and i'm also have a ph d and i are ministration education so all of those things that you said before is a part of who i am that i use as a resource but i am the first muslim as a as captain said we are in battalions which are comprised of five to six hundred people want to go to the majors level which is a field grade officer that's comprised of sometimes about  a lot to be it you managing five brigades in my case seven brigades and about seven battalion so they comprise about fourteen thousand people the importance of the division chaplain is you the spiritual head for fourteen thousand people including the command division javelin is chosen as only ten the army comprise about ten divisions so it's  wife and two kids i needed some discipline i was constantly getting in trouble didn't have a whole lot of guidance even though people older people were all around me got to the military this young man i know i'm now is a muslim was in the motor pool and he was talking about his islamic beliefs you know and to me i said to myself  so the stage was set and he and i had this public debate he says some things that absolutely shook me to my core because my understanding from my youth that jesus was not a part of islam jesus was almost a person that was not even fit to be in islam and i  thought i had a clear understanding of who jesus was peace be upon him this young man very eloquently laid out who jesus was in the koran the virgin birth wasn't that resonated with me because it's something that i kind of believed all my life because there's always been a delineation in the bible between god and jesus from on the stand so after then i went and i went back to my room totally despondent totally confused and i decided for myself at that point to find this book that they were talking about  the koran never heard of it i'm a little boy from the wheezy and i never heard of any book the koran and so i went in and i did i had the bible here in the koran here and i just didn't nine hours a day just compare and contrast and through my research you know i found out that my beliefs were consistent with the koran because i was focusing  specifically on christ that was that was the challenge for me so once i found the those things were going to grow with me two years later then i accepted islam and so going now into the military aspect gave me focus it gave me vision it gave me purpose because now i was just not michael barnes i was coming into a growth of i want to help people understand who they are and so i was sitting on my track i was a field artillery man by trade and i was crying because the commander wouldn't let me go to friday service i was crying and the chaplain came and honestly i said to myself you know god whoever you are whoever you are please don't let the chaplain come over here i've got enough problems in my life i don't want to see jeff less so the chaplain came over and he  my purpose i knew my mission i knew what i needed to do and so for the next whatever amount of years i was trying to find a way to get the educational level and to find a way to come down with those who believe that man to me was a believer like the grand states he aided me to get to where where i am today well it's another really profile story as i look back and see where a lot has guided me to become a man of education i go around the army and around the united states to speaking in engagements and people are quite surprised to see my educational level would to dr degrees and for master's degrees but what they don't know is what i tell them because i like to be so very poor self perception of myself i got all the way to the twelfth grade and because of my physical prowess playing basketball i made it to the twelfth grade but i felt failed twelfth grade english so i had to go to summer school so i didn't even graduate with my class i went to college on a basketball scholarship when i was got i got there i was still struggling with identity i was still struggling with self perception and didn't count understand how people saw me i always thought people saw the molestation i always thought people saw me as an inferior person so struggled through school got thrown out of college in my senior year for fighting a young man shot me on my back and beat me with a shovel  know malcolm x the blogger for the hadn't paid any attention to cap it in my mind when i got to the military and i had this debate with this young man now who is ready for malcolm book and so when i got a taste of this man who didn't have a formal education a great education he taught himself rather nother transformative moment for me i said of this man with a great education has taught himself to be the most one of the most dynamic speakers and influential people in the world well so can i so if you notice the name should was i took my name after malcolm and so once i had degree i rode in a massive program where i took remedial classes didn't care about them barriers women didn't care what people say so you had to take two remedial classes to show that you can do masters were took those classes past them would be dubious and then i went on to get my first master's degree that was not sufficient for me i still f free found another school and i went to get another master's degree made a and massive program you need at least three point two so i made a three point zero the minimal level you can for masses agree felt absolutely horrible still felt that i wasn't sufficient and then i said i got a fine another school to go to so i just honestly i just kept finding places that would aid in my development and so by this time i went to the school of islamic social sciences i was in the chaplain's program for another additional master's degree and all the brothers there honestly it was so smart and i felt that i wasn't equipped to be there and so i worked hard and you know work nineteen hours a day just to keep up with those guys and so again of who i was who i am and start to get a sense of myself to say i belong here this was my destiny and had i not had those insecurities head on and that had those moments i probably wouldn't have never been in this ph d program and so was there to start to find myself in research and become field that i was adequate enough and so i finished the ph d program there and for my last program last master's degree out of claremont university it was a young brother he's the dean of my story on google and he offered me a free masses degree and so i went there and last april a graduate said before to go to school of islamic social sciences i wanted it things that interest in stories so the first day of school we got there in the shape he's islamic scholar out of iraq and he said we have three brains he said we have a jewish brain it costs one million one dollar he said we have a christian brain  costs ten dollars and we have a muslim brain that is one million dollars and all of the brothers would like  he said the reason the muslim brain cost a most is because it has not been used i say wow wow and i remember when he said that is the verses i had in agron this is who will study this religion how it should be studied and his next statement again was muslims have not studied he said that to you again for me i mean i laws so good i wanted to study every verse i want to break down every arabic word and that's what i did for about three three years in the midst of that schools and me to the university of jordan to study arabic to get a foundational principles of arabic so i went to jordan and studied arabic for two years after which i better education because dr wayne was a teacher i remember him saying something else and then i'll close he says in the necron is this is the man who thinks in the man who does it he says all their life by no means demand it does not think is like an animal or even less he said the koran is a book for thinkers not people who don't want to think so  stop there i continually read and research and challenge the status quo of traditions and coincidentally that that's what my one of the books that i've written is the confrontation between have in front of us which is the most important guidance which is the koran the prophet muhammad peace be upon him was made this a sort of twenty five and thirty people have forsaken this koran and outside of what their book was teaching and so the muslims of today this is what the shaikh was saying we need to get back into the koran and understand his principles and his preserve because he has universal foolishness that's correct and you know what they used to say if you want to keep a secret from a black man put it in a book that's right so you have uncovered all the secrets let's talk about you stole this st this is put upon the neck of it's a metaphor simile that spiritual leadership is banned change from one person to another the last division chaplin handed this to the commander signifies he's given up the leadership and the commander put this stuff around my neck signifying that i am now the spiritual leader for the troops in his formation so this is only done at the division level and a core level and that's why i was so significant maybe in the division chaplain because he's never had chaplain a great opportunity to talk to soldiers and i try to kind of lessen the impact so they always say sir what is that on your head i never seen that before so i tell them hey i work  know so it's an icebreaker that allows them to see that i'm just a normal regular person once we break the ice there then i have an opportunity to help you because it was a christian chaplain who came to me to help me in my time in need and i want to be and i want to i want to carry on his legacy of helping people in their time in need no matter what their faith is no matter what their denomination is my together and the i mean