Abdullah al Andalusi – My Journey To Islam

			My name is Abdullah andalusi.
		

			As my name suggests, I'm from a and Lucien background as Spain and Portugal more specifically
Portugal. I grew up in London, I was born and raised in London, I went to a normal Primary School
growing up in central London, my school was nearby. And it was a predominately Christian school was
Anglican. And I celebrated Christmas like everyone else. Easter I participated in all the things
that people do in in the kind of a typical British household, religion could have played a nominal
role in my family life. My mom was a Catholic, and my father was secular, and how in his outlook and
how he and how he behaved. And so my mum had these kind of traditions that she took from from kind
		

			of a Catholic upbringing, I would pray every night before going to sleep, the Christian Lord's
Prayer. And I've always, I've always done so since I was
		

			up until I was a teenager.
		

			And there wasn't there was not no consideration for any religious strictures or any religious, you
know, viewpoint, it was just
		

			this very vague, be a good person,
		

			but
		

			no guidance as to what being a good person is now I could follow society, and society would would
say a whole number of things which are contradictory. I realized, when I was younger, much younger,
that following what society told told me to be good, you know, can lead to Leads Leads to nice
frustrations. And just even being sometimes an honest person or an open person doesn't always work
out for you. It says, sometimes you have to lie to get ahead. Sometimes you have to manipulate other
people. And I really dislike that I really disliked seeing that. And I kind of ask myself is this
how human beings were intended to live? You know, this the hysteria, the prejudice.
		

			Sometimes, you know, good people are blamed in society. And I in that sense, being a good person was
very ambiguous to myself, because I saw good people doing bad things. And I realized that well,
there must be something wrong the hit wrong here. Surely there must be something more to this. And
so this kind of in a way, began my journey to try to understand the truth behind the reality.
		

			I was a very strong believer in in Christianity, I used to be obviously worried about going to *
being a bad person, I wanted to get to heaven. I was taught that at my school. But I think one day
it, it kind of dawned on me that there are different religions around the world. And if I was born
in another country, I'd be a different religion. So does geography dictate my belief in and does
geography dictate what is truth? So in that, I started to ask myself, that, how do I know what's the
truth? Maybe I'm following the wrong religion. So what I did was, I left Christianity.
		

			And I still kept my belief in God. But I was going to try to find what the correct religion was, or
the correct belief or the truth or whatever it might look like wherever you might be. So so I was
devout as a normal Christian.
		

			But I never believed that Jesus was God. Now, but no one ever told me that Jesus was God. It seemed
to me when I was reciting the hymns in the mass, that Jesus was a special person, and that he had a
special title called Son of God.
		

			But he wasn't God because there was always Jesus. And then then there was God is it and you see the
Bible that Jesus and He taught and he prays to God, and there's God and Jesus there and to, you
know, the two different persons. And so I set up for myself on a very ambitious project for a 11
year old and that was, I would research everything. I could
		

			Find from human knowledge,
		

			everything that was currently known and deduce or decipher some kind of truth out of that to find
the truth, the hidden truth, the code, so to speak, out of all, everything that human knowledge
knows. So I got into science, I got into researching every kind of religion and cult you can think
of. So there's Buddhism, Jainism, Hinduism, Rastafari ism, Mormons moonies, various Christian cults
in the American Southwest, you name it, I read it, I researched it. In fact, it was quite odd, is at
the time, I didn't think Islam had any kind of truth to it, because it seems so simple. It was so
simple for now, the truth must be some deep, profound mystical idea, it can't be so simple like
		

			this, I'll put it to the back. And I'll go through all these in a mystery coats, the more mysterious
the better. As I kind of went on in my research, I noticed there was there were certain holes and
gaps with all these different beliefs. And I know I was very young, but there was some very, very,
kind of very blatant contradictions, which I encountered. So for example, I was researching
Buddhism. And the concepts which I encounter with Buddhism was that, you know, the purpose of our
life is to escape suffering by reaching enlightenment. And I, okay, what's enlightenment? Or
enlightenment is when you know, man's purpose in life. But then, but but if my purpose in life is to
		

			reach enlightenment, denying enlightenment is knowing one's purpose in life, then I know it, but I'm
enlightened. Or why am I and these were the kind of problems which I encountered. And I just said,
Okay, I discount that. And I went through again, Christianity just in Christianity seemed like a
just a bunch of assertions, which weren't backed up by any evidence. And Judaism seem very focused
on the history of one particular race throughout time. And I was looking for something that was more
universal that apply to all human beings that all human beings would be equally under.
		

			And then I bumped into Islam, and the thing I bumped into Islam was the job.
		

			But you see, the the gnarliest would be the unbiased
		

			atheist on the panel, so to speak, because he's like, Yeah, it does. And you know, there is no
morality, there is no inherent meaning to anything. Why don't you just admit this? My fellow agents,
but why don't you admit it? embrace
		

			the the truth, there is no truth.
		

			Yeah, so a good friend and brother of mine is Paul belong Williams. And for some time, how long has
he been in five years? I think.
		

			Yeah, I think we, we met at as Olsen brothers having having a dinner together
		

			in central London, and they they introduced me to him as a as a new revert to Islam. So we go on,
and as we always do, well, my name is Ron Ola. I'm a researcher with Muslim debate initiative. And
this is an organization which Abdullah and Paul Williams set up to promote Dawa. Islamic Dawa work
and apologetics. I didn't know about them until two years ago. And there was a very high profile
debate with a Christian evangelical scholar from the United States, who had come to do a debate with
Abdullah in a church. And I was really impressed. And I came up to these guys afterwards and asked
if I could get involved and took it from there. When I first came across Abdullah, I was very
		

			impressed with how approachable he was, he was tireless for the Dawa. And he was actually I was
surprised to find well known around London, because he's, he's always invited to sort of circles.
He's invited to universities to participate in interfaith dialogue or debates. And he's, he's just
really puts in so much effort and time for his data work. And he makes a lot of time for other
people who want to get involved, and to get us up to speed and get us out there and also involved in
medalla. So he's a great motivator as well. Like many reverts when we became Muslim. We wanted to
share our beliefs and discuss our beliefs with other people, as many people as we can. And part of
		

			that we were involved as going out and we'd go to places in London like speaker's corner on Sundays
to debate and with all the people who have the kind of strange kind of wacky people you can find
there. And we know we do this quite a lot and the color questions we'd receive from speaker's corner
from online from both
		

			We make us go back and research. We research lots about about our faith and belief. And it came to a
point where we thought, Well, why don't we organize something? A, why don't we come together and
become organized? We have a lot of us have expertise in a number of fields of Islamic learning, and
Western philosophy and various other, you know, specialisms as Why can we all come together and use
these expertise to engage the wider public,
		

			get intellectuals who are non Muslim, who are atheist, Christian, or secular, whatever, and how to
hold a public debate where we can invite people, and they can see us debating, and the people can
make their own minds up when both sides are presenting their case like a court, and the people
become the jury.
		

			And also, at the same time, we can encourage people to be able to openly discuss their ideas and
openly engage, we wanted to do this because people, some people thought that they can't talk about
Islam. And other people thought that Muslims don't let you talk about Islam. And both are wrong, you
can talk about Islam, and you can discuss and you can criticize Islam. But in a fair platform, you
know, you can be able to accept criticism as well. And let's have a open Frank debate about these
things, and kind of get rid of these misconceptions that pervade our society. And so because of
this, we set up the organization called the Muslim debate initiative. And it was me pouring a number
		

			of other brothers. And we've been hosting debates, or doing lectures at universities and churches
and mosques, to kind of help get people thinking, how to get people debating how get people
discussing with each other. And we want to make these these kind of events, very popular in all
communities, because everyone should enjoy debating debate allows you to hear questions you wouldn't
normally ask yourself. So isn't this something that people need? I think, if you desperately need is
not answers. They need questions that comes first.
		

			One of the first things I saw with Islam
		

			was the woman's job. And it sounds quite odd to say that, but I saw women wearing the hijab and I
just asked myself a question, which was, why does Islam want women to wear hijabs? What's the
significance of this? What's it? What is pharma trying to achieve? What is the aim that Islam is
trying to achieve? And that's a question that I don't think very few people,
		

			you know, ask themselves, suppose it's unfortunate. And so I started to kind of query this, and I
looked into this. And I thought about it. And it seemed to me, you know, that there was a particular
intention behind this. At the time, I was on, on a TV there was this show called alimak, Bill,
strange, strange, wacky show about an erotic working woman. And it showed that in her, he was a
lawyer, and she in a place where she worked, there was a lot of sexual tension, a lot of sexual
politics. It was every single show was it was about this. And of course, to some degree, obviously,
what I could see in my in my life was it is this kind of it was backed up to maybe a more limited
		

			extent, but still, there was this, you know, sexual tension, sexual politics. And so it seems to me
that Islam's intention was to try to regulate and prevent sexual tension from society so that people
could actually go and cooperate and do work, you know, work to get up professionally, without this
silly sexual tension or all these problems. And I thought, well, that's quite, that's actually quite
profound. That is, you know, you know, Islam, objective for this. And then I thought about it. You
know what, this is the only religion I've encountered,
		

			which seems to have something to say about society.
		

			And since society is part of human life, then surely, if no man has a purpose in life, then that
should have relevance to their life, and to society. I miss out this is when it started to sound to
me, that this is exactly what I should expect from religion. From my belief in the garden, I always
have believed in God. So this is perhaps my first encounter with Islam, and it left a obviously a
lasting impression.
		

			So today,
		

			we can go to the mosque, Regent Park mosque, London central mosque, as is otherwise known.
		

			We got an event today a big debate. We've been planning it for a couple months.
		

			It was arranged with a Christian speaker Reverend and a colleague of mine an MDI called
		

			Paul Williams, otherwise known as below,
		

			and they're going to do a big, big debate, it's going to be a very amicable one very friendly one,
we wanted to kind of use it to open up the Muslim Christian community to in increased dialogue and
discussion, and robust and Frank open discussion. And so we depart Moscow is quite an interesting
venue, especially because I can't remember nothing anyone else can remember any any time where
		

			it has actually held a debate and they've had many interfaith kind of events down there but never
actual a public debate. So this has actually been quite interesting for central mosque. So it's
gonna be quite interesting day.
		

			I'm looking forward to kind of seeing
		

			hopefully a mixed audience. We've been trying to call out to the Christian community to come and
attend and see a their side speak outside speak and have a mutual discussion between
		

			and yeah, we should be okay. It's gonna be hosted in the library.
		

			And, and also, the great thing about the central mosque is obviously it's, it's in my area, and it's
always kind of been my local mosque. From when I was when I first converted to Islam. It's not
necessarily that the closest place to pray for me, but because it was quite big. And because it was,
had a quite a diversity of Muslims there, especially converts, like all reverts back to go there. So
it's actually we actually had that little place in my heart
		

			for a
		

			while for many years, and so I'm actually quite happy that to mix one of my, my interests, which is
Darwin debate and, and my kind of local mosque. So that was quite good. And hopefully, we can
continue to stay in more mosques. We've done it all the mosque before. But we'd like to hopefully,
continue more debates and events with Christians and atheists and others and many other mosques
versus quiet, hopefully a very interesting day, and we'll see how it goes.
		

			I just pop up somewhere.
		

			We need to offload a lot of stuff. So
		

			bye.
		

			Welcome to everyone for coming. And thank you for coming to an event hosted by Regent Park mosque
otherwise known as London central mosque, and the Muslim debate initiative. My name is Abdullah
andalusi.
		

			I must say this a very interesting event for myself on salvation in Christianity in Islam. I was
also I was a Christian and ankling Christian many years ago, and now Muslim, so I've had a foot in
both faiths, you could say, I would just like to say that it's very good that these this event can
these events can happen. debates between Muslims and Christians can can occur. I like to remind
everyone of the first debate in the mosque ever to occur, which was 1500 years ago, when the Prophet
Muhammad Sallallahu wasallam invited Christians from Nigerian into the Prophet's mosque the first
mosque ever built, where they debated the Christians. So the Christians disagreed with the Prophet
		

			Mohammed Salah, some on some of his points, and they left amicably amicably And not only that, but
the problem amateurs sort of invite them to pray and use it is multiple for their for their prayers
for Christian prayers in the mosque and some of the some of one of the Muslims that was shocked by
this, but this is the Prophet Mohammed's you know, some analysis his his his way. So continuing the
Prophet Mohammed's tradition and sadhana is very good to see that these events are happening and
happening very amicably and inshallah they'll continue today amicably. I embraced Islam at 14 years
old. And it was it was strange because it It seemed like a personal experience. What I mean by that
		

			is, there was no one else in my area that I knew who was Muslim, and there's no mosques in my in my
area. And it was just a it really did feel like in the in the app almost absolute sense of the word,
a personal and individual decision. I was alone in this. I was interested in Islam. I was very
interested in Islam because of my first encounter with with the idea and the concept of the of the
hijab, but that
		

			on to me looking at our Islam that is a holistic system. It seems to answer every aspect of human
life,
		

			human organizations or societies human psychology.
		

			It answered the phenomenon of the universe overall, I would say, you know, the human existence and
our encounter with universal human, you know, being born or finite life, a mixture of pleasure and
suffering,
		

			reproducing all these these these phenomena, Islam provided this meaningful narrative. And I was a
skeptic at heart. I'm a natural skeptic. So the way I kind of interact with something I try to
disprove it. That's how I do it. I try to find holes in Islams
		

			beliefs, I try to find inconsistencies or irrationalities. I try to find maybe some aspects of
reality which Islam couldn't explain. So it's the equivalent of a person
		

			who you know, believes that the earth obviously is flat. And then you say, well, I've this The earth
is round. So you'll know your belief it can't be right. And I was trying to find some evidence from
reality that disproves Islam. I was, I was really struggling so hard, the more I tried to disprove
Islam, more Islam gave me answers. And the more these answers were more profound, and then the more
they made even more sense, and it just, in a way, it was a process of elimination, or the belief
systems from, you know, Jainism, Buddhism, Christianity, and atheism, all these other belief systems
that are based on blind faith
		

			just weren't consistent. They were many holes and gaps and problems within their, within their
worldview. On the button, have a worldview. But Islam had a very consistent worldview. And it made
rational sense. And I think I like many other converts, that I've encountered. We embrace Islam,
because it quite literally nothing else makes sense. Except Islam. And it answers everything
beautifully. And not in it's not out of an emotional, I'm not an emotional person when it comes to
choosing my belief, because emotions can lie to you, they can deceive you, but rather, it made very
strong with dare I say perfect, intellectual sense. And this is why I felt that I, I have to call
		

			myself most I have to be a Muslim. And I didn't, I had no one. I didn't know any Muslims. And at
this point, I was in secondary school. So I didn't know any Muslims to actually tell me what to do
about with Islam. I was reading a lot about what Islamic Islam says in its geology, not so much
about ritual practice, or things I wanted to know the concepts of Islam, what Islam actually
believes, rather than just the details of the practices. So when at the time, I wanted to become a
Muslim, and I thought, I'm going to I'm going to be a Muslim, I didn't know actually how to I didn't
actually know that you had to say Shahada to be a Muslim. And my equivalent of my Shahada is me
		

			coming into my house, and meeting my mom and saying to my mom, you know, you know, Mom, you know
what, I think I'll be a Muslim.
		

			And maybe my mom thought it was a fad. Maybe my mom just fought that, you know, kids in their
phases, and she goes, Okay, son, whatever you want. And that was it. That was my Shahada, and no
pomp or circumstance, it was just as as casual was that, only, I think, later on. I learned
obviously, as I started to get into Islam and learning about the kind of the practices of Islam, the
highlight about the Shahada that you have to say it, it wasn't sufficient. It wasn't just, oh, so as
long as I believe this sentence, then I'm a Muslim. It was you have to testify it because that
affirms that affirms your belief. And so that was my Shahada