Overwhelmed With Attacks On Islam

			greetings of peace and Salaam Alaikum. How you guys doing? I'm with an old friend, someone who get a
chance to catch up with Chef. Guess who saw to sleep? How are you now in a coma? sound like I'm
good? I'm good. How are you? Long time? No See, it's good to finally catch up with you again. It's
always a pleasure to run into old friends, new friends and continuing the work. You know, you're
doing some wonderful work out there. And we wanted to kind of go over some because you actually we
talked about your journey, the last program, I think it was actually had your brother on the show,
too. So you're somebody who can relate to the climate, the current climate, the old climate, all
		

			this, all the things that are going on you came from if you haven't saw the show that I did with
him, it was from punk rock, to Islam summary of that real quick. And you can see I will put it down
in the description to actually watch that show. But in summarizing what what was the uniqueness of
your story, punk rock to Islam, no, it's gotten a lot of attention. It really is just about, you
know, the purpose of my life and finding purpose in my life. And
		

			music was a big part of my life. So it kind of is it is a transition from music being everything, to
really looking for spirituality and meaning beyond just the day to day or just, you know, trying to
have just trying to increase more fun. I mean, a lot of people live their life in that way where
their purpose of life and I know it sounds shallow, um, people won't really admit that. But a lot of
times our life just becomes about
		

			trying to maximize fun, you know, and that's it. And then what happens when you reach the end of
your life? What is that life in about? So that was really my journey, which I think I'm still on
this journey. And I think all Muslims were on this continuous journey, to get closer to a lot to our
Creator. And to really live for that higher purpose. I had a brother who reached out not too long
ago. And that's going to lead into my next question. He was someone who accepted Islam and Hispanic
brother. And he said, Eddie, he said, when I was hanging out with the brothers with you guys, I was
on a different level. I kind of drifted off. He turned towards drugs, he went away from the dean.
		

			And how, what kind of advice I mean, one thing is getting burnt out. Yeah, see, and then you can see
the ramifications of what happens. On one end, you're practicing the dean. And you're on a different
level, you we all got ups and downs, it happens as life. But then we see what happens, things don't
get better when you start going away from the creator from a law things as in this example, things
just get hardware. So how can you prevent something like that happening from a get burnout? And at
the same time, when you start getting tempted? She comes like, come over here? It's like the grass
is greener on the other side? And then you go, and sometimes you don't come back. Yeah, look, I
		

			mean, that's a that's a common issue, right? I'm glad you brought it up. Because people don't really
talk about this, you know, the whole burnout effect where, you know, when a person first accepted,
when they first start practicing this them, what happens is, there's a rush of email, right, or
somebody who's been living their life away from their fifth, our fifth is our natural inclination,
towards goodness and towards spirituality towards the law. And then, you know, you live a whole life
like that. And then finally, you take your Shahada, you, you, you know, you, you submit to a lot and
it feels amazing, because now your soul is finally clicks in. And we're flooded with emotion, which
		

			is great. And then that knows those beginning days and months, you know, we need that rush of
emotion, to deal with all the changes that we're going through. But the problem is, when you know,
we're doing everything 110%. And we look at, you know, sometimes there's this notion of, you know,
we look at different issues, and we always, we just automatically feel that maybe the most difficult
opinion has to be the most correct. And when we do that, and we do that for a while, and we just,
that's, that's it and our life just becomes, you know, that one track, and we don't find that we
don't lead a balanced life, it can become too much for us. And then as you said, you know, the
		

			chiffon doesn't take you from there to Hey, let's find some balance. The chiffon takes you from
there to, Oh, you know what? It may be this whole thing is wrong. Maybe this whole religion thing is
not for you. Maybe this whole Islam thing is not for you, and actually interesting enough, and I'm
able to have it locked out. I actually talked about this phenomenon. He talked about how the ship
pawn he's happy in two scenarios. When luck command something the shift button will take one of two
stances either excessiveness going too far.
		

			doing too much because he knows that he's in a burnout is gonna be too much. But when that burnout
happens the Shabbat other thing he will pull towards if not excessiveness, it's negligence, right,
and shortcoming. So that's why that's that's the poll. So initially, there's a pull up, you know
what, just go out, just do, just do everything, you know, as much as you can. And there's nothing
other than that, that's all our life is about. And then the next poll is, Oh, you know what, you're
not finding that satisfaction, you're not finding that piece. And then we go to the other end, which
is leaving it all together. And the problem is this, almost parity, Allah has created us with meats.
		

			Our biggest and most important need is our spiritual need, right, the need to worship a lot, they
need to be spiritual beings. But it doesn't mean that we don't have other needs. For example, we
have the need to be social beings, we have the need. And a lot of you know, religious people don't
like this, to hear this, but we have the need to have fun and to relax, to rest to have a good time.
Right. But within obviously, the parameters of Islam, but if we completely cut out that need, and we
don't make time for that, then we're not fulfilling that need. And anytime you don't fulfill a need,
eventually, the neffs begins to feel it, just like you know, our spiritual needs, if we never
		

			fulfilled them, we're just living dunya, dunya, dunya, dunya dunya, that's it. Then I mentioned our
souls gonna be like, something's wrong, we need to fulfill that need. Likewise, if our life becomes
only about, Hey, I just gotta worship and this not like, that's it, and there's no room for the
dunya, then Ernest feels that as well. And that's why the person sending them in is Sunday, we find
examples of this. We know those three, three people who came to send them came to his house came to
ask about his worship. And, you know, they ask, is nearby unnecessarily allotted? And who is the
companion who would you know, serve? I said, he knew her son's life inside out. So they asked him
		

			about his worship. And these three guys they honest, is like, you know, they weren't really
impressed by the person who said no, a lot. So one of them, he says, you know, okay, well, you know,
per centum, he's had his past and future sins forgiven. We're not at that level. So we need to do
more, right is what they're trying to say. So one of them, he says, I am going to fast every single
day. Another one, he says, I am going to pray the whole night, another person who says I'm never
going to get married. Right? Another person hears about this, and he calls them back. And he says,
Did you make these statements? And they said, Yes, he says, will lie in Neela. Shockingly, no, at
		

			midnight says, I swear by a lot. I have the most piety amongst all of you. But I'm your example. Yet
I fast. And I don't fast. I don't fast every single day. And I pray and I sleep and I get married.
Right? So here and then he said, Bradley Benson Latif Elisa made me the one who goes outside of my
son that seeks something beyond my son, and they're not from me. I mean, you can take a look at all
these issues, and be like, Hey, what's wrong? And we hear people say, what's wrong with fasting?
What's wrong with praying? Right. But the issue is, when it goes into an extreme, that goes outside
of the some of the pressure setting them, it goes into that, that takes us beyond what Allah knows,
		

			is best for us. And that's why our spirituality begins and ends with what the President has taught
us. You know, sometimes people seek spirituality outside of the some of them are similar. They want
to do things the President didn't do. And then they're like, you know, it's good, though. Right? I
know that I'm didn't do it like this, or you didn't do this, but I'm not doing something which is
bad. Well, the problem is one of the dangers is that when we go outside of the center of our center,
we can get to a place where we go into an extreme we can overwhelm ourselves. And like I said, from
that point, the chiffons not like, Hey, calm down, calm down a little bit. He's like, I just leave
		

			it all together. Right? And that's, that's really, so I'm really glad you brought this up. That's,
that's the danger. So it is important that we balance our lives. And we find that balance and that
balance, you said, How can we deal with that? Well, one of the most important things is knowledge.
		

			educating ourselves, when we understand the sun and other practices, and then we understand how he
led his life, we begin to see what a balanced life looked like. Did the person have fun and joke and
laugh? Yes. Did he?
		

			How was he with his family? Did he have rest and relaxation time with his family and all of that as
part of the similar his behavior? How does his character was with people? You know, how did he deal
with people who are overtly are overly sinful? Was he on their case in like,
		

			No, we have beautiful examples. We have that one one guy young person comes across and he says, Oh
messenger of a lot make it head on. For me to commit Zina to have * outside of marriage. Right? If
it was one of us, we would have seen them but like stuck with me Get out of my face. You're asking
me to to say that it's okay to commit Zina have * outside of marriage
		

			versus them do. He spoke to him with the best of character? And he said, Would you like that? Would
you like that somebody commits in every one of your female relatives? And this young man and he
says, No, I wouldn't like that. I don't want to want to want somebody to come and say no and my one
of my female relatives, he said, he said, likewise, when you commit to end up committing Zina with
someone's relative, that's a human being. Right? That's it. That's it, that That woman is is, you
know, related to somebody. And so now he understands. Right, so first that I spoke to him on his
level with this beautiful character. That's where we find this balance, we find that balance in the
		

			life of our send them and that comes with educating ourselves and keeping a balance, as he was
talking about so important. And we see what happens when you go away. On a submission to the
Creator, not the creation, Islam start to drift off, hold on, hold tight, don't get burnt out, keep
a healthy balance, tell us. And by the way, if you didn't know you first time, listening to our
brother, he went from punk rock to Islam to Medina.
		

			And he started studying learning this Deen and now he's out there helping to share this message as
much as a piece piece apart by submission to the will of God live in purpose, sharing purpose. But
then there's out there, look, there's people, you know, when you're not getting powered by this
deem, you're getting powered by everything else, you think, superficial, materialistic, and then
you're Muslim by name, right? You get emotional, like, when the balloon is filled up with hot air,
you just, you don't know how to intellectually tackle many of these things. And you're on social
media. And then you see someone that you really admired. For example, famous game show host, there's
		

			people like this, you ignore a lot of the trolls, but then someone who has a big following, for
instance, says something like what I'm going to repeat, maybe has really or has never walked into a
mosque sat with a Muslim. So we have a great opportunity now for you to go ahead and communicate a
message to this person, but also how should you deal with this? Because you see a lot of Muslims not
cursing, swearing, acting opposite to the, to the Sunnah, and the the way of good character and
manners. So when you see game show host, Chuck Woolery.
		

			And then someone like this offending over 1.6 billion Muslims in a statement, if you don't, by
saying if you don't know Islam is evil, then you don't know history and you refuse to reason I'm not
saying every Muslim is evil, different. How would you What message would you have to him? And what
advice would you have for Muslims who are really hurt by hearing something like this handle? I'm
really glad you brought this up. Look, I I completely understand when we hear these types of things.
And famous people are well known people. Sometimes evil slams back. And we hear for example,
somebody on Fox News ranting about how Islam is the root of terrorism and all this kind of stuff.
		

			It's easy to start to feel overwhelmed. It's easy to feel like you know what, I just can't make a
difference. You know what, no matter what I say, you know, this is how people are going to view
Islam. And you know, what voice do I have? You know, when somebody on TV is saying there's somebody
famous comes out, and shows like this, this either hatred for Islam or, or shows this incorrect
representation of Islam, it's easy to want to lose hope. And by the way, losing hope, is one of the
goals of the show has been for us, He wants us to lose hope. He wants us to be like, you know what,
we can't do anything. You know, it's just that we cannot, there's nothing we can do. But remember
		

			kind of law that in the end of the day, the law is the one who protects this theme. Allah is the one
who preserves this theme. No matter what people say, in the end of the day, a lot is in charge. A
lot is in control, no matter what people say. That's number one. Number two, look, the most powerful
thing out there more powerful than someone famous saying something, something being said on Fox
News, even you know, President like Donald Trump saying something more powerful than that
		

			is you and your connection with a real human being.
		

			So when we sit and talk to somebody they can have and I've been in situations like this speaking to
someone who has all of the misconceptions, all of the stereotypes about snap, you know, they think
it's not an evil and this and that, and terrorism and all love long list of things. But when you sit
down with this person, and you communicate with them, and they see what a Muslim looks like, and
they hear what a Muslim believes from the mouth of a Muslim, that is more powerful than anything
that happens on TV or in social media and all of that, and that's why that's our job these days.
That's what we focus
		

			Son is speaking to our neighbors or co workers, people in school. I'm not saying Hey, you got to
preach to everybody. That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying is, talk to them. Let them see what a
what a Muslim looks like, and what our what our beliefs and what we really believe. And I believe I
honestly believe that once we once a once someone like that actually meets a real Muslim and they
start spending time with Muslims, all this other stuff will matter. And we need to have that
confidence number one in Islam, and number two in our own selves as representatives of Islam now, if
famous game show host Chuck Woolery, he was like enemy. Let me sit with these guy I want to sit he
		

			he was like, I want to meet some of these these Muslims who have been talking to me from the deen
show. Would you be willing? And what message would you have directly to chuck? Okay, first of all,
if you said What message do I have for Chuck?
		

			If he's hearing this, I would say go speak to a real Muslim. And ask them and speak to them about
what their beliefs are. And that would be my message to him. If I'm speaking to everybody else, I
would say
		

			once again, it is important to connect with him on a real level as a human being. It's easy to get
emotional. It's easy to be to get aggressive with somebody who's aggressive with you almost purity,
Allah says indefatigability here
		

			repel evil with that, which is better. Right? Someone curses this out, it's easy to curse them out.
Someone says, oh, sounds evil, it's easy to turn around and say no, you're a bigot. You're this
you're that you're a racist. You don't know anything. You're just, you know, to have this view that
that they are evil. We as Muslims, we don't look at the we don't look at life. In this black and
white way. You're either evil or good. And that's it. Everyone's defined in their role. And that's
it, no one can change how many people? How many people do you know who went from hating Islam, to
not only liking Islam, to becoming Muslim?
		

			If that's not approved, and I don't know what it is, and we don't we don't look at anyone and say,
Oh, this person is that's it, they are enemies. We look at this person and we say this person needs
to be educated. They need to hear about the beauty of Islam. hamdulillah we're coming to a close, I
got one more thing I want to touch upon. You've been talking a lot about the soul. So we touched
upon it, behind the scenes, we can bring it to fruition now. Tell me, you know that there's there
is, you know, the Prophet peace and blessings be upon the last and final message sent to mankind.
Who I always say is the brother of Jesus, Moses, Abraham, they all brought that same message of
		

			Islam submission to the Creator, not the creation. He said I have not been sent accepted to perfect
good manners character. Sometimes we'll see you know, there's the uniform of Islam, modesty
mimicking the best of women, Jesus's mother, Mary. And sometimes you'll see people who are not in
accordance with the dress code, or some people that are but then their character is not in line with
with it, or some people that are but then you know, you have someone who will wear the, the the
veil, but everything else, you know, is the jeans showing and whatnot. So how do you strike a
balance there you actually touch upon this many people do you just don't know if and people have
		

			that sincere of heart, they're open. They want to it's all about changing, making progress climbing
the spiritual ladder. So I believe these are the kind of things that you touch upon in your classes.
What advice do you have for new Muslims? They're there, you know, maybe she went from really tawdry
dress, maybe he's always wearing the baby gaff shirt. Everything is showing on him too, right? But
it's a complete package with Islam. But then there's some people stuck. They've been like 1015
years. They're like, it's all in my art. Right. hamdulillah? Great question. And I'd say this is a
great question. Because I'm actually gonna, I'm teaching a class on this whole topic and the topic
		

			of clothing and culture. And once again, you know, when we're talking about extremism going all out
or nothing, and unfortunately, when it comes to our clothing and our dress, sometimes we take that
approach as well. There's those people who say, it doesn't matter what you were, right, whatever the
culture says, you were you were, you know, that's one extreme. The other extreme is no, you got to
wear this exact clothing. You got to wear a thug, for example, right? They look at you, brother,
Eddie, did you like he's wearing a tie? He's wearing a suit that's not Muslim clothing. Right. And
that's the other extreme is snom gives us general guidelines, protecting our modesty covering our
		

			our dressing in a dignified way. But the exact thing
		

			What you have to wear, Islam does say go back to your culture as long as it fulfills those
conditions. So it's important. And once again, it's about education. It's about learning about what
Islam tells us about our dress and coding. What does it mean to dress in a dignified way? What does
that mean? So, once again, it's easy to get caught up in one or the other, like you said, there's
people who are like, oh, All that matters is what's in the heart. You know, if I said, I'm said that
in the body, there's a morsel of flesh, if it is sound, the rest of the body will be sound as well.
And he said, most certainly, that is the heart. And he said, visitor ruin, the rest of the body will
		

			be ruined as well. So in the end of the day, our exterior is a reflection of our interior. So if the
heart is trying to purify itself, we should try to purify our exterior as well. We should try and
dress in the way as we said, which is islamically, the most dignified, right? And it's not one or
the other. It's not just the heart, just the outside, we are in a constant struggle as Muslims to
purify our hearts and purify our exterior as well. That's why look, even our worship, our worship
isn't perfect. Does that mean we leave it all together? No, we try our best. And we continue to try,
we continue to struggle, we continue to try to be better and closer to a lot in our hearts and our
		

			exterior, whether it's our dress, whether it's our behavior, whether it's our worship, a lot didn't
make us perfect beings, we're all
		

			struggling. The point is that we keep struggling. The point is that we keep submitting, submitting
is not a one time deal. And uh, you know, this submitting is a daily action. It's a hourly action,
it's a moment to moment action that we submit, right? And the Shantanu will come to you and tell
you, hey, what's the point you're not perfect? What's the point you don't fit this category of that
code category. And it's easy to want to give up to lose hope. But what matters is that we that we
keep striving and keep struggling, keep educating ourselves and acting upon that knowledge and ask
the last kind of tiada to give us all the strength to persevere, and to continue and to live this
		

			life of submission to almost pantheon of bringing us peace in our hearts and our in our in our
lifestyle as well. Jesus did it Moses did it Abraham did it last and final messenger did it. Live
this beautiful way of life direct connection with the Creator of the heavens and earth Islam? Tell
us how can people hook up with you get in touch with you? You got a website? You got a Twitter? What
do you got so people can connect with you? And maybe Chuck Chuck can also connect. Hey, look, I'll
make it easy for you. Any social media site you can think of? I'm on it. I believe most media so I'm
on Facebook, I'm on Twitter, I'm on Instagram, I'm on Snapchat.
		

			Just look for sod to sleep sad ta s e m on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat. You can connect
with me on there inshallah and I look forward to hearing from you actually so if you're online tweet
at me and you know if your Instagram whatever I look forward to hearing from you. Thank you very
much it's always an honor was a pleasure. Thank you for being with us here on the theme show
responsibly. use it responsibly the social media tools every week Fridays we release a new show God
want to inshallah connect with us subscribe if you haven't already. Chuck get with us. The message
is coming to you. It's out of love Chuck. We got love for you and all of mankind Islam. Islam says
		

			love all of mankind. That's why we're delivering this message this message of peace peace apart by
submission to God I'll see you next time inshallah. Until then, peace building Islamic