 Bismillahir Rahmanir Raheem So, like I was saying earlier, I'm kind of new to this, so bear with me. My vocabulary might not be the greatest. I stand in front of a lot of people throughout the day, but sometimes these become even harder. So a little background about myself, I started in the fitness industry for a while. I used to run my own gyms a long time ago, got out of that, and went into the finance industry. So as far as the gym industry goes, I met a lot of people. So, and then jumping into the finance industry, met all sorts of people as well as, you know, people in the banking world, you know, CEOs, CFOs, all kinds of people. Just didn't have that passion that I had, you know, that I missed in the fitness world. So I decided one day I'm going to open up my own gym. I said, you know what, I love the fitness industry and all I want to do is, you know, my goal in life is to help people. So I decided to leave, you know, and open up my own gym right here in Dublin. Started at a very small location, about 5,000 square feet, expanded from there, 8,000 square feet, expanded from there. You know, about 13,000, now I'm about 20,000 square feet facility here in Dublin as well. We do boxing, kickboxing, you know, traditional jujitsu, CrossFit, strength and conditioning programs as well too. So the world that I'm in deals with all sorts of people. You know, deal with, you know, people who live out of their cars, who come in and, you know, all they want to do is train. You know, I deal with multi-millionaires who just want to hit stuff, you know, for recreational purposes. Now, built a huge following, you know, not just at the gym but social media as well. So a lot of people have been following me, if you want to hear. A lot of people from the, a lot of followers. And I got a little sidetracked myself, you know, through life. Stepped away from the sidetracked where what I meant was, I never got away from my deed, but I constantly prayed. No alcohol, none of that kind of stuff, no smoking or anything like that. Just away from, away from the deed. And one, literally one day I woke up and I said, this, this isn't, this isn't happening. I don't, I don't like the direction of my life is going. You know, things are going sour with my wife and all that kind of stuff. So my goal, my sole goal in life was to basically help people. And as I woke up one morning I said, what am I doing? I want to, I want to help people. We have such a beautiful dean. We have such a beautiful, you know, world that we live in. What am I doing wrong here? So that's when I just flipped the switch one morning and I said, I'm going to, I'm going to help people. And that got to, so how do I get people to come to the dean? I got myself to start doing a lot of one-on-ones with people. Basically becoming a life coach. Allowing them to tell me what's going on in life. Allowing them to, sometimes it gets a little too much because they try to do everything. And then that's when you go, okay, enough is enough. So when you go, when they start telling you too much, you kind of get a little freaked out because then they get too close to you and then you don't know how to be the nice guy and be like, hey, you know what, that's cool. I don't need to know about everything. So I sat down one day and I said to one of my guys and I said, hey, what's your ultimate goal in life? What do you want to do? He tells me, he goes, you know, he goes, I have, I have no substance in my life. I have no substance in my, he goes, what did I notice about you? They call me coach so that, you know, what did I notice about you coach is that you, I always see you being kind to people, being nice to people. Why are you always so nice to people? You know, I see people taking advantage of you. I said, well, I try my best not to allow people to take advantage of me, but you know, that's on them. And he said, I always see you going and sitting in the corner and praying all the time. Why do you, you go in, you go in the corner and you go pray. What do you do? What do you, what do you do? I, or I see you in your car and I see you in your car praying. I see you bowing your head up and down. It was what do you, what are you doing in there? And, you know, I just, I, I pray to God, you know, I pray to God for guidance. I pray to God for, you know, to help him in my life, to help me grow this business so people like you have some place to go. So, and that's what he said. I, I, how do I, how do I get to where you're doing? How do I get to do what you're doing? So he just sat down one day and I broke down Islam to him. I'm not the greatest at Islam. I'm not the greatest of true surahs. I'm not, you know, I'm not the greatest, you know, reciter of the hadith. So, you know, I've, I've read the Quran. Have I read it in Arabic? No, I haven't read it in Arabic. Have I read it in English? Yes, I have. You know, but do I understand it? Yeah, I do understand it. You know, people come to me those, you know, during the month of Ramadan, he goes, I see you during the month of Ramadan, you're, you're working so hard. But, you know, people always talk about you're not drinking any water, you're not eating any food. How are you able to sustain it? I said, it's just pure energy, pure, pure love of what I want in my life through Allah. So through God, you know, I go sometimes when you tell them Allah, they go, well, what's that? It's just the form of God. Yeah. So that was my first, that was my first guy that I, you know, that I brought into this world of our deed of Islam. So make a long story short. He is, he's, he's out there preaching on himself. So I started bringing people over to the mosque. I love MCC. By the way, it's, it's just such an amazing community. Such amazing people. I, one of my members, one of my close friends who is also a police officer for Alameda County Sheriff's Department here and then comes up to me. He says, MJ, I'm going through a lot of my life and ever since we've been talking to you, he goes, I, how do I, how do I, how do I get into Islam? The first place I bring him to is here. We have such amazing scholar that come in here during Khutbah that I wouldn't want to take him anywhere else. And then when you came, came to me, brother, when you came to me, when he goes, what do you, what do you do? What do you do for people? What do you, what, what do you say to them? Why, you know, you know, and I told them when I said, it's about your character. It's about how you talk to people. You know, I said, what scares me off the most about the, about religion sometimes is the way people preach it to you. I said, I was walking in the mall and I had a few people come up to me and say, hey, do you want to join our fellowship group? You want to, you know, our, our, our friendship group. We have this, you know, meeting tomorrow. And I thought that was kind of creepy. And I, you know, I'm just walking through the mall with my wife or my kid and some guy walks up to me or a couple of people, young kids walk up to me. Hey, do you want to come in and hang out and talk? That's, nowadays, it's kind of like, well, what, what do you, what are you trying to do here? So I thought that was really creepy to me. So I sat there and I said, no, this is, this isn't the right approach. This isn't, this isn't the right approach that these people are taking. Brother Muneer told me that, you know, there's some people that are going around kind of doing the same thing. I said, that doesn't, that's not how it, that's not how it works. That's not how it should work. You know, I always say, start from your current circle that you're out right now, you know, and branch out from there. Talk to the people around you that you hang out with. Talk to the people that are current Muslims, but not even in their dean right now. They're kind of venturing off other places, you know, bring them in. And that's what I started doing. I started talking to a lot of my brothers in the gym and started talking to a lot of my family members who are starting to venture off into uncharted territories, I would say. That's it, you know, and I go, hey, let's, let's hang out. Let's go to Juma prayer. Let's go talk. Like I was saying about our scholars that come in here and talk, they're just so, so knowledgeable and so loving. So I basically went from there and just started building, you know, and they started telling people that how, how do you convert people to Islam? And I said, well, I basically just show them love, show them respect. I don't preach to them. This is what you do. This is what you have to do. This is what you have to do. None of that kind of stuff. Everybody needs love. Everybody needs that, that, that hug, as I would say, you know. So if you, when you know somebody around you that you see, you go, hey, they're going through something, talk to them. Talk to them and tell them and say, hey, what's, what's going on? You know, have you asked God for help? Have you asked God, have you asked a law for guidance? Have you asked, you know, who do you, who do you go to for your guidance besides, you know, what do you do at night before you go to bed? So those are the questions that I start, I start asking and that's when I start digging in and, you know, but I start from, from right there. Now I have, you know, multiple people at my gym that have converted to Islam that I've brought here that have done their shahada, you know. One sister actually did it a couple of weeks ago. I think that's probably saw the video on the website, Sister Jenna. So she came to me one day and she says, MJ, she goes, I just, again, I see you praying all the time. Can you tell me what you do? What do you, what do you, who do you talk to? You know, it's hard to preach to somebody and go, I talk to Allah. You know, because they go, what's that? And I tell them, explain to him what Allah is. You know, explain what the Prophet Muhammad is. And then we just talk, you know, and just, she just starts crying. She's bawling. She goes, I, this is, this is the substance, this is the stuff that I need in my life. You know, there's always people that are pulling us from our Dean. They're bashing us all over the Internet. They're making us look bad. You know, I've seen, on my way up here, I saw a report about a, you know, Muslim men are beating their wives. You know, is that true? No, absolutely not. You know, and I've, and I've gotten asked that question so many times. Why do you let, why do Muslims let, you know, I don't want to do the sisters ask you. I don't want to be with the man who, who, who puts me down or this. I'm like, actually, no, that's not true. Where are we hearing that from? We have the utmost respect for our women. That was actually one of Jenna's questions. I see a lot of Muslim men love and respect the women like there's no tomorrow. So, then I went on from there to my brother Mixon. He's, he's, he converted, he brought him here. Just messaged me the other day. He, he sent me a text message. He goes, I, his exact text to me was, his exact text to me was, Hey bro, I just want to thank you for giving me such an amazing gift by introducing me to Islam. My life is different in many good ways since I've taken my Shahada. Today, I went to Dalif in Fremont and spent four hours in study. That kind of just, I sat there and I just started crying to myself and I said, to get a, to get a message like that. You know, it's one of the best feelings in the world. From there on, my, my brother-in-law, you know, I have so people as my, my brother-in-law is a Mexican. He converted to Islam. My sister-in-law, she's a Mexican. She converted to Islam. You know, we live in a different world now where. Where the Afghanis are not marrying the Afghanis. Pakistanis are not marrying Pakistanis. Indians are not marrying Indians, you know. And as long as they make that conversion the way we talk to them and the way they practice it. And then there's also coming to our dean and then practicing it as well too. Some people forget how to practice it. Some people don't teach them how to practice it. Guide them is what I would say. So, I don't, in all honesty, I don't do much. I just, I, I, I open my mind to them. I listen and I hear them out. You know, I don't continually preach. You know, a brother of mine ever told me that, you know, there's a lot of people that go door to door. You know, Nathan, is this not working? It doesn't work. Start with your inner circle. Start with the people. Start with your friends. Start with your co-workers. Talk to them. Show them your character. Show them how beautiful, how beautiful Islam is. Show them how Islam is about love. That's basically it for me. So if you guys have any questions, if you guys, you know, if you have any questions for me, you know, I'm glad to answer them. But, you know, I, I wanted to do this for Brother Muneer and also the mosque just to, you know, just to tell people what it's about. It's about treating people with love and respect. So, that's basically it. Again, it's very simple. You know, we never want to bash what they're doing. You know, we always say how similar the Bible, we always say how similar every single culture and how every single deen is. You know, Christianity is so close to Islam. Catholicism is so close. There's only a few things that separate us from, you know, from anywhere, you know. But I always ask, I get the same question a lot. They go, well, God, you know, they refer to Jesus as God. Okay, so I can wake up tomorrow, and I tell them, so I can wake up tomorrow and say I'm God. How can a human being be God? That's the simple question that I ask them, you know. How often do you read that Bible? We have a lot of Bible preachers out there. Yes, absolutely. Sometimes those are the hardest ones to get. So, sometimes those are the easiest ones to convert. And I've had two of them that were so deep into the Bible that they would ask me, actually brought them over about three weeks ago. A whole family of Christians, Filipinos, hardcore Christians. Sunday church. What are you doing? I'm going to church this Sunday. He was here with me. There's a lot of questions that I can't answer. And I go, okay, I'll answer that question for you because I want to answer it educated, you know, educated. So, to answer your question, yeah, those are the ones that you continue to tell them. Continue to tell them so they ask you to go. The number one question will go, well, who's Jesus? We believe in every single prophet there is, you know, everyone. There's a lot of Jews. I train two Jews right now. He messaged me last night. I wish them happy Hanukkah because you don't believe in Hanukkah. Why are you wishing you're Muslim? You know, he was joking with me. I go, well, why can't I wish you happy Hanukkah? Oh, I thought you hate us. Why would I hate you? I have the text right now. So why would I hate you? You know what his next thing was to me? We're similar. We're so similar. That automatically opens a door for me to ask him. Do you even practice your Judaism? Do you even practice your thing? And I can certainly, most of the time, guarantee that they don't. There's all sorts of people in the world that, you know, they all need guidance. You know, what do you get? You ask them and say, hey, what do you get from Christianity? What do you get? I want to know. I want to know about your religion. Tell me about it. Make them feel important. So that's what I do. I ask them and say, hey, tell me about yours. Because a lot of them are, they'll tell you, right? They're all loving and caring, you know, that stuff. They're all good. They're all good. But when you actually ask them and say, tell me about your religion. Oh, you know, I don't know. Because they read what they read on social media. They read what they read, you know, and a couple of quotes here and there that Jesus said this and this and this and that, you know. But, you know, I don't personally, I don't want to offend anybody. I see that like, oh yeah. I'll ask them and say, hey, do you read? Do you take time? Because what a lot of people do is they don't read, you know. So I'll give them the book. There's a book that Muneer had given me a while back. I just slipped my mind of the name of the book. But, you know, there's three of them. They're just introduction to Islam. You know, I go, hey, on your free time, read this book. You know, a lot of them go, I don't read. Well, if you find 10 minutes of your time, can you read? You know, read this, read a couple of pages of this and tell me what you think. And I go report it back to me, basically. You know, hey, tell me. I'll ask them like two weeks. I don't wait like a couple of days or like that. I'll ask them like a week or two. Like, hey, did you get a chance to read that book? Or did you get to read a couple of pages of that? You know, okay. And then on their, I have their phone numbers. I start sending them, you know, I start sending them Hadith. And honestly, I do, I have their, I'll get their phone number and I'll send them. In English, I'll send their Hadith to them. He goes, oh, this makes sense. Oh, this makes sense. But it all has to do with just, yeah, there's a lot. There's a lot that goes on leading up to it. Yeah, there's a lot that leads up to it. But, you know, if you really want them to convert, you want to give them their time. You know, people need friends. People don't have those people that they can turn to. You know, I'll ask them and say, hey, what's going on in your life today? What happened today? Everything okay? Oh, I got into an argument with my wife. Oh, my girlfriend left me. Why? What happened? Tell me. Did you know that it says this in the Quran? Did you know that it says this in the Hadith? Did you know this? And then that same night, I'll send them calming quotes. So, and then they go, oh, wow, I, well, thank you. I appreciate that. I didn't know you were actually thinking about me tonight. So, and then I, I literally bring him here. I bring him to Juma prayer. I go, come, come, come with me. I don't tell him to meet me here. Go come with me. Because if you tell me to meet you, I'll give you an excuse not to come. I go, come with me. Let's go. Do you have 20, 30 minutes? Well, I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. Just come and sit with me. Three people I brought with me, they don't, they've never prayed in their life. I go, just stand next to me. That's all you need to do. A lot of people I just bring here. And I'm sure I don't know if you guys have seen me during Friday prayer at all. You know, I'll have different guys with me. You know, you'll see them with tattoos, you know, big, you know, you know, people from the gym just show up in sweatpants with me. So, once you hear our scholars talk over here, what's so amazing is how thorough they are, you know. And so how respectful they are and how they talk such good about our religion and how they talk about, how good they talk about other religions, excuse me. How they talk about being a good person. That's my biggest thing is bringing them here. I can tell them to all bloom in the face. But once they see it with their own eyes, they're like, wow, look at the unity here. Well, I get the same unity at my church. Yeah, but you get the unity every day here. You can come here every day. Just after that Shadah, two of my guys that have come with me, just the hugs, and he goes, wow, I feel so warm after those hugs. They go and they tell other people. One of the big guys that came with me, the tall African red guy, he worked for the Alameda County. Two people he's already talking to that he's going to come to talk to me about it. And he's in the prison. He's in the jail. So he sees a lot of prisoners convert. A lot of them convert to Islam while they're in prison. There's a lot that leads up to it. Sometimes it's hard to explain. Sometimes it's just, they need a shoulder to cry on. And I think what a lot of us do is we shy away from that. Like I said, in my parking lot right now, I have three people that live in my parking lot. Not because that's what they want to do. And I'm talking to them. I want to fight. Well, guess what? You want to fight as for guidance, as for help. Like I said, I deal with poor people to multi-millionaires. A lot of those guys that are lucky. And I go, hey, what do you, what's, they're always constantly working. They have all this much money sitting there. It's all out of love. That's what I would say. I pray in the car. It's glad you brought that up because sometimes I get sidetracked. So one of my brothers, I'm sure he's probably going to be listening in. You know, I was, this was actually two days ago. He parked next to me. Right. He brought his pajamas and he put it on the floor outside in the parking lot. And he started praying. And I was sitting, and I was next to him and I was praying in the car. The amount of people that walk by were like this. What's, what's going on? He's, I was sitting, but I love him to death. That's right in front of the gym. I didn't scold him for it. I didn't say, why do you pray? You can pray wherever you want with two places. You can't praise and what they've earned in the bathroom or something. Right. And I, and I told him when I said, come inside. Why not pray inside? Go in the locker room. It's not a bathroom locker room. It's a changing room. That's carpet. They're right there. Yeah. So the long conversation that I had with him and I said, why, why are you? Well, why, you know, pray outside when you can come inside and pray. The amount of people that walk by, they were like, what's, what's going on? Why pray outside in front of the door? We just live in a society where you get judged so quickly for doing something good. He wasn't doing anything wrong by praying outside. But we just live in a society where it's just so like bought down with negativity. And, and, and that's why I go, Hey, just come inside and pray. So people can ask you questions. So if you can talk to you so you can see how you're in peace. I said, what these people are, they're closed-minded. They see you praying outside. They go, this is weirdo. Just like they see the poor people in the car living in their car in the parking lot. And these weirdos, why are they living in their cars? But what they don't know is that they're living in their car because they can't afford things. They all have jobs. They all work. No, they just want to train. They work and train. But people think they're homeless because they don't have a place to live. I didn't know that they might be more richer than you. Being happy, living in a car. You know, that's what I would say to them. Just pray in front of people. And people ask me, I pray at the front desk. And, you know, I have so many different walks of life that come into my gym. And they ask me, now I have people standing at the front. My receptionist, who is a lesbian, will stand at the front desk in front of me while I'm praying at the desk. And she will tell people and say, he's praying right now. I'm going to give him a second. And then she'll turn around and say, hey, what did you pray about? And then that's when we get into details. She'll ask me, hey, what did you pray about today? She doesn't know what I'm, you know, what I'm doing. So I tell her, it's not what I paid about today. It's the same thing I pray for every day. Five times a day. Oh, so you do this five times a day? Literally, she stands guard at the front. So there's nobody that comes up and talks to me. I don't ask her to do that. But just don't bother him. He's like two minutes, two, three more minutes. That's basically it, you know? There's a lot of steps that lead up to it. And sometimes it's just hard to explain. So, yeah. But that's my world. And I always, I always tell people, I said, come, come to my world and see what I do, you know? I have, unfortunately, I have women who walk around with booty shorts all day long during the month of Ramadan. Am I going to scold them for it? No. You know, I still talk to them. Why? Because you never know. I have tattoos all over my body. Does that make me a bad Muslim? No. There's one of my brothers that came in here about three weeks ago, and he's a Muslim. Tattoo's all over the place. He does all sorts of extracurricular activities. And I tell him, hey, what's wrong with you? Why are you running away from me, Dean? He knows us because what I do, what do you do? I know what you do already. What do you do that's bad? I just feel like it's bad. I don't think it's bad. People feel good about themselves. I don't ever scold them because I think a lot of us, I've seen my in-laws, they scold people for what they do wrong. You know, I had a conversation with my wife the other day. She's an Afghan. We've been married 17 years. Her parents scolded her. And they go to the mosque every single day. She said, her parents told her, if you have a Christmas tree or an ornament in your house, we are not walking in your house. And they are trying to get their own kids to follow the Dean. And they're already Muslims. If we think like that, I have a Christmas tree. Does that make me a bad Muslim? No. And I think that's where a lot of us go wrong is we don't respect other people's cultures and respect other people's lives. People might think I'm wrong, but that's just the way I am. I show their culture. I show their religion and respect. My kids go to an American school. My kids get the full benefit of being in this country. We get the full benefit of wearing our traditional clothes out in the street. But I told my wife and I said to her, my parents told me they're not going to walk in our house because we have a Christmas tree. So we have a Christmas tree. Does that mean I'm going to go to Sunday Mass? No. That means Friday I'm going to prayer. My kids give gifts. My kids give gifts. During one of the hotbuzz, one of the brothers said, if you get a gift during these times of the year, don't say you don't want it. Embrace it. They'll give you an alcohol. It doesn't mean you're going to drink it. Put it aside. Don't throw it away in front of them and say, I don't drink alcohol. We don't drink alcohol. Just put it away. Don't give it to anybody else. Throw it away later. Getting people to convert is sometimes very hard, sometimes very fun. Do you know how much did you get for this? That's not what I'm looking for. If that's what I was looking for to getting, then I'd be going around every single day trying to get people to convert. I do it because I love my Dean. I love what we stand for. That's it. If you have any more questions, we'll be good. That's it from me. Thank you guys for your time.