Jeffrey Lang – Losing my Religion A Cry for Help
AI: Summary ©
AI: Transcript ©
And I I wish I could say that
in French as well,
but I'm never gonna I know.
I noticed that in the introduction, Inshallah is
the same in both English and French.
My daughters I I have to share this
with you. My daughters were grown up.
You know, whenever they would ask my wife
for something, you know,
an ice cream cone or let's go to
the store or something, she would only say
Charlotte, Charlotte.
And so after a while, whenever she used
to say that, like, mommy, can we get
an ice cream cone too? We'd say
Well,
but, I that's sort of a little bit
of the subject that I wanna talk about
today. That is about,
raising, Muslim children in
in the United States of America and Canada,
and some of the difficulties involved with that.
So this is one of my most unpleasant
lectures to get a delivery.
And tomorrow, I get to, you know,
talk about something that
I enjoy talking about much more. But I
think it's an important topic.
So but bear in mind that I really
don't know much about the Canadian Muslim scene.
Much more familiar with the American Muslim scene.
And much what I might say today
may not
exactly apply
to things in Canada,
in particular, in, Quebec.
So
so don't get angry at me. What I
say is, you know, is is not such
a big issue here. What I'm
basically sharing with you
is the difficulties of problems that I believe
we encounter
more in the you know, primarily in the
United States
with raising our children.
Alright?
Did you follow that?
But if I were to ask you
and or the United States or both
communities,
Muslim communities. If I were to ask you,
where do most of the Muslims
citizens and permanent residents
in North America come from?
I'd be sure if I went throughout this
audience and asked that question, I get a
variety of answers.
If you visited
Silicon Valley
and California,
you would certainly say, oh, India is Pakistan.
I've actually tried that
in that area. Not almost everybody says, oh,
yeah. Most of
American Muslims,
permanent residents, and citizens are from India and
Pakistan.
If I ask you that in Northern Saint
Louis, you would probably say,
well, Eastern Europe Europe,
Bosnia, and some of the other Balkan countries.
So if I ask the same question in
Kansas City, people familiar with the Kansas City
community would say, oh, the Arab world,
and so forth and so on. If I
ask you in Southwest San Francisco, you would
say, oh, PGI.
But the common denominator, I think,
do most of the citizens of permanent residents
come from?
The answer would be overseas.
The answer would be they're immigrants.
But that cannot possibly be the case,
and I wanna explain to you why.
Let's just take the American scene. I mean,
the American the United States scene.
In the United States, the estimates are that
there somewhere between, oh, I don't know, 2,000,000
and 8,000,000 out of investments by the Muslims
in Europe to 10,000,000, 11,000,000.
Escalating very fast. But
the estimates
vary to how many Muslim permanent residents, the
citizens, live in America, because the census doesn't
record that data.
But the the
the most moderate ex
estimates, and the one we'll take
as sort of a median estimate, is 5
million. Let's say there are 5,000,000
Muslim permanent residents and citizens in the United
States of America.
So let's try to figure out just
roughly how many of those
are from overseas.
Well, during the fifties sixties seventies
and even thereafter,
there was a massive large scale conversion of
Islam in America.
Many many African American
brothers and sisters
first went through the Nation of Islam, not
all of them did, but that was
the
majority, embraced the Nation of Islam's,
teachings under Elijah Muhammad. But the great majority
of those brothers and sisters followed the same
path blazed by Malcolm X and Muartini Muhammad
and came over to mainstream Islam.
Now at the height of the nation of
Islam, when Malcolm X was recruited so successfully,
they had a million members.
A 1000000 on our membership list.
But most of those brothers and sisters eventually
came over to mainstream Islam, and then there's
been a steady
influx
of Muslims from that same community, the African
American community, ever since, we could be sure
that there are somewhere in the neighborhood at
least
of a 1000000 African American converts to Islamic
Americans. The majority of them came to the
nation of Islam experience, but certainly not all.
So right there is about a 1000000 homegrown
American Muslims.
But in the seventies, eighties, nineties, and since,
we've had quite a few
converts from other ethnicities in America, a steady
trickle as they said in the Time Magazine
article.
I magazine article estimated
back in the early eighties that we're somewhere
near,
5,000
converts
per year from other MSNBC.
Less than 30 years since, that's another 150,000
converts at least, and the rate of conversion
has been increasing.
So but let's just say
1 a million, 1,200,000
converts to Islam in America. And a lot
of researchers,
non Muslim researchers,
picked up a low estimate. Let's take that
as an estimate. 1,200,000,
just to be I would circumcise a million
times.
So that's already
a significant number of homegrown American Muslims. But
now let's count the children.
Children, those who are born in the United
States but a Muslim parent.
Now Muslim families
started I mean, Muslims started immigrating to the
United States over big waves back in the
in the early 1900
and around 1950.
But the most recent wave of immigration started
in 1970, 80, 90, 2000, up till now,
last 50 years.
So by now, there should be 2nd and
3rd generation,
even 4th generation Muslims in America from that
latest wave of immigration.
Now the average Muslim in America lives in
a family. The average Muslim family in America
has what size? What do you think the
average size is? Well, the average American family
is 4.25
people.
But Muslim families tend to have more children
than the national demographic, and I think if
we said 3,
that would really be a low estimate for
the number of children in the average American
Muslim family.
I have 3 children. We have one of
the smallest families in the Muslim community in
the north.
So let's just say 3 children.
Three children in a family of 5.
That's 3 out of 5. 3 out of
5 members born in the USA.
Now there are 5,000,000 Muslims in America. 3
5ths of them are probably
descendants of Muslims born in the USA,
not counting later generations.
35,000,000
is 3,000,000. Throw back in the lowball estimate
of a 1000000 American converts.
3,000,000 plus 1,000,000 is 4,000,000. 4,000,000 out of
5,000,000 is 80%. But I can guarantee you,
if you go to any masjid in America,
almost any Friday prayer,
or any Muslim function in America, I defy
you to find anywhere near
80% or even 60%, maybe my estimate is
high,
or 15%
or 40%,
even 10%.
If I find anywhere near those that kind
of percentage representation.
Most messages in America, you go to the
Friday prayer. I don't know how it is
here in Canada and in the United States.
You Go to the Friday prayer. You'll be
lucky if you find a handful
of second or third or 4th generation Muslims
in
attendance.
At Lawrence, Kansas,
we're in the middle of the country, not
too far from Kansas City, which has a
sizable Muslim community. Lawrence itself
is estimated to have 2 to 3000 Muslim
permanent residents and citizens.
If you go to the Friday prayer in
Lawrence,
and we have a large number of
children up on campus, students on campus, there
have Muslim parents
in different parts of the country. You know
how many of those kids come to the
Friday prayer in Lawrence's campus?
You can usually count them on one hand.
You can usually count them on one hand.
234. And and I'll tell you the truth.
All of them that come
have families that live in Lawrence
and that come to the Friday prayer.
Now we estimate estimate based on
the population centers that feed our
university,
our enrollment,
that the percentage of Muslims or percentage of
students in Lawrence, Kansas
that are Muslim parentage, that have at least
1 Muslim parent. It's somewhere between 1 2%
of the student population.
Population is 3 30,000.
That means 300 to 600 students on campus,
we estimate, to be born in the United
States of America with at least 1 Muslim
parent.
And we are only getting 4 to show
up to our community functions. 4 out of
somewhere between 306100.
And as I travel around the country, some
communities are doing a little better, some are
doing actually, doing a little worse, if you
could believe it.
But throughout the country,
the one thing we are noticing consistently
is the great, great absence of homegrown
American Muslims,
even though they're in the majority.
There's a great
absent majority of Muslims in America.
You know, some
parents, they say, well, they'll come back with
them in their twenties or thirties or forties.
You know, they'll come back later on. But
so far history has shown that not to
be the case.
Those immigrants that came in pretty large waves
in the first half of the last century,
Their number, their total was somewhere around a
100,000 immigrants from 19
1950 from Muslim countries
came to America.
By now, those immigrants
have 3rd or 4th generation descendants,
and they tended to originally have large families.
You can imagine 2 Muslim parents coming in
1920
having, what, 4, 5, 6, 7 children,
each of them having their children, and etcetera,
etcetera.
By now, that same family should have a
family tree of
30,
40
individuals
times a 100000 is 4,000,000.
Where are those 4,000,000
descendants?
We don't see
them. They're long gone.
Sometimes you need them.
Sometimes I get lots of lectures around the
United States. Sometimes somebody will come up to
me and say, you know,
my great great grandfather was Muslim.
Or,
you
know, my grand great grandparents on this side
of my family, they were Muslim.
Completely absorbed into society,
and Islam is something long in their past.
Through the past 50 years,
there has been a large scale steady flow
of immigrants
to America from Muslim countries.
And although the Muslim community has created
many American Muslim institutions,
like the Canadian Islamic Congress, for example,
NSA,
and ICNA, and ISNA,
and AMC,
and CARE, MPAC, and so forth and so
on.
The religion has not really taken root in
America.
Because
crucial to the vitality of any religious community
is its ability to engage
and attract
converts and or descendants.
Any community
that cannot attract its converts and gay men
or its descendants,
has continually
rely on immigration
to sustain it.
And such a community cannot rightfully
said be said to be really rooted in
the society.
So the question is,
where have all the indigenous Muslims gone? Where
have all the homeschooled Muslims gone?
This is a major, major question. You think
it would be
on the front page
of every Muslim publication in America?
Do
you think that it would be the main
topic,
the principle theme at Islamic conferences?
But
time and time again,
the issue is not
discussed.
It might be alluded to here and there,
but I believe remark
that seems
to refer to this problem, but
we don't see any real major effort to
discuss this. I really don't know why. To
be honest with you, brother and sister,
I'm sort of worn out talking about it
because
that just seems like something our community doesn't
wanna discuss.
And I often say that when I'm invited
to a community to discuss the subject, I'm
usually invited once.
I get an invitation later. Please don't give
that lecture again because you talk about something
else.
Talk about the purpose of life or talk
about their conversion experience or, you know, talk
about this and that. Some Something to cheer
us up.
It is
it is,
you know, a serious problem and for Muslims,
those who have,
you know, deep faith in their religion. It's
a major problem because
the Quran especially has informed us, it it
says,
save your children and your families. Save yourselves
and your family.
From a fire whose fuel is man and
so on. From a
From a fire for whom we ourselves
are the fuel for that anguish,
and we suffer in the next light of
the false object of worship symbolized by a
stone.
But it says save yourself and your families
and your family.
And it's addressed to the community in the
plural. Just doesn't mean you go out and
say your own family.
It's hard to go out there and work
to gauge
and to address the next generation.
But in any case, where have they gone?
To tell you the truth,
I noticed their absence on the day I
first became a Muslim, but I had no
clue.
I had no clue where they where they
are.
And that's the end of my talk. Thank
you very much.
But
what happened was something very interesting.
You know, it's just
you know, some would say chance. You know?
I was sitting in the message one night
in,
San Francisco. That's where I became a Muslim,
and I was much loving the experience of
being a convert to
Islam. That first year and a half, when
I was a Muslim, the masjid was my
sanctuary. I went to it 5 times every
day. I moved close to campus, so I
did do that. It was beautiful
mesmerizing
experience,
sending the the message.
And one day after the camaraderie
and the breadsmanship,
it was really something else.
And since I came from somewhat dysfunctional family,
it was great having all this love from
fellow community members.
So I became extremely attached to the mosque.
And one night, we're sitting in a masjid,
sitting in a circle like we always did
after a national prayer, talking and chatting.
And then Mohammed, who's the oldest member of
our community, he's about 40 something.
He's from the Middle East.
He
informs us, as we're sitting in a circle,
he says,
brothers,
my
oldest boy turns 16 today.
Mohammed was the oldest member of our community,
and his son was the oldest
of the next generation.
And we all start laughing, congratulating
him, and, you know, praising him, etcetera.
But his eyes were cast down to the
carpet.
And when he lifted them slowly, we saw
big round teardrops
dropping down his cheeks,
making their way down his cheeks slowly.
Neil got quiet,
and he looked back to us and he
said, brothers,
I lost him.
I've lost my
son. And we knew what he was talking
about.
We saw it in the surrounding communities time
and time again.
You
know, Mohammed was a religious man.
He did his best to raise his child
as he was raised.
Somehow,
he felt he had lost his son. And
by the when I left San Francisco,
you know,
So as I drove home from the masjid
that night, I was haunted by the image
of Mohammed's face.
Because I just had the good news a
couple of months earlier that my wife
was pregnant with our first child,
who would turn out to be a daughter.
And I was wondering as I'm driving back
to domestic that night till 16 years from
now, will I too be
looking at the fellow members of my community
with that same
vacant,
defeated expression on my face.
And so I started writing.
Began writing. According to my experiences of what
it was like to be an American conqueror
to Islam in the United States of America.
Assuming that somehow
my children might relate to my experience.
Hearing that we're both from the United States
of America, the difficulties
and problems that I face, they might be
able to relate to that, and I might
get some help in that. So I wrote
my first book, which I entitled it even
no. I entitled it, Struggling to Surrender.
I wrote it for my my children,
and I left it on my shelf in
a manuscript form for my children. But my
friends used to come over and wanna read
it, and I lend it to them and
they read it. And finally, they kept saying,
Jeff, you gotta try to publish this. You
gotta try to publish it. So I did
and it got published.
And then something interesting happened. I began receiving
emails from converts
from the United States and Canada. Not emails.
I started
email. Al Gore hadn't invented it.
And then receiving letters and telephone calls and
other forms of communication.
But Converse mostly saying that they did very
much
back in those days, of course, not everybody
could relate to my experience. Some had very
different experience. But I received, you know, many,
many emails with of converts sharing similar experiences,
even I relate to mine.
And I noticed from our communications that the
converts that I many many converts that I
communicated with,
our paths to Islam and our paths thereafter
intersected at many key points.
And based on that, I wrote another book
for my children,
and I called it Even Angel's Acts.
And large part of the promotion of theology,
the theological type of questions
that drive many Americans, not just Muslims, from
belief in God. And I tried to describe
what kind of answers
many of us have found in the Quran.
And again, my friend encouraged me to publish
it. I ended up publishing it. It came
out,
and then something
remarkable happened. I began receiving emails,
mostly emails, but now it's email generation.
I began receiving email after email after email
after email from young people in America and
Canada
who were struggling with their faith, young Muslims.
A large number of them, a good percentage
said they had already left the faith. They
weren't Muslims anymore.
Many felt they were on the verge of
leaving the faith.
Almost all of them felt they were in
a crisis, a faith crisis.
It was an interesting
sample.
It's not your average American Muslim
person who was emailing me.
Most American Muslim young people growing up there
have no connection to religion aside
from the fact they know it's in their
heritage. Most of them come from families that
are disconnected from the mosque, so they don't
really feel the need to become connected to
it. Most of them, they they have no
idea of religion is on the shelf. This
is a much more intense crowd.
These are people, many of them that grew
up in religious families and that were struggling
with their religion.
These were people that had become atheists, but
still
were tremendous to the extent that they needed
to double check them.
It. It was an interesting group,
and I began to record these communications. I
began I opened a file, began to put
them in there.
And the file of those communications quickly grew
to 100 pages and then 200 pages and
then 300 pages, so I reduced the font
size And 400 pages, 500 pages, and now
over 1300
pages long.
And based on those communications, I wrote my
next book, which was called losing my religion,
a call for help. Because one of the
emails I received was entitled
losing my religion, a call for help.
So I changed the file for that name.
Because I felt that this was a very
important
perspective that our community should be aware of.
This is vital information.
Because if we wanna know why these young
people aren't coming, it's not like they're gonna
come knocking on the door and tell us.
The very hard group, most of them will
never share their experiences with their parents.
Time and time again, I would get these
emails, and I
I stopped doing this. But the 1st few
years, I would invariably email them back and
say, why don't you discuss this with your
parents? Why don't you discuss this with your
local imam? Why don't you discuss this with
a religious leader in your community? And they
would send me back things like, are you
crazy, doctor Ryan?
They would totally freak out. I would be
disaparative.
My father would kill me.
My parents would say, I'm shamed the entire
family
and all of regeneration
of it because I went and talked to
your mom about these questions. So
I
realized that we have a major crisis on
the on the end. We have
young people in crisis,
in a faith crisis,
who have nowhere to go to.
I mean, the very fact that they were
seeking out some obscure author in the mid
very middle of the United States of America,
in a small Muslim community, in a isolated
area, tells you just how desperate their situation
was.
So
I think it's an important perspective because of
these people
who have enough concern to actually seek out
somebody to help them with their problems,
have these problems, you could be sure that
the much greater numbers
of second generation Muslims who have nothing to
do with religion have no concern
counter the community,
if they were to
try to participate in the community,
they would have very similar problems.
So I wrote that book.
I didn't know what was gonna happen to
it, and that's an interesting story, but I'm
not gonna tell you that.
Today, I'm just gonna share with you what
was shared with me.
Let's see what triangle is.
Bylo? Is that right?
807?
Is that right?
9. Thank you.
Okay. So I'll take about 20 minutes, 25
minutes, share with you what they shared with
me.
Don't don't stone the messenger.
And then I'll talk about
20 minutes or so, 25 minutes, how we
might approach that, and then I guess we
can discuss it after.
I wish I had all the answers. I
don't.
But I think these are important issues that
they need to be talked about. We need
to be aware of it. It needs to
be moved up to the front
of our community's
agenda,
meetings,
and and conferences,
and publications, and so forth.
Well,
where have all these children gone? What kind
of problems did they present to me? Well,
1,
top of the list, believe it or not.
Oh, you'll probably believe it.
Top of the list
is,
of course,
culture
clash. Cult the clash between the mosque culture,
the culture of the mosque,
and the surrounding society. And chief
thing, the principal
item in this category, of course, was
the treatment of women and their local Muslim
community.
The treatment of women.
Here's some of what they shared with me.
And many of these young people complained that
and they usually said that Islam
does these things. They didn't say the community
does these things or the community this happens
in the community. They email me and say
Islam
makes it this way.
They all very often identify these things with
Islam because they were told
that these these things were Islam
or were demanded by Islam.
They said, women were discouraged from attending the
congregational
prayers,
the 5 daily prayer.
They said that women were placed in secluded,
separate areas away from the main prayer hall
so that they would be secluded from the
men.
And for many of them, this was a
major problem. The seclusion of women in their
communities was a major problem.
In North Kansas, for example,
we have,
a message with a nice, big, expansive prayer
area for the men.
The beautiful lighting,
brand new doors,
wonderful windows have been constructed. It used to
be a church at a school,
and they did a beautiful job at the
men's prayer area. But the women's prayer area,
you have to go up 2 or 3
flights of stairs. I can't remember. I've never
been there. But you have to go up
2 or 3 flights of stairs and then
down the hallway, I remember, and then through
this little, you know,
stairs and then down the hallway, I remember,
and then through this little
corridor and down this dark corridor.
Then you finally come to the women's prayer
area, which is small, dark, and poorly maintained
with lead paint,
you know, chipping from the wall.
Electrical outlets
expose.
The ladies have been complaining about the condition
in the place. The paint is old.
The carpet smells.
The ventilation is poured,
and
nothing's being done about it.
We've got fundraisers to renovate the mosque, and
so far, it's set around 60, 70,000, $80,000
has been raised. But you know where all
that money has
gone through renovating the men's hair.
Not a dime has been spent on the
women's area yet.
Amazing.
And, you know, I used to pray with
my daughters
every night in the midst, my 3 daughters.
They were little, of course, so it didn't
attract much attention. But Jamila would be the
oldest. She was 3 or 4 in Lawrence
at the time. She'd be scampering around all
over the place exploring. And Sarah
would be clinging to my pants.
In fact, it was too small so I'd
be holding her in my arms, but it
was a beautiful, beautiful miscarriage.
As the years went by, that became our
nightly routine. Of course, I tried till little.
I always took them out for ice cream
after or something.
But I really think they loved going to
the masjid
almost as much as I
did and almost as much as I loved
having them there.
But as that they got older, some of
that kind of rumors started to fly, people
used to make hints and, you know, tell
me, you know, again, the little check. They
should be praying
upstairs in the dungeon. Well, they didn't talk
to them.
But the point is is that little by
little, my daughter is starting to get, ideas
to try to protect them from that.
Because, of course, during the time of the
prophet peace, the new prophets, the women used
to
pray in the same
courtyard as Met in Medina.
And there were no barriers and separations and
things like that. So I didn't feel the
need to have them go somewhere else.
Uncomfortable glances.
There were
remarks to my wife sent through other women,
so forth and so on. They got little
by little by little, really got to know
about it, and they gave the ladies prayer
area a try.
But going back up there in the dark
at night through the hallway, so low in
the in that dark and dirty area,
it wasn't very comforting to them, and it
destroyed the whole experience. But the long and
the short of it is is my children
haven't been to the message of praying
in about
8 years.
I'm not saying they didn't they're not Muslims.
But I've come to realize that most likely,
their experience of Islam in America is gonna
be very different from mine.
My experience has always been a community experience.
It's to me, experience of faith community. Their
experience is gonna be one of practicing
Islam in virtual isolation.
And
I wonder what their chair you know, how
that's gonna affect
everything.
Their whole life,
their future,
their commitment to the faith,
their children,
wings
to the religion.
It's a it's a big issue.
The young people
also shared with me that women are denied
positions of leadership in most communities in Maryland.
Not everywhere.
In many communities,
it's true. I went to a community in
New Jersey not just long ago. I said,
do you know that 4 or 5 years
ago, I came to a community and they
wouldn't allow women to vote in the election,
community election?
And then, like, 15 ladies
raised their hands to be honest, we can't
vote in our election.
It still happens to this day.
Women are denied positions on boards of directors
or executive committees.
And women converts I'm trying to rush through
some of these. The most visible group of
converts to Islam in America
claim I don't know if this is true.
I'm not part of the women's group.
The most visible group of converts to Islam
in America. The women are much more tenacious
and hanging on to this religion than their
male counterparts.
It's amazing.
A friend of mine, Lynne Jones, wrote about
that in her book, how they cling to
this religion many of them by their fingertips.
But they claim, at least the one that
emailed me, that they are often ignored,
derided,
disrespected,
marginalized,
and disenfranchised
in their community. At least they feel they
have been.
They just claim they're treated like less than
second class citizens
in their own countries.
And
of course, that hurts.
It doesn't help.
That's your fake experience. You have to contend
with that. Now
the situation is more complicated than that.
Because after I wrote my book, I heard
from Muslim ladies that were born overseas. They
said, no. That's not the problem. The problem
is is that the men respect the lady
converts more than they do the immigrant Muslim
lady,
and there's resentment for me and things like
that. Maybe all that is true. I don't
know what the complexities of it is or
the dynamics, but when you have these sort
of problems,
you have problems. Because if the ladies don't
come to the mines,
then the children won't come to the mines.
And if the children don't come to the
mines, they're gonna hard have a hard time
getting to connect to it when they're not
children anymore.
Now if you wanna get your children in
a month, you don't have any hope of
having them form a,
a viable,
heartfelt connection to the mosque, you have to
start hurting.
The ladies don't come to the mosque, most
of the children.
A lot of them describe in their communities
what they call
the status ladder.
A lot of the ladies described it this
way.
In every month's opportunity, you have 2 ladders.
There's a men's ladder,
and
status is sort of determined by a number
of things, but, you know, mostly, they said
ethnicity.
So if Muslims come from one back male
Muslims come from one background, they're at the
top of the ladder. By the way, they
said,
blancher, blue eyed white American converts are immediately
pushed to the top.
Unless they sort of rock the boat, start
questioning things, then they fall out of the
last place.
But then after that, a certain certain ethnicity
said, you know, this and this and this
and this, and they sort of go down
the ladder.
But then at the bottom of the lay
ladder, then you have the women's ladder beginning.
And they they say that the women's ladder
also has these ethnic sort of divisions, but
we also have this kind of division that
a woman's credibility is Muslim credibility is sort
of inversely proportional to how long she has
lived in the United States.
Inversely proportional, you know what I mean?
So that the shortage is the lady that
lived here, the more
credibility she has, more respect she has. So
those that just got off the plane, maximum
Islamic respect.
You know? People look to her right now.
She's untainted by the western society.
And then those who have lived longer, a
little less, you know, and then longer and
longer. And then down the towards the bottom
of the ladder then comes the next generation.
And then below the next generation comes the
converts.
At least that's the way the ladies perceive
it. I don't know if it is true.
I don't know if it is true. Like
I said, I've never been a part of
the ladies community and my community.
But if that is the perception, then that's
a major problem.
You know, there needs to be a
preference.
I could go on and on and talk
about
the issues that were presented to me about
women, but
for the lack of time, I'm gonna move
ahead.
A lot of our young people claim that
there's an intellectual divide. They're like, they have
to develop a certain intellectual schizophrenia
schizophrenia
to negotiate the mass culture and then the
larger culture.
They say that they have to think one
way in the Muslim cult community, and then
they have to shift
and think another way in their schooling and
in their education and their jobs. You know,
they have to adopt adopt kind of like
a double think.
And then sometimes it drives them nuts because,
again, sometimes it's not always easy to shift
from one to the other.
They say in the American community just to
review some of the things that were said.
In the American community, great emphasis is put
on rationalism.
And they claim while in the Muslim community,
great emphasis is put on traditionalism,
following the tradition.
Not rocking the boat.
No question.
Especially if the questions are difficult to answer.
That question is haram. It's haram who asked
that question.
You can't ask that question.
And you're anonymous.
But what if I really have that question?
Well, then you better get rid of it.
But I can't get rid of it because
I can't answer it.
Well, then you're not a Muslim.
Just put it out of your mind.
Some of them actually email me, describe these
kind of dilemmas.
I remember when I first became a Muslim.
I thought I would share with my community
my experience.
Of course, my community, my experience was I
was an atheist
with all these objections to the existence of
the idea of god.
The idea of the existence of god, all
And then I have all these objections, and
I read the Quran, and it answered my
questions for me.
So I would give stare in front of
an audience like this one in a mess
here somewhere
and start to explain it. And I would
begin by presenting the questions I had
that led me to disbelieve in god.
And as I heard the truth, brothers and
sisters, I get halfway through the questions,
and brothers would start standing up and say,
this is Haram.
It's Haram to even consider these questions.
Of course, that was back in 1982.
You know? Things have progressed a little bit
since then. But for many of our children,
it is still that way. They have a
question, you're a copier. Don't ask that question.
Mom with that question. Everybody in the community
will say my children are copier.
Captives. It's in a a larger society
promotes individualism,
celebrates the madman who goes out there and
blazes the trail, challenges tradition,
thinks outside the box.
They say the Muslim community
with great emphasis on strict conformance,
community norms, and standards.
Don't rock the boat.
Don't stand out.
Just keep a low profile
unless you're gonna represent an overall point of
view.
I think the line with this critical objective
research
is emphasized in one community, promoted in one
community, adherence to the ancient authorities. I'm not
saying you're incorrect. One is bad one.
Just saying that for a lot of our
kids, they seem feel that they're caught in
an intellectual
dilemma.
Free speech and freedom of thought
is celebrated in the United States of America
and Canada.
Of course, in the United States of America
under George Bush, it's almost meaningless now.
But free speech and freedom of thought is
still much celebrated in the United States of
America. And the message,
our young people complain that there's very severe
limitations
on speech and thought. A lot of communities,
you gotta get every before you can even
say something to mention, you you gotta get
permission from the leadership and they have to
know what they're gonna say and so forth
and so forth. You
know,
all all speech and thought is very strictly
controlled
as it is in many
third world oligarchies, for example.
In any case, many of our kids for
these are fun. Let me just summarize around
and go down the intellectual doublethink that many
of our young
people complain of
in our congress.
Basically, the idea is this.
Many of our young people, they're not scholars
of this Islam.
There are university professors that are gonna go
out and start
exploring and reading, going through ancient
texts and things like that.
Most of them are just kids, and they
are basing and as they're growing up in
America, they are weighing these 2 communities
side by
side.
And they are intuitively trying to figure out
which one
makes more sense.
And by and large, they are seeing the
mainstream culture with all its faults and flaws.
They're still seeing the mainstream culture as
democratic,
inclusive,
tolerant,
encourages mutual respect
and objectivity,
where arguments are won by rational
thought.
In contrast, many of them see their as
totalitarian,
exclusivist,
shelling out points of view that don't agree
with the leadership,
intolerant,
patronizing,
oppressive,
and where proof and arguments are won by
intimidation
and threat.
That's what the way it was seen.
And many of them think that
this religion
just doesn't make sense.
And like I said, they associated with Islam.
And they emailed me, well, Islam requires this.
And I emailed them back and say,
are you sure that Islam requires that?
That's how deeply confused our because everything's gonna
change. There is both Islam requires this. Islam
requires that. Let me give
you requirement. Let me give you an example
of the type of concrete
examples they give me.
1 young lady said,
my dad
doesn't have a clue how I'm gonna get
married someday.
She said, my dad tells me that if
I see one of my classmates in Bilal
or something like that or out on the
street when I'm with my family, and he's
a non Muslim. It's okay if I go
up and talk to him. And he'll say
hello and things like that. If he's a
Muslim, I can't talk to him.
On the other hand, he tells me at
the same time
that if he's a non Muslim, I can't
marry him. But if he's a Muslim, I
have to marry him.
And she said, here it is. You know,
the boys that I have no chance of
marrying, I can talk to them, but the
boys that I I'm supposed to marry, I
could never talk to them.
Another young lady wrote me and she said,
you know, I mean, it's really strange. You
know? Like, they were so separated from each
other
in the chaperoned
environment of the community.
They keep us so segregated from one another,
secluded from one another, that we virtually have
no contact with Muslims
of the opposite gender.
She said, so what happens is,
in reality, for every one minute of contact
that I have with a Muslim male who
someday I'm supposed to marry from among them,
I have a 1000 minutes of inadvertent contact
with non Muslim males.
Or
not supposed to marry someday.
She said, is it any wonder that Muslim
girl after Muslim girl is falling in love
with non Muslim boys?
A 1,000 to 1.
In a sense, in the ground, they've got
us put, you know, a mutual attraction between
the sexes,
you know, and human nature, etcetera.
This
magnetism
and drawing them together.
Well, a young boy
wrote me. He said to me, my dad
is a social schizophrenic
when he's at the Mexican
and he sees
a female
fully covered,
dressed
modest as can be.
He sees them
in shock and immediately turns around and faces
the opposite direction.
And then at work,
on the Thanksgiving holiday,
he always had a special day where they
celebrate,
you know, Thanksgiving
at work. And he's he's invited us, of
course, his family to go to that, and
he's putting his arm around me, talking to
them, chatting, etcetera, the non Muslim lady.
Why does my dad find a Muslim lady
fully dressed more threatening
the morality
than a non Muslim lady in a short
skirt at a at a at a Thanksgiving
party.
You know? An open environment.
And they're starting to say, this just doesn't
make sense. And I could give you an
example after example after example.
Think if you're a young kid growing up
in America, and you're comparing these two things
side by side. Of course, you don't talk
to your parents about it
because they'll if these kids are right, freak
out.
So what do you do?
You just keep it to yourself
and wait
for the time when you're old enough to
start deciding what your own lifestyle is gonna
be.
You keep it to yourself.
You're
crazy,
you email Jeff Lyon and Lawrence Camden.
I received 2 emails today, by the way,
and asked him to help you with your
problems. And I tell you the truth, I
don't feel up to the challenge.
This
takes community effort. It's only so many minutes
in a day. There's so much so much
reading I could do.
And I said, I wasn't born in Middle
Eastern culture. I don't even understand it.
I understand the western culture. That's all I
know. That's where it grew up.
And I tell you the truth, things that
are obvious from a Middle Eastern point of
view or from a Far Eastern point of
view are not obvious from a western point
of view.
I say to my brothers and sisters, why
do you think that's essential Islam? They give
me this argument. I go, and this doesn't
make sense.
Why? Because I'm thinking from a different cultural
experience.
But, anyway,
these are some of the things our young
people are grappling with.
You see,
psychologists these days
talk very frequently about identity formation.
It's a critical phase we all go through,
through. Identity formation.
As we're going through our life, we're choosing
what we're gonna put in our identity basket,
what we're gonna identify ourselves with. Oh, yeah.
I'd like to be identified with my mom's
Middle Eastern cookie. Okay. Yeah. My friend did.
So yeah. I like to be identified as
somebody of this background. I like to be
identified in this way and that I like
to be identified as a smart student. I
like to be identified as a woman and
so forth and so on.
You know, we constantly are making those choices
throughout our life, but especially it reaches its
most
chaotic
and difficult period
with adolescence.
What happens is these kids reach that stage,
you know, it's a very tumultuous
part of their life where they're very quickly
making major identity choices, whether they identify with
or not. For kids of immigrant background,
that
identity crisis
is usually
much greater, much more intense.
For kids of Muslim immigrant background,
it could be even much much more intense.
But here's what happens.
Basically, the idea is this, to come from
2 cultures simultaneously,
you try to pick
psychology has shown this. You try to pick
things that fit well in both cultures, of
course.
Easily in both cultures. And then the things
that are harder to fit in, you have
a more difficult time dealing with. And things
that are on the extremes
from one culture's point of view or the
other,
a lot of times kids tend to ignore
a HIPAA.
Are you following me? So if kids go
to their messages and they find them to
be extreme
or nonsensical
or irrational
in the other point of view.
Their other point of view, judging 2 identities
at once, 2 basic facets at once,
They tend to stay away from them. And
so in Lawrence, Kansas, at the beginning of
every semester, we have this phenomenon.
Congress entered a religion, a A lot of
them burn out after 6, 8, 9 months,
2 years, whatever.
I'm not saying all of them. I'm saying
a lot.
We've had 34100 in the last 5 years.
Right now, 2 of them still go to
the mine.
But that doesn't mean they all left in
religion. Some have moved away, but still, many
of them still live in more uncertainly have
nothing to do with the community.
But it takes them a while.
Our young people, they come to the mosque.
They're on the university campus for the first
time. They've never visited the mosque. They have
Muslim parents. They have 1 Muslim parent. They
go down and give it a try on
the 1st day of classes.
They come to the 1st Friday prayer, they
attend it, we never see them again.
Visceral
counter reaction.
Visceral rejection. It's too painful.
Then a lot of our young people, other
issues, theology, the purpose of life.
Growing up in the United States of America
or Canada,
they sit,
drink coffee with their friends,
and they're having a different religion, so the
issue of religion and theology often comes up.
It's a big yeah. It's a big talking
point for kids in America, especially high school
and college age. And somebody asked them,
what does your religion see as the purpose
in life?
Oh, god created us to worship him.
Kind of
own? These are the kind of questions they
face. They're foundational
in the western cultural experience. These are the
questions that felt the shade in secular western
culture.
So they're gonna encounter
them. So they go back to the mosque
for answers.
Ones that will work,
and they're discussing with their friends if they
go back to the mosque at all.
A lot of them just give up.
But those are the type of questions that
I get time and time again.
But I always include the first chapter in
my book. It's usually about those theological
questions.
Many of them are suspicious of the Islamic
sciences. I'll give you an example, the Hadith
literature.
Young person goes to the mosque, pride a
prayer, hears a Hadith,
shapes the foundations of the space,
and it starts looking into the map.
Goes to a library.
It's at a university. Goes to the university
library. Starts researching this. And what does he
find?
Tons and tons of research in English
has been done in this
great
science.
But almost all of it
okay.
We kindly request you to pause for a
moment while they change the audio today.
Are you ready?
Order.
Order in the court.
Are you ready?
And then these literature is just one example,
but they go to the university library,
and they find that almost all the work
that they can find in English,
Midnight is written by Western
scholars
or non Muslim scholars.
Some of them from Japan.
Some of them from all over the world,
but they're almost entirely written by non Muslims.
I'm not saying the research is bad. Actually,
much of it is very, very good.
But there is a certain bias,
and it lacks a Muslim perspective.
But the sad thing is Muslims
are not contributing to that
intellectual
effort. They're not making their point of view
known. They don't even know about modern
methods of research
in those areas, most of
them. The vast majority of our scholars. They're
even unaware of it. They're totally in the
dark.
And so the answers that they could give
to these young kids
with their questions in this domain are just
not even in the ballpark.
If you're a Muslim scholar and you want
to help our children, you have to be
converted
in the type of literature that they are
gonna encounter when they research Islam.
Where else where else are our young people
going? And that's why we need you sitting
here today. You young people sitting here today.
For those of you who have the inclination,
that's what we need you to enter the
fields of religious studies and Middle Eastern studies,
etcetera. So you could master those modes of
research and thought
and evaluate that research and
and separate what you feel is strong and
full body to meet and help your fellow
generations
Where else do they look? If they have
questions.
I'll tell you where they look. Because I
get this in my emails all the time.
Doctor Lyon, I had this question about women
in Islam.
And I,
you know, looked when the library couldn't find
much, so where did I go? Where did
they always come? The Internet. The Internet generation.
Hundred websites. They're taking the and they go
to several 100 websites.
They're taken to several 100 websites. And once
again, the vast majority of them in English
are by non Muslims, but these are not,
by and large, people
that are researchers
who are trying to strive for some objectivity
in their work. These are mostly
non Muslims
who are propagandists
who are trying to present a loathsome image
of Islam
and more
9 times out of 10. Our kids, when
they go to those websites, they read the
arguments, they see the sources that are used
to build those arguments against the religion, and
they are shook.
So I get emails, doctor Lang, you gotta
go to this website. It's about 20, 30
pages long, but you gotta go in there
and refute everything that they did.
I get the one of those emails every
couple weeks.
If I did nothing else 24 hours a
day, I would just be working on websites.
You know, going from one after the next
after the next.
Now we have to educate our children and
teach them how to think, how to think
critically, how to approach these type of questions
on their own, how to do the kind
of research
necessary so that they can answer their own
questions.
We have to bring them up to think.
Many of them
are unconfident of traditional Islamic law. I mentioned
them. A lot of times, that's just because
they're associating
things that the tells them is demanded by
the religion
with the religion.
They assume that this is commanded by Islam,
and it was required by the Islamic law.
A lot of times,
it's highly debatable.
Scholars have very, very
diverse opinions on that particular subject. A lot
of times, it has nothing to do with
Islamic law at all. It's more a cultural
tradition.
One other issue, and I don't think this
is an issue in Canada, but it certainly
is in the United States, because Canada to
me is I always envision it as this
idyllic,
wonderful,
my words, politically
correct,
harmonious
tapestry of different cultures.
I guess you're laughing, so I guess I'm
wrong. But actually, when I was 26 and
finished graduate school, I was desperate to move
to Canada.
Right after, you know, not too long after
Vietnam, and I was pretty much sick living
in America at the time. And I saw
my country going in a very
bad direction.
So I thought I'd put a camera.
So much of what I say about this
may not apply here. But
a big problem we have in the American
Muslim community in the United States Muslim community,
is this major
ethnocentrism.
So if you go to the mosque in
San Francisco, for example, you have
Masjid that are actually named by cultural
background. That's the Pakistani
mosque. That's the Indian mosque. That's the Yemeni
mosque. That's the Syrian mosque. That and so
forth and so on. We even have a
Fiji mosque.
Get along. And commerce sometimes after that, no,
what is going
on?
Because each mosque
promotes in the name of Islam,
it's peculiar
perspective.
I've talked about this longer, but I'll just
give you one very
critical example.
This one, I don't think could be a
problem up here.
But in the
American Muslim community
let me explain it with an example.
When I became a Muslim
but this is about the national centrist, but
one particular type. When I became a Muslim,
about 2 weeks after I became a Muslim,
multiple meetings because we're usually on for shuttle
time.
But, 15, 20 minutes go by, and then
we finally start.
And we start,
and,
and the speaker gets up there. They introduce
you know, those master of arms, master of
ceremony.
And he says that,
okay. And I think you can make the
dua, read from the Quran. Now we're ready
to make the supplication, read from the
Did
he say my name?
Some of them, you know, I'm put on
the spot. I felt like spotlight had come
up.
Son of man, you know, I'm put on
the spot. I felt like spotlight had come
on me. I looked at Rossley, who's a
student of mine at the University of San
Francisco.
I said, Rossley, I I haven't looked into
anything. He said, in Charlotte, it'll be okay.
Okay. So I get up there. I'm unprepared.
I give them this 5 minute, just, you
know, contorted
summary of things as best as I can
recall. I I really hadn't absorbed it
yet, the whole experience.
And then I get done.
And
I step away from it, and then the
master's ceremony
makes another supplication and prayer.
And then,
these sites a little bit more on the
Quran, and then the journey to the meeting.
And then I get down you know, I
step off the stage, about 2 feet off
the ground. I step off the stage, hit
the ground,
and
every
brother in the place,
all 200 and something of them,
converged on me.
And
I was freaking out. You know?
They were giving me that Islamic triple hug.
I had never been hugged by a man
in my
life.
And I had, like, 30 rides offering me
a ride all the way back to San
Francisco.
By the time I got over there, 2
hours had passed.
And to, you know, also presented his recent
conversion story.
But
he got, like, 8 handshakes,
got off the stage, was out of there
in 3 minutes, and had to find a
ride back to San Francisco.
But the, you know, the only difference I
did
And
I was wondering,
did I enter a community of races?
This result utterly tainted.
But the fact that that brother was totally
ignored.
And I thought, well, you know, this is
ignored. Maybe I'm really into it or something.
And then, you know, I it would happen
time and time again. I'd be standing in
the mosque one day, fucking to an American
brother who converted to his mosque from an
African American.
I'm an African
American heritage, and the brothers would come up
and shake my hand
and ignore him
or wash my hands.
It's like a liberal
oasis. I mean, that's in a bad
sense. It's the middle of George Bush country.
But
I'm sitting standing in the I'm standing up
giving the chukpa, and then I finally asked
the brother. And I told him we had
a problem in this regard, and I said,
I'll give you an example. How many of
you know the American
converts in our community? All the above assumed
confidence they did.
So I said,
raise your hand if you know
brother Jeffrey Lang. They all smiled.
And how many of you know a brother
does this?
They laugh.
Brother Eric, they laugh. They held up their
hand. How many of you know brother Kareem?
Who's Kareem?
How many of you know brother Nathan?
Paul,
they didn't know.
There were 4 African American brothers.
Students at the university attended
every Friday career
practically.
They were there.
American Congress, to be honest with you, their
attendance was more much more sporadic. The white
American Congress. Okay.
They all knew them.
They didn't know that. But I know it's
I believe it's not what I initially thought
it was. He exceeded racial
violent hatred.
Because,
like, some of the projects
who came up with your mind, they were
darker than the brothers, the African American brothers.
It wasn't that. It was something I don't
know.
The experience of colonialism
or the fact that
Caucasian Europe is always seen as a perennial
nemesis. And when one of them come, one
of these comes over, they think we have
some sort of victory or things like that.
But the point of it is it's the
it's the reaction among us who grew up
here is visceral
again.
We went through that kind of racism.
And many of us who came to Islam
came because we sensed that something was better.
We read the Quran.
Somebody that every time I bring this up
comes up to me and says, it's not
racism. It's just that you see because you
when a white person can turn
Maybe who cares what the reason is or
the rationale?
The point is is that it's destructive,
and it's gonna eventually lead to the kind
of racial antagonism and animosity
that we have lived through and are still
living through.
The scars are still fresh. They're still bleeding
in the in the United States of America.
I hope it's not a problem here in
Canada.
But
it's just an example.
You know? But the other types of
ethnocentrism
and racial stuff,
you
Okay. So if you'll allow me,
I'm gonna talk,
unless you're exhausted.
Okay. So if you'll allow me,
I'm gonna talk
unless you're exhausted.
I'm 15, 20 minutes for some things, just
some pointers. I don't have all the answers.
This
gonna take a collective effort.
Things we need to do,
start addressing the problem of
massive
homegrown
alienation from the world.
And these are suggestions.
First of all, of course, I mentioned the
importance of
scholarship that is conversant, not just the traditional
Islamic sources,
but also with
the vast amount of Western scholarship that is
coming out. We need young people
that are superior in that kind of work,
and it's happening. We're starting to get it.
We need more.
We need to make our voices heard.
And we need and, you know, not to
go in there with a chip on your
shoulder or anything. Just become
good scholars.
But
awesome.
I wanted to mention a proposition that I
think
we can discuss at the moment.
And I think you'll agree with me, basically,
generally on this. It's not a meta theorem.
It's not always true, but it's more most
often true.
And the theorem is this, the greater the
number of practices and beliefs
that we insist
are
essential to Islam, that we identify with Islam.
This is Islam. Islam requires this.
And you hear it all the time.
Even though there might be
very vigorous debate among the scholars right now
in the Muslim community about a particular thing,
you'll hear whoever happens to take this decision
or that decision say, this is Islam.
Even though they haven't really read it,
even though they haven't studied this objective,
thorough, scholarly manner,
They promoted that. But
what I'm trying to say is to bring
a number of practices and beliefs that we
claim,
we insist are demanded by Islam,
the fewer will be the number of people
who will consider Islam as a religious option.
This goes for children growing up here, recent
converts,
potential converts,
non Muslims who encounter the community.
Are you following?
Okay. Let me give you a quick example.
When I first became a Muslim in 1982,
you may agree with some of what I'm
saying. You may disagree with some of it.
Just to give you an example.
The first few weeks, 1st few months I
was a Muslim, it seemed like every Muslim
I met
was only too eager
to share with me something he or she
felt was does not leave out the she.
He felt as demanded by the religion,
even though it was probably tenuously linked to
it. There's no direct or powerful or overriding
evidence, or it wasn't like it was unanimity
among the scholars past and present.
For example, I was told some of this
it was 1982. Our community has grown up
a little, so some of this could seem
maybe a little funny. But I was told
that I must wear Middle Eastern clothing.
I was told that's cinema,
and you don't have to wear Middle Eastern
clothing.
Wanna be a good mother? I was told
that I could never listen to any music
of any kind.
I was told that I must make all
my supplications in Arabic.
I remember saying to them, folks, god not
understand English?
I was told that I must not missle,
that I must not use utensils when I
eat, but I have to eat with my
hand
and right hand, cannot have a television, cannot
wear a tie because it looks like a
cross, must overthrow the American government when the
first opportunity
is
like
actually, that one's probably okay.
The women cannot leave their house without their
husband's permission. There were a whole ton of
women.
Women can't vote. Women can't work outside the
home. Islam says that women can't drive.
I was told that Islam forbid democracy,
that I Islam demands that I change my
name to an Arabic one
even though the law and Salman are non
pristine, non Arab Muslims with non Arabic names,
and the prophet who's become never complained about
that.
That targeting civilians is permissible in jihad,
and so forth and so on and on
and on and on.
And, you know, if I hadn't
read the Quran before becoming a Muslim
and go through that amazing experience,
I would have left the room
just from the utter confusion of it all.
All this and much much more of this
opening is demanded by Islam.
And the Quran warns us about that. It
says, have you considered what provisions god has
sent down on par I'm roughly
translating in English?
And how you made some of it haram
and some of it halal. You made haram
and halal.
In the Quran,
the verb to prove is on the person
who makes the haram, because everything is halal
without
my evidence
says, has God indeed permitted you to do
this, or do you invent a lie concerning
Allah?
In the Quran, in many, a lie concerning
Allah is a big deal.
The Quran speaks about shirk, it doesn't just
mean associating
other beings
as partners with God. If you read those,
I looked up every instance of the use
of the word shirt or the word shakat
in the Quran.
Much of it is about people who associate
own whims or fancies with god.
It's a major problem because that's how you
destroy a religion.
That's how you destroy a religion because it
builds a barrier between
the potential
spiritual seeker
and whatever truths you might be trying to
share.
So when I first was interested in Islam
when I was a graduate of
Purdue, I was talking to my friend Mohammed,
who was from the Middle East. He was
also a graduate student of mathematics. I said
to him, Mohammed, the issue with women, and
we got talking about that in adultery. And
be developed.
I said, is that in Islam? He said,
yes.
And I told him, well, that shows you
that a man or a man invented your
religion.
And I just wasn't interested in talking about
Islam anymore.
But things changed later.
After I met, it was another
graduate student.
No. I didn't end up marrying.
We're not in relationship with her, but she
was very devout. She came to me for
tutoring.
We started to discuss the religion,
and I started to reconsider,
you know, maybe taking a look at the
crime.
And then later on, it actually did. But
in any case, crime officer says, and say
not. Any false thing your tongue puts for
This is halal, and this is haram. Be
very careful.
So that you do not invent a lie
so that you do invent a lie against
God by doing that. And I have many
other references of that form, but
I don't wanna
exhaust you at all. I've just meant to
give you this example.
We mustn't believe we have a message to
share.
I've just meant to give you this example.
We mustn't believe we have a message to
share.
We don't convert
because
God says he's the only one that,
you know, guides somebody to
his family eventually or not to surrender.
But
we have an obligation to share, especially when
people are seeking.
Let's pretend this is our potential audience. Let's
pretend this is, United States and Canada, The
American the Canadian American population. And we're we're
Muslims, and we're trying to represent our faith
in America.
And
then we start telling people what their religion
demands and doesn't demand.
And let's say I say,
we say
Islam demands
that
and requires that there that we believe that
there is no God but the one god.
Actually, some people are gonna have a problem
with that. You know? Oh, I don't know.
My theistic religions are very chauvinistic,
divine, etcetera. No. We're gonna lose time then.
We need to be more calm,
and we'll lose time. Are we gonna soft
pedal that idea?
No. Because
universal agreement among us, we all understand, but
that's a requirement of the religion.
And then we tell people, for example, Islam
requires that you,
what,
pray a lot of times a day. Oh,
going to church once a week is already
too much.
We agree that the religion demands.
And then we tell them, well, there's no
drinking or, you know,
alcohol or drug, recreational drug use. So there
goes both of them.
* outside, all its waffling marriage, and there
it goes at rest.
Right?
But we feel that the religion requires it.
And we're not gonna stop the *.
We're even if this
were to go away entirely. But
when we tell people that,
you know, women can't drop
or that they can't wear a * or
women must always be strictly secluded from men.
All types of music are haram.
You can target civilians in jihad. You know?
You can just go on and on. You
know? You can't have this. This is around.
That's around. That's
around.
Eventually, what happens is
you lose them all,
including our children
and our economy.
And the problem is, brothers and sisters, it's
my feeling,
and you could say I'm wrong, but my
feeling is the biggest barrier
between Islam
and the United States and Canada, the message
of Islam in the United States and Canada,
especially when it comes to our children's conference,
But even beyond that,
it's not the Jewish lobby.
It's not
even the media.
Sorry to say it's us.
Because when we do those things, we erect
barriers between the faith
and the seekers.
What happens is we become an argument against
this man.
We do.
So dealing with these young people, dealing with
these converts, communicating with them,
90
5% of the time, they're a problem with
Islam.
It's not necessarily with Islam, but with
things that are very
questionable.
And we're losing them.
I mean, how often have you heard a
Muslim say, you know, I believe it should
be this way, but others in, you know,
other in the community see it this way.
Other scholars see it this way. This is
my opinion. I think this is the way
it should be. No.
Every Muslim that's in the mouth. You know?
Because I'm gonna have this. This is her
argument's line.
Something, done a considerable amount of research,
just back off a little
and say, I think or I feel or
this is what I was taught or this
is what I know.
Don't shut the door unnecessarily
because you might be shutting the door on
a person
when you could be more
or there could be difference of opinion
or you could just be totally off base.
That's a major problem. There's other things we
should do, but
I'm running out of time.
I'll just listen quickly. Ahmad should be more
open
to discussion.
Many of them should be more democratic. Many
of them are gonna run like dictatorships.
Hamas should be more tolerant,
accommodating,
inclusive.
It should it should encourage active activism and
participation,
and we should be
practical in our approach to the next generation
and the surrounding population.
And you become a Muslim in this community.
People expect you to fit whatever their particular
mental model is of the ideal Muslim
right from the start.
And our kids are up against it. The
the converts, they they they have a lot.
They're dealing with
When the prophet of peace be upon him
sent Moabakan general to to take over the
dual governorship of Yemen, he was still a
religious adviser
Then when they have gotten maxed out, then
teach and took them 1 by 1 through
the 5 pillars of Islam.
Since
they've come
up
when
did you ever have been this is one
of my favorite
Hadid.
You know, they you've got this
bedlam
sitting in the mosque one day,
and he suddenly realizes he needs to relieve
himself.
So he stands up,
walks a few paces,
and urinates
in the mosque.
The companion's reaction is so quick. The next
line says, and then the prophet says to
them, peace be upon,
let go of him.
That's a witch they were on top of
him.
Let go of him.
So, I mean, add that
to the fact that so much is being
promoted
that's tenuously linked to religion,
or whether it's alternative
credible points of view out there. So much
is being promoted as a sense of religion.
We get
this birthing people away.
In any case,
brothers and sisters, I'm writing a 4th book.
It deals with some of these subjects in
more detail, but I don't pretend to be
a scholar of faith or anything.
Just Muslim parents
observing what's happening to our children,
trying to share that point of view with
you. Thought it would be obvious,
but then why aren't we doing that this
time?
Well, thank you for your time,
and in the peace and mercy of Allah
be upon you all.