Ep. 014 - The Journey to Islam ft. Br. Richard Kifer & Mouaz al Nass | Friday Night Live

everyone welcome to friday night live friday night live has been the trademark here for mifta institute we have people joining us from all across the world as they give you advice and they give you love and muhammad and they remind us of the teachings of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam we have beautiful reciters that come on from all across the world and we also have artists who you know recite the poems of the prophet sallallahu and love of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam and words that melt our hearts many of them many of us understand some of it but in all in all we we understand the concept in the context of the poems and the lessons of these poems tonight inshallah we'll have a beautiful artist joining us very dear friend of ours who has joined us multiple times and we also have a person who was a pastor a pastor for so many years he was a minister a priest he converted to islam and now alhamdulillah he is a good example for the muslim community we'll learn from some of his lessons what helped him convert to islam especially when you're teaching christianity and you are a very a strong influence in your church or your community it's great to have him here tonight mufil will be joining me very shortly we want to start off by inviting our own original noodle who is an instructor teacher at nifta talent for our children our youth who are getting the special experience at mifta talent where they they join with the reciter from our mft uh from our associate from our sister institute a michigan islamic institute it's a boarding program where they are becoming scholars you look much better where you are now the turbine looks nice exactly um the camera is absolutely making you look better you are a good looking guy but you know it's good to see you smile on camera um we are going to have you recite quran for us and anyone that knows uh anything about mifta talent you can go on to our website all the all the slots are full from if that talent and anu are you teaching any of my kids this semester yes i have zakariya zakariya so is he improving alhamdulillah okay i'm going to check him i'm going to test him but you've definitely built uh interest in my children and my nephews and my friends children we have a yusuf hassan zakaria and there are kids in my community also that are joining the programs all across america and canada and their their kids are reciting quran loud at home my kids are too so you know some things we can inspire sometimes we need to leave a message to our children that they're also going to be a next generation that's going to teach our children too so your hands are going to be tied up with my kids so make sure you learn your education well because you know we're going to get old and and our children will you know really depend on the next generation so we're really proud of nude may allah protect him protect his family preserve him inshallah [Music] [Music] m [Music] m [Laughter] foreign [Applause] [Music] oh m the [Music] m [Applause] [Applause] [Music] foreign [Music] m [Music] you know you know the part where people of jannah reach jannah and they start to say alhamdulillah and when you when we were reciting these verses no it as if i was already we were experiencing paradise the way the quran is so clear and your voice is masha'allah very beautiful you really can i can't imagine jannah and the beauty of jannah and may allah reward you for reminding us of that paradise and make dua for new brothers and sisters please give your saddam and give your duas for our young brother inshaallah we will see him again why are you so quiet you're scared why are you so quiet i'm listening to you take care insha'allah alaykum all right i'd like to invite on mufti abdullah you got a job to do man you can't you can't sit back and relax that's what hello you gotta change it up uh no i was watching you bajan and you know and mashallah listen to enjoying the recitation of the quran you're young and you just started brother you know you can't sit back yeah you know and i can't sit back and relax yeah sit back you're always gonna be on the edge you know shah abdullah will be back in charlotte in a few seconds um bless everyone that's joined from uh every part that the virginia back yeah how's it look it looks better it looks good it looks cool honestly man if we're gonna have these um if the camera and the wi-fi it's not gonna do justice to my looks we're gonna not it's not because you know those looks need a live a live audience what's going on how are you doing at the school and you know preparing for the friday night live this has become a routine in our schedule um it's another session that we do amongst the live sessions but of course we also have our teaching that we do for our full-time school and in mr but um this friday night live thingamajin has been a beautiful blessing for us and for i'm sure for the audience as well uh to be able to see diversity of speakers panels artists from different parts of the country the parts of the world like even we were not introduced to them before this so i hope that inshallah everyone else is enjoying them too and we have a beautiful session today uh a different type of session excited excited excited hopefully you will benefit and enjoy how's your day virgin i can't complain with this app you know uh in flint we had to close our mustang down people were asking people asking when you're doing the live virtual like why are you doing alive yeah you know you know what happened in the beginning when covet happened everybody just you know went into the right they did the right thing because we were our hospitals were flooded and exhausted our resources were exhausted and we couldn't find masks and and sanitizers back in the days and toilet papers for that i can't believe we went through time in our life like that and then things got settled people recovered and the mortality rate has gone down you know greatly um but still covet is still it's still active and we don't have a vaccine and uh the only vaccine that we're looking at from russia russia vaccines russia and the vaccine from china and if you want to use the vaccines of china you're going to be a chinese product so which is which is 90 of us already chinese products exactly so we don't know what's happening right now what's left or we're going to ask allah to he saves us and we do what our will do our best to protect ourselves so there was it's there was a small um uh breakout in our in city of flint in a muslim community of kovid and uh people are safe alhamdulillah everyone's recovering but you know we have to be careful you know like even one two cases is a major issue because we're so connected we have a masjid people come for salah and we want to make sure nobody is in contact with the person that was exposed to someone or has is carrying covet so we have to make sure that so our masjid was really proactive in that sense and i think we did the right thing for for this discussion to uh we don't want to be the reason where we're jeopardizing someone's life and jumba is important salah in the masjid is important but life safety of life heaven is also very important very important and inshallah this will help us become more cautious and inshallah those who are sick yeah we gotta open everybody thought i had covert too oh man because i was in contact with some people that had covert i didn't know they had kovac yeah you never had cover though you tested i have to be at the event sometimes you know you know whether it's a wedding or like a you know some gym wherever you go there's going to be people there and uh so everybody would just and i i teach at the school i have my kids at the school engaging with the community so i i got i got i got hammered with messages like you know we're praying for you i heard you got covered i i wasn't even tested yet people were like rumors i have coveted and i'm spreading coffee i'm like i don't know what people are talking about i got up the same day and may allah reward uh the people at double iwn they got me in and got tested took my sample they put the swab in my nose oh man it tickles you know that's one of the reasons why i haven't got tested yet but yeah so you know and and i i mean not a big deal but alhamdulillah came out negative everyone was on their edge just like what's going on but uh in the end of the day we have to protect ourselves and allah will keep us healthy the next artist that we have we've introduced him a few times and we've had them on with a few times we have a few artists that are not like a part of fabric and we have some arabic artists we have some english and we have some urdu so all three languages we have our we have our artist so what happens when people sing urdu right the arabs don't understand what's going on and and when they someone comes to sing in english but when someone comes to speak in a sing in arabic even the people who don't know urdu they enjoy it don't know they enjoy arabic they don't know arabic they enjoy it because it's the language of the quran language of the prophet sallam and some of the lyrics like and cameroon people know these lyrics so it's really interesting and really fascinating to have someone come to sing arabic arabic is my favorite language you know then of course urdu and and also jaipur le francais oh god japanese i i speak french so kamasovo you know those french people when they talk to god they make all these facial reactions you you meet french people no no i'm staying away from the french fries nowadays corbin but uh i love the people from from the from from montreal quebec and wherever they speak french in the world alhamdulillah you're thank you so much we admire you so much and we uh really really look forward to coming on i told my kids that you'll be joining us today and my son and my nephew were like oh the one that has a duff he said yeah he sings good they're all excited they're all excited alhamdulillah it's my honor to be here alhamdulillah how is your family how are you your children everyone doing well alhamdulillah everyone is good alhamdulillah how is your father how is your father how is he doing alhamdulillah he was like months ago a little bit sick but alhamdulillah now he's good he's in syria he's in syria and actually my grandmother passed away last week if we can make da for her everyone here my dad grandmother passed away and he's asking us to make special dua for her we ask allah all of us who are here watching 600 plus people who are watching live and those who are listening later please keep her in your duas and we ask allah to elevate her status and give her for those what the righteous people with the prophet sallam without and make her children and her grandchildren and give them jameel i'm so sorry i am i'm so sorry on the loss of your grandmother may allah give you the reward of sabbath inshallah all of us on our own we should recite some quran and bless her soul inshallah i mean um welcome and so your father is doing well in syria i know there is a there's a concern in syria that covet has you know almost everyone in damascus i heard has coveted or has been exposed to covet yeah yeah it's uh what like three weeks ago it was really bad but now the situation much better three weeks ago like uh a lot of uh aldi people passed away you know they get that covered and yeah allah my father allah make it easy all over the world i mean i mean you know the syrian condition is very tough all across these countries like yemen syria who who are uh they're they have already been in the middle they've been in the middle of a war for many years syria almost 10 years right and and uh yemen for many years and and i can imagine gaza and other places in the world where they already have storage shortage of medical facilities health care and and now covet coming where are they going to find hospitals or hospitals have been bombed uh their safety shelters have been destroyed may god help and revive them it's very very hard talking about it but our duas and our love and our money and our wallets inshallah our lives are for them insha allah thank you so much you have a heavy heart today and tonight he's going to really melt us even more so we're waiting for him well then what do you what do you want what do you want to start with to uh insha'allah in america start with the salaat i want the prophet sallallahu alaihi sallam then everyone can also join join also and i'll sing with him you know that will help you in your viewership what do you think it would definitely help in the viewership i know that for sure but yeah no no and then listen to him and and i'll probably step away just to give him his privacy la [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] was [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] yes [Music] is [Music] is [Music] [Music] [Music] is [Music] a [Music] this was so beautiful i mean the voice was beautiful the praises of the prophet sallallahu alaihi were so touching you know it's just it says make us pray that one day we will see muhammad rasulullah you know and enjoy his presence you know and that that those those praises of the prophet saw you know you know muhammad like you know it's these poems are beautified by it by the name in the in praises of the prophet what do you think oh man that was that was that was hard touching what a start what a start starting off with the thicket of the prophet saw it's again the way he read it and also um i think everyone feels the distance from the prophet because we have not been able to go from hajj and naturally for people that are go that go normally it hits the spot even more you know you know that saying but you know you know your remembrance continues to intoxicate me you know someone you love like your love o prophet sallam it continues to intoxicate me and just an extreme love for you have you ever seen a lover that has never been intoxicated like that in sense of emotionally intoxicating emotionally driven where that person's pleasure is the most important thing to you i mean if if we're going to love if we're going to be that person that's intoxicated who better better to love than the prophet saws what way to start off a program other than us reciting poems but that was so beautiful your your voice the the the the words because if i join they're going to ask me to sing not you see everybody wants me to sing i know what i want you to sing go for it go for it you should go to indian idol and see a performance on indian item you know you know but my performance is only uh good for people who don't have the power to listen i don't have the the greatest voice and you know one of the one of the things that a person should understand and recognize that there's some things they're just not good at you know like you have a beautiful voice you know i think you know if i i i hope i have the muhammad inshallah but i i want to keep it in action i don't want to sing it you know what you don't want to close that yeah because you know there are people they they might just uh they might lose respect for me i don't know i don't want to shame myself but inshallah as we as we go down the road we'll get we'll get shaykh abdullah to sing one of these days but right now we have um the legend on us which is more than us yeah how can we sing when you're here next foreign [Music] [Music] allah [Music] [Music] [Applause] oh [Music] wow foreign [Music] a [Music] is [Music] [Music] [Music] a [Music] um [Music] [Music] ah [Music] oh [Music] me [Music] [Music] [Music] allah [Music] [Music] me allah [Music] [Applause] [Applause] [Music] [Music] you hit every every chord of the heart every string masha'allah with you may allah accept it sometimes you know of course the voice makes a big difference but the heart that reads behind it and also the words the right words that you chosen the right in the shoes that you chose all the places i think i really think it's all about the words can be read by anybody i think it's about this the reciter he has to have the heart heart the heart it's about the rule you have to be connected you know there's a lot of people that say things and they sing things you know uh but there's like it's repetitive parrot this you know like it doesn't it doesn't touch you but masha allah every time he comes on you have a very nice voice at the same time masha allah may reward you may allah forgive me no no insha allah protect you all of us and forgive all of us but you know you're our guest and we really appreciate your time may allah reward your family for allowing you to be with us tonight thank you so much for watching uh brother richard inshallah i got nervous man i started sweating people putting me on the spot you can put yourself on the spot you know you know next time i'll sing something you know not today next time next time because we already got entertainment you can't have two good singers you have two singers you can't give them everything on the same day you got to make something you know your favorite meal is only one course meal yeah you can have like a five-star meal then have another five-star meal you don't value it so you're not gonna value my voice so we could we're going to you know next time when you don't have a artist sign me up i'll put you at the artist i'm telling you it's going to be remarkable welcome welcome mother richard salam how are you doing well doing well i'm joking for joining us tonight and uh and we you had to wait a little bit i hope you enjoyed some of the recitation that was wonderful that was wonderful i enjoyed it immensely we are blessed to have you brother richard with us and we've met in the past in person at the muslim unity center how are you doing sir i'm doing well doing well good how's your family doing this covet and this these troubling times we're staying inside and home a lot how are you getting your supplies are you getting them delivered is someone serving you you have your children helping you out yes we had some people uh initially who was going grocery shopping for us uh now i you know we feel a little better about going out yeah no we're going out some yeah i mean at the beginning of things everybody was kind of you know we were afraid of every little there were germs flying everywhere and and uh we had wiped down their trees and all keep you safe your family's safe and we're very blessed that you're joining us tonight just introduce brother richard to the crowd um so the goal of friday night live is again to bring different stories and different people that can help inspire us uh through any way through any medium that is permissible of course uh brother richard's story is an inspiration he was spent the majority of his life 70 years 70 plus years of his life as a christian in 50 years of those were as a christian minister and allah granted him hidayah two years ago in 2018 in the month of ramadan and guidance comes at different times for different people and uh at the end of the day it depends uh how we leave some people uh live a long life without without dean and allah gives it to them that's it that's all that matters so brother richard we wanted you to join today we've met in person a few times and i've read your story and uh we've heard your story before uh you were traveling with sheikh estes before the covet as well um in this in this in this session rather than giving people you know the the the you know a bundle of advice we actually want to just benefit from the story right because sometimes we get caught up in the advice and we can't really enjoy the the learning because the journey is what motivates people right um you know if we the journey of the prophet is entire sila so hence we learn it right he's not a prophet that we love we love him for the entire seal that he gave us so brother richard zakir khan for joining us and uh we're going to get right off and we're going to ask you the first question that you you you were you were born as a christian you lived in maryland from for the majority of your life uh and what did you first what made you become a christian minister like was that something in your family or was that something that just happened with you uh that's kind of a unique situation i was raised in a non-church-going uh non-religious kind of family and uh when i was 12 there was a uh a friend of mine who lived about about 10 10 houses away and we got to be friends and her mother uh kind of took interest in us and shared with us the the story of christianity and uh led us into the christian prayer to become a christian and uh at that time your family was your family was not a christian family they were not a church-going family no no no they weren't is that a nor is that is that is that becoming of course it's becoming more common now but was that common even in that era no it was that was rare okay um back at that point of time uh you know there was a whole concept of generation my parents had gone through world war ii and uh all the families had that gone through uh the uh the great difficulties there with you know battles on the atlantic battles in the pacific and uh during that time people became god-fearing people as i went to high school and graduated um uh 470 something in my graduating class out of that i maybe two or three that weren't regular church-going people wow it was world war ii brought people back to church is that what it is well it did it well it uh you know you get into those conflicts and all of a sudden you're you're dealt with you know a little kind of those existential moments where you just say okay i gotta find out what's uh why i'm here and uh i'm gonna turn to a higher power to get us through this difficulty um uh at nine you know the 911 crisis and uh we had kind of a nominal church attendance from sunday to sunday uh but the sunday following 9 11 we had to have two services that were packed to capacity it was it's like under the under the threat under the guise of uh of a crisis uh everybody kind of goes uh i better uh yeah go back and just check things out make sure everything's good uh and that lasted for a while uh but after a while it was kind of like okay uh we're gonna be okay there's no breed uh crisis here it was just uh the one day event and uh then slowly everybody got back to normal it's kind of like the guy who goes into the hospital with a severe heart problem and he prays out to god saying god you get me through this i will serve you i will be faithful to you and he gets through it and he's faithful for a week or two or three and then goes back to normal but back to back to yeah mecca party brother richard um so when you uh started practicing christianity what type of denial what denomination were you and what was the rest of your life what were you practicing and what was your family practicing we were baptist baptists and a very fundamental evangelical uh yeah we were baptized then as an evangelical did you you led a church in the community for how many years i was involved in christian youth work a lot uh i was involved in a number of churches uh but most of the big chunk of my time i was a youth minister uh in detroit oh wow we were involved with uh well we called them it was an organization called the voice of christian youth uh my office was an eight mile in telegraph and uh we just dealt with kids in the city and uh kids in the suburbs too but the kind of kids that we called that fell in the cracks so back then sort of so back in the days in the 60s and 70s 80s i know islam was growing but it was heavily active in the african-american community did you come across i'm sure you came across cassius play muhammad ali and malcolm x and these strong influential people did they that what was your take on hearing their names in islam and back in the day did you ever meet them did you ever meet any of these people no no i i came from maryland oh yeah and my whole my whole life i mean we were it was a very segregated community wow um uh we had uh you know bathrooms for the whites and white and we had bathrooms they used the term the colored uh we had several drinking fountains separate swimming pools um out of a high school of 2000 and something i don't know maybe 10 african-american students in the in the uh it just um it was bad it was yeah it was very very sick if you went to a movie theater you had a separate seating for blacks separate seating for whites i mean they were not allowed to play baseball i mean they couldn't be quarterbacks all these even in sports we we find the challenges um so where did you when you heard of like big select muslim uh icons did you did that alarm you anything about islam did you think about it back then you know i never really gave it a whole lot of thought uh cassius clay going to muhammad ali i think when it first kind of hit me was uh uh uh yeah let me think of his name here real quick kareem abdul-jabbar uh before he was kareem abdul-jabbar he was lou alcindor and that was kind of like wow that's kind of weird uh but whatever he was a good basketball player and you know that was like in another world i was isolated in a very white world in a very church white world and muslims were kind of somewhere else yeah and at that time muslims were not perhaps as integrated into the community either because you know they were growing they were growing yeah migration took place in the you know 60s late 70s heavy immigration yeah and 80s right okay the first big flock of muslims came in the early 1900s you know when we had the lebanese lebanese uh muslims came in uh but even earlier than that but um so you saw the name of karim of the jabar and you're like wow you know like and i'm talking about he has the most points in nba history one of the one of the biggest when they talk about like the best player they always exclude the name of criminal jabar for some reason and i kind of get offended because he was i mean there is no lebron james hook shot without criminal jabar you know to certain extent you know there's no michael jordan without criminal jabar but at the same time uh kareem so he he got you he got your attention because he was the biggest muslim name out there so brother richard like you you you spent you know such a long portion of your life doing what you were doing i i wanted to ask during those years um did you feel fulfilled doing the work you were doing well yes absolutely positively 100 i loved and still love seeing uh you know kids that are struggling we talked about kids that were in the cracks it was like um you know maybe it was a one parent family or they had no church connection or they had some school problems something some of the major props that kind of keep us standing or missing and to go in and point them to faith in god and at the same time help the problems i mean it's kind of like uh you know somebody's in jail um down you know i went to see some kids or you know wayne county jail or out of children's village you know you walk in there and you're doing more than just saying hey god loves you you gotta you gotta help them figure out how they got there and uh maybe avoid that in the future so it was a lot of counseling a lot of talking most of my i spent i spent a lot of my time in mcdonald's just talking to kids i see that move this up like see you see how the in the christian community how devoted they were and working on the youth sitting with them in different restaurants and you know it's a lesson for all of us as a muslim community that you have uh a person who believes in christianity how convinced and dedicated they are to their message and propagating whether they're uh baptist or evangelical or what other denomination they are they're just so committed you these uh these um you get before we used to get people to knock on doors but during covet people are calling you know yeah um yeah so you know so in one thought here when you're talking about youth work uh talking about high school kids college age kids we always we spend a lot of time with him socially i mean not only just having a hamburger somewhere or going to cedar point or going on a camp out but the concept was to be around them when that teachable moment hit that one moment they needed you that one moment when i mean you talked to a kid and you know the things are just bouncing off their mind but somewhere and it always seemed to happen later in the evening or in the middle of the night or something where it was like you're sitting around a campfire at a camp and all of a sudden a kid starts to open up his heart to you and also you have that that moment where you can go in and and share god and and help them where they're actually a teachable moment and you and you can't just you can't pick it you have to wait for it so brother richard um where the million-dollar question i have you know i'm trying to move to gohab has where did inspiration come where did the awakening come where did you sense the light where did you feel the the pull towards the truth of islam it came when i retired from the christian i was in christian ministry for 43 years wow as a pastor and as a youth worker and uh at the end of that we were we were raised in a time when when the pastor got up front and said he opened up this bible and said here's the truth here's what we believe we just kind of believed it there was not like a well let's go and find out if if the manuscripts are right or if they you know we just didn't have that opportunity uh when i wrote you're blindly just following for so many years oh well yeah well when i when i want to write a term paper for school i didn't have google i had a i'd go to the library i had to go through a card file and and do research and all of a sudden as the years went on um all of a sudden i used the term google eyes i was googlized as things became available i could start doing research into the truth and to the non-truths and go wow there's a lot of holes in in my faith in my christian faith and i went from retirement and within two years i was basically an agnostic oh wow wow you weren't agnostic where i whereas like man i i mean the bible just there was manuscript problems there were they were doctrinal problems can you tell us one major problem that got you alerted the probably the biggest thing was a incident with a young man who was kind of our uh one of the i would use the term poster child but kind of a one of our leaders one of the high school kids who just you know he was the bible memorizer the the church leader whatever and after he got out of college and i was married a few years later he announced to the world that he was now an atheist and i was like dude man what do you mean you're an atheist you you quote you can quote more of the bible than anybody i know and uh so i get on the phone he was living in utah then and so you know reverend rich is going to come and fix it well what happened was he started asking probing quick he would ask doctoral questions and i would grab my theology books and i'd say well it was because of this this and this and this you know um and he would ask another question it was a little deeper and i go well i don't know if i have an answer for that one uh let me get back to you and the more questions he asked the more answers i did not have wow and during that time i was just like wow this is this is crazy so someone becoming an atheist you try to challenge him and help him and he challenged you and you were practicing christianity for your whole life and you were a minister and pastor and now you're put in the backseat like i don't have answers and now this brought speculation to you richard you said something called bible memorizer i just wanted to catch that word does that mean some people memorize portions of the bible or or the old testament or the new testament do this do they memorize it or they memorize different chapters what do they do yeah we have a youth program it's a nationwide program still exists called bible quizzing uh where it's uh churches have uh kind of like a kind of like a debate kind of quiz bowl competition yeah i got you got competition and we would take a new testament book and the kids would memorize the book for that year uh whether it's the 28 chapters of matthew or romans or any of those whatever it was i'm really interested in getting your answer so what happened after you had the conversation with him well the biggest the biggest question i keep coming back to was i don't know how to say this it was like i couldn't believe in the in the in the exclusive christian god he kept saying he kept asking questions about what about the people that have never heard the message of jesus allah it was like what if they if they because the christian story is if you do not receive christ into your life you're lost and and and you're you're condemned to hell and we kept asking oh what about somebody you never heard what about somebody who was raised in a whole different culture in a different family and uh you would say well it was just that responsibility and he was asking a question about maybe somebody in a remote area just kind of think about the most remote section of the world you know somebody in a village they have no electricity and they have water they don't have news they don't have anything they they just they just don't know what about them would god be fair to them and the answer kept saying coming back saying no it's their responsibility to look up to the skies and see the glories of heavens and the stars and the earth and go there must be a god i better find him and i've got to find a final a find a about god writing about his book playing about his savior and invited man otherwise i'm lost i was like that that was not the god i could believe in it was like i was like god's better than that you know it's like there's got to be a no that's the way it is i mean you know you obviously you start with the christian doctrine of original sin that all babies are born in sin uh when you know the first moments of their life they are a condemned center there's a little grace time until they get to be 12-13 but after that they are responsible um to receive uh at this you know i'll just use the terminology but the atonement that god provided through christ on the cross and you have to accept that and ask for forgiveness and uh and be saved be born again whatever term you want to use and uh so it's like you're so i i i know i it's gonna i sorry for cutting you off but i want to because of time i want to move ahead to the discussion where in 2000 i said 2018 you accepted stamps so yeah whatever the chain of events happening with you within the last six months i'm sure you have family and you have friends so it was a big move and and what was it the spark that said fine i did you read the translation of the quran did you meet someone did you come across something that got your attention well i met the first and had the first conversation with a muslim in my life um i prior to that i was driving down u.s 23 here in livingston washington county one afternoon and i was at the end of my rope going there's no god uh i is there a god maybe there is maybe there isn't i don't know uh i'm 71 years old uh you know life's kind of passed me by here but this is getting kind of scary and i was driving and i looked up out of my windshield i'd say i said god if you're there you're gonna have to show me wow you're gonna have to guide me and show me something really really tangible you know i want to hold you there for a second because there's so many people that have con reverted or converted to islam that is what i heard from they've asked sincerely god guide me you know like and anyone that has sincerely asked for guidance god never uh ignores their call okay then what happened sir well through a whole series of events i ended up meeting a guy in uh in a cellular store a 19 year old young man from the muslim unity center and uh after about three or four weeks i ended up getting his phone uh you know for for his service because i was kind of a research guy i'd kind of like uh tell me a little bit more about this service okay what does it cover here yeah okay what other features and so you tell me i'd go home do some research go back and we did that about three or four days and uh one day i was like um uh bro you need to understand he was you know the store was in brighton i don't know if you're familiar with brighton in this area yeah yeah bright very very upscale uh very um rich and very white and i was like my brown brother you may get a kickback or two standing here at this store just just just gonna warn you um i'm not a prophet but it did happen that uh he you know he got some people saying why don't you go back where he came from and he was going westbound the normal yeah the kind of things and uh when i said that he's i said i said of course no i said i said i don't have any islamophobia i don't have any xenophobia i don't know you know i'm you know and he said well you should know i am muslim i went really i don't think i've ever talked to a muslim before wow you know that i want to stop you there for a second 63 percent of americans i mean non-muslims have never met a muslim no yeah they they claim they've never met a muslim because it is the responsibility of muslims if they're the cashier at a workshop or if they're the person serving them at gm or ford or chrysler if they're their uber driver whoever they may be they're kind gentle people but many a times their kindness and their gentleness is reflected to themselves and not their religion yeah they're not they're not proud they're proud of it but they're still a little shy a lot of times it's not it's not that you know i don't think it's always like it's not proud or they're they're they're grieving or they're uh you know they're trying to hide it's just that it's not a conscientious decision to show that you're muslim right but brother richard i mean i i you know a lot of times people that we meet just you know what i'm gonna do now if i see a white guy or a non-muslim that beer you know just his story you know teaches us a simple lesson that hidayah doesn't necessarily come from the biggest sheikh in the world from the biggest mufti in the world the biggest alim in the world or the biggest speaker in the world he die is a responsibility on every single individual this is a cashier at a phone store here from from from bloomfield hills michigan who became the source of hidayah for this man who lived his entire life in christianity never thinking about islam never thinking about islam and he's claiming this is the first time he met a muslim first time so dear brothers and sisters the responsibility is on our shoulders right we have to make sure that when we're kind people know who we are because if they don't know who we are then how are they going to know islam is beautiful right i mean people richard i believe this again you talk about 2018 when brother richard has gone through 9 11 he's gone through the islamophobe uh a lifestyle and we're talking about post donald the donald's election donald the donald correct 100 100 the po this is supposed to that is but but brother richard you can go ahead but i was going to end by saying that that that the the thought that um you know we don't know where guidance will come from that that knowledge only lies with allah and neither are we responsible to give that guidance but as long as people know who we are and know that we're muslim it will give us it will at least relieve us of our responsibility right that we did our job and we can feel good about ourselves but richard you met this guy for the first time and he had an effect on your life right he yes did he take you to the unity center did you go there yourself what happened um no i just kept going back to the cell store week after week and he kept telling me a little bit more about islam and i'd go home and redo the read and i was there one day the most significant thing that happened was i was there and they weren't busy and he had some time and he said you know it's it was prayer time it was time for salah i don't remember which one it was it might have been uh the afternoon prayer prayer or or the officer or something the afternoon and he said i'm gonna pray why don't you come and watch and just sit and watch how we pray wow and uh so i don't yeah that's fine that's great because you know what was in my heart was why i never became an atheist i be you know i got to agnosticism but it's like i can't get to the point of saying there is no god i can't get there it's just like i see anyone and so i went back he prayed he gave me a copy of the the salah in english uh the fariha and the tatu did everything so i could follow along and uh he he went through his prayer in arabic and he had the rug on the floor and uh you know the sajud and raku and the whole thing and and it was like this was beautiful one of the beauties and one of those the specialties of our religion that we don't really think about by the richer because we don't reflect upon this it is our religion the problem says our in the entire earth has been made a place of worship for us we are not confined to the mosque to pray in we can pray anywhere and everywhere as long as the area is pure yeah we think about that praying five times a day was not as difficult because the people of musa is had to pray inside of the synagogue the three times they had to pray we were given the the option of praying anywhere so if it wasn't for the fact that we could pray anywhere how many how many guided souls would not have been guided you know i prayed once in the detroit airport you know praying in the airport is always interesting right oh my god don't ask me it's like it's like you have to pray uh you know you can't go out i want to ask him a quick question mr richard have you ever crossed the border after accepting islam no no so i have you ever met like a uh uh law enforcement or someone from the uh from the you know tsa have you ever identified yourself as a muslim and have they have a reaction to like wow you're muslim you're white and you're muslim has that ever happened no no no never happened i i uh my my world travels was prior to crazy things going on and i would get as far away as windsor oh so now you don't travel that much anymore i never traveled that much even uh even younger growing up okay sorry move to the hub go ahead let me finish we're seeing the airport you're saying something about the airport you were praying for others i'll sit after because that's okay yeah i was just going to finish the story of i watched the prayer he he showed me the prayer and i was like oh okay there's an english version he said you can pray that prayer at home you know just just he said you know get your compass out and he showed me how to you know look towards mecca and uh he really didn't even show me the the the procedures of uh of wudu we didn't talk about um uh we stand we we bow we kneel nothing you just said you know you're just praying and so i get home and the thing that i told him i said you know i said one thing i really want to do is i want to read the entire quran so i'm going to verify what's going on here and uh allah had a better idea and so i i was reading in the quran so i was i'm gonna pray and so i got actually in this very room that i'm in right now it's kind of my little office area and i prayed and i faced towards uh the northeast and i got up i stood up with my sheet of paper in front of me and i went in the name of allah and it that's all the further i got it was like god came in opened my heart and i i stood in here i stood here and wept for like half an hour wow and i was like and i didn't know why except it was like you know the concept of allah guides us and he opens our hearts and he did that and it was and it took me an hour to get through the prayer but so i took it out and i go okay this is day two i you know i didn't know to pray five times a day i was like well once a day should work and the second day in the name of allah the same thing i just i was overwhelmed with it with the presence of god and i think as i look back on it you know christians are christians for the for the concept is they they worship christ and um it's like all of a sudden it's like i connected with a creator and it was like it was overwhelming and that happened two or three days and i finally said okay i called your son i was like i said bro i'm coming over and um so he said yeah i'm fine we don't have any customers here today right now going on so i walked into the store and he goes you know hey rich how's he doing and i just walked right up to him and said i am muslim wow and he goes what do you mean i just said i am muslim and he gets on the phone tells his mom mom you know the guy we've been talking to and you have been praying for the story he's muslim wow what do we do now so they called they called the um you know um at the unity center and this was all during ramadan and they said well wait until ramadan is over come on out here on a friday we'll do shahada and we did that about a frightening year or two after ramadan 2018. what was the feeling of walking in on a friday into the muslim unity center and seeing hundreds of people and you um repeating the the phrase of accepting islam what was your feeling there uh i was just very excited i in a sense i kind of felt like you know i hadn't done the formal kind of thing but i've been kind of like no this is the right yeah this is the right trail and uh you know i was a preacher okay you know standing up in front with a microphone and doing something is kind of normal and uh so we got up there and they allowed me to tell my story a little bit and you know then uh gassan had had prompted me in how to do the shahada he didn't so i had it on my phone so i you know i read it in english in arabic uh he had given me uh amazing pronunciation there and um you know i was very excited as it was the most hugs i ever got in my life in one day yeah it was overwhelming isn't it all those hugs coming i you know i got flowers i got somebody give me a koofi it was amazing it was uh it was quite quite a time see and right away you felt that you have not just accepted islam but you found a new family absolutely absolutely uh i became a friend with gassan and all of his young buddies it was kind of weird but uh uh it was really a very very interesting time and um so the the folks there have just been been great and um it's a little bit of a drive so we've been kind of hanging out lately during the uh code things and stuff down at the muslim community western suburbs in canton you know mostly you want to ask this question but you know usually one of the biggest challenges with the sahaba what the people except islam is that their family their friends the way they react did you go public about it did you go on your social media and was there any hateful and if there was hate what did you see and have others converted in your hands from the the belief that you have um you know i uh i was a closet muslim for a bit of time okay okay i was like that makes sense um you know i'm not telling anybody anything uh uh i mean i even told my wife i'm just yeah i'm going out with you so your wife didn't know no no no wow actually i'm going i'm going with him out there we're just going to pray and so at the at the mosque and uh so she was like oh okay and then the next friday was like yeah that was kind of nice i think i'm going to go again and go again and uh so you know it was um uh but i reached a point one saturday morning where it was just like you know i've got this wonderful media thing here called facebook and i just went and just like okay all my friends i just want to let you know that i have found faith in god uh as a muslim i read faith in god i've got a rebirth so to speak uh and uh i just kind of kind of went public and i don't it was a really interesting response it was like dead silence for a long time yeah i'm going either the either all my christian friends are going uh okay he's starting to lose it you know we're just kind of he's older man we're going to give him uh but then eventually we got we got some good slaps in the face and uh some um we used to call it the left foot of fellowship uh where they kind of disown you uh including my oldest son wow it's like no no no you're not going to have a muslim dad so do you do you still talk to your son no subhanallah guys listen to this they they are people like you who who accept islam it's so many times where the children accept islam and the parents disown them they don't want to talk to their parents don't want to talk to the truth that's the story that we hear all the time here you're the father who accepts islam and your eldest son just cannot accept it and this he disassociates from you yeah and so it's been years that you haven't spoken to him and and and that's the challenge and that also proves the conviction of your faith that the fact that your son doesn't accept or your friends do not acknowledge of their you know they've isolated you and alienated you that does not stop you from practicing what you believe that's unbelievable honestly man i think this is my first time hearing a converse story in such detail a reverse story in such you know um nuanced detail like people still like we talk about sahabahs and their sacrifices and they're leaving their families and their you know their children's being pulled away from them and um and her child and you know these things are still happening man you know statement was that if you don't have a reverb in your community that means you haven't seen uh if you haven't you haven't seen true islam because those people truly understand the beauty of islam because they left so much into for you know the beautiful hadith that you know you know that whoever leaves something which is impermissible you know allah gives them something which is much better for them right correct richard you perhaps you know can are not and speak in terms of your eldest sons son but you have all of us we have so many children now children like you know really like you know islam does something very different in which when the person enters into islam everything prior to that is forgiven forgotten and it's a new like the new beginning is literally beginning when um became muslim no one asked him why did you come with the sword for again i was like we're cool man we're brothers we're family now right and like that feeling of you know joy you felt many of us never felt so in many ways your faith has you know uh is concrete in ways that we've never experienced um so you know we look up to you for that and we and we applaud you for that and we revere you for that richard has any friend or family member become has have they accepted islam through your story or anything uh i've had two people accept islam through i put my story in print is what i've sent to you there and uh uh you know i've kind of hooked up a little bit here with uh check yourself estes and i do a tv thing with him a couple nights a week and uh i traveled with him a little bit when before kobe came uh just sharing my story and stuff and uh we're on the uh the tv broadcast there on guidance tv and uh got a call in from a lady in san diego and she was a baptist girl not a girl woman who had been in uh the music ministry of her church for a long time and she had followed a little bit of of use of vestus and seeing his teachings and and then she saw me give my testimony on the dean show and uh but she puts that together with what she already had learned a little bit and uh uh she called in one friday and did johanna on the on the show amazing really good and how was your wife i mean i think people are wondering what happened with that yeah she's she's fine um you know she still practices her christian world uh but she's very accommodating and uh very accepting of me and where i'm at that's amazing that's amazing what else could you ask for that's exactly what we asked for and you're being blessed with a really loyal spouse well we've been we've been hanging out together for 53 years as spouses and uh so yeah yeah where you go where are you guys going to go now you guys got to stay together and we're not going to start all over yeah exactly but that's a smart choice and and hopefully through your character your wisdom more good will come through it to lives of many people and your story has inspired us you know sometimes these stories they uh spark interest in non-muslims you know people of your complexion particularly um to know it's this white man from maryland accepted islam um there must be something about this religion let me i have to research it so it brings this curiosity to this to the white folks which is sometimes sometimes a a a a race that kind of ignores islam or doesn't give attention to it alhamdulillah from the black community it's unbelievable one-third after african-americans that were brought into four slavery were muslims so there is a heritage of islam in the african-american community some of the white community they're good people good hearts i've met them very knowledgeable i've traveled with them every flight that i've sat next to a caucasian man particularly i've had it a conversation islam one day i was on a flight and then this person he was very nervous he was sitting next to me story short i don't blame him and i i think we were your turban though i was i was traveling somewhere south that's for sure oh you know and um so huh oklahoma i think i think oklahoma oh my and and uh this was just before a few months before covet and uh the guy goes to me are you muslim i'm like heck yeah i'm a muslim you know i'm proud you know but uh i mean what else do you want to know i traveled the way i i dressed for jumma almost you know so i said yeah he says um i got some questions i said you're speaking to the right guy he said is it true in islam like he came out he came out hard you know we introduced each other in the first quarter before i could even ask him he said i've been waiting to meet a muslim that's okay here you are and before i can introduce myself he can introduce himself he said i've heard that in islam that you're taught to lie to non-muslims yeah like you know in islam i was like um man i was like i was like man i wish my parents made that i would like parents look no way that's not allowed like one of the biggest um warnings in the quran is about lying you know allah says the curse is upon liars you know there's so many uh you know uh warnings and threats against people people who have a habit of lying i said no prophet sallam our teacher muhammad and i gave him the narrations and the versions and one of the first things that he was recognized for was he was the most truthful most honest and the religion is based on the back of such an honest person it can't be this so i said this is blasphemy on the religion well there you know there might be some you know uh shower uh watered down domination within people who claim to practice islam have that narrative i asked him what do you do he says i'm a u.s marine or you know he works he's in the u.s army or something i said perfect man i gotta give you more dawah i gotta talk to you you know because you're probably gonna be deployed to iraq or somewhere you didn't know about our religion and you know hopefully you'll have some sympathy on innocent people or some you know around the world so we talked for an hour or so and and it was really powerful and he got interested in islam but really you know there are people so that denomination doesn't get the exposure as much now they see you it sparks an interest and and the next thing is muslims us you might have few non-muslims that tune in sometimes we get re-inspired is that right move this up like we are sure that islam is we 100 we know our religion is true we don't need any affirmation but it makes us feel good that someone like you someone black someone white hispanic uh chinese doesn't matter it doesn't matter what race they come from when they accept islam in our community it gives us so much hope islam is growing our children and it gives us it gives us a sense of pride man like yeah we we were allah bless us with islam since the day that we left our mother's wombs like we we should feel so proud that allah has given us hidayah and brother richard like you inspire look we live in a very interesting world we take inspiration wherever we can get it yeah advice even if it's written on a wall so like i i literally i go into airports i actually look on the wall and i find all these nice beautiful coats uh you know like so so but richard you you um you you're you're living here or inshallah you have a lengthy life or after we pass away inshallah you continue to inspire people through your story um and i i want you to finish by the richards i know you have something else to add and to you know end with so i want you to give you a few few moments to end your story charlotte we can call it a night yeah oh let me let me just give you the quickie how i've met a muslim uh it was it was you know i prayed and i said god guide me somewhere well he led me here's how he how allah put this thing together i was at a business meeting in ohio met a guy from pittsburgh who told me about the kind of wireless system that gassan was selling that was about a year before all that and i went well okay that's nice and so i just kind of filed that away and never thought about it again but i used to go to a barber in brighton to get my hair cut and that barber was in a kroger mall a supermarket well kroger decided to make the whole store their place so they kicked my barber out and my barber had to go find a new place so but in the meantime an entrepreneur from west bloomfield decided to start a cellular store in brighton and his and he's not muslim but a boy up the street your son was looking for a job and he said well i've got one but it's clear out in brighton which was about a 45 minute drive and because i said okay i'll take it and so we got the store in brighton we got gassan now from west bloomfield out to brighton and the barber shop moved two doors down from the wireless store so that so the next time i go to get a haircut i see this wireless store and i remember the guy from pittsburgh who said this is great stuff and it's cheaper and uh you know all of a sudden and the other part was gassan's a college student he was only working on two season thursdays wow i went to get my hair cut on a tuesday and uh and i see all those kind of things happening and i'm going god's giving you a message i i get the message you got the message i get the message and so any of those days when i you know have a moment of doubt like maybe we all do at times there's just like no no no no this is this is this is too too obvious uh for me to have belts and uh um love bless you brother richard thank you so much mr i want everybody i want everybody in the chat to just congratulate brother richard and give him some kind words and uh and support and prayers he's inspired you and you please keep him in your prayers in the chat drop something kind he can read it and then share his story with your family friends and inspire others and if you have any non-muslim friends who are interested in islam you can reach out to miftah and we can connect you with brother richard right and yeah you have a copy of my story man just just send it 100 yeah we'll share it and you can can they can probably find you online and i i encourage i cur encourage brother richard to really blog about this and talk about this and and influence more people because he has a reach to certain nominations that we don't have access to um you want to call it a night inshallah say by the richard he's joining he you know there's uh imam khalid saleem who's from the canton area who does an absolutely amazing job with i love him he does an amazing job with uh with uh converse and reverts bless him there are people in our community who are doing work just because we don't know about it doesn't mean it's not happening we have to find a place where we can add value if it's in a cell phone shop and that's what it is right everyone should become you know says inspire to aspire before you expire inspire to aspire before you expire so uh let's be let's let's be a source of inspiration for at least ourselves people that meet us through our character but richard thank you yeah we're just supposed to invite people we don't have to do any that's not our responsibility just invite them invite you know when i was in england right this lady met me with muslim who converted islam she said i don't know why you guys are hiding your islam it's so beautiful why are you scared why are you shy you know i mean just be proud of it and and this is a story that richard reminds us such a beautiful religion and there are so many people on the edge who are ready to accept islam but we're just maybe we're the the reason why they can't accept it because we haven't reached out enough to them may allah give us a toll free to do that and we're so blessed to though those who were born muslim were so blessed and those who converted islam may god reward them for their struggle for their challenges and grant them the best world and best of this world in the next world and we should thank allah for islam we have the best religion we're so blessed we are grateful to god alhamdulillah we thank god that he has guided us to this religion and no one except him could have guided us towards this beautiful path we thank him so much virgin people like brother richard can double the reward you know yeah he was a christian and then after he became muslims he gets double the reward brother richard and god bless you my love bless you i'm writing i'm finishing up a book almost done it's my journey how i came to islam and the 20 main doctrinal problems that uh that caused me to become that direction amazing we were looking forward to that book thank you mr lahab for joining us and organizing this event we had ustad beautiful artists nasheed singer um did a great job and then we had brother richard joining us tonight we had brother who received the quran earlier and always moved with his smile with his uh human humility with his wisdom he always tantalizes us and and he brings us great joy um sometimes you know sometimes you make a smile sometimes you make us laugh either way much we're so happy to have you thank you so much i want to encourage everyone that has joined us on nifta tonight to subscribe subscribe to our channel please make sure uh you um follow mr institute on youtube uh hit the bell icon on on facebook this is a story you want to share this is a story you want to make sure it goes viral share with your friends your neighbors your followers but i was asking what happened to the airport nothing much i i was praying salat no one came and hit me this could be a sister okay sister uh uh no one came and hit me no one bothered me just a lady came and um she said to me dear son i have never seen something so peaceful in my life oh non-muslim non-muslim yeah your son i've never seen anything so peaceful in my life keep praying to god so it's peaceful man may allah bless you for your time your energy and your humor i think it keeps the thing that makes friday night live is is your life it was your aliveness so don't make me blush don't make me watch it okay good night brother richard and could that be so

Channel: Miftaah Institute

Views: 2,475

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: The Journey to islam, muslim convert, how i came to muslim, story of a convert, br richard kifer, baptist becoming muslim, new muslim story, friday night live, mufti, new muslim, shaykh, mufti abdul wahab waheed, shaykh abdullah waheed

Id: CtEX7-i46jA

Length: 94min 16sec (5656 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 18 2020