This is an excerpt from one of Tariq Masood’s speeches. Its translated more or less meaning.

These days if someone has a beard. People start labelling you Maulvi/Sheikh and let people know that every bearded guy is not Maulvi/Sheikh. Why are you so concerned/upset if someone calls you Maulvi? You should get happy say thanks to Allah someone called me Maulvi without any learning/effort on my part. Listen, you believe in something to be true don’t feel inferior about it. Can I say something about myself?

To me anything to with Maulvi/Sheikh I used to hate and thought that it makes one inferior. In our school they had program/play on Aug 14 where kids would enact, they made someone an officer, farmer, trader they made me maulvi. And I told them no I don’t want to be maulvi wearing all white with cap I don’t want to do that. And guess what I ended up becoming a Maulvi in real life. So don’t fall into an inferior complex.

I will tell you another incident. I was travelling on train (muslim country). This is ages ago and if train is in jungle, actual mosques are far away so its recommended to give the call to prayer. I just graduated and I felt self conscious in giving call to prayer that too for Fajr and everyone is sleeping. People will start labelling this is truly professional maulvi. I had different thoughts back then, I mean I used to do my prayers but becoming Maulvi was never the plan. I used to wear cap when praying. As soon as prayer is finished I used to remove the cap, used to spend half hour fixing my hair :) I used to wear my cap in such way that it doesn’t ruin my hair style. You can imagine for someone like this how embarrassing it is for him to give the call to prayer.

Then I thought about it Allah’s command is to pray and these people they are not embarrassed to sleep. All of these are Muslims we don’t have any Christians or Hindus here. They all are aware that we got to pray 5 prayers, they should be embarrassed. Rather I should be proud. Despite feeling hesitation, I did call to prayer. After that I gave many calls to prayer but that specific ‘call to prayer’ perhaps that will be heavy on the scales with Allah. Because I had to summon up courage to do that. So try to build that confidence.

You know in my youth I have done all those things sports, friendships, playing. I had a friend whenever we used to gather together. You know among friends teasing and making fun happens a lot. I had friend whenever anyone would make fun of him he would reply ‘exactly that’s exactly who I am’. We would say ‘you have no brain’. His response would ‘I am crazy. Who told you that I have a brain?’ So the person trying to make fun of him would get embarassed & it would diffuse the joke. Person being teased is not being affected at all so what’s the point? Someone told him ‘you look fat’. He would respond ‘Of course I am fatso. Who told you I am skinny?’ So outcome of that was no one would try to tease my friend.

And there were guys tease them little they would get triggered. People made it a habit of teasing them. People didn’t do anything but tease them. One of them was guy he was short in height. This is not permissible to do in Islam but not all guys are going to look at permissible/impermissible? One guy teased the short guy. So the short guy got triggered and started shaking in anger. Now guy teasing said ‘even your limbs are weak (they are shaking) & get angry quick’.

So if someone calls you Maulvi why get irritated? Yes I am so? I am Maulvi, Maulana call me Mulla. This is not something to be stressed about. Truth is Mulla that word its gotten bad rep, even bearded folks have given it bad name because some people having a beard do bad things. People with beards are not all thieves but some thieves sport beards.

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