Note: The following transcript was generated using AI and may contain inaccuracies.
Bismillahi wassalatu wassalamu ala rasoolillahi sallallahu alayhi wasallam amma ba'da Salamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh Brothers and sisters, it gives me great pleasure to welcome you and to introduce you to a brand new show and a brand new podcast called The Hot Seat. To understand a little bit more about The Hot Seat, we first have to understand the context of the modern day world we find ourselves living in, in the year 2019. It is a world in which perhaps, perhaps there are more doubts, misconceptions and misinterpretations that are thrown around about the religion of Islam than in any other period of time in the history of mankind.
The internet is the number one source used by people globally to acquire information on any topic and it is riddled and full of false notions and erroneous ideologies about the deen of Allah as is the wajab. Our kids, ourselves are being exposed to this kind of information on a daily and if not daily then at the very least weekly basis and whether we know it or not, whether we choose to accept it or not, it is having an effect on ourselves, our hearts, our minds and ultimately our understanding of this beautiful religion. To further complicate the problem, many of us find ourselves living in western societies where the governments and the social norms and pressures are constantly trying to redefine what is good and what is bad, what is accepted and what is rejected, what Islam is and is allowed to be and what Islam is never allowed to be.
All of this, my brothers and sisters, ultimately leads to confusion, it leads to ignorance and if Allah permits it can lead to misguidance. The hot seat has therefore been designed, with the permission of Allah alone, to counter these kind of modern day, contemporary issues head on by using the knowledge and the guidance of the Muslims of the past, the early generations of Muslims, the best of generations. There is not a single Muslim on the face of the planet today that would doubt the fact that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala completed our religion for us over 1400 years ago and that that completed, holistic, perfect religion is just as applicable now in the year 2019 as it was back then.
We truly do have classical solutions for contemporary problems. However, this isn't your normal, average Islamic lecture series. First of all, it's not a lecture, it's a discussion between two parties, often opposing parties in an attempt to reach the truth bi'idhnillah.
And secondly, and perhaps more importantly, it's a unique, one-of-its-kind, interactive podcast where you, from the comfort of your own home, have the opportunity to vote for and to choose the topic we'll be discussing on the show. You also have the chance to ask your own questions on these contemporary issues and to grill the speaker if you feel like he hasn't been grilled enough on the show itself. I'll be releasing details of how you can do both of those things at the end of this episode.
But for now, without any further ado, let's get into this episode of The Hot Seat. As-salāmu ʿalaykum wa-rahmatullāhi wa-barakātuh. Welcome to another episode of The Hot Seat podcast.
Once again, Ustadh Abdur Rahman Hassan, hafidhullah wa-ta'ala, has very kindly donated his very busy schedule to us to film another episode, a very special episode today, Ustadh. As-salāmu ʿalaykum first and foremost, how are you? Wa-alaykum as-salāmu wa-rahmatullāhi wa-barakātuh, alhamdulillah. So this isn't really going to be your average, normal Hot Seat episode where we have a kind of back-and-forth discussion.
It's going to be more of an interview style where we're going to be trying to derive some benefits from your life, and in particular your journey to seeking knowledge. Now this is something that a lot of people have been very interested in, and one of the reasons for that is because you've never ever spoken about this before on a public platform. And that's really where my first question begins, what is the reason why you haven't spoken about this before? When it comes to speaking about biographies, tarājim as the scholars call it, I've always loved to speak about the biography of people of knowledge, ahl al-'ilm, people who their knowledge has been testified, and who are known for khayr, known for the implementation of their knowledge, known for their righteousness, I've always loved to speak about that.
You know, we're living in a time where people love for people to know about their biographies, their lives, like they really matter, and that's not the case when it comes to me. I mean my mashayikh, my teachers, I've seen them, you know, being annoyed by being referred to as a Shaykh, let alone any other title like that. One day I was with my Shaykh, Shaykh Ahmed, and we were sitting somewhere, and there was a YouTube video that I put on for him, and he looked at it, and it was another person who was talking about his biography, and he gave me that look, like, what is this? And I'm not going to lie to you, that stuck with me for so long.
He is a man of great knowledge, wallahi, sitqan, he is. Shaykh Ahmed has explained Bukhari, he did Abi Dawood, he did Tirmidhi, he did Nasa'i, he has done all the aqeedah series that you can, Sulam al-Wusul, Kitab al-Tawheed, Kashf al-Shubuhaat, he has done Adab al-Mufrad, he's even done Al-Targhib wal-Tarheeb, the sahih version of Shaykh al-Bani, of al-Mundiri, rahimahullah. I'm talking about audios and things that if you bring together thousands, his muallafat are a lot.
He's done a khatm of Sunan al-Tirmidhi, where he talks about, after he finished reading Sunan al-Tirmidhi for his students, he sat down and he's done a khatm for it. Khatm basically means you speak about the book, the different publications, the narrators of the chain, and a bit about the terminologies of the author. You see he's a man of understanding, and when you read his khatm of Sunan al-Tirmidhi, you see he's done a khatm of Adab al-Mufrad, of Imam al-Bukhari, with all of that knowledge, he's saying, what is this? And then I asked him, I said, Shaykh, isn't it sometimes necessary for a person to talk about their life? I just wanted to see what his view would be, and he was, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
And so that's why I think it's not really valuable, not important for people to speak about their biographies and their lives, especially if you're a student of knowledge at your early stages, you're seeking knowledge, you're trying to learn the deen of Allah, you shouldn't think your life matters to other people, let alone yourself, Nahm. Yeah, I think, so I agree with much of what you say, to be honest with you, there is some benefits that I see, personally, and I think it's worth mentioning, because someone might see your speech just now and think, well, you're saying that thing, but you're actually going ahead and doing it anyway, and I think, even though I know you didn't want me to mention this, I think out of justice, it's worth me mentioning that we've had constant back and forth on this for the past two weeks. I think every time we've seen each other, we've spoken, you've tried to convince me not to do this.
And for lack of a better term, I'm almost forcing your hand into doing this. And the reason why I'm doing that, personally, is not just for me, entertainment, it's because of a couple of reasons. First of all, when we do hear the biographies, and not necessarily an in-depth biography, but just a general overview of a journey to seeking knowledge, there's no doubt that there's a motivational aspect that comes to the viewer and the listener.
But secondly, and perhaps more importantly, as we mentioned on the first episode of the Hot Seat podcast, that we have to be careful who we take our knowledge from. And it's not fair of us to assume that everybody knows who you are, who you've studied under. So it's important for me to say, okay, on one hand, you have to be careful who you take your knowledge from.
It's not really fair on my part to say, okay, I'm not going to tell you anything about Ustadh Abdur Rahman, who has been our main guest on the show. So from my perspective, that's really the reason why I wanted to do this. And I know your thoughts on it, and I know your thoughts very well.
And I know the approach that you're going to take as well when we go into this. You're really not going to be talking about yourself much. You're going to be talking about your teachers, like you've mentioned before.
Let me just say something you said, and I think it's, you know, the idea of you saying that people want to know who they take their knowledge from. Wallahi, I say this, and Allah is my shahid, and I mean it when I say this. I am not really, like, fussed and concerned about people, whether they take knowledge from me.
I'm happy if somebody says, I don't want to take knowledge from you. Because, and I don't think I should personally, just so they can take knowledge from me, I have to give them my life and my biography. Because I'm happy when somebody says, I'm not convinced with your knowledge and your understanding.
Wallahi, you're truly entitled, and no one has to listen to me. I am not the haqq, and the haqq is not connected to me. There are many, many, many, many hundreds of people out there who are more knowledgeable than I, who are more beneficial than I, who are more sincere and genuine than I. So, again, that's what's made me never want to talk about my life again.
That's fine. But from the perspective of a listener who's maybe listened to other speakers in the past, you might come across someone who really resonates with you. They've seen a Hot Seat podcast.
They actually like a lot of what you say. It makes sense to them. They like your style.
They like your teaching style. They actually want to learn from you, but they don't. Why? Because they're wary that I don't really know who he is.
I don't know what it is. So it's not about you wanting them to learn from you. It's actually them wanting to learn from you.
And that's one of the reasons why we're going to do this. We're not going to agree. Just ask me the questions, inshallah.
Inshallah. OK, so I want to start right at the beginning. There's many students who have this kind of mentality, defeatist mentality, that I'm born in the West.
I'm not born in an Arab country. I'm not born in a Muslim country. Seeking knowledge is just not for me.
Did that ever kind of cross your mind when you were younger? No. You see, again, I really want to not take credit because I never grew up wanting to seek knowledge and become a talib ul ilm and memorize the Quran and become something. I went to nursery.
I went to reception. I went to primary school, just like any other kid in the UK. I was raised in North London.
My primary school was called Haringey Primary School. Haringey Primary School is located in Tampak Lane. So you actually went to a secular school originally? A secular school, yeah.
So you're actually just a normal kid going to a secular school? Yeah, yeah, normal school. We actually lived right in front of the school. So my parents used to, in the house, from the window, they would look over to the school.
The school was, you were in nursery and then you were in primary, nursery, reception, and then you go to primary. Primary was broken into two. It was an infant and then junior.
So one, two, and three was the infant, and there was a fence between the four, five, and six were the junior. So I remember when I was in year three and my brother was in year four, my older brother, he would look at me at the fence and laugh at me. And so then I think I reached year four, and then we moved from that school, Haringey Primary School, North London, and we moved to another area in North London, Haringey Primary School.
So I did year four, year five, and year six there. The thing that we had, like in even that though, like any ordinary kid, we used to go to school, we had non-Muslim teachers. My parents were different at home.
So at that moment that we used to go to school and we spent so much hours in school, my father understood that the impact that school can have to us, have on us, the impact that school can have on us. So what he did was in the morning before we went to school, my father would sit with us. I especially remember it when we moved to the second primary school, Highgate Primary School, which is in Archway, between Archway and Finchley.
That primary school, I remember very explicitly, my father would sit with us in the morning, and he would talk to us and he would speak to us about, you know, especially concepts of Trinity and the Sabbah of Maryam, not being the son of God or not being God, and the crucifixion of Isa. And I never reached this ayah at that time. It was, The first time I heard that verse was actually from my father.
He would use that verse a lot. And he would use it in the, the ayah means, anyone who turns away from my remembrance, the Qur'an. That person would have a hard life in this world.
And so he would read that verse a lot. He would say to us, if you guys turn away from Allah's religion and you don't do what Allah told you to do, and you don't stay away from what Allah told you to stay away from, you're going to live a very hard life. And so I remember one day I got sick in school.
And so I came home and I said to my dad, Dad, did I disobey Allah? Because basically I thought I was living a hard life now because I'm sick. So my dad looked at me and said, No, but if you do, you would live a hard life. So these kind of concepts as a young child was what dad was, you know, putting into our minds, teaching us.
And so this was before we would go to school. So what kind of ages are we talking about this time? Like roughly? It doesn't have to be exact. Year four, how old are you? Year four, I would assume you are, I don't know, we're talking about six, seven years old.
So we're actually, so your father actually started that early. Oh, very early. Yeah.
See, my dad's history, I mean, his background, let me start from my dad's background. My father, I'm not good with dates, but my father was a student who studied in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. My father is from the people who took knowledge from Sheikh Abdulaziz Ibn Abbas.
My father met Sheikh Mohammed Nasruddin Al-Albani, you know, that class. My dad met them. We're talking about the 70s, the late 70s, the early 80s.
My father was in the Kingdom. He was studying there. He was learning and he, you know, took strong Aqeedah, you know, we never grew up with, you know, Aqeedah, which was corrupt, you know.
And, but my father as a child himself, he was born in a place called Mataban. That was where my father was born. Which country is that in? In Somalia.
Okay. And my father's Quran teacher, and there's a reason why I'm mentioning, my father's Quran teacher, the madrasa that my father used to go to was owned by a Sheikh called Tahir Awais, a well-known man, but his son is even more well-known. His son is, and it was my father's actual Quran teacher.
His name is called Ahmed Tahir Awais. Okay. Ahmed Tahir Awais was my father's baby Quran teacher and close brother.
My father studied the Quran, learnt the Quran from that madrasa. Okay. They grew up.
My father went to Saudi Arabia after finishing the Quran at a young age. And Ahmed Tahir Awais is a PhD holder from the Jamia Islamia Madinatul Munawwara. And Ahmed Tahir Awais was a teacher for the children of Abdul Mohsen Abad, Sheikh Rabee' Ibn Hadi Al-Madkhari.
Ahmed Tahir Awais was a teacher for his children. And Ahmed Tahir Awais, when he came to the UK in 1996, he lived with us. He stayed with us.
And so what he did for us, Ahmed Tahir Awais, was he bought a Quran teacher for us. My teacher, Ma'alin Galat, he bought a teacher for us and he taught us the Quran. So 1996, I was born 1988.
So you're about eight years old. Yeah. But before Ma'alin Galat came, the Quran teacher, we had another teacher that used to come and teach us basic stuff.
But before that, my dad used to teach us. My dad used to teach us. And so that was the kind of upbringing that I had.
People who were knowledgeable and lived, Sheikh Ahmed Tahir, especially living at our house, he had a very good, Wallahi, very amazing impact on our life. You know, Sheikh Ahmed Tahir Awais is, you know, one of the people who were pushing Da'wah Salafiyya in the UK in the 90s. So that was my father.
He used to make sure that every day before we go to school, he would make us, you know, hear some reminder. And after school, when we came, my father would also give us a reminder. He was at home because his work was at home.
My dad used to type at home. He had a money transfer in his house. So he used to use those old type, what's it called, those old typewriters.
And he used to also write, he had a little notebook where he used to write all the money and every people used to come to the house all the time. And that's how my dad used to make a living. At that time, you have to imagine, in the 90s, there weren't much Somalis.
I remember one or two Somalis in the whole area that, so there wasn't much people like us at that time. But at that time, my father was really, really dedicated. He was driven to make sure that we learned the Quran and we learned the deen and we learned our religion.
So that kind of parenting, how important do you consider that kind of parenting at such an early age? I mean, what about the argument that it doesn't matter what you do at home, the school is just going to take your child away from you anyways, in terms of like intellectually, it's just going to infiltrate your child's mind. It doesn't really matter what the parents do at home. No, that's not true.
That's really not true. You know what my dad did? And I think this is one of the most important things, I think, helps a child's upbringing. And that is, before you think about bringing any good to the child, you have to think of preventing him from the bad things.
So he got rid of television. He got rid of gadgets, games, computers. I mean, there wasn't computers.
I mean, there might have been computers, but we would definitely have not seen computers at that time. Mobile phones did not exist at that time. I remember, do you remember that time when T-Mobile was called 1-2-1? Yeah, I remember that, yeah.
So that was what people had, you know, using. And there was a deal, T-Mobile at that time, 1-2-1, had a deal called 7-7. So 7 in the morning, no, 7 in the evening to 7 in the morning, it was like you had a free line to talk to whoever you wanted to.
And it was Ericsson was separate from Sony. Then they emerged and they became Sony Ericsson. We didn't have all of that.
I think PlayStation was not even used at that time. It was a game called Sega Mega Drive. Yeah.
Do you remember it? Yeah, the Sonic the Hedgehog. Sonic the Hedgehog. That's the kind of games that were played in school.
People were more into all of that. The reason I'm telling all of this is because all of that was out there and it really didn't affect us. People used to love, you know, these bands, these music bands, like, what's those boy bands? Like Backstreet Boys or something.
Backstreet Boys and those kind of bands. Those were the people. For us, we didn't have television.
So when we went to school, it never used to affect us personally. Well, I never affected me. I never felt like I want to listen to music or I want to know because it's like in the morning when I woke up, I had a reminder.
The speech of Allah Azawajal. When I went to school, what they said, my dad beat you to it. I'll tell you a story.
My younger brother was put to a class where he had to study and he had to learn and he had to go through, I think, was it Ari or History? I think it was one of the two. My brother turned it down. He said, I'm not going to study Ari.
He rejected my younger brother, Abdul Hakim. He said, I don't want to go for Ari and I'm not going to study it. Okay.
And he told teachers I can't come in because they want to talk about, if it was history, then if I'm not wrong, I might be wrong. But I think it was to do with, you know, the Truders that you study, Henry VIII and whatnot. And of course, you know, he beheaded this one and you know, the church was in, you study about the church and Christianity comes in there as well.
My younger brother refused. He said, I'm never going to study it. Imagine this.
At that time, how things have changed, SubhanAllah. My father asked my brother what happened. My brother told him.
My father said, okay, okay, okay, no problem. This is what you want. It won't happen.
It reached a point, Wallahi, by Allah, the education, the guy, head of education in Haringey, the whole borough, had to come down to our house, came to our house in our living room to tell us, don't worry. To tell you don't worry, not to tell him that he has to come. Not at all.
In the UK. Imagine missing either was Ari or, I don't think it was Ari, I think it was history. And it was like, yeah, they said nothing to him.
They said nothing. That would never happen nowadays. Nothing happened.
So things have changed, SubhanAllah, a lot has changed. So my father, you know, his dawah helped a lot. So like you mentioned, things have changed now.
I want to bring you back to the modern world. Maybe some advice you can impart on others. We do now have technology.
We have gadgets. We have PlayStation. We have TVs.
We have internet. We have all of these kinds of things. What kind of advice would you give the parents today? They've got four year old, five year old, six year old kids.
They want to mold them into students of knowledge, righteous Muslims. How can they do this, considering that there's so much fitna in the world? Well, my policy with all of that is that you should stop your children from all of that. Yeah.
Yeah, definitely. Games, playing. I never got it when I was a child.
And look, I've not lost out. You don't regret it? No, not at all. Alhamdulillah, I'm actually thankful Allah, SubhanAllah, guided my parents to not bringing games to our house and television.
I truly benefited from it. And until today, Alhamdulillah, it's one of the things that helped me with not having to watch TV and movies and, you know, watching this and that. I don't, I'm not, it doesn't bother me.
You were never into it in the first place. Many people, they might get engaged in this kind of stuff. And then when they want to turn to the religion, they find it really hard to give up these shackles.
And obviously, if you'd never had it in the first place, then it's no issue. Interesting. Okay.
I want to talk a little bit more about your study routine now. So when you were a child, we have this debate about a child, should he be focused more on memorization, more on understanding? What kind of mix do you think, what kind of mix did you have? First of all, was it just memorize, memorize, memorize? Or was it a bit of understanding? Like, how did it work? As a child, we focus more on memorization because we couldn't understand everything. Child doesn't understand everything.
So when you're a child, the parents really focus on hafidh. And that's what happened. We memorized the Quran.
We had memorized, you know, little books, you know, these books. You don't study in any way, shape or form, or you don't go through explanation to the child. He's not going to understand.
How are you going to explain? That's the first chapter of Tahara. He won't fathom all of that. He won't be able to digest all of that information.
So what he just needs to know is memorize everything, just capture everything. Keep it in your mind. There's going to be a time I'm going to explain everything to you, and it's going to make sense.
So the first stage of the child's life is that he memorizes. And again, if the child has things that are distracting him, then it's going to affect his memorization. What age do you flip it? Or is it impossible to say? What age do you start focusing more on understanding? Or does it depend on child for child? I mean, as soon as the child starts reaching teens, stuff like that, you start explaining things to him.
One of the things that really, really touched me as a child is that my father used to, he had, you know, I saw in my own eyes the Kitab Al-Adhkar by Imam Al-Nawwi, that my father picked my name from. Oh, really? Yeah. The book he looked at in order, you know, the most beloved names to Allah Azza wa Jalla is, you know, Abdullah and Abdul Rahman.
You know, like you can imagine when you see that book, and this is where it was picked from. It's amazing. My dad had a copy of Bulughul Maram in his house.
I think I still have that Kitab. The Bulughul Maram, my father has a child, the pages are orange, you know, those old orange pages. That's the version he has from the Bulughul Maram that he studied from, and he took from his Mashaikh.
So, in that, as a young child, seeing that stuff and seeing your parent like that, it truly does, it does affect you. So, aside from the teaching that he obviously imparted on yourself and your siblings, give me an idea of his actions, was it in line with what he was teaching? I mean, like, you know, sometimes you have parents who will say one thing, but do another, like, how important is it to make sure that the parent is actually acting upon what they're teaching the children? I just want to, I don't want to take, like, you have to understand, I didn't part, I didn't go on a journey to seek knowledge at that point, because I didn't know it. So, it was all my parents, they were doing that.
They were making me memorize, they were making me do this. I didn't know anything, so I'll do what they tell me to do, right? But one of the things that really helped me with my parents is, they were, they are, Wallahi, they're very good people, very good people. My father was a very good man, a man who just, he still is, you know, a man who just doesn't waste his life in unnecessary stuff.
A man who, you could say, busies himself with what is necessary, what's needed. You know, he's either in a masjid, he's either in his workplace and he's working, a man who's got his lihya, his clothing is above his ankles. I've never seen, my dad's always above his ankles.
You see, if my father, you know, I've never seen my father shaven, he's always had his beard. You see my point? We're talking about this early 90s, you see? Riba, this, house, my dad, none of that. And this is all while staying in the UK? All whilst he lives in the UK.
You see, when he takes television out of the house, he's going to be affected as well, because he can't watch news or can't watch this or can't watch that. He doesn't mind. Yeah.
So, it wasn't, don't do this, don't use your phone and the parents using the phone themselves. Or you can't have television, but they've got television in their bedroom. If you don't do it, to be honest, the child is not going to do it all.
What kind of effect did that have on you when you see your dad with a short thobe, for example? You want to then wear a short thobe? No, my dad used to wear trousers. Because he, you know, when he came to the UK, a lot of people have the perception that if you wear this, they're going to do something to you. So he had that, but it was above his ankles.
Yeah, I mean, first of all, what's this about, man? What's this all about? Why do you have to do all of this? See, as a child, you're like a white page, a white paper. It's whatever is written on it. Whatever anyone writes on it.
That's what's going to be stuck on that paper. So the child is taking everything. All of that, he's taking it in.
So now, I saw my mom wear hijab in every circumstances. You know, in the UK, in that time, a lot of Somalis that were coming into the country, they were assimilating with the society. Some might call it integration.
No, they were assimilating with the community, society. And so they were celebrating birthdays. I could see my mom go into arguments with them.
Why are you celebrating? You know, again, just to show you, wallahi subhanallah, how things have changed. Da'amu alladhina utul kitaba. Burger King.
My mom today, if I say, Burger King in the UK, she'll slap me. She'll slap me. That's haram.
They're strong on their, you know. My father was tough on that. So growing up, seeing all of that in the UK, for me, I'm saying all of this, it doesn't mean that I felt like I was abused.
I now look at it retrospective. Wallahi, when I look back at it, all I can do is just love it and appreciate him. And it does make me call him sometimes and just tell him, you know, how much I appreciate what he's done for me and how much he's helped me.
It's because of that I can sit down sometimes for hours without having to communicate with anyone or anything. I just read. Because I don't feel like I have to socialize or I have to use gadgets or I have to use a computer.
I don't have to, no. I can be without it. I've heard many stories of them offline as well and they sound like really amazing people.
Jazakumullahu khairan. I want to talk now a bit about your journey to seeking knowledge. So at what age did you start traveling to seek knowledge, roughly? I'm not good with dates.
I might get it wrong or right, give or take. So I think it was about when I was 11, 12, 13, 14. Give it that range, age range.
I think it was 13 when I was 12. I went for my first Umrah. For Umrah, I went to the house of Allah Azza wa Jalla, Kaaba in Mecca.
And when I went there, my father took me. And we stayed in a hotel close to the, we stayed in a hotel right in front of the Kaaba. For the first time I saw the Kaaba, I walked inside it.
There were Durs that were going on. There were lessons, there were, I could see the Sheikh sitting there doing Durs and teaching and explaining things for people. And people were, hundreds of them were sitting under him.
At that time, the Zamzam, now it doesn't exist. But at that time you could go down and you could see the Zamzam where it gushes from. You can go down to the Kaaba.
There's a down floor you can go to where, you know the Dawaf places, Maqam Ibrahim. There's a place you could go down. You could actually go down.
And you could walk and they'll show you how the Zamzam water was gushing out. We saw that and my dad told us about the story and what this is about. And you know the ayat regarding this and wow.
And then what my dad did was he planned a man to show us from the Hajj program, how Hajj is actually done. So we went to Muzdalifah, we went to Mina. We saw all of that.
It was a real big trip for me. And then we went to Medina. And then we saw the Prophet's Masjid.
The grave of the Prophet. We went to Uhud. We saw all of this.
My father explained everything to us. And you know what my dad would say, Oh the Jamia days they used to bring a coach for us and we used to go here but now things have changed. And you know it was memory lane for him.
For me what happened was when I went through that trip and I remember my heart and my aspiration just became you know what, this is maybe what I want to do. This is maybe what I want to achieve. So I got onto my dad and said, Dad you know what, I want to become a scholar.
I want to be a scholar. And he looked at me and he said to me, Really? I said, yeah wallahi dad I really want to become, I want to learn the deen. I'm hungry for the deen.
And at that time me and my younger brother, we loved it. We really loved the deen. We would always talk about it.
And so I remember that particular umrah, first umrah we ever did, me and him had a discussion. And it wasn't much that I used to get the answers right. But this time I got it right.
We had a debate about who was better, Nabilullah Muhammad or Nabilullah Ibrahim. He took the opinion that Ibrahim was better. I said Nabilullah Muhammad haqq.
And he goes, because we don't have much deleed. And so I said to him, Nabilullah Muhammad is better because he's our prophet. And he was like, but he's the father of all prophets.
We were throwing our arguments. You could see that spark was there. Even Sheikh Ahmed Tahir, we used to go to his lessons that he used to do in Leighton when we were young.
The durs that he used to give. The love of the deen was, from a young age, wallahi. Because your father had instilled it.
After the permission of Allah, of course your father had instilled it in you. And my uncle Ahmed Tahir always, he really instilled the love of the, I remember one of his classes. I was very, very little.
I'm talking about, I was seven, six. I still remember he was doing tafsir Surah Al-Haqqa. And he cried, the Sheikh cried.
He really cried, and he cried, and he cried. I remember that was a tafsir. You know when I say Leighton, I mean Masjid Al-Turhid in Leighton.
Right, okay. I don't know Leighton. I know where Leighton is, but I don't know the Masjid.
Yeah, he had a class there. And he went through tafsir Surah Al-Haqqa. And to be honest, he cried.
Surah Al-Haqqa is one of the hardest surahs when it comes to Qiyamah, and the Day of Judgment. So he cried. And he made the people in the, you know, from the crowds cry.
That really touched me. Really touched me. And I was like, this is subhanAllah, you know, these people, the deen.
So this is what we grew up. And we also had my mother, may Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala elevate her status. You know what she did? She bought this big cassette.
You know the big cassette players? Where you have two sides. Where you play, and you can place the record side where it records the tape, cassette from one side to the other side. Right, right, yeah.
She used to buy the original 114 surahs, the whole entire Quran, the 30 ajza of the Quran of Muhammad Khalil Al-Husari when I was in Sudan. Especially Al-Husari, because the Quran teacher told her to get it. So she'd get Muhammad Khalil Al-Husari's cassettes.
And she would take that and she would put it into the cassette. She doesn't want us to mess up with the original one. So she would always make a copy version for us.
You see, and she would take the original one and she would put it on her shelf in her bedroom. And so whenever it got messed up, she would come down again for us and she would record it for us. And that's what we would use.
And we would listen to that. She would put that into your ears or she would say to you. The Quran teacher, what he did, what he used to do was the Quran teacher, what he used to do was he used to test us on the Quran.
When we finished a portion of the ajza of the Quran he would bring gifts and he would call Ahmad Tahir Awais to our house. You have to remember Ahmad Tahir Awais again was the most knowledgeable man at that time in the United Kingdom. He doesn't live there in the UK now.
He's a PhD scholar from the University of Medina. Knowledgeable man. He is now in London.
Everyone wants to meet him. He took his time out for my father and his children. Little kids.
And he would cross his feet and he would listen to us. And sometimes, subhanAllah, I remember one particular day I'll never forget. We were so bad.
Our memorization was extremely bad. And we embarrassed the teacher because he wanted to show his teacher that he did a good job. And sheikh Ahmad Tahir was a very busy man.
At night he would pray qiyam ul-layl and at day he would be teaching. He was a true servant. And so he slept on the chair as he was listening to us.
He just slept. Because we were terrible at what we were doing. We were messing it all up.
Because he was a hafidh. So he would pick a verse for you, pick a place for you and he would tell you to read. That was an embarrassing moment.
And that, subhanAllah, every time he would give us a gift. One of the gifts that he gave us was cassettes. You know those small Walkman cassettes.
Do you remember those Walkman cassettes? You put your tape in there and you listen to it. That's what... I remember I won it. I got one as well.
Anyways, after that Umrah trip I left and I went to the... I asked my dad. I wanted to seek knowledge. And my dad sent me to Somalia.
Somalia. So you went to Somalia. I mean obviously I know you said that you're not great with dates.
But give me an idea of the other countries that you went to when you were seeking knowledge. Can I just mention some things about Somalia that I benefited from? I went to Somalia without my mother, my father. At a very young age.
I was very young. I was about 12, 13. Around that time.
Okay. I went there. I stayed with my dad's other wife.
A very good woman. An honourable woman. She really took care of me.
May Allah honour her and grant her Jannah. A very good mother. May Allah honour her.
My father, when he took me there Peace be upon you. It's okay. Take your time.
He gave me tissue. It's okay. Take your time.
So what happened was I came from the UK and I went to Somalia. I left my mom behind. And if I'm not wrong my father was there before me.
I think he went there. Yeah, he was before me. Okay.
And I went with my older sister. Me and her were together. And I went to Somalia.
This is my first time going to my country. Never seen Somalia in my life. I've heard about it.
So happy. I landed. The plane landed and there was no The country didn't have airport.
So I was shocked. You just land in the middle of just get off the aeroplane. Yeah, there's no airport.
So everyone's just standing right under the plane. So we come out. My dad's standing there.
He's dressed different. He's wearing the cultural Somali clothing. Cousins picking us up.
Because of lack of safety you had to get police people with guns and whatnot. I went home. I met my stepmother for the first time.
Truly an amazing woman. She used to give me good advices. She used to She used to advise me greatly like, man, don't your dad brought here for a reason.
So what happened was when I came it was in the middle of the year. So what my dad did was he got me a teacher to teach us Arabic because remember I came from the UK. I don't know Arabic.
So my dad there was a teacher May Allah bless him. He came number one in Islam in the secondary school in the country first. He came first and he was meant to get a scholarship to Yemen to study and he was so energetic he was one of the most enthusiastic people when it came to education and learning.
And what happened, subhanAllah I don't know, some complication happened somebody else was given his position. So he was heartbroken. So anyways Allah intended that he becomes my teacher.
So when I came, I was new to the country, and I didn’t know anything. My Somali wasn’t at the level of the people of the country. I got enrolled in that class, and in that class, there was a Canadian girl who has now left Islam, and another girl from Sweden—I don’t know where she is, but I heard she is now into medicine and is a doctor. May Allah protect her and take care of her and guide the other one. There were also two brothers from Kenya. But I was the youngest; I was very, very little. So the teacher would only hit me, no one else. He would beat me up, and I remember that first class we started at Jurumia. That was my first lesson I took. I was thinking, "What is this? What on earth is going on?" I tried to bring my head around, but what does this mean? What is he talking about?
We had a class of Fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence) with him where he taught us Safinatul Najah Fiqh al-Shafi’i. I had an Aqeedah (creed) book, which was Kitab al-Hafidh al-Hakimi As'ila wal-Ajribah (The Book of Questions and Answers by Hafidh al-Hakimi). He would write the questions and answers for us. Basically, what he wanted to do was teach us Tarbiyyah (Islamic upbringing) and academic science. He was all about Allahumma Barik (May Allah bless). The idea was that we had to catch up with the secondary school kids. But remember, the secondary school kids' subjects were in Arabic, not in English.
So in one year, I had to learn Arabic Balagha (rhetoric), three types of Balagha: Ilm al-Bayan (science of clarity), Ilm al-Badee' (science of figures of speech), Ilm al-Ma'ani (science of meanings). I had to learn Nahu (grammar), Sarf (morphology), I also had to learn Tafsir (interpretation of the Qur’an), Qasar al-Sawr (shortening the narration), and I had to do that as well. Also, Tawheed (monotheism) and Hadith (sayings of the Prophet). Hadith was a hundred Hadiths, and you had to memorize them from top to bottom, and they would ask you about the Ghara'ib al-Alfab (strange words in the Hadith) and the Ma'ani al-Ijmaliyah (general meanings). It was a very hard, complicated curriculum to be honest with you. It was not suitable for me.
I just came from the UK; I'm an English speaker. I did not know anything about anything regarding this. So what happened was I came the first day to the class. I was wearing big shoes, I was wearing socks, and I told my dad if he could get me Nikes, but he got me high-top shoes instead. I came in, and I remember I was in the classroom studying. That was the first path to seeking knowledge.
Then another Qur’an teacher came to my house. His name was Mohamed Abdul Wahab. He was from one of the best people. He went to Damascus for a Qur'an competition and came first. In Somalia, one of the things that are corrupted and oppressive in our country is that we belittle tribes. So they pushed his tribe down, and he couldn’t go to Damascus. He didn't get that chance, even though he was a Hafidh (one who has memorized the Qur'an). One of the unique things he had was his Tajweed (pronunciation and recitation of the Qur'an) was extremely strong. I remember one day he led seven Juz (parts) of the Qur'an for Isha prayer, just before Fajr (dawn prayer). And you know what is amazing? He was a Hafidh—a Hafidh with perfect Tajweed. His Qur’an was something else.
He was very merciful to me. He was a strict teacher, but before that, he was my stepmother’s Qur’an teacher. She said he was someone you would never want to talk to. The way he was strict to me, I thought he was strict to me, but she said, "This is nothing."
I grew up in that house, and my stepmother took good care of me. She used to do a lot of things for me. My dad left straight away when he saw that I got into everything. He left, so I was without my father and my mother. One of the good things my mother did, may Allah honor her and grant her Jannatul Firdous (Paradise), is that when parents work together, the children become good. My mother accepted to let me go seek knowledge. My father said, "If you let this kid stay here and he wants to deal like this, there will come a time when he could possibly not get what he wanted, so just get him and let him go." Imagine a mother letting her child go to another country to a stepmother. This is hard—not many people can do that. My mother was willing to do that, and if she never did that, I probably wouldn’t have been in the place I am.
Before I went to Somalia, we moved to Birmingham. We actually moved from London because, first, my dad moved. I remember I was telling a story about my brother having to say that he didn’t want to study history. That brought a thought to my father. My father got scared. He thought, "These guys are probably going to inject my son, kill him, put something in his head, say he's crazy." So my dad got really scared. What he did was he went to a school and registered my brother in a school in Birmingham called Al Hijra Islamic School. Those people of Birmingham who are hearing this are going to be so. He went to Al Hijra, my brother, my younger brother. I didn’t go. I went to another secondary school, a state school called Golden Hillock. But I didn’t go that first year. I remained in London with my brother and my father. My older brother and I, we went to a school called Fortism in North London for one year, and then I went to Birmingham and studied there for another year or two. I don’t remember exactly—maybe 13 or 14 when I left.
At that time, Birmingham was getting cramped with so many Somali kids. Kids from Holland were coming. The reason I mention this is because if my mother had never let us go—if she never let me go to Somalia—all the boys I remember that were in my school are either in prison or dead. Allahu Akbar (God is the Greatest). Really, you can have any Tarbiyyah you want. One of the kids who died, Abdi Ghani, may Allah take him to Jannah (Paradise). His mother only had him. He was the only child his mother had, and I heard his mother lost it when she found out her son died. Can you imagine? She was raising him, and he was the only one in her life, and she lost her son. I heard she completely lost it.
So, looking back at all of that and what happened to the kids my age, Alhamdulillah (Praise be to Allah), the Tarbiyyah at home was good, but you're in a world where you're not the only one trying to work on the child. Other people are trying to do their thing to your children. They're trying to brainwash them.
I went to Somalia. So, you know, one thing I really want to mention, and I really hope you don’t mind me mentioning this. You’re speaking about how the parents come together, making sure they’re on the same page. When did your mum actually find out that you were moving to Birmingham? Because you told me this before, and I think there's a benefit in this.
Yeah, my mother and father did his research. He looked up, back in those days there was a prospectus. Now remember, there was this Muslim directory. Okay, now I'm not aware of that, but those who are watching are going to know what I'm talking about. It's called the Muslim Directory, where you could basically find out about every Islamic school in the country, you could find Islamic restaurants. Now, you can Google it all up, but back in those days, it used to come out like a catalogue. It was like the yellow pages, but for Muslims—it was called the Muslim Directory. You could find everything you were looking for: restaurants, housing, schools. My dad looked it up and saw Birmingham. There was one auntie who my father was close to tribe-wise, and he said, "Hassan, bring the children over, don’t worry."
So my father, after getting everything ready, the idea came to him very quickly. It wasn't something he was planning out for months, but the thing that really shocked me was that he came home and told my mum. He said to her, "I want you guys to go to Birmingham tomorrow or something like that." You know what really touched me a lot when I think about it today? One thing my mum was—the person she was—is a righteous wife, obedient to her husband. Till today, she consults him in things that she wants to do. She’ll take his permission. Sometimes, right now, she’ll call him and say, "Hassan, I want to leave the house. I want to go."
He just said to her, "Look, tomorrow we’re going." She just got everything ready, the clothing, etc. Keep in mind, some of the children had to stay; two of them were going to stay, and some were going with her. What I’m trying to say is, if my mum never did all of that, if she never listened—trust me, I would not be where I am today. These decisions they made were carving my life, directing me in the right way. So they went, and it was the first time in my life that I never lived with my mother. It was extremely difficult. We used to get sad every day. We would call my brother, and he would call us up and tell us things like, "These things over here cost this much." My younger brother and I and my older brother would be extremely jealous, and he would mention new things he had learned.
My older brother and I used to go to school together, and it was very dark and dull, especially with mum leaving the house. It was a difficult time. It was extremely difficult. So, let’s go back to Somalia now. You're in Somalia, you're starting the early stages of your Islamic education.
It’s funny, I moved to Birmingham, and when I moved to Birmingham, I went to an Islamic school. First, I went to a Deobandi primary school, then a secondary school, an Indian Deobandi secondary school, called Al-Hira Islamic School. I wish I could see those teachers. It would be nice to meet them now. Yeah, I used to be there. I studied there for a period of time. I remember they used to force Hanafi Fiqh on us. So my life was Islam all around me, everywhere I went. I remember that was the time when my brother and I used to have to figure out what Madhab we believed in. So we would go to Dad and ask, "What’s this Hanafi, and Fiqh Maliki and Shafi’i? Who are these people? Who is Imam Maliki and how are we Shafi’i? Who is Shafi’i?"
So my dad would explain it to us. He would say, "This is what Imam Shafi’i was." But we would ask, "Why are we not just following the Prophet? It doesn’t make sense. Why do we have to follow this person?" At that time, we just wanted to ask questions. I thought we had to follow the Prophet directly. This doesn’t make sense.
I just want to say something in my life. I made two duas when I was very young. The first dua was that I used to go to his class when I was a baby. I went to a couple of his classes, to be honest, I went to a lot of his classes. I made a dua that one day I could see Ahmad Tahir Awais come to one of my lessons and listen to it. The second one was for Sheikh Abdel Nasser, who is now in Egypt. He was the Imam of Finsbury Park, the leader of Tarawih prayer at Finsbury Park Mosque. I used to pray behind him. Those two people, I made dua that Allah shows me with my two eyes that they come and listen to me.
Sheikh Abdel Nasser, I said he should pray behind me, because he was the Imam of the Masjid. Ahmad Tahir Awais should come to my halaqa (gathering) and listen to my ders (lesson). These two, I saw in my life. I saw Ahmad Tahir Awais in my class with his humility. He is a very humble man, truly a humble man. And I led Sheikh Abdel Nasser in Salah (prayer). I did the Khutbah al-Jum’ah (Friday sermon) for him and led him in the prayer. For me personally, as a young child growing up, that was one of my goals to see that happen.
So, you are in Somalia now, going through your Islamic education. Roughly, how many years were you there for? Can you remember? Four or five years, maybe? Four or five years in Somalia, and then you moved on to another country.
So, I went to secondary school and finished my secondary education there. At the time, I was doing secondary education as well as Islamic education simultaneously. Yes, I attended secondary school, but the only thing was, we had subjects like history in Arabic—Islamic history. We also had maths, science, biology, chemistry, physics, and geography, but everything was in Arabic. We weren’t studying geography in the conventional sense, but in Arabic, we had Islamic education, which included Fiqh, Hadith, and all of that. All of this was taught in Arabic.
At that time, I was attending school and I was a student of Sheikh Noor Ali Jama, a very prominent Sheikh now, but he was my teacher back then. He was at a masjid called Masjid Omar Ibn Khattab in X-Control Tabakain. I stayed with him for those couple of years, studying with him. He taught us Tafseer of the Quran (Al-Quran Al-Kareem), the whole Quran’s Tafseer. He also taught us Talatat Al-Usul, Kashf Al-Shubahat, and Kitab Al-Tawheed. He taught us Wasitiyah as well. I studied Aqeedah from Talatat Al-Usul, Kashf Al-Shubahat, Kitab Al-Tawheed, Al-Wasitiyah, Al-Hamawiyah up to Wasitiyah and Ajrumia with him. Sheikh Noor was truly a great teacher, and I benefited a lot from him.
His students became my second teachers after I moved from the house I was in with my stepmother. That’s one of the things I regret—I wasn’t always good to my stepmother. I wasn’t very kind, and the reason for this was that she had to follow a strict protocol. It was a very strong protocol, and at that time, I had become a teenager, and teenagers can be rebellious. She would often feel like I was misbehaving, and I can't imagine how difficult it must have been for such a noble woman to deal with me. Eventually, I moved away from her. Despite all the good she did for me, I left her. I went to live with my uncle, my mum’s brother. He was a student of knowledge—a very good one. So, he took me to these classes, and that masjid used to be packed. When Tafseer started, you had to come early to catch the class. You would sit at the back, but you had to be there early to get a seat.
I remember ordering my first Tafseer book, Munkathir, in 2004. I still have that Tafseer book. I was around 15 or 16 years old when I ordered it. When it came, it had at the bottom of the book Mohammad Nasreddin Al-Bani. I started asking people, “Who is this Al-Bani? Is he Albanian?” The Sheikh told me, “I love the Sheikh so much, but I could never talk to him.” One day, I found out that the uncle I was staying with, his younger brother, was a doctor, a surgeon. He actually did surgery on the Sheikh’s hand after the Sheikh had a car crash. Both of them are my mum’s brothers, but the younger one did surgery on the Sheikh.
So, I said to my uncle, “Why can’t we invite him into the house? Why don’t we invite him?” One day, I came back from school, and my uncle said to me, “I’ve got a surprise for you.” I asked, “What’s the surprise?” He said, “Sheikh Noor is coming to our house today. Make sure you clean your room properly, because Sheikh Noor is going to go through the rooms.” I didn’t ask why. Anyway, I cleaned my room, sorted out my bed, and made everything nice. The Sheikh came to the house, food was served, and he started to eat and drink. I said to him, “Sheikh, eat and drink.” And then I added, “Didn’t Allah say, 'Eat and drink'?”
The Sheikh smiled and then said, “In the Arabic language, it doesn’t show sequence.” He explained that “eat and drink” doesn’t necessarily mean to eat first and then drink; it doesn’t show an order or sequence. I went quiet for a moment, but today, if I were to meet him again, I would have another answer. Back then, I didn’t say anything because I was young and poor, but if I met him today, I would say, “When the Prophet was asked, 'Shall we start with eating or drinking?' What did the Prophet say? Start with what Allah started with.” I would have shared that with him.
But it really touched me. I’ve always loved righteous people, the Ulama, and people of knowledge. Seeing him eat, and you know what he did when he finished eating? That’s something that truly resonated with me. People of knowledge teach you a lot through their actions. As soon as we finished eating, the Sheikh said, “Let’s all eat from where the food dropped on the floor.” He instructed everyone to eat from the place where the food had fallen. He started eating from each spot where the food fell. I saw him do this, and it left a lasting impression on me.
Years later, I met Sheikh Noor Ali Jama again. I was much taller than him by then, and he hugged me and said, “You’re very tall.” I said, “Sheikh, I’m just growing in age, not in knowledge.”
I saw him in Arafah during Hajj. The whole day of Arafah, he was raising his hands in supplication while everyone else was sleeping. People were taking a short nap here and there, but I saw him continuously making Dua, still raising his hands and begging Allah in Arafah. Really righteous people, what you learn from them behind closed doors is far greater than what you learn from their Halaqat and their Durs. I could really listen to these stories all day.
So, we're in Somalia, and you have obviously had a lot of beneficial people around you, molding you as a young student of knowledge. You're starting your journey. What happened next?
As soon as I finished my school there, my father was very smart to understand that if I returned to the UK, it might cause some issues for me because I was still young. So, he planned a trip with my mother’s encouragement. My mother was really pushing for it, and we went to Egypt. What I did was come to the UK for a summer holiday. By the way, keep in mind that during all that time I was in Somalia, I never came to the UK.
You never even visited?
I told my dad I didn’t want to come to the UK. Every year he would ask me, and I would say no, no dad, I’m happy here, I’m really happy here. That year, my older sister was getting married, so I came to the UK. When I came to the UK, I stayed there for a while, and to be very honest with you, it just didn’t seem the same anymore. It just didn’t feel the same. I was happy to go back to Somalia. So, I said, "Mum, to be very honest, I didn’t know anyone anymore." Even my mum, she had changed. She had been away for so long—4 years. I hadn’t seen anyone. Even though my mum visited once for 2-3 weeks, she had been away from the country for more than 20 years.
When she came that time, she didn’t have time for me. Her mother was alive at the time, and she had all of her sisters to visit. She was there for such a short period of time and had to go to too many places. My mother didn’t even get a chance to talk to me. She came back to the country, and the country was begging for her. She had been away from her family for over 20 years.
I just want to extract a powerful benefit from what you said. You were raised in the UK, and that’s all you ever knew. But after you went away for a few years and returned, suddenly you saw the UK in a completely different light. The reason I want to extract that benefit is because I can completely agree with you. I was born and raised in the UK for 20+ years, and I’ve only been in the UAE for 3 years. Even now, when I go back to the UK, I realize and see it in a completely different light. You don’t actually realize until you leave the UK. When you’re raised and stay in the UK—or anywhere in the West, I assume—it’s easy to become desensitized to it. But when you remove yourself from it, you begin to see the West for what it is.
That’s true. I felt the same way when I came back. I didn’t know anyone or anything anymore. Everybody had changed. You know what? I even learned that the older parents get, the softer they become. The strictness that my parents had when we were younger was becoming softer. For me, it was clear—I wanted to go back.
So, my mum told me, “We’re going to Egypt.” Really? I said, "Yes." She said, "We’re going to Egypt." But what I had to do was pack up all my stuff from Somalia—whatever I had left behind—and then make my way from Somalia to Egypt. So, that’s what I did.
You were still in your teens at this age, right?
Yes, I was still a teenager. So, I went to Egypt and continued my studies. Did you go full-time into Islamic education, or were you still balancing it with secular studies?
When I came from Somalia, I learned grammar, and my Arabic knowledge was very good, theoretically. But the problem was, in Somalia, you study Arabic a lot but don’t speak it practically. So, when I came to Egypt, I couldn’t speak properly. My brother, Hakim, never came to Somalia. I was the one doing this trip. He was in the UK the whole time.
What’s amazing is that, even though my younger brother was in the UK, he was still seeking knowledge. That shows that it can be done—working very hard. SubhanAllah, even though I left him, he was competing, and he wasn’t giving up. Honestly, he was working extremely hard.
When I went to Egypt, I attended an Arabic institute to learn how to speak. I needed to brush up on my speaking skills because theory wasn’t enough. You need to practically learn how to speak. So, my brother and I went to the Marqas. I was placed in a higher level because I had just come from Somalia, and my brother, having been in the UK, was placed in a level or two lower than me. I don’t remember exactly.
So, I started speaking. I began speaking Arabic to the teachers and in classes. To be honest, I wasn’t really revising for these classes. I would just sit in class, leave, and come back. There was a young Somali boy in my class named Mustafa. He was a very strong kid. Unfortunately, he passed away now. May Allah bless that brother.
Wallahi, he had something special about him—it was truly amazing. He was younger than me, and yet he was in the same class as me because he came from Somaliland at that time as well. He came from Hargeisa, studied there, and I came from Somalia, so we were in a similar situation. Afterward, he went to Dimash (Damascus) to seek knowledge, but he passed away. Rahim Allah (May Allah have mercy on him) and may He have mercy on his mother. Wallahi, she was an incredibly honorable woman, a hardworking woman. May Allah bless her as well.
So, we used to attend that class together, and from there, I met some brothers from the UK. At that time, my English had deteriorated quite a bit. I met these brothers, we talked, and got to know each other. My brother, Abdul Hakim, picked up on a lesson that was being taught in Shubra at Masjid Tawheed by a Sheikh named Mustafa Al Adawi. Abdul Hakim noticed this and we started going together. I clearly remember going to that class with Abdul Hakim. Sheikh Mustafa Al Adawi asked a question. He had two classes: one was a Tafseer (exegesis of the Qur'an) class, and the other was on Sahih Al Bukhari (a famous collection of authentic hadith). The first question I clearly remember that day was: "Does anyone know the name of Umm Salama, the Prophet's wife?"
I looked around and thought, "Wow, I don't know it." I even realized that I didn’t know the answer myself. It hit me hard. And then I remember Sheikh Mustafa saying something that really resonated with me. He said, "This is the Prophet's wife, and no one knows her name?" That stuck with me. I still remember it vividly.
When I met Sheikh Mustafa later, I shared with him how that statement impacted me. I told him, “Sheikh, you know, during I'tikaf (spiritual retreat) in Ramadan, in the last 10 days, what you said really stayed with me.” Sometimes, a Sheikh might say something that resonates with someone on the other side of the world, and it benefits them in ways we can’t imagine.
At this stage in your studies, were you still involved in formal institutional education, or was it more informal?
It was still institutionalized because I had just graduated from secondary school. I went to an Islamic school in Somalia, but I’m talking about Egypt now. I completed an Arabic program there. I finished it, and at that time, it was still called Al Fajr, which was considered the best Arabic program available. That was my only formal education at that time. Of course, I also learned from the Mashayikh (scholars), but personally, at that moment, my parents were more concerned with the concept of acquiring knowledge itself, rather than focusing on formal qualifications.
What do you mean by that?
What I mean is that my parents cared more about what I knew than about my certificates. For example, my father would always ask me, "What have you memorized?" When we would go to the Friday Khutbah (sermon), he would ask, “What did the Khatib (preacher) say? What did you understand from the Khutbah? Explain it to me in detail.” His focus was always on understanding and knowledge, not on the qualifications or certificates you held.
One of my Shuyukh (scholars) that I studied with, became very close to, and truly helped me is Shaykh Ahmad Mahmood. He was recently here. Shaykh Ahmad Mahmood is a man I benefited from greatly, and I truly consider him to be a very knowledgeable scholar. His knowledge is vast, and his understanding of the Deen (religion) is very strong. May Allah honor him in this world and the hereafter. I am very close to him, and we have a strong relationship.
He never took formal studies—no formal education—yet I saw times when Shaykh Ahmad Tahir Awais, who holds a PhD from Jamia Islam, would ask Shaykh Ahmad Mahmood, "What do you think the answer to the question is?" at a Mu'tamar (conference). And Shaykh Ahmad Mahmood would respond, "What do you think?"
I remember one day my father invited Shaykh Ahmad Tahir Awais over. When my father invited him, Shaykh Ahmad Tahir said to my dad, "You have to invite Shaykh Ahmad Mahmood." Shaykh Ahmad Tahir is very close to Shaykh Ahmad, and Shaykh Ahmad Mahmood came over to the house. When he arrived, Shaykh Ahmad Tahir said something to my father. He said, "Ahmad Mahmood is someone like me."
If you compare formal qualifications, Shaykh Ahmad Tahir Awais is much higher in terms of academic qualifications. Yet, we always appreciated in my life that qualifications came after ijaza (authorization to teach). Even after that, the concept of "Do you have a certificate for this?" only came later in my mind. I always focused on: "What do I know? Do I understand this? Do I grasp this?"
Another scholar I consider very knowledgeable is Shaykh Nur Ali Jama. He didn’t have any formal Islamic qualifications, yet he studied in the old classical way. He would attend halaqas (study circles), finish the Shaykh's program, and then move to another halaqa. That’s how the education system used to be.
Let’s explore this idea of qualifications a bit further. How much value should we place on Islamic qualifications? Is it the case that we should put no value on them at all, or is there a middle ground where we can find balance?
I don’t undermine qualifications; I don’t say they’re not needed. But it doesn’t really matter if you have qualifications but lack understanding. If you have the understanding but no qualifications, it’s still valuable. It’s all about the knowledge you have. If you do gain qualifications, they are like the cherry on the cake—but they are not the asal (foundation). To be honest, I went to Saudi Arabia and stayed at the house of Shaykh Ahmad Tahir Awais' younger brother, Musa Tahir Awais. He taught me Ilm al-Faraid (knowledge of inheritance laws) and Nukhbat al-Fikr (a book of Islamic logic). I stayed with him in Mecca.
While I was with him in Mecca, we used to go to the dars (lesson) of a Shaykh named Shaykh Yahya Uthman. Shaykh Yahya Uthman is originally an Indian Shaykh. Wallahi, you learn tawadu' (humility) and humbleness from him, truly. You know what he does? I took from him Fath al-Majid and Tafseer al-Kabir (a classical commentary of the Qur'an). He would read Sahih Muslim with the Sharh (commentary) of Nawawi. And do you know what he would do? He would sit there and read the kitab (book) Fath al-Majid with the Sharh of Adhaman Hassan Ali Shaykh. He would give brief ta’liqat (explanations) here and there but wouldn’t lift his head to look around. He would stick strictly to the book.
Now, if you go to his dars, I don’t know what it’s like in the past few years, but for a long time, he only had African brothers attending his class. People didn’t value his lessons. He has been teaching there for many years, and he has many ijazahs (certificates of authorization). Shaykh Mughbil praised him. The point I’m coming to is that Shaykh Ahmad and Shaykh Musa Tahir would always say that when we would walk in together, me and Shaykh Musa, a graduate of Medina University, would sit with Shaykh Yahya al-Mudarris (a title for a teacher). I would see Shaykh Musa, who had formal qualifications, sitting with Shaykh Yahya al-Mudarris and learning Fath al-Majid and the Sharh of Sahih Muslim by Imam Nawawi.
And I would say to Shaykh Musa, "You know, I’ve already studied this book before. You really don’t have to take it again," but the truth is, you learn more than just the content of a book. You learn much more from a scholar than just the text.
Since we’re on this topic of qualifications, and I know you're going to really hate me for saying this, but at the same time, you're working towards your PhD, ow, so there is obviously some benefit that you personally derive from a formal academic environment. What is the benefit there?
Definitely, I wouldn't say there’s no benefit. One of the benefits of doing university programs, PhDs, and Masters is the dissertation you write, the research you have to do. These research tasks definitely teach you how to research, which books to rely on, and what kind of methodology to use when writing your baht (research paper). It's not just about throwing citations here and there; you have to organize them properly. You need to order the evidence from strongest to weakest. Your baht has to be done in a structured and thorough manner. The books you're going to use must be consistent, coming from the same tabaa (edition). These are things you would pick up through the process.
While I was in Saudi Arabia, I used to try to go to these places where they hold niqashat al-niya (discussions or debates about intentions). Even when I was in Egypt, I would go to where they post announcements about upcoming thesis defenses. You may not know who the person is, but you look at the research topics that are going to be discussed, and you go listen. You observe how they interrogate the person and how the scholars interact with them. I found that to be very beneficial from these PhD and academic studies, especially within Islamic academic studies.
But as for gaining Islamic knowledge from them, personally, I didn’t think I found that. I also didn’t find the tarbiyah (moral and spiritual training) that you get from sitting with a shaykh (teacher) and just observing him. I also think that the jama'at (group) doesn't provide that kind of experience to students. In fact, it can strip away all of that, even if you had it in the beginning. Sometimes, the formal academic environment can take that away from you. You can lose it in the halaqat (study circles). To be very honest, you get that from the halaqat, not from the formal university system.
Now, the university I’m going to—well, it’s the same thing. You go to the halaqat, you go to the university, but if you check out the university system, you are going to be disgusted—really disgusted—to your core with what kind of teaching ethics they have and what kind of teacher is meant to teach that subject. The way they are dressed, the way they talk, the way they conduct the class—it’s just so many things that are troubling.
I went to Al-Azhar University, and before you’re accepted into the university, you have to go to their buhurth (research), and there’s a class you have to participate in. Imagine this: the kids were whistling in the class, calling out the teacher’s name in a mocking way. This happened in Al-Azhar University—imagine that. They were mocking the teacher, who was a fiqh (jurisprudence) teacher. The teacher smokes; he finishes his smoke, throws it away, comes in, takes the pen, looks at the time, and then leaves. It was like a shift for him. This made me realize that this system isn’t for the ulama (people of knowledge). You need to take knowledge from the right people.
I think this discussion has been extremely beneficial. We’re running out of time for today, but I think we’ll definitely have a part two to continue on with this. For now, that's all we have time for.
Subhanak Allahumma wa bihamdika, ash-hadu an la ilaha illa anta, astaghfiruka wa atubu ilayk. (Glory is to You, O Allah, and I praise You. I testify that there is no deity worthy of worship except but You. I seek forgiveness from You and turn to You in repentance.)
I hope you enjoyed and benefited from that discussion. Please do share it with your friends and family members if you think they might benefit too. Don’t forget to hit the subscribe button below, so you’ll be notified of any new episodes.
Check out www.thehotseepodcast.com. On there, you’ll find a little more information about the podcast, and you'll also have the chance to vote for which topic you'd like to see discussed on the show. You can also ask questions on the website to the speaker himself about contemporary, modern-day issues.
Until next time, fi aman Allah (in the protection of Allah), wa assalamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh (and peace, mercy, and blessings of Allah be upon you).
