Ali Dawah - April 13, 2016


MUSLIM YOUTUBERS STARTER PACK


Episode Stats

Length

20 minutes

Words per Minute

207.36438

Word Count

4,295

Sentence Count

306

Hate Speech Sentences

26


Summary

In this episode, we cover the first step in becoming a Muslim YouTuber, which is to have good intentions. This is the most important step in order to be a good Muslim Youtuber and to make the most out of it.


Transcript

00:00:00.000 As-salamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuhu brothers and sisters and dear friends,
00:00:29.440 welcome to this show, thanks for that Musa, Muslim YouTuber Starter Pack, everything that
00:00:36.920 you need to know to be a Muslim YouTuber. So we're going to start off but before we start
00:00:41.540 off guys don't forget I need you guys once you finish watching this video to share it
00:00:45.660 with your YouTuber that you listen to. Don't forget that, now let's get straight to the
00:00:49.480 point. I've got 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 points which you'll see, no, one second, there, there,
00:00:56.340 you'll see, sorry, 8 points there which I'm going to be covering inshaAllah. Now obviously
00:01:00.400 before I start guys, as you guys know there is books behind me. Now just because there's
00:01:03.660 books behind me does not mean this is a refutation video or anything like that. This is just
00:01:07.280 a general, this is just a general video out there for new YouTubers and also for you guys
00:01:13.860 to have a better understanding of us YouTubers. I believe YouTube is an amazing platform given
00:01:18.860 to us by Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala because back in the days before people would open TV
00:01:23.480 and they will believe everything they hear. And not only that, you did not have another
00:01:26.820 option. Yes, a different TV channel, same rubbish. Now alhamdulillah Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
00:01:31.260 has given us this option of YouTube where people can watch what they want, when they want
00:01:35.980 to watch instead of watching TV and believing everything they want to believe or just being
00:01:39.940 brainwashed. So YouTube is a platform given to us by Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala for us to
00:01:43.600 take advantage of and make the most out of it. And obviously every single one of us are out
00:01:49.320 there to do something beneficial for the ummah. Our intentions are correct but unfortunately
00:01:54.500 just intentions being correct, the correct way of doing it is to have correct intentions
00:01:59.020 and your actions follow forth. But anyways, let's get straight into it. Now I just want
00:02:04.620 to go into intentions. The second point, intentions are really important. Before any YouTuber or
00:02:10.420 anyone wants to comment on the social platforms here or wherever it may be, why do you want to
00:02:15.320 do what you want to do? This is something that is really, really important. If you are coming
00:02:22.540 to the YouTube scene, your intentions are to make money. You need to make those intentions
00:02:28.880 clear. Your job, you want to make money. You have that right. If you want to do that, you
00:02:34.140 have that right. You can go and choose to do that. Do you get it? Put my opinion aside.
00:02:38.260 Yeah? You want to go on YouTube and make money? You can do that. How you go about and do
00:02:43.260 it? It's another story which we're going to, it's something else which we're going to come
00:02:46.280 on to. So if your intentions are to make money, you have the free will to do that. If your
00:02:52.580 intentions are to come on a social platform and do dawah and help the ummah, etc., give
00:02:59.840 nasir to the brothers and sisters, etc., you have the right to do that. And I would recommend
00:03:04.820 you to do that. If your intentions are to give dawah and make some money, you have the
00:03:11.280 right to do that. It's totally fine. You want to do that? You have the free will to
00:03:16.060 do that. If your intentions are to get on YouTube, become famous, get known, if that makes you
00:03:21.680 feel better, you can do that. That is your free will. You can do that. I'm not putting
00:03:27.000 Islam into this. I'm just telling you, you want to do that? Nobody can stop you. Nobody
00:03:32.040 can stop you. You can do that. Now, me personally, when I wanted to get into the YouTube scene,
00:03:36.600 me personally, I did not, and I do not mean this into sound pious or anything special.
00:03:41.160 May Allah protect me from arrogance or thinking that I'm better than anyone else. You know,
00:03:45.480 that is something, a character that a Muslim, a believer should not have. May Allah protect
00:03:48.660 us from that of arrogant behavior. I wanted to do dawah to the non-Muslims and give nasir
00:03:53.200 to the Muslim youth. This was my intentions. And I thought, this is what I want to do.
00:03:56.080 Now, once you have those intentions, now you take your first step. Now, I had the option,
00:04:03.380 especially at the beginning when I started YouTube, I was financially in a bad place,
00:04:07.220 like really bad place. I had family issues because I was new to Islam. It was absolute
00:04:12.140 madness. But I could have had the option of getting paid by YouTube, but I personally,
00:04:19.060 personally did not want to. Now, the reason why I didn't know, and this is personal to me,
00:04:24.280 this is other brothers who are in the dawah, which I know, who are the same like me. And I know some
00:04:29.880 good brothers, lovely brothers, mashallah, may Allah bless them, who do get paid. And there's nothing
00:04:34.040 wrong with that, you know. But my opinion was, I did not want to. Why? Because I thought if money is
00:04:39.900 involved, it would mess with my intentions. Now, different people deal with that in different
00:04:44.440 ways. Some people are stronger. I found myself weak on that point of thinking, okay, if I do get paid,
00:04:50.440 it would mess with my intentions. So I thought, I don't really want to go there. So I thought,
00:04:54.900 I don't want to get paid by YouTube. Until they say, alhamdulillah, I prefer not to get paid by
00:04:59.160 YouTube. And alhamdulillah, praise it belongs to Allah, that financially I'm okay, and I don't
00:05:04.520 need that extra money. And even, if I need it, alhamdulillah, a lot of brothers, some brothers do get
00:05:08.540 paid by YouTube, and they use that to facilitate their dawah, or their videos, and their production,
00:05:13.240 which like I said before, there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. This is something that was
00:05:16.500 personal to me. But if you've gone in with the intentions, you're a Muslim, you've gone in there
00:05:22.300 with the intentions of making money, or for fame, like I said before, for fame, then that is not a
00:05:29.080 big problem for you, because I think maybe that's the least of your worries. However, as a brother,
00:05:32.920 of course, like I said, you have the free will to do what you want. I'm not going to come and say,
00:05:36.240 you can't do this, you can't do that. Islamically, going and making money out of it, as long as you're
00:05:42.240 not doing nothing haram, if you are not doing nothing haram, nobody can come and say to you,
00:05:48.100 you can't do this. If you, for example, let me give a beautiful brother of mine, Musa, as an example.
00:05:53.220 Brother Musa started off doing dawah. Then afterwards, he liked it, I know Musa, he liked
00:05:57.400 to be creative, and stuff like that. So he thought, look, this is, I want to do vlogs. And I said,
00:06:01.460 it's a good idea, because you're young, even though Musa, he does look a bit old, he looks like a 40
00:06:05.300 year old, no offense Musa, if you're watching this. But he's young, he's 18, he started when he was 16,
00:06:09.620 he's 19 now. So I thought, Aki, what you're doing is perfect. You know, as long as you're not
00:06:13.700 doing nothing wrong, which you don't, doing vlogs and giving general reminders, because that's what
00:06:18.520 the youth at your age does, showing them. Because a lot of youth go out doing clubbing, all kind of
00:06:23.000 madness. But Musa is doing vlogs and just giving general reminders and living his way, living in
00:06:27.880 halal way, giving reminders. And I thought that is absolutely nothing wrong. However, if you're going
00:06:31.240 with intentions of getting fame, then I would say to renew your intentions. Because fame, a lot of people
00:06:38.220 want it. But believe me, it's something that you really don't want to. And especially if you are
00:06:43.180 a Muslim, and if you're going, especially if you're a Muslim, you need to understand, even if you don't
00:06:47.980 go out there doing dawah, put that to a side, you're going out there with the name of you're a Muslim,
00:06:52.260 that's going to cause problems, because people are going to have expectations, my brother or my
00:06:56.160 sister. So you need to really understand that. Now, let's move on. Let's talk about new YouTubers,
00:07:01.180 YouTubers, people coming into the YouTube scene new. Now, it is good that we should have
00:07:08.140 more YouTubers. It's good. It's good for the dawah. It's good that we can show positivity and
00:07:13.340 etc, which I agree with. But it is very, very crucial that we understand that being a YouTuber
00:07:21.080 comes with, with responsibilities. So now these two link new YouTubers and the responsibility
00:07:26.980 of YouTubers, I'm going to cover these both at once, inshallah. Now, as a new YouTuber, it's easy.
00:07:31.660 Get a camera, record yourself, whatever you do. These days, people just vlog in their life,
00:07:36.200 whatever it may be, you just become a YouTuber instantly. Now, what we need to understand,
00:07:40.780 brother and sister, it's very simple. It's very easy. Get a camera, you're a YouTuber. But what we
00:07:45.740 fail to understand, and it's so sad, is that once you become a YouTuber, and people, and
00:07:52.020 unfortunately, people look up to us. And genuinely, like I'm in the YouTube scene, and this is the
00:07:57.840 reason why I'm doing this video, to give you guys a background and understanding for both
00:08:01.920 the new YouTubers, and for those who are watching our stuff, to understand where we're coming
00:08:06.980 from. Is that, look, you need to understand when you're a new YouTuber, people will start
00:08:10.840 looking up to you. Now, I am, sometimes, I get treated like I'm something special. But this
00:08:17.240 is what YouTube comes with. I didn't choose this. The work that I wanted to do for the sake
00:08:21.700 of Allah brought that with it. Now, sometimes my intention goes up and down. This is something
00:08:26.400 that's really big. But what you need to understand is if you're a new YouTuber, you can't just
00:08:30.640 say, let me get a camera, record myself, that's it, I can do whatever I like. Like I said before,
00:08:35.460 you have the free will to do whatever you want. You do as you please. But what you need to
00:08:39.540 understand is it comes with a responsibility. If, for example, you are a YouTuber, and then
00:08:45.000 in your social platforms or on YouTube, you start swearing, you start using foul language,
00:08:49.080 you start using racist terms towards other people. What you need to understand is that
00:08:54.720 people are looking up to you. So when they look at you, and this comes with you, you can't
00:08:58.660 say, hey, I don't want them to look up to you. But it comes along with it. It's attached.
00:09:02.520 We need to be careful how we conduct ourselves in public as much as we can. And this is the
00:09:08.900 reason why brothers and sisters, it's such a crucial topic. I would highly, and brother
00:09:13.960 Khalid did a video on this matter as well. And even though I love him, I genuinely love
00:09:20.100 him. He's an amazing brother. I've met him. He's a good brother. I like the stuff. But
00:09:24.180 the fact that he said that everyone should do YouTube, I just disagreed with that with
00:09:28.420 the brother. But he's still my brother. We went to eat like a couple of days ago. We
00:09:32.460 talked about it. It's just he agreed. But what it is, my brothers and sisters, is that
00:09:36.700 what you need to understand is if every Tom, Dick and Harry gets on the YouTube platform,
00:09:41.420 like I said before, you have the free will to. But what you understand is if you don't
00:09:45.740 understand the responsibility that comes with it, what you're going to do is you're going
00:09:49.340 to end up misguiding people. There is so many people out there who do absolutely disgusting
00:09:54.320 videos. Absolutely disgusting videos. Like, I don't want to go into it. And you need to
00:10:00.340 understand people are looking up to them. And people are thinking, oh, there's something
00:10:06.180 special or they're doing something right. So that's why one thing that I would advise
00:10:10.100 you is that, look, and this is one advice that I get, is that, look, make yourself free
00:10:15.720 from me. With me, de-attach yourself. Yes, see me as a good brother, etc. But the moment
00:10:21.040 you see me doing something wrong, do not think that is right. Don't think just because it's
00:10:24.720 Ali and I love him and I like his videos or whatever he may be or he's Turkish and I like
00:10:29.440 kebabs. He's Turkish. They make kebabs. So that means what he does is right. No, you might
00:10:34.200 like kebabs. I might be Turkish. There's a connection there. But what I do is wrong. So
00:10:39.180 you should detach yourself from me as a person. This is why it's so important. And I want
00:10:44.300 to give you guys a narration of the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam when a sahabi came
00:10:47.760 and said, oh, Rasulullah, do we get rewarded when we have intimate relationship with our
00:10:53.300 wives? He said, of course, just as you get a sin when you're in a haram relationship and
00:11:00.960 just as you're in a haram relationship and you commit zina, that is a sin. When you do it
00:11:05.140 the halal way, you get a reward for being intimate with your wife, kissing her, whatever
00:11:10.620 it may be. Do you come to being kind to her? You get rewarded. So I want you guys to understand
00:11:15.840 something here. Yeah. I'm going to link this hadith with the YouTubers. What we need to
00:11:20.940 understand is that if you're just as if you're a, you come into the YouTube scene for fame
00:11:26.360 or whatever it may be, and you start misguiding people because there's a responsibility on
00:11:32.580 your shoulders, you're a YouTuber, people looking up to you. If you start misguiding
00:11:36.120 people, you are going to be blamed for that. So this is something we need to understand.
00:11:41.440 So before you get into the scene, you need to understand this. So you're going to go out
00:11:45.640 there and then you're going to start misguiding people. And every person that you misguide,
00:11:50.500 you are going to be blameworthy of because you are telling them, for example, do this
00:11:56.120 or do that. You're showing, for example, let's say you're going out there and you're like,
00:11:59.020 hey, I'm with my girlfriend or hey, this, that. What you're doing is now you are putting
00:12:02.480 it into the people's mind. Okay. I'm a Muslim. I can have a girlfriend too. You are going
00:12:07.280 to be blameworthy for putting that out there. Now, just as the way that when you do something
00:12:14.360 wrong and you're misguiding people, you get sins. When you call people to good, the
00:12:19.420 Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam said, whoever calls anyone to good will get the reward thereof
00:12:25.320 of every good that they do. So when you do something bad, just as you get a sin, when
00:12:29.680 you do something good, you get a reward. And also for the rewards that you get other people
00:12:34.340 to do. Yes. Like I said before, you are free. Do a YouTube video, do whatever you like, but
00:12:39.880 know that brothers and sisters on the day of judgment, every single thing that you did is
00:12:44.860 going to be, is going to be brought in front of you. And that is very dangerous because
00:12:49.500 when this one person, you guys will watch us. When you guys do a sin, it's between you
00:12:54.240 and Allah. It's between you and Allah. Let's say you did that sin in public. A hundred people
00:12:58.500 sorry. It's between you and Allah and a hundred, you expose it to a hundred people. But when
00:13:02.360 we do a mistake, now if it's obviously genuinely, we did not mean to, inshallah Allah
00:13:07.680 forgives us. But if I'm intentionally going out there and saying, I'm going to do a video
00:13:12.320 calling people to go and get girlfriends and commit zina or whatever, for example, steal
00:13:18.280 money or whatever it may be, then you need to understand. Then you need to understand
00:13:23.900 is that you are going to be getting the sin of how many people watch the videos? Roughly.
00:13:29.180 Look, I'm not even that of a big YouTuber. Hundred thousand views over a certain period
00:13:33.660 of time. There are people out there who get millions of views. Can you imagine one million
00:13:39.380 people watching a video? And out of that one million, a little percentage of 200 people
00:13:44.660 think that's okay and then go and commit zina. You are accountable for that. So this is why,
00:13:49.640 this is the reason why I wanted to expand on this a little bit more. Now let's move on.
00:13:55.000 Okay, let's move on. Why I don't associate myself with everybody. Now, this is a topic for
00:14:01.280 new Muslim YouTubers to really keep an open ear for this. Please, yeah. You can do this with
00:14:07.420 ears and you can listen, inshallah. Sorry, I am working on my jokes. It's a bit dead.
00:14:11.800 Now, guys, association is very important. Now, I'm in the YouTube scene. People look up to me
00:14:17.280 like I'm something special, but I'm not. This comes along with it, like I said before. Now,
00:14:21.240 I need to be very, very careful who I work with. So I have a responsibility of who I work with.
00:14:29.340 Now, if I'm a YouTuber, I'm known to be in the Taoist scene, I can't go and work with somebody else.
00:14:37.920 For example, let's say some brother is a new YouTuber. He just comes up. I have to do my
00:14:44.620 intelligence. I need to go and look what the brother is doing. Is he doing like, I'm not like
00:14:49.120 obviously harampleasing. Hey, let me catch him. No, no. Just to say, okay, what is the brother doing?
00:14:52.060 Okay. Okay, good. Okay. So when I see a brother, for example, he starts swearing. He starts backbiting.
00:14:59.420 He starts promoting things that are not permissible Islamically. Now, I will have a big responsibility
00:15:06.700 on my shoulder if I go and say, hey, let me go work with him. I go and work with him. Two months down
00:15:11.840 the line, if he turns around and says, oh, I, for example, I'm going to go clubbing. Now, you need to
00:15:18.380 understand. People are going to be like, hey, hold on a second. Brother Ali Daw was chilling with him.
00:15:22.560 So damn it, brother Ali is cool with him. He's going clubbing. So brother Ali Daw must be cool
00:15:27.040 with going clubbing because why would he be friends with someone that, do you get what I'm trying to say?
00:15:31.200 So this is the reason why it's so, so crucial. As a YouTuber, it's so important for me to know who I'm
00:15:39.540 working with. Now, the example I'm going to give is, and I've asked the brother's permission as well,
00:15:42.800 may Allah bless him, it's brother Khalid. He's a new YouTuber and I follow this stuff, you know, and obviously,
00:15:48.260 I follow this stuff. And I personally found the brother sincere. I found him sincere. I found
00:15:54.700 his akhlaq, his adab on point, his manners, how he conducts himself. Like, may Allah bless
00:15:59.480 him. Obviously, I know he's going to be watching this, getting gassed to himself like, yeah,
00:16:02.660 whatever it may be, yeah. He's going to be getting a bit excited. May Allah bless him and I shouldn't
00:16:07.400 be praising him like that. But obviously, I have to be truthful. The brother does, and may Allah
00:16:11.120 keep him firm on that. May Allah keep him firm on that, yeah. Now, I personally believe music is
00:16:15.200 haram. I personally believe music is haram, yeah. So, I spoke to brother Khalid, met brother Khalid,
00:16:20.940 and we was planning on doing a video. Now, before I did this video, and the brother knows as well,
00:16:24.240 I said, look, Aki, yeah, you're my brother, I love you. You're my brother, I love you. If you need
00:16:29.160 anything, whatever, I will try my best to help you. But in the public scene, Aki, we need to understand
00:16:33.200 something. That I said to him, Aki, do you believe music is permissible? And this is not me saying, hey,
00:16:38.080 you need to believe that. This is just saying, look, Aki, I believe it's impermissible. What's your opinion?
00:16:42.020 Because if we're going to work together, and you don't mind using music, then what happens is,
00:16:46.160 not that you're a bad person, but if you think that is correct, and you want to put that out,
00:16:51.740 then people are going to think, okay, music is okay, brother Ali, do you get what I'm trying to say?
00:16:54.760 And we came to an agreement, etc., and I thought, Aki, I have no problem working with you, yeah? I have
00:17:00.280 no problem working with you, and being seen within the social platform. Why? Because I have done my
00:17:04.780 search, I've looked into it, just as me, when I was doing the, when I wanted to do the video with
00:17:10.140 Mufti Menk, yeah? I did a couple of months ago. Before I did that, I got in contact with
00:17:14.540 his cousin, and obviously the brother said he did a research with me for one year. One whole year,
00:17:20.960 he was watching my stuff, what I'm doing. Then, obviously, all praise belong to Allah, not that
00:17:24.980 I'm anything special, but he thought, okay, the brother's doing something good, whatever it may be.
00:17:29.160 Okay, then they gave me the permission, do you get what I'm trying to say? So I'm not trying to seem
00:17:32.680 here like I'm this guy who gives permission, who I work with, I'm something special, no.
00:17:35.860 But, the same is done with me. So that's why association is so important. Hope you guys
00:17:41.420 understand. Okay, the last two points is, basically, don't take from any YouTuber. What does this
00:17:46.580 mean? Now, guys, what you need to understand is that I am not a Sheik. A Sheik on his own
00:17:50.800 is somebody that's knowledgeable, who's given his life to Islam, I am not that. Not any YouTuber
00:17:56.540 is not that, yeah? Okay, obviously, there is, if a Sheik comes on YouTube, then he's a YouTuber,
00:18:02.360 but that's a Sheik, if that makes sense. But what you need to understand is the matter
00:18:05.840 of religion, and this is my personal opinion, this is my personal opinion, take it or leave
00:18:09.960 it. The matters of religion, throwing fatwas around, or for example, saying haram or halal,
00:18:17.400 my opinion is that, look, don't take from me. If I come to you and say to you, the issues
00:18:24.960 of fiqh, yeah? I can't come and say to you, I believe this ruling is halal, and I have
00:18:32.860 the evidence, so you believe that, whatever it may be. If I come and sit down, like I'm
00:18:38.000 planning on doing that, for example, let's say with a certain topic of student loan, with
00:18:42.400 Sheik Haytham, I'm planning on sitting down with the Sheik and doing a Q&A with him, asking
00:18:46.680 him. But if you see me coming out there and saying, for example, I read this book, or I
00:18:52.120 looked into this, or I spoke with the Sheik, and he told me this, that, don't take my word.
00:18:57.320 If I sit down with the Sheik, and I'm doing a Q&A with the Sheik, I'm conveying to you
00:19:01.320 what he's telling me, then you're listening, you're just basically listening to him, I'm
00:19:05.420 just conveying, I'm just the guy in the middle. Go to the people, the scholars, yeah? The
00:19:10.120 scholars, and when I mean scholars, we're not talking about every Tom, Dick and Harry,
00:19:13.200 yeah? Go to scholars, the Sheik, people that have given their life to this, but take nothing
00:19:18.180 that comes from me, or any Tom, Dick and Harry. This is why, this is my opinion,
00:19:22.120 and this is what I want to tell you guys. Last point, there is two extremes. One extreme
00:19:26.940 is harsh. Everything is haram. It's haram. The only word they know is haram, haram, haram,
00:19:34.740 haram, haram, haram. Is this haram? None of us are perfect, yeah? So I believe that is one
00:19:39.860 total extreme, which certain groups, sects do that, yes? Now we have another extreme. This
00:19:46.320 extreme is, hey, we can do as we like. Nobody can say nothing, yeah? Basically, hey, I'm
00:19:53.640 going to go have a girlfriend. It's going to be on my vlog. You can't tell me what to
00:19:57.500 do, haram police. It's halal. Everything is halal to him. So we have one side, everything
00:20:02.460 is haram. We have the other extreme, everything is halal. So this is the two extremes I've
00:20:08.340 stayed from. Take the middle path. Okay guys, we went through the eight points. Hope you guys
00:20:11.980 have benefited. Don't forget, before you guys go, share this video with your YouTuber.
00:20:16.860 Hope they can benefit. This was a reminder to myself first. Share it with them. Don't
00:20:20.620 forget, we've started a new channel called Halal Dining, which we go around restaurants
00:20:23.820 all around the world and we check how halal they are, etc, etc. Do check the channel out.
00:20:29.980 Just type in Halal Dining. Don't forget to share this video with every YouTuber that you
00:20:34.640 know. Inshallah, they will benefit because it was a reminder to myself first. That's about
00:20:38.220 it from me. Have a beautiful day, Inshallah. Take care of yourself, guys. Assalamualaikum
00:20:41.740 wa rahmatullahi wabarakatuh.