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17 Bekeken· 24/06/21

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From converting to Islam as a 20-year-old DJ and memorizing the Quran in two years, to studying Islam at Cairo’s renowned Al-Azhar university and becoming a scholar who started his own online Hawza (Islamic seminary), Suhaib Webb shares his journey to Islam on this latest episode of Muslims of the Melting.

#podcast #muslim #american #meltingpot #islam #dj #revert #newmuslim #unity #community #quran #faith

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Transcript

[0:00]assalamu alaikum and welcome to the fourth episode of Muslims of the

[0:07]Melting Pot today we are talking to sahib Webb he is a

[0:10]Muslim American Scholar thought leader and educator and after converting to Islam

[0:14]at only 20 years old so hey Webb left a career in

[0:19]the music industry to pursue his passion in education after serving as

[0:22]an Imam and scholar in various Muslim communities across the United States

[0:27]he went to Cairo Egypt to attend al-azhar University and study Islamic

[0:32]law specifically sahab web is a proponent of understanding the various challenges

[0:37]faced by the American Muslim Community and finding authentic ways to address

[0:42]those challenges within a Muslim and Islamic framework total and complete shutdown

[0:47]of Muslims entering the United States because it's the only religion that

[0:52]acts like the mafia they're not immigrants this Clash of civilizations and

[0:59]if they're not going to learn to assume normally I don't want

[1:02]it in this country but hold up that's not really who we

[1:06]are perhaps the American Melting Pot model is not an accurate depiction

[1:10]of the true Muslim American experience and perhaps the goal is not

[1:15]to mix but if it isn't then what really is to assimilate

[1:19]or not to assimilate that's the question I'm your host Sarah salimi

[1:23]and you are watching Muslims of the Melting Pot thank you sahib

[1:26]Webb for being our fourth guest and welcome to the podcast well

[1:29]first of all thank you Sarah for having me on here it's

[1:33]a pleasure I enjoy your podcast and I'm glad to see that

[1:35]it's growing and developing and and really appreciate the fact that you

[1:40]have so many kind of diverse guests and you're deliberate about doing

[1:43]that I think it's amazing so I want to start us off

[1:44]with this conversation about your personal journey to Islam and how that

[1:48]came to be kind of what led you to the journey of

[1:54]finding Islam I became Muslim in 1992 I was just I just

[1:57]turned 20 years old and largely due to people that are new

[2:02]in the music business that I was engaged with as well as

[2:05]a very good friend of mine who was Muslim um through high

[2:09]school and so that led me to sort of start reading right

[2:13]that was before and then in those days the impulse for the

[2:16]internet wasn't quite there yet the impulse was still like let me

[2:20]go to the library or let me pick up a book so

[2:22]I I began to read the Quran when I was like 17

[2:27]years old in English and so that led me to ultimately Embrace

[2:31]Islam when I was 20.

[2:32]I actually read I think it was online that you you were

[2:35]a DJ before you actually converted to Islam and so can you

[2:38]tell us a little bit about the experience of what What spark

[2:40]kind of LED you to even be intrigued and looking into the

[2:47]religion well I begin to doubt my my parents faith and they

[2:50]were members what's called The Church of Christ Christianity at a really

[2:54]young age and I had questions and not to offend any or

[2:57]listeners but like why would God commit murder like why would you

[3:02]kill your son um right the idea of original sin was something

[3:04]that I I even like 13 14 years old sort of grappled

[3:09]with before my baptism because before baptism my grandfather was actually a

[3:13]Christian preacher he was running churches my father went to pepperdining went

[3:17]to Columbia Christian this is not like coming from someone who was

[3:20]uneducated because oftentimes I know people say oh well that person didn't

[3:23]know this religion or that religion you are very much within the

[3:29]religion that was a scholar I was 13 but I knew enough

[3:32]to Grapple with some of the major theological issues and one of

[3:36]them was like the idea of original sin people are bored guilty

[3:38]and I was just like well how do you reconcile that with

[3:42]the idea of transcendent Justice like God is just Why am I

[3:45]being punished for the decision of someone else the portrayal of God

[3:49]within churches as being like a white man I always found that

[3:52]sort of like it's odd do you go to like a black

[3:55]church it looks like you know Usher you go to Latino church

[3:59]and I was just like wow like everybody's kind of projecting themselves

[4:02]onto what they think God is I begin to have sort of

[4:07]a crisis in that sense a logical crisis and so then I

[4:11]started reading and you know honestly I thought Muslims were kind of

[4:14]like insane you know prior to that but through DJing I had

[4:18]a number of friends like the guy I used to work for

[4:20]his name was hanza he wasn't even Muslim his brother's name was

[4:24]Latif and so they actually had a Quran in the studio which

[4:27]is like insane and I would just look at it I'm like

[4:30]man the thing is hey you know interesting there was a number

[4:33]of and I think that's something that we have to appreciate about

[4:36]um people who Embrace Islam is that oftentimes it's a set of

[4:42]particulars that lead to the whole right it's not just like the

[4:46]Pauline Epiphany or say to Muhammad and Ali salaam in the cave

[4:49]of Hira who has that's a prophetic experience ours are our non-prophetic

[4:56]oftentimes clumsy sloppy accidental um and just a mixture of so many

[5:01]things and I think a lot of people assume that conversion is

[5:03]this linear process like you suddenly wake up or are inspired in

[5:06]a dream and the next day you're a Muslim but it's actually

[5:10]interesting because a lot of times it's in the depths of sin

[5:12]that some people find God it's in the depths of you know

[5:17]feeling that they don't have that purpose they kind of feel a

[5:19]sense of Gap in their soul where they do go after that

[5:23]intrinsic Fitzroy placed inside them to search for that deeper meaning and

[5:26]we believe that sin is in Balance right it's it's epistemologically and

[5:31]theologically framed as imbalance and so when there's cognitive dissonance kind of

[5:37]like Piaget Theory people seek to find Allah in the Quran right

[5:41]so that imbalance ideally should cause someone to seek that balance so

[5:45]yeah so that's sort of where I was at that age in

[5:48]my life and so as as an Evidence I thought I was

[5:52]Muslim like for three years I thought I was Muslim right I

[5:54]didn't know about shahada I was around Muslims I actually was attending

[5:56]a weekly study Circle and no one ever asked me to embrace

[6:01]Islam so the uh the idea of you know Muslims aggressively kind

[6:04]of evangelicizing people and I didn't experience that and so then I

[6:08]I took my shahada like seamlessly just oh yeah I'm Muslim I'm

[6:11]already Muslim I was actually going to ask you because I know

[6:15]a lot of people will say it's not convert because a Reaver

[6:18]is someone who just comes back to the initial or the original

[6:22]idea that we have that everyone's born Muslim so the word first

[6:25]of all Conor and revert is not something we really chose it

[6:30]was sort of imposed on us and then secondly is it's historically

[6:33]inaccurate and revert is just a bad usage of the language I

[6:36]don't want to put on my professor cap now but I would

[6:39]I would not pass someone who used that active participle new Muslim

[6:42]does two things that I think is really important number one is

[6:46]it does allow us to frame num Muslims as being still in

[6:51]need of learning obviously just because I become Muslim I shouldn't think

[6:55]that I I know but then it also respects the fact that

[6:57]there's a shelf life to being in a Muslim after a while

[7:01]now I'm part of the broader ummah I'm not a subsect so

[7:06]it applies now a process for utility and growing into relationships theologically

[7:08]the whole idea of Fitzroy being Islam is not correct and I

[7:12]teach this at my school and that's why people have to accept

[7:14]Islam unless they're born into a Muslim family and then it's understood

[7:18]that they've accultured into Islam right but even that that from my

[7:23]experience and what I have the around us actually have some much

[7:29]deeper grasp of the religion than a lot of us who are

[7:33]born into the faith which is why a lot of times what

[7:36]we have is even for example me born into a religious family

[7:39]essentially you can say inherited Islam as a religion I think at

[7:42]various points in my life I did have to really ReDiscover My

[7:47]Religion for myself because it's not just that you know you have

[7:50]parents who are Muslim and now automatically you're Muslim and you have

[7:53]you know you're set but it's the journey that you really do

[7:57]have to ReDiscover and essentially come to Islam yourself as well and

[8:01]accept it something that I know for example new Muslims or converts

[8:05]or reverts would not experience because they've there's a process of learning

[8:11]in knowledge and education that comes with making the conscious decision to

[8:15]convert to a religion so I think there's two points to this

[8:18]question number one it is considered within Sunni and Shiite theologies and

[8:23]obligation upon everyone born Muslim to learn the foundations of their religion

[8:28]exactly they have to so there's like a micro acceptance of Islam

[8:32]even though they're already considered Muslim but for for people like myself

[8:38]I think we had to If we're honest about our our Embrace

[8:41]of Islam we invest in trying to learn at least the bare

[8:44]minimums how did you kind of integrate within the Muslim Community because

[8:50]I know a lot of Muslim communities I say this from both

[8:53]experience and from hearing about it are not very welcoming of new

[9:00]Muslims into their communities and you see a lot of times that

[9:03]they feel either isolated or their struggles don't align as much so

[9:07]they don't feel hurt or even the programming something as simple as

[9:11]you know having lectures that are in English so that they can

[9:14]actually understand what's being said how did that come off to you

[9:16]and how did you kind of what did you think of it

[9:20]and that's something I failed in I gave one time a lecture

[9:23]in Arabic because I was in a community that asked me to

[9:24]do it right and I'm right I'm from Oklahoma afterwards I'm Muslim

[9:27]a Muslim came to me and said I don't I embrace Islam

[9:31]five years ago man but like bro like what are you doing

[9:35]you know and that was what are you saying I was like

[9:37]I'm I'm so sorry I was asked if the talk in Arabic

[9:40]and I just he's like yeah you know what you forgot about

[9:43]us I really appreciated that moment even though it might have been

[9:46]a little uncomfortable for for me but uncomfortability you know when our

[9:49]muscles hurt usually they're growing and so I said to him like

[9:53]I really and then I sat down with him and said okay

[9:55]this is everything I said I just gave him the lecture well

[9:56]I mean it's good that you actually did that that's not something

[9:59]that happens in a lot of communities kind of like either you're

[10:03]gonna be you know from the language we speak or you know

[10:05]find somewhere else to be basically so I became Muslim at a

[10:10]time when information was rare so it was valuable like you didn't

[10:14]have the budget to waste your time with nonsense right the second

[10:19]thing was my community was basically a student community so they were

[10:22]all just like chilling you know they were all from like Karachi

[10:25]Iran Yemen Saudi um we were all very young you know so

[10:32]we were still like hanging out as young people we were all

[10:35]poor right college students and then the third thing there was a

[10:38]really great scholar in my area from West Africa who the night

[10:43]I embraced Islam came to me is like these people will use

[10:46]your whiteness against you he's like you have to work hard you

[10:47]have to work 10 times harder than everyone else because whiteness I'm

[10:52]an afraid in a way now we'd understand it's like whiteness is

[10:54]utility right and so I was like wow man this guy's because

[10:57]I was aware at that time of some of these things and

[10:58]I was like man this dude gets it so that next Tuesday

[11:02]I was I live by and I remember I saw Quran with

[11:06]him in two years wow yeah so he he my fella I

[11:07]did not know that two years there's Muslims who try for like

[11:12]decades to get that down that's that's very impressive well I was

[11:15]20.

[11:15]you know a lot easier yeah I entered into his like his

[11:20]hausa right his madressa for 10 years and then I went to

[11:22]Egypt and studied for seven years and finished my Mufti courts in

[11:24]Egypt I felt as a normal son that I I had a

[11:28]responsibility to get to know people in ways that made me uncomfortable

[11:31]do you think it helps that you were young you were a

[11:35]young age when you converted to Islam do you think if you

[11:37]were older it would have been more difficult I think it would

[11:40]have been more difficult because I had more responsibilities that would have

[11:44]taken my time um the fourth thing that I didn't mention and

[11:47]this may sound weird is although my parents and family were sort

[11:49]of and you asked about this earlier I think right were not

[11:55]necessarily happy they were still somewhat supportive that really helps yeah so

[11:59]in the beginning there was tension undoubtedly there was serious tension and

[12:03]I had to navigate that because I was financially reliant on my

[12:07]family and I think also one thing that we don't hear is

[12:10]like I love my parents like just because I became Muslim like

[12:13]doesn't mean I don't love my family anymore so I felt I

[12:17]felt like a duty to them that came even before my Islam

[12:20]and so but they allowed me to like study like they allowed

[12:24]me to go to school and then even to go to madressa

[12:26]like they facilitated that did you personally feel welcome in the community

[12:30]or did you feel that there was still that barrier I think

[12:34]there was indifference from the older people like I don't think they

[12:37]were antagonistic but they just were like but you know what I'm

[12:39]gonna be honest with you because I lived in the Muslim world

[12:43]for 10 years you know that I don't really fault them because

[12:46]America is a hard place to navigate you know and if you

[12:50]are in America you don't speak English I wasn't any mom of

[12:52]a community for three years most of the people there didn't speak

[12:54]English they're also equally as kind of terrified so I I sort

[13:00]of didn't look at it as them being antagonistic to me I

[13:03]was just like they got issues man they got stuff they got

[13:07]to handle I I faced it a little bit I saw with

[13:10]some of my um my my so a lot of my friends

[13:13]became Wilson with me we were actually members of a gang and

[13:15]we all embraced Islam and many of them were black Americans and

[13:17]they ran into challenges they ran into Social Challenges in the Muslim

[13:21]that I didn't face and so that I was like this is

[13:25]some postcolonial garbage right what would you say um about the mixture

[13:30]or the integration of culture and religion new Muslims who come into

[13:34]the faith have a much less cultural perspective to the religion than

[13:37]a lot of people who carry a lot of cultural baggage into

[13:40]their understanding of Islam let's say Iranians or pakistanis or Arabs their

[13:45]understanding of religion is oftentimes very heavily influenced by their culture and

[13:50]a lot of times some elements of that culture are not necessarily

[13:55]inherently Islamic so how would you say that differs from new Muslims

[14:00]experiences yeah culture is extremely important in Islam we have the statement

[14:04]of saying talk to people where they're at and then we know

[14:11]that many times the prophet would have different answers to the same

[14:15]question because people are coming from a different experience or have different

[14:18]needs this Axiom runs across different Islamic legal schools either Imam or

[14:24]others the four meth heads we use theology to dehumanize where theology

[14:29]actually is the investment in rahma humanization he healing caring meaning the

[14:37]prophet is closer to you than you are to yourself what your

[14:42]thing is actually so critical because a lot of Muslims feel judged

[14:45]for the fact that they aren't at the peak of their religiosity

[14:48]at any given point and I think that's sometimes forgotten in the

[14:52]process because we're so quick to label people as oh you're a

[14:57]you're a good Muslim you're a bad Muslim you're you know liberal

[14:59]Muslim conservative Muslim and sometimes we forget that there's a human there

[15:03]and that's the outcome of post-modernity I mean if you look at

[15:06]that ish if you look at you know some of the more

[15:10]extreme cancerous representations of Islam in the world through just Unapologetic violence

[15:18]when you begin to look at the ideology it has its roots

[15:20]in oftentimes the idea of the modern State even through neoliberalism and

[15:24]conservatism it doesn't have a a link back to pre-industrial age theology

[15:29]it is very much the embodiment of a fascist mindset which is

[15:35]the gift of transmodernity you add social media to this why are

[15:39]people so brutal in comments I'm sure it's happened to me I'll

[15:42]meet people who are just bombarding me in the comments box right

[15:46]but then I meet them in person and they're like kittens exactly

[15:49]that's that's the irony because now we've taken out the technocratic relationship

[15:55]and now we have to humanize each other but I like to

[15:59]tell imams that I was training some some months ago to be

[16:03]aniama means that you are invested in or interdisciplinary approach or you

[16:07]have talented people around you who can help you see things in

[16:11]different through different disciplines primarily psychology emotional we have a lot of

[16:17]people who have childhood trauma exactly whether through religious teachers or their

[16:21]own parents we see young women who have have bulimia and anorexia

[16:24]because they were always told they were fat right well the same

[16:28]thing happens with religion and people are constantly exposed to religion being

[16:32]this guilt enforcement that's actually important that you bring that up because

[16:36]a lot of Muslims who are born into the faith because from

[16:39]childhood they aren't raised with this correct understanding of God and religion

[16:44]they're almost raised you know feeling that any given action they do

[16:47]is immediately going to translate into either heaven or hell we believe

[16:50]that God in his names he is full of Mercy he is

[16:55]Mercy itself he is love itself he is the truth itself and

[16:57]sometimes we fail to kind of connect those dots because we only

[17:02]see him as oh the one who takes revenge and I find

[17:04]that also missing in a lot of you know scholarly work is

[17:08]that a lot of times Scholars fail to really see the issues

[17:11]that young Muslims are facing in a society where all traces of

[17:18]religion have virtually ceased to exist absolutely I think that there's that's

[17:23]a lot you're talking about it's amazing and I think also that

[17:26]there's three parts sort of what she that I took but I

[17:28]think also the power of the global ethos is one which is

[17:35]inherently Western whether we admit it or not psychology is Led Now

[17:38]by a western framework history is led by a western framework I

[17:42]mean you and I will not pass the academy if we write

[17:43]a PhD you know using say erazi's theory of you know a

[17:50]non-eno christianistic world right so we are now subjugated we are colonized

[17:53]intellectually and exactly and and so what this forces people to do

[17:59]because the altar of Western post-hellenistic modernity is the individual the individualist

[18:04]of Qibla the individual is the there's no idea of community and

[18:08]the birth of social media has only put it on steroids that's

[18:12]inflamed the idea of you know people are are having their own

[18:17]you know everything from learning a language to having a physical relationship

[18:21]now is happening online exactly and and now you add AI to

[18:24]this oh my goodness we have to have a whole episode on

[18:28]AI and so and I don't think that these things are also

[18:32]like they're necessarily evil but I think without non-western Frameworks it's going

[18:36]to only lead to people being further isolated because this is the

[18:40]history of the West and I'm not saying that I'm not you

[18:44]know to blast anybody it's just it is what it is it

[18:47]believes in the power of Michael Jordan with his tongue out dunking

[18:50]on everybody it's a society that uses violence as the Apex of

[18:53]imposition and success it's the cowboy world and so that's why it's

[18:57]almost impossible to imagine the modern State without you and I realizing

[19:04]that they can inflict Upon Us Doom without any recourse and I

[19:07]think the Palestinians are a great example of this they are the

[19:11]complete object of absolute tyranny and Injustice and the failure of the

[19:15]world and black people and brown people and the poor whites as

[19:21]well The Angst of the trumpist was largely rooted in a failure

[19:23]for them to have any like economic utility there's a great book

[19:25]called strangers in their own land that really details that angst and

[19:31]it's a misdirected anger but it is a legitimate anger in some

[19:33]ways not always and what's going to happen now is instead of

[19:36]sitting upstairs and drinking tea and talking with a hundred aunties and

[19:39]uncles I got a freaking virtual friend like and that's the danger

[19:44]of it really is that everyone's kind of sitting behind this barrier

[19:47]of a phone and not making any real Connections in the real

[19:51]world and replacing them with the pseudo real connections that are ironically

[19:57]or in a contradictory way doing the opposite of what they're supposed

[20:00]to do they're not making us more happy they're not making us

[20:03]more fulfilled in our relationships they're kind of creating a deep gaping

[20:06]hole that we don't even realize it's is being grown over time

[20:10]and that's why everybody's mad and rude a social commitment is now

[20:15]look through the lens of me and my little AI friend I

[20:19]mean a part of it is whether you like it or not

[20:23]being involved in the social sphere the social media world is kind

[20:26]of like a a pill that you have to take because it's

[20:30]you know it's what the time calls for whether you want to

[20:34]be a religious figure a scholar an influencer not all influencers if

[20:37]you want to be anyone who is really having a voice for

[20:41]good or for bad social media is something you can't avoid which

[20:44]is why the question becomes at one point can you say it's

[20:49]really doing more harm than good by no means am I invoking

[20:51]a complete rejection but history shows us something in America great great

[20:54]historian Zahir Ali a brilliant black historian in the Muslim Community third

[21:00]fourth generation Muslim right a genius we were talking and he said

[21:03]to me that historically in the west three types of religious communities

[21:07]have kind of battled with this great question that you and I

[21:11]are talking about the first were those who completely rejected any idea

[21:15]of a civilization assimilation right they don't last long those are your

[21:19]Cults right those those are groups that kind of come and go

[21:23]or lead to like violence right and we see some of the

[21:25]sovereigners movements now through white supremacy kind of head in that direction

[21:28]the second are those who completely assimilate right they also don't last

[21:33]and the third are those who are thinking critically and constructively about

[21:37]engagement and they end up lasting because they have a realistic like

[21:42]you said we got to take this pill it's a tough Bill

[21:44]to swallow now that I've accepted the fact that I have to

[21:48]swallow this pill what is the strategy to mitigate its danger I

[21:51]think every with this question especially religious groups that really want to

[22:00]retain that identity Factor the religious identity while also recognizing that you

[22:04]need to have an influence in the real world especially in the

[22:07]western world if you want to retain a voice and have your

[22:09]rights is figuring out this question and I don't think there's any

[22:14]easy answer to it what I noticed and I think it has

[22:17]a lot to do with Generation Z and young Millennials who have

[22:20]Generation Z by the way is just a different breed I love

[22:24]them man that's that's their remind me of us my daughter's Generation

[22:26]Z I give talks to them I have to kind of tone

[22:30]it down because they're ready to go you know what I mean

[22:31]and you know why because they escape the shadow of 9 11.

[22:36]and and sometimes I don't know if they appreciate and I think

[22:39]that's a broader conversation to have with Millennials the trauma the historic

[22:44]geographical providential trauma that Millennials had to deal with like I was

[22:49]pulled off airplanes FBI came to my house I was subpoenaed I

[22:54]was I had my bank accounts Frozen I really gone through the

[22:57]whole range right and I did nothing and then eventually I got

[23:01]to the point where Isis wanted to kill me they put a

[23:02]hundred thousand dollar bounty on my head you know like I'm dealing

[23:08]with this this broad intrusive unabated political power that's crushing me as

[23:12]an Imam in America pulse 9 11.

[23:14]well maybe we should not be having this podcast anymore but see

[23:17]that's what I had to struggle with people would abandon me exactly

[23:21]right and so you're saying that as a joke but and then

[23:23]but Muslims got my back so I'm I'm between two Generation Z

[23:28]didn't have to deal with that and also they're Brave they just

[23:30]don't give a give a darn you know they're just like whatever

[23:34]what do you think can be done to kind of address a

[23:36]lot of these issues but also bring in that Unity Factor among

[23:41]Muslims that's so missing these days I think we have to honestly

[23:43]admit that Unity will never happen until Matthew comes it's not a

[23:46]lost cause but I think it goes back to what you and

[23:50]I talked about you said the pill you gotta swallow right why

[23:54]because if we look at Muslims we have 57 ethnicities and within

[23:58]those 57 states are tribes even within a given culture you have

[24:02]Micro cultures right then the second is how people practice Islam I

[24:05]don't think it's just sunnishia I think with even in in sunnishia

[24:10]you have layers of that like you have the hajjatia right you

[24:14]have the shirazi shias who hey 100 they're not about they don't

[24:17]get along yeah and they're kind of like mud Khali salafis on

[24:21]the Sunni side right and then you have followers who are more

[24:26]like Unity we pray with sunnis you have sunnis who follow we

[24:31]pray with we acknowledge differences we need to respect those differences we

[24:36]have people like we shouldn't be cursing the sahaba do you have

[24:41]sunnis like Imam Abu Zara wrote a whole book called asadiq about

[24:44]Imam and sunnis were like we had no idea that Imam was

[24:50]like he had his own medhab So within that that's a lot

[24:52]to sorta let's all get along you know what I mean yeah

[24:56]and what you said is key it's we forget to acknowledge that

[24:59]the differences are there and that it's fine to have differences no

[25:03]one's just gonna come you know propose solution where everyone just like

[25:06]oh wow I never thought of that that's just about to solve

[25:08]Unity once and for all it's kind of like we're gonna have

[25:12]those differences how are we gonna respond to them though and unity

[25:15]has always been State enforced we just have to acknowledge that right

[25:18]and we also have to be careful that we don't become left

[25:20]or right we're prophetic that's a whole different issue we're on like

[25:25]a a sense of justice that is prophetically driven I don't trust

[25:28]a left I don't trust the right what Malcolm said a fox

[25:31]and the Wolf I think it holds truth the left always uses

[25:33]moral judgments to advance his own kind of game the right uses

[25:38]more judgments to enforce white supremacy we're like in the middle so

[25:41]are they just trying to do our own thing and everyone attacks

[25:45]us for it or we attack each other now exactly so I

[25:47]think Unity at a global level will not happen until Satan Isa

[25:53]comes and say that he comes like it ain't gonna happen I

[25:56]don't know and for the convert we get lost in the middle

[25:59]of all that and I and I think what you're going to

[26:02]see I know we're running out of time is that convert leadership

[26:05]and convert presence has begun to erode why do you think that

[26:10]is it's not necessarily a bad thing I just think it's a

[26:12]reality of people who came from Muslim countries have had a lot

[26:16]of kids and their kids have sort of stepped into religious leadership

[26:20]scholarship influencers and sort of pushed out not on purpose the role

[26:26]of the salahuddings the Sue webs and the others and I think

[26:30]most importantly we as converts did not build our own institutions we

[26:34]have failed ourselves because if you think about it just as Generation

[26:38]Z is an important strategic entry point into presenting Islam in a

[26:44]dynamic way can you imagine if you had like mosques that were

[26:49]like largely LED and ran by people who raised Islam the impact

[26:53]they would have on I think that would be beautiful and I

[26:58]also think that that would be much more welcoming to people who

[27:01]are not Muslim and are interested in the faith that's why I

[27:03]think having sort of our own places allows us to sort of

[27:07]with the idea of unity with other moths and communities but new

[27:11]Muslims haven't put Financial investment so I don't know one Imam in

[27:15]America that's a new Muslim or was a new Muslim that is

[27:19]supported by new Muslims we have this problem cross different Muslim communities

[27:24]even the ones that identify specifically culturally it's we have a problem

[27:29]with supporting our own mosques and our own Scholars and our own

[27:32]initiatives that come within the community I run a full-time Houser online

[27:35]right I have a thousand subscribers so imagine out of almost 1

[27:38]million Facebook followers 100 something thousand Instagram people nine dollars a month

[27:43]in fact people will complain to me I paid nine dollars a

[27:46]month for this I'm like do you complain for your coffee and

[27:48]the reason Netflix how about we talk about the elephant in the

[27:52]room okay Netflix and you can share your password with me yeah

[27:55]exactly but the point is I'm like sharing with everyone in their

[27:58]family do you know what it is it's that people do not

[28:02]want it's like we have this unstated bias in our mind that

[28:05]anything religion related has to be free this is a disaster you

[28:10]can't scale look at the Koreans who came to America the South

[28:12]Koreans look at the churches they built in the last 20 years

[28:17]compared to us who embrace it like I blame us I don't

[28:19]like blaming your parents and the uncles and aunties because we didn't

[28:22]build wait we're from here we can build like we have the

[28:27]language we know the culture we know the people right and then

[28:30]what happens is and I don't like this is nativism and they

[28:34]start we hear Muslims who are new to the faith or second

[28:37]generation new to the faith blaming your parents the oh they didn't

[28:40]help us out that's not their job like let's be honest that's

[28:44]not their job everyone everyone's really looking for a scapegoat right but

[28:47]look at the Koreans they've been waiting for those white people to

[28:51]come and build Evangelical churches for them so I like to put

[28:55]the onus on us if we were really about our passion for

[28:57]Islam and embracing Islam and Islam we would be getting busy we

[29:01]wouldn't be complaining and blaming people well thank you so much for

[29:06]for your enlightening words I really really am thankful for your Insight

[29:10]and I'm so happy to have heard your experience because I really

[29:13]do think the new Muslim experience is something we hear very little

[29:16]of and I think it's so important to Value those words and

[29:21]I hope you benefited from it as well foreign and thank you

[29:24]all for joining us in this fourth episode with sahib Webb we

[29:28]hope you enjoyed this very important conversation surrounding the new Muslim experience

[29:32]in the west and we hope you join us for future episodes

[29:36][Music] thank you [Music]

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