Sunni, Shia, Ismaeli and Sufis what’s the difference? - Modibbo Bilal Jallo

Power, politics, and the inner life collide as we unpack Islam’s major branches with uncommon clarity. We sit down with Modibo to trace how a single question—Who succeeds the Prophet?—shaped centuries of belief and practice, and why those differences still matter today. From the companions and Ahl al‑Bayt to the quiet work of the heart, this is a guided tour through history, law, and living faith that respects the complexity without hiding behind jargon.

We start with the Sunnah and Hadith—how the Prophet’s words, actions, and character became a model for daily life—and then zoom into the early succession dispute that defined Sunni and Shia identity. Expect a candid, humane explanation of the caliphs, the role of family lineage, and how memory and authority shape ritual differences like prayer counts and which sources carry the most weight. Along the way, we explore Sufism not as a separate sect, but as Islam’s inner dimension: the training of adab (character) and the “four enemies” that test us—ego, desire, worldliness, and the inflamed self.

We also map the landscape beyond headlines: where Shia communities concentrated historically, how Ismailis and Twelvers approach esoteric meaning, and why Sunni legal schools (Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi‘i, Hanbali) differ on method yet share purpose. The most moving parts may be the practical ones—greeting etiquette, dress and modesty, the intention behind jewelry, and the call to spend in ways that lift people rather than signal status. In the U.S. context, we connect these teachings to reform and rehabilitation, honoring figures who translated timeless principles into everyday survival and dignity.

If you’re curious, skeptical, or trying to find your footing between text, tradition, and heart, this conversation gives you a map and a starting library. Tap play, take notes, and tell us where your perspective shifted. If this resonated, subscribe, share it with a friend, and leave a review—what question should we tackle next?

Chapters

• 0:11 Housekeeping and Support
• 2:04 Guest Intro and Topic Setup
• 3:31 Sunni, Shia, Sufi: The Big Three
• 5:35 Sunnah, Hadith, and Prophetic Model
• 8:15 Succession Dispute and Early Caliphs
• 11:27 Why Sunni Majority, Shia Minority
• 13:01 Historical Tensions and Ahl al-Bayt
• 18:15 Ego, Desire, Worldliness, and Shaitan
• 23:30 Are Shias Muslim and Greeting Etiquette
• 26:42 Practical Adab: Dress, Rings, and Modesty
• 29:14 Inner Alchemy and Guarding the Heart
• 32:28 Wealth, Simplicity, and Service
• 35:10 The Murid: Will and Intention to Reach Allah
• 36:56 Geography of Sunni and Shia
• 38:14 Sufism’s Roots and Esoteric Lens
• 40:34 Ismailis and Twelvers Explained
• 43:18 Prayer Counts, Sources, and Hadith
• 46:26 Garb, Pragmatism, and Qur’anic Nuance
• 49:08 Hadith, Seerah, and Chains of Transmission
• 53:06 U.S. Context: NOI, Moors, and Reform

Transcript

SPEAKER_04: 0:10

What's going on, everybody out there? It's Ron Brown, LMT, the People's Fitness Professional, aka Soul Brother, number one reporter for duty. Peace to the brother. Thank you for coming out this evening. Before we go into it, I would like for you guys to comment, share, like, subscribe. We have a super chat. We're trying to build this platform. This is a media platform for our people. For our people. This is a media platform for our people. To keep this thing running, we have to pay bills. We definitely have to pay bills every month. We've been coming out of pocket for this to give bring y'all these interviews. And you know, it costs money. Like I said, help us out. Contribute to this to the chat. We have a uh what you call it? Uh cash app. It's NYP talk show. NYP Talk Show. That's the that's the Cash App. NYP Talk Show. NYP Talk Show. We have the Brother Shea. Can you pronounce your name so I make sure I say it every time you come on?

SPEAKER_03: 1:21

Gotcha. Modibo, Bilal Jallo.

SPEAKER_04: 1:26

Modibo. So Modibo. Bilau Jallo. Peace to uh Ben in a building, A B the Light, uh Sheikh Modi B. Say it again one more time. My four brother. Modibo. Modibo. I'm gonna just start saying Modibo, Mo Debo. Would you like do you go by Mo for short or no? Hey, that works, man. You know, Islam. Islam. So uh um no one ever called you Mo?

SPEAKER_03: 1:58

Uh some of the Moors do, yeah, because they they peep the same connection that you did. They peep the same connection. So some of the Moors I know call me Mo.

SPEAKER_04: 2:07

Got you. All right, so so uh Mo is easier for me. Uh um let's let's go into it. So we're talking about Islam, right? And uh we're talking about the different sects of Islam. Now um let's go into that. So we spoke about the last time, Sufism, we spoke about uh what else? Sufism. We talk about um Sunni and Sufi. We kind of briefly went over it today. I want you to break down the different sects and um what are the what are the differences as far as the customs and things like that are concerned?

SPEAKER_03: 2:46

I mean, we got it. You know, in the in the Quran, Allah says that Islam is revealed in stages. If we were to translate that into English, the word stages is maqam in Arabic, but also means degree in English, if we were to translate it. So Islam is revealed in successive degrees. Sounds familiar, don't it? So with these uh initial three, because it always comes in threes, starts in threes, we get the Sunni, the Shia, and uh the Sufi. Um, I wonder if it was planned back then for all three of them to begin with the letter S. Yeah. And essentially, I think we touched on it a little bit in the last video that the Sunnis, uh, the reason they're titled as Sunni is because they embody what's called the Sunnah of the Prophet, peace be upon him. And that word sunnah, it means uh or it describes the things that he is uh quoted and reported to have done in his daily life, whether it's a singular occurrence or repetitive occurrence, the things that he said in his life, how he said it, you know, to make sure his message reaches the people and how he carried himself in his lifetime. So those are also three stages that we we get from him in the in the history and the story that technically we're not supposed to ascribe solely to him, right? Because he came to give us uh what's called adab in Islam or character, ethics, and morals, inner spiritual wisdom. And the way he teaches the adab is by embodying the 99 names of Allah. So he came with a degree of those 99 names that vibrate akin to us in the material plane. We can't vibe as high as Allah does with those names, but we can vibe to uh a degree in this plane of manifest in regards to those names. And most don't know that the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, also has 99 names. And the majority of those names are all uh action verbs, they're they're things we can do and embody. So to get in, like the the Sunnis they favored the uh the election of a caliph after the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, uh dropped the body. The Shia they favored a uh a succession through the Prophet Muhammad's bloodline. And most don't get into the numbers because you know they I hate to say it, you know, some will downtalk the Shia from the Sunni perspective, because the Sunnis make up about like 80 to 90 percent of the Muslim population, and the Shia they're big, right? Yeah, and the the Shia only make up about like 10 to 15 percent, give or take, depending on where you know those figures are uh taken from. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 5:43

I want to ask you a question. Now, the Sunnis they make up 80 to 90 uh uh percent of the population. Why is it why is it that?

SPEAKER_03: 5:54

It's uh it kind of all stems from the people that the Sunnis follow and their uh their doings and actions during the time after the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, might have been a little stronger and had more uh driving force uh in regards to the people than the teaching from the Shia perspective. So the um the Sunnis will uh follow the Prophet Muhammad and his companions. However, the Shia they tend to uh favor like personal interpretation, like how in Christianity you have to make the Lord your personal savior. So the Shia take it and they apply it to the person, right? And they follow the Prophet and his family. The Sunnis follow the Prophet and his companions, like Abu Bakr, Uthman, and Umar. The Shias follow the Prophet Muhammad and his family. And the the main difference between the two is just the disagreement over who's supposed to be the successor. That's that's really the main difference. Um, there might be small differences between how they act and how they pray, you know, minor specifics and whatnot, but that that's really the main the main thing. That's the crux of the whole division between the two. Is that the Sunnis were like, oh no, no, no, we're gonna follow the Prophet Muhammad and his companion because they were closest to him. And the Shias are like, we're gonna follow him and his family. He spent more time with the family, he was raised from that family, so we we get it straight from the source. Uh a stop for a lot, but a little bit of rough history, you know, some don't like to get too deep into, is that peace delay.

SPEAKER_01: 7:40

Yep. Peace, peace live.

SPEAKER_03: 7:47

It it came from a dispute where the Sunnis realized, like, no, we we're gonna make the next caliph come from uh like an election based off of the the the general consensus of the population. And the Shias were akin, but they're saying, no, no, no, it's always been descended through the blood line, even in other traditions. So they're used to uh their chain of succession coming through the blood line. That's in their creed, but the Sunnis are like, no, no, we we were gonna follow the companions. And when that split first started was just shortly after the prophet dropped the body, there wound up being like these. I hate to call them arguments, we'll just call them like disagreements between these two groups because the Rashidun caliphs or the rightly guided caliphs. Like I know people heard of Abu Bakr, Ufman, and Umar and whatnot, the first three caliphs of the Sunnis. However, the Shia look at Ali as the first caliph because of the succession from the bloodline. Now, between the two, um Abu Bakr, I think one being the first caliph of the Sunnis. But you know, speak speaking freely, I hope I don't you know piss anybody off. He essentially set himself up for that position. If we're gonna you know push the dogma to the side, Abu Bakr set himself up for that position. By um by leading a essentially what I can't help but call a massacre of Ali and his family. Oh, okay. So that there would not be uh trans uh transition through the bloodline because the bloodline was gotten rid of.

unknown: 9:38

Okay.

SPEAKER_03: 9:38

Mikey fever, please card.

SPEAKER_00: 9:41

Please, brother, how you doing? Please, please, Ron, please, peace. How you doing? Peace. All right, man.

SPEAKER_03: 9:46

Oh, praise do. So they they they they essentially started this uh rebellion against each other to where these caliphs, Abu Bakr, Umar, and Uthman, as much as some might not like to hear it, they kind of did lead the aggression to kind of push away and get rid of what's called the the Ahul Bayt. Or uh Ahul is the family of or the people of, and bait means the the house with the house of Ali that's connected to Muhammad by the bloodline. Umar is said to be the one that led that initial raid to start the uh decimation of the holy family from the Shia perspective, right? And as much as some don't like it, some Sunnis may not like to acknowledge that part of history because they know it's rough and they know it's it's kind of difficult to digest. Because one of those first three caliphs we talked about, Abu Bakr, Uthman, and Umar, it was Umar who led the raid to initially kind of get rid of and push out Ali and his family so that they could take succession. The the part where I wound up drawing the line is when historically I realized that that aggression wound up causing the daughter of the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, to wind up losing her life in that scuffle. Like to me, it seemed like that there was no regard for man, woman, and child. They wanted to get rid of the whole family so that they could have access to the caliphate. They could be next in line in submission in succession from the prophet so that the status he had, they would have also. And it didn't take long at all. Like as soon as he dropped form, everybody was like, nah, we, you know, there was already angst between those those two uh organizations before they became concrete organizations.

SPEAKER_04: 11:43

Now I'm gonna ask you, what why why would they want to do that? Because you know, Prophet Muhammad had uh power, um, money. What was it?

SPEAKER_03: 12:00

You know, uh I hate to assume, but like let's just say if I was wrapped up in my ego during that time and I was in that particular uh position, like if I might have been one of those caliphs and I saw the person I was following had all of this opulence, never hurting for money, always got food, got plenty of wives, got plenty of children, living a fruitful life, just like be fruitful and multiply, you know, you doing what God told you to do. And I want that. I was kind of hurting before, you know, I was always following the prophet and with all the stuff he had, like he was good, but I was kind of working and stressing the whole time. I want to get to a point to where I'm good, you know, I ain't gotta worry about all that. But but to me, you know, personally, it's just my my perspective. It seemed like those thoughts might have kind of made it with the ego because it caused those same caliphs to then turn around and go pretty much to war with the Prophet Muhammad's family. Um Ali martyred Hussein, martyred it's a grandson, uh Hassan, a grandson, martyred uh Fatima Dent Muhammad, and then just means the daughter of Muhammad. So one of the Prophet Muhammad's closest daughters wound up. So he's gonna get me for this one. Umar. Umar is said that they barged into the prophet Muhammad's house while Fatima was trying to block the door, and they kicked that door in so hard that the the the doorknob or handle, or I don't know, it might have been shaped, but it punctured her, if it punctured her stomach. She didn't she didn't wound up making it. So one of these caliphs that the Sunnis hold in such high regard, but she is on this side of like one of y'all caused the death of the daughter of the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him. And you you want me to follow you guys? What you guys did isn't in the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad. First, and we we have records and whatnot that talk about him nominating Ali to be the next in secession. And it seems to me, you know, just my perspective, those three from the other side were like, um, I want to have that. There's some things I want to do, but when that that type of eye comes in, that's the ego. That's not that's not the person, that's that's the ego, because they saw what he had, which comes from when Elijah says, cut the head off of them four devils and give you a ticket to Mecca to see the brother Muhammad. That was the first enemy made being made manifest, the nafs or the ego, and the second enemy, which is hawa, my carnal passions and desires, the I won't, right? And also dunya, which is worldly materialism. I uh just to kick the Sufism real quick, it says that the the first enemy is the easiest to cut the head off of the ego. Because if you cut the head off the ego, your carnal passions and desires can't materialize, your materialism can't materialize, your empty or worldly materialism can't materialize. And with those three essentially beheaded, the fourth enemy, the shaitan, or the ego inflamed, can't even be made manifest. Okay, so maybe to follow that. Maybe what happened.

SPEAKER_04: 15:34

This is super deep. Now hold on one second, we gotta keep going in on that. Uh uh uh Jarrell, is that his name?

SPEAKER_00: 15:41

Jarrell now he has the warris.

SPEAKER_04: 15:45

Yeah, this is this is a live show. Uh uh Woods El Islam. Um are the Shias Muslim. That was the quest, a question in the chat. Uh the bearded Heru, peace to the Universal Family, peace to you, brother. So um, before before we go into the rest of that, there's a lot to unpack. I wanted to ask this. I wanted first of all, let me see if I can pronounce it correctly. Asalam Aleykum. Uh Rahtuala Wada.

SPEAKER_02: 16:23

Okay, closer than most, God. Closer than most. Because that's essentially Arabic English words.

SPEAKER_03: 16:29

Yeah, and that right there is the the third level of the greeting. That's uh probably one of the greatest greetings you can give another brother. Is may peace be upon you, and the blessings of Allah and His mercy, or and His mercy and blessings. Uh, sometimes those two last words interchange in translation. So, like how Jesus said, you know, may peace be unto you, goodwill unto men. The Rahmatullah Ira Barakatu, who was wishing the rahmah or the mercy, grace of Allah, and the barakat, which is the blessing of Allah, on top of the greeting. Yeah. So it's not just me saying, whatever, bro. You know, I'm gonna wish him peace upon you because you initiated and wished peace upon me.

SPEAKER_04: 17:11

Right. So so if I say Asalam alaykum, you would respond, Asalam alaykum, wah matu allah wa barakatu.

SPEAKER_03: 17:21

You're right on it. And um for the most part, the response Muhammad Run um initially uh stopped at that one, two, three, four, fifth word, wa rahmatullahi. Um Sheikh Afanubamba says, when you're given the greeting, return one greater. So if someone gives me the basic Asalamu alaykum, then I return wa alaykum salaam wa rahmatullahi. Or somebody says, Asalamu alaykum wa rahmatulai, then I say the full one, wa alaykum, wa rahmatullahi, and add wa barakatuhu to give uh a greater greeting than was given, so we share in in equal peace.

SPEAKER_04: 18:03

That's peace, man. I didn't know that. Wow, that's so peace. All right, so now we were we were talking about uh the four the four double heads, right? And we were talking about you were saying that the four double heads, um, and how it break that down for me, how you were breaking it down.

SPEAKER_00: 18:20

You said something ego, it manifests it, it it goes upon different echelons on different levels.

SPEAKER_03: 18:28

I thought it was pretty beautiful to catch these same teachings from that guy there, uh Sheikh Ahmadu Bamba. Because he taught something similar with those four enemies that aligns up with how Elijah gave it to us over here. Like those four enemies still have to be subdued, and there's a particular way to subdue them enemies. The ego being the first out of the four is said to be the easiest to subdue. If you rise above that and put your foot on his neck, it ain't gonna be able to get up. It won't be able to manifest the second enemy, which is Kawah, which are your carnal passions and desires. Like, I'm not even dressed like a Muslim, but that girl got a big old backside, and I'm just gawking over it, like that's the second enemy being made manifest right there. I got a girlfriend, I ain't supposed to be looking at the girl in the red dress. The uh third one is uh how a dunya, which the word dunya literally means the world. But in regards to the inner self, dunya is like your worldly materialism. Like, I want this gold necklace, I want this grill, I want these, you know, expensive clothes and whatnot. That's why for me, I just I put my prayer bees around my neck. Like that's that's my that's my shine right there, because the the gold to a Muslim male is looked at as you know, some worldly materialism to some of the more orthodox. So what they do with the gold is they allow the women to wear that. They don't wear silver, stainless steel, and things like that, but they'll allow the women to wear gold because it's kind of shiny and poppy and flashy. Whereas the men are like, I have to embody these principles. I can't be attached to those things. Like, if my sister my woman wants one, I'm gonna go get my woman a necklace, right? I'm gonna go get a necklace so she feels good about it, so when she goes out into the world. But for me, I know this is just something that that that God made that we pulled from the earth that I that was transformed into some kind of status symbol when they see me with the grill and all this gold on. But if a Muslim from my mosque sees me running around blinged out like that, he's gonna look at me like, brother, you know. Yeah. You fell off the dog's hair, man. You've fallen off the dean. What are you doing? Take them off and get them to your lady, man. Like let her be uh shiny, let her be, you know, pretty and beautiful and adorned, you know, because the women vibrate a looking different than us. That's why most of the time when you see a Muslim man, he either has his breeze on, or all he'll wear is like a silver or stainless steel ring on the pinky, the ring finger or the index finger with a gemstone in it. So that that's that's essentially for the men, but it's not flashy. You know, those over here understand them gemstones have vibrations, different meanings, and whatnot. And it's understood the same way in Islam.

SPEAKER_00: 21:34

So it's uh turquoise, usually turquoise.

SPEAKER_03: 21:38

That's one of the proper's favorite ones. And what what he did with it where he was flip, he would flip the ring around so that the gemstone is on this side and not this side. So if he holds his hand like this, the gemstone is touching his hand.

unknown: 21:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 21:52

Or if he's holding, you know, this finger goes down, right? This part of the top part of the finger is touching the gemstone on the bottom side. So whatever the vibe of that stone is, not only do I have it on me, and the bottom side of that stone is touching this side of my finger. When I close this one and put the finger down on top of the stone, because I got it turned around, like instead of wearing it like that. And I go with a turquoise guy.

SPEAKER_00: 22:26

Yeah, that's what I'm saying.

SPEAKER_03: 22:27

The turquoise is but flip it around. So there's certain mudras where you, you know, you place your hands like this and whatnot. Or for those that know, you know, this ring's a little big, so I can't, you know, keep it all the way closed, but that's another way to kind of make sure that I keep myself tapped into what this thing represents for me. Not only am I wearing it, I'm touching it myself. I'm thinking about what it means to me and the principle of why I'm holding my hand like this in the first place. You know, so it becomes the mantra. Right.

SPEAKER_04: 22:59

Now I have a question. So you you were getting ready to go more into the four devils.

SPEAKER_03: 23:06

All right, we stopped at uh, which was the carnal passions and desire, then the dunya, the worldly materialism. The last one is uh the shaitan in Arabic, or Satan, the devil for you know Western understanding. And the only way that the the shaitan is able to manifest is if those first three enemies don't get their head cut off. The ego rises up from the bottom chakra to the third chakra, right? Or the third station of the soul, and it's allowed to become inflamed, right? So that the heat from that inflamed third chakra goes up to the fourth one, and we know it's right here. That's where it all begins at, right here. If that flame is allowed to reach the heart unpurified, the rest of those chakras are already in line for that fire to continue to rise right on up, so that when it makes it up here, now the person acts out on those devilish impulses. So if the head of the ego is cut off, there is no shaitan that can manifest. The head of your carnal passions and desires are cut off, shaitan can't manifest. And if your materialism, I want this for whatever reason, for worldly matters, is kind of cut off or kept tamed, then it can't manifest because the three things that allow it to manifest were dealt with properly. That was that type of inner alchemy going on where I don't I don't need anything flashy, you know. I can't take it with me up there. You know. It's gonna be round my neck in the grave if if they even allow me to be buried with it.

SPEAKER_04: 24:44

Got it, got it. So, all right. So uh do you do you think that another reason why jewels and all of that stuff is is it's looked at, it looked down upon, so to speak, because uh of financial reasons like maybe saving money, saving finance and things like that, or would that be another reason?

SPEAKER_03: 25:09

You know, Prophet Muhammad was uh was a merchant, or I hate to say vendor, but we understand it that way over here that I'm uh a merchant. So the the things that he was selling had applicable and pragmatic value for the society because he was bringing that divine oneness. Now, if if I'm turning around and going to go to another vendor that sells things that I know that my way of life and creed say are either forbidden or I shouldn't be indulging in, then I gotta check myself. The the gold I can't take with me at all. And the gold costs a lot, especially in this day and age. So instead of spending you know, a couple hundred, a couple bands on you know, a bunch of the uh the jewelry and whatnot, it's okay to be you know adorned, but not over the top with it, because the amount of money it would take to adorn oneself like that first is flattery, but then the amount of money is like, what else could I have been using that money for from a perspective of me embodying principles from this particular way of life? I could have invested in my community, I could have donated to a community center, Salvation Armely, homeless people. I could have just gone and bought a bunch of food and cooked it and went downtown to go feed the people where I know are homeless at the point of the bridge, instead of using it to buy something for me, like as a status symbol, you know, other than using it for the benefit of the of the people. Because, you know, Allah says we have to spend in the way of Allah. So if he blessed me with a lot of money and whatnot, I'm not supposed to just keep it all to myself. I have to do something with it for others. Or if he blessed me with a skill, I can't just use it for myself. I have to use it for the benefit of others. Like me and my dad cut hair at uh at the Middle Georgia children's home every other Sunday.

SPEAKER_02: 26:50

Oh, nice.

SPEAKER_03: 26:51

We charge five bucks less than we do at the barbershop, right? Because it's not really, you know, 100% about the money. We we we do okay and make it from day to day and whatnot, but that's on top of what we already make with the family business. So from our perspective, we're doing a service to those boys at that children's home. We make sure that when they go to school, man, they they clean and they crispy. So nobody looks at them like where I come from, like you why you you know you look poor, you know, you know how kids are. They'll make fun of them. So we make sure that they they uh they I hate to say fit in, but uh you know the youth are brutal these days, yeah.

unknown: 27:32

Right.

SPEAKER_03: 27:32

That's why we're giving back.

SPEAKER_04: 27:34

Now this person says the embodiment of the modrid, uh is that what it says?

SPEAKER_03: 27:41

Um so um they speak French in Senegal, so sometimes you'll see uh words built with O U instead of just uh U, but both are understood uh morted, and that's a that's a good question because that and that's essentially what we're supposed to be. Um remember last video mu means one who is or one who possesses the next word, and murid is actually a conjunction of two words, mu and irada. And the irada is the the will, the intention, and the desire to reach Allah. So when you put mu and iradam together, you get mu'rid or mu'irada murid. So murid is one who has the will, drive, and intention to reach Allah. It's uh it's kind of looked at not so much in uh in a sectarian way, because it describes what the person does. It's not technically the name of the group or the order, even though it's presented that way, it's technically what the person does on the path. I have to have that will, drive, and volition to reach Allah. If I don't have it, I ain't gonna make it.

SPEAKER_04: 28:55

Okay. Now, now to take it back to the uh Shia and the so I now I understand the story behind the differences. Okay, now because there was a split after Prophet Muhammad passed form, right? So now after that happened, what who what countries picked up Sueen? What countries picked up Shia?

SPEAKER_03: 29:25

Oh, good one. Um you'll you'll find the Shia is more so in Iraq and the parts of Iraq that border Iran, which was you know Persia way back in the day, but primarily their their essence is essentially started from uh Iraq because a lot of caliphs were in that area during that time frame. The Sunnis essentially would come from parts of Arabia that I guess were already kind of, I hate to say conquered, but we know what happened with history uh East Africa, North Africa, Persia, and some of the Northern Arabian countries, which is why that percentage was so high for the Sunni and kind of uh a little bit lower for the for the Shia. And you know, the the the crux of it is they both pray every day, they both read the same Quran every day. They may follow slightly different hadith, but in their own way, they're all able to be traced back to the essence to what Islam really means.

SPEAKER_04: 30:26

Okay, okay. So uh Sunni, Shia, and Sufi, you went over. Um, so what was the history behind that? Because now I'm connecting the dots in my head right now. So I know that history, Shia and Sunni, how that that became a split, so to speak. Now, Sufi came later on, if I can remember. Why was that piece created? Hmm.

SPEAKER_03: 30:56

So I'm gonna say that it would that it came later on, but remember how we were saying, you know, the heart first, everything materializes around the heart. So if that wasn't already an inner dimension, that wouldn't be able to be a surface level of the religion. But they were already um Gnostics, I guess we could say Gnostics to be universal in North East and you know, West Arabia and Africa and whatnot. And Sufism essentially was the technically, it wasn't Sufism back then. My old Sheikh said that back then Sufism was a practice without a name. But now, for the most part, Sufism is a uh a name without a practice, because you know, some gravitate to it because of you know the emotional attachment or spiritual attachment to somebody who is supposed to be teaching it correctly, but may or may not, and they get kind of caught up in it. So at today's time, most look at it as practice without a name because it's not Sufism from that particular perspective. Because remember, Sufi means uh wisdom. The person isn't gaining wisdom, you know, zigzag zig, then are they are they really?

unknown: 32:07

Right.

SPEAKER_03: 32:08

They think they know, but they still dwell in belief and haven't quite got to the degree of knowledge just yet.

SPEAKER_04: 32:14

Okay, okay. Now, uh is Meli, I've never seen that before. I never even knew that was a part of the Islamic faith.

SPEAKER_03: 32:28

It's uh it stems from a another I hate to say another division. Good lord, but uh the Ismailis split from who are called the the Twelvers in Shia Islam, and they uh they have their spiritual connection to Ali and what are called uh the divine leaf appointed imams or leaders of the religion that are connected to or stem from Ali in a chain of succession. The Ismailis wound up splitting from the Twelvers because of a dispute between them and who is he? Umam Jafar. So they split over a dispute in succession to uh Imam Jafar, whereas the Twelvers were following other caliphs. So it almost seems like the same thing that happened after the Prophet Muhammad dropped form happened again with a Shia group that kind of splintered into uh Twelver because they followed 12 Imams, and from them there was a group that focused on just one of them who wound up splitting into the Ismailis because it's said that they trace their lineage back to Ishmael. So that's where the name Ismaili comes from. Ismaili is uh Ishmael in uh in Arabic. But with them, they're they're a real good one to uh to at least look at, notice, and study comparative to the Sunni, because the Sunni will be more exoteric, whereas the Twelvers and especially the Ismailis, purely esoteric. They still pray multiple times a day, read the Quran and whatnot, but when they explain the teachings, they come from the inside, not so much as the service.

SPEAKER_04: 34:13

Okay, 12ers. Can you break that down further?

SPEAKER_03: 34:21

Uh they believe in or follow uh 12 divinely uh appointed imams or uh Islamic religious leaders that either descend from the Prophet or are connected to him in a similar way as his companions were that follow a specific degree of that creed that matches up with how they carry themselves today. So that's where they get the name 12 from, because they're 12 vinily appointed imams in that particular uh system, which we know that can get a little bit deeper because you add 212 together, you get 24 and 224 together, you get 48. And we can go on up into the cosmos with that. That's kind of why I mentioned they deal more so with the esoteric and the inner dimensions than you know what a Sunni might. It's more esoteric and I hate to say dogmatic, but it's kind of is what it is, you know.

SPEAKER_04: 35:11

Right. So Ismailis and Sufis are similar in that regard.

SPEAKER_03: 35:18

Yeah, uh and indeed, and there's there's very few minor differences between the two, but based on their exot their esoteric understanding, I don't I don't trip on over you know the differences like the Sunnis will observe five daily prayers, but uh majority of the Shias will observe three daily prayers because they'll connect the second prayer of the day with the third prayer of the day. And where is that verse in Surah Anur, which is chapter 24, verse 58. They pull from where it says, uh, peace be laugh my running, O believers, uh, let those in your possession, I hate to speak about slaves, but we know what happened in the east, but let those people in your possessions and those of you who are still underage ask for your permission to come in at three times for prayer before dawn, like the early morning prayer, when you take off your outer clothes at noon time, because at high noon it gets pretty hot in the desert, right? And after the late evening prayer, these are the three times of privacy for you. Other than these times, there's no blame on you to move freely, attending one another. This is how Allah makes the revelations clear to you because He's all knowing and all-wise. But in that particular verse, they pinpoint that is saying, Hey, there's only three points of the day where the Quran says to enter into the mosque to make salat a prayer. So the majority of Shia only observe three prayers. Some may do five because they understand where you know the wisdom comes from, but in the creed, there's only three with them because of there's another Quran verse that mentions glorify Allah in the morning, uh in the midday, after high noon, which is the third prayer of the day, and at night, which is only three. You really only see the five daily prayers show up in the hadith, you know.

SPEAKER_04: 37:28

Okay, yeah, man. I wonder you, you, you, you, that was a that was a good segue. It's a good this is this is great. This is a good uh follow here. Now, um the hadith. Now, first before we get there, okay. I get the point, Ishmaeli. I get all that down. Now, with the three, you broke down the prayer. What about the uh garb? Are they all wearing the same garb?

SPEAKER_03: 37:59

Essentially, yeah, uh, from that last verse where they were talking about um the second time for praying at high noon when you take off your outer clothes. That's because, like if you see some of the ones, the brothers in West Africa, they'll have on the pants that match the shirt, but they'll have this big uh shawl that comes that they wear over it that almost covers all of those things that they call a uh booba. Um, I forget what that means in uh in Wolof, but it's essentially like uh it's like a three-piece Islamic suit. Right. But after high noon, that sun is right there. It's gonna be hot. So that verse talks about when you take off your outer garment, you take off that thing that's gonna make you hot because it's it's hot outside, but you still have to maintain proper dress up under that so that even if it is hot, you take off your outer clothes, your body's still not exposed. You're still properly dressed, and you can take what you have on with you and into the mosque to go pray. So verses like that are really, really uh they're more pragmatic than most people might um uh speak about them. Some will just say, Oh, uh Allah is the best of knowers. We we don't want to try to you know interpret what what Allah says in the Quran, but don't don't you know Arabic, brother? Yeah, don't you know the syntax, brother? Yeah, don't you know the letterism and the alphanumerics, brother? Yeah. Well, why continue to do the well at the surface when Allah teaches us and tells us to dive into the Quran? Don't just stay at the surface. And there's wisdom in there that we can use to help benefit us that the next person might not even see from their perspective. It's still good to know the orthodox things, you know, your standard ritualistic things, prayers, and memorize some Quran so you can use them in your prayer because no matter how deep I might get, still go to the mosque a couple minutes away from me. So when I go in there, I'm I I present myself to just a Muslim. I don't come in, you know, with all my African stuff on no talismans or juju pouties or none of that. I just go in as a Muslim and make the prayer, congregate with the brothers, we'll study a little Quran, and you know, if we turn around and leave until it's time to go back again, they never know how deep I am unless the conversation gets there. But even then, it still has to be in accordance with how they view the orthodoxy because if we get too deep, it'll kind of you know it'll kind of push them away. Because kind of like you're using your own intellect to try to judge what Allah meant when He Himself told us, we study this book every day, live this book, don't just read it, live the book. And the only way we can figure out how to do that is to dive into it and see that these same principles exist within us that we're able to exude so we can live in the way that it tells us without any division since we all read the Quran.

SPEAKER_04: 40:54

Gotcha. Now, uh the hadith, can you am I pronouncing it correctly? Hadith? Okay. That's it. Okay, now what is it exactly?

SPEAKER_03: 41:06

The the hadith are essentially uh the word itself means uh tails, like not tall tales. I have to throw that to the side, but uh tales of what the prophet said, what the prophet did, how he acted, how he carried himself. So they're all essences and principles of the Prophet, peace be upon him, that the people are supposed to embody. Like how um when Muslims enter the mosque, they enter with a particular foot and they leave with a particular foot leaving forward. Because Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, was reported to have done the same thing. Oh entered the mosque.

SPEAKER_04: 41:42

Talk about that one second. Is it the same way? It made uh uh Mike Mike is Mike is busy right now. Yo, Mike, you see, you hear me? He can't hear me. He's down here. Anyway, um, so as far as masonry is concerned, I don't want to um give the wrong information. However, I um from what I remember is something with stepping with the left foot. Mm-hmm. That's it.

SPEAKER_03: 42:09

Enter with the left, heart style, exit with the right.

SPEAKER_04: 42:14

Ah, okay.

SPEAKER_03: 42:15

Similar thing with the with entering the restroom, you know, you there's a quick little mantra you recite before you enter the restroom because you know there's just an unclean place, so you seek protection before going in there. Same thing with the foot, then when you turn around and leave, there's another you know, exhortation, Alhamdulillah. You know, there's something to say to remind you, all right, now I'm out of this unclean place. Gotta purify myself now, and then get back to my Muslim mic out of this area. So we can apply that to anything in our daily life. Like the angel of the angel of death to say that don't let your feet take you to a place where you would not want the angel of death to meet you. And even if you are in those places, you have to have been protected before you enter into it. So that you you standing on your square, or like we say in Islam, you're standing on the Bismilah Rahman Iraqim. And to make that make sense, if we do the abjad or alphanumerics with the Bismillah Rahman Iraheim, in the Arabian dialect, that equals seven eight seven.

SPEAKER_01: 43:22

No seven in Africa or seven eight and Arabia. So other side.

SPEAKER_03: 44:05

Right. But that V in Arabic is a seven. We have an A without the line in the middle. That's a eight in Arabic. And what looks like a that's not supposed to be an F, all right. The second line isn't supposed to be there, but what's supposed to be an F is actually uh a sixth. But is that not a compass, a square, and a level?

SPEAKER_04: 44:38

Oh wow, yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 44:40

So when we stand on the beastly law mine in Rahim, it's essentially the exact same esoteric explanation. We have to be morally correct, righteous, and upright in our doings, and we have to keep standing on that, no matter what it is we're doing out in the world. Sometimes I want to act niggerish, but I know I shouldn't. Because I gotta stand on it. And those letters or letters and numbers carry a similar meaning that we have to apply to self. From the Islamic perspective, is not so uh secret per se, it's sacred. You know, sacred wisdom is wisdom that we're supposed to keep on the inside, but we use it and we exude it. So if I don't have my padibs on, I don't have no koofy on, and I'm just dressed normally based on my actions. If a Muslim were to see me in public, they'd be like, he just did the left foot thing. And I heard him mumble something when he went into that restroom. I already know that it's a Muslim. When he comes back out, I'm gonna give him the salaam because he saw me do something from the Sunnah that the Prophet Muhammad did that he also does. The same way as if I walk into the grocery store and I see your brother with the shirt on, with the S and C on it. I hit him with a little thing and he hit me with a little thing. Now I know I got some backup in here without even saying anything. It's a similar principle.

SPEAKER_04: 46:00

Oh man, man. I didn't know it was that deep, man. Wow, okay. So we've been.

SPEAKER_03: 46:07

It's beautiful, man. I wouldn't trade this journey for the world, bro.

SPEAKER_04: 46:10

The hadith. So what uh what other uh rules and regulations or uh other texts that Muslims follow besides the Quran and the Hadith?

SPEAKER_03: 46:24

There's one called the the Seerah, which is the the biography of the prophet, peace be upon him. So it's more so from the the moment he woke up to the moment he went to sleep successful day by day. It's um this essentially a con uh say essentially a condensed version of the hadith that we have.

SPEAKER_04: 46:44

So we we get um a second because I'm gonna buy all this stuff. Hadith. Hadith book. All right, let me see. Because I've never before uh I've never even seen it before.

SPEAKER_03: 47:02

You do um you uh read or study or go through PDFs, or you like paperbacks?

SPEAKER_04: 47:07

Oh, yeah, yeah. Uh PDFs is fine.

SPEAKER_03: 47:10

Yeah, I got the Sahibukhardi Hadith and uh PDF. It's a really, really huge volume of work. Like it's just it's almost asinine how how huge it is, but that's a lot of wisdom that people have kept with chain of transmission to say, my dad told me that his dad told me that his dad told me that the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, did XYZ. So it will behoove me to try my best to do XYZ also from that chain of transmission. So essentially how we get this term called uh hadith, but the the sirah is more so of his biography. So you'll you'll get more of his uh personal life, more of his interactions with his family, his companions, friends, and people in the community in the serah. So with the hadith, it's it's more so akin to things he did that we should embody, or teachings that kind of expound upon certain Quran verses that might not be expounded on in the in the Quran that are also traceable back to him. So both of those are kind of compiled wisdom based off of things he did, said, Done. Sira is more so personal, and the hadith is uh we'll just say uh more universal because both Sunni Shia and uh Sufi steal full wisdom from the hadith, whether they believe in it or not.

SPEAKER_04: 48:31

Okay. Now, now um as far can can you can you please do me a favor if you know if you don't mind? I want uh if this I want to study the hadith. The hadith, and I want to study, what did you say? The Shura Shira.

SPEAKER_03: 48:51

Um S-E-E-R-A-H.

SPEAKER_04: 48:55

Okay. Can you send that to me? Is that possible? And I have another question. I have another question. Now you know, you have all of these different groups in North America, you know, that were brought to you, brought to us by our own people, you know. Now, why why choose Prophet Muhammad over Prophet Noble Drew Ali and Allah or Elijah Muhammad?

SPEAKER_03: 49:34

Who honestly with me, man? I'm gonna have to take from all of them because they they did the same thing as the Prophet Bid, peace be upon him and all of them. They they embodied them principles, ethic, moral, communal, financial, in ways that we could digest it over here. Like, Lord forgive me, the Arabs are in a different type of wilderness over there. We in a completely different type of wilderness over here. So the the teachings about horses and camels and what you deal with traveling across the desert and certain things to do don't quite apply to us unless we live in Nevada or something like that, you know.

SPEAKER_01: 50:09

Right.

SPEAKER_03: 50:09

So we we had to be given these teachings in a way that we could understand them from the place that we're at. Like Allah Allah says, He raises up a prophet or a messenger from a people for those people. Came to us the same way. Lajar Muhammad, Master Far Muhammad, came to the same exact way. They were they manifest from Allah and brought the teaching of Allah to us in a way that we could use it over here to benefit us. You know, plenty of brothers that were in jail and whatnot for doing some some the Muslims never supposed to take anybody's life. All right. But the brothers that find Islam in the in jail almost always come out right on that square. I'm talking about perfectly on that square because they're embodying everything from the orthodox perspective, and they're going through that alchemy on the inside. Islam and the jails actually do rehabilitate people, whereas the jail itself just institutionalizes the person.

SPEAKER_02: 51:15

Right.

SPEAKER_03: 51:15

And we got that same thing when these prophets and messengers came to us. Some of us was in the hood, some of us were drug addicts, some of us were alcoholics, some of us were thieves robbing and stealing. And somebody like these just mentioned that came to us, showed us the proper way to live and be. So that if we're gonna try to actualize and say that I'm Allah, you know, I have to live in that way. I can't be out here doing nigga-ish anymore. You know, I have to embody these principles no matter how hard it is up there in the world. Because somebody might know my story, and they'll see me out here trying my best to live these principles, and it might motivate them to try better from that perspective. You know, and in that perspective, I'm somebody that Allah sent a message to that I embodied and I showed to the world that somebody else saw, and they were like, I can do that same thing too. Just like Jesus said in the Bible, all these great things you attribute unto me, you can do them too, and better. It's supposed to be motivational, you know.

SPEAKER_04: 52:20

Indeed, indeed. So now you broke down the Ismailis, you broke down the Sufis, you broke down uh uh uh Sunnis and Shia. Are there any other groups besides those that uh claim Prophet Muhammad?

SPEAKER_03: 52:39

I mean, they all do, it's just some have a uh extra connector between him and and them.

SPEAKER_04: 52:45

No, but I'm saying, are there any other groups besides those four that claims?

SPEAKER_03: 52:50

Um I wouldn't call call them well, yeah, the a group or what's called uh a madhab in Islam, which is essentially a school of thought within the Sunni larger school of thought, you'll have uh four different types of uh hadith transmitters, right? The the Hanafi, the Maliki, the Shafi, and Hanbali, uh all of them still trace their connections and their teachings back to the Prophet, but there's small differences between the four. Like the Hanbali focus more so on rational judgment in favor of public welfare. So if it's not rational and logical, if I can't deconstruct it and put it back together and get the same thing, it's not helpful or beneficial. The Malikis, uh, which is probably one of the largest subgroups in the school of thought, emphasize on the general consensus for determining the right path, which the majority of Muslims are Maliki. So that general consensus traces back to kind of what Abu Bakr, Uthman, and Ali kind of uh trying to do. Like we agree that didn't give the succession to Ali, so we have to have a general consensus to vote to see who's gonna be the successor. The Shafi uh picks up more so the authority of the Hadith, still Quran, still tracing back to Muhammad, but emphasize the Hadith and the Hanbali look at the Quran as the ultimate authority. They still accept the hadith, but they're gonna go to the Quran first.

SPEAKER_04: 54:27

Yo, do y'all hear this brother, man? He is breaking it down. Like this right here, just all right. I now I like this this explanation for the whole hour. I got it now. Now I don't have the whole religion, but however, I know where to start now. Y'all should rewind this video. Start from the beginning. If you don't know, uh if you thought you knew about Islam, because I swore I thought I thought I knew something about Islam, but I didn't.

SPEAKER_03: 54:55

Um other people in the chat know too, man. It's some heat being dropped in the chat for real, and I have to agree with the majority of it because it's just this is right on point.

SPEAKER_04: 55:05

Yeah, yeah, for sure. People in the chat. Pete uh Job Joba, Joba, Juba, peace to you. You dropping it in that chat. Um, so now I have some things to study um uh on this religion, and uh hopefully, you know, you can send that stuff to me so I can start reading up on it, and uh we will be back, you know, we'll be back in a couple weeks on a Monday to build on the religion of Islam. I'll have some more things to ask. I will have some more titles for you, uh, some more uh uh subjects for you, and uh we we we shall do this again. Peace to you, brother. Thank you for coming out this evening. I really appreciate you. And we are out of here.

SPEAKER_01: 55:56

Peace to the guys. Peace.