Muslim Money Talk
Introducing the Muslim Money Talk Podcast, a place for all things Muslim and Money related.
Every week we'll be sitting down with Founders, leaders and industry experts from across multiple disciplines to discuss lessons learned, mistakes made and most importantly 'How they did it?'.
Brought to you by Kestrl: The Muslim Money App, software to help Muslims grow their wealth without compromise. Find out more here: https://kestrl.io/
Muslim Money Talk
Quran Expert: Leaders Must Internalise The Quran | Ishaaq Qureshi - Muslim Money Talk Ep 29
This episode dives into the purpose of life through the lens of Islam, with Ishaaq reflecting on the beauty and practicality of applying the Quran in daily life. The discussion spans personal development, virality in content creation while maintaining Islamic values, and navigating the balance between deen and dunya. It concludes with impactful lessons from Islamic history, leaving listeners inspired to align their actions with their ultimate purpose.
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Show Notes:
00:00 – Introduction: The beauty of Islam and the Quran’s guidance.
02:30 – How internships and early experiences shaped Ishaaq’s growth.
05:12 – Pillars of growth and strategies for scaling an app like Nia.
09:12 – Organic vs. paid growth strategies in Islamic startups.
16:00 – Building a meaningful relationship with the Quran.
21:26 – Aligning deen and dunya: Practical advice for young Muslims.
27:27 – Choosing halal careers and maintaining sincerity in intentions.
36:34 – Ishaaq’s journey to becoming growth lead at Nia.
45:03 – Balancing gratitude, humility, and accountability.
49:48 – Formula for achieving virality while staying values-aligned.
59:36 – Quickfire questions: Favorite ayahs, advice for startups, and impactful hadiths.
1:07:29 – Reflection on the humility of Umar ibn Khattab (RA).
1:08:20 – Closing thoughts and gratitude for the conversation.
The blessing of Islam is unbelievable. It's just mind-boggling in the sense that I can ask my 12-year-old brother right now what's the purpose of life, and he'll give me an answer. But I can ask a 50-year-old man what's the purpose of life that isn't Muslim, and he'll just, you know, make money, enjoy yourself, be happy. That's not enough, man Like, come on. The reason the Quran revealed was for you to use it as a guide and for you to apply it. Memorizing the quran is great, if, but if you're not going to use it or apply, it can actually possibly be used against you on the judgment, which is a very scary thought. Right, he's given us the instructions. The instructions are if you want to be the happiest that you can in this journey, the most content that you can in this journey and the happiest in the akhira, follow these instructions how do you reset those intentions?
Speaker 2:yeah, that's a very good question social following of a few thousand all the way to hundreds of thousands in a matter of a few months, and if there really is a formula for virality online as a muslim as always, I'm your host, arib sadiki, and this is muslim money talk. Before we begin, we actually noticed only about 10 of you are subscribed to the podcast. So if you like what you're listening to and you want to hear more from us and see more things Muslim and money related, then please consider subscribing and, of course, leaving this episode a like and share it with your friends. Leave us a comment or a review, because it really really does help us out and help more people to find us. Thank you. Now back to the show.
Speaker 1:Ishaq. Assalamu alaikum and welcome to the show. How are you doing? Very well. How are you?
Speaker 2:yeah, good, I was just saying before that, weirdly, this is the first time we've ever met, yeah, in person, but it doesn't feel that way, because I see you on my instagram, on my socials, on my linkedin so regularly yeah, I uh very, very similarly because you're on my LinkedIn all the time, hopefully for good reason.
Speaker 2:There's so much I want to get into, with you talking about content creation, how to keep your values as a Muslim content creator, what you're doing over at Nia with Shahnaz redefining the way in which Muslims interact with the Quran but I would love to start at the beginning. Was this always the plan? Did you always want to get into content creation as a kid I mean, you are a kid, I mean technically.
Speaker 1:That's a no I started out with when I was around like 17 years old, um, or 16, 17,. Around that time, um, it was just summer and I feel like I am one of those people that I just can't sit still. So if I'm going to, if I'm ever have free time, I have to feel it was doing something. Now it doesn't necessarily in my early years it wasn't necessarily something useful because I, alhamdulillah, I feel like I built a more aligned mindset with my Muslim identity in the last few years, but I always had to do something. So in the summer my mom was like go and get an internship at 16, yeah, 16, 17, it's like go get an internship, so okay. And then she was like talking some of her friends and then, alhamdulillah, we got like something that was just in marketing okay very generic at one of, like uh, one of the companies in dubai.
Speaker 1:So that's where I grew up, completely learning am I right in thinking this was?
Speaker 1:a fintech? No, this wasn't. This was completely just and it was literally just a training thing and it was um, I believe I don't know if you know you didn't actually because in middle east there's a there's a spices company called eastern right and it was just that and it was just going there and they were just um, it was literally just a training course, almost for like two months right and then at the end I would do like audits of their, of their processes and all of that um then moving on from there, that that was.
Speaker 1:That was kind of just okay. Let's see what's going on. I actually started out, uh, in startups, like just building businesses, um, obviously when I was a kid. That's not. Uh didn't get too far, um, but um, yeah, tried so many different things. They all failed at different stages and All in Dubai.
Speaker 1:All in Dubai, yeah. So, for example, some we made a website for then we went to investors. We realized, okay, it's not a good idea. Some we actually, you know, made an app. We went to investors, we raised funding. It wasn't much, but we raised something and we made a stereotype prototype. We made a prototype and then then it just failed there.
Speaker 1:So it was so many different things and then slowly, slowly, as I did different uh, internships, I realized, oh, as, alongside doing marketing, I was just posting videos, just generally posting videos. I always did that since I was a kid, and then, kind of that, that was the intersection. Um, this is kind of a quite, quite a, quite a watered down summary, but, um, that intersection between marketing and content creation. At least that's where I started loving content creation and marketing for muslims and then from there developed okay, now I want to go into growth, because content creation, marketing, is only one pillar of growth. That's like, okay, cool, I can do this. Now, alhamdulillah, I know how to do this. It's a skill that I've developed. Now I need to move on to other things that will build growth, right?
Speaker 2:So let's break that down. So what are the other pillars of growth?
Speaker 1:And what is growth? So many things. I wouldn't be able to say it all, but there's just so much. And if anything that constitutes to an app's KPIs, right, you could call that growth. So many things. So, for example, google ads and Facebook ads and the social medias, and then newsletters and campaigns, and there's so much going on. And so, specifically in Nia at least, we have multiple different pillars, and one of those pillars is, okay, social media, right. And then we realize, okay, this is where most of our growth is coming from, but this is not going to be reliable, like, in the long run. If we want to hit our goal of helping 10 million Muslims apply the Quran, right, we can't rely on growth that isn't product led. So, yeah, so let's break that down a little. Quran, right. We can't rely on, you know, on growth that isn't product led.
Speaker 2:So yeah, so let's break that down a little bit right. So, if you've got one overarching key performance indicator, kpi, which is at Nia, you want to help 10 million Muslims engage with the Quran 10 million and in order to get there, you've got a number of facets. One of them is social media content form content, the types of stuff that you're creating on on instagram. There's other avenues to other pillars. So you've got, like you said, the newsletter.
Speaker 1:You've got I don't know what, yeah, so long form content, I assume um stuff you're doing on linkedin.
Speaker 1:So there's yeah, there's quite a few, and um it, it obviously depends on the resources and so on. But yeah, so under social media, there's also many pillars under that as well. So, for example, there are reels, and then there are carousels, and then there are stories, and then, okay, how many do we do a week? And all of the okay, cool. And then we have the like you said, newsletter, and then one of the things is, like you said, linkedin.
Speaker 1:Another thing is campaigns. So, as you've seen, we've done like quite a few campaigns in the past few months, and those are the main ones. And then every few months or every quarter or so, we re-evaluate okay, so which pillars are bringing us the most in which, which pillars aren't? How much do we, how much time do we spend on x, on each one, just looking essentially, very simply looking at the roi, um, and then we go and figure out okay, so what do we want to go? What do we need to go for next? Because in theory, I can. There there's a million things we can do. We can do, like I've mentioned before, facebook ads. We can do google ads, we can do this, we can do that, but we don't have infinite resources, so we need to pick, and then we have another whole process of okay, how do we pick? It's not a finger in a method yeah right um.
Speaker 1:We run tests and we do this.
Speaker 2:It's, it's fun what's the formula that you apply? Because, like over at kestrel, we do okay. If our key metric is monthly recurring revenue, that's partly made up of discovery how many new customers are coming to the platform and engagement how many people are re-engaging with us? Right, discovery has its own things that we can use, different levers that we can pull, so that could be short form content, long form, a newsletter, linkedin post, whatever it is right, but there's. They generally fall into two buckets there's paid for and there's organic type stuff. Do you play around with both of those? You said there's resource constraints. What is the one which you prefer or one which works best for you?
Speaker 1:so so, in terms of pulling people in, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so right now, it's most of our growth I want to say almost 90% of it is organic, right, so we and that's the reason why it's because I wanted to. When I joined Nia, initially I wasn't growth lead and my job was fully organic, but then we realized over time look, we need to kind of set up these grounds of like consistent, recurring organic growth so we can almost rely on them and then, whenever we need extra, push it a push like pushes. We would, uh, you know, use inorganic and for and, to be honest, like, all of these are different sciences. So organic growth and inorganic growth, they're different sciences and you need to learn, like you need to learn the science and then apply. So right now, like I said, when I started, alhamdulillah, I was literally just learning and learning and learning everything about organic. Then I applied all of that.
Speaker 1:The next thing actually, funnily enough, the next thing we are moving on to is paid user acquisition. So what is the best way of spending money? And then, obviously, for a startup, because of the resource constraints, we, organic is the priority, right, and then later down the line is okay, how do we? And now that, inshallah, we're growing and growing and growing, we actually need to put more emphasis on, not that we haven't been doing paid, but we need to put more emphasis on what does the best paid look like.
Speaker 1:There just wasn't that much emphasis on there before because we didn't need it and again with the startup, you really have to be as efficient as possible, because everyone's got limited time, we've got limited resources. We really need to just use it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, definitely, I feel like we've jumped into your Nia story. But, marshall you were talking about, you've been interning and getting startup experience since the age of 16. Yes, you're 21 years old now.
Speaker 1:Yeah, right.
Speaker 2:So Right, so what? Along that journey it seemed like you found out so much about marketing, about content creation. Somehow it sounded like you were doing videos already for fun as a kid and you decided this is a skill set I have, I can apply it to something that makes money for me. Right? Is that basically how it worked out?
Speaker 1:So yeah, ok. So now to jump in a little bit into the story.
Speaker 1:To jump in a little bit into the story um, so after my first like free internship that I did, um, as I was doing that free internship, I had five different um again, I was only focusing. Uh, it was like a hobby. So I was doing content creation and I had five different accounts and what I was doing was five different accounts in five different niches and what I was doing was posting videos across all of those five niches and being like oh okay, what does that algorithm want? What do we like you're just doing this for fun, just for fun, like it was nothing, like all just on the side. What were these five?
Speaker 2:accounts. What were they doing?
Speaker 1:so one of them was um, like, um, like gaming clips, okay. Another one was um anything that is useful, that is, um targeted at teenagers, so for example, a small tip or anything very broad. That one, um. The third one was um a secondary account. That was like that first one, but lower quality content, right again. There are like different ones, and then the fourth and fifth, I literally don't remember. Oh sorry, one of them was about because I had the interest in psychology.
Speaker 1:So I mean I still do, uh, but you're studying it right now yeah, yeah, but I don't have the same interest as psychology as I do with marketing, growth and all of that, so that's why I kind of took over a little bit. One of them was about you know how there are these kinds of psychological facts. Like you know, if someone says, like you know, if someone I don't know I'm just going to use a weird one like, okay, when someone makes a joke, the first person that they look at after they make the joke is the person they respect the most.
Speaker 1:So if you're in a group of five people, right and someone makes a joke, they'll glance at someone straight away, right, and whoever they glance at.
Speaker 1:So that's, for example, that's the idea of a site, so I'll literally make videos like that and make it and and just post loads of content on that.
Speaker 1:So I made five different ones and I post across all five and I just see, okay, which one did the best, you know. And then I I left four of them and I went for the best one and then I just went, like that, that was happening alongside my internship, and I was literally telling these guys I think at the time it's because I always say I was a kid, so um, uh, I only had so much weight in terms of like what I, what I could do, uh, but at the time I was telling you need to get onto, like TikTok and Instagram and all of these, like you're really missing out, um, and then finally they got onto it by the time I finished the internship, alhamdulillah, um, but that was that. Then I moved on to okay, I then, as I was, you know what that one account I kept up with, I started making, making videos on that. Then I got like a 100,000 view video or 200,000 view video or something like that.
Speaker 2:And the one account that you continued, which one?
Speaker 1:That was, at the time, just useful facts about for teenagers Example, how to get a debit card as a teenager, for example like, very like small things, or it was very much just like almost a lifestyle thing. But in my mind the reason I was saying it needs to be beneficial was because I want like I was already alhamdulillah, allah put it in my mind that I wanted to uh, pull edger from this, pull reward from this. So with every single underlying video in my mind I was like, okay, this has to be beneficial to a level so that I can reap reward from this in some way. Right, and that kind of got refined down the line.
Speaker 2:Where do you think about that from such a young age?
Speaker 1:alhamdulillah, I wouldn't even say. I'll be honest, I don't think that's young. I really don't think in the sense that I think kids really should be thinking about this way further, like, way, way before that, like and I'm talking, um, you know, 12, 13, 14 people kids should know and should kind of already be constructing the reasons for why they're living as a Muslim, if that makes sense. So even when I go to my little brother, I'll go and ask him, like last summer I was here, I'll ask him okay, so you know what's the point of Quran? Because he's memorizing right now, right, so he's like, oh, I don't know, you know, and then we have like a long conversation, so building those mindsets from a kid, I think, and he's 12, so I think like these things needed to be. I think honestly, alhamdulillah, like Allah has given me what he's given me. But even just thinking like that, that was too late for me.
Speaker 2:Personally, genuinely I think so, and and may Allah forgive me for the years that I didn't act upon what I should have what a mindset to have that. It's hard. When I think about you, I think of someone who is in love with the Quran. You, mashallah the tips and the tricks that you put out there on social media about you know how to better engage with a specific surah, or like. Here's two lessons I found from surah Adiyah. That was something that came on my uh on my feed this morning how did you end up falling in love with the Quran?
Speaker 1:So when I was a kid um, I say that five years ago or a few years, like um so our very similar to what I was mentioning before we were taught, and I was mentioning to you Before we started recording, was that my dad has a very, very strong Emphasis for us to memorise the Quran, so we had started going to. We started to go to schools Quran schools Since we were like the age of four or five, and so the Quran, the Quranic culture, was always in our household. Alhamdulillah, we started to go to schools Quran schools since we were like the age of four or five, and so the Quran, the Quranic culture, was always in our household. Alhamdulillah, and I think just the culture generally of this generation is we focus a bit too much on, maybe, memorization, maybe not too much, but we didn't focus on the other side.
Speaker 2:The understanding.
Speaker 1:The understanding and the applying, because the reason the Quran was revealed Was for you to use it as a guide and for you to apply it Right. And so Memorizing the Quran Is great, but if you're not Going to use it or apply it, it can actually Possibly be used Against you On the day of judgment, which is a very scary thought, right? So, basically, I got to university.
Speaker 1:University so, um, alhamdulillah, I finished, um, my memorization when I was the age of 14, right. And then, um, I kind of I got into gcc mode, right, uh, gcc modes and a levels and that kind of just took up so much of my, you know, of my time and, and it wasn't that I left the quran, but the thing is, when you finish, you have to do enough to keep the whole thing and if you don't, then it going to get weaker. So it got a little weaker and, you know, my relation with Quran was kind of dwindling a little bit. And then, when I got to university, one of my friends hopefully he watches this Abdulrahman Hameed, one of my friends. He was the ISAC president at the time, right.
Speaker 2:At University of Manchester At.
Speaker 1:University of Manchester. He was literally, he was just asking me about the Quran because, mashallah, he's also memorized it. He was just asking me about it and questions, and I was just telling him it's just a little weaker now and so on and so forth, and he's like no, no, no, it's unacceptable. He's like you know, and he put me on a program and pulled me and really encouraged me and really just didn't let me go, basically, until I kind of just started that and that was kind of the first few steps of like me.
Speaker 1:I believe that every person, even if they're brought up in a Muslim household, they need to find Islam. It doesn't matter Like you can be told all the theory but if you don't actually feel it in your heart, then you know it's. You're not going to really have that sweetness of Iman really. And so in university that's where I was quote unquote finding islam because of the people like that and obviously that's allah's tawfiq, through those people and through that kind of um, I was like, oh, okay, so I had already memorized the quran. You know, let's take a look, kind of um, we slowly did classes, we did like a lot of things like um roots I'm pretty sure you're familiar with them. I went to a few of their classes and they did had some sessions and really it's more. It was more just like, slowly, slowly, as I interacted. More I interacted with it on a like um, the more I read, like, for example, translation. All of that I just realized, like you know it's unbelievable.
Speaker 2:So you, you didn't understand arabic at the time I understood it but I didn't like.
Speaker 1:For example, you can understand poetry, but it you didn't like. For example, I don't have to explain this. It's like you can understand the words but not necessarily you're not putting an effort. You're not putting an effort to internalize, if that makes sense and that's you're not applying it like a guidebook?
Speaker 1:yeah, exactly you're just like oh, okay, so yeah, allah says it's about you know this. People like how he destroyed them. Okay, that's a nice story, right. It's not really okay. How do I hang on a second? That's kind of just. How do I take a?
Speaker 2:lesson from that?
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know what is Allah trying to tell me when he goes through six stories about how he took one um, he took one people and then destroyed it, tells us the story, then destroyed them, then takes another people, then tells us the story and destroys them, then takes and tells us again. When he tells us six times in a row, what's the significance of that? How can I apply that? We can look at the people and people and that say, oh my god, they're so silly, how did they do that? How did? But it's told to us for a reason. How do you apply it? And so once alhamdulillah, and I'm nowhere near where I need to be and I'm not even saying that to be humble I'm genuinely not even close to where I need to be in terms of my relationship with quran. And it's not even funny, like it's actually.
Speaker 2:It's actually shameful um, to hear you say that is a very scary thing, I think, to most of us listening and watching, because, mashallah, you seem so on, so on it, and you've guided so many people and inspired so many people. Like your videos have garnered millions and millions. I think one of your top videos had 4 million views just the other month. Mashallah, you've grown near by 150,000 followers within a year's period. Do you think most Muslims go their lives without fully grasping or, like you said, maybe they're reading the translation but they're not internalizing the lessons? You think most of us fall into that?
Speaker 1:I I wouldn't say most, I wouldn't know if most of you, of most of I say you, most of us yeah, I wouldn't say most of us, um, but I think that some people do and, honestly, alhamdulillah.
Speaker 1:To preface what I'm going to say next is alhamdulillah. To preface what I'm going to say next is alhamdulillah that Allah allowed me even to read the translation with an open heart, because that's completely from Allah. If I did that for 14 years straight and I didn't internalize, of course Allah could have done that for the rest of my life and closed my heart off to the Quran and even to the little sweetness that I taste from the Quran right now, alhamdulillah. And I just really, really hope that Allah gives me more and more and more and more, because I really haven't even scratched the surface, and I hope that obviously everyone you know experiences the same thing. Alhamdulillah. But to answer your question, I don't know if most people don't, but I can see, if they didn't, how that would be the case. You know bad company, or you know wrong decisions, or just you know. Well, there's dunya.
Speaker 2:Distraction so much Like whether it's exam, not even like haram stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah, just doing exams, your work, you know, teaching us how to live our lives. Shouldn't we be spending as much as we can, as much time as possible, trying to internalize those messages and apply it to our lives?
Speaker 1:yeah, exactly I think I think, to be honest, it's like and I think a lot of us have, you know, the wrong mindset, in the sense that we think that, okay, if I'm going to, you know, internalize the Quran, or that means that I need to, or to be, you know, be on it. As a Muslim, I need to be praying 25 hours a day, I need to be doing X and Y and Z. That is not the case and I think I mentioned this in a LinkedIn post at some point of, like, everything that you can do, everything that you've done or you are doing, can be turned into an ibadah, into an act of worship, if it's done correctly. And so that doesn't mean that if I want to, you know, become a better Muslim, then I need to spend 10 hours with the Quran. If you know that you haven't interacted with the Quran over a long period of time, then start with 10 minutes.
Speaker 1:When I came back to university to start with my relationship with the Quran again, I genuinely started with 10, 15 minutes a day of Quran, literally just reading and slowly, just getting the hang of it back, and then built and slowly, very slowly built up to I'm not going to say but up to a certain amount per day and, alhamdulillah, like I'm looking back at myself two, three years ago and I'm just looking at myself, I'm like may Allah not let me fall back, because I really, really can't, I can't afford to lose the relationship I have, I've built with Allah and that he's allowed me to build, and with the Quran. I just can't. And, like you said, the dunya is an insane distraction. It's unbelievable, it's just, it's hard, it really is. And the thing is, you know, good things don't come easy. And so, jannah, if you want to get it, you have to look through the distractions, you really have to pull yourself back and, yeah, and there are mechanisms for you to do that thank you for listening to muslim money talk.
Speaker 2:If you like what you've heard so far, you might be interested in checking out what we do at kestrel, the muslim money app. Kestrel is a service that helps muslims who want to grow their wealth without having to compromise, whether it's on their belief or user experience or price. I founded Kestrel because of how fed up I was at how poor Islamic financial services were in this country. Often people didn't use them because of how bad the user experience or customer service and indeed, how high in price they were. So Kestrel was the answer to that. If you download the Kestrel app today, it can help you by creating a budgeting plan. Plug in whatever bank account you have and it will create an auto budget just for you. You can then tell us what goals you're saving for, and we'll save towards them automatically into pots and then, crucially, link you towards Sharia compliant investment and savings products as well. So download kestrel today and try it out for yourself.
Speaker 2:Now back to the podcast. Yeah, so let's talk about that. What advice would you give to people? Because I think people can really overdo it, like you say, like wanting to pray 25 hours a day, um, but there is a way of aligning the dean and the dunya right, and I think you're an example of that in that you have a career, content creation, but it's values aligned with yourself as a Muslim. What advice would you give to young people out there who are thinking about careers and thinking I want to make money, I want to do it in a halal way and ideally find the best of both worlds? This kind of like, you know, muslim version of ikigai, something which makes money, something that you're good at, something which does good for the world but also, you know, fulfills your purpose as a Muslim.
Speaker 1:I think this is something that Shannaz talks about quite a bit. Yeah, and that's why I'm so like, like I always say, we always say, like me and Shannaz, mashallah, alhamdulillah, we're extremely aligned in terms of our mindset, alhamdulillah. But just to preface in terms of, yeah, I wouldn't say I'm an example.
Speaker 2:That's a very strong word, that's a very strong words and everything I've done.
Speaker 1:may Allah accept it. But in terms of this I made a video about this at some point about people say the oh, how do I balance deen and dunya?
Speaker 2:How? How do I balance dean and?
Speaker 1:dunya. How do I balance dean and dunya? Now, when something is balancing, that means the forces are opposing right, um and so like, for example, you know you put two things on a weighing scale, then one is opposing the other. But the truth is is you aren't, you shouldn't actually be thinking like that? And the way I like to think, at least, is looking at the dunya through the deen lens. It's not that you can't, for example, because if you're effectively saying that, oh, I need to do an X amount of good and then I need to do Not really you're not really saying this, almost subconsciously An X amount of something that will oppose that, if that makes sense, right, which is not the correct way.
Speaker 1:Allah has made, you know all. Allah has made this earth and lots of things on this earth for us to interact with. And it's not like we can't find joy. It's not like that we can't find contentment in our lives. You can live an islamic life and also be happy. You can live an islamic life and also be content. But what's it called? The way you do that is by looking at the dunya through a deen lens.
Speaker 1:Now, what does that mean? That all that literally means is following the Quran and sunnah, because Allah has put us on this earth. He's given us the instructions. The instructions are if you want to be the most, if you want to be the happiest that you can in this dunya, the most content that you want to be the happiest that you can in this journey, the most content that you can in this journey and the happiest in the akhira, follow these instructions right. Everything that Allah has banned for us is not because is obviously the reason why we forego it. It's because Allah told us to do so. But if you really look into it, it's all bad for us, right? You know everything like alcohol and zina and all of that. You look into these things. They break down societies. Every single one of these things. It's not just oh, I want you to do this, because I want you to do this. Everything has a wisdom to it, alhamdulillah. And. But we don't do it because it has a wisdom to it. We do because allah told us to do it, but we realize that there's a wisdom behind it. So looking at this dunya through the deen lens really just makes you the happiest muslim possible. And then now you okay.
Speaker 1:How do you do that in terms of jobs and stuff. I don't believe that you necessarily have, and Shanaz mentions one of the other podcasts. If you're, it also depends on your situation, your economical situation. So what type of background do you come from? How much money do you like, for example? Are you making money? Can you keep that money? How much of your money is disposable? All of those things have to be taken into account.
Speaker 1:But I would say, make sure, first of all, that your income is halal and that you're doing it with the correct intention to provide for your family right, so that these are one of the things that can pull, that you can pull reward from. So when you go to work every day, you're gonna be inherently Islamic. I don't have to be teaching Quran, I don't have to be, you know, doing being a growth leader at Nia for me to be aligned. I can be working at TFL. I could be working in Deloitte. I can be working in KPMG. I can be doing all of these things with the correct intention, because that may be the path for you.
Speaker 1:So I I wouldn't say that if you're not, if you're not working in an islamic based company, that you know you're not doing something right. It's really a lot of it is about your intention and your mindset. And then the second part of the question is okay. But if you wanted to work in an islamic based company, what would you do? Um, to be honest, that is uh. I don't think that I'm qualified to answer that yet tell me me about Nia.
Speaker 2:then how did you meet Shinoz? How did cause? It sounded like you had spent a lot of time at different startups. How? Did you find it Cause you. You started Nia last summer, was it 2024?
Speaker 1:I started in I think it was yeah, february 2024. February 2024. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Okay, Okay. So how do you discover Nia?
Speaker 1:So Nia was. It's a funny story. So I had started with after I did those internships and to come back to like, just continue that story to connect to this, after I did those free internships, I used to go to people in Dubai and be like, look, I run an account and you know, I got X amount of views and so on and so on. I can do the same for you. And so it basically just clients and I would just work for them and I would pull you know this is through that personal account that you yeah exactly Right, but but I would leverage my personal account to get them as clients and then I would post on their account.
Speaker 2:How many followers did you have at the time?
Speaker 1:At the time. I want to say 10,000 followers, yeah. Um, I want to say 10,000 followers, yeah, but it was less about the followers and more about the videos that popped off, right. So, okay, this video did 100K, that one did 50K. There's clearly some sort of formula and Alhamdulillah. I mean, I thought there was a formula, then I knew nothing. I really didn't. I knew nothing. Alhamdulillah, Alhamdulillah. Now it's really a lot more refined. But then, as I was doing that, I started working in a bunch of companies, but then I moved to the UK and after I moved to the UK, I started doing the same. But I thought you know what my niche can be? Islamic marketing. And this was after I switched my personal account to Islamic Reminders. So there was kind of like going from content that didn't really matter to beneficial content for Muslim teenagers.
Speaker 2:Was that after the conversation with your friend Abdur Rahman?
Speaker 1:That was around that time. That was around that time. But Abdur Rahman, mainly he informed my Quranic relationship and then maybe that kind of just spread out, but yeah it was just a lot of things happening, obviously.
Speaker 1:Allah's plan, right, um. And then basically I was getting into it. Then I was like you know what, let me come up with a company. So we, you know, we registered a company and we called it Tajdeed. Right, um and Tajdeed was basically there was a. There's a hadith that every hundred years that there will be a person that will renew the religion, um and Tajdeed. What we wanted to do was renew the marketing market for islamic marketing business say that again every hundred years.
Speaker 1:So every hundred years there will be a person that, uh, in a sense renews the religion is that hadith uh, yeah, so I mean I can bring it up, um, but I need to double check that yeah, yeah sure, I've not heard that a renew or revive like around that okay, you know, and so like.
Speaker 1:For like. For example, there have been people in the past that the scholars would say, okay, this is the Mujaddid, which is the person who revived, you know, this year, but let's double check that before we get in and then we'll put the reference.
Speaker 2:We'll put the reference.
Speaker 1:And if it's not, then forgive me and cut it out. But that was the idea. And then Tajdeed for us was like okay, let's revive the marketing market for the marketing industry, for Islamic marketing. And at the time this is why I was saying two, three years ago there wasn't really roles like there are now in terms of where you can literally just be a full-time Islamic marketer, if that makes sense. Anyway, did that. And then, long story short, we did a few clients I worked with. I don't know if you know Seth Hisham. He's basically a. He's a teacher in. He was in Manchester, based in Manchester, and he gave us his account at 5,000 followers and now he's at, I think, 300,000 or something like that.
Speaker 2:What were you doing for him?
Speaker 1:It was literally just at the time, like he just didn't believe in reels and he didn't believe in short form content, and we just took it, cut it, made it, you know, very similar to what you guys will be doing now.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it depends how people are listening to this. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And then just cut it.
Speaker 2:So you took it from 50 to 300?.
Speaker 1:Five to around Five. Yeah, yeah, so around five.
Speaker 1:yeah, yeah, so I did, we took it actually to five to in initially he was just like he wanted to go on break for ramadan yeah, right. So he's like, can anyone take your account that count? So he gave us um and I was like, yeah, sure, I'll do it and alhamdulillah. And I actually took it because I wanted to get close to sir isham, because mashallah, like, I like really love his character and there's just so much to learn from him. So, um, that's why I went, I took it and then I started like picking up alhamdulillah because, like you know, I was applying what I learned from my own account, um, and, yeah, that that worked out anyway. So we had a bunch of things. I also had small part. I also worked for at wahid to help them launch the project for like two months um, so that we also did so it was called muslim money, uh, experts yes, I remember, yeah
Speaker 1:yeah. So, um, I helped them launch that and then went back to uni so I had like two or three heavy stuff on my like cv, cv or you know um, and one of them was my account also. At that point my account had a host, had also across 100k. So shanaz got into contact with me because he wants to get into contact with our ISOC right, and at the time I was I believe I was head of tech, so like that was on the board of directors of the ISOC. So he got into contact with me because one of his cousins or one of his relatives knew me. So it was kind of just like a roundabout thing. I'm like who do you know in any ISOC? So he's like, oh, I know Ashaq and he's in Manchester. Okay, fine, got some contact with me, um, and then he got on a call and he wanted to sponsor um. He wanted to sponsor our ISOC right, cause Alhamdulillah, our ISOC is um, is decently sized, and so, uh, he wanted to sponsor our ISOC, and so De.
Speaker 1:So then he got into contact with that and then he was like you know what Um we want to sponsor and we had a head of sponsorships at the time. I was like you know, I'm not the right person to do this, I'm a, I'm head of tech, but um, as I talk a lot, as you can tell, was I told him about tij deed. So I told him about look, here's um, I'm doing this and it was just because he was asking me about life and what are you doing? He said, oh, cool, because we kind of need a social media person right now. It's social media manager. I was like, oh, okay, interesting. And then we got into contact. Then, you know, we had started out with I was just working on social media yes right and then he gave the.
Speaker 1:The kpi for us is just signups, right as a startup, um, so installs. So initially we started that x amount of signups and from social media and then, alhamdulillah, I hit that, and then we hit that, and then we hit that, and then we hit that and then we moved it up. And then we hit that and we moved it up and then, slowly, um, we did a three-month contract and then we continued that and then we renewed and renewed and then, after a bit, we, in the summer of last year, I took upon, I assume, the growth lead role, and what this means was that it means. What it means is like now it's not just social media, it's everything right, so are you still running your other company?
Speaker 1:So we had paused. So then, after I became company, so we had paused. So then, after I I became um, you know, after I took on nia, right I had a conversation with my co-founder. He said if we were ever going to start this up again, it would be after uni, right, because he was very busy, he had a kid so people who don't know mashallah at top of everything that ishq is doing? He's still at university I forgot, yeah, I forgot about that so you're in third year yeah, fine, a few months.
Speaker 1:A few months and I'm done in studying psychology.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah just for people who don't know, he's doing all of this on top of his full-time degree um in psychology so there you go so you had the conversation, you decided maybe you'll re-look at this yeah post-university but, for now, your full-time role is growth lead at NIA I had that conversation actually early on when I joined Nia and then obviously it developed into the full-time lead role or the growth the growth leader.
Speaker 1:So and then during the summer I would, I was working full-time and then, as university came back up, now I'm working part-time again, then until university ends. So yeah, that's how, that's how kind of we got into contact and the kind of the journey.
Speaker 1:that amazing alhamdulillah yeah so now, but that was starting out with social media, so I had started out with that, and then slowly, now, um, over the past few months, I've been learning about other pillars, as I mentioned, and that's why I don't um, now it's less about content creation, social media, which is definitely one of the strongest avenues, uh, but a lot of my time, or actually most of my time, goes into learning about other pillars and just applying and applying and applying, because in this market, if you are not learning, then you're going to be left behind, because it's like an escalator.
Speaker 1:Like, if you just stand, then you're just going to be like, and the thing is, all of us in this market are so young. All of us are 20, 21, 22, 21, 20. All of like. They're always just learning and applying, learning and applying learning, and they're going to get ahead. Right, we don't have, we can't afford to sit still, and so I have to be learning. I have to be learning.
Speaker 2:How do you keep your intentions in check in all of this? How do you? Because it might be easy to be swept away by. Oh, this video got a million views and I've just upped my followers by a hundred thousand, but as a Muslim content creator, you're doing this for a very specific purpose. How do you reset those intentions?
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a very good question and I've been asked that actually quite a while. Quite a bit sorry, and I think, to be honest, the only answer is just renewing as much as possible and every time. If I ever didn't renew, then that is just on, that's my fault and that's. May Allah forgive me for that, it's just. It is just that If I'm posting the video, then just renewing my intention when I post it, or, you know, sometimes in meetings we'll have like reminders of that. Okay, why are we actually doing this? Okay, we are. You know, numbers are cool, we've hit an all-time high this month, right, but why are we actually doing this? Sincerity, sincerity, sincerity, but what is the intention?
Speaker 1:So the intention is, and every single thing and just to kind of step back a little bit everything in your life should be connected to your one purpose, right? The one purpose that every single one of us are in this earth is وَمَا خَلَقْتُنْ جِنَّ وَالْإِنسَ إِلَّا لِيَعْبُدُونَ. And I haven't and I have not created the mankind or the jinn kind, except to worship me. And this kind of links back to what I was saying before. Except to worship means everything we should be doing should be worship, and that doesn't mean we have to spend 25 hours a day Spread, you know, praying. What that means is everything we should do should be with the correct intention, right. And so now, with Nia, hamdulillah is quite easy to make that intention and the correct soul. What Nia is kind of built upon is Khairul kum man ta'allama, alqur'ana wa a'allama. The best of you are those who learn the Quran and teach it, and that is what I try to bring myself back to of we're teaching the Quran and teach it, and that is what I try to bring myself back to. We're teaching the Quran, we're teaching the Quran, we're teaching the Quran. Working in Nia is teaching the Quran and, honestly, it's such a blessing to be working in a company because, like Alhamdulillah, I've been working in like Islamic startups and companies all this time the more I realize and look at my friends and you know, like the real world quote unquote the real world of people working in corporates and all of that, I just realized more and more how blessed I am to work in a company that is so Islamically aligned and something even like even under Islam, something in the Quran is, like you've mentioned, like it's something I really, really, I really want to build my relationship with even more, and so, even just by writing the scripts of the video, want to build my relationship with even more, and so, even just by writing the scripts of the video, reading the scripts and explain the videos, I'm learning, right.
Speaker 1:So when I'm explaining surah kothar or surah nas or, for example, very good one is in surah uh. In surah ikhlas, um allah mentions four key attributes, right, um? I didn't know that that was the kind of the foundation, the building blocks, of surah ikhlas until I made the video. So so I made the video and I'm like, wow, this is amazing, right? How did you learn that? Two things. So it's literally just, you either do read it from a mainstream tafsir, or we take it directly from the quiz on the app, right, and we learn it and then I explain it, right, because we kind of want the content on the app to be aligned with Instagram. And actually one of the things that is coming up, inshallah, soon. I don't know if I can say this, but I'm going to say anyway, um is um, a video feature on the nia app, inshallah. So what we're going to do is start introducing a video feature and we've went, we've already filmed the videos. They're being edited right now.
Speaker 2:I can't wait for that to go out and inshallah, but I guess we had on a few weeks ago salman hussein who runs the zed app which is a a financial education but also investing app. They've got that feature as well, so it basically has their own TikTok, or Instagram real feature.
Speaker 1:That's, that's so sick, you know financial education yeah, very cool. Oh yeah, it'd be interesting to talk to him see how that's doing.
Speaker 2:To be honest, yeah, I'll connect you yeah, yeah okay, so it seems like Mashallah Nia was almost perfectly created for someone like you to come in and create content for it.
Speaker 2:There's a lot more I want to ask you about, but before we go into it, it sounds like you owe a lot Mashallah to your parents for giving you the right foundation. I know you say, oh, you wish you were thinking this way a lot earlier, rather than figuring this out when you did, but it sounds like they gave you most of the building blocks much to be able to put it all together and use it as a platform to do all of this.
Speaker 1:Honestly, yes, and you know, the more I traverse through life, the more I realize why there's so much emphasis in a hadith and the Quran on parents and the value of parents and treating them well. And and and, and and right. But yes, so my parents, they weren't Muslim when they became Muslim around the age of 20.
Speaker 2:Both of them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. So I think my mom became Muslim when she was 19 and my dad 20 or 21, around that. Oh, wow, yeah. So this is what I'm saying, like I'm thinking you're thinking like, oh, oh, wow. You're thinking like this my parents are thinking about you know, changing, like you know, about why they were here at the age of 19. So that's why, mashallah, yeah what triggered?
Speaker 1:that, honestly, I'm not sure to be honest, but my mom, whenever I talk to my mom, she always says I, always because she was a Hindu before. And she always says that I Always knew that was what. There was one God, only one God. Right, but I just didn't know which religion, so it was all. It was almost a matter of time, almost alhamdulillah.
Speaker 1:And my dad, honestly, I'm not sure, but once he became Muslim Again, he's extremely strong minded and so once he became Muslim, it was like, and he knew it was the truth, it was like he was Like it was one of those. He's one of those people that causes minority influence In the sense that, like he will just stick so much With something that the majority Will start shifting towards him as opposed to the opposite. And then his brothers became Muslim as well as a result, and all of these things, alhamdulillah. And then you know my grandfather. He wasn't practicing at that time. He started practicing also. And my grandmother, she just passed away recently but, alhamdulillah, a few months before she passed away, she became Muslim also. So it started off as kind of like a household or like you know no muslims, and slowly, just one by one just shifting it shifting and, honestly, like I'm just thinking, I was thinking like a few days ago, like what if not?
Speaker 1:what if that didn't happen? How like this is the amount of the blessing of islam is unbelievable, it's. It's just mind-boggling in the sense that I can ask my 12 year old brother right now what's the purpose of life, and he'll give me an answer. But I can ask a 50 year old man what's the purpose of life that isn't Muslim and he'll just um, you know, make money and you enjoy yourself, be happy. That's not enough, man, like come on, um. So it's just that this is kind of the crystal like. It's so crystal clear and I'm just so, I'm so overwhelmed with gratitude that I am a Muslim and I just don't know. I don't know what I did to deserve this, to deserve Iman, to deserve Islam, to deserve the little connection I have with Allah, and I really just hope that Allah enters me into the highest level of jannatul fardos, because I'm not going to enter that by my actions, I'm only going to enter that through Allah's mercy, and there's just so much we do wrong, you know.
Speaker 2:But using the platform that you've been given and the talents that you've been given to the best of your abilities to fulfill that purpose.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:That's what it's about, right, because you built up a following, you know, when you were a kid. You had it's about right because you, you built up a following. You know, when you were a kid, you know you had 10 000 followers and that grew to like 100 000 followers on this and you could have done that for anything you could have started pushing some meme coin right, which a lot of people do, but instead, you decided how can I use this to educate as many people about islam as possible?
Speaker 2:yeah, right, and is there something about you know renewing your intentions, but also being grateful and paying gratitude? That Allah will reward you with more than than you were given.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's really so. I think Ibn Qayyim said this it's like you know, living life is like is is, you know, relying on the hope of Allah and also fearing the punishment of Allah, and it's like a bird. So one wing is hope and one wing is fear, but it's driven by love of Allah. So it is this thing of you know. I think Umar radiAllahu anhu used to say like you know, if the whole of mankind, if it was told or announced that I'm paraphrasing here that you know, the whole of mankind wasn't going to enter Jahannam and it was just one person that was going to be entered the gym, he said he would fear that it would be him, you know. And if the whole of mankind wasn't gonna go into Jenna and someone said, you know that, and it was said that you know someone would enter, he would hope that it was him. And just that she gives me goosebumps.
Speaker 2:It's's like absolute fear on one side, absolute hope on the other.
Speaker 1:That's it right and just knowing that and understanding Allah's love in the sense, like I don't think we've internalized that the creator loves us more than our parents. You know the most, you know majestic, being the I don't even the most forgiving, the most merciful, the most loving. He loves us more than our parents and we, kind of just, you know, we ignore that fact. If that makes sense and that kind of that brings me hope. If that makes sense, right, that brings me hope that he'll forgive and that, and obviously he's the most, but obviously he is also, you know, in, uh, he is the most forgiving, but he's also the strong, or the most shadid what's shadid in english? Uh, he is the most. You know this. I want to say strongest isn't the right word, but let's use that for now in punishment right, or the most intense in punishment right. So it's living between those two um and so, yes, being very, very grateful for everything I've been giving, but also being scared that I'm going to be asked about everything I'm being given, you know.
Speaker 1:So it's kind of it's very, very much like that, that balance you know that balance and to answer your question sorry, I just realized because I keep going on tangents.
Speaker 2:I'm really okay, these are great tangents.
Speaker 1:Really sorry, but very clippable I can't help it but yeah, with my parents, 100% like that was after my parents became Muslim. It was like my dad's mindset was okay, flip, because he was, you know everything that a non-Muslim does. And it just flips like that and he's like okay, now I want my kids to learn the Quran now. I want my kids to learn Arabic now, I want this, I want this the Quran Now. I want my kids to learn Arabic Now, I want this, I want this. And he just drastically made a massive. Every single decision he made after that almost was with us in mind and how he can reach that goal, you know, and you know he regards it as the ultimate sadaqah Jariyah.
Speaker 1:That's it right and really. May Allah accept it from him. And may Allah allow me to be in more service of him and allow him to forgive my shortcomings as a son, because I'm only realizing now, slowly, slowly, like, what that means. Right as now, I'm going to move out from uni. I have to. You know, even he says, like when he married my mom, he said I was choosing the mother of my children, right? So, even to the level of, and that should be your mindset when you are getting married, but to the level like every decision was just like I need this, I need this. It's like there was so much hunger in there and so, alhamdulillah, like everything I've been given is from allah and the foundations I've been giving is through, again from allah, through the mechanisms of my parents, and may allah, you know, accept it from them. And I know that my dad is grateful for being used as a vehicle to give us what we need to be given.
Speaker 2:I think the phrase that comes to mind is that your father is acting how I think we should all be acting, and that our time on this earth is very finite.
Speaker 1:Yes. So we need to be going at like 110 miles an hour to do as much as we can, because we don't know when the hour comes for us.
Speaker 2:I want to take this in a bit of a different direction and ask you about virality. It's something that, marshall, you seem to have figured out a formula for, where you have quite a few videos which have done very, very well, not just garnering hundreds of thousands of views, but, in some cases, millions. Is there a formula for virality, and can you achieve that without giving up your values as a Muslim content creator?
Speaker 1:this? This is a beautiful question, and the reason I say this is because a lot of people don't believe that you can do that right. And the answer is yes, very, very, very much. So there is a formative virality, and I mentioned this in a LinkedIn post. I called it, I think, the viral sandwich, where there was multiple things that, obviously, if you do right, then it will increase the likelihood.
Speaker 1:Now, I don't believe that there is definite virality. I don't think that exists in the sense that, oh OK, if you do X and if you do Y and if you do Z in this specific video, you're going to 100% hit one million views, hit 1 million views. No, I believe that you can. There are lots of things that you can do that, if you put it into a formula, you will increase the likelihood of you going viral by you know, multitude in comparison to other people, right? And then all you need to do that do is add a multiplier to that, and that is consistently posting, and that's how you kind of go viral, if that makes sense.
Speaker 1:And so, for example I'll give you just an example is you know a few examples of that things that you need to that would help you go viral is um, you know hooks. So, for example, any. So there's lots of different types of hooks, but there are visual hooks, there are text hooks, there are a verbal hooks, right, that's number one. Number two is um consistency right, so I've mentioned this before. But posting consistently and building up an audience, right. So, for example, on Nia, when we started um, we started posting 10 reels a week, right?
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, it was yeah, so one a day and then on three of the days for two, right, it was, it was crazy, right, and we would get different content creators. And it was like now we are building back up to that. We did 10 and we moved it down to seven and we built it back up. Um, but 10 a week, that that's not a joke, right? And each of those things and this is the other part of the of the viral sandwich is um is experimented on. Okay, this week we're going to try this hook. Next week we're going to try that hook. Next week we're going to do this. Then, this week we're going to try a video with more emotion. This week we're going to try something a video that's two minutes long instead of one minute, 30 instead of one minute. We're trying, trying, trying, trying. And every single video we take, we take that video and we do an audit of that video. What did well, what didn't do well? Here are the numbers, here's not. What are we doing next time?
Speaker 2:but the idea is, because you had seven videos going out or ten videos going exactly a week that you can say okay, this is enough for us to see. Okay, next week we're going to play with the generation, exactly.
Speaker 1:Or next week we're going to play with the emotion, or we're going to change up the hook, exactly okay and then the thing is is like, for example, there is not one thing that does well, in the sense that you figured out a video that has really good hook, right, and it has really good verbal hook, and it's gotten a million views, for example, right, okay, cool, if I post that video again a month, two months later, it's not going to get the same amount of views. Why? Because the algorithms change, the trends have changed, the people have changed, what people like have changed. So the reason why the experimentation thing is so, so important isn't because we're experimenting to get that perfect video, because that perfect video doesn't exist. We're experimenting to keep up with the trends. We experiment to keep up with the, the. We're experimenting to keep up with the sound effects and the side and the text effects and all of these things. So, for example, even our editors like, if you see how we edited a year ago, in comparison to if you see how we edited two months ago, it's not the same as now, or three months.
Speaker 1:We are consistently changing in a way like one is to keep the audience engaged and another thing is to keep aligned with what people want, want this time, right. So just a very quick example uh, you know, a year ago it was about just how many things can you fit in a video in terms of effects and sound effects and moves and all of those things, and now it's more about, like in um, creating a more well-edited, elegant video as opposed to how many effects can I get into? This is this is what people are telling to us, and we figured that out, and now we've, you know, adjusted towards that, and then we're gonna have to change soon. This is what the algorithm, or the you know formula is. It's just consistent iteration, to be honest.
Speaker 2:So can we can we go through a video?
Speaker 1:yeah sure, all right. So like if we pick.
Speaker 2:If we go to the nia instagram, yeah, for example, which? Which video is your top? Is it pinned?
Speaker 1:uh, yeah, yeah, I mean you can go to anyone to be honest, but yeah, that I think.
Speaker 2:I believe we pinned some of them okay, and one of them, let's see so um there's the the surah qariya one specifically.
Speaker 1:I enjoyed that surah qariya.
Speaker 2:So which one's that you'll find it? It's screen recording armor, so we'll share it so it can come up in the middle of this so this one is the yeah, with the head that comes out, okay, fine, so what was the? What do you mean? Okay, so what was the hook in this? Was it the head? That was the visual effect.
Speaker 1:So if we were to look at this one, it's screen recording right.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:Okay, so let's look back at that. Yeah, so the first one, the first the hook is, you know, the head right.
Speaker 2:So of course that's the visual hook right Now. If we look at this, Okay.
Speaker 1:So the second thing is the verbal hook, right. So this is what I wish I knew at 15. And I think it particularly works well here. It's because I generally look young, right. So if I say 15 instead of 20, then how's this guy 20? So I kind of I use that as well. So you also have to use context and all of that, and I'm also a part of the visual hook also is why am I on a field, like, what am I doing here? Why am I explaining Surah Qara'ah on a field? Why were you on a field? We were doing a hike and then, partly, this one has a lot of emotion in it. So you can really really tell that I'm talking from the heart, right. And I'll be honest, you can tell with certain videos where when I'm talking from a heart, when I'm not, I'm not necessarily not, it's just variances, like this was specifically was like I've really felt this one, but didn't you always want to talk from your heart?
Speaker 1:I do, but sometimes, for example, like I said, it's not a binary thing, it's more. It's more how much? How much am I feeling it? You know how much Because, example, you can read the Quran and sometimes you'll feel it, and sometimes you won't. Sometimes more than others, not sometimes you won't, sometimes you'll feel it Less than other times. I want to say that. So this one Felt really good and Alhamdulillah I was doing it. And then we the explanation. There's a lot in here, but we read the ayahs, make you know what Al-Qari'ah is, and usually when Allah says وَمَا أَدْرَاكَهُ In the Quran, he goes on to explain what that thing is so.
Speaker 2:This is part of it.
Speaker 1:So what I did was I said, okay, share this video, just before the payoff Of the video. This is something Also we tested. So that's one of the things, and there's a lot more to that. But then, for example, we took another video and we're like okay. And I just really just want to ask, because I was of the opinion that, look, this thing of if we posted the same video with the same visual hook, it's not going to do well again. Why? Because it's almost like you're using a card. Yes, right, um. And then I was like, okay, let's try it again. We tried it again and it and, and it didn't do bad, but it did not do that well. And we're like, okay, so our theory makes sense, now that you have to iterate, that you have to try and you have to do all these things. So, yeah, that's that one.
Speaker 2:Wow. Well, thank you for that. That was useful to the people listening. Yeah, partway, at least what works for you guys on that morality and then, in terms of, I've heard some creators say that it's impossible to play this game, or play this game on socials without leaning into trends or using trending music or, in some cases, you know, showing women in certain situations. What's your response? Because you've never done that, you've never gone down that route, you've never used any trending music or things like that, yet you've been successful, uh, alhamdulillah.
Speaker 1:My response is the results. My response are just the results, like, um. The sad thing is is, like you know, people having that opinion is fine, but um, not necessarily. But um, muslim-owned businesses having that opinion is bad. Why? Because then they're going to go through the other of oh, we need to use music, oh, we need to do this. Oh, we know you don't like, really you don't why, and what's my evidence that you don't?
Speaker 1:Not only my accounts, so many now like muslim, uh, you know the muslim audience on on these apps are insane, right, so you're not using a music or woman or all this. It's just so normal now, uh, right, and especially now in comparison to last few years, because you know videos, videos have really really been taking, uh, taking um, uh, you know, taking off, if that makes sense. But my response to that really is just don't only look at my results, look at everyone's like, like, there are so many of us just getting millions upon millions, upon millions of views consistently right, without using, you know, musicals, even, sometimes not even a backtrack. You know, um, and I want to say that the main, main thing of the video is the meat right In terms of if you're providing value and you're doing that enough, and people see that, it doesn't matter what sound you have in the back, no one cares.
Speaker 1:It's about what reason do I have to follow this person? When people click follow, they click follow for a reason. I'm clicking follow because this person is explaining the Quran to me and I would like that in the future. I'm clicking follow because this video is very funny and I would like comedy videos in the future. I'm clicking follow because you know this account is explaining, you know, financial advice to me, so I need to know that People are just going to click follow for the fun of it, right? So you need to give them a reason for that, and that reason isn't oh, I'm clicking follow because they use this nice sound.
Speaker 1:If you think about this logically, they you don't need it of course right, um, and I think the algorithm is a lot more quote-unquote human than we expect it. Oh, if you use this hashtag, no, let's be real here. Video has to be good, you have to be posting consistently, your quality of video has to be good and, inshallah, you'll get there.
Speaker 2:That's it I want to move to. We're coming close to the time yeah which is crazy, because I feel like there's so much more we can talk about, but just some quick fire questions. What's your favorite Aya from the Quran? I'm sure, there's a lot, but right now, what's the first thing that comes to mind?
Speaker 1:I think, I think my favorite Aya moves around a lot, but when my my I mentioned before but my grandmother, she passed away recently and one of the ayahs that kind of you know came to mind, like actually the Fajr of that morning, because she passed away around 5 and then 5 am and then we prayed Fajr around 6.30. And my eldest brother was leading salah and he reads this ayah in Surah Hadid, inshallah I don't butcher it where it mentions like, like, and it continues that Allah is telling us and addressing us. Know that this life of this dunya is like play, you know, and it's, there's lots of mention. It's Part of it is you I don't have to explain this in English, but you would Boasting to each other, right, being competitive Is an increasing in your wealth and your children, right. And then he gives us a mention of it's like a farmer when they are growing crops and they are so, so proud of their crops, when they're fully grown, right, and they're looking at the plants and it's. But at some point these crops go yellow and um, and at some point it becomes debris and it's very, and allah strikes this example that this is exactly how we are. We're going to be at the prime of life. But we need to understand that we are going to be debris, we are going to um in a, metaphorically, we are going to turn yellow, just like the plants right and so. And then another one is just to link to that. I can't help myself.
Speaker 1:I had to Is in Surah Ghafir, there was a man that was concealing that was a believer, and Allah actually says his name was Mu'min. So, and the ayah is and the ayah is وَقَالَ الَّذِي آمَنَا. يَا قَوْمٍ تَبِعُونِي أَهْدِيكُمْ سَبِيلًا رَشَادًا يَا قَوْمِي. And he says, oh, my people, يَا قَوْمِي, إِنَّمَا هَذِي الْحَيَاةُ الد. And the real, real success right is in the Akhara. So focus on that. And he just goes into this passage of it. And then he goes on and gives him more advice and more advice, and it's just unbelievable. So all of these ayahs of look the dunya is a distraction. Wake up, wake up, wake up. These types of ayahs right now is kind of what is standing out to me, because it's very scary. Like you said, it doesn't have to be some haram. We just get so caught up in just the worldly life and these ayahs help me kind of ground myself, if that makes sense. But those are the types of ayahs, right now that I'm sultan of my mind.
Speaker 2:Amazing, amazing. Okay, moving on Next question what's your number one advice to young people who either want to start a startup, their own business, or get into content creation within the muslim related sphere? If you could give one piece of advice uh, one piece of advice.
Speaker 1:What is? Uh? Know your why. So know why you're doing. You're doing what you want to do. So whether you you are going into a Muslim startup or an Islamic startup, or you want to build a business or you want to go into content creation, you need to know why. And the reason why is because, when you renew your intention, you need to have something to go back to. And I've mentioned I've literally just mentioned this before, but every single thing should have the intention of going back to Allah. Why am I doing this? Why am I going to uni? Why am I going to work? Why am I building this business and why am I starting content creation? Why, why, why, why?
Speaker 1:Unfortunately, a lot of us fall into not having this and again, it could be used, possibly used against you. If you're not, if you're doing it for something other than Allah, right. So know your why that's. And then I know you said one piece of advice. I'm just going to quickly add on to that. And then, whatever skill you're trying to learn, right, focus on learning that skill first. Actually, I was telling um, I was telling her over this, um, that one of the things, especially if you're early in your career. Um, what one of the things that you really need to focus on and that's why I'm still focusing on it a lot is just learning, just learning, learning, learning. Pick up as much information as possible before it's like kind of that thing of look at what is being poured into your cup before you look at what's being poured out, because if you don't have much being poured in, then how much can you apply really? So just learn a skill, learn, learn, learn and get a mentor. Oh my God, that's been so useful.
Speaker 2:I can get a mentor.
Speaker 1:It's unbelievable who's your?
Speaker 1:mentor. Uh, right now my mentor he doesn't know it, but shinaz. But I've got different mentors for different things. So, in the professional development world, definition as mashallah, so like, get someone who's who's done similar, something similar to what you're doing in different areas, so like, for example, in shinaz, it's just general professional development, um, and you learn a lot, just so much from them and because they've done it before, you can ask them questions. That's what I would say, um, but yeah, alhamdulillah, there's a lot of advice, but that was fantastic.
Speaker 2:Yeah, amazing, um, okay, and this might be the last one, yeah, is there a story from hadith from any of the sahaba, something that inspires you?
Speaker 1:there's so many, but there's one that recently I was listening to, you know, a lecture that was summarizing Umar bin Khattab's life, radiallahu anhu, and absolutely gave me a smack in the face when he, at the end of his life right, he, you know, he got stabbed, he was assassinated. Right, and he was actually praying Fajr and it was dark and no one saw the man. I think he was in the first few rows and he came out and just stabbed Ibn Khattab and then he went unconscious. They finished the salah and when he became conscious again, and his stomach is literally open, the doctors came to him and they said look, you're going to die now, say what you need to say or do what you need to do. But the first thing he said when he got up was what? The first thing he said was Asala al-nurs, have the people prayed? Because he got stabbed at Fajr. And when he asked, after he asked the question, he's like bring me water, I need to make wudu, I need to pray, bring me water, I need to. As I said that, right, like, bring me water, I need to. Goes unconscious, gets back up. Bring me water, I need to bring me water, I need to bring me. And I'm just like, and I'm sitting as he's explaining Umar Suleiman was explaining it and he's got mashallah beautiful way of explaining, you know lectures right.
Speaker 1:And as he's explaining, I'm just thinking like what am I doing? Biggest, biggest slap in the face. And then, right, when he's about to die and he knows he's about to die, his son, right, comes and Puts his head on his lap. And Amr ibn Khattab says no, put my head on the ground, on the dirt, right. And His son's like no, I don't want to do it. I don't want to do it. He's like Look, put my head on the dirt, because if my head is going to be of those that is going to touch the hellfire, then you don't want it on your leg. Can we just stop? Because what, up until that moment, he's embodying that fear and hope. And he says and if my head is of those that, will you know, be of those of jannah again, I'm paraphrasing then, you know, then it's going to be a lot more comfortable than your leg, basically, right. And he also said I want to put my head On the dirt so that Allah has. You know, he looks on me with mercy, right, this is humility. He was the most powerful man In the whole world at the time. Just that kind of integrity and that humility In that one person, I just can't believe it. And I'm just hearing it, imagine seeing it.
Speaker 1:You know, that story just really just like outlines the type, the amount of the waste man that I am. Um, in the sense that, like, even because, like we talk about that's why I was saying, like you know, for example, I'm not close to where I need to be in quran, I'm not, and you will never be where you need to be, but really it's shameful, really it's shameful. And I'm not where I need to be In terms of my salah, I'm not where I need to be In terms of my shabba. It really is shameful. When you hear stories like that, right, and because really Our goal is janitor for dos, how do you think You're going to get there If you're not going to be of the level of these people? It's tough man, and so may Allah make us all of the people of Jannah to do this Amen.
Speaker 2:What an incredible way to end this Incredible way to end this Ishaq. We're going to have to have you back because there's so much more we could have spoken about. Inshallah, but listen. Thank you so much.
Speaker 1:No worries and assalamu alaikum, we'll see you next.
Speaker 2:Thank you for listening to the Muslim Money Talk podcast. If you like what you heard, then please subscribe to Muslim Money Talk. Wherever you might have been listening to this, give us a like and share it with someone who you think might be interested. It really, really helps us out. Thank you, as-salamu alaykum, and see you next time.