The Wird

Beyond the Page: Knowledge Lived — Professor Hernán Guadalupe

Aug 17, 2026 · 56 min · 9 segments

Hernán Guadalupe became Muslim on the morning of September 11th, 2001, in a dorm room, minutes after the towers came down across the water. That's the part people know about him. This conversation is…

Hernán Guadalupe became Muslim on the morning of September 11th, 2001, in a dorm room, minutes after the towers came down across the water. That's the part people know about him. This conversation is about the twenty-five years since. He's an engineer who'll tell you he isn't a technical person; what he actually does is find what people are capable of and get them there. He runs a Brazilian jiu-jitsu school. He co-founded Hablamos Islam, building Islamic resources in Spanish. He went to Egypt intending to study at al-Azhar and came home before he started. What makes this episode unusual is that he doesn't present a practice that worked. He describes a plateau; a stretch where he did the minimum and told himself it was enough, and only in the last two or three years has he started climbing back. Through dhikr. Through a set of prayer beads he'd avoided on principle. Through al-Ghazali, at an age when it finally landed. An imam told him something that undid him: that he'd learned a little knowledge, but he was actually living it. **Chapters** 00:00 What the wird is 01:59 How he defines success 04:40 Ecuador, Jersey City, and his parents' definition 07:52 The zeal of a new convert 10:33 His father's question: "Why now?" 13:13 Why he waited, and what changed that morning 16:26 Altar boy: faith and logic in conflict 20:11 Losing a community 22:51 "I didn't convert for a community" 25:00 Starting Hablamos Islam 28:45 Latino Muslims since the 1930s 30:53 You don't have to change your name 33:01 An imam from Ecuador, and a turning-point Ramadan 36:46 Egypt: what he learned without the language 40:31 Dar Al-Salam, and finding jiu-jitsu 44:16 Roll Star, and a father crying on the phone 46:56 "Whatever you're meant to make, you're gonna make" 4 9:05 Hitting a plateau 50:41 Dhikr, and the beads he avoided 52:49 The sky looks different now 54:26 Al-Ghazali cleaning the floors

Hernán Guadalupe became Muslim on the morning of September 11th, 2001, in a dorm room, minutes after the towers came down across the water. That's the part people know about him. This conversation is…

Top entities: Islam×61 Alhamdulillah×15 Allah×26 Muslims×19 Adab

What Is The Weird?0:00 – 2:29

NarratorNarrator

0:00

[instrumental music] As-salamu alaykum, and welcome to The Weird.

NarratorNarrator

0:03

If you found us through the first episode, we started cold.

NarratorNarrator

0:07

No explanation, just a conversation.

NarratorNarrator

0:10

That was on purpose.

NarratorNarrator

0:11

This time, let me tell you what this is.

NarratorNarrator

0:14

Weird is an old word.

NarratorNarrator

0:16

Before it meant anything spiritual, it meant water, a well on a route through the desert, a place a caravan came down to.

NarratorNarrator

0:24

Not the destination, the reason the crossing was possible at all.

NarratorNarrator

0:28

It came to mean the daily practice a person returns to.

NarratorNarrator

0:31

And weird, from the same root, is what comes to meet you there.

NarratorNarrator

0:35

«من ليس له ورد، ليس له وارد» Whoever has no weird, has no weird.

NarratorNarrator

0:42

That's the whole question of this show.

NarratorNarrator

0:44

We sit with people from all walks of life, and we look past the income and the accolades to the practice underneath.

NarratorNarrator

0:51

Today's guest is Hernan Guadalupe.

NarratorNarrator

0:53

He is an engineer by trade, though he'll tell you he's not really a technical person.

NarratorNarrator

0:58

What he actually does is build teams.

NarratorNarrator

1:01

He runs a Brazilian jujitsu school called RollStar.

NarratorNarrator

1:04

He co-founded Hablamos Islam, which creates Islamic resources in Spanish.

NarratorNarrator

1:10

He went to Egypt to study and came home before he finished, and he became Muslim on the morning of September 11th, 2001, in a dorm room while the towers were coming down across the water.

NarratorNarrator

1:23

We talk about what success meant to his parents, who came from Ecuador and worked in factories, and what it means to him now in his mid-40s.

NarratorNarrator

1:33

We talk about a season he describes as hitting rock bottom and the small things he's using to climb back.

NarratorNarrator

1:39

And we talk about a set of prayer beads he avoided for years and what changed.

NarratorNarrator

1:45

This is The Weird.

NarratorNarrator

1:46

Let's go ahead and get started.

HostHost

1:48

As-salamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh.

HostHost

1:50

It's a great honor to have Dr. Hernan Guadalupe with us today.

HostHost

1:53

Hernan is expert in multiple fields.

HostHost

1:56

I've known him for more than a year through his, uh, Brazilian jujitsu training at RollStar.

HostHost

2:02

So I enrolled my son there a year ago, and I've, I've known him since then.

HostHost

2:06

But in addition to that, he's also a professional engineer as his day job.

HostHost

2:10

Uh, he has started a Hispanic-focused organization, Hablamos Is- Islam.

HostHost

2:14

There's many facets we can ask you about in our podcast, which as we focus on success or redefinition of success, as well as the daily rituals that en- enable us to do that.

HostHost

2:24

So just to get us started off, I'd like to jump right in.

HostHost

2:26

How would you define success from your point of view?

Read the full transcript.

Create an account to read the whole episode, search across every transcript, and follow the shows you care about.

Sign up Already have an account? Log in