Mustafa Umar – Losing My Religion How to Stop the Trend of Skepticism Among Muslims
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AI: Transcript ©
We begin by praising Allah.
The one and only true God.
Our creator.
Our sustainer.
The one we owe our very existence to.
We praise him.
We seek his help in every single thing
that we do in this life. And we
ask for his forgiveness
for all of the mistakes that we've made
and that we will continue to make in
this journey of life that we're undergoing.
And we as Muslims declare
without any hesitation or without any compulsion that
nobody deserves to be worshiped
besides Allah,
besides God with the capital g.
And we declare that Muhammad ibn Abdullah
was the last and final prophet and messenger
that has been sent for our guidance and
for the guidance of all humanity
until the end of time.
Brothers and sisters,
NPR
recently ran
the National Public Radio.
Recently ran an article
interviewing
a Muslim,
a Christian,
and a Jew.
And the Muslim that they interviewed,
his name was Yusuf.
He was 33 years old. And this came
on their website as well as on the
radio.
And he talks about his life and how
he grew up like
many other muslims grow up in America.
He went to Sunday school,
somewhat organized,
semi organized,
run by volunteers.
He used to
go to the mosque for Eid.
Sometimes he used to go for Friday prayer.
His parents talked to him sometimes a little
bit about Islam.
But there's something that happened to Yusuf along
the way.
The same thing that happened to that Christian
that they interviewed and the same thing that
they happened to that happened to that Jewish
person that they interviewed,
all 3 of them
left their religions.
Yusuf
left Islam.
And in that interview he explains
why he left Islam.
And there are several reasons
why he explained.
But the point is not to focus on
his explanation.
The point is to highlight the fact
that there are many Yusufs out there
in our region, in our society that exist.
And it's very important to understand that this
is a trend and it's a phenomenon that's
on the rise.
So the Pew Research Center
released some documentation,
some statistics saying that 1 fifth of Americans
today,
when they check a box in terms of
what religion do you follow,
they check off none.
Not Jew, not Muslim, not Christian, not Buddhist,
not Sikh, not any other religion. They check
off none. One fifth of Americans. 20%.
And then what they found was
is that people, adults
under the age of 30,
meaning from the ages of 18 to the
ages of 30,
you find that
33%
of the population
check off none when it comes to their
religion.
And anyone who grew up in this country,
anyone who's gone to high school or gone
to college, you experience this phenomenon on a
daily basis. Because when you have some friends,
you meet them, you talk to them and
you ask them, well, what what religion do
you follow? They say, well, you know, my
parents are Christian.
You didn't ask them what their parents were.
You asked them what religion do you follow.
It means that they don't have much of
an attachment to any religion at all. And
this is a growing trend among Americans
particularly among younger people. And the interesting thing
about this statistic was, is that America
ranks among the conservative countries. Meaning, that it's
much worse
in other countries around the world like in
Western Europe and other places.
So something we need to understand,
not only is it that people are going
away from their religion, but the statistics continued.
And this was very enlightening and this was
very shocking for me to be honest with
you. They said that out of the 46,000,000
people who check off none, I follow no
religion whatsoever,
68%
of them
said that they believe in god.
They believe that this world has a creator.
They believe that they were created. This didn't
just come out of nowhere.
68%
of people who don't want to follow religion
still believe in god.
And then they said 37%
consider themselves to be spiritual
but they're not religious.
Spiritual
but not religious.
And 21%
of them said that they actually pray every
single day
to god.
Yet they just don't know how
because of this religion, because of all these
things.
So why is this happening?
And what is the phenomenon that is taking
place in our society? And what can we
do about it?
Look at Yusuf that I mentioned.
Grew up in a Muslim family,
33 years old, had a minimal basic Islamic
education.
And then they were interviewing and they asked
them all the different reasons. And one of
the reasons he says, I'll give you an
example.
He says, I remember when I was in
school, I had to go to some Islamic
school or something. Some Sunday school teacher started
talking to me about the story of Abraham.
So he recounts
his recollection of what he think he heard
in that classroom.
And he said the story of Abraham is
god tells him to sacrifice his son,
and then he takes his son to go
and sacrifice him and his son turns into
a goat.
So he goes, what kind of story is
that? You know, I'm supposed to believe something
like that. The guy is supposed to sacrifice
his son and then all of a sudden
his son transforms into a goat. I'm not
gonna believe in a story like this. Now
of course, this is not how the story
went.
But
this is the recollection
that this young man has
about religion,
about Islam, about what all of these things
are.
So what we need to do is we
need to realize first of all, why is
it happening?
And then we can work on some solutions
and I'm gonna mention some solutions on that
we can reflect upon. Because this is a
serious thing that's affecting our society and it's
gonna get more and more increase over time.
It does not affect the Muslim community as
much as it affects other religious communities, I'll
give you that. At the same time, we
should not turn a blind eye to these
type of things that are happening in the
community. So the first thing we need to
remember is that the prophet Muhammad sallallahu alaihi
wa sallam, he said in an authentic hadith,
Every single child is born upon a natural
dispensation,
upon this true nature. Right? Such that that
true nature means that if they're presented with
the truth and they have a clear heart
and a clear conscience and everything, they will
accept that truth.
They will accept the message of Islam. They
will accept any prophet. If they lived in
the time of prophet Nuh, the time of
prophet Noah, they would have accepted in them
because they had a clean nature when they're
born they're born with that clean nature. And
then he said,
for So then it's his parents
that come and Judaism.
Teach him about Judaism and make him into
a Jew. Or Christianize him. Take him to
church and make sure he follows the rituals
and he becomes a Christian when he grows
up. Or Magianize him. Make him into a
fire worship or make him into one of
these idolaters or something like that.
And then the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam
is explaining the forces
which have an impact upon people's development.
And this is the important thing we need
to realize. He said, for Abawahu,
his 2 parents.
His parents
then set a path for him or for
her and then they grow up with that
religion. Now they have maturity. They have the
free will to decide what they want, but
many people they just stick to what they've
been taught.
And this is where the situation has changed
today.
The situation is is that if you ask
the majority of people,
do you feel If you ask the majority
of parents, do you feel that your children
listen to you more than more than they
listen to their friends?
They'll say no.
More than they listen to their teachers at
school, they'll say no. More than they listen
to the celebrities and the rock stars that
come on the TV and the radio, they'll
say no, my parent my my my children
don't listen to me. So in the past,
we find in more conservative, more traditional societies.
It was the parents who had a major
influence
over what children are gonna start to become
when they grow up and how they're gonna
be shaped in that form. But today, the
circumstances have changed a little bit. We find
that it's a person's teachers,
a person's friends and a person's,
you know, association
with pop culture, pop culture icons
that are gonna determine
what they think about Islam, how they understand
Islam, how they understand themselves.
So things have changed.
Nowadays,
the Abu Wahu in this hadith, the two
parents
have become almost displaced, if not somewhat displaced
or substituted
by all these other forces that are imparting
these things into the minds and the hearts
of people. So when we understand this, we
need to understand
that one of the reasons
why people do not have a strong Islamic
foundation, a strong attachment to their religion, a
strong understanding of their religion
is because they simply were never taught.
They simply never got an Islamic education.
Just like this Yusuf
this Yusuf who's being mentioned in the NPR
interview
thinking
that prophet Ismail,
you know, who was the son that was
supposed to be sacrificed, he somehow turned into
an animal
and then he got sacrificed or whatever happened.
That's definitely not the story. And even someone
with a basic understanding or a basic knowledge
of Islam may have known that and this
may have been one of the things, one
of the doubts that he could have solved
in his mind had he had that understanding
and that foundation
of Islamic, you know, knowledge.
The second reason
that we need to reflect upon why people
have a negative perception is people have a
negative perception of religion in the first place.
You've seen it around you and that has
a historical
reality.
If you look at people who are from
the west and just living in a western
environment,
because of what happened during the middle ages
and Christianity,
the dark ages and Europe and all of
that, we find that people have this
sour taste still in their mouth when it
comes to religion because of what the church
and what some other religions have done. So
they start to put the blame.
Wars were caused because of religions. And religions
people, you know, they're just trying to get
money out of you. And they're trying to
they're all about politics and about power and
about, you know, greed and all of these
things. So we find that
anytime someone has a bad experience
at a masjid, for example. You walk into
a masjid and this happens to many people
unfortunately.
You walk into a masjid, sometimes
it's a a new Muslim. For the first
time, they just took shahada and they come
to a masjid and then they have a
bad experience. Or even sometimes it's a non
Muslim. They come to visit the mosque and
all of a sudden, they've never been to
a mosque in their life. And I've experienced
this. They've never been to a mosque in
their life. They don't even know what a
mosque is and they walked in for the
first time and they walk with their shoes
into the carpet
and what happens?
Someone starts yelling and shouting at them. What
do you think you're doing? How dare you
walk into the mosque?
How are they supposed to know if they've
never been inside a mosque and there's no
happens to be no sign there? How are
they supposed to know? If a sister accidentally
walks into the brother's section because she doesn't
know, it's the first time that she's ever
been inside of a mosque. How are they
supposed to know without knowledge? And your your
reaction, I don't mean you, but people sometimes
react in such a negative way, it has
a traumatic effect on the person. And they
begin to affiliate or associate
Islam
with that action.
But it does not only apply
to non Muslims or new Muslims or something
like that. Anyone who grew up
in a family experiencing
negative attitudes,
experiencing negative talk against religion,
experiencing
maybe some type of coarseness or harshness from
their Islamic teach or their their their their
Sunday school teachers or their Islamic school teachers
or whatever it may be, their Quran teachers.
They're gonna start to internalize that and associate
that
with the religion of Islam.
And now all of a sudden you find
that people have this cringing thing. Why is
Islam like this? This must be representative
of the religion of Islam. So first of
all, we need to make sure that we
do not fall into that trap. We need
to make sure that we are ambassadors and
the best ambassadors of Islam. But at the
same time, we need to recognize
that these things become etched upon the heart
of a person and it starts to distance
them and take them away from the religion
and from the path of Islam. When when
is a child
comes and asks some tough questions about Islam.
You know, why why is it that on
on TV, you know, there's so many Muslim
terrorists? Or why is it that in the
Quran it says this or it says that?
Or like Yusuf that I just mentioned in
the story. Like Yusuf asking the question, maybe
he asked his Sunday school teacher.
Why did Allah cause prophet Ibrahim to sacrifice
his son? Isn't that a type of murder
or something like that? And it may be
that the teacher shut his question down. You
don't ask
questions. Don't ask why.
Right? And what happens is they think that
there's no answer out there.
And people have a doubt in their mind
and in their heart and one doubt builds
upon another doubt and it just builds up
over time and you end up becoming one
of those statistics
of people who leave the religion or people
who go further and further away from their
religion. Further and further away from Allah subhanahu
wa ta'ala. And I know this personally because
something similar happened to me. So I'm speaking
from experience as well. And this is a
phenomena we need to understand. So if somebody
comes to you
and they ask you a question,
validate the question first of all. Validating the
question means, you know, that's a good question.
I never thought about that. Some questions we
do not have direct answers for. Somebody asked
you, you know what? Why is it that
the prayers
at fajr, mohrib, and aisha, they're out loud.
And the luhr and the asr prayers, they're
silent.
Don't make up a fake answer if you
don't know the answer. And don't say, you
know what? The
there's absolutely no explanation that anyone could ever
give possibly even there's no way to rationalize
this in any way shape or form. Don't
give that answer if you're not sure. If
you're not certain. Because even a something something
small like this, when people think that Islam
has no answers. When people think that Islam
doesn't make sense and that's because they don't
have a deeper understanding of it, it alienates
them away from understanding what Islam is really
about. So we need to take this into
consideration.
And the last thing
is that when we focus on rules,
focus on rules, rules, rules but not explain
the deeper meaning behind those things. We find
that people fall into a similar mentality.
So if your kids or any kids that
you ever encounter or even any adults that
you ever encounter,
if they ask, you know what? Why do
we fast? Month of Ramadan is coming up
in a in a month. So why do
we fast? Well, because Allah said so.
Allah didn't say Allah didn't explain it like
that in the Quran. He didn't say, oh
you who believe, you need to fast because
I said so.
So if you don't know the answer, if
you don't understand the wisdom,
then you shouldn't answer. Maybe you should forward
them to another authority. Forward them to somebody
else who can give them a better answer.
And to, you know, to not leave you
hanging among the wisdoms of fasting, Allah subhanahu
wa ta'ala says, so
that you might gain taqwa. You might gain
in the consciousness of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
And how do you do that? By abstaining
from food, drink and intimacy.
These are the 3 basic needs that people
have.
3 basic needs that almost every single human
being absolutely has inside of them. And when
you give them up during the day time,
in the month of Ramadan every single day,
What are you doing? You're developing a level
of self control
in things which are permissible for you in
Islam. You're allowed to drink apple juice. You're
allowed to drink water throughout the year. You're
allowed to have, you know, intimacy. You're allowed
to eat some bread. But in Ramadan, it
becomes haram for you during the daytime.
So you learn a self control that if
you could stay away from something that was
allowed for you, it was halal for you
in the first place and you gave it
up. You made it haram.
During the daytime,
you can give up something that's haram. If
you can give up water
in the summertime,
even if it's in California, if you can
give up water in the summertime, when someone
comes and tempts you, hey man, why don't
you just take a sip of, you know,
take a sip of beer or something. You
remind
yourself, man, I gave up water in the
summertime. You think I can't resist one drink?
I can resist this. Someone comes to you,
hey, man, I want you to smoke a
joint, man. It's gonna make you feel good.
You'll be able to concentrate in your prayers
a little better or something like that. Try
and trick you into that mentality. Say, you
know man, I I gave up. I gave
up every I gave up coffee. I gave
up chocolate milk. I gave up fruit juice.
I gave up bread. I gave up everything
in the month of Ramadan. You think I
can't I can't say no to this for
1 hour? You know, of wasting my time
getting high or something. I can say no
to this too. To develop that level of
self control. Now, if we were to give
somebody the answer, no. No. No. You fast
because Allah said so and just don't think
about it. Don't try to understand it. Don't
try to rationalize it. When you understand the
deeper wisdom behind it, it it increases your
faith. It increase your understanding. Allah Allah has
given me this plan and this plan is
for my own good. Alhamdulillah,
praise be to Allah. That he he gave
me a system that I can learn self
control because we all need it.
We all need it and we know that.
So this is the beauty of it. This
is the beauty of understanding these things. And
there was one kid, Yusuf. The same Yusuf
that I'm talking about. For those of you
who came late, NPR did an interview with
the with the brother who was a former
Well, he's still brother in humanity. Yusuf,
33 years old, left Islam. And he explained
his reasons for leaving Islam. And one of
the other reasons for leaving Islam was, he
said, this doesn't make sense to me. Why
do I gotta put my forehead on the
floor?
Right. Why does god want us to get
our heads dirty? That was his answer.
I it never made he's like, it never
made sense to me. Why does god want
us to get our forehead dirty?
Right? I mean,
miss complete misunderstanding. This is his back projection.
He's 33 thinking about what he was thinking
about when he was a kid.
So there's a lot more, you know, emotional
trauma and stuff going through all of that.
But this is what he remembers. And had
anyone explained to him
or maybe had anyone taught him before he
even asked that, you know what? We put
our foreheads on the floor. Just think about
what does
actually represent?
What does prostration represent?
You know, you put your face
which is the most honorable, the most respectful
part of your body that you have. It's
your honor.
And if somebody were to come, this is
universal.
Somebody were to come like those, you know,
those kids who punch you in school, they
hit you like that from the back, they
tap you and everything, you get upset. Somebody
comes and punches you again. You're like, come
on man, stop it, stop it. And they
punch you again. If they were to just
tap you like this on the face, you
become offended.
Even more, even though it's less pain
than the punch on the arm, you feel
offended
because your face is your sense of honor.
And that's why we're prohibited to ever hit
somebody in the face in Islam.
This is not allowed for us. Why? Because
it's honor. So what do we do? We
put our faces
on the floor to show our humility in
front of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. And at
the same time while we're doing that, we
say
glory be to my lord
the most high.
We are in the position of being the
most low that we could possibly get on
this earth with our 4 faces on the
floor. And we're saying, oh Allah, you are
the most high. It shows humility. And it
shows the utmost humility, the utmost respect. And
when we understand the wisdom, we understand the
meaning behind some of these things. We say,
didn't realize prayer had so much meaning.
And if only we had the ability to
impart all of these meanings, to impart this
education
and raise the bar and raise the standard
to people, we may not be experiencing
the same phenomenon
that we have.
So what we have is we need to
remember that there's a need for change.
There's a need for change that Muslim communities,
you know, do things. The way that they
understand things.
And not everyone, you know, falls into this
boat but these are just some general guidelines
for you. Number 1,
in order for us to overcome
these things that are we are experiencing this
tidal wave that we're experiencing today in the
community? Number 1, we need to make sure
that we learn to respect Islamic knowledge.
And if you live in a more if
you come from more cultural, traditional community, you
know what I'm talking about.
Because there's a trend in the community
that because of some past experiences and some
bad experiences,
there's a trend that many Muslims they make
fun of scholars.
That Mawlana, he doesn't know what he's talking
about. Oh, these sheikhs, they always have, you
know, big stomachs and they like to eat
a lot and they do this and they
do that. And now,
the problem with all of these things
is that maybe this person is not a
great role model for Islam. They're not gonna
be perfect. We have no like divine clergy
in Islam.
But if you continuously
make fun of people who have that knowledge
or at least someone of that knowledge,
in essence,
you start to make fun of the knowledge
and you lose respect for the deeper knowledge
of Islam in and of itself.
So we need to be cautious about how
we talk about these things,
about how we make fun of things and
how we make fun of people and the
type of mentality that we're promoting.
Because if we're always promoting, we're always we
always talk about today is a trend. Right?
Talk great about scientists.
Talk great about doctors.
So and so went to medical school. Wow.
That's amazing. So in school made so and
so made it into law school. That's so
great, you know. And then so and so,
you know what? He went and he decided
to pursue a degree in Islamic Studies.
Oh, why? Why when the world do something
like that? What's wrong with him? Parents must
be really disappointed in him.
This Is this the way that we understand
and we look at a deeper
reflection, a deeper understanding of Islam? It should
not be the case. So we should maintain
that respect for knowledge. It's very very important
we keep that and we keep our tongues
from saying that even if the person in
front of you is not the best role
model, just out of respect for the knowledge,
try to avoid criticizing unless it's absolutely necessary.
The second thing
is we need to move beyond
focusing on rote memorization.
Rote memorization and a superficial
understanding of Islam. See, what happens today
is that we promote
critical thinking in almost all the fields.
Every single field of study, we promote critical
thinking and we say, you know what? We
need to write essays and we need to
engage with the subject and we need to
have this person thinking and everything. And then
when it comes to Islamic studies,
just memorize some surahs,
memorize some hadith, you know, just have a
basic, you know, basic basic understanding of Islam
and that's sufficient. That's that's good. That's the
way we should do it and everything's good.
This person memorized so much Quran,
That is the best thing that could possibly
happen. Hamduh. Memorizing Quran is amazing and we
should support it. We should support memorization of
hadith, memorization of this, memorization of that. At
the same time, that should not be the
limit. It should go above and beyond that,
Which brings me to my last point and
that is, we have unfortunately
a minimalist
Islamic education.
If you look at the average Muslim, what
is the standard for Islamic education that you
would want to have for yourself and that
you would want to have for your children?
Usually in some communities it involves learning how
to read the Quran.
Learning how to read
Being able to read the whole Quran. When
you finish reading one reading of the Quran,
you have a ceremony
and then that's it. Masha Allah. The person
has graduated because now they know how to
read the Quran in Arabic. Now everything that
they need to know about Islam and the
Quran and hadith, everything. Masha Allah, they have
graduated
and they never need to go and study
anything ever again.
Except Jumah Khudbas once a week and then
the 2 Eid Khudbas and that's it. That's
our basic understanding of education.
Or we take it a little higher, they
should memorize at least 3 Jews of Quran.
They should memorize this many surah, they should
memorize that. And then that's that's the bay
base bare Islamic,
knowledge that we have or a Sunday school
education. We'll teach them the 5 pillars of
Islam. And then the next year, we'll teach
them the 5 pillars of Islam again. And
then every year, we just keep on learning
the 5 pillars of Islam and few aqlaq
here and there. This is what I did,
I went to Sunday school for 9 years.
Every single year, I'm telling you, couldn't you
not, in a major masjid, every single year
we learn the 5 pillars of Islam. So
when I got to 7th grade, I was
thinking, I I have wonder, are we gonna
learn the 5 pillars of Islam? Yes, we
are. When I got to 8th grade, I
wonder what we're gonna learn this year, the
5 pillars of Islam. This is the problem.
When are we gonna take things to another
level? Can you imagine if any of you
were to go and hear about another child?
So you know what?
I want my child to be very successful
in life. We taught him to read
english with a b c's and then he
can actually read, you know, books.
And then from there, we made him memorize
a few verses of poetry and stuff like
that. And that's it. Education is done. After
kindergarten,
he doesn't need to go to school or
anything like that. He is ready for life
now. You would never accept that. So just
think about this. The average child or young
person
goes to high school. Think about 4 years
of high school.
How many pages
does an average high school student read?
When it comes to English,
when it comes to all the novels that
you have to read, when it comes to
American history, it comes to economics,
civics,
comes to biology, chemistry, physics, mathematics,
all the subjects that you have. Just calculate
how many pages do they actually cover.
And now compare that that you've read, that
stack of pages that you've read, compare it
to how many pages does the average Muslim
read about Islam. Any book.
Introduction to Islam. Islam in focus. The most
basic book that you could possibly think of,
How many pages have they actually read and
comprehended?
Not just read and memorized. Read and comprehended
about the religion of Islam.
And we need to understand something that we're
undergoing challenges today. There are people who are
attacking islam left and right. There are 3
main forces. There are atheistic forces who are
teaching people about a materialistic
universe that there is no god. Everything is
formed by chance and there is no purpose
in life. God is dead and we need
to move on with these these these old
ideas.
There's another group called the christian missionaries.
And they study us and they understand
exactly how we think and they're trying to
convince people that you know what? They should
start believing in the doctrine of, you know,
trinity and Christianity and all of that. And
their goal is to attack Islam. Oh, the
prophet had this many wives. The prophet did
this. Oh, I can't believe this. And then
there's a third group and those are western
academics. Used to be called orientalists.
And they're studying Islam in detail.
More detail than you find Muslim scholars even
get an opportunity to study. And they're writing
volumes and volumes about the history of how
and different sciences developed and all of that.
And in their writings, I promise you, there
is a level of poison you can't imagine
what effect it has on people. And I'll
tell you just this last story about a
sister who volunteered in our masjid
for 10 years. A decade, she volunteered in
our masjid. And then she thought that she's
gonna go and study Islam a little bit
more. So she joins the Cal State University,
Fullerton
religious studies program. And she minors in Islamic
studies.
And this completely
destroys her mentality.
Completely gives her so many doubts she could
not
comprehend them, she could not get through them.
Stop coming to the masjid. Stop interacting with
her family. Family doesn't understand what's going on.
What happened to this girl? She was so
good. She's been the core volunteer inside the
masjid. What happened?
People were playing with her mind because she
did not have a foundation. And after graduating,
after This is a great sister, I'm telling
you great sister, great akhlaq, where is hija?
Everything.
Good family, good muslim family.
And after meeting with her and talking to
her and she had written article and everything.
After all of that degree and everything I
talked to her and she she said something
about David and Goliath. And I said you
know what, why didn't you mention about David
and Goliath from the Quran?
She looked at me, she said
David and Goliath? The story of David and
Goliath is in the Quran?
It's in the Quran? She didn't even know
that it's in the Quran after 4 years
of religious study as a religious major because
the foundation had not been set.
So this
requires a revolution in thought brothers and sisters.
If we do not do this, Islam will
continue to remain purely a cultural reference
rather than a living dynamic religion.
And what's gonna happen is the people who
are from the elder generation,
they're usually gonna be safe and strong because
they hang around with They have that cultural,
you know, uniformity among their people. But the
younger generation,
they're gonna be affected by this. And we
need to be very serious about this. We
need to be serious about making sure that
we provide a proper Islamic education to the
upcoming generation and for ourselves as well.
We need to make sure we understand the
underpinnings of society that we live in today.
And also we need to make sure that
we associate
with Muslims who can help raise our faith
and increase us in our knowledge and in
our understanding of Islam.
Brothers and sisters, for those of you who
came a little bit late, I was talking
about a trend that we're facing today in
America as well as throughout the world of
people starting to leave their religion.
And 33%
of people under the age of 30 mark
none in terms of the religion that they
identify with. But the key to remember,
the key to remember is that over 60%
of them
still said that they believe in god.
And a large percentage of them said that
they are spiritual and a large percentage, a
significant percentage says that they still try to
pray every day and they're searching.
They're looking for the truth.
So we need to make sure that we
adjust our standards, we need to make sure
that we become the best ambassadors
and the best representatives of Islam that we
can by having the best character,
by having the best and deep understanding of
what Islam actually stands for and being able
to provide the best answers that we possibly
can. We ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, oh
Allah, help us and guide us at all
times. Oh Allah,
Increase us in our iman. Increase us in
our faith. Oh, Allah. Remove the doubts
and the misunderstandings from our minds and our
hearts. Oh, Allah. Help
the younger generation to stay on the path
of Islam.
Oh, Allah, help our families to be solid
units and to cooperate with one another. Oh,
Allah, help all those people who are undergoing
oppression and suffering injustice.
Oh, Allah, remove those tyrants and those oppressors
and replace them with just and righteous leaders.
O Allah, help those people who are sick
and those people who are ill. O Allah,
forgive them and cure them of their illnesses.
O Allah, help us and guide us at
all times and in all things we do.
Ameen.