Faisal Alnifais

Mr. Kevin Waltman

ENG 101
Profile Essay

Ahmad Alnifais the Imam of the grand mosque of Kuwait. Ahmed was born on 1991, in Kuwait. His
childhood was in Alkhaldiya city then Alqurain city, where he grew up, learned and memorized the Quarn
from Alqurain’s schools and mosques. He completed the memorizing of Quran when he was 17 years old,
Quarn consist of 114 chapters and about 604 pages. After that, he moved to Saudi Arabia to get his
bachelor’s degree from the Islamic university of Almadinah Almonawara. Then, Ahemd becomes a
teacher in a high-school and picked to be the Imam of the grand mosque of Kuwait. Ahmed’s journey
describes the path of successful, which is full of the difficulties and pitfalls. But, after all, you are the
cresset for ambitious people.

“I want to be an Imam” Ahmad said. The imam is selected at the community level. Members of the
community choose someone who is considered knowledgeable and wise. The imam should know and
understand the Quran and be able to recite it correctly and beautifully. The imam is a respected member
of the community. In some communities, an imam may be specifically recruited and hired and may have
undergone some special training. In other (smaller) cities, imams are often chosen from among the
existing members of the Muslim community. There is no universal governing body to supervise imams;
this is done at the community level.

The experiences of his past are undeniable. It goes without saying that his childhood was more than just a
learning experience. In his childhood, he had a goal, which memorizing the Quran. Quran is a holy book,
and before you decide to memorize it you have to know how to recite it correctly and beautifully. His
journey with Quran started with memorizing the shortest chapters to the longest, and he start doing this
when he was 14 years old. He has encountered many difficulties to achieve his goal, as a student, it was
hard for him to mange his time between studying and memorizing Quarn. Because of that, his father
decided to transfer him from the public school to the Islamic school. That made his way more flexible, the
new school that he enrolled to has a Quran course which made him study and memorize for himself at the
same time. Finally, in his senior year, he is done with memorizing the Quarn perfectly.

After graduated from the high school, Ahmed moved to Saudi Arabia to enroll to the Islamic university of
Almadinah Almonawara. This university is one of the best Islamic universities in the world and graduated
from that university is an honor to any Muslim. He enrolled to that university in a legislation and Islamic
studies major. In 2012, he graduated as an honor student, and start his employment as a teacher and he
became the Imam of the grand mosque in Kuwait, which is the largest mosque in Kuwait. That mosque is
where the president of Kuwait and his guests pray there in a multiple occasion. In Kuwait, they start the
conferences by reciting a couple phrases of Quran. Ahmed has been selected to start many conferences as
well as start the National Assembly sessions.

Socially, Ahmad is one of the most popular reciters in Kuwait and in the gulf area. The social media helps
Ahmed to introduce himself to people around the Islamic world, as a Quran reciter and singer. Ahmed is
very active person in the social media, he is uploading his recitations to his YouTube channel which gets
over million views, and that is a very good number for a country which has 3 million populations.
In my interview, I asked my audience about Ahmed and how do you know him. Most of them know him
by TV or by social media, and unfortunate, no one had a chance to pray with him in the Grand Mosque of
Kuwait or meet him. And here is my interview with them. And my audience are my friends knows
Ahmed, since Ahmed has a lot of interviews and he is very active in social media.

I start my interview by asking “as you know that social media now is very necessary for people especially
in Kuwait, and this necessity is because of the influence that social media make. Do you think that Ahmed
is a good influencer?”

Abdullah said “There is no a doubt that becoming an influencer is not an easy thing, because people will
say this Is idealism claims. But, yes, Ahmed is an influencer. Religious men have a positive impact on
people, people trust them. Ahmed has a good reputation and people will accept advice from him”.

Faisal: “Ahmed start becoming an Imam since he was in the 7th grade, not because of his knowledge or
wisdom but because he got a nice voice, so he can recite the Quran correctly and beautifully. What do you
think about being in that position by that age?”

Mohammed’s answer “To be honest I didn’t know that Ahmed was an Imam at that age, it really surprises
me. Becoming an Imam at that age means a lot. At that age, teenagers they don’t think about the religion
and Quran as much as they think about fun. People will see him differently, the respect for that teenager
guy will appear as well as the honor.”

Faisal: “As an adult your time is very limited, and you have to manage it very well. Ahmed Is a teacher
and he is being an Imam as a volunteer. With all these concerns, Ahmed, insisting to be the Imam for the
mosque next to his house. Why do you think he insists to?”

Ali: “I think this question is based on many reasons. First of all, Ahmed has a passion, his passion leads
him to be an Imam regardless of the consequences. He may lose his job because he has to be at the
mosque five times a day, and undoubtedly, he has a time conflict with the prayer that in the noon.
However, somehow, Ahmed succeed in to manage his time and schedule with his school otherwise that is
impossible.”

I had a chance to meet the Imam of the Islamic community center of Tuscaloosa Mr. Hammam, he does
not now Ahmed. I introduced Ahemd for him and told him a little bit about Ahmed’s journey with Quarn,
I also showed to him some of his recitations on YouTube. I asked him, “do you have any notice about
Ahmed or do you have any recommendations that you want to tell him?”

Mr. Hammam: “Ahmed has a very nice and unique voice, he is reciting Quran beautifully and let the
listeners to be more heartfelt, contemplates in Quran. On the other hand, I recommend him to be more
balanced while reciting the Quran, in this way he can attract attentions. I think being an Imam for more
than 20K people is not an easy thing, but he needs to be more confident, wish him all best.”

Mr. Hammam’s recommendations and notice noted and delivered to Ahmed, I also had a nice
conversation with my cousin Ahmed. I started my interview with my cousin by asking, “as a teenager,
you had many distractions that may conflict your way memorizing the Quarn, how did you treat that?”

Ahmed: “I agree that distractions might kink your way to achieve your goal, and that’s why most of
teenagers delaying their goals until they forget that they have something to achieve. I was not that guy
who loves to disobey his parents and hung out with their friends in a weekday, my parents really helped
me to mange my time and they keep entertaining me during the weekends and that led to a good
achievement.”

Faisal: “academically, you graduated from the Islamic university of Almadinah Almonawara. Why did
you enrolled to that university while we have a good Islamic college in University of Kuwait?”

Ahmed: “for many reasons, the ranking of my university is better, I was in need to isolate myself because
my major is all about memorizing so I need a quite environmental to study and that what they offer, and
the diversity. The students came from all over the world, their students are from 90 countries. “

Faisal: “for people who want to start memorizing the Quran, any advices for him?”

Ahmed: “memorizing 114 chapters is not an easy thing, but don’t worry it’s not impossible and not that
difficult. All you need is to listen a lot and mange your time, keep repeating, if you find any difficult
phrase, just keep write it. This is how I memorized it, it may work with them and may not, but my advice
is to create your own way and do not imitate.”

To conclude, “you get a dream, you get to protect it” This is the scene where Chris (Will Smith) takes his
son, to play basketball and tells him to never give up on his dreams. We have a lot of examples like
Ahmed to consider. I loved my Calculus teacher’s advice when he said, “practice the problem until you
cannot get it wrong”. What I leaned from other stories, to achieve your goal you have to be passionate,
patient, combat. Never regret for the nice moments that you didn’t live with your friends, because you
were struggling with what you have.