Assalamu alaikum. That was my intention (niyya). Not the Quran. Not the tradition. I was going on pilgrimage, I'd heard what the sellers do to a man who can't speak the language, and I decided I wasn't going to be that man. Two years of grammar so I could argue over the price of a prayer mat. Allah had other plans. Somewhere inside that programme the Quran stopped being something I believed and became something I could taste. I wasn't looking for that. I was looking for a better deal. Nineteen years of teaching, and I've never told this story in a class. It's here first, and for now it's only here — about twenty-four minutes, no slides, no notes, just me talking. - 0:00 — My grandfather, who led the dhikr for our whole extended family without a single day of formal study behind him - 1:12 — The years I spent in a Christian couple's home while my parents worked, and the conversations that started there - 6:07 — The aunt who asked why I wasn't at madrasa, and what I did about it on my bicycle - 10:00 — The three years I walked away from all of it - 12:19 — The Arabic programme, and the niyya I'm not proud of If you've ever assumed the people teaching you had it worked out from the beginning — I didn't. This is the honest version. Part two goes up shortly. Now tell me yours. What was your niyya when you started studying, or praying properly, or covering, or whatever the thing was? Not the one you have now. The first one. The unimpressive one.