06 How Not To Make Dawah

probbaly Show Episode Six how not to make dour. This podcast has been brought to you by half our Dean comm a Muslim marriage website designed for those who want to find that other half privately because the only people that should know you're looking to get married or people who are looking to get married, try half our Deen today, a phrase you often hear from Converse is a hamdulillah. I was very fortunate that I found Islam before I found the Muslims. The reason why is because you look at Islam, it teaches one thing and they look at the Muslims and they're doing something completely different. Even when it comes to giving Dawa the way some people do. It makes you scratch your head.

you scratch your head so much that people actually think you have dandruff. Don't worry, you don't have dandruff. But I'll tell you what, you do have a podcast on how not to make Dawa and guess who's here to help us. Eddie from the D show. Let's do this.

For cultural Muslims have confused the masses and speakers are forced to be politically correct.

Voice

Hey, man, why y'all serious? This is just a podcast.

Welcome to the show. I'm your host Bob alley. Many years ago, I was in a bus heading to a Muslim camp trip. It was an opportunity to get away from the daily routine and learn more about prayer basic principles in Islam and develop better character. Interesting enough and of sitting next to someone on the bus who was probably thought I was a curious non Muslim coming to the camp to learn about Islam. The thing was, I was already a Muslim, but I guess I didn't look Muslim enough because I wasn't wearing cultural clothes. Yes, I say cultural clothes because wearing jeans and a T shirt doesn't make you any less of a Muslim versus someone who's wearing like shoveler commies.

Nevertheless, the brother was excited because I guess he learned about Islam recently. And he wanted to convert me. As he was trying to tell me about Islam. I interrupted him in the middle of his pitch. And I asked him to prove to me that a creator exists. He was kind of stuck. He was caught off guard, he might have an answer. Then I told him that I was Muslim, and I showed him how to intellectually prove a creator exists. So what do we learn from this whole experience? First things first, there's no compulsion in this religion, so you can't convert anyone. Second, you should never judge a book by its cover just because the way I dress doesn't tell you that I'm Muslim or not.

Sometimes you can't tell easily. And sometimes people are going through different phases in their life. Finally, before you go around trying to convince people about Islam, you need to be intellectually convinced about it yourself, the way you carry yourself is oftentimes more important than the words coming out of your mouth. You see, there's a lot of Muslims making Dawa. But some people do it in a way that actually pushes people away from Islam. And I'm not saying he did anything wrong, but some people could be rubbed the wrong way. Right? That's not really effective. We're going to tackle a subject with our special guest today, Eddie from the D show, for those who

are not familiar with the D show is the first Muslim talk show in America. Eddie has a wide variety of like Muslim scholars, speakers, celebrities, and just normal Muslims who've accepted Islam and they share their amazing stories on what made them want to become Muslims. So it's actually quite inspiring and hopefully inshallah we get to like pick his brain and see what he's learned hearing all those stories and at the same time, what he's learned through his own experience as well. Welcome to the show As salam o aleikum, Wa Alaikum, salaam Rahmatullahi, wa barakaatuh, metta, peace, mercy and blessings of law, something will be upon you. Thank you for having me on the show,

for being with us today. And Edie? You know, you have a very popular show on television. And then you'll also have it on YouTube. And that's quite popular, like everyone's every Muslim that I know that as soon as I say to Eddie from the D show, they know exactly what I'm talking about. So there's some people that may not know about it. So can you tell us a little bit about the deen show? Mashallah, Hello, thank you for having me on your program. The Deen show was started back in 2006. And the primary goal of the deen show is to try to help clear the many misconceptions about Islam and also to deliver the simple message of Islam, the purpose of life, the meaning of life to help

people really ponder and think why they've been created, why they're here. And from a perspective of someone who was born in America who lives here who has been brought up here and in a simple and easy format in a way that people can relate to and understand sometimes people will look at it okay, I just have to go and tell people about Islam and that's enough. But how important is the character of the person who's giving that message? We know from following the seminar the the way of the last and final question or problem Mohammed the same way you would have to follow Jesus during his time Moses during his time, Abraham during his time by imitating his way that he has said that I have not been

sent except to perfect, good manners. it's incumbent on a Muslim because we know for many examples

Hadees that there will be a woman, for example, who prayed all night fasted, did so many acts of ibadah. But she slandered this person, but she wasn't good to her neighbor, but and this can go vice versa for a man at the same time. So the Prophet peace be upon him has said, there's no good in this person, this person being the Hellfire, you follow me. So it's very important that we have to hold ourselves to a higher moral as the prophet SAW some had said, the best of you are those who have the best manners, the best character. So this is extremely important to be have the best manners, the best etiquette, the best morals, all of these things is extremely, extremely important. So Eddie,

let me ask you a question. When people browse the internet, they see all kinds of stuff. You see Muslims in one extreme and you see another Muslims in another extreme. Do you ever experienced that as well? And these people are carrying the dollar and they don't even know it. You see people doing things representing Islam in such a harsh way, in such a way that you know, we get repulsing this imagine what someone who's being fed by Fox News, all of this false propaganda now they see some some brothers now big beards, screaming, shouting, Jihad screaming all of this stuff now that people doesn't know don't know what it means. You might have right intention, right? Yeah. But are you

going to think about things the right way? Absolutely not. Yeah. And then we look we have too many too many examples from the CEO that promises some when the promises some had told he said Oh, Allah is gentle, and he loves gentleness, He rewards for gentleness what he does not grant for harshness, and he does not reward anything else like it. So being kind being benign, having this good o'clock, you know, not are giving down when I'm arguing with the person, you know, cursing his mother cursing his country, is that going to bring people to Islam, that's going to chase people away from the deep end. Unfortunately, a lot of these people do chase people away. And I don't understand how these

people suddenly became our representatives. I mean, I didn't like them. You didn't like them. But somehow the camera is pointing at them. And they're speaking in behalf of everybody else. And I don't think that's fair. Well, you see that happening. Now you have extreme element doesn't represent you or me, and now very harsh, very hard hearted and doing things the opposite to the way that the prophet SAW someone had told us how to do things, and now they're getting the spotlight. That's not right. Unfortunately, we're the ones the rest of us the 99% are the ones who feel the repercussions. We are the ones who feel what the results are from their actions. For example, many

people who get stopped at airport security is because of the fear that these people instilled in the masses that is not accurately represent Islam whatsoever. And now we're the ones who are pay the price, unfortunately. So this is crazy. I mean, this is now we're talking about how not to do Dawa. When you have bad luck, when you don't you have good intention. But now what happens you don't have the right knowledge, and you're taking the wrong actions and against so many examples in desiro, another Hadith in Sahih Muslim where the Prophet last and final messenger said to mankind, he said, He who is deprived of kindness is deprived of goodness, there's a time for this and a time for debt.

It's It's very, I mean, let's let's talk about when this harshness when this anger can come into something good. I'll give you example, I was so proud of the Muslims in UK when you had these riots. And now these looters were taking an opportunity to go and pillage and steal. But the Muslims and it was in the papers, they stood up and they were firm, and they were guarding the businesses from non Muslims from Muslims. The community came together to scare off the criminals. Did you read about this? No, I haven't. That's amazing. That's amazing, isn't it? It is so now now people are like, wow, Muslims came to the rescue. But now Now you're gonna go ahead and feed into the negative hype

or you're out there, you know, cursing one's country that people have such a affinity to, you know, you're going to curse their country, you're going to curse them, you're going to swear at them. And now you think this is gonna bring people to Islam? No, this is the wrong dollar. Unfortunately, we have other extremes as well. Can you give us examples of the other side of the extreme. Now you have the other side? Ali? That's very unfortunate. Again, someone has a good intention. But you don't have the correct information, the correct knowledge. And now you end up taking the wrong actions. You have people who are just compromising, compromising the dean and saying, Okay, you know what,

it's no problem. You can go ahead and go, and I'm going to go to the nightclub. And I'm going to go in there, I'm not going to drink, I'm not going to dance. I'm just going to go in there and call people and give people down in the nightclub. what business you're going to nightbot but it doesn't work. It doesn't work. The logic doesn't make sense. Does it make sense is a lot pleased with this action. You know, there are certain things that are fixed in the dean and there are certain things that are flexible now that's the fix. But there are certain things that Allah has commanded that we as those who submit to our Creator we have to do and we cannot change those things to a pleasing

piece. Yeah, the people you follow me when I first learned about Islam, I thought a lot of people were already

Already practicing this, I thought what Islam says Muslims are doing. In fact, it was the exact opposite. And I really, really surprised me that how Muslims had mixed up culture and Islam and they called the whole thing Islam. And I didn't understand the difference between two they were trying to teach me more about Islam. I wasn't sure what they're really teaching me because it was really hard to differentiate between the two. Did you find any of those challenges yourself? Yeah, actually, in the beginning stages you so passionate and you know, full of vigor and just you want to do everything all at once. And you might have this good intention, but you learn with experience now to

take things in moderation, slow down a little bit, because you know, many people they put a lot on themselves and as being can be very overwhelming if making it harder on yourself. So one of the things I remember that I quickly wanted to change was my name, for instance. So I like the name Hamza. And now everyone who came up to me, who knows me, wanted to get to know me, etc, knew my name was Eddie, I will have to correct everybody. So after about 50 corrections, people ADSL was not enough. At the end, when I found out I was like, I really didn't have to go through all that, you know, I didn't have to, unless your name has some bad connotations, it you know, it's it's something

has a bad meaning. It's not necessary. For instance, to change your name, I meet a lot of Muslims who oftentimes are really, really excited about Islam. And it took them a quite a bit of time to transition over from being non practicing to practicing. And then they had these very high standards of what they expect people who are not practicing to switch over even though it took them six months to a year, they're expecting that person to do it overnight. What do you think as long as someone is showing interest, we do our best, you know, to show through example, obviously, and give people an example I give when you go to the gym, and you go to work out, you don't just throw 245 plates, the

guy has never lifted the benchpress you start off you start off slowly is going to end up getting injured. So a little bit at a time, and inshallah a lot of da, we learn about the Prophet sallallaahu salam, and what really inspires us about his character and how he dealt with different people. And he knew how to deal with those different people. For example, there's a story about the old lady or his neighbor that left trash in front of his house, and she kept leaving trash and keep leaving trash. And he completely was patient with her until the one day the lady didn't leave trash, and he was actually concerned. So we found that she's sick, you went and visited her. And she was

completely shocked at how a person that has been given trash over and over and over again, has still the care to come and worry about me that something's wrong. Because today you didn't leave trash in front of my home and how we dealt with her. She ended up becoming Muslim. Right? She saw something special in this person, just human being. At the same time. There was a story about him and a wrestler, were one of the greatest wrestlers, I guess of that time or that area. The prophet SAW Psalm told him that if I beat you, then you know that he's the Prophet that this is the truth. Right? So the process as an old man beat this man, not once, not twice, but thrice three times, he

showed to him that he is really the Prophet. So what did he do? Did he go wrestle The old lady? No, did you wait for the wrestler to leave trash from his house? No, he dealt with each person differently based on the circumstances. And I think sometimes what we do is we find something to do regarding explaining Islam, and we think it's a cookie cutter thing, we're gonna deal with the same way, same style, and then go to each and every person do it the same way. And sometimes we're pushing people away. I wish sometimes we Muslims, were a little bit more considerate on who we're talking to. Exactly. Yes, one another thing that's very, very important is to prioritize. So when

you're communicating this message, I had a real situation where I was talking to one of the members of a very prominent martial arts family, and we got to talking about religion and other things. And he was very keen to know more about Islam. So I was communicating the simplicity of the basic Pillars of Islam. And the number one thing that we need to communicate is the pure monotheism, Islam, what's called an everyday towhee. Now, a friend that was with him, he's not Muslim, but he was exposed to Islam by some Muslims. And now he started to ask me questions, as I'm talking about the oneness of God. It's, it's it's very simple and logical. And the human being who's sincere, who

wants to know his heart connects to this. So we're talking and now the other person that was with him, he said, Eddie, why don't you tell him about the gin? Now I'm like, Okay, so now I don't want to be rude to him. But it's throwing me off. So I said, real quickly, I address this and I came back to what I was actually talking to that I keep talking. And then he says, Edie, tell them you know, when we enter, but after everything was said and done, what has what happens when Muslims had talked to this man started to prioritize in the wrong way you follow me started to tell him about every other detail of Islam except the fundamental and the most important things. You have to know what to

prioritize first before you start to talk about some of the things that might come together.

on the list, sometimes someone is brand new to Islam the first need to go tell the girls, you need to get married, ASAP, and they tell the guy or you need to do this, you need to do that. And the guy doesn't know anything about anything and you rush him into certain things, you're actually scaring him and they're not ready, you can jump into certain subjects because way over their head, you haven't discussed tawheed with them. Do you know I mean, they're very, very important to know how to prioritize what comes first, second, and third one another thing that's very important is if we're going to imitate someone, the best imitation is the Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him. So even if

you see someone, let's say, making some dollar videos, but the person for instance, now you see them, you know, in the streets, dancing, jumping, you know, dressing like a woman doing anything absurd and crazy, just to get you to laugh, you follow me? And now maybe the person had made one, one video, and that video, Mashallah, it was good. But now, let's say the other 5060, you know, are just things that are very questionable. You follow me?

It's a very important thing that we are able to distinguish Who should we be mimicking? Who should we be following? And who I need to step back and say, hold on, you know, if I'm taking the wrong people, as an example, where's that going to, at the end? have me end up in my life. You can entertain people, but you have to do within the boundaries of Islam? Because once you leave that boundary, then what are you really doing it for? If they're doing it for views, or they're doing it for people to like them? Or they're doing to make people laugh? That's your reward. Right? So is it really worth it? I mean, here's a downside. And it's maybe some part that we really don't discuss.

There's a lot of non Muslims who don't know anything about Islam. And the only time on the only situation to be listening to a quote unquote, Muslim video is yours. So if they're watching something, as you said, are very questionable. You're accountable for that. And like it or not, even though you can make say, I'm not a guy who's doing Dawa, you are but you're doing in a way that's, you're doing it almost unconsciously, well, I thought now maybe it's a good opportunity, because you'll have a lot of youth will be listening to your program that now they get to really think and reflect and not just fit in, like many people who accepted Islam, they started to question they

started to ask and that's how they got enlightened. We don't want to just be those that are just you know, one person screams chases the limo and now I'm just you know, a knee jerk reaction follow me we're Muslim, we have a higher standard, we have the the moral compass that we live by. So this is something that is very important in the data that we are out there. And as you had mentioned, that we're representing Islam in the right way that we were connected to scholars of Islam that we are, you know, making it easy for the people within the confines of Islam. So we can be the right ambassadors, we can make a difference that we can plant seeds of goodness in this life before we

leave this love with that Aleksei does aka hair, Eddie, for the D show to come to the Bubba Lee show. And can you give us some information where we can see the D show for those who are interested? Absolutely, you can go to the D show calm. And from there, you can go to our Facebook page, you can go to our Twitter page. And for those people that don't watch us, the satellite channels, you can always watch us on youtube weekly, a new show comes out. I know a lot of people who are big fans of your show. very inspirational. So with that, I'd like to say just like okay, for everyone who's been listening, please go to Baba Ali show.com leave your comments there. We want to hear them and I'll

try to respond to that in the future. If you are fans of the show, and you like it, subscribe to it on iTunes, for listening as I talk about Therefore, my guest at the show for being with us today.