Jeffrey Lang – Removing The Barriers318
AI: Summary ©
The speakers emphasize the importance of learning Arabic writing and practicing it in learning about Islam, as it is a natural choice for Muslim participants. They stress the need for acceptance and language translation, and the importance of conversion to Islam and women's roles in political agenda. The speakers also address concerns about religious "avierlessempours" and the difficulty of reaching them, as well as the pressure on Muslims to change their positions and the pressure on American media to put Islam in a bad light. They emphasize trusting God and not settling for their own views, and emphasize the importance of trusting God and not settling for their own views.
AI: Summary ©
Oh,
well, let me check. Hamid,
deliver a watch.
Don't forget. So I'm gonna say this.
Okay. It's Kansas time. K. So it's really
10 of 6 5 to 6.
Again, today, I have the pleasure to introduce
to you doctor Jeffrey Lang.
Like we said yesterday, he's a professor of
math at the University of Kansas.
Also, he's been involved in Islamic work for
a very long time.
And another thing we'd we'd like to mention
that
he does not like much publicity,
so keep that in mind. And today,
we have the doctor Jamal Badawi microphone
and the doctor Jeffrey Lang microphone. It's even
too tall for me. With that, I'd like
to welcome doctor Jeffrey Lang.
No. You could. That was good.
Nice job.
He's a little too okay. I think he's
my
job. This is very comfortable today.
Now I don't have to lean way. I'm
not used to this. I'm used to having
to lean forward like this.
In about 10 years from now, I'll be
walking around like this.
When,
brother Hamid, the vice president of ISNA,
called me a few weeks ago and asked
me to give this lecture and said, what
do you have in mind?
He said, I want you to discuss the
things that Muslims do.
That Muslims do
that present barriers of communication
between themselves
and the non Muslim culture that surrounds them.
Because, you know, many Muslims say that the
press does a lot to misrepresent is often
misrepresents our religion.
We feel sometimes that,
it's almost a conspiracy,
perhaps because it's so frequent and that Muslims
are portrayed in such a demonized fashion in
the press.
And so we often think that the
that there are always enemies of Islam out
there out to
misrepresent and just and to destroy
the opportunity for Muslims to communicate their message
in America.
Sometimes I think, I often feel I use
I feel that these fears are often sometimes
exaggerated.
And I also feel that sometimes we Muslims
do things that
make it difficult for others
to relate to our religion.
But when brother Hammond asked me to discuss
this topic, I said, please, how do I
give it to somebody else?
I said, give it to somebody else who
has greater respect and authority in our community
like doctor Jamal Bedawi, who I greatly respect,
Siraj Mahaj, Hamza Youssef,
any of those who I think the community
would tend to trust more because
I'm,
sort of somebody who seems to always be
pushing the limits
of things. And maybe that's the role I'm
supposed to play. But
but in any case,
I really didn't wanna discuss this subject at
all.
I want to discuss the things that Muslims
do,
that non Muslims in America have a difficult
time
relating to their religion, Have a difficult time
thinking of their religion as a viable religious
option.
In the process, I'll mention things that are
dear to many Muslims,
behaviors, practices, and ideas.
And when I mention them, I'm not saying
that Muslims necessarily must get rid of them.
I'm only saying that
when Hamid asked me to do this lecture,
I thought I would just present those behaviors
of Muslims,
good or bad, however you see it,
that present
barriers
to non Muslims.
Of course, I'm
I will the the major theme of this
lecture is I want us to consider whether
these things are all essential to Islam or
to what degree they are essential to Islam.
Because if they're not essential to the religion,
if they are somewhat optional,
and they're presenting barriers to others considering this
religion,
however laudatory the acts may be,
then we have to weigh that
into consideration when we think of continuing some
of these activities.
So this is just food for thought.
Not condemning anything or really enjoying very much.
It's just food for thought. I'm gonna try
to single out some of the things Muslims
do and make it difficult for others to
relate to our religion.
First thing Muslims do,
there's a definite failure to understand
the non Muslim
American
or Western audience.
The 2 communities talk to each other on
entirely different levels
and there's very little communication taking place.
What am I talking about?
Well, Muslims tend to speak about religion
in very absolute and idealistic terms.
Muslims talk about the true religion and false
religions
or less true religions or religions that are
contaminated or corrupted.
They'll talk about the one true religion. Of
course, their own. They'll talk about morality and
speak about it in objective terms, like there
is good and there is evil. There are
acts that are morally
right because God has ordained them and those
that are not because he has disapproved
them. They talk about even amongst themselves within
their own community, they'll often talk about true
Muslims as opposed to false Muslims, real Muslims
as fake Muslims
or
hypocritical Muslims. This one is a true believer.
This one is not a true believer. Oftentimes,
they'll do this even when it's a difference
in interpretation.
2 sincere Muslims will sincerely interpret things in
different ways. Each one will label the other
one not a true Muslim.
So Muslims have a tendency to speak about
religion in very concrete,
very objective,
very ideal
terms and absolute terms.
The non Muslim audience,
and I'm not condemning it, it's just a
reality, The non Muslim audience in America and
Europe tend to view religions
in relative terms.
Of course, Christian fundamentalists might talk of the
true religion and false and all the rest
are false religions or this is the only
way. But you'll find that the majority of
Americans and Europeans don't think of religion in
those terms.
The religious people,
you'll hear them talk about religions in relative
terms. My religion, I think, is right for
me. I think your religion is right for
you.
My religion, Christianity, is right for people of
this culture, but I could see where
Islam is very good for people of the
Middle East.
I cannot relate to your religion, but I
don't think that it's necessarily wrong. This is
the way you'll hear many westerners speak. They'll
see religion in relative terms.
They won't think there is one right path.
You'll hear many, many Americans say, I think
all religions say pretty much the same thing.
They all teach pretty much the same thing.
And that you should find the one that
best suits your personality and your environment and
your needs
and your cultural background.
Many Americans believe that morality is a subjective
issue.
What's right in one time and place may
not be right in another time and place.
Morality changes. Many agnostics and atheists will say
that morality is conditioned by the human situation.
And so the 2 audience oftentimes when they're
communicating with one another, even though they're using
the same turn out terminology,
their understanding of that that that terminology, their
use of it is in entirely different planes.
Very little communication is taking place.
The Muslim approach to the non Muslim population.
I'm gonna convince the non Muslims that my
theology
is more coherent and makes more sense than
their theology.
My system of belief in God has fewer
contradictions,
is sounder
rationally
than any other system on earth.
They also wanna convince the non Muslim that
my scripture has more integrity than any source
that your religion depends on.
My scripture, the Quran, has the greatest integrity.
All the others are somewhat contaminated.
The Muslim is convinced
that he could convince, say, a Christian, that
the Koran
is truer or is more divine in from
the standpoint of revelation
than the bible. If it is perfect
and pure and the Christian
scriptures and Jewish scriptures are somewhat contaminated,
He feels if he could convince the non
Muslim the Christian or the Jewish person of
this,
and if you could convince him that his
theology makes more sense, his concept of God
and our service to him, if his makes
more sense than the non Muslim,
then the non Muslim should immediately come over
to Islam.
And yet he's stunned to find he or
she is stunned to find that oftentimes a
non Muslim will say, you know, I think
your religion makes a lot of sense, more
more sense than mine.
Yes. I give you that, you know. And
remember there was a debate taking place in
Chicago,
and the Muslims were used to debating Christian
fundamentalists because they think in very concrete, absolute,
idealistic terms.
When those two groups meet, you notice and
I think I'm being honest and and unbiased
when I say that. The Muslims always seem
to destroy their opponents.
But when they debate with, say, Episcopalians
or Catholic
theologians theologians. I underlined
theologians. Or people from the Church of England,
Anglicans. They run into entirely different
and confusing situation.
I remember once a Muslim panelist debating with
a Christian panel,
and the Christian said, yeah. Yeah. The Quran
is much is is, you know, nothing but
the words received by prophet Muhammad, peace be
upon him, although they didn't say that, under
what he assumed was divine revelation. It contains
nothing but those
very
much mixed with human human human efforts. And
in
very much mixed with human human human efforts
and interpretation
and and editing and so on.
And And then the Muslim said, yes. Yes.
But, you know, you guys believe in the
trinity, and and it might not even be
true. And the Christians said, yes. It might
not be true. It's just a dogma. It's
a theory. It might not be true in
fact.
And they didn't know what to do.
There was no more room to argue anymore.
The Christians said, yes. But we still feel
we have a valid religion
and that our religion teaches has many good
teachings, and you guys need to improve,
and and that we are gonna gain from
this experience, and you're gonna gain from this
experience. And the Muslim panel is confused
because the 2 of them are arguing on
totally different planes. The Christians are thinking, you
have a valid religion. We have a valid
religion. You have some things that are superior.
We have some things that are superior.
What type of things
they must have thought?
We have the better theology. We have the
better scripture. We're better. That's it. Come on
over.
But they were thinking along an entirely different
terms, and this dumbfounds many Muslims.
What are they thinking about?
But in fact, for many westerners Westerners, theology
and scripture
are not very important at all.
Most Christians and Jews, and I mean by
far most,
95%
at least have never
read the Bible in totality.
Many of them have not read more than
a few passage of it passages of it
in their entire life, if at all.
The Bible, really, in the life of most
westerners, doesn't play a major role in their
faith,
Neither does theology.
Theology is something for the scholars, for the
theologians, for those eggheads that sit at universities.
They're not for the common man. He doesn't
care.
Common Christian just thinks
and goes to his church because he feels
that that is the community where he could
develop spiritually.
He looks for a church and he might
go from one to another to another and
enter this form of Christianity and that until
he finds a brand of Christianity that feels
suits his personality,
that helps him grow spiritually,
that helps him become a better person, that
helps him develop positive attitude towards his fellow
man,
that makes him a better human being.
He might say, okay. You have a superior
theology. You have superior scripture. I have a
superior community.
I have a superior way of living.
I have a superior concept of life.
My people are bad.
As far as I'm concerned, my people, my
community, this community I found is better for
me.
It brings out the best in me spiritually.
I feel closer to God in this community.
I feel very distant from God in your
community. Or if I were to enter your
community,
I would feel totally out of place.
So while the Muslim argues on this very
absolute level, the non Muslim is thinking on
this other level usually. There's always those few
idealistic
westerners
who when they read the Quran,
they get so captured by it, so convinced
of its truth, they convert.
Those people are rare.
There's not many eggheads like that in the
non Muslim population.
There's not many people like that.
Most people don't operate that way.
Okay.
And that sort of sets me sets up
the the main topics I wanna discuss right
now.
So if the non Muslim looks at religion
in those terms, thinks more about what type
of community you have, what type of people
you have, which community is more humane,
Which community is more suited to the western
mentality and experience? Which community can I enter
and grow more as a person and spiritually
in? If he thinks in those terms, then
what
Are
Are we building barriers
between ourselves
and the non Muslim population?
Are there barriers? Yes. There will always be
barriers. We have a unique religion. There are
definitely gonna be barriers.
But are we constructing some barriers that need
not be there? I think we have to
examine ourselves very critically
on that question.
And like I said, some of the what
I'm about to say, you'll agree with. Some
you'll be disagree disagree with. I would just
like to see, someday,
Muslim scholars in general start to talk about
these topics.
Personally, I don't feel very qualified to do
it, but I don't see where anybody else
is doing it.
Because nobody wants an audience to dislike them.
Nobody wants to suddenly be run out of
town, although I wouldn't mind. I'm I don't
like public speaking. But in but in any
case,
I think that the majority of the members
of our community feel that these are very,
what they call, delicate, sensitive topics that we
shouldn't talk about.
We're not ready for it yet. But
on the other hand, I think maybe we
are. So I'm gonna give it a shot.
And you probably won't get too angry at
me, although God only knows and we'll soon
find out.
There are 3 main perceptional barriers
that exist
between
Muslims
and non Muslims,
between Muslims and the western culture.
And these barriers go back almost almost, but
not quite 1400
years.
And these three perceptions are as old almost
as
the beginnings of our religion
in the 1st day of the Hijra.
They are
Islam is
an Arab religion
or Islam is there's several versions of this.
Islam is a foreign religion or Islam is
a Middle Eastern religion.
That is appropriate for Arabs, appropriate for Middle
Eastern, very
appropriate for foreigners, not appropriate for Americans.
Now
and they see see that in exclusive terms.
Of course, you know there are many references
in the Quran to the universal character of
our faith.
And there are many addresses and exhortations in
the Quran to all mankind. Here's just a
sampling.
And we sent you
to mankind,
to humankind,
as a messenger.
And god is sufficient as a witness. And
in the 4th Surah, the 170th
verse, oh man, oh humankind,
the messenger has truly come to you with
truth from your lord. So believe it is
better for you. Another surah, say, oh, human
beings, surely I am the messenger of god
to you all. Here's another one. This is
a message to humankind that they may be
worn thereby and that they and that they
may know that he alone is one god
and that persons of understanding
may bear it in mind. And we haven't
sent you it
not except as a bearer of good news,
as an and as a warner to all
humankind,
but most people do not know.
And there are many similar such references in
the Quran.
Now,
of course, prophet Mohammed's
immediate audience,
peace be upon him, was the Arabs.
And as the Quran explains, this revelation is
naturally in Arabic.
The Jewish and Christian opponents used to say,
why hasn't this been revealed in
a revelational language?
To them, that would be Aramaic or Hebrew,
something that their scriptures were in.
The Quran
answered them almost as if they were foolish.
We never sent
a messenger
to a people except in their own tongue.
We reveal this in Arabic so that you
would understand.
Who's it talking to? The Arabs.
We're not gonna reveal in Aramaic or something
else.
The Quran gives a very natural explanation of
it.
The unprecedented
success that the early Muslim community had in
protecting and preserving that revelation in its original
language, and this was unprecedented in history.
The tremendous success they had in preserving that
revelation in its entirety and its original language
And the success they had in compiling thousands
of details
about the prophet's everyday sayings and happenings
assured that Arabic and 7th century Arabian culture
would definitely always influence our community. That's without
a doubt.
Every new Muslim has to learn at least
some Arabic,
however little, if only to participate in the
ritual prayers.
Since Arabic is the lingua franca, so to
speak, of Islam. It's the universal language.
And that's good because when we go to
Hajj and there's all these people from all
over the world, we have to pray together,
we need to pray in some common language.
And the natural choice, since the Quran was
revealed in Arabic and who recited during our
rituals, is Arabic, of course.
And striving to develop an Islamic lifestyle in
America, for example. Many new Muslims also feel
it advantageous to study Arabic grammar.
Why?
Well,
first, to gain first acts firsthand access to
the revelation and to the prophet Sunnah,
peace be upon him, because these are the
two primary sources of guidance for the community.
I think we could all agree that this
is a very good thing.
Although a few short passages of the Quran
need to be memorized in Arabic to perform
the ritual prayer
and more extensive knowledge of Arabic is required
for scholarly study of Islam's textual sources,
by no means should this imply that Islam
is strictly an Arabian religion or Arabic religion,
which is a common perception in Western countries.
Actually, the majority of Muslims around the world
do not speak Arabic and are not Arabs.
Only about 15%
are Arabs.
And most, 85%,
know virtually no Arabic.
Yet this false perception of Islam as an
Arabian religion or a Middle Eastern religion may
also be something of the Muslims' fault as
well.
I don't know. You might disagree with me,
but
as one friend once said, you know, you
converts, you seem to make much better Arabs
than you do Muslims.
Middle Eastern Arabian culture appears to dominate the
Muslim communities of America and Europe far beyond
what I think scholarship, ritual, and piety demand.
And I am I think Arabian culture is
certainly is a rich culture and one that
Arabs and all of us could be rightly
proud of.
But at the many Islamic conferences held in
Western countries and the many, lectures I've seen
and I'll just give examples at this point.
Lectures I've attended as a non Muslim
and a Muslim offered to the public by
Muslims to teach them about Islam, I noticed
a strange thing happened. That speakers would often
interject Arabic expressions in words time and time
again into their speeches even though
the audience very often it consists of very
few Arabs
or oftentimes even if the lecture is directed
to a non Arabic speaking, non Muslim audience.
I recall a lecture I attended as a
non Muslim when I went to a university,
and I first became interested in Islam.
The speaker was an American convert.
For some reason, he was dressed in Saudi
Arabian dress.
And he continually continuously
inserted poorly pronounced Arabic terms into his presentation
as if the entire audience should be familiar
with them. And this was a speech for
a non Muslim audience. Jazakalakair,
and
and
and for some reason. He kept saying.
I thought that must be an Islamic term.
What else was he saying? You know? Oh,
just on and on. All these terms. I
had no idea what he was saying, InshaAllah.
You know, I'm sitting there as a non
Muslim. I don't know what he's saying. You
know, our ummah is the best ummah because
we, you know, do this and that and
he's substitute another Arabic term. And, you know,
and unless we practice tawhid, we'll never attain
a success.
This is for a non Muslim audience.
I walked away that I could couldn't make
sense. It was incoherent.
I left the speech with a feeling that
in order to become a Muslim, one needed
to become an Arab or at least a
foreigner.
And this seems to be the message that
many non Muslims are getting whether or not
the Muslim community intends to convey it.
I feel like shrinking behind the podium here.
Steve Johnson,
an American convert who used to lecture extensively
on Islam, once related a very nice story.
He said that when he had converted to
Islam and his brother found out, he overheard
his brother talking on the phone to a
friend. He said, Oh, yeah. My brother, Steve,
he went through a big change in life.
He became an Arab.
The identification
is not always hard to make.
And I don't mean this as an insult
to anyone. And I know that this often
makes us feel comfortable in the community and
community with us. And there's many advantages to
the practice I'm just about to be just
about to point out.
And I'm not condemning it certainly.
But just think about how you are when
you're a non Muslim,
and you realize that most converts, seemingly all
converts, take on Arabic names.
Even though early non Arab converts to Islam,
like Salman the Persian
and Bilal from Ethiopia kept their non Arabic
names
with a tacit approval of the prophet, peace
be upon him.
There were converts to Islam who kept their
non Arabic names. He didn't object.
The only time he really objected is and
changed asked somebody to change their name, if
their name
implied something that was against the spirit of
Islam.
For example, if you had your name, you
were the slave of Manat, or you were
the slave of Al Uzza, or if you
were the slave of the fire god. He'd
ask you to change your name.
But Bilal was unoffensive to Islam, even though
it was Ethiopic.
Salmon, even though it was Persian, he thought
there was no problem with it.
Keep your name.
I know. Believe me. Sometimes I get up
here and I feel tremendous pressure to say,
here I am, Jaffa Lang.
Once, I was in Chicago giving a lecture.
The audience about, oh, twice this size. A
guy gets up in the back,
very angry. Brother.
And I think he said that with a
bit of reservation. Brother,
why don't you have a Muslim name?
I told him,
I don't have a Muslim name.
He said to me, what Muslim in the
history of this great religion in the last
1400 years, he was very eloquent, ever ever
had the name Jeffrey.
I told him, you're looking at
him. He didn't get the point. He asked
him again, wait, and he started screaming. The
audience started laughing. They
started laughing hysterically. They got my point.
When I became a Muslim, Jeffrey became a
Muslim name. I'm a Muslim. It's a Muslim
name by definition.
Just like Khaled became a Muslim name. Khaled
became a Muslim name because Khaled became a
Muslim.
Well, as a matter of fact, I know
one brother, American. He had a beautiful
name,
birth name that goes back to Hebraic origins,
and it meant a gift from God. It
was a beautiful name.
And he took on the name Khaled as
a Muslim name or what he felt was
a Muslim name. I told him, you know,
a gift from God, that's a beautiful connotation.
You know? Your parents, no wonder why they
gave you the name. But it means, you
know, the abiding one, the one who lasts
or, you know, etcetera. It's a beauty. It's
not a bad name, but I don't know.
Gift from God,
the abiding one. I mean, you know, what's
the matter with the gift from God?
And one
another problem is, and it's it's quite related
to this, is that some of us converts,
we get so excited about
so enthusiastic with this exotic culture we're entering
that we develop strange habits and traits.
For example, I met many converts, and I
actually fell into this myself in the early
stages, where you start developing an Arabic accent.
I don't know why.
Even though we never left America, never studied
Arabic,
never learned a foreign language.
On one occasion, I took a Muslim friend
of mine from Yemen
to a lecture given at our local Islamic
Center.
And as we were listening to the speech,
he leaned over to me and he whispered,
brother,
I traveled through India and Pakistan many, many
times, and I recognize this accent.
This speaker is from and he mentioned the
city in Pakistan, isn't he? Karachi or something
like that. I told him, no. I know
this speaker well. He's a good friend of
mine.
He's a 5th generation American of Scandinavian
descent from San Diego.
But, honestly, you listen to him.
I don't know how he did it. It
was a great invitation.
When devout American Muslims appear in the news,
they're usually dressed in Middle Eastern garb,
And it's very identifiably Middle Eastern. For example,
the defendants in the World Trade Center bombings
trial and their supporters and I really wanna
underline their support
American supporters
were almost always seen in foreign dress
even though a large number of them were
born born Americans. They were born in this
country.
Many famous Muslim speakers,
Americans born in this country always appear in
front in front of American audiences
in in,
foreign dress.
Recently, in Lawrence, Kansas, an American convert with
an Arabic name led a hunger strike against
the Hallmark Corporation.
And we admired him very much. It was
a courageous courageous
act.
He led that hunger strike because they distributed
a greeting card he felt was offensive to
Muslims, and it was.
He appeared frequently on television in the newspapers
dressed in an Egyptian jalavir,
and he looked great in it.
The offending card showed
a neurotic American woman convert to Islam, veiled
in the traditional Iranian manner, who changed her
name to Yasmeen and moved to Tehran.
Now Muslims had every right to protest this
card. And many of them, I think you
know which card I'm speaking about. And the
card involved the word Mecca in a tasteless
pun, and Muslims didn't appreciate it. But ironically,
and I mentioned this ironically, and I think
we have to think about
these type of things. I really think sometimes
our community needs a public relations manager.
We have to think about these things because
this much publicized fuhrer continued to visually reinforce
the very stereotype that Descartes tried to present.
The visual image of seeing an American Muslim
convert up there dressed in Arabian
gown
and outfit
and very Arabian looking even though I love
the way Arabs look. Very handsome people.
Continually, visually reinforced the very stereotype that Carr
tried to present, that to be a Muslim,
one needed to become
a Middle Easterner.
And I think we have to think
about that. If you want to communicate to
a culture,
don't try to set up be conscious of
the barriers that you might be setting up.
No matter how
how monetary
a particular behavior of ours might be, we
do have to the context in which we
are working.
There are different approaches to the sunnah.
There's one approach that and there's many. There's
a whole variety of approaches. On one extreme,
you have the approach where you just copy
everything
the way it was done in 7th century
Arabian society down to the tiniest detail
and mimic it
perfectly.
I'm not saying that's an illegitimate style. Many
people get great spiritual benefit from it,
and they feel a real sense of unity
and community by doing it. There's another approach
on the other extreme
that says you have to consider the context
of those actions of the prophet's actions, peace
be upon him. What was he trying to
accomplish?
What is the lesson to be learned by
what he had done?
And take that lesson and apply it to
the existing situation.
Let me give you an example.
I was giving a lecture with 3 other
American converts down
in what was that city? Oh, our nation's
capital, Washington DC.
And I was down there, and there were
4 of us together, American convents on stage.
We're all dressed more or less as Iowans.
Then we sat and took a panel and
we received questions.
One of the questions we got was from
an American convert in the audience. And he
said, aren't you guys selling out by dressing
in western
dress, by wearing business suits?
I looked at him and I stood up.
First of all, the 4 of us sat
there stunned.
The 3 guys looked at me and said,
good
answer. So I walked up and I said,
I don't even really understand the question. That's
like asking me, am I selling out to
western culture for for watching football every Sunday?
Because I grew up with it.
And this is modest dress,
appropriate dress I feel, within my culture, and
I feel my religion allows me to do
it.
But I told him also, consider this.
If prophet Mohammed, peace be upon him, came
to the Arabs in the 7th century and
and said, come on. We're all gonna adopt
the new form address. We're gonna wear these
fancy business suits I just found.
And he said, when you come to this
religion, put on these fancy business suits.
The rest of the west most the rest
of the Arabs around him would have said,
are you crazy?
What a what a barrier he would have
put between himself and those people right now.
Because he would have been distancing himself from
the surrounding population right from the start.
One interpretation of the sunnah is you have
to wear a thobe, or not a thobe,
but dress in 7th century hajazi style and
wear a turban or or, in the in
the 7th century hajazi style. Another one is
that the prophet, peace be upon him, addressed
his community
in a modest style of dress, in appropriate
style of dress, in a clean style of
dress,
in a handsome style of dress, but in
the style of dress of the surrounding culture.
And if I get up there in front
of a microphone, in front of a non
Muslim audience and start speaking to them in
a foreign style of dress, I'm already distancing
myself from my listeners right from the start.
So you have to ask yourself,
you know, is my dressing in a thobe,
for example? Or not a thobe, but 7th
century because a thobe is really not 7th
century in a jazzy dress. If I just
go back and look up and define 7th
century, what the 7th century jazzy dress was,
and I do know what it was. And
I have to admit that I've hardly ever
seen any Muslims dressed in that style. But
if I go back and find out what
that was and dress in that style and
dress in an American audience, you have to
ask me is is what I'm doing really
appropriate in that situation?
Wow.
You're gonna let me finish this lecture, guys?
Another element that,
encourages the Western perception of Islam as an
exclusively Middle Eastern religion
is the tendency among Muslims from Islamic societies
to attribute various customs from their homelands
to Islam.
And this blocked me from even considering Islam
for several years
when I was looking into other religions.
A Muslim graduate student once told me that
adultery,
when committed by a woman, is a much
greater sin than adultery when committed by a
man.
His culture may see it this way, but
his statement blatantly contradicts
explicit
pronouncements
in the Quran and the prophetic sayings.
Recently,
a Saudi Arabian young man insisted to me
that Islam forbids women to drive automobiles.
I told him that I knew this was
a commonly opinion in his country,
but most Muslims around the world would disagree
with him. And there many of them are
very sincere.
Even Americans sometimes fall into this trap.
American converts.
Not long ago, an American convert blamed me
for not dressing according to the prophet Sunnah,
peace be upon him. I replied to him
that what what was good for the goose
was good for the gander.
He looked at me in shock.
He grabbed his dress and said, but I
am wearing sunnah.
I told him, look.
The Moroccan outfit you're wearing
is very handsome,
and it's very stylish. But technically speaking, that
Moroccan modern day Moroccan outfit you're wearing is
not 7th century Hijazi dress,
and it wasn't.
It might be a little closer,
but now we're talking about degrees of closeness.
The mixture in of culture and religion is
nothing new. It's not unusual and it's not
always undesirable.
To some extent, it is unavoidable,
especially when the believers attempt to construct
a comprehensive
code
of proper moral conduct.
Culture will influence us for our mores are
cult are culturally oriented.
And so there will be differences of interpretation.
When the differences of interpretation
occur over things that we do not believe
are essential to Islam,
we have to start considering very hard exactly
how we wanna do that when we're in
front of a Western audience or when we're
trying to communicate to a Western audience.
What I often hear is American and European
Muslim converts and Muslims American and European Muslims,
period, declared that Islam had
guaranteed
guaranteed
women
the following rights.
The right to vote, to contract and dissolve
their marriages, to hold positions in government,
and to work centuries before
Western women won these privileges.
And to prove their arguments, they'll look for
precedent precedents and find them, and they exist
in the traditions of the prophet, peace be
upon us, and and in certain verses of
the Quran according to the way they interpret
it. And those are legitimate interpretations.
Yet on visits to the Arabian Gulf, I
discovered that many, if not most,
Muslim scholars there insist
on exactly the opposite.
Clearly, the cultural orientations of the Western and
Gulf State scholars influenced their interpretations.
Now I am not claiming, and I think
Muslims should not really get into this trap,
that one set of scholars is wrong and
the other right.
Or that one viewpoint is only culture and
the other one true Islam.
I believe that religion and culture inform both
standpoints,
and I think we have to be honest
about that. And we have to realize that
in different cultures, there may be different appropriate
responses
to the same
evidence.
A religious judgment can be appropriate in one
cultural context and not in another. Imam Shafi
was the was the scholar that immortalized
that that position.
Many Saudi Arabian scholars maintain in accordance with
Islam, women should cover their faces in public.
Since there are no explicit pronouncements in either
the Koran,
general explicit pronouncements to all believers in either
the Koran or authenticated traditions to this effect,
These scholars based their arguments on somewhat strained
analogies and rationalizations
about the social disruptions that'll occur from adopting
a less strict dress code in Saudi Arabia.
You guys could kill me yet?
I read the track by, Sheikh bin Baz
from Saudi Arabia, and that was exactly the
argument he made. That was the gist of
his argument.
Now the Saudi scholars know best their culture,
and I feel they are in a best
position to judge the effects of loosening this
standard on their society.
No doubt
about it. However, people in the West will
have difficulty relating to many of the points
the Saudi scholars raised.
For example, I doubt that most of us
would agree,
Muslim or otherwise, will agree that the argument
that men will become overexcited by the sight
of women's eyes and that that this will
inevitably lead to extreme jealousies and social unrest,
I don't think most of us would buy
that buy that. I mean, in women's eyes,
I mean, they might be pretty, but they
just don't drive me nuts.
On the other hand,
I feel that Western men and women will
easily accept the counterargument
that veiling the face is harmful to women
because it impairs their vision and it could
lead to injury and all sorts of tragedies.
How do we separate culture from religion? I'm
frequently asked.
And I'm especially asked this question from these
young people here and I see scattered around.
I tell them that this is extremely hard
to do, and it shouldn't be underestimated
the difficulty.
While it is important to watch out for
the presence or penetrate penetration of cultural influences,
and it is important to watch out for
those that run counter to this religion,
We must expect that Muslim understanding and behavior
will never be completely culturally free.
Different Muslims, sincere Muslims from different parts of
this earth in very different environments and circumstances
may come out with very different interpretations.
And I think we have to accept that.
The indigenous culture will affect Muslim religious attitudes
and Islam, hopefully, will strongly influence their own
cultural or subcultural development.
Boy, are people getting I see people shifting
in their seats.
I'm sorry about this. It's only my opinion.
These days, when a Muslim living in the
West questions a ruling of classical Islamic law
or a well established Muslim cultural
perception or custom,
he or she will usually be confronted with
what?
You are trying to change this religion.
There's a pervasive fear among Muslims living in
the West that the surrounding non Muslim culture
will permeate and contaminate their practice and understanding
of Islam. That's a legitimate fear.
Yet it's often precisely the same concern that
has some of the faithful reexamining
long established Muslim viewpoints
and conventions.
They fear that the community may be harming
itself by clinging unnecessarily
to pre Islamic ideas and practices that had
penetrated the Muslim community
many centuries
ago. That fear works both ways.
Definitely, it's a fear that the surrounding culture
can contaminate
and hurt our religious practice and understanding. But
you have to understand that many of those
people are reexamining
old Islamic practices and attitudes and customs are
also have the same fear that this could
have occurred in the past.
The most effective way to counter either danger
is not to discourage questioning and criticism,
invalid argument stated on his or her behalf,
it will just browbeat that child.
Tell him that's the way it is. Someone
so said so. This is the way it
is in religion.
I don't care who says this or that
says this. You're you're wrong. That's it. And
we won't really address that that
that
young person's question. We won't really address his
or her rationale.
That's the way we Muslims do it. You
just have to accept it.
I don't think that's the correct approach.
I think we need to
if we wanna counter that trend, we have
to encourage questioning. We have to encourage criticism.
And I think we are most prone to
error when we refuse to be self critical.
Among all systems of thought, and I have
found this as an atheist,
although I'm no longer an atheist,
Religion is the most vulnerable to the idealization
of customs and opinions, of taking custom and
opinions and making them into religious dogma.
In religion, the difference between textual source and
interpretation
is too frequently missed.
Like the Saudi who said to me,
the Quran says that women should not drive
cars.
I told him, show me the verse.
And then he started reciting me certain verses,
how we have to obey the prophet, peace
be upon him. Then he showed me certain
verses in the Quran that he thought showed
that somehow women couldn't be, you know, drive
cars. And then he's, you know, a little
elaborate argument, I told him, yeah. But what
about women if they go with drivers then?
Who are these drivers? I mean, why should
women be a driver? And we got into
that. But I finally convinced him that
his point was that there was no statement
in the Quran.
He had used the Quran
to justify using the hadith,
which he interpreted
in a very peculiar way.
But he didn't separate the idea that he
is there was a difference between his interpretation
and revelation.
He equated the 2,
And we often do
that. I saw the other day in USA
Today, 2 days ago.
It said says in the Quran,
and this was a western writer writing, that
women cannot be judges.
Well, that is a prevalent opinion among many
Muslim scholars, although not all. All. Imam Shafi
disagreed with that, I think, as I recall.
But, okay, let's
regardless of how you feel about it, that
statement is not in the Quran. That's an
interpretation
based on certain verses in the Quran.
But the and this reporter didn't invent that
himself. He heard that from Muslims.
There's a difference between interpretation
and revelation,
and too often we equate the 2.
There's a tremendous difference in authority between
two statements like, according to Islam, there is
no god but the one god,
and the statement, according to Islam, women must
be cannot drive cars. There's a tremendous
level of
difference
and authority. Yet many Muslims refuse to see
any essential difference between those type of statements.
I'm running out of time. So I'll just
very briefly mention say a couple of words
about the last two points I mentioned
that stand as barriers
of perception
perceptional barriers between the non Muslim audience and
the Muslim audience.
In the past 14 years, I have witnessed
many many many persons genuinely interested in Islam
and in search of faith
turn away from this religion
because of disillusionment over Muslim attitudes about women.
I have observed this so often that I
am inclined to say that this may indeed
be the biggest barrier to the spread of
Islam in the West.
And I'm not talking about
Islamic law. Most Westerners do not know Islamic
law. They know very little about Islamic law.
I'm not talking really about the Koran now.
They know very little about the Quran. I'm
talking about Muslim attitudes, practices,
behaviors
towards the women in our community, Here and
now, right now. I'm not talking about idealized
lectures. I'm not talking about Utopian
situation or the best possible situation. I'm talking
about current practices in our community right now.
And I'm not angry.
I'm just just telling you. This is the
truth. I had a friend the other day.
No. 2 years ago, he converted to Islam,
left Islam. I said, why did you leave
Islam, Albert?
He said, I cannot
be in a community that is misogynist,
that is hateful towards women.
Of all the topics
related to Islam, the position of women is
the most
debated
among Muslim and non Muslim scholars.
On this subject, there was a vast range
of viewpoints
even among non Muslim scholars. I have 3
quotes from non Muslim scholars here. I won't
tell you their names. I could if you're
interested. They're very famous.
1 Muslim scholar says a non Muslim scholar
says, Islam left women forever inferior to man.
Another Muslim scholar a non Muslim scholar writes,
the Quran's the Quran's pronouncement on the subject
of all women can be recognized as truly
revolutionary in its time.
Sort of a middle possession.
Another Muslim scholar writes, Houston Smith, highly regarded.
In their rights as citizen,
education, suffrage, and vocation, the Quran opens the
way to women's full equality with man.
3 very different opinions about the position of
women
in Islam. They're non Muslim scholars.
Islamic scholars seem to be in agreement that
Muslim women have a status that is on
a par with that of Muslim men. But
almost all view of the roles and privileges
of the 2 sexes is very different. And
there are many differences of opinion
and great disparity of interpretations
concerning what those roles and privileges of women
are.
If nothing else, this great disparity of interpretations
and points of view indicates, at least to
me,
that the position of women in our community
has not been
nor need be static.
The role of Muslim women in our community
has changed greatly over the centuries.
The very early centuries, they were extremely active.
If you don't trust me, just go to
the ancient text on hadith methodology
and hadith collections, and you'll see in the
colophons
the list of teachers there.
Because in those days, if I was a
scholar of hadith and I had several students,
when I felt they had learned that subject
well enough, I would sign their book and
it was their degree of authentication.
And if you look down those lists today,
you'll find that in the early centuries, you'll
see 2 men listed then a woman, then
a man, then a woman, then a man,
then a woman, then a woman, then a
man, then a man.
And these women were lecturing in front of
large audiences.
And men and women were at their feet.
This is well established in Islamic history,
but many of us do not go back
and study Islamic history.
And women had a tremendously active role in
the early centuries. But as the centuries go
by, you'll also notice in those colophons
that the number of women slowly but surely
decreases.
A man, a man, a man, a man,
a woman, a man, a man, a man
a man a man a man a man
a man a man a man a man
a man.
Somewhere in the history,
women
left
the field of scholarship.
Prime, the Hadith collection show that women were
very active in the masjid in the early
days. Many, many Hadith show men and women
interacting, discussing, debating, remind each other of things.
It's too many to mention right here and
now. But as I went through my Bukhari,
I kept turning pages turning pages where men
and women were interacting in the masjid in
Medina.
I came up with 100
100
of such hadith.
Where was it?
Let's see.
Where was it? I
lost my place. I'm getting frustrated.
Now it seems that I'm heading towards a
lengthy discussion on Islamic law, and I'm not.
I wanna talk about something that I think
is a much more
a barrier
to non Muslims than simply Islamic law. I
really don't think Islamic law is a barrier.
I think Islamic
law could be applied to this current environment
in a practical
and positive way.
And I think as the years go by,
we Muslims
will develop
appropriate Islamic responses to our current situations.
But what I'm talking about is attitudes towards
women in our community. These are more destructive
in our in our efforts to communicate Islam
than technicalities.
When my family and I spent a year
in Bahran, Saudi Arabia,
my 3 daughters had to attend
an Islamic school for girls.
On the opening day of classes,
the school's principal delivered a brief speech
exhorting her students, female students, they're all women,
young young ladies, that they must respect their
teachers and work very hard.
I wasn't there, of course, because only my
wife was, though, because only ladies could go
to the school. And then she reminded the
girls of the hadith,
which she said states
that women are of a lower intelligence than
men.
And I know many Muslims have read to
me that hadith and I've come up with
the same statement. And I said, that's not
exactly what the Hadid says. That's your interpretation
of it. And there are other
interpretations
possible. But what can you possibly have in
your mind when you tell a bunch of
young girls that they have half the brain
of men?
The only point my children got from that
principal's lecture was not that no matter how
hard the only point they got was that
no matter how hard they work, they can
never compete intellectually with men.
All three children got that idea from
the pep talk on the 1st day of
class.
On many occasions, I have heard Muslim speakers
claim that women were on a lower moral
and spiritual plane than men.
Based on one interpretation
of 1 hadith, when there's tons of information,
many, many verses in the Quran, many, many
other sources of authentic sources of information that
contradict that interpretation.
There's nothing in the Quran to suggest this
and very little in the hadith collections. And
even if you do interpret it that way,
there's tons of evidence that weigh against that
interpretation.
But it also seems to defy common knowledge
and experience. And as one Muslim foreign student
said to me after we listened to a
lecture on the greater sinfulness and stupidity of
women,
He said, I just don't buy it. The
women in our societies back home are much
better than a man and that guy knows
it, the guy who gave the speech.
The irrational nature of females
is taken for granted by many in our
community.
I'm not saying you here today, you all
look like very educated people. But I'm saying
by many in our community. I attended many,
many lectures in a mosque where this was
stated. Women are irrational,
especially during
certain time of the month.
And I'm sorry to have to bring this
up.
And this is used to argue that women
should not be placed in leadership positions in
our community
in at all, or that testimony cannot be
relied on in court if it's a woman.
And this perception of the rational nature of
women is exploited time and time again.
Of course, many men disagree with it. Many
women do, but but many others really believe
I recall a well attended public lecture
where most of the participants were non Muslims
entitled women in Islam at the University of
San Francisco,
in which a Muslim speaker made exactly that
argument.
And to support his contention that women become
incoherent
during menstruation,
he cited a criminal trial in France
in which a judge
dismissed
a woman's testimony
after he discovered that she was menstruating when
she was supposed to have witnessed the crime.
And he said,
see? This judge in France
agrees
with us, Muslims.
I was sitting right next I was in
the audience. I was sitting right next to
2 young American men, college students. One looked
over to the other and he said, the
only thing that proves is that some Frenchmen
are as sexist as Muslims.
In the eyes of Westerners, the treatment of
Muslim women by Muslim men and vice versa
is often demeaning
and offensive.
Muslim men and women generally refuse to greet
each other when they pass each other on
the street.
Even though the prophet always would bid salaam
to passerby of either *.
It's in the hadith collections, authenticated hadith collections.
Did I walk by women on the street?
Assalamualaikum, sister.
What did I say it in?
I
know now that I've traveled in the Middle
East, I kind of understand the feelings. The
feeling is, what does this guy want with
me? You know? Alright, I understand
understand the feelings behind it, but, you know,
when you're in the West, it delivers an
entirely different message.
You know? I'm not saying that these practices
are wrong, but I'm saying in another culture,
they have taken entirely different meaning.
Be aware of that.
Let's see. What else would I say?
Women are usually
discouraged
from going to the mosque, although I I
think that's changing these days in America. But
for a long time, and in many masjids,
even now throughout the United States, women are
routinely discouraged from attending.
Many times when they attend, they're put in
a separate dark room somewhere.
No way in the back.
Once an American lady came to me and
said, aren't, ladies allowed in the mosque? I
said, yeah. They usually are. She said, I
went to the mosque in Kansas City. I
didn't see them. Oh, they're in another room
in the back.
She was a black American lady. She said,
Oh, yeah, I know. They used to do
that to us, you know, back in the
fifties.
She said, Do they ride the back of
the bus too? I
said, Strangely enough, I was in Saudi Arabia
and Bahrain and they do.
They ride in the back of the bus.
In the time of the prophet, peace be
upon him, men and women
did not go into special sections in the
I mean, did not go to separate
rooms in the mosque. They attended the prayer
in unison. When you go to Mecca today,
men and women pray in the same courtyard
together. The women in the women's section, the
men in the men's section, but they pray
in the same courtyard. We go beyond that
in many of our communities in America.
And many women just
are discouraged from going.
In San Francisco, I 3 new lady converts
came to our mosque.
1 guy stood up and said, if I
see women anymore in this masjid, I will
throw them out personally.
They stopped coming. They didn't wanna be at
the center of controversy.
There there were converts 3, 4 days whole.
One immediately left the religion. Another one left
it about 6 months later. The last one
left about after a year and a half.
Just couldn't take it anymore.
Two new ladies
interested in Islam. A mother and a daughter.
Both fascinated by it. Heard a lecture. I
was really intrigued.
Drawn to this religion.
They went to the San Francisco after we've
had given so many lectures. We're hoping for
something like this to happen because we felt
we were being very ineffective in communicating our
message. 2 young ladies no. 1 was young,
the other mother came to the mosque,
but they both look rather young. But they
came to the mosque to get some more
information
Islam. They knocked on the door. Brother opens
the door. The San Francisco Islamic Center looks
at them, gives them a skull, boom, slams
the door.
That was enough for them.
All their questions were answered.
I think we're strangulating our community spiritually.
When I was in Bahram, Saudi Arabia, the
time for prayer came, Maghrib prayer. You only
have an hour to pray that prayer generally,
even less. Shorter interval of time. If you
miss it, you miss it.
You know, since noon prayer gets called and
you don't go to that, you could always
go home. You know, there's still some
fairly long interval of time where you can
make it, you know, get the prayer in.
Come on. You have prayer short.
My first day in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, becomes
dark outside. Starts sun starts to set. The
adhan for the prayer goes up. In this
mosque, in this mosque, in this mosque, in
this mosque. Men, like
like soldiers, start heading for the mosque, marching
to the mosque. All of them, you know,
they all know the drill. As if they're
going to an air raid warning. You know,
they're all going to the mosque. The non
believers, they know the drill. They go out,
sit on the curb, wait by the car,
smoke a cigarette, stand on the street corners.
They all
just wait because they know the prayer is
a short time. What do most of the
Muslim women do?
They stand around with the non believers.
Why? Because they've never been encouraged to go
to the mosque.
Many told me their fathers took their brothers
to the mosque but never took them.
One told me that there's a hadith
where women are told not to go to
the mosque.
I told her I know of this hadith.
I haven't found it in any authenticated collection.
But there's countless other hadiths,
tons of them, that show women were very
active in the mosque
throughout the entire lifetime of the prophet, peace
be upon him, and in the succeeding years
as well. If you look at the al
Tabari, the history of al Tabari, when when
you talk about the time of Omar and
Abu Bakr, women were very active in the
community then in the mosque.
Why can you take out one single hadith
and use that to discourage women from attending
the mosque?
1 Hadid.
1 is so much weight of evidence on
the other side that does suggest just the
opposite?
I told the brother who told me that.
Then if this is true, if these all
is authenticated I think I told him you
gotta be logical about this. You have to
weigh things. Weigh evidences.
If you take this one somewhat
suspect hadith or you don't know the context
of that hadith or what situation he was
addressing, and you have these 100 that show
women played a very active role
in the Masjid throughout his lifetime and in
the early lifetime of his successors right then
and thereafter.
So what's the conclusion?
1 of 2 things. Either that Hadith
might be suspect or it was said, but
people misunderstood the context, or these women, the
Muslim women, who sacrificed their lives, their families,
their wealth,
everything they had to follow the prophet Muhammad,
peace be upon him, who fought, who were
killed, who suffered torture. They all routinely ignored
what he told them.
I don't believe it.
I don't believe that that makes sense. People
don't sacrifice their lives and everything they have
to follow this man, and then when he
tells them to do something, they routinely ignore
it.
I don't know, but I could could be
wrong. I'm probably wrong.
Sometimes it just gets so frustrating because I
have 3 daughters.
Something is not right here.
Most non Muslims and many Westerners,
especially converts to Islam,
find the practice of female seclusion extremely degrading
to both sexes.
And I used to think, well, if that's
the way the religion has it, that's the
way the religion has it. I mean, you
know, if it's essential to the religions, it's
essential to the religion. What can you do?
I mean, you have to accept. There are
gonna be things essential to this religion that
we're just gonna have to live with. And
whether they like it or not, too bad.
And then I was reading Imam Malik's Muwata.
And I came to the section about
eating habits.
What are the etiquettes of dining? And Imam
Malik said and he writes about 2 centuries
into
his the Islamic
history,
writing from Medina.
And when Imam Malik write wrote,
the theory of the sunnah of the prophet,
peace be upon him, was not really so
crystallized then. They used to speak of the
local sunnah.
What the way we have done things ever
since the time of the prophet, peace be
upon him. And he's frequently refers to our
sunnah, the way we have always done things
since his time. And he's writing for Medina.
And he talks of there is no problem
among the scholars of Medina.
They have no problem with the idea that
a woman should sit with in a group
with men and eat as long
as one of her relatives as president.
An uncle,
a father,
a brother.
This is a situation there's no problem with
her sitting in mixed company.
And I started to wonder, what is going
on?
When I look at the Hadith collections, when
I read a Hadith or Abu Bakr and
Omar Omar walk into one of the lady
companions,
houses
shortly after the prophet, peace be upon him,
died. They visit her. She invites them into
her bedroom. The 3 of them sit there.
She reminds them of the time when the
prophet, peace be upon him, was among them,
and all of them start to cry.
We're talking about 3 people
who lived and sacrificed everything they had for
this religion.
Are you telling me they were violating it?
We have hadith
where the prophet where a lady warrants the
prophet. She's eating out of the same tray.
Oh, prophet Mohammed,
peace be upon you.
Prophet Mohammed, watch out for that. You don't
really that type of meat doesn't agree with
you. She happened to know that. Oh, okay.
She's eating out of the same dish.
She's not a relative.
Here in Hadith, quoted by Youssef Qadawri, in
his book, Halal and Haram and Islam, that
have women serving guests at weddings.
Read. I suggest just read all of Bukhary
and see the situations where men and women
interact.
Last example, and then I'll try to shut
this. I won't get to the violence business.
Or maybe I'll just say 30 seconds of
something.
One example. I was at a guest. I
was a Muslim for about 2 months. I
was a guest at a Muslim's house. Very
nice guy. I love him to this day.
Invited me over to his house to eat.
Must've been for about, I don't know, 6
weeks, I guess.
I walked down the hall.
Now the wife his wife is having several
ladies over that night. She opens the door
of the kitchen where all the ladies are
and walks out. The 2 of us face
each other in the hall. What does she
do? She looks at me,
throws open the doors, darts in the room,
slams the door.
Why?
She's fully cut. I'm not gonna attack this
lady. This lady is covered. The laid off
from head to toe.
Give me a break.
Yeah. I felt really insulted. What does that
say about me?
Oh, do I look like Charles Manson or
something? No. No. No.
And you know, the sad part about it
was is I've seen this lady many times
in public before and after that
on the streets because she was a student
at University of San Francisco. I
was a teacher there, and we'd pass on
the sidewalk. And she would never yell or
scream or panic. Why did she panic in
that moment? For whose benefit was it? For
mine?
For hers? For the guests?
I don't know.
Sometimes I think
sometimes I think we're just trying to destroy
ourselves.
Well, the chief charges Western apostates to Islam
make, and there are some. There's been many.
People have left Islam.
Converts.
Well, the chief charges they make, at least
they make to me because I try to
keep in touch with the ones I know,
is that Islam is hateful of women.
As long as the Islamic community continues to
ignore this complaint,
as long as they fail to examine it,
as long as they continue to whitewash it
with idealized lectures on a superior position of
Muslim women,
then the vast majority of Americans and Europeans
will never be inclined to this religion.
I am not advocating compromising our religion to
win converts,
But I think that Muslims still have to
start reconsidering which of its attitudes and practices
towards women are essential to the faith
and which may be inessential and barriers to
sincere seekers of faith.
I think it's about time.
And when I say this, this is not
only because I'm worried about the American population
or I'm really overly concerned about whether they
convert to Islam or not.
Frankly, I think I just do the best
I can. I leave the rest to God.
But I have a much more greater vested
interest. I have 3 daughters, and I see
Muslim children growing up in this society, and
they are Americans and they're gonna have a
hard time swallowing
a lot of what we do.
And many of them are not gonna be
idealists.
Many of them are not gonna be the
type to be able to research by themselves
and separate what the true from the false,
the essential from the inessential.
Many of them are just gonna give up
or, at least for a while, rebel, and
they're gonna get hurt by,
it, especially our young girls.
My daughters so far, I mean, they don't
even wanna go to the mosque anymore. Why?
Because no ladies are there.
They never go.
It's a custom. It's a habit. It's a
thing.
Sometimes one of my daughters said, it's an
Islamic kind of thing.
It's an Islamic thing. But in any case,
they don't go anymore because they're growing up.
They identify themselves as women.
Why take that away from my daughters?
I'm really getting at I'm really honestly, I'll
be truthful with you. You may think I'm
dead wrong about this stuff, but I am
getting to the point where I am just
irate.
The only thing I'll mention about the third
problem
is that Islam is perceived as a violent
religion.
And many
converts are told that they have to become
some sort of 5th column
in America.
I remember when I converted to Islam, a
dean from the Middle Eastern University told me,
of course, you know, Jeff. Now that you're
a Muslim,
you have to work, strive, and struggle to
overthrow the current American government and establish an
Islamic government here.
But I told them the majority of people
are Christians
and Jews and atheists and agnostics.
That doesn't matter. You have to do it.
It's the Darro Islam Darro Haab theory.
Or at least his interpretation of it.
At another lecture, a Muslim speaker told an
American audience, before the Muslims could attack a
non Muslim country,
they first have to invite that country
to accept Muslim missionaries as emissaries
and let them preach Islam in that country.
If they refuse to accept
Muslim missionaries,
then and only then
can they attack the country, take it over,
establish Islamic law there, etcetera.
Or make them pay jizyah and, you know,
etcetera.
And a lady was listening into the, the
lecture. An American lady. She raised her hand
and said, That's like telling people that they
have to listen to your preaching or you're
gonna punch them in the mouth.
He said, I wonder if Muslim states are
as obligated
to accept Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist preachers into
their lands and give them a shot at
preaching to the population.
Now
I'm trying to say what I'm really trying
to say is this.
Is that the current situation of Muslims be
upon him, when they were in Mecca.
And it's not in all respects
like the time of the prophet, peace be
upon him, when the Muslims were in Medina.
We have some similarities to both stages.
It is true that at times, Muslim citizens
in America and Europe encounter prejudice in Western
countries. That's true. But it is nothing like
the persecution that the first Muslims suffered in
Mecca.
It is also true that western Muslims
have many political rights and religious freedoms, but
they're not politically autonomous
like the Muslims were in Medina.
Yet as long as we have the freedom
in this country to practice our religion
and to preach it and to spread it
and to at least communicate it,
Then we should, as every other citizen should,
strive to influence our societies according to our
conscience as citizens of these societies.
It should not be forgotten, brothers and sisters,
that before the Quran permitted the believers to
immigrate to Medina and retaliate against
retaliate against their brutal oppressors,
prophet Mohammed, peace be upon him, and his
companions had exhausted all possible peaceable means
of persuading the Quraish
to grant the Muslims the freedom
to practice and preach
their religion.
And they endured terrible persecution for many years.
It seems that a few of the Muslims
residing in the West advocate or dream of
bypassing that lesson set by the prophet, peace
be upon him, and his early companions. They
wanna go right to violence.
You gotta struggle and strive and overthrow this
and establish an Islamic government.
Why?
Islam has always proved most successful
in preaching in peaceful times.
We are in a peace we have an
environment right now, and we might not always
have it, when we can freely practice and
preach our religion publicly.
We should take advantage of that situation
and communicate our community's point of view, not
just, religiously, but even politically as well
and do a good job of it because
we have that right and we have that
duty.
But let's not bypass that lesson of prophet
Mohammed, peace be upon him, and his early
companions and start advocating
what should be a last resort.
I could have said much more on this,
but I've run out of time. In my
book, that part occupies by its, 25 pages.
And like I said, I don't claim that
everything I say is true.
It is only my personal opinion.
But at least I would like to see
our community open a dialogue on these topics.
Get these scholars up here and start talking
about the real issues that affect the young
people in America.
Give them the chance to boldly raise the
issues that concern them.
Don't browbeat them, dogmatize them, indoctrinate them, hit
them. You don't know, brothers and sisters, how
much
those young kids of ours are suffering in
America.
You ask a kid grown someone who has
grown up from the Middle East, ask them,
what was your childhood like?
You know what they'll tell you? That was
the best time in my life.
I was free. I was independent. I was
carefree. I had no pressures.
I've hardly ever talked to a Middle Eastern
person who didn't tell me that.
You talk to an American my age. What
was the what was the hardest time in
your life when I was a kid,
especially between the ages of about 10 18?
With her hard years, I suffered.
But the pressures aren't even tremendous.
What type of pressures? Peer pressures, drug pressures,
violence. You have no idea the pressures that
these young people are under.
Give them a little slack.
Too many of our children, we just tell
them, that's the way it is. That's the
way you gotta do it. Shut up. Don't
do this. Don't say this. Keep your mouth
shut. This is the way the religion is.
What are people gonna think?
You know? And they have legitimate questions.
A young girl asked her father not too
long ago. A Muslim girl. Daddy,
why does my teenage brother get to go
everywhere he wants
has free reign,
goes to the mall, goes here. We never
really know where he is. And me, I'm
under permanent house arrest.
And I'm this only 1 year younger.
And where do I go? Who'd you talk
to? What are you doing? Who's that person?
Why are you talking to?
Them? What? Is it more wrong for me
to make him commit a sin than it
is for him?
She asked.
You know what? I'm response. Speak up.
Shut up.
What are people gonna think? What's the community
gonna think
Why don't you go out like that?
You know what everybody's gonna say?
Talking about, like,
maybe a circle of 20 or 30 people,
these children live in a much bigger society.
The gossip, the rules, the regulations,
customs, the gossip that existed back somewhere across
the world is irrelevant to most of that.
These kids have so much to fight with.
They're practicing a despised religion in America.
They are minority.
They have it rough.
They have to make face
tremendously difficult choices that most people don't have
to face until they're in their thirties in
the Middle East.
Give them a little room.
If they're having trouble adjusting to something that
you feel is important in Islam, give them
time. Give them understanding. Discuss it. And give
them love. Never tell your children I'm gonna
disown you.
Never tell them you're not my child anymore.
Never tell them that you don't love them
anymore.
Always assure them that you'll love them no
matter what they do, that they could talk
to you no matter what the problem is
because they're going to make mistakes.
This is a very dangerous environment they're in.
It's hard.
Give them a chance.
That's all I'm asking. Just give them a
chance. If they don't wanna cover their hair,
they're not unlikely to cover their hair. Don't
tell them they can't come to the mosque.
Let them come in the mosque. Throw a
scarf over their head when it's time to
pray, and let's let them do it so
at least they could experience prayer.
Give them a chance.
Don't tell them you're gonna disown them if
they're having if they're if they're not quite
up to praying 5 times a day. Give
them a chance.
They're facing a lot.
Keep those doors of communication open.
I tell my oldest daughter, because she's so
rebellious in her nature. Such a feisty thing.
I tell her, Jamila,
no matter what you do,
no matter what mistakes you make in this
life,
never think you can't come to me.
Because no matter what,
what great wrong you may commit, I'll always
love you.
And I'm always here to listen,
and I'll try to help.
May the peace and mercy of God be
upon you all.
Unless we run out unless we're done with
these questions, then we'll we'll ask for more.
First of all, we have 2 very nice
gifts to give out,
and we have a few questions.
To start off with, we'll have a warm
up question
and that question is and I think many
of you may know the answer.
What is the team right now that currently,
it's just a warm up question,
has the best record in the NFL and
has the best record overall in NFL
history.
Denver Broncos, Jazakah Lachair.
Make sure you ask them. What is the
number one basketball team in college basketball team?
Doctor Jeffrey Lang wants us to ask what
is the number one college team in
in basketball, college basketball?
Kansas. Okay.
Okay. We have a very nice gift here.
This is not the very nice gift that
I was talking about, but this is also
a very nice one. We have a set
here of all the English lectures that we
had at the Maya program.
We'll give it away for the person
who answers the very tough question at the
end. But before that, we have another question
and you get a Maya pen. Actually, pencil
for it.
Okay.
Here's the question.
How many
children
does doctor Jeffrey Lang have? 3.
Okay. Forget the question. The answer is 3.
3. K. We're going by a show of
hands here. Okay?
We're going by a little harder question.
Okay.
What is the city
that
the Maya office is located in. I want
the exact city on the address.
No. I want the city on the address.
Michigan, Kansas.
Okay. Who said raise your hand.
Say it. Mission, Kansas. Shawnee, Mission, Kansas. Come
up here. You get the pen.
I think he's from Kansas.
You get I'm on your pencil.
Okay. Now the really tough question. You have
to have been really paying attention during the
lectures to get this question.
And I'm going by the first hand to
go up. Okay?
So,
you know, let's let's try well, you can't
put them up now. So
okay. The question is
you get the full set of all the
English lecture tapes thus far.
Doctor Jammai Badri said
in his lecture earlier,
a hadith.
You have to complete the sentence. I was
only sent down to complete the.
Yes, sir. Wait. This young brother here.
The Okay. I'm gonna I'm gonna ask it
again. And put put all your hands down.
I was only sent down if your hands
are up, I'm not gonna call you. I
was only sent down to complete the blank.
I think you the brothers over here, they
the one over there?
Yes. You. I'm looking at you. No. Behind
you. Message. No. There. Morals.
Okay.
I was only sent down to complete the
good manners. Come up here, you get your
free copy of
the Maya tapes.
Remember that we have the youth with us
in in this program. So,
that's part it's a family program. So, please
keep that in mind. We try to accommodate
everybody. I understand some of the adults
might see this kind of a stranger.
This is part of our family program.
The purpose of this lecture was to see
the obstacles
and the barriers
that stop
non Muslims from
seeing the true picture of Islam.
And the difficult is that some of them
have when they become Muslims. So I want
you to keep that in mind.
Now, having said that, I have an appeal
to you.
Well, I have to go in 30 seconds.
I'll do the best I can.
Okay.
A lot of questions that we received
were asking that you're speaking about barriers to
to the non Muslims. How can a sister
with a jibab be was that a barrier
or is that not a barrier? How could
you explain that? Well, yeah. That'll
when a Muslim lady covers her hair, that'll
definitely be a barrier. I that's probably the
biggest barrier.
But I'd say that,
looking at this audience,
most of the ladies in the audience seem
I can't even see anybody that is not.
So
so I assume that most of you assume
that it's essential to the religion. So assuming
that,
you know, like I said, there's things that
you have to decide on. If they're essential,
then you're gonna do it and
or deal with it. If they're not,
if you if you think something is not
essential, then you might consider authoring,
your actions or behaviors. But since this audience
seems to be
uniform and unanimous and it's accept and it's
belief that this is an essential practice,
I would say that, yeah, it's a barrier.
But apparently you're ready and willing to,
live with it. Sometimes you have to live
with it. There will always be barriers.
But you have to decide which barriers are
essential and which are not.
Okay?
Okay. Another question says,
thank you for your speech. I agree 100%
about speaking English in front of non Arabic
speakers.
However, I think there there is better meaning
in some words in Arabic, which is not
translated correctly. Example, salah is prayer. Masjid is
mosque. I prefer to spread the term and,
I guess, popularize those terms and translate them
as well.
Yeah. As long as you translate
them as well.
You know, that's the problem. Too often you
go to a speech and or you're talking
to Muslims and they say things to you
and you don't understand.
I was sitting in this audience yesterday
listening to a speech and the speaker, who
I admire very much, said 2 or 3
terms I didn't know what he meant. I
I think you gotta translate the terms. When
you have non Muslim, non Arabic speakers in
the audience, you need to translate what you're
saying. Just to give you a bizarre instance
of what I was saying, I was in,
San Francisco Islamic Center once and the entire
community was Indo Pakistani.
I knew them very well. None of them
spoke Arabic.
Every Friday,
the Friday prayer speech would be in Arabic.
Not only that, they had this book of
speeches,
50 speeches in Arabic.
Speech 1 through 50, and they would go
through them.
1 to the next, sequentially throughout the year.
Speech 1, then speech 2, speech 3, and
they would just get up there. These guys
didn't even know what they were reciting. They
would just get up there and recite the
speech.
Week 4,
I I joked once, why don't you just
save us all the trouble and just call
out the number,
You know? This week is week 6.
Then we can all go,
you know, because, you know, really none of
us understood it. But this is, you know,
sometimes you go to such tremendous extremes.
Many times, I've watched tapes of these ESMA
conferences where the speaker was consistently and continuously
interjecting poorly pronounced Arabic expressions into his speech
or her speech
and not translating
And apparently, you're trying to reach
non Arabic speakers who wouldn't be giving the
speech in English in in the first place.
Also,
you know, well, I won't say anymore on
that. I'll I'll take the next question. Okay.
Next question. Bravo, brother Lang. You may not
claim courage in becoming a Muslim, but you
have demonstrated great courage in opening this subject
for public discussion.
If we keep asking why, then we can
strain, in quotes, out all the superstitions plus
customs that have crept into Islamic practices over
the plus
barriers
within
our
own communities?
Plus barriers within our own communities?
I think our communities gotta grow up.
We got to sort of embrace,
what is it, Shura?
We got to embrace
the freedom of concept of the freedom of
speech.
In too many of our communities, if somebody
disagrees with us, we wanna ostracize that person.
If, this segment of the community can't agree
with this segment of the community, next tomorrow
they have a new mosque here and there.
You see it time and time again. Our
community keeps fractionalizing.
Why? Because we refuse to embrace
free speech.
We
and
refused to embrace the type of Islamic democratic
ideas that this community were founded on.
Too many times, American Muslims come to me,
people that are very liberal minded, sort of,
you know,
sort of to to one extreme, they come
to me and say, Jeffrey, can't we start
our own masjid?
You know, so we don't have to put
up with those
ultra conservatives,
severe
people that run the masjid.
I used to get I get that kind
of ad thing all the time. I said,
no. No. We can't do that. Gotta get
in that masjid and make our point of
view known and make it heard and refuse
to leave.
And don't let people browbeat you and intimidate
you. State your case.
Argue. Learn.
Develop an argument for your case. Don't just
sit on your hands, wait for somebody else
to do it.
This community, it's a mercy to our community
when people differ in their opinions.
It's a way of checking that things don't
go to this extreme or that extreme.
The only practical way to do things is
by consensus of opinion,
by majority opinion in our community. We are
unwilling.
Somebody gives a states his case in the
masjid,
another brother
gets extremely excited. What do you know about
Islam?
You're a hypocrite. You're a non believer, and
he walks out. Okay. As long as we
continue to operate that way,
we'll never be able to solve the type
of problems that this
letter just this note just referred to. We'll
never be able to.
We're lacking education. We're lacking tolerance.
We're lack we're lacking
the religious democratic principles this religion was born
with.
How can we ever make any progress? We're
never gonna make it until we start to
tolerate
others ideas and let people have their say
and discuss things and then finally decide
what the majority of us want. And when
the and when you see the majority
agreeing upon something that you don't like,
as
my daughter say, deal with it. Live with
it.
You know?
You could continue when opportunity arises to make
your case known, but accept it and be
part of that community and continue to contribute.
See, back in the Middle East,
so many masjids are
controlled
by the government.
And they decide what the imam is gonna
say during the Friday prayer. They decide what
you can say and what you can't say.
They decide that you cannot stand up and
say anything after the Friday prayer, or you
cannot even sit in the masjid after the
Friday prayer to discuss. They it's all very
nicely and neatly controlled.
In America, it's not like that here. We
have to do it ourselves.
We have to do it the way the
early Muslims did it.
When prophet Mohammed, peace be upon
him,
went to fight in the battle of, Uhud.
Am I right? Yes.
The community
agreed upon something the majority that he did
not
feel was in the best interest of the
community. A battle tactic.
He strongly felt it would lead to a
disaster,
but the majority
wished otherwise. He went with the majority.
We don't see that in our community anymore.
I don't care. Those guys, they I disagree
with them. I'm leaving.
So
you have to make your voice heard. And
you have to persist. And you have to
tolerate others. And ladies,
start making your voice heard in that community.
Start going to the prayers. Start going to
the mass mass, get involved.
You can do it. I it's nothing I
never saw people that could bring about change
like women can,
who could get things going like women can.
So please.
Okay.
Oh, sorry.
Okay. The next question is I was ready
to leave.
We have some time.
The question says,
peace.
I thank you for opening the subject. Islam
needs more people like you to change how
Muslims
look and behave with non Muslims. Hopefully,
in the future, those non Muslims will be
Muslims too as a result of the change
of the bad image of Islam.
I do not think the audience will hate
for bringing this up especially women, maybe some
sexist men will be mad
at
at you, but it is not your problem.
It is theirs.
Bravo, thank you. Well, I guess that's not
a question. It's not a question. There was
a question that said, what do you think
a person named Mohammed
decides to change his name to George?
Pardon?
Mohammed changed his name to George. Yeah. He
he certainly shouldn't.
You know, if he if he was born
with the name Mohammed,
then he should leave his name Mohammed. Okay.
Yeah. It's his identity.
But, you know, you don't realize when you
ask somebody to convert to Islam and you
ask that person to change their name,
to some, it's no problem. They like it.
But when people ask me to do that,
I thought, what?
I mean, I just became a Muslim 3
days ago, and you guys are trying to
get me to memorize. I said this in
the mess the masjid. You guys are trying
to get me to memorize 30 or 40
expressions. I don't even know what they mean.
Etcetera,
etcetera, etcetera. I'm saying words. I don't know
what I mean. You guys are teaching me
dua.
I didn't even know what that word meant
a week ago. And you're teaching me them
in Arabic and telling me you can't tell
me what mean in English because you'll lose
the meaning and they're only effective in Arabic.
And now you're teaching giving me a new
name and asking me to change the way
I dress. I mean, I was in a
very conservative community. I said, I don't want
to change who I am.
You know, I don't need to take on
a new identity. I wanna be a Muslim.
I want Jeffrey Lang to be a Muslim.
I wanna be a Muslim as Jeffrey Lang.
Jaffar.
Yeah.
So so he said, we'll call you Jaffar.
Okay. Do you have more questions or no?
Go ahead. I have spoken against many of
the same injustices that you spoke about
about which are committed against women in Islam.
But when I do, I'm always labeled as
a western feminist in quotes. What do you
have to say about this? How should I
respond?
Many potential converts to Islam are
Western feminists, male and female.
Majority of people that come from the West
and convert to Islam are liberals,
feminists,
political left, are the political left. And it's
no secret why. Because if you're an American
conservative
and you're gung ho patriotic American,
the last thing you're gonna consider is becoming
a Muslim.
So the potential audience out there for conversion
is an audience that is very pro women's
rights.
Male and female.
It's very
pro,
women's equality.
Along with many other aspects
of the liberal perspective in America. Equal rights
and etcetera etcetera,
human rights and things like that.
But, you know, this is the type of
people that you have the most the biggest
chance of reaching. And that's why this issue
of
the situation of the current situation of more
than Muslim women in our communities today is
such a big issue.
It is such a big issue. And believe
me, if we make progress on this issue,
the I really feel that then you would
see
many, many Americans drawn to this religion.
But as long as that because I know
many people that say I like everything about
your religion except for this.
I cannot tolerate I the people one guy
told me I would just be irate. This
is a man. I'd just be irate in
the community and the way right in your
community right now the way they, you know,
regard women and and the practices they have
towards that.
You know, I it would be bad for
my faith just being around people that I
despise.
He wasn't talking about women. He's talking about
the treatment of women in the community.
So, you know, this is an extremely important
issue.
You know, if you're gonna reach Americans, you're
gonna have to reach open minded, liberal minded
Americans.
You know, it's almost like we're trying to
mix oil and water here.
Yes. Go ahead. Okay.
I'll do this question and we'll take one
question from the floor since you had the
courage to get out.
When talking to an armed Muslim about Islam,
they say that Islam is too confining or
too constricting.
What things are they talking about,
and how do you answer them?
I don't know. It's, you know, it's hard
to know what they are talking about. Some
think just the praying 5 times a day,
the ritual requirements are too confining and restricting.
I think I'd have to ask that person
exactly what they meant to dig a little
deeper.
You know, I thought about that when I
first became a Muslim, honestly.
When I first became a Muslim, I hesitated
for a long time because I felt, well,
I can never pray 5 times a day.
I can never fast during Ramadan. I never
could adjust to this community.
These people are very different from what I
could possibly feel comfortable
with. This is all my feelings. There were
many, many things I thought
that I could just not live with or
really accomplish.
Couldn't live up to the moral requirements and
etcetera. But finally, I just converted because I
became
I became convinced that this
religion was the
was the religion for I mean, I came
I became convinced that the Quran was a
revelation from God. And I came to believe
in God again
through the Quran. Regardless of the community I
was about to enter, regardless of of the
difficulties and frustrations I had with it, regardless
of the,
discipline I had to develop in order to
do the rituals consistently,
regardless of all that, I thought I could
either one of 2 things. Live the rest
of my life a lie or just do
the best I can and at least live
and die acknowledging the truth. What I came
to believe is the truth.
So I think it's important, you know, to
make the case, you know, to be I
don't know. I was gonna well, that answers
the question.
Okay. Go ahead please, sister.
I would just like to add a thing
to what Could you please raise your voice?
I would just like to add,
one thing to what brother Lang said.
And I am a convert
and
also female.
So what he is saying, I have been
subjected to 95%
of that.
And so it is true.
And even though it may seem amusing now,
it is really something that we we need
to think about.
And as far as the sisters are concerned,
it is true. You do need to get
out and get going. But please don't do
it under this feminist wannabes
because Islam does give you the rights
that, you know, that we we have as
women. Oh, for sure.
Okay. The next very good.
The
next question is, I know someone who has
who was Christian and became atheist because
she
thinks God is just an excuse for people
to use
to explain why things are the way they
are.
What do you think? How could I explain
it to her?
Let's see. So this person believes that god
is just an excuse to explain those type
of things that
so far we have, you know, either science
hasn't been able to answer or we haven't
been able to come up with a
philosophical answer or something like that.
Yeah. I used to believe the same thing,
That God was a convenient excuse
for the mysteries that we couldn't unravel.
And I believed
that as science got more and more developed,
as science progressed, we would have more and
more answers to the questions and fears that
once plagued man. And as science progressed, you
would see more and more people become atheist
because they would find solutions to the problems
that once only religion could answer. That was
my position. So I understand the position very
well.
Okay. And then I was gonna say that
when somebody is in such a frame of
mind, it is gonna be very difficult to
reach them and you might not bother trying.
Like I said,
God you have to trust in God to
some extent.
God continually
and continuously
guides or gives the disbeliever
chances to be guided
continuously.
I was an atheist. There were many, many
crises I felt in those years.
Many, many choices I made, critical choices that
I was aware of. Many I did a
lot of searching.
Nobody,
you know, people do. Even if they deny
they're doing it, they do.
God will present every person
many, many opportunities to reconsider his position, his
or her position. God says he punishes us.
He subjects us with severe hardship and suffering
in this life. He does this to disbelievers.
Why? So that hopefully,
perhaps, they will
think,
perhaps they will return. This is no lie
the Quran is telling us. You have to
trust in God that a person lives and
his life goes by,
he will present be given opportunities to think.
And at some stage, something you said may
click later on.
Just the fact that you are a Muslim
and you are a kind person may click
later on.
And that's what happened to me.
When I started to really investigate Islam, it
was because I remember that the Muslims that
I met in my life,
they had a certain something, a certain piece,
the good ones that I met. And so
I started thinking about Islam. So that, you
know, everybody
goes through times in their life when they
rethink
their positions.
Yeah. Okay. We have one last question. We'll
go to the sister here. And then we
have one more prize to give away.
And then we'll we're gonna give all the
questions to doctor Jeffrey Langson. He'll take a
look at them. Maybe he'll I'll write another
book. Exactly. That's what I was gonna say.
Maybe he'll include them in his next book.
Go ahead. Sam, I was wondering, do you
think that all the barriers between us, the
Muslims, and the non Muslims are put up
by the Muslims?
No.
I don't. But I think that,
you know, I certainly, the Western media plays
their part.
And, you know,
throughout the history of this religion,
various
peoples have had a best have had an
interest
in
in present putting Islam in a bad light.
Christian missionaries, of course.
Politicians,
of course, they exploit the bad
false perceptions of Muslims all the time.
So that, for example, in the Gulf War,
they used Islam as a weapon against Saddam
Hussein
to summon American support for the war. George
Bush did. He did clearly,
you know, in some ways sometimes, but he
did.
So, you know, there are many people that
have a vested interest in putting Islam in
a bad light, or at least they feel
they have, and they do.
Reporters do it all the time just for
good, solid, exciting story,
You know? So for example, rather than talk
about the Muslim community in America and so
many things we're doing here, we'll see something
happen in Afghanistan and make a big story
about it. Why? Because
it hits an American nerve,
you know. So yes, they do their part,
but we also do our part. And and
that's the one that concerns
me, you know. Because a lot of times,
an American will come
to the Muslim community
and he'll, for for a while,
suspend his prejudices
against Islam.
He'll be willing to say maybe I'm wrong
and I need to hear it from the
people.
And then he walks in and he sees
and observes some of the things that I
mentioned tonight
and he goes away more convinced than ever.
It doesn't take much to reignite and convince
people of their prejudices.
And it brings them all back.
Thank you very much. That was a good
question. She just did it already. She did
it already. Okay. You're gonna make one more,
this this raffle one?
Okay.
Doctor Jeffrey Lang. Before we close, we have
Just a second. We have the wheel closed.
How much you wanna pay? Who wanna be
who who wanna get it for $200?
It's a sister. Anybody wanna pay more and
get it?
How much?
300.
So who's gonna go 400?
It's okay. Don't don't it's not worth oh,
wow. No. It's not a lot. Let's see.
Who says 200, he pays 200. Who says
300, he pays 300. Who says 2 more,
what what did we get? 200? That's, 305100
and another 200, 700?
So we have $700
so far. If you say 800, you only
pay 100, only pay 100 the difference.