00:00Long boring story how I started it's so long and so boring as it's been said so
00:09many times people watch it's like God again I thought this was gonna be a new
00:14YouTube video it's gonna do this again I hate this guy a long story really long
00:23story turned very very short I'll give you the bullet point version of this
00:26okay so I was born in Germany I was I was there until the age of about six and a
00:32half seven I spent about six months in Pakistan and during which I learned Urdu
00:37because my first language was actually German which I've lost at this point I
00:40spent about seven years almost thereafter in Surudi in Riyadh and I went to a
00:45Pakistani school an extremely Pakistani school I learned a lot of Urdu and played
00:51in the heat in the outside playground with you know a shirt tucked in with a tie
00:55which is what you're it makes complete sense here with shiny shoes we played
00:59soccer with shiny shoes on and that's it's supposed to be that way in the
01:03Khalid right so so that's that's how it works and so I did that for about seven
01:11years didn't learn any Arabic or anything at that time just kind of follow the
01:14Pakistani school curriculum that they have as a standard then we moved back to
01:18Pakistan for another about nine months and I did almost end of eighth grade
01:22beginning of ninth grade in Pakistan and then my dad got transferred to New York
01:26and so about the age of 14 we moved to the United States and I was in New York I
01:31learned English the hard way by being laughed at constantly in New York went to
01:37high school there went to college there a small detail but I kind of stopped
01:42thinking like a Muslim or acting like one or really believing while I was in high
01:48school I completely lost touch with the religion and that was that way in
01:53college to in the first two philosophy courses I took didn't help so they were
01:58kind of the icing on the cake and you really just put me over the edge and it
02:02was the it was Allah's mercy and his gift and the gift in the form of a really
02:07good friend that I found in sophomore year second year college in in Baruch
02:11College in New York City that helped me kind of find my way back to the deen and
02:15this wasn't through preaching it was just through his good company he just he was
02:20there for me that's all it was really and just a genuine genuine friend never
02:26actually told me to pray but prayed in my presence you know and I just kind of
02:32eventually just grew on me and I just said might as well just you know haven't
02:37prayed in a while I haven't even prayed Jum'ah or Eid or anything for years that's
02:41where I was but so you know and through him I got introduced to some really
02:45inspiring young people I still remember he took me to an MSA meeting you guys know
02:49what MSA's are yeah Muslim so he took me to an MSA meeting in Columbia University I
02:54still remember Baruch College is a small college in Columbia is a big in Ivy League
02:58school and big deal so he says I want to I want you to meet some people he took me to
03:02this MSA meeting and there's a circle of brothers and sisters right and they're
03:06discussing what they're going to do this semester the things that were they were
03:10going to do included we're going to sponsor an orphan from Bangladesh they
03:14had his picture they were going to raise this money among each other not even ask
03:17anybody else for money we're going to give da'wah to at least 500 people we're
03:22going to raise the Palestinian cause and we're going to do so by kept telling
03:25talking about the atrocities that are happening to all of the clubs in Columbia
03:31University in collaboration with five other universities most of which are not
03:36Muslim Students Association like the chess club and the ping-pong club and the all
03:40those clubs and they'll all sign off on it and they did they pull this off and
03:43they had an anti-Zionism conference at Columbia University under the end
03:49sponsored by and you had like a bajillion clubs mentioned underneath and MSA was one
03:54of them right so you couldn't come after the MSA and I'm sitting there going my
03:59biggest concern was am I eating pizza tonight or a fish sandwich and these people
04:04are like they're serious they're thinkers they think beyond themselves this is
04:10incredible and they're my age why are they so cool why are they so I mean I was
04:16just mesmerized by these people you know and through them I got introduced to my
04:20dear one of my dear role models Imam Siraj Bahaj from Brooklyn New York we
04:26became really good friends and through him through him I also got introduced to a
04:31masjid which was actually very close to my house but I never went there the Muslim
04:35center where I met my for my Arabic teacher Dr. Abdul Samir and my love of
04:40Quran and my love of the Arabic language was a gift of Allah to me through him
04:44through that so it's all of the things that went right in my life starts with a
04:49friend all of them I gave that talk yesterday right it's all of it for me
04:54starts with a friend all of it and that that guy if you met him you'd be like
04:59that guy really that guy are you sure you yeah that guy yep you know you wouldn't
05:06know you wouldn't be able to tell but he's an unbelievable human being this
05:11incredible person right so that happened and then fast forward again graduated
05:16college got married while unemployed and got married in June and come September
05:27the 11th same year you know terrible terrible time I was in I was in New
05:35Jersey at the time and then I started I moved back to New York thereafter and I
05:42worked at Islamic schools and worked at a masjid and worked at as a chaplain at a
05:47university worked as an Arabic teacher at a Arabic professor at a college and about
05:522005 I decided I need to just do this because I really love doing it the the
05:56Arabic thing and it was a leap of faith who's gonna come to Arabic classes who has
05:59anybody enjoy going to an Arabic class it's the stupidest thing I've ever heard
06:02most of my friends told me I was like no I think I can make it interesting so yeah
06:07you're gonna make an Arabic class interesting really so yeah I think I can do it so
06:11just kind of started at this create as this crazy experiment in New York and a
06:15word-of-mouth grew and people started calling from Louisiana and like California
06:21and just all over places I've never been like can you do that my cousin went to
06:25your class in New York I heard it was pretty good can you bring it to our
06:28masjid over here in California can you bring it to Louisiana can you bring it to
06:31Tennessee and I didn't advertise it was just somebody's cousin somebody's auntie
06:36somebody's puppy that just that's how it worked honestly and I didn't even I
06:40couldn't even afford to get a hotel to stay in another place you know what I
06:44used people who called me would actually give me a room in their house I'd stay in
06:48their house for the 10 days that I would teach a class it was like it was
06:52ridiculous the how hospitable people were I still remember one of the classes I
06:57went to in Boston as a 10 days I spent in Boston teaching a class and I didn't have
07:02any place to say and the brother who set it up himself was a bachelor he had a one
07:05bedroom apartment there's a one bedroom in a studio I said I don't have any beds
07:10in my house I was like yeah and I'll do the couch I lived on his couch for 10
07:14days and like years went by recently I went back to Boston and he was there and
07:18he's still got the couch okay I want to sleep over that he goes though I have
07:23children now sorry so it's okay you know so that's really where it kind of all
07:31started and it's snowballed since and it's I feel like it's still just the
07:34beginning inshallah a brother and then a sister will keep going back and forth
07:39yeah
Comments