Abdurraheem Green – Why are Muslims missing a dawah culture
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As salam o aleikum, welcome to this live stream. I am so happy to have shake up the Rahim green back. So we can have a discussion about a very important topic which just yesterday, I just messaged him because I was thinking about this for some time and I thought, why not? Why not talk about this elephant in the room that we love discussions and online dramas? When there's disputes over even see a matter of Islamic jurisprudence, there's a disagreement, and you get a lot of interest. But when it comes to how do we spread Islam in the furthest corners of the world, how do we make people hear the message of Lila hula hoop? Never actually even heard of it? You know, there's not that much
interest, so shake over to you.
Well, bro, I mean, it's a big discussion, and I've been thinking about it, you know, since you asked me, because there's a lot. There's just so much to unpackage here.
And I think I think I think the probably the best place to start is with the fact that Muslims generally misunderstand their religion quite badly. I think that's the first problem. I think there's just a general problem with Muslims really understanding what Islam is about.
And, you know, the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam he did say that, you know, you will follow those people who came before you step by step hand span by hand span. If one of them went in the hole of a lizard, one of you will do the same thing. I mentioned this a few times before, I actually saw a documentary where there was a you know, there was some Muslim biologist who had gone into the cave, the whole of India, which call it Komodo dragon, which is a lizard right? So big lizard, right? And, and he was literally following in the footsteps of some English biologists who done the same thing 100 years ago, but this English guy got eaten by a Komodo dragon when he was
I was thinking of that had it literally like you think who would go in the hole of a lizard? Like, how could you even get in the hole of a lizard? It's just one of those miracles, you know, this prophet. So some of you, you're watching a documentary, and you see it there in front of your eyes, man, this is like your keen boosting stuff. Interestingly, enough, of the, of the people of the Book of the two people of the world, generally Jews and Christians, although you might include Zoroastrians, or even Hindus, or even Buddhists. That's a bigger discussion, right? But certainly, the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said that we most resemble our cousins, right? And that
means that Benny sorry, so we are most like the Jews, and our going astray and are leaving the straight path is more like the going astray of the Jews than it is of the Christians. Right? And so if you look at, you know, you if you look at Judaism, generally it's not an evangelical religion, right. They don't evangelize they, in fact, they almost in some of the actively discourage people from becoming Jews. And there's definitely that element amongst the Muslims that people think Islam is a birthright that they're born into Islam, which is sort of true in a weird way, because Islam is the religion of the fitrah. So it's true. It's the natural way. But you know, they look at it almost
like a racial thing, right? This is quite common, right? Even amongst, you know, you know, Pakistanis, Indian Muslims, Malay, Muslims, you know, they will have a very distinctive coat cultural version of Islam. And it's very interesting in Malaysia, they're not, they're not big on doubt, you know, they're very big on you know, it's almost like beat your Malay, you are Muslim. And it's almost if you're Chinese, you could be Muslim, but it's, it's a Malay thing, you know, um, just giving an example. But this, this is quite widespread.
And so that's one element is that Muslims? I think that's one aspect of it, is that we've adopted that sort of mentality.
I mean, this is a big topic of discussion, right.
You know, is that when we're most like the children of Israel, because in a sense that we have a very structured religion, we have clear rituals we have, you know, we have what do we have also, we have Salah, we have dietary laws, we have, I mean, actually read if you look at what Islam teaches, in terms of regular prayer, in terms of dietary law, even in terms of family law, it's barely distinguishable from you know, from, you know, many Old Testament teachings. It's very, very, very similar, right? But the problem with any religion, and this is what happens to religions generally, they go one of two ways, either they become very spiritual, you know, they're all about the heart.
They're at the spirit
and they have no structure whatsoever. They don't have any regular anything, right? Except, you know, like, it's almost anything as regular as not being regular, you know, it's like willy nilly, it just comes down to some sort of feelgood factor, right? Or you have this rigid ritualization, where it's almost as if the ritual is so important and that as long as you go through these rituals, whether you understand them or not, whether you make any sense, you just read the Quran, you don't understand what it says you don't need, you just read it, you just make your Salah you don't even know what you're saying you just met, it's almost like some magic, right? You do some hocus pocus
spell and like you think you get the results. And of course, that's not what Islam is about. And so I think these things contribute to the fact that that, you know, Muslims are not
they just don't have a super strong culture of, you know, of giving down. They just don't I mean, of course, there are Muslims who give down and I think most ordinary Muslims loved our they get really excited when people become Muslim, you know, especially like, it doesn't matter. Actually, it's not just Europeans, people get excited when people become Muslim in Africa or anywhere. They don't care, right? If the guy some poor guy in the street, they get excited, they they're happy about it. So it's not as if they don't, you know, they don't love that people become Muslim. They love it, they get very happy they, they love the stories of convert stories, but why we don't have this strong
data culture.
That's, you know, there are the reasons I think I'm one of them. And I'd like to have your thoughts and I'm going to throw it straight on you bro.
is gonna make you this is gonna make you're gonna love this bro. Could it be something to do with jihad? I really don't.
Yeah, there's an obvious answer. I think why Muslims don't give our any simply because they don't know how.
Like, if if we if we do this formula, right? They love people becoming Muslim. We all agree with them.
So they believe what it says in the Quran should be implemented such as giving Dawa so what's missing is how to give Dawa. Because if they go online, you know, you get some people who are like, you know, just keep doing good deeds, keep doing community work until someone converts, someone else says, Well, you have to first take over someone's land and then basically create these incentives so that they become Muslim. I actually think people just don't know how to convey Islam. I think that's why they don't give. I mean, the truth is, is that the idea? I mean, look, historically, let's be very honest, yeah, historically, is black Islam spread.
At least, you know,
after the time of the Prophet sallallahu, alayhi wasallam, even arguably, in the time of the Prophet, the greatest number of people who came to Islam was when Islam was, you know, was was victorious in a temporal sense, you know, in the sense that once Islam had become established as a state, once it was very clear that the Muslims had defeated Dr. H. Right. You know, especially after the Battle of the ditch and then when when Mecca was taken, I mean, that was it it was game over people started enter Well, I mean, they became Muslim in crowds before that, they became Muslims in crowds during after the hit the Treaty of her day via so after holiday via then then there was huge
dour activity, the Prophet saw some was sending out people, you know, like to give dower and people were accepting Islam, you know, on mass, so that time of peace was a great opportunity. And then after the conquest of Mecca, I mean, that was it. It was pretty much game over its except for a few tribes. It was it was the end of it, Arabia became Muslim.
And then obviously, there were the wars of apostasy. But again, pretty soon after those were dealt with Islam pretty much spread through conquest. I mean, it didn't spread. Like it's not like, as you know, the misunderstanding that it's like, holding a sword to someone's head and saying, Be Muslim, or I'm going to chop your head off. It wasn't like that. There's no forceful conversion in Islam. It doesn't even make any sense. If you understand what Islam means. It's, it's an oxymoron. Right? But, but obviously, the fact that Muslim armies conquered lands and the visibility of the Muslims and how they behaved and their justice and, and the beauty and the balance of the Sharia, right, this is
another thing. I mean, people you know, there are people today accusing Muslims, you know, barbaric Sharia, you know, but it that the experience of people in the early days of Islam was exactly the opposite. In fact, the barbarism was the tyranny of
And the random randomness of you know, the Caesars and Persian emperors who ruled them by whatever they wanted. The Muslims had a book that everyone could refer to, they had clear, you know, they had a clear text that everyone could go back to. And you could say, well, this is not what this is not what, you know, the book says, right? So I mean, from that point of view, it was it were for most people, it was a massive liberation. And obviously, there were many people who were monotheistic Christians who accepted Islam very quickly, they recognize this lamb as just being a continuation of the true message of Jesus, many Jews became Muslim, of course, and many others, right, and probably
some for convenience. But many, many are out of genuine conviction. And many that's just that was what people are, they just follow the crowd what everyone else is doing. They do it. So and obviously, that was our efforts. But I don't think it was Dow as we look at it today, like as we do AI era today, I don't know, like, where they're going out calling people, you know, buy in them, you understand. So I think, but it's interesting, let you know, it's interesting that when, when there was conquest, without doubt, that even the short term and the long term consequences of that were very bad. And we saw that in the Ottomans. And it's very interesting that, you know, we have
brothers from Serbia, and that whole part of Eastern Europe who said that we were ruled by the Ottomans, but the Ottomans never gave us down. And the little Dow that was done was very, it was too little too late. And there have been Muslim rulers who were just happy to tax Christians, because they got the jizya. You know, they don't actually want them to convert, because they were a useful source of income. Right? Yeah. And obviously, this is a disaster. This is a very short term, materialistic thinking, which has nothing to do with how a Muslim should be. So yeah, I mean, you can see that when when this this Tao became divorced from, you know, that was just that's just
fighting, what form is just fighting for conquest is fighting for lands fighting for power, right. And that was never what Muslims were supposed to be fighting about. So I think for all of these reasons, I think perhaps we haven't ever developed culturally, historically, a strong tradition of doubt.
A few examples were opened by not as you said, as a culture.
For example, the Persians and the Sunni at the time, they were instrumental in Islam spreading all over the Turkic regions. So Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, was this goes back to Bhutan, SATA Bucha, Gohan, and the 10th century, and he was a leader, and Emir. And there was no war between the Persian Sunnis and the
Yeah. So what's interesting is that's why the even the Turks today they're very personalized, because it was Sunni Persians who gave them Dawa, and interestingly, in the Indian subcontinent, they were these, well, they called, you know, the Sufis refer to them as these types of OER. But we just know of these historical figures, who documents that when they were in like cities like Lahore,
in their lifetime allied a large population, a large number of the population actually converted from Hinduism, who Islam not due to the Mughals or due to other leaders, but due to these individuals. So you're right. We have these few cases where there is a there's a strong tradition and you know, early Sufism, of obviously dower and spreading Islam. And I think because they were not, you know, their whole philosophy was non materialistic. It was very spiritual based, you know, and they were much more concerned with, you know, the essence of what Islam I mean, traditionally, I obviously, Sufism has morphed into some sort of something very different these days. Yeah. And in
many cases, it's in you know, it's like, he can hardly barely recognize it as well, not even these days, right. I was watching a very interesting sort of documentary that you sent me about, about Turkey, about the Ottoman caliphate, and their struggle with the Sufi to recurs. Now, people obviously think that, you know, ottoman, Ottoman Turkey was very Sufi, you know, the Sufi orders were ruling Turkey and but they were in a very, very bad way. Actually, they were causing a lot of disruption. They were causing a lot of rebellion. They were actually causing many, many problems for the state. Yeah.
And which is very interesting. Okay. But I mean, apart, you know, that side, let's not go into that. But yeah, I mean, there's no doubt that the, you know, for what, for want of a better word called them Sufis. They obviously did have a huge part in spreading Islam. And it's sort of quite funny and interesting, isn't it? That the selfies of sort of in modern times 10
taken on that mantle of dour? Not that it's a solitary thing, obviously, it's an Islamic thing
is really true, though, because some people would say, well,
that's just a phenomena amongst a section of them, because there's a lot of them who believe in that. You could say the same thing. I mean, 1000s of among them are amongst the section of Sufis. Right. But I mean, by and large, right, yeah, I mean, you're absolutely right. There's lots of selfies and don't give dower as well. But I mean, you it's interesting to find that the majority of people who seem to be involved, and I don't think it's a Salafi thing, I think in the same way, you see in the same way that Sufism was what you people forget, right, because Sufism has morphed into something completely different, right? But in the early days, Sufism was looked at looked at as as a
sort of heresy, in the same way that Wahabism, Salafism, whatever it is today, right? No one took Sufi seriously. They, you know, but but that that essential idea was to go back to a more simpler, uncorrupted form of Islam. And that's the point. It's the idea of going back to something simpler, something uncorrupted, something more pure, something more prophetic. And that's the dimension. It's not I don't think it's to do with, you know, whatever, you know, Salafi whatever the label and this and that's not the point. The point is, is that there's this looking this harking back to the prophetic life and when you look back to the life of the prophet, you look to the life of that you
can't help but look, look back to the life of, of dalla because that's what the Prophet SAW along while he was selling his life was it was a life of dower and his his companions as well. Right? Very much when they could, it was a life of doubt, right, and certainly for the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa salam. So anyone who is going to be inspired by going back to that essence, by going back to my life of the prophet sallallahu alayhi, wa Salam is going to be motivated, inspired to give dower that's what's going to happen. So I think that's what the connection is. I think that's the connection
of looking back, looking back to the Prophet, you know, stripping away the sort of light you said, bro, people love all these debates about 50 issues. And this and that, no, well, there's some people who don't like that, right? Some people who like it's simple, let's just do it the way that Prophet did it. And people say, Oh, you're so simplistic. And you know, you're you're you're getting rid of hundreds of years of Islamic civilization and culture. And yeah, you've got a point. Yeah. But also, that's not necessarily a bad thing. Because, you know, what is more inspiring and motivating? And what is more essential than the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam himself and his life himself?
And going back to that, is that a bad thing? Is that necessarily a bad thing? No. And that's something that needs to happen again, and again. It always does, whether it's the Sufis, whether it's the selfies, you know, these things are going to keep happening. In our history, there's always going to be some people hearken back, you know, to some, you know, harking back to the time of the Prophet, by the way, just as it has in Christianity and Judaism, I think you'll find the same trends existing in every single religion, people are always looking back to this, in some cases imagined, you know, sort of pure, better time, right. But it's not necessarily a bad thing at all. I think
it's an essential part of constant renewal. And it's just inevitable that happens. And I think from our perspective, as Muslims, when that does happen, those people are going to get active in doubt, because that's going to come out. It's going to just jump out of the life of the prophet at you, you know.
So yeah, I think and I think that's it, as you said, bro, I think the question is, like you said, it's a question of not that Muslims, I think ordinary Muslims, mashallah, you know, they do want to give dower they understand it's important. You know, they understand it's part of the deen for them. Often the question is two questions. Should I even do it? That's a lot of them have that doubt? Should I even give doubt? I don't have the knowledge. You know, you need to be a scholar. I mean, what do you think? Do you need to be a scholar to give doubts? Yeah, I was just going to add this that people doubt themselves, not just because they have these random thoughts of doubt. But there's
a culture in which there's information fed about you don't have enough knowledge, or you're not the right person to be giving power. So there's a few things which I wish I'd known made, which were quite interesting. And this is obviously you're quite familiar with Pakistani culture, because he spent time in the UK with quite a lot of us. But when I went to Pakistan a few years ago, one of my relatives is quite upset because he's like, you haven't studied in any of these Institute's How can you be giving Dawa? You know, he and then when I explained to him, he said, Okay, what knowledge do you have to give Dawa? And I said, Well, I explained the Gourav system, right? That you know, we
just go over these things. You know, we have this course and for him
means like, no, that's not good enough because he thought, well, in order for you to be able to give dower you have to I don't know have a stamp from other or Medina or de Allume, there has to be something and he just thought something like a one day course or whatever. Like, how can you give Dawa from that? So I think there's a yeah, there is Rohan there's this whole thing. Yeah. And there's a whole misunderstanding of what is needed. I know, again in Malaysia, not that I don't know that much about Malaysia, but you know, but I know they have sort of an obsession with Greek philosophy, you know, and I guess, you know, this whole idea is that almost like you can't talk to
anyone in the West unless you've thoroughly completely and totally studied, you know, Western philosophy, especially, no one gives a monkey's about that stuff anymore in the West.
I mean, that, you know, once people once science reach its ascendancy Greek philosophy, more or less died, you know, that's it. I mean, you know, philosophy don't no one cares about philosophy. They don't care about I mean, maybe they should a bit, but they just don't.
And so broad, people are just living in some, you know, they're living on a flip another time, as well, when it comes to these type of things. Right. And if your average Joe, for the average person you're talking to, you don't need a lot of knowledge, because they don't have a lot of knowledge. Right, this provision agrees.
This Malaysian common, he agrees with what you're saying? Yeah. Yeah.
You know,
I mean, certainly I think your average Chinese person in Malaysia is lots of Chinese people in Malaysia, do you need to study Western philosophy?
Do you need to study you need to have an in depth knowledge of kalaam, in order to talk to them about Islam? That's ridiculous. In fact, the more you know about it, the less likely you're probably going to be able to have as having an intelligent conversation that's going to convince anyone of anything, you're just going to confuse people, right? So how Allah Islam is so simple.
People who became most of the companions, they were Bedouins, they were illiterate, you know, subhanAllah, most of the people who became Muslim, they were illiterate, when the Muslim traders came, and they traded in all of these places, including, by the way, Malaysia and Indonesia, the people were illiterate, they had nothing new, nothing, whatever, right? So Subhanallah, you don't need anything difficult, you know, as the Prophet said, but love one new ally, you know, people I don't know.
So I had this, I had this conversation with
a scholar about this. And it's related to what you're saying. So obviously, we have the issue of that you've dealt with that, you know, you don't need to have a knowledge of philosophy and these types of things. But this idea that you need to have this in depth knowledge of Islam. And
in people who are giving Dawa sometimes are attacked by people who have a lot more knowledge because they say, Well, this guy has knowledge. So I asked his scholar about this. I said, Look, I have this idea. And I just want you to let me know if this idea makes any sense. I said, the reason why these types of people attack people who are doing good, whether it's something to do with, say, activism, or Dawa, or whatever, something like this, is because it sort of diminishes them from their own role, or their own status, because they themselves are not involved in that activity. Yeah.
I mean, this is the thing and the crazy thing is Bruff. Right. The crazy thing is,
and I know both you and me have experienced this, there are lots of people that we know who are very well versed in fit very vocal, very well versed in Arpita, deeply immersed in Islamic sciences and listening to the give dower is a disaster. It's like watching a train wreck.
It's like you want to hide you just want to hide in embarrassment about how incapable and how totally unable they are, to be able to talk to a person who's not Muslim. Right. And to be able to articulate Assam to them.
It's just really embarrassing. Because it the reality is, it's a special, it is a specialism, right, it's something that does take a special type of knowledge. Right? And, you know, in a sense, your friend in Pakistan, whoever it was, does have a point in the sense that
you don't need a certificate from a US her or Medina or from some, you know, Institute in
Houston or whatever, write some thought loop, right? You don't need that. But definitely you do need to learn some basic skills about how to communicate a sound effectively to people right. Or else you will.
You will cause a train wreck and it doesn't matter, you know, almost doesn't matter who you are, right?
You know, you you could be a big
scholar you are not going to be safe from it, you're going to be an embarrassment most of the time, right? You know, you know, subhanAllah barring a few barring a few individuals who you know, mashallah can manage it Alhamdulillah but I've seen too many examples.
Yeah, yeah, very many examples to be honest. And there is that type of like you said, bro, I'm sorry to say there's a type of arrogance. There's a type of kibble there's a type of, you know, like, yeah, I don't need to study this, you know, I've got I'm on Mallanna I'm unworthy I'm or whatever, right? I've got all my qualification. So I can just talk about Islam. And, you know, that's it, whether they're Muslim or not. Obviously, when we're talking about doubt, we mostly mean here, you know, inviting non Muslim non Muslims to Islam. But now it's, it's something that takes a special type of knowledge and a special type of insight and experience.
And like, you don't need to be a scholar, but you definitely should know what you're talking about. I think
I wanted to add something in here. And I did this is related to go back to cerebro. I mean, it's the sort of answer to the original question that we're asking, why do we have a culture of data? And I think part of it is because people do think you need some massive qualification and some massive level of knowledge. And you don't, but you do need to know what you're talking about. It doesn't take a lot of study. It doesn't take a huge amount, but it does take some Yeah, sorry.
So like, I'll give you a simple way of thinking about it that
if your neighbor and it's good to always tell story. So here in London, there's a Pakistani auntie, and she's just like, you know, doesn't didn't attend the iron tower training course. She didn't, you know, do any of these things. She just was concerned for her neighborhood enables it, you know,
typical English guy, not really religious, culturally, Christian and whatnot. And one day she said to him, Have you read the Quran? That's all she said to him. And I heard this brother in Speaker's Corner, give a talk. And at that time, he was a Muslim. And that one question led him on a journey that led him to accepting Islam. So it was just to do with one small thing she said, right? So somebody can turn around and say, well, sister, you haven't done that up to level 17 You don't know the laws of inheritance. How dare you give dower mean people have this type of attitude right but the thing is, can you not convey to your neighbor that Allah is not treating one
you don't need to know like you know the the pursuit of a particular type of topic or you know democracy the the Sharia law, you don't need to have these things and I think is very worrying when people put up these types of barriers. The other thing I want you to highlight is if we look at Yep, sorry to interrupt you bro I lost volume I can't hear you at all right I don't know what my phone I don't know if my phone was just literally somehow the volume just went up and then come back. I'm gonna leave and come back in it's just weird really weird it just suddenly went and I couldn't hear you. Well I heard is the ante was giving I'm gonna come I'm coming
hope you guys are enjoying the session. I can see in the comment section. There's quite a lot of people
enjoying the topic and going back and forth. So we're just waiting for Sheikh green to come back and I'll retell the story let me know what you guys think. MashAllah chef use shake you Shah Evans is in the chat as well and watching it's always nice to hear from him.
Man you guys are going back and forth quite a lot in the chat. There's quite a few people
Neil Castro Islam they come all the way from the US of A and the brother from Honduras
Okay,
let me know. Let me know what you think so far, about the topic that we've been discussing. What is the reason for Muslims not having a Dawa culture? Why don't we have this
way of conveying Islam as somebody has given me a whole lot of a shake green, but it's not
excuse me for a second
okay
greetings from Sweden, Iceland. Someone said confidence, right? Okay, that could be it.
But is that really the case with everybody? You know? Maybe it is for some people and you know, we just need to make the offer and try and you know, that's a really powerful way you know, if you if you lack the confidence to speak to somebody you make the offer before you do so.
Okay, the real reason
the, the reason being is that they may not be the best Muslims they can be okay.
Now if somebody is not the best Muslim that they can be if somebody is sinning if somebody is not happy with their level of Islam
you should definitely work on that. But does that mean you can't give Dawa until you know you're the perfect Muslim?
Yeah, bro That was so weird and honestly what a * what a Palazzo trying to sign back into your
you know what a pallava obviously good they have security and stuff but
yeah, so that Yeah, so you're saying about the auntie and
everything. But um, long story short, she's a rock star neon tea T
spoke to her neighbor said have you read the Quran that interested? He read the Quran became a Christian. So became a Muslim. And he was giving a talk at speakers corner calling other people to Islam. Just your Yeah, that. So you know, somebody can turn around and say to the auntie, whoa, you know, do you know the laws of inheritance? Do you know the Makarska? The Sharia? Do you know that you need level seven?
Appropriate a person would you know and people say I know what people are gonna say Oh, but they spent an hour with the Prophet. That's what the profit is not like, come on. Like, even if it's with Rasul Allah, you spend one or two hours with the Prophet sallallahu. Some you become Muslim, even if it's a day or two days is still one or two days, right? And he and he goes back to his people and causes people to Islam. And there's many, many examples of this, that people would become Muslim, they would spend very little time they would know a very, very few things. And they would invite their people to Islam, because it's not difficult, right? It's not, you know, it's not something
complicated, you know, Islam, the the belief of Islam, the belief of a Muslim is not something incredibly complex. It's not something very, very complicated and to ask people to say, let law, what is so hard about that? Why do you need some degree? Or why do you need some massive qualification? Or why? Who says, based on Whoa,
well, you know, this is the thing that, you know, sometimes if you have
a lot of knowledge, right? Say, for example, the invited political analyst who's done the history of say, currently there's a crisis in the Middle East or whatever. And he has a PhD, but they asked him a simple question. He won't answer it. He wants to use the knowledge he has. So it's kind of like that, you know, sometimes it's the simpletons. Sometimes it's the people who they know what they're talking about. And they just stick to it. And they, I mean, I've met people like that I've met people who are in Islam, not not the best in terms of knowledge. They know what they're talking about in terms of Dawa, and, you know, gondola, many, many people are learning Islam. From there,
many, many people are becoming Muslim at their hands. But bro, how do you what do you think about something else that I've been thinking about quite a lot recently.
And something we don't give a lot of thought to. And now we're talking about something really on the other end of the spectrum. We're not talking about people who don't give Dawa or don't want to give dower or don't know how to give dower
but people who are literally anti Tao
like they actually what are you getting down for? Why are you even talking to these non Muslims about Islam?
And the reasons like they give a many it's like, it could be like, you're basically they're looking at you as rocking the boat. We're just trying to live a good life here. Leave these people alone.
And yeah, I mean, it could be almost I was thinking, you know, to be honest, for a long time, I just thought these people are just misled by Sheikh Khan, they are just, they need a good slap.
But you know what, I realized that you know, in the time of the Prophet salallahu, alayhi wasallam in Mecca when the Muslims were suffering really badly. The Prophet actually did tell people not to give dower to keep quiet so hide their religion.
So there might be some sort of basis for sometimes just being quiet and just keeping your head down and stay below the parapet
to save, what do you think about that, bro? Yeah, so I've seen a good counter example to that. So normally, like if you look at the, say, the bog standard community, which came to the UK in the 60s and 70s and whatnot, is that they had this like don't walk the boat. Don't do it.
Don't do that. And I saw in my grandfather, that he came here in the 1950s. And even when I was a child, I remember meeting somebody that had taken shahada by him giving Dawa on just behind the offices, you know, housed in a state where we used to live, he used to knock on people's doors with the Quran in his hand and noticed about him that was different to the other people who don't give Dawa who just come here and stuff like this is he refused to have a house on interest, right. Like many sadly Pakistani people did get involved in to always believed that Muslims are superior. And that you know, basically while our Bara that we are
a pseudo Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So I think it's to do with the fact that he came from a background in which he did not go to a dark room or did not go through a Medina university or other or like, I'm not knocking those, I'm just saying he didn't go through a traditional system. He just read a lot about Islamic history about, you know, Aqeedah, like he was self read. And I think that's what led him to say, we have to give Dawa. Right he was Donald crazy. I mean, he passed away in 2007. But if he was alive, he would have joined us on the Dow emissions like he was.
He sounds like he was inspired by shaker from the data as well. That was a big thing. share data, obviously was very, very tough. I mean, he was very clear. It's Dow or, you know, he's famous talk down what would disruption is, but it's very clear when you read the Quran, bro.
You know, when you read the Quran, when you look at the Sunnah, I don't think there's an excuse. I mean, I do that I can sometimes see that sometimes things that really tough, but to be honest, bro, like I used to say, like, you know, the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. When he went to Tel Aviv, you know, he was knocking on the doors, according to some, you know, accounts, he was knocking on doors for 10 days, inviting every single person like he was going to every house asking them to become Muslim. And everyone refused. And obviously, as we know, they stoned him and abused him. And you know, the Prophet SAW Salah law, whether your sermon was bleeding, like, if you if that happened
to you in this country, you could follow the police and then come on, you know, they come and arrest the people who did it. Right. And it's interesting, bro, that despite all the you know,
you know, all the hullabaloo with Al muhajir loon and the likes of those guys. And you know this, you remember that screen sharing group? East London? Yeah.
Yeah, they will basically.
Yeah, you know, that those guys, right, despite that craziness, yeah. Which is obviously that's an example of, you know, giving Tao without knowledge. But it's not even down. Right. It's
the opposite of doubt. Right.
But I mean,
you know, despite that, I remember, there was
some court judgment, where I think the police had arrested some Christian, for proselytizing in the street, and the court came down really, really hard on the police and the council, and saying, you know, this is a fundamental basic freedom of expression that we have in this country, it is intrinsic to our way of life, that people are free to, you know, stand on the street corners and distribute literature about their religion. Right. So, I mean, you know, there's still that dimension here, where, you know, the ability, and I think there was a similar case with Muslims.
You know, but unfortunately, you know, we have some negative stories as well, where people have been set up, and, or it seems to be
up and stuff. But despite that, it's very clear from, you know, the legal system that, you know, there's this understanding that, you know, this is an intrinsic part of what life here is, is that people have that, right to do it. And it's the, you know, I remember in Canada, I went to, you know, I went to some Dow event that some brothers had organized over there. And there was a local counselor, who was saying that these events are brilliant, and I hope that lots of people convert to Islam, and we have the same proportion of Muslims in Canada that are on the rest of the world, you know, so like, meaning, you know, like, Why what is it one in four person in Canada should be a
Muslim, like, the guy wasn't a Muslim, but, you know, those guys believe in their multiculturalism. They're in Canada, you know, like, they really believe in it. So, like, you know, for people then to be like, shy and reluctant, and, you know, have this attitude of just keeping your head down and not getting involved in doubt. It's a bit strange, you know, just one that is a very, I mean, you, you spoke a little bit about a very important topic and I want to really clarify this. So, when it when it comes to say people who are anti Dawa
So we find in the traditional systems that are lumed other Medina and other Institute's people who are very pro Tao and people who are very sometimes sadly, anti Dawa. So it's obviously not to do with the institution's themselves. There's some type of criteria of people who become very anti Dawa. And they become very vocal about it as well. I remember when we were in Ilford and you were giving Dawa, and there's a young Colombian brother who converted to Islam, he was giving Dawa, and some guys came up to him and started basically saying, oh, you know, you shouldn't be doing this. And it's Ramadan, bla, bla, bla, and you and basically told them off. So let's get into that. Why
are those types of people, you know, so loud and vocal about not giving our what are the reasons for this, I think wrote, for some people, I'm sorry to say, it's the very, very worst, lowest quality and a human being. Right. And that is that when you see someone doing something that you know, you should be doing, right? You see someone behaving in a way that you know, is right.
That instead of you trying to elevate yourself, and trying to correct yourself, your responses to put that person down and to attack them.
And this is literally as low and as, you know, it's as low as a human being can go in terms of it really is, you know, I don't I honestly don't think I don't, I mean, because it's essentially this is really someone who's taken their desires as their God, right, they've taken themselves as a god, that's really what they have. They worship themselves, they're worshiping their own desires, right? Because this person is not ready to even look at themselves in the mirror and say, you know,
oh, woe be to you, you know, why? Why don't you elevate yourself to the level of this person and step up to the mark, you know, they're not content with doing that, or even just being quiet and feeling ashamed and don't hide in a hole. Right? And you're hanging your head in shame. No. Right?
They want to, you know, they want to criticize you for that. And there's lots of people like that they call themselves Muslims. You come and criticize nationalism. Right? And I've done that, you know, for example, I remember recently, you know, before Ramadan, I was on clubhouse, and I was, I wasn't having a go at Afghanistan, but I was just talking about nationalism. It was Somali nationalism. Afghani knows a lot of this stuff going on people getting excited about nationalism. So what are you so excited about? What is that? What is this is despicable this nationalism? Right? What do you think is going to do for you really? Do you really think that Afghani nationalism, and
you know, forming the nation state of Afghanistan is somehow going to transform your fortunes for the better? Like, what on earth? Where do you get this idea from? I'm just totally confused. And oh, my god, instead of sort of, you know, being embarrassed, and you know, and being quiet, they get more vocal. Right? They get more vocal about it, they get more upset, they get more passionate about it. And so, bro, I don't know what it is. It's a sort of, it's a sickness people have. So I mean, that's one thing, you know.
You know, people do this wrong. You take people who take drugs, and you tell them don't take drugs, they are looking at you and say, give us a month. Give us a month newbies, you know, you'll be taking drugs with us. Yeah. You know, don't don't don't have girlfriends and boyfriends. Yeah, yeah. They don't even say anything. They will just get together and like devils, right? They will do whatever it can to get you to sink to their level. Right? And that's because these people just want to justify themselves. They can't think that they're doing something wrong and evil and misguided. And that's what these people are like, Are these people who are like that? I think that's what it
is. Right? They know they're on a path of misguidance. They know they're on the path of destruction because it is people who don't give dower and support dower are on a path of destruction. There's definitely yeah, the Prophet said, you know, you must enjoy what is right and forbid was wrong or us, Allah will send upon you a calamity and you are making dua, you and Allah will not accept it. You know,
when there's no one
on this topic, you're absolutely right. I mean, there's this type of, you know, you shouldn't be doing that I have more knowledge in the I'm not doing this. So therefore we shouldn't be doing it. But there's also something else I noticed about the anti Daubert grade. So whichever school of thought they're from, or whichever Institute right, the people who are pro dour and the people who are anti dour, they have one thing in common and it's just anecdotal things I've noticed. So I've noticed
This more since I had a conversation with a graduate from Dar loom, and that graduate told me that they're very pro Dow and the Dow were crazy. And they said that their teacher told them that don't make Islam or the call to Islam a call to your way of understanding Islam. Your rod should be broader. It should be the religion of Islam. So don't be sectarian, basically. So what I something I started noticing after that conversation is the people, whether they're from any of these Institute's or any of these schools of thought, the ones who are anti Dawa, usually sectarian, and the ones who are pro Dawa are usually not sectarian. That's just something I've noticed. What do you
think about that? I tell you, I have noticed, right. From my very, very first days when I became became Muslim, I think there's a point to that. But like, almost agreeing with you is that I remember when
I was first first became Muslim, the group of brothers, you could not have come across a more different group of brothers, right? We had
guys who are just almost like they were a nation of Islam, except, you know, they had sort of, you know, they didn't believe the stuff the cover and the shirt. Yeah, whatever. But they were they were almost like you can say full on black nationalists. And I obviously I'm not black. Yeah. But we're getting down together. Those guys who are Shia, and this is a time of the Iranian Revolution. A lot of people you have to remember we're very affected by shears, very attracted to it.
You know, there were brothers who were Sufis there were brothers who were like a real group of mixed up group of people. Right. But you know what, when it came to doubt, when it came to Friday night, Saturday night, we were down in Leicester Square. And we were all together, we all work together, we were all a team. Yeah. And, you know, it was just we were just inviting people to worship Allah alone, right? And all that other stuff just dissipated, it became irrelevant, because the core message that we were saying was the same. Our core message for all of us was basically the same. There's one god Muhammad is the prophet, the Quran is from Allah. Right? The rest of it was
irrelevant, right? Because when you're talking to someone who doesn't know anything about the rest of the stuff is just irrelevant. Yeah. And so that's, that's something I noticed is that, you know, that that's, I think that's one of the things that Dowa does, is that it, all that rest, it puts everything into perspective, it really does. Right. And so you're when, when you're involved in Dower, you naturally I believe when you're involved in calling non Muslims to Islam, almost inevitably, you will become less and less sectarian, you can't help it. So it may be that it may be a sort of, you know, you know, they call it as a positive feedback. So, if a person is not
particularly sectarian, maybe that is the sort of characteristic that a person,
you know, gives down. And when they give down, they become actually less sectarian because giving now or the process of or it may happen the other way around, a person may just feel oh, yeah, they may just realize 1000 obligation, right? I mean, they may have a very sectarian viewpoint, but they may just be very, you know, they may read the Quran, and they understand that Tao is something I have to do. But once they get involved in Dawa, that sectarianism is gonna dissipate quite a lot,
simply because you start to realize that whatever differences you may have with other Muslims,
they are like, really, really minor, compared to,
you know,
you know, compared to the belief in the Trinity,
compared to the belief in the Trinity for it. Yeah. You know, one of the sad things that happened wrong, and this is something again, that, you know, it's one of the very, very sad things
is that another thing that happens, unfortunately, when people do become Muslim, they get pulled into this whole sectarian thing. And this is something I was told, you know, like, you know, I mean, I'm sure you know, this happens in London, but I met someone who I hadn't seen for years and years, from up north back in the days used to give a lot of doubt, a lot of street doubt, a lot of doubt. And on Muslims, many, many actual white people became Muslim, but unfortunately, what happened is once they became Muslim,
other people from other sects would say about the people who gave them doubt all these people are not Muslims. Literally. They wouldn't say they're deviated or they're not on the right path. They would literally say they're not Muslims, right? These people are not real Muslims. They're not Muslims, you know, you're on the wrong path. And you know, obviously, then they would go back and talk to those people who would who had given them Dawa and they would give their point of view, but it doesn't take long
For an English person to just give up and say, You know what, forget that, you know, you people can't even make up your minds about this nonsense, right? And that's again, it's not that these sectarian people ever gave down. They didn't give these, you know, these white people, the Dow, right? They didn't give them down, they didn't invite them to Islam, but once they become Muslim, right, they were very quick to open their mouths, right and to put their wherever in about how these people who have given them dower are not Muslims. And I'm not talking about party armies and comedies here, right? You know, we're not talking about this type of thing. So, you know, broad. So
this is, you know, there are many, many challenges when it comes to, you know, very, very sad things. And, again, it all comes back to this ignorance, bro, it comes back to this ignorance that I talked about in the beginning, many Muslims, they, they, you know, they don't even really understand what Islam is wrong, they really just don't. And you can, you're absolutely spot on. And you can tell that when you look at certain statistics. So for example, I'm not belittling any pedestrian of Muslims anywhere in the world. But for example, if I was to give out a statistic like,
between 1885 and 2020, Christianity grew by 50 fold in Africa, right in those 140 years. Although the population grew by six times, the population of Christianity grew by 50 times and the middle of Africa, because the Southern African regions, obviously indigenous traditional beliefs, who became Christian, but the middle of Africa, Malawi, and these regions, they had many Muslims converted. So millions of people today are the descendants of people who converted to Christianity, that will not evoke the level of outrage that say, a oppression of a Muslim, a group of Muslims in one region of the world will, when actually when you think about it, these poor people in Malawi and other places,
these Muslims whose children are being raised by Christians in a Christian school, and they don't even know that they're being raised as Christian, the parents are poor, and they just want them to be fed and educated. That doesn't cause this sort of outrage that Palestine or another topic, like, you know, what's what's happening in another conflict zone? Does? I'm not saying we should give one more. The other
very, very pro you touched on something like you've touched on something so big, so deep, so significant, like that, that point that you raised?
It needs to be said more and more and more. And you know, it's it's something that is so true, you know, we're outraged by we're outraged by these things, you know, by people's homes being abandoned. So we should be right homes being demolished and this and that, but we're not outraged when you know, people say hola has a son.
Yeah, that doesn't outrageous, although the heavens are ready to rent asunder, and the mountains to crumble and ruin because they say a lot. A rough man has a son, but we were not even disturbed. In fact, somebody will say there are brothers in faith.
Stuck, will Allah right?
You know, so yeah, there's something wrong their role, but you know, this is, you know, at the end of the day, the point is, I think that's just this is just normal, human behavior. Right? doesn't excuse it, but it's just normal, right? Every human being more or less, unless you're a psychopath, right? You can relate to someone suffering, right? You can think about Oh, my God, what would it like, be like if a bunch of soldiers arrived at three o'clock in the morning and took my family out of my home and demolished it?
Right? What would it be? Like? If I lost my home? What would be like if you know, I was living in another country with the keys to my house? Because someone would throw me out? Right? What would it be like if I was put in a concentration camp and like, we can think about those things, right? And we can relate to them because they're human things. And this is why bro most people never they don't understand why, you know, why would anyone go to * forever for committing ship? Yeah, they don't get it, bro. It's like,
what? You know, because they're just thinking as human beings, right? Their mind is the mind of a human being. And they just think about, well, what's important to me as a human being, right? But what's important to you as a human being does not mean it's the same as what is important to Allah. But obviously, in fact, it's very, it's going to be different because Allah is not God is not a human being. And God's priorities are different from our priorities. And the things that matter to God, are going to be different from the things that matter to us, and what we consider good as human beings and things that we consider bad as human beings, right? And not necessarily the things that
have the hierarchy of good and bad with Gods, right.
And so that's part of the process of being a believer.
Part of the process of being a true believer, right, of being a believer based on knowledge and understanding is that you begin to love what Allah loves.
You know, so your human dimension, your human outlook dissipates, and you begin to see the world through, in the sense through the divine perspective, not that you're divine, you're still human. But God's perspective, you know, is the one that now makes, you know, that you begin to realize is the true perspective. That's the true perspective. That's the truly important one. Right? And then everything you see it differently, like you said, well, on Barbara, and those types of things, everything becomes different. Right, Dow that's, that's, I guess, again, you know, you have that dour perspective, right?
Because, you know, you may, from normal people, they may be thinking, Yeah, let's all get on, we can do business, this and that, and whatever, but a dour person is thinking. It's not material prosperity that's most important. It's a person's spiritual connection with God that is most important, right? But these are very, very difficult things for most people, even if they can grasp them intellectually, and conceptually, to actually accept them and take them on board. Right, as a process, a part of your thinking and understanding. That's a whole different level, which most people will never get close to it. But most people even call themselves Muslims, they will never get
close to it. Right? And that's the difference why Allah said, you know, two people don't say you believe you're not believers, you haven't Imaan as an empty jar, say you're Muslim, but not real demand, not real trust, not real. You know, that real understanding and seeing the world through, you know, the perspective that allow us to see it know, that takes some real effort and struggle, an internal conflict battle. Yeah, Long Island, but that's a really good point what you said, but really, really profound and deep point, you know, just for bringing that up then. And there's something else. I thought that was worth going into as well, which is what is practicing, right? So
I heard somebody recently say, Oh, this person's practicing, and they give our something like this. And I was a bit like, Okay, that's a bit odd. Like, because you know, language, the language you use gives away, you think, right. So why do we make that differentiation that Okay, so I'm practicing the deen I'm reciting the Quran. I'm doing a bother but Dawa is something supplementary? I think because the bar is so low, bro. I think that's all it is. I just think the bar is where we live in a time when the bar is so low. Let's be honest. Yeah. The bar is so low these days. When we listen to Russell Brad. And he says, I believe in God. Right? We get happy and excited. And we think he's
like,
I think Brad is gonna become Muslim. I was really hoping a lower guidance Islam, right. Like, he just says God, and that's it. We're happy. Right? That's how, that's how low low the bar is. Right? And of course, he says a lot of stuff that's worth listening to, I believe, right. But, you know, from the perspective of his actual belief in God, it's a pretty weird belief that he has about what God does he believe in what sort of, you know, what is it? What does he mean when he says he believes in God? I don't think it's quite what we believe when we say we believe in God, right. I'm not saying you know, it's a different god or whatever. It's just his idea. It's very, very
different. But that's it. The bar is so low because what atheism is so dominant religiosity is so prevalent, you know, for a person to pray.
Wow, you pray five times a day. Like even for Muslims. I bro, when I became Muslim, I went to Pakistan, right. And I realized they have a special word for people who pray Namazi and Namazi. Like you're a special type of Muslim you actually pray five times a day. It's like, sorry, like, if you're not praying five times a day, you're not really a Muslim. In fact, you technically might not even be a Muslim at all. What do you mean but that's how low the bar is, bro. That's how low the bar is. Right? So yeah, so that's the other thing is that people are giving dower are probably looked at as some sort of almost supernatural spiritual being.
I will hear of Allah right. You know, like you're giving Dawa. Why? And I guess maybe that contributes to the whole thing is that people think they need some sort of special qualification and certificate and because it's looked at as this sort of high end up their activity, whereas in reality, it should just be just a normal thing that you know, lightning fast, you pray, you give your charity, right, you get down. So you should be normal and natural like that. And just as you learn how to make we do
When and how to pray, you should learn how to give down. It's not much more complicated. Really? Yeah, definitely. And I agree with the bar being low, but just as a
what do you think, bro? What's your
thinking about it? Yeah, you're right about the bar being low. But I think that's to do with people who are wealthy right? So even when you went to Pakistan, you probably met rich. If you can eat twice a day,
this is quite generally bro. This is like, you know, even on the buses and not spoken obviously, to be honest, obviously the people who speak English are generally be the ones who are. Yeah. But you know, this idea of Namazi. Right? Yeah, this was 30 years ago,
things could have changed, maybe more people realize that. I don't know. It's just something just that, you know, when it comes to the bar being low. That's I think,
like in the West that, like, we have we have so much comfort is kind of like, okay, you pray five times a day. Wow. But when you're poor, when you don't know when your next meal is coming. I mean, I've seen people at the side of the road, praying in Buxton, I've seen people in like fasting while they're working in like 14 degrees or 35 degrees, like so. And even in Africa, you know, this is something inshallah I'm going to do with the doctorate mon Latif, we're going to speak about poverty and religiosity, because even in the history of the Indian subcontinent, some of these people who went through sinned. In fact, there's one guy who's who's, who's contemporary, actually, he goes in
sin in sins in Pakistan, there's lots of Hindus, right? So that's where the Hindus are in that region. So he's a Hindu convert to Islam, and he's a poor old man. He's got a gray beard, and he very skinny and wears a turban. He goes from village to village, Hindu village to village. And many, many people have become Muslim. One estimate was like, 100,000 people, right? And he's poor. So I think there's something about poverty, which makes him more religious. And those people are also the people who are like, these guys who are like the dour guys of the Indian subcontinent. They weren't wealthy. They were actually very, like, when you hear the stories of these people are structural,
and now we have shrines and people do all sorts of share can be out there. But these people when you read their stories, they were like, you know, poor people, but they're just very close to Allah. Well, that's, you know, that's what we're interpreting.
Yeah, I don't know what to say about that. I mean, obviously, that's just, you know, that's just true historically.
You know, when her Oculus asked Sophia.
I will Sophia. About
no sick. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Well, Sophia, who following up on the cousin of the Prophet sallallahu. And who was the leader of the Quran when you asked him, you know, like, So what sort of people follow him?
Is it the rich? Is it the wealthier or is it the poor? You know, yeah, it's the it was the poor and the women and the slaves and like the most disenfranchised people in society, the poor and so this is the case with all the prophets you look at nor you look at Silas, you know, you look at the agenda, you look at the prophets, Isa Elisa, you look at the prophets, their followers were generally poor people. Yeah. So that is very, you know, it's actually rare that people who are,
you know, wealthy and well off are the ones who, you know, sort of accept Islam. It's a sort of strange phenomena. I think that maybe in some Muslim majority countries, the sort of revival, Islamic revival does sort of seem to happen sometimes amongst sort of middle class people. That's a whole phenomenon to look into. But maybe that's a whole different context. Maybe that's, you know, connecting. Maybe that's based upon sort of understanding of
Islam as a means to political and
cultural sort of dominance and success, right. So I guess people studying Ottoman history will realize that, you know, when when the Caylus were strong upon Islam and enjoying the right and forbidding the wrong and establishing you know, the Sharia this, you know, the Islamic State, you know, the there was successful, they were prosperous, they were, I mean these things, these are signs that Allah subhanaw taala gives, so, maybe that's, that's it the middle class have self interest in, you know, in prosperity and they realize that
you know,
getting on the right side of the Creator is a good way to continue to have a prosperous life you know, it may be a materialistic motivation but it's not one without its
but otherwise generally all right, bro. I mean the people who tend to
and again, bro that though we go back to Sufism, as well, isn't it that whole early Sufism was a return to that sort of simple
All very, very simple on materialistic,
you know, almost very like an austere a setting type of lifestyle. So even people who had you know who had worldly possessions were encouraged to sort of renounce them and live that simple life. And obviously we had that trend in Christianity and monasticism the whole trend at monasticism it was massive bro people don't lay doesn't even like it's barely even like people don't even know what's a monastery but my god Brahma monasticism was it was a fundamental, intrinsic part of Christian life in the West for hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years. They were massive land owners, like almost every, you know, people if they didn't become a monk, you know, they would become, you know,
they would become novices, they would go and help out in the monasteries, people would, you know, so that whole thing was massive, bro.
So yeah, I mean, again, that whole idea of connecting living a simple lifestyle to being religious is yeah, it's quite a clear one is there even in Buddhism, isn't it bro in Buddhist countries, people become monks. So I think there's a sort of universal understanding that, you know, with spirituality, it tends to flourish.
And one tends to have deeper spiritual connections when there are less materialistic things to distract you.
And the flip side of the coin is, if you have a goal to where you want to reach, and you reach that goal, or you surpass it,
people start to have that existential crisis of what's more to life. Right? That may be an explanation for why there's a huge rise in middle class conversions in China, to Christianity, right.
So when, I mean, a lot of a lot of analysts talk about this about Chinese people. Now, they have they have this thing, which the Chinese government is banned on social media is called lying down. So basically, what people do is, they have this system called 996. So they work from nine o'clock in the morning to nine o'clock in the evening, six days a week, people are rebelling against it by having this lying down culture, they just don't want to work. And the reason why is their parents came from poverty. So they worked very hard. But then they had one child and invested everything in that child, and that child grew up in actual comfort. And that child is driven by the parents and
to, they're looking for spirituality, right. So I think this is also something that we need to consider as Muslims that when these opportunities come,
and people are, whose, whose, and going back for generations will fall when these people reach a certain threshold, they simply going to say is that all that there is to life? Because I've gotten everything my parents wanted, but you know, I'm not fulfilled. Yeah, I mean, that's for sure wrong. And this, this, this is, you know, obviously, something that happens, and, you know, civilizations tend to go one of two ways, either, I mean, they, they almost 99.9% of the time go one way, actually. And that is they just, they just try and find more and more, you know, they either find they look for spirituality and things that just is not going to give it to them. It's just like,
empty, you know, empty, basically nonsense that's going to make them even more misguided, and, you know, more more distracted and take them further from themselves, whether it's drugs, you know, whether it's sort of, I don't know, whatever, you know, this sort of New Age stuff, or whatever it is, right. People are into all sorts of things, right. And they give this semblance of, you know, having some spiritual, some spirituality, but in reality, it's just more emptiness. Or they just get more and more materialistic, you know, they just look for more and more enjoyment. Yeah, so they eat more, they drink more, they have * more they take, you know, they get intoxicated, more more bread
and circuses, more gladiatorial, combats, you know, whatever it is that and uses them, right. They will spend more, which is what, you know, which is really what's happening in the West, along the old Roman Empire model, right? Just more and more entertainment more and more distraction, you know, until ultimately you destroy yourself, your your world, your environment, it just can't sustain it anymore. Right? Yeah. Very, very rarely do people
as a people, as a civilization come to the realization that they need God's guidance, but it does happen. Obviously, it happened, you know, happened with Ron, although,
of course, they did pervert Christianity.
They perverted it and sort of mixed it up with the old Roman paganism, right. But you know, still fundamentally they became Christian that basic moral guidelines, they still had the Bible, they still had a book. I mean, you know, maybe we think
We think of Christianity in the sort of
middle ages sense. But obviously, you know, Christianity in the time of the Roman Empire when they embraced Christianity, it was very different. You know, people would learn it, people were educated people read for themselves study for themselves, you know, they had opinions
on. Yeah, so so it does happen. It's happened in history. But then the civilizations tend to, you know, like, I gave this talk years and years ago, the Coca Cola Muslim generation, and it was like, you probably remember that, and it was like, probably the worst thing that's gonna happen to Islam is that America, you know, on mass will become Muslim, because they'll just pervert it. They'll just pervert it and change it into some sort of, you know, something that is somehow like Islam, but it's not anymore. It'll just be you know, the consumer, McDonald's, the hospital Islam, you know, yeah. God's happy with you, the richer you are. Yeah, yeah. I mean, there's that there's that, you know,
which is very, you know, tempting to believe that you can see that fits into the whole capitalist model. And it's easy to see how, you know, you could sort of you could, you know, you could, Islam and capitalism don't necessarily go that badly together, right.
I mean, so it could it could happen, but it'll be a different it's not, it won't be the one that it won't be the one definitely won't be the Islam of the Prophet, it definitely won't be the Islam of you know,
all have. That's it, I guess, every I guess, when the Abbasids and, or may ads, they all, they all gave something different. They all came up with a different cultural version, as did the Ottomans, you know, so the Americans would do that as well, or the West would do that as well. If they do, it's possible. You know, obviously, we know that, you know, this people, great thinkers who have thought that that's what's going to happen. They thought ultimately, the West will ultimately embrace Islam, because it's just inevitable. They've just got nowhere else to go. Really, you know.
So who was it?
That who is it that said that? Think some Irish thinker can't remember his name now?
Thomas kala
may know, I mean, yeah, no, it wasn't Thomas Carlyle. But anyway, I forget now. Yeah, I used to, I used to know all these guys names and be able to quote their quotes by heart. Yeah, there's an interesting. Yeah. There's an interesting
correlation, that that, you know, is being highlighted nowadays, which is that in the West, Christianity is growing in some areas, but that Christianity is far more successful than the liberal Christianity, which is the sort of thing that the Church of England tried to do. So what they've noticed is actually that
the versions of Christianity which are stricter in terms of family values, and just general morals and ethics, even the belief in God and being uncompromising and intolerant towards other, other sort of people, people were far more likely to convert and stay upon that Christianity. Then the Christianity where you have the archbishop saying motto No, maybe sometimes I doubt God and, you know, liberalizing religion. So I think
that's just right. I mean, 111 is an institution. One is like the Anglican Church is fully part of the institution, it's fully part of the system is fully fully institutionalized. Right? And He's only trying to survive within the UN. And by the way, the Catholic Church, right? You see the pope these days, right? They're just trying to survive within the context of the institutions where they exist, right? That's their mindset. Right?
And so they're just trying to make themselves relevant to the people that they're hanging out with, which is other people of power. Right? It's not, they're not hanging out with, you know, these bishops, and even these, they don't hang out with ordinary people. They don't spend their days with them, right. They hang out in the House of Lords and the Houses of Parliament, and they, you know, they move in the corridors of power with the Queen, right? So they think that they need to make themselves relevant within that context. But for most people, it doesn't mean anything. They just totally, totally lost touch. And they think that it's all about some liberal, whatever, but
obviously, that's, you know, they just missed the point. Missed the whole boat about what religion is supposed to be about what it does, why do people even want religion? Why would they Why would anyone want to believe something unbelievable, without any type of evidence, right? I mean, it's very eight still really makes me confused how any fairly intelligent, rational thinking person would be Christian. I still really struggle. I can really, you know, when I see you know, I can almost done
The sound why someone would be an atheist. But why would be a Christian? I just think it's like, I really struggled to understand. It's like, how, how can you? You know, what do you think? I don't know if I have your explanation. So I, I have another anecdotal thing that I think back, which is a conversation I had with this
guy who was a militant atheist. And he was a student at Oxford University, you know, there you have a lot of the secularists and whatnot. And you know, this guy comes speakers, Corning, and I found him to be a very honest, born gay and Christian, right. He like when I spoke to him about the Bible being corrupted. Yeah, he's like, yeah, the Bible's changed. And like, he's very much like that, but he's still very driven on Christianity. So I asked him, because I thought this guy's just so honest. Right? I asked him. So why did you become Christian that you have an atheist, like quite intelligent studying at Oxford. And you know what he said, and this gave me a reason to, you know, understand
how this happens. He says, Look, he says he was addicted to *, and us addicted to the point that it made him feel
very sinful as an atheist. And he wanted an outlet or forgiveness. And that's why
I thought myself his fit that I was coming out, but then he admitted to the wrong religion, basically. But there was something in him that was telling him you are doing something abhorrent and wrong.
me about this. Yeah. Yeah. Obviously, there's truth there in Christianity, you know, like, there is something there, isn't it?
And I guess, I guess when you're, I just, I guess it just shows the power of people's need to connect to God, one way, right. And for sure. I suppose if I'm going to look for sure that if there was nothing else, all you had was the Bible. Right? You had nothing else? Probably. Yeah, you would go for it. It's the closest thing you're going to have, isn't it? At least there's the idea of one. I do know a lot of Christians like I remember in Ireland, I came across some priests who just the whole Trinity stuff. They just put it out of their head. Yeah. They just wouldn't think about it. They wouldn't discuss it. It's like, yes. Look, let's just be good people. And you know, and being
Christ like was just being kind and loving and compassionate. And looking after the poor and the needy. Yeah. And praying to God, they didn't think about doctrine, they wouldn't let themselves think about doctrine, you understand? It's sort of like, for them, that's what it means to be Christian. Right. And I guess for some of these born again, Christians, it's about some sort of static, you know, experience. They probably again, you know, don't think about the theology, but that's not my experience. A lot of them do. And they argue that black and blue and they'll try and convince you this is the stuff the stuff that convinced me that confuses me is these you know,
people like Joseph Smith, he's not an he's not, you know, a person lacking in you know, ability to process information. How does he believe this nonsense nowadays guys believe this, I've met really intelligent people who will sit there arguing with the black and blue trying to convince themselves and you and whatever that you know about the Trinity and about Jesus died for your sins and stuff like that. So there are some people I get it, you know, like that atheist guy, but that's, that's not a lot of them. Right? Well, can we explain that as Muslims, as you know, they are trying to rationalize their beliefs because they're having these experiences. And these experiences they
believe are leading to
they believe are from God, but they're not. And I remember many years ago, Sheikh Bilal Philips spoke about this, that people that go to temples and they worship idols and you know, they do shirk is not the case that you know, when they come back and they say, I have this miracle that happened to me or this happened to me, that happened to me. He said, We shouldn't just brush it off, like Oh, nothing happened. It could be that they worship rather than Allah. So Allah, some miracle happened, which obviously happened by Allah's permission, the interpretation was wrong. I want you to give you one example of this. There was a brother who came to speak his corner, and he was a Sikh convert to
Islam. And he wanted us to speak to his his dad about you know, Islam because his dad converted to Christianity. Now I was shocked because firstly, a Sikh becoming Muslim is amazing. Like, that doesn't happen. Very rarely does that secondly, a Sikh becoming a Christian does just even more odd, right. So I said to him, okay, so how did you father become a Christian? Right? He said that my my mother and my father couldn't conceive. They couldn't have any children. Yeah, yeah. You know the story, right. So then he went, his father went to different people until he went to a Christian priest there.
Christian priest said, The Holy Spirit come and you'll have a son. And that's exactly what happened. So his father will not accept any delille he will not accept any evidence. I get it. I get it. Yeah, I think I met a Hindu like this when I was in Tao conference in India, same thing. He said the same reason. He'd become Catholic. And it's basically the same thing basically pray to Jesus and his wife, and they had a kid, you know, the crazy thing was, is that Alhamdulillah by the end of three, four days, he was just like, totally with me.
Yeah, it was like, you've got me thinking, you know, he was convinced he was going to be bringing me back to Catholicism. But it was like he was this close to becoming Muslim. He was so close.
But you know, because what I say for people like that, is that look, you have to remember, you're all on a path. Right? So what I remember saying to, you know, when I lived in Croydon, in the gym, I met this guy who was a born again, Christian black guy, is saying that this bad life drinking drugs, this and that Jesus, you know, he accepted Jesus, and everything changed, you know? And I was just like, Yeah, that's great. You know, I think you found God in some way. Right? Because you found some sort of truth, you found some sort of path to God, by so what I want you to think about is maybe it's not the only way. Right? Maybe this is just the first stage. Maybe this is just, you know, you
found whatever truth you have. But then maybe there's a greater truth than that. Because I was getting him to think about well, but do these other things make sense? You know, so it's like, I like I find it very hard to
you know, I find it very, very hard. probably wrong. From a Dhow perspective, even a personal perspective, to deny people's experiences. Yes. How can you deny someone's subjective personal experience? Right, if they've experienced God, if they've had this experience with God? If they feel that God has entered their life? Who am I to say, No, he did it. Right?
Wouldn't it be possible that yes, that this person did the best they could with what they had? Right? And because they did that God, goodness happened to them. Right? So wouldn't it be that the right thing to say to them? Or you could say, well, that's the way I like to get to people? You know, that's what I want to get people to think about is that, but it doesn't mean it's the truth. Right? Just because you found some truth? Does it mean it's the truth? Maybe there's some greater truth that you haven't discovered life is a test after all? So I mean, that's my approach. You know, it's like, like I said, I find it really hard, or pointless, in fact, to dismiss people's subjective
experiences, right. The other thing you couldn't really say, would you say? It's from Showtime? You know, the person who has a godless life, and then they start praying to God and turn to God and this and that. I mean, well, this is this is actually interesting, because we I remember having a few conversations with a few brothers on this. And one of the things that Hamza said is that it's, it's people's interpretations, you should challenge never the experience itself.
On see should say, well, and I've tried this with a bit some people so you prayed, this happened, but was it God? Oh, Jesus, and people are quite like, they're hesitant to to Jesus sometimes, right?
So you know, that type of, in fact, there's a very,
very interesting conversation I had with this guy from Sheffield, he was actually the poor guy was homeless, and he was, you know, us, he came to us, and he actually converted to Christianity. And he claimed, and I believe his story, but I mean, I don't see why he would be lying. But he said that he was addicted to heroin, and he couldn't get off until some Christians met him. And they said, Come with us and come pray with us. And he said, After that prayer, he was no longer addicted to heroin. Right. And the guy when I tried to explain to him about Islam, and what we believe he wasn't resistant to anything, he was just saying, Look, this is the experience I had, this is why I believe
now. Right? So again, it was for me not if I challenged his experience, it'd be like me insulting his mother, like literally, he was. So the experience was so close to his heart, you would have gone mad if I tried to challenge his experience. So I think you're right. I have two very interesting because I remember you know, I had a car breakdown and had this journey with the breakdown goes a long journey. And you know, on the way he was actually a born again, Christian, and he was really positive about me being Muslim, he didn't have a problem with it. What he didn't like is the minute I began to challenge his beliefs, right? And then he was like, You're the devil. You know,
basically,
you're just doing the devil's work. Because it's like, you know, why are you undermining my faith? Why are you trying to make me doubt? You know, why are you trying to make me like here I have this connection with God and you
Trying to break it, you know? And it was like, No, I'm not. That's not what I'm trying to do. I'm trying to, but I'd lost him. That's the problem. I, you know, I'd already lost him. I like after that, you know, I couldn't say anything to the guy because he I just like, obviously just, I've just got I just gone over the edge with him.
And he just like, now, he was convinced that I was some devil trying to make him doubt Jesus and this and that. And, you know, would have been the worst if you didn't challenge him. Ya know, but this is the thing about listen, you know, the funny thing is, it doesn't matter how many years you study in a, in a court, you know, you could go and all your, like Darla Lu Medina, this and that nothing will prepare you for being able to talk to someone like that, except talking to people like that, right? There's no script, right? Like, you know, divert, develop your empathy. That's where you need to do, right. Develop your emotional awareness, right? Yeah. But there's no script for soft
stuff like that, right? You know, like, you know, whatever. But it's, but those experiences make you learn, they do make you think about what do I say to a person? How do I approach a person? You know, if I need to change them? How should what's the best way of going about it? You know, so data is definitely it's an art wrong. It's an art. And if people are afraid of giving doubt, because they're going to make mistakes, you're going to make mistakes, like you can't help it. It's just like, it's like riding a bike, you're gonna fall off your bike. It's like walking, like, did you start walking? Because when you were a kid, you stood up and fell down 3000 times and then it's like, I'm giving up
all this working stuff.
I think some kids do for a while you go back to
back to drawing is like no, I don't think he's good. But I mean, you know, I mean, that's that's the way that
yeah, come to think of it bro. That was pre go rap day. So that's what I was still doing there. And I did that stuff. So it's interesting that if I'd done go rap on that guy, I don't think I would have got that same result.
I wouldn't have got that negativity. You see, come from a totally different angle. But because I was coming from Yeah, contradiction in the Bible. There's contradiction in the Bible that isn't that he just looked at me as like you're attacking my book, you're attacking my faith or whatever, you know. So that was pre go rap days, bro. So mashallah, Al Hamdulillah you know, lessons learned. I think one of the things about shika hamady, that Rahim Allah is that people
forget that he wasn't just a color to Allah, he was actually a political activist. So some of his rhetoric is not just to do with Tao, it's to do with challenging enemies.
I am not, you know, I mean, I'm gonna say it because I believe that I don't think you know, what deedat taught in terms of his biblical criticism was a method of doubt at all right? I don't think it's good Dower, I don't think it's a good way to invite people to Islam.
That's not to say that he didn't do amazing things. And that's not to say that, you know, he, usually Yeah, he's inspirational. He's motivational. But what he did do bro is he gave which is very important. He gave Muslims a lot of confidence. He gave Muslims a lot of certainty. He made Muslims understand that wait a minute, this is Christianity. This is what these people believe they believe this right? And we have our Quran which is this and this and this. So you know, that is so important, right?
That is so important. That certainty that confidence, that just that confidence to feel confident enough, because that's the problem and that I guess it goes back to the beginning of our conversation, why don't Muslims give doubt? Or maybe they just don't feel confident? That's what I did. I did to a lot of people he gave them confidence. He gave them that confidence to feel that yeah, we have the truth maybe a lot of Muslims don't feel that bro. They don't feel it in their hearts. They don't feel that confidence. A lot of it, bro.
Anyway, listen, bro, listen, we've been doing this for an hour and a half. I'm gonna pray. I'm sure you have to pray us on as well in sha Allah. Next time we'll keep now inshallah just
fine. It's been it's been like, I feel we could talk for a lot longer on this subject. And it's been really, really interesting.
I think I've talked too much I need to let you know.
I took I mean, people seem
like that's just me, bro. Once I start on a train of thought. It's just like, I just keep going and it's, you know what it is?
Like, because you you've got a lot of experience and people listen, let me put it this way. Why is Brogan so popular? Right? Because you got life experience. No one wants to listen to a 20 or 30 year old talking about here's how you change your life. And here's Mike because you barely out your embryonic stage. You know how