From a Hafiz of Quran to the night clubs then back to Islam

for the brothers and sisters who keep the quran and maintained it those are hafiz i am a brother who did memorize the quran but i fell off and as we move it's it's a it's a different dynamic it's it's completely different it's just love alhamdulillah [Music] [Music] my next guest went from memorizing the quran this is a living miracle for anyone who takes a look it is a living miracle and he was the one carrying it and then he drifted off ended up in the clubs in the nightclubs dunya took over now he's on the dean's show we want to hear his story when we come back don't go anywhere i'm fantastic so you you were just reciting for the muslims out there who are tuning in for the first time uh and they're hearing you reciting something so beautiful middle odious what were you tell us what were you reciting alhamdulillah um the story that i was reciting was the last page of al-baqarah the last two a it's of al-baqarah um i just love that sora my father used to recite it all time as a kid when i was a kid so now your father he was so passionate about it's not so your father actually started off i was going to ask you um were you a christian before a buddhist hindu and you were like no no i was muslim born and raised muslim born and raised muslim born but then your father was a christian right my father was a christian um my grandmother my father and my grandfather they were in the churches and my father was in the church as well i believe he didn't start he started back in the nation that's where i guess you know for african-american muslims we didn't have a lot especially coming from slavery so in order to change ourselves this the nation of islam was a beautiful thing for a lot of black muslims but as my father learned about learned more about islam and learned more about what islam was he became sunni muslim and when i was born he was fully transitioned into full sunni muslim now he had such a passion and love for the deen for this way of life that he wanted you to memorize the quran so tell us a little about that what age did you start memorizing the quran so i don't remember actually learning how to read quran or read arabic i just knew how to read it when i was when i was younger my father that's the only thing he did he just he always recited he always wanted me to recite he always recited in front of us and he learned that i had a good memory when i was younger so um when i turned 12 i started memorize the quran and three and a half years later i was 15 and a half i'm i finished the quran al hamdulillah now when i when i opened up the program i was like okay you know people can't imagine a lot of times okay this is a young boy memorize the quran but then his life took a different turn ended up in the nightclub dunya took over completely different so i went from from uh from the dean to the dunya what happened um and i'm sure this is this is we see this happening a lot now a lot and this happens to uh especially um children's children who grew up in islam i think as we grew up in islam um we don't appreciate because i can't blame it on my parents because my parents did the best they can and as muslims we don't really as kids we don't appreciate what we actually have and also with parents they'll have um i believe that sometimes we are too hard on our children and we don't let our children really understand and love islam like we're supposed to so as we get older we kind of drift away because it's kind of too harsh or it's um like too strict and as we get out into the world especially in the dunya the dunya got a lot of sparkly things and when you get into the dunya and you see those sparkly things sometimes you want to touch them sometimes you want to do whatever so that's unfortunately but i won't say unfortunately fortunately that's what happened to me beca and i say fortunately because um now that i have a daughter and now that i'm a husband i really appreciate islam like truly i truly appreciate islam and what it has done for me all right so without going into any details of your past just for the sake of others who are out there the mediums the aishas the suleimans the hamzas the esas you know so they don't have to go ahead and take that turn and experiment because some people they might end up never coming back you were blessed that you ended up coming back to the dean some people get lost drug addiction suicide i haven't you know that's your friends that happened to so what advice or give us a glimpse okay because in the beginning you get in and it's very tantalized you get in and you should like a kid in a candy store you know what i mean so what were some of the things that you were doing some of the things that you were involved in and then now comparing it to where you are now the exp the the feeling that you have now and the feeling that you had at that time obviously it kept you going but then that faded right so let's contrast both well the same thing like you said a candy store when you go into a candy store everything looks all good but when you start eating too much candy you start to get tired of candy you start to be like all right this is enough and you start to feel like crap and that's how i felt i felt worthless i felt like dead inside i felt like you know everything was fun but as i got older it was no purpose it was like what am i doing and so you know i'm a bouncer i'm a i'm a security guard i'm i'm seeing all this night life and things like that but so you actually started working in the club also i was working in the clubs i was then partying in the clubs i was uh so literally i was in the clubs every day and um it wasn't until i went to the masjid and and won the shakes imam 15. that is a good brother shout out to him but he met the team asked me to lead the prayer and i felt bad i was like leave the prayer i was like no i can't i saw he made me leave the problem but led to prayer but um so you didn't totally you were still connected to the masjid somehow yeah because people know my father so and were you kind of living a double life here that's exactly what i was doing yeah so um even though i stayed away from the masjid online i wasn't telling people what i was doing and i wasn't taking pictures and a bunch of stuff taking videos and showing everybody what i was doing i was doing it and i was just kind of staying a little quiet about it you know people who around me knew what i was doing but for the most part the uh you concealed your sins i concealed myself so that's a good point here that people if you're gonna end up slipping up don't go and magnify your sins don't go tell everybody it's no point what are you what are you telling everybody so that means now you have witnesses on the day of judgment but um for the people who are out there man it's it's uh the dunya is a enticing and and it's mesmerizing for right now but as you get older it just starts to fade away and it starts to get dull and i i just didn't want to do that anymore but um as far as the my father everybody knew who my father was so i was watched a lot and i appreciate that but i was watched a lot so i made sure i kept that life away from my father so alhamdulillah i was able to live a little double life and then when i got back to the uh oh another story i didn't even tell you this how about this i go to a masjid one day and it was in ramadan and subhanallah i went to school in baltimore i see both of my teachers there both my half of the teachers there these are the teachers that taught you the quran yes sheikh hussein brother muhammad sheikh hussein walks up to me martin did you did are you are you reviewing i lied to him yeah yeah i'm reviewing i'm reviewing lying my other brother comes to me uh bruh martin how's your quarter anne oh it's great his greatest great ironically both of them tell me go ahead and lead go ahead go ahead and leave the prayer and subhanallah the same ayah that i recited just now was the same i recited then and i messed up and that's when they said brother you got it you got to stay on it so you had totally gone away from even reciting the crime i prayer you weren't praying you were no prayer no quran no nothing it was crazy so how did you feel i mean now obviously you've established you know the daily 5 daily prayers you know the five pillars that feeling that you get now you know the contentment the peace you know living your purpose as opposed to totally abandoning it so so again so aisha hamza suleiman all the other isa all the other muslim kids are out there or becoming adults they don't have to go down that route now and experimenting so what was the experiment what was the feeling at that time and now shoot the feeling then was no purpose empty emptiness literally emptiness no purpose uh anytime you saw a muslim you felt bad and any time you kind of like hit your islam and now i'm unapologetically muslim i see that yeah i just listen i'm wearing thobes everywhere i don't care what's going on i'm reciting wherever i if you ask me what it is i'm i'm gonna tell you exactly what it is i'm not gonna sugarcoat nothing but do you see that because of that covering up you know the the fit right now you know we have an innate disposition to worship our creator it's instilled in us and now you see what you're saying you're living a double life your conscience is eating away at you we see a lot of people they end up covering it up so much and they want to get rid of the guilt so they they even go to another extreme and they deny a law they deny the creator they turn towards atheism and have you seen that happen i i see it happen a lot i got cousins i got friends i got you know what it is allah gives you you know truly when you really feel bad that's a good thing don't take it as a bad thing it's a really good thing because that means you actually feel sorry for what you're doing you're not just telling people that you feel sorry and making like trying to like put it on this facade you're actually feeling sorry and that's what allah wants he wants forgiveness he wants you to ask for forgiveness he wants to bring you back so when it comes to okay i feel bad yes feel that guilt feel it because guess what as you get older and things like that and as you as these situations happen again oh bro you want to go out and drink and all that no i'm okay because you already feeling bad and it's like if you do something wrong in your house or something disappoint your mom or something and you already if you really feel bad you're not gonna do it again you're like man that made my mom feel really bad and the same thing when it comes to this dunya like you know man yeah i did all that stuff it's cool but or it's fun at the time but you know learning about islam and things like that it just makes you feel bad so um especially for the children out there for the for the young brothers who are out there when it's time your time to come back that's when allah is going to bring you back but inshallah always just try your best to just maybe slow down a little bit and then gradually just finish with it you spent a lot of time in vegas also i spent a lot of time in vegas it was you lived there lost there for six years and they call that they call that sin city sin city it ain't sin city for no reason yeah sure is it a big muslim community there it's a big muslim community but unfortunately your environment is still sin city yeah even though you can you can only stay away but so much because as you get older you know you you turn 16 what do you want to do you wanna go hang out with your friends where are your friends going your friends are going to to the club your friends are seeing drinks your friends are seeing partying every single night it's just not a i would say um you have good muslims there but it's not a place for muslims so what helped you now finally come back what was it living the double life you know worrying about disappointing your father a sign you were given a sign right you go how'd you end up at the masjid that day now with the two actually your two teachers were at that same masjid how did you end up at that day this is it's amazing shoot i was hungry you're hot you're true you're honest i was hungry i was just hungry i was i was like oh i didn't feel like cooking dinner that day and i was like that was ramadan so let me go to the masjid go act like i'm muslim for a little while and go get some food and look at allah god almighty allah the creator having mercy on you look at that the in the surah i always say you plan allah plans a lot truly a lot of the best of planners my plan was just go get some food and go somehow my both my teachers are they're here from baltimore flying in just to hang out for a little while you got to really think see allah sends those signs it's amazing isn't it allah sent boxing to me for this so talk to us about that so you ended up uh how did you end up coming back so you have these and i'm sure there's other other subtle signs you know some some of them we see some we don't maybe some now you reflect you're like oh okay because i i usually compare it to like a person if you're just you know um speeding down the highway the signs are all over you get pulled over and so didn't you see it now you're going too fast so you didn't see the signs like you're going through life too fast we're not paying attention life moves fast yeah but now were there any other signs and what else helped you to bring you back that you're with us here today good people allah put good people in my life kept good people in my life and so i stopped wanting to lie and be a hypocrite all the time because you had people who were looking at me and because they didn't know my double life they still were looking at muslim nahophath and then you had mo the the the guy who was selling drugs and the guy who was drinking so he got literally two different lives like it's just not it's not it's not cohesive for uh for for you it's about just living that double life all the time you just feel like a liar literally every day you just for you you try to hide everything your mom calls you you had a party you don't wanna answer the phone now you gotta call your mom that could be the time that your mom is sick she calling you to tell you that she in the hospital you put you in a club and you don't want to disappoint your mom anything or how about this you know you if you really think about it what if i died in those states but if you died in the club man and i think about it then i think about it now what if i would have died in that state being drunk being high dancing with a girl doing so whatever imagine if i would have died the next day walked out of the club and got shot or walked out clubbing i got hit by a car got in a car accident had a heart attack anything could have happened and crazy thing is now like man thank a lot that i i i'm able to he's given me just a little bit of time to try to repent try to do as much good as possible to try to get back whatever stupidity i did when i was younger how does this message get heard when you talked to some you know you probably met a lot of heavyweights in life and i'm not talking about just literally heavyweights heavy hitters heavy hitters people who uh have a lot in life you know a lot of ballers you call them people who are very influential you probably met a lot of different people uh and have you gotten a chance to share your story share your message and how has it been received sometimes sometimes you're able to share that message and people will receive it sometimes the message is not for everybody i will say the message not for everybody because allah literally a love surrounds you with the people that you want to be surrounded by and some people how about this i wouldn't say the message is not for everybody i will say that my message the way i have received it is not for everybody like when people hear you saying takbir and they say you say allahu akbar means the greatest and the person is just thinking like what's he saying you know and then again there's that button inside of all of us that made this position and when you start talking about the creator you know you're reciting quran you do it a lot right uh has anybody approached you people approached me bro what does it mean i have friends who do that and i just tell them well you know it just means uh i think a lot like allah is the greatest and what i try to do is i try to make it very vague like god is the greatest yes because when you say allah they're like oh it's like a it's like backup and so um just like the prophet always tell them you have to approach situations with caution and you have to approach situations with empathy so the same guy that you can be like yo allah is god blah blah blah blah straight up is not the same person for this you have to say listen um a higher entity that we believe in is god we believe in that and we prostrate to him um not because we have to but because we want to and so it's the difference you everything everybody's different the sahabas were different abu bakr was completely different from omaha and they were great they they are granted jannah but it's all about the approach so now we now we have half his musin who came back to the dean alhamdulillah yeah on the dean's show i would have never ever ever in my life thought that i would be so proud to be muslim until now now i i i'm always i'm just happy because a lot gave me my some time to accept um just appreciate everything that i went through so as far as like i don't regret anything i went to i feel bad but i don't regret it because i don't think i would be the person that would be without going through it because for islam for me it was a culture when i was younger and now it's a religion for me now it's this is really important because you have a lot of muslims also who are going through islam as a culture right this group of people have their religion we have art they have their culture christmas uh and then they have uh the other holidays that come with their religion oh we're muslim we kind of go through the motions also so that's what you were kind of doing but now it's a way of life exactly and and we are supposed to be different as far as being muslim like you got christians you got jews they drink they smoke some of them do whatever and they're not supposed to and then when it's time for christmas now they want to go to church they want to go to the to the malls they want to go everywhere but then when you have a slam we saw we're supposed to be different we can't say we drink a smoke and everything and then when it's e time we want to put on a scarf or put on a a a soap and be like oh you know oh i'm muslim alhamdulillah no no no no no we should be muslim everywhere we should be muslim at all times we should be unapologetically muslim anywhere we go because you never know who's looking at you never knows looking at you you never know whose life you could change just by being genuinely you what do you think when you when you do when you see professional athletes and others who've been given the spotlight but now they might be very and i see this a lot people who are representing their sport very well but now like you said they're not unapologetically they're apologizing for being a muslim basically they're very scared of their brand of their image to connect themselves with islam what do you think when you see that do you see that i do see that a lot but everybody uh has a different path that might not be their path that might not be their their their their journey and some people are just not about their life so um and but they might do things that are that are different so like um you might not be they might not be unapologetically muslim on tv but they might be the best muslim you might see on in the street they might be the one who feeds the homeless every day they might be the person who gives by somebody something at walmart every single time they go to walmart or something like that they might be the person that gives darwin just not on tv yeah and i'm the left um i guess being the the person that i am i'm kind of bold and i could care less what anybody thinks so i'm the lad allah gave me the platform so i i feel like i need to use my platform for good i know what it was like to not use my platform yeah for good so now i know like i want my daughter to make sure that if when she sees me she sees that i was muslim and she said she's that i was a brave muslim and it was okay to make mistakes and it was okay to do whatever you need to do but at the end of the day i was a muslim and i was proud to be a muslim yeah i think this is very important because in today's day and age with a lot of the hate that's out there [Music] trying to get people really to because of all the misinformation and it's kind of had women taking off their hijab women getting attacked muslims scared to be muslims because of all the islamophobia because of all the hate machine you know it's a business nowadays people getting rich in the business of attacking islam so now i think this is very important that you know we we don't bend to that and bow to that right because you should be proud one who is submitted to the creator not the creation you're living a morally upright life you're good to your neighbor you feed the poor you're trying to be a good all-around human being and that's nothing to be ashamed of nothing to be ashamed of and you also got to remember man people when it when it comes to this i guess this error of you know demonizing islam and and just making sure that you know people it's been going on for a very long time somebody's always even not either you're black being demonized your arab being demonized you're muslim being demonized but as long as you know in in in hindsight people people see the truth because as much as you see on tv the minute you walk outside and you see something different you like huh you wake up but if somebody is seeing the same thing that you see on tv then that that's on you and that's your test that's what allah put in front of you allah might have put that person that just sat on tv and watched a black man me as a black man do some drugs shoot somebody blah blah blah and that's the only thing that they know and then they see another one so now they see me i'm muslim a black man they probably oh let me back up but then they see i'm i'm nice i'm i'm talking to them i'm being kind i'm being gentle and i'm representing islam right i might have changed that man's life who knows haf is you showed me some good techniques ah you were showing me some good techniques i know how to wrestle now i know if i ever get into a scuffle hopefully i don't i try my best not to but um if i get into a scuffle i got you yeah that was that was uh that was um usually i like uh you were holding the mitts up usually people hold them down here oh yeah there's a different technique for that holding the mitts up is because people don't understand that if you hold them is down you know that's where you're going to punch when you hold the mitts up it's like a technique okay i'ma hold them it's uh you might fight taller people you might fight shorter people but you'd rather do something big than do something like this because when you do fight somebody big you know exactly what to do and your arms won't get tired yeah so that's what i learned uh my my shout out to uh my coach uh rasheem jefferson he's a a beautiful person in my life so uh alhamdulillah it's that's what he's taught me just jab up making sure that uh a jab is strong yeah so and that was nice you picked up pretty quick the single leg you know the clinch you know coming in you're a good teacher and i'm like that's what it is you're a good teacher you're a good teacher also right it glows so i i have trust in you you got trust in me so as we move it's it's a it's a different dynamic it's it's completely different it's just love and that's the beauty of islam you know that's you know people meet each other for the first time they can be from any other country doesn't matter they don't even have to speak the same language they open up with their greeting of peace peace be with you and that love is just established yeah you could be a garbage man i could be shoveling uh horse manure it does not matter just the fact that we love allah and the fact that we love islam and and just a beautiful it's a beautiful sight because that's what connects us it doesn't matter what color you are it doesn't matter what's going on it's just beautiful bismillah you i want which i i want for you what you want from me or you want for me what i want uh what you want for your brother which one for yourself and so when it comes to that you just you're just sharing this like unity it doesn't matter where you are so it doesn't matter where i go i always meet people and there are people who if i wasn't muslim i would have never met they are not in my profession they have nothing to do we don't even like the same things but just because we're a muslim man i love the brother we cool that's my brother alhamdulillah i love him nothing to do with each other nothing in common either i know one brother who's like an activist and uh and kind of stays away from the lamb like i'm i'm a boxer that's what i do i'm in the limelight i do things like that we would have never met if it wasn't for islam so that's what you got to appreciate you when you want something allah will give it to you allah will put you um with the right people and always make this do i mail oh allah please keep me away from the bad and make give like push me towards the good so when i see good people i don't care what they do it doesn't matter i don't care what you are it's a matter it's a matter of who you are a few more questions uh tell me how important is it for people to again when i asked you um you can have a slurpee smoothie i'm sorry you said make sure there's green in it so nutrition uh this is something that i've taken up you know really watching what i you being an athlete professional athlete you know how important is it for people to get involved in sports and also nutrition in your life so very important we got to stay healthy just like allah says you're supposed to take care of your body take care of your vessel we're not we can't take care of our vessel eating bad and working out i mean it's cool to indulge in whatever you need to that's halal and things like that but you have to have a balance islam is about balance so as much as you eat junk food you gotta make sure you work that off you gotta make sure you eat some health i mean be healthy eat some healthy things and make sure that your your health is good because you want to make sure you have as much life as allah allows you to you know for of course we can't stop uh um unforeseen circumstances and unforeseen health uh issues but if you have the resources and need or if you have the ability to stay in shape the prophets allah said them the sahabas they stayed in shape the prophet didn't didn't get into islam until he was 40. these brothers were wrestling they were they were getting ready for war the prophet saws had over 60 wars you know 60 battles sorry like these guys these brothers were in shape over 40. so 40 is not a old age it's a young age and i'm doing that we got to stay in shape we got to we got to be healthy for our children as well because when our children grow up and our children want to go outside and play and things like that we can be like no i'm tired because it's my fault no i got to be healthy and i got to want to play with my children things like that yeah this is very very very important we've got an obese epidemic of people be skin fat on the couch not moving sit in a cubicle not involved in any kind of physical activity eating fake food yeah and it's crazy because subhanallah allah just just puts these things in your life just to get away from all of this because when you eat the biha you kind of stay away from a lot of this stuff you you stay away from mcdonald's you stay away from a lot of these these fast food places because not the bihar even though i i eat halal i don't eat just the biha i stay away from that stuff too but for the brothers and sisters who can't stay away from when you go to the bihar and you only do halal most of the time you're gonna end up eating fish or you're gonna end up eating some a veggie meal or something like that and you'll be able to um um you know kind of eat healthier but also you know take a walk after federer you know take a uh right after the sunrise right after you finish um your your recitation or your thicker take a walk when the sunrise is really nice outside if you're a night out take a walk after isha take a walk with your wife take a walk with your father you know stay healthy stay healthy because when it's time to stand up for tahajjud you're standing stand up for tuttle we're gotta be healthy for that can we sit down you know of course for our elders and for our people who are disabled that's that's what allah has given us and may allah bless them but for the people who are able to be healthy and for the people who are able to stand stand so that's why we stay in shape alhamdulillah so as we close it up tell us for the people are tuning in and they might have drifted off kind of like you did and now they're tuning in what advice would you give them before they go away even further but you got their attention they heard you reciting the book of allah the quran they're listening to your story how you came back what advice would you give them islam is not a race it's a marathon also islam is not anybody else's uh your islam is not anybody else's uh entertainment your relationship with allah is your relation with allah and so what the best thing to do is try to get back you don't have to go cold turkey because that's how people lose themselves again gradually slowly get back to praying get back to saying vicar sure if you don't even say salaam alaikum get back to san salaamu alaikum without the law you're gonna have to try always try something better so you might be out trust me i was out there and alhamdulillah i was able to come back so for the brothers who are out there the sisters who are out there and and just trying to figure out something start hanging around people who do this something different i promise you you you you'll it'll it'll start changing because they won't want to do the stuff that you want to do you surround yourself with people who want who love islam you surround yourself with people who love the don't who love the the um just the way uh uh the way to be a muslim they they love the islam they love the the the process hang around those people i promise you you won't be thinking about doing anything else get around good companionship yes very important you are who you companions are absolutely or birds of a feather fly together yes yes however you want to say it all right half is wilson cason really nice having you on the d show you don't even have to call me hoffman man you know what's crazy for the brothers and sisters who keep the quran and maintained it those are hafiz i am a brother who did memorize the quran but i fell off and inshallah male please pray for me that i get all the quran back i mean inshallah that's when i i can i can call myself hoffman but i can't take that title from the people who have never drifted off and maybe they forget a little bit but they they they they hold on to the quran tightly those are my true hafiz and so for me i'm a brother who is quran i'm the allah i have the quran with me but i'm getting it back and when i do really get it back that's when i can be called a half of the king we started with we started with the quran we'll end with the opening chapter of the quran so if you're not yet muslim out there go ahead and listen to this with open heart and open mind and earnestly within yourself ask the creator to have his ear for guidance and listen to this listen to it you can actually start reciting it too let's start with this for the people who uh who only speak english and don't know what i'm saying i'll do it in english as well yeah this is the opening chapter of the quran al-fatiha bismillah alhamdulillah [Music] in the name of allah the most gracious the most merciful praise be to allah the lord of the world master of the day of judgment you alone do we worship and you alone do we ask for help show us the straight path the path of those whom you have worshiped not the path of those who who have earned your anger nor of those who have gone astray and when we say i mean at the end it's the same thing as amen it's the same thing as a uh basically amen it means think you know amen is the finishing um may allah accept our dua make ah i made gods acceptance i mean thank you brother it's a pleasure having you on the program thank you i appreciate it god almighty allah continue to bless you jesus thank you salaam they come together

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Keywords: islam, muslim, muslims, islamic, quran, koran, allah, muhammad, mohammed, mohamed, prophet, hadith, sunnah, shaykh, imam, lecture, khutbah, khutba, ramadan, bilal philips, sufi, salafi, hanafi, hijab, nasheed, nashid, almaghrib, dars, halaqa, bayan, convert, revert, shahada, dawah, da'wah, maher zain, sami yusuf, atheism, science, atheist, qur'an, recitation, surah, afasy, religion, religious, deen, madhhab, shia, sunni, Hafiz of Quran, night clubs, back to Islam, deenshow, deenshowtv, eddie

Id: MgusOj9Bsgk

Length: 35min 57sec (2157 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 17 2021