called me and told me about that. But the beautiful thing was I'm glad that there was a flag because it brought more attention to it. So then you had the world on every talk show, sports. People are debating a sajdah. The whole world is just debating a sajdah. If you can just explain the flags. They don't know what they mean by a flag. So when I scored the touchdown, I go, I actually, again, like, I'm just flowing at this point. So I just slid in the endzone and, you know, I did a sajdah. So the ref, he throws a flag. Penalty. Yeah, it's a penalty. So apparently there's a rule or it was a rule. Now you can do whatever you want. Apparently there was a rule that you can't go down in celebration on two knees. Right. And so they throw the flag. We get the penalty. Alhamdulillah, it didn't affect the game because it was working the Patriots that game. And we won a really good game. Afterwards came the backlash. Oh, and I'm talking about the UMA showed up.
Like Twitter and Instagram is not even, it wasn't close to what it is now. But when I say people from France, Indonesia, Africa, everybody going at the NFL, that was wrong. You shouldn't be doing this. He better not get fined, all kinds of stuff. They, by like 6 a.m., they issued a statement. Oh, this is this. I'm waking up to the news. There's reporters. I'm like, what is going on? Check my phone. It's going crazy. And so it was beautiful because it captivated the world in terms of people should be able to pray to God. People should be able to worship. And so something that, you know, I hold very personal in terms of my relationship with the last one. And that was just a private moment that was displayed in public. Right. But that level of courage, willingness to do something in an environment that it's foreign, that people aren't aware of. The ref, you know, I don't know what was in his heart. So I just say he just seen something he's not used to. So he flags it. Right, right, right. But look at the way, look at the way it spreads and look at the dour that comes from that. Right. Sometimes you never know just getting over your own individual fear or acting in spite of fear. It can lead to the most beautiful moments. Right. How much has that brought to the Ummah though, you know? Yeah. Like a lot of people never seen. An Islamic gesture, you know, in the end, like that was never it was it never happened. So it was the first time like all that courage that it took to do it. Just the story that you said, yeah, Allah, if if I score then and Allah allowed you to score. SubhanAllah. You know, that's that's tough. Right. That you did. And the second thing that not only did Allah make it stop there,
but as a reward for the courage, the roar from the crowd, possibly the angels roaring with them. You know, you never know what was what was happening there. And then after that, the whole Ummah stood up for you to show you like how we come together. Yeah, I mean, as an Ummah and people are discussing it. The Prophet ﷺ, this is something I thought of when you said that. The Prophet ﷺ said, مَنْ سَنَّ فِي الْإِسْلَامِ سُنَّةٌ حَسَنَةٌ فَلَهُ أَجْرَاهُ وَأَجْرَ مَنْ عَمِلَ بِهَا إِلَى يَوْمُ الْقِيَامَةِ Whoever starts a good Sunnah, right in the Ummah, then they get the reward for it and the reward of everyone that does it after. So now everyone in any sport that was inspired by this action, you get the reward of that Sajdah and the impact that it has on the Ummah. So that's yeah. So courage is the reward of courage at the end. You sacrifice and this is what we get. No, and that's so deep. I mean, when we talk about masculinity, it was our first episode, which really is everything is couched in this concept of purpose. It's just kind of to reiterate that is, you find if you're a Muslim man and a man that believes in a deity higher than yourself, Allah, if he's your ultimate purpose, everything you do in life is to please him. We know that part, but sometimes we forget or it's in our subconscious mind that the results of the struggle or the results of embodying that masculinity is up to Allah. So the results of that was well beyond, I'm almost sure, what you would fathom, you know, that there would be a penalty firstly. And then the Muslims would stand like, what's going on now, Mashallah? You know, the Muslims coming online, the solidarity is creating a whole different wave, bringing a whole different perspective, making a lot of people think. And that's because someone wanted to embody that masculine trait of courage. And particularly when it comes to the man in leadership, there has to be some time of courage. And sometimes that courage, you may lose your life in that regard.
Whoever is the one that that dies in protecting his money, his honor, then he is a martyr. Right now, I'm literally thinking like what it looks because, you know, playing football and you're running in the helmet. You see that vision. It's like, it's shaking. You see that as I'm coming close. You're coming close. You're like, it's happening. Were you like certain? Like when you caught it, you were running. Were you like absolutely sure you're going to make it? You know, as soon as you say that, because there are moments where you have conversations with yourself, right? When I broke on the ball and I intercepted it, the immediate thought was Allah did his part. Now you got to do your part. So I got to get there. I got to go. I got it. And like, you know, like I said, it was the loudest, you know, recorded sound. I didn't hear nothing. I'm just focused. I got, I got to get there. I got to get there. I got to get there. So it's just, it's just, it's just me right now. It's just me. I have to, I have to uphold my part. My part of the promise. Because Allah did his part. He got me the ball. I got to go score. I got to go do it. Right. So, yeah, so it was just a, again, like it was just a moment. But, you know, one of the beautiful things is people know me for being Muslim. Not for anything I really did. Just that, that guy's a Muslim. If you talk to Hussain Iran, he's a Muslim. The greatest thing that we can be known for is being a Muslim. And like you talk about courage, man. One of my, one of my favorite stories in the Quran is in Surat Yasin. A man ran from across town. And he stands up in front of an angry mob. Stands up on a soapbox. Says going off on everybody. That's courage. But it's for the sake of Allah. Because when you're, when you're a believer, when you believe in Allah, you truly believe and you trust in Allah and you rely on Allah, you cannot lose.
And so when you understand, hey, look, I'm going to be victorious in this life. Or I'm going to be victorious in the next life. So therefore, it allows you to act in spite of that fear. Because courage kicks in because I'm connected, right? If it's just me to myself, well, maybe, maybe I am nervous. I am scared. But when I know that I have Allah backing me and the angels backing me, and I'm connected to this divine, legendary tradition that has dominated the world since the Quran was revealed. Oh, yeah. Now I got strength. Now I got power. Now I'm courageous, right? So it's really, it's like, I think you said it earlier. It's a matter of belief, of Iman. That breeds courage. That's beautiful, man. And it ties into tawakkul. I mean, trusting in Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. I mean, and that's phenomenal. We've seen that with Muhammad Ali. That trust. It's like, I believe in God. God, you know, only God can judge me. You're not worried about what people think. You know, and when people see that, that's powerful, especially with someone that is embodying strength. Because really, courage is a sign of strength, right? Like you said, in spite of fear. Like you see someone do something immaculate, and then you ask them after they do that immaculate thing, and then they tell you they were scared in the beginning. You know, that's, but I still went through with it. That's courage. And that's an honorable position, a lofty, honorable position, you know, for a man to have subhanallah. And that's the base of confidence, Tushar. You know, I was reading this book. He said, confidence has nothing to do with high self-esteem, right? High self-esteem isn't virtuous in its nature. Like, it's just believe in your good and you're competent. And you could be not competent and not so good. But confidence is courage and humility. So courage and humility, okay. And that's where confidence comes from, right?
We need to be confident to be strong Muslims, right? And without courage, there's no, we talk about humility a lot, right? Especially when we talk about arrogance and the root of sin and so on, and Iblis and satanic sins and whatnot. But courage is the second main component, right? You know, without it, you can't have confidence. Maybe we need to train our young men how to deal with fear. Yeah. So just like you said right now. So a person can have a doubt or a fear or they're like, man, this is tough. But the ability to connect to Allah in that moment and know that the power only comes from him and then continue on, that's courage, right? That's the courage that a Muslim has, right? It's not, because courage can be in a Muslim and a non-Muslim. But the courage of a Muslim doesn't come from the ego. It comes from Allah. No, and that's deep. I mean, because when we're talking about like Muslim athletes and a lot of them, you know, whether they're in the locker room and prayer time has come in and they don't want to pray in front of the guys or they don't want to say I have to pray or there's other types of fitna that come around them and standing up and representing who they are, you know, subhanAllah, it's huge. You know, it's funny you say that, like time to pray. Like I went through the whole dance. What do I pray? How do I do this? What am I going to do? And so it got to a point like when I was like, okay, I'm going to pray, you know, after when I get home and all this kind of stuff. And then like when I came back from Hajj, I was like, no, when Salat comes in, I'm praying Salat. And so I went to, I asked my assistant DB coach. And I was like, hey Dino, can I use your office? It's time for prayer. He was like, uh, uh, yeah, yeah, go ahead. So I started praying. It was like Dino had a little small spot. So I'm praying in there. And then like three, four days later, my DB coach, uh, Emmett Thomas, Hall of Famer.
He, uh, he says, uh, he says 39. Cause that's an ET call. 39. Whenever you pray, I want you to use my room. He said, I need that in here. How's that? So again, you act in spite of fear, good things happen. Exactly, man. But those are those moments again, that build you as a man. You have to lean into it. Yeah. Not as beautiful because you know, a lot of times we don't want to face those awkward moments. I got to pray. And then you see that. And it's, it's only, it's that facial expression of like, oh, we don't want to face that. But I tell myself and I've told my sons and I tell a lot of young guys, look, that awkward moment is only a couple of minutes. Right. And they're just gonna, they're gonna feel weird and they say, okay, yeah, you can use my, and they may have their opinion after that. But when they feel the energy that you are not really concerned with how they feel about you fulfilling something much greater, that indirectly brings a form of respect. They respect it. Yeah, they respect it. If you waver on your belief, they're gonna punk you. It's just what it is. You cannot waver. You, as a Muslim man is a man of principle. Exactly. And so when you're a man of principle, whatever that principle calls you to do in that moment, you have to do it. And so when you stand in it, when people joke around, they say to this, they say that. But when you stand in it, they go, hey, that dude's Muslim. On Friday, on Friday in KC, the second we broke it up, everybody just opened up a lane because they knew I'm sprinting out. The reporters know, don't ask for saying nothing. Everybody knew I'm sprinting out because I have to hurry up, take a shower and try to race to make it to Juma. So everybody already knew. They respect it. And then they help you. They try to honor you. When Minnesota found out I was fasting, the first two years, I like keep it to myself. I don't know if I'm gonna get cut. Then when they realize what's going on, they're like, this guy's fast. He don't care. OK, OK, we can help you out.
We can bring in nutritionists. We're gonna do this. We're gonna do that. Oh, look at that. A lot of principles. When you stand on it, I know the stand on business, that's the stuff everybody's saying now or 10 toes or whatever. But when you stand up for what you believe in, Allah makes a way. Yeah, yeah. And it's that fine line of having the courage to do it and then facing the awkward moments. You know what I'm saying? And I think that's a lot, you know, with our young men, may Allah protect them, you know, especially with our young sisters as well. I mean, when we're talking about masculinity and the young man is going through that. And when people see that you did that in spite of what they think, like you said, that brings a huge level of respect and honor for you. And it's a it's a huge masculine trait because that's also ties in with bravery. It will. It also ties in with bravery. And seeing that with all the companions of the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam. You mentioned Abu Bakr, he did that in spite of the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam being wanted, which would eventually make him wanted, you know, just because of that. And that's what's so beautiful about having, you know, being someone that is tied to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala because when people sense, like you mentioned, you've probably seen in the gym as well, doing MMA, you know, you see that when people see you being holy, it kind of makes them think, OK, what am I doing? Yeah. Yeah. What am I doing? Or at least let me help you. And then they get in kind of a mood and they start to think about themselves, man, what am I what am I doing for God? And sometimes it shows up as they start picking on you. They start making fun of you. They start laughing and doing all kinds of different things. But then when you don't waver, when you realize you ain't going to punk me on this, then they put you to the side and say, hey, so what does the Qur'an say about this? Yep. Then this is the most curious person. Yes. So, again, all you got to do is just stand for what you believe in. Be courageous. Deal with the awkward moment. That awkward moment, like you say, it lasts a moment.
But if you waver, if you cower, because cower is on the other side of courage. If you cower, you got to live with that for the rest of your life. Yeah. No doubt. And that hurts more. That hurts more. The same way courage has its reward, lack of it has its punishment. That's beautiful, man, because when people see that you have confidence in yourself, they'll have confidence in you. And I was reading this book. I think it's called The Boy Crisis by Warren Frail. He's talking about the book, The Boy Crisis, right? That's, I think, where I got that quote from. Oh, really? Great book, man. You know, it's a pretty good book. So he was talking about how men make fun of each other. And one of the reasons that they do that, and this is the fitrah, you know, men make fun of each other because especially he's mentioning like the army and the military, because they want to see if you have thick skin. If you can't take a joke, I can't trust you on the battlefield. Absolutely. Oh, wow. If you can't take a joke. It's one of the tests. Yeah. Because if you can't take a joke, you're emotional. So if we're on the battlefield and things got to get done, I can't trust you. You don't know how to control yourself, right? So that's why it's so deep to, you know, as you mentioned, confidence, courage, and humility. When people see that you're confident, they see that you have the courage to be who you are, but you're still humble at the same time. And I think that's beautiful, man. So, you know, with this aspect of courage, may Allah bless you for coming in and chilling in the man cave. Thank you for having me. I appreciate it. You know, and I noticed, man, subhanAllah, every time someone comes, before the camera's cut on, it's just that vibe. It's just men sitting together, mashallah, the brothers in the back, you know, we just talk and you just feel that energy. And I think that's something that, you know, you viewers, if you get an opportunity to just get with the brothers at times and just talk, it's a beautiful thing. And it indirectly, and sometimes directly, increases your iman. So may Allah subhanAllah bless all of y'all for tuning in to where we're here at the iman cave, discussing issues of male excellence while being grounded in faith. Assalamualaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh.
Welcome back!
Bookmark content
Download resources easily
Manage your donations
Track your spiritual growth
1 items
1 items
1 items
25 items
50 items
9 items
