Sadullah Khan – 20th Post Witr Talk Ramadaan 1444 2023

We continue our theme,

moral guidance from everyday experiences.

Allah advises us in the holy Quran in

the verse,

Speak words that are true,

correct

and your actions will be rectified

and your sins will be forgiven.

Allah says that in Surah Hazab.

Now, this verse

exhorts

us to speak the truth,

to be truthful also in how we say

what we say. This is very important

because sometimes speaking the truth can be half

a truth and not the whole truth.

So here, the verse actually doesn't say speak

the truth only. It also implies

speak the truth and be truthful

in how you say what you are saying.

Keep that in mind.

Because you could convey what is false

in a seemingly truthful way.

And

we can do that by framing the facts

in a specific context,

creating a particular perspective

without conveying the whole truth. This is very

masterfully

done by the media.

And this occurs

more than you think. Politicians do it.

Conspiracy theorists do it. And of course, the

media,

much of the media, they've mastered this.

They use proven facts

to persuade people

in believing

false claims.

I want to refer to an incident that

occurred in 1997.

A 14 year old boy by the name

of Nathan Zona,

What he did was he presented

a project for the science,

a science project for his school

and

he was seeking through this project

to ban a particular substance

which he said was very, very dangerous

and he said,

this

substance is

DHMO,

dihydrogen

monoxide.

Dihydrogen

monoxide.

And throughout his presentation,

Sohne provided his audience,

the teachers and the principal and classmates,

scientifically

correct evidence

as to why this substance,

which is found everywhere in the world, in

every water pipe,

in sometimes the sky, wherever,

all over the world is found and he

explained

that dihydrogen

monoxide

causes severe burns.

When it is in gas form, it can

cause severe burns.

It's so destructive

that it can corrode

rust.

Forget the human body. It can corrode rust

metal.

It's commonly found in human tumors

as well

as in acid rain and

causes excessive

damage

to your urinary tract if if it's consumed

too much

and he said, It's fatal if you inhale

it too much. If you inhale it, it

can kill you.

And annually,

dihydrogen monoxide

worldwide

kills

320,000

people.

Di hydrogen monoxide kills annually

320,000

people.

And he said

to his classmates and to the people around

there,

I want to ban this substance and I

want your vote.

How many of you feel that dihydrogen monoxide

should be banned?

And 43 out of 50 students, in other

words, 86%

of the students and those present,

voted to ban this obviously clearly dangerous

substance.

However,

what he did not tell them, you see,

he didn't say a single word of a

lie.

All the facts he gave were facts.

What he did not tell them is that

dihydrogen

monoxide

is simply an

unconventional name for water.

But not a single one of his facts

were false.

And

his experiment was called what?

Not water.

It was called, how gullible are we?

The topic was, how gullible

are we? You see,

all the points that he used to convey

were 100% factually correct

but he skewed the information.

He skewed the information

in his favor

by omitting certain realities.

It does kill

320,000

people

when they drown

in the sea or by flood. It's not

dangerous by itself but the impression he gave

was it kills 320,000

people. I mean 20,000 would have been enough

for me to vote, get my vote.

So 320,000,

he didn't say but they die by drowning

or by floods,

which also means by drowning

and the fact that if you inhale it,

any liquid, if you inhale 2 handfuls, you'll

die. But it's true. If you do inhale

water too much,

it can kill you.

So what we are saying, what we learned

from this

is to realize

that people could convey

what is

false

in a seemingly

truthful way. This is very, very important

especially when we view the news. We have

200 channels of news

and you look at what they say about

Palestine and parts of the world and it's

completely non factual but they're using facts. 10

people died, 4 people died and there was

a skirmish and both sides must cool off.

They don't say who's eating who. They They

don't say who killed who. They don't say

who started first but and both must calm

down. So you say, well, it's a very

balanced news.

So what we are saying is, we learn

from this that people could convey what is

false

in a seemingly truthful way by framing these

facts

in a specific manner

by manipulation of information

and by stating part of the truth,

creating a particular perspective

without conveying the whole truth.

That is well. That says,

Speak the truth

but be truthful in how you convey the

truth.

The truth and the whole truth.

Please drink water.