Abdulbary Yahya – From Al Maghrib Institute Interview

			watching
		

			another episode of standout we have special guests today, shake up Dubai, all the way from Seattle,
a maga instructor satellite.
		

			We'll get right into it. I just want you to introduce yourself. Tell us a bit about your background.
And then we'll get into some topics inshallah. Okay. I am originally from Vietnam. Most people will
probably be surprised when they hear that Muslims in Vietnam, but actually, this was
		

			this used to be a Muslim country before.
		

			The Vietnamese people, the champion Muslim people known as the champion, and you speak kingdom, they
were confident. So the Muslims in Vietnam, they're like, the so like the American Indians out
		

			of Vietnam, they have like the territories or living reservations and so forth, just like
		

			America. So I am originally from the region from the
		

			people, the champion, and before that, we want to look it up so that you can find something but he
did a search on Champa. So I came to America after the war, the Vietnam War with
		

			the United States Vietnam War. And I've been there
		

			all my life since then.
		

			You studied in Medina, can you tell us a bit about your studies? What's your speciality? Would you
concentrate on after high school I received a scholarship from the University of Medina. And so I
went, and I studied Arabic first, and then afterwards, I entered the faculty of Sharia, Islamic
jurisprudence in Santa Clara. I graduated from there in 1988.
		

			And since then, I've been in Seattle. Since then, I've pretty much been in Seattle, and
		

			back and forth between Cambodia and Vietnam. Pretty much
		

			a lot of the people and that
		

			usually has to do with Arabs, you know, Pakistanis. They are there. So it's, as you said, it's a bit
out of the ordinary when we see an Asian Muslim, but the reality is that there's a lot of Muslims in
Asia and Indonesia, all kinds of parts of the world, and especially
		

			someone who has studied Arabic Can you give us just a little bit of Arabic something in Arabic so so
our viewers can be convinced that Yeah, he's he's got he's got
		

			something in Arabic anything, something in Arabic? In Arabic, I mean, all we can do the first of
all, I just read your comment un Islam Islamic.
		

			Most of the most people when they think about something I was thinking, like I said, they think of
		

			the Arabs. Most people don't realize that the majority of the Muslims are not actually most Muslims.
		

			And Islam was not did not spread by the sword, like most people claim and so forth. So that was
Islam rich people's hopes and the people like the largest country loads from some country in the
world, Indonesia and that people accepted Islam through the
		

			manners and dealings that they had and the interactions that they had with the Muslims in that time.
And so
		

			maybe you want me
		

			My name is Shiva you watching Islam
		

			and
		

			Vietnamese
		

			howdy in Seattle
		

			want to lead to
		

			some duck?
		

			Sounds nice Angela some understanding?
		

			Basically, the the course they were teaching here in Windsor was
		

			focused on heavy and Can you can you tell us a bit what is the heavy? What does it mean? What does
it mean for a Muslim? And how would you explain what it is for non Muslims?
		

			In Islam you have we have the plan, which is the word of Allah revealed through the prophets of
Prophet Mohammed. And the Hadith are the traditions words and sayings explanation and it's
		

			The living example of how to apply the Quran practically. And so the Hadith
		

			and the Quran were together. And but both of them both of these sources, this is the these are the
two main sources of Islamic legislation. This is how we know what Allah, what God wants from us and
how we should live and
		

			how we should worship Him and how we should live in this world. And what he pretty much wants us to
do.
		

			So you can't really have what and without having that done in Islam, we have to go together, it's,
well, in order to really understand that you have to understand the Quran was revealed to the
Prophet Muhammad. And it's, you know, it's in the pure Arabic language, and should there be any
misunderstandings and so forth, in the meaning of the words and so forth. Then the explanation from
the Hadith from the Prophet Mohammed is the main source of understanding everything correctly, so
that you will not have you don't have people interpreting the Quran, according to the whims and
desires. And so the Hadith
		

			and the Quran, they come together, and it's the obedience of Allah and His messenger. Also together
in Islam, this is one of these are some of the fundamentals fundamental, fundamental principles of
Islam. That's when we say 99 Allah, in Islam, we say that there is no deity worthy of worship,
except Allah. And Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah. And this is the true meaning of the Shahada,
or the
		

			declaration of faith and Islam.
		

			When it comes to different religions, you know, some of the three most monotheistic religion that
people claim, Islam, Christianity and Judaism, what sets aside in terms of, you know, reliability
information, because everyone claims, you know, our book is The uncorrupted Word of God. Our
tradition is done corrupted tradition, we hold the truth. But when you I mean, there has to be put
to a test. Yes, no one can just go blind before I say, I believe, you know, my, my, my, my chef told
me this, my priest told me this, my Rabbi told me this, I believe, 100% you know, as humans, God
gave us the way we should verify information. So how do we know that? You know, I'm, you know, what,
		

			from my experience, what I know the Bible, right? We know certain history that, you know, cast some
doubts on the reliability of the information was passed on. And some people tried to say the same
thing was, how is this different from the exam from Christianity? How do we get information passed
out to us?
		

			First of all, as Muslims, we believe that the Quran and the Sunnah has both, both deployments have
been preserved by Allah, Allah Subhana, Allah says,
		

			When, indeed we have revealed a lick of the remainder, which is a crime, so now and indeed, we will
preserve it. So how did Allah preserve this religion,
		

			till the end of time, a lot preserve this religion to the end of time, by giving us by have given us
men who made sure and took care of the information that was passed down from the prophets on the
line. And every single person who narrates from somebody, they scrutinize the narrator and
scrutinize the text of what has been narrated. And this has
		

			been developed into a science, a very unique science, which is a science of narrations in Islam, and
so unique to Islam. Where
		

			any information that you hear anything that you do in Islam, you can verify that through chains and
narrations and verify who are the where did it start from? And who is the Who is the one that
actually started this? Who is it that said it was it from the from the prophet SAW the latos law or
not. And if there's any discrepancies or anything that's wrong with the narrator, or anything that's
wrong with what he has narrated, then immediately, we can compare and compare the different changes
in this, the study of these narrations and the way that this religion has has been conveyed to us is
very unique in that everything is verified because Islam, whatever we do is based on truth and
		

			certainty and any information any action has to be verified. So that we really know that it that
this is actually what
		

			God wants, and this is actually what the prophet
		

			may peace and blessings be upon thought, and that's in the other religions. You don't have this type
of verification. Like every single information isn't you can't really verify for one person to the
next to the next and checking the
		

			manners and also the attributes and characteristics and trustworthiness of such narrators. This in
Islam has is
		

			is a branch of science in itself, the science of verification of information that has come down. And
this is something that's unique. So basically for to look at Islam and Christianity, let's just say,
in Islam, if we didn't know who was Mark, who was Luke was john, we wouldn't really take from them.
We wouldn't know what their character were coming from. Who's Who's your family? What was that?
These people pray that ally ever? We wouldn't really I mean, no matter what they would say, we
wouldn't say Oh, yeah, you know, for sure, we don't even know, you know, their tribes, or their
backgrounds or anything that we wouldn't take from that. Yes, sounds very strict on them. First of
		

			all, you know, you mentioned about Luke, Matt, and Matt and Mark, and so forth. In the Bible, the
Bible itself, the first thing that is different with the with the Bible.
		

			And in terms of verification information is the Bible,
		

			we know, was not in the Greek language or not in the English language, it was translated from the
original, it's not the original language, unless
		

			we know that Jesus, he spoke Aramaic, that language
		

			is no longer in modern spoken language language that people speak. And that's the oldest Bible we
have, is in Greek. And then when you translate from one language to another, you lose a lot of the
meaning, the essential meanings that might you know, that you can really, you know, a lot of benefit
amount of meetings with
		

			the Arabic command is the only anything else is just a translation of the meaning of the Quran. And
Allah preserved this through the hearts of men, that people memorize, the Muslims memorize
everything from the memorize or add in the words of the Prophet Mohammed. So just then, just, for
example, give me an example. If some, for some reason, let's say, tomorrow, somebody just throws all
of the Messiah
		

			into the ocean, we have no more, we don't we don't have a copy of the plan. We have no more copies
of the whole world.
		

			The Muslims can, in one moment, one second, one moment, they can argue, they can argue the back
right away anywhere, any community, every community has at least has this some people who memorize
the whole of the Quran from the beginning to the end. No, you don't hear people memorizing the whole
Bible. And indeed, if you did memorize the Bible, which version you memorize, then you didn't
memorize second set versions. Is that what Jesus said? It's not, or is that what was revealed is not
because it wasn't revealed in that language to start with. So the preservation
		

			was done by Allah. And it was a love made this religion so that people memorized it. And it's in
their hearts to have ether in the hearts the words of the Prophet, memorize, and words are
memorized. Even young people are 5678 years old, sometimes you have to memorize the whole of the
Quran from the beginning to the end, every single word of it every single sentence word and what not
even a single letter is off. So this is something that how this is this, this is the uniqueness of
the verification of information in Islam.
		

			When you go, let's go back to the 21st.
		

			When we are talking about heavy and the chains of narration, can you give us one example as to what
do we mean by the chain narration?
		

			You know, people say, Oh, you know, people can just make up a chain, who knows that reliable, I can
just come and see this person I heard on this verse from this person. And I heard from the Prophet
Muhammad that he said this, and I just make it up.
		

			A lot of people don't realize that every single person in the chain, they're not normal people.
These are the great scholars of Islam. These are the great that the people who carry this religion
and these are the people whom everyone, everyone knows they're trustworthy. trustworthiness and
reliability. We're talking about people like every that everyone knows. And these are just the
normal people. And these people have very exceptional memory and everyone not when you look at the
people in the chain.
		

			These people like I say, in our society right now, we're not no you're not talking about just
regular people, you these names, if you mentioned them during their time, like the whole community,
the whole people, all of the people in such places and in the whole Muslim oma would know and like
folks, it's just like mentioning, just give me an example like somebody in America or in the United
States. Somebody says Tom Cruise, everyone knows Tom Cruise. And the thing is that also the
characters scrutinizing you so knows everybody and of course Tom Cruise wouldn't pass the, the, the,
the conditions that they would put but you know, I'm just giving an example like the popularity in
		

			the last
		

			These people, everyone knows them. Like, for example, like you mentioned,
		

			a marble cloudy, one of the great scholars, and one of the great collectors of Hawaii, if you want
to read about him in your life started compiling certain information about preparation for this
class, and gathering books about them, and they're like volumes about just
		

			this one person, I have one, that's two vibes, I have one, that's three volumes, four volumes. And
the biographies are very well known people are not in three volumes. So this is a one, this is one
of the collectors of Harry. So you know almost everything about this person. And you know what
people say about them, the manner in their cell phone, and everyone in the chain pretty much just,
they're very well known. And so we can verify information. And also, because there are different
chains, sometimes you have 10 chains, and these people are from different areas. And there they are
at the same thing from different parts of different parts of the world. But they're saying the same
		

			thing, sometimes. Yeah, somewhat from from different chains and chains in areas. And these people,
maybe they've never met, each other, never met each other. And then there isn't the same thing. And
so this science also verified and you take this chain and that chain, you say, you know, they match,
and they this, these people are in Egypt, and this guy's in Yemen, this guy's in Iraq, and this
guy's in Arabia, and this guy's in Mecca, Medina and so forth. And the ordinary man, same thing. So
what is this, this, this shows that they didn't make this up. And so part of this is part of
contrasting and compare these changes part of the science also to verify the information that we
		

			have. And we have great scholars who have done this. And they have, you know, works and volumes and
volumes and volumes, and verification of all this information. So that Islam is pure, and we worship
God, the way that God wants us to worship Him, not the way that we want, or the way that this Rabbi
or this priest works. But it's the way that God wants. And every person who
		

			wants to verify such information can always go back to the original source, and go back and read
about every single person in the chain and so forth and verify anything that the person does. And in
Islam, we don't do anything unless we can verify such thing.
		

			Someone can just come and say, I'll make up this thing. Yeah, somebody sometimes. Yeah, right.
Immediately, you would say, this person, for example, would come and he said, you know, we should do
this? Because this is this is good, then Who told you that? We would immediately ask him, Where did
you get this from? And then he maybe he'll say, like, Okay, I got this from this particular idea, or
tradition, or saying of the Prophet that we've asked him? Well, you know, that saying itself, can
you verify from the chain of nations and everyone that
		

			is trustworthy agree to the project? Can you verify that? And if they can't verify that, then, of
course, we don't accept the truth has to close up?
		

			There's Muslims, people who don't really you know, they have issues
		

			with a strictly Koran, we all need to have a and I think there's one that you know, in the cards
that are
		

			best off for a class, it talks about that, what's what's our advice to people, you know, when it
comes to it? Is it our lack of knowledge or not, you know, they don't get
		

			the Hadith, the Quran and the Hadith. And as I mentioned from the beginning, they're both needed.
And the Quran has also been preserved. Anyone who studies this science, and then studies the Hadith
and all the different narrations, you might have one Hadith, okay. And you have different types of
narrations, I mean different narrations in terms of different chains and marriages. And if they're
all from different people, and they're all damaged the same thing, this, this verifies this
strengthens this. And it also also shows that the memory of these people when you see like it's gone
through so many chains, and still it hasn't changed this also you also verify the person's strength
		

			and memory and so forth. And so the reason why people don't accept the ID is just because of the
ignorance of not studying this science. And the science is often neglected. In the West, people
don't know this branch of science because they're not used to it. It's something new to them. It's
not Neo with history, everyone knows what history is, with commentary on the Quran, we have
commentaries of the Bible and so forth. But with this science of verification, it's something that's
unique and some and somebody has to really, once you look at it, it's just mind boggling. And then
you realize that you know, this information, the way that they verify the information is just, it's
		

			only only a lucky gift, such you know, gifts to the Muslims, so that we can worship a lot
comfortably knowing that this is well.
		

			Thanks for coming. To see you again soon.