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Sincerely, Mustafa Umar

He has studied various martial arts, is an avid comic books collector, and is the Director of Education and Outreach at the Islamic Institute of Orange County. Meet Sh. Mustafa Umar.

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Transcript

This transcript was auto-generated using AI and may contain misspellings.
JazakumAllah khair for joining us. Sheikh Abdullah, how are you doing? Alhamdulillah, I'm good. Alhamdulillah. Alhamdulillah, how are you sir? Alhamdulillah, alhamdulillah. It's me, Ibrahim Indi, and Sheikh Abdullah Duroo. We are your co-hosts every week for Sincerely Yours, which is a weekly live podcast here on YouTube. It's live, you can catch us live, and you can listen to us on your podcast if you happen to miss us any other week. Alhamdulillah, we bring different speakers and sheikhs and people of knowledge and bring them on the show and talk to them and get their advice and get their insight and learn their stories. And we want to hear from every single one of you. So let us know where you're coming to us from. Give us your salam. We love to hear from all of our Muslim brothers and sisters, right Sheikh? Of course, of course, of course. Your insightful questions, mashallah. Very beneficial. Absolutely. Sometimes we get really, really good questions, mashallah. So throughout this episode, feel free to put your questions in the chat. Anything you would like our guest today to answer or to speak to, put it in the chat. Of course, we can't guarantee we're going to be able to answer every question, but we will choose at least a few questions, inshallah, from the audience and bring them to the attention of our guest. And on that note, inshallah, let me introduce our guest for today. We have Sheikh Mustafa Omar, who completed his bachelor's in information and computer science from UC Irvine and a BA in theology and Islamic law from the European Institute of Islamic Sciences in France. He has a master's in Islamic studies from the University of, I feel everybody from the UK is going to insult me for pronouncing this. I'm going to say Gluchester, I think, to Gluchester Shire in the UK.
He has an MA in studies from there. He also studied Islamic studies for a year at Nadvit Al Ulama in Lucknow, India, and spent another year studying in Cairo, Egypt. Sheikh Mustafa later completed the traditional if that program at Dar al-Iftat Birmingham, UK, granting him the traditional title of Mufti or specialist in Islamic law. He has authored several books, served the Muslim community as a scholar and an imam for two decades, founded the California Islamic University, and is currently the religious director of the Islamic Center of Irvine and an executive member of the FIQH Council of North America and a senior fellow at Yaqeen Institute. So join me inshallah in welcoming Sheikh Mustafa. Assalamu alaikum, Sheikh. Wa alaikum assalam, wa rahmatullah. How are you doing, Sheikh? Doing great, alhamdulillah. Thanks for having me. It's great to be here with both of you. Wa alaikum assalam. So is this Sheikh or Mufti? Whatever you want, man. Or both. Titles are all relative, you know. Allah Akbar. How's the Cali weather treating you? Cali weather is great, alhamdulillah. I just got back from Chicago and we had a heat wave, but now it's much better, you know. The 90s is my weather, alhamdulillah. So this is normal, this is standard. This is the environment in which I thrive in, you know, alhamdulillah. Wa alaikum assalam. So Sheikh, you were in Chicago, I'm guessing, for the AMJA conference, right? Yeah, I was presenting at the AMJA conference, alhamdulillah. For those who don't know, that's a gathering of Muslim scholars across North America. They come together for a conference and some of the mashayikh will present. So Sheikh Omar was there attending and also presenting, alhamdulillah. How was the conference, Sheikh? It was good. It's always beneficial, you know. Sometimes the niyyah is to benefit from the research and the presentations,
and sometimes the other niyyah of meeting and socializing with the imams outweighs the research sometimes. But it's good. Both of those objectives are achieved at some level. It's really great to be in good company, and that's really needed for people who are in the field of working in the deen, working in the religion. We need a recharge, you know, and being around people who have similar interests, passions, similar knowledge. It's something that I need like on a regular basis. Yeah, absolutely. SubhanAllah. So Sheikh, you know, looking at your biography, it seems like you have an interesting, perhaps an interesting story to get towards becoming a person of knowledge. So maybe we can start off with that simple question, like when did you decide to pursue knowledge? When was this something that became important in your life? Sure. Well, you know, I went through an interesting journey. You know, I went very far away from Islam. Actually, I left Islam, became atheist. So right when I came back to Islam in my second year of college, that's when I realized that the only way I can, you know, follow this deen and believe that it's the truth is to understand it at a proper level. So that's when the decision really came. I'm like, I need to just understand this religion more and more. At the beginning, I'm like, I'll read a little bit and I'll get to it. And then, you know, I had a lot of questions I wanted to get answered. And the more you read, you get some of those questions answered, but then you get more questions about other things. And you want to keep on reading more. You want to keep on learning more. So it happened around the time of second year of university when I was studying at UC Irvine. So. Sorry, I was going to say, why did you become an atheist? And why did you come back?
That's quite a story. So, yeah, in a nutshell, what happened was, you know, I was in my first year of college and took a class on philosophy and it was a critical thinking class. My professor was an atheist and he started asking people questions about, you know, why do you why do you guys believe what you believe? And then he started talking about superstitions. And I started recalling, I'm like, I remember a lot of superstitions from my parents and in the Muslim community and all that. And then he started going through all these things and he basically got to the idea that he said, well, you know, God is a superstition, too. And in modern enlightened people, you know, it's surprising that they still believe that, you know, this world was created by someone. So I was really shocked to hear that. And then I made a really big mistake. One of my mistakes was I said, you know what? And a lot of Muslims do this. You know, I'm like, you know what? I'm going to challenge this guy, man. Watch. I'm going to prove to this guy that, you know, that Islam is the truth and that God exists and everything. So I went up, I went and bought a book on atheism. Like it was called Critiques of God. It's like the strongest arguments in favor of atheism. And I'm like, I'm going to read this and I'm going to go and I'm going to refute it and I'm going to respond to him and everything like that. And I had very little knowledge about Islam. So what happened was after reading that book, I got more confused and I'm like, I have no responses, you know, for any of these questions that are coming up. And basically, you know, slowly but surely after time, I went away from the dean. I'm like, I don't really have good reasons to believe. So that was that was it for me. That's kind of how I left Islam. And that seems like. Before. Sorry, go ahead. So before before you started, before you had this encounter, were you like a practicing Muslim? Were you a masjid goer? What was your status?
That's a good question. Yeah, that's a great question. So what happened was, you know, my I kind of grew up as a cultural Muslim. We'd go for Jumma on Fridays. I really didn't pray or anything like that. Fasted Ramadan, you know, for the most part. But then what happened was I got really inspired to start practicing, practicing Islam in my junior year of high school because we went for Umrah in Mecca. And I bought a translation of the Quran. I bought a full copy of the English Sahih Bukhari, like nine volumes, like carrying it on the on the airplane in my backpack and all that. So I was reading a little bit, but I didn't have any teachers. I didn't have any mentors. I didn't have trust in any scholars. I didn't listen to the khutbahs that I was going to. I just found them boring. Or we just show up at the end of the khutbah, you know, and just catch the prayer. So I kind of was making up my own religion at the time. So I was like, yeah, yeah. You know, I watch some Ahmad Deedat videos. I'm like, yeah, Islam is the truth. And look, it's better than Christianity and all of that. So I was trying to convince my friends, but I was doing some weird stuff. You know, eventually I joined the the submitter movement online, Rashid Khalifa and his website and all that stuff. Yeah, I started praying in English. I'm like, you know what? What's the point of praying in Arabic? I don't understand what we're saying. I started praying in English. I'm like, you know, I'm at least I understand compared to all these other Muslims who don't even know what they're saying. I started doing kind of stuff like that. So I was kind of like started practicing in my junior year, but in a very custom tailored, you know, DIY form of Islam. So it was it wasn't a very deeply grounded Islam in the first place. And that's why it was so easy to just, you know, have all of that unravel in my freshman year of college. What was it? What was the reason that you because you mentioned as a youth, you didn't go to the hook was were were they irrelevant? Is that why they were boring? And did you voluntarily like run away from scholars?
Meaning that scholars like people of knowledge in your locality, did you feel that they weren't relevant? Was it you know, was it the orientation in which they were teaching relevant issues? What exactly was it? It was a mix. You know, when I look in retrospect, you know, if you ask me then I'd be like, they're completely irrelevant and they're just totally boring. Right. But also, you know, I was a little bit more, you know, Americanized youth. I didn't like my culture. I didn't like you know, I didn't like cultural practices and everything like that. So as soon as I heard like an accent in the hood, it would be a turn off. In addition to being very it's generally not very relevant. It's not attention grabbing. I didn't find that many interesting things. So that was one of the other problems. OK, OK, OK. So you went on to read then you went on to read these books of atheism. That book in particular. I think you went on to read this book, this particular book you're talking about, of atheism. You thought you would because you had that you had the ijazah from Bukhari, mashallah. Going to college, mashallah. Did you memorize the Quran at that time? Were you reading the Quran at that time? Were you worried? No, no. For me at that time, I was like, you know what, there's no point of even reading in Arabic at all. Just everything should just be English. You know, we should try to focus on understanding, but then understanding through my own lens, my own understanding. I don't need anyone else to understand. I could. It's a DIY form of Islam. So there was no point of reading the Quran. I had forgotten all the surahs that I had memorized. I only knew the surahs in English. Now I couldn't even read the Quran anymore. I had forgotten since I was a kid. I couldn't even read Arabic anymore. And then when I came back to Islam, I had to get a Quran teacher at like, you know, age 20 or something and like relearn how to even like read Alif Ba Ta because I had forgotten everything. So you come with this orientation to your philosophy class, if I'm not mistaken, right? But this understanding of the seekers club, the submitters, the submitters.
Yes. You are a submitter at this time. Yes. Yes. What particularly was it about atheism that attracted you away from Islam? Was it the superstition like you mentioned that was at the top of the ads that made you say, OK, I can't. These are unexplainable actions of worship. Why am I even doing it if I don't fully understand it? What about it? What was it in atheism that really was magnetic to you and made you took you away from Islam? For lack of better words. You know, for me, it was more like that was I assumed that that was the default position. Right. So like all the other religions, they didn't really make much sense to me. You know, so it was it was kind of like, you know, I had an understanding that, you know, Christianity, the worshiping Jesus. I'm like, why do we worship a person for a very basic, rudimentary understanding? You know, and then like for Judaism, you know, you got to have the blood. I'm like, well, I don't have the bloodline. I'm not from family. So I'm going to have an inferior status. I came to Hinduism. I'm like this worship of idols. When it came to Buddhism, my purpose of life is, you know, achieving, you know, Nirvana, you know, the reincarnation, all that. So just looking at all the other religions, I was turned off by all of them. And then what happened was it was basically like, you know, the other ones are really not appealing to me. I kind of had a little bit more respect for Buddhism than any other ones because of some of the friends that I had met. But otherwise, it was just kind of like, you know, it's either religion or no religion and religion. I currently was in Islam, but I couldn't think of any other religion that I would be really genuinely interested in. Buddhism was more of a philosophy than a religion for me. And then the other option is no religion and no religion is atheism. That's really what the choice came down to at the time. But what particularly about Islam was it that made you just leave that? What made you say, well, I'm done with Islam, too. I mean, there was several motivations and it's never one motivation.
You know, one of them is this idea of, you know, blindly following your parents. So for me, it was like, you know, if everyone's going to just follow what their parents are, then I'm just I'm just a blind follower. I'm not actually, you know, I was just born into this. So that was one aspect of it. Second aspect of it, I kind of always had like a little bit of a rebellious nature. So I'm like, I don't want to do what everyone else around me is doing or what they're telling me to do. You know, the third aspect is I saw a lot of cultural practices from Muslims and from my own family, and they were very off-putting. And I'm like, you know, this is what Islam is. If this is if this is what's representative of Islam. And I couldn't tell the difference in the culture and the religion. That's part of the reason why I became like the Quran only, because whenever a hadith I would read and the way it would be interpreted to me, I'd be like, oh, that's like a cultural thing. We need to just go back to the Quran. So, you know, I'm going through all of these things, you know, just basic sentiment that like Muslims are practicing. Muslims are not very intelligent people. They're not very rational people. They're not skeptical in other aspects of their life. They're not critical thinkers. So for me, that was something very important. So that that's really what was off-putting. And all of that just caused me to get away from it. So, like, Sheikh, do you think like this is a very common, probably thing that a lot of young people face? They go to university, take a philosophy 101 course, and then their professor is kind of like, well, why are you Muslim? Because your parents are Muslim. Why are you Christian? Because your parents are Christian. Why are you Hindu? Because your parents are Christian or Hindu. That's just the only reason you believe the way that you do. And that that forces these young kids to want to defend why they're in this faith.
And then if they don't have that intellectual basis for why they're a Muslim, that that kind of really shakes their iman. Is that you think something that's like really common? Yeah, in terms of the iman shaking, yeah, I think it's extremely common. It's not just the philosophy classes. You know, philosophy would be one genre of class. Anthropology would be another one. And basically any class on religion, even if it's a class on Islam in academia, definitely would be in that category. So I don't think everyone makes the jump, though, over to basically say that I'm leaving Islam, probably because there's more social, cultural attachment to Islam that a lot of people have. I didn't have so many of those attachments. So for me, it was a little bit easier to make that make that jump. But in terms of confusions, in terms of doubts, in terms of all these things, I think it's an extremely common phenomenon. And again, this was happening to me 20 years ago. It's probably exacerbated. It's increased on a massive scale by now. Do you think part of it as well as you at that stage probably didn't understand the reasoning for things in Islam, like the reasoning for why we do certain ibadahs, the reasoning for things that you might have seen as superstitions? So it was easier to see it as a superstition just because you didn't have like people told you to pray. They didn't tell you why to pray. They told you to fast and tell you why to fast. Things along those lines. That played a big role. Yeah, that's that's one of the main reasons as well. Absolutely. That's such an important lesson for us to teach our kids why to follow Islam, not just how to follow Islam. So Sheikh, you continue and I see that, you know, you have this interesting background of studying because you studied, you know, in Western institutes like in the UK and you studied as well in traditional institutes like in India and in Egypt and other places. What was that like? And would you recommend that for people?
Or do you, you know, having seen both sides, is there something that you would personally recommend? So, yeah, I mean, I would recommend I wouldn't recommend traveling abroad. Your first for people who want to do a longer duration of study, you know, in my during my time when I was going out to study, it was kind of like if you want to finish an actual program, you're going to have to go for about five to eight years abroad somewhere because there's really no other options. You wanted to do an entire like seminary style program with like a bachelor's or master's in Islamic studies in a quote unquote traditional system. So that's what it was for me. I would not encourage people to go. Initially, what I do is encourage them. There's so many local resources now in the United States that you could go to. You should at least start for a year, maybe even two years locally before you decide to travel anywhere. And the reason why is it's not easy living in another country. At least during my time, it was a little bit easier now. But still, it depends on your lifestyle. You know, if you grew up like I grew up in Orange County, I grew up near Tustin Irvine. It's like a very it's the suburbs. It's very nice, luxurious lifestyle relative to most of the world. So, you know, when I traveled to India, it was extremely difficult for me getting used to that lifestyle, not having hot water, not a heater, not having an air conditioner, even just a cultural vibe, not really being that fluent in the language. So the thing is, if your goal is to study Islam, right, you don't want to be so distracted with dealing with all these other things, adapting to a new environment, trying to learn the culture, trying to in Egypt, you know, trying to catch a taxi. It's easier now with Uber, but like it used to take a long time to catch a taxi.
You'd have to go sometimes half an hour sitting in a traffic jam, you know, just to get to a class. So with all of those things, you don't have to deal with them in the beginning, because what my view is that you should try to benefit from your local resources as much as possible. Try to begin to understand yourself as much as you can, because it's easy to say, you know, I'm ready, I'm motivated, I'm excited, I'm going to go study. Really rapid combined with all those opportunities is like, you read about other scholars. And then you go out there and you're like, oh, man, I didn't think it's going to be like this. I expected it to be something different. You know, so people just assume that there's not going to be challenges or the challenges that they hear about. They they don't see the other challenges that they don't hear about or that they didn't care for. You know, so my suggestion is really to start somewhere locally in the United States, you know, probably even your own locality. See how far you go. See what kind of study routine you have. See if you can shut off your cell phone and turn on airplane mode and do all those things. And then from there, maybe move to another state if you want. And then, you know, if you want to pursue your higher studies, you want to travel abroad somewhere. Absolutely. In the later stages, I think it's one of the greatest experiences to go to another country and study over there. You get a different set of teachers, you experience a different way of looking at Islam as well, a different way of practicing Islam. You get tough out some of the difficulties, you know, in different societies. It's a fantastic lesson in education and, you know, upbringing and social conditioning and all of that. So that's my general advice to people. So I'm going to kind of backtrack. So Sheikh Mustafa Omar was an atheist as a sophomore. Are you correct in that assessment? Correct. OK. When did Sheikh Mustafa, well before it was Sheikh Mustafa, when did Mustafa see the light?
Like what happened in your life to where you transitioned and you said, wow, what I grew up upon, generically speaking, Islam as a Muslim. I think it's right. You know what? I want to continue studying and going on this journey of what I think is right. Was there a certain event? What took place and when? So it's a process, but there's an event helps identify a particular catalyst. So if we had to do that, I was kind of in the wrong crowd. I was going to like raves, raves like a party in the desert. And people are doing like ecstasy and drugs and listening to techno electronic music and things like that. I got into that and I was going to like some nightclubs and just eating there and things like that. So I was doing that and then I got into street racing. And that's a very, very dumb and very dangerous thing to do. So let me just clarify that. People are like, oh, it's so cool, like fast and furious and all that. We want to make sure you didn't make Istith Ness or raves too, but you know, we're joining. Yes, yes. So the reason why I'm clarifying that is the difference, though, is raves going to destroy you on an individual level. Street racing not only can kill you, but it's going to kill other people. It's extremely dangerous for others as well. I think the harm is even greater. But yeah, both of them are horrible. So yeah, don't do either of them. Of course, of course, of course. But yeah, I was doing all that. And then what happened was, you know, I had had a really bad day. One day I remember it was a Friday morning. I woke up. My father had given me a lot of money, like $10,000 to invest in the stock market. And I was doing really good. I was making a lot of money on E-Trade and all that. So I remember I woke up Friday morning and the stock market crashed. And I was buying on margin, which by the way is haram as well. So a lot of haram things.
I'm just going to keep clarifying them for people who have interest. So yes, I bought the stocks on margin. I got a margin call on Friday morning. I remember it was June for networks. And then, you know, imagine like, you know, losing so much money as a teenager. And then I was living in the dorms, but I was staying with my parents for that day for some reason. And I woke up and then my mom calls me on the intercom. We had a really big home, a 6,000 square foot home, well-off family. She calls me on the intercom and she's like, you know, I want you to take out the trash. I'm like, what? I'm like, I'm going to take out the trash, you know. So it was strange. I got really upset at my parents. So I lost a bunch of money. I'm very upset at my parents. And I decided, you know what, that's it. I've had enough. I'm going to run away from home. So I get all my clothes, pack my bags, and I go and I jump in my car to go and run away from home. Turn on my car and try to reverse. And some auntie is blocking my exit. I can't get out of the house because my mom is hosting a tafsir class inside of the living room. So I go inside the tafsir class and I basically yell at all the aunties. And I'm like, you know, who's blocking my car? Go move your car. And I was really, really enraged. I was listening to a lot of, you know, dark music, you know, dark rock music, you know, Marilyn Manson, things like that. So I get in there. Yeah, I'm like really mad, upset. And this auntie, by the way, she reminds me. She's like, she comes to my khutbah sometimes. She's like, you know, I remember the day you yelled at me in the tafsir class. And she's like, and now, subhanallah, now I'm sitting in your class. Allahu akbar, man. How things change. Subhanallah. So yeah, I get in the car. The auntie moves her car. I get out. And I just start heading south.
And I'm living in Tustin, Orange County. So I'm heading towards like San Diego, maybe Mexico. So I was going to cross the border. I just say, you know what, I'm running away from home, never going to see my parents again, don't have to deal with them anymore. And I'll get my computer science degree and I'll just be independent. I just don't want to have to deal with family or anything anymore. So that was a pretty, you know, again, another bad thing to do. So I'm going and I'm driving. And I'm about one hour out. And all of a sudden, you know, a 300ZX twin turbo decides to cut me off and challenges me to a race. It's like a signal for racing, you know. So I'm just like, oh, no, you don't. Like this is the worst day to like ever try to challenge me to a race. Really, really mad. You know, so I had an IS300 Lexus, you know, right when it came out. It was a pretty big deal. But it's not a sports car. So I removed traction control. We go all out, going like super duper fast, get into a massive car accident, literally do a U-turn on the freeway and hit three other cars, hit the center divider. And, yeah, long story short, major accident, probably should have been dead. Nothing happened to me. So nothing happens to me and all these people start coming and telling me, they're like, you know, beta, beta means like son, you know, in Urdu. It's like, you know, son, you know, Allah saved you for a reason. You know, there's got to be something. And I'm like, I don't even believe in Allah. What are you guys all talking about? None of that stuff. I didn't care about any of that stuff. But then what happened was a police officer came and somehow he estimated how fast I was going. And for legal reasons, I won't mention it. It was ridiculously fast, faster than anyone should ever be going. And he said, I'm going to make sure you're going to jail because when you go that fast on the freeway, you're putting lives in danger. It's considered attempted manslaughter.
So you will go to jail. And I got really scared. So, you know, long story short is that, you know, I got so scared and I'm like, what am I supposed to do? No one can bail me out of this. My father is very well off financially, but even he can't get me out of this. And he's like, you can get the best lawyers, but when you're caught red handed and you do something really dumb like this, you know, you're pretty much, it's over. I started thinking like my life is over. So then I just decided, you know, I remember reading about, you know, just making dua from the Quran. And I'm like, you know what? I just made a dua. I'm like, oh, you know, Allah, I don't even know if you exist. I'm not even sure if you exist. But if you do and you get me out of this, then and I'm thinking, you know, what kind of promise am I going to make? So very cautious in my promises, you know, so I said, I'm like, I'm like, if you do, then I will make a legitimate effort to try to find out whether you really exist or not. That was my promise. So, subhanAllah, nothing happened. No charges were pressed. Everyone dropped the charges. Never heard from the police officer again. All surprising. And then it was so tempting to be like, you know what? I'm just going to go back to my life, you know, like everyone can make. I was just emotional. Everyone gets in the emotional state. You know, it was my weaker side. Let me go back to my atheist, rational side and forget all about that. But, you know, I remembered when I was reading the Quran in high school, I was like, I remember that part about, you know, the people who are on the boat. Man, I was just thinking about the Palamena. Exactly. So that's exactly what's going on in my mind, you know, and very little Islam that I knew. I knew that story. Right. So I'm like, you know what? Am I going to be like those people? And then I was just going back and forth, back and forth. And I'm like, I just thought about it myself. What kind of person am I? You know, just for myself. What kind of person am I?
If I if I make promises to myself and I make promises, you know, just in general and I just keep going off on them. What am I? So it was kind of like a moment where I said, you know what? No, I'm going to take my promise seriously. It's my job and my responsibility to do something. I didn't know what to do. So what I did was I dropped out of school and I went and sat in the UCI library and I just read books about philosophy and different religions for several months to just every single day. I just go in the morning when the library open and I just stay until the library closed. I didn't have any mentors. I didn't have anyone that I trusted. I didn't have any mom I could talk to. I read every single thing that I could get my hands on. So I'm reading. How did your parents? How did your parents react to you dropping out? Oh, that was they were they were not happy at all. They were not happy at all. But after the accident, you know, they're like, you know, this guy's obviously shaken up. We don't know what to do. So I told them I said, OK, instead of dropping out, I'm going to take a year off because you can take a year off from university without having to reapply. So I said, maybe I'll go again. But in my mind, I'm like, I'm never never joining this ever again. So. So, yeah, my parents were not happy at all. People were shocked. They're like, why would you drop out? You know, you see, Irvine is a very good school. I was in computer science and they're like, how could you do this? I'm like, look, this is the most important thing in my life. I need to do this. So I did it. And, yeah, I just went in and read every single day, different books, all sorts of weird books and a lot of confusion. I was reading Orientalist books. I was reading, you know, those books that you shouldn't be reading about Islam as well, because that's all that was there. I had no guidance. I didn't have any mentor. I didn't know what to do. I'm just reading everything I can get my hands on, you know, from from Karl Marx to Nietzsche, to Buddhism, to Hinduism, to to Islam. And then eventually, you know, I decided, you know, OK, I've made this switch over and I've decided that Islam is the right religion for me,
even though I was coincidentally born into a Muslim family. This actually is independently my own decision of why I'm taking this. And now now it became a different type of journey for me. So I kind of I kind of I know people are wondering what the verse I just want to make sure. It's the verse for us, but that's as far as they're looking. We'll see. And I mean, I'm going to be the only issue. This is correct. That's the one. Yes. So whenever they go on board a ship, they call on God and dedicate their faith to him alone. But once he has delivered them safety back to land, see how they ascribe partners to them. So just once you're saved, you go back to your way of life. But at that time, you're calling on him desperately. So that's what the verse is mentioning. And I've seen that, like, I don't know, on Reddit maybe or some Web site where atheists were saying, did you ever pray to God? That was a question atheists were asking each other. And exactly like you said, like some of them were like, yes, I was in a really bad situation. Yes, I prayed to God. Yes, he saved me. But I realize I'm an emotional being and I was just emotional at the time. And so, like, it's not a big deal. That's just the way human beings are. They're emotional. And they just kind of like forget that Allah saved them and that promise or whatever it might be. And they just walk away from it. Absolutely. And these are not only the average people, even the intellectual atheists that are popular. I was reading Bertrand Russell's autobiography. He mentions the same thing. He's like, yeah, I used to do that too. So it's just natural built into the fitrah, into the natural disposition of people. And that's just the way Allah created us. Did your parents know about this journey? Did your parents know that you left Islam? No, they found out about, I think, about five years ago. After you came back. Yeah, way after. Five years, I'm not bad. Yeah. Well, how did that happen? Like, how did it, did you just sit at the dinner table?
Mom, dad, I got to tell you something that happened so many years ago. No. I heard you in a talk. Actually, they heard you in a talk. Yes. What? So they heard it, and so finally, I was at a masjid, and one of the brothers there, he's the outreach coordinator. He's like, we should do a talk about your story. Because I told him about my story. And I'm like, okay, fine. Let's finally do it. I was hesitant to always do it. You're not supposed to publicize your sins, and I didn't want to say anything bad about my parents or upbringing or anything like that. So I was very skeptical. And I'm like, this is unique. This doesn't happen so much. I'm very much of a unique case, maybe in that time. But it's happening a lot, lot more since then. So I decided, you know what, let me share my story. And then I remember my brother, you know, he watched that. And he's like, man, you never told me. My parents didn't watch the whole thing. And then he went and told my parents. And they're like, what? He never told us. Oh, man, SubhanAllah. Can you imagine being a parent, like, you find out? Oh, SubhanAllah. That's wild, man. SubhanAllah, Allah brought you back. That's amazing. That is amazing. MashaAllah to BarakAllah. Beautiful, beautiful story, man. Beautiful story. So from there, I mean, where did you go to study first? Because we mentioned a number of institutions. How did it start? So basically I started, so then when I came back to Islam, I started going for Jumma. And the place that I went for Jumma, I found like one imam that I actually liked his khutbah. So I'm like, this is really relevant. He seems to be very smart. He's intelligent, the way that he speaks. So I was like, this guy is good. So I started attending his khutbahs. And then after attending, I asked him, I'm like, he was a little bit more on the inclined towards like the Deobandi school of thought. So he kind of like, he's like, you should go to the top schools, India and Pakistan and one of these South African schools or England or something like that.
So I was getting excited about that. I'm like, OK, I should do something like this. So then I was convinced about going to Nadwatul Ulama, which is Nadwa is in the school in India. And I had read a lot of books by Sheikh Abul Hasan Ali Nadwi. So I was excited. And I'm like, I looked at their website and I'm like, wow, they're responding to like orientalist. They're super intellectual. They're one notch above like the traditional schools and all that. So it really appealed to me. So I'm like, this is great. This is what I'm going to do. So I told my parents, I'm like, I want to go to India. They looked at me like crazy. We don't have any family in India. We had family in Pakistan at the time. Like maybe you could go to Pakistan, but even that's crazy. But like you like in India by yourself, like no, no way. So I really tried to convince them and they're like, no way we're not sending you. And since I had lost all that money in the stock market, they basically, you know, drain all my accounts. I had no money. I couldn't go. I couldn't just pack up and go on my own. They're like, yeah, we know you are running. They knew I was running away from home that day. So they're like, oh, yeah, that they knew. They didn't know I was atheist, but they knew I was running away from home. Right. So they made sure they put some things in place like this guy better. You know, we're not going to let this guy run away. I mean, he needs a car, but like he's not going to be running away easily from home. So I tried to convince them. They said, we'll make a deal with you. You know, you finish your degree and we'll let you go to to not like you want. So I was like, OK, there's no other way. So I said, OK, fine. So I finished my degree in half the time that it should have taken. I was just so motivated. I'm like, this is my purpose in life. So I got back in school. I wasn't behind it. I caught up and I just did full course load, finished my entire degree. I'm like, OK, let's go. And they're like, oh, we changed our mind. You're still not going to India because it's crazy. It's like that's not fair. That's not right. They're like, yeah, no, you need to get a job. Man.
So I got a job and then I made some money. I was working as a computer programmer. And then afterwards, I'm like, you know what? I got enough money now I can go. And they're like, no, no, don't go. No, don't go. And I'm like, you can't stop me now. So I basically like I was you know, they were taking me to different shoes and stuff like that. They're like trying to convince me why I shouldn't go. But like for me, I was just like, this is the most important thing in my life. This is where I think I need to be. So I went to Nudva. So that's that was the first place that I went to go and study. I went to India and paid my own way to get there. And it's really cheap to live there. So just getting the ticket over there is the most expensive part. Once you get to Nudva, the tuition is free. The room is free and the conversion rate for food. So food and lodging per month. It's India. OK, so the equivalent is six dollars a month. Like literally, that's what it was, six dollars a month. So to that, that's that's the place. But you could tell, obviously, the quality relative to Orange County, California, it's going to be extremely different. You know, so that was my first school that I went to. And the duration for that city was I was there for about a year on and off. You know, I was getting sick. I had a lot of challenges over there. It was very hard. I got typhoid. I went in the hospital. I almost died. I got accused of being an American spy. I had, you know, just a lot of challenges so that it didn't work out for me in that school. But I still benefited from the experience. And I did take several classes. And I when I came back to America, I kept studying the curriculum. And then I went back again one more time. Then I had that whole spy issue and then it didn't work out. So I left. So I was there for about equivalent, maybe less than a year. OK, OK. OK, so you come back to Cali. What was your next journey? So, you know, throughout all of this, I was like every single time I'm like, why am I doing this? You know, like I was about to give up. I wanted to learn.
But I'm like, it was so hard. It was so challenging. All these I'm not ready for this. You know, I didn't expect me to be in the hospital. And with typhoid and all of that. And I'm like, if I die right now, you know, what have I really learned? And what I was learning is I'm learning now. I'm learning. So I'm learning Balaga. I'm learning like all these Arabic sciences. I didn't come here to learn all that stuff. I came here to learn about my religion. So I'm like, for me, I'm just going like, you know, if I die right now, I'm going to like all I know is like how to conjugate all these verbs. And I can dissect an Arabic sentence very well, give you all the grammatical nuances of it. But what am I? Why? Like what a waste for me. So I'm not really that happy at the time, you know, with my studies. So I'm like, what am I going to do? I need to think of another plan. So I almost gave up. But then after getting a job, I worked a little bit. I'm just like, why am I here? Why am I working? I need to be studying. So I'm like, no, I'm going again. So finally, I decide to go to Egypt. So then I go to Egypt and I spent a year in Egypt and I was studying, you know, the different, you know, sciences over there. Alhamdulillah, private studies. Mostly I almost enrolled into one of the schools, but then. I just kept on doing private studies because I found it to be more efficient. OK, so you just let you just rented it, went there, rented a place and then just found someone to study with personally. Yeah, I had different teachers. So I was going into different Arabic institutes. And then, you know, I would find one of the Arabic institute teachers or some of the graduates from Al-Azhar University or Dar al-Ulum, which is University of Cairo. And I would just hire them because they, you know, they're like, a great American kid. You know, he's got got some money and they're sincere teachers, of course. But like, look, I want private time. I want one on one. Sit down with me and do these books. So I started doing a selection of different books and, you know, fiqh, aqidah, tafsir, all of that, while simultaneously, you know, improving my Arabic as well at the same time.
OK, so was it so what particular book of fiqh did you study over there? What method, what school of thought particularly? So at that times, again, like again, I'm the rebel, right? So I'm like, I'm going to Egypt. I'm going to I'm going to leave my cultural, you know, heritage behind and all that. I'm going with the Shafi'i Madhhab because that's what they're known for. So I decided to go with the Shafi'i school. So I was studying the books, the curriculum at Al-Azhar and Shafi'i fiqh, as well as, you know, going through other books that I would just find in the bookstore. So I was like an avid reader. I used to just love going to the bookstore, pick up different books all the time, looking at different things. So I was going through everything from like Kitab al-Umm to Minhaj, Imam Nuhwi and so many other books. So you said you're going to leave your cultural heritage. And basically, I guess it was the Hanafi understanding or Hanafi school. Yeah, people would criticize me a lot. They're like, you know, what's wrong with you? There are also good Hanafi scholars in Egypt. Why don't you benefit from them? You know, and I also, you know, when I was kind of coming back to Islam, there was like this trying to find your identity. Am I a Sufi? Am I a Salafi? You know, the Salafi movement had an impact on me as well. And they're like Imam Abu Hanifa, you know, he's always weak. Hadith is opinions are not authentic. This Ash'ari, Ma Turidi Aqeedah, don't come near that stuff. That's that's really bad. Go with Sheikh Ibn Taymiyyah. So I'm kind of, you know, influenced by all of these different movements that I was getting into at the time. So that was one of the reasons why I'm like, you know, I'm going with the Shafi'i school because they're more they follow the Hadith more. They follow authentic Hadith more than the other ones. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But then you ended up going to the UK and studying in a Hanafi program. Yeah. Yeah. That's the next step. OK, that was the next thing. That was that was quite quite a ways away. Yeah. What I realized was that those accusations were incorrect. It's just it was sometimes the presentation of the Hanafi school or the people who are trying to defend the Hanafi school,
they may not do the best job of it. So that's that's really the the problem. So the accusations against Imam Abu Hanifa and his school and all that, they tend to be exaggerated or they're they're just they're just wrong. And likewise, the criticisms from the Hanafi is against like the Hanbalis and all that. They're also exaggerated. They're like, oh, they're not a real Madhav. And, you know, they were codified later on and all of that stuff. There's a little bit of, you know, extremism, you know, overzealousness when it comes to like groupthink and identities and all that. And I'm trying to unravel, you know, unpack all of this over my different years of studying and encountering different teachers and, you know, coming up, you know, reading different things that kind of kind of balance me out over time. Hope, hopefully. So let me ask you a question. This is more maybe for my benefit than anyone else. Do you think that there is like a natural conflict between like Ahl al-Ra'iyah and Ahl al-Hadith of like, you know, the people who scholars who want to focus on interpretive methods versus the scholars who really want to just study the Hadith? Because it feels like even though like today you talk about, you know, Sadafis and Hanafis having this conflict between them to some degree, even when you go back in time, there seems to have been some of that. Even the scholars at the time of Imam Hanifa where, you know, they felt like he's doing too much Qiyas. Like this guy is thinking too much like to stick to the Hadith. Whereas, you know, he's just trying to interpret the Hadith. Right. Right. I mean, there are different methodologies of looking at fiqh. That's kind of the realization that I came to. And what you find is sometimes it's not always that way. So, you know, my teacher had classified. He's like, if you want to put a spectrum of, you know, more towards the rational and more towards the textual, you know, you could you could line it up and you could go Hanafi, Maliki, Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi, Hanbali. Right. And and then you could do the same thing with Aqeedah from Mu'tazili
all the way outside the spectrum and then Maturi, Ash'ari and then Athari. But if you know what you find is sometimes on some issues, you'll find somebody like Imam Abu Hanifa all the way on the rational spectrum. But then on some issue, like some Mas'ala in inheritance, he'll go 100 percent literal. And you're like, I can't believe it. All the other scholars didn't take that position, but he took the most literal textual position on this issue. And you're like, that's unlike him. And it's unlike the other scholars to actually be on the other side of him. So I think everyone kind of does this a little bit. But if you kind of look, zoom out and you look overall, everyone's trying to understand, you know, what's the what's the underlying purpose of the text? And some people say we need to think through that. There must be an underlying wisdom or, you know, basis for this text. Whereas other ones say, you know what, we cannot. It's more Ta'abudi. It's more like, you know, interest is prohibited. Is it prohibited on a small level for a rational reason or we can't figure it out? Dog saliva. There's a lot of discussion about that. Is it because of a rational reason or is it Ta'abudi reason? You know, so Imam Malik says, you know, it's not even najis, it's not even impure. But then at the same time, he goes, you're still going to wash seven times, Ta'abudi, you're going to do it out of worship, just straight out of worship. So it's like, you know, on some parts of some issues, you find people take like this rational approach and then other times they take this textual approach. So I don't think it's that consistent. It's not 100% across the board. And that's that's kind of what I found. That's why I kind of incline more on a personal level, kind of like towards a methodology of what Imam Shatibi was saying. Imam Shatibi was basically muwafiqat, he's trying to combine between kind of the style in which Imam Malik, Imam Hanifa were trying to understand the underlying maqasid and principles. But it's not restricted to those two madhabs. But we might be getting too advanced for perhaps this this type of interview. Yeah. Sorry. That was my own like thoughts in my own head and all that. No, no, no. It's a good question.
So, Shaykh, you know, we promoted this session with the tagline, I think, of the comic book collector. So I think there's some people in the chat box. I can see they're like, where is the comic books discussion here? So maybe you can speak to that. How are you the comic book collector? Sure, sure. So, yeah, I started collecting comic books like, I think, somewhere around middle school, maybe, maybe elementary school or middle school. And I was really into Marvel and DC, mostly Marvel, X-Men, all those comic books and everything. So, you know, I don't know my kid, you know, sometimes like kids come up to me and they're like, you know, oh, do you did you watch that new Infinity Gauntlet movie or whatever it is about Thanos and all that? And I'm like, I don't watch any of these movies anymore. But like, you want to know the story about, you know, the Infinity Gauntlet? I had the whole series, I had the whole collection. I remember all six volumes, all six comic books were worth thirty five dollars. And I would keep them in like plastic covers. When I would read them, I would be like extremely careful. You know, I know the stories for most of that stuff when they don't modify them. So I was collecting all those comic books. I used to go to like comic conventions. I enjoyed reading comic books. I would collect them. I would grab like an old issue of like Wizard Magazine, which rates your comic books and like tells you how much the price is and stuff like that. So, yeah, and then I eventually got into like Image Comics. And then I started like I said, when I got into like the really bad music and stuff like that, I got into like dark comics too. So like Dark Horse, Evil, Ernie, Lady Death, this bad girl trends of like she and all these like, almost like half nude action females who are like going and like just cutting up people, like slaughtering them. And, you know, it's like heroines that are like, you know, going and like killing all the bad guys, basically. So I like that kind of genre and that trend and all that stuff.
And then, you know, I came into Islam, you know, for two reasons. One, I'm like, I don't need this stuff in my life anymore. And number two, I'm like, it would be great to have some extra money to invest in seeking knowledge. So I went and sold all my comics. I said I couldn't get rid of the rest. Did you get like a lot of money on anyone? I didn't have that. I didn't have like amazing fantasy 15, which is like the first appearance of Spider-Man probably worth like, I don't know, $10,000. Now it's maybe like even more. I didn't have like the for Superman DC comic that's like, you know, has like a 10 cent on it or something like that. Those are really expensive comics. But I had some stuff that's like in the $100 range, you know, so I got some money out of it. But once eBay launched, it like destroyed like all the prices of comic books because now it's not a localized thing. Now you could just like you could be trading with everyone else across the board. So prices really, you know, a lot of comic books lost their lost their value. So I was doing comic books. Before that, I used to collect baseball cards and I collect basketball cards and I was doing Magic the Gathering, Pogs and then Star Wars strategy game and playing all those games. I was into those things. So that's kind of like my childhood. So everyone who comes in like talks to me about Marvel or something like that or DC or whatever it is, I'm like, yeah, I know all those characters. I don't watch the movies, but I know all those characters. So Marvel over DC though, right? Oh, what's that? Marvel over DC? Yeah, I mean, if you want to like me, but yeah, I mean, I didn't have to give it to Marvel over DC. Absolutely. I wish I knew more that I can question you about it. I would say Image Comics over Marvel and DC both. Is that Image Comics? What's the alternative that came out? You probably haven't seen any movies, but there was like a whole series of people came out like Shadowhawk and I forgot the name of all these comic books.
I had all the memorized and unfortunately, I have all. It seems like they've made a movie out of every single comic book person in the world because they're highly successful. I mean, I was looking at movie ratings. I like to look at like what are the top movie ratings, you know, top guns, not like breaking charts and all that. But among the top grossing movies of all time, many of them are these comic book movies. Marvel or DC. It's surprising. I mean, the amount of money that they're making is among the most watched ever. So people are highly, highly influenced by them. And I would definitely, you know, throw this in there that the type of comic books that you read, it influences your behavior. So, you know, I was in Pai as well. So sci-fi is movies and comic books. And what happens, there's a philosophy that's being promoted within comic books and particularly within like sci-fi. And it's more towards an atheist mindset in terms of the type of questions that they ask, the type of the heroes ask certain philosophical questions and the way in which they talk about the future and all that. You don't see God in any of these things. In fact, you see more like idolatry and Thor and all these other gods and stuff like that. But that definitely had a big impact on me as well. So when I look back at my life, I'm like, what are all these different factors that played a role in kind of shaping my mentality to where I got to, you know, freshman, sophomore year in college, like completely gone from college. Gone from any belief in anything. The comic books play a role. Sci-fi, the genre that you kind of focus on plays a big role. So just want to throw that out there. No, for sure. SubhanAllah, like not just comic book, obviously TV, movies, there's philosophy behind all of it. Like it's not just entertainment. There is dawah, like their version of dawah. Dawah towards maybe atheism, towards scientism, towards whatever. When I was teaching in high school, I made an effort to ask the kids in high school,
what are you guys watching? And then I went and watched it. And then in some cases, I took some of the episodes, like they were watching a cartoon called Rick and Morty. I don't want to promote this stuff, so I don't really want to put it out there. But the kids were watching it. And that's the reality. Muslims are watching this stuff. And we took an episode, I just wanted to break it down on the philosophies behind it. Like they're promoting a version of nihilism. Like the world has no meaning. The idea that like this person, this character in the show is like incredibly smart. He's like a genius. But he kind of treats himself like a god figure. So the idea that like we human beings are our own gods. This is all dawah that's being done. And these kids are watching it. They don't understand that this is like being propagated upon them. To the point that I have an idea for Yaqeen, that we take some clips of TV shows and break it down like that. I saw there's a TV show called Young Sheldon. Where it's this character who's a young kid, but he's a super genius. And it's all dawah for scientism. Oh yeah, I've seen it on there. I saw a little bit of that, yeah. Yeah, like all we believe in is science. And religion doesn't tell us anything. Which is philosophically, you know, doesn't make any sense once you start poking holes into it. So I mean, this is my tangent. But I feel like there's a culture is so much more powerful. And we can imagine so much more powerful than all the khutbahs we can put together. And I think Muslims have to figure that out. Like we saw even just Oratoghul, the TV show at the Turkish TV show. So parable had such a huge positive impact on so many people. It's changed their lives completely. I know young people, they never prayed. And they just watch the show and they start praying five times a day. And you're like, what? No khutbah? No khutbah, no lecture, no YouTube sheikhs, nothing? Like nothing, no, nothing, just watch Ertugrul. Changed their whole frame of reference changes. So yeah, culture is so powerful.
And we need to understand the harms of it and the benefits of it when we produce our own cultural positive influence. You know, speaking of that, I want to, I mean, from a lot of things that you mentioned, you know, I like to take it for, you know, the speakers, the guests, you know, everyone has their demographic and their experiences and their customized, you know, way of life, which is within Allah's Qadr. If you were an instructor in the university that you went to, let's say UC Irvine, you were an Islamic studies instructor, right? Next door to your classroom is a philosophy class. And it happens to be your instructor that taught you back then or his son, right? Or daughter. You see Muslims coming out of that class, just like you were, what kind of advice would you give? My advice would be, and I do tell them this, I know several students who do want to go to UC Irvine, they want to take a class on like Islam 101 or comparative religions or something like that. And I'm like, that's the absolute worst thing you could ever do. Because I asked him, I said, how many books on Islam have you read? Because you're going to read a book on Islam when you walk into that classroom. I asked him, how many books on Islam have you read? And almost always the answer is zero. Zero, it's always zero. And I'm like, well, you're going to walk in. So basically, the first book on Islam that you're ever going to read is going to be by an atheist professor, or it's going to be by someone who's a perennialist who believes that all religions are equally true. Is that how you're going to set your foundation? I explained to them, I'm like, you know what, that's like, you know, that's a giant mistake that you'd make. So when I when I warn people, most of them realize, like, well, I never thought about it like that. I thought I could, you know, I can combine getting some units while I'm studying with getting a little bit of Islamic, you know, Islamic knowledge, too. So I don't have to I can get kind of, you know, two birds with one stone. And I'm like, no, that's not the way it's going to work. There's a framework.
There's a particular worldview in which they're going to teach you from. This person is coming from that framework. The books are written within that framework. They're going to give you assignments that you're going to have to engage. And you think that you're being a critical thinker, but you can't critically think of something where you don't have any knowledge about it. And that's really the problem. You know, I'll tell you, one of the biggest stories that really influenced me and kind of shaped my mind was two things, actually. One of them was I was going to I was debating between going to study in my Islamic seminary in France or go into a master's program at the University of London because they had accepted me already. And I was consulting with one of my friends. His name is Hassan Al-Banna, not the Egyptian founder. But this is a Bengali Dr. Hassan Al-Banna. He's a well-known founder of Awakening Media. So I'm asking him and he says he says, don't go to University of London. Don't do the master's degree there because you don't have the knowledge. And then he gave me this great example. He says, let me but I'm like, I'm looking at the syllabus and I'm like, but it seems so more, you know, so more sophisticated. And like, I'm tired of like studying low level stuff. I want to study high level stuff. So he goes, show me the syllabus. I'm like, look, we're going to be studying Ibn Hajar Asqalani's methodology of hadith and we're going to study this. We're going to study that. And he's like, let me tell you exactly what's going to happen. You're going to walk in and week one, you're going to get like 10 pages or 20 pages to read something from Ibn Hajar Asqalani, the hadith scholar, and you're going to read it in English and then they're going to say, now write a paper critiquing Ibn Hajar Asqalani's methodology in hadith. And like, what do you know? You don't know anything about hadith. You haven't studied science. You don't know anything about anything. And you're going to within one week, you're going to write a paper about that. And then all of a sudden, week two, they're going to jump to like Razi and then they're going to go, oh, Fakhruddin Razi's methodology in tafsir.
Here's a 40 page, 40 pages. Read the 40 pages. Now write a critical essay on those 40 pages. You don't know anything about Razi. You don't know about his background. You don't know anything. So you're just going to get whatever the professor is telling you. And then you think in your own mind, wow, I'm getting exposed to these intellectuals and I'm able to critique them and I'm learning where they made mistakes. And he's like, that's not a way that you study. You have no foundation whatsoever. So if you did that in medical school, you're going to jump into fifth year medical school and you've never even been in the first year. You can now critique what this doctor is saying. So that really opened my mind. And I'm like, yeah, that's a problematic methodology. And then I remember Dr. Hatem Bazian, he was a professor of Islamic studies at UC Berkeley. And he was giving a talk at an Isna conference in front of everyone publicly. You know, sometimes scholars, intellectuals, they say things differently, you know, privately, but then publicly, they're a little bit more cautious. He said in front of everyone, the whole Isna conference, he's like, never, ever, say anything. Never send your kids to go study Islam in a university. And he goes, I'm a professor in a university. Don't ever send them to my class at UC Berkeley unless they've gone and studied somewhere else. Let them go and study in some seminary, go do some proper classes first, and then they can take my class. Otherwise, they're just going to get confused. They're going to walk out confused because they don't have any foundation and they're jumping into an advanced class. So that's my advice to people is that, you know what? Learn from the lessons of people who've been through that. And it makes sense when you understand the reasoning behind it. You don't jump into the deep end of a pool when you can barely even, you know, tread water, right? You can't swim, you can't do anything. Learn to swim, learn all these other basics, establish the foundation first, then you can go and start critiquing all the high level theories and doing all of that stuff. But that's what you're going to do when you jump into even an undergraduate course on Islamic studies or religious studies. Is that what motivated you to start the university?
California State University? Yes, that is exactly what motivated me. In fact, not only that, another thing that motivated me was I saw a brother who finished his PhD in Islamic studies from Oxford, and we were sitting in a gathering one time, and he comes up with this theory and he says, I have this new theory, right? About usool al-fiqh. I won't go into the details, but he's like, he comes up with this theory. And I'm like, this is ridiculous. He starts talking about something about Mu'adhi bin Jabal al-Hadith should have been at this time or whatever. I'm like, bro, you got your dating wrong. You don't even know basic Islamic history. So I'm like, had you known basic Islamic history, had you known basic usool al-fiqh, had you known basic lives of the companions, you would have never made such a ridiculous mistake in coming up with such a dumb theory. And then I'm like, you know what? The problem is people don't have this widespread foundation of different aspects of Islam that they need to know so that they can process deep theories within the greater context of Islam. Because what is a PhD? A PhD is you take one issue and you spend five years on one issue. If your issue is Islamic law, it doesn't mean you learn history. It doesn't mean you learn aqidah. It doesn't mean you learn tafsir. It doesn't mean you learn any, you could know nothing. You could not even know how to make wudu and you do a five-year PhD. And after you're done, you still don't know how to make wudu. You're still making a mistake in making wudu. And it's like, you know what? One brother, he was giving khutbah. He had given 50 khutbahs. 50 khutbahs in our community. And then one time he came to an appointment with me and he accidentally arrived early and I was teaching a fiqh class. And he learned that you have to make ghusl before in order for your wudu to count. And he's like, man, I've been married for a year. I've been giving khutbah. You have to make ghusl? Like you have to take a complete bath after like marital relations? I'm like, bro, you've been giving khutbahs around this entire area. The guy's like, wallahi, I swear no one ever taught me this. So you'd be surprised.
Like people in some positions that are so high, you have an expectation. They don't know some of the most basic fundamental things. That's what really inspired me to start. May Allah guide us and keep us, guide us, shifu. Wallahi, waalaikumsalam. Namaste, ameen. I guess that leaves us to some rapid fire questions on fiqh or on ghusl. I don't know, we've gone over the hour, Mark. So I want to take some questions, inshallah, from the audience. Not too many, but here's one. Can you please give us any book suggestion for teenagers to explain Islam with logic? Yeah, one of them I recommend is called Islam, The Natural Way by Abdul Wahid Hamid. Another one is Towards Understanding Islam by Maulana Maududi. Another one would be God, Islam, and the Skeptic Mind by two professors, forgot their names. Let's see, Muhyiddin and Muhyiddin or something. Shukr Allah, jazakallah khair. This is the only other question we got. Is the Day of Judgment for every being in the entire universe? You guys can answer that. Sure, if it's for you, it's... It's for us, shifu. Is the Day of Judgment for every being in the entire universe? Yes. Pass on it. Yeah, I don't really understand where it's coming from. I try to understand the question. I can answer it with that more detail. We'll see, inshallah, if that inspires a few more questions. Let's get, inshallah, to the rapid fire and then we'll conclude, bismillah. So these are just quick questions. Of course, we already asked you Marvel versus DC. We'll ask you some quick questions, inshallah. Do you prefer the spring or the fall? Spring. Chocolate or vanilla? Chocolate. Chai or coffee?
Coffee. Mountains or oceans? That's a tough one. Oceans, aren't we? Yeah, oceans. If you had to choose between these two, would you want your steak well done or rare? Well done. Why? Sorry, man. This is my litmus test question. I'm about to make Toba right now. Okay, if you had to choose a favorite city, but you can't choose Mecca or Medina or Al-Quds, what do you choose? Oh man, Geneva. Geneva. What is the most beautiful place you've ever seen, visited? Geneva. Makes sense. It's like consistent. What language do you wish you knew? Japanese. What is the most interesting... Why Japanese? Sorry. I'm a fan of Japanese culture in general. So it would just be easier to get along and maybe I could get some more ins to like Japanese history and other things that are restricted for foreigners. What's the most interesting thing you've ever tasted? Interesting thing I've ever tasted. It was at a sushi bar. What was it called? Oh, quail egg shooter. Quail egg shooter. It's like this quail egg inside of a shot glass full of soy sauce. You're supposed to like... Whoa, that's sodium city, brother.
Yeah, it's pretty strong. Googling it right now. It's... Yeah, much so love, brother. It came with the all you can eat buffet. So I'm like, I might as well try it. Wow, much so love. What was your first job? First job was computer programmer at Aqueduct. Kind of more on the network side, but computer programming. Nice. Since you're into comic books, this should be an easy one for you. What superpower do you wish you had? Oh, mind reading. If you had to choose to be an animal, which animal would you choose? Animal, shark. Shark, that's a good one. All right, I didn't get one other question somebody put in here. So I think it's a good one for you to cover a bit. What would you advise a person who's in denial of the Dean or not sure about the Dean? I would advise them to read with an open mind and to ask Allah for help and to guide them. If they believe in Allah, then they should definitely ask Allah for guidance and or they should just continue reading as much as possible with an open mind. Read the right books, ask people of wisdom to guide you to what to read, and then make sure you put in the effort and the time to read properly and carefully and reflect on it. Just like Loughhead. Okay, Shaif, the last question we like to ask our guests, if you can go back in time and give some advice to your younger self, maybe that young man who's storming out of the house, what advice would you give him? Yeah, actually, instead of the reading the mind superpower, it'd probably be time travel, but yeah. So going back, advice that I would give is a number of things.
I would first say that don't be arrogant. Arrogance is going to destroy you in your life. And if you believe in an afterlife, it'll also destroy your afterlife too. And I would also say, don't waste so much of your time because your time is precious and you can benefit from a little bit of entertainment, but there's more to life than that. And if you really care about being an enlightened, intellectual, rational person, then behave like one and read the right things, read things which are gonna be of benefit to you in this dunya as well as in the akhira. So, JazakAllah khair. It's beautiful. Shaif, JazakAllah khair for coming on. And honestly, you need to come on again because I wanted to ask you about other questions that you've dealt with in your career as a imam and a khateeb. Unfortunately, we didn't even have time to get to it, but JazakAllah khair for coming and sharing your story with us, which was really interesting. And I think a lot of people inshallah will benefit from it. So may Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la add this to your scale of good deeds on the day of judgment. Ameen. JazakAllah khair. And inshallah, we'll see everyone next week. And again, you can get us where you get your podcasts and you can watch us live on YouTube as well. And so we hope to see you all inshallah next week in the net. JazakAllah khair. JazakAllah khair, Shaikh. Wa alaikum salam. Wa alaikum salam. JazakAllah khair. Wa alaikum salam. Wa alaikum salam.
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