Latest / After Maghrib 🌙 / The Truth behind Hawza, Maraje' & Scholars (Ft. Hajj Mustafa Masood)

Transcript

The Truth behind Hawza, Maraje' & Scholars (Ft. Hajj Mustafa Masood) · After Maghrib 🌙

• 0:01
  So welcome back to the Aftermarket podcast and only
• 0:04
  texting someone. I'm actually the welcome back to
• 0:11
  Aftermarket. If you're here for the first
• 0:13
  time, hit that subscribe button or hit the notification bell on
• 0:16
  YouTube so you know where to find us every single week.
• 0:19
  If you're on Apple or Spotify head over to YouTube as well.
• 0:22
  If you have been tuning into our last few weeks you'll know that
• 0:25
  we have been trying to play a focus on and knowledge and this
• 0:28
  is something which you want to develop between now and the
• 0:30
  month of Muharram. In sha Allah.
• 0:32
  We want to understand how to get to a place of knowledge.
• 0:34
  So the by the time in sha Allah the the holy month of Muharram
• 0:37
  comes around we know we are on the right page.
• 0:40
  We understand the Quran and the island Bate and how to apply the
• 0:43
  knowledge that we gain from them in our day-to-day lives today.
• 0:46
  So today's discussion sha Allah is with the dear friends,
• 0:49
  someone very meaningful and close to us.
• 0:52
  But as always, before we introduce our special guest,
• 0:55
  it's time to introduce my special Co host.
• 0:57
  And I'm here all the way. It's not what I need for.
• 1:08
  I'm Ikum Salaam or Ahmadullah. How's it going?
• 1:10
  I'm well if you're well, I'm always well.
• 1:12
  Why would ask? You said I'm special.
• 1:14
  I think this is in line with our topic today.
• 1:16
  If you were ever to become a merger, would I be lucky enough
• 1:20
  to be overkill? I'm not even Arsenal, bro.
• 1:24
  I can't fathom my world. I think if I was to ever get
• 1:26
  there, I'd have to have started many years earlier.
• 1:28
  Can we negotiate Homs percentage or we're leaving for another
• 1:32
  day? Yes, that's the topic.
• 1:34
  Outside the outside of the cameras, how do you say?
• 1:37
  I'm happy now we're joined by someone special.
• 1:40
  Yes we are, dear friend. I think someone known to many of
• 1:44
  us at home, a colleague, someone we look up to and that is Alhaj
• 1:48
  Mustafa and Masood. Salaam Alaikum Salaam.
• 1:51
  How you doing bro? I'm.
• 1:52
  Very well. How are you, Amdullah?
• 1:54
  Amdullah, yes, it feels like years since we've recorded
• 1:57
  together. It has been years.
• 1:58
  Has it? Doesn't feel it has.
• 2:00
  It has been years, many years. How's things I feel a bit out of
• 2:04
  place. I'm usually doing the presenting
• 2:06
  for podcast. I'm not waiting for my turn to
• 2:08
  speak. No, Rasha Allah, it's awesome to
• 2:10
  have you. For those who don't know, you
• 2:12
  are of course a a part of the team, someone who's been a part
• 2:17
  of the journey. I think for many of us in in
• 2:19
  Shiite media we worked for so many years together and actually
• 2:22
  Beit TV and Rasha Allah you've you've enlightened the
• 2:25
  communities in the UK with your knowledge and your your your
• 2:29
  speaking and now of course you are living in the holy lands of
• 2:32
  Najaf. But for those who someone who
• 2:36
  doesn't is not familiar with your work, how would you
• 2:39
  describe yourself? Oh, that's a difficult one.
• 2:44
  I'd like to think of myself as someone trying to serve the
• 2:49
  community, be a tool for people insha'allah to connect with
• 2:54
  their Lil Beit Alihim, Abdul Salatiwa Salam also help the
• 3:00
  youth, I think, with the many challenges that they face living
• 3:05
  in the West. And I think most importantly,
• 3:09
  even for myself, seeking nearness to the Helbet aliimodal
• 3:14
  Salatu Salaam through the work that I do, I've had the honor of
• 3:18
  being part of the Shia media platform for 14 years now.
• 3:25
  So 2010 working on the Helbet TV for close to 10 years, nine
• 3:33
  years and a few months, and then later on doing work with another
• 3:38
  channel, Imam Hussain TV, at the same time serving my community
• 3:42
  through my lecturing Alhamdulillah.
• 3:46
  I've had the privilege of being the neighbor of Emir and Momini
• 3:52
  and Ali of Salaam in the last few months, and I hope that I
• 3:58
  can. Continue.
• 3:58
  That's probably the biggest blessing.
• 4:00
  Yeah, it is the the the best thing about being in Najaf is
• 4:04
  waking up or even sleeping, knowing that you're literally a
• 4:08
  few meters away from the shrine of Emir and Momenina Alayhi
• 4:14
  Salaam and I I haven't felt serenity.
• 4:18
  I haven't felt calmness like I have when I slept in the holy
• 4:23
  city of Najaf. It's different when you go on
• 4:24
  Ziara, of course, but when you actually know that you're living
• 4:28
  there. It comes home.
• 4:29
  I mean, Najaf's always home. Home is by his dog.
• 4:32
  I think a home. Najaf is home.
• 4:34
  I think for every Shia, yeah some I, as you know sometimes
• 4:38
  people say to me hearty or from Najaf that's home.
• 4:40
  I say Najaf is home for every Shia.
• 4:42
  No, I'm sorry. No, I'm sorry.
• 4:43
  Najaf is home for every Shia, Najaf, Karbala, that's their
• 4:48
  home. That's where every Shia is hot,
• 4:51
  you know, thrives to be. Every Shia wants to be in Najaf
• 4:56
  and Karbala. So imagine having the
• 4:59
  opportunity of of of living in the holy city of Najaf.
• 5:02
  I remember the second or third week I was there, I was really
• 5:05
  sick. I got really ill and you know,
• 5:07
  if you get ill in Araki, you're finished, you know, So I had, I
• 5:11
  had high fever. I was feeling like I was going
• 5:14
  to die, you know, I hadn't eaten for for for two days.
• 5:17
  And imagine that, you know, it's quite hot and you've got a fever
• 5:21
  and you're shaking. And I felt really weak.
• 5:24
  And then I remember just before I slept, I was like this getting
• 5:27
  serious. I need to know go out and seek
• 5:29
  for help or maybe message my cousins or my friends they, you
• 5:32
  know. And then I remembered that I
• 5:35
  I'm, you know, I'm sleeping in Najaf and I'm the neighbor
• 5:40
  literally jar of Imam Ali. And one of the titles of Imam
• 5:44
  Ali is Hamid Jar, the one that protects his jar, his neighbor.
• 5:49
  So I said to myself, you're the neighbor of Imam Ali, what's the
• 5:52
  worst that could happen? You know, you don't wake up, Who
• 5:54
  cares? You know, you're, you're the
• 5:55
  neighbor of Imam Ali. And I think that set the tone
• 5:59
  for my whole trip. And I I really miss being in
• 6:05
  Najaf. So I hope I can go back very
• 6:07
  soon. What took so long for you to
• 6:08
  make the move? Many reasons, I think.
• 6:15
  I think in 2018 when obviously before that I studied at the
• 6:22
  Islamic College, Yep, with Shyamali.
• 6:25
  And then in 2018 I I done only two years there.
• 6:27
  In 2018, I felt that I had reached, you know, the level
• 6:32
  that I wanted to through whatever they were teaching
• 6:35
  because they had the Hauser system, the first Hauser English
• 6:39
  in in London. And then I was planning to make
• 6:43
  that move, I think 2018. And then another Hauser opened
• 6:47
  up and this house literally opened up next door to Elbe TV.
• 6:54
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 6:56
  So I was like, OK, now there's a house in here.
• 6:58
  Very convenient and they're very convenient.
• 7:00
  You've got family, you've got a job.
• 7:03
  So I studied there. But then I felt that there
• 7:09
  needs, you need to be in an environment that's a housing
• 7:14
  environment, even though maybe the text that I did and the
• 7:18
  Hauser in London were the same texts.
• 7:21
  So for example, one of the texts that we did was Sheikh,
• 7:24
  Madafarz, Montak and Osol, which is a text that you have to do
• 7:29
  when you're in Hauser. Now I did this in London and
• 7:34
  then when I went Najaf, I did it again.
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  And then even though I'm repeating the text that I've
• 7:41
  already done, I felt like it was something new and I think it was
• 7:44
  the environment. And being there made me realize
• 7:49
  that of course Allah is the best planners.
• 7:52
  Being there made me realize how important it is for someone
• 7:56
  sitting on the mambar. So again this is not my opinion
• 8:02
  but opinion of scholars that I've that I've met in Najaf
• 8:06
  including his Eminence Aid Munir al Khabbaz and someone by the
• 8:11
  name of Aitullah Sheikh Bakar Dehrawani who many will say that
• 8:17
  will soon be a March. Both these scholars came out
• 8:20
  recently and said someone who sits on a mambar and preaches
• 8:27
  and teaches people about the Hadith of the Elbeit Quran
• 8:33
  should have studied in the Hausa up to a certain level.
• 8:40
  And then I I I thought, you know, like I said, it's not my
• 8:43
  opinion. But I thought, I thought what
• 8:44
  they're saying is it's quite true if someone is.
• 8:47
  And again, I'm not saying everyone that is now speaking
• 8:50
  should be a Houser student. But I thought there's a need for
• 8:53
  it. There's a need for people that
• 8:58
  are preaching to the community to have some sort of Houser
• 9:05
  style background. And it's not because of the
• 9:08
  books, because someone says I can, I can learn the books here,
• 9:10
  there's online. I think it's the whole
• 9:11
  environment what you learn, you know, it's the etiquette of
• 9:16
  being someone that that is a, that is a scholar or a student
• 9:21
  of of Elm. There should be an expectation.
• 9:25
  Or not. That's the thing.
• 9:27
  You're going to drag us into the whole topic of who of of who
• 9:30
  should be lecturing? Because there's always that
• 9:32
  question who should be lecturing who chooses 2 lectures because
• 9:35
  there isn't a system where this person's for example done a
• 9:39
  degree. So this person can practice law
• 9:42
  for example, or medicine or dentistry he's done the degree
• 9:45
  in this houses different but so there isn't like a or we think
• 9:50
  there isn't a system. I I think, I think I should add,
• 9:52
  we think there is no system and because the demand is higher
• 9:57
  than the supply, I done economics available, the demand
• 10:03
  for English lectures is much higher than how many speakers we
• 10:09
  have. That's true.
• 10:10
  So for example in the USI heard, I don't know how accurate this
• 10:13
  this, this number is, but I heard there was over 300 Majalis
• 10:17
  in English Austria. Now we probably can't name 30
• 10:21
  English speakers. That's true.
• 10:23
  So imagine there's 300 in Muharram.
• 10:25
  You always see. I'm sure you guys have seen it
• 10:27
  in Muharram. They they they show a list of
• 10:30
  all the lectures that are taking place just in London.
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  I remember last year I counted over 20 Majalis in English.
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  Then where are the speakers coming from for the the people
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  want the English Mahabharat, the English lectures.
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  We as a Shia community all around.
• 10:45
  So I'm putting the Hodges, the Iraqis, Bahrainis, Iranians, all
• 10:48
  that. I think we we have not taken it
• 10:52
  seriously with the English Majalis, even though some people
• 10:56
  might say we know the Hodges are much more progress than the
• 10:58
  Iraqis, maybe. And they've been doing still
• 11:01
  even in the Hoja world or in the Pakistani world who have been
• 11:04
  doing English lectures more than maybe the Iraqi world.
• 11:07
  They they, I don't think they've they've, they've taken it
• 11:09
  seriously enough to say every generation or every five years
• 11:13
  I'm going to send ten students to the Hauser, or at least, or
• 11:16
  at least maybe not send them to the Hauser.
• 11:18
  I'm going to put them in a course for three months every
• 11:22
  summer. Yeah, there's there's there's so
• 11:24
  many fascists conversation which come to mind.
• 11:27
  But just on the last point you made, I think that's a very
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  important point when it comes to the institutions that that
• 11:33
  govern a lot of our communities. It could be on a, on a on a
• 11:37
  communal level when it comes to ethnicity or geographically or
• 11:41
  whatever it might be. But the point being is that a
• 11:43
  lot of these institutions should incentivize young students or
• 11:47
  older students or whatever to to go to Hausa and give them a
• 11:49
  stipend of some course. You know, like it could be
• 11:52
  whatever £50 a month, £100 a month, but something to
• 11:56
  incentivize to ease the cost of living.
• 11:57
  You know a lot about the BY. We mentioned this before, but he
• 12:00
  says that had it not been for the shrine of a minimum money,
• 12:03
  like you said, living in Najaf would have been hard for me,
• 12:07
  extremely hard for me. So when we look out, you know
• 12:11
  those from our communities who've made that brave decision
• 12:13
  to go and study and pursue knowledge, it should be made
• 12:17
  easy as much as possible, at least in the material sense.
• 12:20
  Now what I want to go into, with your permission, at least in
• 12:23
  terms of the conversation we have today, is a couple of
• 12:27
  things. Firstly, why is it important to
• 12:31
  seek knowledge? Like is there a need for it?
• 12:33
  Can I leave it to the experts? I know for example, Sheikh
• 12:38
  Mustafa is gone, so he's now in Najaf.
• 12:40
  We're chilling. I know one of my friends is
• 12:42
  gone. He's going to come back.
• 12:43
  I don't need to do this studying myself, the research because I
• 12:46
  know someone personally who will teach me.
• 12:48
  Or is there an onus on me to also do that?
• 12:50
  I think beyond that as well, the the, the a lot of concerns
• 12:54
  people have mainly is about the institution of 1, the Maharaja.
• 12:59
  But I think the Maharaja is a separate conversation in itself,
• 13:02
  a concept of Majeria. But secondly, in terms of the
• 13:05
  Khutaba, the speakers that we have, can I trust them?
• 13:08
  Are they relatable? There's fighting and beef
• 13:11
  between themselves. How do I know who I can listen
• 13:15
  to and who I trust? And is it too politicised?
• 13:18
  Do you see what I mean? I feel like there's a million
• 13:19
  things we can talk about. Where should we start?
• 13:23
  I think it's important you mentioned that if someone I know
• 13:27
  goes yeah do I have to go the Quran again?
• 13:33
  The the scholars when when they speak about Majiya or the
• 13:36
  importance of Majiya, they always refer to Surah 9 chapter
• 13:42
  Surah to Toba verse 122 fellow Lana farm in Kuli Farka which is
• 13:47
  literally that verse that says if it's not for every nafar a
• 13:51
  person from every farka group min home Taifa from them from
• 13:56
  that Group A person goes lietafakka.
• 14:00
  So they become knowledgeable, they have Tafakko in their
• 14:04
  religion and then they come back to their home Leandroon so they
• 14:08
  warn them and they teach them. So on the first of all I think
• 14:11
  you're right if there is someone from a group that goes it could
• 14:16
  be enough because that's what Allah Muhammad Ali says in the
• 14:18
  Quran. But because now we're we're not
• 14:20
  talking about one community because now we're how many
• 14:24
  mosques in London we're like 40 mosques.
• 14:26
  So we need from every mosque one person at the bare minimum at
• 14:30
  the bare minimum to go and even even that one person that goes.
• 14:34
  Because what I've also noticed is many may go and this is the
• 14:38
  this is there's a positive and there's a negative in in in your
• 14:42
  your question and why didn't I go before?
• 14:45
  The negative I think is I I I would have been maybe at a high
• 14:48
  level in my knowledge when it comes to tobacco and religion if
• 14:52
  I had gone earlier than going now.
• 14:55
  But I think the positive is that I worked on my speaking skills.
• 15:02
  OK, My lecturing skills, whether it was through channel like
• 15:07
  Hebei TV or other channels or other mediums or whether it was
• 15:10
  Al Harakan, Hosseiniya or other centers where I spoke.
• 15:13
  Because sometimes you can fall into a trap of sending someone
• 15:19
  who you think is going to be your next big hit speaker and
• 15:24
  then he could be religious but he doesn't have lecturing or
• 15:30
  oratory skills. Well that that is a problem as
• 15:33
  well that we face it going to. I think it is because now
• 15:37
  especially with the youth, I sometimes mention some I'm not
• 15:40
  going to imagine I mentioned someone's someone's name and I
• 15:43
  say to them what do you think of this guy?
• 15:45
  And I know this guy is at a very high level in his houses studies
• 15:49
  and like he's dead boring. I can't listen to him more than
• 15:51
  3 minutes. Well I I know this guy is one of
• 15:56
  the best students in the house in the English or from the
• 15:58
  English students of course best people can't listen to him
• 16:01
  because of his methane and oratory skills or he's speaking
• 16:04
  skills. So I think also there's that and
• 16:07
  and the Houser doesn't it's important also we I, I make this
• 16:11
  clear the Houser doesn't turn you into a Khatib into a
• 16:14
  speaker. The Houser, the whole point of
• 16:16
  the Houser is to turn you into a squalor.
• 16:18
  Yes. And he where you reach a level
• 16:21
  which is a very high level of Istambart Al Hokum, which is if
• 16:29
  you have a problem you come up with the law of that problem.
• 16:33
  You derive the law of that hokum using Quran, using Sunna, using
• 16:39
  logic, all the tools that you have and that that's what makes
• 16:42
  a merger. So the house that doesn't really
• 16:44
  teach you to become a speaker. So again you fall into a trap,
• 16:49
  you know if you send someone and then all of a sudden they come
• 16:51
  back. So I think what needs to happen
• 16:53
  is each community needs to find those that are off for maybe
• 17:00
  doing a talk, a youth talk before the main lecture, those
• 17:05
  that are confident in the in the way they speak and then
• 17:08
  selecting them for a short summer course.
• 17:11
  You. Shouldn't.
• 17:12
  You shouldn't throw them in the deep end.
• 17:13
  And again, this is another positive.
• 17:15
  Where Al Hamdullah I was always back and forth, back and forth
• 17:19
  in Najaf I'd spent at least 3-4 months in Najaf and Al Hamdullah
• 17:23
  I had the privilege of working for Shia channels that had the
• 17:28
  opportunity to meet these scholars.
• 17:30
  So the likes of Sheikh, the likes of say Jafar Hakim, the
• 17:35
  likes of Saint Muriel, Kabas. I managed to meet these scholars
• 17:38
  spend time with them where when I went to Najaf, I felt like I
• 17:42
  was already prepared for my house studies in the Jeff even
• 17:48
  though I had done Hauser before. So take them for three weeks.
• 17:52
  You know there are a lot of organizations I don't know how
• 17:55
  you how comfortable you guys are with mentioning organizations.
• 17:59
  Darryl Elm where I study which is the Hauser that was
• 18:03
  established by Aitola Seidal. Koi is a house that is very
• 18:09
  modern. I advise anyone going for Xiara
• 18:12
  to visit Darul Elm, which is literally 3040 meters away from
• 18:17
  the holy shrine of Amir al Mohini Salam Ali.
• 18:20
  It's dorms where you know the houses students stay and it's
• 18:22
  very modern. You go in and you think, wow,
• 18:26
  this building's in Najaf fits I think up to 4 to 500 students
• 18:32
  and they do summer courses and I believe they also do December
• 18:36
  Christmas period courses as well which I know World Federation
• 18:40
  takes students there. Go for three weeks, try it out
• 18:45
  and then if you if you like it then enroll for six months a
• 18:50
  year. And the good thing about about
• 18:52
  about being I think in Najaf, other than maybe other houses is
• 18:57
  the most important thing for you is to learn Arabic.
• 19:00
  So the fact that you choose, you know, Najaf as the place to go,
• 19:04
  you've sort of made the journey of your house easier because
• 19:09
  you're you're going to be surrounded by Arabic speaking
• 19:11
  people. And then from there,
• 19:14
  insha'allah, Insha'allah Allah, Subhanawata, Allah will open
• 19:17
  doors for you, which I don't think you can achieve anywhere
• 19:21
  else. And I think This is why the
• 19:23
  hadith is an Ahmadina to Elmo Ali.
• 19:27
  And therefore, you know it makes sense to seek the knowledge at
• 19:30
  the gate of Emir and Momini. And the best, the best thing
• 19:34
  about Najaf. If you don't learn anything,
• 19:36
  imagine you go and you don't learn anything and you come
• 19:39
  back. The fact that you managed to do
• 19:41
  ZR of Emir and Momini, which all students have to do every day,
• 19:46
  it's not a rule. It's an unwritten rule.
• 19:48
  By the way. It's the fact that you can, you
• 19:51
  can go inside. I'll handle.
• 19:53
  I had the honor of visiting Imam twice a day because one of my
• 19:56
  lessons in the morning was inside the shrine.
• 19:59
  So I'd go inside the shrine and I'd go near one of the doors.
• 20:03
  I I I made a routine for myself. I go next to one of these gates
• 20:08
  where I can see a bit of the barrier but not all of it.
• 20:11
  And I used to stand there and I should just say Salaam alaikum,
• 20:15
  just like literally 30 seconds before my lesson is about to
• 20:17
  start. And then I know that I'm coming
• 20:19
  back to do the Ziara and I'd say, you know, give me your fear
• 20:23
  for me to come back to do Ziara properly.
• 20:26
  And then I'd go on. Then in the evening I'd come
• 20:28
  again. I made a routine for myself
• 20:29
  where I visit Emir. So even if you don't learn
• 20:32
  anything, the fact that you can visit Imam Ali, I think every
• 20:35
  day. And then Thursday night, what do
• 20:37
  you do Thursday night? Go to Karbala Friday, maybe you
• 20:40
  got bored. Go to Carl the main.
• 20:41
  Go to Samara. The fact that you're in that
• 20:43
  environment. And that's why before we started
• 20:45
  this, you're like, how are you finding London?
• 20:46
  And I said, I'm really finding it difficult because imagine
• 20:49
  you're you're, you know, how do you feel in Sierra?
• 20:52
  Yeah, How do you feel in Sierra? Imagine you.
• 20:55
  You're like that every day. When he goes Sierra, you don't
• 20:57
  remember, so why? Why do you want to be here?
• 20:59
  With Rd. works and there's nothing here in terms obviously
• 21:04
  when you think of of of being there and the Holy Lands is it's
• 21:07
  different. No.
• 21:08
  Like just I want to I want to mention one or two a hadith
• 21:10
  which I found OK, which I think are quite relevant to the
• 21:15
  conversation. There's two the 1st is in terms
• 21:18
  of seeking. Well they're both in terms of
• 21:19
  seeking knowledge. Both from a sort of KAFI one
• 21:21
  from Imam Sajad le Islam where he says if people were aware of
• 21:25
  what lies in the obtainment of knowledge they would pursue it
• 21:28
  even though they had to make voyages and endanger their lives
• 21:31
  to obtain it. It's a panel, the second one
• 21:34
  from a middleman near the Islam, where he says surely the
• 21:36
  completion of religion is due to the obtaining of knowledge and
• 21:39
  acting on it accordingly. And beware that obtaining
• 21:42
  knowledge is more obligatory than earning wealth,
• 21:47
  Subhanallah. So then when I think about it,
• 21:48
  it's like, well obtaining knowledge at the bare minimum,
• 21:52
  yeah is is what we should be doing even here even in in our
• 21:56
  data interactions. And then of course for those who
• 21:58
  have the top field like you mentioned to do the the, the,
• 22:01
  the extra learning to go the extra mile to make those extra
• 22:04
  journeys to Hausa and to study there is is amazing.
• 22:08
  That's not going to be the majority of the community.
• 22:10
  You know I think there's a conversation we can probably get
• 22:13
  into it but obviously in terms of the hold of the Holy Imam and
• 22:18
  and the the scholars that we read in the hadith before the
• 22:20
  time of the the Holy Imams, the horde and the the situation of
• 22:24
  the scholars and the the the Shia and how we are, our hearts
• 22:28
  are and how our our minds are and in terms of the preparation
• 22:31
  of the Holy Imam. But that's a conversation to be
• 22:33
  had as well, would you reckon? I reckon we need to have that
• 22:35
  discussion, but I want to go a bit more.
• 22:38
  You know, here we're talking about speakers, lecturers,
• 22:40
  housing, everything. But I think we need to start at
• 22:41
  the top our respective for kaha, our Raja.
• 22:45
  May Allah protect them, prolong their life.
• 22:48
  They mean the world to me personally and I'm sure to
• 22:50
  everyone else listening out there.
• 22:52
  But can I just be blunt? What is the point of a merger
• 22:58
  during this 21st century lifestyle that we have?
• 23:01
  Like, we think we know everything.
• 23:03
  We have easy access to Google, we have the scholars available
• 23:06
  everywhere, ChatGPT, we can ChatGPT, Send your questions to
• 23:10
  Q&A with Musso on Elevate TV, for example.
• 23:12
  Like, what's the point of a merger?
• 23:16
  Because a lot of people now attack.
• 23:17
  This yeah your hadith reminds me of the conversation that Imam
• 23:21
  Ali had with Kumail where he tells them your Kumail knowledge
• 23:25
  is greater than power. Knowledge is greater than wealth
• 23:28
  because knowledge protects you while you have to protect
• 23:31
  wealth. Law and knowledge increases the
• 23:35
  more you use it, while wealth decreases the more you use it.
• 23:39
  With regards to gaining knowledge, I think it's a
• 23:42
  journey that everyone has to take.
• 23:45
  Like I think you mentioned at the start of the podcast that
• 23:49
  it's it's sort of a duty and then when now you've mentioned
• 23:52
  Imam and Mahdi Alafajo Sharif, you've added more because I
• 23:56
  think deeper matter of of Imam and awaiting the Imam means
• 24:01
  having knowledge about the Imam and about your religion.
• 24:05
  With regards to starting at the at the top of the pyramid, I'd
• 24:09
  even go a bit further back and start with Rasulullah Salallahu
• 24:15
  Alayhi Wasalam and the fact that in a way he introduced us to
• 24:21
  this taklid where we took our religion from rasulallah that
• 24:28
  everything we you see from rasulallah take the way we pray
• 24:32
  is taklid. We the Companions, yeah, the
• 24:35
  Sunnah is taklid literally is taklid because they saw us Allah
• 24:39
  praying in that manner and they prayed with that.
• 24:41
  With they saw us Allah performing although they prayed
• 24:46
  and performed the way they saw rasulullah and so on and so
• 24:49
  forth. Hajj for example,
• 24:51
  Hajjahallahallahu Alayhallahu did one Hajj.
• 24:53
  They saw rasulullah do Hajj. That way Hajj became a Sunnah.
• 24:56
  This is taklid if you if you think about it and then
• 25:00
  rasulullah Sallallahu alayhi wasalam also introduced us to
• 25:03
  the concept of wakala where he said now after me mankunto molah
• 25:08
  fahad aliya molah. Of course, I'm not in any way
• 25:12
  comparing our massons with our Marajah.
• 25:17
  I don't think anyone would dare question the Masooms or the
• 25:20
  Prophet with what they did. But we can't question obviously,
• 25:25
  Amar Raja because they themselves say we are not
• 25:27
  Masoomi. We are valuable people.
• 25:29
  But I'm trying to make our minds.
• 25:32
  Foreign to us? Yes, it's not something foreign
• 25:34
  later on. During the time of Imam Al Kadam
• 25:36
  Ali, Abdullah Salati was Salaam where he spends in some
• 25:40
  narrations 15, some 20, some eight years in prison.
• 25:45
  People don't have direct access to the Imam.
• 25:48
  What are they doing? The Imam is sending them to his
• 25:51
  wakala because they don't have direct access and Subhanallah,
• 25:54
  this is the wisdom of Allah introduces to us an Imam who we
• 26:00
  don't have access to where the community now are without access
• 26:04
  to the Imam directly. So they introduce the Wakala and
• 26:08
  then of course if we go even before that, Imam Jafar Salaam,
• 26:12
  in his time a companion by the name of Al Hassan, even Washah
• 26:15
  says I saw 404 hundred students coming out of Kufa saying
• 26:21
  Mohammed Asada, they all became wakala of the Imam.
• 26:25
  Then what? The royal hadith.
• 26:28
  And then if you go to the time of Imam Raba Salaamullahi Ali
• 26:31
  Zakaria Bin Adam, when someone comes to him, and this is
• 26:34
  mentioned also in El cafe, one of the companions comes to Imam
• 26:37
  Raba Ali Salam and he tells him it's very difficult for me to
• 26:41
  get to you. I live all the way in com, I
• 26:43
  believe. And then he goes to yeah, you
• 26:44
  don't have to come to me. He says what should I do to go
• 26:46
  to Zakaria bin Adam? He's my wakil.
• 26:50
  Or go to UNIC Ibn Abdul Rahman, he's my wakil.
• 26:53
  The Imam started this wakala concept, which I believe either
• 27:00
  you or your brother did a voice over for one of the
• 27:02
  documentaries. I'm trying to remember which one
• 27:04
  it was when we spoke about the Marjorie and how the Marjorie is
• 27:07
  not something that all of a sudden started with Shekhar Tosi
• 27:10
  or Shekhar Mufid. But it was something that the El
• 27:14
  Beit Alihim of those Salati was Salaam planted, planted the
• 27:16
  seeds for because the Imams knew there's going to be a time where
• 27:20
  the community don't have direct access to their imams.
• 27:23
  So from the time from maybe Imam Al Baqar to Imam Al Sadr Ali
• 27:27
  Salam and then later on Imam Al Khaddum, he's in prison.
• 27:30
  Imam Al Jawad, he's away from his community.
• 27:33
  Imam Al Hadi, Imam Hassan Ali, they're literally locked up in
• 27:38
  their own homes in the hadith. Imam Hassan Ali, he tells his
• 27:41
  followers, if you see me on the street more, don't say Salaam to
• 27:44
  me, don't even make eye contact. Why?
• 27:47
  Because if you make eye contact and the soldiers of the Abbasi
• 27:51
  see you, they'll know we have a connection.
• 27:52
  They could arrest you, don't even make eye contact, so you
• 27:55
  don't have a connection with the Imam.
• 27:57
  They start having these wukala until we have the four Nawab
• 28:02
  Sofara deputies, ambassadors of Imam and Mehdi and Allah to
• 28:06
  Allah for Ajah Sharif until the last two of them.
• 28:10
  A summary passes away in which the Imam mentions that after me
• 28:15
  and his Toki again mentioned in mentioned in his coffee and
• 28:20
  other books go to Rawat al hadith, narrators of our hadith
• 28:25
  and of course scholars expand on what Rawat al hadith mean.
• 28:29
  And then we have the from the school of Sheikh Al Mufid to
• 28:32
  Sheikh Tusi to Allah Alheli to Bahani and so on and so forth to
• 28:37
  say Cardo Meliesdi up until said Mahsen Hakim Aitallah Hoy and
• 28:41
  Aitallah Sistani and all the other Maharajah that we have
• 28:44
  here. Yes, Marjaia has evolved.
• 28:47
  Yes. The role of CDC Stanley today is
• 28:49
  not the same role as Sheikh Mufid may be, but this evolution
• 28:53
  that took place is only a natural evolution that took
• 28:55
  place. It's just for example, someone
• 28:58
  saying in Iraq I used to wear a dishdasha and here I started
• 29:01
  wearing jeans and AT shirt or a shirt.
• 29:04
  It's just a natural thing that took place.
• 29:06
  It has, I think, questions that could be asked about the role of
• 29:11
  Marjaia. Why do I need the Marjaia you
• 29:13
  mentioned? For example Google or even
• 29:16
  Google? Where's he getting his answers
• 29:18
  from? Or or or the other chat?
• 29:21
  Where are they? Where are they getting their
• 29:23
  answers from? About.
• 29:24
  From These are. Things that people ask, right?
• 29:27
  So it's very important. So it's it's the hard work of
• 29:30
  Maraja for 40-50 years in their life or even more so I don't
• 29:35
  know, I tell Azistan is now 100 I think or just under 100.
• 29:38
  So 90 years of studying and literally they they start at the
• 29:42
  age of 8-9 because you know, they they go to Madrasa and
• 29:45
  that's their education. Because.
• 29:47
  It's all that hard work. And then for him to give you a
• 29:50
  hokum on a certain law. And if someone doesn't like that
• 29:54
  hokum, he's not forced because, you know, Taklid is not Wajib
• 29:58
  again. Someone's going to be like, what
• 30:01
  is not want. You're confusing me.
• 30:02
  Yeah, there's three options. You don't want to Do you go and
• 30:07
  become a macho? Yeah.
• 30:08
  You. Do do you start become a you
• 30:12
  don't want to study, you don't want to study, you say.
• 30:14
  Well, this is too difficult. I'm not going to leave my family
• 30:15
  and kids. I'm going to study to go much
• 30:17
  dead. Is there another option here,
• 30:19
  Etihad? Everything is precaution.
• 30:22
  Everything is precaution, yeah. And it makes your life.
• 30:26
  Can I? Literally.
• 30:27
  I really. Don't eat nothing there.
• 30:28
  Yeah. And for example, for example,
• 30:30
  for example, I'll give you a simple sheet, some more
• 30:32
  question. Salat to Juma is it.
• 30:34
  Why do you or not you have to do it?
• 30:37
  Yeah, That means you have to take the hardest law and you
• 30:39
  have to do it because a loss of Hanover to Alan Sora to Juma
• 30:43
  says, oh, you, oh, you who believe if the caller comes for
• 30:46
  Friday prayers, drop what you're doing, drop what you're doing
• 30:49
  and go pray. That means you have to take that
• 30:50
  law. That means every Friday you have
• 30:52
  to attend Salat to Juma. We have to do Etihad.
• 30:55
  Whereas scholars today say of course some do say Swajib,
• 30:59
  others say Swajib Kifai. As long as it's been done by
• 31:02
  someone that's fine. Others say no, it's not Wajib
• 31:05
  because we don't have enough evidence to say that's Wajib
• 31:07
  because my point is the manager has studied all these years just
• 31:10
  to come up with this law. I'm just giving you one this
• 31:14
  simple example because of our day-to-day lives, especially
• 31:17
  Friday. Here's a working day so you
• 31:20
  don't have to do tackled if someone doesn't want to do
• 31:22
  taklid. I say this taklid is not wajib
• 31:25
  but there are other options. Go do your other options.
• 31:28
  At the end of the day you have to face Allah subhanahu matala
• 31:31
  and you have to say I tried my best to reach al hakum al
• 31:35
  waqtayi. We call in Arabic the law that
• 31:38
  you have put in place. If I can't reach Al hakum al
• 31:41
  waqei, the hakum that you have put in place, I'm going to put
• 31:44
  that burden on my budget. Has someone ever reached that
• 31:48
  stage without a teacher? What?
• 31:50
  Which stage? Understanding the the, how come
• 31:53
  that you're referring to because you still have to refer to
• 31:56
  someone. And even the Even so, so, so, so
• 31:59
  you have to learn Arabic obviously because the the, the
• 32:02
  quran's in Arabic. So you have to do Naho and stuff
• 32:05
  in Arabic grammar and so on and so forth in Arabic.
• 32:09
  Then you have to do Montak, then you have to do Osol and all
• 32:14
  these are different modules. Yeah.
• 32:16
  It's similar to someone saying can I become a engineer?
• 32:20
  Yeah, I think. Makes no sense.
• 32:21
  You could theoretically become a lawyer and understand as much as
• 32:25
  a lawyer can and open up a law firm and do court cases.
• 32:28
  We call them dodgy. Yeah, yeah.
• 32:30
  And if you don't go to law school?
• 32:31
  We have dodgy, we have dodgy. School.
• 32:32
  Yeah, you have Rogue School. Have dodgy scholars and we know
• 32:35
  that's why. We know there's so many cases of
• 32:38
  scholars and we're going to be real.
• 32:40
  Yeah, scholars who are rogue, who are teaching maybe outside
• 32:43
  of the Houser or outside of of of the boundary or the party
• 32:46
  lines if you want to call them. Yeah, and then who will slip in,
• 32:49
  creep into rolat, or who will creep into?
• 32:52
  That's another problem. Do.
• 32:53
  You know what I'm saying? Like and then and then.
• 32:54
  Unfortunately there'll be a cultist growth like we've seen
• 32:57
  it here over the last 20 years in the UK, without naming names
• 33:00
  or communities of of of generations of youth who have
• 33:03
  gone Najaf or com or anywhere else and who have slipped into.
• 33:07
  But I think the problem is as well This is.
• 33:09
  Again, I don't want this to sound controversial, but we have
• 33:12
  to define what the role of a merger is we can't give.
• 33:16
  Again, this might sound controversial, but I really want
• 33:19
  people to, when they hear this, to understand this.
• 33:21
  Don't give the merger a role that he hasn't given himself.
• 33:24
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. We expect our merger.
• 33:27
  For example. Again, I'm just using this as an
• 33:29
  example to be the same as the Pope, for example, where he
• 33:32
  comes out, he delivers, he's got these the the birds.
• 33:36
  He pulls them on and he does a lecture or he visits Africa, or
• 33:40
  he visits charity. Don't give the merger.
• 33:43
  Or, for example, we put things like why isn't the merger doing
• 33:46
  this? Why isn't the merger?
• 33:47
  Speaking about this, Bubba, understand what the merger's
• 33:49
  role is? Yeah.
• 33:50
  Why isn't the Why isn't the merger building a hospital, for
• 33:53
  example? Why is there Why is there so
• 33:54
  much? What's the role of the merger?
• 33:56
  First, define me the role of a merger.
• 33:59
  The role of a merger is for me. He's a Muktas.
• 34:02
  He's an expert in what? OK.
• 34:03
  Fuck yeah. That's it.
• 34:06
  He's an expert in fiki. When I have a fiki problem,
• 34:10
  which there are different laws about, by the way, if there's a
• 34:12
  Fiki problem where there's one law and all the all the
• 34:16
  religions, all the Maharajah have one loraba.
• 34:19
  But I don't do technique because all of them have one loraba, 50%
• 34:22
  or more more than maybe 60% of our Fiki issues.
• 34:25
  All the Maharajah have the same the same law.
• 34:28
  Tawaf is always seven. No one's going to come forward
• 34:30
  and say Tawaf is 8, for example. But there are other laws that
• 34:34
  they differ when they differ In this, I go back to the mortars.
• 34:37
  I don't need to refer back to my merger, only when I face a
• 34:41
  problem that's so defining. I think the role of a merger.
• 34:44
  It's like, for example, defining the role of a doctor.
• 34:46
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 34:47
  And I need to visit the doctor every day.
• 34:49
  If I'm not, I'll shall I go keep knocking on his door, calling
• 34:52
  him GP? Make me an appointment.
• 34:53
  What's wrong? Nothing.
• 34:54
  I just want to speak to you. Leave me alone, man.
• 34:56
  You get a life. But like you said, it's a good.
• 34:58
  Again, the money is. Standing the role of a doctor is
• 35:00
  not going to give you the medicine like SASA pharmacist
• 35:03
  job or for example. When we talk about, say, this is
• 35:05
  Stani, whether we talk about his role against Daesh or we talk
• 35:08
  about his goodwill with the charity, or when he's meeting
• 35:11
  the Pope on all of these extracurricular things, that's
• 35:14
  from his goodwill and he's a fucker and he's the number one
• 35:17
  fucker. And we look up to.
• 35:19
  And that's his job. And he could, he could easily
• 35:21
  say, this is my job, I'm going to do what I'm going to do.
• 35:24
  Anything else has nothing to do with me.
• 35:26
  But those, for example, come out and say, you know, there's like
• 35:28
  just some stupid people who will say why is it?
• 35:31
  Saying I don't think, I don't think it's again, I I want to be
• 35:33
  a bit fair. I want to be a bit fair and say
• 35:35
  no, no, no, no. I'll tell you what it is.
• 35:37
  Because if we have to be real. I know, I know what you.
• 35:39
  Mean a lot of people who are ignorant.
• 35:40
  There's there's two types. There's those that that question
• 35:43
  the merger are of ignorance gel and they want to learn.
• 35:49
  So it it is stupid but I don't think we should maybe give them
• 35:52
  ignorance. And there are those that are
• 35:55
  what we what we say you're the Sunil Somerfield hassle which
• 35:59
  means they're putting the poison in honey.
• 36:02
  They're trying to poison something that's sweet which is
• 36:05
  the Marjaya here, obviously. So that those second group,
• 36:09
  there, there, there, there's no point even talking to them and
• 36:11
  they've got a problem. Whatever you're going to tell
• 36:13
  them. Yeah.
• 36:14
  And for example, someone said to me, I told assistant, he's not
• 36:16
  alive. I said to him, Nah, Habibi, he's
• 36:18
  alive. Someone said he's wearing him.
• 36:19
  Yeah, he's wearing him. And then I told him honestly,
• 36:21
  honestly about that. And then I told him, listen, I
• 36:25
  met him, He goes, no, you're lying.
• 36:28
  I said no, I I last year, not this year.
• 36:31
  The year before, I had the opportunity.
• 36:33
  I took a group and we had the opportunity of meeting him and
• 36:36
  he's like, no, you're lying. I'm like, but I can't talk to
• 36:40
  you anymore. Where where where is this
• 36:43
  discussion going? If you don't want to believe,
• 36:45
  you know, if you've made seen a video on YouTube where he says
• 36:48
  there's a mask he's wearing and I'm telling you, I've met him
• 36:51
  and you don't want to believe him, but there's no these guys
• 36:53
  we don't want to talk to. But the first group who I think
• 36:55
  are asking maybe legitimate questions and they have the
• 36:58
  right to. Where there's questions about
• 37:00
  Thomas, whether we need Mergeria.
• 37:02
  I've thought about this a lot. Where?
• 37:05
  FYI, this wasn't my question. I think some very easy.
• 37:09
  Questions Say for example now with Palestine, let's say yeah,
• 37:11
  there will be people say why aren't the much just saying this
• 37:13
  or doing that? Firstly, is it their role?
• 37:16
  Acid, Arguably not. Okay.
• 37:18
  Could they? Or should they?
• 37:20
  Perhaps, yes. But the point being is that
• 37:22
  there's there's a space for dialogue and everyone's entitled
• 37:24
  to ask. Right?
• 37:25
  So. I think who defines who are you?
• 37:29
  And I mean this in a respectful way, Who are you to define the
• 37:32
  role of Amartya? It's like, for example, there'd
• 37:34
  be people that would come to Imam Asaad.
• 37:36
  Again, I'm just drawing examples here just to make it clear that
• 37:40
  we had these problems even in the time of the Imams, where
• 37:43
  someone comes to Imam Asaadak Ali here of the Los Salatios
• 37:45
  Andam and tells him the people of Khorasan are ready for you to
• 37:49
  rise against the Abbasids. And we've got an army of 10,000.
• 37:53
  You don't. Understood.
• 37:55
  And then he looks at one of his companions.
• 37:57
  Oh, he asks this person get in the oven and he goes to him.
• 38:01
  What? He goes to me.
• 38:02
  You see that oven over there? Get inside the oven.
• 38:05
  And the guy's thinking, no, I'm not.
• 38:07
  Are you OK? I'm not going to get in the
• 38:08
  oven. So he goes to his companion that
• 38:10
  was sitting next to him. Go and sit in the oven.
• 38:13
  So his companion gets up without asking him, sits in the oven and
• 38:17
  closes the door. And the Imam tells him, have you
• 38:19
  got 40 in one, narration in another more.
• 38:22
  Have you got 40 like this in your 10,000 so-called army?
• 38:27
  He goes, no, I don't think I have four.
• 38:29
  He goes then you're not ready for me to, you know, start a war
• 38:33
  against the Abbasids. The Imam knows his role.
• 38:37
  Again, we're talking about Masam, so I'm not drawing a
• 38:39
  comparison to say you know the merger also knows his role.
• 38:43
  He knows when to speak and when not to speak.
• 38:46
  I told a Sistani and we we we spoke about I told a Sistani
• 38:50
  dash fatwa when they attacked the Samara shrine and they blew
• 39:00
  up the domes the Dome in the holy city of Samara of Imam Al
• 39:03
  Hadi and Muhammad Askari say Sistani the next day came out
• 39:07
  and said the people of the Sunnis are not our brothers they
• 39:12
  are they are ourselves. That one word stopped a the
• 39:18
  biggest civil war taking place between Shia as a Sunnis and
• 39:21
  Arab. Then when Daesh, who's a far
• 39:26
  right Sunni extremist group no one denies that, attacked A
• 39:31
  Sunni city, Mosul, the Shia as I not endanger her say you see
• 39:36
  Stanley came out the next day and issued F that's what against
• 39:39
  them. So you see the wisdom of this
• 39:41
  man and then he saved Iraq. I go further and say he saved
• 39:45
  the whole world from Dahejah terrorists with a few words.
• 39:49
  He knows his role. Say see Stanley when he comes
• 39:52
  out and he meets the Pope you mentioned Palestine and the only
• 39:55
  thing he discusses with the Pope is what Palestine.
• 39:59
  Why does he need to discuss that?
• 40:00
  And this was before even this last war.
• 40:04
  Look at the foresight of Ayatollah Sistani, where he
• 40:07
  tells the Pope, we have a problem.
• 40:09
  That problem is what Palestine? You tell me.
• 40:12
  Those that are saying, why isn't the merger speaking about?
• 40:15
  Did you ever have the opportunity to speak to someone
• 40:17
  at a senior level about Palestine?
• 40:19
  No, but your merger, who you're asking questions about, has
• 40:23
  asked the biggest figure in the Christian community about
• 40:26
  Palestine. So defining the role of the
• 40:30
  merger is very important. Whether we need the merger or
• 40:33
  not. I always feel that, again, like
• 40:35
  I said, Takhli is not Wajib and I want to draw this example.
• 40:40
  I was thinking when I was coming here, I said Imagine, and this
• 40:45
  is just a story that I made-up, literally Imagine where we as a
• 40:49
  community in London. I don't.
• 40:53
  Know if it's a sahaya, it's definitely not a fake.
• 40:57
  Imagine we as a community, the Shia community, they say there's
• 41:00
  an island that we can move to all and there's jobs for us
• 41:05
  financially and there are schools and there are homes and
• 41:09
  we can all move there. And imagine some of us, say 30%
• 41:14
  of the community share community in London pack their bags and
• 41:17
  they go to this island. Once they get to this island,
• 41:20
  they realize that the 30% that have come here, however many
• 41:24
  people, none of them are doctors.
• 41:27
  They're all engineers, lawyers, accountants, none of them are
• 41:32
  doctors. So they realize we have we've
• 41:34
  got a problem, so what's the problem?
• 41:36
  He said. If someone gets I'll, how are we
• 41:39
  going to cure that person? Because we don't have any
• 41:41
  doctors. So they say OK, we're going to
• 41:43
  take the first step is to try and not get sick try and not get
• 41:47
  I'll, So we don't have to face a problem or we have to meet a
• 41:49
  doctor. After a while viruses start up
• 41:53
  and they start getting I'll, they start calling the doctors
• 41:55
  here in London they say, listen we've got sick people, can you
• 41:59
  send us some medicine advice And the people here start sending
• 42:03
  them medicine advice. Maybe after a few years they
• 42:07
  start sending them maybe nurses, male female nurses, but they
• 42:11
  still don't have any doctors. Can the community, the new
• 42:15
  community, say we don't need the doctors?
• 42:18
  No, No. Can they say that?
• 42:19
  They can't survive. They can't survive.
• 42:21
  Can they say, can they say, what's the use of you being
• 42:25
  sitting there in London? You're not coming to support us,
• 42:27
  Habibi. You got up and left.
• 42:29
  So again, I'm not saying that everyone that's here, I'm just
• 42:32
  drawing an example. We've come here, we've come
• 42:35
  here, we've got the problems. We need their solutions.
• 42:40
  We've got two solutions. Either we start training people
• 42:42
  to become doctors. Maraja, no one's stopping you.
• 42:46
  No one's stopping anyone from training someone here in the UK
• 42:49
  to become a merger. But don't tell me he's going to
• 42:52
  learn here. He has to maybe go.
• 42:54
  Just like when you want the best doctors they have to go to, I
• 42:55
  don't know, King's College or Oxford or whatever university
• 43:00
  they have to. No one's stopping us from having
• 43:01
  a merger. We're always going to be in need
• 43:04
  of them unless we do Etihad, which I said the precaution of
• 43:07
  not getting sick, not falling into sin.
• 43:09
  Fantastic. So I think I drew up this
• 43:11
  example. I said it's as simple as that.
• 43:14
  The merger is a mortals that people that are not moral
• 43:18
  mortals, not experts, need. Just like for example, I want to
• 43:22
  build the house, Imagine me and you want to build the house.
• 43:24
  Say Ali, you don't have an engineer degree, neither do I.
• 43:27
  Al Allah, we build the house. Ahmed comes and says to us,
• 43:31
  listen, my cousin's an engineer, What have you guys done?
• 43:34
  You've messed up this place. So we don't need him.
• 43:36
  Tell him not to get involved within our life.
• 43:39
  Does that sound logical? If we tell him he shouldn't be
• 43:41
  involved, we can build our own houses happy.
• 43:43
  But you're not an expert. The same thing applies.
• 43:46
  Or someone says, you know, I'm not going to take this medicine.
• 43:50
  You're not an expert. Has anyone, let's be honest with
• 43:52
  each other? Has anyone gone to AGP or, you
• 43:54
  know, the doctor, the local doctor?
• 43:56
  And when the doctor writes a prescription, question the
• 43:59
  doctor. Why did you write this?
• 44:02
  He'll laugh at you. He'll throw it in your face.
• 44:04
  He'll throw the prescription in your face.
• 44:05
  Say, what are you talking about? Listen, I've studied for 30
• 44:07
  years. This is what you can Anyone come
• 44:09
  say, this antibiotic will not be good for me.
• 44:12
  Say, are you a doctor? Allah.
• 44:13
  What are you? I'm a engineer.
• 44:16
  So what's it got to do with you? Why is it OK for us to question
• 44:20
  the merger, but it's not OK to question the doctor or the
• 44:23
  lawyer in his field or the engineer in his field?
• 44:26
  This is all I mean defining the role of the merger.
• 44:30
  No one's saying it's worthy to do chuckling.
• 44:32
  There are other options for you, but take it.
• 44:34
  Easy. I love this analogy, especially
• 44:36
  about medicine. What I think I want to add, if
• 44:38
  you don't mind, is that in the same way, like you're living on
• 44:42
  the island and you lack medical care and all of that, but you
• 44:46
  need foundational knowledge at the bare minimum.
• 44:49
  So you know, don't eat bugs on the floor and don't eat, wash
• 44:52
  your hands off, You know what I'm saying?
• 44:53
  Like you have common sense, like basic common sense.
• 44:56
  And then when someone comes to you and they're a doctor, you
• 44:59
  can tell off the this guy's a fraud.
• 45:01
  Or if he's knows what he's saying, do you know what I'm
• 45:03
  saying? If the guy says, yeah, you don't
• 45:04
  need to brush your teeth, it doesn't make sense.
• 45:05
  For example, you know he's a fraud because you've got basic
• 45:08
  knowledge to understand hygiene and health and nutrition and so
• 45:11
  on and so forth, which I think most of us in the Western world
• 45:13
  have hopefully, you know, so that's that's, I think that
• 45:17
  makes complete sense. And at the bare minimum, we
• 45:19
  should know that. And then of course then we it's
• 45:20
  easier for us to identify who is mocked us and who is not.
• 45:26
  Because that is, you know, once we get to a position of of
• 45:28
  foundational knowledge at the bare minimum, then we can do
• 45:31
  that because everyone says you've become biological, You're
• 45:33
  13. How do you choose who's the most
• 45:35
  knowledgeable? That's another one.
• 45:36
  Do. You know, a classic question,
• 45:38
  How do I know I'm 13? I know about football and I
• 45:40
  don't know about my Maraja, for example, but it starts also
• 45:44
  parenthood and all of these things.
• 45:45
  Community, They say it takes a community to raise a child.
• 45:48
  Things like this come into it. How's the kids going to know if
• 45:51
  the community's not supporting and giving that support there?
• 45:54
  So yeah, can I move the conversation on?
• 45:56
  Yeah, of course. You don't need to ask me bro.
• 45:58
  This is your podcast. I was just going to say that was
• 46:02
  a very beautiful analogy because early on before the conversation
• 46:05
  I was actually looking, I actually searched online like
• 46:08
  someone asked scholar why do you read Maharaja and he was like he
• 46:11
  gave a very similar example where he used the medical field
• 46:14
  and then he was like like the most you can do is not question
• 46:17
  your Maharaja, probably ask for a second opinion, you can refer
• 46:20
  to other Maharaja I like he went to that extent.
• 46:22
  Said I I think you can the the if you if you if you've got some
• 46:25
  background knowledge you can even ask the merger.
• 46:28
  So I'll give the the, the the the the example of of of say
• 46:32
  Shirazi's fatwa when it comes to breaking the fast.
• 46:36
  Many people questioned that. I guess you ask me but who am I?
• 46:41
  Why should I? You know you go to his office
• 46:45
  and they'll explain why he's come up with this again.
• 46:48
  I'm not saying right or wrong here this is that's not the
• 46:50
  question. That's why.
• 46:51
  All I'm saying is they open the doors where they you can ask oh
• 46:57
  for example the Hilal issue the Crescent issue with with aid
• 47:00
  Hamdulillah. I don't know how it happened,
• 47:02
  where this year we? Had.
• 47:04
  We had aid all on the on the same day.
• 47:06
  But they facilitate a space for you to ask.
• 47:08
  They, that's what I'm trying to say.
• 47:09
  They, they, they, they allow you to.
• 47:11
  They don't shut you. Down and even let's be honest,
• 47:13
  when, when is the last time you, you.
• 47:15
  And that's why I said we have to define the role of the merger.
• 47:18
  The last time you went back to your merger.
• 47:21
  Many of our daily rituals are mad that we do.
• 47:24
  We know them, we don't. It's only that when we face a
• 47:27
  problem in our life with our akam, you know, whether it's
• 47:32
  when someone gets a mortgage or when someone goes to hide.
• 47:36
  I remember I want Omara, that's when I opened the minhaj to look
• 47:39
  at the monastic of the omara. Otherwise generally most of our
• 47:44
  laws and handler because of the margin, yeah are very clear
• 47:47
  already and we're. Very lucky, sorry, I said.
• 47:49
  I was gonna say it's very true. Like recently during the month
• 47:51
  of Ramadan, I had a relative who had a slight health issue that
• 47:55
  was possibly going to affect us fasting.
• 47:57
  What do we do? Like we don't know the answer.
• 47:59
  We reached out to the experts and gave the answer.
• 48:02
  And then you you do your home according the fact.
• 48:04
  That we've we've migrated, like you said to A to a Western
• 48:07
  country. Some of us have been here 20
• 48:09
  years, some 50 years or whatever it is.
• 48:11
  But by this time now we are in, you know in the same kind of
• 48:17
  environment of the Mashallah. We have the Wakalah of the
• 48:22
  Maharajah here. We have scholars who have
• 48:24
  studied under under the Maharajah here.
• 48:26
  We have even mushtahideen who live in our city in the Western.
• 48:29
  So someone said this 100 years ago in London you will have
• 48:32
  50,000 Shi'ite and you know me living in London, what on earth?
• 48:39
  Subhanallah like it's amazing progress, but it's also like,
• 48:42
  you know, it's it's pointing to the fact that the the community
• 48:45
  is moving in One Direction and us as maybe perhaps a younger
• 48:48
  generation in our 20s, thirties, whatever, we have to continue
• 48:50
  this. And even with our children as
• 48:52
  well, in the kind of the last segment of of the discussion, I
• 48:55
  want to discuss the whole of the Holy Imam.
• 49:00
  Now we you mentioned when you mentioned the wakala and you
• 49:03
  talked about Sheikh Al Mofid, there's something really.
• 49:06
  So he wrote that obviously that lesson like you said the letter
• 49:09
  to Abu Hassan or somebody the 4th wakil.
• 49:12
  And he said follow those with knowledge and the interpreters
• 49:15
  of hadith. And then of course the letter to
• 49:17
  Sheikh al Mofid. And he said I will not return
• 49:21
  until Bitton Allah, until it's Allah's wish and until the the
• 49:24
  hearts of the people who are awaiting awaiting me are
• 49:28
  hardened. And I think subhanallah like at
• 49:31
  that point, like those who are calling for the Holy Imam, their
• 49:35
  hearts are hardened. And you know in our our rewired
• 49:37
  we we we see that the the whole of the Imam is known as the
• 49:42
  second Kabir Okay and it's interesting why because of
• 49:46
  Farhad Zahra, one of the titles is Khadir because after the Imam
• 49:51
  Lasky Islam passed away the Holy Imam came to us.
• 49:54
  It's like a Khadir and in the same way in the first Khadir a
• 49:57
  large portion of the Omar disbelieved in the message.
• 50:00
  In Wilaya, the same will happen in the coming of the Holy Imam
• 50:05
  to such a degree where we hear all of the time the rewire to
• 50:08
  look at shout Jamanas Muhammad Ali, he talks about Kitaba Raba
• 50:12
  Shehmani not Armani and he talks there's continuous I hadith
• 50:17
  after I, hadith after I hadith about the the disbelief and the
• 50:20
  disunity of scholars specifically.
• 50:23
  OK And then we have a community here.
• 50:25
  Well, I'm not going to say a majority, but there are people.
• 50:28
  There are people in the. Community.
• 50:30
  The best part for the last, Yeah.
• 50:31
  Me myself, for example, I might never look at a book in my life
• 50:34
  or read the Quran or whatever stuff for example.
• 50:37
  But if I take my sole source, source of knowledge off YouTube
• 50:40
  and I pick the five scholars who I think have the best oratory
• 50:43
  skills, and I follow them, and I have no knowledge of ideology
• 50:47
  and where they fall on the spectrum or politically where
• 50:49
  they fall. And I will follow whoever sounds
• 50:52
  the best as or looks the best aesthetically to me, Do you see
• 50:55
  what I mean? So I fall into a vulnerable
• 50:58
  trap. Yeah, of of you look the best.
• 51:01
  That's what I meant. Yeah, I was joking guys.
• 51:07
  But like you fall into a trap obviously of being, of being
• 51:09
  misguided. So what I want to know is kind
• 51:11
  of getting to the final point in this time, this critical time of
• 51:15
  the Lord of the Imam, how will we be able to use the resources
• 51:19
  that many scholars we have mash Allah our disposal and
• 51:23
  understand who is going to take us towards the Holy Imam and who
• 51:28
  we should maybe be aware. Of are you saying who is a fake
• 51:31
  scholar and who's not? Is that?
• 51:32
  What? Yeah, pretty much, Pretty much.
• 51:33
  How can we determine who is worth following and and taking
• 51:37
  knowledge from? And it should that be like our
• 51:39
  source of knowledge and guidance or what?
• 51:43
  That's a tough one, I think at the moment.
• 51:45
  Yeah, the source of of knowledge comes from our houses, yeah.
• 51:51
  So I think on the first level, the house in Najaf, Ankom should
• 51:58
  always be the source to us to turn back to when we face
• 52:03
  issues. And that's clear with the
• 52:07
  majority of Italazistani now in the holy city of Najaf.
• 52:10
  And of course there are other Maharaja in Najaf and in Karbala
• 52:14
  and of course the major areas in com, there's quite a lot.
• 52:19
  But if you're talking about here, for us in the English
• 52:22
  speaking world, you mentioned something beautiful that Al
• 52:26
  Hamdullah, we have Mukhtar hideen, we have wakala of the
• 52:30
  Maharaja within our own communities.
• 52:32
  I want to give a shout out. I don't know if I'm allowed of.
• 52:35
  Course you are. To someone that I look up to in
• 52:39
  my life, I don't call them my teacher because he's my father's
• 52:43
  teacher, so he's a higher level than that, Aitullah said.
• 52:49
  Father Than Milani, who I think has been a pioneer in our
• 52:54
  community. Can I just Sorry, last week we
• 52:57
  had Zayn Milani's grandson on and we had a whole martial law
• 52:59
  segment we talked about, said father.
• 53:02
  Amazing. So I think we can always turn to
• 53:06
  him and his likes when it comes to knowing who the real scholars
• 53:11
  are, how you pick or how you select.
• 53:19
  I think if Allah subhana what Allah has not blinded your heart
• 53:23
  because Allah subhana what Allah says.
• 53:25
  It's not the eyes that are blind, it's the heart.
• 53:28
  If your heart's in the right place, I think you don't need me
• 53:33
  or anyone else to point you towards the right scholar or the
• 53:37
  right speaker. I think your heart will go
• 53:40
  towards the truth. It's it's it's part of your
• 53:42
  futra. You know hair doing good and
• 53:46
  looking for good. It's part of every human being's
• 53:49
  nature. Allah Subhanawata Allah in the
• 53:52
  Quran mentions is that hair is something that is part of
• 53:55
  someone's nature. Futra to have hair.
• 53:58
  So if you insha Allah you are seeking the truth in the lahayed
• 54:01
  demon. If you're literally looking for
• 54:04
  guidance then Allah subhan and you have to work in Allah
• 54:06
  Subhanahu and you're trying to through this scholar connect
• 54:10
  with your Imam Ajilah Allah Allah Joe Sharif because that's
• 54:14
  the main aim. I think that we have at the
• 54:15
  moment as youth living in the West trying to connect with Imam
• 54:20
  and Mehdi Ajilah Alafala, Joe Sharif trying to actively wait
• 54:23
  for Imam and Mehdi and trying to use the resources that we have,
• 54:27
  whether it's books again, another shout out.
• 54:31
  Aitullah al Khabbaz's book on Imam al Mehdi which is
• 54:34
  translated in English can be found on Amazon and maybe
• 54:37
  Amazon's a boycott for some. So I want my mainstay
• 54:40
  foundation, mainstay foundation accent.
• 54:42
  It's a mainstay foundation book. They're the publishers Go to
• 54:46
  that book, phenomenal book about Imam al Mehdi.
• 54:49
  I did a lot of probably the best English book we have that I've
• 54:52
  read. Maybe there are others.
• 54:54
  We have the resources, we have the speakers, we have the
• 54:57
  lecturers. I think it's also up to us to
• 55:00
  use our own resources to connect with Imam and Mehdi.
• 55:04
  Why should I use maybe YouTube? Why don't I use the Akkad that
• 55:13
  Allah has given me and the little knowledge?
• 55:15
  Because everyone has knowledge no one can say well I know I'm
• 55:18
  ignorant. Everyone has some knowledge to
• 55:21
  connect with Imam and Mehdi. Ajil Allah, I'll apologize
• 55:23
  Sharif in a way where we build a relationship with him.
• 55:27
  I have made nether upon myself that every Muharram series that
• 55:35
  I do, I do one lecture about Imam and Mahdi.
• 55:38
  I have to in the 10 nights I have to do dedicate one night to
• 55:42
  Imam and Mehdi. Make another within your life
• 55:46
  where you dedicate one day a year to Imam and Mahdi or you
• 55:50
  dedicate 10 seconds a day to Imam and Mehdi.
• 55:53
  That 10 seconds can be you waking up in the morning saying
• 55:55
  Salaam alaikum, I'm ready. Or just thinking about Imam and
• 55:58
  Mehdi. I think just if you if you
• 56:00
  practice this where you have a even if it's an alarm you have
• 56:06
  where you pause for 30 seconds in your day and you say just
• 56:11
  think I I wonder where you are. I wonder what you're doing.
• 56:16
  No I I I know someone who teaches at the house that I had
• 56:20
  the privilege of taking some of his classes.
• 56:23
  He says Every meal that I have I wonder what Imam and madhi is
• 56:28
  eating. Says every time I I I'm about to
• 56:32
  start my food I wonder what Imam and Madhi is eating today.
• 56:35
  He goes that's my sort of way of thinking about Imam ajar Allah
• 56:40
  al apologah Sharif every single day and he goes that has led me
• 56:44
  to other Ahmad that I've been doing because of the little act.
• 56:48
  I think instilling Imam in our life is something that everyone
• 56:54
  should be speaking about. I think every podcast you should
• 56:56
  do has to be a connection with Imam and Mehdi.
• 56:59
  I think every lecture someone does there needs to be a
• 57:02
  connection with Imam and Mehdi. I think everything that you do
• 57:05
  in your life, you have to somehow connect it with Imam and
• 57:07
  Mehdi. I used this example in one of my
• 57:09
  lectures recently. I said, if I say to you said
• 57:13
  Ali, Brother Ahmed, I want to come to your house for lunch and
• 57:20
  you say, yeah, Sminder, you're welcome to come for lunch.
• 57:23
  And then you say what, What day are you coming?
• 57:26
  I say, well, I don't know. And he say, come on, you know I
• 57:30
  need to. I need to make sure we've cooked
• 57:31
  food, we've prepared, the house is clean, everything's in order.
• 57:36
  And I say, you know what, I'm going to surprise you.
• 57:40
  Every day you. Have every day in your life if
• 57:43
  you love me and you want to please me.
• 57:45
  So maybe I'll use another example.
• 57:47
  A merger just wants to come to your house.
• 57:49
  Even you every. Day, every day in your house,
• 57:51
  what are you going to do? You're going to make sure you've
• 57:52
  cooked a nice meal. You're going to make sure you're
• 57:55
  dressed nice, your house is clean, your house is tidy,
• 57:58
  Everything's in shape because I can come knocking on that door
• 58:01
  when someone asks me what's in Tavar.
• 58:04
  In Tavar is you're always prepared.
• 58:06
  If Mom and Mehdi comes knocking on your door tomorrow, you're
• 58:09
  going to open the door and you're going to say bismillah.
• 58:11
  I've got nothing to hide if a mom and Mehdi, I use this as an
• 58:15
  example. If a mom and says let me see
• 58:16
  your phone, you're ready to hand over the phone mom and says let
• 58:19
  me see your DMS. Let me see your Snapchat, let me see your
• 58:23
  Facebook. I'm ready to hand that over.
• 58:25
  Some people aren't ready to hand that phone over to their wives.
• 58:28
  You know what I mean? When you're ready.
• 58:32
  When you're ready to say you know what Imam I'm.
• 58:34
  Because by the way, when Imam looks at me, he knows if I'm a
• 58:37
  if I'm a good person or I'm a Sinner.
• 58:38
  Yes, yes, yes. But I need to be in such a state
• 58:41
  that if Imam looks at me, he's not going to look at me and say
• 58:46
  Mustafa, you're not the type of you're a hypocrite.
• 58:48
  I don't want to speak to you. You've got a disease in your
• 58:50
  heart called hazard. You've got a disease in your
• 58:53
  heart called habit. You've got a disease called ego,
• 58:58
  arrogance that people are seeing it because people see me, they
• 59:01
  see my beard, I've got a spear in my hand.
• 59:05
  Pharaohs, they see a different they because people are always
• 59:09
  associates you with your appearance.
• 59:11
  They don't know about the deep diseases that people have inside
• 59:14
  them. But Imam, when he sees you, he's
• 59:16
  going to know that. So this guy's biggest problem is
• 59:18
  his ego. This guy's biggest problem is
• 59:20
  his arrogance. This guy's biggest problem is
• 59:22
  he's backpacking everyone, He gossips everyone.
• 59:24
  So I think building that connection, start with yourself.
• 59:27
  Forget about maraji or speakers or lecturers.
• 59:32
  Start on a basic level of thinking of imam and Mehdi every
• 59:36
  day, whether it's through eating, drinking water, waking
• 59:39
  up in the morning to read it. I'm not even saying stuff like
• 59:41
  read the aisle ahead or the aisle not, but I'm saying start
• 59:45
  slow. Just.
• 59:48
  But if you build, if you when you build matrafo in in terms of
• 59:52
  you understand you look at yourself.
• 59:53
  You smart start this small thing.
• 59:54
  Even then when you do look at the scholars or you you hear
• 59:57
  something you'll think is. Does that align with the values
• 1:00:00
  that I know of the. Imam.
• 1:00:01
  Or not. Because yeah, Miramat Minin
• 1:00:03
  says. Look at the truth, not who's
• 1:00:04
  saying it. And then when you understand
• 1:00:06
  what the truth is, you'll be able to filter out.
• 1:00:08
  Do you know what I'm? Saying and then Arabic we say,
• 1:00:10
  for example, if I say to you Ahmed to Arfa, said Ali to Arfa.
• 1:00:15
  Do I really know him? Do you know him?
• 1:00:17
  Yeah, you can say yes. Yeah.
• 1:00:19
  If someone now wants to know what Marafa is, they need to ask
• 1:00:22
  themselves Arafil, Imam and Maddie.
• 1:00:24
  Do I know Imam and Maddie? That's Marafa.
• 1:00:27
  Because if I ask you about someone, do you know Ahmed who
• 1:00:29
  studies with me in the house and you're like no, I don't know him
• 1:00:34
  because you what you've never met him.
• 1:00:35
  You don't know anything about him.
• 1:00:36
  I think to have matter of of the Imam is to actually know him
• 1:00:39
  like you know, said Ali. Like said Ali knows me, that's
• 1:00:42
  the real matter of of Imam and Mehdi.
• 1:00:43
  I did a lot. Of Ali for I just show you.
• 1:00:45
  Start, I think with yourself. Don't worry about Fulan and
• 1:00:48
  Fulan and and I think if like I go back to the first point I
• 1:00:53
  started. If insha Allah your heart is
• 1:00:55
  seeking the truth and you're looking for guidance, then in
• 1:01:00
  shallow your heart will know this guy is a truthful person
• 1:01:03
  and this guy is a fake scholar. This guy is a real scholar and
• 1:01:05
  this guy is a fake scholar. Accent.
• 1:01:08
  I love that. Advice.
• 1:01:08
  I love it. Yeah.
• 1:01:09
  Yeah. So I need to give this advice by
• 1:01:11
  the way to myself before anyone, because I'm not allowed to give
• 1:01:15
  advice. All of us.
• 1:01:17
  So we reminder. It really is.
• 1:01:18
  It really is. We have so many gems of
• 1:01:22
  knowledge out there, like yourself.
• 1:01:24
  And of course. Online as well, we always talk
• 1:01:29
  about an Islam dog, which for me has been like a beacon of
• 1:01:32
  guidance for me at random times where I'm thinking about
• 1:01:35
  something. It could be personal issues or
• 1:01:37
  family affairs or whatever it might be.
• 1:01:39
  That's the truth of the tajari of those guys.
• 1:01:41
  Oh my God. And they they I have an issue
• 1:01:44
  with them in terms of their their I try to donate.
• 1:01:46
  I'm trying to. I'm trying to support it and
• 1:01:48
  they have their payment thing he's.
• 1:01:49
  Just praising I've. Got a real?
• 1:01:52
  Issue. No.
• 1:01:53
  Do you know what it is? In Shahadah Moban, I had this
• 1:01:55
  this thing where I was like, every day I'm going to try and
• 1:01:57
  think of a new cause to give some salakatu.
• 1:01:59
  OK, Then I thought, I'm always, like, thinking of, yeah, this
• 1:02:02
  relief project and this homeless thing and but then I was
• 1:02:06
  thinking about media. That's another thing that we
• 1:02:08
  need to do a podcast on. I think the importance of media
• 1:02:12
  in the Shia world is something that.
• 1:02:15
  So deprived and neglected. Only recently I met someone
• 1:02:19
  again. I know this is a different
• 1:02:21
  topic, but only recently. I met someone and he goes,
• 1:02:24
  what's going on with the help ATV?
• 1:02:26
  They're not there anymore on the Skype platform.
• 1:02:30
  A part of me inside of me said, and I know who this person is, I
• 1:02:33
  will obviously mention that I was going to say no, it's you
• 1:02:36
  and the people that we came to you when we were running the
• 1:02:39
  channel, asking you for donations for the channel that
• 1:02:41
  you weren't giving. And that's what obviously, I
• 1:02:44
  didn't say that, but the problem.
• 1:02:45
  But I'm telling you in my heart, yeah.
• 1:02:47
  And that's what I thought. I felt.
• 1:02:48
  You're part of the problem now all of a sudden when it's not
• 1:02:51
  there on the Skype platform, oh, it's not there.
• 1:02:54
  We missing out on something. So I think there needs to be no
• 1:02:58
  with others. Huge.
• 1:02:59
  Discussion importance on on having a Gucci and media
• 1:03:04
  platform for all our youth where they are asking questions and
• 1:03:08
  they're not getting answered, Yeah.
• 1:03:10
  I love that. Yeah, I'll take things for
• 1:03:12
  granted. This is a huge.
• 1:03:14
  Example people take things for granted.
• 1:03:16
  Say that. Yeah, that's true.
• 1:03:18
  So just. To wrap up, we have something to
• 1:03:22
  we've prepared for you. We've kind of by the way, I
• 1:03:24
  forgot to mention the intro as well.
• 1:03:26
  We learned a lot from you, of course, as a friend, as now
• 1:03:29
  martial law, as a teacher. But also beyond that as a
• 1:03:31
  podcast host. Martial law you taught you, you,
• 1:03:35
  you, you started and LED the game with progeny, of course,
• 1:03:38
  Martial law, so shout to you for that as well.
• 1:03:40
  But I want to we want to kind of, with your permission, we
• 1:03:44
  want to kind of Jack something from progeny, which is the rapid
• 1:03:47
  fire, quick fire. Question I I jacked it from some
• 1:03:50
  I don't. I don't take leads from someone
• 1:03:52
  else on that as well. So you can anyone who's
• 1:03:55
  listening. If you haven't tuned into
• 1:03:56
  progeny make sure you check out the YouTube channels.
• 1:03:58
  Amazing thank you. I've listened to everything
• 1:04:00
  handled. I've appeared as as the only Co
• 1:04:03
  host of. Prodigy.
• 1:04:04
  Yes, yes. That was one of his idea, yeah.
• 1:04:07
  No, it wasn't yours. No, no, no.
• 1:04:09
  There's too much. I have a Co host.
• 1:04:10
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then we.
• 1:04:11
  Missed it was no, it was cool. But yeah, check out project on
• 1:04:14
  your podcast on YouTube. Absolutely killing it.
• 1:04:16
  So we've got five quick questions for you.
• 1:04:18
  I'm going to ask the first one because I won't say to ask the
• 1:04:20
  2nd. One.
• 1:04:21
  Well, the second one's There's a time.
• 1:04:22
  For stuff. OK, No, no, no, no.
• 1:04:24
  I'll start with the first one. All right.
• 1:04:25
  If you had to pick one, that I'd do with one reciter to listen to
• 1:04:28
  for. This.
• 1:04:29
  OK, solid. Go ahead, just say it.
• 1:04:34
  Why? Is Eric and Heigl only gonna saw
• 1:04:37
  something? Something.
• 1:04:40
  Yeah, I did. I found out.
• 1:04:41
  This is football language I was. Eric 10 The Heart Is Only Gonna
• 1:04:44
  Social, not Wouldn't. You Have to Pick one.
• 1:04:46
  I can't. If you have to have one, you
• 1:04:48
  imagine next season, who's AB? It's like that is an Al Qaeda.
• 1:04:54
  10 hard. Yeah.
• 1:04:55
  OK Yeah. All right.
• 1:04:56
  Your favorite memory with Adobe TV?
• 1:05:03
  That's a tough one. Every day, was we?
• 1:05:06
  We. We made memories.
• 1:05:10
  Not just chicken wings. No, yeah, I think.
• 1:05:13
  I think. I think lunch was good, but I
• 1:05:16
  think it. Wasn't lunch without my I'll be
• 1:05:19
  honest. I think going to going towards
• 1:05:25
  the areas that were taken by ISIS in 2015, I filmmaker
• 1:05:31
  documentary with Haji Amir. Nice.
• 1:05:34
  I like that. I enjoyed that.
• 1:05:37
  I did enjoy it at the time, but now I do thinking about it,
• 1:05:39
  yeah. Biggest action?
• 1:05:41
  Very rapid fire, is it? That was good.
• 1:05:44
  It was worthy of it, worthy of the response.
• 1:05:46
  Biggest attributes you have gained from living in Iraq.
• 1:05:53
  And the last one, Najaf or Karbalaf?
• 1:05:56
  Come on, you don't need to ask me that question.
• 1:05:58
  Is that is that a proper question?
• 1:05:59
  Yeah. Is that a real question?
• 1:06:01
  Me and most about this we we we we thought about how this is
• 1:06:04
  going to play out Najaf Karbala. Is that a real question are you
• 1:06:08
  asking? How is that a side?
• 1:06:10
  Yeah, USA you are not doing. Asking me You're going to do
• 1:06:14
  you? Do you seriously think I think I
• 1:06:16
  think you think other than Najaf on my hard one.
• 1:06:18
  If you tell me. If you tell me.
• 1:06:21
  If you tell me, if you tell me, you know, I mean salamullahi,
• 1:06:24
  Ali says. If I had to select between my
• 1:06:28
  time in Jenna to be in Jenna or to be in a Masjid, I would
• 1:06:34
  choose the Masjid. Because why?
• 1:06:36
  Because in the Masjid I play, it's the pleasure of Allah.
• 1:06:39
  Subhanahu alawar on the Jenna. It's the pleasure for myself if
• 1:06:43
  you had to. And I say most of the famous Rd.
• 1:06:45
  says, and I am nowhere near the dust under the feet of emir al
• 1:06:49
  Maminen. But if you ask me, Najaf or
• 1:06:52
  Jenna, I pick Najaf because I'd rather be next to the feet of
• 1:06:56
  Emir and Momini than be in. Paradise of I'm scared to
• 1:07:00
  answer. And This is why one day we have
• 1:07:05
  a Najaf the asking the questions.
• 1:07:10
  Plus you have two sons of emir and Looking.
• 1:07:18
  At me so much beautiful. I really, really, really enjoyed
• 1:07:21
  it. Well done.
• 1:07:22
  I I got also say after Maghrib wherever I've been Hamdullah,
• 1:07:27
  they've mentioned it because a lot of the times by the way
• 1:07:31
  people when they say Salaam to me they remember progeny and
• 1:07:33
  then they always subhan Allah mention after Maghrib because I
• 1:07:37
  asked them because I generally if someone asks me about or
• 1:07:40
  mentions my podcast, I say what other podcast do you just do,
• 1:07:42
  just try and understand and Hamdullah after Maghrib is
• 1:07:46
  always mentioned as a podcast that the community is turning
• 1:07:50
  to. So may Allah bless you.
• 1:07:51
  And I ask a lot to give you Tofir and Charlotte to continue
• 1:07:55
  doing these podcasts more regularly because I think
• 1:08:00
  there's a need for it in the community.
• 1:08:02
  Charlotte, I have a final question.
• 1:08:04
  OK, I know your time is valuable.
• 1:08:05
  You've given more than more than enough.
• 1:08:08
  But just before I get to the question, I have to set the tone
• 1:08:11
  because I'm scared you might punch me.
• 1:08:13
  No, I'll never do that. I love you too much.
• 1:08:15
  But before I ask the question firstly you know, echoing Ahmed,
• 1:08:18
  thank you so much. Well we appreciate everything
• 1:08:19
  that you do. The time you've given us and you
• 1:08:21
  know all the advice there was the wisdom you shared here.
• 1:08:24
  I'm questioning myself when I drive back home.
• 1:08:26
  Yeah. And where is my heart Do I have
• 1:08:28
  Marafa with your mom. So I have to ask you what's the
• 1:08:30
  man? What am I doing about seeking
• 1:08:32
  knowledge and and you know where we're speaking about Hadith was
• 1:08:35
  talking about narrations and respecting our fukaha and I just
• 1:08:39
  remember that saying that I read early on where Imam Ali Salaam
• 1:08:44
  he says when we go into our graves, correct me if I'm wrong.
• 1:08:49
  There are 4 fires that can come towards US1.
• 1:08:52
  Fire will be turned off if we stood up and established Salah.
• 1:08:56
  1 fire will be turned off if we've done our storm our fasting
• 1:09:00
  1 fire will be turned off if we gave in the way of charity.
• 1:09:05
  The full file will be turned off if we seek knowledge now that
• 1:09:09
  emphasizes how important knowledge is.
• 1:09:11
  And in sha Allah, we do gain this knowledge in this world
• 1:09:14
  that will protect us and hereafter.
• 1:09:16
  But here comes the question. I was trying to like be slow and
• 1:09:18
  I did warn you. OK and WhatsApp.
• 1:09:20
  I told you, go ahead, say that. I've got a question as personal.
• 1:09:24
  I have your permission. It's a question I think that I
• 1:09:28
  because I feel uncomfortable to ask it to you.
• 1:09:30
  Go ahead and we have this bond and relationship and friendship
• 1:09:33
  is say. What's the question I'm.
• 1:09:35
  Scared. I'm trying to ask.
• 1:09:37
  The. Question.
• 1:09:37
  OK, so here's the question. Because we smoke about.
• 1:09:42
  We're speaking about speakers, we're speaking about lecturers,
• 1:09:45
  you know, fake scholars, etc. But do we have?
• 1:09:48
  There's a final question. We can and you can say no, We
• 1:09:50
  end the podcast. Do we have a problem in the 21st
• 1:09:53
  century now, especially in the English world where we have a
• 1:09:57
  rise of speakers and lecturers taking the celebrity culture?
• 1:10:03
  That's all I wanna ask. I thought you were gonna ask
• 1:10:06
  something. No, no, no.
• 1:10:09
  There's a reason. There's not gonna mention the
• 1:10:10
  reason. I think, I think.
• 1:10:12
  I think that there's no yes or no answer to that.
• 1:10:15
  I think, again, this requires a whole topic.
• 1:10:18
  Yeah, let's start again, I think with the podcast episode two.
• 1:10:22
  I think it's easy for us these days.
• 1:10:27
  And again, I'd love to speak about this more to judge people
• 1:10:31
  very quickly. So we judge people's intentions
• 1:10:35
  and we throw people under the bus very quickly to say this
• 1:10:39
  person is doing this because of he's he's a celebrity or this
• 1:10:41
  person or for example for. Example I'll.
• 1:10:44
  Tell you what happened, I'll give you an example.
• 1:10:46
  I saw, I saw a speaker, I won't mention names.
• 1:10:48
  I saw some speaker in Ziara and when he came into the hotel and
• 1:10:52
  there was a large group of people, all Shias, obviously
• 1:10:56
  this is an Iraq in Karbala. He covered his face and then he
• 1:11:01
  quickly, without anyone seeing him, he took the lift and he
• 1:11:03
  went upstairs. So someone saw him with me.
• 1:11:07
  He said he spoke to me in Iris like, look, look how arrogant he
• 1:11:11
  is. He doesn't want to say sanam to
• 1:11:13
  people. He thinks he's all that honey.
• 1:11:15
  I thought so. Like, why didn't he?
• 1:11:17
  Why didn't he just come and say sanam in my heart?
• 1:11:18
  I didn't say anything. Then I saw this person two days
• 1:11:22
  later. He was very sick.
• 1:11:24
  He's quite I'll so I told him. Oh, good luck.
• 1:11:26
  That day I saw you just got your scarf on and you went upstairs.
• 1:11:30
  He said I had a really bad fever and I'd done a COVID test and it
• 1:11:35
  was positive. This was last year so there was
• 1:11:37
  no and it was positive. So I thought, if people see me,
• 1:11:40
  they're going to hug me and kiss me.
• 1:11:43
  So I covered my face so no one sees me.
• 1:11:45
  So I don't give anyone else wearing ziyartel arbine.
• 1:11:47
  I don't give anyone that see them.
• 1:11:49
  And I've stayed in my room for two days and I thought, how
• 1:11:52
  quick were we to judge him, thinking he thinks he's too
• 1:11:55
  much, He doesn't want to say Salaam to people.
• 1:11:57
  Or for example, a few years ago I saw someone put a post out.
• 1:12:01
  Don't go Ziara in five star hotels in madrasuno.
• 1:12:07
  Madrasuno. And he was saying these groups
• 1:12:09
  and he was attacking other people.
• 1:12:12
  A year later I saw him in a five star were too quick to judge,
• 1:12:16
  were too quick to say this guy's celebrity, this guy's got yes,
• 1:12:21
  I've said this part now. Now to the other part.
• 1:12:23
  Yes, we are creeping towards the celebrity culture where certain
• 1:12:33
  people have this disease of ego, where it's again, I want to be
• 1:12:43
  careful. They have this disease of their
• 1:12:45
  ego, where they're looking for likes and hearts and views more
• 1:12:53
  than anything else. Someone, someone told me the
• 1:12:57
  story. He said One of the biggest
• 1:12:59
  Hotaba. I won't mention his name.
• 1:13:01
  He had a majlis for Imam Hussein and Muharram in Iraq, where at
• 1:13:06
  least 5000 people attend his majlis 5000.
• 1:13:11
  He goes one day when he finished that majlis.
• 1:13:13
  I'm sure you probably heard the story, said Ali.
• 1:13:15
  When he finished that majesty's going home.
• 1:13:17
  There was kids, 7-8 year olds in the street.
• 1:13:22
  They said Amor Amor, please read us a majlis.
• 1:13:26
  He ignored them. He reads for 5000 people.
• 1:13:29
  He's not going to reach for six year olds.
• 1:13:31
  The next day they saw him after his matchless going home, said
• 1:13:33
  Amul. Please read that message.
• 1:13:34
  They started crying, slept till Abbas read that some, he said.
• 1:13:39
  I said I looked around, they didn't have a mambar.
• 1:13:42
  They had what we call a teneca. I don't know how you translate a
• 1:13:44
  teneca. It's like a literally a tin box
• 1:13:47
  where you know those tin boxes where you put oil or something.
• 1:13:51
  So he goes, I they told me to sit on it so he goes, I felt
• 1:13:54
  bad. It was the 7th of Muharram in
• 1:13:56
  the Arabic culture, Slehtil Abbas said.
• 1:13:58
  I read the messages for 5 minutes and they started crying
• 1:14:01
  6 year old. So that night again, I'm not
• 1:14:05
  someone that mentions stories that include dreams, but the
• 1:14:09
  moral of the story here is he goes.
• 1:14:10
  That night I saw be the Fatima in my dream.
• 1:14:13
  She said to me what a great measureless you read for my son
• 1:14:15
  at bus tonight. He said yeah, of course, he
• 1:14:19
  answered. He said yeah, 5000 people in the
• 1:14:21
  medleys, the run. She's so much.
• 1:14:23
  She goes, no, no, I'm not talking about that Medlist.
• 1:14:25
  I'm talking about the one you read for the children.
• 1:14:27
  Let's not look for how many likes we have, how many hearts,
• 1:14:31
  how many thumbs up. Well, I think they do you no
• 1:14:35
  good if Habib Namavahar has written your name as a servant
• 1:14:40
  of Hussein. It doesn't matter if one person
• 1:14:43
  is sitting in your meds or 10,000, as long as Habib has
• 1:14:46
  your name as the Khadim of Imam Hussein.
• 1:14:48
  I want the signature of Habib. I want the signature of Imam
• 1:14:52
  Hussein. Who cares if five people are
• 1:14:54
  sitting or 100 or if one person's giving me a like or if
• 1:14:58
  10,000 people are giving me a like this problem.
• 1:15:00
  When we understand this, I think it will remove this culture of
• 1:15:04
  celebrity or high because sadly because of Tiktok or Instagram
• 1:15:09
  or views people are looking for this.
• 1:15:12
  But if we nail this down in our community, by the way, it's not
• 1:15:16
  quantity, Ajamara, it's 72 people face 30,000 people.
• 1:15:21
  Who remembers the 30,000? Everyone remembers the 72.
• 1:15:25
  It's not about numbers. I if we can nail this down in
• 1:15:29
  our youth for them to understand and it will make them better
• 1:15:33
  people. Because nowadays all these
• 1:15:35
  youth, they're facing a problem because they want high numbers
• 1:15:39
  of likes and views and that's all because everyone else around
• 1:15:42
  them. But if we teach them one less,
• 1:15:44
  not about that 313 in many ones, not 313,313 people, it's not
• 1:15:51
  about numbers. It's rather about quality.
• 1:15:55
  I would love to go to, I know. About worse.
• 1:16:00
  And. Part 2 coming soon.
• 1:16:02
  Thank you saying honey for that during us.
• 1:16:04
  No. But.
• 1:16:05
  And do you know what? I'm glad you I.
• 1:16:07
  Said. It's personal because I I I
• 1:16:10
  thought maybe your response might get you in.
• 1:16:11
  Trouble I hope. I hope that I I don't.
• 1:16:14
  I don't go towards that direction as.
• 1:16:16
  Well, and you have. I've I've, I've told, I've told
• 1:16:19
  people close to myself and I'll mention their names.
• 1:16:23
  Haji Haider al Kazaaz and Mullah Ali fathered I said Hasan Noah.
• 1:16:26
  I said if ever Haraka Hasania, Haraka Hasania boys, I say if
• 1:16:31
  ever you see me reach a level where I think I'm too good for
• 1:16:36
  myself, I want you to come and ground me.
• 1:16:39
  It's your responsibility. Come and say most of it.
• 1:16:41
  Take it easy bro, take it easy. Humble me and this is a
• 1:16:45
  reminder. Inshallah, they'll watch that.
• 1:16:47
  If they ever see me and I, I put that out to everyone.
• 1:16:51
  If anyone sees me where they think that I'm come and talk to
• 1:16:55
  me, remind me, well, I'm not a masoom.
• 1:16:57
  I make mistakes. Come and remind me because who
• 1:17:00
  are we following? We're following the masooms that
• 1:17:02
  I debate. We're trying to take guidance
• 1:17:04
  from them, not from me. And if anything good to
• 1:17:06
  someone's head today, it's not from me.
• 1:17:09
  From the El bait. Who is Mustafa?
• 1:17:11
  Who cares who Mustafa? Said your name should be known
• 1:17:15
  in the heavens, not the earth. That's the main Ahmed.
• 1:17:18
  When we die, they call us a Janaza.
• 1:17:20
  Even our name gets taken away. We will love thinking about that
• 1:17:23
  final. Grave becomes a plot number and
• 1:17:27
  yeah, that's it. All right, take me to a moment.
• 1:17:30
  For for the final time, thank you so much.
• 1:17:33
  We'll see you again, so it'll be good to have you back.
• 1:17:35
  Inshallah, when they were students and you're the teacher.
• 1:17:38
  Yeah, who knows? Inshallah I've, I've said
• 1:17:41
  inshallah they they inshallah. There should be a Houser for the
• 1:17:44
  youth that is, that is more diverse for everyone in
• 1:17:48
  Charlotte in the UK and Charlotte. 100% guys, let us
• 1:17:51
  know what you think. Feedback.
• 1:17:53
  This has been a fascinating episode.
• 1:17:55
  I know we started somewhere much a lot.
• 1:17:56
  By the end of it we were talking about TikTok and views.
• 1:17:59
  But like, I think there's been a lot of really good high quality
• 1:18:02
  information here and I'm sure we'll agree.
• 1:18:04
  So thank you so much for coming and for for gracing us
• 1:18:07
  acknowledge and Ali as always. Thank you.
• 1:18:09
  I've enjoyed this. Yeah.
• 1:18:10
  Thank you. Very much.
• 1:18:11
  I'm the love listening. Yeah, we will be back as always
• 1:18:15
  next week, so stay tuned and we'll see you then.
• 1:18:18
  Take care of the live lookout.