“I Cried With The Adhan Being Called..”- Ex-Gangster’s Convert Story - Towards Eternity 21:37
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00:00I was a leader of the gang for at least 10, 11 years.
00:05I had my gang in Bronx.
00:07I had my gang in Queens.
00:08I had my gang in Brooklyn.
00:11I was into violent crimes, armed robberies, gang wars.
00:16I'm somebody that when you walk by, you want to play with me.
00:20I started thinking that I was the creator.
00:23The first thing I said is that I would never become Muslim.
00:25I would never put my face on the floor.
00:28It was an assault and robbery on a drug dealer.
00:32I got arrested.
00:37I can't use drugs no more.
00:38I can't drink no more.
00:40There's no more partying.
00:41Everything has just stopped.
00:44I was questioning, saying, you know,
00:46there's got to be something more than what I'm thinking.
00:49And that's when the adhan was called.
00:53It was so beautiful.
00:55I wanted to go where that was at because it was the call to,
00:59this is the answer you're looking for.
01:01The answer you're looking for.
01:05As-salamu alaykum, brother Abdulaziz.
01:06Walaykum as-salam.
01:08Thank you for accepting our invitation.
01:09Welcome to our interview.
01:10We are really happy to have you with us.
01:12I want to start with, who is Abdulaziz?
01:14Can you tell us briefly about your life?
01:16I was born in Brooklyn, New York,
01:18until I was about 10 years old and moved to the Bronx
01:21in about the 80s, the early 80s.
01:23I lived in a predominantly Latino, black neighborhood.
01:28It wasn't as bad, but it did have its gangs and stuff like that.
01:33And as growing up, I had a rough life growing up.
01:36I was the only child.
01:38My grandmother raised me and my aunt.
01:40There were no other children in the house.
01:42I was a drug addict.
01:44I was an alcoholic.
01:46I was into violent crimes, a lot of armed robberies,
01:51gang wars.
01:53My father died when I was 3 weeks old,
01:56and my mother left and left me with my grandmother.
01:59So growing up like that, there's a lot of answers that you want,
02:03but you're not getting.
02:04At that point, I didn't know who I was.
02:06I didn't know what my purpose was.
02:08I really didn't care whether I lived or died at an early age.
02:12So I turned to the streets,
02:14and since a lot of the guys out there in the street,
02:16they accepted me.
02:17That's how I ran, and that's where the gang life started
02:20because when you don't have that love and that attention in the house,
02:23you're going to get it out there,
02:25and it ain't going to be the correct attention that you want.
02:27So what happened was I took to that lifestyle.
02:30That lifestyle, it let me be who I wanted to be.
02:34I enjoyed the gang lifestyle. I did.
02:36I did enjoy it for a long time.
02:38I've been shot at. I've been jumped.
02:40I got stabbed once. I got hit with a bat.
02:43I've jumped numerous times, shot at many a times.
02:47I've shot at people.
02:48I wanted to live a life that was gang, was a gang life,
02:52and since I was young and no guidance, I took to it.
02:55You know, the streets, you know, they will eat you alive.
02:58Can you take us to those days?
03:00What kind of activities you were involved in?
03:03Whatever it took to make the next person fear me.
03:07It took anywhere from robbing drug dealers to shooting at other gang members
03:11to getting into fights constantly, picking fights,
03:16proving that I was a lot more crazier than the next person.
03:20I spent most of my life proving that I was somebody
03:23you didn't want to get into a confrontation with.
03:26So anything from armed robbery, running into drug dealers,
03:31place of business, and robbing them, shooting at them,
03:35them shooting at you, go to parties, you get into fights
03:38because you don't like this gang, this gang doesn't like your gang.
03:42You're looking at each other, and then it turns into,
03:45let's just shoot it out, why not, or let's just fight outside.
03:48You know, and that's what gang life was before.
03:50It's way different now, and it's kind of worse,
03:53but it wasn't as bad as how we did it, you know,
03:56because when we did it, it was just crazy.
03:59There wasn't as many police, you know, so if anything happened,
04:03it would take at least an hour or two for the police to even respond
04:06to these type of things, especially if it involved guns.
04:09The more I did it and the more people, it was like the more people
04:13talked about it or they looked at it and they mentioned it,
04:16the more stronger I felt, the more excited I got
04:19because now I'm planting fear.
04:22I'm becoming a menace to people, and I'm somebody that when you walk by,
04:26they won't play with me.
04:28I was leader of the gang for at least 10, 11 years.
04:31I had a lot of members, and we caused a lot of trouble.
04:35That's the life that I enjoyed because at the moment
04:38it was the only life I knew because religion had no significance
04:41in my life at that point because the religion that I was being taught,
04:45I didn't accept.
04:46You had your gang in Bronx?
04:48I had my gang in Bronx. I had my gang in Queens.
04:51I had my gang in Brooklyn.
04:53I had different locations with different people,
04:56so I've Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, Manhattan, Jersey, Philadelphia, Connecticut.
05:03These were places that I had members that would come,
05:06and they would all come to the meeting.
05:08What was the worst thing that you committed that you're really regretful for?
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05:34What was the worst thing that you committed that you're really regretful for?
05:38Let's just say it's something that if I wouldn't embrace Islam,
05:42it's something that's real major, that, you know, it says in the Quran
05:47that when you kill a person, it's like you kill all of humanity.
05:50When you save a person, it's like you save all of humanity.
05:53So I partook in destroying humanity at that point before Islam.
05:59Not only would I question it, I would curse my creator, Allah.
06:04And it was out of hurt.
06:06The best time for the shaitan to play with you is when you're hurt and you're angry.
06:10So how was your life in regards to faith? What were you believing in?
06:13I didn't really believe in anything. I was pushed into Christianity.
06:17I never was comfortable with Christianity. It didn't make any sense to me.
06:22The fact that I had to pray to somebody else to intercede for me with my creator.
06:28So I had to ask Jesus in order for God to hear me.
06:33I have to go through Jesus first.
06:35It's something that didn't make any sense to pray to somebody that was here, yes,
06:40and human like I was and died.
06:42So it started conflicting with me because that's like if I want to get a car off for the brother here,
06:48why do I have to go to you to go talk to him about the car?
06:51I can go talk to him directly. That's what I was looking for.
06:54That's what was missing. So I did not believe as I was taught growing up.
06:59And this is where the contradiction comes in is Jesus was the son of God.
07:03And then they Jesus is God. You have to make up your mind.
07:06You're Jesus, God, Jesus, the son of God.
07:09There's a problem here and none of it make any sense because it's not just at the point of Jesus being the son of God.
07:15It's also the Trinity, the father, the son and the Holy Spirit.
07:19So now there's a father, there's a son. Now you're telling me there's a spirit as well.
07:23That's where the conflict starts to come in.
07:26So I rebelled against the religion a lot.
07:29It got to a point where I really didn't believe in a creator at all.
07:33I started thinking that I was the creator and, you know, that's how I acted.
07:38Like, you know, there was no creator. There was no higher power than I am.
07:41And now I'm rebellious. I'm young. I'm angry.
07:45How old were you then? I'd say I was about 18, 19 years old.
07:49So did your gang life start back then? My gang life started in the 80s.
07:53We're talking about the early 90s now with this.
07:56When you were how many years old? About 10 years old.
07:59No mother, I mean, no mother, no father in the house, no male role models.
08:03There was one time I was cornered in and I was shot at and it missed.
08:08And then there was another time that a guy came up and put a gun to me.
08:12And when he went to pull the trigger, the trigger didn't go off, the gun didn't go off.
08:16So, yeah, I've been through a lot. I was jumped one time and put in a hospital.
08:21I've been chased plenty of times that if I would have got caught.
08:24And at that point, I really wasn't afraid of dying.
08:27But the street life, it played a major role in my life because of no guidance.
08:32So you were feared. Yes.
08:34But did that feel satisfactory to you?
08:37It was a satisfaction at the moment.
08:39But when you leave and you're alone at night, you get the void.
08:44The void comes back.
08:45And that's what you get up in the morning to do this all over again to fill the void.
08:49So it was like you are refilling. It's like having a car.
08:52When your car runs out of gas, you got to put more gas in it.
08:55So I ran chaos through the whole day.
08:57Comes nighttime, I'm out of gas.
09:00So what am I going to do as soon as the morning time comes up and I go outside?
09:03It's time to refuel and start it all over again.
09:06Chaos was something that I enjoyed at that moment.
09:10It makes you feel like you're untouchable, like nothing can happen to you.
09:13Everybody will be afraid to do anything to you.
09:16So it was satisfactory at the moment in the day.
09:20But at night, I knew something was wrong and something was off.
09:23It was a struggle. In other words, it was my soul rebelling against me.
09:28In some sense, I knew it was wrong.
09:30I knew something was wrong.
09:32But at the same time, I didn't have no belief in God because my thing was,
09:37if God exists, why am I going through this?
09:40I was furious with God.
09:42I would even curse God before Islam.
09:45So you were angry with God about what?
09:47My mother killed my father.
09:49So that made it where I was just like fuming.
09:53And then not only did she do that, but then she just got up and left.
09:57She just disappeared.
09:58I definitely doubted a creator because I felt that if there was a creator,
10:04why am I going to do this?
10:06And then what happened to you when you went to prison?
10:09It was an assault and robbery on a drug dealer.
10:12It's a funny story because that same night that I was arrested,
10:16I already had decided that I was going to commit suicide.
10:19I already had it planned out because I didn't believe that there was anything left in life.
10:24There was nothing worth living for.
10:26Why not just end it here?
10:28That's how I felt. I had no purpose in life.
10:30They arrested me at least two hours before I was going to commit suicide.
10:35And I went with them willingly.
10:36And when I went with them willingly, it's because of the crime that I committed.
10:40And now at force, not only am I not able to kill myself, I can't use drugs no more.
10:46I can't drink no more. There's no more partying.
10:49Everything has just stopped.
10:51There's no more crime.
10:52No more crime. You're just stuck in a space where you can get into trouble there
10:57or you could do what Allah blessed me to do with stink.
11:00And that's how I found Islam.
11:03I had enough time to get off the drugs.
11:06I had enough time to get away from the alcohol.
11:09There's no gang members that I was associating myself with.
11:12I started getting clean. I started looking at where I went wrong.
11:16And then I started starting at a point it was like, okay, now I know why I feel the way I feel.
11:22Now I got to face everything I did.
11:24Now I start feeling guilty. Now I start feeling bad.
11:27It was hard.
11:29It was hard because all of these things that you wanted to do that you hadn't played stopped.
11:34It just stopped right there.
11:36To this day, I say that that was a mercy of Allah because I already had the gun.
11:41I already had the bullet. I already had the way I was going to do it.
11:45What I didn't have in plan was the police coming and knocking at the door and me opening up the door.
11:50And I was arrested that day, and I never saw my home until three years later.
11:55It was an experience that I can say that if it had to happen again to get the same results that I was going to find Allah, I'd do it again.
12:03Because that's where Allah's message spoke to me.
12:07And what happened that you started to take these steps towards Islam?
12:10I started looking and I said there has to be an answer.
12:13There is a God. There's got to be a God.
12:15Because now you start looking at the way of creation.
12:18I was asking, I was questioning, saying, you know, there's got to be something more than what I'm thinking.
12:24And that's when the adhan was called.
12:26The muezzin that called the adhan, it was so beautiful that it took me towards where it was coming from.
12:33It was so loud that you can hear it in the yard.
12:37And I wanted to go where that was at because it was the calling.
12:41Not only was it the call of prayer, but it was the call to the answer you're looking for.
12:46I cried with the adhan being called because it was a calling.
12:50It wasn't just a calling to prayer, it was a calling to wake me up that your Lord is looking for you.
12:55You might want to head in that direction.
12:57I waited for a brother that was in my dorm to come back.
13:00Then I started asking him questions.
13:02Because at first I thought it was a song because it sounded so beautiful.
13:06It sounded like a song.
13:07And I said, what was that song that was coming from the masjid?
13:10And he was like, there was no song.
13:13I said, yeah, yeah, it was a song.
13:15I know it said Allahu Akbar.
13:18And he was like, oh, that was the adhan.
13:20And I said, well, the adhan, what is that?
13:22What is that?
13:23And he was like, that's the call to prayer.
13:24That's the call to let you know the prayer is about to start.
13:26I never heard nobody call the adhan like that.
13:29And he was like, let me guess, you didn't have the time for people to teach you.
13:33And I was like, no.
13:34But there was more questions.
13:36And a lot of them was, why is there more than one God?
13:39And Islam answered that right off the jump.
13:42No, there's not more than one God.
13:43There's only one God.
13:45And I was like, wow, this is what I'm looking for because it's only one God.
13:50There's not Isa as the son of God.
13:53But there is the belief in Isa as a prophet and a messenger of Allah.
13:57So that I was able to accept.
14:00So when I got upstate, it was a couple more questions that I asked, like, why do you only pray on Sundays?
14:06No, we pray five times a day.
14:08OK, that makes sense.
14:10Five times a day, every day.
14:12I said, OK.
14:13So it's not like the Christians and the Catholics that you can party from Monday to Saturday and then go to church on Sunday and you're forgiven.
14:21That was another thing I had a hard time with.
14:24How do you disobey the most high from Monday to Saturday?
14:29Then Sunday you can go to church and be forgiven for everything you've done, no matter what it was.
14:33That didn't make no sense.
14:35That's why I rebelled against religion.
14:38And so, like I said, Islam, Islam taught me that there is a difference.
14:42And when I found out that it was the last religion sent, it was here, but it had to be sent in this form.
14:48That's when I was like, OK.
14:50And how a brother told me was like, man keeps going in error.
14:54And that was the purpose of these messengers coming.
14:58And Prophet Muhammad, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, was the last of those prophets to be sent.
15:03The dean of Islam was the answer that I was looking for.
15:07It helped me. It helped me stay out of prison.
15:10It helped me, you know, make better choices in life.
15:13I never I stopped drinking.
15:15I never went back to using that type of drug anymore.
15:19How does it make you feel?
15:21It made me feel so good inside because it's like I got a restart to life.
15:26I was told that which was one of the most beautiful things is Islam does away with everything that went before it.
15:32So it was such a beauty.
15:34It was beautiful to know that Islam does away with everything, even the crimes that I thought I would never be forgiven.
15:41Because, you know, murder is an unforgivable sin.
15:45But before Islam, when Islam came, I found out that I was able to be forgiven for that and anything else I did.
15:53And I started going to the mosque.
15:55And from there, alhamdulillah, I embraced Islam the proper way.
15:59I was re-given my shahada again.
16:02I felt good, actually.
16:04It brought my spirit and my soul back to life.
16:07In other words, like my light was dim.
16:09It just ignited the light.
16:11It just made the light brighter.
16:13What was the first reason you were interested in Islam the first time before you took your shahada in Rikers Island?
16:19Well, the realization of me getting off of drugs and knowing that I wasn't God.
16:24That's and the way the brother worded, there's only one God.
16:28That got me interested into learning Islam.
16:31May Allah forgive me.
16:32When I was running around saying I was God, the first thing I said is that I would never become Muslim.
16:36This came out of my mouth.
16:37I would never become Muslim.
16:38I would never put my face on the floor.
16:40This is exactly what I said.
16:41I was not interested in Islam until I got to prison.
16:45And then you went outside jail and then you finished your sentence.
16:50When I finished my sentence, I left the jail and I was happy.
16:55Now it's time to take the message to your people.
16:57I invited people to Islam in the gang.
17:00And Alhamdulillah, the brother Wesley and three other brothers accepted that call.
17:06And Alhamdulillah, my son, my son says I inspired him to take his shahada.
17:11Recently, a brother came home from jail and he told me,
17:14Brother, the reason why I became Muslim is watching you.
17:17And I wasn't listening to you at the time because I was drinking and drugging.
17:22He went to jail and he found Islam in there.
17:24And now, like, when I see the brothers, it's a big difference.
17:27It's not somebody that I'm used to seeing anymore.
17:30I'm just happy that somebody heard that message.
17:33Was it difficult for you to give up all your bad habits and change your life?
17:37Oh, yes, it was, brother.
17:39I started removing myself from the people that don't do what I do.
17:43I started straying away from people that don't pray and don't have any belief
17:48and staying around more the believers.
17:50With Muslims, absolutely.
17:53And the big change came when I moved from here to Connecticut.
17:59I didn't know anything but Muslims in Connecticut.
18:01And I enjoyed it that way because I have something in common.
18:05And one of my sayings that I heard, one of the sayings that I heard,
18:09that I love is Muslims are friends and protectors of one another.
18:13And I also heard a brother, you know, he said that the Prophet Muhammad,
18:18said that if you surround yourself with a certain type of people,
18:23you will become of these people.
18:25So I started noticing that every time I got around people that weren't doing what I was doing,
18:30that's where the problem came in.
18:32So it went reverse.
18:33Now I started staying around the people that are doing what I do.
18:36And it makes it much easier for me to stay on the path of Allah.
18:39Many people think that, okay, locking somebody inside a prison
18:44will make him a better person.
18:45After some time, he will learn his lesson and then become a better person.
18:48He'll get his rehabilitation.
18:50Do you think any system can achieve this other than Islam?
18:53Islam is the answer for mankind.
18:56The reason why I say that is because if it wasn't for Islam,
19:00I don't think I would have learned my lesson.
19:02I would have been coming in and out of jail.
19:04Or more than likely, I would probably be dead by now.
19:06As long as there was nothing to guide me, that's where the problem was at.
19:10And I believe that with my heart, with all my heart, that this is the answer for man.
19:15There's a certain type of brotherhood in a gang.
19:18When you compare it to brotherhood in Islam?
19:20It's completely different.
19:22Most of the time, brothers are scared, and that's why they have an allegiance
19:26or they show you that they love you in a gang
19:28because they don't know what's on your mind or what you can do to them.
19:31Whereas in Islam, the love is given to you freely.
19:34You know, it's not like, I love you because I'm scared of you.
19:38In Islam, it's, I love you because you're my brother.
19:41What impressed you the most about Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him?
19:45The fact that he was willing to go through everything he went through to give us this beautiful deen.
19:49He endured a lot of physical abuse, a lot of verbal abuse.
19:52He was denied numerous times.
19:55He was forced out of his home, and he did it all, and he was still humble about it.
20:01He is a man that did something that I think no human being can do
20:06It takes a certain type of person,
20:11and only that person can be a prophet or a messenger of Allah that can endure such hardship like that
20:16and stay firm and strong and stay on the path of Allah
20:19and continue to teach things the way Allah is asking it to be taught.
20:23That's what impressed me with the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him,
20:26the fact that he was not willing to give up on mankind
20:29and that he was sent as a mercy to all of mankind.
20:32So, imagine you made it to heaven and you see Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him.
20:37What would you like to say to him?
20:41Thank you. Thank you for bringing a deen that helps save a person like me.
20:50Thank you for being someone that was willing to stand there and speak for me on the day of judgment.
20:58Thank you for being sincere in Islam,
21:01and for teaching it to be a message of peace and not a message of anger and hate.
21:07And lastly, if there was a chance to speak to all the non-Muslims in the world,
21:11what would you like to say to them if you had just a few moments?
21:14I would like to say, listen, open your heart, open your ears, don't be prejudiced.
21:20Don't look at what others have done.
21:22Look at Islam and get the message for yourself.
21:25It's a beautiful way of life. It has the answers to whatever you're looking for.
21:29And it will grant you peace.