Evening Lecture presenting Islam as the only means to attaining true freedom in life. Only through the connection with our Creator and worship of Allah can humans find peace.
San Diego State University October 13, 2016.
Abu Usamah At-Thahabi – Freedom Or Oppression
AI: Summary ©
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AI: Transcript ©
Many telco what else now? I'm calling from NIDA.
Si la,
WA salatu, salam,
Ababa, Sam Alemannic, Kabul Gouda.
Beer, there are a few preliminary things I have to mention here. So that
you guys are willing to stand
what I'm trying to do here and go away with a message that is clear.
So the first thing is
that in actuality, when I was invited to give this lecture, the topic was given to me.
And I was told that the targeted audience, were going to be honest. So I should give a talk towards addressing the minds of lambs.
I didn't necessarily agree with that, because it is an important topic that Muslims themselves need to understand.
So for those of you who are listening, this is just as important to you as a message as it is for those people who
topic was originally created for.
So I've been thinking is
during the course of the lecture, you want to hear me use some Arabic phrases. I won't use those Arabic phrases to alienate you, or to mesmerize you. But in order to translate verses of the Quran, in order to translate the statements in the sands of Prophet Muhammad,
peace be upon him.
As a speaker, I have to see it in Arabic so that I can get him into picture, what I'm about to transmit, I just tried to translate it.
What I would say in Arabic, want to chop up the text, I don't want to do that. And another issue about the Arabic as as a Muslim,
even a Muslim who is the non Muslim is not really practicing, but a Muslim was practicing his religion. Part of his life, his whole life is Islam. So what happens is, he's going to always use Arabic phrases for everyday mundane things like the word and shadow lines going because all of a sudden shout if Allah wills when Prophet Muhammad's name is mentioned, out of respect to him reverence towards him the Muslim and here's his name, he says some Lola Lonnie said Peace and
blessings, the lobbying part.
So I'll do my best not to say things in Arabic, I'll do my best, but the verses of the Quran, and the statements of Prophet Muhammad and mentioning his name, I'm going to see some of Adam Sandler movement to speak in Arabic. So you just try to bear with me. I mentioned some things in Arabic, and you feel your loss in a snap from the translation of the Quran. And I'll do my best.
As it relates to the topic,
Islam, freedom or oppression.
And the first piece of information that I want to share with you, is the fact that any LS man,
Prophet Muhammad is the example for us. He is the one who's going to determine and he's the one who's going to define
unfortunately, and I'm speaking from experience from reality, I'm gonna revert to this religion. So I'm a mother, my father, not Muslims, I was not raised in a Muslim country, I reverted to the religion came back to the religion on my own accord. After studying and being convinced, when I came into the religion and started to meet Muslims from different nationalities and different backgrounds, they confused.
And that's because today, especially the way Muslims are practicing and understanding the religion of
the non Muslim, who's looking at it from without, is going to be confused about SNAP, we don't give people a good understanding of what our religion is. And that's why he over and over and over to Mausam audiences. The Muslim community has a great level of responsibility to show this.
But anyone who's looking for bring this back, don't look at themselves. Don't look at themselves, just like Christianity. I'm not going to look at Christians to understand Christianity. I'm not going to do that. You have to look at the text
of Islam and you'll get a good understanding. So Prophet Muhammad
He is the one who gives us definitions. He is the one who is the example for us. And the Quran is replete with many, many verses that make that clear. Like the statement, Alana provided that,
assuming that he was what two and a half Santa, I love sent to our community to mankind.
You have in Prophet Muhammad, perfect example. And that's a general verse. Perfect example, as it relates to the husband and father as it relates to a leader, as it relates to whatever is a perfect example. So this was going to learn about his life.
Like you have this in place of Love Your Partner in order to navigate throughout his life, he is never going to take his religious teacher, as the
the leader of this country is not being
the president of this country, whether it's a Muslim country of America, they are not the examples. My mother and my father, do not Muslims. And Islam did not tell me that I can't love, honor and respect them.
If they said things or good things that went against this man, when it comes to a Prophet Muhammad said, my loyalty lies with proper competence, one.
So he's the example. Now the reason why I'm saying that is, we have to deal with this issue of the definition of freedom or a concept of freedom and of itself. Because there are two extremes, that we have to make it clear to the stringers freedom and oversight. So one of the responsibilities that Prophet Muhammad had, like all with his brothers, from the fathers of the messengers is that they were singing, and I'm speaking strictly from the theology of Islam, honestly. So what I'm saying in
this presentation, is some speech that you have to look at understanding that you had arrived from the prism of a listener, speaking as a Muslim from slamming sources, or the Muhammad and his brothers, the other prophets and messengers, one of the main reasons why they would sit is to be the example.
They were the ones who spoke on behalf of the Almighty free, because if it was left up to each and every individual, to understand to determine, then there's going to be confusion and enter. Because people are different. And they make understanding in the purity, and dirt and all of that people are different. of Muhammad is the one in our religion, where everyone has to get behind what he said and understand the way he said him it. And this happened with many of his companions, where he explained
to them and clarifying for that, things that they understood one way, when he said, No, the correct way to understand that Islam is this way, I can give you a number of examples. I'll give you two very quick. So the point here is, problem handmade is the one who defines what freedom is, like Mohammed is the one who defines what depression is.
Because again, he's the Prophet. And it's his job and his responsibility to explain to people what that wants them to do and what that meant by this, what that mean, right. Give me an example
of a Muhammad said to his companions, and he said to our community, by before,
I tell you, the role and manager of this Do you people know who the Baybrook person is, you know what the bank represents? They said, Yes, messenger of Allah Benbrook, person to us as the one who doesn't have any money. And he doesn't have any property. That's going to be the answer of almost everybody from every single culture from every single country from every walk of life. They were versus the one who doesn't have any wealth, and doesn't have any property to use as collateral
property to sell and to get the money.
He filed chapter 11 to protect his property, that's the paper person
that was in the standard of the people
who said no, the bankrupt person from our Ummah, in this religion. The bankrupt person is the one who comes Jomo Kenyatta. Yun Qian is the day of judgment the last day
the one who comes on the last day and he has a lot of prayers and he mean, he paid a lot of his wealth to the
Poor, he fast a lot, he has a lot of fast under his belt during the course of his life, he did a lot of good deeds. But during the course of his life, he shared the blood of this individual. He stole the money of that individual. He oppressed this way. And he gave some examples of the mistakes that people make an impression that people made out of us. He says, so as a result of that, all of the good things that he did during his life, those people have to be paid back. They have to get there,
just do some manual press that people who live in life right now may have been killed, and everyone dies. And the murderer, well, nothing happens to him, he killed all of those people, all those people being killed in Iraq. Since this, the innocent, everybody dies. And that's it. You know, people have to be held accountable. So he said, that person who did all of the fasting and all of the praying all of the things that he did that are good,
those people that impressed his good deeds are going to be given to them,
his good deeds, we give it to them. And if it's good deeds are exhausted, and there are no more deeds to be given. But there are still people who are in line at the polls, and the bad deeds will be thrown out.
So this particular incident is an incident that shows Prophet Muhammad explain to the people the concept of bankruptcy, it doesn't mean that the other bankruptcy, that's not true doesn't mean that but real bankruptcy. So it helps the person who may be a Muslim, and he doesn't have a lot of money. He knows that being rich is not the key to success is not the measurement of success. In others. That story that I need, that statement helps a person understand that as well. Okay, I don't have a
lot of money.
I have a lot of money. But I know people have a lot of money and they're not happy. And I know people who have a lot of money they have a lot to answer for as it relates to the money that they can see. But the reason that I mentioned this to you is to share with you to show with you probably haven't been defined for the people what the meaning of that thing once and never had another exam
is that there was an individual during his time,
he was a very muscular man. And he was a good wrestler. And his bodily prowess struck fear in the hearts of people who saw him, Mike so that people we see walking around in society when you see that people tend to be afraid that they will want to tangle with that individual. So Prophet Mohammed wanted to keep them to stand.
A very important point that you can always judge things by the apparent so he said to the people,
you said being strong, is not the one who can out wrestle everyone isn't that's not the strong.
He said, Being strong as an individual can control his anger. That's the one that strong.
So a man can have a lot of muscles. But that doesn't make him a man. That doesn't make them a person who has a lot of strength. And then the other person can be a god individual with no muscles, but
they can control themselves. They know how to behave and know how to deal with situations. So the people had an idea that strength is defined, and a person's masculinity and his ability to out wrestle you throw you on the ground. He said, That's not the strong one in our religion.
A strong one in our religion is the one who has the ability to control themselves. Now, I'd like to explain the details of that. But again, as Muslims, this is really important, because it helps us to understand that you shouldn't over emphasize issues like that. They should put more emphasis on issues like being people who know how to deal with the people in the ninus sweat. So the reason why I mentioned that is like the first example, Prophet humbly gave an explanation and a definition. And
that's what we understand. And there are many examples of meaning meaning many examples. Just to give you one, give me one, they have a number, but just
there was a man during his time who was a Christian. He was an Arab Christian, when he met, humming, humming Skype to call him to slack. The man accepted Islam.
The people from his tribe because he was the leader, they accepted Islam. So while they were spending time with Prophet Muhammad in this particular place, some verses of the Quran are revealed about this
Jewish. And one of the verses that was written that wasn't revealed is the statement of a lot. Definitely why bother them badly or bad and in doing that,
this man was a Christian. I lesson in this verse, This man was a Christian and the people with him, they took the priests and the Mongols as lords Gods along the Avila.
But that man heard that verse, and he's a Muslim. Now, he said, a messenger of Allah, we didn't worship our monks in our priests. We didn't worship that.
Muhammad said to the man,
there in those monks and priests, they took your book, they took your holy book. And in your book, there were things that were permissible in the book, but they made those things impermissible. The man said, Yes. You said in those preachers, those moments, those priests, those leaders, they take your boat, and there were things in the boat, which were
the opposite. They were,
in one case permissible, and they made them not permissible. And then they made some things that were not permissible, they made it permissible to say, yes, it said, then that was the worship that you did to those people, because only God has the right to make things permissible and not permissible. So the man is the point, that Christian man who I became a Muslim, he thought worship was prostrating to people, that's when he thought worship was worship was referencing the one who
you're worshiping into a free, that's what he thought it was, of Muhammad told them in this case, worship is if God said, Do this particular thing, human beings don't have the right to come and say, We're not going to do that. And we're going to do the opposite my mom,
my family are really committed and dedicated Christians. And I'm not here to bash Christianity or Judaism when you think of a marriage sharing something with you. And they raised us as Christians, but we used to import.
Although in our book that we had, and we believe them, pork is clearly something that's not permissible to be eaten.
And the Bible, Old Testament and New Testament, but when people came down and said, No, no, that's the old thing. Now, this is the new thing.
So those were some of the issues that used to present themselves to me that made me say, I've been doing this thing the way we want. There's no guidelines, there are no guidelines. And there are many examples like that, that normal family, things that the Bible says that we don't do. We don't believe that Torah is like that. And the Bible is like that. So my point here is Prophet Muhammad, he is going to clarify for us what is freedom, and what is freedom.
And it's not permissible, it's not acceptable. It's not fair. It's not intelligent. For people to be arrogant, we find this thing in the West, we find this thing in America, when we look at other people's cultures, like Africa, for example, we wouldn't describe Africans as being people, we're not civilized when example.
Or in the case of Prophet Muhammad, he married one of his wives who was very young. She was very young. So we, in our arrogance, we want to super impose our norms, our way of life and other people. And because we come in with a judgment, when in fact, if people were to look at Western civilization, the way we did, a lot of things that we're doing that are very uncivilized, so it's not fair for any group of people to come. And to do that other people just superimpose what they
think is right or wrong, unless the thing is a universally understood issue. This right, this one. So my mother again, when I became a Muslim, she found out that Prophet Muhammad had married a young woman, and she brought that to the table. And she wanted to know, what about this? Because in her attempts to try and understand what's that, the first thing that she was introduced to, were those ambiguous issues that people misunderstand about us, ma'am. So she began to ask, I don't really want
to talk about that, because it's not the most important message on the snap, but she put pressure on. And it was strange, because I said to her, my answer to you concerning that question, and that concern of yours
is that you don't want the mother, my grandmother, your mother will come
from Raleigh, North Carolina, your old lover, she got married to my grandfather, my mother's father, at the age of 13.
And that was something known and natural at that time.
So whatever you have to say concerning him in any way to fill an uptight, then my grandfather, my grandmother, your mother, your father, they didn't say anything. When she looked at it from that context, she embraced it. Because if you're going to say, he molested the young girls, and so on, and that same woman has to apply to my grandmother and my grandfather, my mother's not going to say that because that wasn't the case. But they lived in an environment and maybe in a way that was
acceptable for that time, and so forth. So
now, when it comes to this issue of freedom,
what did you humbly say freedom was, what does the Quran say? Freedom? What is the understanding of free
freedom in English, that is what I would call the Arabic and herbal D. Those of you who are Muslims, you should write this word down. Add this word to the many vocabulary words that you have in our dictionary, because your vocabulary has to continuously grow.
It's part of just being a Muslim. So one of the most important words in Islam is this issue, and Google will deal. The meaning of Rudy is servitude, a person being a slave to God Almighty, meaning slave, he believes in God. And after believing in God, Allah is going to do his level best to practice what he perceives as a Muslim, God wants me to do this, he wants me to do that. He doesn't want me to do this, and doesn't want you to do that. So I'm going to markets, I have to pray five
times a day,
I have to pray five times a day, that's certain to
my bike, my bag, this bag, it is a trust that's been given to me, when I die, I have to be a person who's able to say I took care of it to the best of my ability. So I didn't drink. So I didn't get
I didn't put tattoos on my body at all to my body, except in the ways that Liz lumps it was permissible. And who did this is freedom of expression.
This is what the Quran gives us. And this is a problem having towards freedom. And Ellis then has not been able to say what you want to say, drink what you want to drink, eat what you want to eat, where would you this is not freedom in this time. As a matter of fact,
people will like that, and people live like that. They will go caution to the wind, do whatever you want to do.
These people are actually in slavery in Islam, as you're going to see as we move forward.
So freedom in Islam, based on the Quran, based upon will probably come and say, Is servitude, not having a problem realizing I'm a human being. Although there are many things about human beings that are very positive, but that positive thing about human beings come from the One who created them. So all of the worry and all the praise goes back to him all of the acknowledgement goes back to him. So any human being that excelled in this life any was responsible for creating or inventing something
that people point their finger, he becomes famous for that. We're going to acknowledge what he did. And we're going to praise him for what he did. But we're going to say you would not have been able to do that had it not been forgotten money. So all of the praise ultimately goes that goes to Allah
not having a problem with that.
So Quran has establish that the best people that we perceive as being the examples as I mentioned, the proximate messengers, they didn't have any problem with being slaves to allow servants of Allah meaning versus give us back. Right What the law said about Jesus Christ.
There's a first when you said Liang,
Liang, a student you can see when you Hakuna I did that and remember to call it Raghu. Women Yes, think differently, bad TV. Well, many stages and batteries. We start with the normal for say Yashoda who give any jemena Allah said in describing the Messiah, Jesus Christ. Jesus didn't have any problem with being the slave of Allah, the servant of Allah.
Then you say he was the son of Allah. According to Muslims. He didn't tell the people worshipping
Jesus the most
Saiga didn't have any problem with being the slave of Allah. Nor do the angels were close to Allah have any problem with being His servants. Anyone has a problem with being his servant, and they're arrogant. Allah is going to return them back to him, and he's going to deal with the situation. So with a standard narrative, it's Latin America, the best people are those prophets and messengers who came to show people how to worship Allah.
And none of them had a problem with
being slaves, one man pain to Prophet Mohammed, and he started praising him,
blowing smoke in his ear, trying to blow his head up, making them bigger than who he was. And he started saying it to him, showering him with so many accolades, and so many words of praise. Prophet Muhammad told me, I don't see that. I'm just Abdullah and Rasuwa. I'm just the slave of Allah and the Messenger of Allah. Yes, I'm a prophet a messenger will make it makes me not ordinary. But nonetheless, I'm a human being, and I'm asleep, even allow people to raise them up. I've been in a
slump since 1986. I've met a lot of people travel all over the world, I've met a lot of people problems, especially people in positions like I'm in right now. People will give talks, people who like the scarlet the shear, the one who was teaching, and I've met some people from Islam, I'm not putting Muslims down, but I'm sharing something with you. Because this problem permeates everywhere. I mean, some people in the position that I'm in, and you have to do everything for, you have to get
a coffee, you have to make sure they're very comfortable, they open up the door for everything. And many of those people take advantage of the other people. preachers do that preach to that rabbis do that.
And if the middle of the community doesn't have a good grip, and a good understanding, connection between his own personal relationship with God, easier, is taken advantage of isn't
easy.
And that was that Prophet Muhammad wanted people don't be like that. Don't be a person who you allow your intellect to be put asleep. And you do something that normally you wouldn't do it because of the religion I bring to your attention to what happened in Diana. Diana a few years ago, was in the 80s. I believe, that was a crackpot preacher by the name of Jimmy Jones. He was in Guyana.
And a lot of people went and followed him there from America. Many of them were African Americans. But the people seem to have gotten along, you know very well amongst themselves. So the American government, they sent the Senate down there to check on what was going on because they heard that it was cold and maybe American lives were under siege under threat. The senator right. You saw him he was impressed with what was going on. There. Compound comm knew the way it was, it was a rainbow
coalition type thing going on. The man was impressed. For some reason, when he was leaving, and he got on the plane to leave for some reason. That man Jimmy Jones, he sent some of his henchmen and a shot the senator up in the people with the Senate. Now may no American government is going to come and get us. He gathered up all of the people in the compound and he told them, Armageddon is here. Armageddon is here. So he made a concoction of Kool Aid laced with cyanide.
And he told the people to drink
something like 800 people drink a cooling.
Now how in the world would you allow yourself you do people are here? If I was there, this is my brother, this my cousin. That's my wife over there goes my children. And we believe in this man.
But when I hear him saying, hey, Armageddon is here, we have to drink cyanide and kill ourselves.
I'm going to say to my wife and my kids. Hey, guys, listen up.
water cooling, I'm inside. Don't let anybody see you. We're gonna just play dead. But what happens is again, this is the point when you suspend your intellect because of religion, so proud, so proud.
So Prophet Muhammad, and all of his brothers from the province and the ages, they have no problem with being the slave of Allah, meaning you're not Allah, not Allah. That's the messenger. So they have that level above normal people, but nonetheless, they don't deserve to be
I worship because the human team, he is susceptible to so many things. And from those things, he dies and anything that dies doesn't deserve to be God. So freedom, freedom, and of his that is for a person to submit his will willingly, he makes a conscious decision in the religion to be a servant of God. And that's why in our religion, there are many beautiful names that you can name yourself. And now it's not Arabic names for men and women, many beautiful names. But the single best name
Ellison, the single best name is to call yourself or your son Abdullah, which means the slave of Allah. And many of the verses of the Quran they bring this like a lot, quote, Prophet Muhammad, his sleeve in many verses, Subhana Nebby s ra, the IDE,
all praises to Allah Glory to Allah, who took his sleeve, his servant. So although Mohammed is a prophet, and we respect him, nonetheless, is a human being, and he is a servant. Once the person knows a lot like that, then he'll know himself and he'll know the other people around.
So that's freedom, servitude. When a person doesn't make a connection with God who created he doesn't follow the religion, then that's when he becomes a slave, then you have to stay with me now.
Slavery was
slavery, the opposite of freedom, slavery. Now this man is for a person to put himself in a position where he allows himself to be low, because he's like a slave to the system is a slave to an idea that harms him. He's a slave to a way of life that is not healthy.
And give you some examples of Muhammad mentioned in some words, and given his concept, he said that Lisa, and Dina
that is, Abdullah
Danita Abu Musa
Abu Dhabi, Allah,
He will be wretched, he's unhappy, he will be wretched, you will be destroyed. The one who was a slave to the dinar, he's a slave to the dinar.
And he gave another example, he is wretched, is unsuccessful, it's not going to be happy. The one who was a slave to the devil, another type of currency, the power of the doubt the franc, the one who worships money is going to be a slave. He said, he is a slave, he's going to be wretched. The one who's a slave to his clothes, the main thing to him is spending a lot of money on clothes, and presented himself in the public with the people say, Oh, whoo. And I will do anything in that
regard.
So he called individual a slave to these particular things. And that's what we have in a society that we're living in right now.
Where a person is a slave to the credit car.
He doesn't have the ability to live within his means, but the society encourages him. And the society is constantly sending out messages to him, that you have to keep up with the Joneses. And you have to be a rat in the rat race, you have to
do A, B and C in order to be considered successful.
Freedom is having the nerve and having the
Gall, being brave enough to think out of the box and to be different and not to let other people make up your mind.
People will live in right now. And many people believe that by choosing Hillary Clinton, or by choosing Donald Trump, I love a bit off a bit. But people actually believe by choosing this one or that one. You are choosing the person who's wanting to run America and leave America. That's not the case. It's people over in America, and they're not the ones who lead America. There are symbols. There are people behind you that your systems behind them.
So the slave is individually who eats things and he doesn't know why. My wife who is my queen,
the products is Do you want some coffee July Starbucks? My wife is addicted to this coffee and I'm going
You dictate. I call it crap. Every time I traveled with her, she says to me, can we start to get some coffee and it has to be Starbucks. It can't be some regular coffee. Regular coffee doesn't flow a boat. I said, Okay, we're gonna pull over, we're gonna get your credit.
is expensive,
is overpriced, but when she drinks it, it prevents her from having migraines. When she drinks it, it makes her feel relaxed. Before drinking it. She's not that nervous. Mucha nervous. That's an Arabic word I'm giving you guys moved the nervous when she drinks it. She's calm. So I'm always telling her. Hey, what's the difference between Costa Costa and Starbucks? She said, Abu why is it different as we walk evatik with a different? Can you taste it? So many artists disappointing to me, because
I'm not a crackhead. That's why it's Satan. But in her case, and this is the point, my wife is caught up in again.
Now and I use my wife, because she did to me, she's close. I don't want anyone out there thinking if you're addicted to Starbucks that I'm attacking you, I'm not attacking. This is my wife.
If a person really believes, you know, he's a coffee connoisseur. He really convinced this coffee special view. Okay, no problem. But come on.
I don't know how much this costs in America, because in the UK, this will costs five pounds, four pounds. That's about living down. It's $9. I'm not paying $9 for any coffee, we're going to do that.
So with the system, and there are many things that are going on in our lives. We don't know why we do things people hate this land. And they don't know why
the media made you hate is that, yes, some Muslims, they did a lot of bad things. But there are more Christians doing bad news than Muslim. Because they're there. They outnumber the muscles. Some some countries do some bad things.
But when they we Americans, when did our government become the moral authority of the world? That freaks me out when I hear that.
So over in the UK, I've been following this guy, Colin Kaepernick.
And this solemn protests that he's been making, which was his right, it's his right. To take a knee
person is allowed to agree, I agree. But I was really taken aback by the position of some people who will question his patriotism and his love for America, and so forth and so on. I was shocked at that. The man is doing something that makes a lot of sense. And it's what he believes. He feels that that particular symbol that those words that inculcate them, they hold them that star spangled banner, he has a problem with that. I respect that. I mean, come on, if you don't repeat it, and
respect the man for that. So there's a particular individuals always coming on FoxNews. She was blasting him. I mean, really nasty. And then after that, when Donald Trump said those things, and he said, I think brought out those derogatory things from sexist things that you said about women.
The same lady that was blasting cabinet, who, who was protesting, silently because of the symbol, she turned around, and was supporting Trump, and blasting the people who were against him. And she supported him. And she downplay what he said. And when he did,
where this man is not talking about assemblies, talking about a human being a human being lady, what he said was nasty.
And yes, many talk like,
but the men who don't have a
DD who don't have good character, they talk with them. That's the speech of the data. So the issue here is, is that type of individual and I'm not here for delivery, and I'm not here for the other hand, what I'm trying to say is,
freedom is having the ability to think and not being an independent individual who just wants to fall follow the crowd. And individual allows people to make your mind for you, this college, and we have to think the president of the college and everybody who has something to do with making this possible. stick into the ethics of the university and the guidelines and the ethos of the university. It's an institution of
Higher Learning.
But is it really an institution of higher learning?
Because some people go to college only to get debt out of their minds, they have a lot of debt. And you don't really get educated. I don't even want to begin times to tell them as a young man growing up all of the nonsense that we've been taught that our heads had been built up with all of analysis, I grew up liking the cowboy over the NBA, and the cowboy press the Indians. But I grew up liking the cowboy. And under that's the question why, because of the nonsense that has been drilled into my
mind, so freedom in a snack.
When a person knows his God, he knows himself, and he knows other people. I give an example.
If that individual were to be told by someone, no, the market is saturated with that type of business that you had a plan to initiate. You will never be successful in doing that. The person wants to reach Hi, hi. Hi. Like one of my friends comes from Philadelphia. Philadelphia is a tough town, very violent for African Americans. It's a tough town.
This one individual like myself, he made this one with Nina.
And after graduating, got his master's degree, and then after that, he got his PhD is in the process of getting that he was chosen to teach in the second most important Masjid to the Muslims in the whole world. This is a lever person who comes from humble beginnings. His tongue language was not Arabic. He embraced the religion lightning and went to university SCOTUS study, he excelled academically. That is masters started to get his PhD. He was chosen to teach in the second holiest
masjid, for the Muslims around the globe. When the Muslims go there, they see this African American man teaching that message.
I tell you that because as I tell our communities, especially African American youngsters, who are
may not have had the best education and society tells them, You can't do that you can't do this. Well, that's not true. You can do almost anything that is humanly possible. If Allah wants you to do that.
If you believe in Allah, that's the meaning of those verses in the Quran, the love, honor tradition, the deep love and do anything that he wants to do. humanly possible. We're not talking about crazy things. A man just Flying Without Wings is going to fly naturally. We're talking about if you can dream, the theme, even the people don't believe you. You know, Allah. So you have faith, I can do it in sha Allah bylaws permission. So if you know a lot of people yourself, and you contrast if you
know Allah, you knew yourself, you know, your true limitations. If a person goes outside knows, as a white person, you're not better than black people.
As a black person, African American, I know Allah. So I'm not having an inferiority complex. If I walk into a room of a bunch of white people.
I don't walk in here apologize. I don't walk into a feeling like I'm a second class citizen. But I'm also not going to walk amongst people in an arrogant way neither why? Because applies the grades. Why am I Eric? Locking, destroying Jesus?
Right now, I don't know what's going on with my children right now. I don't know what's going on with my life.
I'm not in a position to help them I'll wait. If anything were to happen to them. Allah forbid, I can't do anything. I gotta make a way out to find a way to get back to the UK take care of that situation. So everything was in my control at the snap of a finger the battement on our bring it I make it happen. But I can't do that.
So the person who knows God knows Allah.
It doesn't allow people to put them down. Nor does it allow himself to tower over and above the people racism.
And as a Muslim, we have racism systems. We have racism Muslims. Raisins, racism isn't bedded in everyone's society. Sometimes you'll even find the same group of people being racist against each other. Like in the UK
The Brexit issue, the UK exited the European Union, that has a lot to do with just the British people don't want the Eastern Europeans in their country.
Sometimes because they're going to take a lot of jobs. That's what they say.
But that's not true.
The UK as a welfare state, a lot of people just on the welfare, those Eastern Europeans want to come in, they want to work and want to take the jobs to British people. So what's the problem? In Africa, those people that took seeds and the
cool tools, what country was that? Anybody know?
Rwanda, same group of people, Africans, they natives, just different tribes killing each other. So racism is a problem. And racism comes as a result, a direct result of people that know that people don't know God,
someone actually existing and he's better than someone who thinks to prime his skin. And that's what we use, make a lot of supplications for Malcolm X. May Allah have mercy upon him because he came out of a movement that was extraordinarily racist called the Nation of Islam and not Muslims. They just use reverse psychology. They said, black people would give a Christianity was forced on and shoved down our throats. When our forefathers were slave slave master gave us Christianity, you gave us a
picture of Jesus Christ was a white man with blue eyes, blonde hair, and said, This is your God. You're going to be a slave here, but you will get your pie in the sky when you die.
Malcolm X, and those people came and said, No, no, no, no, black people are better than white people and devils. So they came with the reverse racism. Both of them are unacceptable when he left that stuff, and he went to Mecca, and he met up with Muslims from all over the world, Turkish Muslims, African Muslims, white Muslims from Yugoslavia, and all of that. He said, One day, one night, we all went to sleep, they turned the light off, and people were snoring and I was awake, he says, I
realize I had an epiphany. And I realized, I didn't want to snoring in the same language. And I could not, I could not tell who was white, who was black, anybody was saying the same language. And that's the reality of Adams children, mankind, you get a blood transfusion, your body is not going to reject the blood of a black man or white man.
And your blood is not different from his blood. So the point here is not to belabor it. But the point here is, if a person knows, us God,
the North and South North of gays free,
he's not going to allow people to push them around.
And that's why you find
something that the Muslim community around the world
the Muslim community may be subjected, they may be under the yoke of the oppression of an oppressive,
and the community that doesn't have much, or they had a rocks, I'm going to use those rocks to throw the rocks because
our religion teaches us don't be a slave to any thing that's created anything and anyone other than.
Now, when I give you that example, about throwing rocks and things like that, I don't necessarily support that, because I don't believe that's going to really change your condition. If you have been reduced from rocks at tanks, then Islamically, there's probably some other way to show your protests. But I'm just telling you, those of you who look around the globe knew that how can you do that? And why did they do that? That's one of the reasons that an honest man,
a man, it doesn't mean we shouldn't tolerate being a slave in any shape, form or fashion.
So freedom is that is having a rudia inserted to our now the things I can mention about that we're not wanting to go to the issue of oppression, Islam freedom or oppression.
But before that, is another very important issue.
And that is
how, if a person is a non Muslim,
he has the freedom to remain a non Muslim in lsfm in Islam, it doesn't come and force them individuals to become Muslim. You know, this myth, the lie that's been perpetuated so long that people believe it and that is, Islam was spread by the sword, Muhammad and he was killing people forcing him to become Muslim. I tell you, public imbalance and bring me proof of that.
Come on, give me $500 500 pound pounds past five minutes. If you can show me any sauce when hungry, well his companions, killed people forced him to become a sled. No, you have the freedom not to be him. Muslims can complain. If you're living in a Muslim state, if you're married to a Muslim man.
There's a verse in the Quran that says lack of craft D cut the bang in a rush to manual labor. There is no compulsion in the religion. You can compel someone to be a Mazmanian going to be a Muslim one going you can do that.
And Islam allow the Muslim man to marry a Jewish lady or a Christian lady, provided that they're taking care of chastity. She has to be chaste. She has to be chats, if she's amazing, that's going out running around and sleeping with many men in but if she's a Jewish lady or Christian lady, she's disqualified, cannot do that. But if she's upright, maybe Christian and Jewish, maybe Islam allowed her to marry that lady
and machine marry that Muslim once she marries that Muslim man. She can still eat pork.
She can still drink wine, and intoxicants. She's still practice in stuff and Christmas. All of these holidays are against Islam Snyman we don't practice those things, because they go against the monotheism. But that's her religion. And that's her way of life.
And her husband can't force
that was not wise for him, in my humble opinion, to put himself in that situation, because if they're, and that kind of relationship is one thing, some clashes sooner or later, and if they have children, it becomes more complicated.
But I know some may not need to go through some Christian women who have a pretty good marriages, to be honest with you. And I know some Muslim men married to Muslim women who the marriage is a wreck. It just depends on the dynamics of everybody's peculiar situation. So the point here, the shakin here is,
you can't force her she has the freedom to stay in her religion.
And there are many verses from a few years ago for
the statement of Allah, Allah says the Prophet Muhammad, if anything took crude nuts, had they are calling the name a Muhammad? Are you going to compel the people and force the people and make them believe us? Muhammad never went to the community and threatened people let me kill you never. It's a lie that people meet up. It's one of those things people believe about a snap snap choice 500 pounds, you have your smartphones, look for it right now. That's the difference between 2016 and
maybe you know, 2001, and many to any speaker says something, you can look that thing up right now, if you bring me that truth, before we leave this place, I'm going to give you 500 pounds. And if I don't, you can say he's a lion public 500 How many never did that.
And it brings us to the issue of ISIS and people like that. People cut heads off of other people trying to force them into a slap. Those people are not representatives of our religion.
And that's the condition of the Muslim community. Now,
the Muslim community, we don't understand our religion that well.
A lot of stuff is being pushed off on us. And it's the culture and other things are being pushed off. And that's and it's a knee jerk reaction to the oppression and foreign policies of different Western countries. Other things that you see the Muslims doing and believing they themselves don't know where they come from.
And as I told you, I became a Muslim. But Muslims confused.
I met some people from Pakistan, they were doing some crazy stuff I'm getting out of here. And this is African Americans even know what they doing. They will do some real crazy stuff. And then another group of people. And as long as I live, I will never forget.
People from these people, they were from Kenya, originally from India, but they live in Kenya. And I don't know all these different groups that the Muslims have. But they had a
leader. He was the son of the previous leader who died. So we inherited the leadership of his grandson of his father, who inherited from his father and his father. I'm the type of person who's going to come and say, Why Why are you the leader? Why can I be different? Why it is just your father was the movi Saab and his father was the movi Saab and his was the where does that come from?
I mean, I may not even be religious, I'm qualified. But anyway, this guy, the leader, he was a pretty nice guy, to be honest. He was sitting down on a big chin,
one of those
chairs made out of bamboo. And behind him was a big picture of his spot. Oh man with like big beard. And we shouldn't even have that type of picture in the messaging. So we don't want to enter in on him. The whole community of men, we had to start from the door back there. And one by one, you have to crow on your arms and your knees, you crawl to him, You kiss his feet, you kiss his knee in the new cases, right and his right hand and legal budget business. So I was about one of the number 17
and ally. As my term was coming up, I had trepidation. I was getting nervous, but not nervous, scared, nervous, like I know I want to is, now what I have to do is to manage the drama because I'm not wanting to do this.
I have these complexes, you know these things in my head.
When I travel, I kind of want the police to racially profiling if they stopped being the most profitable because he racially profiling
you know, I have them insensitive like that. I travel on the airplane, you know, they ask everyone, can you please put your luggage on top of the conveyor belt, you want to wait it and put it in, put it up? When you think I'm asleep? You want me to pick it up?
I'm sensitive like that. I don't go that much overboard. But I'm sensitive to people trying to put me down because that's been my experience as an African American. That's why.
So in this case, as I started to get to the front of the line, I decided I'm not doing it. And I was a brand spanking new Muslim I had about a month and at this time, I said I'm not doing that. So I just walked to the man. And I shook his head. And I went the other way, when I met up with the other ones that preceded me, it was certainly a tough thing.
When I didn't care about that, because I'm not crawling to no human being. And then as time went on, I learned and I realized
what I did was a slamming because it was just the natural disposition of the human being. Don't do something like that. Don't do something like that. So as it relates to this freedom of Ellis Let freedom is servitude. Freedom is not saying doing anything that you want to do, wearing anything that's not freedom, best sleep, and sleep.
But that did give the novice them the freedom to not embrace us that that freedom. Those verses are their second issue before we go to oppression.
Second issue before we go to a press release sha Allah is there are some verses that some Muslims use to show
that the Muslim has the right and the freedom to leave is that
I say no, you don't have the right to leaders, leaders. I think many of you non Muslims may be aware that
is corporal punishment, capital punishment in the Muslim world. Any notice that if you apostate
the recognizance in the penalty for that is corporal punishment. And there are many reasons for
so no, you don't have to, and I don't hide behind the anything of this religion from Alice, to get A to Z, I believe everything in
everything has a plausible explanation. You may know it, you may not know it. But I'm not one of those people who hide behind things because people can understand it or people can embrace it. I'm not the one who legislate in this religion. I just embraced it. I believe in it. I'll do my best to try to explain, but I won't manipulate the religion, I will change the meanings of things. So in other slide,
there's some harsh penalties for certain crimes that are committed harsh penalties. And this is one of the harsh penalties. So some Muslims were apologetic, were very moderate. And again, I told you how humbling
it is what determines and defines things. Not not the people because a terrorist to some people is a freedom fighter to other people. I don't know if you people are aware of what happened recently with the CEO of Wells Fargo bank CEO. He stole 10s of millions of dollars I think was $100 million. He stole it from the people
stole $100 million, some astronomical amount of money you stole,
and only gave a slap him on his face. He said before the Senate, some of the senators were upset with him saying you need to be Joe. But it was just rhetoric. And you can see the way he was smirking and just couldn't wait to get back to his mansion or fly his jet plane. It just seemed just know it was a joke.
Now, when he took $100 million,
he got a severance pay. And it's not entrepreneurs paying some of that money back going back to business. Or as the guy who's working for Starbucks,
he slips $20 in his pocket.
Basically, that he stole the $20. He's a criminal. With the guy from Wells Fargo. He's a capitalist, that's capitalism what he did. So people's interpretations of things are different. It's different. So one person says that modern modernity
modernity is well connected.
I say no, that's uncivilized. That's not modernity. So people's interpretations and definitions of things are different or different. In this lab, we're comfortable with that stuff, rather than the Koran. They're the ones who define for us how we understand this happiness standard. And don't misunderstand Muslim non Muslim. That doesn't mean that you are in a straitjacket and can't move around in the sand doesn't mean that it means the more knowledge you get about your religion and
more flexibility, you'll have the less you know, the more confused more problems you're going to incur.
So, some of these apologetic, modern systems,
they took some verses out of context about freedom.
They the verse and one of the shortest source sort of capital kuleana your capital, and as soon as the statement that Gu Dino comb when he Adid the I had said that the Muslim says to you is your religion your way of life, and to me is mine.
Another one is the statement for men shad fan Luqman. Women Shut up fellas yet for whoever wants to believe let him believe what he wants to disbelief, better disbelief. So these apologetic wisdom says that these verses me as a Muslim, the ayat is saying, you can leave a snap. You can disbelieve. But that's not the meaning of that verse. And I wanted to say that the clarification the verse lecom dena pony indeed, is first talking about and when I look around allegiance, enmity and allegiance,
and this is making a barrage, from cuff.
And from the people of
the other higher level wants to believe that I believe what wants to scream better this week. That's a verse of one eight, D, I don't know, how would you translate that let me do a threat.
It's like the person who says,
your boss at your job, your mother, your father, the husband, someone in authority says to someone else, okay, you've got to do what you want to do what you want to do. He's not giving you the green light to go and do what you want to do. He's threatening you, meaning if you go and do it, there's a price to pay. It's a threat. Okay? Okay. You go ahead and do what you want it.
The one who hears that doesn't understand he can go ahead and write on the walls.
He understands from that, that he's threatened, don't do what I don't want you to. That's the meaning of those verses. So I mentioned that to the Muslims, specifically here. Because again, we're living in tumultuous times, leaders of the Muslims, people were teaching our community.
Islam during this time, is strange. Prophet Muhammad comes back right now, if that was possible, he wouldn't recognize a lot about this religion. Muslims believe that Jesus is going to come back to the Messiah gotta believe that as Muslim,
Jesus come back, and he's going to rectify things because the community with confusion, compounded confusion. So you guys who are studying in these institutions of higher learning and you are educated people, that's another relative term, educated, you're educated people. Islam shouldn't be embraced by you. The way your father's did it, your forefathers were your religion just becomes with us. That's what my mother and my father,
why are you doing that? That's what my mother my father did. Who said that the mother and father knew what they were doing. You guys have to use that. You
Never let them bless you use your intellect to
practice and learn the religion. Lastly, the second half,
or pressure,
freedom or pressure, there's limited freedom in this manner. And freedom is serving a lie doing what he told you to do.
And slavery is not worshiping God and not doing what not doing the things that he told you to do come as a result of that, a slave to whatever the virus is
oppression, this intimate, this is real easy to show.
And this land is going this way.
And oppression is going to be diametrically opposed. And no shape form or fashion is oppression about.
Two wrongs don't make a right in this religion.
Like in the UK, we have a lot of extreme and radical youngsters, they're worse than what is here in America.
So they look at the foreign policy of the UK, look at the foreign policy of America.
The left sided nature of how America deals with the you, the Jews and stuff like that, and all of these things that are going on. So the youngsters want to go because of the scene what's happening to the brothers. So this is wrong what they do.
But you doing something wrong, doesn't rectify that problem. Slam doesn't allow them to do that. And many of those things happened on Prophet Muhammad's time. With companions were being persecuted, they were being killed.
And he didn't let his companions
do things that they wanted to do. When the people were in a position of weakness, like
the weak men, the older people and the women. They were there and they could have pounced upon. It said you can't do that. It's not our religion. Because the strong people from them, were oppressing us. We're going to now take this out to do you can do that our image.
So there is no absolutely no place for oppression in the religion. Our religion is a religion that's easy and makes sense. It's a religion that's intellectual. It's not a religion of confusion, confusion. What we see today is a lot of confusion that's taken place, a lot of confusion. But if you just know the basics of Islam, you realize that when it comes to this issue of oppression, Allah doesn't oppress His servants.
And he made oppression, impermissible for us to oppress one another.
Our is a God who doesn't oppress. So when we see things happening around the globe, where it appears, the weak and the defenseless, are being oppressed. We don't say that God is doing that. There's some wisdom lines, allowing that. But it doesn't mean that that's something that's okay. There's some wisdom, whether we understand it, you don't understand it. There is some wisdom in that.
But we don't believe that Allah has a presence. And because he doesn't impress, give us an environment in the religion.
So now, if
the one who
comes into the religion with the embracing Smash, he doesn't say like in Ramadan, this last Ramadan a few months ago, four months ago, we fast for 30 days. It's one of the five pillars of science, in fact, in the month of Ramadan, in the UK, we were fasting 18 and a half hours every day. Because you fast from sunup to sundown. So depending upon where you are in the world, and dependent upon what year it is, the days can be longer or shorter, we're dealing with some very long days right now. 18
and a half hours, normally was even longer than that.
So when I first became Muslim, fasting was short, because I became a Muslim in the month of Ramadan. And when I became a Muslim, another facet of my life, and when I was fasting, I was saying, Man, this is hard. This is hard. I almost backed up from Islam because of fasting because I wasn't used to it. I said, this is different.
But I had people around me who knew what they were doing. And they helped me through it. It's always important to have it. So as a Muslim, I can say fast and at nap hours. God is oppressive. Why would he do that? It's too high to know. We went through that whole month, 30 days and now those days are behind us and he's done. We did manage something we proved you can do it.
without undue stress and duress you can handle and the person who can't handle that, then the revision gave him a concession
is too difficult for you, you're too old, you're sick, you know after fast.
So pressure, there is no way. No equation, there is nothing someone can bring an example to the table where oppression is acceptable, it's valid. No one can do that. All forms and all strands of oppression, not permissible in this religion from the beginning to the end.
So I come to this issue of the Muslim wanting it she'll crests, she'll press one for the one who doesn't know about Islam. And the one who didn't study about Islam, but they're looking at Islam from the outside. And they want to superimpose what they understand upon the Muslim woman because she dresses the way she dresses. That's not fair. Because I think if she would look at the lady who's walking around, and all of us all have a good smile, and the one wanting to just say, this is
just an example guidance. I don't mean this as an example.
But how would you feel I would want him to feel
if you walk by a group of people who say such a slut,
and it used that type of language, that's not acceptable to describe it like that. And to talk to people like that. Okay, well, let's put the shoe on the other foot, you have some empathy, have some sympathy with yourself, in the shoes of that lady, that Muslim lady who people look at her and they say, Oh, that poor girl, she's so backwards, and so pressed.
And she's a free thinker.
She doesn't have a problem with that.
Why he's been so judgmental like that, and you will never except for the people will see what they can say about you. And you may not be a sloth, that's just the way you dress because that's the society we live in. And that's what we do in this one. You're not a slug. She's not a slug. She's a real good person, actually. But people when they watch her, that's how they describe it with that vinegar smell. It's not right.
As a Muslim, that language is not right. I don't condone that page.
I think what she's doing is respecting himself. I think she's more than that. The one who created her
wants more from her than that. He wants people to look at her mind. First. He wants people to get to know her spirit first, not when the man looks. He just wants that one thing. And now she has relationship after relationship after relationship. And part of that is because she's caught up into that way of not knowing how to think for yourself.
So pointings is though some women are press. Yes, some Muslim women are oppressed because of culture.
She is forced into a match. That's crazy.
She's fought, that's oppression. That's not our religion.
She's oppressed, because some of the men of her
family, they don't want to encourage her to excel academically. But also the people who have found for the religion itself didn't say that. Religion was that courage to her to get educated, but to stay within the boundaries of the religion, to stay within the demarcation of the smack, smack of a lot of value on education, having an educated one, right, who's not educated. I don't want a woman who can't educate my children who wants that.
But it turns out, the Muslim woman wearing this hijab
one person is terrorists is another person's freedom. One person sees as being oppressed, another person sees her as being a Jew, precious stone has been covered, of duties being covered. And it's not for everybody. And when you meet her, you're going to meet her mind. First, you're going to meet a spirit, you're going to get a feel for who she is the content of her character. And that is what she's bringing physically to take, can conduct and hold a decent relationship with another man
except that his eyes are wandering all over the place, and they can't really talk to you do not give.
So no, she's not oppressed in that regard.
And the people will not concede and say guys, you have to open up your mind a little bit more to this thing about who may us Americans were the ones who made us the moral compass for everybody else.
And I hope during the q&a session, maybe someone's going
Let me know that we can have have a further discussion. But as it relates to oppression, oppression of its man in all shapes, forms, fashion, and has been condemned, it's not condoned. And no one can bring any examples where oppression is about where, when it comes to freedom, we have to explain that. No, you're not free to do any and everything, you're not free.
And the meaning of freedom. And is that is this, what is limited?
So with that night,
we'll bring this session to a close. And if you guys have any questions about what was said, we'll be more than happy to do our best Shala to answer your questions.
Just Allah here.
We thank you for for this beautiful lecture.
Let's go ahead and bring the questions. Like I said, the chef is coming from the UK. And he's been all around the world and in New Jersey, so you will not offend him with any question you have.
Somebody asked me, how did you want Halo?
The texture of my head, I'm going to jump off the chairs. I'm be offended. Now go ahead.
Okay, it's like a lot. So. So he will not be offended unless you reach his borders and ease demarcations. So any questions
might bring him send you a statement. But let me go back to the extra credit people. I was shocked when I heard that some of you are here to get extra credit. Wow.
So it's pretty clear to me being exposed to like American media,
I think kind of picture was trying to defeat it.
Islam and Muslims like around the world.
But being like, if you're experiencing the UK can kind of
describe that more in terms of not not necessarily just the media's portrayal of Islam, but like, what what does it look like to not, you know, not even America in? Like, what is the real is your experience?
That's an interesting question, man. Because
the UK,
they are far more tolerant than in America. As a matter of fact, I would even go as far as to say that the UK is the most tolerant European country on the face of the earth as it relates to Muslims. And the Muslims who come to the UK, from France, from Italy, who come from Germany, and these other places.
It is, you know, a hands down are the UK is extremely talented.
But the UK is a bit of an enigma, it's difficult to understand, because although that is the case, at the same time, some of the people there the government, the the people culture, they still have that British Empire mentality. Right? The British Empire is a place where the sun never sets. This is how they, we civilized the world, some of the people.
My wife is from Africa.
But she's just in black. She was in the shopping mall, and really told my wife was from Africa.
You need to go back to Iran.
Which has nothing to do with I rang. My wife is from Africa. But that's the evidence of that lady. And they have this thing that they look at people like they're better than you if you are if you are a color Indian from Pakistan, you've come action. But because I told you government opens up its doors and its borders to take in a lot of people. So some of the people who voted to get out of the European Union. They did have a legitimate point because the immigration problem is overwhelming.
The way it has been
as it relates to the Muslims of the media.
So British government is like the American government of the American media is the same thing, the same coin, but a different side. One man name is Rupert Murdoch, he owns most of the media apparatus is there. And he is the buddy to all the politicians, the Prime Minister previously the one now and they're the godfathers of each other and you know
They have their secret meetings about and I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but this reality.
So whenever something happens, and I remember when I first moved to England when I first went there 15 years ago, something like that. Timothy McVeigh, who blew up that building in Oklahoma.
Remember, that guy blew up the building was a racist,
a
white supremacist,
some serious bombs. He had things in the bill.
nursery and innocent children got the next thing in the UK. One of the main newspapers, there was a picture of a fire man currently in life has a baby of one of the children.
If a picture ever spoke 1000 words, this was the picture the kid's body was just like, it's like they're assuming indicate there was an award, I'm assuming keeping the images still in our minds. May Allah protect our children and the Syrian kids as well. The caption of that picture said, Islamic terrorist.
And he was a white supremacist. And that's what happens now. And every time something happens, right, what happened in Orlando recently,
when they reported, they say, Islamic terrorism.
The guy is gay.
And you can be a Muslim gay meaning being homosexual, being a lesbian doesn't Excel, but it probably slap but it's a sin.
Guy was gay. He was a party. Yeah, nothing to do with this, that he wasn't the one that in the name of this man. But it's always senators, the senators. So a few months ago, another racist, white supremacist, he shot a very good member of parliament, a lady, a white lady, who had
she did a lot of things for her constituency. I mean, she traveled to Africa, she did a lot of E work, this guy walked up to a man and shot in your head and stopped.
And instead of seeing white supremacist or something like that, Christian terrorism, something like that, they explained it away. It was a big thing, but the mental problems and mental problems
the Revert guy and was originally from Nigeria, he embraces that ignorant as if it was a religion. Amen to that soldiers name was Lee Rigby, UK, ran them over with a car to put his knife out, stand them, chop them up with Ajax, and instead of running, not that I can do that, but a normal person would try to hit one get committed a cry like that, instead of running. They sit there and gave each of these dishes that hey, nothing's coming in. This is who does that?
Who does right? Mendes. So we did all of that. Terrorism, that doesn't speak for us.
That's not our religion.
So this is what we have in the UK. It's terrible. I'm talking about it's terrible. Because it's blatant. They have a thing called pregnant, prevent. They're trying to figure out how do we stop Islamic extremists? How do we stop Muslim kids from being extreme? Well, you can start by shoulder and acknowledging some of the responsibility that you have in your foreign policy. You're killing 10s of millions of Muslims around the globe. They don't want to see that. They want me as the man to
just condemn just condemned the Muslims condemned. Do that. And I'm also going to call a spade a spade have something to do with it. You're cutting the legs from under people, right? Okay, keep these kids grounded and you're killing your brothers. Come on, you have something to do with it.
But anyway, prevent. This is outrageous. It's targeting Muslims, only the Muslim children. So the teachers and his doctors and professionals, they take about four hours of some training to look for signs of extremism. And once they see the signs only in the Muslim case, they report it to the police. So they had some real crazy situations that happened like a young kid. When the teacher was asking the kids about what you did over the weekend. The kids that my father was cooking, my father
being a cook about a cooker bomb, little kid. He was like six, seven, my father made a cooker bomb. You mean to say my father made a cucumber. But he called it a cooker bomb. It was the responsibility of the teacher to feel some discretion. I don't know about you guys, but I asked the teachers that I really
Like when I was young, so if I raise my hand sometimes obviously I can teach it and
call it by my mob because I went
under the prevent, if I say that, hey, my mother, as a son and being abused at home,
no, you have to use your discretion and like to bet smite me that I confused you with my mother, just in my lineage.
So another time
a kid,
they have a thing. They're called
World Book Day.
That's a case where the kids come to school, you have to dress up like some character and have a look. So the Muslim daddy dressed up with a turban with a
you know, like a Muslim from a long time ago. So the teacher said,
Your Aladdin, Aladdin. And that could be
the case that Aladdin Aladdin was a thief. Because the story is stills, Aladdin steals is a thief.
She said, she said on TV is answered on TV and I up
and said that Dina up was a very powerful man that helped to come to the Crusaders, and to Palestine in Jerusalem and give it back to the Muslims. So when he said that, they will come up as being extremists. And there are many situations like that. That's another kid describe the house. He said, I live in a terrace house. He meant to say terrorists, terrorists taking our ECP because he's so young. He said thirds. And he says that, that I'm not making this stuff up. And it's only with the
Muslims on it. And
so from that angle, we have a lot of challenges in the UK. But it's much better than
it's much better than America. I think it's much better. It's just that the media is a big problem.
Thanks question.
You mentioned that you reverted to the religion you were born into your parents
said. So I can imagine that there are some difficulties like fascinating.
What are the difficulties that come across?
Maybe come across. As far as practicing managing
certain difficulties on
the nature of Islam as a standard is not difficult to practice provided know what you're doing. The more you know, the easier it is to practice, you don't know what you're doing instead of a crime. So at the beginning, I was like being more like a pirate be more like a monkey that was mimicking what people were doing. So when they would crane was just moving as they were moving. But I wasn't feeling the essence of what I'm doing. Because at that time, I could just follow these people. But
as the days passed, and they go into months, and then he wants to go into the years and I went and I studied
get over those hurdles.
We reverse why no Hi, this other problem on the fence. I didn't have a problem for my family. Very supportive. They compared how I was before snap to how it came out in the snap. So they're more than happy. And to this day, they're very supportive. But my extended family members and some people from my community, although the vast majority of them
certainly for what I am and how I am and the changes that I've made. But meeting river people they had that crowd, especially if they come in to the religion with too much fervor, unbridled
excitement. So there are things that are in the religious for an example in which you snap your fingers and how I'd say the picture of the guy should be in the house like that. So maybe an individual embraces this man and in his mother's house.
She has a
cabinet full of alcohol back in jail, and all of that stuff. So if he doesn't have knowledge, he'll go in and take that stuff.
250 $300 worth of Bark and Wine, and maybe some expensive wine.
That's not how you deal with them. That's their house first of all, and you don't do face like that to heal me, they're gonna think you're crazy. And I know many people have done. That's why it's really important
for no revert to be around people of balance. Don't be around those Muslims who are not balanced, the lady comes to us and the other sisters, you got to get back, gotta get back *.
I just can't. So yesterday.
And they put pressure and she wants to do the right thing. So she found out what they know, don't be like that, be free to think. And then when it's time to get married.
And you saw that that comes you know, before smiling you had nothing in common with a person who is
how horizontally challenge you know, a process and short person.
But a bring that person to
be forced man, I would never bring that I'm not prejudiced anything but this is not
you know, the kind of level for our level. And due to lack of experience and knowledge, she makes that decision.
That's an extreme example. But things like that happened left, right and center. So it's really important for the reader to be balanced, people come into the village, people want to blow things up, they want to kill people, your brains make enormous I can affect you.
So when you hear people say crazy things, and have enough sense to get away from crazy people. So I personally didn't have that many problems. My problem was really in trying to find the right
because the Muslims were not and are not given a good example of a slanted Prophet Muhammad was a Quran and Sunnah. And the way his companions understood that
the Muslims are doing a lot of crazy things right now. And that's just how it is. And I'm not going to put down my own, you know, take our dirty laundry out in public, I'm not going to do that. But at the same time when it is on the surface, and I say that to all of you, for the most part, and the saggi that we had the people educated us ourselves, we have to do a better job with learning this religion, learning so we can practice it the right way.
We shouldn't even
after this, I want to talk to you. Okay, real quick.
Anyone question? Any more questions? Guys?
Extra credit, people want questions?
Okay, so you talked about
freedom.
You mentioned that
that our strength in our religion is the ability to control ourselves. Can you go more into that? Say, can
you imagine how like, the strength in the religion is the ability to control like yourself, like to control yourself? Yeah.
But how do you begin, as I was mentioning, to guys, is that
a strong one is the one who is not necessarily bringing it to the table physicality. This is what we think in a society that the strong one is the one with muscles, he's the strong. The strong one is the one who has the ability to control himself. I'll give you an example. A person is in a relationship that's dysfunctional, it's not healthy.
They are devoted, they have love for their partner, but there's no reciprocity. That person is willing to give their all for the other person. They're always thinking about them first. They have comfort. They see what they like what they don't like before themselves, and it's natural, because it committed to that person. And that person has a history of breaking their heart of abuse and
physical, mental, emotional as a history.
Multiple relationships outside of better effect.
And no one was going to that doesn't have that ability to say enough is enough.
I love myself enough to say this is
because this this rhetoric you love me you love me that stuff get sale when it wears out. If you really love me, the proof is in the pudding. Show me that in your behavior.
That's a strong process, the weaker person and I'm not judging, because I feel I feel for that person. They need support, even understanding. And why do people do that? Who knows.
But the one tolerates that, and allows it and makes excuses. And they can take it day in and day out
as a sign of weakness,
sign, and the guy can have all the muscles, or the girl in that situation, be extremely athletic, has a gold medal, won a gold medal was women or whatever, ran the marathon or whatever. But the company relationship
had an industry again, whereby, over there in the UK,
there's a big thing about bullying. These kids have committed suicide, because of bullying. So that's something I can relate to. Because I never was bullied. But I do know I used to try to help people who are bullied growing up.
So I can really relate to that. How someone bullies you, then you go home and string buddies, hanging yourself.
So when addressing this, now will communities the act to impart knowledge to these kids that any, you will?
Don't be one of those people who were, you can't speak out for yourself.
Don't be one of those people that allow people to oppress you. I think, in our religions, we have apparatuses that are naturally built in to make people learn these lessons and practice them. But in many instances, like Muslims are not perfect. Some people will get them in the loop some people don't. So strength is not being able to do real strength not being able to carry the team from the beginning, not being strong means strong, like us stick question in front of everybody.
You want to know. So you ask a question. There's a person here the audience, they have some questions, but they're not going to ask because I am shy, and I don't want to
be on front street like that.
So that's to me, the first step needed at that incident had an industry
here's another strong, she got the strength from the partner next to the
example of
wife.
Megan, my wife was told to go back to Iran and the religion of the Iranians is not even the religion of my wife.
Let's say that somebody told that to you. How would you respond? It's funny that you would mention that. Because in the UK,
on the bus,
there was a lady from Jamaica, was on the bus. And our Muslim lady got on the bus with a cramp baby carriage. And she had a beanie on her back.
And the Jamaican lady was speaking back put towards a Jamaican speak.
And she had a very threatening and menacing she was saying to the Muslim lady, you Hall go you, your Muslim or your terrorists go back to where you came from. And she was verbally abusive. And people
recorded. Me they got in trouble. When I saw it. I was shocked. I was shocked because she came from Jamaica.
She was Africa.
Then take it to Jamaica. Now she's in the UK. And she's telling someone else go back to where you come from.
So that's the same
verbally abuse that she was hearing from white people. So now she's giving it to someone at this committee saying that I couldn't stand it. So I think if I was
unfortunate to met someone like that,
in trying to be strong, I wouldn't lash out violently and physically, but I will say what is the reality in the UK, and the reality in the UK, just as it is to be able to live in America. Everybody came from somewhere else.
And you anybody here came from somebody's white people, it came from somewhere else. Everybody has something in Irish and Scottish and everybody's mixed with salt.
And then
we have people get you know if you really want to say that the original inhabitants of America with a Native Americans, second thing within the UK.
And the body came from someone so with the mass migration that's going on in the world. I came from
on how I recently had, I guess, a few places a lot of different people out there. But there's some really blatant racism
despite the fact that I was diverse and different.
So some people just want to be stuck on stupid and they want to be ignorant and any look at people like that. And I think that's a shame. Because we have more in common than what we don't have in common. You just have to get rid of that ignorance of being afraid of what you don't know. That's what xenophobia is, you're afraid of someone who comes from somewhere else, why are you afraid, because it's a stumbling block, but take the time out, to it to know and to celebrate the
differences that we have. Because it meaning you learn about your culture, and then learn about where you came from your people, your fools, I'm going to share that with you. And when our orbits you know, cause like that.
We become more enriched, but that's what enlightened people telogen people think like that is to ignorant races whether you're black and white man warm and pitch poor. They're the ones that were judged people look at people based upon some people they see immediate.
They might could predict things or has a farm.
If you can go to the London underground subway with a bag on you, you're suited. If people think you have a bottom they don't want to sit next to you. But I do understand that understand that.
So you want to open up mind and celebrate our differences
here
hey, if you remember where you guys used to leave from
Richmond
and you're free
like city
originally like your parents come from somewhere.
My dad is black and
your mom was 100.
Mexican, okay.
Just trying to get to know you guys a little more that so I want to have a chance. So cuelinks Any more questions? That's okay. No more questions on quality.
You are aminos Lonnie ha