This episode discusses the overall shift of the Sultans and Sneakers podcast platform as I attempt to have more conversations around what author and professor Cal Newport refers to as the "Deep Life". In summary, it's defined as "living a life that has radical alignment with your core values". Getting into that, it's also a life that is very intentional and avoids distractions. Naveed Husain is my guest for this podcast; he is a managing partner at Farooqi and Husain LLC, where he specializes in...
Sep 10, 2022•1 hr 35 min
In this shorter segment recorded after a main podcast, Hassan Shibly talks about his experience of praying at the janazah of Shaykh Muhammad AlShareef (rahimahullah) and how his last minute trip to Hajj materialized this year.
Sep 02, 2022•32 min
Ahmed Khan is the host of "The Creative Minority" podcast, which seeks to engage with contemporary intellectual issues ranging from but not included to politics, philosophy, theology, sociology, metaphysics, ethics, history, medicine and others. I recently learned about Ahmed's channel after speaking to Dr. Mohamed Ghilan and he recommended I check it out. What appealed to me is that Ahmed is getting beyond surface level conversations and getting deep with his guests, most of who not all have Ph...
Aug 29, 2022•1 hr 27 min
Today's atmosphere amongst Muslims who consider themselves practicing has become a divided landscape. One of the main factors in that is how American Muslim leaders have engaged with media, Muslim politicians and other entities in an increasingly left-leaning climate. I am joined on this episode with three noteworthy leaders in the American Muslim community: Dr. Yasir Qadhi, Dr. Shadee Elmasry, and Hassan Shibly to hash through these issues. Resources related to Sultans and Sneakers: Patreon: ht...
Aug 14, 2022•2 hr 19 min
On this livestream episode (originally done on YouTube), I talk about my personal story with AlMaghrib Institute and my interactions with Shaykh Muhammad AlShareef (May God have mercy upon him) who recently passed away suddenly at the age of 47. I am joined as well by Mort from "MuzzyBuzz" and "The Mad Mamluks". To support this channel you can become a Patron at www.patreon.com/sultansandsneakers I would also appreciate a 5 star review on ITunes or Spotify....
Aug 07, 2022•1 hr 23 min
Tom Facchine accepted Islam in his early twenties. He holds a BA in Political Science from Vassar College (2011) and a BA in Islamic Law from the Islamic University of Madinah (2020). He also holds a chaplaincy certificate from The Chaplaincy Program conducted by the Prophet's Mosque (2019). Tom is currently the Imam and Program Director of Utica Masjid in NY, and the Imam of Hamilton College. He also teaches Tafseer to middle-schoolers online through Legacy International Online High School. In ...
Aug 05, 2022•2 hr 32 min
Imam Dawood Yasin is the Director of Student Life and Center for Ethical Living and Learning at Zaytuna College. He studied the Islamic sciences at the Abu Nour Institute in Damascus, Syria while also holding a BA in Community Studies from UMass-Boston and an MA in Liberal Studies and Globalization Studies from Dartmouth College. He's well known for leading a sustainable lifestyle and his never ending pursuit of various hobbies which includes hunting and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. In this episode, we ...
Jul 19, 2022•2 hr 5 min
In light of the recent overturning of Roe vs. Wade, many Muslims have found themselves thrown into the middle of the abortion debate. For this episode, I brought in two individuals who are respected in the North American community for their knowledge and leadership to help navigate the issue. Shaykh Joe Bradford is an entrepreneur and American scholar of Islam. He has a Master of Islamic Law from the Islamic University of Madinah. Shaykh Joe's specialty is in Islamic finance and he focuses his e...
Jul 06, 2022•1 hr 52 min
Hassan Shibly is a Civil Rights Attorney based out of Tampa, Florida. He is best known in his role as the former Executive Director for CAIR-Florida. As a victim of defamation himself, he provides a unique perspective on the recent Johnny Depp - Amber Heard trial. He specifically highlights what Muslims in this day and age need to learn from such events. If you'd like to support the podcast you can become a Patron at https://www.patreon.com/sultansandsneakers For any questions or comments you ca...
Jul 04, 2022•59 min
Tricia Pethic is a chaplain based out of upstate New York. Raised in a blue-collar Democratic family and having campaigned for Senator Bernie Sanders, Tricia finds herself leaning more right on several critical issues of our day namely with regards to sexual ethics and abortion. She also has a unique 'pro-life' stance on the gun issue. We discuss these issues on this episode. You can find her writings at: https://beyondthesurface.substack.com/ She is also on Twitter at the handle @TheCivilMuslim...
Jun 26, 2022•1 hr 23 min
Arthur Richards is a Jamaican-American convert to Islam who resides in Abu Dhabi, UAE. He currently is the Chief Marketing Officer for Mecca Books and is also a teacher for Markaz Imam Malik. In this episode, we talk about Arthur's upbringing, conversion to Islam, the importance of Hijrah, and the methodology of studying Islam.
Jun 06, 2022•2 hr 3 min
For this show, I sat down with Darrick, a brother I met on Twitter who goes by the handle @redpillmuslim We talk about his upbringing in foster homes, the search for his biological parents, joining the military, conversion to Islam and how he formulates his political positions. He walks us through his thought process in explaining the current Russia-Ukraine conflict and finally we discuss some of our common influences in the manosphere. You can support the channel at www.patreon.com/sultansandsn...
May 20, 2022•1 hr 32 min
Taken from an IG Live done in February 2022 where I chopped it with my good friend, Umair Haseeb on the relationship between sartorialism and spirituality, specifically from the Islamic context. Umair is a young student of knowledge who graduated from the Qayrawayin University in Fes, Morocco and is continuing studies at Al-Azhar University in Cairo, Egypt. He's also well known for his fine taste in men's clothing.
May 16, 2022•56 min
Gareth Bryant is a writer, poet, chaplain, and part-time model based out of New York City. For this live stream, we discussed the passing of Kevin Samuels and waht the appropriate response should be for his passing. We also discussed the recent leak of Roe v. Wade and the Islamic position on abortion.
May 16, 2022•59 min
This episode is from a YouTube live stream I hosted right after hitting 1,000 subscribers! Did a quick Ramadan recap, discussed the direction of the podcast amongst other things. To support the channel as a Patreon go to: https://www.patreon.com/sultansandsneakers
May 16, 2022•41 min
Back from a holiday and COVID hiatus...I had the opportunity to facilitate a conversation between Umar Lee and Ubaydullah Evans on the state of American Muslims. Ubaydullah Evans is the Scholar-in-Residence at ALIM (American Learning Initiative for Muslims). He converted to Islam in high school and went on to obtain his degree in Shariah from Al-Azhar University in Egypt. He is also active with the Inner City Muslim Action Network (IMAN) and Ta'leef Collective in Chicago. Umar Lee is a writer, m...
Feb 20, 2022•1 hr 48 min
Dr. Abdullah bin Hamid Ali is a scholar of Islamic law with field specialties in Islamic Theology as well as Race and Blackness Studies in Muslim History. His research interests include the interconnection between law and identity formation, comparative Islamic law, and Islam’s role in the modern world. He is an associate professor at Zaytuna College in Berkeley, California. Dr. Abdullah is well known for his inclination towards conservative views especially over the last few years. In this podc...
Nov 08, 2021•2 hr 17 min
Omar Durrani is a chess coach based out of South Florida. He cut his teeth in the chess world growing up in Columbus, Ohio before picking up on teaching chess during his undergraduate years as a way to pay the bills. He found himself teaching chess to kids in a small town in Ohio where he came across the children of comedian Dave Chappelle, who in turn became some of his top students. He coached these kids to back to back Ohio high school state championships at the Queen City Classic in both 201...
Sep 24, 2021•1 hr 8 min
Estela Rodriguez-Jebril is a sex coach and licensed therapist. In this episode, we discussed how various religious traditions and cultures approach sex, the issues men and women have with regards to intimacy and why polygamy is a solution that should be normalized and utilized in our society. You can check out her YouTube channel at: https://www.youtube.com/user/Estela39/featured Her show, "Let's Talk about Sex" on British Muslim TV can be found at: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLPW6DPC...
Sep 13, 2021•1 hr 26 min
Claire Khaw believes Western governments should adopt their legal system from the Qu'ran...and she's not even a Muslim. We discuss how she came to this belief and its proposed implementation on Episode 54. If you are enjoying the channel, please consider becoming a Patron at https://www.patreon.com/sultansandsneakers Video Podcasts are available at: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8nN9RSnLs08M87yEZppwaA You can find Claire's writings at: https://thevoiceofreason-ann.blogspot.com/ and https://r...
Sep 12, 2021•1 hr 43 min
Is there a viable future for people of European descent in Islam? For this discussion, I bring on Robert Dufour and Umar Lee; two converts of European descent. Robert is the North American head of Islam4Europeans, an organization that seeks to support a positive identity for Muslims of European descent. Robert will argue from the point of view that there is a viable future for Caucasian converts. Robert is a French-Canadian who converted to Islam in 2003. He resides in London, Ontario. You can l...
Aug 26, 2021•1 hr 42 min
Rana Zakaria is a Community Educator for the Community Coalition Against Human Trafficking (CCAHT). Rana completed her bachelor’s in human services with a minor in social work at East Tennessee State University. I met Rana on Clubhouse and felt she would be a great person to educate the listening audience about human trafficking; how it works, common misconceptions, and what we can do to combat it. It was shocking to learn that human trafficking is such an issue that there are regionalized effor...
Aug 05, 2021•46 min
Dr. Mohamed Ghilan has a Ph.D. in neuroscience from the University of Victoria in British Columbia, Canada and is a recent medical school graduate from the University of Queensland in Australia. In this episode, he reflects upon what he learned from medical school and how that adds insights to what he brought in as a Ph.D in neuroscience. We also discussed the ideology of anti-vaxxers, specifically focusing on one of the main ideologues behind the movement, Andrew Wakefield. Finally, Dr. Ghilan ...
Aug 02, 2021•1 hr 44 min
Episode 50 of the podcast was meant to be a discussion between Ijaz Ahmad of EFDawah and Calling Christians and Joe Wyrostek, Pastor of MPI Church in Chicago. The topic was intended to be around the concept of the "Injil" in the Quran and why it poses an issue for Muslims (from Joe's POV). We may or may not have covered that as we went in multiple different angles throughout the show. Joe was also joined by Usama Dakdok, a Christian Arab. You can follow Ijaz on Twitter, Clubhouse and TikTok @Ija...
Jun 29, 2021•2 hr 23 min
Yusuf Clack is the owner of ClackFit, a gym that opened in 2009 and closed during the COVID-19 pandemic. In this episode, we talked about approaches to fitness and his perspective on how the state of California handled the pandemic. You can follow Yusuf on Instagram @clackfit.
Jun 07, 2021•1 hr 27 min
In this episode, I caught up with Hamza Dudgeon from the YouTube channels "Hamza the Historian" and "Hamza the Linguist". Hamza is a Muslim convert from Minnesota who I met while he was doing his graduate studies at the University of Chicago. In this almost 3 hour long episode, we talked about powerlifting, his upbringing in Minnesota, his conversion to Islam, approaches to understanding various world views and the aftermath of the George Floyd murder.(We recorded this episode during the trial b...
May 15, 2021•2 hr 35 min
The Ahmadiyyah Movement was started in the late 1800s by Mirza Ghulam Ahmad of Qadian which is located in the state of Punjab in modern day India. The Ahmadiyyah ascribe Messiah-ship to Mirza Ghulam Ahmad and are considered to be outside the fold of normative Islam by traditional Muslims. In this episode, I talk to Farhan Yusufzai, who used to engage in dialogue with the Ahmadiyyah and wrote a book called "With Love to the Ahmadis of the world". The book is available for free download at https:/...
Apr 03, 2021•1 hr 46 min
Richard Spencer is the founder of the Alternative Right movement, known more commonly as The Alt-Right. He is well known for his support of Donald Trump in the 2016 election and considers himself an "identitarian". In this episode, Richard shares his passion for philosophy, particularly the works of Friedrich Nietzsche. He also discusses his mistake in supporting Trump while we have some candid discussion about traditional religious spaces becoming places of worship again instead of museums. We ...
Mar 14, 2021•1 hr 34 min
Art Ort has been writing a blog about his spiritual endeavors since 2007. I found it when looking up Unitarian Christians and noticed he seemed to have objectively studied Islam in a fair and balanced way. Although he never converted, Art maintains a great deal of respect for Islam and in this show he walks us through his journey...as well as explaining the reasons for his non-conversion. You can find Art's blog at http://spiritualmutt.blogspot.com/ In addition to his blog, he is on Quora at htt...
Mar 13, 2021•1 hr 35 min
Episode 44 of the podcast is with Albi Abdullah, formerly known as Tracy X. Albi grew up in the foster system in Pittsburgh, PA before enlisting in the US Navy in the 1950s. He joined the Nation of Islam in 1956 and would spend close to two decades in the close companionship of Minister Louis X..whom we know today as Louis Farrakhan. In this interview, Albi opens up about his orphaned childhood, his path to the Nation, and life after the Nation…including future plans for The Gambia. If you have ...
Feb 23, 2021•1 hr 25 min
