1 on 1 with Nouman Ali Khan

so brothers and sisters before we begin this prestigious interview uh for the first time in my life with my dear brother n alian we have to start with a Dua inshallah for our brothers and sisters in Gaza in festine uh so please say a me I'll just say it in Arabic Allah Allah my dear brother Alik it is a pleasure an absolute pleasure to meet with you uh we all know who n man Ali Khan is I'm actually going to get to know you inshallah in this evening and have the pleasure of sharing your experience and your journey together from what you were and how you became and if you don't mind I'd like to begin by talking about the first time that I ever saw you okay and the first time I saw you was probably in 2010 or 2011 it was online when YouTube was still I think we had passed the the the internet stage where it was a dialup network right and then uh you were on YouTube I think with the dean show the dean show brother you look a little bit different a little bit younger yes it seems like mallah as you get older you get more handsome but very kind of you true but okay yes this is all in a brotherly way yeah yeah so he was interviewing you and for the first time it said an atheist becomes a Muslim yeah and I wanted to see who this person is because as a teacher myself we had young people and also in the west they kind of question sometimes uh how do I know that Allah exists how do I know that Islam is the right way some of them are afraid of asking that question I was very intrigued by that by that interview when I heard you speak you weren't yet alhamdulillah in as Allah has blessed you in the fame that you have and of course in a good way inshallah and in your dawa and I was I was was listening very carefully and I said to myself this young man here he's actually eloquent he speaks very well and I can't believe he's just a random atheist who became a Muslim and I'm not going to say too much but if I'm right about that can you please share with us this little journey were you an atheist were you a Muslim before that and then you became like that were their questions were their doubts what brought you into Islam so um for your question um I think well obviously I was raised in a Muslim family and um fairly practicing Muslim family I'd say um and my childhood was in Saia actually a part of it so from the second grade to the eth grade my dad who served in the Pakistan Embassy was stationed in Riyad so we was we were in Riyad we went to many Omas together my dad did to Hajj there we didn't go to hjj the kids didn't go but um and then we I had a little bit of schooling in Pakistan also for about less than a year so My Early Education was basically all in the an Islamic environment and then when we came to the US uh I was ready to go into 10th grade and uh we signed up for public school and public school in Queens New York is basically the kind of chaos you see at a bus station in the Muslim world like it's it doesn't look like a classroom it was absolute pandemonium and it was it was the massive massive culture shock for me um just to get to the point about this atheism thing I think the first thing if I look at myself inter introspectively and kind of think about how I was transitioning the first thing I felt was out of place like I don't belong here these people make fun of the way I speak they think I'm strange I'm weird I'm awkward they're more confident than I am they're better spoken than I am like they're they're just better at everything than I am I just felt inadequate and inferior in every way when I was at school and it it was very common part of the culture to make fun of people publicly and humiliate them and and kids can be cruel but I you know there it's interesting uniform does something when you're wearing uniform you're not dressed any better than anybody else so what are they going to make fun of your shoes aren't as shiny like there's nothing to pick on but when you're when you don't have uniforms in schools which we don't have in the US uh you have people wearing brand clothes people dressed this way or that way and obviously I just came from Pakistan so I'm going to dress like a nerdy Pakistani kid I mean I I took what what did you dress like exactly a sweater knit by my mom does that help yeah that paints a pretty good picture I can relate happened to me7 same thing my mother sewed my tracksuit pants became a laughing stock for one year uh yeah I took a briefcase to school you know so that didn't go well uh and um so being the object of ridicule the the the only thought in my head was surviving the day in school like that's the like I I could be sitting there in class just thinking who's going to say something next that was the anxiety I had all day and it's not something I could talk to my family about because that's a different world when you walk into school right and so um then then this is in primary school you're talking about this is high school high school yeah this is high school this is me I was about 16 years old now and um one of the things I learned then is I better find you have to you could survive only in a pack so you have to find a pack and then they're weirdos in every school you know the Nerds and the strange ones that don't fit in everywhere I had I had a couple of weirdos that were just kind of outliers and we became friends right and that became our little let's let's be in the corner isol ated from the rest of society together you were with the weirdos yeah it was with the weirdos right it was a congratulations Russian guy and there was this like Chinese kid and there was me and there was sardara kid and we were just the weirdest in the corner and that was our hangout but then over time a new impulse uh kicked in and that was no no no I don't just want to be in the corner I want to fit in what does it take to fit in right and then wanting to talk like the others the first I think the first jump in my English vocabulary came with foul language because that was I don't know if that's the case here but in New York a a cuss word a filthy word is a noun an adjective an adverb uh a comma and a full stop so it's every other word is a foul word to communicate a sentence so if you're going to pick up the lingo that's what you have to pick up right and it's interesting Allah says it actually has an effect on you spiritually when you start using foul language and you become less and less in tune with your own it's it's it's actually I felt that way and um means like it goes against your nature a human nature to not want to use those words your tongue isn't designed your tongue was designed to say sacred things beautiful things like it goes it's it violates something inside you and I could feel it but it was just the social desire to fit in and the way I dress changed the way I got my haircut CH I had a weird haircut I had one of those like shaved all sides in a ponytail situation yep and then I I got a job in a a Spanish neighborhood so I my English got pretty good but then I I I started learning Spanish to fit in the Spanish neighborhood so my Spanish got really really good people thought I was Mexican or Puerto Rican or like you know so um but then the the atheism thing actually came I I like to think of atheism as two it's there's a psychological atheism and there's a there's an intellectual atheism and I don't think I was ever an intellectual atheist actually that that's the intellectual atheism is actually for most people I think is just an excuse It's 90% of that iceberg is psychological I agree 100% you know that's right and then they just top it off with some intellectual excuses and rationals and then the moment you start chipping away at those really weak rational arguments then the emotional side just comes out roaring and you're like okay that's what's really going on with you and that's what was going on with me right and so I didn't see the need for this religion and if you don't need religion why do you need God like everything I need is I have my friends you can have popularity you can have whatever you want you need a job you need money in life these are the things you need why do you need to go pray why do you need to do all you know so that stuff became more and more irrelevant and then the the tip of the iceberg was first semester of college I took philosophy 101 and it was two courses I took philosophy of ethics and philosophy metaphysics so in metaphysics it's sorry St man so college is at University it's uh so 12th grade is high school right and then then then right after that you start college college so you like University basically yes yeah we we in America we kind of use it interchangeably a little bit sorry if other people know I just it's all good um so what happened in philosophy class I love loved it I loved Plato Aristotle I loved like I just I really got into logic and you know um even religious philosophies and things like that and then the arguments for theological cosmological ontological Arguments for the existence of God and their the counter arguments against them I was fascinated with that stuff and at the end of it I was like you know what every for every logical argument there's a logical counterargument for the existence of God so this is a stalemate so you get to choose that's kind of where my Professor sort of left it and then to add to that I was taking another course called the philosophy of ethics and the to summarize it the point of the philosophy of Ethics Course is there is no such thing as right and wrong it's just whatever you feel so you're is the final conclusion to that you know and that's really comforting for someone who doesn't want to uh surrender themselves because now I'm in English yeah so like have you seen someone who takes their their whims and turns them into their God right so you become the god why why do you need to have a higher power you you decide you know so um in that sense it felt artificially liberating to be an atheist and to because you know I'm in New York and then my my parents there were my dad got papers um to go back to Pakistan and he was leave in 6 months right and I was really excited that he's going to leave in 6 months cuz my parents cuz I was going to stay back in in uni and now I don't have any parents controlling what I'm going to do I don't have like nobody's going to watch over you know I'm GNA have complete Freedom right and in New York of all places so this is going to be great you know and then Allah had other plans and he sort of redirected my uh my thoughts and my actually first I I think my first transformation wasn't intellectual it was emotional uh and then my second transformation was intellectual so it it worked in reverse order any emotional in what sense can you explain that a uh yeah so I saw a dream that was probably the big event uh I saw a dream I had I had snuck out of the house my parents were upstairs I had a in New York we have basements you guys have basements here okay so not too many but we have do have okay so our home in Queens we had a basement so my room was in the basement also because my sister didn't want to be in the basement and then I get the basement cuz it gets flooded so but I I was okay with it so the advantage of it was it had its own back door exit to out of the house so I could sneak out of the house from the basement and nobody would know so I snuck out of the house went to this party with my Hindu friend hung out with him until 3 in the morning snuck back into the house mom never dad never found out now they're going to watch this video but anyway so but they they I got back and uh I fall asleep safe and sound and I see myself in my dream in a dream in my own grave and uh my head has been turned into a lizard's head and there's fire pouring out from both sides like multiple faucets just pouring out fire like water from both sides and there's this there's somebody over the grave saying this is because you don't pray and I woke up like that and by this point it must have been a couple of years I hadn't prayed any anything no J no no nothing right and this is before my parents left so now I get up and I prayed I don't even know I I knew there five prayers but I didn't quite remember how they work so I prayed some version of followed by some version of followed by some version of in succession and sorry so you didn't grow up in a family environment where they taught you how to pray from they did but it it been so long since I prayed that you had forgotten it I forgotten it that's it yeah and so and then I was in s and I started crying and I kept on crying and then I fell asleep crying is still in the dream no this wasn't real life so I fell asleep crying I woke up the next morning in s and something in me just kind of got shaken up and uh the first thing I decided to do cuz I was going to go to you know meet with my friends the next day like nothing in my outside world has changed something crazy has happened inside but nothing outside is different right uh my friends are like hey you want to go go get some pizza no I don't want to go I don't want to do this I don't want to do I start pulling away from all of my social acquaintances right and they started noticing you okay you all right you know is everything okay and then I started I felt the need to pray so I started finding Corners in the campus in college to pray man why did you feel the need to pull away from them why couldn't you just be friends with them and then in your spare time I think if I'm being super honest uh I could sense the darkness from their company like ever since that dream I could you could almost feel a Darkness would it be right to say that you feared that if you mix with them again you're going to lose that lovely it was kind of a Bittersweet feeling that you had but there was something see something I was actually terrified of losing it terrified of losing terrified of losing it that's probably how I describe it and uh so I started kind of pulling away from them and then Allah just opened other doors for me I met some people in campus that I became friends with Muslims and that was a strange Story by itself but uh the people I met they were they were good Brothers really good Brothers but they weren't preachy like they they didn't ever make any dawa to me or anything and I was was they saw me praying correctly and they didn't really make a thing out of it right and one of them they he decided to kind of start giving me a ride and he took me to other msas so we were in the city school so this just MSA Muslim Students Association Muslim School Association so so we were in the the Muslim Club in our College in baroo college and ours was a city school so a city college or City University uh it's cheap it's like you know $1,600 a sem was considered cheap in you know I think it's much more now but just up the road in the city Uptown was Columbia University which is like $20,000 a semester which is now probably 50,000 I don't even know how expensive they are now but they had an MSA and they were having a meeting and the guys my friend said let's go to their meeting I was like Rich school meeting yeah let's go cuz you know that's that's too rich for my blood I get inside there and see what it's like so we go in there and there's a circle of brothers and sisters like half circle of sisters half circle of brothers and they're discussing how they're going to raise enough money and they have a poster of a child in the middle because there was some flood that had happened in Bangladesh and they had arranged for different children to be adopted by families in Muslim families in America that were left orphans and they had identified a child that their MSA was going to help uh adopt and come up with the funds for his his his um paperwork and I'm sitting there listening to these people that are is this the first experience for you in your life to see something like that where people are actually trying to make projects to help people outside yeah like first time it's not just first time to see that it's these people are my age like everybody I knew until now is you want to go play basketball you want to get some pizza you want to go watch a movie you want to go do something stupid like this this was life and did you think at that time that religion was kind of for older people only older people do stuff like that yeah it's still time to get in fact I never even thought about stuff like that that it it my my universe wasn't that big it was a very small world in my head and then I'm thinking what makes these people even think like this like what what's in their food like why are they there's so much better they're they're much better human beings than I ever thought I could be what is it about them right and it was my my friend who took me there didn't say anything on the way back he's like what did you think I was like I don't know they're just I was weird I was like what what was weird about it tell me what was weird I was like they're so these people are so awesome he goes yeah I know you want to go somewhere else that's awesome I was like okay yeah so what he did to me he did for me is he introduced me to a Masid in uh in Queens in in Flushing in Ramadan he took me to a program because he knew I I mean I had learned English but my native language is still uru right so English is my second language technically my third but still still my second language um and there was a scholar coming from Pakistan who was going to do a DA of the Quran in Ramadan so they were going to do 20 and like four then four of a translation of what we just recited and an brief explanation for an hour then the next four then the next four so until 2:30 a.m. we're going to go through all of just the first J then the next night second next night third 30 nights the entire Quran you took part in that so he brought me to that okay that's in the deep end that's on the deep end I before that I had read maybe a little bit of the yusf Ali translation of the Quran and I found it extremely difficult uh and I just put it down I was like I can't I'm trying to make sense of this I can't so I go to this thing and he's the the teacher he doesn't know who I am there's like 50 60 people in the program um for the people that wanted to make the regular they were on the second floor and the people that wanted to do the this like crazy four and four and four with the whole the brief commentary they were on the third floor it was a special room for them because they the other people just want to do their thing and get out right so they they had two parallel things going on so I go up there I start listening to him talk for a good hour he's just explaining this portion of the Quran and he's just trans he's mostly 90% he's translating maybe 10% of the time he'll throw in a comment here and there but he's mostly transl and it it didn't feel like he was reading a translation he was speaking a translation right it did it sounded like a conversation and listening to that long enough it stopped feeling like he's there it just started feeling to me like Allah is communicating and I'm just hearing Allah say stuff I'm listening to Allah's words and it was the most surreal experience like it just Allah is conversing with us I thought it's a book I didn't think it was a conversation you know you think that was your inspiration absolutely because you do that now yeah do you realize you do that yeah yeah that that was it so you realize yeah absolutely I thought we discovered something so all right alhamdulillah I discovered it a little bit earlier amazing amazing but no it's true because young it's it's very familiar what you're talking about to typical uh Western raised young people even in East I I was in Lebanon for several years I studied there young people similar however your journey is very similar to my journey and the journey of many other young people here in a very similar way uh and uh that's the idea that back in the days we thought you're only if you're 40 and over you'll be in the Masjid and the Quran is just for people at that age because nobody actually spoke the Quran to us in the way that it's supposed to be spoken it's a speech yeah it's a speech so you could bring it like Allah is really talking to you and that's amazing how you said he became absent and it's as if Allah is speak he just he disappeared he went into the background amazing that was that's well he would he would be my role model too M yeah and so he so I he Not only was this a surreal experience in a spiritual sense I still had a lot of psychological baggage right and the the the philosophy of Ethics the you know the epistemology stuff whatever this was all circling in my head what he did know is as he was going through bak and then Al he was unto untying every one of the philosophical knots that were in my head without me ever approaching him and saying what do you say about this and what do you say about this and he wasn't even saying it he was it was just the Quran saying it and I'm hearing that I'm saying well that problem just got solved oh well okay yeah well that yeah H and just he's just unraveling my philosophical knots one after the other after the other after the other and then the the other thing simultaneously that the that the Quran was doing in that conversation it just start it you felt like someone who really knows you and you can't believe they know you that well and they're talking to you they're like who told you who told you this about me how do you how do you know that about me you know can I just I I have to before I forget yeah because you just reminded me something amazing I want to share it with the people so two things um a lot of people who convert to Islam or revert whichever word you want to use um I hear the common phrase from them when I talk to them they say I thought I was reading the Quran but then I found that the Quran reads you yeah it truly does read you and goes right deep into your soul doesn't it you just got to open up to it another one have you heard of Dr Jeffrey Lang of course yeah so you're reminding me of what he was saying in that famous talk of his he was saying it broke every single argument Brick by Brick in my mind yeah so because he came from a purely atheistic uh background yeah so there there's a similar Journey that I wanted to highlight that you you made that um that um similarity didn't you yeah I really love Dr Jeffrey Lang he's he's Incredible Dr Jeffrey Lang yeah yeah zachar Nike is another guy yeah so like so after that experience I was both elated but I was also really angry I was really angry because I was maybe 18 years old by then uh 18 and a half maybe and I felt like my entire upbringing in the Muslim World robbed me of the Quran like how come nobody told me Allah talk sub like I felt jipped I felt cheated like this is wrong why why shouldn't people know this like everybody should know this and it it just it made me so upset that people don't know this you know and I it's at the end of that program that I went to my teacher the the lecturer he didn't know who I was I just went up to him and I said I want to do what you're doing I just want to do what you're doing I want to know what you know and he goes okay easy learn Arabic easy learn that's what he said I was like okay how do I learn Arabic he goes I'm starting a class next week so I started learning Arabic with him the next week they had that course in in the Masjid they had the course in the Masjid okay right and then that just became the start of my my obsession with the the Quran with the Arabic language Arabic only because it was just every time I learned something in Arabic I wanted to see how does it enhance my understanding of the Quran and just I kept going back and kept going back kept going back and it was uh I was a bad student in University like be bees are a good day right so I had a hard time focusing I was distracted did better than most of us but uh just before so you learned Arabic one on one private or did you go formally no I studied with him for three weeks three weeks yeah yeah and then he was teaching a crash course right so I studied that with him for 3 weeks and then he he didn't have a book to teach from he had this all in his head so I was like can you have a book he goes okay next day I came he had you know those print paper he literally handw wrote uh an 80 page book by hand and then photocopied it and stapled it and said here's your book let we Ed that as a book and then I learned some basics of and and how they to the Quran and then I started um so that was going on I was like I need to memorize this book I need to understand more I need to know more and then it was so frustrating because the more I memorized every other word I don't know what it means then there's another word I don't know I don't then I don't know then I don't know then I don't know right so I need to build this Arabic thing this needs to happen but I was going full-time to college fulltime to work you know my my parents couldn't afford my tuition and they had already gone back to Pakistan so I'm living alone at this point right so I was just doing all of these things just to my every extra bit of time I had was going into just either memorizing Quran or studying something in Arabic and then he left and that was a new problem now what do I do like what do I learn now right so I did then I started uh because I I it it felt to me like if I don't make progress with the Quran I'm going to regress what I've gained like what I've gained spiritually what I've gained philosophically the connection I've made the whole connection is Quran so I can't lose that cuz if I lose Quran I lose Allah that's what I felt like so it was this desperation to want to get more and more of this right so uh I started taking the train to atoria was an Arab neighborhood in Ator they have really good sharmas Lebanese and uh the IM there everybody speaks in Arabic there so I just go and literally just so Lebanese lebanes pretty legit you can speak Lebanese accent no you saved yourself was going to so I'm Lebanese background so I was going to test you yeah no please don't this is hi the meaning of hi isn't it yeah guidance from Allah who Allah wants goodness from them and sees goodness in them he gives them the knowledge of the dean yeah that's one area masallah Subhan Allah yeah so yeah so I mean that's that's where the eventually after 9911 it was interesting uh because New York obviously I was in New York and all of that mess happened in New York and the Muslims were very particularly targeted and there was a journalist I forget what even we coped here we had I'm sure scares being pulled off uh people being attacked and trams and stuff like that yeah we had the authorities breaking down doors and all kinds of crazy stuff you were in the heart of it in the heart of amazing tell us about it so so when that happened there was a journalist who heard me do a at my college like a journalism student so he applied he asked his um editor I forget which magazine it was is a circle Quran Circle Quran study Circle used to have it in the in the college this four or five guys get together you know so he wanted to interview me so I was like okay I'll interview you so he interviewed me this is like two three three months after 911 and he's interviewing me he like so don't you feel like you turn towards religion because you know some people they just need something to hook on to like people hook on to drugs other people hook on to paragliding you that all the time right and this this he was trying to really make sense of this thing in that way I had the most fascinating conversation with him and it made me realize man it's either Allah will attach you to his guidance or there is so many useless things that you will absolutely be attached to until it's too late right there's going to be stuff that you there's too many magnetic things in this world that will just you know pull you in and you won't even know when years will go by right so um that was a big part of I think uh what helped me then the other thing that I think uh helped me grow both spiritually and intellectually was um an attitude that my teacher put in me that I I really benefited from from that he told me that don't discriminate who you benefit from just benefit from everyone just learn grow and ask Allah for keep asking Allah for guidance but don't discriminate and like don't underestimate Allah's power to guide you and be scared I shouldn't listen to this person because I might get misguided I shouldn't listen to that person no no no if you're committed to Allah's book and you're committed to learning Allah will guide you but don't close doors and that attitude led me to learn from um ideologically opposite people in New York because New York is very fragmented like big cities are they'll have mids of a certain denomination certain ideology and other mus of the extreme opposite ideology and the twain shall never meet they might even describe each other as you know kufar or you're talking about the Muslim Community Muslim Community and even non-muslims actually and non-muslims and non-muslims and I just I I open that door of learning from any place I'll learn I'll I'll consider everything I'll listen to everything I'll listen to it with an open heart so and and what that did for my own Islamic Studies was I was for example I was uh sitting in a and they were talking about you know the right they call you to go in the path of Allah for this many days this many days I was like okay I can't comment on what they're doing until I experience it so I went that was the first group you joined that was one of them I was doing multitasking right so why is that the same story with all of us we started with too you my father reward them they did something pretty amazing um subh and then I I went to a where they were teaching me how the people in are all misguided and their their AKA is bad and this and then I was like okay I want to know why it's bad so I sat and I studied a with them for like a year and then I went to another group I don't want to name groups but I went to another group who said all these people they don't know what they're doing because they're not working to establish Thea so why are they even wasting their time so I was like okay let me find out how to establish the with you guys let's uh so I just and any group I joined and then I went another group who said all these people they talk about you know uh establishing the state but they're not even their heart's not even in the right State and so they need to purify the state of their hearts I was like okay let's figure out how to purify the state let me let me learn that so I so I I did not discriminate in what I could take from and then what what all of that did for for me it created a certain opinion For Better or For Worse that opinion was everybody has a frame of reference a lens by which they see the religion okay they create this lens and then they identify their entire view of Islam through that lens right what's happened here I think I noticed that although you were listening to all those different groups you weren't making a judgment immediately and you were reserving acting upon certain things zealously or making that your belief or your way you gave yourself some leeway some space yeah you didn't just attach yourself and go with and say the they're the right people I I I gave it a I wouldn't say I I approached it with a grain of salt I did give it like wholehearted let me fully learn and immerse myself in what's being said without being combative or being skeptical I really want to I really want to know and I really want to feel like I'm I've embodied these ideas and then see does this hold and the thing that I kept feeling this is the crazy thing the thing that I kept feeling was that feeling that I had when I heard the Quran in the mash I never felt that again I never felt that that feeling never came back interesting what were you starting to feel I was starting to feel that everybody is trying to impose an a certain angle onto the religion but if I put the Quran at the center then it allows itself to shed light on every issue like it's like like the for example I want to study the S but I want to study the in light of the Quran I want to study the Sunnah in light of the Quran I want to study law in light of the Quran I want to study in light of the Quran like it's not so what what they were doing was what I felt was they were discussing a subject and the Quran was a reference to the point they were trying to make so it was just a source of proofs and evidences for chapter 1 2 3 and the points they want to make right but it wasn't the source it was the supporting evidence right and there's it's a completely different experience when that's the source and everything else is supporting evidence like that's your starting point it's when I have a belief but then I go and pick and choose which aat will support my precisely and go with that whether it should be the opposite right and then I noticed the the more I discussed cuz I just want to I don't want to debate but I want to discuss and it started making people really upset because I just wanted to discuss I said hey so you you cited this Ayah but the Ayah right after that and the one after that and the one after that and the one after that are going exactly against what you just concluded exactly and then they're like yeah no we we need we need a a senior brother to correct your misunderstanding okay like like so that I kept falling into that kind of issue right so then I realized that I need to take the best of and I the thing is I didn't just see criticism I see benefit in different groups and what they were doing I saw a lot of benefit in each of them but I saw this fundamental intellectual sort of Gap and that was that the the book of Allah wasn't getting what it deserved it felt to me like that because that first experience the book of Allah was at the center right and then it was having an impact of a certain behind and now it just it wasn't there you know and it wasn't even I I'll say frankly it it didn't feel to me intellectually convincing enough it wasn't satiating enough CU I'm coming from I'm not coming from hey I just want to be a better Muslim no I want to I want to believe in something wholeheartedly almost like I'm accepting it all like a new right and that that that centrality of the Quran would you say that the spirituality started to fade away yeah spiritual side yeah yeah felt a little bit of Absol coldness or Cloud absolutely absolutely and that that's something that I think and would that would that because mallah you studied the Quran very well would that go in line with the Ayah or is it something else do you think I think it's it's it's every every group is really happy with what they have okay right that's what it's it was more about preserving the identity of a group and of a certain way of thinking than it was about serving you know the the like Allah even though the intention is to serve Allah but the way to serve Allah is to preserve our you know click and then some of that became really ugly because then I would see how they speak of each other and I was like here's a book that's saying they're so humble and Powerless for the Believers that they have this Brotherhood between them love between them and then you go to these different groups and they're like really spiteful and cynical and mocking of the other and I just I don't see how we can believe this book and have this attitude I don't I I can't reconcile it you know so um but alhamdulillah along the way I met how how did you solve that for yourself I uh kept an arms length distance from from too much affiliation I kept I I mean I benefited from a lot of different people but I kept focused on my journey I kept I said you know what here's another perspective a lot of people were learning Islam but they were learning what makes the other person wrong like that's what the curriculum mostly entailed here are the evidences for why we're saying the right thing and why they're saying the wrong thing so it's actually a reactive kind of curriculum so as soon as you you learned that lingo you learned that language you learned that approach so as soon as you could hear someone take that approach you thought okay I better okay you know what so so you're you're teaching me why this and this is wrong but I actually want to learn what a less say not what they're saying wrong and what's actually the truth I just want to instead of correcting some wrong I just want to learn the right without with no regard for who's wrong right and that's a it's a proactive learning not a reactive learning and that was I just I it was really hard to find it was really hard to find proactive learning um and that's when I decided to commit more and more to you know what I'll keep learning from all these places but I'm going to fundamentally focus on my proactive learning of Allah's words themselves I just really want to know what he's saying and continue to grow in that without passing judgment on anybody else but I need to whoever can help me with this wherever I can get that help I'll get it I'll take it you know the fundamentals are always there there's no disagreement on the fundamentals of alhamdulillah you're talking about the branches now and that supports I mean there the of I'll just say it in English so that we English speakers so the best types of actions to Allah are the ones that are more consistent even if they're small in number if they're small in number so small quantity rather than a lot right and you want to follow everything you might go lost so even if you have just a few things that are fundamental and strong and especially the ones that are spiritual and and and there's no disagreement on them and you follow them and make and perfect them inshallah is better than having too much and branching off too much because yeah and then you know the other thing is I can be I can learn and continue to learn even you said I've studied a lot of Quran I feel like I'm just starting with Quran studies I'm so intimidated by the study of the Quran more now let's come back another because before we get too complicated in the area let's come back to the Quran Norman okay so you were saying that the more you study the Quran to a lot of people they aspire to be at the level that you're at they say masallah and they listen to him at that level he knows and yet you're telling us what are you telling us you're telling us you still you feel like you're in a deep ocean you just don't know where you are still I am uh I know I know some things I know about the Quran I know many things that I'm yet to I mean I know them very at a very surface level and uh and I know I need a lot of work like I I'm okay with saying that I don't you know I'm never going to claim that I'm any kind of scholar you know of the Quran but I can say I'm a serious student I can say that I am a serious student of the Quran and whatever I do seriously study I try to share but there are tons of areas of quranic studies and just the book of Allah and then by extension of the and of the Shar everything that connects to Allah's book right that just I approach it in a way that um I'm not going to make any preconceived notions or assumptions that I understand it or I get it already I'm going to come to it clean slate assuming I know nothing and bring bring a bring all of my questions to Allah's door about this Ayah and bring all of my questions to Allah's door about this Surah and about this like I just need to know Ya Allah here's what I don't understand you know you mean you sit down and make Dua to Allah I make Dua and I my questions telling tell us S no man for the common person yeah how do you advise them to approach the Quran them because a lot of people don't know Arabic that well right of course we have different uh commentaries interpretations of the meanings I mean for me Ali is one of the top five for me in the English world uh maybe you differ on that but uh he's brilliant yeah so you agree with me don't you amazing but how would you ad advise the common people to approach the Quran you know their level you've been around you understand the society and the community not all of them are Arabs and speaking Arabic yeah what little pieces of advice you can give us to say okay when you come to approach the Quran do you advise us to read it every day even if we don't understand it do you advise us to learn the Arabic even if we struggle with it do you advise us to read a little bit of commentary even if it's a small Surah or a small Ayah every day how do you how should we approach the Quran I think um the approach that helped me I have a hard time recommending another approach because I tried the other approaches I Tried reading translation I didn't I didn't connect and some people might I'm not saying my experience has to be imposed on everybody else but I know that after speaking to enough people uh the challenge with translation is understanding how the argument of the Quran is Flowing how why is it repeating itself why are the suras in the order that they're in there are too many literature related questions that a standard book you wouldn't have those questions but you will absolutely have them with the Quran and the transition will leave you kind of wanting and then the the the commentaries that are available short of uh Quran and towards understanding the Quran in English which I think is brilliant um the commentaries are also so focused on the aah and its meaning and its interpretation and opinions around that Ayah that you lose sight of your reading something that continuously flows cuz when you you know it's like when you're looking at an orchard and you're looking at a flower really zoomed in you lose sight of the fact that this is part of a garden you know so my recommendation uh is to actually it's not for the individual but it's actually for the communities and the imams and the duat in the world right and my recommendation for them is every Ramadan they should be doing a d of the Quran even if it's just bak and just Al Iman or just n but just a brief translation and explanation for their Community every Ramadan the community got a little more of the Quran that they got to understand okay right and then what that would do I think is what that did for me at some level so encouraging the community to basically to attach themselves to the community to go to the m I think the ideal time to do that is because that's where you're going to get it from and every day read as much as you can read as much as you can I think reciting the Quran connects the hearts to the Quran memorizing it connects the hearts of the Quran it's one of its fundamental rights whether you understand it or not not all of us understand everything in the Quran but one word sometimes can stick and at a time when you need it in your life yeah it comes to help you yeah the Quran is magnificent one word that's why so two words and one experience for me is I've had many experiences like this but one time and I was really desperately in need where I was in deep deep deep grief and loss and at that point I can't think straight and uh I just can't think so many different thoughts came to me and Subhan Allah I don't know what the connection is with the subconscious mind but when you're reciting the Quran every day uh from a young age when you really need it and you can't think the vers has come to you somehow and for me uh but you got to be regularly reading it right or reciting it so you know certain verses came to me I was in Lebanon I heard thean in the masjids being called and this Ayah came to me I won't say which one because it's alhamdulillah people have heard my story but uh it's I want to hear it it's online you haven't heard but you're not you're here right now just come on well and you know the tragedy that I went through my my my son and brother leam they passed away and may Allah have mercy on all those families who have had members of their family pass away and it's nothing like our brother sisters in Gazza at the moment everywhere around the world but when they passed away obviously the grief hit me very very strongly in Lebanon and I didn't want to see anybody I don't want to be with anybody nobody could give me any words of Solace that could help me I just felt everybody's fake everybody's no one's really just saying words like a parrot yeah so uh there came a point where I just needed some help right I'm about to um just I can't handle it so you know the aat that came to me were things like uh you know many different but yeah do not kill yourselves do not overburden yourselves do not you know do that to yourselves Allah is ever so merciful to you yeah and these little verses to me meant tremendous meanings it's not and I've read them recited them maybe thousands of times in my life and then what suddenly had a different meaning altogether we've been reciting it thousands of times but this time it was different suddenly has a different meaning those same verses that you recite every day and suddenly they just have a different effect just the Quran hits you from different corners of your inner body yeah many others Sur yusu for example had a tremendous effect on myself I kept reciting it over and over again but this time when you don't need a scholar to teach you or a she your own I had many I've got still got many teachers that I refer to but I didn't need them anymore at this point at this point the Quran is reading me and giving me the medicine that I need as Allah says in it is a cure for people and I don't know the the Quran has that relationship with everybody yes even if you don't understand that all those few verses those true sortas that everybody's memorized in time of catom in time of need in time of blessings in time of they come to you but I found that you have to be reciting and being with it on a daily basis even if it's 10 minutes or 15 minutes that's right do you can you do you agree with that I absolutely agree with that and I think it's a Lifeline for the believer I don't think that um it's it's too easy for the Quran to become an artificial relationship exactly it's it's far too easy and in fact for people that are knowledgeable somewhat in the Quran it's even more easy for it to become artificial because there's a there's a knowledge based and study based and contemplation based kind of relationship with the Quran but the recitation of the Quran and just the the heart reading the Quran not the mind reading the Quran is a different thing it's it's an entity by itself it with your heart that's right yeah it there's so much to talk about with you so much Subhan Allah I really you're becoming more and more interesting mashallah I talk a lot I know no alhamdulillah I do too um uh yeah say n man do you have teachers at the moment that you refer to still yeah you have your Scholars and teachers alhamdulillah and do you recommend that people try and find someone who is older and more knowledgeable who they can refer to as well absolutely I think everybody should have a not to be selftaught for example yeah I think I think learning Islam is a combination of learning yourself and always having someone senior that you can refer to because the two extremes are they're going to do all the heavy lifting for you or you're just going to do everything by yourself but I what I do believe in is you should be exploring and studying and learning your religion and every time you arrive what you think you arrive at certain conclusions there should be people in your life Scholars mentors Elders imams whoever you can go to and say hey this is what I'm arriving at am I am I right or wrong and that's in addition to that's your own personal pathway but if if there are you know courses programs you know uh set Pathways that you can take that you can help you educate yourself I think one should take advantage of those things what's your favorite sort right now why hands down uh hands down hands down hands down yeah it's um because D talks about pretty intense stuff battles and things the talks about the Battle inside and uh actually to me I think has probably to me the most powerful ay pertaining to one's personal journey in life is to I find that phrase to be so overwhelming in English uh who whoever I'd like to translate that is whoever May hold on to their faith whoever were to hold on to their faith Allah will guide their heart um that statement and the way that it occurred in that Ayah to me represents uh probably the most invaluable treasure in the world you know because there's not a soul that's not going to go through MBA exactly and Shar throughout all people knowledgeable or not yeah not there's not one of us that's not going to go through some kind of trial and Allah is saying maybe the maybe the reason you're going going through this loss is because I want to give you a gain that's more than any other gain you could ever have and that's you know guide your heart it's the heart that we want to be guided isn't it once the heart is guided the rest inshallah follows the rest I've even been seeing on social media people have never heard about Islam just right now being introduced to the Quran for the first time they're Blown Away BL they take one verse of the Quran they see it in a light that I know a lot of Muslims haven't explored that yet yeah and then they bring it to you because they they've opened up they're looking at their circumstances and they're living with it and they say wow this Quran is truly truly reading me and talking to me it's it's taking it right out of my heart and out of my brain and telling you here it is face it it's right in front of your face look at it whether you like it or not look at it yeah Subhan Allah isn't that true such a mirror you know you know when you said just we're almost going to wrap it up you know when you said about how you were raised in with your mother sewing yeah what did she sew for you your a sweater your sweater yep was it a nice sweater no sorry Mom no brand name it was a it was a it was a v-neck with three buttons yeah it's the most beautiful thing in the world isn't it it's an act of love makes it beautiful it's the intention that's you know people know my story about the Adidas you know the three stripes do you ever heard of the three stripes you know when they first came out you you're probably nearly my age so when when Adidas first came out I was in year seven I was teased because um I never had Adidas right my mother sewed my tracksuit pants and yeah that's so cool it's so cool I was a widow man I was a nerd I was bullied and then um uh I got sick and then my and then I got a present and that present was a whole outfit of Adidas with the three stripes if you had one stripe you're doomed if you had two striped you're doomed if you had you know I mean one time I I did get a gift from some lean cousins and it was adabas one of those so I wore it and I got bullied more right the day when I got those three stripes I became the coolest one of the coolest kids in all that week are you serious w wow because it's so superficial it's all about Brands and what you look like and on the outside so much so that some students used to go around the corner and steal from shops just to fit in that peer pressure is tremendous and the Quran takes you away from all of that and just puts you in another world and say don't worry all bigger than that you're bigger than that Subhan Allah Subhan Allah Allah reward you st man it was tremendously um I appreciate and loved this interview this is my first podcast I've ever done with anybody personally you're the first I appreciate that a lot and and thank you for being our guest here in Australia in Melbourne hope you're enjoying your I feel like a guest I feel like I'm at home alhamdulillah and that's what we want you to feel like our own brother come here man give me a kiss do do you do kisses in aan P Pakistan no we don't do kisses in Pakistan well that's we do we do salum goodbye thing you just got a kiss from me whether you like it or not all right thank you

Channel: Belal Assaad

Views: 859,573

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Id: qGmPVMdLiDc

Length: 56min 37sec (3397 seconds)

Published: Sun Nov 26 2023