Episode 00 - Mufti Azeemuddin

Introduction

There is so much you can learn from the scholar, from their stories, their struggles, the decisions they made, and the path they followed to get there. This is a podcast dedicated to documenting those journeys. The elders of our community, the ones who have given their lives to serving this deen quietly and consistently for decades.

My job here is simple — to ask and then to listen. This is their story.

Our guest for this episode is Mufti Azeemuddin Ahmed. He was born and raised in the Chicagoland area, became a Hafidh at a very young age, and is a scholar and founder of Dar-us-Salaam in Chicago, along with his brother, Mufti Bin Hajiuddin. He's the son of two physicians who immigrated to a small town in Illinois in the early 80s, where there were almost no Muslims at all.

In this episode, Mufti Azeemuddin takes us back to a time when praying Jumu'ah on Sundays — because you couldn't get off work on Fridays — was normal. When driving an hour for Jumu'ah was just what you did. And when his father, the only oncologist in the county, was watching Muslim families lose their children to assimilation with no infrastructure to stop it. We walk through his life story, his parents' decision to bring a scholar from India to teach their kids Qur'an, his eight years studying in South Africa and Pakistan, and the mission he came back with — to build a community that could protect the next generation.

Opening Remarks

Mufti Azeemuddin: JazakAllah khayran to all of you for joining us. This is, as you mentioned, the first beginning of a great effort you're doing, insha'Allah, as a means of sadaqah jariyah for your grandmother — which is the effort of having a documentation and meeting with different members of the community who are involved in some sort of khidmah, whether they are scholars or activists, and kind of discussing with them their experiences, and hoping, insha'Allah, that we can all benefit from that.

This is something really important that you're doing, and may Allah allow this work to be filled with sincerity and allow, insha'Allah, thousands of people to benefit.

Each one of us, in reality, are just a manifestation of Allah's qudrah — we are nothing more than that. We're just a manifestation of Allah's qudrah, and Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, He allows His will to be manifested in many different ways, and alhamdulillah, we're living that. We have to, of course, try our best to ensure that we live a life that is in accordance with Allah's pleasure, but the ability to do things is 100% only with Him. For that, we have to keep on asking Him to be able to achieve things.

His Parents' Journey to America

My parents migrated from India — from Hyderabad, India — in the early 70s, 1972. My father came at that time, and they came here, as most parents do, to start a life over here for their kids, to find an area of comfort for raising the children. They're both physicians, and they came here on the basis of that. My mother is a pediatrician, and my father is a hematologist-oncologist. Studying and coming in those days — it was the beginning of the number of Muslims that came to this country.

They completed their residency, completed their exams, and all that. My father and mother established their first work in a small town called Kankakee, Illinois, about 75 miles south of Chicago, and moved there in 1980 and started practice out there. My father was the first oncologist of the county — that's why he moved over there — and then my mother had her pediatric work.

Not many Muslims at all that far away from Chicago at that time. And the stories that you hear about people praying Jumu'ah on Sundays — if you heard that story, it's not fake. It's real. There are people who were simply trying to practice Islam in whatever way they could. They worked on Fridays, and there was nobody around them. So it was like, okay, fine — at least let's try to retain some level of Islam by practicing, by praying Jumu'ah on Sunday.

The idea of having to go slaughter your own meat naturally if you want halal — halal meat, even meat stores, retail stores, were rarely to be found. Traveling an hour for Jumu'ah was not unheard of, and traveling an hour, 45 minutes for Sunday school — normal. Everything was just so distant. And the sacrifice that people did in that generation to remain Muslim, subhanAllah, was amazing. All of our parents — whoever came in the early 60s and 70s — they made a lot of sacrifice.

A Turning Point: The Loss of a Child

In a nutshell, we're living in that town. My siblings — I'm the youngest of four — and my eldest, soon after birth, she passed away. So that became a big turning point for my parents. They're both physicians, and they lost their first child. It was regarded as a clear-cut case for a lawsuit to be filed, because the physicians present did not recognize that mucus had gotten stuck in her mouth. She was born completely healthy, but because of that mistake, subhanAllah, she passed away.

My father mentioned — that's why I'm mentioning this — it was a big turning point in his life. You're this physician who's come to use chemotherapy, the first oncologist in that whole county, and you're here to treat people — and then Allah gives you this with your very first baby. You can't even save your own daughter. A completely healthy baby, born, but Allah took her away. So that was a very big shock, and also a learning lesson: that we are completely under Allah's order. Do not let anything get to your head.

I was the last child, and after my birth, my mother gave up her practice and basically dedicated herself to raising us.

Seeing Muslims Who Were No Longer Muslim

My father always mentions the fact that seeing patients who have Muslim names but were not Muslim — this is not a current phenomenon, it's an old one. People who've come, and their names are Muslim names, and who've migrated from Muslim countries — 50, 60 years ago — second generation — and who say, "Yeah, my father was Muslim, but I'm not. My mom was Muslim, I'm not." And of course the interreligious marriages and all those things really affected them.

Seeing that really hit my father. He never experienced this before — seeing Muslims who are no longer Muslim, essentially ex-Muslims, who are getting buried in Christian graveyards and non-Muslim graveyards as non-Muslims. So now you're just a new father in this country, and you're like, "Wow. Away from everyone — how am I going to be able to raise my kids to remain Muslim?" And that is the beginning of the concern: we have to safeguard our kids. And it's not just our kids living in this country — there are many more Muslims, and they need to also safeguard their own kids.

Building a Musalla and Bringing a Scholar from India

One of the first things you want to think is that you should learn how to read Qur'an — you're going to teach your kids Qur'an. And we're in the middle of nowhere. There is no jama'ah, there is no Taraweeh, there is no Eid — there is absolutely nothing. The nearest place that had a jama'ah and Sunday school was about 30 miles away.

So we established a Musalla in the house — we built a house, constructed a home, and established a Musalla there. That Musalla served for over two decades as the place for Taraweeh, place for jama'ah, place for daily Salah, place for everything, for the whole Kankakee County.

In 1986, my father went to India. He went to a Palestinian brother — Shaykh Dawood, may Allah give him long life and accept all his efforts; he's still, alhamdulillah, alive — and said, "I want you to teach my kids Qur'an." He said, "Go in da'wah, go in khuruj, go in Tabligh." My father was pretty shocked — like, I came all this way to ask you to teach my kids, and you're telling me this. But subhanAllah, Allah has His plans.

My father got introduced to the effort of Da'wah and Tabligh through another physician. There was a jama'at from South Africa that happened to be visiting, and my dad had no idea what this was about. He spent a night or so with them, and it was just an amazing, eye-opening experience — I'm talking about from 1984.

So in 1986, he went to India, to the markaz of Da'wah in New Delhi, and said, "This is my situation. I've got kids, I want them to learn Qur'an, I don't know what to do — there's not much going on here." The elders of Nizamuddin — the shuyukh who were alive at that time — they said, "Where are you from?" He said, "From Hyderabad." They said, "Why don't you go to Hyderabad and find a teacher from there and take him back." So that's pretty much what happened.

My parents went to India and put up classified ads looking for an Islamic Studies and Qur'an teacher — interviews happening. Imagine two medical doctors interviewing scholars in India to bring them to their house in America. People just came, lined up, subhanAllah. Eventually, I think a few hours before they left India, the last person came through. They had been interviewing people for a whole week. The last person made sense. Then they quickly went and applied for his visa and all those things. Then after that, they went for Umrah and made a lot of du'a to Allah — may Allah make it happen.

Now, when you have a scholar coming from overseas, you have to get a religious visa. You can't just invite him — as what do you invite him as? In order to get a religious visa, you have to have a non-for-profit organization that's going to file the paperwork for them. That's the beginning of our Dar-us-Salaam. It started in February 1987 — I'm pretty sure that's the date. It was called Madina Masjid Kankakee, because that's where we were.

Alhamdulillah, our teachers came on that. The first one came for a year — he was missing his family too much, couldn't handle it, he went back. Then another teacher came and, mashaAllah, spent about 11 years with us. We had a Musalla in our home, so he stayed with us. Alhamdulillah, every year they would go back home for a month, and we'd have a substitute teacher for that one month.

So in that process, alhamdulillah, we all memorized Qur'an when we were little kids and studied some Arabic. My siblings — all of us studied like this at home from 1987 to approximately 1992.

School and the Path to South Africa

From there, we started going to a public school. The public school environment in the West, even in '92 and '93, was not the best. The concept of an Islamic school was very new. We heard of a new Islamic school that had just started in 1994, and so we traveled 72 miles a day — 72 going, 72 coming back, five days a week. We had someone take us every day, wait all day there for us, and then bring us back. This was CPSA — in Lombard, it was originally called College Preparatory School of Illinois (CPSI), under Dr. Salim, alhamdulillah.

Then in 1998, I ended up going to South Africa with my elder brother, Mufti Bin Hajiuddin. He had finished high school; I was still only in eighth grade. But he was going, and I ended up becoming kind of a package with him. No one encouraged me — no one told me to go. I was spending time with Mawlana Tariq Jameel — many of you may have heard his name from Pakistan. He was visiting Chicago for the first time. I spent 10 days with him at the end of December 1997-1998, and that was very inspiring. That kind of led me to desire to become a scholar. So when my brother was going, I kind of last-minute jumped in, and within a matter of a few days, ended up going to South Africa. I was abroad for eight years and then came back in 2005.

Awareness of Sacrifice as a Child

As aware as all of you and I are aware of your parents' sacrifice they're making right now — wherever you're sitting, your mom and dad are making a lot of sacrifice for you. At what degree are we aware of it? It's like if it's cold, for example, and you're without a jacket — you're like, "Yeah, whatever." But your mom's going through more pain than you are, because she's thinking about the fact that you're without a jacket. That's just the reality — what our parents go through, no one truly realizes, subhanAllah.

It's kind of hard to really understand what parents go through until you become a parent yourself. I understood some of it then, but we were just kids, you know. If you just look back and say, "My God, how much effort did our parents put in" — this is not just my story, it's everyone's story. What our parents did for us is so much, we can never repay them.

Growing Up and Memorizing Qur'an

I think it's all about the right environment. We grew up with just three siblings older than me, in one house, with non-Muslims all around us. We used to ride bikes with our neighbors, play basketball once in a while, hi and hello and all that. But beyond that, your fun time inside the house was pretty much among siblings. And remember — no cell phones, no internet. You have to go to the library to get books.

So when you don't have the phone, what do you do? You end up playing with each other. Playing and fighting with each other — typical things that siblings used to do before these distractions. But now, my older siblings were all memorizing Qur'an. So when you're five years old and everyone around you wants to memorize Qur'an, you've got nothing else to do — there's literally nothing else to do — so you just end up starting to memorize too.

I actually never learned how to read Qur'an through nazira. I never learned. I went straight to memorization, just by listening. It was tough — think about it now. I mean, we didn't do our work sometimes, you get hit by your ustadh, typical stuff. I was seven, eight years old. It was tough. But do I look back at it and think I shouldn't have done it? No way.

Honestly, if I didn't memorize at that time, I don't know if I would. Right now, these phones and everything are such a huge distraction. That time was just a peaceful time. Maybe you don't want to do it, but alhamdulillah, it got done. It's so hard now even to read Qur'an, to memorize Qur'an — just so much distraction. Reading Qur'an on the phone is one of the biggest distractions, because you're reading and then this happens, that happens. These things didn't even exist then.

So I'm extremely grateful to Allah and my parents that alhamdulillah the memorization got done at a young age. It's a huge blessing to be able to be a Hafidh and to retain. And especially after I started studying ilm and knowing the translations and tafsir on any given topic — to be able to access different verses of the Qur'an related to that topic is an amazing gift. Without having memorized, even if one studies, it's kind of hard to have that. So I'm very indebted to them for providing that opportunity. Although yes, it was tough, but it was worth it.

Memorizing Qur'an When It Was Unheard Of

Yes, we were 100% alone in that process. Memorizing Qur'an in the 80s was something really weird. People didn't understand. The thought that my parents would pull them out from school and sit at home and memorize — people would openly say, "Your children are going to become mentally retarded. They won't succeed in society. They will fail at everything they do. They won't be able to speak. They won't be able to socialize. Their IQ will somehow go down." They threatened and scared my parents with all kinds of horrible things.

But the commitment — Allah reward them — was just: "Okay, thank you, but no thank you. We're going to do what we've got to do." That determination is what got them through, with the help of Allah. Because it was absolutely not only not popular — people were actively against it. Very close people spoke against it, ridiculed them. And so it became tough. Wherever you go to a gathering, you have everyone not celebrating your efforts but instead talking down and not appreciating it. It's very demoralizing for a young boy or girl.

And then you also have the people who would accidentally put the nazar on you because they were so shocked and impressed — without saying mashaAllah, or Allah forbid, even having hasad. And then other people were making comments that were not appreciated at all.

I remember towards the end of my Hifz journey it was like, "Okay, fine — until the Hifz finishes, we're not going anywhere. Not to weddings, not to gatherings." Because you'd go and come back with the little kid having headaches, and next day you can't memorize Qur'an. All this stuff is real. I remember those things.

Now it's interesting — if you're not sending your kid to Hifz, you're the weird one. "What? Everyone's doing it — how come you're not? Is everything okay?" Things have switched quite a bit, alhamdulillah. But at the same time, I feel like when you are the one Hafidh in the whole community, there's a lot of expectation — and that expectation is good because it forces you to act in a certain manner. When there's a dime a dozen huffaz, you can just quietly mingle in. And the huffaz and non-huffaz are pretty much living the same lifestyle. That's not good.

When you walk in as a Hafidh, it was a huge thing — whether you were a 10-year-old or 12-year-old, people would treat you differently. They'd have expectations. My Islamic school teachers — they would say, "You're a Hafidh." And that's it. "The rules are different for you. You have to act different. You have to do better in school than everybody else." But then you're like, "Bro, I'm a child." Still, those teachers had the mindset: if you're a Hafidh, then you'd better act like one. That's all. Yeah, it was tough, but beneficial.

The 10 Days That Changed Everything

My mother used to play Mawlana Tariq Jameel's cassettes in the car. Listening to his talks, we had just fallen in love with his da'wah, his speaking style, his descriptions of Jannah and Jahannam. So when I found out he was coming to Chicago, it was really exciting. I asked if I could just spend time with him for 10 days, because it was my Ramadan break from Islamic school — it happened to coincide with that. So alhamdulillah, I just decided to spend time with him.

But suhbah, man — suhbah is huge. When you spend time with real people, you start seeing the practice of Islam in front of your own eyes. You see the Sunnah of Rasulullah ﷺ in front of your eyes. You see the concern of Rasulullah ﷺ in his heart.

I still remember — it was Eid al-Fitr, 1998. And even on Eid al-Fitr day, he had such a — if I remember correctly — a very sad demeanor. Just overwhelmed with concern for the Ummah. I still remember his recitation style. It has a very sad tune to it. That's how he recites. So when he led the Eid Salah and recited Surat Al-A'la —

— the way he recited it, I never heard anyone recite Qur'an like that. It was filled with pain. And afterwards too, he sat down and just people came greeting him, but he was in another world. Not even on the day of Eid.

Every single talk of his, I would sit right in front for two, two and a half hours. Listening to someone speak about the greatness of Allah and describing Jannah and Jahannam — live like that, as though you can see it — it's unreal. You can't get that in online stuff. And then seeing how they spend their nights in Tahajjud and crying in du'a. Their flickering concern for the Ummah — those things are of a very different world from where we are right now.

You know, they say about certain people: "The more you get to know them, the more you dislike them." That's how it is with a lot of people now. But that's not how our elders were. The more you got to know them, the more you fell in love with them. The more you got close to them, the more you loved them. And not only could you follow what they speak, but most definitely you could follow what they do. There was absolute resemblance and absolute connection between what they preached, what they invited to, and what they practiced. That level of genuineness, sincerity, humility, and humbleness — you felt it.

What social media has done — amongst many things — is create characters. Someone has a comedy skit that they play, and it's a character they're living up to. Off stage, you go try to do the same thing and they might just say, "Get out of my way." Because that was an act they did on stage. That's not how they actually are. What social media has done is made da'wah also into an act — not always, but for a lot of people. It's a persona they have to live up to when they're on the podcast, when there's a live audience, when the camera is facing them. After that, they will literally switch gears. The closer you get, the more you dislike them, because you start seeing this whole gap between who they appear to be and who they are.

Our society has made ilm and spirituality into a culture in which it's an act. And that's really harmful — harmful for the people who are doing it themselves, and harmful for the rest of the people, subhanAllah, because we need someone who not just tells us what to do but whom we can actually see doing it. That's why Nabi ﷺ came with the Qur'an. The Qur'an wasn't just revealed on a mountain — Allah revealed it onto his heart for him to practice it, and for all of us to see: "Oh, okay — that's how you're supposed to act in this situation."

I encourage all of you to travel and visit ulama who are 100% still alive and like this. You only hear about it once they die — "Oh, I wish I met him." But there are still a lot of ulama alive like that. You have to go find them. And that's where you'll get a whole renewed spirit. It just completely changes your mindset of what you want to do in life.

Otherwise, growing up, my father used to take me on rounds at the hospital. So it was very normal for me to think about going into the medical field — from childhood I'd been visiting, going with my dad on rounds since I was maybe seven or eight years old. He'd have his medical office, he'd take us there, explain different things. So we were exposed to that a lot from childhood.

But going into those 10 days with Shaykh Tariq Jameel was very transformative, because you start really asking yourself: do I want to do what everyone else is doing? A lot of what we say and do is a product of the environment we're in. When you simply just change that environment, you will find yourself saying and thinking completely differently from before.

I just went to India right now — I came back about five weeks ago. I was gone for about a month, out in khuruj. Very different environment. I was in the village, in mud streets, a very simple farm area. And that experience this summer completely shifted the way I'm approaching things.

As long as you're in your environment, it's very hard to see the big picture. You have to step out. Once you step out, you start assessing yourself: What am I doing? Does this make sense or not? It's like a board of directors — they're not going to be in the field. You're not supposed to be in operations if you're directing the whole vision and mission of everything. Operations make you tunnel-visioned, and does not allow you to see the big picture. We've all become kind of tunnel-visioned, and we need to step away from that.

I'tikaf in the month of Ramadan, going for Umrah, traveling in khuruj — these are great ways to do a reset, a master reset. We should all do this from time to time. So basically, those 10 days at 13 years old were a master reset for me.

Going to South Africa at 13

I went with my elder brother who was 17 at that time. Without him, it would have been really difficult. But alhamdulillah, Allah made it easy. It was not easy — initially, I would say there was definitely crying. Just thinking about where I'd ended up was just really different. I missed home, missed my old friends and everything. I didn't get a chance to say goodbye. There was no texting at that time. You had to call their house phone, and it costs a lot of money to call home. So I got disconnected from my friends — a different environment, different content, different everything. Initially it was definitely tough for a long time. And then eventually it became home to the extent that when you come back home, it doesn't feel like home because home is abroad.

A Moment of Doubt in the Sixth Year

There are definitely moments where it gets tough and you wonder if this is the right place for you. But I remember, all the way in the sixth year — towards the end of the program, towards graduation — a strong waswasah came to me that this was definitely not my cup of tea. I'd chosen the wrong path. I'm not meant to be a student of knowledge. I need to be doing something else. And I really wanted to drop the 'Alim program and go back home.

I'm sharing this with you so that you know it can happen to anybody — you could almost be there and say, "Forget it, this is not for me." That's how Shaytan works. If you decide things on your own and don't make mashwarah with anybody and do not submit yourself to someone's guidance, you can make massive blunders. I had my parents here and my brother over there. I discussed it with them and they said, "Absolutely not. Whether you like it or not, you have to complete the program."

And I think parents make a big mistake when children are doing something good and they say they're not interested anymore, and the parents say, "Oh, really? It's okay — leave it." Later on, the child will probably be very upset that you didn't encourage them through it. You can't force anybody, but you do need to fight Shaytan back. You cannot let your children get caught up in Shaytan. Surround yourself with people who are not just yes-men. Find people who are going to encourage you to do what's right, not just what you want to do.

Having my older brother was definitely helpful. Having connection with the teachers over there — that was helpful. And when I was in Pakistan — I studied one year in Pakistan as well, at Madrasa Imdadul Uloom — that was very different because I didn't have my brother with me, and Pakistan is a whole different experience. I used to call my mom a lot there. She was someone I'd speak to for maybe 45 minutes to an hour, probably daily for a long time. I had a small Nokia 3100.

But there are 13-year-olds, honestly, who didn't even have a phone. My own Ustadh, Shaykh Ramzi al-Habib from Tunisia, who was in Pakistan — he left at the age of 16 from Tunisia and went home, I think, at the age of around 30. He told me that he called home after many years and said, "Mom, I'm missing you." And she said, "I didn't know I sent a girl to Pakistan." And that was the answer. "You came, you went there for work — go get your work done, study." Very strong mother, subhanAllah, and she raised a very strong Shaykh.

Perspective: What Sacrifice Truly Looks Like

When you travel and see people, you truly belittle yourself. In South Africa, even now in 2025, there are people who came seven years ago from their islands, from different parts of the world, to come study. Completely poor people — brothers, you and I don't know what poverty is. No running water. Forget electricity and internet — there's just no water. You have to go a mile to get water from a well. People don't own shoes.

When I was in Malawi last year, I saw this firsthand — people walking, kids and adults, walking on hot summer roads barefoot. I asked my colleague, "Mawlana, what's going on?" He said, "They don't have shoes." I said, "What, they lost their shoes?" He said, "No, they just don't have slippers or shoes. They just don't have it."

There are people like that who come and study in Madrasa in South Africa. Where are they going to be able to call home? Where are they going to be able to fly back? They can't. They come to study and don't go back home until seven or eight years later after they finish. Then someone donates a plane ticket for them to get back home.

When you see people like this, you truly belittle yourself. And you think: how are we going to be in the same place on the Day of Judgment? If Allah is going to test me and you, how am I going to handle this? How am I going to even attempt to compete? Because your sacrifice for the deen is something I can't even think about.

If we want to even compete with them, our level of commitment to Islam and its practice has to be a hundred times more than where we're at now. To maybe be able to say, "Alhamdulillah, yes, I was in America. Yes, I had luxury — I had everything. But I didn't leave a single Sunnah. I tried my best. I definitely did not involve myself in any haram. Anything happened, immediately I would repent." Then maybe we can compete with them.

We live in such an entitled society. And that whole sense of entitlement is the beginning of the problem. Get rid of that. I'm nobody. We have to understand that a simple lifestyle, mashaAllah, is a strength — it means you can be thrown any way and you can handle it. A luxury life is actually an impediment. If things change, we're not ready for it.

Daily Life in the Madrasa in South Africa

What I liked about madrasa is that you don't have to worry about what to do next. Everything is organized. Everything is set for you. In the summer, Fajr is around 4:30–4:45. After Fajr, you read Surat Yasin — everyone reads Surat Yasin. Then the principal makes du'a. After that, everyone recites Qur'an for about 30–40 minutes till Ishraq. Then everyone goes to the mess hall where food is served.

Breakfast would be chai or milk, and then porridge or cereal — cornflakes or Rice Krispies in hot milk. One day peanut butter and bread, one day jam and bread, one day butter and bread. And towards the end of my years there, someone donated truckloads of cookies, so we'd actually have nice ginger cookies or chocolate chip cookies available. So breakfast was, I think, the best meal.

After that, you go to your room, grab your books, and go to class at 7:00 or 7:30. Everyone is in class on time. You have about 40–45-minute periods. The bell rings, you sit in the same class, and the teachers rotate. About five periods. Then a 15-minute break after the first three periods — during which you could run to the office to get permission to go out, or visit the tuck shop if you wanted a burger or something. Then the next two periods. After all five periods, there's a lunch break.

Lunch menu — there was dal chawal some days, a Gujarati-style khichdi, they call it curry khichdi. Once a week on Wednesdays, they would have pulao or biryani. That was a special day — people got so excited for that biryani, subhanAllah. Mostly rice at lunch. And then you do qaylulah — rest, sleep. Summertime is a long one and a half to two hours. Wintertime is shorter.

We got so accustomed to the qaylulah that if we ever went to town and didn't sleep, we were finished — absolutely impossible to stay awake in class after Dhuhr. I had a habit of studying till about the time of the adhan, and then going to sleep in my classroom. Someone would wake me up about five to ten minutes before Salah. After Dhuhr, we'd have three more periods. Then Asr. After Asr was dinner.

Dinner was probably my least favorite — a different type of bread with various types of dal and beans. If you don't like it and you don't have money — tough luck. Alhamdulillah, there's food. After Asr, you go play basketball outside or soccer or take a walk. The teachers would not recommend studying after Asr — use that time to go out and refresh yourself. Come back by Maghrib.

After Maghrib, all the Alim course students from first to sixth year sit together in one big hall for takrar — revision. All 300-plus students in one big hall, sitting in specific groups they'd chosen for the year. One teacher is responsible. Then Isha. After Isha, you come back to the same hall for another hour and 15 minutes of revision. Our daily revision time would end around 10:15–10:30 in the summer.

Then basically people go to their rooms, unwind. You have your kettle to make hot water, you make your coffee or hot chocolate — the Milo, biscuits. Sometimes people relax with that, sometimes go to the tuck shop. Just relax, unwind, and then go to sleep — or come back to study till 12:00 or 1:00 AM. Then the next day starts at Fajr. This schedule was Monday through Saturday, with Saturday being a half day. Sunday was the day off.

Honestly, the Sundays were days I didn't like much — because of the lack of structure. The presence of structure was such a big blessing that you couldn't waste time because you were always moving next, next, next. There's no time to breathe. If you miss your appointment, you miss the next thing. You can't waste time — which I loved. On Sundays, we'd do laundry, deep cleaning, or go out in jama'at sometimes. Traveling to a different city or town was nice — people make a lot of ikram for students, bring so much food.

Relationships with Teachers

Alhamdulillah, I can say I created a very good relationship with all my teachers. And I try to tell this to our students and others as well — build relationships with people. It's very important. That suhbah is so important. You can bank on those relationships afterwards as well.

We were raised by our parents in a manner that ulama were respected highly. Whenever a scholar would come to town, my father would take us and sit in the front for the talk. We'd even fall asleep in our dad's lap. But afterwards, go shake hands with the scholar, ask him to make du'a. This is something I don't see happening now, and it's very sad. A scholar comes, speaks, everyone listens — maybe takes some videos — and then they're gone. The fact that a person sat with you for two hours, it's not worth our time to go say salam. There's this huge disconnect.

And we wonder: "How come my kids are not interested in deen?" Well, you never geared them towards looking up to scholars and connecting with them and loving them. At least have a connection with those people who are serving the deen. I think that's really important — something that mothers and fathers need to create with their kids. This is something we saw from our parents: a lot of respect for ulama.

So they taught us — when you go to South Africa, you have to have adab and ihtiram. We'd take gifts every time we went, a whole suitcase full of them — give them at the beginning of the year, middle of the year. And the teachers were so appreciative. Mashallah, they'd remember. Till now — 27, 28 years ago we started going to South Africa, and I graduated 21 years ago — but they still remember vividly. They even remember the gifts themselves.

Part of that love and connection that we have is why we ensure that our students stay connected with our teachers. We are all part of a tradition. You're only good as long as you're connected. Look at this — if a charger is not connected, it's not going to work, no matter how amazing the phone is. Our charger is our teachers. Our charger is the ones who are connected back, all the way to the Prophet ﷺ. A kite that gets cut will initially fly high — and then it will fall. So a person who's not connected to his teachers may seem like he's gained freedom and he'll fly high — but then he'll slam face-first into the ground.

So what I do is take the graduating students from our seven-year program at Dar-us-Salaam to South Africa to visit their grand-teachers. Alhamdulillah, I'm embarking on that journey this Wednesday. We have a graduating class of about 16 this year, so we're taking approximately 15 scholars, along with some students from the takhassus program and some alumni. It's a group of about 17 or 18 of us. We'll spend a few days in Umrah first, then about a week in South Africa, and then stop in Turkey briefly before coming back.

Even in Umrah, my murabbī and mentor in tazkiyah, Shaykh Obeidullah, I've requested him to come from Pakistan — and he is making a huge sacrifice, Allah reward him immensely, flying from Faisalabad to Islamabad, Islamabad to Madinah, and flying back Monday morning — all for those four nights, just to be with our students.

The goal is I want our students to realize that your knowledge is really of no good if it's not connected with spirituality. And if you don't connect yourself with the people who embody that spirituality, this knowledge will actually become a means of misleading you, and you will become a means of misleading other people. Ruhaniyyat, spirituality, relationship with the people of Allah — people who embody and practice what they preach — you have to give a model. Don't show me a book, show me a person. I can't become a book. I can imitate a person.

There's no such thing as, "Oh brother, I've got to hide my identity." No — they're an open book. You sit with them for five days, you travel with them, stay with them. My Shaykh — I spend time with him in the same room. And I guarantee: the more time you spend with them, the more you fall in love with them. Because they are open books. There's no bad habit you're going to discover. The Ahlullah are people who are mahfuz — they're not ma'sum, they're not sinless, they can make mistakes, but usually mistakes don't happen. We have to spend time in the company of such people.

Just look at the quality of their Salah. Look at the quality of their character. How does the Shaykh speak to the person who comes to talk to him? How does he respond? What type of akhlaq do they have with the people around them? How do they interact with the opposite gender? How do they interact with people who are not students of knowledge? How do they interact with the waiter at the restaurant? Until you travel and spend time with them, you don't see these things. And then you say, "Ah, that's how you're supposed to act."

Coming Back and Building Dar-us-Salaam

A lot of work to do when I came back. You don't know where to start — too much to do. I ended up realizing that one of the things I wanted to work on was trying to help people who were leaving the deen, leaving Islam, trying to get them back. Assisting people who are confused and need their answers. Assisting parents who don't know how to handle their children.

Coming back, I noticed that the level of people leaving Islam had increased multifold since I left in the 90s. Within six or seven years — with the presence of cell phones, Blackberry just coming out, the internet slowly coming into people's hands — a lot had changed. The information age — everyone applauds it as amazing, but there are a lot of harms too.

For example, if someone has a waswasah about Islam, he used to think it was just his own issue and would move on. But now you go online and find a whole subgroup on Reddit dedicated to that specific waswasah. Now you have your own community. Now it's, "Oh wow, there's a whole bunch of us!" You have a label for yourself, a new identity. The information age has given a lot of fuel to the fire of wasawis. People are now actively making podcasts and content dedicated to spreading doubt and trying to cause other people to leave Islam. This is something I'm dealing with very much right now.

One of the things I wanted to do was establish a seminary and madrasa like we had in South Africa — to create what was a big need. Growing up, there were no English-speaking scholars that you could connect with. I remember one of my earliest students — a Pakistani born and raised in America — he told me after class: "You know what, before I joined your class, I thought the word mawlana meant anyone who speaks a foreign language." That's how we grew up. There weren't any U.S.-born and -raised, English-speaking ulama that we could connect with. So that is a massive need.

Second — we wanted not just to produce ulama, but to build a model community. A model for people to say: "Okay, this is how we can practice Islam in the modern era." Not just for scholars, but for professionals, working people, young mothers. Build a whole ideal community that reflects, hopefully, what the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ would have — as your brand says: "What would Muhammad ﷺ do?"

And that's where Madina Masjid moved on through many different stages. A boarding school was started in 2000 and ran until 2006 — a boarding school for boys and girls on a farm. Then in 2007, we moved to the city — to Lombard — where we are now. The whole project changed. It was now about: instead of building a seminary, build a masjid first. Have the madrasa run inside the masjid the way the Prophet's ﷺ madrasa was inside the masjid. And build everything around the masjid. The masjid should be the center.

We had the entire madrasa running in the masjid — under the stairs, literally in the elevator, everywhere — mashaAllah, with 300-plus students studying in a not-so-massive masjid. Most of my meetings would happen in my car. That went from 2007 all the way until 2021, when we moved into our new seminary building connected to the masjid.

Alhamdulillah, we started the one-year program, the summer intensive — all as an effort to slow down and protect our youth from leaving Islam. The Hifz class, Islamic schools, etc., were not enough on their own. They're running on old software, while the fitnah has moved on 30 years ahead. Not only the syllabus, but the type of discussions happening in class are not aligned with what the youth are actually going through. We need to do something else — a vaccine, of sorts. That's where the summer intensives and the one-year program came into existence.

Our first one-year program started, I believe, in 2011. It wasn't just Arabic — it was Islamic studies and Arabic. Alhamdulillah, mashallah, the graduates of that first class are now in charge of so many departments at Dar-us-Salaam. They've graduated from the seven-year program, done master's degrees, done overseas studies, and come back now to teach at Dar-us-Salaam or head different departments. It's a full circle. Beautiful to see.

We now have a seven-year program plus a postgraduate master's — year eight and year nine. All full-time. You start class at 7:30 and end around 4:00, and then you have revision. Monday through Saturday, same as South Africa in terms of commitment. Then we have shorter programs — a winter intensive for three days, a no-tech retreat for one day, the last 10 days of Ramadan, an annual retreat in April and May. That brings in thousands of people, alhamdulillah.

The Goal: Tarbiyah, Not Just Knowledge

One thing I emphasize immensely is tarbiyah. Memorization and flexing your muscles with how much Arabic you know and how much text you can quote — honestly, it means nothing. It's useless. You can never flex more muscles than Shaytan. Iblis — you could spend your whole next 10 generations trying, and you'll never match Iblis in terms of knowledge and data. But that's not what's going to make you close to the Prophet ﷺ or close to Allah. It's about how much of that is translated into practice. How much of your life is in accordance with the Sunnah of the Prophet ﷺ.

Are you a Muhammadi? If Rasulullah ﷺ looks at you, will he recognize that you're his follower? To what degree are you excited to meticulously imitate the Prophet ﷺ — in the way he woke up, the way he slept, the way he entered and left the home, the way he visited his family, the way he spoke to his spouse, the way he spoke to his neighbors, the way he dressed, the way he ate? How many fingers did he use to eat? What dishes did he like? At that level — every single thing — your desire has to be that my life imitates the life of the Prophet ﷺ. That is success. We have to go back to that.

The older generation didn't have all these fancy things, but they were simple people. They loved their Nabi ﷺ and they tried to follow him. We have to go back to that — going back to trying to follow the Prophet ﷺ. That is the only standard for our success.

So that's something I'm truly trying to make an effort toward at Dar-us-Salaam — that every student who comes, even if they're not all super academically oriented, they have to become a better Muslim, a better practicing Muslim, better in their character. They have to learn haya, modesty — very important. They have to become bashful. They have to have a fear of Allah. They have to lead a successful life inside and outside of the madrasa.

It's not easy. The fitnah is becoming more and more challenging every day. We are seeing things that — when I go back to South Africa, my teachers themselves sit down and ask me: "How do you deal with this issue? How do you deal with the cell phones? How do you deal with this or that?" And it's nice that I can actually share with them what works, what doesn't work, what the psychology of this new generation is, how you get through to them. Mashallah, they're great people. We just need someone to work on them.

I'm trying to create students who love the Ummah and who care about it — who are not just clocking in and clocking out. This is not a place to make money. This is not a place to make fame. This is a place to truly earn your Akhirah. If you do it right, your Jannah will be insha'Allah amazing. But in order to do that, you have to put your ego on the floor. Because now you have to chase your students — it's not that students will chase the teacher. You not only teach and raise them for six or seven years, but after they graduate, you constantly keep checking on them to see how they're doing. Otherwise, all your effort goes down the drain.

What Made a Difference: His Parents' Tarbiyah

What aspect of my parents' tarbiyah inspired the love of deen? Honestly — just walk the walk, talk the talk. Don't just talk the talk. Walk the walk as well. There's no two faces — it's real, the real deal. You actually see sincerity. The amount of times I have seen my mother shedding buckets of tears in du'a — buckets. Non-stop. Like every single day, it's as if someone died in the house. That's how much she used to cry in du'a. I would be playing with my trucks and she'd just be crying in the corner, reading Qur'an and crying and making du'a.

Allahu Akbar. We can never repay them back. And that's the question I ask myself. I'm failing as a parent. I can do everything — I can get $700 Islamic school tuition, $800 swimming lessons, $900 horse riding lessons. Who cares? If you can't shed tears for your kids, how is this going to work?

And Nabi ﷺ — it is narrated that he said that a time of great fitnah will come, and the only ones who will survive will be the ones who cry the way a drowning man cries. A drowning man screams, begs — the way a drowning man supplicates Allah. If you supplicate Allah like that, then there's a chance you will survive. Otherwise, you're not going to be able to survive the fitnah.

And then with my parents — there was really no enjoyment for themselves. Everything was sacrificed for their children's education, their children's tarbiyah, their children's school, their children's everything. No anniversaries. No birthdays. No fun days. My dad's motto was: "You're going to rest in Jannah. Actually, you're going to rest in the grave — lead your life nicely so that you can have a beautiful resting place in the grave. If you just party around, you're not going to be resting comfortably in the grave." That's his motto that he lives by till today.

We also had no TV at home. When my father started coming closer to the deen, he just took it all out. People would always ask in the mornings at summer school, "Hey, what shows did you watch?" We had no idea. We never watched shows. People didn't understand — how could you not have a TV in your home?

And on this topic — all these big institutions are not going to be able to help if we don't make the effort at our own homes. It's a fool's paradise to think: "If I have a big masjid next to my house, everything's going to be fine. If I have a big Islamic school next to my house, everything's going to be fine." No — absolutely not. You are what you do at home. The effort you make on your kids, the environment you create at home — you could be living in the boondocks and come out way better than someone living in a big city.

Why Are We So Soft?

Why are we soft? Because we don't go through struggle. Go through struggle and you become strong. Simple as that. We've gotten accustomed to luxury, and everything has to be curated to our needs and desires. I hear it all the time: "I don't want too many people — I need to feel special." Why do you need to feel special? Who are you to feel special? That's a problem right there. Get rid of that. I'm nobody.

Even mujahadah is not even happening anymore. Everyone wants to have their feet extended, sipping their favorite coffee while leaning against the wall in the masjid. That's why hidayah is not happening. You don't want to even make mujahadah to sit and listen in a program. When we would sit in front of our teachers, we'd sit in the tashahhud position — imagine sitting like that for six to eight hours. If you move my socks, you'll see what happens to your skin after sitting on the floor for that many years. And you're sitting sometimes on tile or straw mats or very rough factory-type carpet.

But this is nothing compared to what our teachers went through. Our teachers would say that they didn't have money for soap. On Fridays, they'd wash their clothes and wait in the wudu area where other students would wash their clothes, then take the leftover foam and gather it to wash their own clothes. That's the kind of sacrifice they went through — hunger, difficulty, subhanAllah. So if you want to become strong, you've got to put yourself through some sacrifice.

When I went out in jama'at to India recently and went to Mewat, I'd tell the brothers: "I'm coming from America, but being an American and having the lifestyle we have, I realized how handicapped I am. You all can adjust to living in America within 30 seconds. But we're so accustomed to AC and heat and nice beds and specific types of food and coffee, that it's so hard for us to adjust here." I realized that leading a luxury life is actually an impediment. Having a simple lifestyle, mashaAllah, is a strength — you can be thrown any way and handle it.

Just sleeping on the ground — for us, that's almost impossible. Where's my airbed? Where's my waterbed? The shower is simple — you don't have 30 different types of conditioners and shampoos. Just a bar of soap. Taking a shower from a bucket — learn how to do it. Put yourself in an environment like that and you will realize how simple life is supposed to be. We've made it complicated.

And one of the best things you could possibly do is just disconnect from your phone for a week. Go out and experience like that. It's revitalizing, truly refreshing.

Structure, Schedules, and Reconnecting with the Elders

When the structure of madrasa is gone, you have to make your own structure. You have to have a schedule. That's why our teachers emphasize immensely: all of us should have a set schedule every morning — a set time for what we're doing. "Chilling" should never be in our dictionary. Chilling means you're wasting time, killing time.

One of my teachers said something very interesting: if someone messages you and says, "Are you available?" you shouldn't say simply, "Yes." He said: "Why are you available? How come you're available?" You should always have something on. You could say: "I'm reading a book, but I can help you — I'll take time out for you." Or: "I'm cleaning my house, but I'll stop and take care of your need." It can't just be, "I'm just available." So we all have to actually make a schedule, and that will make our lives so much more productive. Cut out aimless social media scrolling — that's not relaxing, that's wasting time. A tax on your eyes, a tax on your mind.

Use your time in something meaningful. Whether it's a nature walk, reading a book, or spending quality time with elders in your own community — the old founder of the masjid, your own grandparents, or a friend's grandparents. The chacha who went for Hajj in 1960. Who came to America in 1945, 55, 65 — different experiences. Just sit there. That generation is going. To be able to spend time with people who were born and raised in an era far different from this era is very impactful. You will learn a lot.

On Balancing Family with a Life Dedicated to the Ummah

SubhanAllah — basically, you make your wife and your children part of your mission. Because there's no separation. In my house, 9.5 out of 10 times, it's about Dar-us-Salaam. Since before I got married, that's all we talked about with my mom and dad — from morning to evening, every single lunch, every single dinner, every single interaction. That's our life. That's what we breathe, what we inhale, what we exhale, what we dream. You just have to create that. It's not a job. It's a mission. And you have to get your spouse on the mission too. You have to get your kids on the mission too.

You're always on call. That's how it is. Not to say you don't have fun and entertainment and relaxing times — of course, alhamdulillah, we do. But, you know, like a cop is a cop. If there's a robbery happening and he's not on shift, it doesn't mean he's going to ignore it. So as a da'i towards the deen of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, you're always on call. People might not always understand that, but it makes sense to me. You can sleep — but we have to be ready. Anytime there's a need, subhanAllah, you stand up and spring into action.

I'm very blessed that Allah azza wa jalla has given me a supportive family. Without that, it's really, really difficult to be able to do anything. And make du'a that the next generation follows and does the same effort — or much better effort — insha'Allah.

JazakAllah khayran.