The REAL Nativity

Salam aleikum wa rahmatullah would occur to your watching Newcastle fast FM. This is a live event that we have organized specially for today, December the 25th. And I'm very happy to announce our two guests for this particular program in Sharla for this evening, So tonight we have I'm not going to waste any time we're going to go straight into it. We have our first guest

will start you shall Evans. Just a quick introduction for those of you who don't know who he is, he is a very active lecturer and die Mashallah Tabata kala, born in America, South Carolina to a conservative Christian family. He spent many of his early years early teens I should say, involved heavily in the church. He caught he was part of a non denominational, youth oriented organization, with the intention of becoming involved in the ministry of teaching and preaching.

You should currently traveled the globe as a lecturer and color to Islam, as well as teaching workshops that have taken him all across the globe. He studied under numerous teachers and scholars in the various sciences of Islam and as a psychology major, and he holds both a bachelor's and master's degree in the field of Islamic sciences, with a speciality in our

and Our second speaker will start Adnan Rashid is a historian with a speciality in the history of Islamic civilization, comparative religion, and Heidi literature. He has an honors degree in history from the University of London, and is currently pursuing further studies. He also has gained a jazz as a jazz up in a hadith from a number of scholars.

And he's, and the interesting thing about all star none is he's debated many high profile figures in the field of politics history, and Christian Islamic theology.

And this is the this is quite an interesting lineup with the two speakers that we have, simply because they both have an interest and active interest in Islam and Christianity, which is why they've been brought on to this program to discuss some of the very important topics that we're going to cover in tonight's show. And tonight, we're going to cover just to give you an outline as the audience, we're going to look at the real Nativity Muslim versus the Christian version of the Nativity, we're going to look at

Jesus or Isa, what his status is in Islam. And we're going to look a little bit about the history of Christmas as well the origins behind it, and whether we as Muslims, how we should be approaching this, this festival. So let's start with our first guest speaker will start Adnan Rashid. And we're going to talk a little bit about the origins of Christmas, right? And this is what they call the festive period. Everybody's taking time off to spend with their families having food and all the rest of it. I mean, I have my own personal views on Christmas. I'm not really a fan for a number of reasons, which you might go into later. But let's start with you. And then, you know, tell us a

little bit about, you know, what is Christmas? What's the origins behind it? Tell us a little bit about where it all began.

This was

a Shangri La hearable alameen wa salatu salam, ala, pata, Milan b, potterville and blsa. universally, he was happy. We're in Miami, Amanda, Manila Medina about thank you for inviting me to this very important live feed one very important matter, which is

very much celebrated around the world, especially when we talk about the Western world. It is a cultural festival, which is kept or held every 25th of December, since the last two centuries. And there's a reason why I mentioned the last two centuries, because before the last two centuries, the origins and the nature of this particular festival called Christmas or Christ mass mean if we separate the two words, the tamala g of the word Christmas comes from two words, Christ mass or the mass of the Christ. Okay. This festival was

highly controversial 200 years ago, it was only the most two centuries, when it became a cultural practice or cultural festival. It was basically introduced in America Firstly, and then, after Charles Dickens novel, Christmas, Carol, you all know the story of

Scrooge and and you know how he was a very stingy man who kept all his money. And there was a clock working for him. And he was very cool to the clock. And then he had this dream, where he's been taken around, looking at how poor people are, and where he will end eventually. And Charles Dickens is trying to use the story, to basically promote the notion of charity, that we must do charity, we must spend our money on the poor, so that they can have, you know, a feeling of happiness. Right, but that we had an underlying idea, and that was celebrating Christmas, Christmas is that date of charity? Right? This is the day when you spend money among the poor, you give presents and gifts to

get to children, and all of that. So the idea was kind of introduced in a cultural way by authors like Washington, Irving in America, wrote a novel about a similar story about Christmas, how to celebrate Christmas, being charitable being open to the poor people. At the same time, Charles Dickens had put this story down in his Christmas Carol. But before that, let's go, let's say the 18th century, or even the,

let's say, the 17th century, Christmas was a very controversial event. In fact, there were times historically speaking, in america, christmas was outlawed, okay.

For example,

Oliver Cromwell was a Puritan in Britain, in England, and in 1645.

He had basically, you know, taken power in Britain, and they have vowed to rid England of decadence. And as part of the effort, canceled Christmas, Oliver Cromwell, who was a Puritan in Britain. Now, this, this thought, had moved on to America with English separatists who had moved to America as colonizers, or as colonialists, and they also outlawed Christmas in America. For example, from 1659 to 1681, the celebration of Christmas was actually outlawed in Boston, in the city of Boston, right. Anyone exhibiting the Christmas spirit was fined five shillings. By contrast, in the Jamestown settlement, Captain john smith reported the Christmas was enjoyed by all and passed without

incident. So there were incidents, or there were events, whereby Christmas was celebrated in some parts of the west or the Western world in the 18th century or the 17th century or even beyond. But it was not a widely celebrated phenomenon. It was not a widely celebrated festival, like it is today. It is more of a cultural practice today than a religious one. But previously, its religious origins were highly controversial. They were questioned by the Christians themselves, Puritan Christians, they didn't take it very seriously. In fact, they passed laws against it.

They consider it to be a pagan practice. And why did they believe that now going back to the fourth century, or even to the second and the third and the fourth century of Christianity, the patristic period, the early church period, what was happening then, there was no consensus as to when Jesus Christ was born, there was no consensus. No one knew when Jesus was born, in fact, some of the most learned men like Clement of Alexandria, who was a third century church father, around the year 200 ce, II note, there are those who have determined not only the year of our Lord's birth, but also the date. And they say that it took place in the 28th year of Augustus, and in the 25th day of the

Egyptian month pack on, which would be made 2020 20th of May. Further, others say that he was born on the 24th or the 25th of pharmacy, which would be April 20, or 21. So Clement of Alexandria, writing in the late second century or early third century, he's writing that there are many people who have come up with dates and years of the birth of Christ and the

He mentions all four, either in summer, or in spring. He's not talking about winter. So the earliest Church Fathers when you read the writing, they don't seem to know anything about what we know today and Christmas, right? They did try to figure out the date of the birth of Jesus Christ. And what year he was born, there was no consensus. Firstly, there's nothing in the Bible that indicates the year or even the day of

the birth of Jesus Christ. Right. We do have indications about the season. For example,

you know, the Gospels tell us that shepherds are out in the fields. This, this could not be winter, it is impossible for shepherds to be out in the fields.

When it is snowing, when it is winter, okay, they would be out in the fields with the flocks in either spring or summer. So this could be anywhere between the month of March to September, let's say okay, after September, October, you can even stretch it to October. It is in November when winter starts in, let's say in places like Palestine, Syria, okay. Jordan, where Jesus was born the land of greater Syria in the land of Palestine. So it could be anywhere between March to September or October, not? December? No way. Okay. So according to the biblical text, this is the date. Some people think it would be when Jesus was born. Clement of Alexandria also seems to indicate that it

was either plumber, or, you know, spring.

So where do we stand with? We know today as where did it come from is the question. It came from pagan festivals celebrated by Romans, okay. Previously, Christians had celebrated

Easter, okay. Or they had what's called the feast of epiphany. epiphany was celebrated on the first of January, a lot of Christians celebrated this Christian day of celebration on the first of January, okay, this was the date, which Christians were basically using to celebrate.

Sometimes, in some places, it was Eucharist and other places it was Easter, right? And they use different names to denote the particular day we are talking about. But on the 25th of December, the Roman would celebrate the birth of midrise. mithras was the son God, okay? The Romans worshiped the Sun God called midrand. Who was of course a pagan god, right? So it was a well established celebration of feast, Romans would celebrate every year on the 25th of the number of the Roman calendar, which is exactly what we are following today. The Gregorian calendar is essentially the Roman calendar. Okay, if you look at the names of the month, for example, August, for example, comes

from Augustus. And there are many other names. We can look into it later in Sharla, all the months, they have some Roman connotation, right. So this is essentially the Roman calendar, the Gregorian calendar calendar. So on the 25th of December, the Romans celebrated the feast of the Sun God, also known as Sol Invictus, if you were to pick up coins of Constantine the Great, some of some of which I do possess in my personal collection. If you look at

one side of the coin, let's say obverse of the coin, you will see the the bust of Emperor Constantine, you will see its face on the coin. If you turn the coin around on the reverse, you will see the image of son God, it is a human figure standing with a globe in his hand. And around the figure you see written in Latin Sol, Invictus. komitee, okay, solly in victory comedy, which means that we invoke son God, basically. So Son, God was a very popular God, worshiped by the Romans.

And it was part of their pagan mythology. And the 25th of December was a very important thing. Some Christian thinkers and leaders at the time they came up with this idea that why don't we move the first of January to the 25th of December and celebrate the birthday of Jesus Christ on this day, so that we can bring pagans together

with us to celebrate. So pagans would be celebrating their son God, and we would be celebrating the birth of our God, who is Jesus Christ, and that way we can bring the pagans closer to our celebrations and our view of divinity or even to our religion. Possibly This is this was

The idea which some Christian thinkers in the fourth century, particularly speaking of the fourth century, they use this idea, and lo and behold the fourth century onward. For some reason, the birthday of Jesus Christ was celebrated on the 25th of December. Now, it was originally a pagan festival, which was celebrated on the 25th of December. I don't think any Christian scholar or Christian researcher or a Christian activist, can challenge that today. It is historically well established that this was the case 25th of December was the celebration for pagan sun god and Constantine one was one of those people who was a devotee of this particular deity. And later on

allegedly, Constantine had become a Christian. And on his deathbed, he was baptized by a Unitarian Bishop called Eusebius of nicomedia. So a lot of people think Christ and Constantine had converted to Christianity quite early on in, in his in his career, but there are those who say no, he was only pretending to be a Christian for pragmatic reasons. And he actually became a Christian on his debt, that deathbed, but for the most part of his life, he was a devotee of the Sun God, Roman Sun God called midrise or Sol Invictus or Sol Invictus. Sorry, Sol Invictus. So this is the history we have in front of us. This is how

the feast of the feast of epiphany, which was celebrated on the first of January in the Christian world, mostly in places like Egypt, and some parts of Asia Minor, this day was moved to 25th of December, for this reason, so that we can have a celebration together with the pagans, and eventually pagans will start to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ our Lord. Okay, this was the idea, right? And then, for that reason, having known this history, some of the later Christian

thinkers, activist bishops, later on Puritans, they wash their hands off Christmas, they believe that Christmas is originally a pagan festival. It has nothing to do with Christ. Christ wasn't born in winter, let alone on the 25th of December, therefore, we should not celebrate this day. That's why it was actually outlawed.

In many countries, including America and Britain, time was outlawed for that. Started none. You know, you mentioned about the the roots in paganism. Up here in the northeast of England, we have an organization, the pagan society, which we've had dealings with, and I know some of the people from there. And it's interesting setup, because they do argue that a lot of the so called Christian traditions that are practiced today, they argue that it came from them from their, their sort of religion and society that was adopted, including the Christmas tree, including Christmas and some of the christmas food that they have Easter, the Easter Bunny, you know, all of this, they argue is is

linked to their tradition, which has been adopted in order to I guess,

amalgamate the two and make it easier for the integration assimilation, I guess, when Christianity first came to the country. Now, you mentioned that was outlawed in in America and here as well, let me just bring you shot into this conversation a little bit, because coming from America, what is your understanding of the origins of Christianity? And did you know about this history of that being banned from the Puritans of Christianity in America?

Just been out 111 salatu salam ala rasulillah. I didn't know about it growing up. Because I grew up in a small town in South Carolina, when I started digging deeper into the histories of Christianity, then yes, a lot of this stuff started to come up, you know, and our brother was that a nun laid out very well. The pagan origins of most of the things that have now become like cultural parts of our, our Christmas festivities, going back to actually some of them go back to some very dark origins. Like if you look up the history of the gingerbread man and things of that nature, there's actually some very, is I don't even know if some of it is G rated for our audience, some of what happened in

the festivals of Saturnalia and things of that nature, or some of these mythic origins of these festivals came in it's it's it's quite, that's that's some of the reason when people began to find out what some of the origins of these practices are. They started the Puritans especially started to ban them because it's, it's extremely paganistic the Christmas tree is actually forbidden. All the way back in Deuteronomy, all the the origin of the Christmas tree going back, you know, to the the UIL fest

And back to Babylon and back to all kinds of worshipping of the you know, the the sun and the seasons, putting trees in your home hoping that, you know, this evergreen tree would symbolize the rebirth of the Sun God and that the spring would come again. And it actually is no, it's in Jeremiah, excuse me, Jeremiah absolutely forbids for you to cut down a tree, put it in your house decorated with tensile in silver, and gold. So all of these things were actually forbidden practices that got, you know, incorporated into Christianity. Again, most of it was a lot of it was done just for you know, political reasons like hey, we can bring, you know, we can bring Paul did the same

thing. Paul did it, Paul started this whole process of, hey, let's mix, you know, Roman paganism and meld it with, you know, what we believe in, it'll make it easier for them to come to the religion like, Hey, we're not asking you to change anything. Really. You're still celebrating the winter solstice, hey, we just installed Jesus in there, you know, I mean, you're already celebrating the rebirth of a son God, a Jesus was reborn, you know, so a lot of those things just were put in for ease sake to help other people accept Christianity as a political movement, not as a religion as a political movement. Just like in the council's of Nicea, we see that Christianity became a political

movement. It was never really about worshiping one God. And it was never really about religion and piety. It was politicized, highly politicized by the Roman Catholic Church in the first four or five centuries. So, you know, all of that is absolutely when I learned this later on. Realizing I did all of these things growing up, I was like, What in the world realizing all of these origins was was quite was quite shocking to me. But it's actually becoming more and more, you know, known these days you have you can literally go on YouTube right now and look up. Christian pastors, you know, talking against Christmas and against many of these festivals. They're starting to wake up that hey, we

should not be practicing these things. You know, Christian pastors who are actually trying to be true to their faith, are starting to wake up and realize Easter is not is not a Christian holiday. It comes from the festival he taught in Christmas all his Valentine's Day, Halloween, all of it has deep dark or Oregon's origins in paganism. So yeah, I think

I grew up with these things as being no real big deal. Right. Got

a lot of comments coming on. Right. And I want to put on the comment, first of si or Donovan, right. And this is interesting, the two comments that really stood out for me here, the comments section is going crazy. By the way, guys, yeah, we've got so many people tracking on this program, Mashallah to bacala. Now, listen to read this comment, brothers. Yeah, I spoke to a vicar and why does he have trees and churches? You know, what is pagan? And he said, we know it's pagan, but we do it as a sign that Christianity defeated paganism. And the second comment I want to put on there just so that you can put a link it in. Sister Maria says, at least if the pagans reclaim it, people will stop

believing these Christian holidays. Yeah. So give your view on the on the two comments for this new start.

My comment is that you don't defeat paganism by joining paganism. Okay. The idea of defeating paganism is for moral reasons, for the reasons of justice. It is injustice to worship, pagan deities or gods that are not true. You know, these false gods people have created these mythologies, let's say the Greek mythology or the Roman mythology, or even in the Hindu mythology, today, right? There are so many mythologies about different deities, people are worshipping around the world. The question is, are these gods true? Are these deities true? So how do we explain to people that these deities cannot be two deities, there is only one God who created the heavens and the earth, it only

makes sense to believe in one God because there is only one creator. And he is one, one person, one being one entity. Right? So how do we explain that by celebrating these pagan deities, by becoming pagans ourselves, in not so many words, directly or indirectly insinuating that there is some validity to these festivals? And we can adopt some of those values? No, we don't. Actually we explain to people politely with due respect and tolerance, that these ideas have no origin in reality, they don't come from God Almighty, the Creator of the heavens and the earth. Rather, these are mythologies made by humans themselves. If you read about Greek mythology, even the Greeks

themselves are highly skeptical about these mythical mythological ideas. Socrates, one of the reasons he was killed the Greek philosopher was because he questioned some of the basic ideas in the Greek mythology at that time, right? They were Roman thinkers who were questioning

The existence of these gods Jupiter, Apollo Manawa, mithras. And all these mythological gods Romans that created for themselves and they were sacrificing to them, right. some amazing thinkers, some highly intellectual people like Marcus Aurelius, one of the Roman emperors who governed the golden age of the Roman Empire. In the in the latter part of the, the latter half of the

second century CE II, Marcus Aurelius also the pagan, despite the fact that he was a great thinker. He was a stoic philosopher, right. So a lot of the Romans actually fed into paganism. We don't respond to paganism by joining it rather we connect it politely with tolerance with due respect. We express our ideas, by abstaining from it, politely abstaining from it, it is our right as the citizens of this world that we can choose to celebrate what we want to celebrate, and we can abstain from anything that doesn't look right or feel right to us. Okay. And being Muslims. Being Muslims, we cannot simply indulge in some of these practices. So if we want to show that Christianity

overpowered paganism, then we have to show that by actually teaching the original teachings of Jesus Christ by expressing them by highlighting them by by demystifying demystifying them, Jesus was a very strict monotheists he was a person, a prophet, a Messiah, okay, a messenger of God who worshiped one God alone, not a tribe, personal God, he did not worship a trinity. He did not believe in any pagan ideas. Rather, he expressed his appearance for those ideas because he was a prophet of God. So if we really want to conquer if you use your terminology, conquer paganism. Then we do it by spreading the true teachings of these noble prophets of God. And what was their basic teaching? The

basic the most fundamental of the teachings was Arab Israel the Lord our God is One Lord, this is it. Okay, so that statement in itself puts aside all pagan mythologies and pagan ideas. So we don't adopt paganism to defeat paganism. This is my response Yeah, you show would you like to add anything else and those nothing else to add? You don't you don't defeat paganism by becoming a I mean, I know where else you go with that. You don't defeat paganism by becoming a pagan you defeat paganism by spreading the truth as our dear brother Adnan said simple hamdulillah there's an interesting comment come here by someone called Ariane you'd her? What a bunch of hypocrites what is the Kaaba a pagan

symbol, yet you do the Hajj around it. That's an interesting concept because a lot of non Muslims do do a quit that. So we need to answer that question. We need to hustle. I don't know if you can put that on please, bro. We need to get that question on the screen and then get our guest speakers to, to comment on that. What's your response to that? You sure? What a bunch of hypocrites This person says about us Muslim? Yeah. What is the Kaaba pagan symbol yet we do the hug around it, give it give a response to this person please. Very good question and a question I had as a non Muslim when I first heard about Islam and all you see is pictures of the Kaaba and things of that nature. But in

reality what what what the Baba symbolizes for us is to hate is the oneness of God, the oneness of God because the Bible was built by Adam, the very first human being the foundations laid by item to establish the very first house for the worship of one true God on planet Earth. That again was reestablished by Abraham, or Abraham peace be upon him as again a house to worship the one true God of the heavens and the earth and then this again became filled with idols and the Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him reestablished it is what it was built originally. The one true house for the worship of the one true God. That's what it symbolizes to me as a Muslim and most Muslims look at

that and we think about our Creator it does not symbolize him as does not it symbolizes the oneness of God in that that is the very first house house built to worship the one true God The reason we pray towards that is our unity is our unity we're not praying towards our God. We're praying and a unified since Jesus peace be upon him prayed in a unified sense. David is reporting the Psalms to have prayed three times a day facing Jerusalem at the time because that was the original fibula for Muslims as well.

Because the house of Mecca was full of all kinds of idolatry, etc. When we make Hajj we are reviving the the story of Abraham peace be upon him. We are reviving the story of Abraham reviving the story of Ishmael and his mother.

To establish that reestablish that house for the worship of the one true God of the heavens Earth. So all of it all of the rituals of Hodge symbolized hurried oneness of God alone. The Kaaba itself is a symbolization, of the oneness of God alone. So that shows us that our hinge just like our religion hinges upon tawheed, everything, everything within the religion of Islam, it hinges upon the hub of the oneness of God. Therefore, that is what the Kaaba symbolizes to us as Muslims is our hinges our entire faith upon the oneness of God and his worship and his worship alone. Simple as that. Very simple. Exactly. Okay, so I think there's a number of comments if you could start reading

them out, and then we'll put it to the to the guest speaker this very commonly, I want to comment on the issue of karma and even the Blackstone.

Okay, those are and I comment on that? course you can go for it. Yeah, a lot of Christians. They raised this question that okay. You guys are also pagans, because you are going around this black.

It's not black, actually, the cloth is black, which covers the which covers the structure, you're going around the structure. And it's like a pagan ritual. No, it's not. If you look at the biblical, biblical prophets, and how they worshiped, they faced Jerusalem, they faced the temple, they prayed towards the temple, right? They did not worship the temple. They were doing it to follow a discipline which was given to them by God Almighty to show veneration to show dedication towards God Almighty by worshiping in a discipline. And that discipline was, of course, in the in the temple, if Christians want to be consistent, then what you're going to do with the tabernacle, what you're

going to do with the temple walls, what are you going to do with the temple itself, the Temple of Solomon, where many biblical prophets worshiped they worshiped towards it? Were they worshiping the temple? No, the answer is no. Likewise, we have, if you want to call it a temple, we have this temple, which is the holiest place in the world for Muslims, we face towards it, to demonstrate a discipline which has been sent by God that you worship me like this, you worship me together, in in, in, how can I put it in a unity, facing the right direction, the same direction, so that you can demonstrate your obedience to God Almighty, like the biblical prophets did. So this is how we have

to look at things. So before you pose a question to Muslims, my Christian brothers and sisters around the world, please do look, look inwards, and see if you believe in similar things. So if you do believe in similar things, then it wouldn't be fair to ask the same question. Yes. Where are we criticizing? some of the aspects of these pagan rituals? is where we don't believe in them. Right? We the Muslims don't celebrate any pagan celebrations. We don't. We don't, we haven't adopted any pagan ideas. Right. So with Christmas, it seems to be the case that some Christian thinkers came up with this idea, the 25th of December, which was the celebration of the Sun God, the Roman

deity, they worshiped called mitras, we should celebrate the birthday of Jesus Christ on that very day. This was this is not our doing. This was done by some Christian thinkers in the fourth century, and the Christians to this day, uphold that practice. And if anything, we need to think about it. Yeah, absolutely. Did.

You want to go

on in? Yeah, there's a comment I've just put up there. None that says, and the problem was, I sold him he told us to worship a small house, not God. And I just think that would obviously it's obviously coming from a Christian that maybe this needs to have some clarification on. Just to clarify, and, and because it is mentioned as they didn't circle the temple or kiss the black stone, though, and also there's a comment from there further, that said, that worship means to prostrate and to bow down to you do worship the car, but you prostrate to it. So just a touch of clarification on those things to this individual, please.

I think I think I answered that question. We don't worship the house, the house house can be removed, it can be demolished. You can break the walls of the Kaaba and you can demolish it, raise it to the ground. It makes no difference to us. Can you raise God to the ground? Can you break God? In some pagan cases, in you know, cases of pagan mythologies, gods have been broken and made broken and made, constructed, carved, molded, okay? Or even melted? gods have been played around in pagan mythologies for centuries, right? Our God, the Creator of the heavens and the earth is all powerful, he cannot be razed to the ground. Okay. So

So this house we go to is purely because God was worshipped in this house by prophets of God just like the Temple of Jerusalem, the, the Temple of Jerusalem, which is clearly mentioned in the biblical text as a holy place the Holy of Holies. Right? Likewise, the Kaaba is to the Muslims. In fact, the Kaaba is actually mentioned in the Bible. It is mentioned the Bible, the value of Iran with the Kaaba is, it is mentioned in the book of Genesis chapter 21, where Ishmael was left by his father Abraham, right, where the where the well of water was forged in the feet of Ishmael, to save his life. And that run of water is still there to this day in Makkah, it is called the well of

Zamzam. So this story is very consistent with what was happening in the biblical period, the Muslims did not invent a new religion, or a new system. Rather, the Muslim system is very consistent with the original teachings of the true prophets of God sent to the Israelites, some of whom are mentioned in the biblical text. This is my clarification. I'm good.

I'm

good.

I'm just gonna add to that, can I just do this slow for me? I mean, that's come from a brother Brother Naveed and can we put that to Christian question the Jews praying towards the wall at the Wailing Wall? And if if not why, and as the only use it for a direction, so that's another point to make as well. And also, just before we move on, I just want to give a shout out first of all, to giving Salaam Alaikum Salaam to everyone who's given us alarms, but also a big shout out to our brother Jordan and also to sc Tao channel. Who are we live we're live streaming on those channels as well. So disciple Academy to all of you guys for sharing, allowing us to stream on these platforms

as well. And may Allah reward you bless you all. And so there's a question that came in also, that says, and I don't know if you guys have this one already, but um, it's another element to it that says, again, from private name that says, I know what Islam teaches. And I disagree with key things it teaches. I want to know what these men say about the origins of the Catholic Christmas. I didn't know there was a difference or not. I don't know. But what are your What are your comments?

First, give us some insight onto that question. What your thoughts on that?

What was that you're talking to me? Yeah, brother Lucia is the question that's come in

about the origins of the Catholic Christian Christmas. Yeah. Brother Adnan already discussed that Christ mass was the origin that was from the Roman Catholic Church. They're the ones who do mass and Christ mass was the the beginning origins of what would become culturally known as Christmas. So he's already he's already went through these comments. Also, Christianity just took it on because it was it became fun. That's why the whole world does it today. Parents can go into debt for a year in order to buy some gifts for when they know capitalism at its best. capitalism has just swallowed all these holidays hold anyway.

I was gonna say I think a lot of these comments are just supporting what we've already said. For example, Marie said that the first Christmas fought against force first Christians fought against Christmas and banned it. It's based on Norse and Roman gods. We've also got a comment that says sorts pagan rituals, and early Christians fought against it. Why today, liberal Christians embrace it? And I think we've kind of touched on that as well. And just to add to that, I guess my question would also be, how much do and I don't know if it's if we need more Christians to answer this question, but

I guess the question is, do God Christians really aware of these origins? And do they just not care? Or what? I don't know what your thoughts on that as well.

majority are not. Hmm. The majority would say a minority are and don't care. Because, you know, I don't I don't mean to say this in a negative way. But there's no real leader in modern day Trinitarian Christianity, like for us, we have enough PETA that we that that means it binds us to certain beliefs, like we're tied to those beliefs, that's the word of T that what it means it ties us to these things, and we can't, we can't escape them without escaping the religion itself. Christianity is very loose with that, you know, I mean, its its its, its history proves that it's loose, super loose, you know, so you can introduce many things, because they they follow the

principle of one saved always saved majority of Trinitarian. Christians today, follow the principle that once you are saved, and that was also another raging debate that's happened over years and using Christianity, that once you are saved by the blood of Christ, that's it, you're going to heaven no matter what no matter what you do. So in reality, it doesn't doesn't really matter what you're up at the bins or changes to, so it's majority of do not know and if they do know, they don't care.

And because it has no implication on them. That makes sense. For us, it has implications, things like this have implications because they, they go to the very core of tawheed, which is our faith in its entirety. If we violate the the prescriptions of tawheed, then we lose our faith. So it's more important to us than it is to most people, if that makes sense, or most religions, because of the simple fact that our core belief system keeps us binded to these principles. And if we violate these principles, we violate our faith.

I think there's an interesting comment that I've just put on there hasn't been put, if you can put it up. It's I think,

Chef Nan talked earlier on about it becoming more of a cultural festival nowadays than it is religious. Right? It's that's what it seems like, it seems like it's just become a cultural practice. I mean, I know people who are atheist who celebrate Christmas. Okay, so the question you got to ask yourself is how does that make sense? If it is a religious holiday? Then why is it a people who have claimed to have no faith? Why they are celebrating it as well. So maybe you can expand a little bit about that as well talk a little bit more about that. That's for

Christmas today is essentially an American festival. as we know it today, it is an American celebration. in its current form, the way it is celebrated, is very much American. Okay. The Christmas tree, putting bells and objects on the tree and cutting a cake or cutting a turkey and even Santa Claus, maybe brother You should Evans can come to that later on to talk about the the concept of Santa, and where this new finger, which is very much remembered by children to this day, someone who brings presents for them. Where does where does this idea come from? So Christmas today, as we know it today is not like the Christmas or Christ's mass as it was celebrated in the third,

the fourth, the fifth, or maybe even during the Middle Ages by the Catholic Church and later on by the Anglicans and Lutheran churches, or even Protestants or even Puritans when they rejected it. They didn't reject the current version of Christmas. Christmas today is a completely different idea. And it is a cultural practice, which is very much American. Okay. The American in particular, Hollywood has made Christmas, a global phenomenon, right? Since the 50s. When all these Hollywood movies came out, and they went around the world, people fell in love with Hollywood culture. And with Hollywood culture came many of these Christmas movies. So how is Christmas celebrate? I mean,

you must have watched all these movies, like home alone. I don't want to promote them. But but these are the these are some of the movies we we watched as children growing up, okay, even in the Muslim world. The reason why Christmas is becoming normal in some places, unfortunately, is because it was instilled within our minds, okay, through Hollywood propaganda. It was American culture, which is being promoted through Hollywood to this day. So movies like home alone, and, you know, the list is very long if you go and watch some of these Christmas movies will come. I mean, even Charles Dickens show that cartoon that was made by Disney on this, you know, Scrooge, the character Scrooge, right.

So, the way Christmas is celebrated today, I believe is very much American, it has more to do with nostalgia than religion, okay, people feel nostalgic about it. These people who have who have grown up, they want the children to have the same feeling as they had when they were children. Someone bringing presence, there is a celebration, we're going to call it Turkey, there's gonna be a cake and we're gonna have lights on our house. So even atheists are doing it because they feel nostalgic about it. They were not atheist when they were kids. They celebrated Christmas as children with the parents. Now they've grown up, they are atheists, but they still feel nostalgic about it, they want

to celebrate it for that reason, not because they feel any religious attachment towards it.

You see,

but you see, this is the trick of ship on this is how the devil deceives us in the simple fact that we now see, you know, rampantly people from all faiths, including Muslims, celebrating Christmas putting Christmas trees in their home, which has is absolutely a pagan celebration, a pagan ritual to worship pagan gods. This making it you know, glossed over with now this is you know, it's just it's just a cultural thing. It's just a capitalistic thing. These excuses that we use are ways that shift on tricks us he's not the Prophet Muhammad Ali said, I said, I'm told us he's not going to just come to you.

Directly he's given up getting you to worship sticks and rocks and stones, but beware of him in the small things. So it is these small things that creep in that things that Muslims would normally never ever partake in. But now they become more culturally accepted. So we see them as not really a big deal when in reality, cutting down a tree put in a Christmas tree in your home is a re in a reenactment of an actual pagan worship tradition. So we have that's why we have to be very careful about these things. This is how we get tricked into committing outright disbelief by glossing it over is Oh, hey, everybody's doing.

Absolutely. I mean, let's let's move on to you talked about, we've talked about it being a cultural thing, talk about Americanization of it. Let's go back a little bit for a moment. And let's discuss the actual magic for me. By the way, I'm the one in here who grew up celebrating Christmas. It's super nostalgic for me, my neighborhood, I can look out my window right now at night, and my entire neighborhood is like lit up. You know, I mean, it looks it looks like you know, Times Square outside, in my front yard. And it looks nice. It brings back very nostalgic memories for me as a child. Christmas trees bring back in the static I remember as a child, I used to lay up under it and

watch the lights Twinkle, you know, and dream that I was in some, you know, Northern forest somewhere. So yes, it has an establishing memories to it. But now that I know what it is, there are so many songs. I don't even remember them. They're still stuck right here. They're still here. I can Nobels all that all that nice. All right, you see how some of these ideas how some of these ideas are spread and normalized is very interesting. They are normalized through media, through songs, through games, through even even innocent things like giving presents and gifts. Okay? Innocent things like putting up a tree and automating the tree. But in reality, these ideas are very scary,

because they, again, the origin is very, very controversial. The origin is pagan. And that's what really the Muslims who are taking it lightly, they need to understand that they can potentially put their faith in danger, you know, they are possibly not understanding the reality of what they're doing. So this is why this message is very important. Yeah, I mean, there's a comment that's just come in from someone called noodles has anything put that on? Let's talk about the holes in the narrative. Now, many people growing up, obviously, we hear about the biblical narrative of the story, or Isa or Jesus, as he's commonly known. In that story includes characters like,

you know, things like Jesus being born on the 25th of December, Mary or Maria Maria Salam and the virgin birth, Joseph, accompanying her on the journey to find a place to say the mighty men, and so on and so forth. How much are you sure how much of this is true or in line with the Islamic teachings, and how much of it is not? Let's do a comparison between the two narratives here. And just so we can break it down to educate the people who are watching, to show the difference between the two. That very little of the Christian narrative of the Nativity scene is is founded in in in fact and our dear brothers that Adnan spoke spoke about it, you know that the Nativity story that

you'll find in the New Testament, number one is nowhere near December 25 nowhere near the month of December whatsoever, it's most likely that he was born in the spring or summertime and we look at the Islamic narrative of the Nativity scene or the birth of Jesus peace be upon him and it is said that his mother Mary was told and go and grab the right date of the date of a right date palm tree and we know the date palms get right in summertime. So number one, the timings All the way All

coincide with the winter solstice and Julius you know and Caesar and all of this other stuff. So that in number one is is problematic. The timing all together.

The Three Wise Men, I don't know how far back that how far we can take that part back to it, but they are supposed to be this is the, the whole point of Christmas. When it comes to a a Nativity narrative is the birth of the savior of humanity. That's what it boils down to. For most modern day Christians. They look at it if they look at it in a religious way, and it is still a religious holiday. It is still I've been hearing about all of the supreme court battles and all of the state court battles that have been happening this week for a lot of churches that are locked down because of state mandatory lock downs that are saying that it is a violation of their religious rights not

to be able to worship on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day in their churches. Because it is the celebration is the most holy day on the Christian calendar to celebrate the birth of the lord of humanity, the savior of humanity. God

In the flesh, Jesus Christ. So that is what the nativity scene is all about, you know the the whole songs about the baby in the manger has come to save the world from his sins, etc. That is the Nativity story or the implications of Nativity story that we find within the New Testament that within Christian

theology. But the implications of that is that we are celebrating and that's another reason why it is super duper dangerous, is to say Merry Christmas is to say, you know, happy the day the Lord of mankind and the savior of humanity who came to save the sins of all the world, and in some cases, God in the flesh, birthday born date, so it's the day that the the savior of mankind, who would save us from our sins was born super, super, super, super dangerous to say that in in the Islamic narrative in Islamic narrative of the Nativity scene, the birth of Jesus Christ is seen as an an astounding miracle, an astounding miracle, because we also believe as Christians, that Jesus Christ

was born of a virgin, that his mother Mary was a virgin, and she gave birth to him. And this was to be a sign to the whole point of the Nativity story in Islam or in the Quran, is that he was born with this miracle, as a sign to the children of Israel, to come back to God to come back to the One God repent from the ways that they had deviated and returned back to his worship alone. And he spoke as an infant to this very fact, to defend his mother and to claim himself and his prophethood. To bring the children of Israel alone, he came to no one else, to the children of Israel alone to come back to God, and to worship him. But we hold him as one of the highest esteemed prophets because he

is mentioned extremely frequently throughout the Quran, he is known as one of the patriarch prophets and and in order to be a Muslim, one has to believe certain facts about Jesus you have to believe is born of a virgin, you have to believe he, you know, he he was one of the major prophets he was revealed the, the the gospel or the NGO. Without this you you, you cannot be a Muslim. So the Nativity story between Christianity the save the birth of the savior of humanity, God's only begotten Son, we'll talk about that shortly as another one of the topics is that this is a celebration of the birth of the savior of mankind, in the Islamic narrative, or the Quranic

narrative of the Nativity. This is a miraculous birth of a prophet to the children of Israel, in order to bring them back as a last this was like their last ditch effort before this Prophethood went from the children, you know, when Oh, back over to the children of Ishmael, to bring them back to the message of the one true God.

just heard, I think,

linking on from that, there's a comment.

by someone you don't have a press seems like a non Muslim. Again, you don't have a problem submitting to Mohammed but you do have problems coming to Jesus, who outranks Mohammed, so strange.

Started now next, break this one down please for this person here so that they understand what is our belief in Prophet Mohammed Salah Salam and in comparison?

We do. It's the same individual as asked the questions about the cabinet as well. So I think you do have a few misconceptions about what Islam is and hopefully, inshallah our teacher can kind of clarify those things for your hope. A few. Yeah, there's a few misconceptions. Yeah. Bear Bear in mind, bear in mind, some of these comments are from people who are simply simply out there to just post questions. They know the answers. They know that Muslims do not worship Muhammad Sallallahu sallam, they do not worship a prophet. We don't submit to Prophet we submit to Allah. And if these Christians are beloved, respected brothers and sisters in Christianity,

they are our brothers and sisters in humanity, not in faith. Okay, they are our brothers and sisters in humanity, they are the children about them. So are we. So by that virtue, they are our distant relatives, right? So speak to speaking of submission, if they were to read the Bible carefully, even Jesus himself had submitted to the will of God. Okay, so many places in the New Testament, Jesus does that. Let it let your will be done, not mine. Let your will be done, not mine, who is speaking to God Almighty, the Creator of the heavens and the earth, the one Jesus talked about, when he said there is only there is only one God there is only

one true God and that's the Father. In the Gospel of john chapter 17, verse three, Jesus states allegedly, Father is the only true God. Okay, and when he spoke to Mary Magdalene in the same gospel in

Chapter 20.

He speaks to her telling her I ascend on to my father and to your father to my god to your God. Right. So Jesus was inserted in submission, Jesus submitted to God Almighty, the Creator of the heavens and the earth, according to the New Testament text. This is what the Christians believe in. We the Muslims have been told categorically that we don't submit to any profit, or any figure of higher refuge or the highest refuge. Rather, we submit to one and only true God, that is the Creator of the heavens in the earth. And this is why the prophets came to preach to us in the first place, that they came to tell us that you must submit to the ultimate authority, which is God Almighty, the

Creator of the heavens in the earth. It was Satan who came along, and he directed people to start worshipping others, then that creator that Almighty, the Creator of the heavens in the earth, in fact, one of the Christian scholars recently stated in one of his very important books, and is, the scholars name is James, dg done late James digital who passed away recently, he wrote a book titled did early Christians worship Jesus. And this book in the conclusion He states that the Christians nowadays are guilty of Jesus solitary. And he was trying to basically highlight the word idolatry. But then, instead of using idols, he used the word Jesus, the Christians are worshipping Jesus

today, at the expense of the Creator of the heavens and the earth. They have replaced God Almighty, the Creator of the heavens of the earth with Jesus Christ. And this is what the Christians are doing today. James Digi, Don stated that in his book, in the conclusion, and this is very true, unfortunately, the Christians seem to have submitted to Jesus Christ, not God Almighty, the God of Jesus Christ. So, for the for the 15th, you know, for the for the for the, for the for the 10th time, you know, I would like to clarify that we don't submit to any human, okay, we submit to God Almighty, the creator, that's the answer. I think a lot of Christians know this answer. But some of

them they like to have a dig at Muslims. And they enjoy it.

I think we all clarify it, because we love talking about the heat anyway. So it's always good to bring it back to it all the time. And Sharla hamdulillah. I mean, I mean, you shall let me let me ask another question, which sort of comes off the end as a comment written here by somebody, but john 14, six, Jesus said to him, I am the Way and the Truth. And if no one comes to the Father except through me, maybe we can clarify this point because what I am keen to, you know, remove another misconception, I guess, or get some clarity on for the audience's.

Let's break down this concept why Jesus is not the Son of God? And what Islam says about this particular particular point? Because how did we jump from, you know,

being born of a virgin, Virgin Mother, to being the son of God, not a prophet of God, maybe we could spend some time, a little bit of time breaking this concept down a little bit, I think it's important. Okay, first of all, we have to and I always do this when talking about biblical verses, Muslims do not believe in the Bible as it exists today. Right? To sit to say that we believe in the Bible that exists today is incorrect. We don't believe in the Bible. That is we're not commanded to believe in the Bible, we're commanded to believe in the gospels that were revealed to Jesus at his time, which no longer exists. And we are commanded to believe in the Torah that was revealed to

Moses at his time, which no longer exists in its original form, the Psalms of David which were revealed at his time in its original form, which no longer exists. The Bible at today is a collection of books written by a lot of anonymous authors. But nevertheless, even if you take that verse from john 14, I have no problem with it. As it stands, I am the way the truth and light nobody comes to the Father except through me. Number one, that was the position of every single prophet of God. We only knew about God that which was taught to us by the prophets and messengers, the only path to them this is why we as Muslims believe in the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him as the

last and final messenger, because of the fact that all the other revelations ceased to exist in their original forms. We do not know what God wanted from those revelations. Therefore, we as human beings who live in this present age, go to the Prophet Muhammad Ali said to swim in what he revealed was revealed by God and gave to us so just for Jesus to say to his people at his time, I'm the way the truth and light no one come to the Father except

through me, I have no problem with that. Because we have to go to the prophets and messengers to get the knowledge of God. But this also goes against Jesus being a trinity. Because if Jesus is saying, I am the way, the truth and like nobody goes to the Father except through me by thought he was God, if you look at it in a Trinitarian sense, if he is God, why would he say you need to go through him to get to him, there's there's problems in this verse when it comes to the different branches of Christianity, whether you believe in him as a trinity, as God in the flesh, etc, I have no problem with that verse. The whole concept about Jesus being a son of God.

First of all, this means Begotten Son, because if it just means Son of God, there's no problem in this because many, many, many, all of the children of Israel will call me the sons of God. This is stated over and over again in the Old Testament, that all the children of Israel are the sons of God. There are many people who are called the Son of God, there are many people called the beloved of God, there are many other be gotten, there's actually more gigatons of God, but what it means by Jesus as they be gotten the only begotten of the Father. This is what Paul's talks about. The only begotten of the Father means that Jesus being a direct descendant, lineage, bloodline, from God, the

almighty from God, the Almighty, this is problematic because the nature is problematic, because God in His nature, anything that comes from him will will have his nature. Jesus did not carry the nature, or the substance as was argued, in the counsels of Nicea of God. Number one, God is eternal. He's always existed in he will always exist. Jesus had a beginning, people say he was saved before the before the heavens, in the earth, I was, etc. But as it as a living being, he had a time he was born we, matter of fact, this is the day they celebrate the birth, the birth of God of god of the world, he had a beginning, he had an end, according to the Christianity that he was crucified on the

cross. So he had an end. So therefore, this is not the nature of God to have a beginning, and have an end and have an end. He is not of the same nature of God when it comes to knowledge, when it comes to that, and I did all of these and I think we did 10 of them top 10 reasons why Jesus can't be God I need to revisit that is a very old video. But the knowledge God is is

all knowing he's all knowing. Therefore He knows everything. Jesus himself was not all knowing he actually admitted to that fact, he admitted to the fact by saying, when he was asked about the Day of Judgment, the day of reckoning, he said, that day No, with no man, not even I, not even I only the father was in heaven knows of that date. Therefore, his knowledge was not complete, he did not possess the knowledge that God possessed, and he did not have anything. He said, I have no power, God is all powerful. Jesus said, I have no power except by Him who sent me, I have no power, I have no ability, except by Him who sent me in who works through me, etc. So we see very clearly, and to

go through that would take so much time in this one little snippet. I think we did this actually on se when we were talking about this subject with brother

Adnan as well is that you know, the, if you look at the narratives of Jesus in the text that exists a Matthew, Mark, Luke, john, etc, you'll see a Jesus who tries on every occasion he can to distinguish himself from God, but also establish himself as a path to God. That's where the modal takes place is they, they, they the modern day, Christianity, theology has mixed the two together, has mixed two together, in that he, him being the path to God makes him God, no, he was the path to God. He had the knowledge from God, he showed people how to come back to God, he showed people how to get right with God, but on every occasion we see him have the chance, the father is greater than

I, the father is greater than I, the one who is sent is greater, I mean, the one who sent to me is greater than the one who is sent, etc, he tries to make that distinction, that yes, I might be on a different level than you in terms of my creation, my existence, my position, my Prophethood but I am still human and am not God. So when we look at this in the Islamic sense, it is very simple. The Quran says, it is far above it is far above the nature of the Creator to have a son. It is far above the nature of the Creator of all things, to have a son, he is one alone unique by himself. This is why we say Allahu Allahu I had the word I had which is actually very similar to the Hebrew, the the

old Hebrew word that is used for the oneness of God in the Old Testament. It is exactly the same meaning a God that is singular without the capability of having a second the capability of being divided.

The capability of having an equal the capability of having anything like it. So we as Muslims do not see anything on the created a spectrum that can be godlike or have divinity, we see things as two separate entities. Number one, you have the Creator, the Creator of the heavens and the earth, and then apart from the Creator, separate from the Creator, unlike the Creator, each creation, everything that is created and everything that we can discern, as human beings, is creation is creation, everything is created. And it is not like the Creator is not of the same substance of the Creator, it cannot have divinity, it cannot have divinity. So, we look at the Islamic narrative of

Jesus peace be upon him as one of the greatest and most noble messengers in human beings to ever walk the face of this earth. We see him born of the Virgin, we see him as you know the word of God become flesh. This is actually one of the descriptions that we find of him in Islamic narratives, but not being God Himself. But we draw the line at divinity, we save divinity, in any form, in any way whatsoever for the divine meaning the Creator of the heavens and the earth, who we refer to as a law, meaning v God, the only God, the one God, and everything different other than Him is a creation and not like him, and subservient to him, like we saw Jesus, who was subservient to the Creator God,

Himself, was not his son, was not divine, was not part of a trinity was just a simple chosen messenger born of the Virgin Mary, to bring the children of Israel back to the way of God in the path of peace.

JazakAllah heard that's an amazing way to break it down. I think there's a couple of comments that have come when you were speaking,

share fuchsia, did

Unitarian Christian has been pulling up some interesting points kind of Trinitarian crispian. Explain to me how they pray to a trinity. Some people have tried and it's ridiculous when they pray to God, they are being disrespectful to the Holy Spirit and Jesus. And then there was another comment question, I think it is from Junaid. Did Jesus parent the original sin? If so, how was he similar as Christians claim confusing? Maybe one of you would like to comment on that, because it's a continuation of what you were talking about earlier. yuusha?

Hmm.

The first one's not answered. It's not answerable you there is no answer to that question. That is the great conundrum. That is the great conundrum. Even Trinitarian Christians that is explained as the great conundrum, the Trinity and how to understand it, there's been so many attempts, at analogies and etc. and so on and so forth. There's been a debate between trinitarians and Unitarians, and, and 70 Ivan's other who's don't look at the Trinity, and Joe was witnesses as to this concept that cannot be explained. And actually, it's explained that the best explanation is actually the most confusing one, and it is part of the apostles creed is that God is the Father, God

is the son, the son is God, but God is, but the son is not the father, the son is not God, and the God is not the or excuse me, God is the sun god is the Holy Spirit in the Holy Spirit is God. But at the same time, God is not the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit is not the Son, and the son is not the father. I don't I confused myself to trying to say it. But that is actually the established creed. And it is not understandable. This is why Christianity hangs upon faith as such a core tenant of the of the belief system, is because you have to have faith that is just totally a faith and blind principles that you just have to believe what does not make sense, because logically there is no way

there is no logical way to make sense out of three different unique individual entities being one and the same, exactly at all at the same time. And this is the problem I have is that modern day Trinitarian Christianity divides trinitarianism up in different forms like at one it one, and when it when it be fits them, he's fully God and fully man, and then when it doesn't be fit them. And this will answer the second question. Like if he was fully God, how did he take on the sins of humanity? Because according to Trinitarian Christianity, not only did he inherit the original sin, He inherited all the sins on the cross, he took on all the sins of the world, and died with every

single person's sin on him, and therefore was sacrificed for all human being sin. How did God die for the sins of humanity? They say there, this was the son that the Father turned his back on the son who is the same person by the way. This is why he said, My Lord, my Lord, why have you forsaken me is because God had to turn his back on this sin nature that Jesus the son who is also the father and also the Holy Spirit, but at the same time is now

Becoming different by some reason, therefore, he's lesser than Gods smaller than God. Or if you ask them, okay is he got if he's fully God and fully man, why did he not know when the day of judgment was? Oh, well, in order to become a man, he had to lessen himself, well, then he's not fully God, what how much was it? Was it 95%? Was 88%? You know, at what point was, you know, was there a varying scale of godness that he had, because it has to fluctuate in order for your narrative to fit. And this is problematic, this is problematic. And this is why a lot of times when I talk to Trinitarian, Christianity, Christians, I say, look, you have to decide with me right now, is he

fully God and fully man 101 100? Or is he not? Because we can't, if not, we're gonna this, this is gonna go like this. If he's fully God, and fully man, you have a problem. If he is not fully God, and fully man, you have two gods or three gods. So there's another problem. So either way, you run into a conundrum that cannot be explained. This was what this is what drove me away from Christianity, this will cause me to leave is that God is not the author of confusion. This was extremely confusing. There is no way I could explain this to a five year old, who's just starting to understand logic does this because it's illogical. God is not the author of confusion. He is very

simple, straightforward and direct. He always has been, I am the Lord your God, and there is none else. I am the Lord your God, and there is none like me, I am the Lord your God. And there is nothing like me into the heavens and the earth, do not worship graven images, don't make images of me Don't make representations of me, worship Me and Me alone. This has always been God. But for some reason, according to the New Testament narrative, Paul, all of a sudden decides that the whole host schism is going to change now, because it fits more into the Roman pagan religion that was prevalent at the time during Paul's travels throughout the New World, which would become the new world of

Christianity. It's It's, it's, it's quite simple that this was a political process that molded Christianity, the religion of Jesus teachings of Jesus Christ, to fit a political schism, in order that Christianity as a political movement, and as a power movement, could grow, could grow.

like to add to some of that beautiful stuff said by brother Lucia, I want to add some stuff that some of the early Christian thinkers are absolutely against adopting pagan ideas, even though they had some conception of a triadic formula they believed in, for example, 2 trillion, 2 trillion is very often quoted as a source for Trinity. He was one of the first people to use the word trinitas, in the Latin language, to describe a triadic being within God,

according to his conception of Godhead, right. So even Tertullian, was very much against adopting pagan ideas. And he forbade Christians from attending any of the pagan festivals, or any of the days, pagans in the Roman world was celebrating the feast days. So even those who believed in the Trinity, or who had adopted the doctrine of the Trinity in some early primitive form, not like the later doctrine of the Trinity from the fourth century, by the way, the doctrine of the Trinity took a long time for this to reach the climax, it reached in the fourth century, what is the climax of the doctrine of the Trinity, that is that there are three persons in one being of God, okay. And

these three persons are God, the Father, God, the Son, and God, the Holy Spirit, and all three are co equal, and co eternal. This is the climax of the doctrine of the Trinity, which was reached in the year 381. c, in the Council of Constantinople. Prior to this date, the doctrine of the Trinity was not fully complete. In the in the in the sense we know it today. Okay, it wasn't quite there. It was still in the process of development. And some of these early church fathers didn't even believe in it, right. But despite the fact that they have some conception of the Trinity, all beta subordination is conception, for example, to Tony Tertullian are one of those people that the Father

is the highest God, the Creator of the heavens and the earth. And the son, who was Jesus was basically made by the father from his own essence. And then the son made the spirit from his essence, all of this stuff, I really don't want to confuse you, and don't want to go into details. What I'm trying to say is that even these church fathers who had some conception of a trinity, according to the neoplatonic system of the times, they were against adopting pagan ideas. And if Tertullian was alive today, and he saw Christians celebrating Christmas on this day, he would be very much against it. Right? And another danger which we are facing today. Let's see

Let's put aside all the pagan background of Christmas. Let us forget about the birthday of mitt Ross on the 25th of December celebrated by the Romans in the fourth century, including Constantine, and pre Constantine, let us put all of that aside, if we were to simply follow Christmas as a purely Christian idea,

on a day when Jesus Christ was born, what do the Christians actually believe about the idea? What do they claim about the idea? The Christian conception is that on this day, the 25th of December, the Son of God, God in flesh, Jesus Christ was born, who is the Christ, according to the Orthodox or let's say, Protestant, Catholic and Orthodox conception of the Christians today, who is Jesus Christ, He is God incarnate. He is God on earth. Christians believe that Jesus is God. So on this day, God was born of Mary. In fact, in the sixth century, in the Council of Chelsea dawn,

the Christians declared in this council, that Mary is the mother of God. Don't believe me, go and check it out. The Greek term they used to describe Mary was the altar calls, the altar calls the god bearer, the one who carried God for nine months in her stomach. So the birth of Jesus Christ, even according to the Christian conception, if we put aside all the pagan background, and the pagan origin of the celebration of Christmas, even according to Christianity, as we know it today, it is highly controversial. You may be celebrating a day

insinuating or somehow indirectly celebrating a blasphemous idea. The Muslims don't believe in that Muslims don't believe that Jesus was God. In fact, the Koran clearly state in pseudo Toma either that those who say that Isa, son of Mary was God, our blood streaming, they are committing copper, they are abandoning their faith in Allah, if they claim this. So if you celebrate his birthday, thinking directly or indirectly, that on this day, the 25th of December, God was born of a woman called Mary, in Palestine in the first century CE II, you are actually committing blasphemy. It is Cofer. It is COVID Akbar, right. So we can't even accept the Christian conception of Christmas, let

alone the pagan origins of the idea. This is something I wanted to highlight very quickly. So even according to Christianity Today, if we were to say, okay, there are no pagan origins, it is a purely Christian idea, even then, it is potentially, in fact, certainly, based upon blasphemy.

It's interesting you say that? None because there's a comment here by Michael Williams. He says, I always found the half man half God conundrum and non sensible and laughable debate. It's akin to the question is the glass half full or half empty? So there's a couple of there's quite a few comments which have been coming in while both you and you show we're talking about the idea of Trinity and you know, the some of the concepts exist today about a Sunday salon.

There's another comment here, guys, why are you talking about God? I'm not interested in God, nobody's interested in God. God, we want to know about the life of our beloved Prophet Muhammad, how he lives his life. Well, the fact of the matter is that God is everyone interested in Allah, God and Prophet Mohammed tala sallam, he lived his life, calling to Allah and lived his whole life, not only worshiping and calling others to the obedience and submission of God. So I think I'm not sure what that where that question is going with that. But

to reinforce the point of how important Tao is, with regards to the life of the Prophet that is Salah, and you know, that we're now taking up that mantle and taking up that you know that that mission of going forward and sharing the message of Islam and sharing the message of Allah is oneness God oneness with people who are not Muslim.

The central theme of the life of the Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him is the oneness of God. Yes.

That's the entire Sierra

buddy page of the Parana you'll find a loved one as well so and and we have no difference about that but as our brother Adnan was saying this debate about the the nature of Jesus is a debate that raged for a very long time, and even after

The Council of Constantinople, they a lot of inquisitions had to happen. And a lot of a lot of people had to be put to the, to the stake and burnt an axe and all of this to eradicate, because there was a huge schism within Christianity. And there was three different warring factions that number one, and this was a lot of the North African churches, that Jesus and God and the Holy Spirit were not of the same nature or substance, they were completely unique to one another, completely different, that God was God, Jesus with Jesus, and the Holy Spirit was the Holy Spirit. And they weren't like one another. That was an opinion, and especially of the North African churches that we

come to find out later on, especially with, you know, some later understandings of like the Dead Sea Scrolls and other things. Then there was another theory that Jesus and God were of a similar substance, like our brother Adnan said that there was, you know, God, the Father, who was greater than God, the son who was greater than God, the Holy Spirit, but they were still in some form of a tiered system of God. And then you have the the the churches of Rome, who were of the opinion that God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit would have the exact same substance and nature this was the the the major argument going into these councils of Nicea? Was this sub, the nature of God? What are we

going to put forward as a doctrine about the nature of God the Father, God, the Son, God, the Holy Spirit? And then on top of that, what books are we going to read? From what books are we going to call cannon, or that we can take doctrine from and the political factions of the Roman Catholic Church which had the backing, which had the backing of, of Rome, the backing of the Pope, all this other stuff, they had more pool and power, they were able to win in these conclaves, which is what became, you know, kind of what now we see as the Conclave, they decided in that it would be the apostles creed, the Nicene Creed, that God the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit, are of the exact

same substance in nature. We would read Matthew, Mark, Luke, and john, the Acts of the Apostles, the you know, the writings of Paul, these 13 books, and everything outside of that any belief outside of that was considered heretical. Any book outside of that was considered heretical. You would have your, you know, your tongue cut out, you have your books burned, you would be burned at the stake. The inquisitions happen millions and millions and millions of people, millions and millions and millions of people died, because they did not agree with these edicts that came out of these councils. It's a very dark history as a matter of fact, and how these things get super dark. Hmm,

this smoke comments just gonna

read out some of these in Alexander Mollison. I think his name is say some Christians. He is basically saying say some Christians not all stop the generalized view like me and seven, he

spends day.

And I tend to bring a clear sec by believe God is one Trinity is a Catholic dogma. What's your reply to response to that?

Not all Christians are the same. Right? No.

No, Seventh Day Adventists are actually very close. They're a lot closer to us, then you would say like Catholics or Baptist or Lutherans seven Day Adventists are actually and Jehovah's Witnesses are actually a lot close to us in regards to their hate, but they still believe in Jesus as the begotten son. That's that's where the problem comes in to be gotten son born of Hmm. I'm just asked.

If you don't mind me asking, Is that is that a central theme? Would you say that runs throughout Christian your Christianity regardless of what and denomination or whatever there would be this separate thing Christianity? Yeah, he's either the garden son, or he's God in the flesh.

And that's obviously what Muslims have a sticking point with, you know,

that's our problem. Yeah. Yeah. It goes against the draw the line is saying, Jesus being God, Son, in some shape or form, in the biblical sense, or in the Israelite sense, it has been there from the very beginning. What What did it actually mean to be a God's being the son of God, for example, the Bible clearly states that there are many sons of God is chosen. And the term Son of God in the Israelite sense meant a person of God or value love, for example, as we Muslims understand it a saint, for example, someone who is a who's a was a person who is very close to God, that is a son of God in the first century, going backwards, but in the Christian platonic sense, when the Christians

became hellenized, when I say hellenized, they became heavily influenced by Greek philosophy. In the second, third and fourth century. That's when the meaning of the term Son of God changed from an Israelite meaning to something else.

something other than that, and in the in the Greek sense, or in the Roman sense, the Son of God could mean anything. It could be a deity. It could be, for example, Hercules, the son of Zeus. So the concept of being a son of God was very common among Greek cultures and Roman cultures. And to them, it meant something different to what the Israelites understood the Israelites, they understood from the terms of God to be some someone who's close to God, although that term is forbidden for us, the Muslims today because it can confuse people, as it clearly did with the Christians, right? When it comes to God incarnate God in flesh, it took some time for the Christians to come up with that

idea. Right? There were Christians in the first three centuries, who did not believe that Jesus was God. They were very clear on that. And they actually they were in majority. By the way, those Christians who did not believe that Jesus was God in flesh, we're in majority up to the fourth century. In fact, some of the Roman emperors who had embraced Christianity would have that view. For example, the very son of Constantine, his name was constantius. constantius was an area. He didn't believe that Jesus was God. He believed that Jesus was begotten, he was made by God, therefore he cannot be God. Right. Then there was another Christian Emperor called valance, who was killed in a

battle against Gods in the Battle of a drug adrenal pole. Currently attorney, this Roman Emperor died on the battlefield fighting the gods from Europe, basically,

you know, a horde of barbarians, he was fighting them. He was also a Unitarian. It was after him. When we had a Trinitarian. Strictly speaking Emperor, who was Theodosius Emperor Theodosius is the one who imposed the doctrine of the Trinity on the Roman Empire. He is the one who made it law, that it is illegal now to believe in any other conception of God except the doctrine of the Trinity. This is, by the way, stated clearly in theodosian, called the Roman law of the late fourth century. It is very, very clearly clearly stated in the theodosian code, the law of the Roman Empire in the late fourth century, that it is now illegal to believe in another conception of God,

other than the doctrine of the Trinity, as it was believed in by the Pope, damasus in Rome at the time, right, so unitarianism, in other words, believing in one, God alone, became illegal in the Roman Empire, fourth century onwards. So that's when Jesus Christ became God in flesh, properly, according to the Christian conception, and the doctrine of the Trinity was widely spread by the might of the Roman Roman Empire throughout the Roman world, where the Christians lived in majority,

through force, through force absolutely reports, and before that the the, the Old Testament narrative of sons of God meant chosen or favored by God. This is why it's often referred to the children of Israel, and people from the children of Israel as the sons of God because it means favored, or Chosen One of God. Therefore, Jesus being called a son of God was not a problem was not a problem. It was not even a big one in that sense. Yes, not in that sense, not in that sense of being favored, chosen by God. And that's not even why he was crucified. him being calling himself God was even a problem to the Romans who ran Jerusalem at the time. It's not even why he was

crucified, he was crucified for being called a king and challenge to the throne of season. Again, that's that's, that's really interesting, because I would maybe I'm making a bit of a presumption here. But again, I would, I would assume that a lot of Christians don't even know about this stuff as well. I mean, the history that you've just mentioned, that none. That's deep history, that's like, that's really interesting history. And again, I don't feel as though you'll find many Christians actually know that history. And also, believe me the history, the history of Christianity in the first four centuries, a lot more interesting than what I told you. What I thought he would

tip of the iceberg. What is out there in the books of the history of doctrine, Christian doctrine, how it was developed, how it came about, just like brother you mentioned earlier, that the development of Christian view on Jesus Christ, that is one history, very interesting in the first four centuries, then the development of the Bible, how it was put together, who decided that they are to be 27 books in the New Testament. Okay, who decided that the Old Testament will be part of the Christian canon is another very interesting question. Many Christian

thinkers and scholars were against the idea of adding the Old Testament into the Christian canon because it was so violent. The Old Testament was so violent their agenda

Besides, in the Old Testament, some Christian thinkers had reservations about even taking it as the Word of God for Christians. But other said, without the Old Testament, we cannot prove that Jesus Christ, he doesn't prove our point in the previous scriptures. So that was another debate, then the debate on the doctrine of the Trinity and its development. Where did this doctrine come from? The Christians today, what they do is they ignore all that history. I'm not saying all Christians, of course, there are learned Christian Christians out there who know this history, but they are a minority. But most of the Christians today, they ignore that history, the jump from de current

situation,

straight to the Bible, they say, okay, the Trinity is clearly stated in the New Testament, therefore, we believe in the Trinity. But what they are not aware of is the history of those four centuries, the first 400 years, how the Christian thinkers, scholars, theologians wrestled with each other on these ideas. Some of them considered the Trinity to be a blasphemy.

They considered it to be a cover of the highest form. Other said, No, this is exactly how we need to believe in God Almighty. This is true belief. to them. This was the epitome of tall sheet. Ironically, some people actually believe that the doctrine of the Trinity is the highest form of tawheed, to panela. Others the thing it just go for it is blasphemy. Because you are committing ship with God Almighty, you're putting the son who is Jesus Christ on par with the Father, who's the creator of Jesus Christ, then these ideas did exist, and they were debated by the Christians themselves within the first four centuries of Christianity. So the details are far more interesting

than what you heard from me, the short summary of these ideas 100%. And and, and as I was saying, like, what are those strongholds of tawheed in the Christian world at the time was was Africa, the North, the North, you know, half of Africa, the Christians there were much closer towards

tawheed than what you found in Rome that were influenced by you know, the pagan traditions of Rome dating back to Babylon. And we also see that in the Sierra, in the seat of the Prophet Mohammed and he set out to sit down when looking for somewhere to send the Muslims. He didn't send them anywhere, you know, in Christian world to go to Rome go to he sent them to where he sent them to North Africa. He sent them to Ibis, India. And what happened when the negative avicennia heard about Islam, heard about the religion of terete, he said to raise from the same lamp, because this was still not very far off of the these councils of Nicea. And it wasn't completely, you know, completely wiped out of

North Africa, yet, like the Romans did in the rest of Europe and things of that nature. So we can see that correlation with the the, the the remnants of tawheed. And the essence of terror, he still being around, even when the Prophet Mohammed Ali set out to slam sent his companions to the Christian Kingdom of Abyssinia.

Yeah, exactly. I think there's, there's so much discussion in the comments, like I said, have gone crazy today. With regards to a lot of the things that you've been discussing.

Michael William, he says this, just to off on this point, was trinitarianism, influenced by the revelation of God or the inspiration of man, the Council of Nicea? If the latter then we have a problem. 100% the letter? Yeah, absolutely.

And even the Council of Nigeria is not Trinitarian By the way, the Council of Nicea if you read the creed of Nicea, which was formulated in 321 25, he is buying Italian, even that creed is not Trinitarian now fully aware after it clearly states that we believe in the Father and the Son, and what and then it explains that both are of the same essence, basically, and we believe in the Holy Spirit without even mentioning the details about the Holy Spirit. What is the Spirit? What is our belief about it? It is not clarified, so the Council of Nicea and the freedom nicea, by the way, was essentially biomaterial. That Trinity became established 50 years later, in the creed of

in the creed of Constantine Apollo, the Council of constant deport that creed is specifically called

Nicene constantinopolitan Creed Nicene constantinopolitan Creed, which was formulated in 381 ce II, whereby, for the first time in Christian history, it was clearly stated that there are three persons within Godhead and the Holy Spirit is one of them.

Just I think just to move the conversation on

A little bit so that we can go through the main content of what we want is one last concept that I think we need to break down in Sharla.

You touched upon it earlier on about, you know, the assignment ruling on celebrating such festivals like Christmas, you know, and this is something that a lot of people as in particular revert to Islam may find difficult at this time, you know, during this particular season.

There's a couple of questions that were asked how can we be polite and not celebrate Christmas if our families are non Muslim?

And, you know, should we give presents on that day, not because you've broken down the whole history we've discussed about the history, we've discussed about the the, the contradictions, or the contradictory creeds between Islam and Christianity. The fact that

the Christmas falls into shidduch. And Islam rejects Sure, completely and focused purely on Torridon, anything to do that which opposes though heat is impermissible, generally speaking, but let's talk a little bit about those people who are in that circumstance. And you remember, you've got Muslim celebrities now, who are defending and even celebrating Christmas and promoting it, putting up trees and all of that sort of stuff. You see it every year, give some advice, and none and then you share about some of these concepts. And let's break it down and give some advice to those who Muslims in particular who may be celebrating it. And some advice to the river brothers and

sisters out there as well.

Okay, this was our monitoring. Thank you for that question.

The first question is, do we have to celebrate the festivals of the non Muslims to be tolerant or to appear to be tolerant? Do we have to absolutely not, we can have respect for them. We can have tolerance towards them, we can have a feeling of sympathy towards them, we can have kindness towards them. These are all virtues in Islam, to be kind, to be respectful, to be generous to non Muslims, generally speaking in Islam is a virtue. In fact, Allah states in the Quran in chapter, chapter 16, total Medina, in verse eight, that Allah does not forbid you from being kind to those who do not fight you for your faith, and do not drive you out of your homes. Rather, what allies telling us in

this verse is to be kind to non Muslims. That's the general attitude of the Muslims. Now to be kind, do we have to become one of the non Muslims? Absolutely not. If the non Muslims want to worship the God in the own way, Islam allows that freedom for them even within the Muslim domain, right? tolerance, kindness, generosity doesn't always equal adopting those ways. Are we have to become like the non Muslims or become one of them to celebrate these festivals, that would be a poxy. That would be like, okay, like Paul said in his letters, I become a Jew to a Jew and a Gentile to a Gentile I become all things to all people. We don't believe in that we as Muslims don't believe in do as

Romans do. When in Rome do as Romans do know, we believe that when in Rome do as Muslims do, right? We cannot abandon our faith on one day and become a Muslim and on another day, rather, we stick to Islam, to our principles, being kind, being being generous, being tolerant, being loving and compassionate towards non Muslims, at the same time, clarifying our position, that we do not believe in any one other than a lot, who alone deserves to be worshipped. And Prophet Muhammad is the final messenger of God. And we cannot celebrate these festivals, because they constitute in some cases cofa.

they constitute disbelief. they constitute contradiction with our faith, for example, even Christmas, if you take it for, for granted. If you think about the Christian conception of Christmas, what do the Christians predominantly believe today? They believe that God incarnate God in flesh was born on the 25th of December to marry his mother. So Mary gave birth to God Almighty, this is what the Christians believe in, or one of the forms of God Almighty, however, they believe in it, right? That in itself constitutes disbelief according to Islam, because that goes against the Quranic verses directly. So in general, to cut it short. In general, it is absolutely forbidden for

Muslims to celebrate any of the non Muslim, religious and otherwise festivals, okay. If there is especially the religious ones, especially the religious ones, Muslims cannot celebrate any of the religious festivals of non Muslims it is forbidden because of the simple logic that they may constitute disbelief or contradiction.

To your faith, for that reason, the Prophet sallallahu Sallam in a very clear, categorical DC stated mantra shall Bobby Coleman, a woman who, anyone who imitates a people, he becomes one of them or he is one of them, right? In fact, even the Parana alludes to that the Quran alludes to that in Surah Baqarah, that when Allah signs are being mocked, for example, when disbelief is being celebrated through a festival, don't sit there. Follow Takuma home, follow Taku Maha taco to be ready until they do something else or something different. Don't sit there. Okay. So this is the Quran in surah baqarah. Okay, when Allah signs are being mocked, and they're being ridiculed, for example, Alize

being belittle

then don't sit there. You don't have to sit there. And if you sit there you become one of them you are like, like a hypocrite.

So Allah subhanaw taala has been forbidden in the Quran, the prophet clearly stated that if you imitate the people, you become one of them on that, based upon that reasoning, it is not allowed in Islam to take part in these festivals. So all those people who are saying to other non Muslim friends, to be polite and to be generous, they are sending them wishes on this day and cause and presence. It is not allowed. You don't have to do it on this day. You can do it on another day. Okay, you can send a present a card of seasonal greetings on another day. Don't do it on the day when that

festival is being celebrated, which clearly constitutes disbelief, right? So to be polite, to be generous, to be kind. We don't have to abandon our faith and our values. You can live in a society with your principles with your values without compromising on them without abandoning them. And you can be kind at the same time you can smile, okay, you can always send presence and cards and greetings to people on another day, not on that very day when they are celebrating the festival, which constitutes disbelief very quickly before I move on. This question was actually asked from shekel Islam a blue Tamia Lai Ali, he was asked about a Muslim who makes the food of mu food of the

Christians on neuros on a Persian New Year, or, and on all the occasions such as epiphany, and other feast days, and who sells them things to help them celebrate their festivals. Is it permissible for the Muslims to do any of these things or not? He replied, politely, praise me to a lot. It is not permissible for the Muslims to imitate them in any way that is unique to their festivals, whether it be food, clothes, bathing, lighting fires, or refraining from usual work or workshop, and so on. And it is not permissible to give feast or to exchange gifts, or to sell things that help them to celebrate their festivals or to let children and others play the games that are played on their

festivals, or to adorn oneself or put up decorations. in general. Muslims are not allowed to single out the festivals of the disbelievers for any of these rituals or customs. Rather, the day of the festivals is just an ordinary day for the Muslims, and they should not single it out for any activity that is part of what the disbelievers do on these days these days. So this is scheffel Islam in blue Tamia is photron. In response to a question that was asked about celebrating the Festival of the non Muslims or the disbelievers

exactly how you should do Would you like to add anything else to that? I mean, have you got anything that you'd like to add to people who say Merry Christmas or greet them, greet them on the festivities? And for Muslims? What advice would you give to Muslims generally speaking, what our man said was highly thorough, so I'll just be a bit more logical about it in a long time.

Rather than academic number one history repeats itself, this was a compromise that was actually offered to the Prophet Muhammad Sallallahu wasallam that we find ourselves using excuse for compromise today. You know that they they wish us happy Ramadan happy eat, therefore we should return. The Prophet Mohammed Ali Salatu was Salam was offered by the Meccans a compromise they look will worship your Gods one day, you know, for a couple of days, you worship our gods for a couple days or a few day, let's make a in a compromise. And he refused. And after those offers, he said even if they were to put the sun in my right hand and the moon the left, it would not get me off of

my mission. And he was begged, begged to you know, make these compromises he refused to do so. So this is what we're asking. Look, if people wish us and this is where Muslims have to have a. I want to say this in the kindest way where we have to have a little bit of a backbone.

Muslims, male and female were never designed by last panel with Allah to be spineless.

We were designed to have a backbone and stand up for our beliefs until heat. If people wish us happy than happy Ramadan good, because that's what we want them to do. That's the actual correct practice to worship Allah subhanho wa Taala. Correct. We have either aim to EADS that's it. That does not mean because they worship that's like saying because they came to our Masjid and watched us pray or prayed with us to see what it's like now in return, we should go worship their God for a little while. We've completely lost our minds with this and our backbones. No, this is our goal is to bring them closer to Islam. Also, to say that I should single out a single day, a single day, or two days

out of the year to be good unkind to my neighbors, or my non Muslim family means that what am I doing the other 364 363 days a year? No, we should be showing that type of level of sincerity and kindness to our neighbors on a regular basis, so that when we don't do it on these holidays, it shows that we are doing it specifically to step out of these pagan worships and stick step out of these celebrations that violate the principles of tear heat, which is the core tenant of our faith, because then it'll stick out more. This is our huge problem number one, is that we've forgotten who we are, we've lost our backbones. And we've not understood that we've not understood the concepts of

tawheed. And the fact that we need to be calling society to be like us not trying to be like them. It makes absolutely no sense when you look at it in the bigger scheme of things and being nice to your neighbors and your co workers and your non Muslim family should happen 365 days a year, not singled out on holidays.

Just i do i do i do agree with you. I think there is a level of inferiority complex that is at play here, if I'm going to be honest about that, because the assures that there is some something lacking in one's identity and being firm upon one's identity that we have to compromise. And I think started none mentioned right at the beginning, you know, there's a difference between assimilation and integration. You don't have to assimilate to integrate, you can still have hold on to your beliefs and practices and your identity and still integrate into a society positively contributing to that Id without compromising your own beliefs, creed aqeedah and things like that. So I think there is a

level of inferiority complex complex, which does come down to knowledge as well or lack of knowledge, not understanding one's own Deen property, one's own religion, property. And, and this is what the whole purpose of this program was tonight to show the difference between the Islamic understanding of the hate and the non Islamic understanding of shirk, and why the two cannot meet we can't, you know, dip into both as and when we feel like it. Coming back to there's one last comment that I want to finish off on I think

it's here says

it's always just think it says, This is what I tell them. I love Jesus Christ too much to celebrate Christmas. And I think that that's an interesting way to open up a conversation with people and also give them Dawa as well to what Islam actually teaches. From the from from the dough heat perspective, because that is an intriguing statement. If you can bring it up on the screen please. whever Hassan also, hell

this is what I tell them. I love Jesus Christ too much to celebrate Christmas because it has nothing to do with Jesus Christ or Isa a Salaam and then we can open up a gateway to open up that conversation. So

as it exists today, the gift giving the Santa Claus the caning of socks. What is this?

Got gingerbread men, you've got Santa Claus. What's the link between all of this stuff? Which baffles

me?

Yeah, Willink, Norse mythology, Norse mythology. Actually, Santa Claus as he understood today. It's kind of it kind of happened in kind of stages, if that makes sense. The Santa Claus as we know today, I'll have to I'll go backwards. Santa Claus. As we know today, the the man in the red suit. With the black belt in the jolly white beard was coined and somewhat copyrighted by Coca Cola and a man named hadden sun bloom. He was commissioned by Coca Cola to create a Santa Claus that we can put on coke bottles that we can put on advertisements, to you know, get a bigger boost in our sales during the holiday times. There was only a couple other images of sent on a red suit before that.

And then Coca Cola this had decided to make this jolly man with rosy red cheeks, big white beard that became the modern day what we know as Santa Claus was actually created as a sense as an since it took off as an identity by Coca Cola. It's a corporate capitalist idea.

But you go back then beyond that actually sent a clause who was known as center clause by the Dutch who brought that to America goes back to the St. Nicholas, who was a man who lived. He's round 300 AD to AD 300 ad supposedly he died. And he's known as the patron saint of children. He was known as someone who stood up for children's rights took care of children and orphans, and etc, so on and so forth and would give them gifts. So, the modern day Santa Claus was supposed to be a revision of St. Nicholas of St. Nicholas. But it is also mixed in if you see the the deeper origins of Santa Claus in St. Nicholas, with the hanging of the stockings which actually like boots, right, the hang of the

stockings, like boots, and the coming down the chimney and the reindeer and all of this this goes back to Norse mythology with regards to Odin, Odin at around the winter solstice, he would do something known as the Yule hunt in Norse mythology, he would go hunting on an eight legged kind of horse that could prance around and bounce around that became what we know now is these reindeer that can fly and bounce around and he would go hunting and children would leave would leave boots and they would put like you know, carrots and other things to feed this beast of Odin on their window seals so and and then hopefully that some gifts would be given to them in return for that and that

became what is known as also in the sign of St. Nicholas kids would do this and they would get presents in these boots, etc. So this was a pagan tradition that melded in to Christianity, melded in and then was taken over by corporate america and capitalism, just like Christmas in in a nutshell, but the Santa Claus we know today is actually traces back all the way back to Odin. Because some of the original depictions of Santa Claus he's an old man, weird looking man gray beard writing a wild beast that was actually a very dark scary version of Santa Claus there was a number of different types of what is known as center clause and the Dutch understand the Dutch language.

But Coca Cola could not put those on a marketing material so they created the big man The fat man and the red suit with the white beard and all of this There you go. Brothers and sisters. You heard it here first. Santa Claus is Odin. Yeah. The Origin if you go all the way back the origin story of a man flying around on pouncing, bouncing animals bringing gifts and his Odin This is a celebration of Odin and the you'll the you will hunt that he did around December the 25th, which is the winter solstice.

Okay.

I just wanted to make a comment before I do again, I just want to once again thank all of our guys who are helping us stream this video to our brother Jordan also said our brothers and sisters if you want to watch and enjoy speaking Korean debates, and subscribe to

our channel, and shall help them bring in more subscribers also to ITC ne also to our beloved start Adnan for allowing us to stream on his channel also, you should Evans also to yourself zapple ahead, please assist us please subscribe to these channels. And please raise the the channels inshallah you'll just if you just search them on YouTube, you'll find their actual channels in Sharla as well. And but my question really was to you guys is that M, with it being Christmas with it being this time of year and obviously Christian celebrating it? Do you feel that this is really fun, we've all discussed, do you feel like this is quite a good opportunity for us to, to to explain our beliefs

directly to the Christians that we do know maybe friends, colleagues, you know, individuals that we know walk Christians. So what would you my question really is what would you advise Muslims to do? And how would you go about doing or how would you advise them to go about doing that?

good brother. Hey, man, what's that?

You want me to answer the question? Both these both your advice?

You know, Brother, you should have mentioned something very interesting that we need to be kind to our neighbors throughout the year, not only on the Christmas Day, and as I have seen many adverts

lately, a dog is not only for Christmas, a dog is for life. I don't know if you've seen that advert. It is very common. And I like to say the same thing that our neighbors, our non Muslim friends, our non Muslim colleagues, people we work with are not only for Christmas, okay? So instead of greeting them with cards and presence on this very day and forget about them, but the rest of the year is not an option for Muslims. Dawa is for life. It is not only for one day, so

We must do our sitting standing sleeping eating bucket, whatever we may be doing in life dollar must be an integral part of our life. So it doesn't stop, stop even on a Christmas day there is no holiday for $1. Okay, so if we get an opportunity to give our to Christians, invite them to Islam, invite them to the truth as we see it. Why not? Absolutely. But not by joining the festival or joining the celebration, because that would be going against the very idea you're trying to convey to your non Muslim friends, right. So your non Muslim friends may be atheists, they may be Christians, they may be Hindus, they may be anyone for that matter. We have to be kind,

compassionate and generous towards them at the same time explain politely as to why you do not celebrate Christmas. There is no point of being hostile. There's no point of being aggressive when you give dolla dolla has to be done. Well as a lot taught us endocrinol the relationship on the regime ladder from under him odori la Sabina Rubik will hikma or mo exerted Hasina, what job they'll have ability here isin. Okay, when you call to the way of your Lord, do it with wisdom, wisdom, do it with beautiful words, don't use repulsive angry words. And at the same time, if you really have to argue that argue in the best way possible. So this is the method of giving Dawa, and it applies

throughout the year, even on the Christmas Day, if you happen to be with some of your friends who tell you something like Merry Christmas, you tell them why you don't believe in that. Okay, and start explaining that the origins of pagan we don't believe Jesus was God when he was born of Mary. So all of these ideas are against our faith. And that doesn't mean that we are against you celebrating it because you don't believe in Islam. It's your choice if you want to celebrate it, but we as Muslims do not celebrate it, because of the following reasons. And that's your opportunity. So I believe Dawa is for life not only for Christmas,

you show would you like to comment anything to wrap it up, so we can close the session off inshallah 100%. If we if we were being

kind and generous and neighborly and doing the Dow that we shouldn't be doing, you know, 365 days a year, we wouldn't need to do all this explaining and understanding. And, you know, we wouldn't need to come up with a day of this day of the year to explain why we don't celebrate a pagan holiday, this would already kind of be out there information. And if you do make these connections, if you know your neighbors and you know your coworkers, and you're upfront about your religion, and you're always there, then being you saying that you don't celebrate this day, like look, I hang out with you at any other time of the year, I'll come to your house, I'll eat with you, whatever. But this is

the one that I have to step out of, it won't be as big of a problem. But the point is that we wait, we don't say anything about our religion, ever, you know? And then all of a sudden, we're invited to this Christmas party. Oh, wait, you know, I can't I'm a Muslim that like like, Where did that come from out of left field, we're just inviting you. This has to be established, this groundwork needs to be laid. So people understand where your positions are from the beginning, unless you just met this person, you know, there's not really an excuse for them to not understand these things that we need to be very upfront about. We have to let this inferiority, inferiority complex, go and be able

to stand up for who we are in for our beliefs. Because if we're not going to do it, nobody's going to do it for us.

Just like her very, very well put and, you know, just to make some closing statements for myself, for those who have been listening to this show this program. Number one, please share and like it, you know, this is there's been some very, very beneficial knowledge and information shared by our two guests to clarify the Islamic position on Christmas on East LA salam, on our worshipping of God and all the rest of it, to clarify between Joe Hayden shirk, and for those who've been watching, who are not Muslim, and may have been convinced by some of the arguments or arguments or learn something from this, please contact us. If you want to find out more, contact us if you want to, you know,

explore the religion of Islam further, if you want to even accept Islam, do contact us, you know, this is something which is about your life, and it's about your future, and it's about this life and the next life. This is not something that should be taken lightly. When we are talking about Islam, we're not talking about calling people to a cult or something like that. We're talking about calling people to the truth and understanding that our belief is the core principle of what our identity stands for. So we do invite you openly to come and find out more about the religion of Islam. And you will find the more you study objectively, the more you will come to understand that it fits in

with your natural state and natural being and of who you are as a human being. So I wanted to just put put that call out there as well.

Well so people can find out more about Islam even after this program is finished you know you've got the the details of the channels you can contact the speaker themselves in contact us that the organizations IBC ne, Newcastle foster FM, se Dawa, and so on and so forth. So, you know, do keep in touch with us in Sharla the comments have been amazing. We've had some really good questions, and some really good discussions in the comment section as well as online. So I'd like to thank our guests. We'll start at none of style yuusha does akmola have taken he would have really enjoyed the company as usual. It was a good program the law may Allah bless you will accept it from from you

all. On that note, we'll wrap it up salaam aleikum wa rahmatullah wa barakato. Right. You can set out 100 to 100 in layer or below the mean