Unknown Life Story of Mohammed Hijab! - “Many Threatened to K*ll Me!” - Towards Eternity
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If the trajectory continues as it is, then you have to kill 3 million Palestinian civilians in order to kill 30,000 Hamas fighters. I'm telling you, respond to my arguments instead of trying to tell me off like a little boy. Trust me, I'm not a little boy. In every single manner, I'm a bigger man than you. Anyways, I've got a few minutes left. Let me recite some Quran, because I'm done with this guy. Have you ever received death threats? Many people threaten me. Well, I wasn't going to let that change how I felt or give me anxiety or something like that. I give you 4 questions. I did the service, sir, of answering all of your questions. You didn't even answer one of mine. How dare you!
I know what the truth is. And the truth is there's one God and Prophet (saw) is the Messenger. If you bring that certainty to other people, there was such a... I felt such an obligation to do that, that it just ran in my blood. What is worship? It's the epitome, the higher point of submission, it's the epitome of love as well. If I have an ability here, and I have a passion, then when you add ability and passion, then you get results. And that's why and how I got into the dawah. Assalamu alaikum brother Mohammed Hijab, thank you very much for accepting our invitation. We are very happy to have you with us. I want to start by asking, who is Mohammad Hijab?
Can you tell us briefly about your life? Alaikum assalam, the honor's all mine. Honestly, it's a pleasure. You guys have been extremely hospitable, bringing me over here to beautiful country of Turkey and its excellent city. It's really the heart of the Muslim world and I have a lot of respect for Turkish people and Turkish culture. I really love, actually, the strength that I feel with the Turkish Muslims in particular. A bit about myself, you know, I'm a British-Egyptian, so I'm from Egyptian background. You know, I was born in 1991, in Saint Mary's Hospital, West London. I spent some time in Egypt as well, but the vast majority of my life was in London.
I lived in a working class environment, council estates and stuff like that growing up. And then I went to secondary school. I've done an undergraduate and a triple master's and PhD. Effectively, now I'm just doing full time dawah. Let's start with Mohammad Hijab's childhood. What type of childhood did you have? How was your relationship with your parents and siblings? In terms of my childhood, though, I mean, we did live a kind of rough childhood. And we lived in working class environment, in council estates, basically where the government subsidizes your living.
And we kept moving, moving houses, like, it was very unstable, because I think I went to about 5 primary schools, maybe 6 or 7 even, because we just had to keep moving house. It was temporary accommodation, moving from one estate to another estate, from one part of London to another part of London. And there was a little bit of instability in that because obviously, like, you know, you start making friends and then you make new friends and then you're detached and reattached and stuff like that. Maybe it gives you versatility and strength as well, but it was quite unstable from that perspective. And within that, I actually went and spent time in Egypt and lived there as well.
My parents, obviously, I lived in a single parent household with my mother, but I always had a relationship with my father. As I got older, I started re-establishing that relationship more and more, getting to know who he was really as a person and strengthening that bond with him. So I've got two sisters. Both of them are much older than me, actually, like 7 years and 14 years. So I'm the youngest child. I'm a boy, the only boy. I did feel a lot of anxiety growing up, though, as a child, like when I was seven, eight years old. I remember those times.
As a child, you get attached very quickly, and obviously in the same time period, that's when I witnessed, like, you know, my mom's divorce with my father, like this was at the age of 8 years old I was at the time when it happened. And I remember it very vividly, you know, I remember that happening very vividly. I remember all these kinds of events very, very... Even though I was like, you know, 7 or 8 years old at the time. But kind of these events, which are more painful in nature, I think they're more memorable. And there was a bit of a pain and stuff. But because my mom was there and my, you know, my older sisters as well, very, very supportive.
I always felt like, you know, I had a belonging. Obviously my mom got remarried, so I was reintroduced to, like, her husbands and stuff like that. And I formed attachments to them. So yeah, when I was younger and stuff, I did have those attachments to my mother's husband. But I knew who my father was, I knew who he was, and he was my father, so I always made that clear. I never called him "Dad" or anything like that, you know? And, um, yeah, there was that as well. What about your religious upbringing? Did your parents, were your parents Muslim and raised you as a Muslim? My parents were both Muslim, Alhamdulillah. My mom did definitely raise me up a Muslim. She taught me how to pray.
She taught me how to do salah and memorise parts of the Quran and stuff like. And you know, the extended family was... A lot of them were very, very religious, like, and there was degrees, but some of them very, very religious and still are. So what about yourself? Were you practicing? Were you devout? I became practicing, I think around, like, anything between 14 to 17. That's when I was going through my journey. Like, I did have a period where I was going through like, kind of doubts. That was the time period where there was questions and I wanted to know, like, what is this, you know?
And it coincided with a time period where I think, because my mother then got divorced to the husband, the new husband, right, when I was 14 years old. When he left the house, I felt a bit of instability. Once again, like, you know, when I was younger, it happened when I was 8 years old. Now it's happening again when I was 14. And once an attachment has been formed, once again, the detachment has happened. So like... Once again, I don't know what happened, but I think it triggered some kind of almost an existential crisis, actually, at the age of 14. But I remember it very vividly because I was in Year 9, which is, in school, I was in Year 9, right before the GCSE time period.
And it gave me a little bit of time to actually look and investigate. So that time period, just to bring it back to the point, was really a time period where there was a lot of soul searching going on. I did want to know what was the truth. I quickly came to the conclusion Christianity wasn't the truth. I just thought like, I mean, who believes this stuff? Like, as a child, I really, honestly thought... I watched a few videos from Ahmed Deedat. After the third or fourth debate, I was totally convinced. And I saw these pastors and priests, they couldn't even justify the Trinity, they couldn't... Like the basic, basic, basic arguments.
But very quickly, just through that, and said, "I'm not going to be a Christian." You know, atheism never appealed to me. I always knew there's a God. But my question was, how do I prove that Prophet Muhammed (saw) was the true Prophet? That was the question I had. And so I went through it, and I looked at the Quran with a very, very, very critical eye for about three years. And I think a lot of the fluency that I have in responding to a lot of the shubhat comes from that time period of looking and researching, because I actually did the research for myself. I didn't do the research for the people.
And then when the time came and I saw people, young people like me, who are doing the same kind of soul searching, I almost feel like it's an obligation to give them how I felt of relief, when I found the answers myself to that. So I started investigating the Quran again, like looking at the tafsir and this and that, and I realized that there's an answer to every single question and shubha that people have. But then I started collating it from my own knowledge and stuff like that, and that became passionate, to be honest. This is when I became passionate about religion. When around 17 or 18, I became religious. I became very religious compared to my peers in school.
I was praying, I was, you know, really taking interest in the Quran. A lot of them were not doing any of that, so... I became one of the most religious guys in that sense. And it was a school, which was a very... It was kind of a rough school, to be honest with you, in central London. A lot of trouble happened there and stuff like that. People getting hurt and whatever. And I was in, it was in that area. Yes. And I never engaged in gang violence or anything like this. I never engaged in that. But it was very close to me. Like I saw it right in front of me. Do you know what I mean? And I was speaking to these kinds of people, and I was trying to make them religious, you know?
And I got my license, my driving license, when I was 17 years old. A lot of them, I would drive them around and I say, "Listen, you know, I'm not gonna let you pay for petrol, but just let me read this book to you, this book of Sirah, for example." And I had this small book of Sirah, and I had small book of some of the miracles of Islam and stuff. A lot of them became Muslim. So I started doing that very early on, because remember I said I had a kind of existential crisis at the age of 14, 15, 16. When that left me, and I think there was a pivotal moment when I went to Egypt and they were praying. it was particular Qari called Fareed Hatim and there was a beautiful, like...
In Alexandria, where I'm originally from, a beautiful, like, Ramadan Tarawih prayer. It was like a million people on the roads. You can probably see it online. It was shocking how many, it was like almost Mecca, Medina levels. And then I came back and I made dua. It wasn't an intellectual thing, and I came back so solid in my faith because I felt so relaxed. I felt so peaceful, so tranquil. I wanted to to disseminate that. I wanted to give that as a gift to my friends, to my close ones and stuff like that, because it gives you the best kind of grounding that you can have.
Having this feeling of, I know a certainty, I know what the truth is, and the truth is there's one God and Prophet (saw) is the Messenger. If you bring that certainty to other people, there was such a... I felt such an obligation to do that, that it just ran in my blood. Any time I get a chance to speak about religion to someone, I would do it. And there was no cameras or anything like that. I was doing it in schools, in playtime, in the car outside, having religious debates with Christians when I was 17 years old. And it continued up until the point where I was in undergraduate level in university, and usually they have these debates, and this was an official debate with a Christian guy.
Basically, I went and done that debate and it was very, very, very successful. Everyone was talking about it. I said you know what, this might be a talent I have. So then I've done another one and another one, another one. I realized that, you know what? This seems to be my calling, to be honest with you. And then that's when I realized that, you know, if I have if I have an ability here and I have a passion, then when you add ability and passion, then you get results. And that's why and how I got into the dawah. You mentioned that you grew up without a father after the age of 14, right? And I heard somewhere that the dawah became a father for you. Yes. What does that mean?
Yeah, because like, I mean, obviously my father divorced my mum when I was eight. The step father divorced my mum when I was 14. So now I'm looking for the father figure. And so I started looking online. So in that period of time when I was from 14 to 17, the figures that many of you have heard, like, Zakir Naik and stuff and Ahmed Deedat and all, I was looking at those, watching their stuff and consuming it quite rapidly, actually. There was lots of them. So I started watching and I started liking it, to be honest with you. Like, I know no doubt Nouman Ali Khan became a very big figure for me because he started translating the Quran and helping me understand it.
At that time, I didn't understand it. So he's in a way one of the one of the main figures, because he introduced me to certain things about the Quran that I didn't know, actually. And I think his service to the Quran is like, the best service in the English language that I've seen in the last probably 30 years. Yeah, it's phenomenal to the lay audience. It's brilliant work he's done and he had an impact on me. A lot of these guys, they had a big impact on me and I took it all in. I took it all in and it did actually help me solidify my faith, quite frankly. Now we want you to answer these questions shortly. Yes, sure. The thing Mohammad Hijab enjoys doing the most?
Reading Quran, spiritual stuff, spending time with family and friends, and traveling. I'd say these three things. The best decision Mohammad Hijab has ever made? The decision to spend time with the Quran. I think that's the best decision. The worst decision Mohammad Hijab has ever made? Not starting my memorization of Quran younger. The first thing Mohammad Hijab would do if he got to Paradise? I would like to meet the Prophets. The last thing that you searched on Google? Even... Are you talking about incognito mode as well? No. I'm joking. I'm joking. I think the last thing I searched... Can I check, can I check? Oh okay. Okay, I'll be honest. I researched Dua as-Safar.
Because the thing is, I know Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar, okay, سُبْحَانَ الَّذِيْ سَخَّرَ لَنَا هٰذَا وَمَا كُنَّا لَهُ مُقْرِنِيْنَ، وَإِنَّا إِلَى رَبِّنَا لَمُنْقَلِبُوْنَ which is the Ayah, but that next bit, for some reason I've never applied it to memory. like I don't have it memorized, all of that bit, that next bit yet. So I was I was traveling, obviously coming here. So I was doing dua, I haven't memorized that. I memorized majority of duas Subhanallah, in that book of Hisn al-Muslim, but this is not one of them. So I had to look at it. The moment where you felt extremely embarrassed, the moment that you could never forget your shame?
Well, I think there was a time where I was trying to slam dunk when I was like 13 or 12, 13. You were always tall? Yeah, I was trying to slam dunk. You were always tall? Yeah, some kid came behind me and tried to pull my trousers down. And he succeeded. And then he succeeded like 50%. And I had to quickly like, you know. Yeah. What is the most unforgettable memory that you had at Speaker's Corner? I actually tend to remember things that happened with other speakers. And for example, for me, one of the greatest ones, which I watched maybe 10 times, 15, just for laughs and kicks and enjoyment, was when there was a guy called Goodwin or Godwin.
I cannot remember his name, but he was one of the most arrogant Christians and he was debating Adnan Rashid. And this... If someone has not watched this, they must watch this. Amazing, very, very enjoyable watch, which is that he was shouting, Godwin to Adnan Rashid and Adnan Rashid is a master of the Bible. He knows this and he knows the comparative religion and stuff. And he was just smiling and letting him basically dig a hole for himself. And he was saying, David is not a prophet, because they were talking about what does it mean to be a prophet.
And he said, "David is not a prophet." "Show me," and he brought the Bible up, "where in this Bible David is a prophet?" you know, and then Adnan was letting him, letting him say what he wanted. And then before Adnan can do it, even a Christian, he came out and said, "David, who was a prophet," he read it from the Bible and everybody just, you know, gasped and made... I was there, I was watching it. I loved that moment. It really was one of the most enjoyable moments in Speaker's Corner for me. His career was finished as well? I think he left. I think he left. I think after that he didn't come back to the park. In the debates, when you have time left, you start reciting the Quran.
So why do you do this when you have, you know, arguments to maybe embarrass that person? The reason why is because the Quran itself is, is a very powerful medium by which and through which people can connect directly with the words of Allah. Sometimes stating the position is better than making an argument. Sometimes asking a question is better than stating the position or making an argument. So we have to vary the tools here, mix it up, and the Quran speaks for itself. If we truly believe that the Quran is the word of Allah, then why shouldn't we at least insert a portion of the Quran in our speeches?
So I think it's very important that people who do debates or that do dawah, they bring the Quran to the fore. So that's why I do it. Have you ever received death threats? Has anything bad ever happen to you because of what you do? Many people threaten me. For example, the escapades that I had in Leicester or Hindutva group, there was a lot of threats coming from that, but I knew that these were weak people, so that I wasn't really... Yes, there was vigilants, but there were weak people. I wasn't going to let that change how I felt or give me anxiety or something like that.
And then before that, the right wing racist English, like for example, the EDL and stuff like that, there there was a lot of threats and stuff from that. But once again, I didn't think that there were... They're not an organized gang in the same way as other people are in England. So I didn't feel like an imminent threat from them. They were hooligans and this is a different kind of threat. The most dangerous thing in England, I think, are actually organized gangs, because if some of those gangs want you dead, you could be dead, actually. So Alhamdulillah, I've never actually been threatened by that element of British society. And if it was, it would be a completely different game.
But since it hasn't been that, it's been relatively manageable. In your debates, in official debates and videos, we we always see your facial expression as serious. Have you ever had an emotional moment while you were debating? Lost control, maybe cried? I don't know. That's usually the debates I have with my wife in private. To be honest, debating people when you know, like, half a million people are watching or a million people are watching, you can control your emotions. Like even in that situation, sometimes I get a bit frustrated and angry. And these are usually some of the emotions I show. Excitement, anger, frustration, these kind of things.
Crying and stuff has never actually happened. But as I say, anger is one of those things that you try your best to control. And it's much easier to control your anger with people you don't know in front of hundreds of thousands of people than with your wife at home when she's, you know, no one's watching and there's no active audience. And so in terms of the arguments that I've had, which are most personal, they have been the arguments I've had with my wife, for example. I used to think that that was a training for the dawah. I used to think, "Subhanallah, just take it." And that's how I used to try and train myself and and condition myself.
Now I know the truth, and the truth is the opposite, that the dawah is actually a training for that. Because the dawah is easier. and so controlling yourself when there's no one there except Allah can see, and obviously you and the person, that's much harder for the average... Everyone has to deal with that. What are you going to do, are you going to explode? Are you going to shout, are you going to curse? Are you going to go physical on your wife? What are you going to do in this situation? So I realized that really the apex or the pinnacle of self composure and what they call temperance, self discipline, is when you're in private areas, not public ones.
That's where the real test is, and that's where the real fight is. When I watched your debate with in South Africa, she just... the other guy said something and Hamza Tzortzis just, you know, hold your shoulder. So just just calm down. So if he didn't were you going to attack him? I don't know why he did this. I mean, no, I wasn't gonna... You were just frozen, just shocked, you know? He just, something so absurd, and you just... "How can he say that?" And I think he wanted the... He was cutting me off and he was making, he was... He was the one complaining about me cutting him, and interrogate, interjecting.
So I was thinking, how can you cut me off after the speech you just gave about me doing the same thing you and your friend making these speeches. So I was shocked because I spoke for about 10 seconds and he cut me off. And I was explaining to him with academic references and I had thought about the answer, and I thought, this guy, maybe he is sincere. Maybe he wants to hear an answer from the Islamic tradition. The fact that he cut me off, I found quite rude actually. I'm quite animated person. It's very difficult for me to hide my emotions. I'm not very stoic person. Even when Allah sends Musa (as) to Pharaoh, as you know in the Quran, He tells him to speak to him softly.
But you, on the other hand, can sometimes speak very harshly when debating. Is your opponent worse than Pharaoh that you do this? Isn't there a possibility that you may distance the other person from Islam by breaking his pride? Aren't you afraid of the responsibility of this? You know, a lot of people use this ayah like, (Taha 20/44 ) فَقُولَا لَهُ قَوْلًا لَيِّنًا لَعَلَّهُ I mean, this very well oft quoted ayah in the context of dawah. "So both of you say to him, Moses and Aaron, a lenient word, maybe he will..." يَتَذَكَّرُ اَوْ يَخْشٰى (Taha 20/44 ) "Maybe he will remember or he will fear." Now one has to remember, this is in the beginning.
Musa was saying, was given this command when he first, in the first instance was told to go to Pharaoh. It wasn't... This was not the, the continual tone of Moses to.... In fact, if you look at throughout the whole Quran, Moses issues threats to Pharaoh, even though he was part of the oppressed, persecuted group. He was sarcastic to him. For example, he said, "And how do you, you know, confer your favor upon me "You know when you are the one who enslaved Bani Isra'il." So he was being sarcastic. He's being rhetorical with him, asking him questions undermining him to the point where he challenged, frankly, the magicians.
And then he came forward and there was a public gathering and a challenge and all these things. And then it became more, you know, more and more severe as he became more and more arrogant and rejecting of the signs. So that's the case study of Moses and Aaron. But even if you look at the verses in the Quran relating to the Prophet Muhammad (saw), you know, even there is You cannot remove that from the Quran in the sense that you have to fight the disbelievers. Obviously not all of them. This is a particular kind and be harsh with them.
But there is while in another verse وَلَوْ كُنتَ فَظًّا غَلِيظَ ٱلْقَلْبِ لَٱنفَضُّوا۟ مِنْ حَوْلِكَ ۖ (Ali-Imran 159) "If you are so harsh hearted, they would have run away from you." So there's a time to be galeez (harsh), and there's a time to be layyen (soft) . Now where do we distinguish between and how do we know when to be harsh and when to be soft ? And so Allah says in the Quran, وَلَا تُجَادِلُٓوا اَهْلَ الْكِتَابِ اِلَّا بِالَّتٖي هِيَ اَحْسَنُ اِلَّا الَّذٖينَ ظَلَمُوا مِنْهُمْ Surah Ankabut 46 "Do not have discussion or debate with which of the people of the book, except for the ones who oppressed among them." So how do we know who's oppressed among them?
The ones who rejected and keep rejecting, number one. And/or if they are mocking Islam, like, we know for example Nuh (as), he says اِنْ تَسْخَرُوا مِنَّا فَاِنَّا نَسْخَرُ مِنْكُمْ كَمَا تَسْخَرُونَؕ "If you mock us, we will mock you as you mock us." (Hud 38) So I think the way to know, it depends on what the person is doing. If they're coming with good energy, humbleness, if you know they're not trying to gratuitously insult you or your religion or your community, because you're not doing that with them, they're doing that with you. If someone says the F-word to you or to your mother or to your father, this means you're trying to hurt me and I haven't tried to hurt you.
If they start like this, then you can return the favor. If they don't start like this, then you shouldn't return the favor. You should be humble with them, just like they're humble with you. So we are being fair with them. That's all we're being. If somebody wants to make a career out of attacking Islam, make money out of it, then they must be humiliated, I think. I want you to be sincere and open with me. If you were to die right now, do you feel yourself closer to hell or Paradise? What do you think? Paradise. Definitely, because I think... Look, at the end of the day, it's... There is an ayah in the Quran.
It says, "The ones who hope to meet Allah." You cannot hope to meet Allah, and think you're going to the hell fire. You cannot, like, someone who's about to go into the battlefield. هَلْ تَرَبَّصُونَ بِنَآ إِلَّآ إِحْدَى ٱلْحُسْنَيَيْنِ ۖ (Tawbah 52) Like someone who goes, like, in Surah at-Tawbah it says "Someone who has the two good things, which is martyrdom or victory." You cannot have these feelings unless you think good of Allah. And the hadith says, أنا عند ظنِّ عَبدي بي (Sahih al-Bukhari 7405) "So you are as I am, as my slave thinks of me." If my slave thinks I'm going to take him to hell, why would his slave think he's going...
If you're doing what Allah has asked you to do, the prayers and the fasting and the five pillars, and you believe in the six pillars of Iman, why would someone actually think I'm going to hell? This could be problematic because لَا يَا۟يْـَٔسُ مِن رَّوْحِ ٱللَّهِ إِلَّا ٱلْقَوْمُ ٱلْكَـٰفِرُونَ (Yusuf 87) As Yakub said in the Quran, "Who would be the hopeless of the mercy of Allah except for the disbelieving people?" So if one thinks they're going to the hellfire, I would really question their hope of Allah's mercy.
It could actually be a form of disbelief, if they are doing, if they believe in Allah and they believe in the Messenger and they're doing what Allah has told them to do and the Messenger, it could be seen as qunut. It could be seen as a yeis. It could be seen as hopelessness of the of the mercy of Allah. For someone to actually believe in that. So in my case, Alhamdulillah, I don't have this. How does Mohammad Hijab spend his ordinary day? I do adhkar sabah al masaa I spend about 20 minutes each time, so if I do both, it's about 40 minutes frankly. But it could take 30 minutes. But it's about 40 minutes. I do the Quran. I have a quote of the Quran. I have...
Obviously every day is different in terms of what I study. So in the week I would probably study about 30 to 40 hours minimum. Whether it's I'm talking about PhD or like I do a lot of duroos and stuff like that. Almost every other day I have a different dars of a different sheikh. If it's not duroos , we called niqaash Like, literally, get the students of knowledge bring out a topic and then let them talk about it. Obviously the writing. Like, so, we've got a lot of writings that have not been published yet which are going to come up on Sapiens. In terms of the PhD, you have a supervisor, so you go and speak to the supervisor, you speak to other academics. There's a lot of that going on.
I put a quota in place for gym. My ideal is to go to do weights three times a week. Shadow boxing, where I do incorporate both kicks and punches, are very important. I try and do swimming in the week as well because it's better for the joints. And I take my kids to swimming. I spend a lot of time with my children and obviously my parents. I spend a lot of time with my parents, both parents, my siblings, my nieces. So I spend in the week, in the month... I've seen all my family members, you know, in the UK and then the ones in Egypt. I make sure to go and see every single one of them when I can. Obviously I don't go all the time, but I'm saying if I can, I will.
And I communicate with all of them, you know, like I'm big into family. I'm actually big into family. If a young man comes to you and says, "I really admire you, I want to be a knowledgeable Muslim just like you." What advice would you give him? I'd say there's a lot more you can do than what I've done, because there's a lot of things that I could have done better. You know, I would just say, look, start with the Quran, memorizing it, understanding it and stuff, because that's really the key to everything. If you see one of the themes that we've been speaking about in the debates and stuff like that has actually been the Quran.
So I would say really immerse yourself in the culture of Quran, even if you do a little bit per day, just make sure that you're doing Quran and you're going through the verses, you understand something new, you learn something new each day about the Quran. It will change your life. You'll never regret it. There's nothing better you can do with your time. So you would start with that and you'd have to have access to the classical Arabic, because this is the language of the Quran. So these two things come hand in hand. And then after that, obviously, then you got the legal schools of thought and the creedal schools and all that kind of stuff, which is very important as well.
But for me, a robust focus on the Quran is the most important thing that you can do.
I know what the truth is. And the truth is there's one God and Prophet (saw) is the Messenger. If you bring that certainty to other people, there was such a... I felt such an obligation to do that, that it just ran in my blood. What is worship? It's the epitome, the higher point of submission, it's the epitome of love as well. If I have an ability here, and I have a passion, then when you add ability and passion, then you get results. And that's why and how I got into the dawah. Assalamu alaikum brother Mohammed Hijab, thank you very much for accepting our invitation. We are very happy to have you with us. I want to start by asking, who is Mohammad Hijab?
Can you tell us briefly about your life? Alaikum assalam, the honor's all mine. Honestly, it's a pleasure. You guys have been extremely hospitable, bringing me over here to beautiful country of Turkey and its excellent city. It's really the heart of the Muslim world and I have a lot of respect for Turkish people and Turkish culture. I really love, actually, the strength that I feel with the Turkish Muslims in particular. A bit about myself, you know, I'm a British-Egyptian, so I'm from Egyptian background. You know, I was born in 1991, in Saint Mary's Hospital, West London. I spent some time in Egypt as well, but the vast majority of my life was in London.
I lived in a working class environment, council estates and stuff like that growing up. And then I went to secondary school. I've done an undergraduate and a triple master's and PhD. Effectively, now I'm just doing full time dawah. Let's start with Mohammad Hijab's childhood. What type of childhood did you have? How was your relationship with your parents and siblings? In terms of my childhood, though, I mean, we did live a kind of rough childhood. And we lived in working class environment, in council estates, basically where the government subsidizes your living.
And we kept moving, moving houses, like, it was very unstable, because I think I went to about 5 primary schools, maybe 6 or 7 even, because we just had to keep moving house. It was temporary accommodation, moving from one estate to another estate, from one part of London to another part of London. And there was a little bit of instability in that because obviously, like, you know, you start making friends and then you make new friends and then you're detached and reattached and stuff like that. Maybe it gives you versatility and strength as well, but it was quite unstable from that perspective. And within that, I actually went and spent time in Egypt and lived there as well.
My parents, obviously, I lived in a single parent household with my mother, but I always had a relationship with my father. As I got older, I started re-establishing that relationship more and more, getting to know who he was really as a person and strengthening that bond with him. So I've got two sisters. Both of them are much older than me, actually, like 7 years and 14 years. So I'm the youngest child. I'm a boy, the only boy. I did feel a lot of anxiety growing up, though, as a child, like when I was seven, eight years old. I remember those times.
As a child, you get attached very quickly, and obviously in the same time period, that's when I witnessed, like, you know, my mom's divorce with my father, like this was at the age of 8 years old I was at the time when it happened. And I remember it very vividly, you know, I remember that happening very vividly. I remember all these kinds of events very, very... Even though I was like, you know, 7 or 8 years old at the time. But kind of these events, which are more painful in nature, I think they're more memorable. And there was a bit of a pain and stuff. But because my mom was there and my, you know, my older sisters as well, very, very supportive.
I always felt like, you know, I had a belonging. Obviously my mom got remarried, so I was reintroduced to, like, her husbands and stuff like that. And I formed attachments to them. So yeah, when I was younger and stuff, I did have those attachments to my mother's husband. But I knew who my father was, I knew who he was, and he was my father, so I always made that clear. I never called him "Dad" or anything like that, you know? And, um, yeah, there was that as well. What about your religious upbringing? Did your parents, were your parents Muslim and raised you as a Muslim? My parents were both Muslim, Alhamdulillah. My mom did definitely raise me up a Muslim. She taught me how to pray.
She taught me how to do salah and memorise parts of the Quran and stuff like. And you know, the extended family was... A lot of them were very, very religious, like, and there was degrees, but some of them very, very religious and still are. So what about yourself? Were you practicing? Were you devout? I became practicing, I think around, like, anything between 14 to 17. That's when I was going through my journey. Like, I did have a period where I was going through like, kind of doubts. That was the time period where there was questions and I wanted to know, like, what is this, you know?
And it coincided with a time period where I think, because my mother then got divorced to the husband, the new husband, right, when I was 14 years old. When he left the house, I felt a bit of instability. Once again, like, you know, when I was younger, it happened when I was 8 years old. Now it's happening again when I was 14. And once an attachment has been formed, once again, the detachment has happened. So like... Once again, I don't know what happened, but I think it triggered some kind of almost an existential crisis, actually, at the age of 14. But I remember it very vividly because I was in Year 9, which is, in school, I was in Year 9, right before the GCSE time period.
And it gave me a little bit of time to actually look and investigate. So that time period, just to bring it back to the point, was really a time period where there was a lot of soul searching going on. I did want to know what was the truth. I quickly came to the conclusion Christianity wasn't the truth. I just thought like, I mean, who believes this stuff? Like, as a child, I really, honestly thought... I watched a few videos from Ahmed Deedat. After the third or fourth debate, I was totally convinced. And I saw these pastors and priests, they couldn't even justify the Trinity, they couldn't... Like the basic, basic, basic arguments.
But very quickly, just through that, and said, "I'm not going to be a Christian." You know, atheism never appealed to me. I always knew there's a God. But my question was, how do I prove that Prophet Muhammed (saw) was the true Prophet? That was the question I had. And so I went through it, and I looked at the Quran with a very, very, very critical eye for about three years. And I think a lot of the fluency that I have in responding to a lot of the shubhat comes from that time period of looking and researching, because I actually did the research for myself. I didn't do the research for the people.
And then when the time came and I saw people, young people like me, who are doing the same kind of soul searching, I almost feel like it's an obligation to give them how I felt of relief, when I found the answers myself to that. So I started investigating the Quran again, like looking at the tafsir and this and that, and I realized that there's an answer to every single question and shubha that people have. But then I started collating it from my own knowledge and stuff like that, and that became passionate, to be honest. This is when I became passionate about religion. When around 17 or 18, I became religious. I became very religious compared to my peers in school.
I was praying, I was, you know, really taking interest in the Quran. A lot of them were not doing any of that, so... I became one of the most religious guys in that sense. And it was a school, which was a very... It was kind of a rough school, to be honest with you, in central London. A lot of trouble happened there and stuff like that. People getting hurt and whatever. And I was in, it was in that area. Yes. And I never engaged in gang violence or anything like this. I never engaged in that. But it was very close to me. Like I saw it right in front of me. Do you know what I mean? And I was speaking to these kinds of people, and I was trying to make them religious, you know?
And I got my license, my driving license, when I was 17 years old. A lot of them, I would drive them around and I say, "Listen, you know, I'm not gonna let you pay for petrol, but just let me read this book to you, this book of Sirah, for example." And I had this small book of Sirah, and I had small book of some of the miracles of Islam and stuff. A lot of them became Muslim. So I started doing that very early on, because remember I said I had a kind of existential crisis at the age of 14, 15, 16. When that left me, and I think there was a pivotal moment when I went to Egypt and they were praying. it was particular Qari called Fareed Hatim and there was a beautiful, like...
In Alexandria, where I'm originally from, a beautiful, like, Ramadan Tarawih prayer. It was like a million people on the roads. You can probably see it online. It was shocking how many, it was like almost Mecca, Medina levels. And then I came back and I made dua. It wasn't an intellectual thing, and I came back so solid in my faith because I felt so relaxed. I felt so peaceful, so tranquil. I wanted to to disseminate that. I wanted to give that as a gift to my friends, to my close ones and stuff like that, because it gives you the best kind of grounding that you can have.
Having this feeling of, I know a certainty, I know what the truth is, and the truth is there's one God and Prophet (saw) is the Messenger. If you bring that certainty to other people, there was such a... I felt such an obligation to do that, that it just ran in my blood. Any time I get a chance to speak about religion to someone, I would do it. And there was no cameras or anything like that. I was doing it in schools, in playtime, in the car outside, having religious debates with Christians when I was 17 years old. And it continued up until the point where I was in undergraduate level in university, and usually they have these debates, and this was an official debate with a Christian guy.
Basically, I went and done that debate and it was very, very, very successful. Everyone was talking about it. I said you know what, this might be a talent I have. So then I've done another one and another one, another one. I realized that, you know what? This seems to be my calling, to be honest with you. And then that's when I realized that, you know, if I have if I have an ability here and I have a passion, then when you add ability and passion, then you get results. And that's why and how I got into the dawah. You mentioned that you grew up without a father after the age of 14, right? And I heard somewhere that the dawah became a father for you. Yes. What does that mean?
Yeah, because like, I mean, obviously my father divorced my mum when I was eight. The step father divorced my mum when I was 14. So now I'm looking for the father figure. And so I started looking online. So in that period of time when I was from 14 to 17, the figures that many of you have heard, like, Zakir Naik and stuff and Ahmed Deedat and all, I was looking at those, watching their stuff and consuming it quite rapidly, actually. There was lots of them. So I started watching and I started liking it, to be honest with you. Like, I know no doubt Nouman Ali Khan became a very big figure for me because he started translating the Quran and helping me understand it.
At that time, I didn't understand it. So he's in a way one of the one of the main figures, because he introduced me to certain things about the Quran that I didn't know, actually. And I think his service to the Quran is like, the best service in the English language that I've seen in the last probably 30 years. Yeah, it's phenomenal to the lay audience. It's brilliant work he's done and he had an impact on me. A lot of these guys, they had a big impact on me and I took it all in. I took it all in and it did actually help me solidify my faith, quite frankly. Now we want you to answer these questions shortly. Yes, sure. The thing Mohammad Hijab enjoys doing the most?
Reading Quran, spiritual stuff, spending time with family and friends, and traveling. I'd say these three things. The best decision Mohammad Hijab has ever made? The decision to spend time with the Quran. I think that's the best decision. The worst decision Mohammad Hijab has ever made? Not starting my memorization of Quran younger. The first thing Mohammad Hijab would do if he got to Paradise? I would like to meet the Prophets. The last thing that you searched on Google? Even... Are you talking about incognito mode as well? No. I'm joking. I'm joking. I think the last thing I searched... Can I check, can I check? Oh okay. Okay, I'll be honest. I researched Dua as-Safar.
Because the thing is, I know Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar, okay, سُبْحَانَ الَّذِيْ سَخَّرَ لَنَا هٰذَا وَمَا كُنَّا لَهُ مُقْرِنِيْنَ، وَإِنَّا إِلَى رَبِّنَا لَمُنْقَلِبُوْنَ which is the Ayah, but that next bit, for some reason I've never applied it to memory. like I don't have it memorized, all of that bit, that next bit yet. So I was I was traveling, obviously coming here. So I was doing dua, I haven't memorized that. I memorized majority of duas Subhanallah, in that book of Hisn al-Muslim, but this is not one of them. So I had to look at it. The moment where you felt extremely embarrassed, the moment that you could never forget your shame?
Well, I think there was a time where I was trying to slam dunk when I was like 13 or 12, 13. You were always tall? Yeah, I was trying to slam dunk. You were always tall? Yeah, some kid came behind me and tried to pull my trousers down. And he succeeded. And then he succeeded like 50%. And I had to quickly like, you know. Yeah. What is the most unforgettable memory that you had at Speaker's Corner? I actually tend to remember things that happened with other speakers. And for example, for me, one of the greatest ones, which I watched maybe 10 times, 15, just for laughs and kicks and enjoyment, was when there was a guy called Goodwin or Godwin.
I cannot remember his name, but he was one of the most arrogant Christians and he was debating Adnan Rashid. And this... If someone has not watched this, they must watch this. Amazing, very, very enjoyable watch, which is that he was shouting, Godwin to Adnan Rashid and Adnan Rashid is a master of the Bible. He knows this and he knows the comparative religion and stuff. And he was just smiling and letting him basically dig a hole for himself. And he was saying, David is not a prophet, because they were talking about what does it mean to be a prophet.
And he said, "David is not a prophet." "Show me," and he brought the Bible up, "where in this Bible David is a prophet?" you know, and then Adnan was letting him, letting him say what he wanted. And then before Adnan can do it, even a Christian, he came out and said, "David, who was a prophet," he read it from the Bible and everybody just, you know, gasped and made... I was there, I was watching it. I loved that moment. It really was one of the most enjoyable moments in Speaker's Corner for me. His career was finished as well? I think he left. I think he left. I think after that he didn't come back to the park. In the debates, when you have time left, you start reciting the Quran.
So why do you do this when you have, you know, arguments to maybe embarrass that person? The reason why is because the Quran itself is, is a very powerful medium by which and through which people can connect directly with the words of Allah. Sometimes stating the position is better than making an argument. Sometimes asking a question is better than stating the position or making an argument. So we have to vary the tools here, mix it up, and the Quran speaks for itself. If we truly believe that the Quran is the word of Allah, then why shouldn't we at least insert a portion of the Quran in our speeches?
So I think it's very important that people who do debates or that do dawah, they bring the Quran to the fore. So that's why I do it. Have you ever received death threats? Has anything bad ever happen to you because of what you do? Many people threaten me. For example, the escapades that I had in Leicester or Hindutva group, there was a lot of threats coming from that, but I knew that these were weak people, so that I wasn't really... Yes, there was vigilants, but there were weak people. I wasn't going to let that change how I felt or give me anxiety or something like that.
And then before that, the right wing racist English, like for example, the EDL and stuff like that, there there was a lot of threats and stuff from that. But once again, I didn't think that there were... They're not an organized gang in the same way as other people are in England. So I didn't feel like an imminent threat from them. They were hooligans and this is a different kind of threat. The most dangerous thing in England, I think, are actually organized gangs, because if some of those gangs want you dead, you could be dead, actually. So Alhamdulillah, I've never actually been threatened by that element of British society. And if it was, it would be a completely different game.
But since it hasn't been that, it's been relatively manageable. In your debates, in official debates and videos, we we always see your facial expression as serious. Have you ever had an emotional moment while you were debating? Lost control, maybe cried? I don't know. That's usually the debates I have with my wife in private. To be honest, debating people when you know, like, half a million people are watching or a million people are watching, you can control your emotions. Like even in that situation, sometimes I get a bit frustrated and angry. And these are usually some of the emotions I show. Excitement, anger, frustration, these kind of things.
Crying and stuff has never actually happened. But as I say, anger is one of those things that you try your best to control. And it's much easier to control your anger with people you don't know in front of hundreds of thousands of people than with your wife at home when she's, you know, no one's watching and there's no active audience. And so in terms of the arguments that I've had, which are most personal, they have been the arguments I've had with my wife, for example. I used to think that that was a training for the dawah. I used to think, "Subhanallah, just take it." And that's how I used to try and train myself and and condition myself.
Now I know the truth, and the truth is the opposite, that the dawah is actually a training for that. Because the dawah is easier. and so controlling yourself when there's no one there except Allah can see, and obviously you and the person, that's much harder for the average... Everyone has to deal with that. What are you going to do, are you going to explode? Are you going to shout, are you going to curse? Are you going to go physical on your wife? What are you going to do in this situation? So I realized that really the apex or the pinnacle of self composure and what they call temperance, self discipline, is when you're in private areas, not public ones.
That's where the real test is, and that's where the real fight is. When I watched your debate with in South Africa, she just... the other guy said something and Hamza Tzortzis just, you know, hold your shoulder. So just just calm down. So if he didn't were you going to attack him? I don't know why he did this. I mean, no, I wasn't gonna... You were just frozen, just shocked, you know? He just, something so absurd, and you just... "How can he say that?" And I think he wanted the... He was cutting me off and he was making, he was... He was the one complaining about me cutting him, and interrogate, interjecting.
So I was thinking, how can you cut me off after the speech you just gave about me doing the same thing you and your friend making these speeches. So I was shocked because I spoke for about 10 seconds and he cut me off. And I was explaining to him with academic references and I had thought about the answer, and I thought, this guy, maybe he is sincere. Maybe he wants to hear an answer from the Islamic tradition. The fact that he cut me off, I found quite rude actually. I'm quite animated person. It's very difficult for me to hide my emotions. I'm not very stoic person. Even when Allah sends Musa (as) to Pharaoh, as you know in the Quran, He tells him to speak to him softly.
But you, on the other hand, can sometimes speak very harshly when debating. Is your opponent worse than Pharaoh that you do this? Isn't there a possibility that you may distance the other person from Islam by breaking his pride? Aren't you afraid of the responsibility of this? You know, a lot of people use this ayah like, (Taha 20/44 ) فَقُولَا لَهُ قَوْلًا لَيِّنًا لَعَلَّهُ I mean, this very well oft quoted ayah in the context of dawah. "So both of you say to him, Moses and Aaron, a lenient word, maybe he will..." يَتَذَكَّرُ اَوْ يَخْشٰى (Taha 20/44 ) "Maybe he will remember or he will fear." Now one has to remember, this is in the beginning.
Musa was saying, was given this command when he first, in the first instance was told to go to Pharaoh. It wasn't... This was not the, the continual tone of Moses to.... In fact, if you look at throughout the whole Quran, Moses issues threats to Pharaoh, even though he was part of the oppressed, persecuted group. He was sarcastic to him. For example, he said, "And how do you, you know, confer your favor upon me "You know when you are the one who enslaved Bani Isra'il." So he was being sarcastic. He's being rhetorical with him, asking him questions undermining him to the point where he challenged, frankly, the magicians.
And then he came forward and there was a public gathering and a challenge and all these things. And then it became more, you know, more and more severe as he became more and more arrogant and rejecting of the signs. So that's the case study of Moses and Aaron. But even if you look at the verses in the Quran relating to the Prophet Muhammad (saw), you know, even there is You cannot remove that from the Quran in the sense that you have to fight the disbelievers. Obviously not all of them. This is a particular kind and be harsh with them.
But there is while in another verse وَلَوْ كُنتَ فَظًّا غَلِيظَ ٱلْقَلْبِ لَٱنفَضُّوا۟ مِنْ حَوْلِكَ ۖ (Ali-Imran 159) "If you are so harsh hearted, they would have run away from you." So there's a time to be galeez (harsh), and there's a time to be layyen (soft) . Now where do we distinguish between and how do we know when to be harsh and when to be soft ? And so Allah says in the Quran, وَلَا تُجَادِلُٓوا اَهْلَ الْكِتَابِ اِلَّا بِالَّتٖي هِيَ اَحْسَنُ اِلَّا الَّذٖينَ ظَلَمُوا مِنْهُمْ Surah Ankabut 46 "Do not have discussion or debate with which of the people of the book, except for the ones who oppressed among them." So how do we know who's oppressed among them?
The ones who rejected and keep rejecting, number one. And/or if they are mocking Islam, like, we know for example Nuh (as), he says اِنْ تَسْخَرُوا مِنَّا فَاِنَّا نَسْخَرُ مِنْكُمْ كَمَا تَسْخَرُونَؕ "If you mock us, we will mock you as you mock us." (Hud 38) So I think the way to know, it depends on what the person is doing. If they're coming with good energy, humbleness, if you know they're not trying to gratuitously insult you or your religion or your community, because you're not doing that with them, they're doing that with you. If someone says the F-word to you or to your mother or to your father, this means you're trying to hurt me and I haven't tried to hurt you.
If they start like this, then you can return the favor. If they don't start like this, then you shouldn't return the favor. You should be humble with them, just like they're humble with you. So we are being fair with them. That's all we're being. If somebody wants to make a career out of attacking Islam, make money out of it, then they must be humiliated, I think. I want you to be sincere and open with me. If you were to die right now, do you feel yourself closer to hell or Paradise? What do you think? Paradise. Definitely, because I think... Look, at the end of the day, it's... There is an ayah in the Quran.
It says, "The ones who hope to meet Allah." You cannot hope to meet Allah, and think you're going to the hell fire. You cannot, like, someone who's about to go into the battlefield. هَلْ تَرَبَّصُونَ بِنَآ إِلَّآ إِحْدَى ٱلْحُسْنَيَيْنِ ۖ (Tawbah 52) Like someone who goes, like, in Surah at-Tawbah it says "Someone who has the two good things, which is martyrdom or victory." You cannot have these feelings unless you think good of Allah. And the hadith says, أنا عند ظنِّ عَبدي بي (Sahih al-Bukhari 7405) "So you are as I am, as my slave thinks of me." If my slave thinks I'm going to take him to hell, why would his slave think he's going...
If you're doing what Allah has asked you to do, the prayers and the fasting and the five pillars, and you believe in the six pillars of Iman, why would someone actually think I'm going to hell? This could be problematic because لَا يَا۟يْـَٔسُ مِن رَّوْحِ ٱللَّهِ إِلَّا ٱلْقَوْمُ ٱلْكَـٰفِرُونَ (Yusuf 87) As Yakub said in the Quran, "Who would be the hopeless of the mercy of Allah except for the disbelieving people?" So if one thinks they're going to the hellfire, I would really question their hope of Allah's mercy.
It could actually be a form of disbelief, if they are doing, if they believe in Allah and they believe in the Messenger and they're doing what Allah has told them to do and the Messenger, it could be seen as qunut. It could be seen as a yeis. It could be seen as hopelessness of the of the mercy of Allah. For someone to actually believe in that. So in my case, Alhamdulillah, I don't have this. How does Mohammad Hijab spend his ordinary day? I do adhkar sabah al masaa I spend about 20 minutes each time, so if I do both, it's about 40 minutes frankly. But it could take 30 minutes. But it's about 40 minutes. I do the Quran. I have a quote of the Quran. I have...
Obviously every day is different in terms of what I study. So in the week I would probably study about 30 to 40 hours minimum. Whether it's I'm talking about PhD or like I do a lot of duroos and stuff like that. Almost every other day I have a different dars of a different sheikh. If it's not duroos , we called niqaash Like, literally, get the students of knowledge bring out a topic and then let them talk about it. Obviously the writing. Like, so, we've got a lot of writings that have not been published yet which are going to come up on Sapiens. In terms of the PhD, you have a supervisor, so you go and speak to the supervisor, you speak to other academics. There's a lot of that going on.
I put a quota in place for gym. My ideal is to go to do weights three times a week. Shadow boxing, where I do incorporate both kicks and punches, are very important. I try and do swimming in the week as well because it's better for the joints. And I take my kids to swimming. I spend a lot of time with my children and obviously my parents. I spend a lot of time with my parents, both parents, my siblings, my nieces. So I spend in the week, in the month... I've seen all my family members, you know, in the UK and then the ones in Egypt. I make sure to go and see every single one of them when I can. Obviously I don't go all the time, but I'm saying if I can, I will.
And I communicate with all of them, you know, like I'm big into family. I'm actually big into family. If a young man comes to you and says, "I really admire you, I want to be a knowledgeable Muslim just like you." What advice would you give him? I'd say there's a lot more you can do than what I've done, because there's a lot of things that I could have done better. You know, I would just say, look, start with the Quran, memorizing it, understanding it and stuff, because that's really the key to everything. If you see one of the themes that we've been speaking about in the debates and stuff like that has actually been the Quran.
So I would say really immerse yourself in the culture of Quran, even if you do a little bit per day, just make sure that you're doing Quran and you're going through the verses, you understand something new, you learn something new each day about the Quran. It will change your life. You'll never regret it. There's nothing better you can do with your time. So you would start with that and you'd have to have access to the classical Arabic, because this is the language of the Quran. So these two things come hand in hand. And then after that, obviously, then you got the legal schools of thought and the creedal schools and all that kind of stuff, which is very important as well.
But for me, a robust focus on the Quran is the most important thing that you can do.