Why Am I Muslim

Welcome back to the D Show. I'm with no stranger to the show. So I'll make Go Fast and Furious here in the house. People. Let me bring him up to speed. So at one point, people know Paul Walker. And you Why did you actually, if people go back and watch the show we did you actually got in a really bad car accident. Yeah, you are former Muslim turned atheist? came back to Islam. And then there was a point in your life where you actually were you watching Fast and Furious. You know, I probably did. Yeah. Probably the looking back. Yeah. You had that car accident? Yeah. And you went through the struggles that many people go through and we're still struggling to struggle this life is? You

know, that's my first question, I guess. Tell us, what do you see now you're any mom, a spiritual leader, you run the College of Islamic studies? What do you see people come in your office? What are some of the major few of the major challenges crisis is that you see young people, old people going through. The biggest thing is that crisis of faith right now. I think people don't know why they're Muslim anymore. And they're not sure if you know, if this is if this is for them, they're trying to figure out you know, many people, what they're doing, unfortunately, is they're trying to be fulfilled through religion, rather than realizing that religion or Islam is something that you're

supposed to fulfill a purpose or a mission that ally is set up for it's a test life is a test. What happens is if you feel that Islam is there to fulfill you, and you give in charity, and you help out in order to make you feel good, the moment you stop feeling good, the moment you go through some difficulty or challenge, or some problem that happened in the masjid or some Muslim friend, you know, made fun of you, whatever it is, you find the text that you can't understand, you all of a sudden start backing away, you start going away from this religion, and I feel a lot of people are going through that they're going through a lot of questions. They don't know the answers to them,

and they just start running away. And they think that there's no answers out there. There's they don't know who to talk to, you know, so that's one of the challenges that people are going through, you know, another challenge is just literally people, not people not having a good solid Islamic education. So what happens is, you know, almost everyone in my community, or the people that I see, it's very common, Muslims will generally go through university, they have to have at least a four year degree if not a master's degree. So we're talking about you know, 16 years of education, but very little religious education, their religious education is like, you learn how to read Arabic,

you learn a lift, bata, how to read the Quran, then you throw a party and you say, you this guy just learned how to read the Quran. And that's it, you've graduated, you've learned everything you need to know about Islam, and that's it. And when you go into university, you go into college, you take classes on philosophy, you take classes on psychology, you encounter all these different theories, you know, Sigmund Freud, Emmanuel, Kant, you know, Nietzsche, all these things, and it messes with your head, and it makes you start questioning things that you don't have a foundation to even come up with an Islamic answer to. So do you recommend? What do you recommend with somebody in

university? You have that philosophy class? Yeah, I mean, I'm, I'm very honest. And I'm telling people that if you don't have a solid Islamic Foundation, don't ever walk into a philosophy class, especially a philosophy class, and don't walk into any Islamic Studies class that's taught from a secular perspective, it's going to destroy your understanding of Islam, it's gonna teach you how to what they call deconstructing Islam, and looking how it evolved over time and the kind of presenting like a Christian evolution of you know, all these ideas on projecting it onto Islam, it's just going to mess with your head. And people go in and they think that you know, they're going to learn

something from this or, you know, they're, they're brave enough to, you know, challenge their philosophy professors who are hardcore atheists, or maybe agnostics. And they've been thinking about this and researching it for 30 years. You're literally You don't even know how to swim, you don't even know how to do a back float, and you're jumping into the deep end of the water. That's exactly what's happening. And I see people drown all the time. You're getting into a wrestling match with a black belt in jujitsu, that that's that's exactly what's happening. You think you're The Karate Kid and that's it, you know, you're gonna get a karate chop. That's right. Okay, so you've actually you

have overcome this, and you were an atheist. You were very well versed in atheism. Now, you went to debating atheists? Yes. You've debated many tell us how this is wrong. Yeah. So I mean, after doing a lot of research now I have, I know the arguments that they make the modern atheist then what they called the new atheist, Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, all these guys. And I know the old atheist as well, you know, Emmanuel Kant, and you know, David Hume and Kant was not an atheist, but you know, he's skeptic, David Hume and these type of Nietzsche and all that. So thing is

Debate them on a regular basis. And I realized that there's a few issues intellectually, rationally, their arguments don't really stand up. And they see that, but what's happening is I noticed in them, there's this intrinsic pessimism that they have. And it's emotional. And they come up with emotional arguments, you know? Well, you know, it gets down to they had some bad experiences in life, they went through some trauma, they had a bad experience at church with their religion, whatever it was, and you see that emotional thing coming out. And you say, Well, what happened to all that intellectual rationalism that you were talking about when they complain about, well, why are there

so many bad things happening in the world, they make it all emotional. So you're supposed to be that intelligent person. So So from a rational, intelligent perspective, they don't win any of these debates. And you can see that there's some internal psychological trauma going on there. And now I can see it very clearly. Because I deal I studied the psychology of that I deal with people regularly on a regular basis, do counseling and all that, and also deal with these intellectual arguments. So when you got these Islamic understanding in Islamic arguments for the existence of God, why religion, you know, why, why Islam, you know, came? What was their purpose in life? How do

we rationalize that? Is this clear as daylight now, I want you to tell us about the god hotspot that everyone is, has been wired as proof to this. When we come back, we're gonna go ahead and find out more about it. Don't go anywhere. We'll be right back.

Back here on the D show with Shaykh. Mustafa, tell us now, it's actually now they've done studies, that belief is something that is innate. Yes. And fighting against it is something that is acquired you have to like fight against your your, your nature that's like this guy's pot is put put in you. Is this, is this correct? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, they've done research out of the universities in in England and Oxford, they did a major study. And they found out that people are naturally inclined towards this. And the reason why it is this is the way our minds are structured, the same way that, you know, we talk about scientific proof, scientific evidence, our minds are structured to accept

that when an experiment goes one way, 99 times, and one way, the other time you say, well, we're gonna go with, we're gonna believe that it's this way, the one time must have been a mistake. 99 times the experiment was able to repeat itself. That's the scientific method. So that's why people are very strong about believing in science, the same thing when we talk about this idea of causality cause and effect that we see when we think about things and we say, well, what's the origin of this entire universe? All these planets, everything that exists? what's the what's the origin of all the complexities, our digestive system, all the systems and how they function together and everything.

It's natural, it's built within us, it's built into us that we're going to make a conclusion. So you know, what, if there is a creation, there is a creator, it didn't just pop out of nowhere, it doesn't make sense, all of a sudden, you know, you find something very complex, you say, uh, maybe you know, that iPhone that we see, maybe the wind blew it and you know, just metal pieces kind of randomly formed together somehow. So it's naturally built in, because that's the way we're designed to think. And that's what we call an Islam, the fitrah the natural disposition that God created us upon. So in order for you to go against that right to to disbelief in God and say, you know, what, I

don't believe that God exists or someone that you have to go against your innate nature. And it actually takes like a leap of faith to get to that level. There's a professor Pascal Boyer from Washington University, he talks about for our cognitive senses that disbelief, that belief is generally the path of least resistance can elaborate on that. So it's that's just not the meaning that's natural. Yeah. I mean, if you just if you think about children, you know, the same thing. One of the early scholars email, Dr. Dina Razi, he says, you know, if you take, if you take a rock, and you kind of throw it to the side, and a little child is there, he'll look around to see where did

this rock come from? This is built in, we want, we want to investigate, we want to find out what's going on. That's exactly what this professor is saying, Professor boy is saying the exact same thing. It's built within us, we have this natural desire to question things to get to the bottom of things to try to understand them. And when we do that, it automatically inclines us to believe in something which makes sense. And that's belief in God belief in God belief that there's a creator, it makes sense. So that's exactly what he's talking about. Now, you know, a lot of people get, as you say, stumped. You know, this is an intellectual this guy has his PhD, and he's coming out and

then one argument, they say, well, like you had brought up Do you believe in two fairies Santa Claus? And you know, of course not. Of course not. Then they put the creator in that same category. How do you go ahead and refute that? See, the thing is, it's it's a it's a deceptive argument, because you know what, there are people who believe in strange things that don't have any basis. So just because

There are people who believe in that. And they may also believe in God, you don't throw the baby out with the bathwater, as they say, right. So yeah, there are there are, there are a lot of false religions out there doesn't mean that all religions are wrong, because the ones that you happen to come across were wrong, right? So this is not the way that we function. You know, if someone has some bad qualities in them, it doesn't mean that they're all bad. And if someone has some good qualities in them, it doesn't mean that they're all good, right? So this is not the way we make judgments. So this is what people do is they start going into, they start making fun. And they say,

you know what, see this guy, they believe in this, they believe in that they're all tricked and confused. So you have to differentiate between what are good rational beliefs that people hold, and what are bad ones. So if you encounter a believer, for example, someone who believes in God, but then believes that if you break a mirror, you get seven years of bad luck. It doesn't mean that all of a sudden, because he believes an idea about bad luck, which doesn't really have much basis, all of a sudden, because of that belief, his belief in God must also be incorrect. See, we don't judge the truth, based upon what people believe this was a statement of a well known Muslim, his name was

Ali, he was a fourth caniff in Islam. He said don't know the truth based upon what people are saying, know the truth yourself. And then you're going to know the people who follow that truth. And I think there's a lot to that. And what what many atheists do is, they try to focus and make fun of people they have, you know, movies, making fun of look at how funny these Christian preachers are, and they're doing weird things and all of that stuff. That doesn't negate the fact that belief in God is something rational. It's something that you can you can, you know, be convinced of it, it makes sense, to the average human mind. You can't lump everything together, and just cause that to

confuse people. Now, the confuse the Spectre skeptic also, now, because maybe they don't have that solid foundation, you can usually, as you grow in knowledge, your mind grows, you can see through a lot of this deception that's out there. But maybe someone now is confused, because all they see nowadays, and it seems like the media is it's it's a it's magic, right? You you you get sucked in and you start to believe some of the things out there, maybe you're Muslim also. And you think, how could this Islam be the truth that my parents are pushing on me when all it is associated with violence? ISIS all day and night? No oppression of women? What do you say? Yeah, I mean, the first

thing, people need to judge Islam, not based upon what they see in the media, first of all, I mean, they need to understand that the media has an agenda. It's a it's a for profit industry, they have an agenda. And what they're going to report is has to be sensational news. So that's the first thing whenever we see something in the media, we should be very skeptical. And we should say, Wait, wait a minute, do they have some agenda behind why they're promoting something like that? And then the second thing is, you know, when you're a little bit skeptical, it's good to be a little bit skeptical on these things. Say, I want to find out the truth. So how do you find out the truth? You

go to the sources, or you go to people who know the sources and you say, Hey, why don't you answer you know, I saw that there was mistreatment of women going on in such and such country. Is that representative of the religion of Islam? Go and ask a scholar, and he'll tell you and explain to you what is Islam really say about women go and check the Quran and see what it talks about women. There's an entire chapter, you know, label chapter number four is about women's titled women. So if you look at what what status, Islam is actually given to women, and you look at some of these practices that people are doing, you'll find that they're actually antithetical, they're actually in

contradiction with the real teachings of Islam, you find out that Islam is the solution to these problems. There are Muslims who will do bad things the same way there are there are Christians there are Buddhists or Hindus and there are atheists that do very bad things. We don't judge people's religion based upon what people are doing. You judge people's religion based upon that religion itself. So you do you apply the same standards to the religion of Islam, you learn about Islam, you read about Islam, you read the Quran, you read the other texts on Islam, you'll learn what Islam says. And then you can judge whether that those Muslims that you see on TV, or whoever else you see

if they're in line with the teachings of religion or religion of Islam or not, we're gonna be right back willin with the not the million dollar question, the billion dollar question here on the D show, don't go anywhere.

Back here on the D show, thank you for tuning in. Again, if you haven't subscribed, subscribe right now. So you get the next show delivered directly to you. I said the not the million dollar question, but this is the billion dollar question that every human being should be asking themselves. I mean, we're functioning in this earth we live, you know, newborn child's are coming in old people, young people are leaving, but people are just engrossed in accumulating more wealth, more money, you know, live in the party and die YOLO you only live once but they're forgetting

The billion dollar question

Why am I here? What's the purpose? Yeah. And I've asked many people, have you ever asked yourself this question? And I just get astonished that, you know to. Now, it's not a surprise anymore. But in the beginning, it was people don't ask that simple question. Yeah, I think that people have probably asked it when they were young at some point in time, but they just kind of covered it up, they couldn't find an answer to it quickly. You know, we want everything quick, fast food, fast food, fast, instant coffee, everything's just got to be done quickly. So everyone they think about that question. You know, most people think about it, and then they just dismiss it. I didn't come up with

a quick answer. I talked to my friend and you know, someone just came up with something weird. He said, okay, whatever, you know, the thing is, we had to ask the ultimate question, you know, many people are redefining this idea of the purpose of life. It's not just what you want to do in life. It's not your career there. It's being filled with what your career is, with what this is, there's an ultimate purpose in life. And that purpose in life is that we're here to worship God to adjust our lives in according to the guidance that God has given us. Now someone says, Look, I gotta work. I got to provide for my family. I got to go play some ball. What are you talking about? Do you want

me to be stuck in a in a mosque all day worshiping? What do you actually mean? Exactly. So worship needs to be defined clearly worship in Islam, doesn't mean that you're engaged in prayer all the time, it doesn't mean that you give up your job, you quit your job, and you become a monk and you sit in a cave somewhere. And you know, you're just remembering God all the time. Worship in Islam basically means that you're adjusting your lifestyle in your life, according to the way that God wanted it. So God knew he made this world where you got to work, you got to spend time with your family, you got to socialize, you got to do all these things. But when you're doing them, you're

doing it in a moral way, in a way that's righteous in line with the teachings that God actually wanted us to apply. So we're not going to steal, we're not going to cheat. We're not going to you know, abuse our family, we're not going to back by and talk bad about other people. We're not going to gossip, these type of things, is what we call worship in Islam. It's a holistic program for how we live our life in every single thing that we do, knowing that God is watching, and that we will be held accountable. You know, after this life in terms of what we did in this life, that kind of goes opposite. Let's say you're an atheist. I mean, there's some good people who call themselves

humanists. I mean, because it's part of also that nature to be good to be, then you get corrupted you you read a book like Machiavelli, and, and now you, you want more money. And so now you're promoting or learning to lie, deceive, and we see a lot of that whatever benefits you Yeah, that's become this selfish individualism is becoming very, very common. And even people who initially they say, No, no, I'm gonna follow good values. It's very tempting. And there's nothing to keep you in check. If all of a sudden you know, someone puts $100 bill in front of you. You say, you know, would you would you take that no one else is watching. You don't believe anyone's watching. You don't

believe anyone's gonna hold you accountable? You think you're going to get away with it? is tempting. And you say no, no, I can resist, make it $1,000 make it $10,000 starts to get more and more tempting, right? What's going to hold you back from doing that, if you don't actually have something, if you don't have a purpose in life, where it's going to help keep you in check and make you realize that you're gonna have to stand in front of Gods one day, and you're gonna have to account for everything that you've done in this life, including that money that you took, or including that lie that you told you'll be so surprised people used to play a game called what would

you do for a million? And everything just went all morals and everything just went out the window? people selling their soul? they'll sell their mothers? That's it? Yeah. Life is? What will your on that that foundation of connection of purpose with your Creator, your living purpose? Would you say that now these things you're, you're less likely to get tempted by these seeing? Absolutely. As long as you keep it in mind, you know, the more conscious you are of God. And the more conscious you are of your purpose in life, you always remember that you know what, you know, you learn to restrain yourself. And you learn to remember that not only you're going to be held accountable, but you

develop things you know, we fast as Muslims, we fast in Ramadan, we learn that level of self control. So when you give up some food for a while, you'll give up water in the summer, it's hot, you're thirsty, you want some water, when you remember, I gave up water when I could have drank water, right? You learn a different level of self discipline, I can give up line, I can give up stealing, I can give up GD and give up these other things. If I learned to give up something where I had to struggle against myself. So there are these spiritual practices which make us stronger, stronger believers. And also we're able to resist our own desires and temptations that come our way.

If someone saw the person I was always saying, okay, what's the purpose of life is to have a family what's the purpose of life is to help people is to help the poor to feed the poor, was the purpose of life to win the Nobel Peace Prize? How do these all fit in? The thing is we people need to zoom out

So this these are, these are some good things sometimes, you know, helping you, you know, helping poor people fighting for, you know, social justice, these are good things, you know. But this is not an entire system or program of why we were created in the first place. And this be a means this can be a means this, this can be one of the many means that we have, but what we need to realize is that there's a predefined purpose of our existence in terms of why we came here. There's a reason God created us here for a reason, we need to figure out what is that reason? And the only way we can know that we can't just sit and close our eyes and sit in a cave and contemplate I'll try and figure

out you know, why we're here in the first place. The only way to know that is if God were, you know, communicated to us and that's why we got to read the revelation. We got to see you know, what, God telling us Why did he create us? And what are we supposed to be doing here? So that's all part of it. Charity donation, helping people the golden rule reciprocating being nice to people, that's all good, that's part of it. But it's not all of it. So you got to zoom out and you got to see how all of that fits together. And that's what the message of Islam is where's a good place you know, there's the the few things are usually desires blocks a person desires, you know, the inherited

beliefs from and then the culture.

But you talk about right now, deep reflection contemplating How can you before we leave motivate someone? Where's a good place to start and how to put these things because, you know, Johnny and Sally did two Friday's coming up. And, you know, she's got VIP access. He's getting back to the club. this other person, you know, same thing. He's hitting the pub, and now they tune in and but where where before they go back some motivation to get them. I like to mention def a lot. Yeah, I would definitely reflect upon death, you know, that more people think about that death is something certain, something that regardless of what religion, you you follow, wherever you're coming from, to

think about the fact everyone believes that they're going to die, even those people who think that you know, they can freeze their body and maybe someday science will bring them back or whatever, reflect on death. And think about, you know, what, what's going to happen after death, you take it more seriously. And you start to reflect, you know what, I want to know what happens afterwards, I should go and check out a book on Islam, I should go check out the Quran, see what it says in terms of what's going to happen after death, how we're going to be responsible in this life. And that starts to wake you up. There's no coming back. Some people deceive like, okay, God can just tell me

if there is that when I die. Like

what was that all about? saying go back and correct my mistakes that that'll defeat the purpose of the test? Yeah, so it's the same thing if a teacher gives you a test, and all of a sudden you make all these mistakes, and you turn it in, and all of a sudden say, you know what, we're gonna we're gonna go ahead and give it back to you with all the right answers. Now you go ahead and fill it in. What's the point of the test? There's no point so we get what we get one shot one shot at this last shot right now is that that's it, it's done and you don't know when the test is going to be over. So if you're thinking about delaying if you're thinking about you know, I'll think about this tomorrow,

you know, I gotta, I gotta I got a movie to go watch, I got I got a coffee to go drink. I got to go hang out with my friends. You know, you can do all those things could just cut it down. Take a little bit of time before you go to sleep every night. Read 30 minutes, reflect, contemplate, think about these things. Take life a little bit more, asking the Creator, ask the Creator, ask the creator just say, pray for guidance. So you know what, God show me the right path. And if you're sincere and you're willing to put a little bit effort into it, he'll help you and he'll guide you tell us you're the Dean of the College of Islamic Studies yellow so if people want to go ahead and

start some classes with you, yes, the College of Islamic Studies is a full, comprehensive Islamic curriculum Islamic education program. We have our website, college islam.com, where we offer 18 different courses, which gives you a good balanced, relevant, contemporary understanding of the religion of Islam. You can take courses on site and you can take courses online, you can register at any time and you can start those classes and benefit yourself. We started with page one with peace of mind