 Peace be upon you all, how is everyone doing? I hope everyone is doing well. I'm bringing to you guys another episode how I learned Arabic with my brother Ibrahim Ja'bir. A lot of interesting stories that I have with this particular brother. Good experiences, benefits that you're going to get from this episode. And yeah, inshallah, just to give you a little context on what's going on here, Ibrahim Ja'bir. You might have even know him. He had a video when viral in 2016. Man, I can't even remember honestly. Anyway, that went viral. It was a hot period when there was a few things going on in terms of terrorism and things like that. So Ibrahim Ja'bir is a poet and he made a poem. From what I know it was kind of like freestyle as well. You got it out of the manga, how they say in Spain. You just got it out of your sleeve kind of thing. So it went viral basically and a lot of people saw it, it was shared and whatnot. So yeah, he's a lot I can say man. A little bit more context about Ibrahim Ja'bir. He's as well, he was a former professional basketball player, played for the Euro League, different countries like Greece, Jordan. Not Jordan. Greece, Italy, I played a lot in Italy. Those are the main two places, Greece, Italy and then I finished up in Lithuania. And how do they not? Shooters, the shooters place. Yeah, jump shooters, jump shooters. So yeah, Ibrahim as well for those who play basketball is the only person that I cannot guard. But I still dunked on you once I think. No, no, no. On the low rim, on the low rim. Ever done, ever done. Latter-day psychedelics. I don't remember that. So yeah, me and Ibrahim Ja'bir we met in Egypt, in Cairo. But we're going to get into that, how we met and whatnot because it was kind of interesting. I had a dream that I met him before I met him. So yeah, inshallah, just give a little bit of context in terms of first of all, what made you want to learn Arabic after having kind of like a lifestyle which a lot of people dream of, which is you know, becoming or like getting paid from what you are passionate about basically becoming a professional athlete and whatnot. What made you like, how can you even think, right? Some people might think like, how can you even think about like learning Arabic? Like what's you, you know, give us a little bit of context about that. First and foremost, as-salamu alaykum, my brother, Muhammad Mamadou, Mr. Halal Money, all of the above. Very appreciative of the opportunity, privilege to be able to sit here and interview with you, inshallah, for the benefit of myself for you and all of those who will get to see this video, inshallah, and also as-salamu alaykum to the audience. May Allah elevate you all and cause you to benefit and make you of those who learn and benefit from the Arabic language. I wish it was so easy just to start, you know, maybe I want to say seven years ago now when I was in Lithuania playing basketball. Actually my journey with the Arabic language started well before that, well before that. And actually Arabic is the first language that I learned how to write as a child. And it was a thing in my family of like status. If you could speak Arabic, you know, you were on another level. My grandfather who embraced Islam in the 1950s in America, he learned to speak Arabic and he traveled to the Muslim world and he rubbed elbows with people over there and so forth. And so Arabic was always this thing in my family, you know. But the way your grandfather is doing pre-janazah on Malcolm X, right? Rahimahullah. Rahimahuma Allah. May Allah have mercy upon them both. Yes, my grandfather, Heesham Jabra. So he was a pioneer, at least in my own eyes, you know, of Dawah in America and also just like seeking knowledge, learning the Arabic language and being able to access books that had not been translated yet. And so just as a child, I was a little bit, you know, in awe of the Arabic language, you know. And then on top of that is the language in which we recite the Book of Allah to Ireland. We pray with the Arabic language and we greet each other, you know, in the Arabic language. And so it was like an organic kind of experience. These seeds being planted in me as a young child until I arrived at the age of 13. Right? And so my pops, he came to me, he said, we're moving to Morocco. Right? And that was the end of the conversation. That was it. And to me, you know, 13 years old, Morocco pretty much sounded like, you know, the moon basically like what, you know. I'm in seventh grade. We just won the seventh grade basketball championship, et cetera. And I'm just thinking about going back to eighth grade next year and repeat. But, you know, Allah had another plan. And so going to Morocco was really my first experience being immersed in the Arabic language. Alhamdulillah, it turned out to be a better experience than I anticipated. I sincerely hoped in my heart that, you know, something would happen and we wouldn't end up going to Morocco. But I was introduced to the language then. And we had our classes at the Arabic Language Institute. And we picked up some of the slang as well that the kids they speak on the street and they say, you know, it's really, it's really, you know, this type of Arabic. But, you know, just developing an ear hearing the language and starting to be able to recognize the words in that short period of time when I was in Morocco. That was really my first immersion into the language. And so now, 20 years later, right? I'm 13 in Morocco. 20 years later, I have a son. I have children. And I'm looking at them like I want them to get the Arabic language. I want them to, you know, I don't want them to have to go through what I had to go through as an older person. But if they learn it in a more organic way when they're younger. And so that was a big factor in me coming to Egypt. And the first place is that I wanted to expose my children early on to the Arabic language. And this is something that I recommend. I recommend to the people that have the opportunity. You know, if you do have that opportunity, at least, you know, use the online avenues to expose your children to the Arabic language. You know, the world is small now. The internet is open. And you have people like Mohammed Mamadou that are offering these type of services, you know, so really take advantage, especially when they're young, they have the capacity. How many languages do you speak? Five languages. Five languages. How many did you actually sit in the classroom and learn? Arabic. So the other four you learned in an organic way based on what you were exposed to by your parents. You're right. So it's a tremendous opportunity. So that brought me back here. But at the same time, and I know you have more questions, kind of a long story, but no, go ahead, go ahead. After leaving basketball, actually, I want to say that when I was playing basketball, I would be sitting on the bus, and I would always be reading the Quran. When we're going on a road trip on the way to the airport, on the way to the hotel, on the way to the stadium, I would be reading the Quran. You're talking about when you was playing basketball, yeah? When I was playing basketball, you know, so basically my past time was reading the Quran. And I had the Quran that had the Arabic on one side and the English on the other side. And so I had a decent vocabulary from when I was a little bit younger. But at the same time, there were gaps in my language. And so I would read an ayah and I wouldn't understand it completely, but parts of it I could understand. And so naturally I began to look at the translation to fill in the blanks and fill in the blanks. And then so some of those vocabulary words, they would keep coming back and then they would begin to stick. And so unknowingly, I was kind of like developing my Arabic vocabulary just based on the translation, looking back and forth with the translation. I know what this heart of means, I know what this noun means, but what is this verb right here? Okay, it must mean this, it must mean that, right? Going back and forth. And I would just be doing this on the way to like a basketball game that, you know, we're about to go play in front of 8,000 people, right? And I'm just reading Quran on the bus, right? So then once I left basketball and I went back to the States and I began working with the youth, Muslim youth, non-Muslim youth. And I would be getting invited to these events and to present. And, you know, people were asking me to write speeches and all of these type of things. And Alhamdulillah, just from my academic background, I was able to do that. But at the same time, the more that I would do it and the more invitations that I would get, I would keep telling myself, like, I need to go study. I need to kind of strengthen myself. And really, if I'm going to do this, you know, prepare myself to do it the right way. And so, you know, before I actually decided to come to Egypt, I was actually getting a few job offers to be like a youth director here or a program director there. And Alhamdulillah is the best of planners. You know, something inside of me was just like, look at your life right now. Evaluate everything. You know, because, you know, sometimes you make a decision and you're just like locked in for five years. You know what I mean? And so I was like, okay, let me just take a step back, look at myself, look at my family. And that's when I made the decision. I said, I need to go study. I need to go, you know, strengthen my Arabic language and also try to memorize some Quran and start reading some books of, you know, knowledge and so forth and so on. And that was kind of, you know, the summary. The short version. So, wasn't it there like a turning point where something happening was like, nah, I'm about to go study. Or was it just like, you know, gradually? Like I said before, like just the aging of my children. My son was approaching, well, he was four years old. And, you know, this is the time where you start looking for schools. You start looking to see where you're going to, you know, how are you going to raise your children and so forth. And, you know, just knowing the community back home and there are some good schools. But, you know, there are some obstacles. There's some red tape and there's some other underlying issues that aren't necessary to mention. But we didn't find a suitable situation. And so we were looking overseas and just once the conversation started rolling. We said, yeah, we could do this. We could do that. Oh, I know so-and-so who's in studying in Saudi. I know so-and-so who's studying in Egypt. And during that process, my wife received a message from a sister that she knew who knew about a Marrakesh, a center in Egypt. And so they were doing intensive for one month. And I was like, this would be a perfect opportunity for me to go over there doing intensive, get acclimated to the environment and see, is it something that I want to do, you know, a little bit longer term. Dang, what can you do in one month though? Yeah, but it was basically to fill out the environment. Is this where I want to bring my family? So, yeah, I would be able to study. I would be able to get familiar with the other students of knowledge and just Egypt, you know, the environment of it. And so it wasn't like, you know, I'm going to learn the Arabic language in one month. And then, you know, I'm going to go back and be the big shake on the minbar. You know, no, it was an experiment. You know, it was like me testing the borders before I brought my wife and children over. You know, because it could be very difficult if you come over here all at once, that you don't know how to get around and you don't know the ins and outs, you know, so that one month was for me to basically take all of the hits in the beginning, you know, so that my family wouldn't have to. And so what's funny was after I made my istikhara, you know, seeking Allah's choice and His preference in the matter, I reached out to somebody who I knew was studying in Egypt, brother by the name of Yusuf Chroma. And I said, yeah, there's an intensive program going on in this mother cast so forth and so on. He was like, oh, yeah, I go to that mother cast, right? I go to that center and I live right down the street from it. And I got an extra room for you if you want to come. So it was like, wow, subhan Allah, right? So the door was just like everything was just laid out perfect. I came in. I was literally three minutes walking distance from the murder case. In fact, I was doing five hours a day one on one with the teacher because I was the only one signed up for that. The same teacher for one month. And he was like, he was the he was the most suitable teacher for me at that particular phase of my development. It was a little bit difficult because I was measuring my Arabic against his Arabic because I don't have any other students in the classroom. With me. Right. Right. So I couldn't tell like if I was just like terrible, you know, so like every time I make a mistake, I'm like, oh, I'm the worst student ever. And he's like encourage me like, no, no, you're doing well. You're doing well. And he would just push me and push me and push me. He would give me, you know, things to write and just the homework he would give me, you know, would keep me up, you know, and to the middle of the night, basically, you know. So that was the turning point. I would say my son coming to that age and then everything else kind of just fell in place behind that. Yeah, I was trying to not forget the points you because I didn't want to cut you. But the first point I was going to say that even me myself when I first went to Egypt, it was for an intensive three months program. And I think if it wasn't like sometimes when it's presented to you in a real like organic way, like, yeah, you need about two years to get, you know, good. Or like to be able to say, OK, I'm done for now with the average language. Let me jump into someone into something else. And yeah, for me, it was the same. Like you just go there three months and you're like, I love this man. I'm staying here. I remember that point. I was like, you just fall in love with it. And then the other thing you said as well is how some students as well, one of my students, she said, once I don't know, I don't know what to compare my level to. But this is why we have this one in our program. We have basically different different aspects. You see, when you go in Egypt, there is, you don't only benefit from what the teacher is giving you. You benefit from the environment, as you say. You benefit from having other brothers around. You see who is better, who is a little bit more like, more like Fasih. His language is more like it sounds more Arab and you benefit from all of this aspect. So this is why in the program, we make sure that we not only we give you, you know, we do the whole structure as you probably don't know. Which I'm pretty sure we're going to get to as in, you know, you get all the vocabulary that we have. You know, the whole tasrifat and whatnot. So you have the weekly conversational sessions where you can actually, you know, benefit from like all the students like benefit. What is he saying? Oh, I see the student is better. Why is he better? All these students has a Arab origin and he says a lot of Amir words, but I still benefit from how he talks. And then you have as well the one on one calls with the teacher because sometimes it's good to talk to students. But the thing is that the student as well, he has the same level. So he's got like two, you know, two week, two week people like fine. So it's good sometimes to have the teacher as well to correct you now. Exactly. So yeah, I mean, five hours per day. With the teacher, I'm thinking about the teacher miskidney. I need five whole hours. I guess you guys had a break and whatnot. But yeah, so then you took your family. That was your turning point. You took your family. You went down with with all your your family basically. I remember I think I saw you when I was the second time. But anyways, what I was trying to say as well as what I was trying to ask you, a lot of people, they are kind of like scared of, you know, traveling to countries like these three world countries. What was your feelings like? Like, do you feel like scared? Like, what's it like? I don't know what I'm, what I'm expecting. Do you expect like Egypt to be like this nice Muslim place where everyone is mohtaram and everyone's respectful? How was your whole feeling when you first got there? I probably can't relate much to those people because of the fact that I've traveled so much in my life, you know, through basketball. And like I said, my father said we move into Morocco, you know, when I was just like 13 years old. And in fact, when I was in Italy playing ball, my family moved to Egypt and they lived in Arahab. You know what I mean? So I came over to visit several times. My wife had actually lived here prior to us being married when she had just finished college. She lived here to teach social studies or English or something of this nature. You know, so we were both already familiar with the environment. You know, it wasn't just like, okay, talk a lot of love. We out of here. We gone and we're going into the grave. No, but we actually knew a little bit about the environment that we were coming into. We had family, friends who lived here for years and years. And that made the transition, I would say, a lot easier. You know, and the decision itself, you know. So, you know. Okay, so once you get to Egypt and you jump into the classes, a lot of people think, okay, how I'm going to learn Arabic when the teacher, when I don't know Arabic and the teacher doesn't know my language. So how did the whole, how was your first experience with that? I mean, so maybe I can, I would say like, Yeah, you might not relate to that. Yeah, I don't have a real answer because I have like a foundation already in the Arabic language. I would say I was a bit shy in the beginning and like afraid to make mistakes. You know, and if you have a good teacher, you know, he'll just like bring you out of that. And he'll let you kind of move through your mistakes and guide you around them and just remind you in a gentle way. You know, so the teacher is very important in that type of a transition. But just already having like somewhat of a foundation and this is good like people studying Arabic in the West, building up a vocabulary, having a connection with the Quran where you can start to understand some of its meanings. All of those things are beneficial and going to help you in your transition if you decide, you know. But now the world is such that you can learn, you know, there are people who have learned and speak the Arabic language and they've never stepped foot on in the Muslim world, period. Literally. You know, so, you know, I just had a class today with my teacher from seven years ago. After years, I just had a first class today with him and he was on the phone, literally, on Viber. Ah, yes. I read the book. I boomed. Okay, what was that? So, okay, with the teacher. And this is one of the things I wanted to mention because a lot of people, something that I always tell the student is, listen, you just need to, you need to, you need to consider yourself again a baby. Babies, they don't, they don't, they don't, they're not shy. You know, the person who was shy, he doesn't learn. So, I think one of the things, I remember the same teacher that I had a class today. I remember once he corrected one of my sentences that he wrote. You speak like, basically he wrote something like in a poem type of style. He said, you only learn because you speak a lot. Basically, I was always running my mouth. And these are the things that I tell my students. You only need three things to become fluent in Arabic, which is memorizing vocabulary, hearing it, being used and using it yourself. Literally, that simple as that. So, what was your, like, what do you guys start with? What was the book that you guys start with that, you know, private teacher and what was the, what was the program for the month? Like, where was he trying to get you in one month? So, we were, I think I started on about level three, basically. So, I did level two, level three and level four, Arabic, not the books, but the levels, the way they break it up in the Marrakes in one month. And that was one portion of the program, but we also had grammar, right? And we would go through many of the grammar lessons. Fortunately for me, I have a brother who's studied extensively, and also my father as well, who studied extensively in grammar. And so, I had already gone through Ajrumiya before I even stepping foot in Egypt. Even though I didn't even take notes the first time going through it, it was just more like, just get it in there, you know. So, like the second time, you know, so much of it was still there, you know, that it was just easy to understand. And that also helped me understand the explanation, the sharp of the teacher when he was explaining it, because I had already been introduced to that particular grammar. But I think, so that's the program that you, that they give you, but you have to have also a program for yourself, right? So, I don't know if you remember, but you gave me two books when I first came to Egypt. Oh yeah, dictionaries, right? This one looks familiar. Oh man, I need that. I was like, where is it? I just got these books. I just got these books. Literally, I didn't have my books. I still have books in Riyadh, man. Oh really, Subhanallah. I have like three books, I have books. But yeah, that was very beneficial, Subhanallah. Yeah, this one really helped me out with the verb conjugations, you know, in the beginning. And then it was another book. It was simply for vocabulary, organizing your vocabulary. And like to me, when you, when you're approaching the learning of the Arabic language, you have to have your notebook organized. You have to break it down systematically. So you have vocabulary, right? But you have nouns and you have verbs. You have ism and you have fi'il and you have harif. And sometimes the fi'il comes with the harif. The verb comes with a article or a particle, right? And so I was taught to organize my notebook in a certain way. Have my nouns. And for that noun, you're going to have the plural. You're going to have the opposite, right? And that's how you organize your nouns and you memorize them. And then you, and then it's the khadam. Like you have to use it. If you don't, if you're not able to use it, your knowledge of that word is like complete, essentially. Right? And then you have the verb and you have the telsuli fat of the verb. So you go fi'il, fi'il. You have, I have one. You have the maldi, mudaria, al-amr. Then you have ism fa'il and ism af'ud. Right? And so to organize your notebook in that way, you should keep your verbs together and you should keep your nouns together. But then you also have ta'abirat. You have the, what would you translate that? The expressions. Right. Things that my, like for example, ahlan. Or ahlan wa sahlan means something separated, but together it means something else kind of. Exactly. Right? Like in English, if I say never mind. Right. Never mind. I was going to show you, actually, so people have the visual, you know, type of like understanding of what we're talking about. So this is how we do it in our program. This is for the nouns. So you have the mudra. You have the jama. Jama and ma'ana. And the minna. And ma'ana. And then you have the af'ail as well. The af'ail, which is somewhere here. But yeah, just do not waste time. Something like this basically organized. Yeah, exactly. And this is good in terms of a teacher should be able to organize his student in this way because that's going to make his learning process much easier and make his teaching more effective essentially. You know, so that's good that you're doing that. Alhamdulillah. And may people, you know, use it and also benefit from it. InshaAllah. So that was that was a big part of my process is that having my notes organized in a way. Another thing that I would do is that at the end of a lesson, I would just get a card like this. And I would write the nouns on one side and I would write the verbs on the other side. And I would just walk around with that card all day. Right. And I would actually use those words anytime I just got a free moment. I would pull out my card and I was like, OK, yeah, this word, this word. How can I use it? How can I use it? You know, Alhamdulillah. So that was also a part of my learning process. It's not just about what book you're studying and, you know, what your teacher gives you, but you need a organized system and you'll see over time it will just become so natural. You'll begin to see that card. You'll begin to see that page like in your mind, you know, in that exam. And I'm like, oh man, what was that word? It was right after this word. And then it comes to you, you know, because you're organized, you know. No, Alhamdulillah. Actually, I was going to show you. I just posted, well, I just, this was a few months back, I think. I posted a post, I say three indispensable books. Any beginnings to read needs. And I just say the first one, yeah, it's this, it's that one. But that's so beneficial, man, because that's pretty much all you need. And to like, you know, make it wider or, you know, gain more vocabulary is good to have, as you said, the opposites or the opposites and the synonyms as well of words. It just makes it easier to understand. But yeah, man, that's just so effective, man. Like everyone that I see using this method, you really just need consistency, stick to it for like a year or so. And, you know, it brings crazy results. So, I actually wanted to say something, but go ahead. Let's go ahead. No, so like, okay, you asked the question, like, you know, my teacher doesn't speak Arabic. I don't, my teacher doesn't speak English. For example, I don't speak Arabic, you know, but like, look at a baby. So like you said, I'm a baby now. A baby is not exposed to any language until they speak, you know, or hear their first languages. And they're hearing that language, hearing that language. But they're in an environment of examples and experience that the meaning becomes attached to that. And that's really when the words actually stuck stronger when there was a story behind it or something happened. And then, oh, now I understand that word because language isn't essentially learned in like a void, but it's learned through interaction. And it's actually also developed that way. Right. So hearing the language over and over. And in terms of vocabulary, a baby doesn't have any grammar. No. When they start speaking, they're just kind of putting words together. Right. Caveman speech, as I call it. Caveman speech, huh? I, you know, I bathroom, you know, and then they learn how to, I need bathroom, you know, so it's an evolution, you know. One thing I used to do is that I kind of picked up this habit just in the process of trying to use as much Arabic as possible. Is sometimes I would just fill in the blank with it in English word. Then I would just keep going, you know, and then if I learned that word, I would write it down or I tried to basically record it to memory at that at that particular point. And this is outside of the classroom, of course, but just when you're engaging with the other people, just, you know, trying to practice your language. Use the English word here and there, but get back to the Arabic. Get back to the Arabic. And you know, you need to go back and learn whatever that word it was. No, for sure. So, so, well, I know already that you use it out of everything, but do you use any other book with that? Um, I'll be a bane and your dick was the main book for he will for conversation and where we took our vocabulary from. We also studied. Um, what I mean, the, and as you know, Mia for grammar, and we studied a book that was organized by the mother cast. For Balala, it was an introduction to Balala, which is like high expression. Something like that. Yeah. Those were all of the other books that I use. So while you was learning Arabic, because this is something that that I always advise my students with. Mainly for beginner students of knowledge, you know, for the student of seeking knowledge culture. Students, they are, and I'm, you know, I've been part of, of this. And sometimes I am. It's just that it's the agile, you know, like just wanting to wanting to get, you know, you see all of these books, you want to get into everything basically. So you start learning different fields at the same exact time. So I know that after you went to finish your program with Arabic or into Quran. So with everything you was doing with Arabic, do you think you was able to do? You know, anything else in terms of studying? No. Okay. Husband of one, father of four. Right. And then being a studying Arabic. Very difficult to give your full attention to Arabic and something else. You know, so and that's more fitri, you know, just your, your nature is like that. We have one track minds, you know. So I did see students who had this, it's the agile. They were, they were in a hurry. They were just like so ready to kind of, you know, and I saw that lead them to switching teachers, switching institutes, switching programs, starting with Arabic. Switching teachers, switching institutes, switching programs, starting over again, starting over again, going from this science to that science without grasping the subject entirely. It was like dabbling, you know, but not delving into anything and any type of detail, being not even a jack of all trades, you know, but definitely a master of nothing, you know. Because it's the agile and, you know, just trying to get the home run and get everything and master one thing, you know, and so I gave my full attention, literally to that, the Arabic language. I mean, of course, you're going to have a, you should, at least as a Muslim, have a natural regiment with the Quran. You know, I would still give the Quran its time in the mornings and so forth and so on. But Arabic was my main thing, you know. Yeah, there's something that when I, you know, when I say, when I say, like, study in it, a lot of people say, yeah, but how are you going to, how can you say, like, you leave the Quran for a whole two years or what? No, I'm saying one thing is reading the Quran. One thing is memorizing the Quran is a whole other level than, you know, with revision and memorization and what is this word? Let me look at the tafsir and that. So yeah, you can do, you can, you know, there is different, I would say, levels of study and something or just reading about or just going over it. But like, as you say, like, being a master of that thing and grasping it is, I mean, I don't see how you can do, you know, how you can do two things at the same time. But you go ahead. You know, whoever Allah grants to Tawfiq, of course, you know, but those are rare occasions and those are extremely talented, disciplined people, you know, who can manage their time properly. You know, without taking away from the quality of one of which science that you're studying. No, I wasn't going to say anything else. I mean, you, you asked me about. So yeah, so. So okay, now you, you start with it. I'll be in there taking whatnot. A lot of things, a lot of a question that a lot of people ask is how are you going to start memorizing random vocab like table. You know, light and whatnot, and then start forming sentences that and at what point does grammar come in as well? How did that happen for you? In the beginning, if I was in the teacher's position, and I'm just a student and I deserve that rank, you know, according to my Arabic level. In the very beginning, I would focus very little on grammar. It will be more of an obstacle in the beginning. And I use the example again of a baby, a baby doesn't have any grammar. If you were to sit there and correct the child, they would stop speaking out of frustration because they're going to make mistakes, right? But the vocabulary in the beginning is the most important thing, right? Actually, grammar actually comes second. So somebody who's born in the Arab world, they're going to go to grammar school. They're not going to go to a morphology school because it's already, they know that naturally just based on life experience. But then they have to go to grammar school, right? But somebody who's learning the Arabic language knew he needs to go to vocabulary school first and start building his vocabulary. And then I would say learning the structures of the sentences and mastering that concept. So literally you have two types of sentences. The minimum is two words. That's like easy. Oh, I just put two words together and I have a sentence in the Arabic language. Heather, bait. That's a sentence in the Arabic language, literally, right? And so you focus on those short sentences, those two word sentences. The second word describing the first, essentially, right? And then you build on that as you build your vocabulary. It's a natural process, you know? Where else would you start? I mean, essentially, you can't put grammar on nothing. You have to have vocabulary before you can put on grammar. Yeah, a lot of people, they as well are not patient enough, man. I remember a student who joined our program, he took, there's 48 lessons, right? For the original three books that we set it up. He did two lessons and he was worried that he couldn't form sentences yet. It's like, you just literally didn't even start yet. Because the first five lessons, they are translated, I translate them into English. And then from the sixth lesson, he's all in Arabic. So he's like, you didn't even start yet. Like, you got to be patient. And yeah, I mean, I don't know if it's because I did it four times already with the other languages in a natural way, like French and whatnot. But yeah, sometimes I think that people see it, like that you need to actually have patience to it. And one quote that I always say is that the day that you plan the city is not the day that you eat the fruit. The day I plan the city is not the day that you eat the fruit. So yeah, it's just about being consistent, man, at what you're doing and building your vocabulary and forming sentences. You're going to go from caveman speech to fasih, eventually. So now, for how long was the program that you did with the Arabic and the Deg and Balagha and all that? Like I said, I started on level three. So that's like the fifth level. They had like tahtasifr, sifr, you know, below zero, zero, one, two, three. Yeah, yeah, that was like, you started from scratch. Like you don't even know your own language, right? You know, so I started on like the fifth level, most of the third level, basically, and I finished at the 13th level, which was the final level at that particular time where you can attain the certificate of completion and everything. And alhamdulillah, it took... So I was still imagining it like, I was still imagining you getting there. I don't even know how to talk in my own language. I don't know, you're before zero, man. Tahtasifr, right? No communication skills whatsoever, like gestures, not even... No. It took time a lot. Yeah, so it took about, I want to say a year and two months, you know, so each level was about six weeks. That's with Arubiyah, Manny, Yadak, the completion of what we did, the three book series before they broke it into six books. I think it's six books now, right? I think it's four, from what I've heard, but I didn't even... Well, each book has two books, so it's like book one, part one, book two, part two. So yeah, it's eight total books now, I think. But before it was just a three book series and they broke it up. So completing that, completing the Balaqa book, completing Ajurumiya and completing Mutammima, that took about 14 months starting from level three. Most people do it in about a year and a half if you start from scratch, basically. Now, the exact period of our program, 15 months. Yeah, that's kind of like the perfect timeframe. Yeah, yeah. I was going to say, now within four months, four to five months, and this is where the Istitijan kicks in when people get in a hurry, because you can go to the store after four months, and three and a half months, and you can buy what you want to buy, and you can talk a little bit. People start feeling like, oh, I got it now. No. Right, and then they start looking for... That happened to you, right? And they start looking for other things, but they haven't really mastered the grammar. They haven't practiced it enough. They haven't gone to higher level concepts in terms of understanding the luga. Now, if your goal, and this is my goal, was to strengthen my relationship with the Qur'an, really be able to read the Qur'an and understand it entirely. Okay, hearing the khutbah and also hearing the recitation in the Salat, those have their places as well, but the Qur'an is at the heart of all of that. And those people who get out early just because they can order a cheeseburger, these type of things, and get the vegetables and stuff like that, and, oh, I could get a taxi and stuff like that. No, that's normal. That doesn't mean you're there yet. At least you need to put on another four months on top of that just to secure it. And Allah Ta'ala, He knows best. So I saw that a lot, man. People just four months in, I got it, I got it. And then they just leave it and they still make it some of the basic mistakes. When you go back and talk to them and stuff like that, you're like, you didn't learn that. The whole journey is beneficial. Because once you set foot on that path seeking knowledge, you're on a path to Jannah, you know. But to really gain... And I think that happens a lot in Egypt. It's funny sometimes. Like this brother will come to you and he will throw at you this verb that he just learned, that even you never seen a hadith. This time it's like back in the desert of the Arab, not even in Medina, like outside of Medina. And people are like, yeah, I learned that in a book. That gives you a lot of... Allah, what did you say? Say it again, say it again. And you want to keep growing your... Competition is a good motivator basically. And pressure. So... So now you get to a point where after all of this program, what do you feel like you have achieved and what you are able to do at that point? That you couldn't do before. I mean, I could grammatically analyze the ayat of the Quran to understand that at one point is what it helps you like. When you get started, what is that? Ya'lamun or I mean... Khalidin or Khalidun? No. But then you have more intricate things as well, just like grammatically. Because the Quran is an Arabic Quran, and part of it is connected to the linguistic aspect of it. So there are certain things that understanding the Arabic grammar will help you appreciate and value the Quran. I can explain something to you because you speak Arabic and you'd be like, oh man, I never noticed that. Wow, that's amazing. But somebody who doesn't have a reference point to the Luga, is going to be able to appreciate the Quran on that level. And if we go back to the tradition when the Quran was revealed upon people who were masters in language, so they were the ones who could appreciate it the most essentially. They were surprised. I mean, even the jinn, they were surprised. They seen a lot. But they were surprised at the Quran. This recitation is Arabic Quran, so there's just certain things in it. And for me, that was the best of its fruits, is that I can hear the Quran, or even when I was memorizing and reviewing, I would catch myself making a grammar mistake that somebody else who was memorized wouldn't be able to catch and understand how the one word is connected to the next word in terms of grammar. You have Muqaaf, Muqaaf-u-Nile. You have the compound words and how they... So those type of things were of the best of its fruits because it strengthened your appreciation for the Quran, the Book of Allah, Ta'ala. And there's much, much more, masha'Allah. So after those one year and so few months, you went into the Quran. So how was that, man? Or khatmul Quran? You know, studying the Arabic language helped me in so many different ways to prepare me for that journey that I was about to set out on. I thought I was like doing something when I was studying Arabic. I'm like, you know, getting up in the morning, I'm taking my notes, being organized. But like once I transitioned to the Quran, I had to be that much more organized. I had to be that much more keen and disciplined in terms of protecting my time and so forth. But at the same time, the system that I had with the Arabic language, this is my time for Arabic. This is how I'm going to organize my notebook. Just like I had notebooks for Arabic, I had notebooks for Quran. And I would have to catalog it and so forth and so on. And memorization was so much more easy, or excuse me, so much easier. That's an English grammar mistake, so much easier after being able to understand the meaning. Because you know what you're saying, essentially. But if you're just memorizing the Quran by rhythm and by sound, yeah, you could do that and you could be stronger that way. But understanding it, it just makes it so much easier to memorize. Yeah, that happens too. When I see my daughter, for example, memorizing, if she forgets, she just goes like, She memorizes by the melody, basically. Yeah, she will have to stop and be like, Wait, what did I just say? Okay, so I'm talking about the genes. All right, so now they're going to, okay, that. And basically it's easier for you to remember. Mainly if you're praying in front of people or not. And just the na'hu may always happen. You always, I always see mainly with, I think it's hadad, hadid, I always get stuck there. Yansuruhu wa rasulahu. Oh, yeah. Yansuruhu wa rasulahu, I always, and he only helps me to remember because I know Nasirah is muta'addi and he makes the maf'ul bihi and whatnot. But yeah, it's a big benefit, man. People, you know, always have this argument with some people on like, Yeah, but how can you not memorize? It's just, it's not that I don't say you cannot memorize the Quran the same time you learn the Arabic language. But for me, it's about like really like mastering that thing because how do you learn, how do you, do you go to a school for Hezul Quran or was it private with the teacher? I just did private. From beginning to end, Alhamdulillah. So the teacher was coming to your house, right? Yeah, coming to me, yeah. So how many, how many, what did the program look like? How many pages and then how many you will memorize, revise, I mean? For Quran? No. Okay, so you know, I'm 35. No. You know, four kids, wife, busy life, you know, essentially. And I don't know how much that impacted my studies of the Quran. I know I began with one page for memorization every day, six days a week. And the way my sheikh does it and did it with me is that for every page that I took, he would have to read the ayah to me and I would have to read it back to him. He would read it to me, I would read it back to him. And then once we complete the page, I would read the entire page back to him. And then he'd say, okay, you can go and you can memorize that page, right? Before that, we just did mura'ji. So whatever I had memorized up until that point, we would do like four pages a day. He wanted me to write that page of the Quran. And again, he would read it to me. I would read it back, read it. I would read it back and then I would read all of it back to him at the end. He'd say, okay, you can go memorize it. Why? Because he wanted to make sure that I was pronouncing everything right, that I wasn't missing any words, that I wasn't missing any haraqat. It's so intricate, down to the very haraqat. SubhanAllah, we count the pages of the Quran and even the words, but how many haraqat? Every haraqat has a value that affects and impacts the meaning. And this is why the Arabic language was codified in the first place because people were making grammatical errors when reciting the Quran. No. You know, the famous example from At-Tawbah, it's what it's called, Tawbah. Mm-hmm. You know. And other examples as well, when they were changing the meaning. That's what I'm talking about. The example in At-Tawbah is in Mushrikina warasulu. You know, it's Madmoum. It has the dhamma on it. And so it's not saying that Allah is free from the Mushrikina and the Messenger is saying that Allah and the Messenger is free from the Mushrikina. Mm-hmm. So that's where the language in and of itself was codified. So I started off doing one page a day, then we moved up to one and a half page a day, and then eventually we would move up to a rule by day and he wouldn't give me anything more than that. And in terms of moraje, review, we tried to do a juice a day, basically. Review 20 pages plus whatever jadeed you have. So that would be my regiment for about, like a year and four months total, even though he went to Umrah, I went to Umrah, I went back to the states during that period and we ended up taking off about four months of memorization and we just only did review for a while. So just in about that period of time, Alhamdulillah, by Allah's permission and by Allah's favor and mercy, Allah granted me the Tawfiq to complete the first. I would say, I don't say that I'm Hafid al-Quran. I feel like that's a degree that's, we give people these titles very lightly. I say, Khatam tul-Quran. I did complete the Khatam of the Quran in terms of memorizing it. But it's more than about memorizing. My teacher told me in the beginning that your review is more important than your memorization. If your review is weak, your memorization might be strong, but if your review is weak, then you're not getting anything new. Because I mean, it's more than just like a casual thing. It's the book of Allah Ta'az. He said the Quran, it has an izzah about it. It has a type of dignity about it. It doesn't just let anybody do whatever it wants to it. You have to approach it in a certain way. You have to give yourself to it, literally. If you become distracted or if you turn away from it, it will leave you. It will leave you in an heartbeat. And we know. You just made me realize maybe I'm a little bit too shadeed with this subject. Because for me, as you said, everyone has their own program. But when I talk about memorizing the Quran, I'm talking about the same how we used to do in Haramain. Once you have more than five juice per day, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten juice, you know, that's my mindset. You shouldn't be reading less than five juice. Otherwise, you're going to get to the beginning or you know you're going to complete it. I'm going to ask you, you know, the qadradi Allahu, you're going to be stuck. So this is what I'm saying like, because just five juice per day. If you know one juice good, it takes you 20, 25 minutes. Five juice per day, it will take you a few hours of, you know, memorizing and repeating it for the day after and then what? It's like, it's no way you can do two. You can memorize the Quran like that. But then if you memorize one ayah per day or whatnot, perhaps you can do that. Yeah, I mean, I would say, yeah, that is a shadeed position, you know. Well, no, without, without any details, it would sound that it was, you know, severe. You know, I think age is a factor. I think your, you know, life commitments are a factor. If you're a young person and you study in Egypt and you don't have nothing to worry about, like you being fed three times a day and you're not actually doing the feeding, going out doing the shopping and stuff like that. Then your situation is different than somebody who's 35, four kids and so forth. You know, I wish that I could do at this point five days a day. Of course I'm working towards that, you know, but I wouldn't say my memory is strong enough at this point. And I would say at the same time, if I knew certain things in the beginning, I would have approached it a lot differently. Right. And then the last factor is time constraints. No. Right. A lot of people have, okay, I only have one year to do this, you know. And so, yes, that is ideal. 100% and you should be aiming to do that from the very beginning and you should have a system in place that's going to help you do that. Right. And that should be, but at the same time, the Quran is the journey to life. Right. It is the journey of a lifetime. You know, essentially. And so, yeah, you know, my shaky will always say, you know, if people didn't forget, they would never turn back to the most half. They would never go back and open up the most half. You know, so forgetting is also a part of the process. Some of the verses that are strongest in my mind are those verses that I forgot or messed up when I was reading for my sheikh. Mm-hmm. And because he corrected me, I know when I get to that ayat, it's just like that correction is right there in my mind. No. You know. Well, yeah, I'm super passionate right now. I'm trying to, just this morning, man, I went to sleep at 5 AM last night. I was working on the program and I sent a WhatsApp message to my teacher. I have a private teacher as well right now and he contacted me for Arabic or Quran. So I sent him a, you know, more Italian as they don't play, man. I sent him a WhatsApp message. I was like, you know, I was still awake at 4 AM. I was sleeping at 10 AM. I got up. He came in. I'm like, I sent you a message. I said, yeah, I don't care about your message. We have to read the murajah. It's Friday. Subhanallah. So, what's your uslub? Okay, with this teacher, to be honest, the uslub in Egypt, in Haramain, and I'm so glad, that I was in Haramain. If you know how many times do I think about, like, let me just try and get back into, in Egypt. Let me go or Ghada or something and try and go to Cairo. And Haramain is the way how they did it there. If I ever, if Allah ever blesses me to open a Quran school, I'm going to take the same method. So that method was for people if they want to benefit from it. Obviously everyone have their own Qadr of memorization. Half a page, one page, two pages, whatever it might be. At that time I was doing two pages. So I was doing, I think it was one juice every two weeks. And then once you complete the juice, you basically spend like two weeks revising it until it gets, it's basically just psychological because the teacher, the Maudir, he tells you, he tells you the dates when you can get tested on that juice. So every juice you get tested. Every five juice you get tested. And every ten juice, you get tested. So every juice you will get tested, Akhi is not even a joke. Like all the Mut'shabi had you might imagine that you don't even, while memorizing, you don't even even think about it. And then he might ask you a question and like, like sometimes I might be listening from my wife and I just, literally I go to Anaya and I remember times where I even cried Akhi. I cried with my, with the Sheikh there in the halameen. He made me cry one day. I just, he said, nah, go. You're not ready. I got home when I was crying. But anyways, that was, they were, the teacher, the first thing he wants you to do once you get there is revision. You need to revise. Once you pass three juice and you have memorized, you know, after Qad-Samiah, he wants you to revise at least three juice per day. And that's literally how your memorization becomes so strong because you revise those three juice on someone and that as well revise those three juice on you. So not only you, you're revising it, you saying it, but you as well looking at it while listening to your, to the other student. So it's like you're revising it twice basically in a day. So basically every three days you revise in everything you have. If you have less than 10 juice, once you get to 10 juice, then you revise in at least five. Obviously not everyone, not everyone does it like that. But if they see you mustahed, they will push like that. But here with this teacher, over there what I would do is I would just read the teacher, he would tell me, he would tell me, you know, read the page. I would read it. Alhamdulillah, you know, Allah bless me with not making too many mistakes with the jubidah. I studied, So I guess I know the Qawai. So I would read it once then he would say, okay, go. Then I will memorize it throughout, you know, in between the evening and between the morning of the next day. Then come to the teacher, read it and go into the murajah literally and just like that. But here the teacher, he comes to my house. He wants me to read first the Al-Hibdul Qalib as he calls it. So what I memorized for the past week or two weeks, everything literally every day. And then if it's weak, he tells me, he gives me five or ten minutes to revise it. And he wants me to read that rubah again. Then if then when I'm done with Al-Hibdul Qalib, then he wants me to revise one juz of Al-Hibdul Qalib. And then he wants me to memorize to repeat it from 50 to 100 times that page. I'm doing one page right now in front of him before he lives. You want it? What? 50 times one page? Reading it to him. And he told me that this how we memorize, I'm returning this why we don't forget it because we just repeat it. Because what I would do is I would repeat it and I would be like, what are you talking about? And then I would look at it and he would say, I didn't tell you to memorize it right now. I told you to repeat it 50 to 100 times. So I'm like, okay, but I'm like, I cannot memorize it if I don't try to get it in my mind. He's like, yeah, but I don't want you to repeat it 50 times. Just from reading it, huh? Yeah. So I was like, okay, I'm going to do that then. So I started to bring it up, bring it up, bring it up, bring it up. Some pages after 50 times you find yourself like, 50 times it takes you at least one hour. You lay down. Next thing you know, you're like, without even imagining it. So, so yeah, you know, everyone has their tariqa. And I think it's important that you just follow and trust the teacher, man. He's done it away. Every way he works is just about keeping consistency on that, on that, on that way. Obviously I give him some suggestions on how he's easier for me and how I feel like I should go about. But, but yeah, he takes, you know, I let him take the lead basically. And that helps, that helps a lot. Masha'Allah. I know when I, I want to really go back and I mean, you know, people basically memorize the Quran multiple times, you know, because you, whatever you forget, you go back and you have to strengthen it and strengthen it and strengthen it. You know, some people, it takes five years. Some people, it takes 10 years for it to be like fabric. And it's just like, you know, they can say, oh yeah, that's the, you know, second page of it's raw. That's the third page of, you know, like that. And they just have that image is so embedded in the mind, you know, like, yeah, that is in the middle of the page and it was many most half, you know, you know, and that's, like I said, you know, this is the journey of a lifetime. But it really, you know, for me, it starts with the Arabic language for sure. If it wasn't because of the Arabic language, I remember once, I said, I said, I said something, he said, I said, I said, I mean, I don't mean, I don't mean the accent, sorry. I mean, and then he said, he told me something else. Okay, Shadeed, he's now, I said, yeah, but the accent of Yassir, he can only be Yassir. So why you say the accent? And he laughed. But, you know, things like this, like he helps to remind, like, how can, he might tell you like, how can, how can this, this, this, why you say, you know, he's talking about the Qafar, you know. So he helps a lot, man. He helps a lot with having the Arabic language first. So, yeah, I think this is kind of like a long, a long episode. Yeah, man, it's too long, man. You have to cut that out really, man. I said too much. But I know, at least me, I like to listen to, you know, I just think, I don't know, a lot of people, they're trying to put sugar into their speech and whatnot. I think when he's organic and like, you know, they listen to a conversation of people who have experienced into something or have experienced something, I think you benefit more from realness in an organic thing. So, yeah, that's why I like to keep it long and organic. However, yeah, man, I think that's it, right? Yeah, absolutely. Alhamdulillah. But like I said, man, I really appreciate the opportunity. I really hope that people will benefit and, you know, get connected to the Book of Allah, you know, start building that foundation, be patient. There's edger. There's edger. A lot of times, we focus on the wrong things. We just, you know, my Sheikh, even when I had a bad day of reading Quran that day and it's all edger. No. For real. Yeah, it's all edger. It's all rewarding. You know, you coming closer to Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la in the process, you know, if we make that our focus, it becomes so much easier. You know, think about the incentive of the person who reads the Quran and struggles while doing so. He gets a double reward. You know what I mean? So it's all whether you're having a good day or a bad day or you feel like you're progressing and everything, the intention is going to be what really drives a person at the end of the day. If his intention is going, is incorrect, he's going to, you know, quit studying after four months or three months and, you know what I mean, go to this subject and that subject. But when his intention is in place, solid, that's when you're going to really see the fruits. That's when Allah Ta'ala is going to actually put the barakah in it and he knows best. No InshaAllah. So yeah guys, for those who got it all the way here, please leave on the comment section. This live or something? No, but I mean for those who are going to watch the video all the way here I want you to write a comment and say realness. I want to know the loyal watchers and the loyal, that's not even a word in English right, viewers, I mean so comment realness down below if you got it all the way here and yeah, InshaAllah I would say Subhanallah, Alhamdulillah Alhamdulillah, may Allah bless you and bless you for giving me your time. I know you're busy right now.