Sincerely, Yours
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Sincerely, Omar Suleiman
Transcript
This transcript was auto-generated using AI and may contain misspellings. Wa'alaikumussalam for joining us. This is your brother Ibrahim Hindi with my co-host Sheikh Abdullah Al-Duru. Sheikh Abdullah, how are you doing? I'm good. Alhamdulillah. Wa'alaikumussalam wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh. Hello everyone. Thank you for tuning in. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you for tuning in. As always, you know, let us know that you're here. Give us your salam in the chat. Let us know where you're coming to us from. We love to hear where everybody's from and making sure that everybody, you know, is excited. Inshallah, Sheikh Abdullah, we got a big guest today. I don't know if you heard. Oh really? Is that the cue to give the drum roll now? The duff roll? Excuse me. Introducing. Someone in the comments says, fashionably late. Yeah, I mean, we have to make a big deal. We got a big guest, right? A tall guest. Where's everyone coming to us from? Give us, let us know inshallah where you're from. Let us know if you have any questions. Today we're going to have a bit of a tighter engagement because our guest does have to leave. At some, so you know, he's a busy man. He's got very little time. So unlike the other guests, we went on almost an hour and a half. We're going to have to cut it short at about an hour inshallah today. So that just means more jam-packed inshallah with excitement. So let us know inshallah where you're coming at us from. I see brother Diallo, Salam Alaikum from New York City. Sister Arzu, Salam Alaikum from Canada. I see a brother from Sri Lanka. A sister, Sara, from Turkey, mashallah. Sister Hiba from London, Canada. Not to be confused with London of the UK, Sheikh. I don't know if you know we have a London here too. Oh really? Mashallah, Tabarak Allah. We have a Paris here too. It's interesting, you said more, you said, did you say more jam-packed or more gym-packed? Or is it both? You tell me, Sheikh. I don't know. I'm not from Canada. Canada, I don't know if it's, you know, mashallah. I'll take jam-packed, mashallah.
GM, not GYM, but I mean, alhamdulillah. Maybe that is why. Alhamdulillah. Alhamdulillah. Okay, with that inshallah, let's introduce our guest for today. We have Sheikh Omar Suleiman. Dr. Omar Suleiman is the founder and president of the Yaqeen Institute for Islamic Research. And he is the adjunct professor of Islamic Studies in the Graduate Liberal Studies program at SMU. He's also the resident scholar at the Valley Ranch Islamic Center. There's a lot more I can say, but everyone joining us here, I'm sure, knows our guest very well. Assalamualaikum, Sheikh Omar. Waalaikumussalam, rahmatullah wa barakatuh. You stole my co-host, man. This is, this feels so wrong. I feel, this is what it's like to be the third guy. That's right. Alhamdulillah, what happened, man? You ditched America and went to Canada? It's called boredom, Sheikh. It's called boredom. You got bored with me. That's what it is. Yeah, it could be understood like that, but I didn't say you did. That's why I rub my forehead and say it's my expiation to do good to you, inshallah. You're going to have to seek my forgiveness, inshallah, for that comment. It's going to hurt for a while. Just to be clear, I was on time. They just put me backstage. That is true. And the only reason why we're doing an hour is because we got to pray Maghrib. That's what it is. Oh, mashallah, mashallah. It's salah. It's salatul salah. But it's good to be with you guys, alhamdulillah. Jazakumullah khayran, Sheikh Ibrahim and Sheikh Abdullah. You guys have been doing a great job, mashallah. I've enjoyed thoroughly every session thus far, alhamdulillah. I'm not trying to take over host duties here. I'm just saying I've enjoyed it, alhamdulillah. I look forward to being your guest tonight, inshallah. Do I get a certificate after this or something like that? How do you all treat your guests?
I'm a layf, this time. I'm not a host here. I'm a guest. I expect an edible arrangement, a bouquet of flowers, some chocolate, a personal letter from Sheikh Abdullah to apologize. That would kind of be an insult to the earlier guests because they didn't receive it either. So, you know, you got to be equal. I think, you know, Sheikh Abdullah, if taken for a gym session, that would be. GYM. Yeah, GYM. I've challenged them on Instagram. They have yet to come. There's a football field right by Valley Ranch. If you go on my Instagram. He doesn't want it. You don't want that. You and Sheikh Yasir Burjess and Sheikh Abdullah Nasser, all of you. Let's go. Football field, basketball court, I got you. But I'm not touching weights with you. Nothing. My son told me about you and the basketball court, but we'll leave that for another. No, no, no, no, no. Say it, say it, say it. Bismillah, yallah. He said you got game. He said, you know, you got a nice shot. And then he stopped. All right. That's where he stopped. I'm not touching weights with you, Sheikh. I'll play basketball with you. I'll play football with you. I'll play baseball with you. Maybe, you know, I've done that for a while. I'll do some baseball. But I'm not, I am not weightlifting with you. Calisthenics, pull-ups, push-ups. I don't know what those are. I have no idea what he's talking about. But, yeah, treadmills maybe. I'll race you. I'll see if I can beat you in two minutes. Bismillah. Okay. Yeah, Masallah. Five-yard run, bismillah, we'll see. We'll do like, yeah, we'll do a triathlon or something like that. We'll do something. Yeah. This has got to be filmed, though. We need it live-streamed.
I'm not, look, Sheikh Abdullah, bring it on, man. Bismillah. Okay, we'll see. We'll see. It's a challenge. The whole world knows now. So follow my Instagram because I put it on there, inshallah. I challenge these guys all the time. We will see, inshallah. We'll make up before Quran 30 for 30. Inshallah. Inshallah. And then the real co-host will take his seat back, Sheikh Ibrahim. Sorry, man. It's how we Americans do, Sheikh Ibrahim. Just, you know, just kind of, that's how we go back and forth. Yeah, we're not very nice, Sheikh. In Canada, I would have apologized to you already 10 times. I would have said sorry, but no. And we're Texans now. We both, me and Sheikh Abdullah, have both been corrupted by Texas. Look, even my lights are getting upset now. The light's starting to go out. It's like, I need to stop now. All right. Sheikh, when we were trying to put together the thumbnail for this session, and they said, you know, the tall imam, but, which is true, you know, subhanAllah, I don't know, you don't know this, actually. We actually met once a while ago at the Reviving Islamic Spirit conference. I was helping my wife out at a booth. She was selling, she has many businesses, mashallah. So I was helping her out. And you came by and we said Sadam, actually. Like, you didn't know me at that time, but I did notice how very tall you are, mashallah, towering over us. But the other thing we wanted to put on the thumbnail was, instead of the tallest imam, maybe the multitasking imam, because mashallah. Why didn't you go that way? Why didn't you go that route? Why did you have to do the tall one? The whole tall thing? Yeah. Because it's actually on the thumbnail, so we have to actually use it. Ready to go. Why didn't you call me the slow imam? Like, if you put Sheikh Abdullah on there, would you have called? I'm just saying, you know.
If we put Sheikh Abdullah, I would have been the jacked imam. You know, I moved up to 30-pound dumbbells recently, you know. Sheikh Abdullah, all right, enough of this, yeah. Slow clap. In each hand, ala fikrah, yaani. Mashallah. Shwey shwey, ruwayden ruwayden. Yeah. Alhamdulillah. So, you know, Sheikh, like there are a lot of things in your bio that we didn't even put in there. Like, for instance, I know you were part of, you know, the founders of Muhsin, which is a group that helps serve Muslims with disabilities. And, you know, just myself working with you and working with Yaqeen, I see, like, subhanAllah, you have a lot on your plate. And I think a lot of people would love to know, like, how do you multitask? Like, how do you get involved in so many different things? And what do you do to kind of keep yourself able to not just do 10 things, but none of them come out well, but instead multitasking and still having, you know, a high degree of success with the things that you're trying to do? Allahumma laakal hamd. So, look, first of all, it's purely the fadl of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, anything that we achieve, right, whether it's through capacity of Yaqeen or otherwise, alhamdulillah, for everything that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala has given us the opportunity to. Serving this deen or serving Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala through this deen is the greatest honor that a person can have. Allahumma asta'amanna wa laa tastabdina. Right, the du'a that we make, oh, Allah, use us, don't replace us. And there are various ways to do that, right? So you mentioned Muhsin. There are three, like, essential components of myself. And, you know, anyone that knows me knows that, you know, I try my best to honor what I feel like my parents imparted on me. That's a big part of my life, right? And so I learned a lot through them, alhamdulillah, al-Rahman.
And it's a lot of it as part of, you know, my mom's legacy, Allah alhamha. And there were three essential components that I set out to achieve in my life. One of them had to do with special needs. And it was about meeting the right person and the right people to actualize that vision. And Tabarakur Rahman Muhsin was founded, Muslims understanding and helping with special education needs. Because my mother was partially deaf. And so I saw the struggles there. So that was, you know, so Muhsin was a lot, was very near and dear to my heart. Because I realized when it comes to special needs, a lot of people, the only people that I've seen that are passionate about special needs are people, or I don't want to use absolute, most of the people that are passionate about special needs are passionate about special needs because they have a child with special needs or someone that is really, really close to them with special needs, which I think we need to change. So the idea of bringing about Muhsin, I didn't have to do very much. Sister Juhi Taar, who's our executive director and what she's formed of a team out there. And now it's spread throughout the country, spread throughout North America and in many ways has touched the world, right, changing perceptions and concepts. Yaqeen is actually my only full-time commitment. Everything else I do is not as a staff member. So everything else I do is as a volunteer. Yaqeen is my full-time. It's something that I'm so proud of all of the brothers and sisters that are involved with actualizing the vision of Yaqeen. And Yaqeen's vision is not uniquely mine, nor is the work uniquely mine. It's something that's shared between all of us that we love and we care about so much.
And it's certainly what takes up the vast majority of my time, studying and teaching this deen and disseminating that content in a way that inspires confidence in the faith, inshallah, and contribution through it, which is an iteration of that confidence. And then there's honestly the refugee experience, which inshallah ta'ala there'll be more coming through there, you know, with the refugee experience and refugee work. That was something that I grew up very close to. So those are causes, right? When it comes to how I try to divide my time and how I tend to multitask, I think that one thing is that you have to be very passionate about what you do. You can't replace passion. Like you have to love what you do. You have to love what you do, right? So I think the first thing is passion, because if you love what you do, if you're passionate about what you do, then it will pull you through some of those hard times and difficult times when you're trying to take whatever you're doing to the next level. So you can't replace passion. Nothing can replace passion. Just like in a spiritual sense, nothing can replace niya. You can't replace intention, right? So nothing can replace passion. And that's the first thing. The second thing is perseverance. And purpose is perseverance. And so that is something that I think is very important. It's an ingredient that you can't necessarily calculate for. It's not time-based. It's just something that you have to feel deep inside of you. And that's why the emphasis in Ardina and what? Renewing the intention. You've got to renew your intention constantly. Because the effort will start to slack, the lack of excellence will start to show, the lack of excellence in what you do. And eventually that manifests itself in something, in the effort. So I think passion is very important.
And then guard your time. Guard your time. Your time is very, very, very important. There are some really passionate people out there that have a lot of potential, but they have very, very, very poor time management. And it really boils down to that. And time management for us does not just include, you know, how you set your alarms and how often you sleep. Time management for us, embedded in that, is Salah. Embedded in that is your Wirt. Your remembrance of Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala. Your recitation. Embedded in that are your sleep habits. But you can't have sleep habits in Islam without knowing what your prayer habits are going to be as well. Embedded in all of that are the things that you do to personally enrich yourself. Embedded in that, even being mindful of your leisure. You know, SubhanAllah, like, you know, Sheikh Abdullah, I know Sheikh Abdullah works out a lot, which is a great thing, Alhamdulillah. I mean, you got to have that. Like, you've got to have that. It's actually one of the things that I'm really grateful for the last two years. I haven't been able to travel as much as I used to, just getting into leisure, you know, playing flag football, playing basketball, working out. Not as much as Sheikh Abdullah. But having those things is really intentionally, really, really special. And I think that's really important. Guard your time. Be very intentional about your time. Because even if you have passion and purpose, you can be all over the place. And one of the things, and I'll stop with this because I realize this is a very, very long winded answer here. And maybe you can, if you heard something that you want me to elaborate further on. You know, a lot of times very talented people get away with bad time management. But not for long. Right? Like, if you're really good at something, just naturally, Allah gifted you with something.
Whether that's writing or being an orator, being a leader, being an organizer, being a volunteer, being even an athlete. Right? Something. Allah gifted you with something as a gift from Him. Because all of these are gifts from Allah. Any blessing that we have is a gift from Allah. They get away with it for a bit. Right? Like, you can get away with limited success. And eventually, like, your poor habits will catch up with you. So, poor time management catches up with you. The inability to focus, the inability to, you know, to compartmentalize properly. And to set your goals properly. We just finished Dr. Tasneem's series, Alhamdulillah, on habits. That's a really important, really, really important series. Like, it's not empty. It has a lot of substance to it. And they're small, short episodes. But if we really act on those things, then that will do something for us, inshallah. Absolutely. Yeah, subhanallah, I think I was actually going to mention that video series, Habits to Win, by Dr. Tasneem, which has, you know, been a great series, mashallah, and incredible feedback coming from it. You know, Sheikh, maybe can you elaborate a little bit on the, you know, the concept of, not really the concept, but what if somebody says, okay, I just don't feel passionate. Yeah. Right? They feel like there's nothing in life they feel passionate about. How do they get that purpose? How do they get that passion? استجيبوا لله و إلى الرسول إذا دعاكم لما يحييكم The Quran gives you life. Reflection, تدبر و تفكر gives you life. ذكر gives you life. ومن أعرض عن ذكري فإن له معيشة ضنك Turn away from Allah's remembrance. It gets really constricting.
The opposite of constriction is capacity. To be able to do a lot and to be able to take on. And that's not just to quantify everything, right? A lot of, and that does distinguish us quite a bit from a lot of the, you know, the tools for success and productivity, things that measure everything purely based on quantity and awards and things. No, for us, it's, there's a lot of quality as well. There's being a part of something in the background. Like we revel in a lot of the stuff that others would consider to be not praiseworthy. So how do you continue to, how do you continue to renew purpose? You go back to what inspired it in the first place. The Quran is to be frequently read. Like imagine if the Sahaba only read the Quran once. You really think they would have been able to accomplish what they accomplished? Imagine if it was just a constitution that you revisit every once in a while as a book of law. It wouldn't, you wouldn't be able to keep going. And so Allah created us as beings that need to always eat to survive. You can't eat once a week, no matter how much you eat. If you chose one day a week and you ate for the week, you took the same proportion of food that you're going to eat throughout the week and you just ate it on one day, you would die. Right? Spiritually speaking, it's very similar how we nourish the soul. It's not like you can just do Juma and you're good. You know, like no, Allah created us to need to constantly go back to our water, our food, and in the bodily sense and with the sense of the soul as well. That's what the word is. The word by the way, which refers to your regular recitation, your regular. It literally is your regimen of remembrance. Wird actually refers to going to the water and drinking from it.
So is to take the Arabs. That's when you take the camel to the water and you let the camel drink from the water to continue for the journey. Look how Allah created us. Alhamdulillah, Allah did not say to us, for example, look, you have five prayers a day, but if you want just knock them all out. You know, you have a month to do it. Right? Like that wouldn't have been good for us. That would not have been good for us. The five Salawat pull us away. They nourish us. If we do them properly, they give us the right perspective to renew that purpose. So Islam has this constant emphasis on renewal. And I look at the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. Look, the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam is the best at everything. He really is, right? He's perfection, as a worshipper, as a leader, as a family man, as a brother, as a friend. And he perfects it, right? Alayhi Salatu Wasallam. And when Aisha radiAllahu ta'ala Anha asked him why he prays so much at night, and he said, Afala akoonu abdan shakoora, shall I not be a grateful servant? So he was praying out of gratitude, right? What does Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la say about those who increase in gratitude? Wala in shakartum la azeedanakum. If you are grateful, I will increase you. And the increase is not limited to one realm. Allah did not say what He increases you in. He increases you in everything. SubhanAllah, faith and perspective, capacity. So it's renewal. It really is renewal, tajdeed, renewing the heart, renewing the intention, renewing purpose through prayer, renewing your attachment to Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la, renewing your detachment from the dunya through sadaqah, through charity and acts of volunteerism, right? It's renewal, renewal, renewal, renewal, so that you don't slack off and don't lose your sense of purpose in the process.
SubhanAllah, I mean, how was this, Sheikh, jazakumullah khair for this insight from the aspect of time management. When did it really hit you? I mean, when you were younger and until now, you know, that you really said, you know what, you started to do the talab and, you know, seeking knowledge and then their request to do things here, you get an email there, you get a call there. Have you ever had the time where you double booked and you missed something and you had to tell people, look, I'm so sorry. You know, when did that really start for you? At what age, at what time, where were you? Because you're originally from New Orleans, correct? Yeah, yeah. The NO. The NO. The 504. That's what my Twitter handle is. A lot of people don't get it. Why do you have 504? Where there were 503 Omar Suleyman's, you just have to be 504. So when did it start? You know, last night I was talking about hubb al-ansar. If you go to the first lecture last night, it's the love of the ansar. And I came across this narration from Aisha, where she was saying the day of Bu'ath, which was the war in which most of the ansar, their parents perished, and it was a lot of turmoil in Medina, was the day Allah presented the Prophet, because it presented an opportunity because the people were in turmoil. And because they were in turmoil, they were thirsty. They were humbled and they were thirsty. And so Islam was so beautiful to them. They were ready to take it on. They'd already seen the false promises of dunya and people that attach themselves to false ideals and to pride and position and power and things of that sort. I had a really hard childhood, really hard childhood. And I'm not saying that to complain. I'm saying that actually from a place of hamd.
Alhamdulillah for that. Really alhamdulillah, because those difficulties caused me to think about what the reality of life was and purpose was very, very, very early on. And so my mom was sick a lot growing up. I've talked about this in other places. And I say it because it's like, you know, I could have taken that and said to myself, you know, like, and I did at times. I mean, I was weak at times. I was a kid, you know, how come I can't be like the other kids? Right? Why can't I have a normal child? How come they get picked up by their parents? I get picked up by my dad and I'm going to the hospital because mom's in a coma. Mom had another stroke, you know, like, how come? Right? Why is this happening? Why is that? And I had those weak moments. But then that, so the personal difficulty in that, living with the uncertainty of my mom's health, which showed me the reality of dunya very, very early on, as well as what my parents intentionally exposed me to of the not so pretty side of things of the world with the racial injustices, predominant, very predominant in Louisiana, by the way. Like, you know, I saw, I saw Klan rallies, Ku Klux Klan. I saw, I saw those rallies, right? I saw racism very pronounced. I encountered, I mean, I've talked about this in other places, me and my best friend, my brother Yusuf, like we got beat up by the Klan. We didn't know why we were getting beat up. We were trying to walk to Winn-Dixie and pick up chips and salsa. And just got beat up by these people because we weren't white. And it was bad. So being exposed to that, being exposed to the Palestinian cause, knowing my parents' history, coming into contact with that, right, and what they encountered. And then the Bosnian, I just came back from Bosnia. It was one of the most meaningful trips of my life, subhanAllah. Like Bosnia was happening in the nineties, right? And that was like really close to us.
And our parents, you know, parents really made it a point to expose us to that. So it was Bosnia. It was Somalia. It was so much that was happening. Kashmir, right, which is still, these are still ongoing. So getting exposed to all that, just it exposed the reality of dunya. And so I'm just connecting it to last night's lecture. Cause I'm like, I realized that turmoil in my childhood, both what I was exposed to as a matter of circumstance and as a matter of parents exposing me to it, all of it, part of the decree of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, you know, was something that Allah azawajal gifted me with. And I really grew up to understand like, these were gifts. These were gifts to me. I'm glad that doesn't mean you have to thank Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala or, well, you have to thank Allah for everything. That doesn't mean you have to say like, I enjoyed hardship, but overall I understand what exposure to hardship meant to me. But Alhamdulillah, I wasn't in poverty and things of that sort. All of that though did mean a lot of, a lot of questioning, a lot of questioning, like why? And I want purpose. And then, you know, at that point, so I was like a really weird 12 year old, a really, really weird. I'm like going back to there, right? I was 6'2 when I was 12. I love playing ball. I love playing football. Hold on, 6'2? When I was 12 years old. So I was 5'4 when I was 11 and then I was 6'2 when I was 12. Wow. I'm like, so I love playing basketball, but I looked like a grown man by the time I was 13. Like when people saw me, I remember, I still remember this moment, like being in middle school and like, I remember one of the workers at the school saw me and he shouted out like a curse word, like, and he's like, how many times did you fail?
And I'm like, no, I'm actually 13 years old. He thought I was like an 18 year old still in middle school or something like that. Right? Oh man. My best friend, Yusuf, who was Joshua at the time, converted to Islam and Yusuf is funny man. You know Yusuf. Yusuf is funny, man. Yeah. So Yusuf, big Yos, was like my height as well. I played basketball. He played football. We looked like these two overgrown children in middle school that just didn't belong there. Like we were either teacher's assistants or we failed like multiple times. And then on top of that, to make matters worse, I was like, I was like a deep kid, man. Like, so I was trying to have like really deep, profound, philosophical conversations with, with, with, with, I'm realizing now that I'm jumping the gun. So Yusuf, my best friend, Joshua, and I, best friend since first grade, we decided, we're like brothers. We decided to explore religion together. All right. So I'm asking all these questions, deep philosophical questions. I'm like, I don't know if I believe in a religion. I believe in God. And I'm like reading the Bible front to back. I'm like 13 years old, man. I'm like, so we're like, we're like, let's, let's, let's do religion stuff together. Where are you going to ask? So, so you were Muslim and Yusuf was not. Yusuf was not, he was Joshua at the time. Joshua. Okay. And y'all just, what made you just decide to want to study religion at 12? No, it was, it was, I looked, I looked weird and I started, like I was, I was that kid. Right. But 13 is when I actually got really deep into it. That's because honestly, like I had questions. I had a lot of questions. Cause I was like, man, like this stuff that's happened to me is not like, you know, I want to understand what's going on and I want to understand God and I want to understand why the world is the way that it is. So me and him were, were, we're really studying together. He was playing football. I was playing basketball.
And SubhanAllah, we both fell in love with Islam together. So he became Yusuf, Joshua became Yusuf. And then we became like a Dawah crew. You know, like it was, it was interesting. Went to McKinley where Imam Jamil Amin went to school, obviously many, many years prior. Panthers, Black Panthers. That's the name of the team mascot after H. Rat Brown before he was Imam Jamil. And that was McKinley High. So I'm talking about still in middle school. All of this to say that, like I had already read the Bible. Shaykh Abdullah, you being a convert, like I'm telling you, man, I already read the Bible front to back by the time I was 13 and I had a highlighter and I still have it. It was the newly international version. When I would go and I'd like mess with like pastors over. And I was trying to be like an inquisitive 13 year old. Of course, they thought I was 18 when I'm walking into a church with the Bible and Yusuf. And like I had the newly international version, I'm like highlighting things. I'm like asking questions and stuff like that. And they were just like stumped, like, what is wrong with you? Like, why are you asking these questions, man? Are you trying to get off of drugs? What's your problem? Why are you interested in religion early? Right. Are you? What's your deal? Right. So that's when Shaykh Abdullah took religion really seriously. Look, fast forward, I'd say, you know, that's when my journey started really, really, really early on. And I credit my parents. I credit my parents for multiple things. And, you know, like realization later on in life, for one thing, my, my, like my father and mother exposed me to serious questions and serious things happen in life at an early age. They didn't try to shelter me from it. It's like, no, no, you're responsible. You have to do stuff. Hey, all this stuff happening in the world, you have, you have a purpose. We're connected to this. We have an amana.
No, you're not just going to go play around and not have any meaning in life until you figure it out in college. I hung out with largely older people when I was younger. I was forced into, you know, thinking about things at a young age. My parents encouraged that and didn't treat me like a child. And so I really like, I appreciate that now, like, you know, and I realize it having, you know, I got, I got my, my own kids now. Right. So like when you talk to your kid, like an adult not, not in an admonishing fashion, but in by way of like, Hey, like I'm proud of you. You're mature. Like you're going to do something, something, and here's what you should be. You know, how do we think about this? Ask him questions about, you know, ask him deep questions. When you talk to your kids and I see you do it with your kids, too, Sheikh Abdullah, man, I love the relationship, you know, with your relationship you have with your kids. By the way, on Monday night I was doing our daughter's Halakha. May was sitting next to Arwa. My daughter was sitting next to your daughter, by the way. I thought that was really cool. You know, it's funny. My wife told me today that Abdullah was sitting next to Ibrahim. And in your lecture, you talked about Abdullah. And then my wife said that Ibrahim turned to Abdullah and Abdullah turned to Ibrahim and they started laughing because you were talking about Abdullah in your lecture. That's true. So, but like talk to your kids. Like if you have kids, like talk to them early on, like not like don't don't like crush them. Don't like cast doubts, but like talk to them like adults, have them like engage them in your adult conversations, like bring them into when you're talking to your friends. Like, OK, like Imam Ahmed, Rahim Allah, his son Abdullah mentions, right, that that he used to bring them and he used to sit him down and he would just observe the manners he wanted. Imam Ahmed wanted him to observe the manners of Shafi and Rahim Allah and other great Imams. And of course, that became the thing with Imam Ahmed that 5000 people would attend his
dars, only 4500 of them. I'm sorry, only 500 of them were taking notes. The other 4500 were just observing his manners. Like expose them to to to to adults, like let them be a part of Halqa, let them be a part of your conversation. Even like little children that are only capable of playing games and don't have anything to think about right now in life, then they're going to act like that. Right. So I think building their character a bit. And I believe that Shaykh Ibrahim has a great parenting series here. Maybe you can chime in here to Shaykh Ibrahim. Yes, SubhanAllah, it's entirely true. I was just thinking myself as you were talking about, you know, Dr. Abdullah Idrees, I'm sure you know him very well. Of course. So he was my he was my principal in Islamic school. No way. Yeah. And I have this vivid memory. I remember my teacher told me to go get something from the kitchen in the school. So I went down to get something and he was in the kitchen with a group of like men, middle-aged men. They're having breakfast. And you know, some of them were friends of my father and so on. But he saw me and he's like, Ibrahim, come eat with us. And I'm like, well, my teacher wants me to get something. And I was like, OK. So I literally I pulled up and I sat with them and I ate and they're talking about like politics and stuff that grownups talk about. And I sat with them that whole hour. And then I went back to my class and thankfully my teacher forgot what she asked me to get. But, you know, I just thought SubhanAllah, it was like a moment of tadbiyah where he wants to treat me as an adult. And then I feel respected because I'm included amongst the adults. And then when you feel respected, then you want to act in a way that you respect others and you feel mature and you feel because you're being treated like that. And that's exactly how the Prophet ﷺ used to treat the youth at the time. Just like you mentioned, you know, the famous story where the water is being passed around and the Prophet ﷺ, he asks the young child, would you permit me to give it to someone else before you?
And the young child says, no, I want to drink after you because he wanted that proximity to the Prophet ﷺ. But just asking the child permission, like most people would just say, forget about you. I'm just going to give this to the adult and pass over you. But he treats the child with respect. And so that's a way of raising your children to feel respect and maturity at an early age. And you know what, SubhanAllah, you brought up Sheikh Abdullah Idrees, who's truly just a murabbi in everything that he does for those of you that don't know him. Amazing human being, mashaAllah, like belongs to that legion of the legends, Dr. Jamal Badawi, Sheikh Abdullah, you know, Dr. Ahmed Saqqar, rahim Allah, passed away. Like when Sheikh Abdullah meets you as a kid, right, he gives you a firm handshake. He still talks to you like you're like, I see it now, even as an adult, right, when he meets like younger, younger children and stuff like that. So it's really I think that's really a big part of this and tell the Prophet, so I sound like so that our daughter, Sheikh Abdullah and I, our daughters are in a class right now, 40 Hadith, I know we are older daughters. And so I was I was asked to talk about the Hadith of Ibn Abbas radiAllahu anhuma when the Prophet turns around and talks and says, ya Ghulam, inni wa'alimuka bil kalimat, ya Ghulam, ya Ghulam, until the end of the hadith, right, where the Prophet is riding with him and he turns around and gives him like serious advice that I'm best was like 10, 10, 11 years old and the Prophet turns around to him like the Prophet is got to tend to a whole community, right. He's got to tend to these big things. But he has the time and his thoughts of time to turn around and talk to Abdullah and abbas put his hands on his shoulders and to give him like very deep, meaningful advice that that we memorize and recite today to adults and children alike in this ummah. Think about what that did to the psyche of Abdullah. Like, wow, the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam is talking to me like that. Like, I'm a young man, I need to take this seriously.
Like, let me sit up and let me make sure I memorize what he's saying. You know, like that's how you raise people. And I think it's very instructive for us. Yes, SubhanAllah, it's beautiful how you mentioned that, you know, because a number of the hadith, it's an answer to a question from a young man. Or it's the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam just, you know, Abdullah bin Umar, even in Arba'ina, kun fit dunya ka'anika gharibu wa'abir al-sabeed. You know, he grabbed him by his shoulders and he looked at him, he said, be in this world as though you were a stranger or a wayfarer. He was young. You know, a lot of these hadith that we see from the companions, the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam is speaking to them. He's starting the conversation. He's initiating it. It's experiential. And SubhanAllah, I think it's important how you mentioned how your parents exposed you to a lot of these things which help inculcate passion for, you know, to be exposed to things. And say, you know what, this is what I want to, you know, khuliktu lihadh shan. I think this is what Allah put me here to do. You have the opportunity to make those decisions. And I think with the parents, you know, a lot of times of wanting to quote unquote, as we say, shelter, with lowercase letters, to shelter the children, we may need to revisit that in regards to, you know, like how you mentioned how, I remember when we first came to Dallas, you know, there was, you know, when Trump was being elected and we were in the airport and my daughter, when she came to the airport, she loved it. She's like, Baba, what is this? And I explained it to her. And then she was like, you know, this is what America looks like. You know, she was going back and forth. And she was like, when she saw that I didn't, that's another thing with parents. Don't lose the opportunity to learn your children, not learn about, just learn them in these different occasions. And it's priceless. It's priceless. So JazakAllah khair for mentioning that. It's a beautiful thing. It's a beautiful thing. Sheikh, you know, we're talking about, you know, multitasking and all of that as well. I kind of wanted to ask you, how do you know,
how do you decide, you know, what you want to get involved in? Like, is there a method of like, there's so many different opportunities and things and, you know, how do you gauge on when and what to get involved in? JazakAllah khair. That's a great question. I think, look, not everything that is good is everything that you need to be doing. Okay? So you ask, how do I fill a void? What's missing? So what's missing and what am I uniquely equipped to do? What's missing? And what am I uniquely equipped to do? Not because of myself. Allah Azza wa Jalla does not look at you. Arrogance is when you start to attribute anything to yourself. It's all from Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala. So what's the void and what am I uniquely equipped to fill? To be fully present in what you do is very important. You can lend your support to multiple things, but to be fully present is very important. Otherwise, you're just going to be all over the place, scattered, and you're not going to actually be able to make any progress in anything. You're just doing a bunch of things and you don't have any intention. You don't have any sort of roadmap for that particular thing. Then you're going to get kind of lost and doing a bunch of stuff and not really doing anything. Right? So personally, I think that because... So look, for me, learning and teaching is always going to be me. Inshallah Ta'ala, there's nothing... Like this is refuge for me. I love studying this deen. I love teaching this deen. I love the Seerah of the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. I love the history of the Sahaba. I love this deen and I love studying it and I love teaching it. Right? So like for me, that's always got to be like my...
I wouldn't be true to myself if that's not the majority of what I do. Right? But when it comes to other things, you know, obviously I've been involved in a lot of multi-faith work, working with other communities and things of that sort. I feel like that's a way to bring Islam to the realm of ideas, you know, especially at the dialogue level. And I think that Islam naturally shines when it's brought to the conversation, the realm of ideas. Right? And so I love talking about this deen. And a lot of that is a reflection, by the way, of again, when I was kind of asking questions and studying, like I learned a lot about Christianity. I learned a lot about Bible. I learned a lot about the book and the scriptures. And that was something that was very profound, you know, and early on getting exposed to that stuff. Like I just I really loved, I really love studying that, you know, by the way, funny, funny story. Sheikh Ahmed Didat, rahim Allah, the famous story with like Jimmy Swigert, the debate with Jimmy Swigert, that was at LSU. My father and my father-in-law at the time were involved in like that whole thing, hosting Sheikh Ahmed Didat at LSU. You know, I grew up playing basketball on Jimmy Swigert's courts. Jimmy Swigert told me I was going to hell once. That's another story. Way too deep, right? But like getting involved in like, wow, there was such a confidence and pride in this faith and what it is. Right. So I love talking about the deen. I love talking about it with people that don't know anything about it. So whether that's in the in the capacity of like dialogue and things of that sort. But then I also love, I love that Islam, that Muslims can be present in the work of anti-poverty, anti-war, anti-oppression, like Islam taking a front seat there, Muslims being in the front there, and not just in the front for the cameras, but actually leading the way. So I take a lot of pride in our community.
When we had the homeless shelters pop up this past weekend because of the freeze in Dallas, it was the Muslims, alhamdulillah, that provided every meal. That just, I love that. Right. And so I believe that that's extremely important to be a part of that. And so multi-faith work, dialogue about the faith, getting involved in a few things when it comes to anti-war work, anti-oppression work. I do, I'll kind of end with this inshallah, then hand it back to you. And by the way, we can go to 7.10 my time inshallah. But I do, I think it's very important for us to speak for those who don't often get spoken for. Political prisoners, big one, big one. Right. Whether it's Imam Jamil or Dr. Afi or others. Very important for us to take that on. The Holy Land Foundation. We can't abandon people domestically. We can't abandon people globally. Sometimes, you know, Palestine, Palestine has become very, it's become a burden for people seeking mobility. Because if you champion Palestine, that means your university is going to get calls. If you work at a university, your job's going to be threatened. You become a pariah very quickly if you really speak on Palestine. And obviously, it's not just Palestine. But the point is that Muslims have to take up things that allow for, especially your voiceless brothers and sisters, to be heard when there's so much that's against them and so much trying to suffocate them.
And you can't talk about the oppression of the Muslim world without talking about the oppression of black people in America as a whole. And of course, those things are not mutually exclusive, black and Muslim, because a lot of Muslims are black and a lot of black people are Muslim. But I'm talking about the overall, the way that that works, the way that policing operates in America is very similar to the way that militarism operates in the Muslim world. It's the same machine, same dynamics, same narrative, same tactics. So you have to challenge the whole beast, if you will. You really have to challenge the whole beast. So that's a long answer to a short question. It took a lot of directions. Feel free to ask me, Inshallah, to where you are. I want to choose one direction, Shaif. I mean, you, the whole concept of the interfaith and we're in Black History Month, right? So the whole connection between African-American people, I mean, let's start with New Orleans and then even Dallas. What did you see? Was there a disconnect between the Muslim community and African-American community? You know, I remember there was one individual, I'm not going to mention his name, he's one of the African-American speaker, and he was talking about when there was the ban, during the ban of the Muslims, he was saying, you know, you know, may God help the Muslims. But where were they when we were struggling? Where were they when we were during our cause? They were in the area and they had their stores, but they weren't doing anything to help us. Right. So it was like, OK, there was no mutual respect. There was no mutual camaraderie, because when they're in certain communities, they weren't even doing anything to help change or refine the community. Rather, it was contributing to something that could be detrimental to the community. So what did you see or what have you seen that that pushed you? Number one. And number two, what would you advise the existing Muslim communities,
the existing college students and youth in regards to making an effort to get involved with interfaith and the fruits from that? Jazakallah, Sheikh. First of all, like I think those are two. So you're talking about the racial dynamics in the community and then the interfaith, interfaith work. As far as the racial dynamics in the community, man, like we have to listen to each other. We got to listen to that pain. So we have to listen to people talk about what they felt in terms of racism. Sometimes it's anti-Black racism. Sometimes it's just anti-converts in general, suspicion of converts, Black, white, Hispanic. Sometimes it's, you know, we talk about this a lot, right? You've got to talk about the way that people feel in the masjid and the way that people don't feel your presence as a Muslim community outside the masjid or even worse, if they feel it in a negative way. So there's a lot to unpack there. And it takes like real conversation with the Qur'an and the Sunnah guiding us as our as our ideological frameworks, as our theological boundaries, as our as our heart and soul, because we got to rule. We got to stamp that stuff out. Like racism is a disease. It has to be stamped out of our communities and then has to be stamped out of our societies, period. It's got to be stamped out of the masjid and stamped out of our societies. And if Muslims are contributing to it, whether it's through active participation and economic ways or political ways, like Muslims have to challenge themselves and be challenged to do better. So we've just got to do better. We have to. We've got to talk about it. And we can't just like I remember, subhanAllah, like so right now it's Black History Month. If the only time you talk about black history is in Black History Month, you're reinforcing a problem, right?
If the only time you talk about racism is in Black History Month, you're reinforcing a problem. If the only time black Muslims speak in our communities is Black History Month and it's only on topics about racism, then you're reinforcing the problem. Right? Like there's there's a lot here. I haven't got any calls, by the way, so I'm just going. Yeah, so, you know, so that's that's really important for us to do that. And to to really dig deep in our in our deen, in our tradition and to and our current dynamics. You know what, man, like. The Sunnah promotes like really high emotional intelligence, too. I feel like a lot of Muslims is really lack like sensitivity and emotional intelligence sometimes, like and of course, social media and the way that people throw comments at each other and the way people talk to each other doesn't help. So like we got to have like real conversations inshallah about how we collectively do better, always guided by the Quran, the Sunnah, binna naitan. Now, the interfaith part of this, there's good interfaith and then there's bad interfaith. All right. Even the word the word interfaith, like I try to use the term multi faith more intentionally, not that, you know, just because I think it's clear. Bad interfaith would be muddying the waters between your theologies. Right. And sort of putting forth a universalist or parallelist type of vision that just mixes all the right, like all the creeds and says we're all the same in creed and there's no real difference between theology and religion. Good interfaith or good multi faith is when people is when we talk about those differences in a civil fashion. And again, I think Islam just it's so beautiful that when people hear it, the ideas of it, the substance of it, you know, noise, noise stops people from hearing what should be heard. Right.
So we don't need to be noisy about our ideas. We just need to state them with confidence and with with in a civil way and in a certain way. And the idea is to speak for themselves. There isn't a single week. Alhamdulillah. Well, I shouldn't say this. Let's just say most weeks, most weeks in Valley Ranch Islamic Center, someone will come to the masjid and say that I watched this video, Islam, Judaism, Christianity, a conversation where we were talking about our religions in a way we weren't being aggressive with each other. In fact, we were being friendly with each other. But there was clear, you know, we weren't shying away from talking about the differences and things of that sort either. And that sparked someone's interest. So the ideas speak for themselves. You don't have to become aggressive. You don't have to become not to say there isn't room for debate, not to say that some people that are aggressive don't need to be dealt with in like manner. Sometimes I'm not saying that this is the only way I'm saying that this is the majority. Al-Hikmah wal-mu'idat al-hasana, wisdom and beautiful preaching. So that's good dialogue. Right. Then on the political front, you know, multi-faith work. Look, if we can work with other communities to serve the homeless, we can work with other communities to challenge oppression. We can work with other communities to do good in society. If we can work with other communities that have a shared stake with us, because religion is under threat by prescriptive secularism that can become very oppressive. Look at the 21st century. Right. When secularism becomes aggressive, it's more aggressive than any religious ideology. You see that. May Allah bless you, brother Abdullah. I see that that's how Allah give you sabbat and give you ameen.
You know, you see what's happening in France right now. You see what's happening in India right now. So the point is, is that it's important for us to work together with other faith communities without muddying the waters. Right. With our theology, nor nor suggesting that we don't have differences. But for things that we can agree upon and that makes a more holistic society. There's bad multi-faith work to the Abraham Accords. A lot of what I'm being I'm just calling out right. Like, so it's coming from the same place. Like normal normalizing ties with Israel throughout the Muslim world is being done in the name of what? In the name of promoting a better coexistence. That's not better coexistence. That's legitimizing apartheid and making better arms deals for the Muslim countries that are normalizing with Israel right now. Right. Like that's that's not Ibrahim A.S. That's not Abrahamic at all. I'm actually writing an article about about that right now, by the way. So make dua for me. See if someone houses it. Right. So a lot. So it's interesting because a lot of the faith leaders that I work with. They'll be like, oh, you know, what do you think of the Abraham Accords? And what do you think of this peace initiative out of the UAE? And I'm like, I think it's garbage. Like what? And I'm like, no, if we're going to work together, it's to fight oppression, not to validate oppression with faith. That's not how it works. And so sometimes it's really interesting because I get invited to interfaith panels all the time. I get invited to multi-faith panels all the time. And I'm just like, you know what? This person, you know, works with this, this, this. I'm like, OK, I'm not going to shy away from how I feel about those initiatives. So there's bad interfaith and there's good interfaith. There's bad multi-faith and there's good multi-faith. Ultimately, what guides us in that sense is what Ananda Sunna teach us is good. And what they teach us is as bad as bad. The last thing I'll say is, look, we have to have real empathy, not false sympathy, symbolic sympathy,
but real empathy and real solidarity when faith communities come under attack for their faith, no matter what faith they are. Because that could be any one of us. And it's not just out of a place of self-preservation. It's because we can actually relate. You know, when the AME Church was shot up, one of the closest relationships that I built was, you know, Reverend Michael Waters, very well, AME pastor here in Dallas, came after that, like the shooting of the AME Church in Charleston, where worshippers were killed in cold blood. Synagogue, we just had a synagogue situation here, hostage situation here, which was insane. I mean, it was so, it had nothing to do with Dr. Afia Siddiqui, nothing to do with Palestine. No, there's nothing noble about holding innocent Jewish people in a synagogue hostage like that. And when Christchurch happened, Quebec, Sheikh Ibrahim, Jazakallah Khair, man, your work in Canada is beautiful. It is profound. Actually, that's how I first learned about you, is the work you're doing with the Muslim community there in Canada. That's actually how I first got exposed to your work, standing up for people and people, and you forge those relationships where, you know what, like people stand up for you too. When we went to the airport after the Muslim ban, Sheikh Abdullah, you were there, like people from other faith communities came out for us, right? So it's not about being opportunistic, it's about actually relating and feeling empathy, like people in their places of worship should feel safe to worship. It's disgusting when they don't, that represents the full decay of a society, full decay of a society. Places of worship come under attack. May Allah guide us, may Allah guide us, may Allah guide us to do what's right and protect us from what is wrong.
I mean, yeah, I think SubhanAllah, like that's, it's one of those areas where people get kind of confused because they don't know. Like some people just want to swear off all multi-faith engagement completely, and then some people just want to accept it unconditionally. And I think it was great for you to outline that, that when that hostage situation happened, you went right away to help because islamically you felt that drive. And then at the same time, we can see there are people weaponize interfaith or multi-faith to change the aqeedah, change our beliefs, or they weaponize it to, you know, for their dunya purposes, to line their pockets, to oppress the Palestinians or other people around the world. And so I think that differentiation is important for people to understand, like, you know, that there's good da'wah and there's bad da'wah, just like you said. Sheikh Ibrahim, and I'll say this, by the way, the very, like when the Prophet ﷺ said, as the janazah was passing by, is it not a human soul? The janazah of a Jewish man and the Prophet ﷺ stood up and he said, is it not a human soul? Like, when I got there to Kaliville and I saw the wife of the rabbi, all I saw was a wife and a daughter, you know, and I was just, it was really, really moving. It was really, really, really moving. I'm not thinking at that point about any of the noise on the outside. I'm not like, like, man, this wife and daughter don't know if their husband's going to come back out. You know, there's a guy with a gun and he let the guy, it's sad, he let the guy in because he thought the guy was homeless and he made him a cup of tea and sat him down. And it's like, that's just terrible. It's terrible that that was exploited and taken advantage of, right? Like, it just becomes like a very, that's a fitri response. That's fitra. Like, that's how Allah created us. The rahmah that Allah put inside of us. Like, I see a wife and a daughter and I'm like, this is so messed up and I want to make sure that they get their husband back.
And so that has, that's the fitri response that has to drive us. When we see the oppression of the Palestinians or the oppression of anyone else, right? When we see that oppression, that's the fitri response. And then our work should be guided in accordance with the fitra. And the fitra is what is highlighted and defined for us in this deen. So that's really what it is at that point. Well, Sheikh, I know you have very little time left. So do you want to do rapid fire questions or respond to some of the questions in the chat? You could, maybe we can do like questions from the audience and then we can do, you choose the best question, inshallah, and then you give me some rapid fire. All right, inshallah. I'm ready for your rapid fire. I'm not afraid of it. Abdullah made, this is, my kid made this thing. So this is like, you know, I got to fight back, Sheikh Abdullah, if he comes out with a bad rapid fire question. This is not a question, but more of a comment that this made the miss score end 30 for 30 and can't wait for this year. But it leads us into- Abdullah, are we going 30 for 30 this year? Bismillah, let's go. All right, inshallah. There you go. Confirmed. Take care, first. So here's the question. How do we cleanse our hearts to prepare for Ramadan? How can we nourish our hearts to get ready for Ramadan? Since the Quran 30 for 30 crew is here, it's a good opportunity. Allahumma ballighna Ramadan. Allahumma ballighna Ramadan. Allahumma ballighna Ramadan. Don't take it for granted, y'all. We lost some really good people. I'll actually share that. Brother Nidal, I talked about him in the first yesterday really quickly. Good, good, good brother, mashallah. Very loves yaqeen, part of it. He and his sons just always involved. And he went to isha, went home and fully healthy, had a massive heart attack. Two salats later is being carried into the same masjid.
I mean, it's just what? It almost doesn't make sense when you see it. Like it's hard to even like, you know, like, wait, he and that's the thing. Like he was just here, but now he's in a box. Like what? Like few hours later, you know, coming to pray, walking over to pray and then being walked over to be prayed on. Do not take Ramadan for granted. Don't take your life for granted. Don't take the next day for granted. Don't take Ramadan for granted. Another, you know, young, young girl in New Orleans, Louisiana, did not wake up. My old community from Chima family, may Allah have mercy on her. She just did not, did not wake up, you know, on her 24th birthday. SubhanAllah. Yeah, her name is Alina, rahmatullah alaiha. Alina was a 24 year old girl and she just went, she just didn't wake up. So, it was her birthday. And so she had her phone actually on her and, you know, all these happy birthday messages and stuff like that. And they were coming, you know, they're expecting a day of celebrating their daughter. They buried her that day at night after Salatul Hasl. So don't take it for granted. Like don't, do not take it for granted. Don't wait for Ramadan to repent. Don't wait for Ramadan to start reading your Quran. Don't wait for Ramadan to start getting back into tahajjud. Don't wait for Ramadan to get things right. Of course, the priority is to quit sins. I know that a lot of people wait for Ramadan to make their resolutions to quit certain sins. You might not have that time. Like we should not take for granted the moments that we have right now. We've got to take advantage of it. And tu'bu ila Allah, tu'ba tan nasruha, turn back to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala with sincere repentance. If you are turning back to Allah with sincere repentance from now,
if the goals that you had to start, you know, doing, fulfilling a certain obligation or, you know, taking on a new good deed or a new approach, whatever it is, do it from now. That way if you get to Ramadan, it's only going to get better inshaAllah ta'ala. And if you don't get to Ramadan, you would have already repented and been in a state of inaba to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, a state of being turned towards Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. And Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala will enter you in accordance with your intention and with your turning back to Him. So we ask Allah to send us to Ramadan, but we ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala also to, and to accept our Ramadan, we ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala not to make us a people who delay in their repentance. We ask Allah azza wa jalla to accept our repentance, to make us connected to the Quran from now, connected to our Prophet's license from now, connected to our prayer, our du'as from now, and to allow death to find us when we are in the best, in the best moments of closeness to Him in our lives, to make the best of our deeds the last of them, the best of our days the last of our days here, and the best day the day that we meet Him with those deeds. Allahuma ameen. All right, Shaykh, let's get to the rapid-fire questions, inshallah. For us to, inshallah, get to know you a little bit better, bi-ibnillah. So we'll make it easy. Chocolate or vanilla? Vanilla. Really? All right. Cream? Whatever. Just in general. I'm really, like, so I'm really, like, my ice cream is really simple. I like vanilla ice cream. It's simple. You know, those Blue Bell, now we got to, like, say Ben & Jerry's, right? Those, like, Blue Bell vanilla ice cream, homemade vanilla, with, like, those little cups. I don't know why, man. I just, I love that ice cream. With the wooden spoon? That guy? Yeah, that's all it is, is the wooden spoon. All right. Spring or fall?
Spring. Okay. Shay or coffee? Coffee. I unfortunately become a coffee addict. Mountains or oceans? I love both. I really, really love both. It depends on... So here's the thing. With oceans, I love to jump in. And when I can't jump in, I get upset. Like, if it's too cold or something like that. But with mountains, you know, I've really started to love hiking. Because when you hike, subhanAllah, if you get far enough, like, it's just the sound, the peace of it. There's such peace there. But I also love the ocean. I love water. So it depends on where I'm at. I don't know. It depends. But I'll say if I have to choose one, if I have to choose one, I'd probably say oceans. Just because there's a, you know, there's a greatness of the oceans that, of course, there's a greatness of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala just inspires, like, something in you. And the flow of it, the beauty of it. I love it. So I'll just, you know, because I'm Canadian, I have to pick up Canada constantly. I'm just going to put out there, you should go to Vancouver then. I've been to Vancouver. I've been to Vancouver, man. Vancouver, Whistler, Allahu Akbar. The drive from Vancouver to Whistler is incredible. I almost got into a few accidents just because I kept getting, like, just stunned by the scenery between Vancouver and Whistler. Subhanallah, like it is stunning, stunning, stunning beauty. Shaykh Abdullah, you've got to go there, man. Whistler is something else. Go to Vancouver. Shaykh Ibrahim will set you up with something out there. Drive to Whistler with your family. Unbelievable. You get the mountains and the ocean. It's just – Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's the thing. If I get mountains and ocean, oh my God.
That's like subhanallah. When you get mountains and ocean, that's the best. That's the greatest connection. All right. Sunset or sunrise? Sunrise. Sunrise, all right. You want your steak well done or rare? If you have to choose between those two extremes. Why do you have to say that? I grew up not liking steak. So I'm actually going to take – You, here. So I grew up not liking steak because, like, my dad would always make it well done. Yeah. And, like, later on, like, when I first tasted steak not well done, I was like, wow, this is actually really good. So I'm a medium steak guy. But if I had to – I guess if I had to choose, I'd choose – I'd have to go rare. Or I'd do well done and I'd just put a lot of steak sauce on it. So I'd make it work either way. All right. So I asked this question last time, and, you know, so I have to make an amendment to it. You can't choose Mecca or Medina. But what's your favorite city to travel to? You know, I'm only going to say this part because I want people to make – I've never been allowed to enter Palestine. I really want to go to – I'm just going to say that, put it out there. So make the right that Eliza does. That gives us – Tayce, if that Eliza does, facilitates it. Favorite city to visit. Hmm. That I've already been to? Like, I like going there frequently. Yeah, I think so. All right. So my favorite city to visit in the United States. In the world. I'd have to say San Diego. San Diego. Okay. I love San Diego. It's a nice place to visit. But worldwide, I love Malaysia. I love going to Kuala Lumpur. I love Langkawi.
And I'm just going all over the place now. Where do I want to go? I really, really, really – I want to go to Nigeria. Inshallah to Allah soon. Inshallah. Sheikh Abdullah, you're going to hook that up. Inshallah to Allah. If you want to go to Ghana, it's all good. I'm Ghanaian. I know that, but, you know, we've got to go to Ghana and to Nigeria, inshallah to Allah, and the Gambia. Just for reference, because I know we're going to get messages, the Jollof rice from Ghana, the best. Oh, man. So you've got some pro-Ghana, anti-Nigerian Asalbia here. Oh, yeah. You've got to get some – they're going to send some messages now. I'm calling it out. The Jollof rice from Ghana is the best. All right. What about Senegal versus the Gambia? With the rice? Yeah. The food in general. I'd probably say Senegal. Senegal? Okay. Yeah. So Abu Bakr Thumbadu, who's the Justice Minister of the Gambia, who prosecuted the former leader of Myanmar for crimes against humanity. He and I had met and we were talking about going – I was supposed to go to the Gambia. This was right before COVID. So I've been wanting to go to the Gambia. But honestly, I want to go to Africa again. I've been to Africa, alhamdulillah, but I really, really want to go to Africa as a continent and just spend some time there. The historical part of it and then just the – I want to go to Rwanda. I know that sounds crazy to people, but I really want to go to Rwanda, inshallah, soon. I have the Nia to go there. Then if I start naming countries and I don't name some country, it really matters. Obviously, Somalia, man. Obviously, Somalia, my favorite. I've said this, I've actually written it before. Favorite students have always been from Somalia. So I want to go to Somalia.
I want to go to Nigeria. I want to go to the Gambia. I want to go to Ghana. I want to go to Senegal. I want to go to Kenya. I want to go to Mali. I want to go everywhere. You've been to the restaurant here, the West African Way? I think it's called West African Way, the West African restaurant. Would you believe I just ate it? Really? It's literally in my kitchen right now. That's right. I just had them. Really? Yes. Your brother's a good brother. That's literally – mashallah, mashallah. He brought it to the office today, Sheikh. He missed out. Oh, really? I had it the first time they brought it. Remember we had the retreat? Yeah. So they brought it again today. Sheikh Mustafa brings it in and they brought it today. It was awesome, man. I got my ginger juice there and just had it. It was incredible, mashallah. I'm about to see them actually now. They have a darshan. Sheikh Mikael has a darshan at our masjid in about 30 minutes. So they all come through, mashallah. Nice, nice, nice. Yes, so someone's asking if I've ever been to the Caribbean. I love the food in Trinidad. Oh, my God. The doubles, oh, man. So, like, being from New Orleans, New Orleans has a lot of that connection. We eat spicier food in New Orleans than – like, when Desi say we're going to turn down the biryani for you, we're going to turn down the heat level, I get very excited. I like to eat my food really, really, really spicy. So first time I went to Trinidad and Tobago, oh, man, the doubles, the rotis, that spice level was – Sheikh Abdullah, did you go to the restaurants I told you to go to in New Orleans? Yeah, I did. I did. My family loved it. Which one was it? With the shrimp sandwiches? Which one was it called? What was it called? How dare you call a po' boy a sandwich? Let's end it. Po' boy. Tough to get out of your huddle. Po' boy. Man, that line was long, man. That was a long line, man. Oh, subhanallah.
But it was well worth it. What was the name of that place again? I forgot the name of the place. Parkway. Parkway. Yeah. Parkway. Hold on. West African Way. Parkman. Sorry. Man, you got me messed up. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. I'm going to have to Google it now because – but I'm pretty sure it says Park – no, it's Parkway. You're right. So I was confusing West African Way, Parkway, Po' Boys, New Orleans. The place is amazing. Yeah, my child. We went to like two or three places there and then I think Mama's Kitchen or something like that. I forgot what it was called. It was good. Everything is good. New Orleans, everything is good. The food is just incredible there. Yeah, mashallah. Insha'Allah. On that topic, so next question. What's the favorite food your family makes? Ooh. Bismillah. Olan sedidan, insha'Allah. My wife's makluba is on point, mashallah. Her makluba is good. Yeah, I believe that. Makluba seems to be like a big discussion point in our private Yaqeen channel. Yeah. Makluba, mansaf. Everything is good, alhamdulillah. Everything is good. There you go. That's how you do it. I love everything. Yeah, food is great, alhamdulillah. Okay. Never had a bad day. Can you fall asleep on the plane? Yes, I'm getting good at this, man. Yes, you are. Yes, you are. All right, Sheikh Ibrahim, last question. I got to run now. All right. I got to pick a good one. What language did you wish you knew? Oh, man. What do you have to do? So, Urdu, maybe just because I can understand half the voicemails I get, people that think I speak Urdu. But I can get away with like, you know, acha, chalo, tk, people say like, I can understand saying, be sharam, be ghayrat.
Like I can get like, I get the insults, I get the commands, go, come. You know what, Spanish. I know it's, so alhamdulillah, I know Arabic and English. It would have to be between Persian because it's just the richness of what's there and Spanish because obviously I'm in Texas. And I would love to be able to like converse fluently in Spanish. That was what Sheikh Havid said too. Interesting. Spanish is a top getter on this question. Yeah. All right, Sheikh, I know we held you past where you wanted to be. But jazakallah khair for all your time that you gave with us and all the wisdom that you shared with us. I know we all appreciate it. We have you back for part two and we can ask more of these questions inshallah. Just before we conclude, just one thing. I know it's a bit, you know, maybe selfish for me to put it out, but a friend of mine, their baby, subhanallah, is going to have open heart surgery tomorrow. His name is Hamza. So if you can keep him in your dua and everyone watching inshallah can make dua for this young baby just and his parents. May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala grant him full shifa. Amin. Amin. Amin. Amin. Barakallah fikum. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala grant him shifa and all of those that are ailing, the ones that are close to us. I realize that when we have the ability to say the names, it's a lot of people out there have family members that are struggling or maybe struggling themselves. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala grant them all shifa. Shifa and kam. Amin. Amin. Jazakallah khair, Sheikh. InshaAllah we'll see you soon. Assalamualaikum. Waalaikumussalam. Waalaikumussalam. Waalaikumussalam. Waalaikumussalam. Waalaikumussalam.
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