Intellectual Man Asks Muslim All the Right Questions
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Channel: Mohammed Hijab
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Salam Alaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh you're here with your Brother Mohammed. So here at guidance Avenue, and I am joined today with Sebastian, and I'm gonna leave you to it, guys.
So the question that I was talking with my friends earlier, yeah, unlike the Bible, which has got a lot of different, a lot of different versions to it, the Quran has always had the same text throughout history. So we also along with that, bear in mind, we were talking about, if you follow, let's say, 90% of the teachers, we don't follow 10%, does that qualify you to be good in the eyes of God? So we were asking the question,
every single person on the planet has a different language, because even though you can write something in the same script, there's 7 billion different interpretations of a language. So if I say the word water, for example, to you, it might mean completely different things to you, let's say if you had a, like a terrible accident and water, it means different things to you as it does to me. And every single word can be like that in a language. So how is it possible to follow the exact teachings of the Quran, if every single person has a slightly different interpretation of it, and that means that every single person has a slightly different interpretation of their belief? Thank
you very much. It's a brilliant question. It's actually a question that a lot of scholars in many different fields have actually grappled with. But the good thing about the Quran is actually gives us a instruction manual on how to deal with this issue. So it says in chapter three, verse number seven, who will lead the ends Allah who determine who is and walk Amazon who normal keytab He is the one who sent down the book with with basically, verses in it, that are foundational verses and these are the mother of the book or the foundational verses of the book, where all hieromartyr shall be had and other verses which are ambiguous. Family, the nephew, Hulu, him z one faith aviana,
methylcobalamin, whatever?
my alma mater, Willa, Willa, basically, it says that those who want to follow their own desire or the kind of corruptive elements, or try and create some kind of confusion, and they will follow the ambiguous verses and create them, make them as kind of foundational. So because they're there, they're open to interpretation. So it's clear that you can have more than one interpretation, these individuals will try and use those verses as if they are foundational verses. So let's give you some live examples. Right? In the history of Islam, there has never been a controversy surrounding the fact that God is one. For example, there's never been a theological controversy surrounding that.
And the Quran is very clear, called holo, I'd say is God one, the one and only. So there has never been a Muslim who has ever been, who has ever claimed to be a Muslim that has said that the Quran is anything that sorry that God is anything about one God.
Same in chapter 14, in the final verse of the of that chapter, it says, Muhammad Rasul Allah, that Prophet Mohammed is the final messenger of Allah. So there's never been a controversy on that. That makes sense. So, in a nutshell, how do we kind of navigate from interpretation, and that which is clear, is we look at the foundational verses of the Scripture. And we, we basically try and make a theology out of that those ambiguous verses have to fit into the context of the foundational verses. Okay, so it's almost as if there's certain things that you can, you don't need to argue about because they're very clear. And that you can look at for instruction on the things that are less
clear. Exactly. Right. That's very interesting. Okay.
I can't think of a better answer that question. That's fantastic. Thank you. Thank you very much. Well, good. Thanks. Any other questions? Yeah.
So what else we talked? Okay. So we talked about
was the particular the 41 different theologians.
Okay, so, so we were talking about so often, obviously, after the Prophet, there was the different theologians throughout Islamic history.
Yeah.
Yeah. So we're essentially talking about people who are are not of God. But they, obviously they're religious, and they've interpreted it. So what I asked was, God is perfect, right? And do we believe that human beings are perfect? So we don't we don't? necessarily right. So that we believe are infallible. Yes, in the sense that they cannot be, cannot commit major sins or Yeah, nothing can interrupt the revelation, right? They're not perfect in the same but yeah, other human beings aren't perfect. And that means that logically, anything that comes from these human beings also cannot be perfect, including any religious interpretations or arguments, everything from, you know, straight
theology to jurisprudence. So the question that I have is, when you're not following the Hadith, or the Quran, or any other, or the Word of God or a prophet, for example, when it's a theologian,
you are allowed to interpret it is that would that be correct? So you can take it? You can argue with a theologian, not in the same way that you would argue with the word of the Quran. Yeah, exactly. So a theologian.
verdict. So speak is not binding on every individual. Right? So you're, you're, you're open to kind of challenge a theologian and ask them why they've come to that conclusion, because they could have very well interpreted the text of the Quran in the incorrect way. So from that perspective, that's where we have discussion. But what from from like a layman's perspective, or someone who's new to Islam? Really the way this was kind of actualized? And reality is, you would you would follow that what you feel is most Correct, yeah. And you would not be judged for that what you get wrong, because at the end of the day, you have a limited ability to do things in this world. So it's not
that if you are not able to get the correct interpretation on every single, let's say, jurisprudence, situation, it doesn't mean to say that now you're going to be punished for that. Because that would be an unfair thing to do. And that's why I got this, as you can say, on maximum Islam law, you can leave alone if God does not overburden a soul with more than it can handle.
Well, if I were to ask you now, I mean, would you accept? I mean, what's your position on? on God? Would you accept that there was a God actually, that created the universe and is maintaining the universe and all this idea of an entity that's creating and maintaining the universe? fashioning everything that's been created, etc, etc. are on the side of there would have to be a creator? Yeah. I wasn't raised. Like that's just the kind of conclusion of reach I'm not sure what it would be a guy with a beard in the sky like a painting? Yeah, of course, I would agree with that. I mean, I don't think it would be I mean, from an Islamic perspective, the Francis led to absorb, absorb that
vision kind of encapsulate God. And he encapsulates all vision. And it says in chapter 42, verse number 11, that laser committed cliche or semi albasini, that there's nothing like him at all. And he is the old seeing or hearing. So in other words, any image that we've gotten from, let's say, the Western media, or any other media, or any image, generally speaking, that we've got from a what constitutes God would not be a correct image. And as you can imagine, imagination, including your imagination, so you can't actually conceive of what God would physically look like. Because there's no Yes, exactly. It's not it's not possible to conceive what God looks like, based on those verses
in the Quran. Let's recall.
That vision cannot encapsulate him. But he encapsulate all vision, there and the same thing, Lisa comes to me, he shapes our perception of God, our idea of God is not an is not a God, which is as basically being made into a human being or any kind of creation. So this is called anthropomorphism. So we don't believe in anthropomorphize God, we don't believe in a Jesus type God, we will say that Jesus Christ is a human being right.
And you'll be it's interesting to find that throughout history, you find that there have been anthropomorphize versions of God, from Hercules to Zeus, to Jesus, all of them have something in common in the case of Hercules and Jesus is that there was Son of God, or there was sort of a higher gut, and obviously got themselves in a sense, in the case of Jesus, I mean, once again, they're all anthropomorphize. Oh, you say that our conception of God is a non anthropomorphize God, that which cannot reach human being in terms of imagination.
And so from that perspective, we would say that God, you cannot imagine God, anything you can imagine is not God.
incapable of, isn't it? There's no way you could get rounded or like you're not imagining it, right? We just lack the, if you like, the processing power, or the ability to do in the first place. Exactly. So that's one thing. So we can't we can't we can't imagine God. That's one thing. God is all powerful. Our conception of God is as follows. God is an all powerful entity, which has created all that exists, continues to maintain it, and creates the human being allowed him to basically exist. Let me ask you guys a question. Let's open this up a little bit.
I was thinking about this. I've tried this with a little bit of with some people before, but let me try it again. Yeah.
I want you to imagine the following Sebastian, okay.
Imagine when you go to sleep. Yeah, you wake up in your bed, isn't it? I wake up, I go to sleep. I wake up in my bed where I slept initially. But I want you to imagine the following example. Okay. I want you to imagine that you go to sleep wherever you go to sleep.
And you wake up and you find yourself in a in a train on a train. Yeah.
Now I want you to ask, answer the following question. What would you ask? What's the first thing you'd ask yourself? How did I get here? How did I get here? What else would you ask? Who put me here? Who put you here? What else would you ask?
Where's the train going? Okay, thank you very much. Now, let me tell you something, right.
What would you do?
If you woke up on the train?
And you saw people you know, just living life
You just started doing what they do.
And you had these questions that you want to solve, how did I get here? Where all these things, but you just suppressed them? What would you say to a person who suppresses these questions? I'd say they become unhappy at some point, they won't be able to suppress it any longer. That's a good point. Would you also say that that person is critical or uncritical in their being? And the existential, being completely uncritical, I'm critical. Is it justified to be on critical in that way? Absolutely not. Okay, in the parable of the train is the parable of life.
We woke up to a life we woke up to being here in this world. But we see now the western, not to, to kind of knock Western culture, but I'm just saying that is promoted nowadays that we should really think about these ultimate questions. We're on the train of life. We don't know whether we know one thing, we're gonna die. One of the train of life, we woke up, and we're distracted by everything around us. But the questions that which are most fundamental are to our exists, existential being. How did I get here? What am I going, who am I? Where am I all of these questions that you asked yourself? These questions are not being asked. And I urge everyone, including yourself, to ask these
questions. If I asked you, how did I get here that question, if we apply it to the context of speakers corner London, not just because color London, let's just say to the world that we live in? How did you get
the atheistic responses you got here, in a way, which we can't really understand. It could be the multiverse it could be that nothing created something it could be like, Krauss actually says, a universe from nothing.
That's just for me, it's an unsatisfactory response.
How did we get here? Well, you know, don't worry about it too much. Don't think about it. You know, what we're doing here? You make your own purpose, my friend? No, I mean, it doesn't seem that logical, does it, it doesn't follow. If you're on the train, you would not accept that particular logic. So I will ask you the question.
What makes the best? Does it make sense to say, does that make sense to say, how did you get here? You are created by an all knowing entity.
What you're doing here that all knowing entity has assigned and fixed a purpose for you?
And where are you going, you're going to die?
And there is something that's going to happen after death? Let me tell you something.
You know, the human experience, a lot of people say, Well, how can you prove there's going to be something that happens after death, all we can know is that which we can empirically justify.
I say I disagree with that when we go to sleep, or we close our eyes. And we dream. Yeah, dreaming is a is an experience that most human beings have experienced, which has no sensual reaction, you don't open your eyes, but you still see. You don't need to try and hear someone physically saying that, but you still hear dreaming. And this is why Freud By the way, he wrote a book on dreaming. It's a really interesting human experience.
The human experience has shown us when we are in the state of unconsciousness,
we can still have realities. And dreaming is an ample example of that reality. What we're seeing is this, when you lose overall consciousness, when you're dead, and everyone will die. When you lose overall consciousness, it won't be the case that things will stop, we say that there will be a reality that you will then experience just like a dream. But it's more real than a dream and will be more prolonged than just a dream. And that reality will be a metaphysical reality, that the entity that we discussed before that created you will assign for you will create for you will allow for you to have. And this is the whole idea of the Day of Judgment. Heaven, Hell, all of that is there. I'm
not saying these things are dreams. I'm saying these things are realities. But
those realities don't depend upon the existential five senses, though, being a human being and five senses these things. They can be rearranged. So hey, does it make sense for us to say today
that the reason why you're here is because you are created. What you're doing here is that you have a purpose.
And your purpose is going to soup is going to extend to your after death experience. Does that make sense? Yes, it does. Yeah.
And does it make sense? Now look, I say for example, I'm an unbiased individual. Yeah, I want to find out which is the correct religion. There are six major world religions, honestly, yeah, I just want to find out which one is true. Everyone is claiming to be right.
I swear to God,
it doesn't take that long to find out the answer. You know why?
Of the six major world religions only two are proselytizing. Only two, only one. Only two religions actually attempt to have you as wherever they are. And that's Christianity and Islam. Judaism is not a proselytizing religion. Hinduism is not really a proselytizing religion. Sikhism
Somebody approached the Science Division, and they're all regional religions. Yeah. And they're all religions, which have backgrounds in some kind of, let's just say some mythology. And sometimes they'll be open about it, like Hindus are very open about their mythology.
And the mythology is very similar to Greek mythology to be honest with you. Yeah. So here
we have two candidates, Islam and Christianity for me to narrow the gap. All I have to do is look at the basic theology, forget about everything else, just look at the basic theology. If I were to look at the basic theology of Christianity and Islam, I see that Christianity is a religion, which which talks about the Trinity three in one on one and three, that Jesus has God that the Holy Spirit has gotten, the father has gotten all 301. I would argue that this is a fundamentally flawed theology.
And the idea that God is One
is only really present, in its purest and truest form, in its most logical form, in the religion of Islam. Based on that logic, if we accept the premise of revelation to human beings, it does make sense that God is one, and that there were a long line of prophets, which is the Islamic narrative, that there were a long line of prophets sign with Adam, up until the final point, which we call Mohammed, all of which testified that there's only one God worthy of worship. Does that make sense?
So here, does that make sense? Would you accept that? Islam, therefore, is, from a theological or philosophical perspective, the most rational recourse?
I mean, you've given me one example. I would. Yeah, I agree with you on that one. I think the Holy Trinity thing is very strange about the Catholic Church admits themselves. Yeah, and as you've mentioned before, another example is in terms of preserved text. Islam has the only preserved text, let me tell you something, I'll defy anyone. And by the way, I'm here every week. You know, I'm here every week. And people can always challenge me on this.
I say the following. I say that Islam is the only religion where there has not been a controversy among Muslim theologians, on the truthfulness or on the preservation of the Quran. Everyone attests that the Quran that they have is the Quran that we have. So in other words, no controversy in the Quran. The only religion which has a logical theology, the only religion which had the preserved text, the only religion, which makes a series of predictions, all of which actualize you know, the Quran makes a series of predictions
about empires, I'm not sure if you've heard of this, for example, the Roman Empire in the Persian Empire, we're in a war. And the Quran makes a shockingly precise prediction that in three to nine years, the Roman Empire will defeat the defeat the Persian Empire in a nearby close land. The Prophet makes predictions about the future about where Islam will spread, he tells us Islam will spread to Egypt, he tells us Islam will spread to Syria, to Jordan, to Yemen, to India, to Pakistan, to all of the places where we find Islam, there has been a prediction from the prophet or in the Quran, that Islam was spread in these places. The Quran makes a series of predictions about the fact
for example, that the Muslims will occupy the Arabian Peninsula. And they will happen within a period of time.
These predictions from a probabilistic perspective give us another layer of argument, another evidence base, which is really this,
which is that it cannot be the case. Right? I would argue it cannot be the case.
That all of these predictions from probabilistic perspective are completely accurate. Look at all the other religions. There are false predictions in the Bible. They are false predictions in the biblical text. I can tell you some of them, but I don't want to waste a lot of my time. A lot of a lot of them are very well known. Even Jehovah's Witnesses, I was making this point before 1977, they said the end of the world is going to take place they call and then when it didn't happen, they call it the greatest appointment. The point is, predictions are a reasonable way for a person to see and decipher whether the person who claims to have knowledge from the old knowing is telling the truth
or not.
And I'm saying that Islam has the best or in fact, a blemish lis record on this. It has no flaw in its record. Whenever Islam tells us something will happen. It happens. So if that's the case, with every worldly situation and scenario, why wouldn't it be the case for something which is metaphysical and extra worldly if you like? Yeah. And that's why we say that we have real rational reason to believe in Islam not not just because of these things, but just because of the God is one all that but because there's a real evidence base of it. Moreover, Islam, I would argue as well.
Islam makes challenges to humanity. It tells the Quran says when quantum theory man as an alibi de facto be so rotten, we miss Li Watashi wa documented lion Kudo. Sakina if you want any doubt of what we have revealed to our slave them print bring something like it. So this constitutes what is referred to as the inevitability challenge. In other words, the Quran claims to be inevitable, and it claims that no one can produce anything like it. In other words, and this
Challenge is still open now and you'll see and someone, maybe a skeptical say, Well, I don't see this, I see this quite subjective challenge. This has clear quantifiable ways of measuring it. Islam is the only religion. I mean, think about this. If I wanted to make a YouTube video today, yeah.
Theoretically,
let's say we make a YouTube video, we make it as clickbait as possible and all that kind of stuff. How many? How many gallons of in your
any channel right now? What kind of use Am I gonna get if I'm lucky 100,000 150,000 that kind of those kind of numbers we're talking about? Yeah. And then after about two or three years, it will be forgotten. Yep. Now imagine this.
Someone has come with a book,
which in the case of the Quran,
and here we are in West Europe, speakers corner 2017, some 1439 years after this person has come with this book, still talking about this book.
That is a powerful thing. Someone will say well, the same is true with the Bible. The same is true with the Bible because we would say the Bible there's parts of it which aren't true. In fact, revolution. We agree with that premise. Okay, you're right. Some of it is revelation. Some of it is from God. The same is true with the Bible at Gita. Yeah, okay. Some of it might be revelation, we're not saying it's no, it's all false. There's some bits of it which are true, but it's remained regional, Sikhism remains regional. Islam is the only religion. The Abrahamic religions really are the only religions which have become International. And Islam is the only religion where that I
promise you guys there is no second that goes by in any day. Whether someone that's not mentioning the name of Muhammad Allah, in any part of the world, you know how profound that is? In the Quran, it says waterfire nella Casa crock about Prophet Muhammad, we have raised your status. And you're mentioning the means mentioning. In other words, look at this. If I say here now, this is a challenge. Let's put it into a let me relate it to the people of today the youtubers. Yeah.
The YouTube, I'm saying to the youtubers come out, make a video. I don't care if your name is I don't know what Yeah, make a video that stays relevant for 1439 years, make a video, make a video, do it, do it. Then also say, I'm going to be mentioned by the by everyone for that period of time, what I found nelleke as a clerk is mentioned in chapter number 94 of the Quran, we have raised your status. Can you imagine the kind of profound effect this book has had? It's a quote from a quantifiable perspective. This is not something which is qualitative, which is subjective. We're talking about sociological transformation people are talking about now in almost any university you
go into in this country, they talk about political Islam, and the media is talking about Islam. Why is it so relevant? Why they don't talk about Sikhism? Why not talk about Buddhism? Talk about something else, it cannot stop pervading the minds of men. Islam is a religion, which cannot stop pervading the minds of men. Why? Because Allah has told us that that's a prediction, what a foreigner like, I think we have raised your status. make a prediction like that, do it. And immutability challenge, we have to take this challenge seriously, because this challenge is serious. I say, make something like it, produce three lines that change the world.
Produce three, right? make me say your name. Make my children say your name. Make my grandchildren say your name. Make my great grandchildren say your name. Believe me, all of your great grandchildren, whether you're a non Muslim or non Muslim, have said the word Mohammed before all of the master, all of them have said it How comes none of you will ever say none of you can never make any book that will ever say anything other than no one who mentioned you You're nothing. Plato, Aristotle, all of these individuals. They are foreign in the in the minds in the tongues of men, of many men.
And they are by the by by the consensus of logicians, probably the highest of logicians and thinkers.
This is what we got to think about.
Do you see what I'm talking about? I wrote this.
Yes, please. So we talked earlier how human beings being imperfect cannot create anything that's perfect themselves. And naturally, the like any language that we use is as a result of human societies that evolves. And language is imperfect language has exceptions, English is classic. It's not even phonetically pronounced. So it's a real habit to try and navigate the English language. Yeah, I'm not so sure about Arabic or Farsi or any of the other Middle Eastern languages. So around the time of when the Quran was written, there was a language being used by that society. It's naturally imperfect. It's not it doesn't perfectly convey ideas. And yet God has the challenge of
creating a perfect text because either it comes from God is perfect necessity, necessity, necessarily. So how is it that God is able to create a perfect text you
In an imperfect language, how those two things reconcile, okay, do you notice a really interesting question? And this goes into the field of linguistics. And that's why there's lots of interesting things you can read about this. Yeah. And I'll refer you to Noam Chomsky is universal grammar, because it is an interesting thing.
It's such a deep discussion that basically what he says is this, there are two schools of thought and linguists in linguistics. Yeah, there's a school, the empirical school of thought, and there's the kind of Chomsky is universal grammar school of thought, the empirical school of thought is that you you're suggesting that you can only output that what you've input.
So in other words, you see a tree, you see this, you're told what that thing is called, you can only output that which is input. A lot of people have written books about this, this is called the empirical school of thought. On the other hand, you have Noam Chomsky, who argues and others like him universal grammars, if you will, people that believe in the universal grammar school of thought, they say that actually, human being has an innate ability to create something more with the grammatical constructions that they have. So in other words, the input is not as much as the output. And he says that the output is more than the input.
Language is a really interesting thing is there is a very powerful mechanism by which and through which we communicate with, with all the people and obviously that's something which is specified to the human being, and also have language in the same way that human beings have, they have sounds that they make, but I have language. Now, you're talking about Arabic, and and all these different imperfect Look, I would make up I'll make a point, that actually Arabic in terms of his grammar structure is Arabic and Hebrew, I'll say the Semitic languages, and this is my opinion, are the most logical, grounded and mathematical language languages in the world? I'll tell you why. If now I say
look, there's a big red bus. And English language. I'm saying, Look, it's a big red bus. If I said red, big, red, big bus. Does that make sense? No, it doesn't. It has. There's a grammatical code, there's an algorithm and English language, which makes it necessary for us a big red bus size, color object, or the thing being a noun, the common or proper noun has to be like that. Why is an arbitrary thing because England English language is a result of different languages like old English, French, when the Normans came in, all these different languages that are pretty much amalgamated into this kind of confusing language, which is now English, we know it. But the truth
is, is grammatical structures are not perfect. And they're not mathematical in the same way as the Semitic languages are because the semantic languages have a pure line of transmission, you could say, really, the the linguist say that there was one, what they call it, the mother Semitic language, or from it, you have Syriac, and you have Hebrew, and you have our MC and you have Arabic, and all of these different things, and all these different things. I thought this guy was talking to me. And all of these things are Semitic languages. Now you'll find that the Semitic languages have often been chosen by God, to communicate the message of whatever it is he's trying to communicate.
There's a real reason for that, because actually, it has the purest line to the, to the thought of civilization. In terms of language, the first thing we have written down is about 8000 years old. 8000 years old. Yeah, that's the first thing we have written down.
About 8300, whatever it may be 400 years old. The first civilization that ever came into existence was about 1000 9000 years old. Yeah, we don't the cradle of the earth, as it was called, is about 8000 9000 years old. The oldest civilization is probably the massive Mesopotamian civilization followed by the Egyptians, followed by the Indus River civilization, followed by the ancient Greeks, the
Minoans and the mycenaeans. And, and etc, etc. Yeah. And then you have the Persians coming in, and then all these things afterwards.
Why am I telling you this? Because actually, if we assume that the first thing we have in terms of language is about 8400 years old,
and in in Mesopotamia, they had a, they had an auditorium, they had a
Semitic language, which was in their case. The Yes, yeah, they had Semitic language of some sorts. Yeah. If that's the case, then we know now that this has a closer link to the Islamic and chronic narrative. The Quran says while Mr. markkula has a motto the home
will only be included in the Quran in chapter number two of the Quran, the beginning of the chapter, I think, verse 23, or something like this. It says that, God,
to Adam, the ismat, the nouns,
how did he teach them through the agents of the angels language, therefore is not something which is imperfect and in its essence, is something which is taught by God to to the first human being, and that's Adam. And then it's transmitted. And so we say the purest of languages are those which God has chosen to generate the Quran and that's why one of our scholars will just read. He says, He calls it off. Salawat is
One of the most purest and clear languages, Arabic for that reason, does that make sense? Fantastic answer, I had no idea it was that I'm complex and delicate. That's brilliant. So now, we've talked about why believing in God is makes sense. We've talked about why believing in the oneness of God makes sense. We've talked about reasons to believe in Revelation. I want to ask you a question, Sebastian, does it not make sense now at this stage?
to embrace Islam?
It's a huge question. I'll tell you something. What happens when you embrace Islam? Is you're literally just saying two things. What happens when people will come into Islam? And they come almost every week now into Islam? They say, yeah, let me just, I'll tell you, I'll tell you about this. What happens is that they,
they say that God is one. They admit that God is worthy of worship. When we say worship, we're saying that in terms of ultimate authority, that goes to God, ultimate authority should go to God. Yeah, Rousseau said, man is born free, but everywhere in chains. We're saying the way to undo the chains, the shackles of civilization, and to free yourself, liberate yourself is to free yourself from the authority of man, or the creation, and put yourself into the authority of the Creator. So we say that,
when the two things you've got to admit is that God is worthy of worship.
And that Prophet Muhammad is His final messenger, that there were a long line of messengers, Adam, Moses, Jesus, all of these individuals were human beings.
And those human beings were given a message. And that message was the same thing. I'm telling you now. They had to transmit it to their communities. And they had evidences to show why their message is true. At the end of it, people would accept or reject. So my question to you is, does that sound reasonable? It does, indeed.
Yes. So I would say that what you do is you say, to short phrases in Arabic, this will initiate you into becoming a Muslim. No baptism required. Don't worry about this. Yeah. Although if you don't have a shower when you go home, it's recommended.
Yes, in the chorus, I will Sorry, I should have told him that. Yes.
chapter two verse 256. It says like Rafi Dini, Katarina, Rooster in the life of my Echo, tacos.
column for some Allah, it says that there's no compulsion in religion, that the truth is made clear from falsehood. Yeah, and whoever is doing it is believes in the false gods and believes in the one God, then he has hold on to the, to the tight grip, and that there is no releasing that grip. So that's what the Quran says about.
Iran is not Muslim country, my friend.
Nothing will happen. I should say that half my family lives in Iran. And they're all pretty much atheist. So
your conception that they all hang each other from cranes, because they have nothing better to do is quite, is quite false, to be honest. Thank you. Thank you. Well,
I mean,
it does have a large Christian population, you're talking about the bastion of civilization as well. So don't get me wrong. I also don't mean a note, you don't try and put me in a box. On the one hand, I don't agree with the media narrative. On the other hand, I don't agree with everything that anyone else says. But there is a balance. And I like
I, okay, just just for example, I just have to put this out there. I have a cousin, she goes nightclubbing. In Iran, she's also doing a veterinary degree and like they have access to Yes, they have access to beer, if they want to use it. Not that they would. Yeah.
That's a good point. Because actually, in countries like, countries like Iran, I know people don't notice. And in countries like Iran, there are two there are two kinds of I would say, just totally simplify the people who are completely not religious that they don't actually live a religious lifestyle whatsoever, and they're allowed to exist. It's not like they're all like you said, hanging from friends. Anyways.
Yeah, they're not, they're not killed.
spoke earlier, we just said the there being no compulsion in religion, if a religion exists there to test your virtues and your faith, then obviously, if you compel so if you make someone follow the rules of any particular thing, then you're not testing whether they're a virtuous person. In fact, what you're doing is if you say, I'm going to punish you, if you don't follow my rules, then the only reason they're following their rules is for pure self interest, which is the exact opposite of the some of the virtues that religion teaches. So any religion any at all, necessarily must say that you that there is choice, anything I really like the answer. And you know, I want to say in addition
to that, is that this point is a really interesting theological point. We say that the, the best reason to worship God is because that is the most appropriate thing to do.
The
is a beautiful verse and the Quran in chapter 76 verse one
where it says
about the incense the human being lamb, Yakutia and mascara, he was not something which was mentioned. The point being is that whether human being is there or not, God still deserves praise. And that's why, in the first very first chapter in the very first verse in the Quran, it says, Al hamdu, lillahi Rabbil aalameen. Praise be to God, Lord of the worlds and that's not connected to anything or anyone. In other words, no human being needs to praise God, in order for him to have praise belong to Him, is the most appropriate thing.
It's the most appropriate thing to describe God in the first place worthy of praise. Now, going back to what we were saying before, the initiation process is literally to statements that would make you a Muslim. Then after that, you'd learn how to pray.
Obviously, the quicker the better. And you don't need to learn every single minute like little detail about it, but we would support you with I'll give you my number after sound. All right. Yes, of course. So you can follow us say in Arabic, and then afterwards, I'll translate in English. A shadow.
Like, wait, what is it? What is going on? Also, I'll say in English, I just the conversion. Yes, yes. I think I'm gonna have to spend a lot more time talking because I, as I said to you, I need to talk more about it. But that's that wouldn't be the right thing for me to do at the time. Okay. Perhaps after more speakers corner sessions. No problem. Yeah, yes. Yes. Take your time. Now, listen, that's one thing we would like to emphasize. If you're not ready to do it. It's not something we want to force upon you. So just take your time. Think about it. I'll still give you my number. So if you have any questions? Yeah, that'd be good. Where are you from? By the way, what
country? I grew up in the UK. But as I said, I'm half British, half Iranian. Oh, interesting. Yeah. Okay. No, I'll give you my number. Obviously, my mom will give you his number as well. It's been fantastic talking to you. Thank you very much. Thank you so much. Thank you so much.