Salam Collective | A conversation with Omar Waseem, CEO of Alif | 10/10
Oct 10, 2026 · 2 hr 10 min · 12 segments
- Speakers
Omar WaseemGuestAzeemuddin AhmedGuestMasjid Event HostHost
Oct 10, 2026 · 2 hr 10 min · 12 segments
Omar WaseemGuestAzeemuddin AhmedGuestMasjid Event HostHostInshallah, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala gives you the tawfiq to be able to complete your memorization, inshallah.
But I-I'd love to dive a little deeper into what it looked like to have a relationship with your teacher and what type of mentorship he provided, and then thereafter, I'd love to get Mufti Azim's pers-perspective on that as well.
Um, and I met him through a Friday Jummah that they would do for middle schoolers, like a program that happened on Fridays.
And what that meant was I was constantly just surrounded by this family, alhamdulillah.
Um, and when you're younger, it's like there's classes, and then you start going through your, you know, the troubles of life, the big troubles of being thirteen years old.
And I would ask my parents for help, and sometimes they'd say, "Why don't you talk to your sheikh?" And so that started the organic relationship.
Um, the joke I was mentioning earlier was there were numerous nights where, um, at least once a week it felt like I would end up in a Krispy Kreme with Sheikh Hala, um, or like in that area, not necessarily there, um, where he would just end up...
Sometimes at, at first it was because I had this like thing I wanted to get off my chest or I wanted to get advice, and then eventually it just became like a nice recurring thing I would look forward to even when I didn't have anything to ask just to like hear the wisdom, um, and to just talk about what's going on in my life.
And what that meant was, you know, alhamdulillah, I can say through a lot of the hardships that I've gone through in the last ten years, many of which were like related to doing business, doing business with close friends, doing business with that like in a way that consumes a lot of your life, I felt like I had never gone through lows that I would consider depression.
And I've talked to him about this in, in depth and it's because, you know, it's like, um, instead of needing the doctor when you're sick, uh, only when you're sick, there's like a different kind of, of, of cure that gets built in you, a resilience that gets built in you over time from having this relationship with a person that understands your life in a, in a, in a whole and not just off the thirty-minute session when you're trying to give, you know, twenty years of your life and everything that's gone wrong and ask for one specific piece of advice.
And so, uh, the nice thing about Sheikh was he also had a lot of other students who were in Silicon Valley.
And so it felt like there was just an additional way for me to relate, uh, which meant that I could talk to him both about like the personal spiritual side, but I could also talk about it in the context of work and still feel like it was understood.
Yeah, I, as you were speaking, I was just remembering the many conversations I've had over the last, you know, decade and a half with Mufti Azim, uh, as well as with my Quran teacher, my [praying] One day I went to visit with my father a, a, a physician's house, and, uh, this was in the early stages of building this masjid, and we were visiting people to see-- to get their support to construct the masjid.
So as we sat with him, uh, after some whi- after some time, I asked him, uh, "There's something different about you.
Tell me what, what's different.
There's something...
You're not your average Syrian doctor or for that matter, average doctor." [clears throat] Then I asked him-- He said, "What do you mean?" He said, I-- I said, "I see a level of
ofof, of refinement in you and a level of adab and a level of, of spirituality that's just something that had to be added in.
Inshallah, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala gives you the tawfiq to be able to complete your memorization, inshallah.
But I-I'd love to dive a little deeper into what it looked like to have a relationship with your teacher and what type of mentorship he provided, and then thereafter, I'd love to get Mufti Azim's pers-perspective on that as well.
Um, and I met him through a Friday Jummah that they would do for middle schoolers, like a program that happened on Fridays.
And what that meant was I was constantly just surrounded by this family, alhamdulillah.
Um, and when you're younger, it's like there's classes, and then you start going through your, you know, the troubles of life, the big troubles of being thirteen years old.
And I would ask my parents for help, and sometimes they'd say, "Why don't you talk to your sheikh?" And so that started the organic relationship.
Um, the joke I was mentioning earlier was there were numerous nights where, um, at least once a week it felt like I would end up in a Krispy Kreme with Sheikh Hala, um, or like in that area, not necessarily there, um, where he would just end up...
Sometimes at, at first it was because I had this like thing I wanted to get off my chest or I wanted to get advice, and then eventually it just became like a nice recurring thing I would look forward to even when I didn't have anything to ask just to like hear the wisdom, um, and to just talk about what's going on in my life.
And what that meant was, you know, alhamdulillah, I can say through a lot of the hardships that I've gone through in the last ten years, many of which were like related to doing business, doing business with close friends, doing business with that like in a way that consumes a lot of your life, I felt like I had never gone through lows that I would consider depression.
And I've talked to him about this in, in depth and it's because, you know, it's like, um, instead of needing the doctor when you're sick, uh, only when you're sick, there's like a different kind of, of, of cure that gets built in you, a resilience that gets built in you over time from having this relationship with a person that understands your life in a, in a, in a whole and not just off the thirty-minute session when you're trying to give, you know, twenty years of your life and everything that's gone wrong and ask for one specific piece of advice.
And so, uh, the nice thing about Sheikh was he also had a lot of other students who were in Silicon Valley.
And so it felt like there was just an additional way for me to relate, uh, which meant that I could talk to him both about like the personal spiritual side, but I could also talk about it in the context of work and still feel like it was understood.
Yeah, I, as you were speaking, I was just remembering the many conversations I've had over the last, you know, decade and a half with Mufti Azim, uh, as well as with my Quran teacher, my [praying] One day I went to visit with my father a, a, a physician's house, and, uh, this was in the early stages of building this masjid, and we were visiting people to see-- to get their support to construct the masjid.
So as we sat with him, uh, after some whi- after some time, I asked him, uh, "There's something different about you.
Tell me what, what's different.
There's something...
You're not your average Syrian doctor or for that matter, average doctor." [clears throat] Then I asked him-- He said, "What do you mean?" He said, I-- I said, "I see a level of
ofof, of refinement in you and a level of adab and a level of, of spirituality that's just something that had to be added in.
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