NAKCollection.com comprises a group of volunteers who are collecting Ustadh Nouman Ali Khan’s lectures on one website solely for the purpose of pleasing Allah (swt). Hiba got in touch with their Ameer to learn more about them and their work.
How did NAK Collection come into being? What was the inspiration behind it?
I founded NAK Collection when I was a medical student. The inspiration behind it was simple: every human being deserved to know what I had stumbled across only by chance. The divine knowledge transformed me. It made me an infinitely better human being, and gave me a great purpose of life. I believed that if properly delivered to every human being, this knowledge could transform their lives, and would eventually begin changing their communities, and finally the world at large, Insha’Allah. From day one, NAK Collection was a dream to share the divine knowledge with every single human being. Soon I found out that other individuals were ready to contribute towards this goal. The organization started to grow beyond my wildest imaginations by the Barakah of Allah (swt).
What is the vision of your organization?
The vision of our organization is to make Quranic education universal, free, and available at the state-of-the-art level to every human being with a single click. It should also be engaging, fun, and easy to learn.
Most of your work is online. How do you organize everything as, Masha’Allah, you have so many things going on at the same time?
Since nearly all our work is done online, we can engage the most capable and most motivated individuals from across the globe, as anybody with an internet connection can join us. The key to organization is having independent systems headed by individuals who are experts in their domains. For maintaining cohesiveness, they report to a single person. For example:
- Erfian Asafat (Head of Darul Arqam studios) is the head of illustration work. He is also my personal inspiration, and one of the finest people I have had the honour to work with.
- Adeel Ahmad (Head of Greenbird Media productions) is the head of kinetic typography work.
- Haleemah Zia is head of transcripts work.
- Nishad is the head of mobile apps.
- Hussnain Javaid is the head of Whatsapp services.
We also have 22 different languages translation works, each being headed by different individuals. At the moment, we have volunteers from 35 different countries working directly with NAK Collection. The heads of different areas organize their respective volunteers to work on their respective specialties.
How do you motivate your team?
Nearly all these individuals are extremely self-motivated. I have found that one of the greatest motivation is the generous feedback from people benefitting from NAK Collection’s different works. Ultimately, seeing the impact of your work on millions of lives fuels your motivation like nothing else can.
How do you arrange funding especially since all the content you produce is free of cost?
Nearly all the work is being done by volunteers absolutely free of cost. I myself have not taken nor will ever take a penny for my personal needs. We do have one project that needs funding. We are proud to say we have developed the most advanced state-of-the-art Dawah studio for graphic designing. Every video is reaching millions of people, and the feedback has been so astonishing that it encourages us to believe in the amazing potential of this work.
Work on illustrations is being formally done by professional illustrators, who have taken great risks in their careers by devoting themselves full-time to making free state-of-the-art videos for the Ummah to benefit from. Unlike other volunteers, they are doing this as a full-time job. For example, I can attend to my job as a medical doctor and simultaneously do the work for NAK Collection in my spare time, but the development of illustration videos requires full-time commitment from illustrators. For this reason, we had two options. We could have used paid subscription option or utilized advertisements which we found too distracting and often portraying un-Islamic values.
Our last resort was to use funding. A considerable amount of funding is contributed by us from whatever we can afford to give at the moment. However, the majority of funding comes from the community which benefits from the videos. Each video reaches millions, so a few hundred viewers have decided to help fund this work, which enables us to produce more content and reach even more viewers. A spreadsheet containing all our expenses and funding contributed towards Darul Arqam Studios is publicly released on our website to ensure complete transparency.
If you are in Pakistan and would like to donate, you can just send us an email at nakcollection@gmail.com
Who authenticates the transcripts of br. Nouman’s lectures?
Sr. Haleemah Zia, head of transcripts section, does this. They are word-to-word transcripts of entire lectures so not much authentication is needed other than double-checking them for grammatical errors.
What are your plans for the future?
Our plans for the future are very ambitious. If we can create state-of-the-art Quranic education, which is available on the internet absolutely free of charge, the potential is there for the entire world to transform. We are envisioning a world in which everybody understands the Quran directly, is fully aware of the Quran as the Word of God with all the miracles it contains, and is able to apply the teachings of the Quran to their daily lives.
How can other brothers and sisters help you in your work?
From time to time, we keep requesting for different specialties on our Facebook pages. If you think you have a talent that can prove valuable to us in helping spread the Word of God to the entire humanity, just send us an email at nakcollection@gmail.com along with the description of your talent.
Any message for the Ummah?
Our message for Ummah is simple. Allah (swt) has given us the ultimate miracle of the Quran, and has raised us in an age where just a little effort and dedication can allow us to reach out to the entire world with a few clicks. Each of us has a part to play. Creating digital content that can reach millions was the first part, Alhumdullilah. We are succeeding at it, but the next step is to deliver it further. We need huge dedication from every Muslim to learn the available knowledge and then deliver it to others.
The Internet has now opened a priceless opportunity for us to connect every human being to a lifelong process of learning and benefitting from the divine wisdom of the Quran. Regardless of who they are and where they are, it can all be available now soon with a few clicks and absolutely free of charge.
Anything else you would like to share with Hiba’s readers?
Keep your intentions pure (always have noble intentions for what you are trying to do with your life), believe in your finest dreams, be creative, be persistent, think positive, think big, and ask Allah (swt) in your Duas to show you a path and put Barakah in your endeavours. If Allah (swt) decides to put Barakah in your work, then there is no limit to what you can achieve. If properly trained and harnessed, each human being is capable of achieving astonishing results in any field that they dedicate themselves to.
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