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I am someone who is actually studying. I went off to learn the Urdu language. I learned the Hanafi School of Thought as well.

The community being predominantly Hanafi and Shafi.

And so what happened is I came back and I'm thinking, wow, but I just listened to it.

And to be honest, brother Musa, that was one of the best years I had of reflection.

It changed me a lot in the sense that it woke me up to the reality of the people in front of me that I'm going to address.

It took me back to the days of Madina when we learned usulu dawa and we learned Asunaf Al-Madrouin.

You know, the study of the people whom you would like to call towards Allah.

Who are they? What are they going through? What are their circumstances?

You know, what percentage makes up the practicing, the non-practicing?

How do they address? What are the challenges they face, etc?

You need to study all of that before you open your mouth.

If you want that dawa to be effective.

So what happened is I slowly but surely became more acknowledging of the challenges that were real life challenges faced by the people I would be addressing.

And as a result, I told myself, I don't want to be that scholar or that person, you know, the go to person for knowledge.

Such that people would be ashamed or shy of communicating with me or they would have a gap where they would feel that no scholars are someone and we are someone.

I wanted there to be a friendly atmosphere in order to do that. A lot of study is required.

So you look at people, you watch them, you see them, you witness what they're doing.

Before you open your mouth, you actually put yourself in their shoes for a moment and came to yourself.

How would I be able to get to the mind and the heart of this person with a simple message of, let's turn to Allah?

So what happened is it brought me towards being a little bit cooler, cooler meaning I had to become a person that when the children saw, when the youth saw, they could relate, they could say,

what's up, you know, with us, salam alaykum, they could actually just say, what's up, shake, you know, you well, come, let's go chill a little bit, you know, in a halal nice way.

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