Baba Ali has returned to Ummah Films Blog

Bismillah ar-Rahmaan ar-Raheem,

I actually miss blogging. I have posted here and there but nothing consistent and that's totally my fault. My intention is to post more frequently InshAllah. I get a lot of frequently asked questions so I'll try to answer them below:

Are you going to make another season of the videos?
I'm not sure yet. So far, each thing that I have committed to, I have done Alhamdulillah. I don't want to commit and not come through. Currently, my plate has been full with so many things.

I heard you've been doing Standup Comedy. Are you a comedian now?
It is true I've been performing standup but I don't see myself as a comedian. A while ago, I was given an indirect message that you'll need to make up stuff (lie) to make people laugh. I didn't want to do that especially after reading these Hadiths:

Abu Hurairah (May Allah be pleased with him) narrated that when they said, “Messenger of Allah, do you make jokes with us!” He (p.b.u.h.) replied, ‘I say nothing but the truth.’” (Tirmidhi 4885)

Mu'awiyah Ibn Jaydah al-Qushayri (May Allah be pleased with him) narrated that Allah’s Messenger (p.b.u.h.) said, “Woe to him who tells things, speaking falsely, to make people laugh thereby. Woe to him! Woe to him!” (Abu Dawud 4972)

So I decided not to go that route and even in one of my videos I specifically mentioned I was "not a comedian" (assuming that the only way to do comedy was to lie). Some time passed, and I learned that there were plenty of funny things that happen to me so I gave standup another chance. I wasn't sure if it was going to work with have the limitations of speaking the truth so I started performing at events. I have traveled around the world doing standup and the feedback has been really positive. Alhamdulillah.

Where have you been traveling?
Wow, I've been all over the place. Just in the last few months, I have been performing standup in Detroit, Toledo, Tampa, Fort Lauderdale, Vancouver, Regina, New York, Boston, Hartford and the list goes on. In about two weeks, I'll be in Jamaica (NY), Dallas (TX), San Jose (CA), and Los Angeles (CA) performing at the Evening of Inspiration tour. Next month, I may be coming back to Houston, Orlando, and New York again InshAllah. I definitely need to put up a schedule but sometimes I get confused on where I'm going next.

Where can I purchase your Mecca to Medina board game?
We sold out of games a long time ago. All 2500 games are gone! Alhamdulillah

Where can I get an Ummah Films T-Shirt from?
I keep getting asked about the Ummah Films shirts so I'm thinking of getting them printed up again and bringing them to events InshAllah. I guess it is one of those things that you can only if you see me in person.

What is the status of your movie?
So far, about 35 pages of the script has been written. I hope in the about a month, we'll have the 1st draft of the script complete. I have hired a Muslim screenwriter to help me get my crazy ideas from my head onto paper. Now that I'm back to the blog, I'll try to keep everyone posted.

So what's next?
Well...that's a good question. I'm not sure. In my videos, I don't just talk about the problem but I try to give a solution as well. So now I'm trying to look for some solutions to make things better InshAllah. For example, one of the big issues in our society is the challenges of young Muslims getting married. Being that most of the Muslim Marriages fall short, I've been thinking of starting my own Muslim Matchmaking website and making it different than the current trend of sites. Well, that's just one of my crazy ideas, now I just need to get that and my other ideas out of my head and into reality.