Episode 34: The Man Who Got Us Married w/ Baba Ali

Speaker 1: 0:00
Assalamu alaikum, I’m Hiba. And I’m Zaid, you’re listening to Diary of a Matchmaker.

Speaker 2: 0:05
A podcast that will take you into our world as matchmakers.

Speaker 1: 0:09
We’ll share our experiences and offer advice for the single Muslim.

Speaker 2: 0:12
So let’s dive in Bismillah.

Speaker 1: 0:18
Assalamu alaikum everyone, welcome to another episode of Diary of a Matchmaker. My name is Hiba and this is Zaid As-salamu alaykum, how are you Owan? And today we have a very, very special guest, Baba Ali, the founder of Hafdeen. Welcome, welcome. Thank you for accepting our invitation.

Speaker 3: 0:35
Wa-alaykum as-salam, thank you for having me. I’m excited, inshallah.

Speaker 1: 0:38
We’re so excited. So to anyone who’s been listening to us for a while, they would know that Baba Ali is the reason we are married. We met on HOD, as thousands of other Muslims met there, and Alhamdulillah, we ended up finding each other. So thank you for that.

Speaker 3: 0:56
Alhamdulillah, I’m happy to be part of something. Alhamdulillah, you guys are doing such an amazing job of helping others find their half. So, inshallah, may Allah continue to put barakah on your work. Inshallah.

Speaker 2: 1:09
So why don’t we kick start with a story? So, alhamdulillah, you’ve been doing this for more than a decade, for a long time, and I’m sure you have your selection or collection of stories, but I don’t know. I’d love to hear just one story that stuck with you over the years. What is the craziest story?

Speaker 3: 1:30
Craziest story. There’s plenty of stories, but they’re all different, like one of the things I noticed with the Half-Vardine audience. They tend to be more private. They tend to be people happen to be more introverts than extroverts. They are extroverts but they tend to be more towards the introvert side. So they don’t want the whole world to know that they’re looking to get married just to people that they’re interested in. And after they find somebody, they don’t want everyone to know that went online to find somebody.

Speaker 3: 1:57
So one of those situations was I was at a Turkish food festival and I was standing in line and a brother approaches me and says hey, are you Baba Ali? And I said yes, oh, great, great. So I thought he was talking about like one of the board games or maybe the set of comedy. And he’s like me and my wife. We met on your site and we got married, but don’t tell anybody. I’m like what? And then what happened is his wife walks by. Did you tell them I did, let’s go, let’s go. And they ran and that was the last time I ever saw them. So I never saw those people again.

Speaker 3: 2:33
It was happened as multiple people have put me in this weird situation. One time some brother invites me to come to the masjid and he says I’m getting married. So, and he says I’m getting married, so come down. So I go there and I realize there is nobody here except for me, the imam, the witness and them. It’s just, don’t tell anyone. We met on half-farting, wow. So I get one point on one. One point on one.

Speaker 3: 2:57
Yes, so I was at an Islamic event. I was just back in the day doing stand-up comedy and doing half-farting, and what happened was an organizer at this masjid says hey, baba Ali, let’s go and have some ice cream. Chef Yasser Vadi is one of the speakers that night. He’s coming with us still, so let’s all go together and have ice cream. So we go outside and we go after the event and have ice cream. As we’re having ice cream, we’re talking that brother’s like what’s that website, that half your dean or my dean? No, it’s a half our dean or half the? Yeah, yeah, yeah. How does it work? And I start explaining everything and blah, blah, blah. That’s great, it’s really interesting, and a lot of people find each other through this. I say, yeah, me and my wife are already married. I was just asking Okay, so then I go back to my hotel later that night and my hotel phone starts ringing.

Speaker 3: 3:49
I’m like who’s calling me on my hotel phone? Nobody has this number, so obviously I assume it’s the front desk. I pick it up. I’m like assalamu alaikum. I’m like wa alaikum salam, who is this? I know this is the brother from that tonight and we’ll ask you all those questions. Oh, me and my wife met on half RD. We just don’t want anyone to know, so I put that whole show on together so they’ll have the last idea they would think of as we met on your website.

Speaker 1: 4:12
That’s correct, you know. We have not a problem. We actually tell everyone we met on a matrimonial website specifically.

Speaker 2: 4:22
Yeah, it on a matrimonial website specifically? Yeah, what’s wrong with it? Can you use just a reminder how much shame we’ve been associated with seeking help for marriage? Unfortunately, yeah, unfortunately.

Speaker 3: 4:33
Yeah, we should be like open to this, like there’s so many organizations trying to help us get married. We should be like this should be normalized. This whole idea, this romanticized idea that, okay, we’re just going to see each other and we’ll just lock eyes and we’ll know that’s the person I’m going to marry for the rest of my life. That’s a fantasy. That’s not how the real world works. The real works is you want to make sure you choose the right person and you want to like learn from the people who have expertise in helping people find their behalf. So you do it the right way, you show you’re more likely to find success. You just sit here and live in a fantasy world. You just continue dreaming in a fantasy world. So that’s why I think, as I agree with you, remove that shame and make it more normalized. Inshallah yeah for sure.

Speaker 1: 5:19
I think our cat wants to come on the podcast as well.

Speaker 2: 5:22
Sounds good. So, marshall, you’ve traveled a lot. I think you just recently got back from Australia, if I’m not mistaken right?

Speaker 3: 5:29
Yes, yes, we had over 500 people apply for our event, our singles event. That’s the second time we’ve done it. So far, around 1,100-plus people have applied for our singles event just in Australia and we’ve only done two events, so averaging around 550 people applying per event.

Speaker 2: 5:50
That’s a lot of different cultures Mashal. Through your travels have you seen the perceptions of gender roles differ a lot from culture to culture and how does that kind of influence their decisions and their search and getting a spouse?

Speaker 3: 6:06
Yeah, so I actually do notice quite a difference between, specifically, countries. So we’ve done events just this year. We’ve done events in Australia, the UK, canada and the US and generally and I’m speaking very general terms, so I’m not talking about anyone specific Generally there is a little bit of a difference between what we see in the US, and maybe parts of the UK maybe is a little bit different than it is in the US. Australia is very different than it is in Canada, just the mindset is different. The way they look at gender roles is very different. So you’ll see certain countries more traditional and certain countries are leaning more towards modern, and you’ll notice the ones that are more traditional. They have a more easier way of finding a spouse and they tend to be more successful in long term marriages, and the ones that are more modern tend to be more challenging ways of staying married, because anyone can get married but staying married is a whole different thing.

Speaker 3: 7:10
So I I think that when people, I, I this is my personal opinion I think more of the modern views is more of a selfish view. It’s each gender seeing what this benefits them and that makes it more difficult because if it’s all about me, me, me, no one wants to marry you, you, you. It’s our marriage, right? It’s our deed, not my deed, your deed, our deed. So, if we have to think of it, what is mutually beneficial for both sides? And I think the modern versions of men and women, of their marriages don’t look at what’s beneficial for them. It’s all about taking care of yourself and yourself first and you’ll come before anyone else. And that’s the mentality and unfortunately, I think it pushes people away.

Speaker 2: 7:53
Yeah, my next question was so how should the conversation be like when you’re discussing roles with a potential match?

Speaker 3: 8:01
Yeah, I mean, that’s a great question. So you know, when you’re speaking to somebody, you want to make sure they’re giving you the answer, that’s true, not the answer that they want to hear or you want to hear, right? So what do we do to do that? So what I try to do is I don’t reveal my cards. If I was single, looking to get married, I would ask him how do you envision the role of the husband and how do you envision the role of the wife? This is how you get more accurate answers that you say okay, this is what I think and this is what I’m expecting, so what do you say? And they’ll follow up with what you say. So I think a lot of times when people are asking questions to each other, they’re showing their cards and the other person realizes what they’re supposed to say, what the right answer is, and they end up seeing the right answer.

Speaker 3: 8:43
So if you’re more creative in the way you ask questions and I’ll just not to get off topic, but I’ll say really quick before we come right back is an example like when it comes to asking someone how often do you pray, or do you pray five times a day? Instead of asking, do you pray five times a day? Because the correct answer is yes. You ask them about what time does Fajr come in? When you ask like that, if the person prays truly five times a day, they have a general idea, not by the minute, but what time Fajr comes in. Just like if a person fasts during Ramadan, they know about what time Maghrib is. They’re not off by an hour. If you’re off by an hour during Ramadan, you don’t fast because people are down to the minute at the masjid, brother 4.30. It’s time, brother. They’re silent, they’re hungry. So if I just let them get gathered right, so they’re already arguing Adan, adan, brother, please go die. So we want to eat. So that’s the same idea. It’s like when something’s important to somebody, they are paying more attention to those things.

Speaker 3: 9:44
So if someone prays five times a day, they have a general idea, not found by the minute. Again, even if it’s a 15 minute window, you have a general idea what time Frederick comes in. So, going back to your question about the role of the husband, the role of the wife, the way I would do it is we would each answer the question at the same time, so we will not show what our answers are and then so we get more accurate answers of what you think and what I think. So maybe give three different options and say, hey, it’s the role of the husband and the role of the wife, here’s option one, here’s option two and here’s option three. Which one of these three options fits more of the way you’re thinking? And make all three look correct, by the way, and then they choose, and then you know what your already answer is. You can see how close you are aligned with each other.

Speaker 1: 10:30
What do you think of this statement? Rights and responsibilities they don’t change, but roles can change.

Speaker 3: 10:36
The roles can change. As far as I would need more clarification when someone says that. So if someone says the roles can change, what do they mean by the roles? Like, hey, you’re going to go work and I stay home? Or you’re going to say okay, what is like? Because I think when people are saying certain things, they want you to fit into their life. Right, they’re not thinking too much about how they’re going to fit into your life. They’re thinking how can you fit to my life? This is what I want to do and I want you to fit into my life.

Speaker 3: 11:04
So, for example, a sister may say I want to do my career, I just need a husband who’s going to support me. Okay, that’s fine. And the husband is like well, I want a wife who works so I can take 50% of your money. Now, each of them has their own agenda. The sister wants to work and have her career and everything else fantastic. But she’s like look, I’m not responsible for the home. I think we both should share that. The husband will be like wait a second, your primary thing is the home and I don’t mind if you work, but you can’t just work. Keep all the money for yourself. And then I’m 50-50 with the home.

Speaker 3: 11:38
Now you flip the script. You have the guy who says listen, I want you to go work 50-50. It’s just fine. And then, when it comes to home duties, I need you to take care of that, because, hey what, you’re the wife, so you got to take care of the home. I’m coming home and just relaxing. So it’s kind of like each person likes 50-50, but what benefits them? But in the real world that’s not how everything works. So 50-50, men, women love 50-50. When it comes to decision making, we’re both going to decide and make the final say. So it has different aspects, and all this confusion has started because human beings are deciding what our role should be rather than letting Allah, subhanahu wa ta’ala decide who is the most fair, who is the most just, exactly.

Speaker 1: 12:21
So are there fixed roles.

Speaker 3: 12:24
Yes, there are fixed roles. The husband there are fixed roles. The husband has a role, the wife has a role. These are the roles we have now.

Speaker 3: 12:28
Every marriage, with that said, can have the flexibility of doing things the way that works best for them. So if your situation is like okay, the wife on paper says the wife’s supposed to stay home, no, necessarily. What? If you live in a situation where your expenses are so high that you both need to contribute to make the certain lifestyle that you want? Now, the more fancier a lifestyle is, the more it’s likely that you both have to contribute. The more simpler your life is, the less you have to contribute. Plus, obviously, people’s salaries are different, living conditions are different, so it depends on what works for both genders.

Speaker 3: 13:03
But whatever you do, there’s a cost that comes with it. So let’s say, for example, we want a really nice house and really nice cars. That’s fantastic, and we both need to work. And how much time do we really get to spend with each other? We’re spending eight, seven, six, eight hours sleeping. We are at work eight hours, nine hours. We’re spending five hours with each other.

Speaker 3: 13:23
When you come home and I come home and we’re both sitting on our phones doing this. How much of a human connection do we have? Our kids speak Spanish because they’re never home. The daddy takes care of them. There’s no Islam with our daddy, because that person is not even Muslim. So we send our kids to Sunday school. We’ll learn how to pray and fast, but you don’t know anything much about it beyond that. So what are we trading in for? This fancy home and this fancy car? And if you’re comfortable with that, just keep that in mind. Don’t not think about it and later come back to haunt you because you didn’t think about these things ahead of time and being of the same age of what your spouse is expecting. A lot of times people get married to somebody and then later on they find out that we’re not on the same page. That is not what I wanted for my child, that is not what I expected for my lifestyle, and these are conversations they need to have before they get married.

Speaker 1: 14:19
I think saying in today’s world, saying there are fixed roles, it’s very politically incorrect. You need to be very courageous to be able to say yes, there are fixed roles.

Speaker 3: 14:31
Yes, obviously, if you bring different people on different platforms to speak, they’re going to say what’s right. And the reason why they want to say what’s right or what people? Uh, to make it politically correct. Because they’re trying to get as many people as they can on their platform and they don’t want to alienate anybody, right? So the if it’s opposite, what they actually believe, they’re going to try to make the most money possible and they try to appeal to the most people.

Speaker 3: 14:55
I’m not in that shoes. I’m not in that, even though I am behind half our day, I’m not here to tell people what they want to hear. I’m here to help them be successful. So if that means that a lot of people will be alienated, that’s fine. But as long as the majority of my people continuously get married, that’s all I care about. I don’t want to just make money at the expense of just leading people the wrong direction, and I’m not forcing my opinion on people. If people ask me what are your thoughts, I present my thoughts, but I’m not here, even on the website, to force people. You should do these things this way or that way, but I’m here to present the right way, hopefully, inshallah. So you guys make the right decisions.

Speaker 2: 15:35
Yeah, I think the problem that I come across a lot of is that people impose this general prescription that they pull from culture about what world should look like, about what responsibility should be, rather than pulling from the right and then creating a framework around that, and so that’s just another example of how culture sometimes gets in the way of a fulfillment and like.

Speaker 1: 15:58
In some cultures it’s taboo for the husband to take out the trash, while the Prophet he was in service of his family.

Speaker 2: 16:07
Right he took his own clothes, milked his own goat, yeah 100%.

Speaker 3: 16:11
And this is the thing that I think we kind of miss because of culture. I think culture is the one that’s really poisoned. A lot of the families has really taken taken certain things that has brought in un-Islamic things into the mindset of people. Those people implemented those un-Islamic things. Then everyone else experienced those un-Islamic things and they don’t know the difference between culture and Islam. So they have a negative feeling towards this, so they kind of like go the opposite direction, to the opposite extreme. So I think really what we have to do is separate that culture and Islam, show what Islam really teaches, separate the culture and that nonsense and remove it. And you’ll realize when you remove the two and you show just purely Islam, nobody has a problem with Islam. People have a problem with the culture. So all this nonsense and the way that men and women behave because of culture, that’s the problems that we end up uh, experiencing in our marriages yeah, yeah, and that actually segues to my next question, which is and I know you talk a lot about this which is feminism.

Speaker 2: 17:12
And yeah, and is feminism hurting or helping us? And does feminism actually have a place in islam? And, uh, and what role does that play in our social results?

Speaker 3: 17:24
Yeah, this is another controversial topic because whenever you bring up the word feminism, the word means different things to different people. One person will say I believe in feminism because I think equal pay for men and women. Somebody else will say, I think feminism because men are worse than women. Whatever way you want to do it, you just make up the word and make up your situation and just call it feminism, and everybody has a different definition. So when you use the word feminism, it’s like what part of feminism are you talking about? So if I’m speaking to someone from marriage, this is my question. This is a Baba Ali question. I’ll ask. I’ll ask what part of feminism do you disagree with? The feminism movement do you disagree with? Now, based on their answer, that tells me what level of thinking about a stage one feminism, stage two, stage three, stage four Stage four is like men, women are men, not stage four yeah, so like there’s no difference between men and women. They’re all one gender.

Speaker 3: 18:25
And, by the way, even though some muslims don’t actually say those exact words, they are on the same ideas that we’re both the same, we’re identical, and I don’t think that we should be treated even equally. And do it? Wait a second. Why are you saying that it’s so controversial? It is controversial, but it’s true. I think women should have special treatment. I don’t we should send women to wars. I don’t think women should have to do many of the things that are stressful, that men are responsible of doing. So when I say special treatment, the automatically assume I’m saying as a disadvantage for females, but I’m saying it’s for the advantage for females. You know, a lot of these things we’ve lost within our Islamic traditions. We’ve taken on ideas that have nothing to do with Islam and we present it as Muslims, unfortunately, and we try to creep it in and we try to Islamify it, and it’s just wrong. So the way we the whole feminism nonsense look at where the whole thing came from, this equality thing, this idea of we’re both the same and we should both be doing the same no, you shouldn’t. You should have the same responsibilities. I should be taking on more stress than my wife. I should handle more things.

Speaker 3: 19:26
The final decision a lot of times, you see, for example, a lot of sisters will tell you I want a good leader in my home. I want a person, a husband, who makes. Now, what does that leader mean? A leader means that the person will be responsible and accountable for the final decision. Meanwhile, that same sister will say I don’t want a man to tell me what I can and can’t do. So how does that really work? So I want you guys to imagine for a moment.

Speaker 3: 19:52
You hire a bodyguard and you tell this bodyguard, I need you to protect me. And the bodyguard says fine. So the bodyguard says please be careful, don’t go that way and way. And you say no, I want to go that way, I want to do whatever I want. Don’t tell me what to do. Wait a second, didn’t you hire me to be your bodyguard? Yes, but I want you to protect me. I can’t protect you if you don’t listen to me. I said well, I’m not gonna listen to you. Who are you to tell me I’m your bodyguard? So what are you talking about? I quit said you can’t quit. You’re supposed to protect me. Oh, yes, I can’t quit. In fact, I’m off. You go, do whatever you want. You can go that way, this way, up with that way. Any way you like, I’m out.

Speaker 3: 20:29
And then the girl’s like oh, what happened to bodyguards? These days, bodyguards need to step up. So so the bodyguard’s like no, I am. I will protect you in with my life, but you have to at least respect me. You have to at least follow my instructions. I’m not benefiting from you. That point in that direction. No, you are, you’re controlling me. How am I controlling you? That’s unsafe. You see that guy right there. That guy looks like this. He has a gun in his hand. That’s why he looks like this. So I can tell you stay away from that guy. Well, I can tell you, stay away from that guy. Well, I can’t be thinking of myself. Who are you? And the guy walks. So this is what we’re like. Of course, it’s a funny analogy, but this is how I feel.

Speaker 3: 21:06
A lot of men feel useless in our society today. They’re asked to be responsible and accountable, but they have no power to be responsible and accountable. It’s like being a manager of a store, but you have no authority. No one has to even listen to you. Why would I be the manager of the store if no one’s going to listen to me?

Speaker 3: 21:22
Now, the problem is some people, some men, will take advantage of these situations. We use this to control people. We’ll go outside the boundaries of Islam, and this is very important, because you have to decide who you give these keys to. Similarly, when we come to electing people, we are telling these people who are going to be our president, our governors, our prime ministers, whatever the situation is, they are the ones that are going to make decisions on our behalf that we are trusting. So if they have all this power, we should be very careful on who we give that power and position to.

Speaker 3: 21:57
Similarly, a sister has to be very selective on who she chooses as her husband, because if he has the final say and he doesn’t have Islam, then of course he’s going to take advantage of that. If he’s more cultural than religious, of course he’s going to take advantage of it. So this is why it’s even more important for us to select the right husband, inshallah, so you don’t ever fall into that situation Someone who fears Allah, subhanahu wa ta’ala, who loves Allah more than he loves you. So even if he doesn’t like you you’re unhappy he will not do the wrong decision for his own benefit. He fears Allah. He knows on day judging he’ll be accountable for it.

Speaker 1: 22:29
SubhanAllah, subhanallah. It reminds me of a Sharia proverb that says advantage comes with responsibility. So men inherit twice than the women, but at the same time they’re required to spend on their entire family, on their mom and dad if they can’t afford it, on their grandmother, auntie. So, like you said, they want to have it both ways.

Speaker 3: 22:55
Yeah, yeah. And this is again. When you look at it on paper it says why is it? This is unfair. Women get this much money, men get this much money. But then if you don’t look at the whole thing, you have to zoom out and say, okay, the money that she gets, how much does she have to spend on her family? On this and that? Nothing, none of it.

Speaker 3: 23:13
What about the man? It’s not his, it’s not even his. He has to share it. So if it’s mine, where is mine? Mine is me. There’s no me in this, it’s ours, so I have to share it. On my family, I have to take care of so-and-so. If my father’s passed away and my mother’s alone, I have to take care of my mother. She’s not responsible for financially taking care of the stuff, so the rest of it we don’t mention. So people want to use an argument. They find the parts that benefit them and they just pretend the rest of it doesn’t exist, and then it tries to benefit their side of the argument. But if you’re really sincere and true, show the whole thing and then let people decide and then you see, wow, I think this is more than fair, I think it’s just. Again, everything comes from allah subhanahu wa ta’ala.

Speaker 1: 23:55
He is the most just and he is the one we should trust more than ourselves so now somebody could say that oh, so you say, um, the women need to be protected and uh, they need, like they require, special treatment. Why do you think women are weak?

Speaker 3: 24:12
yeah. So again here’s we flipped the question. Just okay. If you are getting robbed, uh, or you’re somebody that’s attacking you, are you going to go? Like, let’s say you see a male being attacked? Ask the female see a male being attacked in a parking lot, will you run and fight off the three men that are attacking him? She’s like no, would you risk your life for that man? There’s some strange, you don’t know. No, I’m going to run and go help help. You know you just try to go help. Why don’t you go risk your life? You can save his life if you just possibly sacrifice yours. So sinners won’t do that. On the flip side, if you see a female being attacked, men are more likely to go there and it’s expected of men to go and do that.

Speaker 3: 24:56
So we are not the same in those situations. So we can’t treat these situations the same. A man who died as a sheik that protects his wife and dies in the process. So there is benefit, men and women first of all. We try to make them like the same, but they’re not.

Speaker 3: 25:11
Let me give you an example. If you tell a sister that your husband is currently not working, are you willing to work full time? And he just stays home and a woman will say, yes, under certain conditions, that we have a family. Okay, you don’t have a family. Okay, we don’t have a family, but he has to be looking for a job and eventually I do this temporarily, but in the long run I’m not taking care of all the expenses because eventually, in the long run, she’ll start resenting the guy. Now, meanwhile, the guy, what about him? What if he says you have to work and your wife doesn’t get to work? Is he going to resent his wife because she is not working? No, because men are not wired this way.

Speaker 3: 25:44
Going back to the situation of women being portrayed as weak, this is not the scenario whatsoever. What? What happens? Unfortunately, they try to make it sound like men think women are, uh, looked as weak and our men have never looked at that in that way. In fact, I think femininity, which many women think, looks weak, or a woman being feminist, looks weak. That is not the situation at all of the way men think whatsoever. What men think is that they have a natural instinct to provide and to protect, so they want someone to provide or protect for.

Speaker 3: 26:20
So when they are in a courtship phase, speaking to a female and that woman starts the conversation that I’m strong, I’m independent, I don’t need anybody, I’m perfectly fine by myself. What a man hears is I don’t need you. So then he’s just very confused why are you looking to get married? Why are you at this event? Why are you in this app or this platform? So for him he just says, okay, I hope, inshallah, things will work out for you. And he moves on to the next person and she’s very confused.

Speaker 3: 26:51
What’s wrong with this guy? As soon as I told him about how strong I am, how dependent I am, etc. I’m not a weak sea he reacts that way. He must be intimidated, while in reality he’s not. He’s just happy for you and says, okay, I guess you’re good, I just need someone to take care of, I just want someone to provide for. If you’re already taken care of and provided for, you don’t need someone like me, I have this natural instinct to take care of something and you are already taken care of.

Speaker 3: 27:19
So I think this misconception of, oh, this person is weak. So what they do is they try to flip the script and try to pretend they’re strong, while it’s more of an illusion, because the words that they’re using is not really accurate. If you’re truly strong, you don’t have to tell the world you’re strong. Right, the confidence is silent. You don’t go around the world making videos. Hey, everybody, sound like everybody. I Just silent. You don’t go around the world making videos. Hey, everybody, sound like everybody. I just want to let you guys know how strong I am. No strong people are just strong. Fourth degree black book martial artist. Doesn’t have to go around the world to see a black degree martial artist. You will just see by his demeanor. He knows what he’s doing, he has a confidence about it.

Speaker 3: 27:54
If you use the word independent, you are not independent, with all the respect, and neither are the men and neither is nobody. In fact, none of the creation is independent. Every part of the creation is dependent on Allah, subhanahu wa ta’ala. He is the true and only one that’s independent. The rest of us are interdependent on each other. We all need each other. It’s just.

Speaker 3: 28:17
That is a weak thing to say I need you Because we’re worried about coming across as weak, but in reality it shows strength to be vulnerable to say I need my wife and I need my children. I need good companions, I need my creator, I need Islam, I need all these things. Does that make you weak? No, it makes you strong because it makes you smart. It shows you that you have critical thinking, you have self-awareness. What makes you weak is when you are living a delusional world and pretend that all this is from you Because you have an elitist mentality. You come across almost arrogant, that everything is because of me. I’ve taken care of myself. No, you have not. Allah’ve taken care of myself. No, you have not. Allah has taken care of all of us. And surely, if I am a person who’s living on my own and taking care of myself and everything, I don’t have to tell the world. It’s just called being an adult so nothing special about it.

Speaker 2: 29:15
That’s true. That’s true, you know. This reminds me of the situation ran into the, a client, you know Mashala. She just tried to keep it as vague as possible to protect her identity, but she was pursuing a specialty in the medical field and Mashala she’s like a super smart girl pursuing a PhD program. And we introduced a master who was also pursuing a PhD program, introduced a master who was also pursuing a phd program and she won.

Speaker 2: 29:45
There was one line she said that really stuck to me, which was I don’t find many marriages to be successful if there is a pay disparity between the wife and the husband.

Speaker 2: 29:54
And I’m like, no, that really stuck to me because what I feel, that that a lot of girls are adopting the mentality that you know they’re, whatever they accomplish outside of the home, should carry over into the home. So they could be a CEO, they could be a politician, they could be whatever, but at home your husband is a CEO, right, like your husband. There are no two captains steering the ship. Right, like your husband, there are no two captains steering the ship. So you have an honor position at home. But realize that the pay decision, this mentality, is coming from the point of view that you know you you’re earning more is somehow giving you leverage over your husband. But if you’re coming with an islamic mindset, you understand that your husband is still the kawwam at home, that he’s still the leader at home, regardless of how much you earn outside, it doesn’t matter. You understand where I’m coming from.

Speaker 3: 30:49
Yes, if you think about it, this is a direct attack on the family structure. Yeah, now if you talk about the same thing and say okay, let’s say another female male situation like, for example, a police officer pulls you over that is a male police officer, female driver in this example. He asks you I need your license and registration. No, who are you to tell me? I’m in Japan? You cannot come with that attitude. You’re going to go to jail. So you are going to be submissive in that situation at work, boss says I need you to do this Again, staying within the legal boundaries of what your work tasks are. I need you this extra project. I knew this and like that’s not part of my default thing. Why I need you to get this thing done by 5 pm on friday. Well, who are you to tell me what to do? You come up with that attitude. You won’t be working very, very long. Now.

Speaker 3: 31:38
When you ask people why would you accept or tolerate this? The response is well, he’s paying me. Well, he’s paying you as a financial transaction. But what about the person who loves you and takes care of you and protects you with their lives and takes on the accountability responsibility? And when you’re lying in bed and someone breaks the window, he’s down there to protect you and to go see what’s wrong. Will your boss do that for you? Will your boss sacrifice their whatever they make as far as money to share everything with you? So the question is they never question these things. So there is levels of submissiveness that we have with all these relationships, but we don’t talk about any of them. Let’s even talk about two more Relationship with you and your creator. You have to do whatever your creator says. This is submission to Allah, subhanahu wa ta’ala, literally submitting to your creator.

Speaker 1: 32:28
I feel that extreme feminism is a result of extreme masculinity. What role do you feel masculinity plays in this whole picture of getting married?

Speaker 3: 32:41
I think both masculine and feminine energy has a positive and negative versions of it. So the same man who can be violent, that type of energy can also be protective if he channels that energy in the right way. The same woman who can be, for example, has female intuition. That’s a good thing to have. But you can also, if you challenge the wrong way, you could just be superstitious, you could be. There’s good and bad versions of every type of energy and you have to think about it, like am I going to be the good version of this or the bad version of this? And what happens is when we see the bad version in some people, then what we do is we just label it all that. So that’s what you use a toxic masculine Right.

Speaker 3: 33:28
I don’t think femininity is bad. I don’t think masculinity is bad. I think the lack of femininity in women is bad. The lack of masculinity in men is bad, because when you’re lacking these things, the other gender does not find you desirable. And what people don’t realize, both male and female, is that when they say, oh, there’s no good women out there, there’s no good men out there, they’re talking about. One major things is they’re lacking that element that makes them a woman. That makes them a man. That that’s why they said men need to step up. And though they said what happened to women who want to be women? They use terms like this and it’s not clear, but if you really analyze it, what they’re really saying is where are the women who are naturally feminine, who want to feel like a woman, and where are the men who are men? What happened to one generation ago, like my dad’s generation, my grandfather’s generation? What happened to like one generation ago, like my dad’s generation, my grandfather? What happened to the real men? This is what they’re really asking, and the real important question is where are they like? Why are they like this?

Speaker 3: 34:30
And these are both responding to negative things that has impacted them in their life. So, example feminists or red-tailed people, notice they have a lot more in common. They’re different. Like wait a second, they hate each other, they do, but they have a lot more in common. They’re different. Wait a second, they hate each other, they do, but they have a lot more in common than they actually think. Both of them and I want you guys to think about everyone that you know is a feminist. Everyone is hardcore feminist, hardcore rebel people. Everyone, with that exception.

Speaker 3: 34:54
They went through some type of trauma from the opposite gender or they saw it with their own eyes, maybe with their mother or their father or their best friend, they got a terrible divorce, something happened, or they themselves experienced it. Now they have very negative feelings, not to one specific person, but to opposite gender in general, and this is why they are mad. It’s like a magnet for them. They’re almost like trauma bonding with each other. None of these people have anything in common other than they’ve been hurt by the opposite gender in a bad way, and if you watch the podcasts that they show up for both genders, you will notice that what they do is they try to show the worst of the opposite gender.

Speaker 3: 35:33
So if this is their nonsense that you believe, let’s double down on it. Let’s keep feeding you more and more and more, which keeps making this fire bigger and bigger, so you start despising, hating almost the opposite gender. And again, it’s one thing to divide us and to separate us and get us divorced. It’s another thing to put so much hatred in our heart that we will never get married again and, as you notice today, we are at the lowest marriage percentage ever for adults in the last 80 years, as eight years ago is when they start keeping track record so that basically that we know of in our, in our history so far we’ve never seen this many people not married that are adults I think I heard in certain countries like japan, they are encouraging people to get married by paying them.

Speaker 1: 36:20
They pay them, bribe them with money. You could say bribe them with money to get married.

Speaker 3: 36:25
Yeah, it’s crazy when you think about it.

Speaker 1: 36:28
But Ali, what makes Half D indifferent?

Speaker 3: 36:33
Well, I try to do things a bit different. As you can see, I’m not your typical guy who runs a matchmaking site. I’m not here to just tell you what you want to hear. I’d rather tell you the truth and be honest with you. So, similarly with HalfRD, we try to be honest. So, instead of like inflating numbers and say, okay, we have millions of people on the website, we tell you okay, these are the exact active people using the website.

Speaker 3: 36:54
We use data to help you determine who’s compatible with you and who’s not. We provide details of each person, their personality, what they’re attracted to. We do quizzes, we do all kinds of details so you can see exactly who you’re talking to figure out compatibility, so you don’t waste time with people that are not compatible. Ask every single person that you know who’s single. They’ve probably said this exact sentence, even though I don’t know any of your friends, and the sentence is I’m taking a break. The reason why they’re taking a break is because the whole thing is crazy. The whole apps, the events, the websites. It’s just driving up the wall, because the whole thing is just not working. So what do I do? They keep selling me join here, join here, do this, do that and everything I try is a complete disaster. So what I try to do is like what if we provide the alternative for you? It’s not going to be as glamorous, it’s not going to have all this glitter on top of it. It’s going to ask you to go on a website and answer all these questions Like, wow, there’s a lot. So it’s a lot of work, a lot of responsibility and there’s a lot of people to choose from. So let’s filter these people out to just a few that more likely become able with me and let’s try to dive deeper and figure out where we think alike and where we think differently.

Speaker 3: 38:14
So one of the major differences between half deed and everybody else is our unique events. So over half of the people at our events find a match. We have the highest success rate for not just Muslims, but non-Muslims as well, and not just in the United States, but the world. So one little company out of California has been able to produce events that have become so popular that about 24% of our attendees travel to come to our events. So we just make one post on my Instagram and we have over 300 people applying. This is our upcoming event and we still have weeks away from it. So we’re at an event in Australia. Over 500 people applied.

Speaker 3: 38:55
So when you have something that actually works, now people come towards it. So, yes, I would have like what? 2,600 people on my website. But to consider that you have 2,600 people on your website and then suddenly you post something and then hundreds of people apply, that tells me the people that are on your website they trust you and when they come to the event they see the difference. That’s the major difference. I mean you build the trust of the people. They realize that you’re like the real person and you’re legit and you actually care about them. They come to you. You don’t have to keep marketing and selling and selling and selling. You’ll notice a lot of websites and platforms. They sell, sell, sell, sell, sell. But if something is good, it’ll be bought. It won’t be sold. They’ll come to and this is what I’m the love, what I’ve been experiencing and it’s all about quality, not number of people.

Speaker 1: 39:42
So people who are on half being are mostly serious and they’re actually genuinely looking for marriage. Yeah, if you think about it.

Speaker 3: 39:49
Which man is going to answer 157 questions in real life, like sisters who are watching this on this seat, to this, right now, talk to a man you just met. This is something always nice to meet you. I sent in your inbox 157 questions. If you’re not busy, please answer them for me. And you hear crickets. Hello, are you there? Hello, what happened? Maybe you’re disconnected? No, I’m not disconnected, I just heard 157. Okay, salam alaikum, sister. I’m so sorry. I hope you get it.

Speaker 3: 40:15
So what I do on my website I try to understand how men think, and if you go to a man and ask him to answer 100 questions, each time he’s not going to answer it. So people ask me how do you get so many men to answer the questions? And the way I did it is I told the men, if you answer these questions just once, you’ll never have to answer it again, because now all the sisters can come and see their answers. The next layer of it is that I told them, when we do searches by top members on our website, because you’ve done all your quizzes, you’ll come up first. Oh, so now sisters want to see the men who are more serious versus the men who are less serious, of course. So the men who put more effort into their profiles I think sisters appreciate that too and they want to see those profiles before everyone else. And because the men want to be seen over other men, they’re like I’ll put all the effort and do it the right way.

Speaker 3: 41:07
This is how we do things differently. We understand how both women and men think, and I try to transcribe that also to our events. So when people come to the event, every single activity, every single question, every single thing I have put a lot of thought into to think how can I get people to discover who’s compatible with them? I’m always working on new things, even like chaperones. Recently I know you guys hosted one of our events a while back when we did a draw zone, but since then so many different things have been updated.

Speaker 3: 41:36
For example, let’s say, one of the issues I think at just generally a single event is you’re sitting at a table and you’re doing the activity with these people at your table and it’s great and you learn about these people at your table. But then you think to yourself what about the guy at table number seven? Or if you’re a male, you’re like, what about that sister at table number six. I wonder how she would have answered the same question we discussed at our table. I would really like to know that, but I can’t do every activity with every table because virtually impossible. Well, not anymore, because now what happens is, whenever you’re doing an activity, all the answers from all the other tables show up on your phone and it calculates compatibility with each person. And even when you go home, you can see all the answers to every single person for every single activity. Now that a sister has all this data about the brother and his profile, it helps to get a much better idea of who she’s talking to, especially since the activities were designed in such a way he can’t give you the quote-unquote right answers. So that’s one of the things.

Speaker 3: 42:33
And one more thing that was really cool, I think, since you guys were chaperones, you guys will appreciate. You would remember back when we did our event, we would have to ask each table where are you guys at? How many more minutes do you need? Are you guys at table three? Do you guys need a few more minutes or are you guys almost done? Because we had to wait for everyone to finish before we could move on to the next activity. Now our app tells us not only where. Every many things have they finished, who’s falling behind, who’s confused. We have all that in real time, so we don’t have to ask anyone anything any last word for all those who are going through the process of finding other half be patient.

Speaker 3: 43:10
There is a reason why you’re being tested the way you’re being tested. It may not be clear at this moment, but in the future you will hopefully shall have seen becomes much more clear. I myself struggled finding my other half. I understand how you feel. This is why I put so much thought and passion behind it. Like I don’t have to tell you that I’m passionate about it, you could probably tell from my voice.

Speaker 3: 43:29
I really do care about people. I really do care about you guys finding your other half and for all those that met me through the events and in person, you can tell that I care. And when you have people who care about you and like these two, this amazing couple, you need to hang out and learn from them, because that’s the way you get success. There’s a lot of people who are in it just for the business side of it. There’s people who do actually genuinely care about you and those are people who are more likely they help you become successful, inshallah. So make sure you guys go to their workshop. They guys go to their workshop. Uh, they are a couple who are trying to do things differently, alhamdulillah, if you’re trying to get a different result that you currently have right now and they surround yourself with people that are trying to do things differently, just like for. Once again for having me part of your program thank you so so much for the next time.

Speaker 1: 44:14
Till next time.