“My Father Rejected me After Islam…” - A Christian Found Islam in Prison! @thestrongholdofsultans
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They send me to the worst maximum security prison in the state of Washington. I noticed a guy, always looking at me. He appeared to be a white guy. He had a long mustache. Stands up and he's walking straight towards me. And I'm like, okay, here we go. And finally I just turned and I... The guy says, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, no. Assalamualaikum." And I said, "What?" And he says, "Look, man, how about if I invite you to Juma?" The imam started reciting the Qur'an. And so what I did was, I went to the front row. I did this. And I saw muscle bound men, huge men. But when they were in front of their Creator, they became humble. When did Allah open my heart? It is when they made Sujood. That was it.
That was it. I said, "Omar, I will become a Muslim today." Assalamualaikum Brother Ali, also known as Maliki Clique. Thank you so much for accepting our invitation. We are very happy to have you with us and thank you for hosting us. I want to start by asking, who is Brother Ali? Can you tell us briefly about your life? My name is Ali. I'm 51 years old. I was born and raised in Southern California. And we live here in Oklahoma City right now. And I was raised an evangelical Christian for the first 19 years of my life. I became a Muslim 32 years ago, in 1991. And I'm a truck driver.
And what I do on the side is I have a channel, a TikTok channel called Maliki Clique, and I have about 372,000 people that are following me. I do dawah there. My number one thing that I wanna do with my channel is to bring Muslims back to Islam. Because a lot of people, they don't think that they're worthy of Islam, because they have strayed away from it. And I'm telling them, Allah is merciful, so come back. Even if you're not praying or you're not living the lifestyle that you're supposed to, come back. It's okay. How was your life in regards to faith? I believed in Christianity and in Jesus as being God and the Son of God. Because that's the way I was raised.
What was the thing that made you question your beliefs? So I guess I should begin at the beginning of my evangelical journey. So what happened was, my parents got a divorce when I was one years old. They were very young. So, I used to live with my mother. So, one summer I was visiting my father and he said, "We're going to go to church." Well, with my mother, we never went to church. Maybe Christmas, maybe Easter, twice a year. Or something was going bad in our lives, we would go to church, right? So, this time was different. When I visited my dad, he told me that he had given his life to Christ. And that's something that I'd never heard in my life.
What do you mean, giving your life to Christ? And he started talking about the blood of Jesus, and I'm saved, and this and that. And I'm seven years old. I'm a seven year old boy thinking, "What is he talking about?" And so, my father was like, "Let me show you what I'm talking about." So we went to the church. And even before we got inside of the church, we were right outside of the door, and I heard screaming and yelling, and music and crying. I actually ran out of the church. I said, "This is scaring me. There's no way I can be a part of this." So, my father chased after me. "No, no, no, this is..." You know? And he kind of broke it down to me, what they're doing.
But me, as a seven year old, I never understood it. I always believed in God, since day one. I have never had a moment in my life of, "Hm, what if there was never a God?" I've never had that problem in my heart. I'm reading the Bible, and I'm reading a particular verse about Jacob where Jacob says... The first verse that I read was, "No man can see God and live after that." And I'm thinking, but people call Jesus God, and they all saw Jesus. And no one died looking at Jesus. So, the verse was, "No man can look at God and live after." I turned the page to another verse, another story of Jacob. Not only does Jacob see God, he is wrestling God.
He is a wrestling match, has God by the thigh and says to God, "I will not let you go until you bless me." Okay, wait a minute. You just said that if you even see God, that no man can live after that. Okay, so why is Jacob living after that? And why does God have a form that you can hold on to? And why can't God, being all powerful, pull away from Jacob? The story goes on. So what did I do? 14 year old me, raised my hand. The pastor came over and said, "How can I help you?" I showed him the two verses and his reaction was, "Hm, I didn't even know that that was in the Bible." And I said, I kind of... What? But you're the Bible pastor.
You're the one that's supposed to be teaching us the Bible. And as a 14 year old boy, I asked him, "How do I rectify this? "How do I make sense of this? How do I live and believe as a Christian after reading this contradiction?" And then how did your life go afterwards, and how did your journey towards Islam begin? I moved away from my father's house, back with my mother. And what that meant is, virtually, no religion, do whatever you want, basically. What happened afterwards is I just floated through life believing in God, but not in Christianity, not in the Trinity, not in Jesus being God or the Son of God. And I just floated. And I got around a group of bad people.
I was just wandering aimlessly. I had no moral compass because no religion could, or Christianity in particular, could not prove itself. So I just held on to that. I guess you could call it monotheism without direction, without a compass. That's how I existed. So I got around these people and I was 19 years old. And one night we were doing things that we were not supposed to be doing. And one of my so-called friends said, "I know a place that we can rob, so everybody get their pistols and let's go." Now, important thing to remember here is I had a job, I had money in my account. I didn't need to steal. But there was something missing in my life. There was no God in my life.
There was no structure in my life, is what I want to say. And I did it. If somebody asked me, why did you do the robbery, the armed robbery? I'll tell you, excitement. Because I was empty. There was nothing in me. I had nobody telling me... There was no consequences. There was no belief. I was barely hanging on. And so, we did the robbery. And 24 hours later, we were arrested. I had never been arrested or spent a day in jail my whole life. As Towards Eternity, we need your support. We are a charity organization that aims to spread the message of Islam to the entire world in ten languages.
With your support, you can help people convert to Islam, give up harams, start praying, wear hijab, learn to read the Qur'an, and so on. And get your share from all these good deeds, Inshallah. Donate to Towards Eternity and don't miss this golden opportunity. I didn't have a pistol. I didn't have a gun. I didn't hold anybody hostage or point a gun or anything. All I did was transport the computers, the jewelry, the money into the car. And so, the lawyer came to me and said, "You're looking at about 8 to 10 years." What are you talking about? Maximum security prison, 8 to 10 years? I walked around with outlaws, with animals, with beasts. And I was myself a beast. I just didn't care anymore.
I just needed something in my life to fill it. They sent me to the Gladiator School, the worst maximum security prison in the state of Washington. The name of that prison was Walla Walla. So the day that I got into Walla Walla, I was scared. I was 19 years old. I had never been to jail in my life. I didn't know the jail culture, I was lost. There's supermax and then there's maximum security right underneath that. The supermax is for terrorists and, you know, serial killers and stuff like that. So they put me in maximum security prison in Walla Walla. So, the first day I got to prison, the White Aryan Brotherhood, that's a prison gang, came up to me and said, "Well, you look white to me.
Are you full white?" And I said, "Me?" Like... Maybe I had 1 or 2 white friends. Most of them were Filipino or Black or Hispanic. The question was strange to me, but I answered, "Yeah, I'm full white. Sure." He said "Okay!" And so he had three other guys with him, and he took my blankets and my towels and carried everything for me to my cell, and made an announcement as we walked down the tier. He's with us, you know, there's a new white guy. Going down that, "This guy is with us. Okay?" To let the other people know. So, I carried on for months and months. I was asked if I wanted to go to church. I said no. Do you want a Bible? I said no. I found myself reading about other religions.
I read about Judaism. I read about Hinduism for about five minutes. I read a book and I just said, this is the... Nope, no way. Fast forward, I would say six, seven, eight months. I'm walking the yard by myself, which is a very dangerous thing to do. Kept on walking, you know, for weeks this happened. I noticed a guy always looking at me. He appeared to be a white guy. He had a long mustache. He appeared to be white, but he was sitting with Black people. He would always look at me, and I seriously thought that he had a problem with me. I seriously thought that we were going to have problems. So one day I'm walking around the track and that same person stands up off of the tables in the yard.
Looking at me the whole time. He's got about five African-American people with him, behind him. And he's walking straight towards me. And I'm like, okay, here we go. This is how it happens. I'm going to get jumped. They got a problem with me. And I've always promised my mother. So, they went straight for me all the way until they got about ten yards from me. And finally I just turned and I squared up because I knew what was going to happen. The guy says, "Whoa, whoa, whoa. No, nothing like that. Assalamu alaikum." And I said, "What?" And he looked behind him, and he finally, you know, okay, this doesn't look good.
I have people behind me, musclebound men behind me, and we're just charging one man. And he said, "I'd just like to talk to you for a minute." And I said, "As long as it's with you alone, yeah." And he said, "My bad, that looks wrong. And we approached you wrong. We apologize, that's our bad." And so we walked the track together, and I learned that his name was Omar and that he was from Turkey. And so, okay, you're the first person that I've met from Turkey. And he said, "What do you know about Islam?" And I had absolutely no clue what that word is. And I even told them, "Islam?
How do you say that in English?" He said, "Islam is a religion." And I said, "Oh, I didn't know that." He made dawah to me about what Islam was. And we talked and we talked and we talked. And finally one day he brought a book, and it was wrapped up in a towel. And he said, kind of sternly, he said, "Look, man, I'm going to give you a book, but you have to make sure that you keep it clean and you don't disrespect it. You don't put it on the ground. Okay? Do I have your word? Because I'm going to give you a book." I said, "Sure, Omar, what's the book?" And he uncovered it and it was a blue Qur'an with gold writing. And he said, "This is a gift from me to you.
This is now your Qur'an." And I wrapped it up and I said, "Well, thank you, Omar, thank you so much." I went back to my cell and I opened this book. And the first thing that I did is, I went to the index and I looked for names. Moses, Jesus appeared, Abraham, Isaac, Joseph, Jacob, all of these. And my first intuition was, oh God, it's just like the Bible. And if it's just like the Bible, it's not true. It's going to have these contradictions. It's the same people, it's the... Oh man, what Omar was saying was good, and now, I don't know. So I opened the Qur'an and I read the story. The first chapter that I opened up was al-Rahman, and I read it and I just...
The language, the delivery of the Qur'an was so unique to me, and I just thought, the way this book is worded is amazing. And so I read the Qur'an and I read the Qur'an. And so, the third day, I really got into the Qur'an. Like, I was committed to reading it for hours. And so what happened was, my cellmate said, "Hey man, hey, aren't you going to dinner?" I said, "Dinner?" And I was looking up from my Qur'an. I said, "Dinner?" And he said, "Yeah, you've been reading that book since breakfast. Are you going to eat or no?" I said, "Yeah, I probably should." I closed the Qur'an and I went and I just thought, "Wow, I'm really into this book." Why? Why? This is not Christianity.
But it's saying kind of the same thing. What's going on? Weeks passed, maybe even 2 or 3 months. Omar approaches me and he says, "Look man, how about if I invite you to Juma?" And I said, "Omar, Juma? I have no idea what you're talking about." "Yeah, Juma, this is... Sunday prayer, you know that. Okay. For the Muslims, it's on Friday. Do you want to come?" And so I said, "Sure, I'm going to have to fly a kite, which is permission from the commanding officer to participate in that." So I did, I wrote a kite. "I would like to attend Juma services." Not more than a couple hours after my request to go to Juma, the CO wanted to see me personally.
I said, "Okay, what's this all about?" So I entered the office of the CO and he held up my request. "Is this you? Did you make this request?" I looked at it and I said, "Yeah, it sure is." "You want to go to Juma with the Blacks?" I said, "Whether they're Black, Hispanic, Asian, yes, I would like to see what they do, their methodology, how they worship. Yes." It wasn't strange to me to want to go and know other cultures and people ever in my life. So he said, "Look, man, I'm going to be honest with you. If you want to go and be with these..." And he called them n-words. "If you want to go and be with these people, just know one thing.
When they jump you, and when they beat you up, we're not going to protect you. I'm not going to send my guards in there for you if you want to be with these n-words." And I just said, "Yeah, regardless, I want to go." He just signed it and said, "Your funeral. There you go. Go to Juma." I had never been afraid of Black people or Hispanic or any people, especially religious people. I just wanted to know. So as a Christian, my first time to Juma was as a Christian, not a Muslim. And so here I am, a white guy, surrounded with black people, and one Turkish guy who had been making dawah to me for months. And the first thing that I experienced in Juma was the adhan.
And the first time that I heard the adhan, it just, it hit me, it hit my heart. And I turned to Omar and I said, "Omar, what is this beautiful song that this man is singing?" And he said, "Not a song. It's the call of prayer." And so he basically translated what he said, and I was just like, so beautiful, so beautiful. He said, "Hey, let me show you about what we do. We're going to make wudu." So he taught me how to make wudu, and I made wudu as a Christian. Just get the whole experience, right? So I made wudu as a Christian, as a mushrik. And I sat down with Omar. And so we listened to the Khutba. And it came time for us to pray. And so Omar said, "Listen, sit over to the side.
We're going to pray." And I said, "Wait a minute, before we, I have some questions. When you guys pray, you say that the imam stays in the front and he reads the Qur'an. Does he read from the book? Does he face you, and he reads to the people? He said, "No, this imam has memorized the Qur'an, all of it." And I said, "Omar, that book like this thick that you gave me, he's memorized the whole thing?" He said, "Yeah, and millions of people, Muslims have memorized it, from seven years old, ten years old, 12 years old, women, men, everybody." And I just thought, wow. And everything went through my mind. These people are different. They are calling us to the prayer in a beautiful melodic voice.
These people have washed their hands, their elbow, their arms, their face, their feet before they worship God. We never did that. How come we didn't do that as Christians? How come we didn't have like a, you know... Why did we have guitars and drums and singing inside of the church? Why couldn't we have this? This is beautiful. And it always felt organic to me. Normal, as a matter of fact. As a Christian attending Juma, I felt so at home while not being a Muslim at the same time. And so Omar said, "Listen, okay, stand over here or sit over here. We're going to line up in rows and we're going to pray, and then we'll talk after.
If you have any questions, you can do that." I said, "Perfect." They began to pray. The imam started reciting the Qur'an, and I just, again, I just thought, "He's not only reading, he's reciting." These people have loved each other and called each other to prayer. But if anybody wants to know. Ali, what turned your heart? When did it happen? How did it happen? Why did it happen? Easy. I'll tell you. With all of this known that I mentioned before. The adhan, the memorizing of the Qur'an, you know, all of these things. The thing that impressed me the most, the thing that switched my heart. I got up from my place. I probably shouldn't have.
He told me to stay there, but I was there for the experience. I wanted everything. And so what I did was, I went to the front row, and I did this. I looked down the first row of the prayer. Because I wanted to see if it was real. Is it real with these people? How did they look when they worship? And I saw musclebound men, huge men. But when they were in front of their Creator, they became humble, and all of that hardness was gone. Eyes were lowered, in complete humility to their Creator. And I just, I stood there like this, and looked at them and I said, "Whoa." But again, if anybody wants to know the moment, when did Allah open my heart? It is when they made Sujood.
When they made Sujood and I saw them. Called the adhan, washed themselves, recite the Holy Qur'an, become humble, and then put their face on the ground. That was it. That was it. That was the moment where I said, "These people are not normal, and I have never in my life seen worship of God until now, today." They have done everything from, like I said, the adhan, wudu, reciting the Qur'an, and then they're worshipping. That's it. I said, "Omar, I have to become a Muslim today, and you are just going to have to... I don't know if there's any other white Muslims on the planet, but today you're going to make an exception for me. I'm not leaving here, except if you teach me how to be a Muslim.
I will become a Muslim today." I didn't know that there was other white Muslims on the planet. I thought it was for, you know... Because all I saw was Black people and one Turkish guy. I didn't know Islam at all. And he himself put his head down and began to cry. Omar, and he said, "Subhanallah, Subhanallah. Of course you can become a Muslim." And so on that day, Juma 1991, I said, And I was a Muslim. So how did you feel when you took your Shahada? Can you take us to those moments? It was surreal. It was not only a brotherhood. It was as if I was with God for the first time in my life. Like, really with God. Like, really in the presence of God.
Really, a part of something real that was worshiping God. Right here, this moment, this is why I was born. This is why I'm supposed to be alive, to be a Muslim. How did you tell your parents about this, that you reverted to Islam? What was the reaction? It wasn't good. I called my father, like I always did in prison. And I told him that I had become a Muslim. And my father, remember, he's super Christian and super strict.
He said, "You did what?" And I said, "I have become Muslim." "You worship the moon God?" "No, I don't worship a moon god or the moon, I worship one God, the God of Jesus, the God of Moses and Abraham." And he said, "No, you don't." "Listen, you're on this Islam..." And he said an expletive. And he told me, give me an ultimatum. He said, "Look, you know, your six figure income, your six figure inheritance, that's going to be gone. The things that you're going to inherit after me are gone." My family is in the petroleum industry, so very well off. And I said, "You're going to disown me?" He said, "After today, if you insist upon this Islam religion, you are dead to.
All of your inheritance, gone." And he said, "Son, don't test me. I will go to my lawyer tomorrow and have him change the will and you will be completely penniless. You will have no income whatsoever. Nothing from me. You will be dead to me. Dead to your brothers and your sister. You're done. So choose the words that you say very carefully. Now, will you leave Islam or will you stay in this fake religion?" And I said "Before I answer that, let me tell you something. I will obey you in everything except this one thing." And he said, "Why, before you're dead to me, explain to me, why?" And I said, "Dad, I have to make my own decision. There's something more than a 6-figure inheritance.
There's something more than inheriting property. There's something more after this life. And I don't care about this life. So when it comes to matters of salvation, you can keep your money. Give it to my brothers, my sister. Give it to charity, I don't care. I have to insist that I become a Muslim and remain a Muslim." And here I am, 32 years later, a Muslim. Alhamdulillah. So after that, I insisted upon becoming a Muslim and staying a Muslim, I got a letter in the mail about two weeks later. He had done exactly that. He had gone to his lawyer. The amount that I was set to inherit was $600,000. And that was back in the early 90s. So it was a sizable chunk of money.
So why would I put a price tag on... I don't care if it was $600 million. Look, you and I are going to be put in a grave, and we're going to be in front of Allah (swt). The one, the irresistible. And we are going to be, you know, questioned about what we did in life. And what about your mother and brothers and sister? So, my mother didn't understand. But she was supportive when the whole of my family disowned me. And they disowned me for 15 years. 15 years, nobody talked to me except my mother. I actually lived with my mother after I got out of prison for a couple of months. So when I got out of prison, I went to the masjid for the first time, like a real masjid, not in prison.
So, the first person that came in was the imam. I told him about my family and I told him about the inheritance. I told him about everything. What I didn't know is there was two brothers from Saudi Arabia that were behind us, listening to the whole story. And my life was just... I didn't know my place as a Muslim, as a white American Muslim. I didn't, because being a white American Muslim back then was not common the days before 9/11. And two of these brothers, one is Khalid and the other is Abdulrahman. Both of them approached me and said, "We would be honored if you would take your stuff, we have your own room with us at our house. You can be our guest. You will not touch your wallet.
You will be under full expense of us. We will take of whatever you... We will teach you Islam, everything." And I said, "Sure, okay." And so I moved in with Khalid and Abdulrahman. They taught me Islam. They let me live. Long story short, a year later I got on my own feet and I got my own apartment.
Khalid and Abdulrahman went back to Saudi Arabia, and when they went back to Saudi Arabia, someone said, "Do you know who these two were?" And I said, "Yeah, Khalid and Abdulrahman." He said, "But do you know who they are?" I said, "What are you talking about?" These two people that you've been living with for a year are from the Prophet (saw)'s family, and you have been a guest of Ahlul Bayt, basically. And you've lived with them and you learned your Islam from them." And I had no idea that I had been living with them, but they were the most polite, the most concerning people, the most compassionate people that I've ever met to this date in my life.
And I was living with them the whole time. And that was just to me, a gift from Allah, but that I didn't know until later. So after becoming Muslim, what other contradictions you found in Christianity? I mean, the biggest contradiction is the Bible itself, the whole thing. Why? The Christian Aqidah, if you will, says that you must confess with your tongue that Jesus Christ died for your sins, and you will be forgiven. Jesus, in the Bible it says "Nobody can attain Paradise or the Kingdom of God except through me." Except through Jesus. Okay, but there's a problem. Many of the Prophets, in fact, 99.9% of the Prophets existed before Jesus. So they could never know what he was saying.
His so-called Aqidah of, you have to profess that I will die for your sins. I wonder, as a Muslim and an Ex-Christian, Really, guys? How can you believe what you believe? Honestly, would you give Islam a chance? Would you, just as a human being, as somebody that is a son of Adam, somebody who is interested in the truth. You don't have to practice Islam. You don't have to be a Muslim. But won't you learn about who we are? Won't you learn about what Islam is? Won't you listen to us? And the answer is usually no. Like I said, they don't want to know. When we came to your house, we saw a really old Bible in the corner. Can you tell us why did you buy that? This Bible.
I bought it in an antique store. It's from roughly, I think 1825 or 1836, between that area. And the first thing about this Bible that I noticed was the first page. This is a map of Palestine. It's a map of Palestine, not Israel, which is very, very interesting. Also what's very interesting is I perused, you know, the verses. One of my favorite verses is Matthew 7, verses 21 through 23. And some of the verses were gone. They're just not there anymore. I looked for them and they're just not there. What are these verses all about? This verse is about, Matthew 7, verse 21. "Many will say to me on that..." And this is Jesus talking.
And this is another huge point about Christianity, and this is Jesus speaking. "Many will say unto me on that day, Lord, Lord..." Calling him God, Jesus speaking. "Lord, Lord, we used to pray in your name." In the name of Jesus. "We used to work miracles in your name, and we used to cast out demons in your name." In the name of Jesus, not God. What does Jesus say? "Get away from me, you evil doers, you lawless people, you workers of iniquity. Get away from me!" This is Jesus on the day of judgment, disowning his own people. Why? Because they didn't worship God. They did everything in the name of Jesus. The Christians have a response for this.
And the Christians say, but wait a minute, this is talking about false prophets. You mean like Paul, the one that invented Christianity? You mean Paul, right, when you say false Christians? But it's interesting that Jesus said, "You workers of lawlessness." But if you're praying in the name of Jesus, and you are doing miracles in the name of Jesus, and casting out demons in the name of Jesus, and Jesus is still saying, "You are lawless, you broke my law. How are you calling me God? Why are you praying in my name? There is no partners. Hear ye Israel, the Lord your God is one." Not three in one, not one in three, not father, son, Holy Spirit.
Why does Christianity have to be so mysterious and confusing? The Jews say, "Hear ye Israel, the Lord your God is one." The Muslims say "Lailahaillallah." The Christians say, "Jesus said, I am that I am." Why doesn't Jesus in the Bible say, "I am God, worship me, I am the one. I am Jesus, worship me." It never happens. But like I said to you before this interview, the more you read this book, the more it is impossible to be a Christian and call yourself a follower of Jesus (pbuh). Impossible. And what about the relationship with your father? How did he start talking to you after 15 years? My... I don't even know if we still talk. It's hard to answer this question when people ask me.
We talk, but there's nothing there. My family just doesn't want to see me. Alhamdulillah. The Sahabas, they went through the same thing. That's fine. It's rough. It's hard. It would be better, it would be more nice if I could have my family. Especially, you know, financial difficulties that I've had in the past. It would have been nice. But it's also nicer to depend on Allah (swt), and the 2 billion people that I call my brothers and sisters in Islam. After seeing your story and your posts on TikTok, has anyone been inspired and became Muslim? Many people on TikTok. Well, I've been Muslim for 32 years. On TikTok, I've brought six people to Islam.
One of those six people brought 125 people to Islam. His name is Rob, and he took his Shahada. An interesting story about him. I was doing a live stream on TikTok, doing just what we were talking about, And my brother Rob... And this is why I kind of want to talk about this. This is why it's so important how you act with people. He came on my live stream as a non-Muslim, and the first words out of his mouth is, "You know, I've been watching you..." And this is even on my YouTube channel. You can watch it. First words out of his mouth. "You know, I've been watching you." What did I tell you, brothers and sisters? Everybody is watching you, right?
What I didn't know is that my brother Rob, that came by chance. Not by chance. Allah (swt), it was meant to be. He was going to kill himself the same night as per his own story. He made a video as well, going to kill himself. And he just went on the dawah mission and brought 125 people to Islam in the period of six months. If you were given a chance to pray that you know it would be accepted, what would you pray for? A prayer that I do almost every single day. O Allah, give victory to the Palestinian people. O Allah, let us come together on beneficial knowledge. But mostly for the Palestinian people, for the Uyghur people, for every Muslim that is oppressed all over the world.
I ask that Allah (swt) relieve them. Not only relieve them, but give them victory over their oppressors and the tyrants that are over them. That's what I would wish for. Have you seen Prophet Muhammad (saw) in your dream? Twice. Alhamdulillah. And in my dream, I was walking on the sand in a windy path with rock all above me. And I looked to my knee level and I saw a footprint. And I said, "How strange that there's a footprint in the stone." And I said out loud in the dream, "Who put this here?
Whose footprint is there?" And I heard a voice behind me say, "This is the footprint of your father Abraham." And I said, "My father's name is not Abraham." He said, "The Prophet Abraham." And I turned around, and Subhanallah, there he was. Rasulullah (saw). And right before I got to him, I wanted to fall on my knees and hug him. But the dream ended. So, I woke up from that dream, longing to see him again in my dream. And many years later, I did. And I was in the desert, and I saw in the distance. He took my hand and he said, "I want you to meet other people." And he sat down, and I sat down right next to him. And then he said, "Now, look.
Here is Abu Bakr Al-Siddiq." And he said, "And over here is Umar ibn al-Khattab, and this is Uthman ibn Affan, and this is Ali ibn Abi Talib. And they all love you." And I just thought in the dream, why do they love me? I am nobody. Why do they love me? But Alhamdulillah, that was one of the best dreams that I've had in my life. I love you, Rasulullah. I love you. Brother Ali, thank you so much for sharing your story. We learned a lot from you and we got really inspired from you. Jazakallah khairan. May Allah reward you for all your efforts for this deen. Wa iyyak ameen. Thank you for having me. It was an honor.
That was it. I said, "Omar, I will become a Muslim today." Assalamualaikum Brother Ali, also known as Maliki Clique. Thank you so much for accepting our invitation. We are very happy to have you with us and thank you for hosting us. I want to start by asking, who is Brother Ali? Can you tell us briefly about your life? My name is Ali. I'm 51 years old. I was born and raised in Southern California. And we live here in Oklahoma City right now. And I was raised an evangelical Christian for the first 19 years of my life. I became a Muslim 32 years ago, in 1991. And I'm a truck driver.
And what I do on the side is I have a channel, a TikTok channel called Maliki Clique, and I have about 372,000 people that are following me. I do dawah there. My number one thing that I wanna do with my channel is to bring Muslims back to Islam. Because a lot of people, they don't think that they're worthy of Islam, because they have strayed away from it. And I'm telling them, Allah is merciful, so come back. Even if you're not praying or you're not living the lifestyle that you're supposed to, come back. It's okay. How was your life in regards to faith? I believed in Christianity and in Jesus as being God and the Son of God. Because that's the way I was raised.
What was the thing that made you question your beliefs? So I guess I should begin at the beginning of my evangelical journey. So what happened was, my parents got a divorce when I was one years old. They were very young. So, I used to live with my mother. So, one summer I was visiting my father and he said, "We're going to go to church." Well, with my mother, we never went to church. Maybe Christmas, maybe Easter, twice a year. Or something was going bad in our lives, we would go to church, right? So, this time was different. When I visited my dad, he told me that he had given his life to Christ. And that's something that I'd never heard in my life.
What do you mean, giving your life to Christ? And he started talking about the blood of Jesus, and I'm saved, and this and that. And I'm seven years old. I'm a seven year old boy thinking, "What is he talking about?" And so, my father was like, "Let me show you what I'm talking about." So we went to the church. And even before we got inside of the church, we were right outside of the door, and I heard screaming and yelling, and music and crying. I actually ran out of the church. I said, "This is scaring me. There's no way I can be a part of this." So, my father chased after me. "No, no, no, this is..." You know? And he kind of broke it down to me, what they're doing.
But me, as a seven year old, I never understood it. I always believed in God, since day one. I have never had a moment in my life of, "Hm, what if there was never a God?" I've never had that problem in my heart. I'm reading the Bible, and I'm reading a particular verse about Jacob where Jacob says... The first verse that I read was, "No man can see God and live after that." And I'm thinking, but people call Jesus God, and they all saw Jesus. And no one died looking at Jesus. So, the verse was, "No man can look at God and live after." I turned the page to another verse, another story of Jacob. Not only does Jacob see God, he is wrestling God.
He is a wrestling match, has God by the thigh and says to God, "I will not let you go until you bless me." Okay, wait a minute. You just said that if you even see God, that no man can live after that. Okay, so why is Jacob living after that? And why does God have a form that you can hold on to? And why can't God, being all powerful, pull away from Jacob? The story goes on. So what did I do? 14 year old me, raised my hand. The pastor came over and said, "How can I help you?" I showed him the two verses and his reaction was, "Hm, I didn't even know that that was in the Bible." And I said, I kind of... What? But you're the Bible pastor.
You're the one that's supposed to be teaching us the Bible. And as a 14 year old boy, I asked him, "How do I rectify this? "How do I make sense of this? How do I live and believe as a Christian after reading this contradiction?" And then how did your life go afterwards, and how did your journey towards Islam begin? I moved away from my father's house, back with my mother. And what that meant is, virtually, no religion, do whatever you want, basically. What happened afterwards is I just floated through life believing in God, but not in Christianity, not in the Trinity, not in Jesus being God or the Son of God. And I just floated. And I got around a group of bad people.
I was just wandering aimlessly. I had no moral compass because no religion could, or Christianity in particular, could not prove itself. So I just held on to that. I guess you could call it monotheism without direction, without a compass. That's how I existed. So I got around these people and I was 19 years old. And one night we were doing things that we were not supposed to be doing. And one of my so-called friends said, "I know a place that we can rob, so everybody get their pistols and let's go." Now, important thing to remember here is I had a job, I had money in my account. I didn't need to steal. But there was something missing in my life. There was no God in my life.
There was no structure in my life, is what I want to say. And I did it. If somebody asked me, why did you do the robbery, the armed robbery? I'll tell you, excitement. Because I was empty. There was nothing in me. I had nobody telling me... There was no consequences. There was no belief. I was barely hanging on. And so, we did the robbery. And 24 hours later, we were arrested. I had never been arrested or spent a day in jail my whole life. As Towards Eternity, we need your support. We are a charity organization that aims to spread the message of Islam to the entire world in ten languages.
With your support, you can help people convert to Islam, give up harams, start praying, wear hijab, learn to read the Qur'an, and so on. And get your share from all these good deeds, Inshallah. Donate to Towards Eternity and don't miss this golden opportunity. I didn't have a pistol. I didn't have a gun. I didn't hold anybody hostage or point a gun or anything. All I did was transport the computers, the jewelry, the money into the car. And so, the lawyer came to me and said, "You're looking at about 8 to 10 years." What are you talking about? Maximum security prison, 8 to 10 years? I walked around with outlaws, with animals, with beasts. And I was myself a beast. I just didn't care anymore.
I just needed something in my life to fill it. They sent me to the Gladiator School, the worst maximum security prison in the state of Washington. The name of that prison was Walla Walla. So the day that I got into Walla Walla, I was scared. I was 19 years old. I had never been to jail in my life. I didn't know the jail culture, I was lost. There's supermax and then there's maximum security right underneath that. The supermax is for terrorists and, you know, serial killers and stuff like that. So they put me in maximum security prison in Walla Walla. So, the first day I got to prison, the White Aryan Brotherhood, that's a prison gang, came up to me and said, "Well, you look white to me.
Are you full white?" And I said, "Me?" Like... Maybe I had 1 or 2 white friends. Most of them were Filipino or Black or Hispanic. The question was strange to me, but I answered, "Yeah, I'm full white. Sure." He said "Okay!" And so he had three other guys with him, and he took my blankets and my towels and carried everything for me to my cell, and made an announcement as we walked down the tier. He's with us, you know, there's a new white guy. Going down that, "This guy is with us. Okay?" To let the other people know. So, I carried on for months and months. I was asked if I wanted to go to church. I said no. Do you want a Bible? I said no. I found myself reading about other religions.
I read about Judaism. I read about Hinduism for about five minutes. I read a book and I just said, this is the... Nope, no way. Fast forward, I would say six, seven, eight months. I'm walking the yard by myself, which is a very dangerous thing to do. Kept on walking, you know, for weeks this happened. I noticed a guy always looking at me. He appeared to be a white guy. He had a long mustache. He appeared to be white, but he was sitting with Black people. He would always look at me, and I seriously thought that he had a problem with me. I seriously thought that we were going to have problems. So one day I'm walking around the track and that same person stands up off of the tables in the yard.
Looking at me the whole time. He's got about five African-American people with him, behind him. And he's walking straight towards me. And I'm like, okay, here we go. This is how it happens. I'm going to get jumped. They got a problem with me. And I've always promised my mother. So, they went straight for me all the way until they got about ten yards from me. And finally I just turned and I squared up because I knew what was going to happen. The guy says, "Whoa, whoa, whoa. No, nothing like that. Assalamu alaikum." And I said, "What?" And he looked behind him, and he finally, you know, okay, this doesn't look good.
I have people behind me, musclebound men behind me, and we're just charging one man. And he said, "I'd just like to talk to you for a minute." And I said, "As long as it's with you alone, yeah." And he said, "My bad, that looks wrong. And we approached you wrong. We apologize, that's our bad." And so we walked the track together, and I learned that his name was Omar and that he was from Turkey. And so, okay, you're the first person that I've met from Turkey. And he said, "What do you know about Islam?" And I had absolutely no clue what that word is. And I even told them, "Islam?
How do you say that in English?" He said, "Islam is a religion." And I said, "Oh, I didn't know that." He made dawah to me about what Islam was. And we talked and we talked and we talked. And finally one day he brought a book, and it was wrapped up in a towel. And he said, kind of sternly, he said, "Look, man, I'm going to give you a book, but you have to make sure that you keep it clean and you don't disrespect it. You don't put it on the ground. Okay? Do I have your word? Because I'm going to give you a book." I said, "Sure, Omar, what's the book?" And he uncovered it and it was a blue Qur'an with gold writing. And he said, "This is a gift from me to you.
This is now your Qur'an." And I wrapped it up and I said, "Well, thank you, Omar, thank you so much." I went back to my cell and I opened this book. And the first thing that I did is, I went to the index and I looked for names. Moses, Jesus appeared, Abraham, Isaac, Joseph, Jacob, all of these. And my first intuition was, oh God, it's just like the Bible. And if it's just like the Bible, it's not true. It's going to have these contradictions. It's the same people, it's the... Oh man, what Omar was saying was good, and now, I don't know. So I opened the Qur'an and I read the story. The first chapter that I opened up was al-Rahman, and I read it and I just...
The language, the delivery of the Qur'an was so unique to me, and I just thought, the way this book is worded is amazing. And so I read the Qur'an and I read the Qur'an. And so, the third day, I really got into the Qur'an. Like, I was committed to reading it for hours. And so what happened was, my cellmate said, "Hey man, hey, aren't you going to dinner?" I said, "Dinner?" And I was looking up from my Qur'an. I said, "Dinner?" And he said, "Yeah, you've been reading that book since breakfast. Are you going to eat or no?" I said, "Yeah, I probably should." I closed the Qur'an and I went and I just thought, "Wow, I'm really into this book." Why? Why? This is not Christianity.
But it's saying kind of the same thing. What's going on? Weeks passed, maybe even 2 or 3 months. Omar approaches me and he says, "Look man, how about if I invite you to Juma?" And I said, "Omar, Juma? I have no idea what you're talking about." "Yeah, Juma, this is... Sunday prayer, you know that. Okay. For the Muslims, it's on Friday. Do you want to come?" And so I said, "Sure, I'm going to have to fly a kite, which is permission from the commanding officer to participate in that." So I did, I wrote a kite. "I would like to attend Juma services." Not more than a couple hours after my request to go to Juma, the CO wanted to see me personally.
I said, "Okay, what's this all about?" So I entered the office of the CO and he held up my request. "Is this you? Did you make this request?" I looked at it and I said, "Yeah, it sure is." "You want to go to Juma with the Blacks?" I said, "Whether they're Black, Hispanic, Asian, yes, I would like to see what they do, their methodology, how they worship. Yes." It wasn't strange to me to want to go and know other cultures and people ever in my life. So he said, "Look, man, I'm going to be honest with you. If you want to go and be with these..." And he called them n-words. "If you want to go and be with these people, just know one thing.
When they jump you, and when they beat you up, we're not going to protect you. I'm not going to send my guards in there for you if you want to be with these n-words." And I just said, "Yeah, regardless, I want to go." He just signed it and said, "Your funeral. There you go. Go to Juma." I had never been afraid of Black people or Hispanic or any people, especially religious people. I just wanted to know. So as a Christian, my first time to Juma was as a Christian, not a Muslim. And so here I am, a white guy, surrounded with black people, and one Turkish guy who had been making dawah to me for months. And the first thing that I experienced in Juma was the adhan.
And the first time that I heard the adhan, it just, it hit me, it hit my heart. And I turned to Omar and I said, "Omar, what is this beautiful song that this man is singing?" And he said, "Not a song. It's the call of prayer." And so he basically translated what he said, and I was just like, so beautiful, so beautiful. He said, "Hey, let me show you about what we do. We're going to make wudu." So he taught me how to make wudu, and I made wudu as a Christian. Just get the whole experience, right? So I made wudu as a Christian, as a mushrik. And I sat down with Omar. And so we listened to the Khutba. And it came time for us to pray. And so Omar said, "Listen, sit over to the side.
We're going to pray." And I said, "Wait a minute, before we, I have some questions. When you guys pray, you say that the imam stays in the front and he reads the Qur'an. Does he read from the book? Does he face you, and he reads to the people? He said, "No, this imam has memorized the Qur'an, all of it." And I said, "Omar, that book like this thick that you gave me, he's memorized the whole thing?" He said, "Yeah, and millions of people, Muslims have memorized it, from seven years old, ten years old, 12 years old, women, men, everybody." And I just thought, wow. And everything went through my mind. These people are different. They are calling us to the prayer in a beautiful melodic voice.
These people have washed their hands, their elbow, their arms, their face, their feet before they worship God. We never did that. How come we didn't do that as Christians? How come we didn't have like a, you know... Why did we have guitars and drums and singing inside of the church? Why couldn't we have this? This is beautiful. And it always felt organic to me. Normal, as a matter of fact. As a Christian attending Juma, I felt so at home while not being a Muslim at the same time. And so Omar said, "Listen, okay, stand over here or sit over here. We're going to line up in rows and we're going to pray, and then we'll talk after.
If you have any questions, you can do that." I said, "Perfect." They began to pray. The imam started reciting the Qur'an, and I just, again, I just thought, "He's not only reading, he's reciting." These people have loved each other and called each other to prayer. But if anybody wants to know. Ali, what turned your heart? When did it happen? How did it happen? Why did it happen? Easy. I'll tell you. With all of this known that I mentioned before. The adhan, the memorizing of the Qur'an, you know, all of these things. The thing that impressed me the most, the thing that switched my heart. I got up from my place. I probably shouldn't have.
He told me to stay there, but I was there for the experience. I wanted everything. And so what I did was, I went to the front row, and I did this. I looked down the first row of the prayer. Because I wanted to see if it was real. Is it real with these people? How did they look when they worship? And I saw musclebound men, huge men. But when they were in front of their Creator, they became humble, and all of that hardness was gone. Eyes were lowered, in complete humility to their Creator. And I just, I stood there like this, and looked at them and I said, "Whoa." But again, if anybody wants to know the moment, when did Allah open my heart? It is when they made Sujood.
When they made Sujood and I saw them. Called the adhan, washed themselves, recite the Holy Qur'an, become humble, and then put their face on the ground. That was it. That was it. That was the moment where I said, "These people are not normal, and I have never in my life seen worship of God until now, today." They have done everything from, like I said, the adhan, wudu, reciting the Qur'an, and then they're worshipping. That's it. I said, "Omar, I have to become a Muslim today, and you are just going to have to... I don't know if there's any other white Muslims on the planet, but today you're going to make an exception for me. I'm not leaving here, except if you teach me how to be a Muslim.
I will become a Muslim today." I didn't know that there was other white Muslims on the planet. I thought it was for, you know... Because all I saw was Black people and one Turkish guy. I didn't know Islam at all. And he himself put his head down and began to cry. Omar, and he said, "Subhanallah, Subhanallah. Of course you can become a Muslim." And so on that day, Juma 1991, I said, And I was a Muslim. So how did you feel when you took your Shahada? Can you take us to those moments? It was surreal. It was not only a brotherhood. It was as if I was with God for the first time in my life. Like, really with God. Like, really in the presence of God.
Really, a part of something real that was worshiping God. Right here, this moment, this is why I was born. This is why I'm supposed to be alive, to be a Muslim. How did you tell your parents about this, that you reverted to Islam? What was the reaction? It wasn't good. I called my father, like I always did in prison. And I told him that I had become a Muslim. And my father, remember, he's super Christian and super strict.
He said, "You did what?" And I said, "I have become Muslim." "You worship the moon God?" "No, I don't worship a moon god or the moon, I worship one God, the God of Jesus, the God of Moses and Abraham." And he said, "No, you don't." "Listen, you're on this Islam..." And he said an expletive. And he told me, give me an ultimatum. He said, "Look, you know, your six figure income, your six figure inheritance, that's going to be gone. The things that you're going to inherit after me are gone." My family is in the petroleum industry, so very well off. And I said, "You're going to disown me?" He said, "After today, if you insist upon this Islam religion, you are dead to.
All of your inheritance, gone." And he said, "Son, don't test me. I will go to my lawyer tomorrow and have him change the will and you will be completely penniless. You will have no income whatsoever. Nothing from me. You will be dead to me. Dead to your brothers and your sister. You're done. So choose the words that you say very carefully. Now, will you leave Islam or will you stay in this fake religion?" And I said "Before I answer that, let me tell you something. I will obey you in everything except this one thing." And he said, "Why, before you're dead to me, explain to me, why?" And I said, "Dad, I have to make my own decision. There's something more than a 6-figure inheritance.
There's something more than inheriting property. There's something more after this life. And I don't care about this life. So when it comes to matters of salvation, you can keep your money. Give it to my brothers, my sister. Give it to charity, I don't care. I have to insist that I become a Muslim and remain a Muslim." And here I am, 32 years later, a Muslim. Alhamdulillah. So after that, I insisted upon becoming a Muslim and staying a Muslim, I got a letter in the mail about two weeks later. He had done exactly that. He had gone to his lawyer. The amount that I was set to inherit was $600,000. And that was back in the early 90s. So it was a sizable chunk of money.
So why would I put a price tag on... I don't care if it was $600 million. Look, you and I are going to be put in a grave, and we're going to be in front of Allah (swt). The one, the irresistible. And we are going to be, you know, questioned about what we did in life. And what about your mother and brothers and sister? So, my mother didn't understand. But she was supportive when the whole of my family disowned me. And they disowned me for 15 years. 15 years, nobody talked to me except my mother. I actually lived with my mother after I got out of prison for a couple of months. So when I got out of prison, I went to the masjid for the first time, like a real masjid, not in prison.
So, the first person that came in was the imam. I told him about my family and I told him about the inheritance. I told him about everything. What I didn't know is there was two brothers from Saudi Arabia that were behind us, listening to the whole story. And my life was just... I didn't know my place as a Muslim, as a white American Muslim. I didn't, because being a white American Muslim back then was not common the days before 9/11. And two of these brothers, one is Khalid and the other is Abdulrahman. Both of them approached me and said, "We would be honored if you would take your stuff, we have your own room with us at our house. You can be our guest. You will not touch your wallet.
You will be under full expense of us. We will take of whatever you... We will teach you Islam, everything." And I said, "Sure, okay." And so I moved in with Khalid and Abdulrahman. They taught me Islam. They let me live. Long story short, a year later I got on my own feet and I got my own apartment.
Khalid and Abdulrahman went back to Saudi Arabia, and when they went back to Saudi Arabia, someone said, "Do you know who these two were?" And I said, "Yeah, Khalid and Abdulrahman." He said, "But do you know who they are?" I said, "What are you talking about?" These two people that you've been living with for a year are from the Prophet (saw)'s family, and you have been a guest of Ahlul Bayt, basically. And you've lived with them and you learned your Islam from them." And I had no idea that I had been living with them, but they were the most polite, the most concerning people, the most compassionate people that I've ever met to this date in my life.
And I was living with them the whole time. And that was just to me, a gift from Allah, but that I didn't know until later. So after becoming Muslim, what other contradictions you found in Christianity? I mean, the biggest contradiction is the Bible itself, the whole thing. Why? The Christian Aqidah, if you will, says that you must confess with your tongue that Jesus Christ died for your sins, and you will be forgiven. Jesus, in the Bible it says "Nobody can attain Paradise or the Kingdom of God except through me." Except through Jesus. Okay, but there's a problem. Many of the Prophets, in fact, 99.9% of the Prophets existed before Jesus. So they could never know what he was saying.
His so-called Aqidah of, you have to profess that I will die for your sins. I wonder, as a Muslim and an Ex-Christian, Really, guys? How can you believe what you believe? Honestly, would you give Islam a chance? Would you, just as a human being, as somebody that is a son of Adam, somebody who is interested in the truth. You don't have to practice Islam. You don't have to be a Muslim. But won't you learn about who we are? Won't you learn about what Islam is? Won't you listen to us? And the answer is usually no. Like I said, they don't want to know. When we came to your house, we saw a really old Bible in the corner. Can you tell us why did you buy that? This Bible.
I bought it in an antique store. It's from roughly, I think 1825 or 1836, between that area. And the first thing about this Bible that I noticed was the first page. This is a map of Palestine. It's a map of Palestine, not Israel, which is very, very interesting. Also what's very interesting is I perused, you know, the verses. One of my favorite verses is Matthew 7, verses 21 through 23. And some of the verses were gone. They're just not there anymore. I looked for them and they're just not there. What are these verses all about? This verse is about, Matthew 7, verse 21. "Many will say to me on that..." And this is Jesus talking.
And this is another huge point about Christianity, and this is Jesus speaking. "Many will say unto me on that day, Lord, Lord..." Calling him God, Jesus speaking. "Lord, Lord, we used to pray in your name." In the name of Jesus. "We used to work miracles in your name, and we used to cast out demons in your name." In the name of Jesus, not God. What does Jesus say? "Get away from me, you evil doers, you lawless people, you workers of iniquity. Get away from me!" This is Jesus on the day of judgment, disowning his own people. Why? Because they didn't worship God. They did everything in the name of Jesus. The Christians have a response for this.
And the Christians say, but wait a minute, this is talking about false prophets. You mean like Paul, the one that invented Christianity? You mean Paul, right, when you say false Christians? But it's interesting that Jesus said, "You workers of lawlessness." But if you're praying in the name of Jesus, and you are doing miracles in the name of Jesus, and casting out demons in the name of Jesus, and Jesus is still saying, "You are lawless, you broke my law. How are you calling me God? Why are you praying in my name? There is no partners. Hear ye Israel, the Lord your God is one." Not three in one, not one in three, not father, son, Holy Spirit.
Why does Christianity have to be so mysterious and confusing? The Jews say, "Hear ye Israel, the Lord your God is one." The Muslims say "Lailahaillallah." The Christians say, "Jesus said, I am that I am." Why doesn't Jesus in the Bible say, "I am God, worship me, I am the one. I am Jesus, worship me." It never happens. But like I said to you before this interview, the more you read this book, the more it is impossible to be a Christian and call yourself a follower of Jesus (pbuh). Impossible. And what about the relationship with your father? How did he start talking to you after 15 years? My... I don't even know if we still talk. It's hard to answer this question when people ask me.
We talk, but there's nothing there. My family just doesn't want to see me. Alhamdulillah. The Sahabas, they went through the same thing. That's fine. It's rough. It's hard. It would be better, it would be more nice if I could have my family. Especially, you know, financial difficulties that I've had in the past. It would have been nice. But it's also nicer to depend on Allah (swt), and the 2 billion people that I call my brothers and sisters in Islam. After seeing your story and your posts on TikTok, has anyone been inspired and became Muslim? Many people on TikTok. Well, I've been Muslim for 32 years. On TikTok, I've brought six people to Islam.
One of those six people brought 125 people to Islam. His name is Rob, and he took his Shahada. An interesting story about him. I was doing a live stream on TikTok, doing just what we were talking about, And my brother Rob... And this is why I kind of want to talk about this. This is why it's so important how you act with people. He came on my live stream as a non-Muslim, and the first words out of his mouth is, "You know, I've been watching you..." And this is even on my YouTube channel. You can watch it. First words out of his mouth. "You know, I've been watching you." What did I tell you, brothers and sisters? Everybody is watching you, right?
What I didn't know is that my brother Rob, that came by chance. Not by chance. Allah (swt), it was meant to be. He was going to kill himself the same night as per his own story. He made a video as well, going to kill himself. And he just went on the dawah mission and brought 125 people to Islam in the period of six months. If you were given a chance to pray that you know it would be accepted, what would you pray for? A prayer that I do almost every single day. O Allah, give victory to the Palestinian people. O Allah, let us come together on beneficial knowledge. But mostly for the Palestinian people, for the Uyghur people, for every Muslim that is oppressed all over the world.
I ask that Allah (swt) relieve them. Not only relieve them, but give them victory over their oppressors and the tyrants that are over them. That's what I would wish for. Have you seen Prophet Muhammad (saw) in your dream? Twice. Alhamdulillah. And in my dream, I was walking on the sand in a windy path with rock all above me. And I looked to my knee level and I saw a footprint. And I said, "How strange that there's a footprint in the stone." And I said out loud in the dream, "Who put this here?
Whose footprint is there?" And I heard a voice behind me say, "This is the footprint of your father Abraham." And I said, "My father's name is not Abraham." He said, "The Prophet Abraham." And I turned around, and Subhanallah, there he was. Rasulullah (saw). And right before I got to him, I wanted to fall on my knees and hug him. But the dream ended. So, I woke up from that dream, longing to see him again in my dream. And many years later, I did. And I was in the desert, and I saw in the distance. He took my hand and he said, "I want you to meet other people." And he sat down, and I sat down right next to him. And then he said, "Now, look.
Here is Abu Bakr Al-Siddiq." And he said, "And over here is Umar ibn al-Khattab, and this is Uthman ibn Affan, and this is Ali ibn Abi Talib. And they all love you." And I just thought in the dream, why do they love me? I am nobody. Why do they love me? But Alhamdulillah, that was one of the best dreams that I've had in my life. I love you, Rasulullah. I love you. Brother Ali, thank you so much for sharing your story. We learned a lot from you and we got really inspired from you. Jazakallah khairan. May Allah reward you for all your efforts for this deen. Wa iyyak ameen. Thank you for having me. It was an honor.