Jeffrey Lang – Communicating Islam to Non Muslims Why and How 210
AI: Summary ©
The speakers stress the importance of expressing one's religion and balancing faith in order to communicate with others. They stress the importance of trusting one's beliefs and being an authentic Christian. The speakers also emphasize the importance of being an authentic Christian, such as giving, and the importance of being an authentic Christian, including da Christie. It is important to convey the message clearly and truthfully, and to be an authentic Christian, even if people may be hesitant.
AI: Summary ©
At the University of San Francisco.
I had a few I've been reading about
Islam. I've read about a number of religions
in the past and I've been recently reading
about Islam
for a few months and I decided to
go down and talk to them and answer
a few questions or have a few questions
answered.
Some curiosity.
I went down and spoke to the 3
students there for about
15 maybe 20 minutes
and then began preparing to leave.
And to return to my normal everyday
San Franciscan,
that that might sound like a contradiction,
but normal everyday San Franciscan life.
And,
as I was about to leave,
the young student, the imam of the masjid,
asked me, and
and, doctor, do you have any last questions?
I told him no. Thank you very much
for your time. I really appreciate it. And
then I did think of something. So I
said to him, oh,
I do have one
question. Could you tell me what it feels
like to be a Muslim?
I mean, could you describe your
relationship to God? How do you see God?
How does he see you? How do you
see your relationship to God?
Just tell me what it feels like.
So he didn't answer me immediately.
He just kind of lowered his head,
lowered his eyes,
looked like he was muttering something. I assumed
it was
some sort of supplication.
And then with his eyes still closed he
started to just sort of wag his head
from left to right. I don't know why.
But then he suddenly just sort
of blurted out something to me that seemed
more like a call or a prayer than
a part of an answer and he just
suddenly said
a lot
And he exhaled a deep breath and said,
it's so great.
And there is nothing that compares to him,
he said.
In comparison to him, we human beings are
less than a single grain of sand.
And as he spoke, he took
a non existent speck of sand, pressed it
between his two fingers and lowered it to
the floor we were sitting on, parting his
fingers and revealed nothing.
And he said and yet
Allah loves us more than a mother loves
her baby child.
He says and nothing happens
but by the will of Allah.
He said that when we take a breath
it is by the will of Allah. And
when we breathe out,
it is by the will of Allah.
He said, don't we each go to take
a step
and lift that foot off the ground.
That would never take place
except
that Allah allows it. And we would never
bring the foot back to the ground
unless he was overseeing every instant.
And he said, when the tiniest leaf falls
from a tree and twists and turns on
its journey to the ground,
no segment of that journey would take place
except by Allah's command.
And with his eyes still
merely closed, he said, when we pray
and put our nose to the ground,
we feel the peace
and rest
that's outside this world
and he shook his head and he said
you just have to experience it to know.
Well,
he got through with his ex explanation and
when I looked at him he looked clearly
disappointed in himself.
The other 2 brothers there were looking at
him with a curious look on his face.
Clearly they felt that the answer was not
what I needed. They knew that from the
preliminary conversation that I was a math professor
at the university.
People have this myth about math professors that
they're very logical, they think very coherently, they
have every single order.
And that such a spontaneous
sort of emotional response
certainly wouldn't have appealed
to anyone.
And I'm all the more sure that that
must have been their feeling because
a few seconds later when I asked them
how do you become a Muslim
and then became 1 and the next breath
they were completely shot.
But the the point I'm trying to make
is is that it's very difficult to talk
about strategies
of presenting Islam to others.
I think
sometimes we strategize too much.
Sometimes
it's a single word or or a sentence
that you never thought
would be a someone would be able to
relate to that grabs another person's heart.
Sometimes I think ultimately we just have to
trust that if we say what we believe
and feel and present it sincerely, honestly, and
openly,
that somehow
if Allah wants to use us to reach
the other person, to communicate,
we have to somehow leave that sometimes in
his hands. I'm not saying we should do
it irresponsibly or unthinkingly,
but we have to be sincere and open
and honest.
Because for the first 15 minutes that day
I thought I was a victim of strategies.
But when I asked him to just tell
me how it felt to him to be
a Muslim,
I felt that I was being presented something
real.
And that was always my complaint when I
sat in the audiences listening to Muslim speakers
or any religious speakers.
They weren't really telling what the religion is.
You know, they'll tell you about the dogmas
and the fundamental beliefs and the pillars and
Islamic law and science and the Quran.
But I would always sit there and think,
what does that have to do with me?
You know, I wanna know what Islam is.
How does it live in your life? How
does it shape your existence? Why does it
give you peace if it does give you
peace at all? How does it give you
peace as opposed to other religions? What kind
of peace are you talking about?
You're saying Islam is the religion of peace.
What peace? You mean you're just not gonna
fight wars?
What kind of peace are you talking about?
Now it says in the Quran
that Allah never sends a messenger to a
community
except in that community's language
and one from among themselves.
It's a natural enough statement.
Many people would say it's not deeply profound.
But if you think about it,
it underlines a very important point.
We think about what a language is. A
language is much more than a system of
verbal symbols by which we relate information back
and forth.
A language
is very much a,
cultural
vehicle. It carries people's
past. It carries their experiences, their fears, their
hopes, their dreams. If you study the English
vocabulary, you can read into it many of
their experiences, many of their hopes, many of
their aspirations by the words that appear most
frequently.
2 native speakers
discussing something with each other could convey more
information oftentimes in a couple of sentence sentences
than a native speaker with an expert
who understands his language in an expert fashion,
grammatically and etcetera, vocabulary,
but who hasn't lived the language as he
has. It might take 2 pages or an
entire book before they can relate to each
other on the same level.
And the same goes with that's reinforced by
the fact that Allah sends sends the messenger
from the people themselves.
Well, we're all living right now in the
United States of America, most of us for
some good time. We've mastered the language. We've
lived to some extent in the culture. But
we Muslims have a tendency to be quite
isolationist at least to some degree, especially when
it comes to our religion.
And I feel that we really don't understand
the audience we're trying to reach.
But how do you come to know your
audience?
Well,
the Quran suggests communication.
Now communication is more than lecturing at somebody.
It's more than complete having this agenda
information you're going to send,
explain to someone.
Communication is a give and take. There's 2
ways to it. 1 is
conveying your information. The other one is listening
and really listening.
Because the more you know your audience the
more you can avoid
falling into certain barriers and pitfalls.
I find most of the time when people
of different religions
discuss with one another, they oftentimes end up
fighting about things they really agree on
and agreeing about things they really don't agree
on.
And we most of them seem to do
that quite a bit when we discuss our
religion with Christians.
We'll end up fighting for a half hour,
45 minutes on a point and then we
suddenly realize we're very close on those two
points.
Sometimes we'll agree on a matter and we'll
actually be very far apart and we'll use
the words as if they mean the same
to both of us.
How do you come to know a community?
Well, through communication and I mean, one of
the best ways, and this is one of
the ways I learned about other religions when
I was an atheist because I was always
fascinated by the subject.
A lot of people working in theology departments
in the United States are atheists.
But one of the ways I learned was
I would sit with a person
trying to ask them about their religion, discuss
it with them. They'd sometimes be very defensive.
I'd tell them, relax. I'm not here to
judge you. I'm not here to convert. I
just wanna know.
And then as they began to explain things
to me I wouldn't attack them.
I would try to make sure I understood
what they were saying correctly.
When you said this, did you mean this?
Would you word it this way? If I
explained it like this, would you agree with
it?
Then they would say no. No. That's not
what I mean. I would word it more
like this. And through this give and take,
I would get myself to the stage where
I felt if I wrote a short article
about that person's religion and he edited
it, he would say, Okay. Okay. That's fine.
I agree with it. That was the level
of knowledge I wanted to achieve
so that when I communicated with people of
the Hindu faith or the Muslim faith or
the Buddhist faith that I wouldn't waste my
time
stumbling over false notions
so I can get right to the heart
of the math.
Another
method, equally essential, I believe,
is to read. To read what the scholars
of that religion have to say.
Or read what the atheists have to say.
Or read what the secularists have to say.
But read what their point of view is.
Because if you talk to the man on
the street, oftentimes he's not an expert. He
has contradictory notions. He disagrees with the fellow
next to him. It's very hard. I found
this especially difficult when talking to Muslims to
find out what the heart of the matter
is. But oftentimes if you read what the
scholars write,
it gives you some foundation to work on.
And then you could try to see
how their ideas are communicated in the lives
of the individual believers that you're dealing with
daily.
If you do
come to understand
what Western scholars and many Western people think
about faith and religion, you'll very quickly come
to realize that some of their questions,
some of their essential questions that really are
the
dominant undercurrent in many ways for this culture
are some of the simplest
and most difficult to answer.
And we Muslims very seldom address
questions like,
what's the purpose of life?
If God is love, if God is so
merciful,
then why are we here?
If he could create
heaven, why didn't he just pop us in
there to begin with?
You know, I remember there was a great
western writer named CG Jung,
German
writer. He wrote a beautiful book, Answer to
Job.
And he has his his book is has
these questions repeated again and again and again.
He's a psychiatrist
and he deals with patients. And he finds
that his German patients have many inner conflicts
because of these exact type of questions
that we're dealing with. He brings up one
question at one point. The Bible, for example,
and I'm not here to put down the
Bible. I'm just giving you the example. He
said the Bible has Adam punished
for his sin and so he's sent to
this earthly life, the life of suffering.
And he said, that has got to be
the most unfair thing in the world.
He said, here, God creates satan. Satan
dupes Adam.
God empowers satan
and punishes Adam.
If he doesn't want man to submit to
temptation,
if he wants man to live a good
life, if he doesn't want man to sin,
then why not just chain up the source
of temptation?
Destroy Satan altogether.
You want men to be good? Take away
the temptation.
And these sort of questions really are deeply
embedded in the culture. I'm only gonna talk
for about a few more minutes about
it, but they're very deeply embedded in the
culture. My own 7 year old and 6
year old daughters are already bringing them to
me
and maybe that your children are bringing them
to you
asking you, you know, this is a plural
society, many different religions.
Danny, how do we know we're right? Do
other people think they're wrong?
Or they'll ask the question, the same question
I asked, Daddy, why would God create us
just to die and make us live again?
Why don't He just make us live permanently
right now?
Why do people die?
Doesn't make sense.
And many questions of similar nature. And believe
me, if you watch the cartoons they watch,
if you watch Nickelodeon, if you watch
what they're learning in school, I'm not saying
it's evil,
but it very much reflects the culture and
the questions that dominate this culture. So the
famous question between faith and reason, the age
old dilemma.
That many a western writer says that no
religion has ever resolved.
But yet, it was the same questions and
the same issues
that blocked me from belief in God. That
when I studied the Quran,
I not only found the answers that satisfied
me but I found so much more that
led me to become a Muslim.
The reason why I think these questions, these
issues, these topics are so important
is because
from my reading of the Quran from the
very first, I found this to be the
dominant message of the Quran.
The majority of verses of the Quran were
revealed in Mecca.
How many of those verses
deal with rules and regulation?
It's very difficult. Can you conceive of any?
The predominant message
was
concept of God, man's relationship to God, ultimate
goals, purpose of life, etcetera. It even challenges
you to think about, do you think we
created you purposely?
Do you think you could have lived and
attained the paradise without having suffered?
Oh, man. You are laboring towards your Lord
in painful toil,
but you shall meet him.
It's challenging you to think about these, to
confront these issues. It challenged me.
But I think we Muslims are not conveying
the the information.
Let's see. I have 5 more minutes. I'll
just give a few examples of something I
talked about and then I'll stop.
Oftentimes, we end up talking past each other
because we don't understand each other. So we
didn't make the effort to understand each other.
For example, one
example,
I often hear Dudley Woodbury say it to
Muslims,
Why don't we share our faith experiences
before a public body?
And,
May,
Dudley Woodbury works for the Zalemar Institute,
a missionary,
organization that targets Muslim population, the worldwide Muslim
population.
He often mentions that when we ask Muslims
to share
their faith experiences,
they're at a loss.
The Muslim, he says, always demands a debate
but when he comes back with this reply,
they back off.
Well, it isn't because Muslims don't have faith
experiences
But when you ask a Muslim what's his
faith experience,
it's not a question that he's used to
hearing. It's not something he's used to thinking
about.
Because for a Muslim he doesn't
compartmentalize
his life. Over here is my faith experiences.
These are my political experiences. Over here is
my work experiences. I'm not trying to make
fun of Dudley Woodbury. I understand he's coming
from one point of view where this is
a central idea in his background
to another
domain where
for a Muslim,
life is a faith experience.
A faith experience. His whole life he tries
to make into a faith experience. That's his
ultimate goal. As it says, you know, the
Quran tells us, his living, his striving, his
dying, all
is for God.
The Muslim
tries to consecrate
every good act he does as an act
of worship.
When a mother picks up her baby, she
says, Bismillahir Rahmanir Rahim, in the name of
God, the merciful, the compassionate.
When it's when a when a father drives
his kids to the school and starts up
his car, he says, in the name of
God, the merciful, the compassionate. Because for the
Muslim, the doing of any good deed is
an act of worship
through which he learns goodness, through which he
learns mercy, through which he learns compassion.
So that he could experience and receive the
infinite mercy, love, and compassion
that comes from God.
So he sees life as very different
but these points are often missed when Muslims
and non Muslims talk to each other because
they just aren't really communicating. They're talking right
past each other.
A Muslim might ask the Christian,
does your religion make sense?
Many a Christian would say, is it supposed
to?
I mean, really?
Isn't faith doesn't it transcend reason? Does it
go beyond reason? Don't you have to take
the leap of faith?
Are all do all miracles make sense?
He would say.
Do miracles make sense?
You know, do all the acts of God
make sense?
So here are the 2 communities are have
a fundamental difference of perception.
One says
at some stage faith has to go beyond
making sense. The other one says, no. But,
yes. Faith is the things we don't completely
understand but it shouldn't contradict the reason.
They're coming from 2 different points of view.
The Muslim says, does your religion offer you
a complete set of guidance that deals with
every aspect of life from the smoke from
going to sleeping?
The Christian says that sounds like some sort
of obsession.
You know?
I mean, do you really wanna do that?
Can you blend, say for example, religion and
politics
without detrimenting both?
Aren't both corrupted in that process?
Fundamental differences of point of view.
The Christian might think that one of the
great things he has on his side is
a statement in the bible that says, God
through Jesus has reconciled the world to himself.
They write it very frequently in their,
missionary literature.
When a Muslim reads that, as you well
know, he reads that and
says, well why would he have to do
that?
I mean, didn't he get it right the
first time?
Yeah. When the Muslim believes that when God
created this world, as the Quran tells us,
he knew full well
that Adam would make errors, that his descendants
would make errors, that there would be pain
and suffering, etcetera.
But this is part of his overall divine
plan.
This is a growing stage
in his creative plan for man to take
him to a higher level,
which risks, of course, descending to a lower
level. But he sees life as entirely different.
He doesn't see this life as a punishment
for a sin once committed. He sees it
as an opportunity,
as a gift
that could take him to higher and higher
states. Higher than any other, creature about
it.
Even sometimes we use the same words, this
is my last example and I'll close with
this, We use the same words and they
have different meanings in the 2 communities and
it's the one I began with just a
few seconds ago.
The idea of worship.
A professor in my department said, how do
you Muslims worship?
I told them exactly what I just told
you a second ago. And I said, well,
I take my kids to school in the
morning.
We make love to our spouses.
He said, no. No. I mean, how do
you worship? What do you do? What is
your worship?
I said, well,
I earn a living,
work hard, bring home the paycheck. No. How
do you worship?
The
point I was trying to make to him
in a striking way is that let's agree
to on one thing first of all that
we have a different concept of worship. I
was trying to bring that point home in
a very sort of stark way.
So
the long and the short of what I'm
trying to say is is that I think
we must make a bigger effort and try
to understand,
to know
the audiences that we're trying to communicate.
And the second thing is that,
once we do, I think our communication will
be infinitely more fruitful. I had many other
things I wanted to say, but time is
up.
So thank you very much.
May, God reward you all And Assalamu alaikum.
God's peace and mercy. At least at least
one stopwatch is working.
Thank you, Doctor. Jeffrey.
And InshaAllah, we'll share the experience of, Imam
Siraj Wahaj, who is the Imam of Masjid
At Taqwa, who is very famous, alhamdulillah, and
very experienced in making dawah,
especially in the New York area, in the
media.
And,
I'm sure his experience will enhance our understanding
of doing DAO. And by the way, trying
to load the 3,
I'm trying to
get the 3 together
to make
a zonal conference for Islam, on Dawah, InshaAllah.
So, I'm putting you on the spot so
that you agree, the 3 of you.
By the way, could the assistance help us
the way, could the sisters help us come
this side? We have plenty of space here,
the, in front over here. I will kindly
appreciate it if the sisters can help us
come this way. There are some sisters outside
who are
complaining.
All my sisters are helpful and more helpful
than men, so please do it.
Let's see. So I think it's quarter to
5, I think. Okay. Now this is for
3.49 now. Right.
3.49.
My brothers and sisters, I'm very thankful to
God to share this
platform, Sheikh Jamal Baldwin
and doctor,
Jeffrey.
This is
a very good experience for me right now.
Sheikh Jamang Babu and myself have shared
platforms
many, many, many times.
And I'm so happy to have him back.
And I saw him, today and I kinda
complained
because as a result of him being sick,
that increased my work.
So I was so happy that, he's back
here today.
Now brothers and sisters, those of you who
know me,
I think you would say that I'm never
at a loss for words. Right?
I always have something to say.
But absolutely, today,
brother
and doctor Jeffrey Lang have actually said what
I want to say. And
I actually know what they have.
And why should I
talk
when they've already
said it? So we don't want to repeat
what they've said.
So alhamdulillah,
but
since you expect me to say something,
I'll just make 1 or 2 points.
So
1st, brothers and sisters, I want to make
this point. I think that it's critical. I
I make I begin with a prayer
that every one of us who's sitting here,
standing here,
would ask Allah, subhanahu wa ta'ala, that when
we leave this conference, that we be better
die and
dying. Yes.
I want you,
those of you who are very shy
and sometimes even intimidated to talk to non
Muslims,
to lose that.
And in your way,
as
a professor, as a professional,
as a student,
as a
so called housewife,
whatever your field is,
you
have to do your part.
And and I and I like the word
that the prophet used.
And and words are important
to invite the people
to alarm.
An invitation.
So, number 1,
let us make commitment
that we will go back to our homes
and invite people to Islam more than we've
ever done before.
Number 2.
I believe that there are 2 extremes that
we should avoid.
One extreme
is Muslims
don't ever want to offend non Muslims, so
therefore,
they never say anything about our deen.
Everything Oh, we just like you.
We
just like you.
We we
no. That's an extreme.
Brothers and sisters, our book of guidance is
not Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends.
You have to understand that.
Our book of guidance is Al Qur'an.
Okay?
So, don't be afraid to tell the truth,
because you can't help them if you don't
tell them the truth. Because what we keep
from them will cause them to die
and then be displeased by Allah. So we
have the responsibility
of trying to bring the truth to them.
Don't deny what we have. Don't deny that
we're different. We are different, but do it
in the right manner.
So that's the first extreme. And the other
extreme is that brother doctor Jamal Badri and
brother Jeffrey is is suggesting,
it's too hard.
Too much.
I was with some brothers,
going around a particular country in Europe,
and the brother who was with us,
them cactus.
Cactus.
You know, he'd be driving a car and,
you know, look at them, cactus.
Too much.
It's too much.
Can't invite them when you have that kind
of attitude.
So, brothers, that's the first point I want
to make, is that we have to be
balanced in our approach of giving da'wah.
And the advice that Allah
has given to us,
to
wisdom. And wisdom is not left to our
discretion.
Wisdom is not how we define wisdom. I'm
going to invite them with wisdom. Wisdom is
how the Prophet did it. And so if
you want to invite the people with wisdom,
do exactly
how the prophet did it and that's wisdom.
Now, what I'm going to do now is
just perhaps reiterate some of the great points
that both of them have made, really, honestly
they have made them. One of the things
about myself and I want to be honest
with you. I love giving Daula.
I do. I love I love
talking about Islam
to non Muslims to express our way I
love it if I ask Allah, Subhanahu Wa
Ta'ala, I ask them to give me the
the love to give Dawah.
Therefore, because I want to give Dawah,
I'm always
searching
for an opportunity to give dollars.
Many of us, we miss golden opportunities to
give dollars.
You know why? Because we're not looking for
them.
Many times, brothers and sisters, if truth be
told,
we said we don't care about the people.
And that's sad.
That there are people around us who are
dying. Not only are they dying in this
world, but they're concerned about the hereafter.
That here's a person that's dying
that might wind up probably
going to the hellfire.
And yet, there's perhaps something that I can
do
that maybe if I would say something to
them, invite them, drop the seed
about Islam,
maybe this person might one day find a
way to a masjid or pick up a
book and learn something about Islam.
So I'm always looking for an opportunity.
I'll give you an example.
I was on a plane coming, from Washington
DC on my way back to New York
City.
And I was sitting on the passenger,
not passenger. The aisle of the seat. And
I had,
my laptop computer.
And I was working
on some notes.
And there was a young man sitting to
my right. And I noticed that he was,
like, like, like, looking at me, looking on
my shoulder, trying to see what I was
waiting. Now I could have gone like this.
But rather than do that,
I kind of pushed it over a little
bit
and I started riding Dawah.
Yeah.
I knew he was looking, so I was
inviting him to Islam in the computer.
There are literally, every day,
golden opportunities, if you want to,
to invite people to Islam. I'll give you
another example.
We were standing outside of our master's in
Brooklyn,
recently. In fact, sometime last year.
And there was, like, some people loitering in
front of the national. They just like standing
around and talking.
So here come one of the security brothers.
You you gotta move. Can't you can't stay
here. You got you gotta move on.
I said, no. No, brother. Don't make them
move on.
Look at it. I have a captive audience.
Now I said, I know what.
Now I can get rid of them. Maybe
if I talk stop talking about Islam,
either they'll listen or I'll get rid of
them.
Golden opportunity.
So as they were standing there, I said,
did you know that this was a masjid?
They said, no. No. We didn't know that.
I said, yeah. This is a masjid.
In fact, if you notice,
about 15 minutes from now, some some people
will be coming here. You'll see about 30,
40, 50, 60 people coming here. They're coming
here to make prayer. Have you been to
MSG before?
A golden
opportunity.
Most of us, brothers and sisters,
when someone comes,
like saying to you, Here I am.
Talk to me. Give me Dawah. I'm ready.
We don't take that opportunity.
A golden opportunity.
You must have in your heart
a desire, an excuse
to talk to this person. Let me make
this one other point and then we then
we move on. Believe me, I'm not gonna
talk to your own brothers and sisters. Just
no. No. Really, I'm not.
No. No. I I'll tell you why.
Because, you know, I'm gonna get a note,
and I hate getting notes. This mother
write me a note telling me to stop.
I'm not gonna
but I was in the airport in LaGuardia
Airport, New York City.
And I decided that I was gonna before
I got on the plane,
my shoe needed shining.
So I went and and and had the
man to shine my shoes.
Now it just so happened
up to my right were 10 phones.
The man had began shining my shoes, and
one of the phones started ringing. So he
said, Excuse me.
And he picked up a phone
and it was still ringing. He said, That's
not my phone.
He said, Now, these three phones are mine.
This one here is my boss.
This one here is my wife.
And this one here is my girlfriend's.
Now,
No. I'm saying now. Now I gotta I
gotta say something to this man.
No. I have to go Why? A golden
opportunity to get done. Now what am I
gonna say?
Right? So he came back. You know? He's
shadowed my shield.
I said, you know what?
If you're a Muslim,
you wouldn't have a girlfriend.
You could actually marry that woman.
He said, well, I I can't I can't
afford to marry her.
I said, well, consider what you're saying.
She's good enough to be a girlfriend,
But she's not good enough to marry.
He said, yeah. Yeah. You're right. You're right.
That began a long conversation
an exchange
about Islam and invite him to Islam. That
man will know something,
something about Islam. We left that man and
that man will never, ever be the same.
Here's a man, a Muslim, who told him
something, responding
to something that he said.
So brothers and sisters, my first point, I
just want a way of reiterating and highlighting
it,
reinforcing it, Looking for opportunities. Number 2.
Both our speakers here today have mentioned
the importance of having
the right attitude.
You must.
You have to have the right attitude.
Now,
I'm gonna share something personal with me that
happened.
Allah blessed me to give a hookah in
a place called
Gainesville, Florida.
This week, this Friday, it happened to have
been 1 week before
a major holiday called Thanksgiving.
And after I gave a football, we had
some of our brothers visiting from one of
the middle,
East countries.
He said, brothers and sisters, I want to
remind you
that next week is so called Thanksgiving. This
is a camper holiday.
That's not our holiday.
And don't go visiting your relatives and friends,
because this is their holiday.
Our day is to eat.
I said,
Can I say something?
He said, Yes. I said, You know, a
few years ago,
my mother, a non Muslim,
and her husband,
my,
stepfather,
invited me and my family our Muslim family
to come to their house for Thanksgiving dinner.
Rather than saying, Mom, I'm not coming,
I said, Okay.
I lied to my witness.
I went to the halal meat market.
I bought a halal turkey.
I bought chicken. Halal chicken, beef.
I bought rice
and vegetables. And gave it to my mother.
I said, Mom, cook this food.
She said, Son, thank you very much.
We went there. I took my family. And
at that time, I think I had 8
children.
And and we were all eating.
And, you know, they saw, you know, my
mother asked me to bless the table.
And I asked Allah to bless the table.
And then,
we were eating
And and one of my children don't ask
me which one.
I think it was Mohammed. He was about
5 years old. He said he said, Granny,
when you gonna become
When you when you and pow pow that's
my my my stepfather. When you and pow
pow gonna become Muslim?
My mother looked at him,
and
you're not going to believe this. Her and
my stepfather on that day said,
Why? Why? Why?
My mother know we Muslim.
She knows for years a Muslim. But my
mother had an invitation to me, her son.
Son, come over. Yes, mom. Of course, we'll
come over. And the kindness in buying food.
And not only that. From that day, my
mother always go to halal meat market and
buy Halal meats.
Because she said, this son, there's something about
this meat.
This Halal which is Halal meat.
So it's the good treatment. The kind treatment.
And brothers and sisters, I'm telling you, we,
in my opinion, do more rather than say,
mama, I can't come. I come you come
to the Eid. I ain't coming to your
holiday.
And, you know, I made a mistake when
I first became Muslim.
Do you know, brothers and sisters, when I
first became Muslim, I was I was 19
years old.
And I had never argued with my father
in my life, my stepfather. He never argued.
But one day, it was, a Sunday. I'd
just become Muslim,
and my mother's making Sunday dinner.
And she was cooking ham.
I said, you cooking that food, that hot
food, nasty.
Yeah. So but you've been eating this all
your life.
And so my stepfather come. Right? And then
my stepfather used to be a boxer.
And so he came to me. He stepped
to me like
so I said, what's up?
Like, what you want? Like, you know.
But this is the wrong attitude.
The wrong attitude. So my mother eating pork.
She's eating another day in her life.
But when I when I learned,
the attitude of being a Muslim and the
right attitude and the right character that my
mother and father changed. And they loved Islam.
And on the job, they talk about, yeah,
my son is a he's a Muslim. My
son proud of their son because the character
now is improving. And he's a he's a
nice young man and an honorable young man.
And so the best way to me, brothers
sisters, to give Dawah, the most important thing
that we can say here, today,
is the character.
And to be like Muhammad
to be like him in our character, and
believe me, brothers and sisters, it makes
a world of difference.
Now,
one more point, and she'll let me
be finished.
There's nothing like
having a
right attitude about
calling people to Islam.
Now, brothers and sisters,
a lot of people that you call to
Islam are gonna, even as Sheikh Jamal said,
are gonna try to antagonize you.
Something happened recently, and I read about it
in the newspaper, that really,
got their attention.
There's one of the great pitchers now. He
pitches for the
Boston Red Sox. What's his name?
Roger Clemens.
I was testing you to see if you
knew him.
But you know what? This man makes
over $3,000,000
a year in salary,
pitching
baseball.
He was driving his,
I think he had some kind of truck
or van or something, to the ballpark.
Look at this.
He saw on the road a dog
that appeared to be wounded. This happened like
3 or 4 weeks ago.
He got out of the van, his van,
to go assist the dog.
He's the man, not a Muslim.
And when he tried to help the dog,
apparently, maybe the dog got hit by a
car or something,
the dog bit him.
And as a result, he mixed,
mixed, missed,
I think, 2 pitching turns.
I said, how wonderful that is. I'm gonna
write him a letter.
No.
Commending him for that.
But my point, brothers and sisters, when you're
giving Dawah to people, they don't understand.
Many of them are wounded.
And when you give them Dawah, they will
lash out at you.
But they don't know. They don't understand.
But despite that, you must be like Mohammed
Salallahu alaihi wa Salam and be patient. And
even though they're trying to defeat you in
argument, your idea is not to defeat them
in argument, but to give them, to show
them, to offer them the light of
Islam. So no matter how they treat you
brothers and sisters, I'm telling you, if they
laugh at you, make mockery of you, you
be patient with them
and say, no. You misunderstand it. And be
be your nice beautiful self
with your beautiful smile.
And no matter what they say to you,
understand that they don't understand what they're doing.
But you have the wisdom. You have the
knowledge. You have the
patience.
Then use that.
Then the last thing
no. This is no. This is the last
thing. No.
No.
Listen. Let me tell
you.
No. If you watch me,
you can tell. If I close this
like that, I'm finished.
No, I'm finished. I'll make this last point.
Brothers and sisters, you know,
one of the things that we have to
do as Muslims is always to reflect,
to look, to study, to observe.
Allah
blesses us by observing.
Reflection isn't Ibadah, by the way. It's a
worship
to sit, to think, and to reflect.
You know, I used to be a member
of the Nation of Islam.
This movement still exists today.
They're not Muslims.
They believe themselves to be Muslims.
Some of them are very sincere.
I made a pledge. I have made a
pledge that, insha'Allah, if Allah bless
me, I will never stop giving Dawah to
Minister Farrakhan. Never.
Never until he die.
I don't care what he says.
I will still go to him and invite
him and encourage him to come to Islam.
When I go to Chicago, I call, Minister
Farrakhan.
I'm in Chicago. He said, come on by.
Why? What am I doing? Inviting him to
Islam.
As a result of that, he came to
New York. He called me on the phone.
Imam Sadaj, I'm in town.
Come. Let's go for breakfast.
4 hours.
4 hours speaking and inviting the man to
Islam. Why? Because if this man comes to
Islam, the gift that he can gift that
Allah has given to him, we can use
it for Islam. Why did prophet Muhammad sallallahu
alaihi wasallam pray for Umar ibn Khattab to
come to Islam? Why did he pray for
Abu Jahlil to come to Islam? There were
enemies of Islam but he knew that potentially
everybody is a potential Muslim.
Everybody. And that must be your attitude.
President Clinton
IS a potential Muslim.
Yes. He is.
The Pope alone is a potential Muslim. Yes,
he is.
The rabbi.
Yes, the rabbi too.
My point.
My point.
If Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
can throw Musa
and Harun
You, Moses and your brother Aaron, go to
Firoun.
Go to Pharoah and say to him gentle
words.
Perhaps
he would receive
admonition
or fear Allah.
And if we got a pharaoh, who can
we not go to?
Everybody man is a potential Muslim. You see
the drunk man in the street. You see
the prostitute. You see the way you know.
You see the man in the ghetto. Everybody
is a potential Muslim, and you go to
them. And don't you put your nose up
at anybody.
And because maybe that one, the one that
you walked past
might be another one to come to Islam.
Another Faraj Wahaj to come from the gutter
and to come to the fold of Islam.
You don't know.
And I leave you with this, brothers and
sisters, the spirit
of Adaiyah.
Humble, yes, but firm.
Knowledgeable about your religion,
and strong.
And I close with this. In my reflecting
the nation of Islam and us as Muslims,
I'm so happy and thankful to Allah that
he blessed me. He saved me from shirk
and brought me to Islam. I'm so thankful
to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
I look back now and I said, well
what lesson can I learn from the nation
of Islam?
They didn't have the truth.
But there's something there that if we reflect
that, maybe we as Muslims can grab something
from there as a sign from Allah that
we can use to make ourselves better.
And you know what it was that I
saw?
They didn't have the guidance.
But there was a spirit there
that they had.
I wish that we would have
one spirit.
And that was
an attitude.
We must go there and get the people.
They used to tell us,
you can't come here unless you bring somebody.
We used to come there sometimes alone and
they would put us out. No. You go
out there, man, and get the people, and
you bring them to the temple.
That was a spirit of of dying. Everybody
had to be a dying. You go out
there and talk to your neighbor. Talk to
the people in school. Talk to your coworkers.
Go out there and give the people the
truth, what we said. We didn't have the
truth,
but we invited to the people to what
we had.
And let me tell you about your little
brother, what I did one day.
I told the officials,
go get me a bus.
They said, what are you talking about?
I said, I want a bus, man. I
wanna go get the people.
You heard you heard what our leader said.
Our leader said, we should go get the
people. Give me a bus. I said, God.
So they gave me a bus.
Them driving around. They said, Where are you
going? Where are you going? I said, Go
up this way.
We driving, brothers and sisters. And I'd see
a park.
I said, Stop the bus.
I got out of the bus. I lost
my witness.
I went into the middle of that crowd,
and I said, look. We in trouble.
We need help.
Islam will help you. Get in the bus.
And they got in the bus.
They got in the bus, and we took
them to our place of worship.
What was it?
Conviction.
Boldness.
You convinced man that Islam is right. You
don't go to intimidate it. Your professor don't
intimidate you. You respect the professor, but mister
professor,
I have something to say.
Confidence,
man.
Boldness before Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala. Not for
yourself, but boldness because Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala
is there.
So brothers and sisters, we would have this
boldness, this brother
would not come and bother me
if you be bold.
May Allah bless us, brothers and sisters,
to get a spirit of power,
and to push our communities,
and learn from our brothers here that have
a wealth of knowledge and experiences to give
us.
Please, let us get it and go from
this conference and give Dawah unlike the other
ones did before.
Thank you,
sir.
By the way,
you
mentioned the bus,
somebody asked him, how much it will take
to how much I should pay? He will
take me nowhere.
So he told him, pay whatever you wanna
pay, and get down here.
If I have to,
just maybe pick up one word from each
of the speakers,
said
was doctor Jamal, I guess, one of the
best things I hear from him was to
say the right thing and the right
put to the right person
and the right circumstances
and the right way, the right manner. This
is according to the teachings of Muhammad
and the Quran.
And they had to fix something from doctor
Jeffrey,
because we're
good at telling people what's wrong
with their religion. But we're not good at
telling them what's good about our religion.
And I think, brother Siraj,
everything is fresh in your mind, but merely
the Muslim character is the main thing that
we have to stick to, and to show
the right example.
I wish we have enough time to communicate
with the speakers, but unfortunately, we don't.
So in the next
15 minutes or 20 minutes, we'll have discussions.
So I'll start with
with the audience over here, take a sister
and a brother. But before I do that,
before you ask a question, and before you
say your comment,
think
how are you going to contribute to the
success of this decision.
If you think your comment or question is
not going to contribute,
please don't say it.
Thank you.
The same thing. I'm not going to be
able to do that. I'm not going to
do that. I'm not going to do that.
I'm not going to do that. I'm not
going to do that. I'm not going to
do that. I'm not going to do that.
With all these things that I'm doing,
is there's no way for me to go
to heaven because I do not believe in
Christ. I've made it. Son of God. He
tells me
specifically that
Christ said that if you do not believe
in him,
that you cannot go to heaven. What type
of anti
gun is a
gift
to
him?
I don't I don't
know.
Honestly, I I don't know.
I think
as Muslims,
I think we always feel we have to
have an answer
when when somebody
presents their particular religious view to us. We
have to be able to refute it.
And so in that circumstance I think the
typical Muslim would say, that doesn't make sense
to me.
How can Christ take on my sins and
get into long debates and arguments over the
nature of Jesus, the role of Jesus and
why would God do this and why would
God do that?
Frankly, I mean, just as from my personality
perspective, my own personality, And
I usually tell him, well, I don't believe
this.
And I usually tell him, well, I don't
believe this that and this is what I
believe.
You know, to get into a debate going
back and forth
could just go on and on and on.
You start attacking his point of view, he
feels defensive.
I really don't feel that goes
very far. And as Doctor. Bedawi said earlier,
debates are probably the least productive way.
The point I'm trying to make is simply
this,
As brother Hamid said, one of my major
themes is we Muslims are very good at
telling other people what they do wrong. We're
not very good at presenting what we do
right.
I would say that we should,
in general, in circumstances like that and in
general circumstances, when we speak to an audience,
tell the people about Islam.
The gentleman just shared his point of view
with
you. Take the opportunity to share yours. No,
I don't believe this.
I believe
that the purpose of life is this.
I believe that God works like this. I
believe
our relationship to God is this.
Present your
point of view on that issue rather than
it have to defend or attack
his. You see what I mean? That way
at least he comes to appreciate a different
point of view. I, brother Hamid says, say
this to you because I always say this.
I said that it's like,
the famous analogy is of the diamond and
the rock analogy.
I see Muslims like this. A fellow over
here is holding a rock
and we're dead set on getting him to
let go of that rock and to take
this diamond that we believe we have. And
how do we proceed? We begin by telling
him that for generations his family has held
this rock and it's worthless and it's ugly
and it's dirty and it makes no sense.
And meanwhile, we're holding the diamond behind our
back.
And if anything, that human being is likely
to hold on to it all the more
and tell you, well, you know, what do
you got? What do you right do you
have to tell me to criticize me, to
attack me?
A much more profitable method is to take
the message of Islam directly. You don't have
to answer every charge and every objection.
Just tell them about Islam. Hold the diamond
in the sky.
Hold it up like this. I think many
people when they see the diamond and you
start talking about the diamond
many people would just
forget about this rock they had and say
to you, where could I get that diamond?
But I think that's not the strategy we've
been taking.
But,
I hope that sort of answers your question.
Actually, I just have a question for mister
Badawi.
This one. Okay. Come here.
And what I wanted to ask is,
right now,
I am part of a class that we
have developed
teaching
basically American non Muslim women
about Islam, who are interested in Islam. One
of the problems that we've had is many
of them are married to men who are
Muslims. However,
they don't happen to be very good examples
of Islam.
We find that,
we'll teach them something
and, we have chronic lessons also, hadith and
Islamic teaching and they'll go home and
share with their husband what they've learned. And
then many times, the husband will,
tell them, oh, that's that's not how it
is because the husband actually himself is doing
things that
are not allowed or prohibited in Islam.
And, I wonder what you think the best
way of going about
presenting this to the people without offending their
husbands or making them take them away from
Islam. Because we've had one,
sister who was, very interested in becoming Muslim
and her husband prevented her from coming back
and said we were fanatics and just because
we were presenting the true Islam and not
the
distorted version of Islam. I wondered if you
had any, comments or
It it looks like there are three basic
reasons why the, those husbands take this attitude.
1, of course,
is the common feeling that you find among
some that I am a born Muslim, but
you just accepted Islam, so I should know
better than you do, which could be the
opposite.
Number 2, because he's a man, she's a
woman,
and men are supposed to know better than
women.
I'm describing, not approving.
The third thing I mean, it didn't reflect
this chauvinistic type of thinking sometimes, that how
could I get an advice from a woman,
you know?
The third aspect, it appears, is that, we
try to make our,
make religion in our own image. You know,
religion is what I'm doing. So a sort
of common attitude of avoidance of the truth,
because
I cannot stand and say I am wrong
and dead.
As to what to do based on that
possible diagnosis,
1, we
have to understand that,
it requires
some degree of patience, things wouldn't happen overnight,
And that's why Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala chose
for Dawah
the most resolved
resolute
of his creatures, the prophets.
So, the sister can act also in the
manner of the prophets by being patient,
not to lose her temper,
still show affection, because maybe show affection and
good relationship,
the husband might reconsider.
Sometimes the indirect approach might be better that,
hey, you're wrong in this. But, you know,
even appearing in the form of asking a
question, even though you know the answer, you
know, honey,
I encountered this problem. What do you think
of that? I read that, Hadis. Could you
explain it to me? Maybe he might have
some second thought about how to say it.
But it requires some patience and tact.
Brother was,
unfortunately, we can't cover all of these.
Go ahead.
I'd like to,
assume appreciation from one of our speakers, Abundail.
They have given us an excellent
idea about what we should do to help
the Christians understand Islam.
No doubt. However, I'd like to ask them
one question
that, we have to also understand the similar,
well arranged
scheme
is being done by the Christians for more
than 100 years,
and are we familiar with that? Like example,
have you been in touch with the sim
international activities,
sim now magazine?
How many of you do understand or you
are aware of this article
which they have shown for Pakistan
where they are claiming
that
when they went there, there was not a
single Muslim convert
in the Christianity.
And you can see this.
Okay. And, if you don't mind, I'll read
that.
I went overseas with the idea of training
and discipling Christians.
He remembers.
When I got there, I found some converts,
but none of from a Muslim background.
So my first thumb was to spend evangelizing
and discovering how to communicate with Muslims. Today,
there are about
500 believers in almost 20 groups that have
grown out of the work. Larry and his
wife, Jill, are a part of it.
What is happening, sir, that they are on
the front, but on the back of it,
what is happening is that our innocent children
are being victimized
and going away from the home and becoming
Christians. I've got one good example. I won't
say the name victimites are left up. So
recently,
I got a letter explaining that I am
now a child of Christ, I'm no woman,
with, the with the Muslim.
So I want to speak to our people.
And here last point I'll tell you, we're
not gonna read any more. Just tell me
what's the point. Okay. I'll help you. I'll
help you. I just want to help you.
Okay.
With all the formidable strength of the Islamic
world, are Muslims coming to Christ?
Their answer is, yes, they cracked wall of
slum.
Oh, by all means, they are. Significant
exciting things are happening in some countries. There
are churches that are made up of entire
Okay. Let's let me ask you. What's the
point? So the point now is that we
should are they too far? What Christians are
doing? I can't turn back out.
Right? And we and the front to take
our to when we are done.
Everybody knows him. Insha'Allah, let them talk to
you. Thank you because we're running out of
time. The telephone number. Thank you. We'll we'll
we'll take it.
Okay. Thank you, brother.
Thank
you. Please.
Assalamu alaikum.
I wanted to ask the brothers,
we live in a small town. We have
a lot of Christian a Christian community and
non Muslims,
Jews and others. And a lot of them
are very fascinated with Islam. But how do
we pass the question? Like, Pradad Surat, Imam
Surat Fahad said that, his son asked his
mother after me and
became
But how do we, when do we know
it's the right time to ask them without
offending them and turning them away? And one
more thing is, if they ask for a
copy of Quran,
should we give it to them? And if
they want to come to Masjid, is it
allowed to have them come to Masjid? Because
we have sometimes
some Muslim brothers and sisters who turn them
away, unfortunately,
by being saying something to them. And all
this that you have built up, everything goes
wasted.
If you could elaborate that, I'll really appreciate.
Thank you,
Okay. Well, very briefly. As far as giving
a copy of the Quran, I have absolutely
no problem with that. Again, in my little
booklet on tahara, I explained some aspect about
the translations of the Quran. I have no
problem for the purpose of dawah. But of
course, it would be nice to bring to
their attention that they should treat it with
respect.
Secondly, should they be allowed in the masjid?
We cannot be more Muslim than Muhammad who
received the deputation of christians of najuran in
his masjid and welcome them and try to
serve them with himself.
I don't know where some people in some
places get so uptight. I'm not saying your
area get so uptight about the mushriks and
the kafirs come to the mush. How could
they know? Unless they come and sometimes sit
down and watch. We don't have to tell
them you have to pray with us. Say,
you don't have to. You can sit and
watch. There's no problem with that. About the,
the time to invite, that's a difficult question
because if you make the wrong timing,
a person would be turned off because it
becomes a very sort of direct, pushy type
of thing. But sometimes, you might feel that
the person has learned enough that somehow you
feel there is some hesitation.
And if you feel at that time that
a direct
invitation
might be appropriate, by all means, one has
to judge the situation.
I
was just going to say you don't have
to give a direct
invitation. It sometimes helps just to say, you
you know, I noticed you're quite curious.
I'm I'm just curious.
Are are is this just are you just
wanting this information for information or are you
actually thinking of becoming a Muslim?
You know, in a way that doesn't really
put them on the spot where they like
you're saying, make a decision.
You know? But just I'm curious, you know.
Sometimes that helps.
Honestly, 2 two quick, quick points.
Basically, the sis is asking the question. Should
we give the Quran right away? And so
or should we just give them Islamic focus
or some kind of other material? I'm gonna
give the,
mic back to Sheikh Jamal in a moment.
I wanna combine
the point that you made, the question that
you made, and sister,
your your point.
1 of the one of the great ways
when when Christians
attack us,
especially with Jesus,
is to disarm them.
You cannot disarm a Christian better than say,
We love Jesus.
We cannot be Muslim
unless we believe in Jesus.
Prophet Jesus will come back.
When you say that, my experience is
they're disarmed because they expected you to find
it. When they said, with Jesus, you gotta
believe in Jesus. You gotta accept Jesus. He
said, yes. You gotta accept Jesus. Let me
tell you what Muslims believe about Jesus. Jesus
is one of the greatest prophets ever. Jesus
is what? We love Jesus. Jesus was born
from a virgin mother.
You disarm them totally.
In terms of when to ask the question,
you gotta be sensitive. See, my son,
5 years old. He can say, when you
gonna become Muslim?
But I was with some brothers and we
were with some some,
some politicians.
Governmental people.
I couldn't believe what the brother was saying.
Well, you gotta be Muslim.
You gotta be Muslim. He don't be Muslim,
he won't go to *.
Well, it's not the right time.
You see, you gotta be very sensitive to
who you're talking to. As you're talking to
people, believe me, you get a sense
of them. You get a sense to even
when to invite them to the Masjid.
You know? And I got I got a
me and you had a conversation last week
and we were talking about something. I got
a book for you I wanna give to
you.
Right? So it's always in the flow of
the conversation. It's just not out of left
field. It's in the flow of the conversation.
We're talking about abortion. As you know, that,
Muslims have a view about abortion, and when
you get to a point when a person
has discussed so much about Islam, you might
wanna just say, you know,
I'm going to the masjid on Friday 1
o'clock what you doing you think you'd like
to come
like that
Also, by the way, in in in Shubhana
Allah and I thank Allah for this. I
was in, recently in Birmingham,
England.
A sister came to me. She was very
shy. You can see, after after the
the,
speaking
in the lecture, she was standing to the
side like she was very shy, like she
wanted to ask me a question.
And she got a brother to say, Could
I say something?
We went to the sister. She said, Imam,
we have gotten some, some tapes that you've
done,
and, and played it for non Muslims.
15
non Muslims became Muslims as a result of
listening to the tapes.
Why do I say that?
Sometimes, brothers and sisters, when a person just
listens and there's no chance for debate,
they're not going to argue with the tape.
They're going to listen or watch the tape
and learn something from it. Sheikh Jamaal, by
the way, has, some some tapes.
Brothers and sisters, Islam was Islam in
in Fowkes.
There are
you'd be shocked
how many people get the seed of Islam
listening to all those kinds of tapes. So
you might want to to do that, inshaAllah.
But the but the but the but the
but the but the but the but the
but the but the the
last point point that the system made. [SPEAKER
UNIDENTIFIED COMPANY REPRESENTATIVE:] I would like to
just to remind the speakers that we also
would
like
to make quick comments so that we ask,
2 more questions.
About giving, what you give first, it depends
on the circumstances.
For example,
there might be a Muslim Christian dialogue, and
somebody come explicitly asking for the Quran because
he's so impressed with some of the ayaat
in the Quran. Good. That way he would
read on his own, and a lot of
people come become Muslim just by reading the
translation even in the Quran.
If you're making dawah to the public, and
a lot of people just coming superficially to
a table, and they want to pick something,
maybe a small booklet, islammatic lands, bridge building
between Muslim and Christian. Small things like that
might be a good beginning to say, if
he's interested, he or she comes back. Because
we don't have infinite numbers of copies of
the Quran to distribute. So, one has to
assess the situation
again. Make sure,
brother brother Amir Ali, with Amir,
Yeah. Make sure you go and pick up
these little
Islam on a glance, but Amir Ali will
lie to me one of the best in
the world.
Very, very in New York City, everybody knows
about that. So you have enough to give
to the people. Please go into the bazaar
area, and brother, Amey Ali has a table
of dawah. And pick up that literature free
of charge, inshaAllah.
Sorry, for everybody. I just have to pick
up somebody randomly, so
I have one question
for the,
for the professor,
and that is that I happen to be
dealing
with
some very highly educated
professionals who are atheist at this time.
And as you mentioned, I'm unable to connect
and I miss out a time with an
opportunity I get.
And one thing I want to ask is
maybe you can help me.
An atheist, when he is thinking he doesn't
believe in God, does he still have some
concept of a power beyond his control, power
of nature, or whatever? Does he have some
kind of a thinking about it? Or doesn't
he have no concept of a power or
a superpower? I still have one more comment
for Jamal Badri
the question was
how do you connect with an atheist,
especially if they're highly educated?
Most be most of my colleagues at the
University of Kansas and most of my colleagues
in America are are atheists or agnostics.
So I deal, I think, with a very
different crowd than doctor Bedouei or Suraj Vahej
deals with. And the approaches have to be
different, as they said, according to the people
you're dealing with. An atheist really doesn't respond
to a very aggressive approach.
If he gets even a hint
that you're trying
to lead him or sneak him through the
backdoor into his religion, He'll resent that even
more than if you take a direct approach
and say, look, I'm trying to convert you.
I wanna convert you here so
he'll fight you on that regard, but if
you try to trick him,
he'll resent you all the more and you'll
he'll do he'll just shut the door on.
Some the other question and it relates to
this is do atheists sometimes feel that there
may be a god, essentially?
And there was a saying that they used
to say a lot in, World War 2
that there's no atheist in fox
holes.
To some degree, that's true. I believe that
atheists every now and then, just as most
religious people now and then entertain a doubt
about
their beliefs,
atheists will, at one time or another, entertain
a doubt about their positions. I remember when
I was an atheist and I get through
arguing with somebody, Christian or a Jewish person
or a Muslim
for 20 or 30 minutes. I mean, the
discussion. I'd walk away and think,
well, what if they were right?
I mean, really, what if they are right?
What am I risking?
And sometimes that would make me study religions
all the more.
Psychologically, I felt I wanted to convince myself,
make sure I was right.
And generally, when I spoke to people and
read about the religion, it confirmed my position.
It was only the Quran that suddenly shocked
me. But, you know, how did I what
kind of atheist I was? I was a
searching atheist. The type that asks people question.
And he's comfortable as long as he's doing
the asking.
But, I'll be frank with you. Many times,
I would ask somebody a question and then
somebody would say, this is my opportunity.
And next thing I know, I was his
Dawah or missionary project.
No. Thank you. Thank you, but no. Thank
you. You know, then that was the end
of
it. Sorry. I'll have to take the sister
over here and,
she's been standing for a long time.
Assalamu Alaikum.
I have some comments to make. I think
the best way to make dawah is through
our behavior
whether it's in the workforce or in public
because sometimes you see,
like, the Muslim children, they're running around crazy.
And as a convert, before I convert I
look at, oh, look at those Arab children.
You know, they're wild. They're not behaved.
So I think the best way is through
our behavior whether we're in the workforce or
in the mall or anywhere is through our
behavior to behave and,
whether it's ourselves or our children. I think
that's the best way also because if they
see us
as behaved and well mannered,
they could become
interested in Islam just for that reason. I
sorry, we have to conclude the session, so
I apologize for everybody.
I'll just give the chance for the speakers
to conclude,
and then we'll end the session. I understand
there is a need for these things,
and that makes us, in the planning process
of making something insha'Allah
that would go in this direction.
No, that's okay. I have nothing to say.
Oh, I thought If you want to extend
the 5 minutes because
there's a great deal of interest.
Let me just let me just make one
brief concluding comment
because
I I I think it relates to the
last question and I just wanna make a
concluding comment.
I think it's very helpful for Muslims
when they are communicating
their religious perceptions to others.
To try to put a certain idea out
of your head. And I know this is
gonna sound bizarre.
People often criticize me for it. But maybe
it's just a community of people I deal
with. Put out of your head that this
person you're gonna convert this person to Islam.
See, the minute you start thinking that this
is a potential convert, I have to win
him over, I'm going to grab him with
this or that line, You're giving yourself too
much credit.
As the Quran told prophet Muhammad, peace be
upon him, time and time again, he's not
responsible for what happened to these people.
He's only responsible to deliver the message sincerely
and truthfully to the very best of his
ability.
Leave the conversion up to
God. Because
the minute you start giving yourself more credit,
I think it really does damage to the
message you're trying to relate.
Don't be out to convert this person. Just
be out to do your duty
to convey that message as clearly and truthfully
and appropriately as possible.
Brothers and sisters, I'm sorry. I really thank
you all if
okay the problem is there is another session
in 5 minutes here so
so that's the problem So I really apologize
for everybody, and, thank you all, and hopefully,
Insha'Allah, we'll have another session similar to that.