Walikum as salam Numair,
Its wonderful that you are thinking about these things at the age of 25! well done.
You may find this post useful : Financial Education: Investment TIPS for Absolute Beginners
On a very high-level:
Its quite tax efficient in the UK to save it in a pension scheme plus employers generally do a matching - so see if that is the case in US too - i am sure there would be something similar.
As a rule of thumb, equity/stocks outperform all the asset classes on long run so maybe seriously consider investing in a diversified equity fund.
I would suggest to take caution on stock picking especially for a short-term horizon - the most of the experienced traders also get the timing wrong - you are 25, do you really need a second stream of income? Just trying to say that Equity is very volatile in nature and can be dangerous for shorter trading - if you do decide to go in it just do it for a very small percentage of your savings. A simple hack to find the halal stocks would be to find a shariah compliant fund and look at its holdings. You would need to keep an eye on a continuous basis in case it loses its shariah status - another good reason to just stick with the shariah compliant fund rather than stock picking.
Good luck
regards
Zeeshan