Shaykh Uthman: He Says The Quran Has ZERO Contradictions? DSH # 1886

Summary

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Digital Social Hour — Episode Summary

Episode: #1886
Title: Shaykh Uthman: He Says The Quran Has ZERO Contradictions?
Date: March 24, 2026
Host: Sean Kelly
Guest: Shaykh Uthman ibn Farooq

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Overview

In this powerful and candid episode, host Sean Kelly dives deep with Shaykh Uthman ibn Farooq—a well-known American Islamic scholar, former gang member, and founder of the One Message Foundation. The conversation spans Shaykh Uthman's harrowing past in the gang world, his intellectual and spiritual journey through religions, and a thorough, unfiltered examination of commonly held beliefs about Islam, Christianity, and scripture. With direct comparisons, receipts from holy texts, and gripping real-life stories, the episode offers a rare, insightful look at faith, reform, and the search for meaning.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Shaykh Uthman’s Early Life and Gang Background

Timestamps: 03:11 – 21:00

• Born in Pakistan, moved to the UK, then to San Diego in the 1980s.
• Experienced racial alienation and the harsh environment of Southern California’s gang culture.
• Forced into gang life at age 12 for self-preservation after a violent altercation ("So that's how I got into gangs at 12 years of age." — 07:32).
• First exposed to extreme violence and frequent deaths among peers (“At 14, I saw my first friend get killed. He got his head blown off.” — 07:45).
• Dispelled gangster myths perpetuated by pop culture:

  "Most rappers are fake. First off. I know a lot of them personally...but that's not being in a gang. When you're a bonafide gang member...that's very different." (09:13)

• Described daily fear, shootings, and normalized violence, including a drive-by at his middle school during lunch.
• Deep respect for his hardworking, single mother—never disrespected her or got involved in drugs/alcohol, even amid gang pressures.

2. Religious Exploration and Doubts about Christianity

Timestamps: 11:23 – 16:30

• Religiously unaffiliated growing up; his friends' church attendance led him to study the Bible deeply.
• Found the doctrine of original sin and atonement illogical:

  "If Adam did something, that's between him and God, not me, right? I shouldn't be born sinful because of somebody else's action." (13:40) "The idea that humans crucifying God makes up for sin made even less sense." (13:45)

• Describes hypocritical religious practices: Sunday confession followed by repeat criminal behavior, encouraged by church absolution:

  "We shot up this other gang...and then he'd just be like, 'That's bad.'...Say these many Hail Marys. Donate to the church. We'll see you next week. Your sins are forgiven." (12:00)

3. Turning Point and Search for Meaning

Timestamps: 29:03 – 36:00

• The murder of his close friend (in a setup originally meant for Shaykh Uthman) triggered deep existential questions:

  "I'm 18 and I'm supposed to be there...we buried him that day with no money, you know. The money, the girls, the fame, nothing goes with you." (33:34)

• Immersed himself in religious study—from Hindu scriptures to Buddhism, Mormon texts, and various Christian denominations—finding each lacking in logic or practicality.
• Realization about Islam:

  "Islam was the only thing that made sense. One God, that made sense...The message of Jesus is beautiful...Abraham, Moses, Muhammad...I saw commonality in it." (36:05) "Nowhere in the Bible does Jesus ever explicitly say, 'I am God.'" (36:50) "Being accountable for your deeds...even as a Muslim...I will be taken to account." (37:08)

4. Leaving the Gang World

Timestamps: 40:00 – 45:48

• Explained the near-impossibility of leaving a gang, especially for a leader ("blood in, blood out").
• Left gang activity cold-turkey, endured long periods of stress and threats, including from his own gang:

  "You can't leave the gang world, right? It's not a social club. You can't cancel your membership." (40:13)

• Became hyper-vigilant, sleeping in his attic, always armed ("I would stay up because I know how they would do it...you just walk up and you just spray the whole house." — 45:36)
• Committed to learning Islam deeply—studied Arabic, texts, and cut ties with toxic influences.

5. Redemption and Outreach: Dawah to Former Peers

Timestamps: 48:05 – 55:16

• Felt compelled to reach out to his former gang, risking his life to confront them unarmed:

  "He goes, I swear to God, you will not walk out of this alley alive...let me just speak to you, give me five minutes..." (48:50)

• Persuaded several to reconsider their paths; 12 left the gang and converted to Islam.
• Travelled to other gang-impacted neighborhoods (including Chicago’s O Block), with similar success:

  "29 people became Muslim that day...the cop became Muslim. That was our 30th Shahada that day." (55:13)

6. Media Portrayals, Islamophobia, and Contextualizing Violence

Timestamps: 56:04 – 62:00

• Dissects how media disproportionately associates Islam with violence, ignoring the prevalence of violence across all religious and secular groups:

  "If a Muslim does something, immediately they blame Islam for it. But if a Christian...they never mention his religion...imagine if that was a Muslim." (56:09)

• Highlights Quranic verses typically cited for violence and contextualizes them (e.g., Surah Anfal:60-61—"but if they incline towards peace, then incline towards it..." — 59:16).
• Provides direct, side-by-side citations from the Bible that are even more explicit about violence:

  "Kill every male among the little ones...keep alive all the young girls for yourselves..." (Numbers 31:17, — 59:16)

• Critiques empty online debate and monetization:

  "All these guys want to debate...if you become a super chat, then I'll answer your question. Because they're all about money...we're not doing this for money." (61:19)

7. Scriptural Contradictions and Societal Double-Standards

Timestamps: 63:32 – 69:43

• Responds to claims about “Sharia law” harshness by pointing to direct biblical parallels, even exceeding what’s in Islamic texts:

  "The apostasy laws are in the Bible...There is no verse in the Quran that says you kill an apostate. But it's actually in the Bible. I have the verse in front of me." (65:16)

• Showcases the treatment of women, sexual violence, and punishments for homosexuality from the Bible and the Quran on-air, debunking stereotypes and double standards:

  "Women covering up is in the Bible...First Corinthians, chapter 11, verse 5." (66:39) "If a man finds a young woman...and he seizes her by force...he shall give the young woman's father 50 shekels of silver...and she shall be his wife..." (Deuteronomy 22:28 — 69:13) "If you're going to criticize Islam for something not in the Quran, at least go and read other scriptures." (72:22)

8. Message of Unity, Accountability, and Respect

Timestamps: 72:28 – 73:01

• Advocates for interfaith respect, open-minded dialogue, and breaking cycles of violence and ignorance:

  "We want to sit down and just work together in making a better society...We don't push it down anybody's throat...it begins with the heart." (72:28)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Miracles and Contradictions in Scriptures:

  "Everything that people bring up to be contradiction, researching them, I found there weren't any contradictions." (00:00)

• On Scriptural Honesty:

  “I keep the receipts.” (67:24 — on his deep scriptural sourcing)

• On Media Double Standard:

  "If a Muslim does something, immediately they blame Islam for it. But if a Christian...they never mention his religion." (56:09)

• On Gang Life Realities:

  "There's no retirement plan. Every day you go in, you're worried about getting shot." (09:13)

• On Redemption:

  "12 of them became Muslim and left the gang world. But a lot of them...are dead today." (48:50)

• On Scriptural Justice:

  "I believe people should be held accountable. I believe in mercy...but I also believe people will be held accountable." (37:08)

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Timestamps By Major Segments

• Early life and gang culture: 03:11 – 21:00
• Church experiences and religious doubts: 11:23 – 16:30
• Turning point (friend’s death): 29:03 – 36:00
• Intellectual journey through religions: 33:34 – 36:05
• Becoming Muslim and cutting ties: 40:00 – 45:48
• Returning to "do Dawah" to former gang: 48:05 – 55:13
• Dawah on O Block, Chicago: 52:46 – 55:16
• Islam, violence, and scripture comparisons: 56:04 – 69:43
• Conclusion/message to audience: 72:28 – 73:01

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Takeaways

• Shaykh Uthman’s personal journey: From gang life and near-death experiences to faith-driven outreach and interfaith scholarship.
• Critical thinking and personal accountability: He stresses the need to take responsibility for one’s actions and to question the logic of inherited beliefs.
• Scriptural literacy: He advocates for deep, honest study of all scriptures to dispel prejudices and stereotypes, and calls out selective readings and media misrepresentation.
• Action over debate: Emphasizes real-world service, outreach, and unity over monetized online conflict and performative debate.
• Respect for all: Whether or not one agrees with his positions, the episode offers a foundation for respectful dialogue, mutual understanding, and social reform via personal transformation.

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For more:

• One Message Foundation (YouTube channel for more debates, street Dawah, and lectures)
• [Shaykh Uthman’s recommended reading: the Quran and the Bible—offered free to the host and viewers]

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[End of summary]

Transcript

[Sheikh Uthman]

On this side, everything that people bring up to be contradiction, researching them, I found there weren't any contradictions. Who would stand up for me? The police didn't care.

[Podcast Host]

At 12 years old.

[Sheikh Uthman]

They would have killed at 12 years old. I mean, many of my friends around that age got killed. Hitler believes in Jesus. Does that mean he should go to heaven just because he believed?

[Podcast Host]

Sheikh Uthman is an American Islamic scholar and da' I known for his outreach work with the One Message Foundation.

[Sheikh Uthman]

He gained recognition through street dua and interfaith discussions in San Diego with his YouTube content on Islam and comparative religion reaching millions of billions worldwide.

[Podcast Host]

Okay, guys, Sheikh Uthman here, very special guest with a crazy story. We're gonna do a solo episode and we got a fun debate lined up after this. He brought the. The books too. Look at this stuff.

[Sheikh Uthman]

This is my Quran that I usually carry with me. And this is my Bible that I have all my notes, as people can see.

[Podcast Host]

So what are those notes mainly just.

[Sheikh Uthman]

Yeah, so. So I started studying the Bible not. Not to debate. A lot of people think that I started this to try to debate with people. No, my original Bible, which I gave away when we hit the Million Sub, was just me putting my notes when I was in Bible studies growing up, going to church. And when I found things that didn't make sense or contradicted, I would just put a note and put a sticky. So it kind of developed now. So this whole side is all contradictions. Wow. And up here are things that I found to be distasteful, I guess you could say killing children and all that kind of stuff that people don't sometimes realize is in the Bible. And then down here, these are all things that show that Jesus wasn't God. Even according to the Bible, he was a prophet and a servant of God. And I'll share some of the verses later. Yeah.

[Podcast Host]

And did you do the same for the Quran?

[Sheikh Uthman]

I did, yes. I mean, I have on this side everything that people bring up to be contradictions or of course, I mean, researching them, I found there weren't any contradictions. Up here are things that I respond to and also things that I found to be miraculous. The bottom here are, which I'm starting out now, more historic prophecies that have come true and so on.

[Podcast Host]

Interesting.

[Sheikh Uthman]

So I've done the same, and I've done that with other scriptures as well. I mean, I in my journey have studied Gita, the Mahabharata, I mean, the writings, Buddhism from. There's a really good author called Suzuki. Not the car, but Same name. Yeah, but I read a lot of his works. I mean, I read the Book of Mormon, I've read the Book of Abraham, the dnc, the Book of Moses, a lot of the Christian books that are not in the Bible today. I have them all marked up as well.

[Podcast Host]

That's impressive. So you take a pretty objective approach.

[Sheikh Uthman]

I've got a very big library.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah, I'm actually really impressed.

[Sheikh Uthman]

Yeah, I've got, I mean a lot of people flex cars and chains, man. But that library costs a lot more than their cars and chains put together.

[Podcast Host]

I mean, books are knowledge, right?

[Sheikh Uthman]

Yes, exactly. I love books.

[Podcast Host]

I mean, you're learning about life in these.

[Sheikh Uthman]

Yeah. Books and guns. Those are my two favorite things.

[Podcast Host]

Shot shows in town are now.

[Sheikh Uthman]

Yeah, I'm going to be going.

[Podcast Host]

What a what a mix. Books and guns.

[Sheikh Uthman]

So you like second Amendment? Yeah.

[Podcast Host]

You like to read at night and shoot during the day?

[Sheikh Uthman]

There you go.

[Podcast Host]

Well, dude, let's dive into your story for those that don't know because pretty crazy. Former gang member turned to Islam.

[Sheikh Uthman]

Yes. I was born in Pakistan, but I left as a little kid, so I never really lived there. I left to the UK when I was like six maybe. And then I went to school for a couple years or a year and a half. I was in the uk. Then I got to San Diego when I was around 8 or 9 years old in elementary school. And my family's Pakistani. But at the time, I mean, imagine this is the 80s in San Diego, California, SoCal. Nobody knew what a Pakistani was. So when I went to elementary school, basically you were either black, white or Mexican. I was too dark to be white and too light to be black. So I went Mexican. I never tried to join gangs, like especially for a lot of the young people that are watching, you know, it's not a good life. Like, it's not something you should look forward to. It's not like the videos, it's not like the rappers make it out to be. And I never, I never thought like that. You know, my mom was a very hard working woman. She was working two jobs. She had two degrees from Pakistan and she had a master's in psychology and a master's in law, but they weren't recognized in the us so she couldn't work to the degree that she was educated to. So just to survive as a single mother, she was out there working in factories, making T shirts, working as a security guard. As a little Pakistani woman, she was working so hard. Amazing woman, very strong woman. So I never thought I want to join Gangs or anything like that. I don't want to be cool. I wasn't trying to make money, I wasn't trying to flex. I wasn't trying to get girls, none of that, basically. And I just wanted to go to school, get a good education, make my mom proud. But, you know, Southern California in the 80s and 90s was, as ice Cube would describe it, hell on earth, right? I mean, it was rough. A lot of gangs, a lot of shootings, a lot of drive bys. I mean, you know, when you go to places, people talk about stabbing. Stabbings were a joke to us, you know, so, you know, it was rough. So I knew a lot of gangsters, but I didn't get involved. But one of my friends got into a fight and basically, you know, being Pashtun and all this stuff, you know, being macho, raised like that, I went to help him. Yeah, when I jumped in to help him, he ran, he ran. I got jumped. And when I got jumped, my father, that, you know, my parents were divorced, but my father, when he heard about it, my mom, when she saw me all busted up, you know, she. She called my father. He came and he was like. I still remember very vividly. He told me, I have two questions. One, did you run? I said, no, I stood my ground. He said, did you cry? I said, no, I didn't cry. He was like, all right, no other questions. That's it. That's all he cared about. He was a tough guy.

[Podcast Host]

Tough love.

[Sheikh Uthman]

Yeah, tough love. My father was. Mashallah, he was. He was firm on that. So he picked up a bat, he got in. He had a big Camaro, muscle car. He just said, okay, where are they? So the gangs, you know, there. The gang called Loma Street, Southern cal, still around 27th Street. We knew where they were and they. My. My father pulled up, saw the guys, and he jumped out with a bat, cracked one guy's head and shattered the other guy's shoulder.

[Podcast Host]

Jeez.

[Sheikh Uthman]

Yeah, my dad was tough. The problem was, though, he then drove away to his house in another neighborhood. And I had to go to school the next day. So when I got to school, I still remember it, I was just walking through the hallways and the kids were like, hey, there's the dead kid. He's going to get killed today. Lomas street gang's going to come and kill him today because his dad just put two of them in a hospital. So another gang called Eastside San Diego, this is all part of The Southern California 13, as they say, the M network. They said, look, you're, you can fight, you can hold your ground. We've seen you around. You have two options. Either you stand on your own, you're going to get killed. They're going to come here today. These gangs have, you know, 5,000, 6,000 standing gang members. Wow. Right? I mean, if you look at gangs like Ms. 13 or 18th street, they have 50, 60,000 cheese gang members internationally in El Salvador, Guamala, Mexico, US across. I mean, so these are not like, you know, little 10, 20 people crews. So they said, okay, you're, you're one 12 year old against a gang that has 5,000 members. You're gonna get killed or you can join us and we'll back you and you'll survive. So that's how I got into gangs at 12 years of age. 12, yeah. Yeah.

[Podcast Host]

So you think they actually would have killed you?

[Sheikh Uthman]

For sure. I mean, you know, what would it, I mean, who would stand up for me? The police didn't care.

[Podcast Host]

At 12 years old they would have,

[Sheikh Uthman]

I mean, many of my friends around that age got killed.

[Podcast Host]

What?

[Sheikh Uthman]

When I was 14, I saw my first friend get killed and he got shot. He got his head blown off.

[Podcast Host]

Oh my gosh.

[Sheikh Uthman]

And you know, it's, it's not like the movies, right? I mean when people, people watch movies and they, they, you know, nowadays kids just play games. You know, they're on, they're on cod or they're on fortnite. Fortnite, right. They think it's like that. You know, sometime when I talk about guns, they're like, oh yeah, I use that in cod or. And it's not like that. You know, you don't press X and come back to another round. You don't respawn. You know, you don't just come back and play another day. You, you, you get shot. That this life, that opportunity is over. Right. And I mean I have many, many friends that as a teenager I was burying. Wow. You know, that never saw what it feels like to own a smartphone or didn't ever find out what the Internet was. You know, I'm saying, yeah, so they lost so much. Right? So if you're young and you're watching this, like, like, don't, don't go down that path. It's you know, like, like rappers, they, most rappers are fake. First off. I know a lot of them personally now from, you know, being involved in a lot of the higher level influencer stuff, right. A lot of them have never been in a gang, actually been a member of a gang. Like, like one thing is you hung out with gang members or you hung out in the hood or you went to clubs or whatever, but that's not being in a gang. When you're a bonafide gang member jumped in, all of that. That's very different. Right? And those that are. Are either dead or in jail. I mean, there's no retirement plan. Right? So. So when they. When they sit around with, like, Lambos throwing money around, and that's not how the gang life is. That's just not true. I mean, you know, it's rough. Every day you go in, you're worried about getting shot. You're worried about getting stabbed. Stabbed. You still have the regular stresses of life. Like, I still have to go to school and do homework, but I also had to worry about if another gang's gonna rush down the hallway with dirty guys and bats and smash my head in during lunch, you know, so. So it's. It's a rough life. And. And, you know, Southern California, especially in the 80s and 90s, was really rough. I mean, if you look at the crime rate, we. My middle school. So this is 6 7th, 8th. Had a drive by. Wow. During school, at lunch. Wilson Middle School, San Diego, California. Right. I was. We were eating lunch. Ga, ga, ga, ga, ga. You know,

[Podcast Host]

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[Sheikh Uthman]

Yeah, yeah. I mean, we didn't really have a. We just had a lunch area. And yeah, they shot off the lunch area, you know, and it was one gang trying to get back another gang. But kids got hit. That had nothing to do with it.

[Podcast Host]

Wow.

[Sheikh Uthman]

So it was rough. I mean, that time was very rough. I grew up with, you know, I had some very close friends. I mean, none of them were Muslim. I didn't grow up around Muslims. I didn't grow up going to a mosque. I didn't know any single Muslim growing up. All my friends were either Christian or Catholic. And that's how I start got introduced to religion was because a lot of their parents would send us to church thinking that it would fix us.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[Sheikh Uthman]

The problem is that we would go to church and they would tell us, well, Jesus died for your sins, so as long as you believe in Jesus, you're going to heaven anyway. It's free. So we were like, all right, well, in that case, you know, I'm just going to keep doing what I'm doing. And Jesus paid my debt, so I'm going to heaven. So it never encouraged us to stop the lifestyle we lived. I used to go to a Catholic church and I went to both Protestant, Catholic, I mean, Baptist, every kind of church, because my friends were all from different, diverse backgrounds. But the Catholic Church was really interesting because we used to confess every Sunday. So Friday night was bad and Saturday night was worse. Sunday morning we were in suits with abuelas and tias, like grandmas and aunts. And we were in church and we would go to this little box. And I still remember it, you know, you would go and the priest would be there and you would be like, forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. You know, last night was crazy. We shot up this other gang or we stabbed this guy, or we got this guy tied up right now we've got him in our basement. Wow. Like, we would tell him everything, you know, and then he would just be like, oh, that's bad. And he'd be like, I know it's bad. It's our life. And then he'd be like, you should stop. And they're like, well, we can't, we're gang members. And he's like, well, in that case, say these many Hail Marys. Donate to the church. We'll see you next week. Your sins are forgiven. And we'd walk out of the box going, woohoo. You know, whatever I did is gone. You know, you drop some money to the church and you, you know, say whatever Hail Marys. We used to have little saint things to protect us while drug dealing. You know, we had a saint that they used to particularly Give us to wear in case you're doing drug runs across to Tijuana. Wow. And if you Google it, they have. They have a saint for drug dealers. It's a game. I mean, the church has made it into a money making, you know, scam.

[Podcast Host]

So.

[Sheikh Uthman]

So, I mean, I read the Bible at the time. I used to go to a place called Horizon Christian Bible Studies every Wednesday, and we finished the Bible, like cover to cover, you know, so went through it with the pastor. But a lot of times things didn't make sense. Like. Like I'll say something like. Like this was real, right? Like, I'm not trying to get onto philosophy or anything like that, right? Like, I'm from the streets, right? So I put everything in perspective. So the idea was that the church told us that Adam ate an apple from a tree that he wasn't supposed to. So every child is born with sin. Well, that didn't make sense to me. Like, I should be responsible for my sins, but you shouldn't be responsible for my sins, right? Like, if your dad murdered somebody, is it okay for me to put something on your record for it? No, no, Right. That's your dad. So if Adam did something, that's between him and God, not me, right? Like, I shouldn't be born sinful because of somebody else's action. So that didn't make sense to me. And then the idea that God would send his son, or himself, or himself, who is his son, that got confusing as well. And us as humans, killing him, torturously, crucifying him, makes up for that sin made even less sense. That's like, if I go into a store and I steal a piece of candy, or let's say my dad walks into a store and steals a piece of candy and he shouldn't have taken it, should have paid for it, but he put it in his pocket, walked out, and my dad walks in and he's like, hey, I'm sorry. And the store owner's like, you and your children and your grandchildren and your grandchildren are all going to go to jail for it. How does that make sense? Right? And then my dad's like, all right, what can I do? Can I pay you? What can I do? Can I return it? Like, no, I've got this son who's absolutely innocent and perfect, and if you torture him, put him on a cross and kill him, then we're even. How does that make sense? That didn't make any sense to me. So I was like, nah, I'm good with that. So, I mean, I still Used to go to church because all my friends went, but it didn't really make sense. So a little bit later, I mean, got into all kinds of stuff. Robbed gun stores, worked with the cartels. We used to go over to Tijuana because San Diego's next to Tijuana. And it was a, like I said, it's not like the movies. I mean, it's really, really a stressful life. You know, people nowadays, like teenagers talk about, oh, I'm stressed out because the WI fi dropped and I lost my Clash Royal match or whatever, you know, my trophies went down or whatever, you know, like they think that's stress, you know. But you know, we would go over to Tijuana and you would go over to the cartel compounds and like we're 15, 16 year old kids and they would have like dead bodies. They would have bodies that were burnt alive and you know, in drums and you could still smell that. That's crazy. I'm telling you, like, you cannot forget that smell. I mean it's, it's, it's insane. You know, I mean people talk about nightmares and stress and grinding your teeth and man, telling you, man, if you've been through what I've been through, you, it's some crazy stuff, you know. And anyway, so you know, that, that was life for us. You know, we used to go to school. I got kicked out of so many schools. You know, I mean, I had good grades. I mean, but I just, you know, gang life is gang life, right? You, somebody walks up, challenges you, you gotta do what you gotta do. And yeah, so, I mean, Wilson Middle School, I got kicked out. I got jumped by an Asian gang. And just me and my friends, we were making up laps and 30 guys came and jumped us. And so we pulled out knives and when you pull out knives and police got called and then went to PB Middle School, I punched a teacher.

[Podcast Host]

Why?

[Sheikh Uthman]

So I had good grades, right? And I, I wanted to keep good grades because my, my mother was very strict. Ungrate, right. So my mom didn't realize a lot of the stuff that I was involved in because she was working really hard to make the bills. And I never disobeyed my mother. I never spoke back to my mother. I was never rude to my mother. She's still alive. May Allah give her a long life. You can ask her. I mean, I have never spoken back to my mother. I was never disrespectful. That's not strong, that's not a macho. That's a punk move. That's Your mom, You know, I. I was always good with my mom, you know, and I. I had good grades, so. But I was also involved in the gang world. So you couldn't really be in class all the time because you were involved other stuff. Right. So I would tell the teachers, look, you know, I mean, some of the teachers, we just threatened them, like, look, let's just make sure we're gonna get good grades. Right? And some of the teachers, it would be like a deal. Like, okay, look, I'll pass the tests. Don't worry about whether I'm in class or not, because I was. I mean, I wasn't stupid. Like, I could. I could do the work, you know? Yeah. So one of the teachers, like. And PB was a different teacher, but I'll tell you that story as well, just got disrespectful with me. And. And we could not take disrespect at all. Right? We don't put up with that. So I was. I was chasing somebody else, and he tried to grab my shirt. And when he grabbed my shirt, like, he didn't realize it was me. Otherwise, he would have never done it. When I turned around, looked at him, I mean, in front, everybody had grabbed me. I just punched him because, you know, we can't take disrespect as a gang member. If you let somebody disrespect you, then who are you? Right. It's like prison rules. Right? Like, if you let somebody get over a little something, next thing they'll be getting with a lot. So you don't. You don't let them cross that line. So that was at PB Middle School. Another teacher, he had told me that if you pass all your tests, you get an A. It was intermediate algebra. I remember it. His name was Richard, too. I still remember his name.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[Sheikh Uthman]

And I had. I had good grades. I passed all my tests. I just wasn't in class because I was doing other stuff. Gang business, you know?

[Podcast Host]

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[Sheikh Uthman]

when we were getting our grades, he gave me a D. Like a D. Oh my God, a D. I had never brought a C home, let alone, I mean if I had a B I'd be stressed out because my mom was strict. When I saw that, I was like a D. Bro, I'm not getting a D. You're changing this to an A like we promised. And he's like, yeah, yeah, we had a deal, but you never showed up. You didn't do the homework. I said, yeah, but our deal was as long as I get 90% higher on tests, you're going to give me an A. And I did. Of course I had somebody else do the test for me, but that's a whole story. So he was like, yeah, whatever, but you know, you didn't do this, this, this, this. So when he, when he, when he started to like talk back, I just got mad. So I punched him. When I punched him, he started running and I started chasing him and then security and everybody got me. And then they kicked me out of that school too. That was John Muir School for Humanistic Studies. Yeah, the school they said nobody could get kicked out of. But the funny thing is when they actually sent the grades home, I had an A.

[Podcast Host]

No way. That's hilarious.

[Sheikh Uthman]

So I mean, our teachers couldn't mess with us. We knew where they lived. We, I mean our gang had almost 6,000 people. So I mean, even if you put me in jail, you know, he got 5,999 other guys that will show up at your door. So they just said forget it. There were some teachers, we'd give them weed. You know, it was that kind of lifestyle. You know. We had a principal, I had a really funny story, the principal. So his name was Ariel, which is kind of funny because it sounds like a girl's name.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[Sheikh Uthman]

Anyway, Ariel was new to our school. So when he came. He acted like one of those tough guys, you know, like he saw those movies about classic. Yeah, yeah. He came in, I'm going to fix these gang kids, you know? So he. He came up like we were just hanging out, and he walked up on us and he was like, I'm the new sheriff in town and this, and you're not gonna get away this kind of stuff anymore. He's like, all up in our faces, and we're like, whoa, whoa, whoa. Pump your brakes, guy, right? And we were like, who's this guy? You know? They're like, oh, it's a new principal. Like, all right, we'll fix him. So we said, all right. So we had a big network. Like, I mean, we had 6,000 about, you know, members. And then we also had, like, people that wanted to, like, hang out with us. So those we knew.

[Podcast Host]

Associates.

[Sheikh Uthman]

Yeah, associates, exactly. So Eastside, even in that, like, soreness, is one. Then Eastside, then under east side, you had the bandits, you had the little diablos, you had the dead end locals, you had rascals, you had all these little sects, right? So we had all kinds of a network. And then the associates, I mean, you know, unlimited people. So we said, all right, find out who he is, who his kids are, where he lives, everything. So we found out that his children went to a private school, right? And he was well off, actually. So we said, all right, who are his kids? I go, he's got a son, he's got a daughter, he's got this. We didn't mess with women. Like, we didn't mess with people's wives. Like, that was against the rules, you know? So we said, all right. We found out about his son. And his son was like a wannabe. Like, he wanted to be cool, but he wasn't. So we had some people in that private school that were kind of, like, associated with us. So we told him, hey, if you talk to him, like, is he gonna want to hang out with you guys? They were like, hell, he's always trying to hang out, but he's a nerd. It's like, all right, cool. On this day after school, don't let him get on his bus home. Take him out for donuts. And this is before cell phones, right? So we had pagers, but no cell phones. So this kid, they tell him, hey, you want to go have some donuts? And he was like, oh, yeah, I'm gonna hang out with the cool gang guys, you know? So they. After school, they took him out for donuts. Now our School got out, and I just went to the principal's office, Ariel's office, and I just told him, how you doing? And he's like, good. I'm like, where's your son? And he was like, what? How do you not have a son? Like, do you have a son? And he's like, yeah, where's your son? And he's like, what do you mean, where's my son? He's at home. Are you sure he's at home? So then, like, he picked up his desk phone, you know, and he calls home, and his son didn't make it home from school.

[Podcast Host]

Wow.

[Sheikh Uthman]

So he's like, where's my son? I was like, how would I know where your son is? And he's like, well, why'd you ask me? I was like, well, it's not illegal to ask you how your son is. Like, is he in school? So he calls the school. School's like, nah, he left. Right now, his son's out there having donuts with these guys. His son doesn't know anything. What's going on? So he starts, I'm gonna call the police. Call the police. I've been here all day. Like, I'm in front of you. Like, I'm in school. Like, what are you gonna tell the police? I did something? Like, you're my alibi. So he, you know, he starts freaking out, makes calls, you know, again, can't find his son. So after a while, I'm just sitting there chilling in the office, you know, and then after a while, he comes and he's like, where's my son? I was like, how would I know where your son is? And he's like, look, if you. If you can find my son, I'll do anything, you know? I was like, anything? I was like, all right. I was like, well, I can make some calls. I can ask some people. Let me find out. But things are going to be a little different, right? And he's like, so. So, you know, after a while, I paged my friend. He called me from PayPal, and I told him, yo, man, take him home, bro.

[Podcast Host]

Wow.

[Sheikh Uthman]

And they took the son home. Son had no idea. The whole time, he just thought he was having donuts with some cool guys. And from then on, the father realized that, look, we can get to you. We can get to your family. We can. You know, gangs aren't something to play with. So after that, we would deal drugs at school. We did whatever. Nobody touched us. He. He would walk by and be like, how you doing?

[Podcast Host]

And that was middle school.

[Sheikh Uthman]

That was high school.

[Podcast Host]

Oh, high school.

[Sheikh Uthman]

Wow. Yeah, yeah.

[Podcast Host]

Damn, you were smart as a little teenager.

[Sheikh Uthman]

Oh, we did a lot of other stuff, man. I can't even talk about some of the stuff. Wow. We robbed a gun store one time.

[Podcast Host]

Holy crap, that sounds pretty.

[Sheikh Uthman]

We planned it out too. Like it was crazy. Like. Like it was a street called Juniper street in San Diego. I don't want to give too many details. I don't know. Statue of Liberation.

[Podcast Host]

We can cut the name out if you want.

[Sheikh Uthman]

Yeah, that's all right. Yeah. So we did a payphone at that time. We had, you know, pay phones were the thing. So we went to the payphone, called 911 from the payphone and just hung up. So the police would show up. So we'd watch where their route was from. And we had so many people, like, you know, young Mexicans in Southern California is no short of us. So we would just tell people, okay, look, you're just gonna be posted, clock them. So every few days we would do it. You wouldn't do it every day because then they would stop coming and you would just clock their route. So you knew every time they had to go down Juniper Street. We knew the street and we knew their time. You know, it was going to be a little bit of a window, but we knew their time. So basically we said, okay, we're going to steal three cars. The first car is, you know, 2:00am we're going to park sideways so it blocks both lanes. The two lane.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[Sheikh Uthman]

And we're going to take the battery out so you can't move it, basically. And at the same time, the second car, we're going to ram the front of the store in, so you. You shatter the whole front, the metal, everything. You just ram the car in. And the third car is the one that you're gonna put everything in and then you take it to a spot and then you just leave that third car there and you get out on bicycles. Everything you've. You've taken, you put in backpacks. You get on bicycles. And we knew they had these sewer routes so that you would go through the sewer water so the dogs can't even follow you.

[Podcast Host]

Wow.

[Sheikh Uthman]

So we were. Yeah, we were planning something. Teenagers. Yeah.

[Podcast Host]

Holy crap.

[Sheikh Uthman]

Yeah. Crazy times. Yeah.

[Podcast Host]

And then when did it all start going downhill?

[Sheikh Uthman]

I was already downhill. The day you join a gang, you go downhill. But what happened is I had a really, really good friend I grew up with since I was, you know, about 8 and he was 10. He was two years older than me. And from the same gang. The gang had a leadership, and we were both from it. You would have 13 members as leaders. Usually it was 12 because somebody was either killed or in jail. The rotations. But. But that was like the leadership crew, and we were both from it. And there was. I went to a party, and I got a phone number from somebody that wanted to, you know, meet up and do some illicit stuff, you know, and she didn't even care, like, what you look like. It was just because of who you were, you know? So, yeah, I mean, that was another aspect of the gang life because, you know, you had a lot of power. You could. You could change grades. You could. You could. Money wasn't. I mean, we would do runs that you would make 50 grand as a teenager. What are you gonna do? That money you can't put in a bank. You can't invest it. You can't buy bitcoin. You can't buy properties. You would just buy cars and put gold rims and go out to, like, places and just blow money, you know, just put it under your. Your mattress or whatever.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[Sheikh Uthman]

So, I mean, if some girl had some problem with, you know, finances, you could take care of it. If her stepdad was being abusive, you could take care of him. Like, you had all that. So. So people just wanted to be close to you. So. So I couldn't go out regularly because my mom was strict. So I could only go out and do this stuff if I told her, I'm spending that night in my friend's house, and my friend's parents didn't care. So my mom would call the parents and be like, okay, make sure they're in bed by 9. Parents would be like, si, senorita. You know, and then they'd be like, you know, do whatever. So we'd be out. So whatever. So Saturday night was, like, our big night, right? So Saturday night, I had it set up for this girl, and another girl gave me a number, and she was better looking. So I was like, look, you know, I'm gonna have to take. So one of my friends, like, hey, give me the other one. You take one. I said, all right, here's a number for you. I'll take the other. So it was like that. So the way it kind of worked, like, you would show up, you would call them, page them, and then a girl would come out, meet you at a pay phone or whatever, and she would take you wherever, whatever. So. Turned out it was a setup to kill me by an enemy gang. Yeah, I mean, this was, you know, we used to have these back and forth because gangs would go at it as, you know, gangs like Logan Heights, gangs like that were well established, like from centuries, right? These are gangs that have been around since maybe the 40s and 50s. Like, this is not new gangs, like generational, like the, you know, there's the white fans or 18th street, or all these gangs in LA. These were Pachucos before. You know, if you look at the history of Mexican gangs, you know, they were. They've been around, right? So. So their wars have also been around back and forth between them. So basically the girl was a plant, right? So she wasn't really interested in me. Yeah, basically, you know, I was gonna show up and it was by name designed for me, right? But as Allah would have it, Qadr, your faith or destiny, whatever you want to call it, it wasn't meant for me to die that day. So even though I was planning on going, ended up that my friend went instead of me. And when he got there to the payphone and called her, she said, I'll be right out. Instead of her coming out, a bunch of guys came out with guns and just, you know, while he was in the booth, they just shot him up.

[Podcast Host]

Holy shit.

[Sheikh Uthman]

Yeah. He got nine bullets, you know, one through the hand, few in the chest, one straight to the head. So that was supposed to be me.

[Podcast Host]

Jeez.

[Sheikh Uthman]

So that was definitely the wake up call. That was the. Okay, you know what, man? What's life about? So when I went, I mean, when I found out the next day, I mean, I was. I was like, you're lying, bro. And they called me, they're like, he's dead. I was like, bro, you're lying. Like, you are. Absolutely. You gotta be joking. Like, this can't be. And I started thinking, like, what am I doing in my life? Like, you know, what am I doing? So when I went to the funeral, it was tough, man. You know, you were. You were putting him in the coffin and they wanted to do open casket, so, you know, his head had been blown off, so they had to, like, plastic it and put, like, fake hair and put makeup to fix holes. And you're looking at him and it just looks like. It looks horrible, you know, and you start thinking, I'm supposed to be laying there. And he was 20 at the time. I was 18. And I just started thinking, like, I'm 18 and I'm supposed to be there. And how many of my friends are already buried in the same graveyard? So what are we doing this for, like, money? Like, where's the money gonna go? Like, we buried him that day with no money, you know? No, know, he had tons of money. His. I mean, at home, he probably had at least 4, 5, 600k in cash, right? He had, you know, everything you could think of, from clothes to shoes to. You know, at that time, whatever people thought was like, oh, you know, but none of it went with him. Like, we didn't bury his money or his clothes or his bling or any of that with him. We used to have the 64 impala that we had bought together as. You know, we used to put our money together and had, like, gold rims and had hydraulics and woofer systems that was, like, pearl paint job. We used to take it to a place called Highland Avenue. That's like the San Diego cruising place. And. But that day, his brothers were driving it. Like, it didn't go with them, you know, he had all kinds of girls. He had 13 kids from different girls.

[Podcast Host]

Holy crap.

[Sheikh Uthman]

Yeah. Yeah, he was popular, but each one of those baby mamas were crying on somebody else's shoulder. Like, you know, he left all those kids behind. He left his family. His mother was sitting there crying over his dead body. And that day I was like, all right, man, I gotta get out of this stuff. This is just no point in it, right? The money is not worth it. The girls, the fame, nothing goes with you. So what's life about? Like, why am I on Earth? So even though I'm from a Muslim family and I was born in a Muslim family, but I didn't really think about Islam first because I was used to going to the church. So I kind of went to the church. I went, like, on a. On a mission. I went back and I was like, look, I'm really serious. Like, I want to learn. And, you know, like. Like everything they taught me didn't make sense. And every question I had was, either it's a mystery or don't ask, or it was like one of those really, like, you were really stretching to try to answer things, you know? And I was like, it doesn't make sense. So I thought, all right, let me look into other religions. So I went to, like, Barnes and Noble. I went to, like, bookshops. I went to used thrift stores. I just bought up every book of every religion that I could find. And again, like, I mean, I wasn't. I wasn't dumb. Like, I could read. I could. I was. I could comprehend. I was just caught up in that stuff, right? So I would go through books like crazy. You Know, I would go through books. Like, you know, like, I would. I would sit down and just finish a. A good, big, thick book in a day. Wow. And there was a place called Mesa College, you know, so I. I started taking some classes. I try to, like, you know, get away from doing all that other nonsense. And I would just go to the library and just lock myself in a room and just read. And I started reading, like, Hindu literature. And, like, it didn't really make sense. You know, There were multiple gods, but it was one God. But then, like, God was this, like, blue guy. And then, like, I read Mahabharata, and they had a story of Ram and Sita, how Ram was a God, but his wife Sita got kidnapped, and he couldn't, like, get her back until he got monkeys to help him. I was like, a God that can't even get his wife back. I was like, I'm done with that. Like, Buddhism. Like, I started reading a lot. It sounded really cool, but then it was like, yeah, even if your wife's getting killed, you can't repel violence with violence. You just meditate. I was like, what? Somebody attacks my mom in front of me. You think I'm gonna meditate? Hell, no, bro. I'm gonna defend my mom, you know?

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[Sheikh Uthman]

A lot of the things, like, people say don't. They don't mean. And I hate that. Like, I say what I mean, and I mean what I say. Like, that's what I'm about. Like, I'm not gonna fake it. Like, you know, people, like, turn the other cheek, you know, I was in the uk. The video's online. I'll send you the clip. Yeah, and this Christian preacher, street preacher guy came up, and he was like. He was trying to get this other Jewish gentleman who was telling him that Jesus was just another Jew, but he was trying to get him on his side. During the debates, he tells him, look, us as Christians and Jews, we turn the other cheek. These Muslims are violent. And I was like, wait, what? Like, we're not violent, first off. Like, you know, we're peaceful people, but. But we're not going to let somebody violate us. That's true, but would you turn the other cheek? He's like, yeah, that's what the Bible teaches us. Said, all right, so let me slap you right now. Like, I'm going to. Bam. Like, I'm gonna knock you a good one, and let's see you turn the other cheek. And he's like, no, no, no, don't, don't, don't. Why not? Like if that's what you're preaching, then that's what you should be living. If you talk the talk, walk the walk, but that's what it is. Like people say stuff but they don't mean it. They're not really going to turn the other cheek. They just say that, right? And I'm not about that. That's hypocrisy to me. So even Buddhism, like I read it, it seemed like a good philosophy, but it wasn't really practical. Like if you live by Buddhism, how are you going to run a country? How are you going to have an army? How are you going to defend your borders? You can't, right? So that means it's not really, it's not practical, right? So I was like, I'm done with that. And I went to kingdom halls, I went to every kind of church. I studied the Latter Day Saint Christian, which is commonly called Mormons. I studied, you know, the Book of Mormon, whatever I could get my hand on, I studied. And in the end, Islam was the only thing that made sense. Like one God, okay, that made sense. I mean, if we had multiple gods, they'd be battling over whether it should be night or day. And that doesn't make sense, right? Look at the universe in the same perfect manner. Rotations of the stars in the same way. Everything's made out of cells. Like it shows there's one creator made sense. The message of Jesus is beautiful, right? He told people to be good, not to kill, not to steal. The message of Moses is beautiful. The message of Abraham is beautiful. The message of Muhammad is beautif. Peace and blessings be upon all of them. I saw a commonality in it, right? Like don't worship idols. Like the ten Commandments, right? I as a Muslim, live by the ten Commandments. Don't worship idols. Worship one God. Hear, O Israel, your Lord is one. Like it's all the same, right? So to say that the same God inspired Abraham, Moses, Jesus, Muhammad, peace be upon all of them to love all of them. Not to hate, not to, you know, you're never going to see me disrespecting a Bible. You never see me eating a Bible. You never see me burning a Bible because I respect the literature of other faiths. Even if I don't believe in it, doesn't mean that I should show disrespect to it. You'll never see a Muslim making cartoons or mocking Jesus because we love Jesus. So I love Jesus. Jesus calls himself a prophet. His followers called him a prophet. The people that saw his Miracles in the Bible that the Christians have today, they called him a prophet. Right. So nowhere in the Bible does Jesus ever explicitly come out and say, I am God. Like God, the one above, the one that sent Jesus does. And Jesus tells that God, you are the only true God and Jesus Christ is whom you have sent in their Bible today. So that made sense, you know, so being accountable for your deeds as Muslims, I believe you have accountability. Like, I don't think my deeds are going to be good enough to get me into heaven. That's the mercy of God. But I do believe that even as a Muslim, on the day of Judgment, I will be taken to account for what I've done. Because, I mean, can you imagine that? No accountability. Like that doesn't make sense. And you'd be a, you know, child graping, you know, Epstein, and go to heaven like, nah, Hitler. Hitler believed in Jesus. Does that mean he should go to heaven just because he believed? No, I think people should be held accountable. I believe in mercy. I believe in forgiveness. I believe God can forgive all sins. You know, that's great. But I also believe that people will be held accountable. And that made sense to me. So that all that clicked. But then another problem opened up. You can't leave the gang world, right?

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[Sheikh Uthman]

It's not a social club. You can't cancel your membership. It's not a gym. So when I wanted to leave, I kind of just like stopped going to the gang. Like, we have a territory. We have a place. We have the spot where everybody hangs out, where they sell drugs and all that. And at that time, it was used to be an alley behind a street called Euclid Avenue in East San Diego. It's called City Heights nowadays. And that was the spot. So we had all these garages that we used to rent out to be like our drug dealing spot. We used to rent out apartments just to have lookouts with guns sitting up top. Yeah. Because other gangs would try to attack and you would have lookouts for the police in case they were going to raid and all this. Right. So it was very organized and I planned a lot of it. So I knew a lot.

[Podcast Host]

You were the mastermind.

[Sheikh Uthman]

Yeah, Other people as well. But I was one of the people, right. So. So I just stopped going there. So after a while, I mean, my friend had just gotten killed in my place, so they understood. But after a while, they were like, yo, where you at? Right? And I was like, I'm Muslim now, bro. I can't be doing none of that. And they were like, look, we respect religion. I mean, the Mexican culture is very religious. So they were like, look, whether you're Christian, Catholic, Jewish, Muslim, whatever you believe, that's fine. Go to Sunday church, go to the Friday mosque, go to Saturday Sabbath, that's up to you. But gang comes first. That gets blood in, blood out. If you want to be from the leadership, you have to shed blood to get in, and you have to die to get out. There's no exit.

[Podcast Host]

So you were part of the leadership at this time?

[Sheikh Uthman]

I was the carnales, you know, so you had to blood in. And then, I mean, I'll tell you, I had a friend growing up and he was one of the leaders and he got shot. So he became a paraplegic. He was in a wheelchair, paralyzed from the neck down.

[Podcast Host]

Jeez.

[Sheikh Uthman]

And he still was part of the gang. Why he would still go to the spot. And later on he got killed because a drive by happened and everybody ran and he couldn't because he was in a wheelchair.

[Podcast Host]

Wow.

[Sheikh Uthman]

So, you know, I mean, that's how deep. I mean, I still have people that I, I grew up with that are doing five life sentences one after the other.

[Podcast Host]

Jeez.

[Sheikh Uthman]

Because they shot five people tied up in a house. So. So they, they will never get out of life. Right out of jail. Their. Their life without parole, basically. And they're still in the gang and they're still involved in running. And then there's what's called a shoe. I don't know if you know what a shoe is. Hu. Secured housing unit.

[Podcast Host]

Okay.

[Sheikh Uthman]

So his. He used to write to me from it is. Was 6 foot by 10 foot. So. And he's a tall guy. So he, if he put his arms out, he could touch the sides of the walls. Yeah. And all the cell on this way. And 23 hours a day he's in there.

[Podcast Host]

Oh, my God.

[Sheikh Uthman]

23 hours. No social contact. No. No wi fi for the young guys that, you know. No, no, no. No tv, no game console. This is a Norway. They don't give you an Xbox. 23 hours, one hour a day. He can only walk around in a little circle in a little cage that's next to it. But he can't talk to anybody. Wow. And he's still in the gang. And he still calls shots.

[Podcast Host]

What?

[Sheikh Uthman]

And he still calls hits from inside the shoe. How? I can't talk about on camera, but that's crazy. You know, that's. That's how deep the gang ties go. So when I wanted to get away, they were like, like there's no Getting away. So I told him, look, I'm Muslim now. And, like, I changed my life. Like, I can't be out doing all that nonsense. I can't be involved in drugs or, you know. You know something funny? I never drank alcohol in my entire life. And it wasn't for religion when I was growing up. It was not because I was a Muslim. It was because I didn't like the way people acted when they were drunk. One of my friends got drunk and he peed himself. And I thought, you know, I don't want to run out of control like that. So I never drank alcohol. I never did hard drugs. Because we, as gang leaders were not allowed to do anything hard. No heroin, no meth, because that compromises you. Then you, for whatever, you might give up information. Yeah. So, I mean, you know, I never smoked. I never saw the point in it. I did a lot of other bad things, but let's not talk about that. So anyways, at that time, I was like, look, I'm done with that lifestyle. I'm sorry, I gotta step away. I stepped away, but they were like, look, you can't step away. I mean, you know too much. And this. I was like, look, I'm not a rat. I'm not. I'm not going to, you know, tell on you guys. Like, whatever happened, happened. Don't worry about it. Like, they were like, yeah, but rules are rules. And it's bled out. So. So that began a very, very stressful chapter in my life. If you thought the earlier life was stressful, this was worse. Wow. Because now I had other gangs still trying to kill me because of old vendettas. And now I had my own gang that knew everything about me. When, what coffee I like, what tea I drink, every single detail in my life, they knew, and they were trying to kill me. Gee. So that time I basically used to sleep in my attic. And my attic had, like, a vent that looked out. So I would, like, look out from the slides, you know, the little openings with weaponry. All night I would. I would stay up because I know how they would do it. And it's the way I done it with them, which is you would wait till, like, 4:00am, 5:00am when the person's about to fall asleep. And then, you know, because you'd stay up all night, you party. But that time, you just crash out and then you just walk up and you just spray the whole house.

[Podcast Host]

Holy crap.

[Sheikh Uthman]

And then what I was most worried about is my mom used to live with me, that she would get hit in the crossfire, because bullets don't discriminate. Yeah. And I loved my mom. I still love my mom. She's been amazing mother. So I was like that. I can't let that happen.

[Podcast Host]

And she didn't know you were part of the gang, right?

[Sheikh Uthman]

Yeah. I mean, at this time, I told her a lot of the stuff. She knew that I was getting away from it. She supported me. She was with me. She didn't know a lot when it was happening, but after the fact, I mean, you know, she knew a lot of the stuff and she was an amazing mother, you know, she was very strong. She said, look, I have your back, whatever, you know. So, you know, we weren't rich. We couldn't just get up and move somewhere, you know. So I started going to college, taking classes. I started working a regular job. I started paying my own bills. No longer. No drug money coming in. And that was great. But then at the same time, I'd have to like, I started studying Islam. I started learning Arabic. I started like. I didn't know how to read Arabic or any of that. Right. So I went to Ali Baatan and I wanted to really study because I didn't want to half step anything. Like, I didn't half step the gang world. So I was going to half step being Muslim. So I absolutely cold turkey cut my friends out. So the first night was hard. Second, third, fourth week, two week, three weeks, and it was difficult, but they didn't. They didn't do anything. So I was strange. But they did know that I had a lot of guns, you know, I mean, they knew because they knew, right? Yeah. So after a while I started thinking like, these are people I grew up with, you know, These are people that I was very close to. These are people that we had crazy experiences with. And they don't know about Islam and they don't know about another's life. That is a way. Like a lot of these guys, their fathers were in the gang, their grandfather was the gang, their brothers are in the gang, their uncles are in the gang. So that's all they know, right? So to them, like, you know, how you, for you maybe get up in the morning, hit the gym, you know, drink a shake or whatever, drink your coffee. That's your daily routine. That's what you know, right? To them, you know, you get up at noon, you walk into school and, you know, teachers don't say anything to you, and you sell your drugs and you stab somebody and you go home at night and light up whatever and hang out till 4:00am that's, that's literally all they know. So I said, I think it's my job to go and tell them about Islam and tell them about, you know, you can get out of the gang world, you know. So I decided to go back, but to preach to him.

[Podcast Host]

Wow.

[Sheikh Uthman]

You know, So I said, okay, if I go in my car and I had an old gangster looking cars, that they might confuse me for another gang or they might figure out it's me and, and that, you know, the, like, I said, the hood had like lookouts. These young guys, we pay them just to be on rooftops that if they saw something, they used to have these old cell phones and they would page a code that meant either cops or enemies or whatever. So I said, they see me, they're gonna send a code. It's gonna, you know, might just start shooting. So I said, I'm not gonna go armed. I'm gonna be unarmed and I'm gonna walk. And I was wearing like a thobe, like a robe like this, and I had like a turban on and I started to grow my beard out, so I looked different. So I can't even. And this is, this is 1995. So I mean, this is not like, you know, people didn't know what a Muslim was at the time.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[Sheikh Uthman]

So I was walking into the alley and at first they didn't recognize me. They were just like, who's this weird looking guy in a dress? Or whatever, right? When I got closer and they recognized me, they were like, what this guy doing here? So one of my really good friends that I grew up with, he was also a leader in the gang. And I remember him very well. I remember till today, he looked at me, he said, he goes, I swear to God, you will not walk out of this alley alive. You know, we were thinking how to kill you in a way that you don't kill a lot of us. And you've walked here. They were like, are you armed? I was like, I'm not armed. And they were like, I swear to God, you're not going to walk out of here alive. There's no way in hell you're going to walk out of this alley alive. So I tell him, look, you know, life and death, whatever, man, we've seen so much death. Like, you know, but let me just speak to you, give me five minutes, you know, and they're like, all right. So I started talking, I was like, look, you know, this guy got killed, this guy got killed. This look at his mom, she's Struggling. Look at his kids, they're orphaned. Look at his girl now, she's, you know, sleeping all these guys because she's got to make these bills. And this, this, like, what was the point of what they did? Like gang, like, what did, what good did they do for him? And some of them started crying, you know, because they, they, they had the emotions, you know, they're human beings, they're not monsters, they're not, they're not robots, they're not AI, you know, so they started feeling what I'm saying and some of them were like shaking their head, some of them were like nodding like, you know, so one of the guys who's a big leader, veterano OG guy, he walked up, he said, look, you're not a rat, you're not going to the cops, you're good, you did it for religion. Just walk away. Walk away. We're not gonna harm you, Just walk away. But don't talk to us anymore because you're messing us up. So I tell him, no, I tell him, look, if you guys come to the mosque, I'm gonna make some food, we'll hang out, then I'll walk away. And they were like, look, we'll make it an open invite. Whoever wants to come can come. I said, alright, cool. So I walked away. And about 12 of them became Muslim and left the gang world. Wow. But a lot of them, I mean, a lot of them later on, like, I just did a podcast recently, I haven't posted it yet with one of the guys that was still in it that caught up with me recently and he got out as well. He's not Muslim, he's Christian, actually. But we were both working on trying to help gangs, gang members leave the gang world today and find a better life. And a lot of them that, you know, that I knew are dead today. In the podcast we talk about names and people. A lot of them are doing life without parole. It's a rough, rough life. But alhamdulillah, I mean, a lot of them did leave and you know, a lot of them had to leave the city because they had vendettas out for them. But, you know, they're doing a lot better now. So we still work on it. I mean, recently we went out to a lot of different neighborhoods from Compton to O block. Chicago. Yeah, Chicago. Interesting. I went out to Chicago and one of my sons, he likes to mess with me. So he was like, hey, I know you're going to be giving some lectures in North Chicago and Lombard, those nice areas, but don't go to OBLOC because it's dangerous and you're not who you used to be, you know? And my son, you know who. He triggers me, you know, he knows I'm not scared of this stuff. So I was like, what? I'm not scared of O Block. He's like, nah, don't go there, O Block. You can't handle that. Like, all right, I'm gonna go to O Block. So I went up to Chicago and I was in Lombard and I was talking to these rich, like, you know, engineers and stuff. And I was like, hey, I want to go to O Block and do Dawah. Like, call people towards a better life, you know, and all that. And they're like, o Block. Where is that? And I was like, in South Chicago. And they're like, why the hell would you want to go to South Chicago? It's ghetto. And I was like, well, that's where it's needed, you know? And they were like, nah, nah. We've lived in Chicago our whole life. Never been down there. I said, no, no, I'm gonna go. So I got a couple other crazy guys and we went out to o' Block, and the videos you can check on One Message Foundation. We put out a table and just

[Podcast Host]

on a random street in.

[Sheikh Uthman]

Ok, yeah, yeah, just on a random street. We didn't know o', Block, right? Like, we just found a place. It was like a liquor store, had, like a mural of King Von or something been killed there. So we just put up a table. We talked to the liquor store owner or, you know, I said, hey, you know, it's okay. They were like, yeah, it's okay. And then I thought, we don't have a permit or anything, you know. So the cops pulled up and there's a video of this. You know, you see the. There's a big African American cop and a little white lady. They're both police officers, vests on. They. They, like, pulled up on the curb, like, pulled up on us, you know? And I was like, whoa. And I was like, they're gonna ask us about permits. And they're like, what are you doing here? I was like, oh, you know, we're just trying to talk to the community, trying to get people to leave the gang and this. Have a better life. They're like, no, no, no. What are you doing here? Because you're not black. And Chicago is different. Like, there's like little village was like a Latino neighborhoods, all Latino, you know, and you go to, like, Oblock or South Chicago and some Areas are all black. Like, California is not really like that. Like, it's all mixed. Yeah. So they were like, you of your race should not be here. And I was like, what? Like, you're not worried about a permit or something? They're like, no, who cares about your permit? You know, but we're just, where are you going to get killed? I was like, oh, don't worry about me. Like, we're good here, you know, we're. We're not scared of anything, you know. And the lady was like, all right, man, if I hear gunfire, we'll come. Otherwise, you know, we're not going to come in to help you. Like, we're good, you know, so we just set up a table and you can see the video. We just started talking to people and young guys pulled up. 14 year old pulled up with like a Glock, you know, and he pulled up his shirt. He was like showing me his Glock. Wow. I was like, so I got three. So we started talking to him. And a lot of them, we had 30. We had 29 people become Muslim that.

[Podcast Host]

No way.

[Sheikh Uthman]

Yeah. One day.

[Podcast Host]

Wow.

[Sheikh Uthman]

You'll see the videos that are on there. You know, we had good conversations. People, you know, in big Escalades just pulled up. Gang members just walked out and started talking. And, you know, I told him, look, I've been there. I know what you're going through, but you can, you can get out. Like, you can leave that life. And 29 people became, we're wrapping up. And the cop came back and I still remember the. There, there's a video you can see of him with us. And he told me, I got a question for you. I said, what? He said, how come you weren't scared? Like, he goes, you know, when the Latter Day Saints or Jehovah Witnesses or other priests, they don't want to come down here and especially just come out and hang out the way you were doing. But you weren't scared. I said, no, we're Muslim. We don't fear anybody but Allah. You know, life and death is written. Whenever it's written, it's written. So we're not worried about these things. And I started talking to him. And then that cop became Muslim.

[Podcast Host]

No way.

[Sheikh Uthman]

That was our 30th Shahada that day.

[Podcast Host]

Dude, that's impressive.

[Sheikh Uthman]

Yeah, we went back a few times. Every time, 25, 29, 30 people become Muslim. Now, the brothers there have been doing a great job. I mean, I'm not there. Like, those brothers that live there are the ones holding it down. They even Have a Friday prayer now in O Block, like in the middle, they bring everybody together. And there's been some documentaries on YouTube recorded by non Muslims that have gone out and they've documented. They show clips from our videos and how O Block improved from people becoming Muslim and from us going out there. How even the police said the calls for violent crimes have gone down. I mean, gangs have calmed down. Last time I was there, we even tried to make a truce between two of the gangs there. We had sit downs. So, you know, we try to try to make the world a better place,

[Podcast Host]

you know, so interesting because certain media outlets portray Islam as violent, but you're saying the complete opposite.

[Sheikh Uthman]

Well, I mean, that's the thing. I mean there are Muslims that are violent. I'm not gonna deny that. I don't believe in, I believe in being real. Right. There are Christians that are violent, there are Jews that are violent, there are Hindus that are violent. I mean who started suicide vest was the Tamil Tigers, which are mostly from Hindu backgrounds. Who used violence for political terrorism? Zionists in the King David bombing. I mean, you can go Google it. It's not secret knowledge, right? I mean the big world wars were all fought between Christian countries. I mean till today you got, you know, right wing extremists and you got left wing extremists shooting people and killing people and riots. I mean there's good and bad everywhere. That's, it's hypocritical, you know, like if a Muslim does something immediately they blame Islam for it. But if a Christian, like you saw the shooting that happened in the Latter Day Saints church, which are called Mormons, usually where a guy with Trump stickers and he's Christian himself, big American flags, took his white pickup truck and rammed it, took his AR and shot up the place. But they never mentioned his religion. Like it was just, oh, he was disturbed. But imagine if that was a Muslim, like if that was a Muslim wearing a turban and had an ak, you know. Exactly. Right, exactly. Like, like Maduro is a Christian from a 98 Christian country who uses the Bible in his speeches. There's pictures and videos. Right, but when they arrested him, they didn't mention that. Right, but if that was Saddam, who. Saddam was a secularist, he didn't even care about religion. He was a bhaktist, absolute socialist, communist looking guy. But immediately they put Islam on trial because when the KKK burns a cross in your yard, nobody says, hey, these are Bible thumping Christians. They just say, oh, they're crazy. They are crazy as ISIS is crazy. I condemn isis. I condemn any terrorist organization, whether Christian, whether Muslim, whether Jewish, whether atheist, whatever they mean anybody that kills innocent people, I condemn it. And the Quran condemns it. And Islam condemns it. And I believe Christianity condemns it. If I want to take verses out of the Bible and misquote them, I can all day long I can show you verses about killing children, about massacring old people. But I would always say that don't take that to mean every Christian is like that. There are verses in the Quran you could misquote and take out of context. And that happened. And I'll show you one just since we're on the subject. As you can see, my Quran is well tabbed up as well. So this is in a chapter called Anfal, which is about a war that was going on when the Muslims were driven out of their houses and attacked. And it says, and prepare against them whatever you are able of, of power and the seeds of war by which you may terrify the enemies of Allah and your enemies and others beside them whom you know and whom Allah knows. And whatever you spend in the cause of Allah will be paid back and you will not be wronged, Right? So people use this, the verse of the sword, you know, look, they're saying prepare for war and enemies, right? But this is verse number 60 and this is chapter number eight. If the rest, if they read verse number 61, it says, and if they incline towards peace and that incline towards it and rely upon Allah, and Allah is indeed all hearing, all knowing. So what is it telling you? If somebody's attacking you and driving you out of your houses and killing your women and children? Yes, defend yourself, prepare yourself. Don't turn the other cheek because they're not going to ever let you live. But if they want peace, then don't fight them. Then incline towards peace because that's what Allah wants, is for you to have peace. So what do they do? They read one verse and they leave the other one out of context 100%. And I mean, if we were to do the same thing with the Bible, right? That's what I'm saying. If you want to be fair about it, then you can see. Let's see. Now therefore, kill every. And this is in the chapter called Numbers 31:17. Now therefore kill every male amongst the little ones and kill every woman who has known a man intimately. But keep alive the young virgins, young girls for yourselves who have not known a man, killing, massacring every man and every woman that's been with A man, but keeping the virgins for you to gang rape amongst an army. Right? Again, there's context. I'm not saying that every Christian believe, but I'm saying is if you're gonna cherry pick like that, we could do it all day long too. But what benefit is that?

[Podcast Host]

And that's how a lot of these debates go.

[Sheikh Uthman]

Exactly. And that's why they're useless. Like, look, if you want to educate yourself, you really want to discuss something, I'm more than willing. But if you're just out there trying to promote your Patreon and look, I don't get paid for this. Like, we are here on our own dime. You work a regular job, I work a regular job. I work in quality and regulatory as a consultant for companies that are getting their ISO certification and so on. I don't have a Patreon. Our channel is not monetized. We have monetization on just to block ads. But our videos are not monetized. We have 1.3, 1.4 million subs. Our videos, we have shorts that have like 30, 40 million views.

[Podcast Host]

You could be making millions.

[Sheikh Uthman]

We could be literally making millions every year, but we don't make a dime. Why? Because we're not doing this for money. We're not, we're not trying to promote ads that have things that are, that are not good for the society that were out there. We're here to spread a good message that, look, you can be the best version of yourself. You can change your life, you can better your life. You can, you can have that one on one relationship with God, that what we call Tawheed. You know, that belief in one God. You can be on the path of the prophets like Abraham and Moses and Jesus and Muhammad. Peace be upon all of them. We love all of them. We follow all of them. That's what we're about. All these guys that want to debate and stuff, all of them are out there. Oh, if you become a super chat, then I'll answer your question. Oh, donate to my Patreon. Because they're all about money. What are you gonna do with that money? You know you're lying. You know, you're just trying to cause conflict. You know when you see somebody on a stream eating the Quran, like, what's the point? Or urinating on one or burning one, right? Like, what are you promoting? I wouldn't even put the Bible on the floor out of respect.

[Podcast Host]

Wow.

[Sheikh Uthman]

Yeah. As a Muslim, we don't put the Bible on the floor. Not the Torah, not the Old Testament. Not the Tanakh, not Jewish scriptures, not Christian scriptures, not Hindu scriptures. We. We treat them with respect, even if we don't necessarily believe it's the word of God. But we do believe that somebody who's a Christian believes in it. Somebody who's a Jew believes in it. Somebody who's a Hindu believes in it. So out of respect for them, we don't cause that kind of thing. You will never see a Muslim mocking Jesus or mocking Moses or burning pictures of them. Never. Why? Because that just causes conflict. We would never do that. And at the same time, right now you have people that are running for Congress, people that are running for Senate, people that are elected officials, burning Qurans, having Quran burnings, and, you know, trying to instigate that. If a Muslim did something like that, it would be like World War 8 or something. Right, right. But. But it's all right because, like, you just spoke with Sunny and them, people like that are becoming Muslim every day. Even with all the bad publicity and all the media and all that against us, Islam is still growing.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah, yeah, they're really demonizing you guys. They're demonizing Sharia law.

[Sheikh Uthman]

See, that's another funny thing, right? Sharia law. The funny thing is that just means law law, because the word Sharia means law. Oh, really? Like, Sharia is not like, you know, like a spec. Like even like the American law in Arabic would be called Sharia. Right? The American Sharia. Right. And you know, when you're talking like, let me show you something, right? This is the Bible. Yeah, right. I mean, they talk about apostasy laws, right? But if I was to open up the Bible and this is the Old Testament, so this is something that according to Christians and Jews, were the laws of God at a time, right? You will find things that everything they criticize Sharia for you will find here, right? And I'll show you right now. This is in Deuteronomy, chapter 13, verse 6. It says, if your brother or the son of your mother or the son of your daughter or your wife, of your wife of your bosom or the friend of whom is it of your own soul secretly entices you, saying, let's go serve another God, meaning the apostate, right? Then what does it say? You do not pity them. You do not conceal them. You shall not consent to them or listen to them. Your eyes shall not pity them. You shall not spare them or conceal them. But you should surely kill them, unalive them. In case you want to edit this, you know, you want to unalive them and your hand will be the first against them. And put him to death. For afterwards, the hand of all of the people, you shall stone them with stones until he dies. Right. The apostasy laws are in the Bible.

[Podcast Host]

Wow.

[Sheikh Uthman]

Right? I mean, have you ever heard.

[Podcast Host]

I never knew that. I knew it was in the Quran, but not the Bible, actually.

[Sheikh Uthman]

Exactly. And the funny thing is that's not in the Quran.

[Podcast Host]

Oh, it's not?

[Sheikh Uthman]

It's not what they always talk about. There is no verse in the Quran that says you kill an apostate.

[Podcast Host]

Really?

[Sheikh Uthman]

Right. There are ahadith, but it's not in the Quran. But everybody thinks it is because this is the media frenzy. But it's actually in the Bible. I have the verse in front of me.

[Podcast Host]

It's actually not.

[Sheikh Uthman]

Let me, let me, let me show you a couple more. Right? Which, I mean, I don't even know how people sleep with looking at this. Right? This is in 1st Samuel 15:3. Right. I'm giving you chapter and verse. It's not like trust me, bro, or take my word for it, it says, now go and attack Amulek. And again, this is according to the people of the Jewish faith. This is God of Moses. According to people of the Christian faith who believe Jesus is God. If that's what they believe, then this is Jesus ordering this to the people of Israel. Go and attack Emulek and utterly destroy all that they have and do not spare them, but kill, unalive both man and woman, infant and nursing child, ox and sheep, camel and donkey, killing infants. I mean, like, like imagine if that verse was in the Quran. Right? Women covering up is in the Bible.

[Podcast Host]

Is it?

[Sheikh Uthman]

Yes, yes, yes. I got you, bro.

[Podcast Host]

This is nuts to me.

[Sheikh Uthman]

See, this is why I'm glad you brought me. Woman covering up. Yeah. In the New Testament. By the way, it's not even the Old Testament, right? Okay. This is First Corinthians, chapter 11, verse 5. But every woman who prays or prophesizes with her head uncovered dishonors her head, for it is one and the same as if her head were to be shaved. For if a woman is not covered, let her be shorn. But if it's shameful for a woman to be shorn or shaved, let her be covered. A woman cannot pray or prophesize without not just her body, but even her head, her whole self covered. And if it's not, according to the Bible, her head should be shaved.

[Podcast Host]

Wow.

[Sheikh Uthman]

Right? It's right. So you know, women are supposed to be silent. According to the Bible, they're not supposed to. This is right here in the same chapter. First Corinthians 14:34. I keep the receipts. Yes. Let your women keep silent in churches, for they are not permitted to speak, but they are to be submissive, as Allah also says. And if they want to learn something, let them ask their own husbands at home, for it is shameful for a woman to speak in church.

[Podcast Host]

This man brought the receipts.

[Sheikh Uthman]

I can't even brought the receipts, bro.

[Podcast Host]

Can't even argue with them.

[Sheikh Uthman]

I mean, you know, homosexuals being put to death, that's in the Bible, right? In the New Testament and the Old Testament, you know, look, I'm going to show you something that's. You'll be shocked. You know, I was shocked. This is in the Bible. This is deuteronomy again. Chapter 22 gives a lot of these, but this is verse 28. If a man finds a young woman who's a virgin, who is not betrayed, and he seizes her by force and lays with her, so he. Grape, sir. Yeah. Right. They are found out, then the man who lay with her shall give to the young woman's father 50 shekels of silver. So if you by force a young woman, virgin, not bethroed. What do you have to do? Just give 50 shekels of silver and she shall be his wife because he has humbled her. And he shall not be permitted to divorce her all his days. No way.

[Podcast Host]

What? I can't believe that.

[Sheikh Uthman]

Read it.

[Podcast Host]

Where was it?

[Sheikh Uthman]

It's right there.

[Podcast Host]

This yellow one?

[Sheikh Uthman]

Yeah. Man finds a young woman who is a virgin, who's not.

[Podcast Host]

Wow. Holy crap.

[Sheikh Uthman]

Right?

[Podcast Host]

So, I mean, look, the father.

[Sheikh Uthman]

Look. And again, I don't believe all Christians believe this. I, I'm. I don't believe all Jews believe this. But it is in the scripture. You. And, and, and if people want to misrepresent Islam, which is not even like, nothing like that's in the Quran. I'll give you a Quran as a gift today. You know, check it out.

[Podcast Host]

I did want to read the Quran and the Bible this year. Actually, I haven't read either one.

[Sheikh Uthman]

I'll give you both.

[Podcast Host]

This man's got the books.

[Sheikh Uthman]

Yeah, I've got. I've got a. I've got a library, you know, so, you know, people talk about cutting hands, right? You know, let me show you a verse about cutting hands in the Bible, right? This is a Sharia law. Cutting hands in the Sharia, in the laws of Islam, you don't cut hands just out of random, right? If somebody is poor and they steal. You don't cut their hand. If somebody is stealing something small, that's less than one fourth of a golden hour, meaning it's not grand theft, then you don't cut their hands. If somebody's a child, somebody's insane, somebody's got all those kind of things. But if somebody's just out there trying to rob you and. And take major things from you, then you want to put such a law that it prevents that from happening. But in the Bible, same chapter, it says if two men fight together and the wife of one of them draws near to rescue her husband and the hand of the attack by. From the hand of the attacking one attacking him, puts her hand out and seizes the man by the genitals, you shall cut off her hand, and your eyes shall not pity her. So if two men are fighting. Yeah, like, let's say you and somebody gets into a fight, and your wife sees that a man's attacking you to try to protect you. She tries to grab the guy's, you know, you cut off her hand just for protecting her husband. I mean, cutting hands. And the death penalty is all over the Bible, right? And I mean for homosexuality. I mean, obviously it's there in Leviticus. You know, people talk about this today, but nobody wants to bring it up

[Podcast Host]

as a reality because they need more church members.

[Sheikh Uthman]

Exactly.

[Podcast Host]

A lot of gay people these days.

[Sheikh Uthman]

And even in the New Testament, in Romans, it's right there for homosexuality. And I'll read just people, don't be like, old Testament. This is the New Testament, right. This is in Romans, chapter 1 in the verse 27. Likewise, men leaving the natural used for women, burned with their lust for one another. Men with men committing that which is shameful and receiving in themselves the penalty of the error. And then in the 32nd verse, it is, what is the penalty? Those who practice such things are deserving of death, not only to do the same, but those who approve of it. Anybody who supports LGBT rights according to the Bible. And again, I'm not saying this is my view. I'm not saying this is your view. I'm not saying this is the view of this podcast. Just don't want you to get canceled. Yeah, but the verses are there, so, I mean, like, if you're gonna criticize Islam for something that is not in the Quran, then at least go and read other scriptures so you can give a fair answer.

[Podcast Host]

Absolutely. Well, shake. Thanks for sharing your story, man. Thanks for sharing this knowledge. Excited for the debate. Anything else you want to close off with here?

[Sheikh Uthman]

No, I really appreciate the time. Appreciate your good listening skills and everybody who's watching, check out One Message Foundation. You know, we're not. We're not trying to make money, but we are trying to build them bridges. People that are people of good Christian faith and good people following of the Jewish faith and people of any faith. We want to sit down and just work together and making a better society. And if you want to learn about Islam, we welcome you. We don't push it down anybody's throat. We don't. You can't force Islam on anybody. That's not how Islam works. It begins with the heart, it's confessed on the tongue, and it's carried out in action.

[Podcast Host]

So love it. Thanks for your time, man.

[Sheikh Uthman]

Thank you.

[Podcast Host]

Check them out, guys. Link the stuff below.

[Sheikh Uthman]

See ya.

[Podcast Host]

Nice. Thanks for staying all the way to the end, guys. It means a lot to me. If you could please leave a review on Apple that helps us climb the charts, it helps us get way more guests, and it helps us continue growing the podcast and the team. So it would mean a lot to me if you left a review on Apple or wherever else you're listening. Thanks so much.