Please read the previous posts to this semi-autobiography before this one.

You can start here, Inshallah.

In many ways, Trinidad was the exact opposite of Senegal.

Where Senegal was 80% Muslim, Trinidad was about 5%.

Where just about everyone in Senegal was the same race, ethnicity, and religion, Trinidad had people of African descent, Indian descent, Chinese descent, European descent, Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Rastafarians, and a whole lot in between.

Senegal was dry and hot and dusty. Trinidad was lush, tropical, and very, very green.

In Senegal everyone spoke Wolof and French and some Arabic. In Trinidad, everyone spoke English (though I still had a hard time understanding them at times).

Senegal followed Maliki fiqh. The Muslims in Trinidad mostly followed Hanafi fiqh. (If you don’t understand what Maliki and Hanafi is, I wrote a little bit about them here.)

The school I was attending was called Darul Uloom.  That means “house of knowledge.” Darul Uloom has two sections, one for boys and a separate facility for girls. It is one of the most prominent Islamic institutions in Trinidad and the Caribbean.

Darul Uloom was very structured and organized. At the time that I started attending in 1994, it had been around for about 14 years. It started in the home of the founder and principal Mufti Shabil Ali.

Darul Uloom’s purpose was to provide young Muslims entering secondary school a full Islamic and secular education. And I’ll be the first to admit, they did a pretty good job of it. Every year, Darul Uloom graduates several male and female ulema (scholars) and even a few Mufti’s (judges).

They have also graduated several hufaz (people who’ve memorized the entire Quran) and Qari’s (people who’ve mastered Quranic recitation).

And just about all of their graduates leave with a quality secondary secular education. For the nation of Trinidad and the Muslims in that country, Darul Uloom is a very good resource for local, quality Islamic scholarship. No need for people to travel all the way to Saudi Arabia or India to learn about Islam.

But damn, were they so strict. Darul Uloom had so many rules and regulations. In hindsight, I know that they were generally for the best and helped maintain structure and control. But at that time, I hated them.

You can read some of their rules here.

And some more here.

And more here.

You have to understand where I was coming from. Just a few months earlier, I was literally living on my own in Senegal free as a bird (and hungry as a dog). Then I come to Trinidad and have so many restrictions suddenly placed upon me; it was a difficult adjustment.

Still, being the nerd I was (and still am), I was so happy to get back to learning secular knowledge. Now that I was in more of a structured school setting, I took my lessons pretty well.

When I entered Darul Uloom, they weren’t sure where to place me. I was 18 years old with a 9th grade education. They thought I was too old to go to Form 2, which was equivalent to 9th grade. Also, even though I had been in Senegal for three years and had learned a lot, I didn’t have any official documentation of what I had studied (no certificates in our Senegal program). So they put me in Form 4 and hoped for the best.

Alhamdulillah, things worked out pretty well. Even though I didn’t have a certificate proving what I knew, my Islamic knowledge was on par with the other boys in Form 4, and my Arabic was actually better.

The other boys in my class had studied Arabic as a subject for three years also, but they had learned it in a structured format for English speaking students. So they sometimes used English terms for some Arabic grammar rules.

However, I had spent a good year speaking Arabic in school in Senegal. So while I may not have known the actual names of some Arabic rules, I had a very good understanding of the language. Hence, I usually performed better than the other boys on my level.

And except for the boys in the Hifz program, I knew much more Quran than most of the students at Darul Uloom (even some of the ulema who taught there).

Not trying to brag. I’m just pointing out that I did pretty well at Darul Uloom educationally. Plus I was really anxious to catch up on my secular studies. I was well aware that I only had a 9th grade education at an age when most people are getting ready for college.

There were many other foreign students at Darul Uloom. I was actually roommates with Bilal Phillips’ son who had been raised in the mid-east and Canada. He and I were pretty cool, though we had our differences at times.

There were only a few other Americans at Darul Uloom (D.U.) with me. One of them was a 16 year old boy I’ll call I.M. He was from Chicago, but his father worked for Saudia Airlines so he spent a lot of time in Saudi also.

I.M. was what we’d call in America “a trip.” He wasn’t necessarily bad. He was just such a rebel. Darul Uloom actually kept a file on this guy, he got into so much trouble. He was always getting lashes and punishments from the D.U. authorities. But I liked him though. I.M. and Hassan Phillips (Bilal Phillips son) had actually known each other in Saudi Arabia before coming to D.U.

They didn’t really like each other though.

There was another kid named Danny. He was from the U.S. but had lived in the U.K. for a while. He was mixed Arab and Caucasian. I.M. didn’t like him much either. Both of these guys were students at D.U. before me, so they had a bit of a history. If I remember correctly, Danny had told on I.M. for doing something causing I.M. to get lashes. Since then, I.M. wouldn’t even talk to Danny. If Danny tried to talk to him, I.M. would just stare at him menacingly as if to say: “If you don’t shut your mouth…”

To his credit though, when I.M. heard the hadith where Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) forbade two Muslims from going more than three days without speaking, I.M. changed his behavior towards Danny. He still didn’t like him, but did talk to him. Usually it was in a loud voice, but it shows I.M. did fear Allah.

Another one of my friends was a boy named Sean. Sean was of African descent and from Guyana. He was 16 when I met him but had converted to Islam when he was 15. Since then, Sean graduated from D.U. as an alim (scholar), spent a year in India, and now teaches at D.U.

Oh yeah, Sean also married my sister, so now he’s my brother-in-law.

There were several other foreigners at D.U. We became a clique of our own. Most of the students were from Trinidad. They stayed on the D.U. campus throughout the week and then went home on the weekends and holidays.

But for us foreigners, we had to stay on campus. We were allowed visit a town called Chaguanas once a week where there were a few malls, some fast food restaurants and several shops. We had to leave at a certain time and be back at a certain time or we’d lose our privileges.

The regular uniform at D.U. was a white thowb (had to reach the knees), white pants (had to be above the ankles) and white kufi (taj, topi, skullcap; call it what you will). We had to wear this same uniform every day at school. However, we were allowed to wear our own clothes when we went to Chaguanas.

The big man on campus was the principal and founder Mufti Shabil Ali. For someone who was so soft-spoken, he was very harsh and strict. He would order lashes and other punishments for the slightest infringement. I believe most of the students there were scared of him.

But like most things in life, I see it much differently now that I’m older. With over 100 boys at D.U., he had to maintain order and control. And except for I.M. (I don’t think anything could control that boy except Allah), Mufti Shabil’s rules worked for the most part. The school ran like clockwork.

But let me give you an example of how new rules could suddenly come into effect at D.U.

That first year we were there, D.U. participated in a festival for Eid ul Adha. We created a reenactment of the Hajj with a life-like Kaaba, and guided tours of the Hajj rites. Hassan Phillips and I acted as tour guides as we guided people through the different rituals and sites of Hajj.

Hundreds of people attended this festival. There were lots of vendors and other activities going on. Like most events and outings, we were allowed to wear regular clothes. Since Hassan and I were tour guides on the Hajj reenactment, we both wore thowbs and kufis.

But most of the other foreigner D.U. students were not part of the Hajj reenactment. And they dressed in their ghetto best. Ripped jeans, chains, rings, baseball caps, sneakers, and the works.

I don’t know if this was the first time Mufti Shabil saw them in non-Islamic clothing but he blew his top. After the festival was over, a new rule came into effect: We had to wear the D.U. uniform everywhere; even to Chaguanas.

Here’s another example of how quickly rules would come down at D.U. Most Muslims I’m sure would know that it is recommended to say Ameen (meaning “Amen”) aloud in prayer after reciting Fatihah (the first chapter in the Quran). Most of the mosques in America say Ameen out loud, and so me and several of the other foreign students naturally said Ameen out loud when we made the prayers.

However, most of the Trinidadian students did not.

I wrote a concise description of the prayers at my other website, Islamic Learning Materials.

D.U. followed Hanafi fiqh and according to them, it was not required to say Ameen aloud. So they didn’t.

Well, it seems like there was another group in Trinidad that was gaining notoriety for causing trouble, who also said Ameen out loud. Mufti Shabil didn’t want any of their influence coming into D.U. So he banned saying Ameen out loud. And the punishment for saying it out loud was immediate expulsion.

At the time, I didn’t know why Mufti Shabil took such a harsh stance on something I thought was rather trivial. But looking back, I believe that other group were Salafis, and he was trying to prevent any of their influence from entering his school.

We also weren’t allowed to have radios on campus. I smuggled so many small radios and cassette tapes into school. The D.U. teachers would conduct random raids on our personal belongings and a lot of my black market radios and tapes were confiscated. But not all of them.

Despite all the rules, it was at D.U. that I actually started listening to music again (c’mon cut me some slack! I was 18 for crying out loud!). And I realized just how far rap music had come.

As I mentioned in the first post to this series, I’d always loved rap music, even as a child. And of course, being from Brooklyn, I favored East Coast rap music. But during this time, there were very few high profile New York rappers.

Everything was focused on West Coast and Gangsta rap. It was all about Snoop Doggy Dogg, Dr. Dre, Tupac Shakur, Death Row Records, and these crazy gangster hand signals. At first I couldn’t see the appeal. But after listening to it for a while, I started liking some of it also.Though I was kinda irked when I read an Ice Cube statement saying that East Coast rap was dead.

I didn’t just listen to rap. I remember several nights falling asleep with my headphones in my ears (my head would be wrapped in a khafayah so the school’s night watchmen couldn’t see them) and listening to Janet Jackson, Toni Braxton, Boys II Men, and TLC. I guess I was trying to catch up on all the music I’d missed in Senegal.

But the most popular music in Trinidad was of course, reggae, soca, dub, and all the other variants (they all sounded the same to me). Except for the classics like Bob Marley, I really wasn’t too interested in much of it.

And once again, I was separated from baseball. They did love basketball in Trinidad, but cricket (yuck!) and soccer were the major sports.

Even though I was in a Muslim environment, Trinidad is not a Muslim country. So outside of D.U., it was America Lite. Trinidad has a major annual carnival where all sorts of crazy things happen. Drugs and crime were starting to become really big problems also. And there were actually more Hindus in Trinidad than there were Muslims.

Here’s a little bit of Trini history. Back in the day, when Trinidad was a British colony, they had sugar plantations and African slaves. But after Britain abolished slavery, Indian indentured servants were shipped into Trinidad and Guyana to work the plantations the slaves left behind.

These Indian indentured servants brought Islam and Hinduism with them. At first, all of the Muslims in Trinidad were of Indian descent. But now, there are thousands of Muslims in Trinidad of African descent also and many of them attended D.U.

But the vast majority of Muslims in Trinidad were of Indian descent. And the food at D.U. reflected that.

I fell in love with Indian food in Trinidad. Even now, I still prefer Indian food to most others.

However, at D.U., the food was rather…blah. We usually had plain white rice, some watery sauce made from chick peas called Dahl Purry (I’m not sure if that’s spelled correctly), and flat bread. We’d enter the cafeteria from one door, collect our tin bowls (no spoons and forks; only fingers) and wait in line while the cooks dumped the food in. Then we’d sit on the floor on long pieces of cloth and chow down.

And guess what? Just like in Senegal, breakfast was always bread and tea also. I couldn’t believe it at first. I now know that’s what most of the Muslim world eats for breakfast.

I know some of you might be hoping for more drama, but there just wasn’t that much at D.U. The rules were too strict and everything was too organized. So that first year, except for a few fights between some of the boys not much happened.

But the second year was a little more exciting.

By the way, the video at the top was taken at D.U. several years after I left. It is a lecture by Taqi al-Usmani. The first person who is speaking is Mufti Wasim who is the current principal of Darul Uloom. There’s also a recitation from one of the students at D.U.

Up next: My last year in Trinidad and studying overseas…