Latest / After Maghrib 🌙 / Hijacked Masculinity & Toxic Influencers (Ft Yusif Mashkour)

Transcript

Hijacked Masculinity & Toxic Influencers (Ft Yusif Mashkour) · After Maghrib 🌙

• 0:00
  Salaam Alaikum Muhammad Allahu Barakatu and welcome back to
• 0:03
  another episode on your favorite Shia Muslim podcast after
• 0:07
  Maghrib. I know many of you around the
• 0:08
  world were celebrating the joyous day of AIDS or Aid
• 0:10
  Mubarak. To you and to your families.
• 0:12
  May Allah accept your Amal, your Ibadah, your Som, wherever you
• 0:17
  are around the world and as we do in every single episode.
• 0:20
  I can't have these conversations alone.
• 0:22
  I'm joined by a good brother of mine, someone I look up to, I
• 0:26
  learn from, and I see him as a true man, no pun intended.
• 0:30
  Ahmed Salaam Ali. From Salaam said.
• 0:42
  What's going on? Ibabar, yes.
• 0:44
  Ibabarak everyone at home as well.
• 0:47
  Hope all you are Mali accepted and blessed month was was
• 0:51
  accepted for you inshallah and your families.
• 0:54
  There's a hadith from Amina Mahmani in Ali Salaam where he
• 0:57
  says the day of aid is the one day where you do not give in to
• 1:00
  your desires and you are obedient to Allah.
• 1:03
  So chala, every day is a day of aid for us and a day of aid for
• 1:06
  you. So yeah, listen, say, I know
• 1:09
  obviously you've just come back from Turkey.
• 1:10
  Talk to me. So you had a post aid kind of
• 1:13
  get away for a couple days, which was nice.
• 1:15
  Yes. How was it?
• 1:16
  Hamdullah was good. Spent a few days away with the
• 1:18
  family. Yeah.
• 1:21
  It rained half the time. Yeah, but I did say, you know,
• 1:24
  when I saw the rain, I remembered I was like, it's the
• 1:26
  time for dua. What Dua's are accepted So.
• 1:29
  So I didn't complain. You know what most people see
• 1:32
  rain, they take out an umbrella, said Ali's like under the rain.
• 1:35
  It's like, yeah, yeah. Goodman, Good, good.
• 1:39
  Hamdullah. I can't complain.
• 1:41
  Guys, this week we want to talk about something very, very
• 1:45
  important. But before we do that, we are on
• 1:47
  a goal to try and reach 6,000,000 subscribers.
• 1:51
  Make sure you like, comment, subscribe and shall help us get
• 1:54
  to our target. Shall.
• 1:56
  But listen, if you're in the UK or forget that even if you're in
• 1:58
  the western world, you'll know that in the last few weeks we've
• 2:01
  been seeing a lot about a show on Netflix called Adolescence.
• 2:04
  Now Adolescence is in essence a show which talks about the
• 2:07
  journey and the struggles of young men particularly, and it
• 2:11
  follows the story of a young boy.
• 2:12
  I'm not going to ruin the storyline because so much about
• 2:15
  behind the scenes Tommy to start a ruiner for him.
• 2:17
  But in essence, it's a very important conversation which
• 2:20
  talks about how boys become men, what sort of men they're
• 2:23
  becoming, whether they're becoming men too young and also
• 2:26
  what sort of influences they look up to.
• 2:29
  Where do they get their influences from?
• 2:31
  And is it something where we as Muslims have a role to play for
• 2:36
  our own youth, for our own community?
• 2:37
  So we've got a very special guest joining us, our dear
• 2:41
  brother Yusuf Mushkur. Salaam, it's a pleasure to be
• 2:44
  here. Habibi, how's it going?
• 2:46
  Hamdullah, same old, same old. Nice to finish Ramadan.
• 2:49
  Yeah, How was it? Hamdullah Mubarak, very easy,
• 2:54
  probably the easiest Ramadan we've had.
• 2:56
  And Hamdullah, even spiritually, probably the best Ramadan have
• 2:59
  had personally. How's gym during Ramadan?
• 3:02
  Not bad, I train faster to be honest because if that was early
• 3:07
  I normally had clients after I'm doing love.
• 3:10
  Just asleep was a problem to be honest.
• 3:11
  So for those who don't know you are, you are of course a
• 3:16
  personal trainer. You do a lot of stuff online in
• 3:19
  terms of online coaching as well.
• 3:20
  But also in the last kind of 6 to 12 months, you've you've, I
• 3:24
  think, taken the community by storm for a lot of shit content.
• 3:28
  Is that like an accurate description of who you are?
• 3:30
  I would say so, yeah. I mean, fitness has been my life
• 3:34
  for at least 10 years now and it's been my career for six full
• 3:39
  time. And Hamdallah, I've done all
• 3:42
  right. And the recent transition I
• 3:46
  would say is quite accurate also.
• 3:48
  Yeah, Hamdallah, Hamdallah. OK, guys.
• 3:50
  So I want to do something a bit different this week.
• 3:52
  OK, I've I've prepped a few questions.
• 3:55
  All right, kind of Ice Breakers for both of you.
• 3:56
  I know you haven't seen it. For me as well, yeah.
• 3:58
  Yeah, yeah. OK.
• 3:59
  So the first one, maybe, I don't know if it applies to you more
• 4:02
  so for Yousef, but OK, I'm going to go through these.
• 4:04
  Yes. I want you real quick.
• 4:06
  Instinctive, like actual answers done.
• 4:10
  No diplomacy, nothing. Yeah.
• 4:11
  All right. OK, fine.
• 4:12
  Number one, would you rather give up Jim, or never use the
• 4:15
  Internet again? Never use the Internet.
• 4:17
  Swear. Why?
• 4:20
  Bro, my life would collapse without Jim.
• 4:21
  Really. It's literally like it holds my
• 4:24
  life together. Yeah.
• 4:26
  Anything that goes wrong, I just go gym.
• 4:28
  Anything. When it's going well, I go gym
• 4:30
  and I feel them better. I don't see how I could live my
• 4:37
  life without gym. My whole adult life has been in
• 4:40
  the gym. Most of my friends are in the
• 4:42
  gym. I don't see a life without gym.
• 4:45
  Hamdullah. How about you said?
• 4:49
  I'm scared to answer that I'll I'll give up the gym and keep
• 4:53
  the Internet. Fair play, but best of both.
• 4:55
  Best of both I. Think a good question is have
• 4:57
  you already given up the gym or I'll let.
• 5:00
  You know, after the podcast. By the way, what I will say is,
• 5:03
  yeah, I think gym for many, and you've probably heard this a
• 5:07
  lot, and I don't need to become like a, a gym conversation, but
• 5:11
  I think when you get to a point of like your life takes a full
• 5:15
  U-turn. Fatherhood is that bro,
• 5:18
  everything changes. So you as a guy, you change
• 5:20
  physically, you change mentally, emotionally.
• 5:22
  Your time is then given time spare free time that you'd
• 5:26
  usually give to yourself. Your well-being you then put
• 5:28
  into your children or whatever. Whilst I agree, I have a lot of
• 5:32
  clients who are family men who are successful businessmen or
• 5:36
  are successful within the nine to five world and they make
• 5:39
  time. Everyone has time, it's just are
• 5:42
  you willing to allocate that some of that time to the gym?
• 5:45
  It's parities bro. It is.
• 5:47
  It is. Good conversation to have, all
• 5:48
  right? What's a what's a hill that
• 5:51
  you're willing to die on? A hill.
• 5:52
  A hill that are willing, no matter how ridiculous.
• 5:55
  Let. Me give an example, Yeah, let me
• 5:59
  let me give an. Example.
• 6:02
  Let me give an example. Yeah, so a hill that you're
• 6:05
  willing to die no matter how ridiculous.
• 6:11
  Like I firmly believe that a burger without without cheese in
• 6:15
  it is not a burger. What's that got to do with the
• 6:18
  hill? It's a hill I'm willing to die
• 6:19
  on. Bro I was going to say I have
• 6:20
  dissolved talking about. Like landscapes and geography.
• 6:24
  Have you never heard that? Phrase no, no, you've.
• 6:26
  Never heard the phrase the hill you're willing to die on.
• 6:27
  Come on Youssef, help me out. Bro I was going to say I have
• 6:29
  dissolved. Most of all, am I going crazy or
• 6:33
  something? I think this is some Gen.
• 6:35
  Z Gen. Z new stuff bro.
• 6:38
  Guys in the comments, I beg you back me up, please all right,
• 6:40
  what's the completely useless talent that you wish you?
• 6:44
  What's the complete useful useless talent that you have
• 6:46
  that you wish was actually useful?
• 6:47
  I. Don't know guys.
• 6:54
  Come on. So a talent.
• 6:56
  I have useless talent. A useless talent.
• 6:58
  For me, I can pop out my shoulders and pop them back in
• 7:01
  on demand, dislocate him and that's useless.
• 7:05
  Oh my, this. No, I think everything I have is
• 7:08
  useful. Bro, I don't have anything
• 7:11
  that's like crazy. I don't know.
• 7:13
  What's going on with these guys? OK, fine.
• 7:16
  This one, Hopefully you understand this.
• 7:17
  Yeah. Would you rather fight one horse
• 7:21
  sized duck or 100 duck sized horses?
• 7:27
  100 I'd rather fight one duck sized horse.
• 7:31
  Why wait repeat it one no. No 100 duck sized horses. 100
• 7:37
  Duck or. One duck sized horse.
• 7:38
  One duck sized horse. One duck.
• 7:40
  No, no, wait, wait. I'm getting baffled.
• 7:42
  One horse sized duck. One horse sized duck.
• 7:45
  Like a massive duck. Yeah.
• 7:46
  Why smoking? Easy.
• 7:50
  Quack around. What what you said?
• 7:55
  One horse sized duck. Yeah.
• 7:56
  Fair play how much you like one bite though.
• 7:59
  Would there be higher? Munch or feed me for a good six
• 8:03
  months. Oh my days.
• 8:04
  All right, what's the last one? What are three things that
• 8:07
  instantly put you in a good mood?
• 8:11
  Can't say, Jim. Can't say Jim, your Mama Ali.
• 8:16
  Sick. Nabi Mohammed of course, and
• 8:24
  seeing young like minded individuals from the community
• 8:29
  succeed. I love that.
• 8:32
  I love that. 100%. How about you?
• 8:36
  Thinking about Ziara Latum. I'm being with my children.
• 8:44
  OK bro, I think we've got one in common.
• 8:46
  I'll let you guess which. Children.
• 8:47
  Yeah. I'm joking.
• 8:50
  For me, it's probably if I'm going to skip all the the
• 8:54
  religious answers because you guys have smashed that.
• 8:57
  Probably. Yeah, My kids seeing my kids.
• 9:00
  Like today I was at work and my wife sent me pictures of my kids
• 9:03
  at the park with ducks. Normal ducks.
• 9:07
  See what the question came from the points, Yeah.
• 9:10
  Bro completely lifted my mood. The other one I think probably
• 9:16
  like recognition that something I've done has benefited someone
• 9:20
  without my knowledge or expectation.
• 9:22
  So if I've been able to do something and it's benefit
• 9:24
  someone without me even intending to do that.
• 9:27
  I think the last one is probably totally Quran.
• 9:34
  I think in Shaharah Malan for me.
• 9:37
  I for me, like Hamdullah this year, Shaharah Malan, the Quran
• 9:41
  was amazing, amazing, transformational.
• 9:45
  So that's my, my outlook on that has completely changed and it's,
• 9:48
  it's actually brought a lift to my day-to-day mood.
• 9:51
  How many people? Do you think picked up the Quran
• 9:55
  because of. Your screen, your stories, how
• 9:56
  many people? Oh yeah, yeah.
• 9:57
  You know when you're. Posting that actually scared me.
• 9:59
  I was like on Instagram, I heard the story, he said.
• 10:01
  Pick up the Quran. I.
• 10:02
  Started thinking. Do you see that I've posted on
• 10:06
  Instagram? I was like pick up the Quran.
• 10:07
  Like everyone would reply after the moment.
• 10:09
  Thank you. Thank you.
• 10:10
  Yeah. All right, let's get into the
• 10:11
  conversation. Yusuf.
• 10:13
  Obviously, I know this is something we've been this
• 10:16
  discussion has been in the works for a long time.
• 10:19
  I think now more than ever, it's a very pertinent time to to have
• 10:23
  a conversation after Shah Ramadan.
• 10:26
  Us, as all Muslims are trying to keep up good habits and not
• 10:30
  succumb to desires, falling back into traps that we may have
• 10:33
  fallen into before Ramadan and also keeping up with things that
• 10:37
  we started doing and things that we wish to continue.
• 10:41
  Why is this a conversation, a topic, especially in terms of
• 10:45
  men, masculinity that that you want to have?
• 10:51
  I mean, a lot of my Instagram and my posts and a lot my
• 10:54
  clients like I train men. I train men who have excelled
• 10:59
  normally in other aspects of their life but want to excel in
• 11:02
  the physical, which normally has a carry over into the rest of
• 11:05
  their life. And I feel like this
• 11:08
  conversation is important because obviously my my work and
• 11:12
  everything I do is to do with the gym and a lot of the
• 11:15
  characteristics that I needed to do well with that I needed to do
• 11:18
  well in life and to do well as a man anyways.
• 11:20
  For example, discipline, consistency, patience.
• 11:25
  So yeah, I think that's why. I was just thinking on the
• 11:28
  topic, you know, when we said let's discuss masculinity, I was
• 11:31
  like, what makes a man? Because I think in everyone's
• 11:35
  perspective, everyone's mind, everyone's sees a bit different.
• 11:38
  Nothing's very important. When we have the conversation
• 11:40
  here today is that we we first sort of define what is a man
• 11:44
  because we can either say men and people can get confused with
• 11:48
  people like Andrew Tate, for example, or are we speaking
• 11:52
  about Muslim men? So for me the perfect
• 11:55
  definition. Someone just has Jim for
• 11:57
  example. Yeah.
• 11:58
  What does it mean? It doesn't really.
• 11:59
  You can. You can be the strongest man in
• 12:01
  the world and the best fighter in the world and not be a proper
• 12:03
  man. For me, the best example of a
• 12:07
  man is Imam Ali. Of course we see him second in
• 12:10
  rank after the Prophet. Before anyone says you guys love
• 12:14
  Ali more than the Prophet, but just as a man and how he carried
• 12:17
  out day-to-day tasks, how he was in war, how he was with his
• 12:21
  wife, with his wife, how he was with his children, how he was
• 12:24
  with the community. I think that is the perfect
• 12:27
  definition of a man. How Imam Ali lived and how Imam
• 12:30
  Ali carried out his life is how we should carry out our life or
• 12:34
  aim to carry out our life. And I think he's the perfect
• 12:37
  definition of masculinity, no? Sense.
• 12:40
  No sense. Yeah, obviously there's a lot of
• 12:42
  stuff. Firstly, when we talk about
• 12:44
  Miramar mini in Alayhi Salaam, we say Allah Fatah, Allah Ali
• 12:47
  lah Saif Allah does Fatah. And that that that word Fatah.
• 12:51
  I mean, you guys are are, are native Arabs.
• 12:53
  You'll be able to tell me what it means.
• 12:55
  And it means more than just soldier, which we see.
• 12:57
  There's no soldier like. There's no man or youth I.
• 13:00
  Said Fatah comes from from from the root word to mean youth, and
• 13:05
  not just youth in the sense of age, but in the sense of, of, of
• 13:10
  of kind of energy and charisma and attitude and aptitude as
• 13:14
  well. So that's a big thing which we
• 13:16
  think think about. We think of middle what Manin He
• 13:18
  was a young man in all elements of his life.
• 13:22
  So even in his elder ages, you know, in the elder part of his
• 13:25
  life, of his life, minimot mini in Alei Saddam carried himself
• 13:29
  the way a young man would. He would conduct himself as
• 13:32
  someone who wasn't giving in and succumbing to laziness, you
• 13:34
  know, and into fatigue. He was someone who would carry
• 13:37
  himself with with the peak sharpness, his mental sharpness,
• 13:41
  his spiritual precision, All of that stuff was carried it with
• 13:45
  complete perfection. And that's that's obviously why
• 13:49
  we talk about minimot million such a degree.
• 13:51
  But there's so many qualities of a man which we think about when
• 13:53
  we talk about men from an Islamic perspective.
• 13:56
  But obviously the the term masculinity today has become so
• 13:59
  loaded, You know, it's become something which to one pocket of
• 14:03
  society is thought of. You think you couple it with
• 14:07
  another word beginning with T toxic masculinity, because when
• 14:11
  people talk about masculinity a lot of the time you hear the
• 14:13
  word toxic before because people think wow, well men who are
• 14:17
  toxic. I also think that's the movement
• 14:19
  that comes from the other side, the feminist side who have tried
• 14:23
  to demonize masculinity and make us feel bad for being men, which
• 14:28
  I'm completely disagree with. I think we all have like, to be
• 14:33
  a man and to be a woman is two different things and we should
• 14:36
  take pride in that. It doesn't mean one's better
• 14:38
  than the other. Women are better than men at
• 14:41
  certain things and men are better than women at certain
• 14:43
  things. That doesn't make me sexist.
• 14:45
  That's just how life is. Reality.
• 14:47
  It's reality. Yeah.
• 14:48
  Yeah, No, you're right. You know, what are some
• 14:50
  challenges that you guys think men face today?
• 14:53
  Muslim men. Well.
• 14:56
  Because I know we can say like, you know, we can say social, we
• 14:58
  can say psychological, we can say, I don't know, societal
• 15:02
  pressures, financial pressures, providing for the home,
• 15:07
  providing for the family. But what?
• 15:09
  What are the challenges you think Muslim men face today?
• 15:11
  Is this Muslim? Yeah.
• 15:12
  Muslim. All men, No.
• 15:14
  No, let's start with all men, OK, Let's start with all men
• 15:16
  because there's there's like an all men thing.
• 15:18
  And then I think a Muslim thing is specific.
• 15:20
  What do you reckon? Struggles that all men face,
• 15:24
  yeah, yeah. So financially, that's one of
• 15:27
  the biggest struggles. We have so much pressure on us
• 15:30
  to provide because in my opinion, one of the traits of a
• 15:36
  masculine man is to provide for his family.
• 15:39
  Provide and protect. Provide, protect and provide.
• 15:41
  So that's the first part, provide.
• 15:43
  I think a lot of the Muslim men really focus on the provide or
• 15:47
  focus on the protect and forget the other.
• 15:50
  So for me, there's no point. It's my opinion is there's no
• 15:52
  point of having money if you can't defend your family and
• 15:55
  there's no point being able to being able to defend your family
• 15:59
  if you can't put food on the table.
• 16:00
  So I think they go hand in hand and going back to what you were
• 16:03
  saying earlier about like, what is a man?
• 16:05
  I feel like the red pill commute.
• 16:08
  I feel like the red pill definition of what a man is,
• 16:10
  someone who goes around and sleeps with a lot of girls,
• 16:13
  someone who just has money, drinks, parties, is rude, is
• 16:18
  toxic, actually toxic versus the Islamic definition.
• 16:22
  And for me, the Islamic definition is the only true
• 16:25
  definition because everything else that we think is
• 16:28
  subjective. The only thing that we have that
• 16:31
  is objective is what our prophets are.
• 16:33
  Allahu Alayhi were added to us and what Imam Ali to us and what
• 16:36
  are the end to us? Because that is the word of God
• 16:39
  and the way they carried themselves out is in a godly way
• 16:42
  and we don't believe that they made any mistakes.
• 16:44
  So the way they carried out their life and their definition
• 16:48
  of masculinity is the only definition of masculinity in my
• 16:51
  opinion. A man is known by his morality.
• 16:55
  A man is known by his authority. A man is known by his
• 16:59
  generosity. A man is known by his bravery.
• 17:01
  A man is known by his responsibility.
• 17:03
  A man is known by so many elements and articles of
• 17:06
  personality which can only work symbiotically.
• 17:10
  So you can't be brave if you don't understand responsibility
• 17:13
  and accountability because what are you being brave for?
• 17:15
  If you don't understand what you're protecting?
• 17:16
  You can't be generous if you don't understand, you know what,
• 17:19
  what your, what authority is, because then you don't know
• 17:22
  what, what generosity is and, and how you're you're giving in
• 17:26
  order to protect your own authority as an individual and
• 17:28
  as a provider. Like these are things which we
• 17:30
  sometimes forget. There's so many hadith.
• 17:32
  A man is known by his word as well.
• 17:33
  The Holy Prophet Muhammad Sallallallahu Alayhi Wasallam
• 17:36
  said a man's honour is in his tongue.
• 17:38
  If he speaks well, he's honoured and if he speaks poorly, he's
• 17:40
  disgraced. How often do we see bro in
• 17:43
  today's day and age? Men who swear, bro, swearing.
• 17:47
  And I'm, you know, we all fall victim to battle sometimes say.
• 17:52
  But swearing is something. Yeah, yeah, we all fall victim
• 17:57
  to battle. Yeah.
• 17:59
  But I mean, to be honest, swearing is a big part of it.
• 18:01
  To be honest, bro. I mean, there's look, a lot of
• 18:03
  men nowadays, I forget even men, bro, Young boys are listening to
• 18:07
  music by rappers, swearing girls, drugs, drink.
• 18:10
  Like, these are things which are like, popularized and idolized
• 18:15
  by young men, and they see that as cool.
• 18:17
  And a lot of the time, just not being able to control your
• 18:20
  tongue. And I don't just mean what comes
• 18:22
  out of your mouth, also how you say it.
• 18:24
  Because a man who shouts, for example, a man who raises his
• 18:27
  voice to his wife, to his children, to his colleagues, his
• 18:30
  peers, is in reality a little boy hiding inside a man's body,
• 18:35
  a hairy, large man's body, but acting like a little boy having
• 18:39
  a tantrum, to be really honest. And that's a big issue because
• 18:42
  not being able to hold your tongue is not brave.
• 18:44
  And what you're saying about honour as well.
• 18:47
  I completely agree. As a man your word is bond.
• 18:50
  If you tell someone, for example, like for me, I judge
• 18:53
  someone by how they deal with money, not in the sense are you
• 18:56
  rich or are you not? If you said you're going to pay
• 18:58
  me back, do I have to chase you up?
• 19:00
  If you said you're going to give me this money back by this time,
• 19:03
  are you going to honor your word and do it or are you going to be
• 19:06
  slippery and slip around? That's so important.
• 19:09
  How like some their word. Someone tells you I'm going to
• 19:12
  do this and they're a man. You should consider it done.
• 19:15
  If you don't know and you doubt, I feel like that's it's a very
• 19:19
  bad trait to have. I feel like all men, their word
• 19:21
  should be bond, honour. 100%. If I tell you something, it's
• 19:25
  done. If I tell you I'm not going to
• 19:26
  do something done. It's your thing, I said.
• 19:29
  You're not coming back to your point about precious men are
• 19:32
  facing in the world. We did a podcast, I'm sure some
• 19:36
  of the viewers may have seen it last year, which is wicked with
• 19:40
  our dear brother Nouri Sadar. Well, it was called Why Broken
• 19:43
  Men need a last one of the Island.
• 19:45
  And it was specifically talking about precious men face and
• 19:48
  sometimes how being a good man in itself is hard, bro, it's
• 19:54
  hard to be a man, you know? And it sounds crazy like why
• 19:58
  half the world are men. Yeah, but half the world are are
• 20:01
  are males, but not necessarily men.
• 20:03
  Do you know what I'm saying? Like you might be a good man,
• 20:07
  but it doesn't mean you're good at being a man.
• 20:09
  You know what I mean? So that's the whole thing we
• 20:10
  need to think about because being a man is also being, you
• 20:14
  know, conscious, having consciousness of what your inner
• 20:19
  feelings are, having consciousness about your
• 20:21
  surroundings. The way you interact with people
• 20:24
  sometimes put aside the external pressures because that's there's
• 20:28
  two elements. There's the external elements,
• 20:30
  the money, the financial burden, the pressures from from your
• 20:34
  peers and what not, but the on the internal sense, being able
• 20:37
  to have control, a grasp on your emotions, a control in your
• 20:41
  desires, having no control on your desires, heedlessness.
• 20:45
  Hefla in that sense is complete immasculinity.
• 20:50
  It's it's not a masculine trait to have.
• 20:52
  I agree. So there's a lot of internal
• 20:54
  pressures, I think which which we as men face.
• 20:56
  Sometimes we break down, we destabilize, we lose focus, we
• 21:00
  lose purpose, we forget the fact that our last pond to Allah sent
• 21:02
  us as men. A lie used men for messengers
• 21:06
  and a lie used men as those who spread the faith, right?
• 21:10
  And if there's a reason for that, it's because there are
• 21:12
  characteristics and qualities that males possess which can be
• 21:17
  a beacon of hope and guidance for for society at large.
• 21:19
  Absolutely. So I think it's a big
• 21:21
  conversation to have, but on an internal level, men, men
• 21:24
  struggle sometimes. It is.
• 21:25
  And I like the point you mentioned a minute, though.
• 21:26
  You know, you can be male but not a man.
• 21:29
  Yeah. And you know, sometimes I hear
• 21:30
  this, like for example, there's there's this example, all men
• 21:36
  love women. This is nature and this is how
• 21:40
  God has made us. But not all men want to be
• 21:44
  married with the responsibilities that come with
• 21:46
  marriage, for example. Or for example, every man can
• 21:49
  become a dad, but not every man can be a father.
• 21:54
  So. And I, and I think when, when we
• 21:56
  discuss these points now, it's like, why do some men reach that
• 22:02
  thought process of, for example, OK, I am a man, but I don't want
• 22:05
  responsibility. I am a man, but I want to be
• 22:08
  lazy. I am a man, but I don't want the
• 22:11
  discipline that's required, for example, to raise a good family,
• 22:15
  to raise a righteous family. I just want to wake up, wear my
• 22:18
  suit, go to the gym, drive a Porsche, wear a Rolex, and go
• 22:23
  back to sleep. Notice, eat, sleep, repeat.
• 22:25
  Mindset do you not think? But I mean, you must come across
• 22:28
  this a lot in your in your clientele.
• 22:31
  And I know you probably work on more than just the physical
• 22:33
  growth, but also kind of a mental growth and emotional
• 22:36
  growth as well, because it's holistic, right?
• 22:38
  It's not, it's not just, you know, grow the size of your
• 22:41
  muscles and lose the, the belly. It's probably more than that,
• 22:44
  right? But I mean, you must come across
• 22:46
  people who have an aesthetic desire.
• 22:48
  I want to look like this. I want to be seen like this.
• 22:52
  And caring a lot about reputation and image is a big
• 22:55
  issue that we as men face. Because you mentioned the word
• 22:58
  honour and dignity. A lot of people rate honour and
• 23:01
  dignity on the back of what people around them see.
• 23:05
  And not recognizing the honour and dignity is given by Allah,
• 23:07
  spam to Allah and he repeats it numerously in the Holy Quran,
• 23:10
  what Allah talks about, He is the one who gives honour and
• 23:13
  dignity to to mankind. Do you think that's something we
• 23:17
  see a lot in today's day and age, that the yearning to be
• 23:19
  seen in a certain way as an image, as someone who who fits a
• 23:23
  certain aesthetic? I mean, absolutely, like we
• 23:25
  said, the pressures of society, one of the pressures of being a
• 23:28
  man is to look strong and be strong.
• 23:31
  And people want it, want to be seen as being strong.
• 23:34
  And then I think it's important to not neglect 1 and it's not
• 23:39
  important not to do 1 and then neglect the other.
• 23:41
  So be strong, but don't neglect, like you said, your religion,
• 23:45
  your faith, being close to Allah, being a good father,
• 23:48
  being a good, being a good mother if you're a woman, being
• 23:51
  a good brother, being a good friend for the people who are
• 23:56
  around you, being a good person to be around in general.
• 23:59
  I think, yeah. And I think to add to that as
• 24:02
  well, this concept of objectivity, which you mentioned
• 24:04
  earlier, sleeping around and stuff like that, it's a big part
• 24:08
  of of Western culture and Eastern cultures and it's been
• 24:11
  there since, since the dawn of time.
• 24:13
  So what do we do? Like what?
• 24:14
  What should community members do?
• 24:16
  Like, for example, let's say in the future in shallow, our sons
• 24:20
  grow up, we'll have nephews growing up.
• 24:23
  We'll have they're going to face a time where they're tuning into
• 24:27
  Netflix, the scrolling social media, coming across Instagram
• 24:30
  reels, coming across TikTok videos.
• 24:33
  I'm not going to the mosque. God forbid this might happen.
• 24:36
  We see it happen. I know this is happening because
• 24:39
  it is happening. And I think our mosques, you
• 24:42
  know, span a lot. Just a few hours ago, I was
• 24:45
  listening to a different podcast where we had the respect to say
• 24:51
  Jose Ankazuini, where he was having an episode with Doctor
• 24:55
  Salaman Bakshawani. And he said something so nice.
• 24:57
  And I was like, I really want to bring this point in today's
• 24:59
  podcast where he was like, our mosques should be treated like
• 25:03
  hospitals. Yeah, yeah, I didn't say that.
• 25:06
  And. If, if we, if we face a time
• 25:09
  where we feel like we're pressured as men or we're losing
• 25:11
  focus as men or what's our goal, how we head there as true Muslim
• 25:15
  men go to the mosque when we go to the mosque, bro, we should be
• 25:18
  educated on what to do. We're not just going there for
• 25:20
  Ibada as well. But no, it's, it's, it's secure.
• 25:24
  Our mosque should be a place where we go, seek the remedy,
• 25:27
  find, get prescribed. You know, I imagine going to a
• 25:30
  mosque and chilling with experts in the field, be in mental
• 25:35
  health, be in physical health, be in, for example, people who
• 25:39
  are experts in the field of how to raise a family because
• 25:44
  there's men getting married. I know so much people getting
• 25:47
  married. They put the men they plan for
• 25:50
  the wedding day. What comes after the wedding
• 25:52
  day? The head of chickens.
• 25:53
  And I think it's important to come from an Islamic lens.
• 25:56
  Yeah, because same thing with masculinity.
• 25:58
  There's the traditional view of masculinity, the red pill view,
• 26:01
  and then there's the Islamic lens.
• 26:02
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 26:03
  Even with mental health, there's the traditional view and then
• 26:06
  there's the Islamic view. So you get the expert advice and
• 26:09
  to find religious. Absolutely.
• 26:12
  Yeah, I think that's a beautiful point.
• 26:14
  I think it's important for us to realize that this there's it's a
• 26:17
  multifaceted conversation. So for example, going to the
• 26:19
  mosque, who's gonna who's who's, who's the guys running the
• 26:22
  mosque? But we have to step up, right?
• 26:24
  So obviously the the institutions we have in in place
• 26:27
  now. And that podcast you're talking
• 26:29
  about, shout out to NYF. But that podcast talked a lot
• 26:33
  about the role of institutions and men specifically who have
• 26:37
  built up these institutions for their youth.
• 26:40
  And now it's in our hands. Bro.
• 26:41
  We're, we're in our 20s, our 30s.
• 26:43
  Like we are getting to that point now where we are now
• 26:46
  entering the point of like being the community leaders.
• 26:49
  Yeah. Let's step up, bro.
• 26:50
  Let's I mean, we're talking about where, where are we going
• 26:53
  to continually for the rest of our lives talk about, oh, you
• 26:56
  know, the elders, they did this, they built this, they set up
• 26:58
  that. Come on, bro.
• 26:59
  Like there's got to be a turning point where we step up.
• 27:02
  So where we start initiatives, where we start sessions and like
• 27:06
  what you're doing in terms of development, holistic
• 27:08
  development and well-being for communities at large is an
• 27:12
  initiative that you've personally taken to help people
• 27:14
  on an individual and on a community wide level.
• 27:16
  So you're using your individual skill set when you speak to
• 27:19
  people 1:00 to 1:00. But then on a community wide
• 27:21
  level, you're using your platform to educate people and
• 27:23
  not just about health, but also about religion and knowledge and
• 27:26
  understanding. But then people have got
• 27:29
  different skill sets use them. These these are part, these are
• 27:32
  part and parcel of of masculine traits being involved, being
• 27:36
  active, taking initiative, stepping up.
• 27:39
  How often do we hear our fathers raise us at Hamdullah Meallah,
• 27:42
  bless them all. How often do we hear our fathers
• 27:44
  tell us all the time, you know, get up.
• 27:46
  My dad used to tell me a lot because he went to a like a, a
• 27:49
  proper boarding school and he's one of those guys.
• 27:52
  Get up on time, shower in the morning, make sure you look
• 27:54
  fresh, go smartly to school, do your homework.
• 27:57
  Like he's that kind of guy, right?
• 27:59
  Loving, caring, compassionate, but at the same time he's like,
• 28:01
  make sure your pencil sharpened before you enter the lesson.
• 28:03
  Do you get what I'm saying? So don't take BS, excuse my
• 28:07
  language. It's preparing.
• 28:09
  Yeah, of course, because that's part.
• 28:10
  Of that's. Part of.
• 28:12
  Of preparing yourself for what's to come, like you're saying.
• 28:14
  But there comes a point now where we, as men, we succumb to
• 28:18
  pressure, right? And we have breakdowns and, and,
• 28:21
  and we, we cocoon ourselves and we shelter and I do it myself.
• 28:25
  But I'm not ashamed to say like there are days, there are times
• 28:28
  where I just like, I crash, I fully crash where I'll feel
• 28:31
  fully overwhelmed. But I'll, there's been times in
• 28:34
  my life where I've woken up in the morning and I've just like
• 28:37
  started crying. I'm not even lying like on my
• 28:39
  way to work or whatever, because I'm like, I need to do this,
• 28:43
  this, this, this, this, this, all of this falls on me.
• 28:46
  And I've gone from, you know, in, in many of our cultures, we
• 28:50
  go from being young bachelors who used to go now shisha and we
• 28:54
  used to like just spending time on Snapchat.
• 28:57
  We used to go mosque and chilling with our boys and
• 28:59
  playing table tennis all night. And then within a couple years
• 29:03
  your life takes AU turn, bro. You're submitting tax returns.
• 29:05
  You're, you're, you're organizing moulding on the roof
• 29:08
  or whatever. You go from being a boy to being
• 29:11
  a man in the space of no time, literally, and you're not
• 29:14
  prepared. And that's unfortunately the
• 29:16
  condition of society that we live in.
• 29:18
  So unfortunately it's, it's like I said, it's multifaceted.
• 29:21
  There's a institutional level from our centers.
• 29:23
  There's a societal level. There's an educational level
• 29:26
  from curriculum that we face. There's a parental level there.
• 29:29
  How have our parents raised us? Because ultimately we are
• 29:31
  shadows of our own fathers in many ways.
• 29:35
  Do you know what I'm saying? And how our fathers have raised
• 29:37
  us has a natural repercussion on on us.
• 29:39
  Sorry I'm rambling a lot but I think this is just to go to the
• 29:41
  point you. Made about feeling overwhelmed
• 29:43
  yeah I think as a man it's completely OK to feel
• 29:45
  overwhelmed but what it's not OK to do is feel sorry for yourself
• 29:49
  and victimise yourself I lost panel at I promised us in the
• 29:52
  Quran that he does not burden a soul past what he can bear and
• 29:55
  it's if you remember that it's very powerful because you know I
• 29:58
  can do this I'm going to get past this but am I going to
• 30:01
  victimise myself stay at home and feel sorry for myself that's
• 30:04
  what I I don't see I don't think a proper man does that so I
• 30:08
  think a proper man keeps with a solar keeps with his keeps with
• 30:12
  his relationship with Allah keeps going to the gym and keeps
• 30:15
  carrying on his life as normal knowing that it's going to get
• 30:18
  better so. You're like, so for, for,
• 30:23
  because there will be guys out there, young and old, who are
• 30:26
  feeling pressure, real life pressure.
• 30:29
  And even though on the surface they seem happy and a lot of our
• 30:32
  friends go through this, I guarantee Guys we meet in the
• 30:34
  mosque, guys we go out with, guys we've spent time with, gone
• 30:37
  to school with, They seem fine, you know?
• 30:39
  Oh, yeah. How's your job, bro?
• 30:40
  How's your family? All good, Hamdullah.
• 30:42
  You know what I mean? Hamdullah.
• 30:43
  Like that. That's all we hear.
• 30:45
  But behind the scenes, they, they, they, they're really
• 30:47
  struggling. So what would your advice be for
• 30:50
  men out there who are who are listening to this right now
• 30:53
  about how to just keep their head high?
• 30:55
  How to keep your? Head high.
• 30:57
  First of all, have a good relationship with Allah and have
• 31:00
  if you have faith you know you're not going through past
• 31:04
  what you can bear. Secondly, go to the gym because
• 31:07
  when you go to the gym, not only are you going to network with a
• 31:11
  lot of people, see a lot of people be forced out of your
• 31:13
  bubble while you're there feeling sorry for yourself
• 31:15
  scientifically, you're going to boost your mood and improve your
• 31:18
  mental health. Lastly, it's OK to talk to your
• 31:21
  friends about your feelings. I do it.
• 31:23
  And you should have brothers that you're comfortable enough
• 31:25
  to talk about how you feel about how you what you can do to get
• 31:29
  past this. But again, not in a way where
• 31:32
  it's self pity. Why is this happening to me?
• 31:34
  Why, why why? Instead, have people that you
• 31:37
  can talk to about your feelings, but also have good people who
• 31:42
  are going to actually help you get out of there and give you
• 31:44
  solid advice instead of telling you yeah bro I feel sorry for
• 31:47
  you but I don't think that gets you anywhere.
• 31:53
  Governments, are you a man? Why put me on the spot?
• 32:00
  What would hope inshallah? Well, what defines a man?
• 32:03
  Yeah, this is. This is.
• 32:04
  Obviously the big question isn't it?
• 32:05
  I don't think there's a set as long as, as far as I know,
• 32:08
  according to hadith, there's not one set definition, but there's
• 32:10
  a lot of descriptions of men. If I can give you a couple
• 32:13
  please. And Mammoth Khalid Malahi Salaam
• 32:16
  says a man is not truly a man until he overcomes his desires.
• 32:19
  Middlemot Manian said the best of men is he who most is most
• 32:22
  beneficial to his family. I mentioned earlier about the
• 32:25
  hadith Russell, I said about a man and his tongue.
• 32:27
  And Mammoth Sadiq says bravery and generosity has two qualities
• 32:30
  that complete a man. Bravery and generosity are two
• 32:34
  qualities that complete a man. That's a mad, mad hadith.
• 32:38
  And the last one from Middlemot Manian says manhood is in good
• 32:41
  character, not in physical strength alone.
• 32:43
  So I think that's a big thing when you think, think of it,
• 32:45
  what is a man from an Islamic perspective?
• 32:47
  I think there's there's descriptions and characteristics
• 32:50
  that men have to fulfill in order to be qualified as men in
• 32:53
  the eyes of a last Pantala. So yeah, I want to, if you don't
• 32:57
  mind, say it. I want to kind of drift the
• 32:59
  conversation with into influences, OK.
• 33:03
  And influencers as well, because in the last, let's say 10 years,
• 33:07
  10 to 15 years, the rise of social media has led to the rise
• 33:11
  of influencers. Now on a, on a global level,
• 33:14
  we're talking about influences, especially in the last couple of
• 33:16
  years through Twitch and through streaming, generally speaking,
• 33:21
  who have basically got 24/7 access to people all around the
• 33:25
  world where they can live stream.
• 33:26
  Because we used to live in a day and age and we still do to a, to
• 33:29
  a degree where you just see the best, the best of people in a
• 33:33
  certain time frame. So some will, will post a
• 33:36
  picture and they'll show a great landscape and a lovely meal and
• 33:39
  you see the best qualities. You think, wow, what a life.
• 33:41
  I wish I had that life, but now it's gone even further.
• 33:44
  So you see, for example, live streams where people live stream
• 33:47
  24/7, like fuzzy tube. He did a live stream 30 days,
• 33:52
  the whole Shakala move on. He was live streaming without
• 33:54
  stop. Yeah yeah, 30 days straight,
• 33:56
  bro. Like, you see guys, no names
• 33:58
  mentioned, even some within our community, no names mentioned.
• 34:01
  Who, for example, live stream, they're sitting in their room,
• 34:03
  they're doing nothing, Girl walks in, the guy's praying
• 34:05
  there's a girl there. Like, do you know what I'm
• 34:06
  saying? These kind of conversations,
• 34:08
  unfortunately, where you're like having them in front of a live
• 34:12
  audience and people find it funny and they're interacting.
• 34:15
  You're telling people like, oh, I'm a man, I've got followers,
• 34:18
  I've got money, and this is how I live my life.
• 34:20
  You're saying this is OK? This is OK you're.
• 34:22
  Endorsing behaviour. So I think, I think the the
• 34:25
  influencer circle at large has become a bit toxic.
• 34:29
  What would you reckon I think? As someone, as an influencer,
• 34:33
  and when I say that by influencer, I mean someone of
• 34:35
  influence. If you have followers and you
• 34:37
  have people that watch you, you aren't influenced.
• 34:39
  You influence people. I think there is there's a
• 34:41
  responsibility on what you post and what you preach and what you
• 34:46
  show, especially if you are portraying yourself as someone
• 34:51
  who is religious or from a religious background or
• 34:54
  whatever, because then people are going to associate.
• 34:58
  Then people are going to associate whatever just happened
• 35:01
  with your belief and it's going to tarnish your sect.
• 35:04
  For example, like you said, the girls walking in the back of the
• 35:07
  video and whatever, well, let's not name anyone.
• 35:10
  It's made us look bad. And that's anything that ruins
• 35:14
  the image of Tashayor is without a doubt going to be Haram.
• 35:19
  And it's also going to push people away from Tashayor.
• 35:22
  And I think that's a responsibility that you have to
• 35:24
  take very seriously. People are going to watch and
• 35:27
  they're either going to copy or they're going to say that this
• 35:29
  is OK because X does it. And I think it's a very, very,
• 35:34
  very big responsibility. And you have to be very careful
• 35:37
  with what you put out. And if you want to be an
• 35:39
  influencer, you have to bear that responsibility that people
• 35:42
  are going to look up to you and people are going to copy you and
• 35:45
  people are going to associate what you do as what is OK.
• 35:49
  And very, I think it's very, very important to keep in mind.
• 35:52
  I really like that point, you know?
• 35:53
  Because it's a reality check and if you have some form of
• 35:56
  influence, why are you influencing people on?
• 35:59
  Because ultimately, if you represent, for example, I'm not
• 36:03
  going to say you are a representative of the Shia faith
• 36:06
  or if you identify as the Shia online and people are watching
• 36:09
  your content. In many ways you.
• 36:12
  Are representing the school of the hell Bates.
• 36:14
  When do you like it? What do you?
• 36:16
  Like or not, the school. Of the hell Bates they are, they
• 36:18
  are the treasure, they are the gold.
• 36:20
  And if we do wrong, we're rusting that gold.
• 36:23
  And it's a dangerous world to be in.
• 36:25
  And it's, I think very critical to all, to everyone in this.
• 36:28
  Field. Any Shia influencer, any Shia
• 36:31
  creator that you need to have a certain, I think understanding
• 36:35
  of the way you do content, the way you speak, the way you talk,
• 36:40
  the way you behave, the way you interact, the the things you
• 36:42
  share, the things you discuss, the the interactions you have
• 36:46
  online with other people. It's, I mean the online world.
• 36:48
  We may think it's just online, but no, it's the access to it is
• 36:52
  10s of millions of people. It's not like.
• 36:54
  We're sat in a room now. You're not, you're not, you're
• 36:56
  not a representation in front of 4-5 people.
• 36:58
  No, no, your representation in front of millions and millions
• 37:02
  of people so your your actions can have dire consequences.
• 37:07
  Can I ask Yusuf? While we have you here, you are
• 37:12
  an influencer, you are a content creator and this is part of your
• 37:17
  job as a fitness trainer A. Few months ago I.
• 37:22
  I think you decided to become public with your faith with
• 37:26
  your. I would say being a proud.
• 37:30
  Shia and I think that's something nice to have.
• 37:33
  It's something I think we lack in the Shia community.
• 37:35
  A lot of people I feel like in our community is they try to
• 37:40
  demonise. Not demonise like.
• 37:42
  They don't want to be associated with the school of a little bit
• 37:46
  because they may feel like, I don't know, they may lose
• 37:48
  followers or, for example, they they may lose their.
• 37:51
  Income to. Be honest, that was me.
• 37:54
  Yeah, I was literally worried I was going to ask.
• 37:56
  Like what? Made you say you know what I'm
• 37:58
  going to go raw. I am shiing and what?
• 38:00
  OK so. It all started when I realized
• 38:03
  how much were actually hated. So I made a post and so I used
• 38:08
  to think OK, I'm going to try my best.
• 38:10
  Obviously we all want unity. We all want to hold on to the
• 38:13
  rope of Allah, but not at the expense of hiding your beliefs.
• 38:15
  I don't think you should do that.
• 38:17
  As long as you're not going after anyone's beliefs, I think
• 38:20
  you should be open about your beliefs.
• 38:21
  And if they don't like it, they don't like it, tough luck, tough
• 38:24
  luck. You don't have to agree with
• 38:26
  what I believe. So I posted something in on
• 38:29
  Muharram a year or two ago and it was a picture of me at Imam
• 38:33
  Hussein shrine and all I said is there is no Shia or Sunni when
• 38:36
  it comes to the tragedy of Karbala.
• 38:39
  I got absolutely rinsed thousands of comments making
• 38:43
  take fear of me even though there's Sunnis that go visit
• 38:46
  Imam Hussein. Thousands of comments called him
• 38:49
  saying shirk bid arco for the the standard and thousands of
• 38:52
  people unfollowed me. And then I realized am I going
• 38:56
  to live my whole life in fear trying to impress people who
• 39:00
  even if I'm not saying anything offensive, my existence as a
• 39:03
  Shiite offends them they just don't like it.
• 39:05
  What am I going to do? Live my my whole life hiding and
• 39:07
  in fear. So I was like, I'm going to be
• 39:09
  open with my beliefs because at Hamdulillah there is no bigger
• 39:13
  pride to me than being a Mua Ali of Imam Ali bin Ali because it's
• 39:18
  the biggest pride to be a follower of Ali Ali on my al
• 39:21
  Haqq al Hakuma. Ali Ali is with the truth, the
• 39:24
  truth, the truth is with Ali. And we are so lucky to be born
• 39:27
  into this Al Hamdulillah and Ledi Haddan Ali Hadda where
• 39:30
  Markun Ali Nehdi Alona and Haddan Allah we've been blessed
• 39:33
  into this. And why should I not be proud of
• 39:36
  that? I will be.
• 39:36
  I will be proud, I will show my beliefs and if you don't like
• 39:39
  it, you don't have to follow me. Who's asking you to look at my
• 39:41
  posts? But I will not live in fear and
• 39:43
  cower away while we have all these Wahhabis posting with dash
• 39:47
  nasheeds about beheading Shias. Why should I not give?
• 39:51
  Why should I not show that we're proud of our beliefs?
• 39:52
  Why should I hideaway and let that be the only side that's
• 39:55
  being shown? And also hopefully me being
• 39:59
  openly Shia will inspire more people to do the same, which it
• 40:02
  has. I've seen a lot more people in
• 40:04
  the fitness scene make Shia posts with latmia in the
• 40:08
  background or something saying they're proud to be Shia.
• 40:11
  And hopefully or inspire more and more people to not be afraid
• 40:14
  to be open with their beliefs and to even form some kind of
• 40:17
  online fitness community where we all support each other, given
• 40:20
  that we're getting all the hate from the other side.
• 40:23
  I think especially because in the Shia world, there's massive
• 40:26
  lack of content creators and influences.
• 40:28
  And I think we've found that especially saying in the last
• 40:30
  couple years as well, because we we just run a podcast, which in
• 40:36
  the in the grand scheme of things is not a massive
• 40:38
  community. Like we're we've got what, 1213
• 40:41
  K Subs on YouTube. Hamdallah, good community,
• 40:44
  amazing. We love you guys, don't get me
• 40:46
  wrong, amazing. But like it's about yeah,
• 40:49
  Hamdallah, like we, we, we, we have good numbers, but in the
• 40:53
  sharp boat in in the Shia community to be the large Nah,
• 40:57
  not even that bro with the largest English podcast in the
• 41:00
  Shia world, right, Hamdallah, Hamdallah.
• 41:04
  But if you compare that audience to like other communities and
• 41:09
  just the general scene of influences, it's a drop in the
• 41:12
  ocean. Do you know what I'm saying and
• 41:14
  why? It's because there's not enough
• 41:15
  content. Go out there, make a podcast,
• 41:17
  honestly, why not Go do your work, bro.
• 41:19
  Go if you're a, if you're a fitness trainer, go and do it.
• 41:22
  So I noticed that there. Wasn't be proud of it as well, I
• 41:24
  noticed. There was not.
• 41:25
  One guy in. A fitness.
• 41:28
  Influencer, not one. So I was like, you know what,
• 41:30
  Let me start this, let people let people join me and let's
• 41:33
  start a movement against the other side, bro.
• 41:36
  The the videos, the the ISIS nasheeds that they're posting on
• 41:39
  their videos. It's literally about beheading
• 41:41
  Shias, literally. And I've seen hundreds or
• 41:43
  thousands of people with this post.
• 41:45
  It's crazy to me. And you can do.
• 41:47
  You can be, you know, there's so many guys here who are, you
• 41:50
  know, guys who do cooking videos at home where they're chefs and
• 41:53
  they're baking chicken and they're showing how the recipes
• 41:55
  or do that and be Shia. You can be a dentist and be
• 41:59
  Shia. You can do.
• 42:00
  Whatever it is. Be an IT guy and do you think
• 42:04
  direct? Ours as well.
• 42:05
  Sorry. Yeah, I think if you think.
• 42:06
  You're going to lose support and lose followers.
• 42:08
  You probably will, but you'll also gain way more who will
• 42:11
  support you from your own community.
• 42:13
  Like be proud that you are Shia of Ali.
• 42:16
  It's such an honour that we are the followers of the Helen
• 42:18
  Bates, the prophet left behind the Quran and Helen Bates.
• 42:21
  And I believe we are like what an honour to truly follow the
• 42:25
  Helen Bates and be on the path of the Helen Bates.
• 42:27
  Why not be proud of it and show it?
• 42:28
  You'll gain. You might lose a couple hundred,
• 42:30
  a couple 1000 followers of the people who hate you for that,
• 42:34
  but you'll gain thousands more, as I have done, from people who
• 42:37
  support you for this and from your people, from your own
• 42:39
  community and the quality of. Appreciation that you receive
• 42:42
  from people who affiliate to your beliefs will be higher.
• 42:45
  So those who followed you prior just because of your fitness
• 42:48
  content and and whatnot, they will with the greatest respect,
• 42:52
  they will find similar content elsewhere.
• 42:54
  But those who follow you for your fitness content and because
• 42:57
  they respect you as a man, your values, your belief, your
• 42:59
  identity, they will respect you as an individual individual.
• 43:02
  They'll respect Yousef as a person with character, with
• 43:06
  belief systems, with, with a moral compass, authentic,
• 43:09
  authentic, like loyalty and appreciation of who you are and
• 43:14
  not just as someone who, who posts like a good workout or
• 43:17
  something like that. Because to be real with you,
• 43:19
  bro, like it's a dangerous role we live in now, right now.
• 43:22
  And to be honest, you can, there's so much rubbish online
• 43:25
  like and, and to be honest, especially since Elon Musk has
• 43:28
  taken over Twitter, or as he likes to call it, X.
• 43:31
  You can go online and you you can just go to the, the, the
• 43:34
  follow up page. What do you call it?
• 43:35
  The 4U tab on Twitter, you'll see nonsense broke.
• 43:38
  You see podcasts with guys who are inviting girls on who are
• 43:41
  like only fans, models or like whatever and just just
• 43:45
  destroying them. I was telling say today there's
• 43:47
  a podcast called whatever podcast.
• 43:49
  OK, I don't even want to shout them out, to be honest.
• 43:52
  But have you heard of them? Yeah.
• 43:53
  So they'll invite girls on. A lot of them are like models or
• 43:57
  or whatever. They intellectually destroy
• 43:59
  them. Intellectually destroy.
• 44:00
  Them the problem is we as guys and obviously as Muslims, we
• 44:05
  agree with some of it, right. So we agree with the fact that a
• 44:07
  woman is does not gain beauty or status by flaunting her body
• 44:13
  online or, or or whatever or in her own circles.
• 44:16
  All right, we agree with that. However, we don't believe that a
• 44:19
  woman who is at a low stage should be further devalued.
• 44:24
  I think we as men and as Muslims, we believe that women
• 44:28
  who are at such a stage in their life where they are feeling
• 44:31
  devalued or people devalue them in society should be supported.
• 44:35
  And there should be an infrastructure to get women out
• 44:37
  of those positions and into positions where they can look at
• 44:40
  themselves as a woman with modesty and with, you know,
• 44:44
  intellect and with maturity. Like these are things which as
• 44:49
  Muslims we believe in. But what happens is men look at
• 44:52
  these kind of podcasts, these like pieces of content.
• 44:55
  They'll think, yeah, you know what, bro?
• 44:58
  Girls are trash, man. And the women will do the same.
• 45:00
  They'll say men are trash. But you know what I mean?
• 45:02
  What ends up happening is you enter this gender war, then
• 45:05
  comes the red pill content, and then comes further damage.
• 45:08
  You have a rise in domestic abuse.
• 45:10
  You have a rise in in hate crime.
• 45:12
  You have a rise in all of these different elements of, of
• 45:16
  discrimination in society, which just completely destroys a
• 45:19
  person, bro, their soul, their nests, their mind, everything
• 45:22
  just goes down the drain. So it's just such a vicious
• 45:25
  cycle of what people choose to put out for the sake of
• 45:28
  engagement and clicks and likes and follows and shares.
• 45:30
  And then the actual effect it has on people's lives.
• 45:33
  It's real. Like sometimes we look at these
• 45:36
  numbers and we think, yeah, wow, reached like a lot of people
• 45:38
  today. But if you if you reach 1000
• 45:41
  people or you reach 100,000 people, it doesn't actually
• 45:45
  translate to you how many people you're reaching.
• 45:47
  Do you see what I mean? Like bro, there's 100,000 people
• 45:50
  who are watching your content and actually digesting what I
• 45:53
  think. Sometimes we don't.
• 45:54
  Really think about it. Oh, my post's got 100,000 views.
• 45:57
  That's the whole stadium. That means the whole Wembley
• 45:59
  Stadium. Wembley Stadium saw what you had
• 46:02
  to say. So it's crazy, like the amount
• 46:05
  of people that you can reach in this day and age.
• 46:07
  Back in the day, you'd have to be some famous singer, famous
• 46:10
  celebrity. You should make one post.
• 46:12
  It goes viral and a whole stadium has seen exactly what
• 46:16
  you've had to say and I think this is wise.
• 46:17
  I think even now more important, we need to have more share
• 46:21
  content creators in this field joining social media.
• 46:24
  Like I remember one time I was speaking with with a scholar,
• 46:29
  apologies and he and I, I was asking like, why do you and
• 46:35
  those in your in your field, like why are you not on there?
• 46:38
  Like you're just posting clips of content from your lectures.
• 46:41
  You should be doing more, you know, because people look up to
• 46:44
  you ultimately. And for example, Sha Allah
• 46:47
  grants me a son, he. Look up to you a lot.
• 46:51
  He would learn from you a lot and in his day and age when he
• 46:53
  grows up in the next other know 10/15/20 years when he's on
• 46:57
  social media, I'd rather he looking at you than looking at
• 47:01
  Andrew Tate. And it's like Syed.
• 47:02
  Yeah, I think, he said. Amar Smashing.
• 47:04
  You with that accent? Yeah, that's.
• 47:05
  One, that's one great example. Everything we can bring and like
• 47:07
  for and like, there is so much that the Shia school of thought
• 47:11
  can offer the world, not just to us, not just to us as a Shia,
• 47:15
  but to the whole world. Because society now, when we
• 47:18
  look at it like morals are God knows where they are, There's,
• 47:21
  there's. I don't know where to turn.
• 47:24
  And if, if I'm growing up in the West, if I don't have Islam, if
• 47:29
  I don't have Imam Ali, if I don't have the hell Bates, who
• 47:31
  am I going to go? But Andrew Tates in particular.
• 47:33
  Like you said, Shia influences because we've been demonized and
• 47:36
  we've been forced to hideaway for so long because of fear.
• 47:40
  If the more of us speak out, the more confident people are going
• 47:43
  to be in practicing. And also there's going to be a
• 47:46
  bigger reach for people to join Tashayor.
• 47:49
  If you're giving a positive outlook of Tashayor, you're
• 47:51
  going to be inviting people to Tashayor.
• 47:54
  And again, if you're giving a bad outlook, you're going to be
• 47:57
  pushing people away, which is very dangerous.
• 47:59
  It's true. And and.
• 48:00
  Me and Ahmed have had many conversations, you know,
• 48:02
  sometimes like the pressures of after Muslim gets to us, there's
• 48:06
  a lot of work that goes on behind the scenes from
• 48:09
  preparation to content creation to production, post production,
• 48:13
  pre production, like it's endless and it takes a lot of
• 48:16
  hours in the week. This is on top of family life,
• 48:18
  on top of work life, on top of service in the community, on top
• 48:21
  of other things that we do right And what we always come back to
• 48:24
  the same conclusion. There's people benefiting from
• 48:26
  this. We continue this work.
• 48:29
  There's there's a gap like. There's a gap if we're not
• 48:31
  filling it, not just us people in the same field.
• 48:34
  If we're not doing this work, someone else like you said,
• 48:37
  there was a. There was no one really doing a
• 48:39
  Shia podcast. There was no one really being a
• 48:41
  Shia fitness influencer Rafael Fazeev.
• 48:43
  There was no one before him that was a famous Shia fighter.
• 48:47
  And how proud were we when he walked out to Allah?
• 48:50
  How proud were we when he finishes, when he finishes his
• 48:53
  fight and he says Allah masala Allah Muhammad Muhammad yah
• 48:57
  Allah Muhammad yah Ali, it gives us pride.
• 48:59
  And then it makes you want to practice your to share your more
• 49:02
  openly. Well, my way because of.
• 49:03
  Influences and people like him. I feel like more people are
• 49:07
  openly Shia now. 100% like. I can.
• 49:09
  Go back 3-4 years, I don't know if 90% of my friends would
• 49:14
  openly say the Shia Now don't happily say the Shia.
• 49:17
  Yeah. And that's that's on the that's
• 49:20
  regardless, and in spite of there being more anti Shia hate
• 49:24
  online and those like 24/7 tick tock lives debate guys and those
• 49:29
  speakers corner guys and all that nonsense which is out there
• 49:33
  and by the way, viewing nonsense we weren't quiet from.
• 49:35
  Like we didn't want to tell the world was Shia.
• 49:37
  No, we didn't want to tell our some new brothers were Shia.
• 49:39
  And that's what used to make me go.
• 49:40
  I wasn't the same. IA few years ago I would
• 49:44
  literally I literally thought I would lose everything if I
• 49:46
  openly practice my tochea when they would pray, I would I I
• 49:50
  would I didn't want to pray around them in case they stopped
• 49:52
  chilling with me and I'm like, oh, I need to be friends with
• 49:55
  like people with within the field and there was no one else.
• 49:57
  Can I ask, have you lost? Any friends outside of social
• 50:00
  media since you became public, Fisher?
• 50:02
  Absolutely you have. Absolutely.
• 50:05
  I have lost friends that affected you.
• 50:06
  In any way, some people I was. Like, Nah, not this guy.
• 50:09
  I was like, come on, I thought you were boys.
• 50:12
  Some people, I expected it. Some people a lot, a lot of
• 50:16
  people. Like as a Shia, you need to
• 50:17
  understand this. If you're if you've been hiding,
• 50:19
  you're to share and you're friends with Salafis and Sunnis,
• 50:22
  a lot of these people are going to be friends with you because
• 50:24
  they don't think you're a proper Shia.
• 50:27
  And as soon as you become a propagia and start speaking
• 50:30
  about your beliefs, they're not going to talk to you.
• 50:32
  They're not going to be they're not going to be.
• 50:33
  The other thing as well is once you.
• 50:34
  Realise that you're once they realise that you know your stuff
• 50:38
  and you've researched and you've learned, then there's a whole
• 50:39
  conversation there. There's one thing I want to
• 50:41
  mention before I ask you a last question from me, or maybe not
• 50:45
  last, but like another question. A big thing I want to mention
• 50:49
  for parents, and this is something I've learned
• 50:51
  specifically at Hamdulas, is becoming a father to a son is
• 50:56
  the relationship a man should have with his son and of course
• 50:59
  his daughter. Very critical, bro.
• 51:02
  With your daughter, you're teaching her about what she
• 51:05
  should expect a good man to look like.
• 51:07
  The the male role model in her life is you.
• 51:10
  You'll always be the most important man in her life, the
• 51:13
  1st man she loves. So be a good father to your
• 51:17
  daughter, to your son. Your son will reflect you in 30
• 51:22
  years time. Yeah.
• 51:24
  You're a hero, so if you. Are going to be a a reflection
• 51:27
  if your son's going to be a reflection of you, Are you proud
• 51:29
  of what your son's going to become if your son turns out the
• 51:32
  way you turned out? Are you proud of how he praised
• 51:35
  how he treats his parents, how he treats his community, how he
• 51:38
  treats women, how he treats his son?
• 51:40
  All of these things are directly affected as you by you as as a
• 51:45
  father. Sometimes we overlook these
• 51:47
  things, bro. I'll handle that.
• 51:49
  I think our generation of fathers, I believe to a degree
• 51:52
  are more present than than than some of the elder generations
• 51:55
  123 generations before us. I think a lot of that comes down
• 51:59
  to the fact that Western society, generally speaking, men
• 52:03
  are more present, generally speaking, in the sense of the
• 52:05
  role within a family home. And I think that's a nice thing.
• 52:09
  So you have, I have friends now. I have one of my boys told me
• 52:12
  the other day, he's, he's got a mush Allah.
• 52:13
  He's got a young daughter. She's like half a year old or
• 52:16
  something, six months old. And he told me he's reading a
• 52:19
  book on on fatherhood and he was written by some like Burmese
• 52:23
  Buddhist guy. And I was like, all right, bro,
• 52:25
  gems of hadith. But nonetheless, anyway, but the
• 52:28
  guy I was telling me is like, yeah, bro, there's this Chinese
• 52:30
  technique called fatherhood. And I was like, OK, bro, it's
• 52:32
  good. At least he's martial life.
• 52:33
  People are reading, right? And people are learning.
• 52:35
  And there's an active effort to try and be a good dad.
• 52:38
  And I think that's a very important thing.
• 52:39
  The last thing I would add, and this is my humble advice to
• 52:43
  parents, play an active role in your children's lives.
• 52:45
  I really believe that. Ask your kids how they're doing
• 52:48
  and go beyond. How was your day at school?
• 52:50
  So I talked to them about who's your favorite friends?
• 52:54
  Like who's your best friends at school?
• 52:55
  What are your favorite subjects? What do you want to do when you
• 52:57
  grow up? Actually respect the age of your
• 53:00
  children and respect their intellect as well.
• 53:02
  You know, other day I realized I met one of my I used to when I
• 53:06
  used to be a teacher in in the madrasa, I used to teach kids
• 53:09
  who were like 1617. And I realize now they've grown
• 53:13
  up and they're in their early mid 20s.
• 53:16
  And I realize that these are now fully fledged men married.
• 53:19
  Some of them have got children, graduated working jobs on
• 53:22
  things. So panel, when I last saw this
• 53:24
  guy, I was talking to him like he was a kid.
• 53:26
  Now this guy's like a few years younger than me and he's doing
• 53:29
  everything I'm doing. He's a dad, he's got a job, he's
• 53:31
  got kids. He's do you know what I mean?
• 53:32
  I think it's the panel are like sometimes we devalue the mind of
• 53:37
  a youth and we think like they're just kids.
• 53:40
  No, bro, ask them their ambitions, their aspirations,
• 53:43
  their fears, their struggles, like respect the fact that
• 53:48
  someone who's young, an adolescent, a teenager actually
• 53:52
  might have capability. And in many ways we form more of
• 53:55
  an influence for them than we realize.
• 53:57
  So whether or not you are an influencer online, you are an
• 54:01
  influencer to someone, right? Your youth, your cousin, your
• 54:04
  nephew, whatever it might be, your youngest sibling, but just
• 54:08
  play an active role, have conversation, organic and
• 54:10
  authentic conversation will always go further than just, you
• 54:14
  know, superficial. How's it going?
• 54:16
  How's family, how's things, how's school?
• 54:17
  Do you know what I mean? So that's, that's just something
• 54:19
  I really wanted to to to build. Up on that about being a father,
• 54:23
  you have to remember your son is not going to copy what you say.
• 54:28
  He's going to follow what you do.
• 54:30
  If you tell your son to pray and he never sees you pray, he's
• 54:32
  probably not going to pray. If you tell your son to be
• 54:35
  strong and be tough and you're weak and frail, he's probably
• 54:37
  going to be weak and frail. You have to embody what you want
• 54:41
  your son to be. You can't be your talk.
• 54:44
  You have to embody everything that you're telling your son to
• 54:46
  be if you want him to actually become that.
• 54:49
  And secondly, I want to like Speaking of maximinity and like
• 54:53
  the role, the gender roles in the West.
• 54:55
  I feel like in the West there's been like a attack on
• 54:59
  traditional gender roles, on the traditional role where the man
• 55:02
  protects and provides and the woman stays at home and turns
• 55:05
  the house into a home and raises the kids.
• 55:08
  And because of that, so for example, when people hear that
• 55:11
  someone's a housewife and people hear my mom's a housewife, they
• 55:13
  look down they. Look, I'm like why she's
• 55:17
  raising. She's turning the house into a
• 55:19
  home and raising the kids instead of a nanny raising the
• 55:22
  kids. We come home to a warm cooked
• 55:24
  meal. We all sit on the same table.
• 55:27
  We get to sit and enjoy my mum's food, talk to my mum, my mum
• 55:30
  talks to us. She raised us, not some random
• 55:32
  nanny. That's what keeps homes together
• 55:35
  and that's what allows children to grow up raised on the on our
• 55:39
  akida and raised as proper she is because their mum raised
• 55:43
  them, not a random nanny. You're paying and if you didn't
• 55:45
  pay her she wouldn't be there. Your mum who wants nothing but
• 55:48
  the best for you and your dad is out there working for you and
• 55:51
  then the dynamic just works. And I don't think there's
• 55:53
  anything wrong with having the traditional gender roles where
• 55:56
  the man provides and the woman stays at home.
• 56:00
  And it's not not one role is in better than the other.
• 56:03
  Each role has its own significance.
• 56:05
  They complement each other. And the man wouldn't be able to
• 56:07
  stay at home and raise the kids and make the house at home as
• 56:11
  well as the woman would, and vice versa.
• 56:13
  Yeah. And I think it's a symbiotic
• 56:15
  relationship. Behind every man is a great
• 56:17
  woman and you hear that all the time because they 1 Cannot
• 56:20
  perform their job adequately, forget even adequately 1 can't
• 56:23
  excel at their role as a father or as a husband without, you
• 56:27
  know, that relationship being reciprocated by this, by their
• 56:29
  partner. By this I mean it works for
• 56:30
  hundreds. Of hundreds of years.
• 56:32
  I don't see why it's not going to work in the last 50 years.
• 56:34
  Was it? Was it worked since the
• 56:35
  beginning of time? Yeah, since the.
• 56:37
  Beginning of time what in the last 50 years are everything's
• 56:40
  just completely changed and it's not going to work anymore no
• 56:44
  most of our we see that sorry bro I'm just.
• 56:46
  Going to oh God, I think we see that because we, the conditions
• 56:51
  and cultures of society are such where boys and girls are
• 56:54
  educated to an equal degree up to a certain point, right?
• 56:56
  Or even up to a certain point, like to any point.
• 56:59
  So men and women obtain and receive the same level of
• 57:02
  education. So what ends up happening is you
• 57:04
  get, you know, girls, for example, who are 18 who have
• 57:07
  graduated or the 21 they've graduated university, they go
• 57:11
  out, they get a job, they're earning and whatnot.
• 57:14
  And then they they're living a full life that a male kind of
• 57:18
  counterpart would at the same stage in life.
• 57:21
  So a 2122 year old girl who's graduated uni, for example,
• 57:25
  she's got a grad job, she's whatever, a dentist or an
• 57:28
  accountant or a nurse or whatever, she's earning the same
• 57:32
  amount as someone a male would in her position, done the same
• 57:35
  degree in the same job, generally speaking.
• 57:37
  But further than that, a woman is then able to use her own
• 57:40
  income for her own expenses. She's able to get her own car,
• 57:43
  transfer, transport us off to our own places.
• 57:45
  Our mothers and women generally, prior to that, they wanted to go
• 57:49
  out. You know what my mum told me
• 57:50
  once she's like in our in our days, if we wanted to go out,
• 57:54
  even if we were 21 years old, 22 years old, we'd ask our dads to
• 57:57
  drop us. We'd ask our dads for money.
• 57:59
  Our dads was communicate with us.
• 58:00
  Our dads would pick us up and bring us home.
• 58:02
  I'll see sisters today have a different dynamic.
• 58:04
  And that is nothing wrong with the sisters.
• 58:06
  You know, this is the society we live in.
• 58:08
  Get driving license and get your money and whatnot.
• 58:10
  But the point being is that that dynamic has changed such that
• 58:14
  when that girl gets engaged, her understanding of what men are
• 58:18
  and what I need to do switches and flips on its head.
• 58:22
  So for example, then when motherhood hits, for example,
• 58:24
  and they're at home and they're, they're on maternity or they're
• 58:27
  not working, everything crashes down because you feel like I've
• 58:32
  lost my purpose and my identity. I have been earning for years
• 58:35
  prior to marriage or prior to being a mother.
• 58:37
  And now suddenly I'm stuck at home and I'm stuck with children
• 58:40
  and I'm, I'm not earning and I feel like I have no purpose.
• 58:43
  I've lost my identity and I've lost my, my, myself under myself
• 58:46
  recognition. I've lost, I've lost the
• 58:48
  understanding of who I am and because the I then comes from
• 58:52
  validation from things like jobs and money and income and
• 58:55
  surroundings and all of that stuff.
• 58:57
  Do you see what I mean? Maybe I'm talking nonsense, but
• 58:59
  I think like it's it's very much a societal thing and you're
• 59:02
  saying what I don't want to say. No, but.
• 59:05
  If you look, I don't get cancelled, I'm probably, I love,
• 59:08
  I love. Everything let's we're probably.
• 59:10
  Going to get cancelled but we can always cut this out if it's
• 59:12
  too much. No no OK, inshallah we won't.
• 59:14
  I think the definition of what it is to be successful as a
• 59:19
  woman has changed. Back in the day, to be
• 59:22
  successful as a woman would be to be a good mother who upkeeps
• 59:26
  a good household, who has raised good children.
• 59:29
  Why is that demonized now? What's the problem with that?
• 59:31
  What's the problem Why? Why is a good housewife who has
• 59:35
  raised good kids and is making the house a home, and that plays
• 59:40
  a pivotal role in society. Why is that looked down upon?
• 59:42
  What's the problem with that? Not that there's a problem if a
• 59:44
  woman wants to become successful in the course.
• 59:46
  Of course not. There's not a problem.
• 59:48
  But The thing is, if we're being honest, if to be very successful
• 59:52
  in the corporate world, most of these women reach their 30s and
• 59:55
  they're miserable. They're not happy.
• 59:57
  Yeah. I mean.
• 59:57
  It's as you see that you see that I think in, in, in
• 1:00:00
  different spheres of life and also with men as well at times.
• 1:00:03
  I think for for women who do well.
• 1:00:07
  That's a massive credit to them, especially for our sisters who
• 1:00:10
  wear the hijab or who practice faith and who go out and, you
• 1:00:13
  know, attain like a high level in in the corporate world or in
• 1:00:16
  any field. Like shout out to them.
• 1:00:18
  Yeah, I am not saying you should.
• 1:00:20
  Yeah, 100%. But I'm just saying there's
• 1:00:22
  nothing wrong with. This the other, the other side.
• 1:00:23
  Exactly, exactly. That's the.
• 1:00:24
  Thing like as in we should we should be able to say that women
• 1:00:27
  who excel in whatever path they've taken, credit to them.
• 1:00:31
  But obviously we always take everything back to the perfect
• 1:00:35
  representations of men and women that last point to our lives put
• 1:00:38
  on this earth that little bit. And we've seen examples of how
• 1:00:42
  dynamics work and inshallah we we try and aspire to be like
• 1:00:46
  them. We need more female content
• 1:00:48
  creators, by the way, more female influencers because we're
• 1:00:51
  men talking about masculinity and you can't talk about
• 1:00:53
  masculinity without talking about the role of women and the
• 1:00:56
  relationship with women. So that's where we need sisters
• 1:00:59
  to come in and we need sisters to engage and communicate and
• 1:01:02
  have dialogue in these issues because that responsibility
• 1:01:06
  falls on them to be honest. Like we're three guys, random
• 1:01:09
  guys talking about these issues to be honest, but this is where
• 1:01:13
  our sisters and you know, there are some sisters who are doing
• 1:01:16
  an incredible job of that, but not enough.
• 1:01:18
  Like how many more? There's way more male speakers
• 1:01:21
  than there are female speakers. I understand there's a hijab
• 1:01:24
  dynamic there and comfort and whatnot.
• 1:01:26
  But at the same time, like female role models are as
• 1:01:29
  important. If we're saying there's not
• 1:01:31
  enough male she are role models bro, there's it is a bit harder.
• 1:01:34
  It's a bit harder to be a female role influencer than a male, of
• 1:01:37
  course. Yeah, without a shadow.
• 1:01:38
  Yeah, I think it's a bit. But you don't even have to be a.
• 1:01:40
  Female role model for the public, bro.
• 1:01:43
  Even within our communities, the sisters only events, the sisters
• 1:01:46
  and we do have Hamdallah, we're lucky in London.
• 1:01:49
  There are some for for, for those, you know, we have wives,
• 1:01:52
  sisters, mothers. We'll know that there are some
• 1:01:55
  incredible, incredible sisters only events speakers and stuff
• 1:01:59
  like that. So shout out, shout out to you
• 1:02:01
  guys. Let us know in the comments what
• 1:02:03
  you guys think. Hopefully you haven't
• 1:02:05
  overstepped anything. There's so much I want to say I
• 1:02:07
  don't. Want to say can I?
• 1:02:09
  Ask you one last story. Let me say.
• 1:02:13
  Let me say I. Was going to say, you know, do
• 1:02:14
  not to this point we're speaking about, for example, women want
• 1:02:17
  them to become successful, going out, you know, making a career
• 1:02:22
  for themselves, make a living for themselves.
• 1:02:23
  Then all of a sudden they get married.
• 1:02:24
  If they have to become a mother, if they have to stay at home,
• 1:02:27
  for example, they feel like life's come crashing down on
• 1:02:30
  them. Whose fault is that?
• 1:02:33
  Society bro why? Is the society's fault.
• 1:02:35
  That's my point. Because we've demonized and made
• 1:02:38
  it seem like you're you're a failure if you end up becoming a
• 1:02:42
  housewife. But why is that?
• 1:02:44
  Why are you a failure? It's not the.
• 1:02:46
  Sister's fault. It's not.
• 1:02:48
  It can't in any way, shape or form be the fault of a female
• 1:02:53
  for feeling like that. I agree.
• 1:02:54
  It's a collective thing, which over the course of a generation
• 1:02:57
  or two has made it such a way where women feel like my
• 1:03:02
  validation, my worth is determined by obtaining and
• 1:03:06
  achieving XY and Z, correct? Do you see what I mean?
• 1:03:09
  So that is a societal issue. It's a collective issue.
• 1:03:13
  It's something which why I said earlier, multifaceted, bro.
• 1:03:16
  It's an institutional thing. It's a curriculum based thing.
• 1:03:18
  It's a parental thing. It's a peer pressure thing and a
• 1:03:21
  social thing. Like there's so many levels to
• 1:03:24
  this Bros. It's not as simple as saying
• 1:03:26
  like, oh, so are they being influenced?
• 1:03:27
  Is what you're saying. Of course bro, it comes down.
• 1:03:29
  To what we watch on TV comes down to what your teachers told
• 1:03:31
  you in school comes down to what your parents told you when you
• 1:03:34
  were kids comes down to what your address or teacher told you
• 1:03:36
  comes down to what content you're consuming on Instagram,
• 1:03:38
  what pages you follow, what you like, what the algorithm tells
• 1:03:41
  you. Like, it's not one thing in my
• 1:03:43
  humble opinion. It's a it's a mass collective
• 1:03:46
  amalgamation of multiple things all coming together at once.
• 1:03:50
  And you are the product, the end product of that recipe of
• 1:03:53
  different environments and different belief systems.
• 1:03:57
  So I don't know bro, I agree. That sense, can I ask you a last
• 1:04:01
  question? Yousef, there was you had a
• 1:04:04
  really nice post the other day about ChatGPT where you ask
• 1:04:10
  ChatGPT to give you, why don't you say in your own words.
• 1:04:14
  I actually had that up. I was going to bring it up.
• 1:04:16
  Hold on. Do you want to mention it?
• 1:04:18
  No, no, Yusuf. Yugo Yeah.
• 1:04:20
  So first. Of all, ChatGPT isn't a scholar.
• 1:04:24
  Yeah, I just found it. Yeah, I just found it
• 1:04:27
  interesting that I asked ChatGPT, what sect would you
• 1:04:30
  choose, What religion would you choose that shit?
• 1:04:32
  And then a lot of people weren't happy with that.
• 1:04:35
  And like we were saying about people, big names having a
• 1:04:38
  responsibility, a certain big name.
• 1:04:40
  And I used to actually really like her content.
• 1:04:43
  Saudi psychology. She has huge influence and
• 1:04:47
  unfortunately, she's spewing hate with her ignorance.
• 1:04:50
  Can I read her comment? Read her comment please.
• 1:04:52
  So she said. Ask ChatGPT why she has loved
• 1:04:57
  Motta. Except when their mum or sisters
• 1:04:59
  want to do it. So I I'm.
• 1:05:01
  Confused. OK, so I I decided that I'm
• 1:05:04
  going to give my answer justice. OK.
• 1:05:06
  And I took at least 678 hours to give a proper detailed answer on
• 1:05:11
  why as she has in our see as something that's permissible.
• 1:05:16
  She decides she wanted to go with the emotional argument and
• 1:05:19
  she kept saying, but would you let your mum or sister do it?
• 1:05:21
  Would you like what I want to do?
• 1:05:23
  Just doesn't. It's irrelevant to anything.
• 1:05:26
  Just because something's halal doesn't mean you have to do it.
• 1:05:28
  Most people wouldn't want their daughter to be someone's fourth
• 1:05:31
  wife. I'm sure most people.
• 1:05:33
  Does that mean it's Haram? No.
• 1:05:35
  I don't want to get into the different types of marriages
• 1:05:38
  now, but most people won't want everything that's halal for
• 1:05:42
  their mum or their or their wife or their sister.
• 1:05:45
  Just because it's halal. He doesn't.
• 1:05:47
  Doesn't mean you need to do it, but someone like her saying the
• 1:05:50
  hateful things that she's saying, she doesn't realise the
• 1:05:53
  impact it's going to have and how much hate and division it's
• 1:05:56
  going to spread. And that's why I had to respond
• 1:05:59
  to her. Normally I ignore these hate
• 1:06:01
  comments and your response. Was not replying an Instagram
• 1:06:03
  comment. You actually put together a
• 1:06:05
  document. It was both, sorry.
• 1:06:08
  Boss, so I put the reply in the comments and I wrote APDF.
• 1:06:11
  This is the thing. What I like is your response
• 1:06:13
  wasn't it wasn't like reactionary and impulsive.
• 1:06:17
  Yes, you replied on on Instagram.
• 1:06:19
  But what I mean is you've also additionally drafted and
• 1:06:22
  consulted people, scholars and whatnot, people of knowledge.
• 1:06:25
  And you put together an articulated response using Saheh
• 1:06:30
  hadith from the school of Athos Sanwa Jamar.
• 1:06:32
  And you actually put together a response in the form of a
• 1:06:36
  rebuttal to her point. And that's something which we
• 1:06:39
  lack because a lot of the time on special social media, we see
• 1:06:43
  this like back and forth culture and and it's a very impulsive
• 1:06:46
  and reactionary. They can't be emotion.
• 1:06:48
  It can't be. Especially when you're.
• 1:06:49
  Talking about matters of faith and matters of Phil, Yeah, You
• 1:06:52
  know, again, you know, I mean, coming back to the point you're.
• 1:06:55
  Going to be a representation of your school of thought.
• 1:06:59
  And she's trying to draw me out. That's why she keeps saying your
• 1:07:01
  mom, your sister, she's trying to draw me out.
• 1:07:03
  She's a psychologist. She knows what she's doing,
• 1:07:06
  allegedly anyway, but she's trying to draw me out.
• 1:07:08
  So I didn't give in to that. And I kept answering her
• 1:07:11
  intellectually. I told her before you come ask
• 1:07:14
  me, ask some of your companions to allow their daughter to do
• 1:07:18
  it. Ask some of your companions who
• 1:07:19
  done it. And ask some of your companions
• 1:07:21
  who are fighting and fighting and presenting a case that was
• 1:07:25
  allowed and a Suleman never banned it.
• 1:07:27
  Why? Why are you coming to me?
• 1:07:28
  I'm a nobody. Go argue with your companions
• 1:07:30
  and your scholars. Leave me alone.
• 1:07:32
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 1:07:33
  I think this is more more of a reason why normalizing Shia
• 1:07:37
  belief systems online is such an important thing to do.
• 1:07:39
  Yeah. Why should we be scared of?
• 1:07:40
  It no, we shouldn't that's. All and I think it's important
• 1:07:42
  to because a lot, a lot of these misconceptions, the Mutai one,
• 1:07:45
  which you've heard now praying on cookies, praying de Kabla to
• 1:07:48
  Karbala, all of these things we hear all the time and I'd love
• 1:07:51
  to clarify. Some of them on this because I
• 1:07:54
  want Part 2 of. Misconceptions.
• 1:07:56
  So let's start with one of. The biggest misconceptions, you
• 1:07:59
  pray to a cookie and you pray to the stone.
• 1:08:02
  Yeah. Who's praying to the stone?
• 1:08:03
  Yeah. If you pray on a carpet, are you
• 1:08:05
  praying to the carpet? No, you're not praying to the
• 1:08:07
  carpet. We believe that the prophet
• 1:08:10
  Salallahu Alaihi Ali only prayed on things that are natural, that
• 1:08:15
  can't be eaten or worn. And there is Delhi for this.
• 1:08:17
  There is evidence for this. So for a matter of convenience,
• 1:08:21
  because most of the western houses are carpets, everywhere
• 1:08:24
  we have the soil. The soil put into a torba which
• 1:08:30
  we decided on. I can also pray on a leaf, I can
• 1:08:32
  pray on grass. What's the problem?
• 1:08:34
  And the Holy Prophet Muhammad. Sallallahu Alaihi Salaam said
• 1:08:37
  that Allah has made this earth absolutely for nothing except
• 1:08:41
  prayer and prostration, for prostration and purification, so
• 1:08:45
  that we use natural things for purification, the sunlight, the
• 1:08:48
  water, what in fact there are there.
• 1:08:50
  Are a hadith from sunny books where that's the hobbies would
• 1:08:54
  carry stones, yes pebbles or stones and they would put them
• 1:08:58
  on the floor and make the good of them and then pick them back
• 1:09:00
  up. The second misconception we
• 1:09:02
  have, you guys pray to Imam Ali, Who's praying to Imam Ali?
• 1:09:05
  When have you ever seen a Shiite pray to Imam Ali?
• 1:09:08
  When we say yeah, Ali, no one thinks Imam Ali himself.
• 1:09:11
  Well, Ayadab, Allah is going to do anything without a lost a
• 1:09:13
  lost power. We're simply using him as a
• 1:09:15
  means to get to Allah. He's one of the Helen Bates, one
• 1:09:18
  of the closest people to the prophet.
• 1:09:20
  We're simply using using him as a mean to get to Allah.
• 1:09:23
  And a lot of the times it's said as a slogan as well.
• 1:09:25
  No one prays to Ali. We pray to Allah and no one but
• 1:09:28
  Allah has to be Allah. There is no strength or power
• 1:09:31
  except from Allah and every shit he holds.
• 1:09:33
  Just believe. No every.
• 1:09:35
  Shiite that, that doesn't. Every Shiite that says yeah, Ali
• 1:09:39
  and thinks Imam Ali themselves are going to help is either a
• 1:09:42
  disbeliever or they're ignorant. They don't know.
• 1:09:44
  No one thinks that Imam Ali without the power of Allah,
• 1:09:48
  Nothing. There is no power except Allah.
• 1:09:50
  What else do they say about us? No, they give me some.
• 1:09:53
  Just give me like the top another one big one, okay?
• 1:09:57
  Kabbalah, if you look at videos, they say we pray to Kabbalah and
• 1:10:01
  they say we pray to the graves and we worship graves.
• 1:10:03
  If you look at videos of people praying in the shrine of Imam
• 1:10:06
  Ali or Imam Hussein, the shrine is here.
• 1:10:09
  They're facing here and praying. They're praying to make sense.
• 1:10:13
  No one is praying literally to the grave.
• 1:10:15
  No one's worshipping the grave. And what would we do if we?
• 1:10:18
  Saw someone do that, bro. We'd slap him up.
• 1:10:20
  Yeah. Tell him what are you doing?
• 1:10:21
  In front of the Imam. If you saw a guy doing subdued
• 1:10:23
  saying Oh yeah, Ali yeah, Ali that like and literally doing
• 1:10:27
  subdued to like a shrine in itself bro slap him up in front
• 1:10:32
  of the imam. Who cares?
• 1:10:33
  What about another 1 to Wasson? How can you talk to a dead guy
• 1:10:37
  to western so in the. Quran it clearly says do not see
• 1:10:40
  those who have died in the way of Allah as as dead.
• 1:10:43
  They're not dead and many Sunnis do to western.
• 1:10:46
  The problem is we see the the the the portrayal of Sunni Islam
• 1:10:51
  that we see in the Western world is the Wahhabi Salafi portrayal.
• 1:10:54
  Because unfortunately most of the scholars in the western
• 1:10:58
  world of of the Sunni side that make lectures that who are
• 1:11:02
  famous, who post online are Wahhabi or Salafi.
• 1:11:04
  Most mosques are Wahhabi of Salafi.
• 1:11:07
  And by the way, these are 90. 9% state backed, so when?
• 1:11:11
  The Sunni tries to become religious, he ends up becoming
• 1:11:13
  Wahhabi of Salafi who thinks Tawesul is shirk, who thinks she
• 1:11:18
  has a kafir who thinks XYZ when in fact most of the Sunni world
• 1:11:22
  visit the shrines. Do Tawesul see no issue in any
• 1:11:26
  of these things? It's only recently we've seen
• 1:11:29
  this Wahhabi portrayal really being pushed, this hateful
• 1:11:32
  ideology where everyone's a kafir even within they make take
• 1:11:35
  fear of Sunnis themselves. Awesome.
• 1:11:38
  This sect is kafir, this FRE this guy's, this guy's kafir,
• 1:11:42
  this guy's not Sunni, this guy's not Sunni.
• 1:11:43
  So. It's a big one.
• 1:11:46
  It's a big one. I think we've done a couple one
• 1:11:48
  or two, I don't know, podcasts over the years on, on like
• 1:11:51
  common misconceptions and we ranked like probably 5 or 10.
• 1:11:55
  Is there another one? So.
• 1:11:56
  Bro is there another one you can think of?
• 1:11:57
  Oh, there's so many, man. There was one.
• 1:11:59
  That's the big one. When I was in secondary school.
• 1:12:01
  Yeah, there's a few. And I remember I was in class
• 1:12:03
  and my school was like, I think 60% Muslim, by the way of which
• 1:12:07
  there was a. Maybe only a 10.
• 1:12:11
  Percent, 15% Shia in that school.
• 1:12:13
  So we'll always have debates between Sunnis and Shia, as you
• 1:12:15
  know, which come, let's go, Jamaa, praise or come, for
• 1:12:19
  example, by the way, Shia has done.
• 1:12:20
  Praise Jamaa. That's another big
• 1:12:22
  misconception. We praise Jamaa.
• 1:12:24
  What's the problem? So we were having a discussion.
• 1:12:26
  Ahmed and this person told me is it true?
• 1:12:30
  And this was the first time I'm here in my life.
• 1:12:32
  I think I was like in year 9. Half the time when they say is
• 1:12:34
  it? True, I've never heard it
• 1:12:35
  before. And they were like to.
• 1:12:36
  Me. Is it true that you believe the
• 1:12:39
  last prophet was Imam Ali and Gibran Made a mistake?
• 1:12:43
  Made a mistake, We finished Salah.
• 1:12:46
  By saying three times that I was like I.
• 1:12:50
  Was so confused like where did you hear this from?
• 1:12:53
  Do you remember you told me once?
• 1:12:54
  And what drives me crazy? Is I know where they heard this
• 1:12:56
  from? They're parents.
• 1:12:58
  Where else at that age do you remember?
• 1:13:00
  You told me once that. Someone asked you, Do you have
• 1:13:02
  tail? Yeah.
• 1:13:03
  Someone asked. Did you have a tail?
• 1:13:05
  Whoa, how we hide our tail though.
• 1:13:07
  Another. Another, another big one.
• 1:13:08
  We pray three times a day. Who's praying three?
• 1:13:11
  We pray five times a day. No, they say we so.
• 1:13:13
  They say we we pray 3 prayers a day.
• 1:13:15
  No. So this?
• 1:13:16
  Oh yes. So a big misconception is they
• 1:13:18
  say we pray 3 prayers a day, we pray five times a day, but if we
• 1:13:22
  want to, we join Boran Assar and we joined Mehrab and Asha like
• 1:13:26
  the Prophet did in Sunni Hadith in a time where it wasn't
• 1:13:29
  raining or he wasn't traveling. So not put unnecessary hardship
• 1:13:32
  on the Oman. What's the problem with that?
• 1:13:34
  That's exactly, that's exactly the right way to say how many.
• 1:13:38
  Bro there's so many men using count for all the hairs out
• 1:13:41
  there. Leave some of the comments I beg
• 1:13:43
  you. So what some of the probably.
• 1:13:45
  But there's a lot different, different Quran.
• 1:13:48
  Where is the different Quran? And then, you know, I remember
• 1:13:51
  they say we have a different Quran.
• 1:13:52
  I remember I was praying once and the guy was shocked.
• 1:13:55
  I said Bismillah. He thought I said I pray to Ali.
• 1:13:58
  And then Alhamdulillah, he was baffled.
• 1:14:02
  He's how I thought you had a different Quran even once
• 1:14:05
  someone I said insha Allah, they were shocked.
• 1:14:07
  Insha Ali, Yeah. That's crazy.
• 1:14:10
  Unbelievable. Who was the?
• 1:14:11
  1st man on the moon, Ali. Who?
• 1:14:14
  Partied the rest, my father. You know, I was in, I remember
• 1:14:17
  when I was in uni, I told you, they said I was approached by We
• 1:14:21
  had an Absoc store once and it was our short our time in
• 1:14:26
  university. So we had a like a mom Hussein
• 1:14:29
  away in a stall and whatnot. Who's Hussein and all of that.
• 1:14:32
  So we had some of the brothers from another society.
• 1:14:34
  So up a stall next to us kind of to do you know what I mean, take
• 1:14:38
  traffic away. If they heard us speaking to
• 1:14:40
  someone, they're trying to deject, pull them away and
• 1:14:42
  sidetrack them. And eventually I think I'm not
• 1:14:45
  going to lie, man, I love, I'm good at sales, like I guess a
• 1:14:48
  lot and I'm good at talking to people.
• 1:14:50
  So I was getting on their nerves and one brother kind of sat me
• 1:14:54
  down. He said, Brother, I want to talk
• 1:14:56
  to you about religion. I was like, OK, Miss Miller,
• 1:14:58
  because we'll talk to you about the religion of Islam, OK?
• 1:15:02
  OK bro. I remember he held a holy Quran
• 1:15:05
  and he tapped it. He's like, he goes before I open
• 1:15:08
  this, he goes, do you believe in it?
• 1:15:09
  I was like, come on, bro, what is this?
• 1:15:11
  He's like what? I'm holding my hand.
• 1:15:12
  Do you have the same Quran? I said, bro, come with me and
• 1:15:14
  literally my my dorm was right next to student union.
• 1:15:18
  So I took him. I was like wait here for a SEC.
• 1:15:20
  I ran in. I grabbed like four or five
• 1:15:22
  copies of the Quran in my room. I was like, take a look at him.
• 1:15:25
  In the Quran it says published in my published Medina.
• 1:15:28
  Published, published. Take these home if you want, go
• 1:15:31
  read them yourself. Tell me if you see any
• 1:15:32
  difference between this or what you're reading.
• 1:15:34
  Ultimately there's a there's a big belief that this different
• 1:15:37
  Quran thing is is a prominent thing.
• 1:15:39
  Yes, there are hadith about things which have been passed
• 1:15:42
  down from Rasulullah, possessions of Rasulullah which
• 1:15:46
  have been present and in possession of the Alibaita name
• 1:15:48
  of slum, some of which may be possessions including
• 1:15:50
  literature, not the Quran. Quran is the word of the last
• 1:15:53
  Bantas interpretations. Yeah, what they say you have.
• 1:15:57
  Must have Fatima. Yeah, it's not the Quran, it's
• 1:16:00
  teachings of the Ellen Bates, not one verse of the wheel and
• 1:16:03
  whatnot. There's a there's a big, big,
• 1:16:05
  big issue with this that people don't believe other issues that
• 1:16:07
  we hear a lot of the time she has cursed companions.
• 1:16:10
  She has hit themselves. Now, some of these have elements
• 1:16:13
  of truth. I'm not saying we've cursed
• 1:16:14
  companions, but we have disagreements and we disagree
• 1:16:16
  with, with, you know, actions or.
• 1:16:17
  Companions. Just because we have
• 1:16:19
  disagreements about some companions and have a negative
• 1:16:22
  view on some and a positive view on others, why can't I have my
• 1:16:26
  view of history and you have your view of history?
• 1:16:29
  The the mainstream Sunni view makes take fear of the uncle of
• 1:16:31
  the Prophet, the mother, the father and the grandfather, the
• 1:16:34
  prophet. That insults me.
• 1:16:35
  That's very true. That insults me.
• 1:16:37
  I'm not. But am I going to kill you?
• 1:16:39
  Am I going to fight you for it? No, the same way we have our
• 1:16:42
  view of history that has a negative view on certain
• 1:16:44
  individuals by looking at the Sierra and what happened in the
• 1:16:47
  history. Why can't we coexist and have
• 1:16:49
  peaceful dialogue and move past that?
• 1:16:52
  Do we? Do you ever see Shias kill us?
• 1:16:54
  Do you, have you ever seen a Shiite go kill a Sunni because
• 1:16:56
  they think Abu Talib is a Qafir? Never they think the Prophet the
• 1:17:01
  mainstream Sunni belief. Not all.
• 1:17:03
  Most think the Prophet's mother and father, Abu Talib Abdulmut
• 1:17:08
  Talib, are all in hell. For me that's that's an.
• 1:17:12
  Insult. I can't accept this, but we can
• 1:17:15
  coexist peacefully and we can have dialogue and discussion,
• 1:17:19
  and we can move faster. Dialogue, conversation.
• 1:17:21
  No one's asking us our intention for those who are listening to
• 1:17:25
  us kind of go on. Our intention is not to create
• 1:17:27
  division, rather to institute dialogue to such a degree where
• 1:17:30
  there's common knowledge and understanding.
• 1:17:31
  So if I have a belief system, we have belief systems that these
• 1:17:35
  you, you keep your place, bro. I'm not asking you to, to
• 1:17:38
  convert or you know, to, to do your third jihad.
• 1:17:40
  But what I am asking you to do is contemplate, understand where
• 1:17:43
  we're coming from and understand that there are misconceptions
• 1:17:45
  that come out there. Another one for example about
• 1:17:48
  this is about the wives of the prophet.
• 1:17:50
  Alas, Obano Ta'ala says he talks about the wives of the Prophet
• 1:17:54
  himself. So don't come to me and say, why
• 1:17:55
  do you talk ill of the prophet? Sorry bro one.
• 1:17:58
  More thing on the wives of the Prophet, I beg you, I beg you.
• 1:18:02
  On the 7th of Shahramadhan last month, ask other schools of
• 1:18:06
  thought. Where were they?
• 1:18:08
  Were they in the mosque commemorating the Rafat of Sena
• 1:18:10
  Khadija Do? You know what I mean?
• 1:18:13
  Like what other school of thought will tell you that we
• 1:18:17
  commemorate and we respect and we we learn about the biography,
• 1:18:20
  the life, the legacy of the wise prophet on their shahada, on
• 1:18:23
  their, on their wafat, the anniversary of the death.
• 1:18:27
  Absolutely. You know, I'm saying, like you
• 1:18:28
  said, three days later, you know, these are things which we
• 1:18:31
  take into high regard. You know, you mentioned
• 1:18:33
  companions as well. How many companions do we hear
• 1:18:36
  about all the time that the best of companions?
• 1:18:39
  How many times do we recite the ours which are taught to us by
• 1:18:42
  the companions in the Ahlu Beta name of Salaam?
• 1:18:44
  The companions are held in the highest of regard.
• 1:18:45
  They think we hate all. The companions?
• 1:18:47
  Not at all. Yeah, because we don't believe.
• 1:18:49
  That status in the eyes of the last Pantala is given by
• 1:18:51
  generation because you saw him. You can't dissect him, and if
• 1:18:55
  someone is. Born, you can dissect the
• 1:18:57
  family. Of the Prophet Subhanallah,
• 1:18:58
  because we know that. There were people who interacted
• 1:19:01
  with the Prophet who went to war with the Holy Prophet despite
• 1:19:04
  being in in sometimes related to the Holy Prophet.
• 1:19:07
  We know that there were people who were in the generation of
• 1:19:10
  the first of the companions, but then went to war with the
• 1:19:13
  Prophet's family himself. We we know that there we believe
• 1:19:16
  that there were companions of the Prophet who during the whole
• 1:19:19
  lifetime the Holy Prophet were around him and beside him.
• 1:19:21
  But then after the death of the Holy Prophet may have
• 1:19:23
  transgressed. And we've seen this in the in in
• 1:19:25
  the holy of Quran with stories of the other prophets.
• 1:19:27
  How many companions of other prophets transgressed after the
• 1:19:30
  message? A.
• 1:19:33
  Lot of those best. I mean, we could go on and on by
• 1:19:35
  the way, they know this. We've kind of gone on that.
• 1:19:37
  But they know this but. They as well, like they always
• 1:19:41
  were always under that, always under attack and we should not
• 1:19:45
  play victim. That's why.
• 1:19:46
  That's what I was giving the example with the person who
• 1:19:48
  commented on my point. We should not play victim.
• 1:19:50
  Why give everything that we believe has evidence from our
• 1:19:53
  books and their books? Give it back?
• 1:19:56
  Why should we just take it beyond the receiving end?
• 1:19:58
  Give it back in a respectful, intellectual way, with, not with
• 1:20:02
  insults, with sources. And in in respectful dialogue, I
• 1:20:07
  do not believe in insulting the other side.
• 1:20:10
  I do not believe in swearing and being rude and being making it
• 1:20:13
  personal. I believe there's room for
• 1:20:15
  respectful dialogue and we should always have that.
• 1:20:18
  I don't see what the problem is, right?
• 1:20:20
  And I think we see. This, by the way, yeah, we see
• 1:20:22
  an increase of respects between the sects when it comes to
• 1:20:27
  discussions, when it comes to historical matters, as it should
• 1:20:30
  be. From people who.
• 1:20:31
  Represent the motherhood I see. Is this.
• 1:20:34
  It does happen, yeah. Yeah, just just look at his.
• 1:20:37
  Style or for example how he how he debates other sex or how he
• 1:20:42
  gives that way but he can RIP you in shreds respectfully.
• 1:20:46
  And smiling. And you can come hug him.
• 1:20:48
  Yeah, you know, that's all. He's blessed with that.
• 1:20:53
  Skill and and I think there's a lot to learn from him because.
• 1:20:56
  If we take. This destructive.
• 1:21:00
  Approach. Who says we?
• 1:21:03
  Won't end up like them like God forbid and maybe I'm not going.
• 1:21:07
  To say them I don't want to. Brush them all on the under the
• 1:21:09
  same brush that's, you know, I'm referring to and I and I and I,
• 1:21:13
  and I think, you know, we have a responsibility as well.
• 1:21:15
  Yeah. And the other day I was, I
• 1:21:17
  remember I was. And this is what I like to say.
• 1:21:22
  Ahmed knows me like I'm very quiet here today.
• 1:21:24
  I love being Shia. And the other day, my my
• 1:21:28
  daughter, you know, sorry, can I just say.
• 1:21:29
  Go on last night, said Ali on the group.
• 1:21:31
  Someone called, said Ali, the Chuck Norris of Shias.
• 1:21:36
  He's got a repetition. Last night.
• 1:21:38
  Last night, sorry, last month, my daughter, they took her,
• 1:21:43
  she's seven years old. Her school took her to a mosque
• 1:21:47
  and prior to that they took her to a church.
• 1:21:50
  They took her to a synagogue, they took her to a temple, and
• 1:21:54
  the last place of worship they took her to was a mosque.
• 1:21:57
  And she was telling me, Baba you, you're doing well, wrong.
• 1:22:03
  I was shocked. I.
• 1:22:04
  Was like, we're talking about. So she just showed me that at
• 1:22:06
  the mosque they were teaching them how Muslims do well.
• 1:22:10
  And this worried me. I told you, go back to your
• 1:22:13
  teacher. And you and you tell her.
• 1:22:16
  That you're a Shia Muslim and and you need to.
• 1:22:20
  Represent the other. Sex as well.
• 1:22:22
  And if she has a problem with that, Barbara's more than happy
• 1:22:25
  to come discuss it with your teacher.
• 1:22:27
  So she did tell me, she did tell the teacher, and the teacher
• 1:22:30
  said, well, it wasn't them, it was the mosque, right?
• 1:22:33
  But that worried me. For example, we can be going to
• 1:22:37
  school. Our kids go to.
• 1:22:40
  School and they're learning things yeah that are not in line
• 1:22:45
  with the teachings but not just of the of Rasul Allah the laws
• 1:22:48
  of Allah's panel, even the simplest thing of Allah even if
• 1:22:51
  worry even if. It's a Sunni belief.
• 1:22:52
  That's fine, but at least there needs to be representation of
• 1:22:55
  both sides. So.
• 1:22:56
  Now she goes wrong by the. Way are you she a Muslim?
• 1:22:58
  Are you she a Muslim? She and and obviously there's.
• 1:23:00
  Brother Shah Zimmer Hussain, who's like a figurehead in our
• 1:23:02
  community in the UK for being on on a national board of
• 1:23:07
  curriculum, Yeah, for Shia belief systems.
• 1:23:09
  But more than that, she institutions like schools, like
• 1:23:12
  parent, talking about parenting, bro, and fatherhood.
• 1:23:15
  One of the biggest struggles I know which I'm going through and
• 1:23:18
  you've gone through is the schooling system.
• 1:23:20
  Like where do I send my kids for school?
• 1:23:22
  I know I've got some somewhat local Shia schools.
• 1:23:25
  Do I need to move house to get my kid into a Shia school?
• 1:23:28
  What are the requirements? And of course, the demand is so
• 1:23:30
  high, bro, it's so high. Like you can be in the catchment
• 1:23:34
  area, you can have siblings in the school.
• 1:23:36
  You might have, you might be the son of a teacher in the school
• 1:23:38
  and it's still difficult to get your son or daughter in.
• 1:23:41
  Do you remember during COVID? 19 It was like a peak in this
• 1:23:46
  rainbow mafia, yes, the alphabet mafia.
• 1:23:49
  And I was so worried. I was.
• 1:23:52
  Having like daily discussions with my wife, What are we going
• 1:23:55
  to? How are we going to get around?
• 1:23:56
  This. And then I, I and then the law
• 1:24:00
  changed somehow saying in primary school they're not going
• 1:24:02
  to best handler. I feel like the last few years
• 1:24:05
  there's been a lot of people speaking against the LGBTQ and
• 1:24:10
  not in a way where we're going to harm them or we hate them.
• 1:24:13
  No, no, it's then it's just. Forcing on our, forcing it and.
• 1:24:16
  Us being able to say that our religion says this is not
• 1:24:19
  allowed. And other religions.
• 1:24:21
  But our, our ability to say that we don't believe in this whole
• 1:24:25
  LGBTQ narrative, yeah, I don't think there's an issue with
• 1:24:28
  that. And again, in a respectful way,
• 1:24:30
  we're not going to go out spewing hate.
• 1:24:32
  I don't accept this for me or for my children.
• 1:24:34
  I know what's different for us. But by the way, back in the day,
• 1:24:36
  like we knew, for example, people existed out there, like I
• 1:24:40
  knew at a young age it was weird that it wasn't being shoved in.
• 1:24:43
  Your face, it wasn't shoved in my face.
• 1:24:44
  And all I knew was, for example, OK, there's some guys that can
• 1:24:47
  like guys and some girls. Now it's being taught as.
• 1:24:51
  Normal, but not just normal, is. That you can become a A guy can
• 1:24:54
  become a woman, and a woman can become a guy.
• 1:24:58
  That just doesn't make sense. But you know, the, the way it's
• 1:25:01
  treated is a big problem because it is a mental health problem.
• 1:25:06
  There's no way around it. If if you're, if you're right
• 1:25:08
  now, said Ali. If you tell me you're a woman,
• 1:25:10
  there's something wrong with you.
• 1:25:11
  We need to get you checked out if.
• 1:25:14
  If I. If I'm schizophrenic and I'm
• 1:25:16
  telling you this, this, the leaves are talking to me.
• 1:25:19
  You're not going to tell me, yeah, they're talking to you.
• 1:25:21
  You're going to go get me checked out and you're going to
• 1:25:23
  get me medicated to help me sort out this issue.
• 1:25:26
  But when it's not treated like an issue, and then someone's
• 1:25:29
  daughter and I'm a teacher, someone's daughter comes and
• 1:25:31
  she's like, do you feel like I feel like a girl today?
• 1:25:35
  I'm not. Yeah, you do.
• 1:25:36
  I should. Oh, you are a girl.
• 1:25:37
  Let me send you to the psychologist who's going to
• 1:25:39
  start giving you hormone replacement from the age of
• 1:25:42
  eight. And then by the time you're 16,
• 1:25:44
  you wake up and it's too late. You've completely screwed
• 1:25:48
  yourself up for life. And it's happening so much in
• 1:25:50
  Canada because they had these laws where you have to take them
• 1:25:54
  to the doctor or the psychologist, and then they get
• 1:25:56
  Medicaid with all these meds. Next thing you know, they're
• 1:26:00
  older and it's too late. They've made irreversible
• 1:26:02
  changes, they've ruined their puberty or they've had the full
• 1:26:06
  gender change just to add 11. 11 last point from me on this on
• 1:26:10
  this topic. I I, I was reading the other day
• 1:26:12
  in Sweden, there's been like a rise in Muslim children being
• 1:26:19
  taken away from their parents. Unbelievable because for
• 1:26:21
  example, the, the, the child will be saying a lesson and be
• 1:26:25
  told something that's not in line with nature.
• 1:26:28
  As a child, you'll question this, right?
• 1:26:29
  So he'll go back to Mama and Baba and say, I heard this at
• 1:26:32
  school. As I said, the parent will tell
• 1:26:34
  the kid otherwise and some of these kids will go back to
• 1:26:37
  school and tell the teacher, my mom and dad said something else,
• 1:26:40
  right? The school informs the
• 1:26:41
  authorities, the authorities comes to the home, the
• 1:26:44
  authorities take the children from the home, and the parents
• 1:26:47
  lose their kids just because they don't agree or it's really
• 1:26:52
  sad there. Was someone made a movie about
• 1:26:53
  this? So I heard it was like a massive
• 1:26:55
  thing. Yeah.
• 1:26:56
  But this, I think kind of. I know we've done a full circle.
• 1:26:59
  I know we need a quick read. There's a lot.
• 1:27:01
  There's a lot. There's a lot we've talked.
• 1:27:02
  About, but I think coming back to it, This is why education is
• 1:27:06
  so important, like on multiple forms, on an individual, on a
• 1:27:09
  community wide level and understanding what being a man
• 1:27:12
  is, because that's multifaceted as well-being a man on a
• 1:27:16
  physical level, on a biological level, on a spiritual or social
• 1:27:19
  or communal level as well, understanding what it means to
• 1:27:22
  be among a group of men, how to interact in the sense of
• 1:27:24
  brotherhood. These are all constituents of
• 1:27:28
  masculinity. And then obviously, just to
• 1:27:31
  recap for the brothers sisters as well, the conversation on
• 1:27:33
  influencers and how we as, as, as now, hopefully, if you're
• 1:27:38
  listening to this, you, you know, you're, you're past the
• 1:27:41
  age of whatever 16/18/20 and you now can see yourself as someone
• 1:27:45
  who might have an influence on people around you as well.
• 1:27:47
  That to some degree, we are all somewhat influences to some
• 1:27:51
  degree, whether it's your family members, your friends, whatever
• 1:27:54
  it might be. But for those of us who have a
• 1:27:55
  wider reach, you can reach more people, whether a teacher with
• 1:27:59
  whether you are an online influencer or whatever it might
• 1:28:02
  be, use your platform for the right, for the right means,
• 1:28:05
  Inshallah. And finally, my final take away
• 1:28:09
  is for parents, for community leaders, for faith leaders.
• 1:28:13
  Be conscious about what challenges and what threats are
• 1:28:16
  facing the youth and particularly what threats are
• 1:28:19
  facing the youth today and not what the threats were when you
• 1:28:23
  were a youth. You know, for example, it's, I
• 1:28:25
  think it's slightly outdated now to just say a social media
• 1:28:28
  screen time. Things have changed a bit now.
• 1:28:30
  So it's not just screen time bad for your eyes.
• 1:28:33
  No, it's bro what content are they consuming?
• 1:28:35
  Like like the game is changing now compared to like 3-4 years
• 1:28:39
  ago. Do you know what I mean?
• 1:28:40
  Like the what what youth see as entertainment now is not just PS
• 1:28:44
  five and gaming bro. It's a lot more than that man.
• 1:28:47
  It's it's you have youth talking about adult issues.
• 1:28:50
  Very technical. Sometimes concepts and theories
• 1:28:54
  which need, you need doctorates and you need certain levels of
• 1:28:57
  qualification to discuss are being discussed by kids.
• 1:29:00
  Yeah. Do you know, I mean, like.
• 1:29:01
  So these are serious, serious matters.
• 1:29:02
  And then a final thing we talked about is talking about faith and
• 1:29:07
  interfaith dialogue and the need for discussion between the
• 1:29:10
  different schools of thought and understanding and mutual
• 1:29:12
  understanding between different schools of thought, rather than
• 1:29:14
  jumping to conclusions, throwing accusations like that, so-called
• 1:29:18
  psychologists, like you said, did on your page, which is
• 1:29:21
  completely out of order and out of hand.
• 1:29:23
  And I'm glad you put her in a place to be really honest with
• 1:29:25
  you, bro. And I know you'd have done the
• 1:29:27
  same if it was a guy or a girl. So it's not.
• 1:29:29
  Yeah, I love him to do it. Before anyone, kind of.
• 1:29:31
  Throws any answer when. There's someone of influence
• 1:29:34
  because people, again, they are going to influence people on
• 1:29:36
  that hateful belief. Yeah, yeah, 100.
• 1:29:39
  Percent man, is there anything final message you have for
• 1:29:41
  people at home? I'll give a final message to any
• 1:29:45
  Shia who is thinking about whether or not they want to
• 1:29:48
  start posting again. I said this.
• 1:29:50
  You should have pride that you are a follower of Imam Ali.
• 1:29:54
  You should have pride. Be proud that you are a shitty
• 1:29:56
  of Imam Ali and post about it. There's nothing wrong with that.
• 1:29:59
  Don't spread hate. Be proud of your belief, Be
• 1:30:02
  proud of your beliefs. And I think have enough
• 1:30:07
  knowledge before you do this so that you don't go and spread
• 1:30:10
  misinformation. And also remember that by doing
• 1:30:14
  so, by beginning to post as a shitty influencer, you are going
• 1:30:19
  to be a representation of the Shaya.
• 1:30:20
  So you have to be willing to bear that responsibility.
• 1:30:23
  Absolutely, absolutely, Yousaf. Thank you so much.
• 1:30:26
  My pleasure. I really enjoyed this
• 1:30:27
  conversation. Yeah, we could have gone all
• 1:30:28
  day. Yeah, I think we we.
• 1:30:30
  We could have had like another 3 or 4 podcasts.
• 1:30:32
  You know what? It's my.
• 1:30:33
  I never thought I'd come on a podcast and discuss things that
• 1:30:36
  aren't fitness related. I think we discussed everything
• 1:30:38
  about fitness, like I said. We appreciate you all the just
• 1:30:42
  for your fitness content in it. Yeah, that's appreciation.
• 1:30:45
  But I think people see a different.
• 1:30:46
  Side to me and a lot of beliefs that they maybe they didn't
• 1:30:48
  know, I think love, big love. Thank you for all you do shallow
• 1:30:51
  more power to you and shallow more, more baraka for you and
• 1:30:54
  shallow what you do. Thank you for that.
• 1:30:55
  Not just your your your career and your profession success in
• 1:30:59
  that, but also inshallah for your mission to kind of spread
• 1:31:01
  the teachings of the alibi Talib Salam Bashar al Allah, keep us
• 1:31:05
  united on the straight path and hopefully you know more
• 1:31:09
  opportunities to serve. I mean shallah.
• 1:31:11
  Santayako. Everything Ahmed said.
• 1:31:13
  Thank you for your time and and I think you I learnt a lot more
• 1:31:16
  than I said today. By the way, I I don't want to
• 1:31:18
  say that because it's a topic I think Osman want to have, but we
• 1:31:22
  don't really have. So I'm glad we had this
• 1:31:25
  conversation today. We Allah, if you talk, but I had
• 1:31:28
  one question. No from me.
• 1:31:29
  Finally, of course, as a final question got nothing to do with
• 1:31:32
  the topic and whoever's listening is going to think what
• 1:31:35
  on earth am I talking about? How old are you?
• 1:31:38
  We got to go to this. I'm 24.
• 1:31:42
  And you're not married. I'm not married.
• 1:31:44
  God bless. You thank you so much for coming
• 1:31:51
  on, man, I think. I think 1 take away we could
• 1:31:54
  take from this is because we spoke about a lot of things that
• 1:31:57
  would be taken as controversial is be open and proud with all of
• 1:32:01
  your beliefs, not just with to share about your stand on
• 1:32:03
  certain things that you don't accept.
• 1:32:04
  Yeah, just know how to go about it.
• 1:32:07
  Yeah. Forgive.
• 1:32:08
  Us if we've said anything out of wood and help us understand as
• 1:32:11
  well, especially for the sisters when we talked about that stuff
• 1:32:13
  as well. That's not in the comments.
• 1:32:14
  What you think, Sean, how we can improve and we will see you next
• 1:32:19
  week. So take care.
• 1:32:20
  Thanks for watching off tomorrow.
• 1:32:21
  So I want Alaikum not to laugh.