 Alhamdulillah, we would like to forward this interview. It's recording already. I like it, I just leave it like that, you know. I like people who take how I learn Arabic because we did hear how you learn Arabic but we never got the actual details of it. You know, we always got the general how you learn Arabic on how you found the scriptures that your father wrote, etc. So the first question I would like to ask you is what was the thing that made you say, you know, the turning point that made you say I really want to learn this language or I really have to or must learn the Arabic language. Once again, JazakAllah Khairan for hosting us, inviting us, taking care of us, and we're in your debt for this beautiful, beautiful scenery that Allah Azza Jalla has allowed you to expose us to. JazakAllah Khairan, may Allah accept it from you. We forgot to ask the question about the specifics of learning Arabic and what was the turning point and my hunger and my appetite. Then, you know, first and foremost is Allah's blessing, but my parents, because as long as back I can remember, we always were exposed to Arabic on one form or another. The Calima of Tauheed that she had detained, you know, was hung up in my house or it was in its hang, even to this day, I can take it to my house, it's still there as a child. As I said, you know, my father had the tapes of Abdul Basit and had a stamp from Egypt. We always had books, even though most of stuff was English, but we were always familiar that there was Arabic. And this was the Calima of Tauheed. I remember always knowing how to write la ilaha Allah and how to write lafadul jalalah. Like I said, you had a chain. We call them a large chain. I don't know if you had them, you know, back in the day. Yeah, you had a silver Allah pendant chain and you wore it to school with pride. Even if you was listening to rap or whatever, but you still, it was Muslim pride. And you're always a non-Muslim say, what's that? Is that a good luck charming? No, he said this is Calima. This is la ilaha Allah. This is Allah. So I was always familiar of the existence of the language. And thinking about it now, once you asked me, I always had like a romantic love with it, how it was written and how it looked, especially the lafadul jalalah, the Allah pendant, the chain. It was always really, really nice. You see what I'm saying to you? So I think it was subconsciously and yeah, no doubt, no doubt. Then going to the masjid and seeing, you know, different older brothers talk and speak, even though they weren't the most knowledgeable, but just seeing them say certain things and recite certain sodas, I just fell in love with it. And I was like, you know, when I found, like you said, the scriptures of my father, I found this stuff. It just was reinforced once again subconsciously. My father did it. You know, I can do it. All of these books left in the house. And why not? You see what I'm saying to you? So I think that that's what I think it was like a match. And it was already something that was like laid out, but it was like dormant. And I think that goes back to the tattabi of the parents. And obviously it's away from the question, but the benefit is that oftentimes you just have to tell your children, right? Or just expose them to it. Don't force it on them all the time. Let them get it. And like I said, you know, it was in front of me. My parents didn't force it upon me. And when Allah willed it happened. So that was the beginning. As far as like when I felt the hunger and the thirst is when you know, I saw different, like I said, different imams and speakers. Let alone when I saw brothers coming from overseas and talking, you know, like I said, you know, brother Musa in the masjid talking with the brothers from Palestine and Jordan and Kuwait getting their respect. You see what I'm saying to you? He's like, well, this is this is serious. And I said, in short, I can do that. And I want to do that. You know, I'm saying to I want to benefit from the book directly. I want to hear the translation anymore. So that was from the turning points and which I said, I have to do it. I must do it. And I will do it by Allah's permission. So it was kind of like gradually, naturally just happening that that love for the Arabic language that I must do it out. Yeah. Being my parents and then seeing the other brothers, you understand. And then also having books in my house that were in Arabic, I was interested in them. Yeah. So in terms of like the method you used, right? You know, there's Kotab Madina, there's the Arabic language, there's Kitab al-Assasi, whatever it might be. What was the method you used or the markets that you went through or, you know, the technical? First and foremost, the first method was just crazy. There was no method. I got whatever I could get my hands on. Right. I taught myself the letters. I taught myself how to connect the letters, the vows, and, you know, just school myself. And then I just like the books that was in my house, I'll just try to read them, try to look them up in a dictionary until I was exposed to my first teacher. And all the times I told my story would all do justice. I don't think I've mentioned other brothers that did help me out as well. Sheikh Sadiq was from West Africa, Ivory Coast, and he has studied overseas. I believe he studied in reality. I think he's studying Jami'at al-Imam. And those were the books that he used to use with us, along with the Iqra books. And the Iqra books that came from Chicago were books for second generation Muslims that come from Middle Eastern background for the Islamic education. So we had the Iqra series. Then after I did like book one with him, book two with him, started moving forward, book three. Then he started introducing us to those other books from Riyadh and also some books from Medina, but not the Medina books one to three. But one of the books that we studied was the actual Kitab of Tuhid from the Mahad, which is no English, of course. There is no learning, it's actually conversing and talking about Tuhid Naqidah in Arabic for someone who's learning it as a second language. Then it was another brother that I met, American brother from Philadelphia, brother named Tufiq, Abu Zaynab. I don't think I've ever mentioned him in a story before. And he introduced me to Al-Adjurumiya. He introduced me to Mehtan Al-Adjurumiya and he introduced me to studying the Medina books. So all of the foundation that I had with Sheikh Sadiq, the 16 months, you know, 17 months I've studied with him, when I met brother Tufiq, it just merged perfectly. And he forced me to memorize Al-Adjurumiya. He forced me to do it. He's like, you know, you go to school, you gotta memorize it, bottom line. And I remember vividly in the Marques, the Dawah senator was a tape of Sheikh Osama Al-Qusay. And it was him reading the Mehtan of Al-Adjurumiya. Before he got into the shot, he was just reading the Mehtan. So I took that tape and, you know, when I didn't have a CD player at the time, it wasn't on MP3 or, you know, AirPods or nothing like that. Yeah, the tape, you understand? And I would just listen to it and I started memorizing it. And then when the Medina books, we started doing a book two, book three, and he started making me memorize that as well. And I remember he said, you know, you gotta memorize this 20, you gotta read it 25 times. So I said, how you know I read it 25 times? He said, I'll know. I'll know the next day when you come. All right. There was a couple of other brothers in Philadelphia. What was the brother's name? Abul-Harith. His first name was, I think, Khairi or something like that. It's been a long time. Okay. He introduced me to Anahualwadah. Anahualwadah. He had studied in Jordan and I sat with him briefly and he was introducing me to the Nahul and the memorandum also. It was a combination of stuff. It was a combination of stuff. And I never formally sat down and learned Arabic as a second language in all of the proper steps. So it was a mixture of stuff. Right. But the bulk of it came from Sheikh Siddiq, then the other brothers, the stuff that I had from my father and just my own personal effort, listening to the tapes over and over again, transcribing the tapes, going into the market. Like I said, they're having him laugh at me, ordering food. You know what I'm saying? Homeless and fool and, you know, give me extra pickles on the side with the rice. If they're just seeing a cucumber and a pickle. You understand? So my question is, all of this, what you just explained, it happened in America, Philadelphia. Philly. I was going to school. I was going to West Philly. No. Mashallah. So after, what would you say was your level already in Arabic before you went to Yemen? You went first? The first year. I mean, I was fluent. Yeah, I could talk. I could have a conversation. You know, me and Musa, we still, you know, talk. We still, you know, you know, get into arguments or bust on each other or whatever or talk about stuff. You know what I'm saying to you? It was even times we'd be on a train and then suddenly crazy happened on the train with non-Muslims and I communicated with him. And he was shocked. He was like, you know what I'm saying? So before I even went to Medina, I could speak. I was fluent. So you're saying that it's possible to become fluent without being in Arab countries? No question. It's possible. It's very possible. But you've got to be hungry for it. No. And you've got to trust your teacher. And that's one of the blessings of Allah upon me. I trusted my teachers. I didn't doubt them. I didn't question them. I trusted them. You know, the concert was empty in the cup. I had it then even without the terminology. I trusted Sheikh Sadiq. I didn't question them. I trusted brother, those other brothers. I trusted them. And you've got to be hungry, man. You know, I was going to school at the time, high school. I was working in the barbershop. I was playing baseball. I was doing all the stuff too. You know, I was trying to get married. You know what I mean? There's a bunch of stuff I was doing, but that came first. And anyone who knew me, Hamdi La, they knew from that day on nothing else mattered in my life, but it nothing. And everything else was secondary. Barbershop was secondary. Baseball was secondary. Cutting here was secondary. Getting married was secondary. That was the first thing. And a crazy story. And I'm not bragging about it. I'm just keeping it real. It was a sister that I met. I wanted to marry this sister. You know, masha'Allah. You know, she was real pretty sister. She was nice looking, very attractive. And I had to sit down with the sister. I met her father. Um, and she was like my age. And, uh, I'm not saying the sister's name, obviously, so it's not backbiting, but we would, this was like an earhead. And we would say like a Muslim blonde, excuse me for being politically incorrect, the stereotype. I don't believe that about blind people, but what would the people say? She was like, you know, simple minded. So she said to me, you know, like, you know, what do you want to do? And how are we going to get married? And what type of ring you want to buy me? I said to her, and, you know, she's like, what's Saudi Arabia? Where's that? Isn't that the desert? Don't have dunkes and meals out there. And when she said that, man, I was totally disgusted. Yeah. How pretty she was. I'm going to marry no more. And the crazy fact is she had an older sister that was there to sit down. The older sister was like, man, like, forget my sister, but I want to try to marry her. You say, that's a true story. And the moral of the story is that brothers, they get caught up, man with a wife, with a job to get caught up with this click in that group. And they forget you got to want Arabic. You got to learn it. And it's only going to have a limited window. And I try to tell brothers that. So that was the turning point. And one day I was listening to a lecture. And I understood everything that the sheikh said before the translator came on. And at that time, I was like, I got it. I'm ready to go. That was in America. That was in America. I was jogging around in an Acura, a legend, an old school joint, a white act legend. I remember that. So it was, it was four doors. It's four doors. Yeah. So with Sheikh Sadiq, right? What was the, what would you say a lesson, what would it look like? Like, what, what did you guys go over? Claire, the lesson is basically the daughters, he's going to write it on the board. He got the students to read it. Then they have so many raised the board right down the vocabulary. And then he would just pick you. What? Keda, get this, memorize that. And like I said, the group, it was a group of people, but when I kept studying it, it was just me and him at a time. So the, so the lesson was making sure that the pronunciation was proper. That the Qira'ah was proper. No, no, and then enforcing what's to be my food for the next lesson. You see what I'm saying to you. And then most importantly, like you said in the book, using it, you memorize that one noun pro ahadiyah. And how do you say these shoes and also connecting the words and the terms to other concepts. He would do that often times. Awesome, crazy stories about that. But what I can mention on the camera right now, we said it, you know, enough. But for God's sake that. So, so, so basically it was seeing it, hearing it, and then you using it yourself. And he would limit his speech. He didn't talk about so much. Most of the stuff he would make us do and say and read and practice. You see what I'm saying to you. So there is a question that all beginner in, in, you know, in the Arabic language questions himself, himself, basically, mainly when they use, for example, my method, which is learning a lot of vocabulary in the beginning. They just think, okay, I'm just learning random vocabulary. When does the, you know, when do I start connecting? When do I start making the sentences when, you know, which, which is what I call when everything clicks and now you able to able. So what will you say was the, the timeframe from the beginning, memorize all of this vocabulary until you was able to actually, you know, start putting everything into place. Claire, before I mentioned that, I would say, we forgot to see a theory that I agree with. An example should be made. And that should be an example of building something, making a building and a masjid and mistakes that many of us make in America. We buy a piece of land. We buy a building. We buy a storefront and we build and collect at the same time. We collect and build, collect and build. Now, oftentimes you have no choice, but sometimes if you just wait a little bit and stack up money and then take a leap, we're not going into this building until we have 50,000 period. I don't care how much you 50,000 or 10,000 or whatever, 5,000. Then once we've knocked out the windows, the structure, the roof is fixed, we get it, we wait another six months and come in with another 10 or 20,000. So that's how vocabulary should be. Don't rush. And you can't even start beginning to conjugate and play with stuff and all the stuff unless you got a what? Yeah, good stuff. You gotta sit on a stack. And you know, so that's a quite a life is that you have to have money to, to go in and to play with. If not, you want to get stuck. You're going to lose momentum. You're going to become dejected. Oh, we can't afford the rest. And it's just going to dust. It's going to be collected. And the shaitan is going to come. So I think that's paramount and profound with regards to Arabic is you can't even start building until you have what? A good chunk of vocabulary. When it happened with me, the timeframe, let me, let me see. I mean, it was like, I mean, there was so many different people from the Middle East and University City, Masjid Jamia. I mean, a couple months to be honest with you, because we was learning so much vocabulary in the class. You see what I'm saying to you? So it was a couple months, a couple months. And there were other brothers as well, just thought about that I benefited from as well. Brothers who studied in Yemen, Hassan Abdul Rahman from Philly, I benefited from him as well. I learned from him and his tariqa, he was strong on nahudo, really, really big on nahudo. That was way after I had, you know, could speak and talk fluently and I had a large amount of vocabulary. So I mean, I would say after a couple of months, we were studying with Sheikh Sadiq and listening to the tapes and being laughed at by the Arabs and stuff. You know what I'm saying? Or the other, like the black brothers in the class were like, you know, treating me like I was a stepchild, ugly duckling. The young boy. Yeah, seriously. And that frustrated me. So it was like maybe four or five months of that. And I started, you know, right? So just to finish, in sha Allah, because I think a lot has been said and it was, you know, the main things that we need to know about your story on how you learn Arabic, what would you give as an advice to everyone who or anyone who knows the importance? Because as Muslims, you know, we know the importance of learning Arabic, you know how amazing it would be. However, for however life is going, because of work or whatever it might be, we just didn't start. Or sometimes it's because I didn't find any teacher. Sometimes it's because misconceptions that I cannot learn if I'm in London or, or, yeah, to all things like that. So what would you give as an advice to everyone trying to learn? The sweetness of the Quran, the intoxicating sweetness of understanding the Quran, the Khushu and the Salah, when a man is reciting, you understand what's being said to you. You read the tafsir, you get the meaning, the quote unquote, the juice of the prayer. The lube of the Salah is Khushu. That's the prayer that Ten Haan and Fasheh and Munkar. That's the prayer which makes you successful. That's the prayer which makes you better than how you were before you came in the Khushu. So how can you have Khushu 100% if you don't understand what's being recited? If you don't understand the grammar behind Allah al-Aqibah, and what's meant by that, those who praise Him, Allah hears everything. So if there was one thing, one thing only, forget your al-Qaeda and doubts about Islam and spreading, but just the juice, the intoxicating sweetness of listening to the Quran being recited beautifully in the prayer, and you're feeling it, you're learning, walking away from it, versus you don't know what the Imam has recited. If he recites, you know the translation, but then he's reciting another surah, you don't have no idea. So just think about praying every day and getting that khushu. Understanding the Quran and letting the Quran hit you, the impact. That's something that is worth a thousand bars of gold. If you had to spend a thousand bars of gold and spend 20 years on an Arabic, it would be worth it. Just for that one fact. If I had to share one of them, no doubt about that. I just want to mention before we end this interview that if you guys are interested in the fluency 15 month game plan webinar workbook that I'm giving for free, the only thing you need to do to get it is basically go to watch the webinar that I have prepared, where I explain you how to go from zero to fluency in Arabic in 15 months and at the end of it, inshallah, 15 months, 15 months. So game plan, blueprint, exactly what I did in 10 months, but I actually make it more realistic in 15 months, because many of our students, they are on the daily life routine, 9 to 5, etc. So you guys can get it on the webinar, at the end of the webinar, you guys can check out the link down below. And inshallah, thank you, and I'm honored to have you here in Barcelona, hometown. Inshallah, we're going to finish by showing you guys a little bit of this, you know, view, this beautiful view here, here, closer to Barcelona. It took us about 15 minutes.