Muslim Men, Misogyny and Masculinity with Hamza Tzortzis

[Music] you have reduced the processarily to a liberal now the Billa you have reduced the pressure sum to opposed modernness so you've reduced the person to this weak character as I said earlier allow the prophetic character to represent itself don't frame it from your from your ideological perspective whether it's left right up down middle whatever yeah just allowed to speak for itself after a brief pause we are back and now on YouTube video and our popular audio podcast platforms if you are listening on our traditional audio podcasts why not head over to our YouTube channel

to see our company and video remember to subscribe to our Channel and comment on our new format in a moment I explore with hums Resort says the crisis of the modern Muslim man but first has my take on the topic we live in a fast-paced world dominated by technology social media has enhanced our lives and given space for Muslims to build networks raise the profile of beleaguered members of our Ummah and forward the call of Islam whereas in the past Traders and Diaries would physically cross continents to convey the dean Today Twitter and Facebook allow

us to generate dawa online and to reach every household with the goodness that comes from this compression of time and space there are also challenges in their eagerness to contribute to dawah many young men often lack the necessary characters to meet its requirements borrowing from the worst marketing strategies they employ click bait shock and all tactics and cheap stunts as a shortcut to achieve electronic likes and fame response videos and futile debates are used to Curry favor with their growing base this form of dawa often resorts to exaggerations and lacks nuance and study it sometimes

leads to more harm than good turning people away from the message and in the process producing a new generation that makes the same mistakes Hamza zortzer shares my concerns about this approach to dawa I asked him about his journey and how he believes the community must address the absence of good mentoring and a program of Personal development we also discuss the general perceptions right or wrong about young Muslim men I ask his thoughts on Andrew Tate this is where he gets very animated and I think he offers a nuanced position on the subject some of

which I found hard to disagree with and some of which I would Express differently but as you know the thinking Muslim is a platform to explore our best thinkers ideas in a respectful way and hamza's contribution to this topic comes from Deep experience and study brother Hamza welcome to the thinking Muslim podcast and Welcome to our new studio exactly for having me it's really a pleasure to have you with us today now today I want to address a number of topics I want to address what many describe to be the powerless State possibly of young

Muslim men and their spiritual and social upbringing there's a lot being said about the absence of a correct process of turbia within the Muslim Community of acquiring attributes of manhood of the quranic model that has been imbued into the sahaba but I want to dig deeper today an explorable world of online socialization and peer groups and how practically Muslim children can be Raised in a balanced way particularly here in the West now Hamza I think our audience to the thinking Muslim will be familiar with your Darwa activities they may not know that I've seen you

develop over a number of years hamdullah would you say you're a different person today to how you were maybe 20 years back when you began that hour I hope so how so how so oh that's a very good question I think when I started engaging in dawa a lot of it was to do with maybe just proving myself right maybe imposing not being imposed upon and looking good because that's the nature of the nafs right so the nuffs wants to look good it doesn't want to look bad yeah it wants to impose it doesn't want

to be imposed upon it wants to be right and it doesn't want to be wrong to the degree that you give up the right way of being that's shaytan right so shaytan is our greatest teacher from that perspective shaitaan teaches us how not to be so when you're young especially when when I was 20 two years old I believe 23 years old around that age some would argue my brain was even developed properly by then so a lot of it was ego driven I guess and It's not just ego driven of course you have a

love for the truth you have a love for Allah you have a love for Islam its values but at that stage of my development I would say it was driven by the eagle yes not to the degree that I gave up the truth or I thought I was better than others per se yeah because I wasn't brought up like that but there was an element of I'm right you're wrong I wouldn't impose I'm not going to be imposed upon I want to look good I don't want to look bad so hopefully I'm not saying that's

totally changed because even now just to be authentic you know you want to come across well and you want to come across as articulate and smart and you want to be careful with your words but I think now there's more of authenticity as you get older and hopefully as you get humiliated from your experiences and you learn you engage with the traditional more deeper way you start to realize hold on a second there's not really about me we need more of an Allah Centric focus in your life and our Centric Focus you have a vision

that is Allah Centric and archet eccentric so things change hopefully So from that perspective hopefully there's been a change from the perspective of it's not as ego driven as before although it's still there of course for sure do you regret starting out in that was so early on in your life I mean you became Muslim at what 22 23 when 22 22 years old and I think as far as I can remember you were involved in doubtler activities straight afterwards would you have preferred to have spent some time out to develop yourself before you engaged

in Dallas what a question sorry it caught me you caught me emotional so yes absolutely I tell you why I think and this is one of my chips on my shoulder I think from the point of view that you know the Islamic tradition is a very profound tradition and when it comes to element knowledge and Abstract knowing it's like a seed and you can't plant a seed on a rock right and I think it's very important that when we get new Muslims or people Embrace Islam or even people have just rediscovered Islam there needs to

be a process of making the soil fertile or making those hard rocks softer right and making them into soil if you like because you can't plant a seed on a rock and a lot of that is to do with Really internalizing the kind of fundamentals on the basics of Islam and I'm not saying from an abstract perspective but from a phenomenological perspective a first-person perspective that I'm engaging with the tradition I know Allah exists in an abstract sense I know he has names and attributes I know he's worthy of worship I know the person is

is the final Prophet but what does that mean in my life how am I engaging with that how am I relating to that because generally speaking especially in a western context especially because of liberalism and neo-marxism and post-modernism all the identity stuff we see Islam as some kind of ethno-religious identity Mark it's like a badge that you wear or a hat that you wear but Islam is transcends that to a degree of course because Islam is more about a way of being because you know a mujahid is someone who engages in Jihad right struggles like

he's the one who struggles a Muslim is someone who surrenders to Allah it's a way of being and interestingly menu described Iman as what's in your heart what's on your tongue and your actions so what you have here what what you're saying how you're expressing Yourself and how you relate to yourself how you relate to others and how you relate to Allah so it's a way of being a way of becoming in the world which is based on a fundamental truth which is the arcade of Islam we need to get people to engage in that

process much more rather than it being just politics or identity and I'm mentioning politics and Islamic sense in a secular sense yeah and it's some kind of like ethno-religious identity marker it's a badge that you wear we don't focus on the way of being and when it comes to ways of being you can't teach that in a book bro yeah you just can't you have to ways of being give birth to ways of being right if I want to become humble I am not going to read it from a book there may be something there

but I'm going to get it a few I'm going to get off somebody else right so when I sat with a scholar once and he was like a hell to account in public and the way he with humility it was like a tsunami of humility that came across and it just engulfed everybody and you just absorb that and then you became it so passion gives rise to Passion love gives rise to love certainly gives rise To certainty so ways of being give rise to ways of being so you need to have good Role Models around

you that don't see Islam in a kind of reductionist sense that it's just a set of abstract beliefs but it's a way of being this is how you connect with Allah this is the Salah and so on and so forth so that I think was missing like I didn't really understand why Allah is worthy of worship in the first few years yes and when I started developing myself further I was like oh my God I missed out or you know there is so much more to Islam than I realized yeah it wasn't just like kind

of you know I call it dawa functionalism in the philosophy of the mind you have this approach to the Mind called functionalism which is inputs and outputs basically we should be what I call Dao holism adopt our holism which is a holistic approach to the Dao so Dal functionalism is you type in an algorithm an abstract algorithm assuming the human being is an is a just an archive just an abstract intellect and you're going to get an output but that's not what the human being is we're far more Dynamic we have a raw we have

A fitra we have the Kalb the alcohol actually according to the majority is a function of the waivers and it has shahawat which is you know blameworthy desires and destructive doubts and it has diseases like Kipper arrogance and self-emizment and hasad blameworthy jealousy and real ostentation these are the four major spiritualities of the heart so there's a dynamic thing going on so we can't just assume here's some knowledge here's a book here's some arguments and you know the output is going to be there human beings don't work that way sorry for waffling but I think

you know it was a big issue for me you caught me because you know I and I don't want other people to face the same issue and I really believe in the work that I do we do a lot with destructive doubts and even those destructive doubts come in the form of abstract intellectual arguments in the majority of our mentoring and the majority of my personal mentoring when we do it with the organization even personally I would say 80 to 90 percent it's not intellectually driven really yeah honestly it's richly driven it's based on something

psychodynamic parenting trauma And the intellectual stuff comes after that's used as an excuse or it's a veil that's hiding another pathology or something else that's going on because really at the end of the day Islam is so true sometimes it doesn't need to be proven I know that sounds really weird for someone who's written a book about Theo philosophy and so on and so forth but when the fitra is not clouded if it's like you know in its natural state if you like it's so self-evident it's like touching this table right and you know in

the process of life people get trauma things happen and you know we could talk about that a bit later but yeah so I don't know if I've answered your question no you have no you have no I mean I don't know are you being a little tough on yourself I mean I'm just thinking about the prophet Allah and the early message I once went to a lecture and it was a brother from America who did uh some calculations and he came to the conclusion that the average age of the young sahada was probably I mean

I can't remember the figure but it was 16 7. I mean the average age maybe even younger I mean Ali radial was much younger right when he embraced Islam These were very young people and I suppose without the sahaba with ranalay we would be nowhere yes right you know the message of Islam would not have carried and so Islam came about in its prime primary that one came about through youngsters yes I mean of course these people grew and they developed and within years they became Statesmen and politician in mujahid and Scholars and we know

that but at the very early stages these were young very young men in in comparison to their society I wonder whether I suppose you get my my point I suppose whether you're being tough on yourself in the sense that as the sahaba developed so were we in in that one 100 I mean I don't look back in regret ah because I truly believe that anything that Allah chooses for you in your life is always going to be the best thing good anything right you just have to react to it in the right way yeah so

I truly believe that even things that are like you cannot understand Allah for the believer you have done you have good opinion of Allah and that really is the basis of of strong Iman right so having a good opinion good expectation of Allah so I don't regret From that perspective but you just look back and you think what would I do now or what would I try and teach someone now so if you were to write a letter to yourself at the age of 22 you've just come to Islam and you open up this letter

you know I don't obviously I'm I'm this is very hypothetical even for my standards right but you open up this letter from my mouse is terrible 42 year old you look like you're 30 by the way 42 year old Hamza um what would you say to yourself thank you sorry it is a powerful questions what would I say to myself I think I would say to myself the first thing I think I would say is don't don't lose hope in the mercy of Allah yeah that's very important because when you're involved in dawah there's going

to be time so it's going to be quite dark especially in the early age we didn't have the systems and the structures and the organizations That we have now right the other thing I would say is focus on ichhlas like one of my greatest lessons and I try and teach this in the advanced dial training courses and everything that we try to do is for people to focus on a class because at the end of the day dawa activism doing this type of work even engaging in on this podcast it's an actively bad it's an

act of worship it's actually a noble thing like what you're doing here could be even described as maybe Jihad and kabira right one of the greatest struggles because you're using the arguments of the Quran right and Allah describes you know struggle with them be he with it which is the referring to the Quran Jihad and kabira a great struggle a great striving right so and this is a great act of worship and acts of worship can only be accepted if you have a class which means you're doing it for the sake of Allah which means

you're doing it because Allah is worthy of the act because you love Allah because you want his Divine reward and you want to assured yourself from his punishment that having that in the Forefront of my mind and that's what I would write to myself make Sure you have that in place because I remember actually I think it was around 2014 or 15. you know I was running around I was I was in Turkey enough that I come home for a day only then I go to America and I come home for two days and I'm

in Saudi it was Madness at one period I don't remember the year but it was just crazy yeah I remember when I was in Chicago some a brother I don't even remember his name I don't remember his name but he was one of those serious Brothers right he actually came from HT right and he was a an amazing brother because he was authentic he didn't have any Undeclared negative intentions he would just tell me how he is and he was like Hamza who the hell do you think you are basically he he was like the

algazali right of of of of my moment of my time yeah when I was engaging in Chicago yes there's a beautiful brother but he was ripping into me you're showing off this little show who are you developing and he really did it in a way that was so powerful I can't even redescribe what he was basically saying and the reason I mentioned he's from a HD background is a bit deliberate it's not because you know is to show that any Brother from any background can benefit you okay yeah yeah that's very important to highlight yeah

so anyway so he rips into me and then I came back and I went to the IR office at that time and I spoke to the operations manager at the time he was Muhammad ashra then I broke down crying and then I made a decision I said look after this moment if I'm going to travel and do stuff I'm going to basically try and develop others try and Empower others I'm not going to last forever how many years do I have left you know and that's what started a lot of the educational programs and that

was like the basis of my book actually because I developed a course called The Mirage of atheism or the Divine reality then that became the basis of my book then my book has been translating to more than 10 languages blah blah blah yes so that moment and and that was because he tried to instill a sense of a class in me yeah but before that or even even maybe after because the development isn't it it's tried an error where we're working progress and we want to develop as further as we can but from a class

point of view you know I would say to myself you know all that Great work that you're doing you're going to do great work you're just 22 years old you're going to travel the world you're going to write articles you're going to engage in maybe debates you're going to make an impact online and offline you're going to manage organizations Global organizations I era sapiens you need to realize that on the day of judgment this is going to be absolutely zero if you don't do it for the sake of Allah and you need to know what

that means it's not spiritual slogan it means that you're doing because Allah is the worthy of the act of the ACT you love him it means that you want his Divine reward and you want to shoot yourself from the punishment and and it there is a development process that you know a class is not like a button you press right and like say I have a class in actual fact you're always going to be worried that you don't have a class so there's a whole range of things that we need to do in our lives

one thing is you know understand that without a class you don't there's no meaning there's no spiritual reward yes understand that without a class is actually the Hellfire understand that with the class is Jannah which is eternal Bliss and to develop it you have to develop your heart because the class is not in your liver it's not in your pancreas or your brain it's in your heart so how do you develop the heart whether you have to deal with the spiritual diseases you have to engage in thicker you have to do the Quran I will

talk about this later but those things are quite essential and the other thing is you need to have good people around you the scholars of Tesco turn offs they make some they make a really key Point yes there are different ways in our tradition to deal with the diseases of the heart but one key way is you need good people around you like you need good people around you're speaking to I think Muhammad was it Muhammad hijab who was I speaking to this morning I forgot actually if I was speaking to someone I said I

want someone oh brother Target very good brother very honorable brother right and I said to him I don't want friends to protect me from external people I want friends to protect me from myself right yeah and I think that's what I would advise myself as well you know I have good friends around you focus On your class and don't give up on the mercy of Allah I think that's uh that's a brilliant answer um you started a conversation recently about the state of YouTube and social media influences and how they behave uh here's a quote

actually from uh one tweet that you sent out a couple of months back that were in inverted commas in the modern age has taken on an air of argumentation and code clinical rationality now you have at times also addressed on social media The Click bait refutation video culture that exists and maybe the personality thoughts and traits that you've just elucidated in your previous answer that come with this very abrasive approach to conveying Islam what in your mind is a critical problem here well the first thing to understand is this is not just an online thing

it's a it's a pervasive thing it exists in people's private lives and public lives and individual lives it's not just the online world the other thing to understand is that the algorithm is designed for this it's designed for engagement it's designed to increase sales and likes and shares so that doesn't help so if you combine that with our current culture our current Disposition our states of heart which you know the ego I want to be right I never want to be wrong I want to impose I don't want to impose upon I want to look

good I don't want to look bad to the to the degree that you give up the right way of being and you even give up the truth right yes so that incumbent that all of those things in combination actually create this stuff and also we don't have in my view good Role Models right and we don't enough role models and we don't have for example people holding each other to account I think we've lost that art to hold people to account in a way that is humble and compassionate and that you dedicate to someone's well-being

because I think if you had more of those people around would have created an atmosphere online and Offline that we could actually facilitate people's success yeah and I think that's that's missing which we could talk about I guess but I think the important thing here is that it's your state of heart and we adopt the techniques and the mechanisms or the strategies of successful Maybe non-muslims and we think just because it works I mean it means it's right but we have to understand that we have A very principled tradition right we have the Quran and

the Sunnah we're not utilitarian yeah we're not like okay what's the benefit or the the greatest success or happiness the greatest amount of people that's that's not our narrative Yeah in our tradition we have Muslim benefits and harms for sure but but Divine command theorists if you like ethicists we believe in the command of Allah and Allah's commands are in line with his nature which means in this context his names and attributes Allah is the source of all goodness Allah is the loving he's al-rahman he is annoying he's the wise and his commands are derivative

of who he is his nature his names and attributes so by virtue of that his commands are always good for us and and those commands also are the basis for principles so we have to understand that we have principles just because it works it doesn't mean it's true and it doesn't mean it's the right way of being and I think we've become a little bit utilitarian when it comes to these things which is a shame and most of it is to do with the heart a lot of our brothers including myself Us in General as

a collective we don't focus on the Tesco tunnels we don't focus on the internal aspects which are so important and necessary to actually have longevity in the Dao and to have true success in Baraka you know and this refutation culture this debating this don't get me wrong there is a place for that sure but I think we have to understand this also the first steps that we need to take when it comes to this type of work I'll give an example Allah says in chapter 16 verse 125 called to the way of Allah with hikmah

with wisdom with beautiful preaching and debate with them in ways that are best yeah debate with them discuss with them in ways or argue with them in ways that are best the first thing to add here is the element discussed this verse and the the wow has many linguistic functions here it's not just a conjunction it's not just the end or whatever it has many linguistic functions but without getting into Linguistics you'll understand that this is indicating a barrier so the default position is the hikmah is the wisdom and good preaching and then and debate

with them in ways that Are best meaning it's an instrument now you use when necessary in the right way in the right context it's not the default way of being in the Dao online or offline so the problem with us initially is we think the default way is it's we've turned the Ayah the other way around we're saying no default way is debating that's how you give dollar right yes you debate but it's not it's the other way around first is jicama and in that there's so much to discuss because Hickam is the application of

elm it's the application of knowledge it's making knowledge relevant so you have to have elements as well at the same time and you have to have the the question what is the context because to apply something and make it relevant you have to understand the context here so and also and instruct or or preached to them in ways that are best or with beautiful preaching this basically means you're you have rahma you have kindness you have good adab and Attica and compassion and so on and so forth that's the default way and this echoes another

very famous eye in the Quran when Allah Allah talks to Musa and says go to one of the Worst creatures on earth right and speak to him legian and softly kindly mildly right Imam al-kur to be the famous classical scholar who explained the Quran basically said and I'm summarizing if if Musa had to speak to firon kindly then it's more befitting is we have to speak you know we we have to emulate that way of being because at the end of the day the people that we're speaking to is not going to be a pharaoh

right and you're not going to be a Moses you're not going to be a Musa now don't get me wrong this doesn't mean we're always soft kind and compassionate of course not because when the context changes sometimes you have to be assertive and stronger and dominant and courageous but this is virtual ethics when the context changes then you you use the Quran and sun and you apply to certain scenarios but the default position is always kindness messy even when it comes to debating so I picked three Scholars for you different theological backgrounds right Je makshari

the famous grammarian IBN kathir yeah so even Imam and musafi they say the same thing essentially when you debate with them if you're going to decide to debate you Debate with them with gentleness kindness no gruffness no harshness compassion you try to you know liberate their hearts that's the default position when you decide to debate now we don't do that anymore the default position now has become not hikmah and good preaching it's become debating which is wrong and when we debate we don't do the default position when you decide to debate which is the default

Position will be to do with no gruffness no harshness kindness compassion we actually do with a sense of you know arrogance or excessive dominance yeah and I think this is all veiling a pathology that we have it could be a spiritual pathology could be a social one it could be psychodynamic but I'm a True Believer that true masculinity true rojula in the Islamic tradition is actually being able to hold down your ego right is it yes there are times you need to be assertive but at the right time there's times to be you know dominant

at the right time but if that is your default State then that's as veiling a pathology there's something going wrong with you because you're not following the Quran and The Sunnah you're not able to bench press your ego yeah right you see my point so these are important things so when it comes to debating so in summary the default position of dower is hikma and that entails knowledge and so on and so forth is good preaching which entails compassion and so on and so forth and if you decide to debate and debating here is not

the default position it's an instrument that use in the right way at the right time so when you decide to do it the default position when you decide to debate is no gruffness no harshness gentleness kindness and so on and so forth if that's going to change it has to be justified because you've assessed the context you've assessed the musla the benefit the Masada and the harms and you applied the knowledge of Islam onto that context you're like okay we're now here we need to be a little bit more assertive in general the dower is

not that we've turned it upside down so the default position is not hikmah wisdom and and good preaching it's actually debating and the default position when we debate is not kindness is actually harshness and what is this downtime and you mention the algorithm Prefers the bombastic the uh the showman Style on on YouTube um are these Debaters really applying Western marketing techniques or is there something more deeper going on there well it's a combination so look there's nothing wrong with the playing techniques and marketing technology if you like if it works to the degree that's

in line with Islamic principles but we can't be naive yes I know sometimes we think hey technology whether it's software or Hardware yeah is intrinsically amoral I disagree with that actually really yeah it to a degree because we can't be naive we have to appreciate that with technology whether it's a marketing technique or a physical thing is it's going to have its own philosophy and culture right so for example Tick Tock in abstraction Tick Tock right 10 second videos 20 second videos no problem what's what's more about that or what's immoral about that it's amoral

you could use it for good or bad no because what happens functionally and in practice when you develop it and you and you and you implement it into the real world then what what culture comes with that right loss of attention span not having Nuance arguments slogeneering do you see my point so a culture comes with it a culture comes with it a philosophy comes with it and even in operational sense like I was a project and program consultant back in the day and if you implement a certain system yes then you're relying on the

system right now from a spiritual perspective maybe that could be diminishing of your tobacco right because you know you start to give it intrinsic value you give the means you confuse the means with the creator of the means right right this is actually could be a formal shirt yes I know that's extending it a bit but I'm just trying to use hyperbuddy just to bring the point home yeah so when it comes to marketing techniques if they're focused on the individual then what happens you you you and in the context of a kind of secular

liberal or narcissistic age that we live in it's just going to basically highlight that aspect which is blameworthy in the Islamic tradition we're not supposed to focus on ourselves that's not prophetic masculinity for example to focus just on me you know when someone wants to see the prophet sallam they would ask where is Muhammad what does that mean it means he didn't make himself distinct from the sahab right yes you know he built his own Masjid he had marks on his forehead when he was praying if he was invited it narrates that if he was

invited to eat rancid fat he would go to that house you know he would say oh what a wonderful Curry vinegar is he would dip his bread in vinegar if for months he'll be on asuadine the two black things right water because it was dirty right and and dates you know who'd make Dua about being the you know you know make me of the humble so you know there was one arable one bedroom he was shaking when he came to him and I think he put his hand on your shoulder saying you know basically don't

worry I I come from an Arab woman who used to eat jerked meat meaning I'm you know I'm human so it emphasizes on the antithesis of humility so ego we have this sense of egoism or egocentrism as well so those marketing techniques in abstraction they they're amoral but with them they could bring a certain culture and philosophy and that's how we have to use mitigation strategies in our dawa to actually Ensure that that doesn't happen is that is that clear absolutely clear I mean Western Society of course it concentrates and focuses on the individual and

neoliberalism is all about the self um the primary of the self right but how much of that is you know we can we can blame the west and we can blame uh what modern technology and modern society I mean I I was interested when I read the introduction to echia by Imam grazali in his first chapter where he talks about many of those traits that uh people of his time The Debaters and the philosophers had adopted he came to the conclusion that there is an egocentric Society that's developed where he lives and he's set out

to deal with that and to address some of the concepts some of the values and ideas of Islam that that work against herself and work against the individual I've got a great quote here actually which I uh had bookmarked when I read through his first chapter so it's a lengthy quote but I'll quote a little bit of it as long as Prestige requires a following then nothing attracts a follower better than bigotry nothing attracts a following better than bigotry cursing and slandering Opponents they have adopted fanaticism as their rule of conduct and their method of

approach and call it a defense of religion and protection for all Muslims even though it leads to nothing but destruction of the people now that could easily be said about some of the enthusiastic let's call the enthusiastic YouTubers that we find around us and I suppose my question is that is it within is there something within the way Muslims can adopt regardless of space and time can adopt the Islamic way of thinking that turns them into these ecocentric selves so yes this is not a western phenomena yeah obviously liberalism because of its Primacy of the

self secularism which is like the removal of the Sacred that you essentially become sacred yeah even post-modernism is like that that you are essentially God you decide right because of these World Views and ideologies it facilitates that kind of narcissism right and this egocentrism and this egoism more like I think one he's a korean-born German philosopher I keep on forgetting his name and I do apologize for mispronouncing it his name is I think he wrote it sounds right yeah he wrote a book on the agony of Eros he makes a really good point he says

because of the narcissistic age that we live in and this is because maybe secularism and neoliberalism and whatever the case may be we have now removed the other and we have basically become narcissistic and we don't know how to love anymore because in order to truly love you have to love the other right now in order to love the other you have to know who the other is but we've moved them in that in our social and personal space because it's all about you now so love in a kind of narcissist in the narcissistic age

that we live in today is basically loving yourself because you project you onto the other so that they're not themselves individual anymore it's just you and you just end up loving yourself yeah and that's I think of an insight to what's happening in today's age I know that was about love but generally speaking it's like a symptom of what's going on in the world right so the ideologies have an impact but this is a human problem it transcends ideology it transcends time and space this is why the early math throughout the ages wrote books on

Tesco tunnels right right who's you know one would argue he was was he about he doesn't typically got these things of course he does his student was known as the heart surgeon the spiritual heart surgeon ala Ghazal he wrote about this yes right may Allah all of them so throughout the ages you had ulama talking about and I think what has happened because of the kind of it's it's not a binary thing right so what I mean by that is you know math is easy to understand right it's for the people who want security one

plus one is equal to two you're not gonna go wrong right but when it comes to things like Tesco turn-offs it's hard to measure right and it's hard to quantify it's more qualitative yes and I think because generally speaking human beings have that sense of you know I want certainties it's actually a psychological thing right because even in social psychology what creates the social Norm or an aspect of social influence and Conformity is our need to feel certain and when it comes to knowledge when it's one plus one is equal to two that's certain right

but if it's like you know there's grades of you know the level Of your spirituality and you've got an element of ego but you can't really see it right it's it's it's not it's not like maths yeah it's not like thick how to do what do is you just you wash your hands you wash your arms you wash your face these are easy things to understand but enough is a little bit different right it's qualitative it's subjective it's even phenomenological it's first person experience and it's hard because naturally the human beings don't like to be

picked apart right so from that perspective we I think and this is just my hunt just my intuitive kind of response here I think we've we've not focused on that especially in this time and throughout the ages we need a refocus on it and we need a reminder that one of the key aspects of Islam is actually dealing with the spiritual diseases of the heart and there's key spiritual diseases actually try to codify codify this if you like or or at least quantify to a certain degree you have something called hassad which is blameworthy jealousy

you have kibbard which is arrogance and there's a definition for that there is a real ostentation there is Or job self-amazement so all of those things um have Solutions in our tradition yeah and from the Quran and the way of the scholars and the way of the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam that needs to be revived and that's not in our public discourse I mean how many of those talks do you find these days because people would think oh it's like this Fringe group sectarian group known as the kind of extreme sufis that talk about this

yes which is ridiculous because this is the tradition this is well known from even the humble lights the other tradition the Ashira the matridis even the mutasolite this is part of the Islamic discourse right because Allah says you're not going to be safe on the day of judgment unless you come to Allah with a with a sound heart you know the one who purifies his soul succeeds this is part of the quranic discourse of course Hamza many young Muslims in particular young men are influenced by a host of positions that are generally I don't know

influenced by Western Society but there is a response to feminism invoice that accentuates the Macho Man Who is not disturbed by the traits possessed by The so-called modern new man how do we navigate this red pill response to women's liberation I'm a True Believer of not reacting at all and I think that's happened especially in the online world that we basically think if feminism is on Islamic and wrong yes therefore its opposite extreme is right this is a very immature naive way of being right don't get me wrong that reaction that extreme reaction there may

be an element of truth truth in it and you may be able to use it but that's not the correct way of being as a Muslim we say okay what is this ism or this world view or set of ideas or what is this domain of knowledge or this domain that we're trying to address what does Islam have to say because we have to ask ourselves a question and we don't usually ask ourselves this question I haven't heard it from many people which is what does Allah want from us from me in this particular context

meaning not just because many things could be Halal but there are greater halals right what is closer to the pleasure of Allah that's what we should be asking ourselves and even when it comes to things like ideological discourse dealing with Ideas and so on and so forth ask yourself the question we should ask the question what is more pleasing to Allah is it going to the opposite extreme and adopting I don't know a red pill movement no with all due respect not at all we need to be we need to reclaim the narrative and control

the narrative this doesn't mean we agree with feminism of course we don't but react to it appropriately meaning respond to it don't react respond to it in light of the Divine commands and the teachings of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam and then you would get a balanced approach and I'll tell you why that's very important because now we have almost two camps online red pill and feminism yes but we're neither it's like this whole framing of left-wing a right wing when neither Islam transcends this yeah and this is the thing that we need to be

speaking about let's refer to what the tradition says what Islam says what the scholars say what the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam said and what I mean by that is you know classical Orthodoxy what does it say I'm not saying you have to be apologetic of course not but don't be reactionary don't adopt The extreme thinking because it's against your enemy your ideological enemy this is a this is an immature way of being so we need to revive the question what does Allah want from us in this particular context and then we get we have we

have guidance right we have all the solutions and another thing I want to add to the whole issue of masculinity is very important that we have Role Models so it's very important that we you know both sides the feminists the Liberals those secular incline those I don't know the moderates whatever I don't like these labels generally speaking but they say oh look the person was compassionate and he was kind and he had right like a virgin bride this is all correct but don't be reductionist don't reduce the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam to these traits why

haven't you mentioned the fact that he was so courageous he was in the front of the battle who's Fierce in battle he was assertive he was Brave why don't you mention some of these things why don't you mention the fact that you know he had you know a strength he was very strong right physically and also strong from The point of view in his intimate Affairs why are these not highlighted and this there is a problem here is because many people who engage with the character of the person they do so through what a certain

lens an ideological lens right they may be liberals they may be quasi-liberals they may be secularists they may be post-modernists they may be I don't know whatever and they use that as a lens to see the life of the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam I'm a True Believer I'm trying to remove that baggage and allowing the prophetic character to speak for itself and once you do you would see Haya you would see compassion you would see forgiveness you would see humility but you would also see courage and strength and assertiveness and maybe a sense of dominance

in the right way right so allow the prophetic character to speak for itself and the narratives that are coming across are what you would call narratives that are not in line with the holistic picture of the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam let's use Khadijah as a case study right yes Khadijah is like you know she's become Raja the kind of I Don't know the beacon or the Bastion of the kind of you know modern is Muslim movement or feminist movement and she's been distorted frankly Khadijah was you know a businesswoman and she went straight to the

person and asked for his hand now let's assume that's true it's not true but let's assume it's true they use that as they use that exception because that's not the default position for Muslim women right they you because the default position as well is a sense of it the primary goal notwithstanding other things that we have to do in Civil Society in the Islamic context the primary goal or the highest virtue is for women to be a mother and a wife yeah and that is like something that is adored something that is valued right the

basis of the family the basis of society is the woman in the Islamic tradition yes that's the primary narrative we should be pushing but what we've done we've taken this exception and we've made it the norm why because you have almost subconscious ideological baggage or you want to please the dominant ideological discourse which is liberalism right and that's a big problem And we need to be conscious of that yeah and so when it comes to Khadijah she used a third party to ask for the hand with prison and when she got married she took a

step back there was a sense of hiddenness right and her role was one of the greatest roles in Islam anyway because she actually was the first Muslim technically and she consoled the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam and that intimate Union that deep love that they had facilitate what we have today you know the processam described her love as nourishing he said her love nourished me I mean that is the most wonderful way of describing someone's love right so they use the Khadijah story a misinterpretation of the Khadijah story as uh the the the the the rule

but really it's an exception and even the way they understand the exception is actually misunderstood as well and that is because of ideological Framing and baggage and we just need to be authentic about that there are two terms that uh feminists use to diagnose power relationships in society I want your view on the utility of these terms is there a place within Muslim discourse to use the terms Misogyny and patriarchy look words are important because they allow you to make distinctions on a side note I think one of the beauties of the Quran is it's

in Arabic right and I think there is a massive wisdom and immense wisdom behind the Quran being in Arabic because the Arabic is such a rich language that it allows you to make distinctions because language allowed you to make distinctions for example how many words in love in English two three someone are borrowed from the French anyway yeah so in Arabic I think you have like what at least over what I don't know there's over 10 over 20 right and each description of love will give you a certain distinction right you have Ishq for example

which is a possessive type of love so we know what type of love it is that language allows us to make a distinction so language is so important to make distinctions however words are also vehicles to meaning and also words also carry ideological baggage so when it comes to misogyny and patriarchy you have to be careful because who are you talking to if I'm talking to a feminist I'm saying that's misogyny then what am I doing here I'm actually maybe adopting her assumptions And her worldview so I'm not really engaging her with her in the

right way because I don't carry those assumptions do you see so I think it's very important depending on what audience we talk to that we have to unpack those terms but as a base as a basic primary starting point if you think patriarchy is the system of governance or the system of social life or the system of a family where the father or the eldest male is the one that takes care of the family and the one that is the protector and maintainer absolutely Islam is a patriarchy if you define it that way yeah but

if you Define patriarchy as a form of Injustice and gender arrogance no that's not Islam right so it depends words carry ideological ideological baggage and the vehicles to meaning so sometimes you have to unpack that depending who your audience is but there's nothing wrong with saying yes of course Islam has an amazing complementarian system Islam has given the role of the husband for example as to use as an example to you know a woman to have this kind of authority and to have this they are the protectors and maintainers of the women folk that's a

very important thing and That is and with all due respect these are necessary hierarchies in order to establish the moral optimization social optimization and individual well-being of everyone within Society and we're not going to get lessons from the liberals or the secularists or the postmodernists would you respect the divorce rates the social fragmentation and Decay they don't even know how to define a male and a female they go all these issues going on with respect you you're in no position to give us any more lessons on this issue uh these are these are established religious

hierarchies coming from Allah and the prophet sallam that have benefited us tremendously and they continue to do so that's why people are going to the Muslim world right because you know they want that sense of traditional family right and that's you know and we know all the problems in the in the west at the moment concerning these things so when it comes to misogyny if it's a Prejudice or bias or a dislike or hatred for women of course that's Haram for sure this is not part of our tradition we need to honor our women we

need to protect our women we need to love and Care for our women we need to ensure economically socially intellectually emotionally physically that they are they have a sense of well-being this is part of the responsibility of the state of the husband of the father so we honor our women right we would start a war for one woman right this is how much we honor them and we see this in law we see them see this in the social structures of our society so do we have a dislike and a hatred women or prejudice against

them of course not so we're not misogynistic from that perspective however when the liberals or the post-modernists or the marxists whoever they are they point the finger at Islam and say you're misogynists they're they're not saying you're misogynist that you hate women they're saying because you're not in line with our Notions of equality you're not in line with our Notions of Rights and we have to to be very careful about that right because for example this whole abortion debate yes notwithstanding the kind of jurisprudential nuances and the virtual ethics and the context as you know

the primer facie reading and the initial premise and the position is that abortion Is no one's going to disagree with that yeah so we're not applying the law in certain contexts we're saying what is the law abortion is Haram it's murder some people say this is misogyny right because it's her body her choice so what is the Assumption here the assumption is that number one is her body and it's her choice and number one a woman has that right but with all due respect in the Islamic discourse we don't adopt your false philosophical assumption which

is we own ourselves we don't own ourselves bro who owns US Allah this is the key aspect of divine creative agency this is a key aspect of the Oneness meaning Allah is the master the owner the maintainer of everything that exists so if Allah owns me he has the right to tell me what to do with my body so the discourse shifts isn't it and this is an arc the issue but what happens generally speaking with you know some Scholars or imams or women folk or Duart they don't understand these these very fundamental issues and

they just jump into the kind of I don't know uh the epistemological metaphysical lizard hole thinking it's the cave of Hera because they adopt liberal or postmodern Um uh false assumptions and and you know epistemic frames of reference yeah and we need to be careful with that so I know this is a long answer to a short question but the thing is we have to be careful in the words that we use and unpack them to our audiences in a particular way so I wouldn't use for example you know misogyny with a to with a

feminist for example I unpack exactly what our key principles are and this is important as a wider discussion as well understanding Islam in a very deep fundamental level take the whole lgbtq plus issue right yeah so the whole issue about oh why do you think homosexuality is is a crime against God and it's a sin you're a bigot you hate right and we we just lap that in and we have no defense we have to turn the table and say look we're going to respect you if you're a human being if you're my next door

neighbor I'll give you CPR if you have a heart attack I'll give you milk if you need milk if your child needs a baby saying I'll babysit your child yeah so we have this sense of taking care of people the person had a mushroom in his house and fed him right you know the famous story that he fed him seven bowls of milk So we have this sense of coexistence and and and dig and helping people and taking care of people and our engagement is one of dawa as well we're committed to the goodness and

guidance that's the default position of any human being now but the lgbtq narrative we need to reframe it say hold on a second with Lord respect you have false assumptions and you're assuming that you're kind of liberal ethic is actually Universal no it's not Universal and we saw this with the whole Qatar World Cup debate right the real is not Universal because you assume you have self-ownership and you assume a utilitarian ethic Islam doesn't assume those things we have the correct assumptions we know Allah owns us and we know the right way in terms of

our frame of reference for ethics is divine commands it's not based on a kind of liberal utilitarianism right yeah when we explain that they have those assumptions and those assumptions require warrant they require justification then you put them in the back foot and you you have to make them realize that this is not Universal and we have a certain Arcadia this doesn't have to now be aggressive to them Or Express hate to them well in especially in our context as minorities we're here to engage positively we're dedicated to your guidance and your goodness that's why

we're telling you you have false philosophical and moral assumptions don't assume they are Universal we have the correct assumption which is Allah owns US oh you don't know let me show you that Allah exists let me show you why the Quran is true so you bring it back to a dollar discourse and you also show them that the the way to live your life is by obeying God's commands that's what a Muslim is you surrender to God's commands oh but I don't believe in that okay let me show you why you should so that changes

the discourse from discussing these kind of you know moral issues to the foundation and they may say okay well if that's true that we have assumptions you have assumptions They Don't Force It On Us okay well thank you stop forcing it down offroads as well right that's what's happening at schools right and that's where there's an explosion of people having gender dysphoria now because you know we saw this even the telegraph wrote about This and I think the guardian so the reason I'm mentioned this in a very quick way is to show that once you

understand your Arcada and the in the key uh provable assumptions in our tradition then we could relate to people in a way that's intellectual and compassionate and wise and show them hold on a second you don't have Universal moral principles here um and you can't force to stand our throats you know yeah I want to address something uh contemporary now um can I ask you about Andrew Tate um now I've been very cautious to engage with this discussion on social media because of course there's the normal as you said the Left Right discussions and a

very extreme discussions and but but I think it's you know it is worth uh when we think about the Muslim man and we think about young Muslim men in particular it's worth trying to dissect the criticisms of Andrew Andrew Tate and and dissect some of the attitudes that that exist towards Andrew Tate so let's let's think about oh and I know what I would like your thoughtful Reflections in it so I would like to understand okay how should we view his conversion is it a market employer some say many on the left Argue that uh

it's a it's it's part of the general marketing strategy of Andrew Tate you know he's going to adopt any position in order to build an audience and build a brand um I would like you to address his type of masculinity right least again I don't I'm not into Andrew Tate I'm probably the wrong demographic you know I don't I've never heard I never heard of Andrew Tate until he became a phenomenon you know a few months back here in the west but he does uh portray a certain type of masculinity and on occasion he has

coupled that with an Islamic masculinity he said well you know this is the close Islam even before he became Muslim by the way Islam is the closest to what I understand to be a male female relationship or the type of relationship he he endorses um also he's past and present activities you know how of course he's you know we don't know the truth of of what's what's happened but he's on he he probably will stand trial he's his Stand Accused of of some horrendous crimes right um so I I wonder I supposed to unpack how

a Muslim who has these filters in place that you talk about yes you know of Islam and and you know who doesn't Who is not easily moved by the Left Right debate how should we view the entire discussion about Andrew Tate yeah I mean look the first thing to understand is that when someone becomes Muslim you start assuming it's a marketing play then the problem is you not them that's 100 this is not part of a tradition you probably have nifak frankly let's just call it speed of speed if you're going to say someone became

Muslim and you're judging because a market employee what about you maybe you you've remained Muslim because the market employee maybe just makes you feel happy or whatever God knows so we could just we could just turn the tables and say well maybe you remain a Muslim because you you feel empowered as a minority because you can use the minority card maybe we could do that to them I mean it's a ridiculous sick Ploy of a lie it's sick it's it's spiritually sick you know we should be happy that someone if you study and this is

again okay they bring it back to Allah yeah I'm not and I'm not talking about in the sectarian sense yes that's in a true allah-centric sense if you find someone dead in sajdah and they look like a non-muslim and It was like an Islamic State or an environment you bury them as a Muslim because they died looking like as if they died as a Muslim I don't know do you see my point this is a basic Akida issue you would want people even to even say it maybe you you meant like you had an atom's

weight of Iman just say it could make Dua for you like these people are sick they're spiritually sick there's nothing else to say I'm not going to discuss it and they probably have no [ __ ] may Allah protect us and them yeah I mean that's the first thing the second thing is just an interesting side point my parents my mom calls me Andrew not many people know that that's like sometimes I smile because they've been calling me Andrew for decades yeah especially my brother not because of Andrew Tate no of course not yeah because

Andreas is the Greek version of Andrew yeah so when I was when I was brought up they cooked my mom called me Andrew sometimes my sister calls me Andrew I just saw that in the mix so by the way it means manly yeah okay it comes from the Greek word andras yeah yes anyway so that's the first point the second point to understand is look Andrew's a Muslim yeah And so he has rights and we have to honor him and we have to we have to protect his honor the first thing to understand is the

blameworthy business activities that he engaged with with regards to the women folk Etc he stopped this I think a year before he became Muslim also with his casino business that he made a lot of money from he I think because of his Islamic now disposition and he's becoming a Muslim he has been in the process of stopping it but there's been some logistical and other issues that has taken some time so this is a very good sign right so not many people talk I'm saying this defending because not people not many people have spoken about

this this is an important thing yes he may have to stand trial if there's anything wrong he has to be held to account for sure but that's a different issue people now are just saying just because he's representing something of what some liberal Muslims called the right and they have now a leftist perspective they just want to just demonize them to the degree that is unjust sure and that's why I'm mentioning these things yeah yes the the other point to understand is some Of the things that Andrew Tate says are fine a man has to

protect his women take care of his women right women have to be chased and the other things that I've and I may not follow him but you know to like an obsessive degree but I do see some of his stuff and you know protect your women take care of your women provide for your women be a family man marriage is extremely important be courageous be assertive these are the things that our Muslim youth have been waiting to come out of the lips of our imams and Scholars of sokod and so-called academics they haven't been saying

those things which are prophetic so don't stop putting the thing at Andrew when you're the problem you have reduced the process you have reduced the person to a postmodernist so you've reduced the person to this weak character yes as I said earlier allow the prophetic character to represent itself don't frame it from your from your ideological perspective whether it's left right up down middle whatever yeah just allowed to speak for itself so the reason Andrew has become popular amongst Muslim youth is not he was popular amongst Muslim youth before he became Muslim exactly it's because

He's mentioning certain things that they need to hear which is you're a man take care of your women have masculinity traditional family be assertive be courageous be dominant in certain areas that YouTube be dominant in have a healthy competition and I was mentioning this to um my children I admire the relationship he has with his brother no one talks about this like really no one has actually look go to an average Asian Muslim household yes maybe not now but the uncles there's dispute about inheritance they're not talking to each other for the six months this

is a is this a common thing I know I'm married into the Asian Community I know people Brothers don't talk to each other they don't have that relationship look at Andrew and his brother notwithstanding your hate for them notwithstanding maybe you think they have blameworthy activists whatever the case may be just look at the relationship he's like when I wake up in the morning or when I wake up and my brother's alive I'm happy if my brother would pass away it would destroy me they're so close they have this proper Brotherhood right which we should

like Envy in a positive way Not that we want to remove it from them that we want to emulate that's a very deep loving relationship that they have right so why is normal spoken about those good things as well right now so he has said good things however and as a Muslim we need to understand this yes he's been Muslim a new Muslim for a few months but he's very intelligent he's not a young kid he's 36 years old he's not you know someone who doesn't know what's right and wrong he knows he uses Haram

a lot so he knows the basics and some of the stuff that has come out on his social media and some of the things that he's been said that he has said on YouTube or other platforms they're definitely blameworthy some of them could be even be seen as arrogant which is not Islamic it's the antithesis to the prophetic character some of the things can be seen as not in line with Islamic ethics there's a sense of haughtiness there's a sense of gender arrogance Avid materialism which is not part of our tradition yeah excessive individualism so

we have to call these things out for sure so I'm not saying I'm not like you know someone who is like you know uh Andrew Tate fan but I'm I'm trying to assess it from the point of view of the muscle and Masada as well the benefits and the Harms um Millions potentially of Muslim youth are following him if you demonize him excessively and unjustly then what message are you sending to this Muslim youth you need to be able to give them the tools to assess okay this is good about him and we should emphasize

that and this is what's wrong and we make Dua that he improves and I actually believe this is my hunch I see in his eyes right maybe it's because I've LED organizations before and I've LED Duart and you know through experience you get a pattern of human behavior I actually think that he's very genuine and you see this in the discourse in his in his personal individual interactions that he has with people they seem as very kind very humble because sometimes people have a public personality and a and a kind of default individual outside of

the public light personality and I've seen his eyes and I see a sense of genuineness and I do believe if he were to maybe be a bit quiet study the Deen he could be a great day bro he could be great at sharing Islam so there are issues for sure they're obvious But to now demonize him completely I think is unjust it's not befitting of a Muslim to do that there are some praiseworthy traits his eloquence his his commitment to courage and taking care of women and you know sticking up to what he believes in

and you know being he's also could fight he's strong he's articular um his assertive his brotherly he believes in the family values and the traditional Family Values these things are praised whether you're not blameworthy but also we shouldn't just you know think he's an angel he's not some of the things that he said is hoti arrogant Avid materialism excessive individualism and so on and so forth and those and he should be held to account and he should have good people around him that actually giving him that tarbe and so on and so forth so if

you were to counsel Andrew Tate if he was to ask you hamsa for advice what would he say to him I would say to him I would I would I would tell him to have a break like if you look at one of the right wing I think he was Dutch politician he was he was a right-wing project yeah yes when he became Muslim he then became quiet yeah I think he studied the dream for A bit and now he's making it a tremendous impact yes I would give some advice to Andrew Tate focus on

who Allah is and how to relate to him and look at all of your life through the lenses of Allah's pleasure and don't despair Allah's Mercy the doors of of Toba of repentance are always open you know seek his forgiveness have the right people around you and just reframe your life and once he does that and he stays silent for a while then he can come back onto the scene as an optimized version of himself and that would be my advice and I'll be like I'll be dedicated to your well-being and I'll be committed to

your well-being let's I'll help you in the process so we have other people to help you in the process and I do think there are people around him but I think he's probably finding it hard to remove himself from that kind of public lifestyle and it's it's a fitness you know if someone becomes a Muslim of course they need to have a clean shade and one needs to think good of Muslims whoever they are right wherever they are a you know whether they're Andrew Tate or whether they're a feminists Or you know self-described post-modernists we

have to have you know we have to have a good we have to develop good thoughts about Muslims however in our initial discussion you talked about some of the very problematic traits that many young Muslim men adopt and these traits are they've overcompensated as a result of feminism and they've developed these let's call them red pill again a very problematic term but these red pill ideals and and uh it goes beyond what Islam lays down and Beyond certainly beyond the prophetic way a man should be um many young people whether Muslims or not are Muslims

who look at Andrew Tate look at the package and people like Andrew Tate develop these egotistical traits and and maybe you know those traits are what you're trying to combat you know your your your whole discussion at the very beginning was about like you know I I wouldn't want my son for example to to have the traits uh at least the over Macho traits that I think you know are very harmful to the individual character right yes so how do we balance that I mean you did criticize you have criticized You know you've mentioned some

critical points to undertake but there is a role model problem here and many young Muslims may take what you've said and imply from that that you're you're singing the virtues I I personally feel no one no one should look up to undertale as a as a complete package okay you should follow the prophet salallahu alaihi wasallam yeah but in saying that we have this is a symptom of a Cause where are our Scholars preachers teachers academics and the discourse this righteous Brigade that all of a sudden have become Lions against Andrew Tay yes where where

is this lying attitude when it comes to liberalism post-modernism the uh you know the feminization of of the Muslim man of men for the past 30 or 40 years where are you against postmodern Trends these these great evils yeah even Credo issues where where is your voice where's your voice like with all due respect you judge a man by what he doesn't say sometimes right right I mean in general you shouldn't judge anyone yes kind of ontological sense because Allah is the greatest judge but from the apparent you judge them from what they don't say

you've been quiet On liberalism you've been quiet on feminism you've actually made the exception the rule you've been quiet on key prophetic aspects of masculinity like courage assertiveness being able to fight for God's sake yes protecting our women folk and so on and so forth you've been quiet on all of these things and Andrew Tech comes along now you've become a lion shut your mouth sorry that's what they deserve to say yeah you need to focus on what's in your heart there's something wrong with you what's happened to you yeah look I don't want my

son to Emily Andrew take but do I want my son to emulate his eloquence yes don't want my son to emulate his articulation yes do I want my son to emulate that he'll be a good kickboxer absolutely do you want my son to emulate that he is assertive and dominant in the business sphere that he's able to take care of his wife or wives absolutely so these things are praiseworthy look we can't counsel these people we can help develop them and give people the tools to understand what is going and what is bad but I

am a strong believer of enrolling not controlling yeah enrolled people in your Behavior the person wanted the sahaba to shave their heads they didn't shave their heads and we know the context and the story he went to his wife right um Salama yes be pleased with her she said shave your head he shaved his head what happened we need Role Models now some people argue no you know people should seek Role Models but we don't live in that world we need to become role models and that doesn't mean all our Scholars now have to reduce

their bellies and become like Andrew Tate and have to be fit and Fighters no but don't don't now complain and don't create barriers for that to to to take place like I was in Pakistan I went there twice and inshallah I'll be going again beautiful place I believe Pakistan as a nation removing the disgusting nationalism the Pakistan as a nation is people they have the ability to lead the ummah I believe that yeah I truly believe that they have passion they have intelligence they just need good governance and Leadership right and so on and so

forth and the point is this I went to Pakistan and there was youth that you could tell they want to love Allah yes but what does the media the liberal Media what does it push to them they have this clean shaven articular academic that literally kind of pretends to be Muslim right inshallah Masha Allah Allah mentions those words but his whole basis worldview ethics is totally away from Islam sure and then you have someone who without respect they don't want to look like it's far overweight can't articulate themselves is frankly comes across a very imprudent

and unwise and so on and so forth so they're giving the use of false dilemma so even me I'm empathizing I don't want to be like that guy I want to be like the clean-shaven articular smart well-dressed guy do you see my point yes so they're presenting this kind of uh false narrative here and what I was saying to the youth is that Find Your Role Models there are role models that exist and my advice would be to them is for them to become Role Models too enroll people in your behavior so you you give

the media no choice but to select the right people that are articulate they're Islamic the Orthodox they're connected to the Quran and the Sunnah this is what we need do you see my point maybe it was a bit Fuzzy these thoughts but the point is we need to become the role models right so even me you know I may have a kind of social media profile so I need to be conscious now of the way I look yes for the sake of Allah I need to be conscious of the way I express myself I need

to be conscious of the fact that am I using my ego here you know am I using am I in line with the prophetic character or not you know I need to be conscious of the things that I say how I enroll people on Behavior I need to be conscious of my passion you know am I instilling the right ways of being in the youth and the people that follow me it's a huge responsibility um but many of us we don't take it seriously many of us we let ourselves go uh intellectually physically spiritually actually

and it's just become I don't know it's become as if it's a privilege now oh yeah I deserve this you know this is this is my right to have this platform no you need to start aligning yourself with the prophetic way and becoming a true role model now one would argue even if they did that the youth won't follow them we'll try try don't just shout and scream when someone comes along and Is very popular try do something enroll people in your behavior let's see what happens so you were very critical of Scholars and Scholars

it's it's it's more of the art I would guess because it's not the job of the scholars to actually engage with the youth on that level yeah you know the preachers the students of knowledge that go out in the world I'm talking to them mostly okay so let's talk about tarbia let's talk about the young Muslim man and how he should embrace Islam you know how he should internalize the ideas and Concepts and and the mechanisms you talked about you know to deal with their own uh internal nufs if you were to design a curriculum

say for example a chain of schools um were to come to you and say Hamza look I we want to design a curriculum specifically tailored for Muslim men for young Muslim men apart from the basics of Islam let's take that as a given you know Islam you know foreign all of this will take us a given what would be the top five things you would put into that curriculum very good the the first thing I would say is apida and Allah's names and attributes which is combined really really understanding applied Akita because sometimes when we

discuss the understanding of creed we we adopt a kind of we adopt a kind of I don't want to use the word medieval because that sounds very modernist you know but what I'm trying to say is we don't adopt the methodology of the scholars we just adopt the statements so when we get an Akita book say it's whatever the case may be that was written a particular time yes there are Timeless principles in there but that was written in a particular time for a particular audience and what we need to learn to do is not

just to stick to the statements but learn to apply the Akida in our current context right and this is what we do at sapience all the time like we're not Scholars but we we help Scholars take the great Credo knowledge that they've learned from the classical Scholars and to apply it so we've become if you like the facility is of applying Credo knowledge in a contemporary sense without deviating from the principles of Aquarius and you know why I mentioned earlier about the Assumption the ethical Assumption of the lgbtq Narrative that they have self-ownership so how

does that go against the Islamic activator well Allah will be at the fact that he owns everything that's a very basic example but that's a an example of Applied Akida so we need to teach our young men applied Al-Qaeda and Allah's names and attributes okay and what I mean by Allah's names and attributes basically to not only to enumerate them and memorize them but to internalize them based on the Hadith which is for example if Allah is intensely merciful then you should be as merciful as possible from a human's perspective if Allah he is like

in the Majestic and the proud then you should be totally humble so you actualize his names and attributes in your life and you make it rules you make the Quran of Sunnah and the The Credo statements from the Quran Sun are real and applied in your life from an intellectual spiritual level that's a missing discourse at the moment really and you'll learn go to most of the the kind of I don't know the institutes and you learn it in a nice classical way but you won't adopt the methodology of the classical schools which is applying

it in your time and That is one of the crisis of our knowledge at the moment that's number one number two purification of the heart this is without a doubt one of the most important things remember what I said earlier you can't plant a seed on a rock and the Heart the the waivers okay and it has fitten the fitting are shahawata blameworthy desires and destructive doubts and the heart have the heart has diseases and there are main diseases we mentioned before and ostentation self-amazement vanity blameworthy jealousy and arrogance there are tools in the Quran

also to do with these we need to give our youth these tools and and give them the ability to recognize these diseases in their hearts and that they're able to Traverse a path to to deal with these diseases in accordance to the Quran and the Sunnah this is critical because this would affect everything in their life because in Islam everything that you do is really a derivative of your heart State notice your mind State your heart State yeah whether it's your ibad or whether it's the way you treat others whether it's how you forgive whether

it's you react ego go centrically and egotistically to videos that's All because of what's going on here it's one of the most important things and this is based on the kitab and the Sunnah so the purification of the heart the third thing I would say Islas yes that's connected to purification of the harbor has to have its own Focus because a class is the basis of everything for your actions to be accepted in Islam you have to have do it for the sake of Allah and the action itself has to be in line with the

son of the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam what is a class how to develop a class these are critical things that people have to adopt internalize and it's going to be something that's going to exist with them into the day until they die yeah the other thing I would say is is ibada which is the fourth point I believe so what I mean by about I don't mean the Farah in five daily prayers fasting Ramadan I'm talking about especially in the west a Muslim man and even a woman right but a from the perspective of a

Muslim man he needs to have a routine a routine especially a spiritual routine so you have to without a doubt engage in the thicker the afghar of the morning of the In the evening and the duas in the morning in the evening without fail this should be your oxygen if you miss it one day it like part of you must have died yeah that's how you should treat it because this is a protection for your heart it gives you a sense of certainty it gives you contentment it protects you from fitting it protects you from

trials and tribulations I mean there are so many stick far you know you you get forgiven it purifies your heart this is essential it's an essential practice for someone to have this in their daily routine the the off guard in the morning and the evening in the duas it protects you it preserves you it strengthens you it it it it it elevates you it purifies you and also what they need to do is do a stick fight every day at least 100 times every day yeah this is without further that's one aspect right the other

aspect is that they should do tadabor of the Quran Allah says do they not ponder over the Quran or their locks on their hearts you can mirror their meaning so the more you do the more your heart becomes unlocked to receive his guidance means pondering over the Quran right because sometimes we focus on Recitation which is very good it's a shifa it's it's a form of glorifying Allah for sure but I would emphasize over recitation yeah because Allah wants you to be guided he wants you to understand his message engage with the meaning so technically

is different from what they've been used synonymously in some places in the tradition but technically speaking of Syria in a basic sense is meaning implication of meaning so understand the meaning from Scholars students of knowledge the tafaser the exegetical works and then now apply in your life know that this word is from Allah and Allah wants something from you Allah is talking to you directly even if it's a line a day engage with yeah it's like an almost Eternal ocean that you're swimming and you're finding gems and they're gonna impact your life in ways that

you never imagine Allah mentions do they not do it of the Quran or the locks many locks on their hearts so the more W do your heart will come unlocked and you receive things that you will never imagine you need to engage with the book of Allah and even in my life I realize this you know we're adopting Christian philosophy at One point we're going to philosophical abstract works but everything was in the Quran anyway yeah but that requires deep and you need guidance for that by engaging that process so you need to do the

other thing you need to do is try and wake up in the last third of the night we know you know about Allah's Mercy what he what he asked us in the last third of the night and so on and so forth Allah is waiting for us right he's basically saying to us connect with me you know repent ask from me you know the duas at the time the last third of the night are like an arrow that never misses its Target right so even if you can't wake up and do the full prayers that

fine wake up 10 minutes before Fajr and just supplicate even if you're half dead asleep start to create that habit because the changes that's going to have in your life are just something else yeah so you need to have a spiritual routine so the morning and the evening of God the recitation of the Quran the memorization of the Quran of the Quran this should be daily practice and and some Islamic knowledge every day even if it's 20 minutes you could download on Kindle a book on tafsir A book on Sierra read it even if it's

five minutes every drop raises the ocean start to have these habits in your daily routine so this kind of the rouhania the spiritual stuff needs to happen and also memorize the names and attributes of Allah and actualize them and understand their meaning and how you should respond to them right this is a critical as well so you should have these things in your life and then as you get better and it becomes more of a habit you can increase the time you can increase the focus and so on and so forth so you could start

to hajjud once a month for once every two months right and it could be once every week then it could be twice a week right but some things have to be daily in my view the daily thing should be is recitation of the Quran of the Quran and also the thekara in the morning and the evening in the duas that's without fail and in that and I have a habit app and I train sometimes I miss it but I try and track myself someone on point and try and include something concerning understanding the Quran so

quranic Arabic there's some really good tools out there that you can start learning the keywords of the Quran the grammar of the Quran my kind of pedagogical approach when it comes to these things is just focus on vocabulary start learning the words yeah and then you pick up so much and then we have natural grammar it happens in our in our minds like one Egyptian uh scholar a student of knowledge I think told me this is just focus on vocab because you have the internal grammatical structures anyway that's one of the innate uh it's called

the innate Theory hypothesis linguistic and nativism or something I did it in one of my philosophy modules a long time ago but basically we have innate structures grammar structures so focus on vocab and when you have some of these things in place it will change your life and the final point is physical activity don't be a lazy bum do something I'm not saying you have to be big bodybuilder actually bodybuilding is vanity it's a waste of time be functional with your Fitness yeah you have to know how to fight for sure I'm not saying you

have to be aggressive and hurt people no the story principle there is no harming no reciprocating of harm but if you have to protect Your women folk you have to protect yourself then you have to do that and plus it also shapes your disposition The Way You Walk you just have a sense of confidence about you right you could tell who's a fighter I usually can tell I think you know this guy he knows how to fight he's strong he you know I'm not gonna mess with this guy yeah it's the The Way You Walk

I think there was a study done by by I think criminologists or something or psychologists and they ask criminals who would who would you attack on the street or something and it wasn't to do with the size or whatever it was to do with the fact of how they walked yeah they had a they had a I forgot what the term was used it was they had an organized walk or something yeah because of the way you come across yeah so it's very important you know the person recommended things like archery and swimming horse riding

and you know you have wrestling martial arts kickboxing whatever the case may be you need to be active as a male yeah now it doesn't mean you have to be big and but you have to be able to be an optimized version of yourself so be strong be healthy eat the right Foods This is very important part of your daily routine so I'll put these things in place so what about I mean what I've noticed there in your list uh is an absence of intellectual thoughts I mean the absence of refuting liberalism refuting the isms

that exist around us yes that's why I I mentioned applied Akita because it's a broad term isn't it so when you deal with things like liberalism atheism yeah fundamentally this is an applied Akita discussion yes so how do you do a liberalism and this is and this is why it's important to frame it as applied right because if you frame in abstraction then the way you respond to it might be good intellectually or in an abstract sense of Islamic do you see the point so it's very important to do it through a kind of uh

god-centric Allah Centric fashion meaning what is Allah and his messenger say about these issues which yes you need to know what liberalism is what the different forms of feminism are what the disputators doctrines of liberalism and so on and so forth but in order to deal with this and apply that kind of discussion sure and that's why I give a very brief example concerning self-ownership Just to show that it can be applied like pick if you like for example as a test if you pick any topic atheism this is about a key aspect of Allah

which is that his Divine creative agency Islam has a lot to say about this the books of Akita talk about the contingency argument and so on and so forth yeah even talked about a design argument as well we have modern Scholars that talk about these things it's an applied academic discussion when you talk about liberalism fundamentally liberalism is based on atomism the primary of the Primacy of the self we don't believe in that right obviously it's also maybe kind of first principles or Soul discussion as well because we have a view on society it's not

just based on individuals it's a it's a combination of societies and individual needs as well you know the famous Hadith of the Hadith of the boat and so on and so forth but it's applied Islam yeah so so it's the primaries of the individual they believe in self-ownership no Allah owns you so this is all applied Islam applied Akita so that so I would include it in that and once you do it from that perspective you become very robust because you know you're Islam and You know how to apply it and you know how and

you know what is cover these days people don't know what Islam is they don't know what the Islamic is they think Islam is identity marker and they may wear hijab or have a beard have a foe and they get into Academia they don't have a solid grounding in a classical sense when it applied Akita sense and the engagement with these ideas and like oh right that's interesting that sounds nice let me liberalize Islam and they don't even know right and and you see this with some academics right I don't usually mention names I'm not a

fan of that I don't do that on my social media although sometimes I am tempted but you have some men who come across as practicing and they call people who have a certain position on feminism as the right it's disgusting discourse because what are they assuming now they're assuming that the leftist discourse is the correct discourse yeah it's all bizarre why don't you just be Islamic and use Islam as a frame of reference they don't even see it right so yeah it's terrible fig finally um Hamza so you've talked about mentoring you've talked about the

need to develop and nurture young Muslim men so that they grow up in a balanced way and they developed these all of these traits and and they have the tools to develop to to deal with their own personality traits that you spoke of the uh earlier on how is this practically done I mean where is it done I mean we we look around most of our Muslim communities alhamdulillah does some great efforts and you know sometimes you see some pockets and you would say well this is a fantastic uh project but as a general you

know Trend in the Muslim Community but partly maybe the reason why young Muslim men are so free to adopt and accept any guy on on social media who wants to uh who wants to express thoughts about Islam regardless of their um uh their ability and regardless of you know all of those points that you've mentioned you know and and the awareness of these points how do young Muslim men get access to this level of of mentoring because it's a it's a it's an involved process yeah this is It's a social thing right so I mean

some of the answers that I've mentioned during this podcast they're intuitive because sometimes when you throw new questions to be mature about it sometimes you have to think hard For weeks right so some other artists have been intuitive so I want the audience to understand that and to take it take it as if I'm trying to plant seeds in people's hearts and Minds so they could continue their intellectual spiritual journey yeah that's one thing that's important to say the other thing is that a lot of things that I've mentioned that this advice is definitely for

me as well that I need to remind myself of this yeah and I'm not saying this is a kind of fake spiritual slogan trying to be humble literally I need it as well yeah so it we need role models we need to revive the art of local scholarship I think because when was the last time that people are in a mosque and they sit under under the feet of a scholar and the school is actually teaching them something we have kind of secularized education in a way it's like massive theaters it's these lectures and also

we need to change and I think classically speaking our learning was transformative not just informative so at the moment we have an informative type of learning so here's a book here's some statements this is how you understand them and you pass an exam on McQ A multiple choice question that's informative type of learning we need to arrive in um transformative type of learning and transformation usually happens when you change someone's emotions someone's language and someone's Behavior so our learning the abstract learning has to be connected to our moods how how is it going to change

your emotions and moods how is it going to change the way you frame things your language and how is it going to change your action has to be connected to that otherwise you won't have transformation I'll give an example bro you can know all the ahadith all the prophetic Traditions all of the ayaton vicar and you will never become a person of zikr you can know everything about Muslim masculinity yeah everything you can know the ins and outs even the chains of narrations even the the ayat and the numbers and the chapter numbers and whatever

the case may be Quran chapter two verse this whatever and you will never become a true Muslim prophetic masculine man knowing doesn't give rise to becoming in an abstract sense yeah because in Islam is it's not a secularized oh yeah I know this Ayah no this Hadith even Imam Malik there's Two narrations attribute to him concerning what knowledge is it's a nor that Allah puts in your heart and it's not just it's not just memorization abstract memorization yes that may be the beginning of it but that's not what element is and when Allah talks about

people of knowledge what does he talk about those who stand in the prayer they're fearful of the Lord they they they they um you know hope in the mercy of Allah and so on and so forth there are people very bad and Allah even mentions are those who know like those who don't know right connecting it to you your way of being you're all of Allah your God Consciousness your ibadder your worship so in Islam is connected to this way of being and and in traditionally that's how it was as well and that wasn't a

transformative type of learning because the abstract learning was connected to people's emotions their language and their behavior like for example you have classically if you want you know even in I believe right when they wanted someone to study they would actually get them to clean the toilets for six months why are they doing that because they're preparing Them for knowledge right they're humbling them they're deconstructing them yeah and we even see this today like for example I had the amazing experience of being in Retreats with him in a retreat with him and his Retreat is

actually designed like that you wake up at four in the morning you stay awake you read do Quran you get your Quran tested yeah that's humiliation right to a certain degree and you do your israq prayer you pray in jamaa you you know someone is seeking leadership that's actually taken away from them it's a deconstructive like we had this Visionaries Retreat and it was a spiritual uh it was tight you're tired you had hardly any sleep you're doing you're doing this you're doing that you've got responsibilities and you get deconstructed then reconstructed that was a

transformative process no one wrote a book or an article said read this or here's a lecture and this is how you're going to change it was a process and we need to revive that type of process it's part of our tradition it served us well it's I believe how the process developed the sahab and the sahaba developed the tabi in and so on and so forth that is totally Missing and that is something you know I remember I gave a talk in Masjid Kuba in Bradford years ago 2008 I believe responding to the channel 4

documentary and they had to ask permission from one idea about the elders to let me in because you know I'm a new guy who the hell am I am only Muslim like six years or something so they let me in the Masjid and in the front rows where I think I am telling you I nearly broke down crying after that lecture why it was just the humility out and that's one good thing about the Germany tradition their Scholars are extremely humble and just the way he treated me and dealt with me I learned something from

his humility that I would never read in the Thousand volumes do you see my point yes that we need to revive how we do that I don't have the answers yeah but I do know there is a difference between informational learning and transformational learning and Islam does focus a lot on transformational learning and that generally speaking I think is about changing someone's mood emotions how they frame things their language that's so important because Sometimes even the way you describe things can change your being and also your behaving your actions if you could change even one

of those you get a transformation if you change all three it's fantastic and the ulama actually knew how to do that and the Quran dealt with that and you know the Quran came to the sahaba it was like real for them it was phenomenological first person experience they were living it and it changed them we need to do the same thing foreign [Music] please remember to subscribe to our social media and YouTube channels and head over to our website thinkingmuslim.com to sign up to my Weekly Newsletter