Mustafa Khattab – Misconceptions about Islam & Muslims
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AI: Transcript ©
In these countries
is probably not acceptable in in the most
of these countries.
I've been to California
before I came to South Carolina.
And although those states are in one country,
for me,
they seem like
2 different countries in 2 different continents.
We are talking about the same country.
So can you imagine 50
countries and making generalizations
about all of them because
of the culture
of 1 country?
The word Islamic worshiply
means surrender,
purity, and peace.
And
technically,
the word Islam is the message conveyed by
all the prophets
of God from Adam
all the way to Muhammad passing by Abraham,
David, Solomon, Isaac,
Moses, Jesus,
and upon all of them be peace.
And the essence of this message has always
been, serve one God,
and be good to fellow humans, and by
the same extension
to the rest of the creation of God.
If you look at the Ten Commandments, for
example, the first
four commandments talk about
serving God alone and worshiping Him alone.
From 5 to 10, they talk about being
good to fellow humans.
So on and so forth, which basically means
be good to the people.
And this is what I mentioned earlier about
the essence of the messages that
serve God alone and be good to fill
humans.
The Muslim tikka magnets
exist in chapter 17 and chapter 6 of
the Quran.
So what is 5 +6
equals n?
For someone to be Muslim,
they need to do 5 things,
and they need to have 6 beliefs.
So the 5 deeds are, number 1, the
testimony of faith, to bear witness that there's
only one God, and Muhammad is a prophet
like all those who came before him.
And number 2, to establish the prayers, 5
times a day.
And number 3, to give charity to the
poor.
If you keep
money in your savings account
for for a year without touching the money,
and you keep over $22100
in your account, you need to give 2.5%
of it to the
poor. Number 4, fasting in the month of
Ramadan from dawn to sunset.
No food,
no drink, no intimate relationships with one spouse
during the day. Number 5, the pilgrimage to
the whole city of Mecca if the person
is physically and financially
able to.
The 6 beliefs are
to believe in the Almighty God.
Number 2, to believe in His angels.
Number 3, to believe in His scriptures.
To believe in His messengers and prophets.
To believe in the day of resurrection,
that all humans
who have existed from the beginning of time
to the end of time
will be resurrected.
And every person will be questioned about his
or her actions in this life.
If they have done good, they will be
rewarded. If they have done evil, they will
be punished.
Nothing happens in this world without the knowledge,
the prior knowledge of God. It doesn't force
anyone to do anything,
and everyone is accountable for his or her
actions on the day of judgment.
So this is the belief in the divine
discipline.
Any
act that that is done with a good
intention in Islam is considered an act of
worship.
So if you go to school to be
a doctor,
to save humans,
or if you go exercise, do sports, play
soccer like me all the time,
if you support the tigers
with a good intention, then this is also
an act of worship in Islam like prayers
and fasting and charity.
1 of the
main misconceptions about Islam is Muslims worship a
different God
by the name Allah,
and this God is different from Jehovah,
the God of the Bible.
But this is not true.
In every language, there is a different word
for God. In Christianity
I mean, in English, the word God
is used. In French, there is the word
you. In Russian, the word
is used for God.
Can you tell me what language did Jesus,
speak?
Jesus Christ?
No. It's not Hebrew.
He spoke Aramaic.
And what was the word he used to
refer to God?
Not Jehovah.
Allah.
So the the word that Jesus used his
entire life to refer to God was Allah,
not God, not Jehovah.
And what was the word used by Moses
to refer to
God? Eloh.
And there is the word elohim, which is
the plural of eloh in Hebrew.
And the word used by Arabs
is Allah. So you have Allah,
Eloh,
and Allah.
The 3 languages,
Aramites,
Hebrew, and Arabic, are Semitic languages. So you
see the similarities.
One more thing.
All Arabs,
Muslim Arabs, Christian Arabs, and Jewish Arabs use
the word Allah to refer to God, so
it's not only Muslims.
This is the only word we use in
Arabic, regardless of our faith, to refer to
God.
If you take a look at the first
passage
of the book of Genesis,
the Christian
Arabic Bible, you see the word Allah highlighted,
used 6 times in the first three lines.
And throughout the Arabic Christian Bible, the word
Allah is used thousands of times.
You always hear about Sunnis and and Shias,
and there are different sects in Islam.
If you study history, you will know that
the difference between Sunnis and Shias is political
in nature,
and not
based on religion.
Right after the death of prophet Muhammad in
the year 632,
there was a major conflict between different groups
of Muslims. One group, the majority of them,
said that
the most qualified, most knowledgeable Muslims would be
the successor of Prophet Muhammad to lead the
Muslim community.
And this group is called Sunni Muslims.
The second group was a group of people
who said, no.
A person from the prophet's family should leave
the Muslim community.
And this group,
till today, are called the Shia Muslims, and
they make out less than 10%.
Percent. However,
Sunnis and Shias go to the same mosque,
and they pray to be a we have
our mosque here in.
The majority of our membership is Sunni, but
we also have some Shia brothers and sisters,
and they come. They pray with us at
the same place. So the difference between Sunnis
and Shi'is is not like the difference between
Protestants and Catholics.
We fasted in the same month. We have
the same version of the Quran. Only one.
We don't have,
different versions. It's only 1 in the Arabic
language,
and it has always been the same for
about 1500
years. However,
in some places where there is a political
tension, like in Iraq, for example,
Sunnis
have their own mosques, and Shias have their
own mosques because of the conflict,
for power.
But, overall,
in the great majority of Muslim countries, they
bring together and they worship together.
Do Muslims hate Christians and Jews?
To start with,
Muslims don't hate nobody.
If you read in the Quran, if you
read in the, teachings of Prophet Muhammad,
all humans are called brothers
in the Quran, in the teachings of Prophet
Muhammad.
Muhammad. Prophet Muhammad said in and this is
his last speech that he gave a few
weeks before his death. He says, oh my
kind, your Lord is 1,
and your father, your ancestry is 1. All
of you are from Adam, and Adam is
from dust. There's neither privilege for an Arab
over an Arab, nor for a white over
a black, except in account of his or
her righteousness.
There are 3 different types of brotherhood in
Islam. There's
the brotherhood in humanity,
and this includes everyone in the universe.
There's brotherhood in faith, and this includes Muslims.
And there's blood
brotherhood.
Your own brother. Biological
brother.
Moses and the children of Israel are often
type mentioned in the Quran, many many chapters.
And as a matter of fact, the story
of Moses and the children of Israel, and
his miracles, and life are mentioned in 50
chapters of the Quran out of 114.
The Torah
is said in the Quran, chapter 5, to
be revealed as a source of guidance and
light.
Jesus is mentioned in many places in the
Quran. Many Christians don't know that Jesus is
mentioned by name in the Quran.
He is mentioned by name 27
times,
whereas prophet Muhammad of Islam is mentioned only
4 times by name.
The life of Jesus and his miracles are
mentioned in detail in many chapters, like
359, and there
are 5
actually, 3 miracles of Jesus
are in the Quran that are not in
the Bible. If you read if you read
the last couple of pages of chapter 5,
you will see all the miracles, including
these 3.
Chapter 5 says, the gospel of Jesus was
revealed as a source of guidance and light.
Mary, the mother of Jesus,
is the only woman mentioned by name in
the Quran.
And there's a chapter in the Quran named
after her. Chapter
Mary,
chapter number 19,
and she is mentioned by name in the
Quran more than she is in life.
There are, however, some differences between
what Muslims believe about Jesus and what Christians
believe.
I'm not saying this to offend anyone, but
just to let you know what Muslims
think of Jesus.
He is the Christ. He's called in the
Quran the Christ, the Messiah, the Word of
God, and the Spirit from God. And we
believe that he was born of a virgin.
We believe in his teachings and miracles,
that he gave life to the dead, cured
with life, and so on and so forth.
And we believe that he ascended to heaven.
We believe in his second coming,
but
we believe he was a prophet just like
Moses and Abraham and David and Muhammad and
all the prophets of old.
And we believe he was sent exclusively
to the Jews, and Jesus himself said this
repeatedly in the Bible.
It's written in the book of Matthew. He
said, I have been sent only to the
lost sheep of the children of Israel.
Also, in the book of Matthew, he
instructed his disciples to teach and preach only
to
the lost sheep of Israel. And he told
them, don't go to the Gentiles and the
Samaritans.
We don't believe that he died on the
cross. However, there was a crucifixion.
If you read in the Quran in chapter
5, it says that Jesus was neither crucified
nor was he killed, but it was made
to appear to the people like this.
So this is the Muslim narrative of the
crucifixion.
Julius Iscariot,
just like in the Bible,
sold out Jesus for silver coins.
When it was time to for Jesus to
get busted by the Romans,
God made Julius Iscariot look like Jesus, so
they took
like Jesus, so they took Judas Iscariot, put
him on the cross, he died. And Jesus
was ascended safe and silent to him, in
one piece. Muslims quote the Bible, book of
Mark 15, as a support of this
narrative,
where the person on the cross
cried, God, God, why have you forsaken me?
Or why have you let let me down?
So I'm listening to say, to what Jesus,
he would never say something like this.
And the way Jesus speaks about himself on
is very similar to what Jesus speaks about
himself in the bible. If you have the
King James
version of the bible, and you read the
passages written in red, the words of Jesus
in his own words, they pretty much agree
with everything that Jesus said about himself in
the Quran. That he has limitations.
He's a human
being. If we say,
for example, in the book of John, I,
or myself, can do nothing. What I do
is
to please God and not to please myself.
When he was asked in the book of
Mark about his second coming and the final
hour, he said, I don't know.
The angels don't know. Only God knows.
In one place,
in the book of Mark, when he invited
the disciples to eat from a fig you
know, from the orchard,
fig fruit,
and when they went there, there were no
figs. They're asking him, you know, what's going
on? He said, I didn't know that it
wasn't the season for the fig trees to
bear fruit.
He was called the prophet by the people
around himself,
and he said that he came to preach
the belief in 1 God.
Why do Muslims make images of God or
prophet Muhammad?
To start with, we have we haven't seen
any of them. We haven't seen God. We
haven't seen prophet Muhammad. So how could we
make images of them if we haven't seen
them? Number 2,
this is the most commonly
used and adopted
picture of Jesus to the left.
Blue eyes,
blond hair, Caucasian, handsome fellas.
But if you read the description of Jesus
in the bible, he is described
as his skin color is burned brass
and curled curly hair,
which are features of
people from the Middle East and Africa.
So, technically, I look more American than Jesus
because I have blue eyes.
But although
at the JFK airport, when I came to
this country 3 years ago,
they called me alien,
as if I looked green or something.
They some
black Christians
put the image of Jesus as a black
Jesus. And if you read about Marcus Garvey,
the black nationalist movement back in the 19
thirties and forties,
he propagated the belief in a black Jesus,
and he didn't accept the belief in a
white Jesus.
The picture at the bottom
right
is the closest rendition
of the way Jesus looked based on the
analysis
communal analysis of the,
the Shroud of Turin,
which is believed by many to be the
shroud in which Jesus was covered when he
was crucified.
So this is the closest rendition according to
the History Channel.
Why does
it eat pork will drink alcohol?
To start with pork,
firstly, it shouldn't shouldn't shouldn't eat it either,
nor should the Jews. The Jews don't eat
it anyway. But the Christians
Jesus says in the bible that he he
came to uphold the laws of Moses and
not to abolish them.
And Moses said that the law testament
that the poor the pig is filthy, and
he shouldn't even touch it.
So why do Jews not eat
pork?
Some Christians don't eat it. Muslims don't eat
it.
Those who eat it find an excuse in
the words of Paul,
who says and taught
that Jesus, by his ascension, he abolished
the laws of Moses. So that's why it's
permissible
for people to eat.
I don't need
to talk much about alcohol and the harm
that alcohol causes.
Statistically,
over a 100,000
people died in this country because of things
and accidents and crimes related to alcohol.
People who died of diseases because of alcohol,
people who made accidents under the influence and
died.
And
you have lost some of your failed,
some police and failed students because of alcohol
in the past years. At first, some stories
about some accidents.
Islam.
To start with, this is the one of
the last verses to be revealed of the
Quran talking about
how Muslims should treat non Muslims.
But before we go through the,
translation again, I'm scared with your eyes very
quick. Does the Quran say, kill non Muslims?
Yes.
Does the Quran kill
non Muslims?
No.
Does the Quran say kill Muslims? Yes.
Does the Quran say kill non Muslims? Yes.
It's very confusing.
Here's the thing.
And this is what all countries and what
all constitutions in the world do. They do
the same thing that the Quran says.
The Quran says, if anyone attacks you,
you have the right to fight them and
kick them out of your country or your
home. If people are at peace with you,
you don't have the right to attack them,
regardless of their faith.
So for example,
when
Iraqis invaded Kuwait in 1990,
did Iraqis have the right to fight them?
To fight did Kuwaitis have the right to
fight and kick out of the Iraqis?
Yes. But there were Muslims,
and many of them were killed. 1000 of
them were killed. But they invaded somebody else's
country. And
Americans would do the same thing if their
country was attacked or sacked
by Mexicans, for example.
Anyone would do the same thing.
I'm not saying that Mexicans are bad people.
I'm just giving an example.
So the verse
says, in chapter 60 verse
8 and 9,
says that Allah does not forbid you to
deal panning and equitably
with non Muslims who have neither fought not
like who have neither fought against you on
account of your faith,
nor drove you out of your homes. Indeed,
Allah loves those who act iniquity.
It is only against those who have fought
against you and have driven you out of
your bones that you should take them as
friends and protectors.
And God does not like the wrong tools.
So said, fighting is only allowed against invaders,
regardless of their faith. And fighting against peaceful
people is prohibited
in the Quran, regardless
of the person's faith.
All the verses that talk about violence in
the Quran, there are some verses that talk
about violence, and you can find them in
chapter 2,
chapter 9, chapter 8, chapter 47,
and chapter 48.
If you read any of these chapters,
and read any of the verses that talk
about violence, they talk about one of these
things.
Fighting
against an invader,
or fighting if the peace treaty was violated.
If the enemy asks for peace, you give
them peace.
So these are the 3 themes that the
chapters and verses that talk about
violence in the Quran
handling one of these phrases.
Fighting a self defense to make peace if
the enemy asks for peace, or you have
the right to fight if the peace treaty
or the peace truth, truce has been violated
or terminated.
All the passages that talk about violence in
the Quran talk exclusively
about the people of Mecca, the pagans of
Mecca,
who were persecuting Muslims
for 13 years
before Muslims were allowed to
fight back the self defense.
If anyone gives you a verse in the
Quran, most of the time, when they talk
about, violence in the Quran
or passages
that talk about war,
or other
networks,
most of the time,
they tell you, for example, that the Quran
says kill the infidels.
By but most of the time, they don't
give you a chapter number or a verse
number.
If
they give you a chapter number or a
verse number, you need to go and read
the verse
and read a couple of verses before and
a couple of verses after. And it doesn't
say
what they make
you say. It says something different, but it
is taken out of context and will give
a few examples.
So the verses should be read within their
contextual and historical
background to give them meaning, not out of
context.
This part of the verse
in chapter 2 is the most frequently quoted
verse from the Quran. Kill them wherever you
find
them. Kill Americans wherever you find them, at
Walmart or buy them.
So this is what they say. But if
you read the
verse from
190
to 19292,
it doesn't say this. So read from the
beginning. Fighting the cause of God. Only against
those who fight
you, but don't exceed the limits. And we'll
talk about the limits in a minute. For
God has a life transgressors.
Kill them wherever you find them,
and by reading the context and this is
what it says in other chapters. Kill them
wherever you find them in the battlefield.
And drive them out of the places from
which they have driven you out. He's talking
about your home, your country.
For spreading this chimp is worse than killing,
and don't fight them within the precincts of
the sacred mosque unless we attack you therein.
But if you fight you, then fight them.
That is the punishment for the disbelievers.
If they cease, then surely God is the
most forgiving,
most merciful.
Before prophet Muhammad sent out his army
to fight against the people, Mecca would tell
his army,
don't kill an old man, don't kill a
woman or a child, and don't mutilate their
bodies.
But be courteous.
I'm not saying that violations have been committed
throughout
history.
I've heard of what the Ottomans did to
the people of Armenia.
1000 or 100 of 1000 of people have
been killed because of persecution.
So the Ottomans were Muslims,
and the Armenians were Christians most likely.
So violations have been committed,
and non Muslims have been oppressed and persecuted
by some Muslims.
All I'm saying is there's no
you will never find
a verse in the Quran that justifies
what they did,
But they manipulated the verses, took them out
of context
to justify the evil they did.
Speaking of taking things out of context,
just look at the word some of the
words that prophet Mohammed says in the Quran.
Don't think
I came to bring peace on the earth.
I didn't come to bring peace
on a sword.
Actually, I made a mistake. These are not
the words of Mohammed. These are the words
of Jesus in the Bible, in the book
of Matthew 1034.
Let's look at another example
by Muhammad in the Quran.
As for those enemies of mine who didn't
want me to be king over them, bring
them under my feet and slaughter them.
Uh-oh. This is not said by Muhammad, but
it was says said by Jesus in the
book of Luke.
Jehovah is a man of war. Jehovah is
his name.
Not Muhammad, but Moses.
What I'm saying is you can't take anything
out of context.
If you go back to these verses in
the bible to put them in context,
it doesn't say but people make
them safe.
If you go back, these are just parables,
and they didn't mean to go and kill
people and to slaughter them.
So you should read things in context.
What about Islam being spread by the sword?
I mentioned at the beginning that
Islam is the fastest growing religion in the
West, in America,
and in the world in general.
And
I don't think Muslims are in a position
to have a sword and force people to
accept Islam.
Indonesia
of Muslims that our country has,
and
not a single Muslim army
has ever been sent to Indonesia. But still,
it has more Muslims than all our countries.
There are at least 20,000,000
Christians who live in the Arab world.
Islam was gripped by the sword.
Why these people have not been converted in
the past 1500 years?
From falsehood. And the reason this verse was
revealed
was because
some of the people of Madinah, which is
called 250 miles to the north of Mecca,
where Prophet Mohammed migrated,
some of the local people wanted to force
the Christian and Jewish children to accept Islam
just like
people wanted to
As I said,
some Muslims throughout history have forced other people
to accept Islam.
And if someone is forced to accept Islam
Islamically,
he is not a Muslim. He's not required
to pray or fast because
if Islam does not come from the heart,
you
are not Muslim.
Some other faiths have also forced some other
people to accept their own faith.
Catholics have forced many Protestants to convert to
Catholicism,
and there have been so many wars, especially
the the Middle Ages, between Catholics and Protestants.
European Christians also forced some Jews and Christians
some Jews and Muslims and some Christians of
other denominations to convert by force.
The Jews of Spain,
if you heard of the court of the
inquisition
14/92,
the Jews were also found and were forced
by the Spanish,
inquisition to either convert or die, just like
Muslims.
And you probably heard of African Americans,
the millions of them who
were transported to this continent,
30, at least 30 of them, 30% of
them were Muslim,
and
historically,
that they were forced to accept Christianity in
the faith of the slave master.
If
someone
leaves Islam, should he be killed?
There is this disagreement
among the scholars of Islam
as to
if this person should be killed or not.
The first opinion is this person should be
killed after 3 days.
The second opinion is
as long as the person who left this
land does not join the enemies
and fight against Muslims, he or she should
be left free.
And the second opinion is supported by the
sayings and the actions of Prophet Muhammad. He
never killed anyone who left Islam in Islam.
He only killed those who joined
the army of Mecca and fought against Muslims.
So the person was killed for treason
and not for apostasy.
All the verses in the Quran that talk
about apostasy, like, for example, 2 2 17
said that the punishment in this world for
someone who leaves Islam
is
he or she would give and more for
his or her good deeds
invalidating.
But the punishment is in the hereafter
growing religion. If I know that Islam
if I, for some reason,
after conversion,
like to leave the religion, and the people
will kill me if I leave it, I'm
not gonna accept this faith.
So many people accept the religion, this means
that this is not true.
Jihad. The word Jihad means
to strive or to exert your effort.
And technically,
Jihad means to strive to overcome your desires
and do worse
If you move to a given charity,
and your body, the shaitan, the devil comes
to you and says, you're gonna go broke
if you give in charity.
If you go ahead and you give in
charity, this is all you have in Islam.
If the shaitan is telling you to go
and do something bad, or to drink, or
do this, or do this,
and you stop, this is jihad.
So to stop doing something evil or to
go ahead and do something good, this is
called jihad in Islam.
The second type is to fight in self
defense. And there are 2 types of jihad
as far as violence is concerned.
The obligatory is
jihad is when your country is under attack
by an enemy. And the second type is
the optional one is for a group of
people to watch over the borders of their
country at the time of
peace.
We hear all the talk about Sharia, and
Muslims
wanna
talk over take over the country and
and,
imposed Sharia on the people.
So Bill Riley and Glimpic have to grow
their beards and Barbara Walters have to wear
the hijab or the head cover, and all
that nonsense.
The Sharia is the Islamic law,
and the Sharia
governs the Muslim theology,
rulings related to acts of worship, human interactions,
you know, between Muslims and non Muslims, and
between humans in general,
business transactions, family relations, marriage, divorce, and hurtless,
and life in this world and in the
nest.
The Sharia is mostly
based on the teachings of the Quran,
and the sayings, and the actions of Prophet
Muhammad.
When they ask in the media,
are Muslims trying to impose the Sharia
on Americans?
You should ask them back.
Does the Sharia
apply to non Muslims who lived in Muslim
lands?
So here, first, the question.
Is it possible for less than 1% of
the population to impose
the Sharia
on 99%?
Ask them,
is the Sharia applied to the 7% of
Christians in Egypt, for example? And the answer
is
no. Non Muslims in Muslim countries
have their own
laws and their own courts.
Especially, most of the Muslim countries have secular
regimes. They are not,
theocratic regimes, except for a few countries like
the Taliban, Afghanistan,
in Iran, mostly in Saudi Arabia. But the
rest of the Muslim country
is secular.
A Muslim, for example, a Muslim woman in
Tunisia is not allowed to wear the scarf
because they're the secular government.
A Muslim woman is not allowed to go
to college with a scarf in Turkey because
it's a secular society.
Does the Sharia apply to Muslims who live
in the Muslim lands? Yes and no.
Yes when it comes to personal
things, like, if you want to pray, if
you want to fast,
if you want to you know, personal things.
It is permissible.
But things related to payment laws, the punishments,
the government,
the Sharia is not applied.
Islam teaches if you live in a non
Muslim country, then the laws and the constitution
of this country
becomes your own sharia.
As long as
this law does not force you to do
something that is not permissible in in your
shari'a.
For example, if they force me to eat
pork in this country,
I ain't gonna eat it because
it is against the teachings of my faith.
But
if the American Constitution
tell tells me to respect the traffic lights,
I have to respect
the Islamic, because it is not against
the teachings of Islam.
Some people think that
the Sharia does not overlap
with secular
laws of many countries.
And, actually, there's a lot of overlapping. You
cannot separate Islam
from any government system or any practices in
any country, because
you are basically saying that
Sharia is black,
that the law of this country is white,
and they don't
overlap. There are so many rulings in the
Sharia that they utter agreement
with the secular secular
laws in some countries.
Was the Quran plagiarized from the Bible?
To answer this question, you need to break
up the different verses in the Quran. There
are more than 6,300
verses in the in the Quran, and in
a verse, we'll fall under one of these
categories.
The first one, stories of the best,
and there are 25
prophets that are mentioned by naming the Quran,
and most of them are from the by
by Moses and David and Solomon.
The second theme
is the Muslim ideology.
The least in one God, the acts of
worship, rights and obligations,
inheritance, and so on and so forth. And
number afraid,
the belief in the unseen, the belief in
God, the angels, prophets,
the day of judgement.
It is because of the first theme
that
Islam was called throughout of history, or the
Quran was called to be plagiarized
from the Bible.
But if you get a Quran today
and read, for example, the verses that talk
about Jesus or Moses or Adam, there are
so
many differences between the Quran narrative and the
biblical
narrative.
One example.
In the Bible, it says
that Eve
was the one who was tempted to eat
from the tree. So she ate, and she
gave Adam to eat.
In the Quran, in chapter 20, it says
that
Adam was the one who was tempted, and
he ate from the tree, and therefore, he
is to blame.
And I always say
that
women are to blame for many things, but
not for this one.
At least, from a Quran perspective.
Is the Quran against
science? To start with, the Quran is not
a book of science.
It's a book of science.
There are so many verses in the Quran
that talk about science. If you got the
chance to get a copy of the book,
Greek illustrated guide
of,
Islam, there are so many scientific facts that
are mentioned in the Quran. They have been
there for 1500 years,
and some of these facts have been discovered
in the past history
or so.
Like the different stages of the develop development
of the embryo
in the womb of the mother. It is
described
precisely
in the Quran. Prophet Muhammad couldn't read, and
he couldn't write.
And there are so many verses that talk
about the creation, the big bang theory, the
fact that the Earth is fear and not
is is is spear and not fled, and
so on and so forth.
The Quran and Islam
prompted
a lot of scientific breakthroughs, especially in what
they call the Islamic Golden Age.
There are so many Muslim scholars who lived
back then.
They invented Al Jibra,
and
they invented many science, like chemistry.
And
one of his books, the canon of medicine,
was taught at European history, the European universities
for over 500 years.
The father of modern surgery. And most of
his,
most of these surgical tools are still in
use today
in modern hospitals.
So it's safe to say that the Islamic
civilization
that existed
in the golden age was the link between
the Greek and Roman civilizations
and the modern western civilization.
Is Islam offensive to women?
This is my favorite topic.
So put on your seed pills.
In Islam,
men and women are
equal but different.
Equal but different. In the same manner, I'm
equal to my younger brother, but we're different.
He's much taller, he's more handsome, and he
has
more beautiful eyes than I am.
We are equal, but we are different.
And
if you are 25 years old, and if
you haven't figured out
that males are different,
at least physically,
from females,
then,
by accident,
go to the females who are male, go
to the female restrooms, have bylaws,
and you will know the difference
after you hear all these green municipalities,
not in line with they are different.
There are so many
violations committed against
some Muslim women
in some countries.
But these violations
are not because of Islam or the Quran.
They are because of the local cultures and
tribal habits and traditions.
For example,
if Afghan women were not allowed to get
an education, this is not because of Islam,
this is because of the tribal traditions.
The problem, Muhammad, says, seeking knowledge is an
obligation on every Muslim, male or female.
If women in Saudi Arabia are not allowed
to get a driver's license, it's not because
of Islam, it is because of the culture.
If women in Egypt, like my mother, couldn't
get a share of inheritance from their parents,
this is not because of Islam.
If you read chapter 4, it gives you
different shares of inheritance for women, but it
is because of the culture
in Egypt, and so on and so forth.
Islamically,
men and women are equal before god and
the law. It's repeated
many times in the Quran. They are equal
in their rights.
They have equal obligations.
If they do good deeds, they get the
same reward. If they do something evil, they
get the same punishment.
But they have different roles and different responsibilities
because of their,
physical and psychological
makeup.
And
if you are 25 years old, if you
haven't figured out again
that men are different from women,
after you get married,
you are there in the kitchen,
cooking with your wife,
your favorite dish, and all of a sudden,
there's a mouse or a roach in the
kitchen.
The lady would jump out of the window,
and the man would lay down his life
in defense of the house.
Now
there's a difference.
To better appreciate what Islam has done to
women, you need to think of pre Islamic
cultures.
Before Islam, women didn't get a share of
inheritance.
Islam gave them a share.
Women didn't own their property. Islam
made them own their property.
They didn't have a say in marriage, and
Islam
gave them this right.
Muslim women
keep their name at marriage, so they don't
drop their last name and give their husband's
message. However, if they choose to, it's up
to them, but there's no obligation
Islamically
to do this.
In Egypt, for example, the United Arab Emirates,
more females go to college than males.
And the percentage
in some Arab countries is higher than the
percentage of males who go to college in,
Europe.
All I'm saying is what is true for
women in one country in the Muslim world
is not true for the rest of Muslim
women.
Let's think about the United States.
If you go back in history a century
ago, things have not always been
the way they are today.
You probably heard of the Suffragette Movement back
in the 19 twenties
thirties. Women in this country
were trying to get the right to vote
in this country,
90 years ago.
And at that time, in Egypt, there were
female members of parliament.
The recent studies show that for every dollar
a man makes in this country, a woman,
a white woman,
makes 77¢.
African American women make much less, and Spanish
and Latino women make much, much less.
So,
you know, there's always this talk about men
and women being equal, but in actuality,
there are some differences, and
women still need to go,
you know,
you know,
more
there's a long way for them to go
to be equal with men.
I'm not trying to say that they are
not equal, but
in actuality, in reality,
they are not treated the same in this
country. I'll give more examples.
Back in the 19 twenties, in places like
South Carolina,
a woman, regardless of her age, was not
allowed to buy a house or take a
loan from the bank without the signature of
her father or her husband.
Who am I looking at?
Where are those guys?
What is very special about this,
election of Wrong man. Tickets.
Who are these people anyway?
They are the presidents of the United States,
and there's not a single woman in there.
For 2 almost 200 50 years, not a
single woman was ever elected president or vice
president.
But if you look at the Muslim world
in the past 10 or 15 years,
there have been several women who have been
elected either president or vice president
or the head of state.
In Indonesia,
was
elected president in the past
10 years. In Pakistan, 2 women
were elected
or have been elected vice president of state.
In Bangladesh,
you have, in Turkey, a vice president. And
many, throughout Muslim history, have been chosen to
lead
their countries.
So
Americans need some more time to be ready
to accept,
female to lead them.
Here, all the talk about the scarf, and
the scarf is a sign of oppression.
To start with, there are several
styles of scarf,
and there are so many
women in the Muslim world who don't
dress in this scarf. The majority of Muslim
women dress in this car, or there are
some who choose not to,
or they are not ready yet
for this step.
This car is not an Islamic monopoly. Muslims
don't didn't invent it, so don't give us
the credit.
If you look at all movies, Jane Austen,
if, if you see movies depicting Jesus and
Mary,
you will see women in this car.
So
this scarf comes from the Jewish and the
Christian traditions.
If you read in the book of Corinthians,
where Paul says, if a woman doesn't cover
her hair, she should shave it off, because
it is disgraceful
for a woman to uncover
her hair.
So when people ask me why should Muslim
women dress like this, I ask them why
Christian and Jewish women are not dressed like
this.
This should be the question.
This scarf is seen as a sign of
modesty in Islam, and this scarf is not
the only sign of modesty.
Both men and women are required to be
decent in the way they speak, the way
they talk, the way they behave. So it's
not only about this car.
People say that the Islamic person is women
because they get half of the share of
males in the family,
and this is one of the misconceptions.
If you read in chapter 4 of the
Quran, women get
3 different shares of inheritance.
And the share of inheritance
is decided according to the relationship with the
deceased, not on the * of the person.
The closer you are to the deceased, the
more you will give.
So in some cases, a woman,
depending on her position in the family, a
mother or wife, a daughter, a sister,
might get half of her brother's share,
twice the share, or equal share of inheritance
depending on the case.
And these are some examples where you see
females getting half of the share of men,
equal the share of the second example, or
twice or more than the share of the
male in the family. Like, in the last
case, for example,
if I die, I leave $24,000
and I have my mother, my wife,
4 sons to daughters, and my brother,
my mother would give 4,000, my wife would
give,
3,000, my son would give 2,800,
my daughter would give 1,600,
and my brother, who is a male, will
get 0.
They say that De Bruyne says that a
woman's testimony is half that of the bank.
And this is true in only one case.
At the signing of a loan, if someone
is giving another person a loan,
then if there are not 2 men, then
we give 1 man and 2 women.
And 1 of the 2 women would bear
witness, the other one would be a backup.
But if there's a conflict and somebody needs
to go to the court to witness,
we accept the testimony of a single person.
So the second woman is only a backup
because
back then,
women didn't actually get involved with business and
traveling
for business
all the time, so 2 women were required
for this.
But in the risk of religious rulings, the
testimony of a woman equals the testimony of
a man. Say for example,
at the beginning of Ramadan,
there's the sighting of the new moon, the
present.
So
it is required
to have one witness
to say that I've seen the moon, and
therefore, all Muslims
should fast. 1,600,000,000
Muslims should fast based on the sighting of
1 person.
Regardless if this person is a man or
a woman,
both witnesses are accepted.
In some cases,
in or just prudence, the testimony of women
are to be accepted, and the testimony of
men is to be rejected. We accept only
the testimony of women in cases related to
women like pregnancy
and virginity and so on and so forth.
Polygamy.
Yeah. We're almost done.
Why a Muslim man is
allowed or obligated to have 4 wives
and a Muslim woman is not allowed to
have 4 husbands? It is not paid.
To start with, getting more than one wife
is only permissible, it's not obligatory.
And you should have two conditions to
give more than one wife. Number 1,
if you are physically and financially able to
provide for a second wife,
and
if you treat them equally,
it should be just to both of them.
Otherwise, it is not permissible to have a
second
white Islamic.
Muslims are not the only people who practice,
polygamy,
so don't give us the credit for it.
David,
according to the Bible, had many, many wives.
And as a matter of fact,
all the biblical prophets,
with the exception of Jesus Christ and John
the Baptist,
had more than one wife.
So let me say it again, so the
people with PHDs in the room can understand.
All the biblical prophets, with the exception of
Jesus Christ and John the Baptist, had more
than one wife. David
had many wives. Solomon broke records. He had
7,000
wives.
And so on and so forth, Abraham and
all of them.
In Islam,
well, look at these are committed for humanitarian
purposes,
especially after wars, most of the time,
may go to battle,
lay down their lives to protect their countries
and their homes,
and women stay in the house, chanting on
Facebook.
So
so many men lose their lives,
and you have more women, so
Islamically is recommended
for someone
to marry another woman, especially widows who care
for her and her family.
Islam
is the only religion that puts limit
on marriage.
In the Quran, in chapter 4,
it says,
marry only 1 after 4. So Islam is
the only religion that says
1 after 4. Another phase,
there's no limit.
And you can go to chapter 4 verse
3, and it gives the conditions for marrying
the second wife.
Marrying women of your choice, 2 or 3
or 4. But if you fear that you
should not be able to deal justly with
them, then marry only 1. This is closer
to justice.
These days, polygamy is only practiced in the
Gulf States, in Saudi Arabia, in Kuwait, in
Bahrain.
But in the majority of the Muslim world,
especially in the, Southeast Asia, North Africa,
if you tell your wife that you're going
to marry a second wife, this is gonna
be last day of your life.
Seriously.
Muslims are probably the most monogamous
people in the world, because I would say
99%
of Muslim men
know only one woman in their lives, and
this is their
wife.
And 99%
of Muslim women know only one man in
their lives, and this is their husbands.
Because
dating and premarital, and extra
marital relationships are not permissible in this land.
Just think about it.
At least from a woman's
a wife's perspective, it is more honorable
for a husband to have a second wife
than to have,
a mistress or a girlfriend.
At least, your wife is gonna be
more merciful
head, she's gonna put only 3.
There are some countries
that have more women, more females than males.
In the 2000 census in the US,
there were
5,000,000
500,000
more women than men in this country. And
the same is also true
for many countries. I'm not saying this is
true for all countries,
but there are several countries or many countries
that have more females than males.
Okay.
Men tend to be more polygamous
than women.
Statistically,
according to the American Chronicle,
50 to 60 married men
in America cheat on their wives, and the
percentage of women
wives who cheat on their husbands is much
less.
According to the Justice Department,
a woman is raped in America every 2
minutes.
And I personally haven't heard of a man
who has been raped by a woman.
According to the 2,2004
ABC News poll,
the women who were surveyed say they have,
average of 6,
partners in their lifetime,
whereas being reported to have 20
partners
in their adult life.
Yes.
You probably heard of someone who is married,
and he's got busted
sneaking around, cheating on his wife.
Politicians,
Bill Clinton, Spitzer,
John Edwards, he actually made a video of
his relationship.
And he left it with the, with the
house,
and his secretary blacked
female. Rudy Giuliani,
clergy,
Jimis Margaret, Jim Bakker,
Ted Hacker,
and
you probably heard of Catholic priests who have
sexually abused children.
David Letterman,
who confessed
that he had relationships
with female producers in his program,
the directors,
and most of the female audience in the
studio.
Tiger Woods.
So I have learned a lot
of celebrity
women who get busted cheating on their husbands.
They exist, but there are not as many
as men because, as I said,
statistically,
men tend to be
more polygamous
than women.
Why do the misconceptions persist?
Number 1, because of the meaning.
They don't invite
scholars to speak.
If they want to speak about
pharmacology,
they invite a plumber to speak about pharmacology.
And this is what happens with Islam. They
invite,
some
anti Islam bigots to speak about Islam, or
former Muslims to speak about Islam. So imagine
inviting
a former Christian to speak about Christianity, and
they're not gonna say good stuff.
So all you need to do is read
for yourself.
Don't take anybody's word for any religion. Christianity,
Judaism,
You're intelligent
enough to read and think for yourself.
Number 2, when people generalize about whole ethnicity
or religion just because of the actions
of a foolish, irresponsible
few.
I don't think it is fair to generalize
about all Americans because of the action of
Timothy McVeigh
or to generalize about Christianity because of the
actions of the Ku Klux Klan. If you
read about
what they did back in the 19 fifties
sixties to black people.
Or to generalize about all Jews because of
the
crime that a guy named in 1995
when he assassinated
Israeli Prime Minister
Yitzhak Rabin.
So why should we do the same thing
about Muslims?
Ignorance.
Most of us don't know much about other
people. And as a matter of fact,
one of the most recent surveys in some
polls by,
I'm gonna remember,
Pew Research Center says that most Americans
don't know much about their own faith.
Forget about other people's faith.
Like most Protestants, for example, did it.
56%
of Protestants
didn't know who Martin Luther was. They didn't
know that he was the founder of the
Protestant church.
And there are so many
examples.
We have so many Indians in the Muslim
world
who don't know much about the West, who
don't know much about America,
and they think that all Americans are violent
or drunkards or
criminals,
and they think that make most American women
are loose.
And this is because
what they see in Hollywood movies.
This is what they see all the time.
So all you need to do is
grieve for yourself
and not to prejudge people because of the
actions
of a few. And I conclude
yes. I conclude with this quotation
from,
John Kennedy.
He said it in 1961
in his inauguration.
And I still remember as if as if
he said it this morning. He said,
ask not
and some of my fellow Americans ask not
what Fox News can teach you about Islam
and what you yourself can teach or can
learn about this religion.
And he said, I don't know. I don't
know what you mean.
Thank you.