My Journey To Islam

My Journey To Islam

By Abu Taubah

Opening of the Lecture

All praise belongs to Allah. We praise Him, we seek His forgiveness, and we seek His guidance. We seek refuge in Allah from the evils of our own egos and the evil results of our deeds.

Anyone whom Allah guides, then no one can lead him astray. And anyone whom Allah leads astray, then there is none that can guide him. And I bear witness that there is nothing worthy of worship and no gods in reality except the one and only Allah, who has no partners.

And I bear witness that Muhammad ibn Abdillahi (صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ) is his slave and his final messenger.

First Quranic Verse

Allah says, what could mean:

"O you who believe, fear Allah as it is His right to be feared, and do not die except as Muslims."

O you who believe, fear Allah, have taqwa for Allah, as it is His right for Him to be feared and for you to have taqwa. And don't you dare die except as a Muslim.

That's a threat. So you can now think as soon as you're threatened who is the one that's threatening you. And the ability of the one to carry out his threat. Don't you dare die except that you die as Muslims.

Second Quranic Verse

Allah also says, what could mean:

"O mankind, fear your Lord, have taqwa for your Lord. Who is your Lord? The one who created you all from one soul, Adam. And created from that soul its mate, Eve. And raised up and spread from the two of them, many men and women. And fear Allah, again have taqwa for Allah. And if you don't know who Allah is, He's the one you ask things for. And don't cut ties with the wombs that bore you. Indeed Allah above you all is laying in watch."

O mankind, fear your Lord, have taqwa for your Lord. Who is your Lord? The one who created you all from one soul, Adam.

And created from that soul its mate, Eve. And raised up and spread from the two of them, many men and women. And fear Allah, again have taqwa for Allah.

And if you don't know who Allah is, He's the one you ask things for. And don't cut ties with the wounds that bore you. Indeed Allah above you all is laying in watch.

Third Quranic Verse

Allah also says, what could mean:

"O you who believe, fear Allah, again, have taqwa for Allah, think about Allah, remember Allah, respect Allah. And in light of your fear of Allah, your remembrance of Allah, your respect of Allah, say a word that goes straight to the point, so that it penetrates the issue."

O you who believe, fear Allah, again, have taqwa for Allah, think about Allah, remember Allah, respect Allah. And in light of your fear of Allah, your remembrance of Allah, your respect of Allah, say a word that goes straight to the point, so that it penetrates the issue. And if you do this, Allah has promised that He will correct something you did wrong.

Okay? He will correct something that you aslan, fundamentally you did wrong, He will correct it, rectify your deeds, and forgive you your sins. And anyone who is already obeying Allah, and already obeying his messenger,

has already achieved the highest aspirations anyone can hope to shoot for.

The Best Speech and Guidance

As for what follows, then we should know that the best speech is the speech of Allah in the Quran.

And the best guidance is the guidance of Muhammad (صَلَّى اللهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ). And the most evil of affairs are those things that we invent, those things that we put in the game, so to speak. Every one of these things is something that leads us astray, and anything that leads us astray, even just a little bit, will eventually wind us up in hell.

Introduction

I'm your brother Abu Tawbah (السَّلَامُ عَلَيْكُمْ وَرَحْمَةُ اللَّهِ). It's my pleasure, to speak to you all today about my journey through knowledge.

Early Life: Born into a Christian Family

To clear the record, I was born in the 60s, late 60s, to a Kafir family, a non-Muslim family, a Christian family, a proper Christian family. I was raised up, up until 1980, going to the church. I learned how to read Hebrew.

I read the Bible. I did all those types of things, learning. And I loved the Bible.

The stories were amazing. I never had, I was too young to understand the concept of Jesus dying for the, on the cross and that type of thing. But there was an attachment to the religion due to the fact that my people were coming from slavery.

And my grandmother, some people, young people might think that slavery is so far, far away. It's still less than 150 years ago. And so my grandmother was coming out of, from her mother being a slave.

And my mother was the first woman or first person in our family not to pick cotton. So that was a big deal on my mother's side of the family.

Father's Side: A Family of Knowledge

As for my father's side of the family, we came from a family of knowledge.

My fifth grandfather was an expert in medicine. And so when the whole North Carolina got sick, he cured them. Through some medicine that he knew that they didn't have.

So they gave him his freedom. So from my father's side of the family, we've been free since the 1800s, early 1800s. And so there was difference of attitudes in my house from my father's side and from my mother's side.

And this type of difference in the home made me and kept in us a yearn for knowledge, even when we were non-Muslims in my house, in my parents' house. And it was through my studying and learning more and more about what was real through the Bible and through watching Muhammad Ali on TV and reading the autobiography of Malcolm X that one day my mother, she came to us and said, every, she didn't think we were Christian enough. My father was a politician.

So he lived in the capital and he would come three times a week, stay home and then the other times he would be at the capital. And me and my brothers would raise hell in my mother's home. So much so she said, no, you guys have no religion.

You guys, you know, you have to have some type of religion. So she wanted my father to take us more and more to the church. And it was on this journey to the church that I accepted Islam.

The Journey to Church: Seeing Different Religions

Because as boys, we're looking out the window, we're saying, everybody has a religion, we're asking my father. My mother's the only woman in the house, so we don't believe her. You know, everything she says, we have to ask my father.

And plus she's from the south. So we think that she's country. You know, we're from the north, we're New Yorkers.

She's from Georgia. So we belittle her background. And they were poor folk.

In my father's time, we're rich folk. So anything she said, we would go for confirmation with my father. And as we're looking out the window, driving to the church, we're looking at some Chinese people.

We said, do they have religion? He said, yes, it's Kung Fu. So we were like, oh, as children do. We said, hey, let's sign up and be Kung Fu guys.

And we saw the Indian guys and he told us they worship the cow. So we start saying moo out the window. You know, we're being boys.

You know, as we're going, we see the Jewish kids in the neighborhood and we're saying, oh, you know, because we had Jewish guys in our neighborhood and they used to pick on my youngest brother. And then if we came outside, they would scatter. Me and my older brother, they would scatter.

So we're like, we're glad that our mother doesn't want us to be Jews, you know, we were at that young age. And in Crown Heights, they have the largest amount of Jews than anywhere else in the world, except for Palestine.

So while we're on the top of that hill, there's a Jewish neighborhood.

The Moment I Saw Muslims: Accepting Islam

There's a big bus off to the side and this bus is the luxury bus and there are a whole bunch of people. There's white people, there's Spanish people, there's black people and there's a mixture of things. You don't even know if they're actually black or white, you know, you can't tell and it's the 779, you know, 80.

So everybody's got the dashikis and all the colors, but what attracted me, I was sitting in the front seat, was the smell. I smelled the eter, the oil in the air, or maybe it was buhur, maybe it was incense, but whatever it was, it was a beautiful Islamic smell, I call it. And I started to look at them and I said, well, who are those people?

What are they? Because they weren't one people.

All the other people we saw were one people, but these people were like us right now. Look around, look around. Everybody's different.

There's not five people that are the same sitting next to each other. And that's the way it looked with them. And he told me, oh, those are Muslims.

So Allah subhanahu wa'ta'ala yahdi man yashar - Allah (يَهْدِي مَن يَشَاءُ) guides whoever He wants. I said, well, I'm one of them. And that was my acceptance of Islam.

At that moment, I became a Muslim. I didn't know about (لَا إِلَٰهَ إِلَّا اللَّهُ) I didn't know about (مُحَمَّدٌ رَّسُولُ اللَّهِ). All I knew was that I'm one of those.

Those guys, like that. Allah guides whoever He wants. Nobody can take account to that.

And so my father surprised me by saying, yeah, of course. We're from Africa. Everybody from Africa is a Muslim.

I was like, what? You knew? You know, then why are we going to church? Well, because, you know, my mother's father's a preacher. If we don't ever get to church, you're going to get a whipping when you get home. So we went to church.

Being Convinced to Enter the Church

And, of course, they had great dawah. I refused to go in because I have a religion now. And they came out, an old guy came out with long lines.

As a child, I remember this. He had a lot of lines on his face. And that intrigued me because that meant he was really old.

Working at the Church

So he gave me a job at the bottom of the church where the old ladies, they make dinners while the service is going on upstairs. And my job was to open up the tables and put the cloth and run to the store if they forgot something while they cook the fish or the chicken dinner.

And at the end of it, I got change. In the 70s, you didn't get paid for money if you were a child. Okay? It was always change like that.

And I did that until I was 16 years old. Okay? I did that. Every Sunday, I went to church and I knew I was a Muslim.

Didn't know what that meant. But I would go to church on Sunday, do my job downstairs and then come. Go about my business and get my little change.

And I was very a guardian to my tables. If some child came and tried to mess up my changing, I would torture that child. You know what I'm saying? So they knew not to mess with, you know, my tables and kept my tables right.

And I would get to cut the cake and that was my thing.

Father Gives Me a Quran Translation

When I got home, my father gave me a copy of the Quran, a translation that he had. I didn't know he was hiding these things.

Okay? But during those days, there was a lot of affinity from black people towards Islam. If they weren't Muslim, they liked Muslims. If they didn't like Muslims, they left them alone.

So my father was in between there. He gave me the Musaf and I remember, it wasn't a Musaf, it was just a translation. I got a headache from reading it.

That's the only thing I remember. It hurt my head. I didn't understand anything.

But if you look at those big green Yusuf Ali translation, Musaf sounds like a weight. You know what I'm saying? It was my, this big Musaf was my book. I put it on my shelf and I wrapped it in a towel and I kept it there.

Okay? Because all he knew to tell me that you had to be clean when you used it.

First Visit to Masjid Al-Taqwa

And then he took me to Jumu'ah on Friday. Not to Jumu'ah, I'm sorry.

When we got out of school, he took me to the masjid on Friday. It was after Jumu'ah. It was Asr.

And I remember the first time I walked in there. There was a guy, his name is Yassin. I learned his name years later.

He's a mean guy at Masjid Al-Taqwa. He used to stand behind a desk and he was a great person to be the guard at the door. Because he intimidated the mess out of me.

What do you want? I said, nothing. I went back outside. My father was gone.

He dropped me off and left. You know, that's how, you know, back then Brooklyn was safe for little children. I knew my way home.

So, I stood there for a few minutes. I gathered my strength and I just walked in. And I didn't say nothing to him this time, you know.

I just walked in and there was, back then Masjid Al-Taqwa was still a storefront. So, you had to go past a row of a whole bunch of clothes and plastic bags, you know. And then this desk and then you turn left and they were praying.

So, I just jumped in line. All the children were in the back row. I just stood next to the guys my size and I prayed.

I know now that was Asr Salah. I didn't know Wudu. I didn't know Salah.

But I prayed. Afterwards the guy said, hey, let's go play ball. I'm down.

My Routine at the Masjid

And that was my mantra. Fridays I go to the Masjid. If I catch the prayer, I prayed.

If I didn't, I didn't pray. I didn't know there was another prayer. Because I'm thinking like a Christian.

When you come to church, you pray. When you're not in church, you don't pray. And no one said anything to me.

Why? Who's gonna ask a young boy about Islam? They obviously thought that my parents were Muslim. This is not like these days where, you know, you have everybody pretty much knows most of the stuff. Hey, young boy, his parents have to be Muslim.

So, no one said to me anything. We went out, we played ball. I joined the basketball team.

I was part of the Muslim basketball team. And we did the Riyadh, and we challenged other Masjids. And that's what we did.

Never took Shahada. Okay? Didn't know about praying five times a day. Didn't know anything.

Friday Nights at the Masjid

Okay? And on Friday nights, when I got, as I was getting older, we would hang out. And I don't know how many times I saw that movie, Muhammad and Umar Mukhtar. Okay? I saw the Muhammad movie, because Masjid Al-Taqa would open the Masjid for the night time, for the young guys.

And we'd spend the night there sometimes. And they put the DVD, and it was, you know, Muhammad. The Muhammad movie, you know.

Everybody knows the Muhammad movie, right? If you don't, you need to watch it. I've watched it so many times, you know. But that was the only movie we had.

But we appreciated that one movie. And then when they got the Umar Mukhtar movie, then we watched that one, and we switched it up. But we stayed up all night watching these movies, and playing jokes on each other, and burning each other with the incense.

You know, there's things that boys do at that age. And then in the morning, we play more basketball, and then eventually go home and do your chores. But life with my mother was difficult, because my mother was a hardcore Christian.

Joining the Marine Corps

So we're having this difficulty going on. And eventually when I turned, I had signed up for the Marine Corps when I was 16. You couldn't join at 16.

But I signed up, I took the test. As soon as I turned 17, I joined the Marine Corps. So I was a young 17, which is 9 years.

Young 9 years. Okay? I was very young. And when I joined, my first act as an adult, was to say I was Muslim.

And they said, religion? Because my mother said, no, it's not enough that you have religion, you have to have my religion. Okay? So, I had to stay there till I did that, and I signed as Muslim. So now I'm Muslim.

I still don't know how to pray. I still don't know anything. But I'm happy for my dog tags, that say Islam on the end, and I'm Muslim and everything.

Two Years Pass: Meeting a New Muslim

And as the days go by, and actually two years went by, I was about 19 years old. And they have a list of... I didn't even know how to chaplain, or go to the mosque. I didn't know any of that.

A guy came to me, and he said, hey, you know, I've seen you around. Your name is on the list, at the chaplain, for being Muslim. And I just accepted Islam.

Can you teach me how to pray? I was sitting at lunch. I just sat down. And, you know, the Marine Corps was pretty racist, at that time.

I was in a unit called Force Recon. So I was like one out of four blacks in the whole unit. Okay? So nobody sat with me.

You know what I'm saying? They didn't sit, so this guy sat with me. I said, hey, you know, cool. And he said, could you teach me how to pray? I said, you know, I immediately knew, I didn't know what he was talking about.

I Lied About Knowing How to Pray

So I lied. You know, instead of saying, okay, I don't know what you're talking about. I lied, because I outranked him.

Okay? I was senior to him. And I felt that I should know. And I was kind of scared.

You know, I can admit that now. So he said, yeah, your name is on the list. They gave me some paper.

I said, well, you just missed it. I just prayed. He said, how do you pray five times a day in the Corps? I said, well, you know, when you get up in the morning, then when you get off for lunch, and then before you go back, and then I just made it up real quick, you know? And he looked confused.

He said, but what about this paper they gave me at the chaplain? And it was a bunch of Xerox papers describing the Salah. I said, well, let me check it out, make sure they gave you the right thing. I'm like, you know, and I looked at this, and I was like, whoa, what is this? I need some time to myself, you know what I'm saying? So I can really check this thing out.

And I don't know if he noticed that or not, but we finished eating. And as we were walking to the door, I remembered I was leaving for Japan the next day. That was, I was actually, that was my last meal there.

I was going to go and pack my stuff, and I was going on a plane. I was going on a plane to Alaska, then Japan. And I said, oh man, I'm not going to be able to teach you this.

I'm leaving for Japan. He said, you know what, you know, why don't you keep that? I can get another one. I said, yeah, you know, I'll keep this one, thanks a lot.

And I never saw that guy again in my life. I used to think he was an angel, you know, because he changed my life, literally.

On the Plane: Reading About Salah

On that plane to Alaska, I read that whole paper.

When I finished, it dropped from my hands. And it sat in the front, I said, I didn't say, subhanAllah, but I said, you know, I wonder what it's going to be like praying five times a day.

You know, I thought, that was the first thing that came to my mind.

I wonder what it's going to be like. And then when I got to Japan and go, so you get to Japan the same day you leave for Japan, you know, that's the way it is, you know, the time thing. So, I went and I checked in, and I started offering salah with the paper.

Basketball Injury Leads Me to the Masjid

Now, I was on the Marine Corps basketball team. So, I was still up in the northern area and playing ball, and being an aggressive guy, I got knocked down by some guy, and I sprang my ankle, you know, so now I can't play. And I wasn't the type of person to sit on the bench.

Meeting Imam Medhat al-Shami in Japan

And I went into the masjid. And from that point on, they started to teach us. I mean, I learned 40 hadith.

I started to learn Arabic right away. The imam there, his name was Medhat al-Shami.

You know, he was a great... He had a lot of patience to deal with so much hard-headed young men that were coming to Islam at that time. Who were soldiers, you know, or marines. Who used to killing people.

And then this guy looks like the people they've been killing. Because during that time, it was a lot of the Shia in the 80s. And everything like that.

So he had a lot of nerve and he didn't take no nonsense for us. And he was still at the same time very purposefully gentle. I told him this, I said, Look, man, let me tell you something.

I don't trust you. You know, I don't trust none of you Arabs. I don't know what you... I don't even know how they let you on base.

You know, and I don't want to hear none of that stuff you worship in Muhammad neither. That's what I had in my mind. I talked to him like that.

Learning About Salawat on the Prophet

And he was cool with it. He said, why do you say I worship Muhammad? He ignored all the other stuff. I said, because every time you say Muhammad, you say (صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ - ṣallā Allāhu ʿalayhi wa sallam)

And then when you say Allah, you don't say nothing. Allah has more right for you to say (اللَّهُ عَزَّ وَجَلَّ وَسُبْحَانَهُ وَتَعَالَى - Allāhu ʿazza wa jall wa subḥānahu wa taʿālā) than you say, you know (مُحَمَّدٌ صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ - Muḥammad ṣallā Allāhu ʿalayhi wa sallam). He's just a man.

I just came from worshiping a man. I ain't worshiping no other man. And he said, oh subhanAllah.

Let me explain something to you. And he said, you know, Allah don't need nothing from me. Allah don't need... He is free of all need, worthy of all praise.

And I thought about that. Wow. I never thought of being rich as being free of all need.

Ghanim. He said, rather Muhammad (صَلَّى اللهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ - ṣallā Allāhu ʿalayhi wa sallam). He is like you said, just a man.

And he's in need of my prayers. I'm not praying to him. I'm praying for him.

And I'm praying to Allah. And I said, wow, that makes sense. You know, he beat me.

His intellectual conversation, explanation made sense to me. And then I said, well, you know what? You know, I still don't trust you. Okay? He said, well, then you need to learn Arabic.

I said, yeah, I want to learn Arabic for myself so that I know what is true and what's not true. I don't have to just rely upon you. I want to read the Quran for myself.

Learning the Arabic Letters: Rob (Lord)

My last name is Robertson. So he asked me, he said, what's your name? I said, Robertson. You know, in the military, you go by your last name a lot.

But they call me Robby. Say, Robby. So he said, oh, let me show you.

You look like a smart lad. And he showed me Ra. Wrote Ra.

He said, that is Ra. Now, that's the first letter in my name. So, of course, I'm going to immediately fall in love with that letter.

I got it. Ra. What's the next one? He said, this is Ba.

I said, Ba. And I said, okay, Ba. If you put them together, they say, you try it.

And I said, Rob. And he said, yeah. And I knew that's my name, you know? And he said, now that's a word.

I said, what does that mean? He said, it means Lord. And I started crying. That was a big deal.

The Heart of Seeking Knowledge

And that type of Tarbiyah, where it breaks your heart, and you constantly realize that you are intrinsically flawed, is the basis for a Talibul Ilm. You seek knowledge, not to impress people, but you seek knowledge, so that you can get yourselves from the depths of hell. And one day get to the doors of Jannah.

You seek knowledge, to raise up ignorance, of yourself, and those around you. Why? Because you love them. Your humanity.

Your heart. Right? Allah gives us a heart. And those who have a heart, are called, have humanity.

And those without a heart are called cold-hearted, because they don't care about nobody else. Right? So you want to raise ignorance up off yourself first and foremost, and then you work your circle of influence. You work it, around those in the same way that you've gotten it, in a nice, gentle way.

Because the fundamental rule, is that we don't care how much you know, till first we know how much you care. And so if you're going to seek knowledge, seek knowledge from those who love you, and show you concern. If you're going to impart knowledge, let the people know first that you care about them.

And you can't say it, you have to show it. Sincerity can be felt. And this again, is the basis of knowledge.

Having that taqwa, that those things that break the heart. And if we notice in the Qur'an, time and time again, Allah is addressing what? The heart. The heart.

A taqwa where? Where's a taqwa? It's not a khutbah. Where's a taqwa? We don't know that? A taqwa is right here. In our chest.

Hadith About Asking Your Heart for a Fatwa

And the Prophet (صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ - ṣallā Allāhu ʿalayhi wa sallam) said to his companion, when you don't find it in the Qur'an and the sunnah of his messenger, where should you do next? He said (اللَّهُ وَرَسُولُهُ أَعْلَمُ - Allāhu wa Rasūluhu aʿlam) - Allah and His Messenger know best. He said, اسْتَفْتِ قَلْبَكَ - Get a fatwa from your heart.

Hadith Reference: Musnad Ahmad and Sunan al-Darimi

So the heart is vital in this whole thing. And it takes more than just desire and motivation to be a talib ul-ilm. You have to have purpose and direction.

You have to have purpose and direction. And this is the thing that many of the youth are missing today when they go about to seek knowledge. They have no purpose.

So they head on, they're moving along the path, going a little bit this way, then saying, you know, I got something better. Let me go this way. No, let me go this way.

And then after 10 years, they can't do nothing. There's no nateejah. No, no, what is nateejah? Result.

There's no result. And there should be a result. The result should be an increase in your humanity.

Right? Because your heart becomes better. Islam is the cure, first and foremost, for that heart. So I stayed with this man.

The Imam's Concern for Us

And I thought he was, you know, something was wrong with him. You know, me and my friends, me and I bet it knows me, I have my best buddy, Makeen. He was there too.

Okay? And so, this guy used to follow us around. You know, we were young Muslims. So we would go to the club, for example.

We said, okay, we're getting off work. Let's meet at the club. It's not like these clubs out here.

It's a bunch of, hundred bunch of guys. You know, Marines, there's no real women there. But we'd go there anyway.

He would come there, looking for us. We said, oh my God, here goes the Imam. He's in here.

And he would come and he's crying. He said, look, what are you guys doing in here? They're drinking beer. We're not drinking beer.

Come on, get out of here. We're like, oh man, this guy is nuts. He was, he couldn't even fight, but he would, he showed us so much concern.

He wasn't military. He was civilian. And he's coming in front of all these Marines, grabbing us up and he's crying.

And we said, look, just don't cry, man. It's okay. Okay, we're going to come out.

Some guys be hiding, you know, laughing. I know you're there. It was a friend of ours.

I know you're there. And we come out and we said, well, what are we going to do? What are we going to do? I mean, we usually get off. He said, well, come to my house.

Friday Nights at the Imam's House

And he invited us to his house. And so that became our thing on Friday nights. Saturday nights, we go to his house and we had a lot of fun.

We would bake cookies. We would do all types of stuff. You know, I don't like the way that sounded.

No, we do more than bake cookies. We do men's stuff. Yeah.

But we had fun too. We had a lot of fun and we would just kick it around and it was always directed. He was always teaching us things.

He would, like I said, He made us one night just challenge to see who could memorize the most hadith in a night, you know, and then he would give us rewards for that money, you know, and that's a big reward for us.

And even though we're growing men, everybody likes $50, you know, so he would do this and this is what he's spending. And so we asked him, he said, why do you call yourself Abu Abdullah? You don't got no children, you know, he said, I'm your father, you know, and so we thought, okay, you know, we didn't realize that this was Kunya was like that, but we realized that he should show in his love for us that he's teaching us as fathers.

Writing Reports on the Five Pillars

And this was our case the whole time that we were in Japan. So he gave us some fundamentals. He made us all write reports on every pillar of Islam.

Okay, not every pillar, the five pillars of Islam. Okay, I say, he said, you know, the five pillars of Islam? Sure. I know it.

Okay. I want to report on some. I want you to do reporters and we had to give these reports to each other for each other to judge.

You might get five grades from your friends. Each one of them would judge a report and writing it what he thought was wrong. And then we had to say it in front of each other.

This was our knowledge. This is how I try to be. It was at that stage and that gave me a love for the Muslim Brotherhood and for the teachers, the Imams.

Quiet is kept. There's a lot of Muslims in Japan, a lot of Muslims in Japan and in the 80s, there was a lot more because people weren't getting their visas to United States. They were either going to Japan, China or Russia.

But now when America opened his borders, it decreases some of the people that used to go there. Well, a lot of Africans there. So it wasn't like we were the only Muslims there, but he showed a special because he used to make special time just for us convert or revert Muslims.

Returning to America

So when I came back to United States, I carried that attitude with me that love for the Muslims and I was a little disheartened when I first came back and I found out that the United States wasn't like that and it was more like a gangster Muslim thing, you know, and the environment was like that, but you know, you adjust and you go through the different changes and then you realize that this is not working. So when I got out of the Marine Corps in 95, I moved to Kansas City, Missouri, and I started teaching at then. It was the largest Islamic school in North America and at that school.

Teaching at the Islamic School

I was the gym teacher. I didn't have any Islamic knowledge to really give people but I knew the gym. I could do that.

I could do sport. I could do health and I started teaching the children and in reality after those nine years in the Marine Corps, they were like rehabilitation for me because children are honest. If I had to deal with grown folks, I probably would have been crazy but dealing with children and their honesty and their beauty.

I stayed there until I became the dean of school, the assistant in the Quran studies and the teacher of the Islamic studies there by learning from the teachers there. I didn't say this one is off it or this guy's beard is not long enough. I knew that the guys there knew more than me.

Memorizing Quran with Sheikh Khalid

So I used to meet the Quran teacher extra early 30 minutes every day at the school and I sat with the students and did the memorization of the Quran with that teacher and I memorized five juz of Quran with that teacher Sheikh Khalid Khadir from India and he used to say I wish someone would finish because I can't go back home until at least get five half of the Quran then I can leave this godforsaken place. But every time someone gets close they graduate. So he was hoping someone would stay, you know, stay with him and he taught me and kept teaching me a lot of things about the Quran.

He had the words of the Quran, not the word, the letters of Quran all over his room and how many times it's in the Quran so you got accustomed to it. And so this was a topic. I used to go to the Islamic studies teacher and study constantly consistently reading with him reading reading books out loud to him while he's taking his lunch.

Okay, and then he's explaining to me the stories that we're reading that I'm reading to him out loud and some of the children used to laugh but the principal was very very supportive. He liked it because it's a school and everybody needs education. And so his support encouraged me and at the end of the year the Hafiz teacher she had it.

He gave me an award like he gave the rest of the children and I was happy. I wasn't expecting it. But just because I was a student like that they showed more concern.

Learning Arabic from Anyone

And I used to go to the people there and again now I was fluent in Arabic because I used to go to the Arab guy at the store who sell pork and beer. And ask him, How do you say this? How do you say that? And he used to

tell me and sometimes he used to make fun of me. And sometimes I knew it and sometimes I didn't until I went to somebody else and said it and they got mad at me or they told me that you know, that was wrong, but I didn't stop going to him because he was easy access and I learned flu.

I was fluent in Arabic before I left to go to Mauritania. Through this route. I sat down at Ramadan and got a dictionary and looked up every word in the Quran.

Every word and I made my list. I didn't know. I didn't even know they might have books about that.

I didn't even have enough common sense to go buy a book on Arabic. I just went to the Muslims and got a hands-wear dictionary and started looking. I made so many mistakes.

It taught me soft, you know, it started teaching me how to break down the words and I started making these connections of these different types of words, but I wanted to leave. I wanted to go do something. I want to go fight jihad.

Sheikh's Advice: Teaching is Jihad

You know, I was a Marine. So that that instinct is still to go fight, but the sheikh used to tell me all the time. You're in jihad.

Teaching these children. You're like we were talking about making hijrah. He said if you go who these children going to have because I used to play with the children like a big child, you know, children come to school.

They're playing with me and so they got to go to where they got to go to and I became the Dean. So the Dean's role in the school is to solve all issues between the teacher and the students. So they had a friend in me.

I would champion the child's rights right there and that was good, but I was still very disciplinary and I'm still a sergeant in the Marine Corps, you know, but I would implement it in a way that was beneficial for them to like it because I liked it and I didn't want to drive them away. I don't know where I would be today if there were no masjid. You understand? The masjid was there.

I didn't know about the politics. I didn't have to know. And so that's what I did until finally I said, you know, there was an incident in the United States.

The Ahmed Diallo Incident and Leaving America

I don't know if you guys were aware about it in 97. A guy named Ahmed Jello. He got shot by the police in New York 40 times.

The police shot him down. They thought he was a drug dealer. They didn't want to tell you.

This is the real story. The police in New York were notorious for robbing drug dealers. They saw this black guy.

You can't tell the difference between a black guy and an African or native. So they thought he was selling these Rolexes. They're fake, but you know, that's what the Africans do in New York.

They go get fake Rolexes. They sell them. But to somebody don't know they look real.

These cops thought this guy is Rolexes and stuff. So they run up on him. He thinks these they're trying to rob him.

He pulls his keys. They shoot him 40 times. Don't find no drugs.

Find fake watches. They get arrested. Okay, 40 times.

They had to reload twice. Because in those days, they didn't have the long extended clip. My father at that time.

He was the administrative director for the district attorney's office. Okay, so he's in politics in that way.

Growing up in the 70s.

You still see like you guys talk about Tupac and all these other stuff. Martin Luther King was alive when I was born. So the imagine the impression of still seeing Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, like you guys see Tupac and Biggie Smalls and all these other foolish men that have no real standing.

But those visions and those pictures of people getting beat up. I said, nah, if I ever lived to be long, they wouldn't beat me up. I ain't, you know, you know, saying all that stuff like that.

And then my father goes out and he protests with the protests and they lock him up. I say, oh my goodness. I can't do this.

I told my father I don't. Why you do that? Because now, you know, I can't take this and I was so frustrated and so angry, but Allah had blessed me to know that I couldn't do anything. And he blessed me to know that I couldn't take staying in America any longer.

Hadith About Removing Harm from People

I was like full. And it's so to order. I knew this one hadith from Riyadh Salaheen.

Again, thank Allah for the Tablighi Jama'at. At that time, I didn't know they were nothing about Aqidah, understand everything, but they used to stand up and they used to read Riyadh Salaheen and I benefited from their reading. Okay.

I benefited from their reading that I heard this hadith and they said in this hadith that Sadaqah, that removing your harm from people is Sadaqah that you give, you give yourself, from yourself, for yourself. And I said, you

know what? I'm going to do some harm here. So I better get out of here and maybe I'll get the reward of giving myself Sadaqah.

Journey to Senegal

So I got on the first plane smoking to Senegal because I didn't need to have a stamp. So I didn't need a visa. So I knew in four days after my father was arrested, four days later, I was in Senegal.

I didn't have a plan. I felt like a runaway slave. I didn't even know how to get out the airport.

I said, man, where am I going? What is going on? But I knew I had to get out of there. And when I got there, Allah blessed me to make it to some people. I mean, it's just amazing how Allah makes things happen.

A guy on the plane said, hey, you know, where you going? I said, I'm just going to Senegal, you know, I didn't tell him. Well, look, you're American, right? Hey, take my card, visit me, you know, because we have some some youth here who are trying to be like American and they see you accepted Islam. Maybe you can come and give us a pep talk and they see, you know, convert Islam.

I said, okay, great. Thanks, man. When I go to customs, they said, where are you staying? I said, oh, here.

Gotta be quicker on the feet, right? I pulled that thing out today and they just wrote down, I have a good stay, boom, and I was out. That got me out of customs. I didn't, I'd only been through customs in the military.

You don't have to say where you're going, you know, but now that was a lesson right there and that was the toe feet, the mercy of Allah, you understand? Then I'm walking down the street. I don't know where to go. I start talking to some people.

I found some Mauritanians. I wanted to go to Mauritania, you know, they let me, took me to their house. I stayed with them a couple of days, got me a visa and I went to Mauritania.

First Day in Mauritania: Witnessing Death

First day I get there, a lady dies. We're standing there making, we come through the desert, as we come in the desert, they're calling Maghrib, we get out the cars, we go make Maghrib, a guy walks in carrying his mother.

He said, I missed Salah, I was washing my mother, she died.

And I said, yo, where am I at? You know, he just washed his mother and brought her to the, we prayed Janazah over her. Then we got back in the cars and took her to the Baqiyah and we buried her. They took their turbans off, threw the cross and lowered her down, pulled the turbans off, put it back.

I said, subhanAllah, this is some organization right here. I get to the city. I don't know anybody.

Allah gives me a tawfiq that some people see me, say, hey, you're going to be our guest, Arab hospitality. I was their guest for four months while they went to Spain. They left me the house and two slaves, just for myself.

I called my family over, that's where we stayed. And then when they came back, they gave us a month to get out. And by that time, I had gotten accustomed to the area and I found where I wanted to go.

Meeting Sheikh Mohammed Salim

And I went out to the desert and I went to Sheikh Mohammed Salim Ud-Adud and he spoke to me very kindly.

He started talking to me in Fula, is an African language. And I noticed a lot of people were talking to me in Fula when I was over there.

I didn't know at the time that I was Fulani, you know, but you know, so I'm talking, he's talking. I said, well, I only know Arabic. I was proud of my Arabic.

He said, well, I'm just trying to be kind to you, you know, talk to you in your language so you can understand.

And so he said, well, what took you so long to get here? He said, well, Mohammed, to the circles of knowledge, but what took you so long to get here? And I really didn't have any excuse. No excuse whatsoever.

And he made his daughter move out her house. He moved my wife, my pregnant wife, into his daughter's house. And he said, I'm going to treat you like family.

Get your wife settled and two weeks be back out in the desert, in the open desert. And then we lived in those tents for about two years. In the tents, following the camels, going where they're going, getting lessons, getting taught.

The Sheikh's Generosity

He was true. He gave me lunch and dinner every day for six years. Not one day passed.

I had two wives. Okay. He gave both my wives and all my children lunch and dinner.

For the whole time. I was there. It was only breakfast was on me.

And he taught me hand and foot everything. Very gentle, very patiently. When I was leaving there, we were reciting Al-Fiytur Bin Malik.

That's how much we progressed from the time we got there. And then the Tarbiyah was through poetry. And he first gave me a poem.

I said, I don't want, I didn't come out here to recite no poetry. You know, I was, what's this? Then he said, well, that's your class, you know, come back when you memorize it. So I went back home and said, man, I can't get

around this old man.

I showed back up. He wouldn't give me the class because I didn't memorize. So my wife said, well, I memorized it.

It sounds pretty good. And she caught the rhythm and I started to memorize it, you know, after that. And it was pretty good.

The Teacher on His Deathbed

And then when I got that first lesson, because I understood Arabic at that time, enough to make the lesson, it broke my heart. He had his brother. Give me the class.

His brother, who lies, passed away. Now, it was an old Arabic teacher and he was giving the class as he was on his deathbed. So he's breathing.

And between his words, he was given the class teaching us about, saying that this is the beginning of the Sunnah, learning this here. Don't forget these lessons. This is not a little lesson.

These are big lessons. And his son was holding him up because he couldn't hold himself up and his son was crying saying, why don't you all go away? And he's like, no, don't let them go away. And he would continue to give us a lesson.

He did that until he died. That's how he died. Continued to give us lessons and not while he was speaking it, but every day and it was deteriorating his health.

Until finally, he couldn't come out in the morning. He didn't even come out. He would sit by his doorway.

We would take the classes from his doorway of his bedroom. That's as far as he would go. And then one day he was dead.

(رَحِمَهُ اللَّهُ - rahimahullahu). And so this is the legacy that he told us from the very first lesson. He made us understand that talib ul-ilm is wasiyatullah.

This is the legacy that Allah is leaving for us, this Islam. And so we have to not learn it but embody the message and pass it down as the embodiment of the legacy of Islam. That's what it is to be a talib ul-ilm.

Surah Al-Asr: The Foundation of Seeking Knowledge

Allah says:

"By Asr (time). Indeed mankind is in loss. Except those who believe and do righteous deeds, and advise each other to truth, and advise each other to patience."

I swear by asr. And what is asr? Don't just say time. It's that time of day when you gotta squeeze it all in, what we call rush hour.

Because you're trying to squeeze it all in. So that's why the term asr. By the squeezing time of day.

(إِنَّ الْإِنسَانَ لَفِي خُسْرٍ - Innal insana lafee khusra). Every, and Allah is saying this. The fact of the matter is that every human being on the earth is a loser.

(صَدَقَ اللهُ - Sadaq Allah) - Allah has spoken the truth. Everyone is in a state of perpetual loss. (إِلَّا - Illa), the istithna, the exception is those who have belief and belief is based on knowledge.

Hadith: Knowledge Precedes Words and Deeds

"Know that there is no deity worthy of worship except Allah."

(Sahih al-Bukhari, Book of Knowledge)

(فَاعْلَمْ أَنَّهُ لَا إِلَهَ إِلَّا اللَّهُ - Fa'lam, annahu la ilaha illallah). No, Allah says. Then seek the forgiveness of Allah.

Knowledge precedes words and deeds. So that belief, they believe they have some knowledge and then what do they do with that knowledge? They work, amal us-salihat - عَمِلُوا الصَّالِحَاتِ. They work with that knowledge.

And now we know this from usul ul-tilatah. We say it redundantly and we say it without spirit, without understanding what we're talking about. This amal us-salihat is based on your knowledge because knowledge demands action and it's born out.

And so if you really offer salah, the salah does its job by preventing you from being lewd and obscene. So, amal us-salihat. And they leave the wasiyah, they leave the legacy of al-haqqa.

The reality, the truth, the legacy, not just a lesson. You pass it down in the way that you got it. You embody it and you live it.

And you be patient from the azaar, the anointment. It's hard. It's very hard.

The Doors of Jannah

But you know what one sheikh told us? He said, the distance between the door span, just the door span from one door in Jeddah is like the distance of 40 years travel on the fastest thing you could speak and think of. Flying on a rocket. 40 years.

That's the distance of one door. And he said, one day, imagine if you would, that doorway is going to be packed.

It's going to be packed with people who held the line, who were patient.

What does patient mean? Perseverant, consistent. They weren't soft about it, they was about it.

In the real way, they had to be about it.

Not some hardcore, my booze frowned up face. But because they had a love for their own selves and a love for humanity. They lived the life and they understood.

And so they held the line and the doors of Jeddah going to open up and those people are going to go in. It's going to be filled. He said, I want to be one of them.

Don't you? And if you want to be one of them. Leave the legacy of being patient.

Perseverant. One of the biggest problems we have is we. Us.

Not being patient, not respecting each other, not respecting the law.

The Microwave Generation

These microwaves have changed our lives. We want to microwave everything. Now.

No, not now, right now. We don't want to have patience. We say, we're going to follow the sunnah.

But we say, follow the sunnah, being a talib al-im means to memorize the Quran. Well, you know, not every talib al-im memorize the Quran. Oh, now you want the exception.

Now you don't want to follow the route when there's something there that you don't like. When you can't give a fatwa after two weeks. Now you don't want to memorize Quran.

The people of the sunnah start off with the Quran. They only learn enough Arabic to learn the Quran.

The Judge Who Called Us Ignorant

One Sheikh, we went to him after coming out of Mauritania desert.

Me and a friend of mine. And we went to him. We said, we want to be.

He was a judge of the capital. The judge, the qadi of Mauritania, Abdulaziz C. حَفِظَهُ اللَّهُ . And we said, we want to be your students.

He said, you know, usually nobody comes in his room except their Hafidh of Quran. And so my friend was like, come on now. You can tell me all these guys.

And he was like, as much people as over here. We're in the room. And they were young guys, teenagers.

All smiling at us like. You know how sarcastic young teenagers are like. You know, what are you chumps doing in here, you know.

And so my friend's like, you're telling me all these guys are Hafidh of Quran. He said, man, I'm about to write a fatwa to get you kicked out this country. I don't think I've ever met so many ignorant people in my life.

I'm afraid for the harm you're going to do to the country. You know. I said, but I'm going to help you.

Okay. He said, no, but we remember. He said, because he asked us.

He said, I missed the point. He said, you know, are you guys, you guys want to be, work with me? You want to be intern in me? He said, yeah. He said, have you guys memorized the Quran?

He said, no, we have to go memorize the language.

And he looked at us like we stunk. Like, what do you mean? You, you call yourself a tolerable enemy? You haven't memorized the Quran? That's when he called us ignorant. So that's, that's, man, that's real ignorant.

It's an Issue of Iman

And so my friend said, you think, I was trying to tell him, don't say anything else. Let's just get out of here, you know. He said, um, you think that, uh, we had to memorize the language so we can understand it.

How are we going to memorize it if we don't understand it? And so this guy looked at us and said, you know, you think we understood it? When we know it's an issue of Iman, he said. It is an issue of Iman. It is an issue of Iman.

If you have character, you'll do it. You'll memorize the Quran. As one Sheikh said, it's like a diamond.

You don't shine a diamond up as you're taking it out the rock of the wall. You get it out the wall and then you go shine it up and chisel it up. You know, you don't sit there trying to make it real nice.

It's still half. You don't even have it yet. So he said, I'm gonna do you guys a favor.

You go out there. You see, there's gonna be a guy out there in a tent with some little children. You go out there and you memorize Quran.

When you finish, you should have learned how to sit down and I'll give you your second lesson. Okay. And you know, we went out there and there were children there and they were laughing at us.

The Children's Questions

They were like, you know, what did you guys do in America? You know, when you didn't know. You know, because we started to ask us fit questions and we didn't know. And they were like, you know, what did you do in America? We said, we made it up.

They were like, come on, seriously. What do you do in America when you don't know the answer to something? You don't go to a Sheikh? You know, because they ask, why didn't we memorize Quran in America? I said, well, we don't have that many shaykh in America that know Quran. They said, well you don't have no shaykh.

What do you do if you don't know something? I said, well, we figure it out. And they started laughing, you stupid people. You gotta be kidding me.

You don't figure it out on your own, do you? Allah has divided the people into two types. Those that know and those that don't know. And he's ordered those that don't know:

Verse About Asking People of Knowledge

"Ask the people of knowledge if you don't know."

(Quran 21:7)

You guys can't be serious. And then one child said to us, he said, you know what, I got it. You guys are an example of those guys who wasted their childhood, right? They're like, we're gonna say yes.

And we said yes. And we stood there. And we tried to memorize Qur'an with them or finish off the Qur'an.

And you know, the road to Talibul... And eventually, you know, my family got sick and I moved to Egypt. And I studied with a bunch of shuyukh there. And it was the same type of situation where the shuyukh spent their time.

Studying in Egypt with Sheikh Salahuddin

There's one sheikh, you probably know him, Salahuddin Abdul Mawjud. If you look in those translations of those biographies of the Safwan al-Thawri, Al-Bukhari, the life in those... He wrote all those books, okay? Back in those days, he didn't have the deal with Dar es Salaam yet, okay? So, we were living in a state of poverty. And he was a sheikh, okay? And so we lived above the masjid.

And we would be up in there. And he's a muhaddith. So we're working for him.

We are working for him. You heard my statement? We're cleaning his clothes. We're taking care of the house.

We're cooking the food. We're working for him. And we didn't think we were doing him no favors.

Okay? Some of us, we hold the door open for the sheikh or the teacher. And we think, yeah, I'm... Now, I open the door, I'm the epitome of the tolerable. No.

You haven't begun. You can't pay for this stuff. This person, as one sheikh said, if you kill a person, you've only taken his dunya.

So if you mislead a person, you're not only taking his dunya, but his hereafter. So the opposite is true. Someone teaches you something.

They've given you the best of the dunya and the best of the hereafter. When they're teaching you this deen. You can't pay for that.

There's no amount of money you can give for the opportunity to go to jannah. And this is what the route of the tolerable ilm is like. He has to be humble.

He has to be grateful for everything he gets. And he has to thank the people that give it to him. And then go back and realize that he's standing on the shoulders of many, many people who may not have been able to get there, but they helped you get where you are today.

They may not have been as good looking as you or as knowledgeable of the sunnah as you, but you're still standing on their shoulders. So there's no reason for you to be sanctimonious ever. And if you really thought about it and you thought about your own sins, and you thought if they had a scent, who would be around you? And so this is the attitude the tolerable ilm has and should keep.

Question and Answer Session

And if anybody has any questions, I'll take them. What advice would I give to someone who cannot leave the country to study? You can memorize Qur'an in Arabic here. You can learn fiqh here.

You know, this is a misnomer that people have this rejection of the madhhab, okay? You know, you find most people sadly who claim to be salafi and on the sunnah, they can't tell you anything about hajj or umrah. They can't tell you anything past tahara and salah. I mean, yeah, salah and maybe Ramadan.

It's not the fiqh we're supposed to have, you know. Here in this country, alhamdulillah, especially in England, you have a lot of translations of the classical works. Study the classical works.

Recommended Books for Study

Like, I see a lot of desi people, you have the Mukhtas al-Quduri, an excellent book in Hanafi fiqh. You have, from the maliki perspective, you have the book Al-Risalah, Ibn Abi Zayd Al-Qayrawani, in fiqh that gives you your base, your foundation. Al-Shafi'i Ibn Shuja'a, I don't know if it's translated, you know.

And then Umdat al-Fiqh for the Hanabilah and those different things. They have some classical works that will give you your foundation of knowledge. And you can get that here.

You can go to the teachers and the asateef and the mashayekh and the imams here, even if you don't have the Arabic or you have an Urdu or whatever language, and I'm sure they can explain it to you to the point that you can work with it. And that's what's beneficial for you.

Closing

"[And Allah knows best]"

"[May Allah bless you]"

"[May Allah reward you with good]"

"[Peace be upon you and the mercy of Allah and His blessings]"