Latest / After Maghrib 🌙 / Repping my Shia Identity in a professional world - ft. Hassanane Balal

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Repping my Shia Identity in a professional world - ft. Hassanane Balal · After Maghrib 🌙

• 0:00
  This is Mulahum Salam Alik, and welcome back to After Maghrib.
• 0:03
  If you're here for the first time, make sure you subscribe,
• 0:06
  smash that like button as well. Make sure you comment your
• 0:08
  thoughts down below because this is going to be an incredible
• 0:11
  episode. There's so many stories,
• 0:13
  experiences, lessons that I know are going to come out of this
• 0:16
  episode, so I can't wait for you guys to catch it and to learn
• 0:20
  and Charlotte along with us. So you're probably realising
• 0:23
  that say that Ali's not here. Unfortunately, he couldn't make
• 0:25
  it today. He's he's got some family stuff
• 0:27
  that's. Going up, I think his
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  resignations coming in, Michelle.
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  Now see. Yeah.
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  Now to be honest, it's he's he's me.
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  Two in a row now. Yeah, two in a row, man.
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  But say most of us. How you doing bro?
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  I'm doing now, how's it feel? I don't like how this is
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  becoming consistent. Yeah, it was supposed to be 1
• 0:53
  off and now it's like 2 episodes in a row.
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  Nah bro, you you add as much beauty in front of the camera as
• 0:57
  you do behind it. La La, come on man and shove
• 1:00
  how's things? I'm doing.
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  I've been very, very busy. I'm like falling asleep as I'm
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  here, Bob. Yeah, I like silic.
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  Got a good episode today. Yeah.
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  Excited. This is a brother who means a
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  lot to me and the team. We've been trying to make this
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  happen for a long time. Hamdallah.
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  It gives great pride and honour to welcome my dear brother.
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  Has name Bilal Assam Alaikum has name.
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  Alaikum Santala, thank you so much for having me here man bro.
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  About time Hamdallah do. You know what it is man, Like
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  the name is after Mecca, but I didn't know it.
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  That's actually what time you work Like, if you guys are
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  unaware of this, I don't know. These guys work at late times,
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  to the point that I start to think they might actually be
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  Batman in the sky. You know?
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  They only work when it's dark. Yeah, man, now we how do we
• 1:44
  start? When we came in, the first thing
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  we did was that's when that's when the the the moons are
• 1:53
  Salat, Alain, all of that. And then you're ready to get
• 1:56
  going, man. Hamdullah bro.
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  So look, a lot of people know you online as Iraq football pod.
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  You have been doing incredible work.
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  And I really mean that as a non Iraqi kind of seeing the work
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  you do for the past few years since I discovered your page is
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  hugely inspirational. I've seen you and I want to know
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  kind of your your own journey and also kind of how you view
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  the work you do. But I'll tell you kind of how I
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  see it as someone who follows the world of football.
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  And of course, obviously in Hamdallah, we've got a lot of
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  mutual friends. Ali and Hamadi, who's both a
• 2:27
  close friend of ours and obviously was on the podcast a
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  few weeks ago, is not just an incredible player for his club
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  but also on a national level as a striker.
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  But I see the work you do as far more than just commentary on
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  Iraq football or football players who happen to be Iraqi
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  or the national team. You bring communities together.
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  I see you do work for the youth you you give light and limelight
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  to the youth who are up and coming.
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  You do competitions, you you work on travel and tourism and
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  you share cultures from around the world.
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  But you tell me if you don't mind about your journey, why you
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  do what you do and how you got to where you are.
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  Well, firstly, thank you so much for the lovely introduction.
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  It's a crazy journey to be honest.
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  I'm not sure where to start. But essentially, if I was to
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  summarize things, I grew up, I'm born in London.
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  I grew up here with a real kind of cultural identity problem.
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  You know, I've never considered myself English.
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  I'm born here. I know there are people that say
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  I'm born here, I'm English, Iraqi or whatever.
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  I've never had that. For me, Hamdul, I actually went
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  to an Arabic school. I went to a school called King
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  Fad Academy. It's a Saudi school.
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  So I've been a little bit isolated from the English
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  community. And let's say I've always been
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  grateful for the opportunities this country has bought me.
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  But being Arab, being Iraq has always been a big thing for me.
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  And a big turning point in my life, which we'll come on to
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  later, was going to Iraq in 2003 during the the US invasion,
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  during the toppling of Saddam's Baptist regime.
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  But I've always not, I'm not from here.
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  So the question is, what is Iraq now growing?
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  What what does it mean to be Iraqi?
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  For me, in the last 15 years, the Iraq team has been through
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  quite a difficult journey. Around 2015, I decided to start
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  my podcast. I used to write about football
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  in general. I'm a massive Manchester United
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  fan. I used to have quite a big fun
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  on actually. Forgive you for your sins.
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  But I'm being punished enough the way we're playing recently.
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  But anyway, I was writing goes on big pages, big blogs.
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  But I thought, you know, I'm wasting my time here.
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  How is this helping anybody? Everyone's running on my side.
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  Let me do something to serve Iraq.
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  Let me do something to serve Iraqi football.
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  So I started to write about Iraqi football myself at the
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  time I'm watching Iraqi football.
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  I'm in love with Iraqi football. But there's nothing accessible
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  to someone living in the West who doesn't speak Arabic.
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  If you do find an information, it's going to be on BBC.
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  Oh, Australia played Iraq and Australia played well and this
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  player played well. But Iraq is always the kind of
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  secondary sideline within that narrative.
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  There's nothing available about Iraq.
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  So I thought, I'm going to change this.
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  I want Iraqi football to have a voice.
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  I want Iraqi football to be represented.
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  So I just, I made a website, I reached out to a player called
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  Osama Rashid, Shout out to him. He was the first player to agree
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  to do an interview with me. And I just started talking and
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  started learning about him, his journey.
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  And I just, I discovered that there are all these Iraqi
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  footballers in Europe and across the world that no one knows
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  about, no one's giving publicity to.
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  And I'm going, I use that as a platform to get this, their
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  names out, with their careers out.
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  And these are players playing at top levels.
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  Like Osama Rashid was playing in the the Portuguese Premier
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  League. He was the captain of the team
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  actually. So that's not a small feat.
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  And he wasn't playing for Iraq, wasn't featuring, he wasn't
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  really well known by the fans. So slowly, slowly, I started
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  building this network to the point where I started to get to
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  know these players when they're very, very young.
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  You mentioned Ali, Hamad. Ali, I knew when he was 16.
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  So sorry. Swansea days.
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  Swansea days. Exactly.
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  Yeah. I'll send you that picture if
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  you want to, like, include it. And great episode with him last
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  week, by the way. So I just built this network of
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  young Iraqi players, started giving them a voice.
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  And one thing I had to handle that that really helped me is I
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  started writing in Arabic as well, as well as the English.
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  So that captured the bigger market.
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  The fans and the followers start to see what I'm doing.
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  The players themselves start to realize I'm doing so much for
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  them in terms of not just giving them a voice, but also like just
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  being their friend. Like people think, oh, you're a
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  journalist, right? I'm not a journalist.
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  I'm a content creator first and foremost, but I'm also their
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  friend. If I was a journalist, I'd be
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  posting anything to get likes and engagement.
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  I know things about these players that would RIP the
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  Internet in half, But I'm I'm not interested in that.
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  I'm interested in battering a rocky football.
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  So that's what I'm trying to do. And to give you a simple example
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  of this, tomorrow I'm going to go to Ali, bless him, He's gonna
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  have up right now getting ready for the World Cup.
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  He's leaving Luton, so he has to move out of his house.
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  I'm going to take a van, I'm going to go to his house, take
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  his stuff, leave it in my house for the time being until he
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  comes back. So I'm doing this not for
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  continent. I'm doing it because I see him
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  like my little brother and he's someone I care deeply about.
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  I have different relationships with all the players, but Ali, I
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  see him genuinely like my little brother, someone I care a lot
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  about him because I think he really represents not just what
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  it's like to be a hierarchy, but to be a good Muslim.
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  And absolutely, yeah, I. Love.
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  That I was speaking to another content creator from France, and
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  when he was speaking, I realized something very unique about my
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  position and not just me but our fans in general.
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  He was telling me about how Iraqis are so passionate about
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  the national team, and he doesn't feel that same
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  connection with France and their national team.
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  And part of it is obviously they're just very good.
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  Like when you play a friendly game, you're expected to win,
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  whether it's against, I don't know, Portugal or anyone, but
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  it's France, right? So I was like, yeah, obviously
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  we're always underdogs or minnows is sick.
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  We go into the game while we're going to be Andorra, we're going
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  to be spayed, whatever. It's always exciting.
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  But there's something else I realized to it.
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  If you're a French fan, how much in common do you have with
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  Mbappe, with them belly or whatever?
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  They live in a different stratosphere to us, but bravo.
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  I see. I did Hamadi in the same majors.
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  Raised on the same. I'll go to the same restaurants
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  as same struggles, same problems his dad fled out of office the
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  same thing. It's the same thing like they
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  genuinely this out of the team genuinely represents me as an as
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  a Shia. It's just brilliant to see where
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  we are now and I'll tell you what genuinely when I start the
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  page of 1015, the one goal I had see this team make it to the
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  World Cup. No way.
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  Well bro, you know. There's probably time to delete
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  your page there. No, we're just getting started.
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  We're just getting started. We play the qualifier the last
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  game against Bolivia and Mexico. A message to Ali before the
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  game. I was speaking to him and I was
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  like hello, good luck bro. I have a good feeling tomorrow
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  going to score. He was like, I hope so man.
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  It's been such a tough season. I had a lot of injuries,
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  personal issues. I thought Malawi, listen, don't
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  worry bro, takes 1 moment to change your whole season.
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  One goal, one moment, you'll see everything change and I know
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  you're going to score tomorrow. And I told him you know what
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  you're going to score tomorrow. And I'm going to name my first
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  born son Ali Afti. I saw that.
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  And I knew he was going to saw but but I'm not the emotional
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  type. In fact, I never cry.
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  I go, I've been through madnesses.
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  I'll just sit there and just either laugh it off or just
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  stare at the wall and just get over it.
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  When Ali scored, bro, I started crying genuinely because I saw
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  this kid from like being a 16 year old child to now scoring
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  and sending us to the World Cup. I was so proud of him, man.
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  Yeah, and it's not just him, it's all the boys.
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  Well, the whole. Team they they played well as
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  well and of course, like even as I said last time, as a non
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  Iraqi, I feel like a massive affinity to the team.
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  And I know all of us, like our whole community, at least here
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  living in the UK, feel like a massive connection because of,
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  like you said, not even just the reasons that the fact they
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  qualify their underdogs and everyone likes an underdog
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  story, but there's accessibility or relatability that comes with
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  that team. And I think there's lessons to
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  be learnt from all of their stories as well.
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  Do you know? What I mean, they've been
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  through a lot of difficulties. It's the thing like when you
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  chat to these players day-to-day and you know the struggles
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  they're going through, it's hard for them.
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  Genuinely, it's hard for them. Well, I love them.
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  Like there's stuff that can't be said.
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  I'm telling you, this team, for them to have qualified this
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  World Cup in the circumstances, Elf Hamdullah.
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  Let me ask you something because obviously, look, we we spoke a
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  lot about that journey in the episode with Ali.
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  And if you're interested in that, go back and check out
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  guys, probably two or three weeks ago.
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  Incredible, incredible episode. I would say it's probably one of
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  my favorite that we've done ever Hamdullah.
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  Just the stuff that came out of Ali, like.
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  Yes, it was authentic. It was beautiful.
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  Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I would say one thing I want
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  to understand especially is because, look, the World Cup is
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  beautiful because it brings people together.
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  And that's the beauty of the World Cup.
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  We get one month every four years where we watch the world's
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  biggest stars play. But then there's a story behind
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  it and that's the people, you know, the unity of people,
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  humanity coming together, the biggest sporting event on the
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  globe and covering that. Because I know in Charlotte
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  you're going to be at the first game and you're also going to
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  Spain next week for the friendly, which will be crazy
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  inshallah. But along with a lot of your
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  work, you travel. OK.
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  The world we live in at the moment is so polarizing and with
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  the secularization that we have in the West, of course, the war
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  and so much more, we see a lot of division between people.
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  How do you feel like now being a content creator allows you to
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  have not just an opportunity, but also perhaps a
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  responsibility to to work on building bridges between
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  different people? One of my biggest goals in life
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  is to travel and create content to teach arac is back home about
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  the realities of the world because a lot of them don't have
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  the ability to go due to their passport or financial reasons or
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  whatever. So listen, there's pros and cons
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  to being arac is one of the negatives of being arac is that
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  arac is have this, especially back home, but it's in general,
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  and I think a lot of it has to do with the traumas that we've
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  experienced as a society these last 50 years.
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  They're very negative, very negative and not very grateful
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  for the blessings that we have back home.
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  Have you been to Iraq recently? Iraq's amazing.
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  Well, less. There's many challenges living
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  there, many challenges, and I acknowledge this, but it's also
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  a place with so much amazing culture, so many good people.
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  There's so much to be grateful for living in Iraq.
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  But a lot of Iraq is only know that.
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  So they only focus on the struggles and I think that it's
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  only happening to them. So what I've been trying to do
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  is travel the world and I'm handling.
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  I'm very grateful. I'm very lucky.
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  I've been to 62 countries. 62. Many of them have been multiple
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  times and when I'm travelling, I'm making content, I'm showing
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  them OK, like this is the, this is what this culture is like.
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  This is what the problems that they face.
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  Look at. They have this in common with
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  Iraq. Look at this like Iraq is better
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  than this. I want to like Kenya, for
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  example. I went to one of the biggest
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  refugee camp, not refuse, sorry. It's like a kind of ghetto or
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  shanty town there in in Nairobi. I just started showing them that
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  I've like. And actually we have it good.
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  Like be grateful, say Hamdallah. I think if you don't say
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  Hamdallah every day, numerous times, it really messes up with
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  how grateful you are. And it's something we really
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  need to build a habit of because when you travel and you see the
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  stuff, you actually realize, man, I've got it.
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  All right. Yeah, OK, fine.
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  I'm a little bit overdue in terms of my credit card payment
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  or. Yeah, OK.
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  I had a fight with my wife about this part.
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  When you travel, you see, genuinely, I've seen people eat
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  out bins in front of me when I was in Tanzania.
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  I've been in Cambodia. I've seen real poverty.
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  We need to travel the world and see the world for what it is,
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  see what's actually going on. Stop having these kind of first
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  world problems. Be more grateful because we are
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  so less. In the last three, say three to
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  five years have come out of that mentally they it's, it's
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  improving a lot where they, they've got a lot of hope now
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  and they're, they're seeing like a positive future for
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  themselves. It depends.
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  It depends. Like just like.
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  Every other ten years ago, they everything was like sort of AI
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  wouldn't say victimised like sort of mentality, but they're
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  scared for their future because they're like, OK, if I study, if
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  I go get a business two years down the line, I don't know
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  what's going to happen to my country.
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  I'm going to start from zero again.
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  That sort of phase. Security.
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  Yeah, it's sort of phased out of that now.
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  It makes sense if you look at Maslow's hierarchy of needs.
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  If you're going to achieve self actualization, you're going to
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  be happy with who you are and be content, you need to have that
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  kind of security. So now what you're saying makes
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  sense, Hamdullah. Recently there's been a lot more
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  stability within the country and that's led to a big improvement
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  for many people. But still, there's a lot more
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  that we need to do to showcase the the world and the challenges
• 15:35
  that the world faces. And to our artists, how lucky.
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  We are. Do you know what?
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  I think that's a universal lesson for all of us.
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  And like even look in the UK like as the time of the record
• 15:44
  of recording last week, there was of course, the far right
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  fascist March in London, right? 100,000, give or take far right
• 15:51
  nationalists who come out on the streets of London, they're
• 15:53
  calling for deportation of immigrants with no real coherent
• 15:57
  argument or whatever. But all of that stems back to
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  illiteracy, a lack of education, lack of culture, and also just a
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  lack of compaction, action or understanding for people of
• 16:07
  different cultures or backgrounds.
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  And regardless where you are in the world, we live in London.
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  Obviously, we, we know what it's like here, but many would
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  consider London to be one of the most privileged developed cities
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  in the world, right? It is in many ways.
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  But even here you have that like immaturity or even let's say,
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  for example, naivety, because people don't have globalization,
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  they don't have an understanding of what the other is going
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  through. And that lack of understanding
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  is a universal issue. That's why we see in our Hadith
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  Salaam Muhammad sallallahu alayhi consistently tells us to
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  travel. We all know the hadith seek
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  knowledge. Even you have to go to China
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  symbolic many of people, you know, many of us could even look
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  at it literally travel the world, learn, open your eyes,
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  open your mind up. But I think that's something you
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  do so well. Mashallah, like I saw your that
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  your coverage when you went to Mexico was amazing.
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  And then obviously mainstream picks up.
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  You did stuff with the BBCI, remember?
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  And obviously local influencers there are collaborating with you
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  on on posts and, and interviewing you about your
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  experience and your culture and your fan base.
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  And you're educating other people about your people and
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  you're educating your people about other people.
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  And that is a journey which has a lot of intangible benefits and
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  we need that now more than ever. A. 100% So you mentioned these
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  far right kind of fascists that we saw in London, a lot of them.
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  Do you know why? If you just sat down and spoke
• 17:28
  to them, you'd realize we have so much income on each other.
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  But you need to have that conversation.
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  And when you travel and you see different people and you have
• 17:38
  the conversation. But when I say travel, I don't
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  mean going to Turkey in a five star resort and just chilling
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  there for a week. I mean actually going.
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  Out. Out of your comfort zone,
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  interacting with other human beings from that area.
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  Can I say it doesn't like sometimes I, I feel like you
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  even get that even if you just break out your community, you
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  don't have to go to a different country.
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  You can just step out of that little zone you've been in for
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  the past five years. Go, I don't know, go towards
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  like a different sort of. You know what?
• 18:04
  Yeah. And you're worried that you're
• 18:06
  going to be unable to replace Ali with amazing points like
• 18:09
  that. That's exactly it.
• 18:11
  That's exactly it. It's a very valid point because.
• 18:13
  When you're stuck around the same people day in day out,
• 18:16
  you're, you're not seeing what's what other people are going
• 18:18
  through and you think, OK, this is this what I'm going through?
• 18:21
  That's exactly it, man. So when I went to Mexico, it was
• 18:25
  amazing. The Mexicans really embraced the
• 18:28
  Iraqis that came. The Iraqis were so friendly or
• 18:30
  so like proud of them in terms of how they represented Iraq.
• 18:36
  Well, that was amazing. I was so happy to be Iraq when I
• 18:38
  was there because we just showcased Iraq in the best light
• 18:41
  possible. And so I started, I don't think
• 18:45
  so went home after again, but I was like, there's no way.
• 18:47
  I'm going home. I've spent all this money.
• 18:49
  I'm going to chill here for the total two weeks.
• 18:50
  I have the break and I'm going to just enjoy Mexico and I'm
• 18:53
  going to make content and I'm going to travel.
• 18:55
  And I went to a football game for a team called Chivas, one of
• 19:00
  the biggest teams, probably the biggest team in Mexico actually.
• 19:03
  And I met one of the the admins of the page there, guy called
• 19:08
  Damien. He invited, Yeah, man, he took
• 19:11
  me to play softball with that, which is like kind of like not
• 19:15
  as a basic version of baseball, right?
• 19:18
  And we sat down, we spoke after the game and I was like, you
• 19:22
  guys were really surprised by us at Rockets.
• 19:23
  What were you expecting? They were like, man, we thought
• 19:25
  we all going to be like, just crazy, angry terrorists.
• 19:29
  Why? Why?
• 19:30
  Why would you have that impression?
• 19:31
  And he was like, straight up, that's what the US tells us
• 19:33
  about you guys. I started laughing.
• 19:34
  I was like, bro, you know what? It's funny you said that because
• 19:36
  I was getting so many DMS telling me don't go to Mexico.
• 19:39
  They're all drug dealers and they're all cartel numbers.
• 19:41
  But they can ham dealer this. We have this, obviously.
• 19:45
  Yeah. West Columbia.
• 19:48
  But that's that's how we. That's how we imagine it.
• 19:51
  But it was in Columbia last summer.
• 19:53
  I had the same warning to my parents.
• 19:54
  Man, Donald Columbia is dangerous.
• 19:56
  Columbia is beautiful man Amazing.
• 19:57
  I've had some. I haven't been in Charlotte.
• 19:59
  In Charlotte, yet to go, Yeah. Amazing.
• 20:01
  Amazing people let. Me ask you something, if you
• 20:03
  don't mind. Look, so a lot of a lot of the
• 20:06
  youth because look, I, I know you care a lot about the youth.
• 20:09
  You're if you don't mind me, can I share your professional?
• 20:12
  So you're a teacher. Of course, you, you care deeply
• 20:15
  about the development of children, not just that
• 20:17
  educationally, socially as well, safeguarding all of that, but at
• 20:20
  the same time as well preparing the next generation for what's
• 20:25
  to come. OK.
• 20:26
  Can I ask you, if you don't mind about your younger years, So
• 20:30
  your teenage years, your telabia from your family, your parents,
• 20:34
  because you mentioned, for example, going to a Saudi
• 20:37
  school. Was that in London?
• 20:39
  Yeah, it's in London. As a Shia, do you ever have any
• 20:42
  difficulties in that kind of phase?
• 20:44
  Of course, you know, I went to a like a Salafi school, a Salafi
• 20:49
  Wahabi school. This was a school funded by
• 20:51
  Saudi Arabia, but I'm so grateful that I went there,
• 20:55
  Hamdulillah, for various reasons.
• 20:57
  Number one, one of my earliest memories of going to Kingfed.
• 21:01
  If you don't know where Kingfed is as a school, it's it's not
• 21:06
  the a 40 well on basis it's. Literally where you get the sham
• 21:09
  season the the US that was sort of that was Bros.
• 21:13
  Yeah, that's why they went there.
• 21:17
  Abu Hamster's kids went there. Abu Qatar's kids went there.
• 21:20
  Like, if you know who these people are, I mean, you'll know
• 21:22
  what I mean. It's not an easy place to be as
• 21:25
  a sheree, But I remember, like, being in the air one of my first
• 21:28
  couple of days in school, a random kid comes up to me.
• 21:32
  Oh, you're sheree? Yeah, And I don't know what Shia
• 21:34
  is at this point. I'm BL one.
• 21:35
  You're what, 5-6? Because you Shia Kafat.
• 21:38
  I'll go back. What's what's she?
• 21:40
  I was kafat. I have no idea.
• 21:42
  But Hamdullah, from a young age you're exposed to this and you
• 21:45
  start asking questions and you're OK.
• 21:47
  What does it mean to be a Shia? What does it mean to be Muslim?
• 21:50
  Why am I different from this guy?
• 21:51
  Why do I pray with my hands down?
• 21:52
  What does he do that? However, but I'm Dila exposed me
• 21:56
  to the reality of what it means to be a sheree and the
• 21:59
  difficulties that comes with that.
• 22:00
  But at the same time, bro, I'll be real of you.
• 22:03
  Some of my best friends up until today are Sunnis who if in the
• 22:08
  school I was let's say not in and someone was chatting about
• 22:11
  me being a sheree, my boys were suddenly will go and defend me.
• 22:15
  You know something about that it baffles me that it doesn't break
• 22:18
  you because I I know other sheree friends who are in kick
• 22:20
  fed as well and you'd expect them to come out of there like
• 22:24
  maybe worried about people knowing their Shia but it was
• 22:26
  perfectly fine. No hamdullah like again.
• 22:32
  Being there was such a blessing. Confident because you know these
• 22:35
  people. Are it's also you come to
• 22:36
  realize that there are many good people in all sex.
• 22:40
  Yeah. So Hamdullah like as these
• 22:42
  Sunnis, they're amazing. Some of my friends amazing
• 22:45
  Sunnis amazing honest, true, truthful people.
• 22:50
  They felt our last part OK. They pray with their hands up
• 22:53
  and I pray all my hands down as well.
• 22:55
  Let us. As far as the difference goes,
• 22:56
  yeah, I grew up genuinely. I used to have a lot of friends
• 22:58
  from like those Moroccan Paddingtons for areas and you'd
• 23:02
  think these are like scary Salafis, but when we're when
• 23:05
  we're around in our areas or whatever, they'd have my back
• 23:08
  more than anyone else. Well.
• 23:10
  Although their beliefs might be anti Shia, but in this sort of
• 23:14
  community, in this sort of culture that we grew up in, we
• 23:16
  learnt to just mix together normally.
• 23:19
  I'm grateful to say my friends don't even have that anti Shia
• 23:21
  sentiments. They just, they're Sunni and
• 23:24
  they see me. As as you are.
• 23:26
  They accept me as another Muslim.
• 23:27
  There's never been that tough rock or that difference between
• 23:29
  us. So when you see that there are
• 23:32
  actual Sunnis like this, it makes you appreciate actually,
• 23:34
  like when you see ISIS or Qaida or these nut cases that you see
• 23:38
  on Hyde Park Speakers Corner doing tech fear.
• 23:42
  Actually, that's the minority, man.
• 23:44
  Absolutely. That's the minority.
• 23:45
  And actually Sunnis and Shia, we have so much in common.
• 23:49
  We we need to focus on our similarities rather than allow
• 23:53
  the differences to divide us. Because when we're divided,
• 23:55
  that's when we're our weakest. And to bring it back to the
• 23:58
  Araka national team, the national team really encompasses
• 24:01
  this because it's made-up of sin Shia, it's made-up of
• 24:04
  Christians, it's made-up of people from the South, the
• 24:09
  north, Assyrians, Kurds, etcetera.
• 24:11
  So it's also one of the reasons why I really worked so hard for
• 24:14
  this team because they embody what it means to be.
• 24:18
  I'm working now on a, on a publication with The Athletic
• 24:21
  and they asked me, they're doing like a preview for the World
• 24:25
  Cup. And they asked me what's like a
• 24:26
  phrase we can use that represents Iraq.
• 24:29
  And the thing I told them, use this.
• 24:31
  He's going to call me tomorrow, actually, to finalize this.
• 24:33
  But I told him football succeeded when all else failed.
• 24:38
  When we focused on politics, that failed.
• 24:40
  We focused on, like, religious issues.
• 24:43
  We failed. Football's, I think, like,
• 24:44
  United, all of us. And if you look at the
• 24:46
  statistics after the 2007 Asian Cup victory, bro, like from 2000
• 24:54
  and three, 2007 was chaos. Yeah.
• 24:58
  I mean, mental if you're old enough to remember what it was
• 25:00
  like every single day, IED bombs, I mean thousands and 10s
• 25:06
  of thousands of Shahada innocent people every day in markets, in
• 25:09
  shops, in mosques, both Sunnis and Shia or this, be honest
• 25:14
  about this, OK, Unfortunately, we're being victimized and we're
• 25:18
  suffering from this. But after the 2017 they won the
• 25:23
  Asian Cup, Hamdulillahu sugar, they showed that you have a team
• 25:26
  of Sunnis, Kurds, Shia are Christians.
• 25:30
  When they work together with the United goal, we can succeed
• 25:35
  that, that can be successful and the country saw that.
• 25:39
  And statistically, these incidents start at the full
• 25:41
  handle large. So what would you say?
• 25:43
  Look, because obviously a lot of this like there's so many people
• 25:46
  right now and we we get DMSA lot, we get messages a lot.
• 25:50
  We will go to Majalis or even for example, last time we were
• 25:54
  in Speakers Corner area, High Park area, I was ironically, I
• 25:58
  was with the brothers from aftermarket and we'd get stopped
• 26:00
  and either asked to join debates and defend the Shia or we'd be
• 26:06
  asked to for advice on how to deal with these things.
• 26:08
  Obviously that aside because that's a specific area where
• 26:10
  you're going to find that, but a lot of the time you get Sunni or
• 26:13
  Shia youth who are so determined to focus on polemics.
• 26:18
  And I believe polemics has a place when it comes to knowing
• 26:21
  how to defend your points of view and at the same time
• 26:24
  understanding your theology, your doctrine and so on.
• 26:28
  But being able to communicate and have dialogue on that with
• 26:30
  respect is so important. But what would you say to a lot
• 26:33
  of the younger generation who are caught up in like non-stop
• 26:38
  beef when it comes to I think? It's sort of like Shia youth who
• 26:43
  are worried about being demonized for being Shia.
• 26:45
  Like, yeah, like the pride that you have in being Shia, because
• 26:48
  that's something we. Really, I think you're, you're
• 26:50
  always so worried about people finding out your Shia.
• 26:52
  How am I going to get treated? What I think, what advice like
• 26:57
  how, how would you tell youth in that sort of mindset to go?
• 27:01
  About So as somebody that grew up in that environment, the
• 27:04
  truth is, I feel that the main thing you need to do as a young
• 27:09
  Shia, a grown up surrounded by this hostile environment, number
• 27:12
  one, study, learn, make sure you know your stuff #2 genuinely
• 27:17
  don't bother with these debates because they're not going to
• 27:19
  lead anywhere. If you really want to instigate,
• 27:23
  change your mannerisms, your clock.
• 27:26
  That's what will lead to change. If you carry yourself and
• 27:29
  conduct yourself in the best possible light, in the true
• 27:33
  mannerisms of elevate, people will see that need.
• 27:36
  That in itself is the best method of debating in my
• 27:40
  opinion. People will see that and no one
• 27:42
  can chat to you at that point when they see how you conduct
• 27:45
  yourself in the best clerk and the best mannerisms in your
• 27:47
  success. Most of these debates are
• 27:51
  genuinely a waste of time. People want to go and Oh yeah, I
• 27:54
  spoke to you in this debate, but realistically you're just there
• 27:57
  to argue. But no one's going to change
• 27:59
  that always. Willing to to learn?
• 28:01
  Yeah, of course. Main thing for you is go and
• 28:04
  study, strengthen your knowledge, become a very good
• 28:08
  human being. And then slowly, slowly you'll
• 28:10
  be able to respond to all these questions that you you face.
• 28:16
  Even if it's not face to face where you haven't a debate, but
• 28:18
  you hear a question and you can pond that.
• 28:20
  OK, so this person said this. How, how do I feel about that?
• 28:24
  How do I react to that? This is what I would say.
• 28:26
  This takes years of experience and years of studying, but I
• 28:29
  don't know. I'm not going to mention a name
• 28:31
  but as a student in my school I see this kid always debating
• 28:35
  always. I want to make this guy come
• 28:38
  forever. I was like bro I'm not being
• 28:40
  funny. While they're getting twos and
• 28:41
  threes in your GCSE, focus on your GCSE.
• 28:43
  Pass them OK because they're your exams in a couple of
• 28:46
  months. Focus on this.
• 28:48
  Gain the knowledge because we're studying is ABADA.
• 28:51
  It's one of the best forms of ABADA.
• 28:54
  Focus on your grades. Build you almost stuck but build
• 28:56
  your future by then inshallah. Convert the wealthy shares, but
• 28:59
  start with yourself, you know what I mean?
• 29:02
  We were saying this last week is like be the best version version
• 29:04
  of whatever you're doing, but you know, like you're not coming
• 29:07
  off that. This past week I've been working
• 29:09
  on a project. I got commissioned actually to
• 29:12
  do a, a filming project for Al Jazeera.
• 29:15
  When I first got into it, I was scared like these guys are going
• 29:18
  to find out who I am, who they've given this job to, like
• 29:20
  it's a shitty guy or whatever. So this whole time I've been
• 29:23
  trying to hide it. Like I've been trying to like
• 29:25
  avoid them finding out who I am. I'm, I'm literally like running
• 29:28
  the production for these guys. The yes, today we finished the
• 29:33
  project and then we were sitting down with the guys and then the,
• 29:37
  the, the, the Ed Jazeera manager who's with us.
• 29:40
  He's like, I'm like, I'm Arathi. He's like I'm in Baghdad or one
• 29:45
  of my friends behind me. He goes, he caught me up.
• 29:50
  In fact, the guy had already done his background research on
• 29:53
  it. I knew it.
• 29:53
  So. So he's like, OK, where you
• 29:55
  going now? Do you want to come out with us?
• 29:56
  Whatever. I'm like, no, I've got filming
• 29:58
  after this. I'm going somewhere.
• 29:59
  He's like, hi, you're going to aftermath Rib.
• 30:01
  No way. What did he know?
• 30:04
  These guys, they, they know who you are.
• 30:06
  They know you're Shia. As much as we're scared of it,
• 30:09
  they don't, they don't care. Yeah, they're happy to work with
• 30:13
  us. They're as long as you're not,
• 30:15
  you're not causing any trouble between one another.
• 30:17
  You're not doing polemics. You're not.
• 30:19
  You're being. Respectful.
• 30:20
  You're you're you're just as capable as working with these
• 30:22
  big names as anyone. Else is one of the things I
• 30:26
  learnt from travelling and being in football because I'm very
• 30:29
  lucky to have this unique perspective.
• 30:31
  Being in football, you're working with very wealthy
• 30:34
  people, people that are famous etcetera and travelling, you're
• 30:37
  seeing all sorts of people from across the world and you realise
• 30:41
  through my experiences, everyone's the same.
• 30:44
  No one has any idea what they're doing by the way, don't see like
• 30:48
  some famous football with millions of followers is going
• 30:50
  to be at the World Cup or some rich guy in Mexico that I was
• 30:53
  chilling with. Voila, these guys have the same
• 30:55
  exact troubles that you do. This guy in Mexico in his
• 30:59
  massive mansion, he's worried that his kids not doing his
• 31:01
  homework. Same way you and your council
• 31:03
  house in London, you're worried the same thing, your kids not
• 31:05
  doing homework. This footballer who's we've got
• 31:10
  millions, he's annoyed that his daughter, her hijab is not very
• 31:13
  good, for example. You're in.
• 31:15
  I don't think about the exact same worry.
• 31:16
  Oh, no one knows anything. Well, like everyone's trying to
• 31:18
  figure out fair. Don't worry about anything.
• 31:21
  Just try to be the best version of yourself.
• 31:23
  That's really what it comes down to.
• 31:26
  And kind of like moving on, if you don't mind, into a specific
• 31:28
  area of of the World Cup. Obviously coming up.
• 31:31
  We spoke about it with Ali. And I know that he is
• 31:34
  consistently thinking about this.
• 31:35
  He's spoken to me about. I'm sure he's spoken to you
• 31:37
  about as well, of course, busy time for him and for for you, of
• 31:43
  course, not just like in terms of the content creation side of
• 31:47
  things, but also being a Shia. So we're approaching Mahalram.
• 31:50
  It's it's a crazy period for all of us.
• 31:53
  This is the first time where Iraq are playing in a World Cup
• 31:57
  during Mahalram, of course. And not only that, of course,
• 32:01
  there's games during the 10 nights, you know, and of course,
• 32:03
  the game against Senegal is on Yomala Shora and Sha Allah.
• 32:06
  And hopefully they succeed. And, and I just wanted to ask
• 32:10
  you how you feel about this, especially being a Shia in this
• 32:13
  space at a time where so many eyes are on you or your page.
• 32:18
  I can't imagine your engagements or your page must be crazy.
• 32:21
  Masha Allah. And especially during the World
• 32:23
  Cup period. Firstly, how do you think?
• 32:27
  Firstly, do you feel like there's an opportunity to to do
• 32:30
  any sort of tablier about the mission of Mama Hussein?
• 32:32
  In many ways, there's a commonality between everything
• 32:34
  you've spoken about the the global mission of humanity, you
• 32:38
  know, not being colonial in our identity.
• 32:40
  But yeah, I was saying instead of the sports brand on this.
• 32:43
  You know, like, for example, Imam has seen in many ways was
• 32:45
  decolonial. And I feel like there's a
• 32:48
  crossover between that and so many of the themes that you've
• 32:50
  seen in the World Cup. And I hope that doesn't come
• 32:52
  across the wrong way. But do you feel like there's an
• 32:54
  opportunity to speak about that? And more so, how are you going
• 32:57
  to feel? Like what?
• 32:57
  What goes through your mind, the euphoria when you see your
• 33:00
  country play, But at the same time, obviously you're in a
• 33:02
  state of mourning. It's a very tough one.
• 33:05
  There's no straightforward answer here.
• 33:08
  I feel that. Obviously, you know, the Senegal
• 33:13
  game's the sticky 1, you know, that's that's the one.
• 33:16
  And I'm sure it's going to be turning up to the stadium in all
• 33:21
  black, but you still have to support your country kind of
• 33:23
  thing. I don't know, I feel sorry for
• 33:25
  the players. It's a sticky one, but at the
• 33:28
  end of the day, and I'm going to be completely honest, the
• 33:29
  haddies are OK. No one get upset with me.
• 33:31
  These players are selected as the 26th best players in all of
• 33:38
  Iraq and exactly, exactly. They have to turn up and
• 33:42
  represent no matter what day, if it's their birthday, if it's
• 33:45
  assured or whatever, they have that responsibility.
• 33:48
  So they're going to have to turn up and play well.
• 33:50
  But at the same time, they need to conduct themselves in the
• 33:53
  best way possible, whether it's to where, for example, the
• 33:57
  little black stripes thing, arm bands, you see, maybe a black
• 34:01
  finally left. If we managed to score against
• 34:03
  Senegal, we could like showcase it where they are saying
• 34:05
  message. If you cannot let them, wear
• 34:07
  black kits on a day. I can't reveal the I've seen the
• 34:13
  new kits. I can't reveal too much
• 34:15
  information. But it might be possible, let's
• 34:17
  put it that way. It might be possible, yeah.
• 34:20
  Yeah, because Senegal's green as well.
• 34:23
  Yeah. Yeah, All right, Cool look,
• 34:25
  specifically on that as well. Yeah, because you're going for
• 34:27
  the first game. Yeah, right.
• 34:28
  So I had the choice in terms of I couldn't get enough time off
• 34:31
  to go to all of them. Yeah, Senegal, no way, yeah, no
• 34:34
  way. I'm not going to go there
• 34:36
  Senegal game just because of I sure I've got a responsibility
• 34:41
  to go and attend the demonstration, the mukhtel,
• 34:47
  etcetera. I don't want to be at the game.
• 34:49
  But to be fair though, the game is at night for us in the UK.
• 34:51
  So yeah, Hamdullah, I can hopefully still go back in time
• 34:55
  and watch the game, maybe with a lot of me in the ping in the
• 34:58
  background. But I will be going to the first
• 35:01
  game of Charlotte. That's the plan.
• 35:03
  The second game, I think it's still very early on.
• 35:06
  I can excuse that. Like I said, Senegal was a tough
• 35:08
  one. No, it's difficult time.
• 35:11
  And ultimately I think there's a responsibility on all of us.
• 35:15
  And generally, whether you're in the football space or not, this
• 35:19
  is something we talk about a lot.
• 35:20
  And last year we did a podcast on this where like this period,
• 35:24
  as we approach Mahadan, we recognize like the global
• 35:28
  mission of Imam Hussein, the fact that everything he stood
• 35:31
  for is really what we need today.
• 35:33
  And I think everyone can learn from his message, his mission.
• 35:37
  We're not very good at Shiazza being able to talk about who he
• 35:40
  is, what he stands for, and being able to share the values
• 35:44
  that we learned from him. You know, I heard earlier today
• 35:48
  a priest, a Catholic priest, say something incredible.
• 35:51
  He's like, what separates the Shia from all other world
• 35:54
  religions, specifically speaking, is the passion.
• 35:57
  He says you guys have passion. It's not just a legal religion
• 36:01
  or religion based on ritual. It's a religion of devotion,
• 36:04
  which is symbolized through things like Ashura and Karbala
• 36:07
  and the story of Mama Hussein, all that EMA Musalaam and our
• 36:11
  devotion to the Quran and so many things that then we are
• 36:14
  able to internalize and use towards our journey towards our
• 36:17
  last Pantala. But we're not very good at
• 36:20
  sharing that with people around us.
• 36:21
  And maybe that's because, like you said earlier, we're
• 36:23
  diaspora. We are the sons of parents who
• 36:27
  came here in the last 2-3, if not the first generation.
• 36:31
  And now trying to understand how to translate that mission and
• 36:35
  these cultures and these traditions into the Western
• 36:38
  world, which now we're adapting to for the first time in maybe
• 36:40
  hundreds, if not thousands of years.
• 36:42
  So we're on that journey. Inshallah we get there.
• 36:44
  But before the podcast, and I kind of want to wrap up the sort
• 36:49
  of discussion with this something you said before the
• 36:52
  podcast, you, you talked about the importance of Yakim having
• 36:55
  to wakul in the last mantala in your difficult moments, in
• 36:59
  moments of struggle, being able to know where to turn, who to
• 37:03
  talk to, where to look. Can I ask you, if you don't mind
• 37:07
  showing, what are some of your most difficult moments in life
• 37:11
  and and how did you kind of build it from within to to get
• 37:14
  out of it? Yeah, no, no problem.
• 37:16
  We can discuss this. I've had a lot of health issues
• 37:19
  to just talk about some of the problems that I've faced, I've
• 37:22
  had a slipped disc. There were, I mean, numerous
• 37:25
  years when I was like borderline paralysed.
• 37:28
  I nearly died once when I accidentally overdosed on my
• 37:30
  medication that was dealing with my, my slip disc nearly bled
• 37:34
  out, tore my ACL from a young age when I was 19.
• 37:39
  That was incredibly painful. I've had two hernia operations,
• 37:44
  several other injuries, busted my nose when I was in Costa
• 37:48
  Rica, for example. And then all the other personal
• 37:51
  stuff, you know, dealing for example, with my divorce that
• 37:53
  came in very tough circumstances, dealing with the
• 37:56
  stress of working as a head of department of sixth form,
• 38:01
  dealing with my football stuff at the same time.
• 38:02
  These are tough challenges, man. Best hamdullah Like the thing
• 38:08
  that's always got me through it is having this absolute
• 38:11
  tawakkumallah. When you go through these
• 38:13
  challenges, you can always look at them in two different ways.
• 38:20
  You can look at it from the perspective of why is Allah
• 38:22
  doing this to me, What did I do, which is a loser's mentality.
• 38:28
  What you need to do and handle something I've learned through
• 38:32
  my experiences to do is OK. Allah has put me in the
• 38:35
  situation. What do I need to gain from
• 38:38
  this? What?
• 38:40
  Why did this happen that I had to go through this experience
• 38:44
  and how is it going to help me? And you also need to rewire the
• 38:48
  way you think. I'll give you a very good
• 38:50
  example. To me, this was like a normal
• 38:52
  way of thinking until I had a conversation with my friend in
• 38:54
  the gym and he was like, bro, this is like so different to how
• 38:58
  I think. And I was like, really, I
• 39:00
  thought this was normal. I was thinking about my ACL
• 39:02
  injury and he was like, oh, I bro, I got another injury.
• 39:06
  I'm struggling to deal with it. I feel so bad or whatever.
• 39:09
  One I injured my knee, I was playing in goal, I jumped, I
• 39:13
  felt my kneecap at the back of my leg and that was it.
• 39:17
  I had an operation. It failed.
• 39:18
  It was fine. ACL was one of the worst.
• 39:21
  That was horrible, horrible. Did all the physio and
• 39:24
  everything but still was still clicks like crazy.
• 39:27
  I can't really play football anymore and it's been now 12
• 39:30
  years. I just gave up on it.
• 39:32
  That's one of the reasons I went into like concentration with
• 39:34
  football. It's still my way of like
• 39:35
  keeping in touch with football without playing it.
• 39:38
  But I remember thinking, do you know what this injury, if that
• 39:41
  didn't happen that day, I would have gotten in my car, driven
• 39:44
  home, bro, a bus could have hit me.
• 39:47
  The car could have exploded. I could have run someone over
• 39:49
  and killed them. This was Allah's way of averting
• 39:53
  that I got injured. So I went instead of going into
• 39:56
  my car, I had to go with my brother to the hospital.
• 39:59
  Thus I'm the nothing else happened that would have been
• 40:02
  much worse. Allah knows, we don't know
• 40:05
  anything. We are just taking it minute by
• 40:08
  minute. We're not in control.
• 40:09
  Allah's in control. Trust that.
• 40:11
  Trust a lot. Like if you have true, you can
• 40:13
  trust whatever's happening to you right now.
• 40:16
  You're supposed to go through this me and you are supposed to
• 40:18
  have this conversation. When I told my ACL I was
• 40:20
  supposed to go through that when I slipped my disk and I was
• 40:23
  laying on the floor like genuinely paralyzed.
• 40:26
  I was supposed to go through that difficulty because there
• 40:29
  was something I was going to learn from that experience,
• 40:32
  whether it was having Sabar, whether it was being grateful
• 40:34
  for my health. This is another thing like, it's
• 40:37
  really sad seeing a lot of our artists and Shia just neglect
• 40:41
  their health. The reason I train so much, it's
• 40:43
  not a looks thing. Obviously as a bonus, you,
• 40:45
  everyone wants to look good, but I've been there.
• 40:47
  When your health is gone, but the only thing you would want,
• 40:50
  you would sacrifice everything, every pound you have, every bit
• 40:54
  of every asset you have just to get your health back.
• 40:57
  When you lose it, you realize, man, I was so lucky.
• 41:00
  I could get up and go to the toilet.
• 41:01
  I can get up and drink water. But then you see the way us
• 41:05
  Shia, who are supposed to embody the teachings of Adelaide and
• 41:09
  the way we neglect our health, the way we neglect our bodies,
• 41:12
  the way we eat. Absolute rancid, processed
• 41:15
  nonsense. That's not true, Islam.
• 41:19
  OK, Look after your health because once it goes you're.
• 41:22
  Coming back, man. There's no coming back and
• 41:25
  Hamdullah again. I went through these
• 41:27
  difficulties, I lost my health and Hamdullah.
• 41:30
  Now I'm back again, but with a different attitude in terms of
• 41:33
  how grateful I am, how there's a certain influence on that.
• 41:37
  Because if you're depressed and suicidal, go to the gym for six
• 41:40
  months, come back and let me know if you're still suicidal.
• 41:43
  Yeah, it makes sense. Honestly, it makes sense.
• 41:45
  Late night, late night gym. Oh my God.
• 41:48
  But you know, based on that story of you going through your
• 41:51
  injury and stuff, my father went through last year a similar
• 41:54
  situation where he broke his arm.
• 41:57
  And for a man his age to break your arm, it was like it was the
• 42:00
  worst thing we can go through. But because of that, he ended up
• 42:03
  going to hospital and finding out about an illness.
• 42:06
  Had he not found out about that, his life could have gone a
• 42:09
  different direction completely. I don't know if you guys listen
• 42:12
  to music. This one's not so much a song,
• 42:15
  but it's more a story over a beat.
• 42:17
  It's by KRS-one. You must know who that is.
• 42:19
  OK, good. You're honest.
• 42:22
  So he's got a song called The World is Mind.
• 42:24
  And in the song, he's talking about two people sat in a
• 42:26
  hospital, and one of them is on the bed near the window, and the
• 42:32
  other one is on the other side of the room.
• 42:36
  OK, Now this guy, he's jealous of the guy near the near the
• 42:40
  bed, near the window. And he keeps asking, Yeah,
• 42:42
  what's happening outside? I can't see.
• 42:44
  They're both bed bound. And the guy tells a man, I'm
• 42:47
  seeing a family go past and kids playing and I'm seeing beautiful
• 42:51
  clouds and all these like nice imageries and this guy's raging.
• 42:55
  He wants to be in the bed. And then one day he notices the
• 42:59
  guy near the window. He's no longer there.
• 43:01
  And he asked the nurse what happened to me because he died.
• 43:04
  So he goes, can I get that bed? He goes here, go have it.
• 43:07
  And he goes there and he realizes it's just a wall.
• 43:11
  What that guy was seeing is what he wanted to see.
• 43:14
  That world he was seeing was in his mind.
• 43:16
  He shaped the world because of his mindset.
• 43:19
  But now this guy came and he just sees the wall, the wall,
• 43:22
  because his mentality is negative.
• 43:24
  He's seeing the world as a wall. Other guy was seeing the world
• 43:27
  for the beauty, for what he wanted to see.
• 43:30
  And it all comes down to mentality.
• 43:32
  There are two types of people. They get shot over here.
• 43:36
  One of them thinks, yeah, I'm so unlucky. 2 more inches.
• 43:40
  I could have died. Yeah, why this happened to me.
• 43:42
  The other one thinks, bro, Hamdallah, 2 inches.
• 43:45
  Are they being gone? I'm still alive.
• 43:46
  Hamdallah sugar. The one that all comes back to
• 43:48
  mind. Absolutely, man.
• 43:51
  And you know what? When you go through these
• 43:53
  challenges, while I just say Hamdallah, try to make this the
• 43:56
  most common word in your vocabulary every day, say as
• 43:59
  much as you can. You will genuinely start seeing
• 44:01
  the world in a much better way. It will change your mindset.
• 44:04
  Allah will give you so much, Barack, and you'll start to see
• 44:08
  the world in a much more positive light.
• 44:09
  I saw something today on Twitter.
• 44:11
  It was, I don't know who, a basketball player who got a
• 44:15
  crazy injury. It was the ACL as well, I think.
• 44:19
  And like, people had been following his career throughout
• 44:21
  the beginning of his journey and every time they put the camera
• 44:25
  on him when the game starts and now people do prayers or
• 44:27
  whatever, he always says thank you God when he walks onto the
• 44:30
  basketball court. And he became, it became his
• 44:33
  thing. Like people knew that was his
• 44:34
  thing. And bro, when he got his injury,
• 44:37
  instinctively he was in pain holding his knee.
• 44:40
  And he's like, you can see the the cameras on at me saying
• 44:42
  thank you God, thank you God while he's holding.
• 44:44
  Send me this video man. Yeah, it's crazy.
• 44:46
  I was baffled, bro. I was.
• 44:48
  I couldn't get my head. Remember Abdul Ralf, the NBA
• 44:50
  player who became Shia? Salim Abdul Jabbar.
• 44:54
  Mahmud. Al Jabalov.
• 44:56
  I remember we've done an interview with him like 10 years
• 44:58
  ago and so he said. Where's he from?
• 45:02
  He's the African American. He's African American somewhat.
• 45:05
  There's a reaver, Mohammad Abdarov, if you search it.
• 45:07
  It's on his YouTube channel. He said when he first reverted,
• 45:11
  he started taking prayer so important to him.
• 45:14
  He would stop the matches to go and pray to the point where his
• 45:17
  manager stopped playing him. That's crazy.
• 45:20
  But then I think it got to a point in where Ramadan came
• 45:23
  round and they're like, there's no chance we can have him play
• 45:25
  while he's fasting. Bess something happened and they
• 45:29
  ended up playing him and then they said that Ramavan they
• 45:32
  realized he was playing even better with with like God in his
• 45:35
  mind and whatnot. See that in football a lot as
• 45:37
  well. And.
• 45:38
  Yeah, no thing on the forest. Remember that there was the
• 45:42
  thing people used to call it, I can't remember.
• 45:44
  There was, there was a thing when specifically, obviously
• 45:47
  there's loads of players in the in the Premier League, but when
• 45:49
  Mars was playing, you know, Mars, Yeah, sure.
• 45:54
  He's a good player, let's put it that way.
• 45:55
  Chelsea player? No, he's saying, unfortunately.
• 45:58
  Yeah, God, anyway, yeah, when bro, when he was playing on a
• 46:01
  Malvan his even though it was a couple of seasons sold out when
• 46:04
  he was Yeah, but yeah, it's emotional talk about him right
• 46:07
  now, but I. Got Scouser.
• 46:09
  I am bro born and bred man. I'm the laugh.
• 46:12
  Liverpool too. I die but.
• 46:14
  Yeah, I think on this inshallah our future generations like
• 46:17
  their aspirations improved their I I saw you cover the the young
• 46:22
  kings and you're showing how their kids were you you were
• 46:25
  trying to push them together places.
• 46:26
  I think academies like that. You're not asking a question.
• 46:29
  There's a kid who was on it who was you're asking like Smek
• 46:33
  Umlak, and he asked his club and he said Palace, is he playing
• 46:37
  for Palace? Yeah, he is.
• 46:38
  No way. Because he had a palace show.
• 46:40
  That's Ali. Very, very.
• 46:43
  Thanks Kidman. Kidman, Just today I posted
• 46:46
  about a new kid who's just 12 years old.
• 46:48
  This guy's ripping up in the kind of that Academy scene.
• 46:51
  He's just signed for Arsenal a lot there as well.
• 46:54
  His name is Hashima Samarai. So yeah, to go back to the
• 46:58
  football thing, like it's about identifying these young talents
• 47:02
  from a young age, providing them with a platform, making sure
• 47:04
  that they have everything they need to succeed.
• 47:06
  And definitely. Shout out to Young Kings because
• 47:11
  what they're doing for these kids, like they're pushing them
• 47:13
  as much as they can. It's like kids from our
• 47:16
  communities. Yeah, yeah, they're, they're
• 47:18
  trying to find the ones who we can level up and.
• 47:21
  Both take them kids. So I just add one thing here
• 47:23
  man. Like do you know what, honest to
• 47:27
  God if you think these footballers are the heroes,
• 47:30
  voila, these footballers have not sacrificed anywhere near as
• 47:34
  much as their parents have. That we didn't make it into
• 47:38
  football because our parents started to talk mind this Like
• 47:43
  there was no aspiration to be a footballer.
• 47:46
  It wasn't an option. Bro my older brother, everyone
• 47:49
  in the community knows him. Hyderabad.
• 47:50
  Go ask anyone around the age of 35 upwards.
• 47:53
  You're in London, you know how double everyone knows him
• 47:56
  because he was one of the best footballers in the whole
• 47:58
  community, probably the best, but he didn't make it because he
• 48:00
  didn't have that framework that allowed them to succeed.
• 48:04
  But then having met Al Hamadi's, that Zidans, that their parents,
• 48:08
  their mums and you see Mandu to let their kids play for a club
• 48:15
  at that age, to let them go and figure this out for themselves.
• 48:18
  Have that, have that patients that take them to football
• 48:21
  games. I love football so much, bro.
• 48:23
  There's no way my kid have to go to work and come back and drive
• 48:26
  him two hours to Crystal Palace Training Stadium, wait in the
• 48:29
  cold rain for him to finish training and I'm just there
• 48:32
  freezing. But I'm still doing that.
• 48:34
  But their parents? Did my little bit of football
• 48:36
  training once and like we can't do this.
• 48:37
  Imagine they're doing this every day from their from the age
• 48:40
  that's 12 like. Probably 12 parents when they
• 48:42
  came here, I think first generation, they were going
• 48:44
  through a lot themselves and for them to even like allow us to
• 48:48
  grow somewhat to the point that now we can take our kids to do
• 48:52
  these things. But yeah, and you'll handle the
• 48:53
  generations it's. Probably something to question.
• 48:56
  Man, it's coming because look up like we grew up like football
• 49:00
  for us, and I don't sound blasphemous, but it's like a
• 49:03
  second religion. You know what I mean?
• 49:04
  As you know, like how much we talk about football, how much we
• 49:07
  love it. But like for me, like bro, I I
• 49:11
  think about football to decompress from my stressful
• 49:14
  day. I watch football podcast.
• 49:16
  I talk about with my boys, for me and Hamdullah now I've got a
• 49:19
  four year old boy. Like my focus is how can I get
• 49:23
  this guy to kick ball? Do you know what I mean?
• 49:25
  Yeah, it's because it's bro. It's like some.
• 49:27
  Project I didn't have. How many Bros like the social
• 49:30
  skills, the physical development, just the
• 49:33
  resilience, the determination that.
• 49:34
  Yeah, but you as Ahmed, you know, for example, if you want
• 49:37
  to take your son, you can probably find like this time at
• 49:40
  what, the club? Yeah, yeah.
• 49:41
  My dad had no idea like of. Course, yeah.
• 49:43
  He saw me kicking a boy that come inside and stop wasting and
• 49:46
  rob you outside. But anyways.
• 49:48
  The reason I mentioned this is goes back to Young Kings is
• 49:51
  because now they've broken that barrier, they've actually
• 49:56
  provided option from within our community to now get these
• 49:59
  younger hierarchy talents, and not just hierarchies, but from
• 50:02
  all walks of life, different communities and give them an
• 50:07
  opportunity to actually make it in the footballing world.
• 50:10
  Not just them. You know, Mike had a Sami Blood
• 50:13
  Elite London Academy. No, this is my cousin Mashallah.
• 50:16
  He's built probably the biggest Academy in England.
• 50:20
  We'll get him on the podcast one day.
• 50:22
  We'll sit and we'll talk about how he's done this because he's
• 50:27
  built an incredible, incredible network to give kids the
• 50:30
  opportunities, make it these. Kids Mashallah have great
• 50:34
  mentors and the likes of you and of course your cousin Sami and
• 50:38
  so many others also want to shout Ali Janabi he he asked for
• 50:41
  a shout he deserved. A shout How much he paid.
• 50:45
  Yeah, he deserved it, man. He's a gem.
• 50:47
  Of course. He was on the first podcast we
• 50:49
  did with with Ali and Hamadi a couple of years ago.
• 50:52
  And he's also like his hearts in the game and he, I'm sure you
• 50:56
  know as much as I do how much. I know, but I know.
• 50:58
  Yeah, man, he's a great guy. That was one of the few people
• 51:00
  that actually helped me when I was like on the on the rise
• 51:04
  right at the beginning. Yeah, yeah, he's a gem.
• 51:06
  One of the day ones. He's a gem.
• 51:07
  Yeah, he's a proper gem. May Allah bless him.
• 51:09
  Always have you, Hassan. Thank you so much for coming on
• 51:11
  man. Thank you so much for having me,
• 51:13
  man. And am I going to see you guys
• 51:16
  in America with me, or we're going to be watching the games?
• 51:17
  Wait for us, man. You're going to.
• 51:19
  I'm going to Boston this year. My my in laws are in Boston so
• 51:22
  I'm gonna have to. No excuses, bro.
• 51:24
  Yeah, you're going to see us beat Norway.
• 51:26
  Yeah bro, inshallah Norway first game.
• 51:28
  Norway first game, then we're going to beat France in the
• 51:31
  second game and then we beat Senegal on our show.
• 51:33
  So it's Norway, France, Senegal? I thought it was France, Norway.
• 51:35
  Norway, France, Senegal. First game is I think the 16th,
• 51:42
  it's a Tuesday, then the other games are Tuesday and the other
• 51:45
  game is the 26th. I can't remember.
• 51:47
  What they were, it's just no. Yeah, 20.
• 51:49
  Yeah, something like that. Alam starts around 16th, 17th I
• 51:53
  show like 10 days. Yeah, it makes sense.
• 51:54
  Exciting times 1. Sorry bro.
• 51:56
  It's exciting times. Yeah, it is like.
• 51:58
  One of the Toronto guys messages us and he was like, I'm excited
• 52:00
  for the Iraqi players to come to us in here. 10 minute claim
• 52:05
  match. Yeah, I'll probably have to be
• 52:07
  after Yeah the game. That's inshallah.
• 52:11
  Bro where? Obviously we'll put your link in
• 52:13
  the description. Everything.
• 52:14
  Where can people follow your work, your journey, your World
• 52:16
  Cup coverage? They can find me on TikTok,
• 52:20
  Instagram, on Facebook, on Twitter, at Iraq football pod.
• 52:27
  If you want to check out my other little business, I'm
• 52:29
  selling these little Sidra cards.
• 52:33
  I'm very happy to honour you guys with these.
• 52:36
  Thank you so much. It's sidra dot torba, so.
• 52:39
  Sidra dot Torba, we're going to be doing you guys you'll
• 52:42
  probably see on social media, we're going to be doing some
• 52:45
  stuff showing you some of the Sidra Turbas as well.
• 52:47
  Check it out. Hussein has been putting in a
• 52:49
  shift with it and it's they're really nice.
• 52:51
  And I could just say as well, there's a lot of like eco
• 52:56
  friendly Toda bars that you see in our community right now.
• 52:58
  A lot of them are like flimsy paper cards and they're kind of
• 53:02
  like business cards that you that peel off and you have
• 53:06
  plastic underneath and you can't pray on that, of course.
• 53:08
  But what has Nens done is he's made organic bamboo similar
• 53:13
  cards for Toda bars to be used anywhere around the world,
• 53:16
  right? Yeah, we talked about
• 53:17
  travelling. That's how I came up with this
• 53:18
  idea. Like I need something.
• 53:20
  I keep praying that issue. And when you gave me one, the
• 53:22
  first thing I've told you I'm going to put it in my my wallet
• 53:24
  and it's the perfect size. So have you.
• 53:26
  Thank you SO. Much very happy that you don't
• 53:28
  like it. So is the slates now.
• 53:30
  Bro, you don't need such The slates, man.
• 53:32
  Check out said honestly. No, I'm only joking.
• 53:35
  The quality is incredible. Like I've given a random size.
• 53:38
  That's not like, you know, I don't know whose brand it was or
• 53:41
  whatever, but I went to an event like last year and I took it.
• 53:44
  I prayed on it. By the end of the event, I took
• 53:46
  it out of my pocket. It was cracked.
• 53:49
  Yeah, it was cracked down the middle.
• 53:50
  I was like, OK, you know the last, but Hamdullah.
• 53:54
  Thank you so much for having me on my.
• 53:55
  Love, bless you bro. Thank you so much and brother
• 53:57
  sisters, we will be back next week as usual on the Aftermarket
• 54:01
  podcast. Make sure you subscribe.
• 54:03
  Let us know your comments below. Make sure you check out his
• 54:04
  names work. He's a star, a gem and
• 54:08
  Charlotte, we're looking forward to seeing his coverage as well.
• 54:10
  Guys, I'm. Really.
• 54:10
  I'm not back on anymore. Back on.
• 54:13
  I'm starting a question to get me on here but apparently.
• 54:15
  Put WS in the chat for mods smashed it.
• 54:19
  Co host debut. Mashallah we'll catch you next
• 54:22
  to you guys. Take care of some alicum I want
• 54:24
  to live a look at.