Muhammad West – Da’wah to the Other Religions of the World Part 2

			Although we live in a shed on the regime's ruler man Rahim Al hamdu Lillahi Rabbil Alameen wa Salatu
was Salam ala should have been listening CD now Muhammad Ali, he also has remain, my beloved
brothers and sisters Salam aleykum Rahmatullahi Wa Barakatuh
		

			alhamdulilah Bill Alameen always we will begin with the praise and thanks for Alana shadow Allah
Allahu Allah, Allah will testify that there is none worthy of worship besides Allah subhanaw taala
and we send our love and greetings salutations so beloved Nabi Muhammad sallallahu alayhi salam
despised in his pure family, his companions and all those who follow his sunnah until the end of
time. May Allah subhanaw taala bless us to be amongst them. I mean, well, hamdulillah Al
Hamdulillah. We continue with our series on giving Dawa, and our position as scholars, invitees,
ambassadors to Islam. We spoke at the beginning of the series about what it means What does Islam
		

			really mean? And what is the fundamental, and as we keep mentioning, and I think we have to
understand that if you open the Quran from the beginning to the end, if you were to extract one, one
lesson that underpins this religion, is that there is one Creator, and every single human being has
a personal relationship with him, and you communicate, and you have that relationship through
ibadah. That's what it is, there should be no intermediary between you and your Creator. And there
is no power, nothing that can benefit you or harm you than that creator. Nothing that can, can
elevate you or bring you down besides your Creator. And therefore you should not fear you should not
		

			hope you should not put dependency on anyone besides Him. And that is what is the and that is the
religion of the universe. The first Muslim was not Muhammad Sallallahu sallam. It wasn't maybe Adam,
the first man. In fact, the first creation that was created is a Muslim, because Islam means to
surrender yourself to your Creator, and to follow the way the path of Ciroc that the Creator has set
out for you, to obey Him and to love Him and to worship Him. And then to be with him in the era.
That is what Islam is. And everything else, is just an extension of that fundamental. Within said to
give Dawa we need to understand that we live in a diverse world. And in this series, we are
		

			mentioning different religions. And obviously, as we go through this discussion, we'll mention the
differences between Islam and those religions. And I have to always begin and remind ourselves, we
do this with respect, and we respect all religions. In fact, the most.
		

			The if you look at the Quran, the worst person in the Quran, the worst of all people was fit around.
And when Allah subhanaw taala tells Nabi Musa when you go and speak to Iran, and you give Dawa to
him, a man who says hon Coman Allah, I'm Allah, what does Allah say to Nabi Musa, and speak to him
with soft, respectful speech? So whenever you speak to someone outside of Islam, about religion, if
you're ever going to engage in Dawa, it is worth respect, and it is worth with love and with a
sincere intention to bring people closer to the path of Allah subhanho wa taala. Also Allah Subhan
Allah says in the Quran, and do not insult the idols Allah tells the Navi Salaam and the Sahaba do
		

			not ridicule insult mock the idols that they worship and the Qureshi used to worship dates they used
to make a statue out of dates worship it oh date Help me Help me and then they get hungry and they
eat it so now I'm gonna says How will we so crazy we used to do this we used to worship at a idol
might have dates for them, and then we got hungry would eat the idol. But Allah says you don't make
fun or mark them.
		

			Even though we disagree, even though we will say we cannot, we cannot be on the same page with you.
When you say Allah subhanaw taala is a man we came in human form, we said we cannot agree to that.
We cannot say all is the same. No. But we do this with respect. So we spoke about Judaism. And as I
mentioned briefly, Judaism, in simplistic forms is that God created all of creation, Judaism, the
idea and the theology and the philosophy about God is very similar to the Creator very similar to
Islam. But they believe that Allah when he created mankind and mankind live their life, he took a
special tribe and he gave them a religion, the rest of mankind he didn't give this religion and that
		

			religion is specific to this tribe of the Jews. The bunnies are the descendants of Nabi Yaqoob. And
it's only for them to follow the Sharia. The rest of you you're not required to do that, because
this is a religion that is for them and them alone. And that's what
		

			You cannot convert into the religion, because it's a tribal ethnic group. That is with regards to
Judaism. And, of course, the rituals and many of the rituals and the belief system, you would find,
as we know, it comes from the Gambia, it comes from Islam. Our belief is this religion, Judaism,
Christianity, and in fact, most of the religions of the world, the origin would have come from a
Nabhi that was calling to Allah subhanaw, taala. And bits of it remains, but it got changed over
time. That's our, that's our belief. And you'd find similarities in many religions. Where does this
come from? It comes from the Gambia that Allah had sent them, who all preach Islam. But as time went
		

			on, the message got changed and distorted. And so we spoke about Judaism, and we said, then
Christianity came along. And Christianity, as we all know,
		

			was founded, really, when a baby that was sent to the Jews to come back to Islam, not be easily
Islam, but he was rejected by his followers. And so a Sikh emerged and broke off. And that became
Christians. And eventually, this became a religion completely on its own. And we said, Christianity
took a trajectory very different to Judaism.
		

			It took a very different trajectory with a philosophy and the ideology. So we, as the Jews, as we
said, are very similar in Islam, in the belief in what Allah is in the concept of God, Christians
believe in something very, very different. They believe that Allah will you have the biller has
multiple personalities, and he appeared in multiple forms, in three forms as a Trinity, and that he
eventually came to the earth as a man is called incarnation. And part of his purpose was to die, and
to free mankind of sin as a savior. And that is really the philosophy of Christianity, also, was
that the Sharia? So the Jews are very strict, you find some religions, they focus is all on
		

			spirituality, there's so many rules, what you eat. And the reason that's so important, so long as
you are attuned to the universe, whereas you find the Jews are very strict on the Sharia, the
practicing us on the kosher and the Sharia is even stricter than our Sharia in terms of what they
need to eat. And so, Christianity then comes along, and it frees you from the Sharia, you don't have
to now eat kosher, you can eat whatever you want to eat, there is no limitations on what you want to
eat, you can deal with Dre address and weigh whatever you want. So even though it is not confirmed
with what's in the, in the Bible, and I think last week we stopped and we talked about and why we
		

			need to focus a little bit more on Christianity is because we live in a Christian society, a
Christian majority, that
		

			while the Christians have a book, the Bible, the Bible is really two books put together, the Old
Testament of the Jews, and the new testament of the new Christian religion. And these two books are
really completely different. They're already two separate religions and speak about two separate
ideologies. No way in the Old Testament, would you find original sin, or the trinity or Jesus coming
down as a man which is the foundation of Christianity? So no way in the Old Testament? Would you
find this? Moses, Abraham, none of them understood that? How is it possible that God Almighty spoke
to these these prophets and never mentioned the purpose of life? Then, of course, in the Otis, the
		

			New Testament, you find all the teachings of Christianity. And it's important to understand when we,
as Muslims we take for granted and we equate the Quran to the Bible. From an author perspective, you
must understand the difference as Muslims. When we talk about the Quran, if you are asked who's the
author of the Quran, we will say that this we believe, it is the Lord Himself, the creator of the
universe, this is the debate the hits is the speech of Allah. I don't have the right, the old ama
don't have a right the Prophet himself does not have a right to take one letter away from it,
because it is the word of God, completely free of like, if you had to write the Quran and say, Look,
		

			wherever ALLAH is talking, make it read, the whole Quran will be read, right? There'll be no other
sentence in the when you say, s for the words of Muhammad, Salah Salam, the prophets, we have
special collections called Hadith to have the Quran the word of Allah, we have Hadith the words of
the NABI Salam, and as for the words of scholars and Imams, and so you can all of them, there's
other books keytops
		

			we as the Bible, if you open it and say, well, that's God speaking. I mean, in a there's Jesus
speaking, and then some prophets speaking. And then these are scholars speaking, and then these
things we don't know who said it. So it's a mixture of different authors. If you were to research
who wrote the Bible, I'm not saying this is what they themselves mentioned, that the Bible was not
authored by Nabi Musa, oh by Jesus Himself very little of Jesus statements. It was written by
priests many, many years, many centuries after him. And that is why you find it is a collection of
human writings with very little quotes going back to God Almighty.
		

			So understand the difference between the Quran and the Bible. We now move towards the Eastern
religions, Hinduism Sikhism Shintoism and these we are
		

			At least familiar with. And in fact, Allah subhanho wa Taala tells us, tells us that the Christians
and the Jews have a closeness to Islam because they are a people that come from the Islamic
tradition, and a lot of the philosophy and theology, we can see parallels to it, they have a book,
they have a clearly defined set of theology beliefs, they have rules, you they have a book that you
can say, well, your book says this, but you're doing that you can discuss it like that.
		

			The other that's what Allah calls manual Kitab a people that have a book, when you go into the other
religions, there isn't a clear text. And when you speak to one member of one really have the same
religion, they will have a very different view of everything.
		

			They will have the same title, for example, they will both say we are Muslim, we are Muslim, but
they have completely different beliefs. Why because the source is different, or the understanding is
different, the most prominent or the largest religion, perhaps the third largest religion of the
Christianity and Islam is Hinduism. And it's confined while 90% of it is found in India, Hinduism
actually, the word Hindu comes from into the Indus River, there's a river in India called the Indus
River. And obviously, India is a country that was very large, there were many tribes that lived in
many of you mashallah your ancestors go back to these tribes. And there were many, in along this
		

			river, these many tribes, each one had their own philosophy and religions. And with time as these
communities got together closer, they unify to form a common tradition of philosophy, Hinduism as
it's described, it's not described so much as a religion, it is more a spiritual tradition.
		

			There is no set of rules and laws you must follow. But it's almost like a custom and tradition that
we do, and we follow rituals and this is spirituality. And so, within Hinduism, and this is now if
you go into deep theology, you have some Hindus were polytheistic polytheistic, is that there are
many gods.
		

			There are many not one, there are many gods monotheistic, one God polytheistic many gods, you have
pantheistic way, the universe all of the universe is part of one God is God Himself is broken into
pieces, and he's in everyone. And you have pantheistic way we are inside God, you have
		

			he No theistic, where you have multiple gods but you worship your special one, but each one is
equal. So you have multiple gods you choose, this is my one, I will worship him, but he My God is
not better than your God. And this is most of Hindus, they have a personal
		

			God and that's what they are. This is the people. When you speak to the more learned, they will say
we only believe in one Creator, but within the culture within the religion, you have a multitude of
deities and that's why it's important Pamela and I must mention this.
		

			Understand the Kalima understand the Kalima, this is the difference between Allah and God and
Creator, your Kalama my Kalima, the Kalima, which we hope to die on is La ilaha illallah there is no
ILA other than Allah. How do you translate this? There is no god but Allah, there is no god but God,
that doesn't make sense. Allah there is no Allah other than Allah, there is no deity there is none
that is deserving of worship. So a Hindu will say, I believe in one Creator, one Creator of the
universe. But how many deities Do you have? How many healers do you have? We have millions of
healers, literally millions of healers. We worship many, many things. Allah says no, Islam is, there
		

			is no one that you must worship no ILA, other than Allah the Creator. That is what Islam is. So
Hinduism has a vast magnitude huge amount of ILAs that is worshipped. And their philosophy is.
		

			They believe that
		

			the purpose what is the purpose of life within Hinduism, our purpose of life in Islam is you only
get one life, you need to have a relationship with Allah, worship Him alone, be a good person, you
die, and then you will be judged very clear, very simple. Hinduism says now that you are part of a
cycle of birth and reincarnation, you have many, many lives, you live, you die and you are reborn,
your soul is recycled into another creature. And this process of reincarnation, you need to break
free of the cycle. This cycle is misery miserable, living in this dunya is miserable. And to be
reborn again and again, you need to break free of it. And how do you break free of it is you need to
		

			enlighten yourself, you need to get away from the the links and the the egos and the desires was
dunya. So a person who has no desire for the dunya anymore. He is completely free of want and need.
He has now become enlightened and he broke free from and when he dies, his final death, he will
unite with the universal God. He so will now become part of the universal God and that's really the
purpose of you know what Hinduism is? And how do you break free of the cycle? How do you break free
of the cycle? Well, that's where each group and each Hindu has their own path.
		

			practices and rituals. Apart from the very basic understanding of don't harm other people, which all
religions and even non religious people understand, they will have certain principles that you chant
certain praise, and you focus on certain idols, or these idols, these are manifestations of these
gods. So Hindus as we know, within the religion, they have idols, and the idols are meant to
represent the different gods out there. And by worshipping them and becoming a connected to them,
you become free of this cycle of rebirth, and you become free of the cycle of pain. And that is
really what Hinduism is all about. There is no clear Sharia.
		

			What can you do? What can't you do? There's no list, you just need to enlighten yourself. So it's
very spiritual.
		

			And subhanAllah also, you must what I what I mentioned. Now, the
		

			orthodox religions that have a book, like Judaism, like Islam, in a world that we live in, is
becoming, it's not aligned with the universal religion of love your life, how you want to live. God
doesn't care about who you sleep with, and what you eat, and what you drink and how you dress. Just
be a good person and be spiritual.
		

			People can't be pure atheists, because you know that there's more 12 in this. So I want to be
spiritual, but I don't want to be religious. And that's why these eastern religions are becoming
very, very popular, because it promotes this kind of philosophy.
		

			An offshoot of Hinduism is Buddhism. So Buddhism started off as a Hindu, the the founder of Buddhism
was a Hindu. And then he sort of moved away from Hinduism, and the philosophy of rebirth and the
cycle of pain and reincarnation, he agrees on that. But he says, having special deities and special
gods, this doesn't make sense that they should be idols and they should be.
		

			You know, metaphysical creatures going around that you worship and you pray to this doesn't make
sense. And so Buddhism almost is atheistic. It doesn't believe in a God. But it believes that you
need to free yourself that the whole universe is sort of, as we said, One, entity, one divine being,
and through enlightening yourself through meditation, and cutting off your life almost. It almost
took the Sufi tradition of being a state acetic. Living a life without needs and desires, living a
life free of once, when you get to that level, you are now free of the world, you reach a state
called nirvana. Right now you are completely not attached, you have no attachments to the world,
		

			you're not attached to your family, to your, to your children to your money completely. And many of
them when they reach that level of you know, that's not nirvana. And that's the cycle, but without
the need to worship a deity or an entity. Right, you know, Buddhism, and again, no clear book or
texts, and no clear rules and rituals. Each Buddhist master or guru will have their own tradition
that you follow this meditation ritual that you need to fast like this, that you need to give
charity like that. And it's not based on a clear formula.
		

			Sikhism Sikhism is the fifth largest religion in the world, but it's also the youngest one. And
Sikhs are very commonly you'd find *, they stand out because they are the guys with a turban. You
know, and most of them they certainly sing it find the center missing and where does this come from?
So Sikhism started 500 years ago in India as well, at a time when the Muslims the Muslim empire, the
Mughal Empire was very strong, it had conquered India. So you got Muslims ruling India, Muslim
overloads and you had a Hindu population. So you have two religions in India, the Hindus and the
Muslims. And so naturally there's going to be tension between these two communities. And Sikhism is
		

			kind of like a it started out as a merge between the two religions. So there are concepts of Islam
in Sikhism, and concept of Hinduism In Sikhism as its concept of these La ilaha illAllah. There's
none worthy of worship besides one Allah. The first priority is that there's only one God who has no
form no shape, you can't make an idol out of him. You can't make a statue out of him, right? But
they believe in reincarnation and the cycle of birth and rebirth. And it spoke to a middle way that
we that we don't like we don't we should not be Hindu or Muslim. One of the slogans were the Hindus
and Muslims, but we are all one people. And within Hinduism, they have a system not just obviously,
		

			within India, in the Hindus, there is a system of a caste system. Depending on who you are born, you
are an elite society, the Brahmins and depending if your tribe comes from a very low cost, then
you're the untouchable. So the society based in the religion is that you had people that were born
royalty, and people were born like slaves, and untouchable, meaning you're so dirty, filthy, we
don't even touch you. So this became a problem. And so Sikhism also says, We'll take Hinduism, but
we'll take out the caste system, and we form a new society. And so Sikhism um, developed like that.
They believe that there were 10 or nine gurus, like nine Ambia from the first founder until the last
		

			one, and those
		

			gurus wrote philosophies and traditions and Islamic law writings in the Christianity in a lot of
different things in the book and they encourage you to live a you know, most of it is to live again.
More on the philosophy side live a good life have praised which is chanting and singing at different
times of the day. There's a big focus on feeding people.
		

			Initially, Sikhism was very anti violent, it was a pacifist, religion, pacifist movement, but one of
the Guru's was killed by the Muslim mogul. And so they transitioned to a little bit more militant.
And so then they said we need to be distinct from the rest of our group needs to be unique. And so
it's encouraged. So there are five pillars within Sikhism. It's all about what you weigh. So the men
may not cut the men and women they can't cut the hair, and that's why the men were turban and then
we need to wait. So the first pillar is you can't cut your hair. The second pillar is you need to
put a comb in, you hear. The third pillar is you wear a bracelet on your wrist, so six, all of them
		

			wear a bracelet. The fourth one is you need to have a dagger. And the last one is you were kind of a
underwear a monkey. And these, as they say is symbolic of modesty. The dagger is symbolic of
fighting against injustice. The bracelet is about you know, like you wear a wedding ring. It's your
commitment to religion. Nonetheless, this is Sikhism and this is the religion. As we said that is
the newest of the great faiths. And it's about the fifth largest religion most of it again in India
and a few of them that have left from all over the world. The last one we will speak to or will
mention before we talk about atheism, I think atheism requires a complete discussion next week.
		

			Shinto very interesting religion. It is the religion of Japan and Japan.
		

			As again, this is a religion that believes that there is a soul way spirits in every object. But
every object has a soul we split it a commie. And for those of your enemy fans, now you get to know
what this word means. Right? I call me and this these homies so they have a spirit of the river and
spirit of the trees and spirit about you honor them. And you offer do offerings to them. And they
will help you and assist you in simplistic forms. So they have millions and millions of deities,
again, we use the word not God deities, and the spiritual beings that are all over the place. And
they have shrines where people go to and they interact with the commie and people and you'd find a
		

			symbol this doorway is sort of when you cross over, you're now in a place where the commie lives.
And so by worshipping this spirit, and giving food to it and praying to it and how do you pray for
example, they ring a bell and they clap their hands and they bow. This is how you interact with the
commie and then the commie intervenes in your life. And this is that's it there's no religious
texts, there is no specific rules. How do you worship which country you choose which one you want to
go how often you want to go and it's up to you really how you express your spirituality, but there
is no clear guidelines of what you eat can interest and so it's more of a again, a spiritual
		

			movement, rather than what we would understand as a religion. Inshallah we continue next week and
we'll talk about perhaps the fastest growing religion in the world and that is atheism, the
rejection of of religion. And a reminder again, our duty Subhan Allah is to call people to the
Oneness of Allah subhanaw taala.
		

			Only doors oh Subhan Allah, okay, so inshallah we make we ask Allah to keep us steadfast on Islam,
to grant us to live on the Kalama when you go through these texts, I hope it gives you a deeper
appreciation of Islam and the simplicity simplicity, simplicity, but the beauty of what Islam is and
it makes sense insha Allah Maliki posted for us a few announcements we have a lot of people that are
that are ill potassium early with the use of Abbas Buddha, Muhammad Majid with the Ismail hulland.
These are all Marines of the masjid and also my cousin in Ireland is very, very sick as well. We ask
Allah subhanaw taala to grant them all Shiva, Allah grant him the treatment that they are on to be a
		

			success Allah remove all the disease and cure all those are sick Allama bananas with the biggest
issue and the Shafi Shiva law Johanna Sakuma nassarawa Lim Roble Alicia Adam and Yeshua Nasir
Jermaine Amin and the last thing is just qurbani season is coming up. So if you are interested, you
can let us know. Brian is doing its core band. And I think our course is sold out but I think if
anybody we have the set Sunday, last last ditch effort for those going on hedge Crash Course. So if
you need to get your hedge stuff in order, speak to us we'll make a plan for you in sha Allah does
Allah so Allah said no Muhammad was happy so I'm gonna say hello