Muslim Money Expert: This Fajr Habit Turned $1 into $50k/month

Estimated read time: 1:20

Summary

In this podcast episode, Sohaib Ashraf talks with Ali Abu Musa, a successful entrepreneur who shares his journey from working in recruitment to running a portfolio of businesses that earn over $50k a month. Ali discusses the importance of blending Islamic values with entrepreneurship and shares insights on starting a business, scaling it to earn $10k a month, and the challenges of balancing work with Islamic practices. He also addresses the role of social media in expanding one's business influence and the benefits of living in a Muslim-friendly environment like Sharjah. The episode offers practical advice for aspiring entrepreneurs at different stages of their lives.

Highlights

Ali Abu Musa went from a recruitment job to running multiple successful businesses, earning over $50k a month! 💼💸
Starting a business young, before major life responsibilities, can be very advantageous. 🧑‍💻
Social media helps in expanding business influence, but authenticity and sincerity are crucial. 📲
Living in a place like Sharjah offers a Muslim-friendly environment, beneficial for personal growth. 🌍
Balancing professional success with Islamic practices is an ongoing journey, not a one-time achievement. ⚖️

Key Takeaways

Embrace the entrepreneurial spirit in line with Islamic values for success in business and life. 🌟
Ali Abu Musa highlights the importance of starting early, especially before major life responsibilities. ⏰
Social media can be a powerful tool for business growth, but authenticity is key! 📱
Maintaining a strong connection with the masjid can support you spiritually and in decision-making. 🕌
Success isn't just about the money; it's a journey of personal and spiritual growth too. 🌱

Overview

Ali Abu Musa shares his inspiring journey from a regular job in recruitment to becoming a successful entrepreneur. He started his company after realizing that traditional jobs didn't fully reward his hard work. By age 25, he was running his own company, and today, he manages a portfolio that generates over $50k per month. Along his journey, Ali stresses the importance of having the right mindset and taking risks, especially before major life responsibilities like marriage and children.

Social media has played a significant role in expanding Ali's influence and business outreach. He emphasizes the importance of authenticity and delivering genuine value rather than just following trends for views or likes. Ali's approach to social media is grounded in his genuine interest in helping others achieve financial independence while adhering to Islamic principles. He also speaks about the challenges and joys of living in Sharjah, valuing its Islamic environment amidst modern amenities.

Balancing a thriving business with faith is a topic close to Ali's heart. He discusses how maintaining a strong bond with the masjid supports his business and personal life. Ali's advice to aspiring entrepreneurs is to build a foundation of personal and spiritual growth. He imparts that success is a journey, not just measured by financial gains but also by how well one can juggle life's priorities along with Islamic values.

Chapters

00:00 - 01:30: Introduction and Background The introduction discusses the entrepreneurial mindset among Muslims, emphasizing that their faith in divine decree by Allah can aid them in overcoming obstacles. The chapter highlights the challenge of sharing personal successes, like wealth, on social media due to potential backlash. It also points out the difficulty in managing responsibilities once personal commitments like marriage influence decision-making. The emphasis is on understanding that the journey of entrepreneurship is gradual, like walking before running, amidst the unrealistic narratives presented on social media about achieving quick financial success.
01:30 - 03:30: Ali Abu Musa's Entrepreneurial Journey The chapter, titled 'Ali Abu Musa's Entrepreneurial Journey,' begins with advice on the importance of having a relationship with the masjid in business and life. It features Ali Abu Musa, a serial entrepreneur, who began his career working in a field that is not yet disclosed in the provided transcript. The introduction also includes a call-to-action for viewers to subscribe to the channel to support its growth and enable better future content.
03:30 - 06:30: Discussion on Business Ventures and Mindset This chapter details the journey of Abu Musa, who left his employment to establish a successful business portfolio by the age of 25. Currently, he manages various companies, including a recruitment agency, an education platform, an AI SaaS startup, and a call center in Pakistan, collectively generating over $50k monthly. Additionally, Musa is a social media influencer who advocates for Muslim entrepreneurs aligning their business practices with Islamic principles. The discussion aims to explore Musa’s transition from employment to entrepreneurship, strategies to earn the first $10k monthly as a Muslim businessperson, and the crucial role of Islamic values in business dealings.
06:30 - 10:30: Transition from Corporate Job to Entrepreneurship The chapter explores the experiences of a Muslim entrepreneur transitioning from a corporate job to entrepreneurship. It starts with the guest expressing gratitude for the introduction and the opportunity to be part of the conversation. The guest acknowledges the existing relationship with the host and notes that they have followed each other's work for several years. The guest has built a presence on social media platforms like Instagram, where they actively discuss various business ventures. The conversation sets the stage to delve deeper into the guest's entrepreneurial journey and insights.
10:30 - 15:00: Advice for Aspiring Entrepreneurs The chapter provides insights and advice for aspiring entrepreneurs, illustrating the journey of building companies and staying busy with various ventures. It begins with a personal anecdote reflecting on the transformation and progress made by the speaker, who evolved from creating videos with a modest setup to achieving significant success. This narrative serves to motivate and inspire aspiring entrepreneurs about the potential for growth and achievement despite humble beginnings.
15:00 - 20:30: The Unique Nature of Different Businesses The chapter captures a conversation between two individuals reminiscing about their past professional journey. It mentions one person starting their company at the age of 25 and having experience in recruitment since the age of 21. There's also a humorous anecdote about filming videos in a bedroom in London when starting out and receiving advice to improve certain aspects. The conversation highlights personal and professional growth over the years.
20:30 - 31:00: Social Media, Personal Branding, and Transparency The narrator discusses their career journey, starting with working a job for four to five years before establishing their own company at the age of 25 from their living room. Over the next four years, they focused on growing this business while also investing in other ventures, some successful and others not. Currently, they consider their primary focus to be a recruitment company, although they are involved in multiple business endeavors.
31:00 - 35:00: Views on University Education and Alternatives The chapter explores the speaker's unexpected journey into the tech industry, specifically in building an AI SaaS business for recruitment. Despite initially not seeing himself in tech, he ventured into various business operations, including setting up a call center in Pakistan. It reflects on the unpredictability of career paths and making unconventional decisions.
35:00 - 40:00: Content Creation and Its Impact on Business This chapter examines the transition from recruitment to various business ventures, emphasizing that many business principles are universally applicable, regardless of the field. It draws attention to popular business shows like Dragon's Den, highlighting that investors often prioritize financial metrics over the business model itself. The key takeaway is that understanding the numerical aspect of a business, such as profit and sales figures, is crucial for success and investment appeal.
40:00 - 45:30: Balancing Work, Family, and Faith The chapter 'Balancing Work, Family, and Faith' discusses the importance of understanding the financial aspects of a business. It emphasizes that the key to a successful business is ensuring that the numbers, such as the profit margin and gross profit, make sense. The speaker shares their experience of starting an outsourcing company in Pakistan driven by a passion for creating. They highlight that as long as the business's financials are sound, there's a good chance of success.
45:30 - 55:30: Living in Sharjah and Cost of Living In this chapter, the speaker, who has roots in Pakistan despite being born in the UK, discusses their business interests. They express a desire to contribute to Pakistan through business ventures. However, due to a conflict of interest with another business, Dialer, the speaker is considering winding down their operation in Pakistan. The chapter explores the complexity and personal connection involved in balancing business in multiple regions.
55:30 - 62:00: Life Mission and Final Thoughts The chapter titled 'Life Mission and Final Thoughts' discusses the pivotal moment in the narrator's life when they decided to transition from a corporate job in recruitment to entrepreneurship. The narrator reflects on their experiences, highlighting the fear and uncertainty faced during this transition. At the age of 21, they were working their first job with a modest salary and were inspired by a team member, which prompted them to think about starting their own business. This chapter emphasizes the challenges and courageous steps involved in pursuing one's entrepreneurial dreams.

Muslim Money Expert: This Fajr Habit Turned $1 into $50k/month Transcription

00:00 - 00:30 as muslims we should be some of the best entrepreneurs if we have an understanding that whatever is decreed is decreed by allah then it makes it very easy to deal with obstacles can i show cars and my lifestyle and will that get a lot of views it's something i don't do usually the problem is what if something goes wrong what if it doesn't work it's a mindset thing because once you get married once you have responsibility it's a much harder thing to do before you run walk and i think on social media a lot of people obviously say you know make your 10k a month it's like the minimum wage of
00:30 - 01:00 starting a business right that is one of the best advice i could give to anyone when it comes to business entrepreneurship when it comes to just life generically is have a relationship with the masid because before we start this episode i want to flag that only 5% of you are subscribed to the channel so please do consider subscribing as it does help out the channel and does help bring out better guests in the future ali abu musa is a serial entrepreneur he started his career working in
01:00 - 01:30 recruitment before starting his own business at the age of 25 since then he now runs a portfolio of companies making over 50k a month this includes a recruitment company an education platform an ai sas startup and a call center operation in pakistan he's also a social media influencer who educates muslims about starting businesses and achieving financial independence in line with islamic values in this conversation i want to discuss abu musa's journey from leaving his job to building a portfolio of companies how to make your first 10k a month as a muslim and the importance of islam when it comes to entrepreneurship musa welcome to the
01:30 - 02:00 muslim founder thanks for coming on alhamdulillah um yeah i've never had the intro like that to be honest so no i appreciate the intro listen i appreciate you having me on um yeah man uh yeah i appreciate you guys having me on today no it's good to be fair like we we've known each other for a good couple of years and i've been consuming a lot of your content in that time as well whenever i open up instagram i always see you you know talking about you know this business and that business and you're obviously quite an active guy as well break down like you know what are
02:00 - 02:30 some of the things that you're involved with today you know what what keeps you busy what are some of the companies that you built up over the years um okay so yeah i i think just a little background on on us as well it's funny right i'm actually i was driving here and i was thinking you know what man this guy he's you know i'm proud of where he's got to today because uh i think when i first came across you we just spoke about it but you were doing the videos and it was like you know the the setup wasn't the best and all of that but you've come such a long way so first of all i think i'm genuinely proud of what you're doing
02:30 - 03:00 right now and how far you've come and evidently it's doing well for you so good on you on that i think when uh i think when you first spoke i was at kpmg recording uh videos in my bedroom in london yeah yeah yeah and and my my my only advice to you was this man you need to get rid of the rays in your asses that's that's the only advice i gave at the time so look i've um i'm 32 now i started my own company when i was 25 years old um i got into working in recruitment when i was 21 um and i
03:00 - 03:30 worked in that you know i worked the job for about four to five years set up my own company at 25 from my living room i've documented it many other times um i worked on that company for four yearsish and then i started basically uh investing in other businesses starting other companies um some did well some didn't do well um and today i would say you know i've got the recruitment company um and i would say the bigger other business that i'm more focusing on
03:30 - 04:00 is uh dialer which is uh the ai sas business uh for recruitment companies so sort of going into tech which is not something that i thought i would go into break down how did you go from you know starting up your first business you know for a lot of people you know they might have thought because you come from background recruitment makes sense to start up your own recruitment company then you started branching off into like so many like different kind of business ventures like where did you get this idea like you know i want to set up a call center operation in pakistan you know you kind of said it yourself like you know you didn't see yourself going into tech obviously it's quite very
04:00 - 04:30 different from you know being in recruitment how did you like go into these different types of ventures you know i i i think this might come as surprising to some people but um many businesses are actually quite similar i don't know if if i'm sure some people here have seen dragon's den right and what's the one thing they always focus on they always focus on the numbers and so they don't really care about uh the business as much in fact the business might not even make sense to them but they are they will ask things like "okay so how much have you made how many units
04:30 - 05:00 have you sold how much is your profit margin you know what's your you know gross profit and so on and so forth now if the numbers make sense the business makes sense and the language in essence of business is the numbers and so whatever you call the business many of times uh as long as the numbers make sense you can give it a good shot and hope that you you'll do all right in the business now i started this uh outsourcing company in pakistan why i started that was definitely because i have a passion for um creating
05:00 - 05:30 businesses and doing something for pakistan as well i'm from pakistan uh i was born in the uk but i go to pakistan a lot and so i i'm quite close to the roots uh that i come from and so yeah man i i wanted to create something there as well i definitely see the potential uh it's something where uh this is sort of an exclusive i've not actually told anyone this but it's probably something that i'm going to be winding down but more because there's a conflict of interest now with dialer which obviously i can explain exactly how that works it
05:30 - 06:00 makes sense yeah go back to like that first kind of jump you know you're have a corporate job working in recruitment where did you go from thinking like i want to start my own business you know how did that kind of jump happen because i think that's probably like the scariest part for people who want to go into entrepreneurship like making that initial kind of jump what were the kind of thoughts going through your head and how did you make that transition so i was 21 years old um and at 21 i remember starting my first job and uh there was someone in my team right uh i think i got a basic salary of like 18 or 19,000
06:00 - 06:30 i can't actually even remember at this time and so there's someone in my team and he's making like £35,000 a year and i looked at this guy like wow like i would love to be in his situation in 3 years time um allah allah bless me and you know we ended up doing a little bit better i ended up doing a little bit better and so you know i was making the 30 35 in recruitment if you make commission they give you you know that you get promoted and so by 22 23 i was making decent money by 24 i was sort of making uh as a wage i was on what a lot
06:30 - 07:00 of people are on when they're 40 50 years old for example right and so i got to see um taxes how it works how much you end up with and the reality of um even when you get promoted even when you make more money and how much do you actually end up with and it was just that it was it was the the understanding of no matter how much i make am i really getting the fruits of how much effort i put in and at the at the time i felt no i i wasn't so i started my company actually at the same time as i got
07:00 - 07:30 married as well nice so my nika happened in october uh 2018 and i started my own company as in well i say started my own company but basically i was just chilling with one of my friends in my bedrooms for a month i wanted to give myself a month off and pretend that i was working just to make myself feel good and i probably started that in september having said that my first client i got whilst doing this chill session uh in my bedroom with a friend nice nice can you you obviously make a lot of content about starting businesses and you know guiding muslims on how to
07:30 - 08:00 scale businesses what's your advice you know say someone who's like in their 20s they're thinking about starting their first business or say you know like someone in their 30s they're probably in like a corporate job but they want to go into this what's your advice in terms of you know getting started i think for a lot of people the biggest pain point is figuring out you know like what do i do what do i sell how do i make a start what's your like general advice for those people who who want to go into this i would say um usually it usually the problem isn't even what should i do usually the problem is what if something
08:00 - 08:30 goes wrong what if it doesn't work and it's a mindset thing usually right so i would say if you're in your 20ies and you're not married and you don't have the responsibility it's actually the perfect time to try something for yourself at least because once you get married once you you know inshallah have children once you have responsibility it's um a much harder thing to do and it's something that's not spoken about people think that oh you know you're 20 you're young you know you haven't got your experience etc etc but you're not going to want to start a business when
08:30 - 09:00 you've got three children and a wife a responsibility and so your expenses are like £3,000 a month you can't afford to just leave that job and start something yeah it's funny cuz like the conventional kind of wisdom is like graduate get a bunch of experience you know do your thing learn the ropes all the rest of it and then like further down in your career kind of do it but you're seeing the opposite like the 20s is the best time to kind of take that risk just because you know you have less responsibilities less kind of pressure makes sense how do you think you know someone goes to like making their first like you know 10k a month because i
09:00 - 09:30 think you know number one you mentioned is a mentality thing like going into it but then like scaling that business up and you know making that type of money for a lot of people like they don't think that's possible just because they never seen that type of money when it comes to their you know corporate jobs or their day-to-day lives so i think uh the the best advice on that i would say is before you run walk and i think on social media a lot of people obviously say you know make your 10k a month make your 10k a month and it's sort of becoming a um it's like the minimum wage of starting a business right um the reality is not that i would say that um
09:30 - 10:00 even if you can make 400 800,000 a month right that's a lot of money when you're working a job and if you can make that uh as well as working a job then it gives you the confidence in knowing that actually you can do something for yourself and that is powerful it's something that we can't just ignore so it's not about making £10,000 a month i'll give you an example okay again an exclusive you're getting loads of exclusives right now i haven't done a podcast for like 3 months so you're getting all the exclusive in 3 months um
10:00 - 10:30 so i started daer uh daer is definitely not the business where i make the most money on a monthly basis um but we started dial eight weeks ago i made a youtube video i said i'm starting a new business i'm starting a ai tech sas business right and uh currently we've ended up getting i think we're on 14 might get the 15th user should sign up today right and so our average um amount that we're charging per customer is
10:30 - 11:00 probably about i probably shouldn't be telling everyone because a customer would be like i don't want to pay that much but uh in the beginning we were charging a little bit less cuz it was early customers anyway so the average is £899 roughly for about 15 users and that's what we've got in the last 7 weeks right now obviously that's a lot of money for most people i understand that but it's what i'm saying is it's not the business where i'm making the most money having said that it's the business that i'm probably spending a lot of time on right now why because i see the potential so it's not about how
11:00 - 11:30 much money you're making today it's about um starting something making a little bit and growing on that to eventually getting to 10 15 20,000 i'm sure you can but it's a it's a it's it's a journey it doesn't happen overnight yeah you mentioned social media influencers and giving a bad image i think some people might look at some of your stuff and think the same kind of thing but uh i'll forgive you here you mentioned that like mentality is kind of plays a big part in terms of you know making that kind of jump where do you
11:30 - 12:00 think that comes from do you think it's just like a community thing you know being pakistani or muslim is just something that's kind of widespread you know growing up in the uk yeah so just on the first comment though that uh listen i'm not one to just let things go right so just on the first comment i would say that most definitely um it's sort of playing to what everyone wants to hear in essence it is that so if i now say uh start this you can start a business and you can make £10,000 a month you know we live in a day and age where that is the minimum barrier to
12:00 - 12:30 entry if you say to someone start a business and you can make £25,000 it's sort of not good enough yeah right now it's a case of setting expectation so it's saying you can make £10,000 a month but it's going to take 6 months or 9 months or a year it doesn't happen overnight and i'm more than happy to you know it's a case of just communicating that rather than just saying um it happens overnight and i think the problem is the expectation has to become that it happens overnight and it doesn't yeah to be i think some of it as well especially when you're doing content or put yourself out there on
12:30 - 13:00 instagram like sometimes you like need to say things you know that people kind of want to hear otherwise you just don't get like the traction and whatnot so sometimes you need to like speak in a specific kind of language even though that's not the advice that you might give out initially look and and you know is it i'll give you an example right um can i um show cars and my lifestyle and will that get a lot of views 100% it's something i don't do right uh can i say things a certain way to get a lot more views of course right but i don't do that because i know that actually there's a middle ground now to be honest
13:00 - 13:30 with you we're always fighting to uh get the middle ground it's difficult it's not easy sometimes you'll go this way and sometimes you'll play too safe right where no one even believes i mean i've had comments where it's like well if you do that much then why don't you drive nice cars or why don't we ever see it or why don't you know and so that's you can never win yeah you can't it's funny because i spoke to a personal knowledge and uh he does very well for himself um he's you know he's a he's a business person he does really really
13:30 - 14:00 well for himself and he was having a conversation when he was saying we don't like to show our lifestyle he was saying himself he said he was asking me for advice he was saying but where is the middle ground where we need to show a little bit so people can actually look at us and say well there is a guy he's a muslim he makes money halal way and he does have money and he's teaching me the right things how do we get the middle ground and that is something that it's a ongoing battle it's not easy do you find that hard with your islam like you know putting yourself out there you know you have like lots of followers um do you
14:00 - 14:30 ever get you know thoughts around um yeah just like thinking like bigger yourself like how do you kind of like deal with that you know as someone who's obviously a practicing muslim i don't i don't i don't usually i'm very i try to come across i try to speak to everyone i can and i i try not to let it get to my head and and what actually helped me was before i ever got on social media i experienced certain influences uh which i've never spoken about and i obviously would never take names but i've experienced certain influences coming across in certain way which i would
14:30 - 15:00 never want to come across as um and so it's always been in the back of my mind where if now people look up to me in a certain way i always try to make time and have a conversation with people irrespective of who they are and how many followers they have yeah yeah no i can attest to that as well you talk about um university and i find it's interesting because you went to university yourself but i've heard you mention in a few videos where you feel as if you know university like isn't like a go-to path nowadays uh tell me more about that you know why do you think that way okay so i would say uh
15:00 - 15:30 university is um not the path for many of people many of times uh for me to give a blank statement and say it's not for everyone obviously it's not fair because how else are you going to become a doctor or how else are you going to become an optometrist you know unless i know i don't know too much i'm not educated on it i know there are some new schemes coming out where you might not need to go to university or something i again i'm not too informed on that but the point being is if you need a degree to do what you want to do of course you have to go to university the problem is
15:30 - 16:00 the university route is being used as one which is i don't know what to do right now let me go to university keep my parents happy and figure life out whilst i'm doing that that has a massive negative effect it's not really very beneficial if it if you're using it as a way of i don't know what else to do let me get a degree if uh you now need your degree to get into whatever you want to get into for example uh you go work for the top four now you can take the
16:00 - 16:30 apprenticeship route or you can you know go get a degree right you know i i know that many people uh and i can i know the listeners will even even testify to this that many people they go to university and it's just a case of i don't know what else to do so i'm going to go to uni what's the alternative though cuz like i do feel like for a lot of students going to university 17 18 you know they're still pretty young i think for like a lot of people and perhaps it's just the society that we kind of grow up with that you know at that kind of age you know we're not really have
16:30 - 17:00 that responsibility like forced upon us so it's like not that normal for us to kind of think about life or business and career kind of path i feel as if you're kind of grown up in a community where we don't have to think about that and you know therefore go to university kind of figure that out so if someone doesn't have that fully figured out when they're like 17 or 18 you know what's the what's the al alternative path to that i guess well i would say in what you're saying uh you'd be treating university as a community center yeah for kids who don't know what to do and i would say that's a
17:00 - 17:30 very expensive community center cuz that's in essence what we're saying right i don't know what to do let me go hang around with a couple of people learn a little bit you know and grow and let me pay £10,000 a year for that it's a bloody expensive investment right and so what i would say is it's not necessarily looking at it a way of what else i do it's sort of understanding what you're doing right now and how actually that is a negative effect now if you go work a job for example and you make you know £24,000 which i think from april is
17:30 - 18:00 going to going to be the minimum wage if you make £24,000 a year then you know at least you're working towards your career you're doing something you're you can figure things out working a job you don't have to figure out your friends and growing and educating yourself where that might not be something that you're going to do anyway yeah i think for me i see it from a different lens i'm from scotland so alhamdulillah shout the s&p we didn't have to pay for university so i always forget that you know the university fees is kind of like a big thing i think even like islamically as well like there's
18:00 - 18:30 always a a question mark around you know cuz for most people then you know they won't be able to pay out that kind of money so it's definitely a consideration to to keep in mind too tell me about your content journey because you've been doing it for a number of years did you just like you know wake up one day and be like you know i need to see my face on youtube like what was the motivation behind starting content co to be fair uh as it is for many of people uh i think many content creators did come out in the co period what basically happened is i was again um working on my company that was
18:30 - 19:00 my focus i wasn't even thinking about social media we went from making an x amount every single month to making we were making thousands of pounds a month and we went to making £400 a month for like 3 months m so it was uh you know maybe i think just a few percentage of what we were making right so one it meant that was scary uh two it meant that um i had a lot of free time so it was then just a case of i started making a couple of videos people liked it and i
19:00 - 19:30 always felt like there are not more recently there's been a trend of uh muslim influencers talking about finance and stuff like but before i mean when i started on social media there was no one genuinely there was no one who was speaking from an islamic perspective about money and finance and it was a taboo thing right where it's bad if you talk about money um now i think we're probably going down the other route maybe we're talking too much
19:30 - 20:00 about money uh so i think there's always a balance but yeah that was partly the reason i i i've worked in corporate environments i know the issues the problems that people face and yeah it was it was a case of coming out and speaking on these matters because i know that a lot of people relate to them and letting people know that it's okay like you're not you're not odd if you decide to pray at work basically you mentioned a good point in terms of you know you quite spoken about you know money and entrepreneurship specifically with like a muslim kind of lens do you think you like rub some people the wrong way
20:00 - 20:30 because i think something i like about you and a lot of people can relate to is like you know you're quite transparent about these things you know you don't shy away from these things or for a lot of people i think especially from our community like you know it's still kind of taboo and you know some people get upset about that what's your kind of like response to that so i would say that look if i'm not upsetting people and probably not doing things right no but like genuinely speaking because look let's be honest right if i am uh going down the route of trying to keep everyone happy um especially from a
20:30 - 21:00 business aspect you're never going to get you because most people cannot agree with you in a financial or a business uh perspective most people cannot agree with you for if everyone agrees with you you're doing things wrong it's a fact right because then think about it everyone's going to be making money right everyone's going to be financially free everyone's going to be extremely wealthy and obviously that's not how society runs so i expect to upset people because i'm telling things i am saying things that uh they're not used to and they're growing up and they've grown up
21:00 - 21:30 hearing something and i'm now saying something completely different so i don't expect people now to hear a 30-second video and say "oh wow abu mus is completely right we are now going to forget everything and take it the route whatever he's saying." of course that's not going to happen so i expect people to disagree um and i want that but it's more a case of planting the seed um a lot of the times and so you know many of things right when you're working a job don't do eggs oh what that sounds so odd
21:30 - 22:00 that sounds so weird you know what and then guess what a week later they go to a talk an imam says something a shik says something and it's just a cycle effect or something else happens where you know let's say we say something about don't take a credit card out right and oh what that sounds so extreme and then but they hear it from someone so it's it's sort of a it's a journey i i don't want to see it as a personal gain it's never a personal gain from that perspective anyway it's just a case of planting the seed where to give you an idea i was 21 years old and i was actually very close to taking out a
22:00 - 22:30 mortgage for a house right and i watched a video this is i i have mentioned this maybe once or twice but i i watched a video of grant cardone right listen i'm not a huge advocate of grant cardone but listen he what he said was right yeah and so it was just whatever that point was at that point him making that point made me think and made me question the
22:30 - 23:00 route that it what it seemed like 99% of the world keeps saying to me take this route this one person saying something different made me just think and many of times that's what it is it's just making people think that you know what what you might be doing or what you are doing might actually not be the right way yeah there's a big question mark in terms of you know taking out mortgage like islamically and stuff as well i know this is something that you quite speak about quite a lot do you think you know we become like too comfortable when it comes to you know the halal and haram when it comes to like finances and stuff
23:00 - 23:30 as well um as a community yeah for sure i think uh there's a place uh for people to speak on these matters um and i don't think everyone should speak on these matters of course i think sometimes there's definitely an element of people would rather it's like it's the whole fatwa shopping thing right you think something is wrong someone says it's okay and you say oh fantastic it's okay right but without understanding the complexity of it so i think there's a place uh for people to speak on certain
23:30 - 24:00 matters um but it's also just i think it's very important for the audience to know that they should always be sincere in and generally try to be sincere because it's the that we're talking about right now um and so you should always be careful of whatever you're going to do yeah you've used your social media to i mean has you have you used your social media to become like a driver for your business um can you talk to us in terms of like how you kind of leverage that kind of following to do different things with it yeah um so to be honest when i started on social media
24:00 - 24:30 the the the pure reason of starting on social media was to make muslim the muslim youth realize you don't have to do haram and you can make money right you can do something for yourself and you don't have to fall into haram and you know the corporate things of you know you go into an interview you don't have to shake hands with the opposite gender you don't have to hug them you don't have to go christmas parties you don't have to do that and just talking about that stuff was quite relatable for a lot of people and that was actually the main reason why i came on social media initially and so a lot of people
24:30 - 25:00 then started saying to me you know what do you do as everyone does right and uh you can see videos of me like talking on youtube and talking about different stuff and then people started saying to me what do you do and i said well i i run a recruitment company that's what i do i have my own business and people then started saying to me well how do we start a recruitment company right and so that was a point where it was like i wanted to um i was like okay well and i saw people like ali abdal who are the pioneers of the education space on
25:00 - 25:30 social media for example and um i was like oh okay so a lot of people want to know about recruitment fine i can't physically explain how to start a recruitment company up in a voice note or a 10-minute youtube video or a 50-minute youtube video so let me make something so i made a a course a program for 18 hours basically so the program is 18 hours long and then you know i i gave it to people and a lot of people i was surprised actually with how many people were interested in how many people actually purchased and so that has
25:30 - 26:00 definitely been a route where i started a recruitment company people are interested in how do i start a recruitment company and so i made a program for them and now they are interested in taking that program as do you think people like rush towards like social media and personal branding like too quick because obviously you're someone who's built up a business first became quite established then later on you kind of like built up the following and then monetize it later do you think people like rush too quickly to you know start posting on instagram like start selling courses this kind of thing if someone's really focused on like making good money do you think it's better for
26:00 - 26:30 them to start a business focus on that or do you think it's just as important nowadays to like build a personal brand and do the do at the same time as well i think it's not genuine if if someone hasn't actually done what they say uh they are teaching uh i think in fact i would say i make big claims sometimes and i say that and this is a generic statement but i generally think that nine out of 10 people who are teaching something on social media are just teaching for gazi for gazi they they have not done what they say they have they don't know what they say they do and of course like you know unfortunately there are 21 22 year olds
26:30 - 27:00 talking about how to become entrepreneur and do this and do that but there's no history there's no they haven't done that and so how do you teach someone you've never done you you haven't done something so how do you teach someone it doesn't make sense now that is actually most of social media by the way most of like most people that is how let's go on social media uh make some crazy videos get a following and then teach people how to start a business right but many of times when you ask the question have you started a business answer is no so i know these scenarios exist in fact i
27:00 - 27:30 know these people personally myself not people that i hang around with but why have we spoken i mean i can come out these big claims and why do i just say these same people could never say something to me because go on my social media i did that right it's funny because i made a a video yesterday and i don't know if you are fine for me to mention but it's uh it was on sh the sunnah guy right and i did this video he i know him personally and we i actually
27:30 - 28:00 messaged him myself and i was like oh bro like i'm going to do this video like is that okay and he was like "yeah man of course." like so we're cool uh i've known him for 15 years by the way people don't know this but me and sh the sunna guy we've known each other for 15 years he's from the same my same town and so he made a video and he was like "no one uh no it was something along the lines of uh no one would teach a course telling you how to make 100k if they're making 100k basically something along those lines." and so i was like "oh like funny video." and it got like crazy it got like 8 million views or something
28:00 - 28:30 were people like tagging you in the comments or something no no one tagged me no one tagged me to be fair and so i was like "can i make a video?" and he was like "yeah of course." and then it's funny because shu knows him like so i even said this in the video and i said "if i was not genuine sha could make a video and be like i know this guy personally he's not even genuine he wasn't he was never doing this." but you know the crazy thing is go on sha's channel and he's actually done videos in my office uh where he's come to my office where i was running doing the recruitment stuff right so it's the thing is i can make these big claims and i know that i'm not
28:30 - 29:00 going to get affected by anything because i genuinely am not lying about it you know what i mean i've done it so you can't like come on you're teaching someone how to start a business but you've never done it that person can't then turn around be like "but you haven't done x because i have." yeah how do you obviously you're quite busy you like run like multiple kind of ventures how do you kind of balance it with your islam as well cuz i know that's like at the forefront of your life do you ever feel like that kind of affects you spiritually or do you have like a good balance between like you know your work your family your islam this kind of thing yeah i think look some of the
29:00 - 29:30 biggest scholars in the world can would say that they have not found the balance and so for me to turn around and say that i've got a balance would would be disingenuine i think so for me no doubt it's something that we battle every day um you have you know as we know in the deen we have periods where our iman goes down our iman increases and so it's something we work on every day man to be honest you have down periods uh you get very busy with work you start you know maybe you don't uh it's actually interesting uh again you know giving a
29:30 - 30:00 little bit of an exclusive but i was in the uk for uh six to two months to be fair more because my father got a little bit unwell and um i had to spend some time in the uk and it really affected my iman i wasn't going to the masjid as much i wasn't and i'm very used to praying salah in the masid basically and um i came back and i've been back for like 4 days and genuinely speaking like i feel so much like my iman has increased so much more because i'm spending uh time in the masid like have
30:00 - 30:30 a connection with m the masid again and that is one of the best advice i could give to anyone to be honest when it comes to business entrepreneurship when it comes to just life generically is have a relationship with the masid because bro like to be honest with you as muslims we should be some of the best entrepreneurs if we have an understanding that whatever is decreed is decreed by allah and whatever happens it happens because allah allowed it to happen then it makes it very easy to deal with obstacles and so whatever goes wrong in life can never be as bad as
30:30 - 31:00 losing a man basically so yeah man like we battle with it every day yeah i love that it's like the concept of the you know as a muslim you know like it doesn't matter if things go badly for us you know we believe that allah has got our better plan for us and you know we see that this is just you know one phase in your life and something better is going to come down the line something i've heard it's a rumor i don't know if it's true but i've heard that you're the unofficial grand ambassador for shara why do you why do you like living in the ue so much and it's obviously something
31:00 - 31:30 you talk about quite a lot yeah that's interesting so i'm definitely uh not the unofficial ambassador do anything for sha you know what it's i guess uh i'll tell you why because i'm the sort of person that i i usually just go and do things right you'll see that on my my social media stuff i said for example i said i was going to start an office in pakistan right like 2 years before i started that office i then go start an office i do what i do etc etc so i usually just put things out there i'm going to do x and i go do them and so
31:30 - 32:00 sha was uh not on the plans initially i was actually planning on making hijra to pakistan it is nice and that's something i i spoke about but on route to pakistan uh i stopped over in the uae and i visited my brother who's in charger basically uh this is actually the story which again is an exclusive you're getting a lot of exclusives so i visited him and my perception of sharah was that shar is a place where it's a little bit rundown a lot of it's it's that is where
32:00 - 32:30 all the south asian community lives as in all the pakistani guys where i am from pakistan and not that i have an issue with that cuz i most definitely don't i was looking to move to pakistan right so i obviously don't have an issue with it but that was the perception of shaja right and i think that still is the perception of shaja with a lot of people and it's probably just a lack of awareness so when i visited my brother he lives uh so sharah has obviously many parts right and he lives uh near the australian university for anyone that
32:30 - 33:00 knows um and so i saw that area and i was like "wow like this place looks nice." like it looks cool like it looks nice right and so i am someone who is again quite aware of the dean and i want to be around an islamic environment and so on and so forth and so when i saw shaja which again is a dry state which uh is quite an islamic environment there are massids practically on every road in sharah right then i saw a community uh
33:00 - 33:30 which uh again completely open here is a community called community called alzah basically and there's villas and you know genuinely like it looks very very nice like if anyone knows alah it's very nice and so when i saw that was like wow like mash is right there this community is beautiful it's got like seven parks in the in the community swimming pools like this is pure luxury and it's in charger which is an islam so you're getting the luxury of dubai sort of thing in an islamic environment so yeah that's why i think it was just when i
33:30 - 34:00 did the move and also i saw the benefits and i reap the benefits of it i mentioned it before making salah and the masid and so on and so forth on an everyday basis like the goes off and i walk to the masid and i make i make the close i am to the masid like what could be better than that so then it was you know i started saying guys by the way like i don't think you guys realize dubai is great and dubai is great by the way but there are also places like sharah where even the cost is a little bit lower and if you're looking for a
34:00 - 34:30 really islamic environment and you don't have the need to go into dubai as in commute you made me come to dubai today it took me 50 minutes just fyi guys i messed i messed and so uh if you're not having to do that then it's great if you have to commute is is it's probably going to be a bit tough what's the cost of living like in charger i mean i guess alaka is a little bit more premium in charger but you know obviously cost of living is going up in the uk i think this is a topic that a lot of people in the uk they're looking to make the move over so what what's the kind of numbers are looking like yeah i
34:30 - 35:00 mean i'll be transparent because i think it's beneficial for everyone right so i live in a an area called alzahya the villas it's a very it's a gated community you've seen it cuz you came to my house right um and so uh very nice like houses um and so for there i pay £25,000 a month in rent it's what it works out to be we have to pay obviously every 3 months in the uae usually you're paying every 3 months or 6 months and so it's about it works out to be about £25,000 a month but again for what what
35:00 - 35:30 i'm paying i probably in comparatively to the uk you're getting i'm getting way more for my buck basically in terms of uh a flat i think you can there's flats actually quite close to my community in fact it's alzahia villas and then alzaha flats and you can get a flat for like £1,000 a month um which is what it works out to be £1,000 a month it's about 45,000 dirhams a year yeah so and those are lovely like they're nice yeah i i think people really shock when they see
35:30 - 36:00 like the cost of living i think alzah is a little bit more on the premium end but still quite affordable especially compared to what you're getting bang for your buck like you said but there are like really nice areas in charger that you know you can get like a twobedroom 3bedroom for like in pounds is like 1,500 a month a month yeah even in dubai as well like um if you're not staying in like downtown dubai i don't know the palm jbr these kind of places like you can find like really nice residential kind of places you know lots of park lots of communities buildings are very nice and you know can be much more
36:00 - 36:30 affordable especially compared to london i think dubai is a lot more affordable compared to a london and people don't kind of realize that you know they think it's just everything's kind of super expensive but depends on where you stay and what you're kind of looking for as well i think the best way to say that is they compare dubai being like you know it's like saying uh all of london is is chelsea and kensington for example but it's not right you have other parts of london and so you know downtown is the chelsea or kensington you can say and and there are other parts of dubai right which are cheaper where there's less
36:30 - 37:00 tourists and so on and so forth and it's just a case of seeking those out makes sense yeah what's the abu musa mission in life uh look it's again um i'm very transparent when it comes to questions ask me whatever you want and i'll be completely open right um but there are some things which one has to be careful not to talk about i'll say that uh you everyone should have a vision which scares people to be honest and if you
37:00 - 37:30 don't have a vision which scares people it's probably not a great vision um and so look i think it's the the generally as many people as we can help as as much of an impact as we can make uh but holding tight to our religion as well because holding tight to our religion today is like holding hot coal you know i realize also that you know raising raising good children man and having an impact and you know doing as much as you possibly can and making sure that you hold tight very tight to your religion i
37:30 - 38:00 think that in in summary makes sense yeah i like some of the stuff you talk about like family and marriage and this kind of thing can we expect a marriage course coming out in the no is that is that your thing i haven't i haven't mastered that to be fair fair enough no but really appreciate taking the time out all the way from sharah we'll uh i'll need to come through and repay the favor but pray that a lot you know put on what you do and appreciate everything yeah man