"Journey to Islam: Latino Muslims Share Their Story" by Br. Mujahid Fletcher & Br. Isa Parada

in alhamdulillah in the Hamada when a star you know who I lost out fear when I rode Herbalife dementia Rodion now when we say ITR Molina Mia de da hoof Adamo dil de l'homme yokel Fela hadiyyah-lah who washes la ilaha illallah wa the village auricular what shadow ana muhammadan abduhu what also all praises are due to Allah we thank him we seek his forgiveness we seek refuge in Allah from the evil our own Souls and the evil our own deeds whomever Allah guys known to the demonstration remember Allah leaves astray none can guide him I bear witness that there is no deity worthy of being worshipped other than Allah he is alone and he has no partners and I bear witness that Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam was his last messenger and surgeon my brothers and sisters in Islam Salaam alaykum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh allah subhanaw taala reward all of you today for coming out to listen to our story and blessed allah blessed or this community with success in this life in the next I mean our story is not you might have heard many people talk about their coming to Islam ours is nothing you know anything uh it's exciting to talk about they just want to you know pass on a little bit of what we experienced throughout our research and trying to find the truth mama me myself I was born in New York in 1977 and I lived in New York for approximately 11 years and throughout that time I lived with my parents from the Dada they came they migrated from a traveler in 1969 they came like many of our the parents here today who came to this country to try to find a better life to try to you know improve the lifestyle of their family from Delilah my parents were very spiritual especially my mother she was the one who always encouraged me my two sisters to go to church and I remember going to church you know every Sunday up to the point I was seven years old I became the altar boy the altar boy is the one who carries the cross for the priest in the beginning of the procession and a system during the the service this is something that I was very active in going to Catholic school my parents put me in Catholic school to keep me out of trouble keep me away from the streets out there in New York trying to you know to make their son you know someone who's received respectable and you know not having to be down with the hoodlums this as they would have to set it back in those days welcome did a lot during that time my father he felt the need to come back to New York after paying $1,000 a month in rent and then he compared it to Houston Texas easy to get a 3-bedroom apartment for 400 he saw the finances was intelligent today let's go down to Houston because it's cheaper to live and it seems like it's better also in in general just a general environment is better for the children so my parents moved down to Houston Texas when I was 11 years old when I came down to Houston it was a different makeup that started to affect my mentality in New York you know when you had friends you have friends african-american Hispanic white mixed together but I've sensed a different kind of mentality in Houston that it was African Americans by themselves white people with themselves and Hispanics with themselves it was really segregated so a lot of times you know people ask me where you from I'm you know in and come at me really rough like I from New York okay what that meant was that they they knew that I wasn't going to be like them meaning I wasn't going to just stick around with one group of people I was going to mix with the different people in the school I remember though always being asked you know man why are you hanging out with you know this white guy why you always hanging out with this black guy you stick with your own I was like my own I mean our own is everybody and I'm done with everybody so this was the mentality of the people in the community that I lived both of us we grew up in and this is when gang started to come about in the early 90s in Houston so alhamdulillah by lost permission during that time period I went into you know my sports was into football and I kept out of any you know the gangs and Hum Dil Iowa saved me from that but at the same time I remember that our own little football team was our own crew because we stuck together and after a period of time I started to ask myself you know my faith I was having issues with my faith I remember thinking back as 13 years old asking myself I'm not satisfied with what I was going to church in I wasn't satisfied living that you know going to church didn't make sense to me and at the same time dealing with the environment that I was dealing with I started to ask myself is this the truth it's Christianity the truth and I stopped going to church and during that period I started reading and I came across the books on Islam and I remember meeting the first Muslim I remember he was a friend of mine he became Muslim at 13 years old and I remember asking him you know why are you changing your religion at thirteen said I believe it's the truth and we will see him I remember around Oster time when you know late in the afternoon we were playing football playing basketball in heels I have to go pray and for us there to see a 13 year old kid from where we grew up go pray or like pray and we were we would you know we were out it Street lingo will cloud him you know we'll make fun of him and how you gonna go pray time to have fun time to pray but how many life he stuck it through so when I started to research what he was believing in I said to myself this might be the truth and subhanAllah that some before my ninth grade year I went to New York and me being 14 years old by myself and sent to my favorite uncle auntie would let me do whatever I wanted in Flushing Queens New York with all my old friends were older than me it was to immediately there's my time of my life I was going to be free and I remember going there and soup on a lot walking the streets of New York City and seeing people coming through same way you know what's going on without you know and people giving some life to each other and I asked my friend you Muslim like no this is how we talk here in New York because it was an any thing to do in New York that's how people say give Salam to each other you know they'll say certain words like what's up Rock you know ahi that's how non-muslims even speak so I remember asking so if you're not Muslim you know why did you give him so long dissing our son was an interesting faith you should read the book of Malcolm X so I remember reading The Autobiography of Malcolm X during that time period and I said to myself without a doubt this is the truth and but the only way I can become Muslim is I have to be like Malcolm X so at 14 years old I'm not going to give up all this partying I'm not going to give up all this fun to be like Malcolm X it's too much this was my understanding of being a Muslim have to be straight a hundred percent as black and white but soprano Allah allowed that in got me at that moment and I had to go through serious issues throughout my teenage life in order for me to see that I needed Islam because when I was 14 years old 15 years old going to New York coming back to Houston and I remember the environment that we were dealing with the movies that were coming out at the time movies that were called boys in the hood New Jack city menace to society this affected the way that we were thinking plus the music that we were listening to it's something for many of the youth today a lot of the young brothers and sisters here who made but we actually lived it because we could relate to what they were talking about we could relate to sitting around with our friends and all of a sudden one of our friends you start beating on somebody for no reason and laughing about we can be we were in cars where somebody would just get out the car and mug somebody for no reason this was the darkness that we were living we had no guidance but we felt being together was a sense of brotherhood but we were living this we will wake up in the morning listening to the hip-hop to the rap and it will bring us in a certain mode if I feel like I want to be a tough mode I would listen to something a certain you know artist if I'm gonna be in a relaxed mode I would listen to something else I want to put in my car when my Buick Regal dropped with my 15 woofers driving to my school and I want to what Mintel what mood I want to be in today I put in that CD or that go we don't have CDs back then take and ever old man Subhan Allah Subhan Allah I can't believe it thinking about now we're saying that we're old but a lot of the things that we were doing we still see people doing today and a lot of our friends did never left that lifestyle so going through high school doing so much you know bad to myself evil to myself evil to others not respecting my parents not respecting my elders after going through that lifestyle I remember being 19 years old clearly it was clear and I was at a party and it was a day that a American terrorist homegrown he bombed the he had a bomb in the Atlanta Aventa Olympics in 1996 never forget it everybody was party and I was just sitting there watching TV and I remember seeing the chaos that was going on on television and then I was looking around my out in my environment and I remember the last time I ever touched alcohol hamdulillah and I put it down and said here's everybody's having fun having a good time careless people here are going crazy they're you know they're falling on you on top of each other panicking and I ask myself is this what's all about is this is this what my life is about is there something more than this it can't be just this either I'm going to go deeper into darkness the women are going to get older the drugs are going to get harder you know the lifestyle is just going to lead me to something that is not pleasing to my parents not pleasing to myself I was really talking to myself that night and I said to myself I gosh I have to make a change because after going through all the things that I went through brothers and sisters and not trying to glorify what we did we did a lot of bad stuff to people into ourselves I mean really bad I mean we used to plot on doing evil things and after a while you start asking yourself and I can't I can't be like this so humbly like this was in July of 1996 when I started to ask myself I need to leave this alone and I need to step away from everybody all my old friends I have to leave them so lahum did a love when I was looking into Islam I said I'm gonna go back to that religion I know that's going to rectify me started reading a little bit more about it but I still I remember driving around the city looking for a mosque it wasn't a large world to find at that time I was driving around I remember those one dowel Center that it was never open always nothing under but I was looking I was searching at that time and I remember working at a video store and there was a friend of mine or there's a friend it was a guy who came in the store with his nephew and my birth name is Christian that's what my parents name the Christian that became us and that's what my mama sister always say so there he looked at my my name tag is like Christian so I'm looking at him with a real mean look like was God calling my name that's a good Christian name so I'm looking at him like okay and I'm and I'm looking at him he looks kind of Greek kind of European maybe this guy's Christian he wants to call me to us to Christianity and I'm not I already knew that that wasn't the truth so he goes what religion do you follow so I really started getting upset I didn't want even look at him I was just trying to you know you know check him out and get him out of it I don't want to deal with that I said my parents are Catholic he said but what religion are you and I don't know why I said it but I felt maybe it was cause I wanted to debate somebody I said I want to be a Muslim he looked at me crazy his eyes were bulging he looked back at his nephew and they were saying something in a language I didn't understand at the time of course it was Arabic no sense in Pamela its follow can I be Muslim I'm saying they're like okay so what do you know about Islam and I'm like I just read about Malcolm X so they were just in shock because they had just started practicing their Deen and at the time I remember talking to him little by little during that time period we realized that we were lived in the same neighborhood in in in New York we went to the same high school in Texas but we never met each other but we had acquaintances and separa that day Allah subhana Allah you know wrote it for us to me and then David always affected me in Charlotte that will speak about a little bit more tomorrow from the brother and he was young I was 19 he was 20 he would come to my job to see how I was doing that's he would only come to see how he wasn't trying to preach to me he was just come to see how my day was going so us coming from the streets usually when someone has come after once or twice they want something we've become suspicious as what does this guy want from me why is he coming to visit me because this is not something that we do so one day I said to him look you know it seems like you're interested about telling about Islam so let's go sit down and I remember I had a close friend of mine who's one of them with older brothers all the friends I used to have back in Jogja Leah I said look I know that we talked about asanas go together and talk to him about you know our our company or our interest in Islam now how many like that brother was really nice he would take us a different massage yet we would talk to different elders of the community and I never forget it one day he calls up October 13th 1996 he says his speech time right after Rama Gautama cause he said look I think that you guys are ready I said I don't know I still want to read a blue but he goes look man you believe about one yes Muhammad SAW Muhammad peace be upon him that's what he said was the last messenger yes then that's it come on I'll take both of you to the mosque so you know he picked us up we went to a big white mask for mattresses I'm in Houston Texas and we come in a mosque and there's over 200 Indonesian and Malaysian and Indian brothers of our Jamaat doubly so all these men with turbans on big beers and we're sitting there coming with our earrings what our parents sat in were like man they're gonna look at us crazy so we go there and it's time to pray okay we just go along we pray he shot with then the brother his name was OMA Allah he tells us go sit in the back of the month so we're looking at each other like we don't even know how to become Muslim I can ask us questions so we're like one of the five pillars because it's something Hajin that thing that we pay money yes a prayer and we were just trying to figure it out because we wouldn't know what was going to happen then all of a sudden two hundred plus men come sit around us and we're looking like my god this is just weird just looking at all these men with big beards to staring at like what are you going to do you know what honey loud the Imam Hafiz Iqbal mashallah you know beautiful brother a man who sits down in front of us saying you know that's his basic questions and do you believe in Allah you know the only God and the Prophet SAW solemn is the last messenger you say yes how many but we took the Shahada and then he asked us oh you want to take a name you know a Muslim name and I said you know actually I want to my mother named me Christian after Jesus Christ so I want to come you know I want to be called ASA and then they looked to my man my friend Terrance and they said what about you and he was like you know people say that I'm handsome guy so I want to name myself use you know my soul and I remember after that standing up hugging over 200 men men crying it was just different for us and I remember this young kid jumping up and down and you have to take this earring you have to take this earring out I mean my man amano I was like pushing out the way and we're coming out the masculine was just like a whole different world you know allah subhanaw taala fulfilled filled that that void that I was having for all this time and Hum Dil of Baba's permission you know I got married eight months later to assistant accepted Islam in the high school that I graduated in semilla and Houston we have over I think 40 ms8 high schools that have Juma in Houston Texas and the high school that I graduated from was the second one second MSA 1996 and she accepted Islam there so I married her in the hamdullah after that my father accepted Islam my sister accepted Islam my cousin accepted Islam and Hum Dil our friends that we knew my best friend you know he accepted Islam after he saw me he was like yo man I got this new page nice we have pages back in old days you know and I got this new CD and he will come at me like so one o'clock tonight and I grew up with him and I was like nah man I don't do that no more exactly what's up with you and I was wilder than him I said look man I'm Muslim down man and he was just looking at me he just got scared he wouldn't talk to me for about two months because he couldn't believe from a few months ago you know I was wilder than him doing crazy stuff and all of a sudden biological mission is all from Allah it went cold turkey on everything never they just forgot everything then have any want to go back to that lifestyle so hamdulillah after him you know talking to other people I'm not he accepted Islam and from their humble a brothers by last permission I had the opportunity to go study in Sainik University of Medina and it was a beautiful experience taking my wife and children over there as well meeting people from all over the world gain a lot of experience I met many beautiful brothers like when I see the brother Mohammed here and I look at him I will act here up because I love his brother for Allah sake that brother annakodi and I made below my shadow those are the two brothers that I love so much because when I look at them I have a make du'a they're my children in my session my son can be like them you know I know they have their faults and especially Ahmed he hears probably watching his videos are going to be you know my god now you know he knows how I am but the manners the manners that those brothers have is beautiful and um and I and one of the reasons I came here is because I wanted to really inform or encourage you brothers and sisters to make dua for them and to be there for them and mentor them because they're not many brothers will come from Medina or wherever Egypt or studying overseas to come back to a community that wants good for them and wants to they want to help the community and they also are open to suggestions and mentorship they're open to that and how many loud building that kind of relation with the brothers over there was a beautiful experience and coming back here to America six months ago I started you know as my dad always could some me everybody's going seventy I'm going twenty maybe I'm going 30 now miles per hour I'm trying to pick up the pace and make please make dua for me and trying to improve in that situation and how many line now I'm the director social and educational services for Islam in Spanish and hopefully a lot of the door soon that I can begin my masters in counseling to better myself and hopefully you know be a asset to the community and so this was my short story on becoming a Muslim and what the thought process is and what I went through not too much detail because I can't talk about certain things in the message but uh hamdullah my last ones a lot of you boys you all and bless you all I mean supona Claudia Hamdi watch I don't like to stock photo cover to relay this you know hamdu lillah wa salatu was-salam ala rasulina y le he was acting woman voila I'm not bad a Solomonic more how to live a better cut what happened he lights up it's really an honor to be able to spend what harm did he like this weekend here in California with such a beautiful community from the dealer I've been able to perceive a little bit of what was taking place here in Southern California and hamdulillah I really uh it's commendable I would say because going back to Houston we have tried our level best to be able to inshallah implement some of the things that from the lab we're seeing that are happening here and then sha Allah may Allah bless Allah shall I give y'all success in this life in the next my name is Mujahid Fletcher and I'm originally from Colombia in South America my parents came to this country when I was 8 years old my father was an agricultural engineer back in Colombia he worked with an agency that was connected to the government of Colombia in regards to development of Agriculture he taught people who were illiterate in the mountains on how to plant crops and so on and he taught people at university level my mother she came from a hamdulillah a good family my grandfather was in a very honourable level I was saying in in regards to having a governmental job and when we came here to America I remember going to the very first school when I was 8 years old I didn't know any English and I remember the kids were making fun of me and I realized and I saw that a lot of what I experienced in Colombia going to school was the fact that over there we helped each other out even in second grade because I came here to go in third grade if I didn't know something the person next to me didn't know something before going to the teacher you would actually work it out on your own amongst your classmates and I remember coming here and I didn't even know English and I would try to ask people around me and I didn't know who could explain to me and I remember the teacher coming and and just being upset and saying a whole bunch of things so they put a kid that knew Spanish in front of me and he translated for her and he said she said not to talk to anybody except her and if you need help just go to her and she didn't know any Spanish and so I told them I said I don't like can't talk to him and she said well you know don't talk that was my first experience in in school third grade I remember going home and now I can't I would categorize that as a culture shock I went home and I told my parents I never wanted to go back to school here I was eight years old and my parents from that point on didn't really know the reality of that situation and the years to come and I mentioned that because the rest of the years that's time went by and I did learn English not only that I learned English but I learned a ways and I learned the environment and in public school growing up you kind of become a chameleon you know you blend in eventually and then you realize what's categorized is good and you want to be better at that and for my parents background in Colombia they always had a high standard for education and they always pushed me to many things that I didn't see in the environment going to school here in public school when I was in sixth grade three movies came out as the brother mentioned insane movies actually boys in the hood was filmed here in Compton Los Angeles New Jack city was filmed in New York and I believe Minister society was also filmed here in California these three movies portrayed the gang lifestyle and we never seen anything to do with gays in our school until this movie's camera and the music that came along with him so I remember the majority of the people in our school were either african-american or Latino and I remember one day seeing the African Americans gathering and I began to realize that the Latinos as we would say back in those days were getting jumped meaning an individual will go in the restroom and five African Americans would just beat him up for nothing and we realized then that they had formed a gang and we didn't really understand what that was growing up my father taught me how to box and tell me self defense and he taught me to respect people and he taught in the sports soccer and so on and I knew there was not that there was not even a chance in my mind that someone would come and violate me because of being brown or because I was Latino so I thought it wouldn't even affect me little did I know the same apartment complex I used to live in and walk to school from back and forth the game was in my apartment complex so eventually they got closer to violating me as an individual and when that took place I basically defended myself and then pretty much beat up one of the main guys in that game what this led on a lot of retaliation so a lot of people came and since there were a lot of Latinos they kind of came behind me and all of a sudden Latino said you know we have to come together you know for self defense and because we were from Latin America Central America from so many different places you know from Colombia Venezuela Costa Rica Guatemala so many different places we titled that gathering and us coming together as Familia meaning the family what went on after that was a series of events that led to people dying people ended up in prison and there were serious issues the police got involved there were profiles and I might there is there isn't there was no intention whatsoever for any of that to happen for myself or for many others but that was just the climate that we were living in when my parents found certain things at home when I was about the age of 13 to 14 I told them that if I didn't have those things there we wouldn't be protected if someone came and tried to break in the house who tried to do anything to me or to them and they couldn't understand the repetitive cycle of my parents not understanding led me to make decisions at a very early age that were critical to survival it wasn't a game it wasn't a game it wasn't about showing off it wasn't about being cool it was about not dying one of my friends was so under pressure one of my best friends that he pulled the gun put a gun to his head he shot he was he rather died and be living in that state because you never really knew who would come behind you what would happen and the worst thing about it even is that he didn't die the bullet came in through one side left out the other and they had to cut out part of his brain so he became like a vegetable so at around the age of 1415 I was going to visiting hospitals and seeing people another friend of my losses right out from a shotgun blast from a drive-by shooting and all my parents thought about is what is my son would want to be next people used to call my mother at 3 in the morning telling her that they were going to kill me and I all of these things were happening and I don't understand how to this day I was an honor roll student I had straight A's and B's while all that was happening because of my father's determination my mother's determination for me to uphold the best level of grades eventually at the age of sixteen where there was an attempt after several attempts basically to take my life I basically defended myself and by the next day my parents shipped me out to Columbia to South America I hadn't been here since I was 8 all of the sudden when I went down there I thought you know if I didn't get killed back in Houston I'm going to die in Columbia because Columbia the way it's portrayed in the media it seems like a very dangerous place right drugs and many things and to my surprise when I went there I have baggy pants and the whole mental attitude of even who's out to get me and a lot of psychological ways of looking at life from the defense mechanism when I went there and I saw my family that I didn't really know since the AJ I started realizing that these people were the best mannered people the the nicest the most caring that I've been around I mean my parents were that way but it was just father and mother I didn't really have aunts and uncles when I went to the house where I stayed there were from my aunts all the way to my newborn cousins and seeing the attitude of the people in Colombia and how they got together in regards to community you could see people saying hi to each other when they passed by each other on the streets and I started realizing that there was no real issue of threat there was no games there was really nothing and you know a teenager over there was a kid he didn't know anything to do with anything that I've experienced so what hum did he laugh when I realize that there was a good environment for me to be able to develop myself I became an English teacher at the age of 16 and I was teaching from kids in Montessori School all the way to retired professionals and that that gave me a great experience because I dealt with people from all different walks just because I knew English and I would make in one hour what a minimum-wage worker made in eight hours over there and I was 16 years old I became very independent I bought myself a motorcycle and living in Colombia at that age being able to go up a mountain and be in a natural spring river by myself and eat fruits from trees that was something I could have never imagined living in in a place that was nothing but concrete the concrete streets so I became very kind of inclined to nature natural in school at home did a line a private school out of like 60 students in my class I was second in class or first in class so education was at his best level they wanted to draw me to grades because the education here in America was below standard in Colombia and after I lived that for about two years I never wanted to come back to America my parents told me to come back because I was already ready I changed my ways and so on when I came back the same way I mentioned when I got here at third grade and I felt like I had a culture shock coming back when I was 18 years old I felt like I didn't go out anywhere for six months I wouldn't go anywhere because I had a feeling like the youth here even in college now that was in college didn't really have the true meaning of what life was about I felt like the nature and the simplicity and how the people were living in Colombia was the way to live it didn't have to deal with materialism it had to deal with family values it had to do with respect to elders a lot of different things that were missing here from what I saw now eventually when I was in college little by little people started asking me to go here and go there and usually a college student is just asked to go to places where there's drinks was the weather's girls where there's this when was that and little by little even though I didn't want to I started falling back into the same environment which is just the makeup of living here in America just as a regular person you go out you socialize and so on eventually I fell into another stage of life which was about getting money so at a very young age 19 20 years old I had a landcruiser I had an accurate legend I had a very high top paying job and I was on her way to just drop in college because there was a chain I'm pretty sure you guys had it before here at Circuit City there was a you know electronics store basically and they paid Commission and I was the number-one salesperson basically the city of Houston out of like 420 some people and at the age of 19 20 I would make sometimes even five thousand dollars a month and as a youth just having cars and living that fast life other things started kicking in being Columbian the issue of drugs is very simple it's very easy people just bring something through and they say this is just what it is so eventually I realized that I didn't want to live that lifestyle I was fed up no matter how many things I have no matter how many friends supposably friends because in that lifestyle you don't really have two friends no matter how much I had around on me I would sit back and think there has to be something else to life this can be a because if this was it then I'd be happy and satisfied but I'm not so eventually I went back I remember telling my father I was sick of living and I was tired and fed up and and I couldn't figure this out and he told me that he'd been searching for something greater than his life for a while and I'd seen him coming in and out of different religions and all my life he always taught me since I was little there was only one guy I never pray to Jesus in my life my parents even though they were categorized themselves as Catholics my father had questioned the issue of the Bible many years and he would always tell me you find your truth because I'm seeking for mine and theirs there was only one reality really is that there's one God how you get to that one God you find your way I'm trying to look for mine so I remember I went to him and I told him I'm sick of Lima I'm sick of this and that and I had my own apartment and I was I was thinking I need to go back to school and I need to get right and I felt like I want to leave back to Colombia I didn't really know I was at a crossroad and subhanAllah one day I told him I said I want to start reading about different religions and my father started giving me books about different religions I remember studying kabbalah there was a mexican guy who wasn't studied actually in Israel and Kabbalah his ancient Jewish mysticism and I began to get interested in that then at that time she was Colombian a person who I knew since I was like 12 years old she seemed to go through everything and now she was also seen seeking for something and we were together in this I remember one two Buddhist temples and sitting down with the main mark and asking him what do you think about life what's life about I remember going to the Hindu temple in the middle of their service and sitting and saying who is the main person here but him you know summing the vision what does this all mean and what do y'all think about life I remember going to different churches and asking about the same verses in the Bible and getting different responses and nobody could really pin down what things really meant and so I started feeling as if this is not the way to go I started looking into Zen masters which is like a eastern philosophy from from the Chinese thoughts I started reading all kinds of stuff and eventually one day after I left the club I was with a guy who had been known for years and he held the liquor he was drinking his and he said I can't believe I'm still drinking this I said what do you mean because I've always known him to be that way and he said I can't believe I'm still drinking this after having gone to Mecca when he said that I felt the level of concern was different something about him feeling guilty were intriguing I said what is Mecca he said Mecca is where the house of God is I said hold on you know I read all religions and philosophies there is no religion I've ever come across that says that God has out on the face of earth and he said no no this place is a place of worship it was built by Abraham this man I said those are prophets of God and he said yeah Islam is a true religion of God that simple statement was so clear and it ring true even though I didn't know but it was direct Islam is the true religion God then I said listen everybody says their religion is true and he said look if you want to talk about this I'm not the person right because he's not living he said you have to talk to my mother who used to be a Christian in Marion Hedy and after leaving the convent later on and Marion my dad she accepted it sir she talks to people nowadays that have Doctorate degree of divinity and they are they become Muslim and many people are becoming Muslim I had no clue what all that was I went on with life and I kept partying and going out and in the back of my mind I would think that's something I gotta look into and he said I'm alive endure we kept living life and we kept going out and everything every once in a while he'd just be like have you looked into it no not really and he would say you know you got a responsibility you have to at least look into me and it was just hit me I mean this would be like sporadic every three six months that he would say something like this and eventually I remember wanting to go and speak to his mom and I was intoxicated and I went to his house and he said man you can't talk to my mom like that man you got to come here clean you can't come drink and stuff you know my man said okay so one day I came clean I remember his mother coming and she was covered and I remember extending my hand how you doing man she said if she didn't shake my hand I said oh she don't right now I've been hanging about with her son all these years she was already bought right so it's interesting because she said you want to know about Islam and she was very happy do you want to know about the son I said well I guess you know I just read all kinds of things and she said let me ask you this do you like science do you like mathematics when she asked me this I didn't know what I had to do with religion at all because we don't make a relationship but alhamdulillah because I studied trigonometry and physics in Colombia I gained an appreciation for the science and I said yeah I mean I was yeah and she said I want you to see this video and she put me in a room and she turned this video on from your mat Jamelle Bouie and it was the Quran in modern science when I sat there i was like god this guy's smart yeah god he speaks so articulate and he has good manners I could see a lot of different things and when hearing about the whole issue of how the embryo was formed in the womb of the mother and certain things about the solar system and then the seeds not being mixed not mixing so many things I was I was shot but at the same time I didn't understand much of what I had to do with God other than the fact that he created this which I really believe and she gave me a Quran from the dealer and I began to research and read the farm I remember going and studying computer programming and computer program and it's not gonna be cold and I remember having a hard time sometimes with coding and I remember the only thing that would clean my mind and give me thinking clearly again was when I picked up the Quran would read for like 20 minutes and I would come back and open and everything would be clear I said there's something about this book eventually as I kept going our party and all these sort of things we got in a big fight with a whole bunch of security guards outside of a club it was like 20 against 20 and I was on top of a guy hitting him and the policeman came behind me and with a flashlight made out of iron he broke my head open he fled the scene I couldn't even get a badge number it was police brutality I tried to sue but things just weren't right I knew I knew I had to get my life straight and then when I was thinking about embracing Islam and really feeling like I really liked it I wanted to go to a mosque so I went to a mosque and I come did alot of the people I saw the good in him when I went in they weren't judging me they weren't looking me up and down who are you would it come from what are you about and they were just very cordial you know how can we help you please sit here what you need and so on and I began to ask questions and over a period of like one year I would go back and forth with this one email almost like debating with like what you're telling me right now doesn't make sense because X Y & Z right and he'd be like well look into this and looking today and you may consider this may consider that so I'll run back research whatever he said then come back almost like a year going back and forth in the midst of thinking like you know I'm just going to keep going on with my life I flipped over on Mike are doing like 130 on the freeway I flipped over and my sunroof was open so when the sunroof was open it ended up being on the concrete so a lot of the sparks that were coming out and the Sun was being right there if my head would have gone there I'd be finished that's because the whole class smashed I without thinking put my elbow down and I flipped myself and stood on one hand and then grabbed my other friend's head as it was about to go in that pole as we were sliding 130 miles per hour down the freeway upside down I remember looking like I was just saying it's ok it's ok it's ok it's ok it's ok all the way until it stopped and when it stopped I remember looking out through the back rear window and I saw like this bright light and all these boots of people coming to the car and I said this is it I'm finished with that but I'm done yeah I'm dead right this is sort of things in the movies like someone subhanAllah the bright light was from the construction that was being done on the freeway like that big bright light and the boots were from the construction workers I feel like I lost my life but panel I went when I crawled out the back and I saw that I would I just had a big scrape and that was it I even came out without a sheep I realized right then there I have to get right with God because I'm a dying I felt like I was going to die very soon and it was it's too many science too quick and it was and so I remember being at a graduation in the Masjid when some people graduated from studying Arabic or something and that was there and I was looking at the environment and so on and I have had my run-ins with some certain Muslims like before III think I was going to embrace Islam before like six months before but I was in the Masjid and I remember praying making the salat I'm feeling like you know I want to see what this is about and I remember a Muslim who had been seeing he study in it he came up to me he said so did you embrace Islam and I said well not not yet and he said why do you pray I said I just want to pray you know and he was like but you you know if you don't embrace Islam you're going to hell I said what I said they don't even know me that said to me back like six months because of the you know the attitude I felt like and then certain things that I would say for Muslims I would ascribe that to Islam and I would think if this is a true religion that individual wouldn't be doing this if that wasn't you I remember guys smoking a cigarette apparently trying to tell me about Islam I said tell me where it says that in the book because I've been reading this book he turned the cigarette offs if you become a son you'll be a better person with me you know and that to me was two contradictory and I said it can't be the truth because if it were the true people would be activated and that would that set me back I was studying Islam like trying to find out where all this stuff was that I couldn't find it but how did he learn eventually after all these set dancing and things that were happening to me I went and I remember a guy told me you know so you haven't a racist and I said no and he said you know we're going to a trip to Florida and it only cost like $80 and we're going to be there for three days in the middle of like 3,000 Muslims I said really and you know I love I love traveling and he said yeah you want to come and I said yeah I wanna that was the only non-muslim we rode a bus we were it was three buses and we left for my mosque I was the only I remember every Muslim wanting to come and get me shot everyone wanting to come and tell me about not to pray to Jesus and I would never pray to Jesus and I couldn't understand why people kept coming and I keep Senator listen in the core Ireland says there's no compulsion in religion right don't come impress me it's whenever I want to over brother this I listen I've been taught about God Adelphi you understand I have my situation with God and that's how I keep it right so kind of live this gathering in Tampa Florida an individual brought another individual by the arm and this guy was literally crying and he said this guy here is going to talk to you oh and he's just crying and he said this guy's from Colombia cuz he knew I was in Colombia this is the Kaiba's gonna get you right and so I said okay and the guy had a long beard and so on he's from Colombia and we sat subhanAllah we talked for like three hours and attacked the majority of the time we were talking about Colombia and he loved the country all over the country we know there's a lot of setbacks and I was coming up with so many different things that I found within Islam that if Colombia is a country were to implement it would be a solution for the country and then he looked at me he said you telling me you're going to give me solutions for a country and you don't embrace this that's where I had this no I just I looked inside my heart and said man I can't keep living like this so I said all right I just don't see how a few words can do something you know that is I mean anybody can just say a few words you know I really believe that there's nothing worthy of worship except one message I know that that's the way a person says they're Muslim but I don't want to claim to be a Muslim and there are certain Muslims that are doing certain things that I feel are like people critical I grew up with certain people around me doing certain things and they categorize themselves as a Muslim if I become a Muslim I may be put in a category where I've looked at his apron he said then it's not about that it's about saying these words because as a key to enter paradise I said well I need a better place at this one because I'm not happy here said all right we started walking it's so funny because the one guy that was like teaching in that Masjid when he told him I wanted embrace Islam he got so kind of nervous that going just give him give him shot over there he didn't want to do it in front of people and I couldn't understand why I was like I said do I have to do it in front of people and the brother was like no normally but it's good it's good and the guy was like no I don't know what it was and then some other brother that was on the bus with us when he heard he came all the way to the front he's a come here brother he grabbed a microphone and when I said the Shahada I was about witness as if all this weight came off and then it was like as if I could hear better see better and I felt so light and I felt like everything they sense and then all these strangers lined up dressed like in pajamas and you know from different colors and speaking different languages and chewing on a little stick you know and and these people just came hugged me some would cry give me you know little bottles of oil and you know little little stones to you know and I mean I we never and you understand what we come from a bit I've never had all men hug me cry and kiss me that doesn't happen our hero growing up right and all I knew is that it was love and it was it was okay because I mean I felt something if they if I feel something else when I walked outside of the Masjid I remember looking at the sky and of course that the weather and Florida's beautiful and the sky was blue or than usual the the the green and the leaves were just bright and the one thing that I wanted to do is is call my mother and tell her to tell her thank you for even having me that's the level of thankfulness I never felt that in my life and I knew the sort of difficulty I put my parents through because I'm the only child they suffered and after that day I said if this makes me feel like this I never need another intoxicated in my life because you take him toxicants because you are empty when I got back my parents saw that I wasn't going out I wasn't taking the calls from my friends the girls would call I not I just didn't want to deal with anything and they were like you left on this trip and came back brainwashed you're so peaceful is scary what's wrong him what did they tell you what did they do you know like I joined some cult or something and they knew I was looking into all kinds of stuff so they were like we don't know if he's spinning I mean he may be going crazy or something and I was like you know all my life you've been telling me you know why dwell you know why do you always have to go out why do you have to be why do you have to be saying ugly and now I'm not doing it and now I'm crazy that's weird I understand I hum did he learn my father because he'd been searching I told him what I found is worthwhile are you making two three months later he accepted my girlfriend when I came back she knew she wasn't my girlfriend because she was also looking into Islam and she knew a Muslim if he's serious or she seriously married they don't play all these games and as soon as I got back she looked at me and she said I respect what you did you know and a week later she accepted Islam and a month later we got married some of the gang rivals people that I really I mean we were out to kill each other some of them have accepted a son some of my friends that were in the game one of my best friends that I knew a certain night when there was an attempt on my life if you would have been there he would've shot somebody because I personally shot al hamdulillah I didn't hit someone but he would have shot and there may have been some some casualties he accepted Islam he has five kids now he's a Muslim people like my little brother-in-law at the age of 16 embraced Islam my mother-in-law embraced Islam my wives aren't before dying from cancer embraced Islam my mother embraced Islam and on and on and on I've seen al hamdulillah many people on basis like my cousin just a base Islam about moment ago I went to Colombia to visit for the first time with my daughters I have a four and a half year old daughter a two year old daughter I went back to this Columbia and Justin our visit to our family members 14 people accepted and some other friends and people that we knew the project Islam in Spanish that was briefly touched upon inshallah I I recommend that you guys come out tomorrow I believe it's after 1 o'clock from 1 to 5 1:32 5:30 to 4:30 okay we have a dowel workshop and don't think it's a academic you know approach to Dawa it is a very simple approach to Dawa based on what we experienced because we went through a trial and error to get where we're at it's not easy for people to accept Islam find their place in the Muslim community what happened did not be able to go overseas I was blessed with the ability to have gone from the line study in Egypt especially the Arabic language the crime it after going through all of this and dealing with people on the ground or family members after September 11 brother inside myself were put in front of the cameras you know I embrace Islam three months before September 11th I remember three months later is a new Muslim standing in front of a church in the church five hundred people hungry and telling them about Islam the sort of response that happened after September 11th made my development quick dealing with people of knowledge from the denying being able to ask questions and all of that has led to a lot of trial and error and we realize especially with the Latino community it's the last frontier is the last people to actually get this message of Islam due to the issue of language we came up in hamdulillah with a solution and we started making audio-visual material and our material has gone all over our website is the number one web site with audio-visual material with over 300 audios more than 300 videos we have a television show in Houston on a weekly basis we have an online radio station and all of this you hear more in detail of why it happened but really happened because of my dad he pressed me to make that material because he said how can you dislike the universal and there's nothing in Spanish how could the Muslims had lived in Spain 800 years and there's no books left and his whole challenging and due to the fact that I studied multimedia he said that nobody else did it then you have to do it and what how many now we've done it together we work and in fact my father we use his voice he's the narrator for a lot of these audiobooks that we make I'm the laboratory sisters joined us in this project and now we're on our way to opening up a center called Andalusia social educational media center and we hope inshallah at the end of tomorrow's series of talks in regards to that what really what the non-muslims really think and experience and what the new Muslims really thinking experience then we'll finalize with why this project came about what sort of a hundred enough things have happened and where there is a warrant so far and Shalala we appreciate your time and Charla I guess if you guys have any questions if there is time fella we can just design a lock with it Sarah Phillips

Channel: Digital Mimbar

Views: 348,538

Rating: 4.8283119 out of 5

Keywords: mujahid fletcher, isa parada, islam, muslim, revert, gangster, koran, how, movies, club, rap, convert, guns, thug, life, clubbing, journey, brotherhood, hispanic, story, music, embrace, hiphop, family, gangs, cars, girls, chasing, bronx, brooklyn, police, bible, new, cops, christianity, latino, quran, spanish

Id: QAjfUWmenBI

Length: 59min 46sec (3586 seconds)

Published: Sat Jan 30 2010